Derailed - 15. Red Lights

Chapter 14

Red Light

The fresh air hit me like a hammer in the face. No matter how many time I came to the surface, I still couldn’t quite acclimate myself to it. Years of breathing the dank stale air from underground had seen to that. It was the noise that hit me second; louder than I had ever heard before, it was a mass of voices footsteps… and screaming.

We all stopped dead in our track half way up the steps. I looked at Mark, who just put his finger to his lips. We pressed ourselves against the wall, held our breath and listened. I could see bruiser who looked like he was about to shake to pieces.

“NO! PLEASE! I SWEAR I’M NOT ONE OF THEM! PLEASE, GOD! NO!” The woman was screaming in hysterics, begging for her life as she was struggling, trying not to be drug off to her death. There was a large buzzing noise and then a bright flash, after which a bolt of lightning shot past a few inches in front of our faces with a deafening cracking sound, like the sound of a whip. It hit the wall a few feet away, blasting a chunk out and leaving a good sized hole. This was followed by another that struck above Mark’s head, blasting another chunk of concrete that landed a few inches in front of him. By this time we were all crouched down covering our heads as much as possible. Several more bolts shot out over our heads and more and more debris began flying. I felt a heavy, sharp pain in my shoulder as a chunk of the wall landed on me, but this only caused me to curl up tighter. This went on for a few seconds; it finally ended when several shots sounded... and then nothing, no more lightning, no more screaming, no more struggle.

“Mother Fucker, this bitch tried to fry me,” a new voice said and then another round of shots fired off. “Fucking serves her right.”

“We’re all clear, awaiting pickup,” another voice said. “This one makes 12 in this area alone; I never would have though the city was this infested with ‘em. Ain’t no telling how many the other squads have taken either. There could be well over a hundred of the freaks.”

“Good! The more we nab, the better a show it'll be. Wouldn’t want to be doin all this for nothing.”

I felt Bruisers hand on my shoulder as he crouched up behind me. “What’s he talking about; what show?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “and I'm not sure if I really want to.” Mark turned to shush us once again, but as soon as he raised his finger, another loud chopping sound came from behind us. We quickly got back up against the wall and tried to be as small as possible when the wind began whipping up all around us. The chopping sounds grew louder and louder until you couldn't even hear your own voice. The noise continued to grow when not even twenty feet over our heads head a large mass flew past us. It kicked up so much dust and debris that my hands had abandoned my ears and I was now just trying to do whatever I could to protect my face and landed in street. I looked over to see Bruiser, who still had his ears covered, but had now buried his face in Mark’s shoulder for protection.

The large craft finally moved past us and made its way to where the confrontation had taken place. It hovered for several seconds before finally landing. It looked like a massive black hovercraft with four propellers on its base. I immediately recognized it as one of the Ravens that Melbourne had mentioned in his speech earlier, and then his words came back to me and my heart dropped: Capable of scanning entire city blocks.

“We have to leave now; we can’t be here when that thing takes off again” I said to Mark. By the look on his face he already knew and slowly began creeping toward the top steps. The soldiers were about 12 yards in front of us. They were leading a line of people, each with a black metal band around their neck. It almost resembled a dog’s collar. Attached to the collar were chains that connect to the next person in line, both the one in front and the one behind, until everyone was connected. We made a run for it, but only managed to get a few feet when we heard a loud shrill voice coming from the Raven.

“What the hell is this?” Our hearts stopped as we dove behind a nearby truck. Mark managed to open the door and we quietly climbed inside, hoping to god they hadn’t spotted us. “Your orders were to bring them alive! That was a direct order from Ezra. Now what am I supposed to tell him when he sees this?” The voice came from a woman who had stepped out of the cockpit. She was young with long blonde hair that hung perfectly around her face. She had large blue eyes that sat behind a tiny pair of glasses. “Do I need to remind you what happens when you disobey his orders?”

She barely finished her sentence when there was a loud THUMP coming from the hatch where the captives were being led. It was followed by another THUMP and then another and another, one right after the other. With each thump the craft seemed to shift from one side to the other. Then the source of the noise slowly emerged from the shadow. At first I would have suspected the figure to be an oversized gorilla. He had to stand close to 7 feet tall, and looked as though he was carved out of stone, nothing but pure muscle and brawn, but his size alone wasn’t what made him intimidating it was his arms; they were as thick as tree trunks and hung unnaturally long at his side, causing his hands, which looked to be three times the size of normal human hands, to hang clear past his knees.

“Now which one of you felt it necessary to gun down this poor woman?” she asked with a tone of fake innocence. Immediately, each one of the solders pointed to one individual who didn’t even have a chance to respond before the beast of a man began bounding towards him. He moved like a high powered bulldozer knocking an abandoned car out of his way like it was a fly. It went barrel rolling several times before slamming into the side of a nearby building. The poor solider never stood a chance. He had run two feet when beast man landed in front of him. He wrapped his oversized hand around the man’s head and lifted him straight off the ground. The poor soldier held on for dear life so as not to have his head pulled clean off his shoulders. With a twisted smirk, the beast-man used his massive hands and began to tighten and squeeze. The soldier tried to scream, but they were muffled by the beast-man’s palm. His legs began thrashing around, wildly kicking at his attacker’s chest, but it was no use. He might as well have been kicking a boulder; the beast didn’t even notice it as he just slowly tightened his grip. Any more pressure and, without a doubt, the man’s skull would crack.

“That’s enough Ape!” the woman said, snapping her fingers. Reluctantly he dropped the soldier who crumpled to the ground and didn’t move but for a few random twitches. “Now if anyone else feels like they may have a problem taking orders they are more than welcome to discuss it with Ape.” She turned to leave when another soldier spoke up.

“What about her” he said, pointing to the corpse of the woman who had been gunned down earlier.

“Ahh yes I had almost forgotten about her. Well she’s no use to us dead, not now anyway.” She stood there thinking for a second when she finally walked over and knelt before the body. She examined it for a second before finally putting her lips together and then blowing on the body. It took a second for me to realize what was happening, but soon the body ignited in an intensely hot flame, as if she was exhaling an invisible flame. Bruiser turned his head, unable to watch the act. Within a moment she was finished and all that remained was a pile of charred bones and ash. “That should take care of things, make sure they come by and clean this mess up.” With that, she turned and walked back into the craft with Ape in tow behind her.

“Come on, now’s our chance,” Mark said as he slowly opened the door we made our way to a nearby alley and then broke into a full run. “We have to get out of range before it takes off!” he yelled back. We must have turned down a dozen alleyways when behind us we heard the familiar chopping sound of the Raven taking off. We were running out of time and we were nowhere close to where we needed to be. It was then that I noticed my shadow on the ground ahead of me it was way too early for the lights to be on. I looked over my shoulder in horror as a blinding cone of red light descended from the belly of the Raven and was expanding over the ground, getting closer and closer. “Stay out of the light!” Mark shouted as we rounded yet another corner. Our legs were working double time trying desperately to escape the scanning beam that was rapidly enveloping the entire city around us. Our salvation came into sight; at the end of the alley, on the far end of the street, was a rundown building with the doors torn off. A loud siren had now begun blaring as the scanner had now found it first target.

The minute we hit the street I heard more screaming as a man down the street had gotten caught in the scanner. He hadn’t even had time to turn and run when out of nowhere one of the black collars from earlier came flying at him from the Raven. It slammed into the man with such force that he was knocked back several feet, onto his back. I stopped for a second to watch as several more collars were all sent to different streets, each one to another victim. ‘Jesus Christ!’ I thought as three more were dispatched.

“CAMERON!” I heard Mark’s voice scream as he brought me back to reality. I turned to now see the light only a few feet from me and closing in fast. I ran faster than I ever had before. I couldn’t imagine what must have gone through that man’s head, knowing the collar was coming for him, and I had no intentions of finding out. Bruiser was the first one through the doorway, followed by Mark. My little distraction had cost me and I was still running now with the light less than a foot away from me. My heart felt like it was pumping pure battery acid through my veins, as it became harder and harder to breath. My legs were on fire and I thought that at any moment they would betray me and give out, but I continued to push myself faster and faster.

The light was a matter of inches behind me when another of the collars was sent whipping right at me until it deviated from its path and instead threw itself onto the neck of a man in an alley behind me. I could feel my heart thumping in my throat and I knew at any second the siren would sound again and it would all be over. With the last burst of what little energy I had left, I dove through the doorway. I landed and rolled a few feet before stopping on my back gasping for breath. I felt numb from the waist down.

The siren cried out again and my rapidly beating heart stopped dead in its tracks; my body froze in fear. I heard it before I saw it. It was a faint whistling sound that grew louder and louder as it came closer and closer. I caught my first glimpse of it a second later, a black collar that was headed directly for our doorway. All I kept thinking to myself was, ‘It’s all over I’m caught,’ and in that moment I knew what the man from earlier was thinking ‘you fucking idiot’. It all happened in a matter of seconds, but time seemed to have slowed down to a crawl. Bruiser sprang to his feet with a rusted metal pipe that must have been left over when the building was abandoned. And as the collar crossed the threshold he swung with every bit of power he had and the collar was smashed into several pieces that all landed around me. Never have I wanted to hug him as much as I did in that moment.

I looked out the doorway to see the remainder of the street bathed in red as the sound of the siren blared out once again, this time for a new target. We waited for what felt like forever, afraid to move, afraid to breathe, for fear that the slightest sign of life could give us away. The siren blasted three more times before we could see the light slowly begin to creep back and recede from the street. Even after the light was gone, none of us moved, not trusting a false sense of security. Time was now at a crawl, and in the distance, we continued to hear more blasts and knew that the Raven had passed over us and moved on.

“Come on, we’ve got to keep moving,” Mark said as he stood up. It was a relief to hear the silence finally broken.

“How are we supposed to find Corbin and Adrian with those things flying around? We don’t even know how many there are or even where we are,” Bruiser said, as he got up and dusted himself off. Mark just rubbed the back of his neck and stared blankly for a second Bruiser was right and he knew it, a concept not easily accepted by Mark, who was used to always being right.

“Then I guess we’ll just have to find out,” he said as he began pacing around. “We need to look for a staircase. If we can get to a roof we might be able to get a better view. Within a matter of minutes, we found ourselves racing up flight after flight of stairs, and with each step I found myself slowing more and more, until Mark and Bruiser were almost 12 steps ahead of me. My legs, having not fully recovered, still felt like hot lead and wouldn’t allow me to keep up the pace.

“We’re almost there!” I heard Mark yell out as he rounded another corner and began ascending up yet another flight. In the back of my mind I was beginning to fear that these stairs would never end. I finally had to stop and let Mark and Bruiser continue on without me. I went to sit when I felt the diary I had found back in the old tunnel. I had all but forgotten about it up until now. I took it out and began flipping through the pages most of which were now rendered illegible by years of decay. It was then that I spotted it scribbled in the back inside cover was one word…. RAGNAROK! It looked as though it had been written in a hurry. I had no idea what it meant; to me it seemed to be more frantic scribbling by someone who had clearly become unstable by that point.

“Cameron!” Bruiser yelled back down the stairs. Feeling some life finally returning to my legs I stood. I ran my fingers over the word one last time, repeating it to myself over and over again, but saying it gave me no more clarification to its meaning. “Cameron, you coming?” I heard Bruiser yell out again.

“I’m on my way now,” I said and shoved the diary back into my pocket, and made my way up the last few flights of stairs. I stepped out onto the roof, feeling the wind whip around, blowing my hair in five different directions. Mark was just staring there as if frozen in place and as I look out into the skyline I understood why. There were at least twenty of them, all with bright red cones of light, stretched out, bathing the city in red. When they said they were going to scan the city, they weren’t kidding! In the distance, I could make out the tiny black specks of more collars being shot out of the Ravens.

“I didn’t think they were still using those,” Mark said confusedly. Without out being asked, he began to explain. “They’re Gene Neutralizers; you put them on and they supposedly block out your powers. Years ago they tried to make them mandatory for anyone who was thought to have powers. But it was proven to be ineffective.

“What do you mean ‘ineffective’?” I asked.

“There not foolproof. They can be overpowered; it takes an incredible amount of power, but it can be done. Also all the collars have to be operated from one central control system. If it were to ever become damaged, or if you were to ever get out of range, it would shut down all together.”

“Taylor Edmunds had one on when he lost control,” Bruiser had chimed in. “I read about it in a history book Corbin had. He overpowered his when he lost control and blew his town up. Afterward they felt the only solution was to lock us away until they could cure us. Now I guess that solution is no good.”

“And now all they can think of to do with us is kill us off,” I found myself finishing his sentence. I don’t think he had intended to say it out loud, but I knew it was what he was thinking; it was what we were all thinking. Standing on that rooftop, the gravity of the situation began to sink in; we had walked into a mass extermination and we were the pest. Dark clouds began to creep their way in as a low rumble of thunder sounded and mixed with the distant sound of the raven’s sirens.

It was the first rain drop landing on my head that broke my fixation on the scene in front of us. And finally, Mark turned and headed back down the stairs. “We’re never going to find them standing on the rooftop all day. We have to push forward.”

“How can we, with them things all over the place?” Bruiser asked, as we began to follow Mark back down. Mark just stopped for a second; he said nothing and it became clear that for the first time he didn’t have a plan. And that became a terrifying prospect for all of us.

“I’m still working on that, but something will come to me. It always does.” And without giving us a chance to respond, he continued downward.

The moment we reached the bottom of the stairs everything went wrong. We found ourselves face to face with one of the soldiers from earlier. He had a high powered flashlight shined on us making it impossible to make out his face.

“Identification numbers now!” he shouted, but none of us answered. I could see Mark rapidly going over every possible answer in his mind. I looked at the soldier’s hand; in it I saw a piece of the broken collar Bruiser had smashed.

“He knows!” I screamed, and we all jumped in different directions as he raised his gun.

“I NEED BACK-” but his sentence was cut short as Bruiser lunged at him, knocking him twenty feet in the air. He slammed into the far wall with such force that it cracked. He landed stunned and was having trouble steadying himself again. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the pipe Bruiser had used. Without thinking, I dove for it and came up with it in hand. He had just managed to stand when I swung for the side of his head with every ounce of strength I had.

He never stood a chance. The pipe made contact with a sickening crack, like a metal bat making contact with a baseball. He fell over dead and a bright red stream of blood began flowing freely from the side of his head. I dropped the pipe and had to lean on the wall for support; my heart was racing a million miles an hour and my hands were shaking as adrenalin continued to surge through me.

On the soldier’s communicator, we heard a voice coming through. “What’s going on in there? We are dispatching a unit to you now.” Mark grabbed it and held it in his hand for a few seconds just looking at it. And finally he faced us with a serious look in his eyes.

“Do you guys trust me?” Something about the way he said it worried me, but Bruiser and I both nodded. He held the receiver to his mouth. “That won’t be necessary. I have two infected in custody, and another one dead.”