The Nameless City: Chapter One
I had been dozing.
I had also been dreaming about my past. Now that's something really rare - no, something that never happened before.
Haha, I should commemorate the first time I ever recalled a past memory in my sleep! Where's my calendar?
Yeah, right. Though I proceeded to mark the calendar on the virtual computer on my cuff, a patch of dread bloomed and began to weigh down my chest. I'd rather any dream but one of those days. It wasn't like I was traumatized by anything from back then; those days may be unpleasant but I never feel that worried about it.
In front of me, coins and a pebble were scattered on the ground but the person who had been playing jacks with me and the reason why I unintentionally dozed off had disappeared. There was a rustling behind the old couch where our luggage had been thrown when we arrived here three days ago.
"Are you eating something?" I sat up.
The rustling continued. "I'm hungry, man. I can't do the same thing you did with the game earlier - and then you had to sleep while I was practicing. So I thought I couldn't play because I was hungry. By the way, I can't find my granola bars. Have you seen them?"
"I don't know. They're your stuff." I sat up and threw a glance out the window, hurriedly rubbing my eyes to chase away the sleep.
We were in an old, dusty apartment, part of a high-class condominium, on the sixth floor, that used to be busy when this city was still bustling with people. But now, insects had helped themselves to the rotting furniture and just yesterday, I had reluctantly thrown out a bookcase with seemingly interesting books that had become a strangely-shaped termite mound.
The plaza in the center of the city, from which we could watch from the largest window of the apartment, was an ugly place to stand in: a flat ground of sand, with what should be a fountain in the center, only that whatever statue had been there was missing, and it only contained rotting leaves from the trees that surrounded it. Normally, no one would go there - then again, the only inhabitants of this city were us of the Rebels Organization; its citizens had long moved out nearly five years ago
So for us Rebels, who were used to being alone except for each other, when we found out that trucks and wearing a stamp of the Legacy began rolling in and settling themselves down in the middle of the plaza three days ago, we got wary. And irritated. It's unusual because rarely would the Legacy think about coming here, and it usually spells bad news.
With that, Harrison and I were placed in charge of watching these guys and seeing what they're planning to do.
Just yesterday, fighter jets arrived in droves, parking themselves along the streets leading towards the plaza. Whatever they were planning to do worried those back at our headquarters, so while I and Harrison - amongst accidental dozing-offs and hunger pangs - kept a closer watch on the camp, I hear Rebels were prepared for a probable war on short notice.
I picked up the pebble and threw it into the air. Swipe the coins, catch the pebble, repeat.
This morning, the soldiers had been quite active, marching all over the city while carrying toolboxes. I couldn't exactly figure out what they were doing, except tinkering with some wires as they went along. Over the last hour, though, they'd been returning and slowing down, but there still seemed to be an air of tension.
A man appeared out of the large tent after a few minutes when the activity had subsided. He was the person I had my eye on the most because he always wore the Legacy's formal blue military coat, with gold designs that put him their leader. He probably lived in that big tent, too.
He began a usual march around his camp, staring at each and every soldier's face that he passed.
Harrison plopped himself down in front of me, a large sandwich in hand, and looked out the window, too. "Raider! I found something interesting! You might want to see it." Doing so, he extended his hand, holding something.
I held out my palm out of curiosity - immediately regretted it; what Harrison placed in my hand with a grin was a dead cricket. I'm luckily not scared of bugs, but with Harrison having a fondness for pranks and always making me his victim, it's become more of a nuisance.
"Would you like your stuff to be infested with crickets someday?" I sighed as I carefully set the tiny carcass far away from me, in the corner of the room.
"Nay, please!" Good-naturedly, he began to tear large bites from his sandwich with the manners of a barbarian. I wouldn't count him gluttonous, though; the guy doesn't get fat no matter how much he snacks, but he's always been the active kind. My partner, who usually ends up having me starve unintentionally if we don't watch our food supply.
It's probably strange to anyone if we ever told them that we were fifteen-year-olds and that we can already wield weapons. As members of the Rebels, though, it was only if we wanted to. And we did, for different reasons.
There was a flash of red from the cuff again and I pulled it too far back in reaction, for a black ink mark of a spiked and horned head appeared beside the cuff. Feeling the dread in my chest drop a few more grams, I adjusted my sleeve to cover the tattoo before I waved my hand over the cuff.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Give me the daily report of the Legacy's activity," said an abrupt clear voice on the line.
"It's already that hour?" Harrison groaned, looking at a watch, then his eyebrows shot up. "Oh, yeah, it is."
I slipped my phone out of my jacket and skimmed through the notes I wrote out in it. "Presently, two o' clock, the captain is making his rounds around the plaza camp. Three hours ago at lunch, they stopped causing their ruckus after being quite busy all morning. Has someone reported to you how far they spread out?"
"I suppose it's nearly all over the city," Davius sighed. "We cannot move carelessly, however. What they littered this city with were bombs. A careless step outside can cost our lives if we are careless."
"You took a look?" I asked.
"Ah! Hestia! Say hi!" Harrison shouted out of nowhere, making me jump.
"She's with her father right now, so I cannot," Davius said, and I sensed him grinning through the communicator. On the other hand, Harrison sagged in disappointment. "That aside, what do you think they're planning? You're the closest group keeping an eye on them."
We should be, except that I just dozed off not a long time ago.
Briefly, I threw a glance out the window and immediately felt the dread crawl through me. The man in the formal coat was holding something in his hand, and he had positioned himself in front of his large tent.
"What's the matter?" asked Davius suddenly, but I hushed him. Harrison crawled over to join me.
"This is a message to the Rebels Organization that is hiding out in this city. We of the Legacy would like to ask you to return our weapon to us. Roman Schechter, you know what we want. Comply, or we will find all your bases and destroy them."
Maybe they set up amplifiers in this city while they were here, but his voice echoed all over the city. They ended with a ring from the amplifier, as the man stood, looking around him.
There was silence on our part too, until Harrison blurted, "They are talking about Hestia's dad, right? Roman, right?"
"I will disconnect," Davius said abruptly, and the red light on my cuff vanished.
"So they really are in this city for us," I frowned.
"The more important question here is 'how they knew' and 'who might have told them,'" Harrison said pointedly and I nodded. Then leaned forward suddenly. "Oh, you're kidding."
The man with the amplifier had returned, with two more who dragged a seemingly limp dark man by the arms towards him. From this distance, the limp guy looked as though he'd gone through torture or something. He could even be dead.
"We know you are watching us," the man with the amplifier continued, "and I give praise to you because we cannot trace them. We have a member of yours by the name of Nolan Greene; we will shoot him as proof of being serious."
At the same time, one of the men raised a gun towards the limp man that was supposedly Nolan Greene.
I snatched Harrison's gun, cocked it the nozzle out of the window, and fired once, with a loud noise that was more of a boom.
The bullet that had been fired seemed to disappear, the one speaking staggered and dropped his microphone. He seemed to be screaming, as red liquid dripped onto the ground and merged with sand. I had a brief glimpse of one of the other two men whirling towards our window as Harrison and I scrambled away from it.
"Saved!" Harrison yelled sarcastically, snatching back the gun as we scrambled towards the exit. "But we've been found! Nice going, Raider!"
"We only have one gun, and it's our best range weapon," I gasped. I didn't need much; maybe the rest of the food would go to waste in the end, but what I could carry right now was just a package of cheese.
We were running down the stairs when the above floors exploded and heat and dust flew above us.
"Was that a missile?" I asked and sneezed.
The building shook again, this time on a lower floor.
I cut away from the stairs and went through the corridors of the building towards another apartment, this one less visited by birds than the one we camped out in. The window looked out onto a lower building's roof, just fifteen feet high, and somewhat of a meter or so in distance from the window. From this place, it was opposite the view of the plaza, so they'll take a while to find us yet.
Harrison frowned, then seized a chair that he threw against the window, which let in the sound of wind and fighter jets in the sky. Jumping out then landing with a roll, we returned to the gap and scaled it, grabbing onto the sills of the building then dropping to a lower one.
A shadow appeared in the opening that led out onto the street and since I reached the ground faster than Harrison did, I lunged towards it.
"It's Hestia!" the shadow shouted, and I braked hard in surprise as I recognized who it was. Her dark brown hair billowing wildly, she glared at me. "You shot first, right?"
"Does Davius or Roman have anything to add?" I asked anxiously.
"Oh, maybe Dad, but Davius might have guessed it." She shook her head with disapproval. "Anyway, let's go. I'm supposed to go back to the base with you guys before the city gets torn down."
"That's it? We're done?" It took a moment for the words to settle into my brain.
"Give me a break, I have to dismantle my gun first!" Harrison complained as the bulky rifle clicked. It came apart as he heaved a sigh of relief -"Finally!"- and tossed the nozzle into his bag, making do with the handle part of the rifle that now looked like a bulky handgun.
We sprinted down the streets as voices shouted after us from behind. Harrison turned his gun over his shoulder and fired wildly; alarmed by the reckless shooting, the soldiers slowed down enough for us to get away.
But that wasn't over yet; a marching group of similarly-faced men in the same armor the earlier soldiers appeared in front of us.
I stopped, but Hestia grabbed my arm. "You're not thinking about stalling them, are you?"
"Dispatchers," I said. "Let me."
"Davius told us to get back to the base as soon as possible!"
"Then I'll give you a reason: they're robots, and once they send a recording of where we're going, we'll be tracked."
"Well, I'm not staying longer when it comes to these guys!" Harrison scoffed. "I'll be in trouble if they copy my skills."
With a groan, Hestia released my arm. "Oh, fine! Jeez!"
I ran towards the Dispatchers, who all broke into a run as Harrison and Hestia both went the opposite way behind me.
Having been away from the Legacy for a while, I don't know what versions these guys are nowadays. Last I heard, the latest were Version 3.9, but that was a year ago. I am unable to keep up with the times.
I aimed for a knee to the belly at the first one I reached, expecting the dents that Version 3.9s would get due to thin metal plating - not that there would be any vital "organs" beneath that. In a testy way, not even all out, or I'd bust my knee caps. At the same time, I met the eyes of the Dispatcher, and in momentum, slid a dagger out from underneath my jacket and slashed across where its neck should be.
My knee met a muscle-like firmness and did not dent. My dagger cut into the human-like skin to reveal a set of wiring underneath. The eyes held tiny digits that flickered across wildly.
I recoiled from the Dispatcher immediately and fired the pistol five times; five ricocheted.
End experiment, I thought.
Throwing the coins from my earlier game into the air, I waved a hand. Lightning seared through the air and splayed out like a spider's web, connecting to all of the coins. And the Dispatchers clattered to the ground with a thud. I knelt down at one of them, the imprint on its collarbone said, Ver. 4.1.
When I found the Dispatcher whose neck I "slashed", I cut the wires inside and began to connect them to my communicator, wondering if I could still use them find the tracker, computer, and storage drive inside it. In Rebels, I've taken apart a whole fried Dispatcher when I'm alone ever since I found a way to do that. But to tell anyone about this, even if I said that it turned out useful, would only creep people out.
But if I never did this, I couldn't have learned of their hearts. These tiny squares that were the insulated, protected hearts that stored the most vital information depicting a Dispatcher's death, that I learned later on the Legacy used to resurrect the exact same thing, only in a different body.
A password log appeared. Found it.
I opened a file on the communicator that scrambled the data and dug out the password without my doing anything after a few seconds. The screen of my communicator expanded and I skimmed through it before replaying the file from earlier again. The screen blanked out and closed down, and I proceeded to collect the scattered coins.
By now, all over the city, any Dispatcher would be collapsing out of nowhere, shutting down, and their programmers would find their computers jammed with a virus that automatically destroys all their hard work and unravels the fact that the manner I destroyed the Dispatchers is my frying them with my ability.
Once that was done, I stowed away my daggers and phone, racked the gun again because somehow, it got jammed in my fight, then ran off towards the smaller streets to fulfill my quest of scouting them for Davius.
Said streets were worse off than the main, with craters, spent missiles, and shells. And no sign of survivors around. I've seen death time and time again, but I grimaced at the sight of these corners. Even the roofs, the tops of the buildings, had been carved out, so they looked like Swiss cheese.
It was as if the Legacy had gone wild while knowing that these small roads would be used by escapees to get away. Then made it a priority to completely destroy it.
The whole world sees the Rebels Organization as an enemy. That probably couldn't be helped, seeing as what our general acts of 'terrorism' include looting weapons from armories and sabotaging what communication they have with other allies they have.
I spread out a thin air of electricity, feeling for the presence of people in a thousand-foot radius - which is pretty much my limit for that part of my ability. There were five men not far from me, sneaking along the road and approaching where I am. I considered staying longer or catching up to Hestia and Harrison.
It didn't take me long to track them, and it was quick to knock them out with only hand combat.
I dragged one of them off into a street corner and stripped off his uniform, armor and weapons, all of which I put on. Then I jogged back to where his companions were, measured my fist against my jaw, then punched myself.
My eyesight seemed to darken in front of me.
The plaza in the center of the city, from which we could watch from the largest window of the apartment, was an ugly place to stand in: a flat ground of sand, with what should be a fountain in the center, only that whatever statue had been there was missing, and it only contained rotting leaves from the trees that surrounded it. Normally, no one would go there - then again, the only inhabitants of this city were us of the Rebels Organization; its citizens had long moved out nearly five years ago
So for us Rebels, who were used to being alone except for each other, when we found out that trucks and wearing a stamp of the Legacy began rolling in and settling themselves down in the middle of the plaza three days ago, we got wary. And irritated. It's unusual because rarely would the Legacy think about coming here, and it usually spells bad news.
With that, Harrison and I were placed in charge of watching these guys and seeing what they're planning to do.
Just yesterday, fighter jets arrived in droves, parking themselves along the streets leading towards the plaza. Whatever they were planning to do worried those back at our headquarters, so while I and Harrison - amongst accidental dozing-offs and hunger pangs - kept a closer watch on the camp, I hear Rebels were prepared for a probable war on short notice.
I picked up the pebble and threw it into the air. Swipe the coins, catch the pebble, repeat.
This morning, the soldiers had been quite active, marching all over the city while carrying toolboxes. I couldn't exactly figure out what they were doing, except tinkering with some wires as they went along. Over the last hour, though, they'd been returning and slowing down, but there still seemed to be an air of tension.
A man appeared out of the large tent after a few minutes when the activity had subsided. He was the person I had my eye on the most because he always wore the Legacy's formal blue military coat, with gold designs that put him their leader. He probably lived in that big tent, too.
He began a usual march around his camp, staring at each and every soldier's face that he passed.
Harrison plopped himself down in front of me, a large sandwich in hand, and looked out the window, too. "Raider! I found something interesting! You might want to see it." Doing so, he extended his hand, holding something.
I held out my palm out of curiosity - immediately regretted it; what Harrison placed in my hand with a grin was a dead cricket. I'm luckily not scared of bugs, but with Harrison having a fondness for pranks and always making me his victim, it's become more of a nuisance.
"Would you like your stuff to be infested with crickets someday?" I sighed as I carefully set the tiny carcass far away from me, in the corner of the room.
"Nay, please!" Good-naturedly, he began to tear large bites from his sandwich with the manners of a barbarian. I wouldn't count him gluttonous, though; the guy doesn't get fat no matter how much he snacks, but he's always been the active kind. My partner, who usually ends up having me starve unintentionally if we don't watch our food supply.
It's probably strange to anyone if we ever told them that we were fifteen-year-olds and that we can already wield weapons. As members of the Rebels, though, it was only if we wanted to. And we did, for different reasons.
There was a flash of red from the cuff again and I pulled it too far back in reaction, for a black ink mark of a spiked and horned head appeared beside the cuff. Feeling the dread in my chest drop a few more grams, I adjusted my sleeve to cover the tattoo before I waved my hand over the cuff.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Give me the daily report of the Legacy's activity," said an abrupt clear voice on the line.
"It's already that hour?" Harrison groaned, looking at a watch, then his eyebrows shot up. "Oh, yeah, it is."
I slipped my phone out of my jacket and skimmed through the notes I wrote out in it. "Presently, two o' clock, the captain is making his rounds around the plaza camp. Three hours ago at lunch, they stopped causing their ruckus after being quite busy all morning. Has someone reported to you how far they spread out?"
"I suppose it's nearly all over the city," Davius sighed. "We cannot move carelessly, however. What they littered this city with were bombs. A careless step outside can cost our lives if we are careless."
"You took a look?" I asked.
"Ah! Hestia! Say hi!" Harrison shouted out of nowhere, making me jump.
"She's with her father right now, so I cannot," Davius said, and I sensed him grinning through the communicator. On the other hand, Harrison sagged in disappointment. "That aside, what do you think they're planning? You're the closest group keeping an eye on them."
We should be, except that I just dozed off not a long time ago.
Briefly, I threw a glance out the window and immediately felt the dread crawl through me. The man in the formal coat was holding something in his hand, and he had positioned himself in front of his large tent.
"What's the matter?" asked Davius suddenly, but I hushed him. Harrison crawled over to join me.
"This is a message to the Rebels Organization that is hiding out in this city. We of the Legacy would like to ask you to return our weapon to us. Roman Schechter, you know what we want. Comply, or we will find all your bases and destroy them."
Maybe they set up amplifiers in this city while they were here, but his voice echoed all over the city. They ended with a ring from the amplifier, as the man stood, looking around him.
There was silence on our part too, until Harrison blurted, "They are talking about Hestia's dad, right? Roman, right?"
"I will disconnect," Davius said abruptly, and the red light on my cuff vanished.
"So they really are in this city for us," I frowned.
"The more important question here is 'how they knew' and 'who might have told them,'" Harrison said pointedly and I nodded. Then leaned forward suddenly. "Oh, you're kidding."
The man with the amplifier had returned, with two more who dragged a seemingly limp dark man by the arms towards him. From this distance, the limp guy looked as though he'd gone through torture or something. He could even be dead.
"We know you are watching us," the man with the amplifier continued, "and I give praise to you because we cannot trace them. We have a member of yours by the name of Nolan Greene; we will shoot him as proof of being serious."
At the same time, one of the men raised a gun towards the limp man that was supposedly Nolan Greene.
I snatched Harrison's gun, cocked it the nozzle out of the window, and fired once, with a loud noise that was more of a boom.
The bullet that had been fired seemed to disappear, the one speaking staggered and dropped his microphone. He seemed to be screaming, as red liquid dripped onto the ground and merged with sand. I had a brief glimpse of one of the other two men whirling towards our window as Harrison and I scrambled away from it.
"Saved!" Harrison yelled sarcastically, snatching back the gun as we scrambled towards the exit. "But we've been found! Nice going, Raider!"
"We only have one gun, and it's our best range weapon," I gasped. I didn't need much; maybe the rest of the food would go to waste in the end, but what I could carry right now was just a package of cheese.
We were running down the stairs when the above floors exploded and heat and dust flew above us.
"Was that a missile?" I asked and sneezed.
The building shook again, this time on a lower floor.
I cut away from the stairs and went through the corridors of the building towards another apartment, this one less visited by birds than the one we camped out in. The window looked out onto a lower building's roof, just fifteen feet high, and somewhat of a meter or so in distance from the window. From this place, it was opposite the view of the plaza, so they'll take a while to find us yet.
Harrison frowned, then seized a chair that he threw against the window, which let in the sound of wind and fighter jets in the sky. Jumping out then landing with a roll, we returned to the gap and scaled it, grabbing onto the sills of the building then dropping to a lower one.
A shadow appeared in the opening that led out onto the street and since I reached the ground faster than Harrison did, I lunged towards it.
"It's Hestia!" the shadow shouted, and I braked hard in surprise as I recognized who it was. Her dark brown hair billowing wildly, she glared at me. "You shot first, right?"
"Does Davius or Roman have anything to add?" I asked anxiously.
"Oh, maybe Dad, but Davius might have guessed it." She shook her head with disapproval. "Anyway, let's go. I'm supposed to go back to the base with you guys before the city gets torn down."
"That's it? We're done?" It took a moment for the words to settle into my brain.
"Give me a break, I have to dismantle my gun first!" Harrison complained as the bulky rifle clicked. It came apart as he heaved a sigh of relief -"Finally!"- and tossed the nozzle into his bag, making do with the handle part of the rifle that now looked like a bulky handgun.
We sprinted down the streets as voices shouted after us from behind. Harrison turned his gun over his shoulder and fired wildly; alarmed by the reckless shooting, the soldiers slowed down enough for us to get away.
But that wasn't over yet; a marching group of similarly-faced men in the same armor the earlier soldiers appeared in front of us.
I stopped, but Hestia grabbed my arm. "You're not thinking about stalling them, are you?"
"Dispatchers," I said. "Let me."
"Davius told us to get back to the base as soon as possible!"
"Then I'll give you a reason: they're robots, and once they send a recording of where we're going, we'll be tracked."
"Well, I'm not staying longer when it comes to these guys!" Harrison scoffed. "I'll be in trouble if they copy my skills."
With a groan, Hestia released my arm. "Oh, fine! Jeez!"
I ran towards the Dispatchers, who all broke into a run as Harrison and Hestia both went the opposite way behind me.
Having been away from the Legacy for a while, I don't know what versions these guys are nowadays. Last I heard, the latest were Version 3.9, but that was a year ago. I am unable to keep up with the times.
I aimed for a knee to the belly at the first one I reached, expecting the dents that Version 3.9s would get due to thin metal plating - not that there would be any vital "organs" beneath that. In a testy way, not even all out, or I'd bust my knee caps. At the same time, I met the eyes of the Dispatcher, and in momentum, slid a dagger out from underneath my jacket and slashed across where its neck should be.
My knee met a muscle-like firmness and did not dent. My dagger cut into the human-like skin to reveal a set of wiring underneath. The eyes held tiny digits that flickered across wildly.
I recoiled from the Dispatcher immediately and fired the pistol five times; five ricocheted.
End experiment, I thought.
Throwing the coins from my earlier game into the air, I waved a hand. Lightning seared through the air and splayed out like a spider's web, connecting to all of the coins. And the Dispatchers clattered to the ground with a thud. I knelt down at one of them, the imprint on its collarbone said, Ver. 4.1.
When I found the Dispatcher whose neck I "slashed", I cut the wires inside and began to connect them to my communicator, wondering if I could still use them find the tracker, computer, and storage drive inside it. In Rebels, I've taken apart a whole fried Dispatcher when I'm alone ever since I found a way to do that. But to tell anyone about this, even if I said that it turned out useful, would only creep people out.
But if I never did this, I couldn't have learned of their hearts. These tiny squares that were the insulated, protected hearts that stored the most vital information depicting a Dispatcher's death, that I learned later on the Legacy used to resurrect the exact same thing, only in a different body.
A password log appeared. Found it.
I opened a file on the communicator that scrambled the data and dug out the password without my doing anything after a few seconds. The screen of my communicator expanded and I skimmed through it before replaying the file from earlier again. The screen blanked out and closed down, and I proceeded to collect the scattered coins.
By now, all over the city, any Dispatcher would be collapsing out of nowhere, shutting down, and their programmers would find their computers jammed with a virus that automatically destroys all their hard work and unravels the fact that the manner I destroyed the Dispatchers is my frying them with my ability.
Once that was done, I stowed away my daggers and phone, racked the gun again because somehow, it got jammed in my fight, then ran off towards the smaller streets to fulfill my quest of scouting them for Davius.
Said streets were worse off than the main, with craters, spent missiles, and shells. And no sign of survivors around. I've seen death time and time again, but I grimaced at the sight of these corners. Even the roofs, the tops of the buildings, had been carved out, so they looked like Swiss cheese.
It was as if the Legacy had gone wild while knowing that these small roads would be used by escapees to get away. Then made it a priority to completely destroy it.
The whole world sees the Rebels Organization as an enemy. That probably couldn't be helped, seeing as what our general acts of 'terrorism' include looting weapons from armories and sabotaging what communication they have with other allies they have.
I spread out a thin air of electricity, feeling for the presence of people in a thousand-foot radius - which is pretty much my limit for that part of my ability. There were five men not far from me, sneaking along the road and approaching where I am. I considered staying longer or catching up to Hestia and Harrison.
It didn't take me long to track them, and it was quick to knock them out with only hand combat.
I dragged one of them off into a street corner and stripped off his uniform, armor and weapons, all of which I put on. Then I jogged back to where his companions were, measured my fist against my jaw, then punched myself.
My eyesight seemed to darken in front of me.
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