Day 287 - The War Corp. - Chapter 2.1 (1176 Words)

 ©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

THE WAR CORP.

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 2.1

The flight was gentle, almost like they were not in flight at all, apart from the take off when they were fully awake and blasted into orbit, the first taste of escape velocity. For the members of the A.C.E. Team it was the first time they had endured any G-forces. The descent to the training world was made form orbit, and the egress had been in Pods, blissfully unaware of the gravity of their situation.

Also unaware that the Pods were now a thing of the past, that was something they learned, something that they were briefed on before heading to the League Planet where they would start their engagement. It made little difference to the Team Members if they had the Pod or not, they had little concept of damage and consequence, and it made for much more interesting battles that way. Newby engagements were often frantic and violent clashes, the dead and injured piled high.

Dying was a fact of existence, but injury was something that evolved the new recruit into a hardened and more cautious veteran. Of course self-preservation was built into all human beings, and since recruits were technically copies of humans, they too have a similar instinct.  The only way to inform it though was to introduce it to the logical conclusion of your actions. They did not get he concept of death, not really. They had no social context or analogue by which they could measure it. The language and the terminology of the team were oblique at best when it came to the finality of the end of existence. Zeroing out, Did Not Finish, Failing KPI’s, Not Meeting Objectives.

This was the first time they had to be awake and conscious from the very start of an objective or a mission. They milled around aimlessly at first, Liam provided no leadership in trying to organize or calm the unsettled feeling the team had. Brodie and Sharpe took some of the reins in that area. Liam wanted to get to the field and get the rush and the hit, as that was what he needed. Things had been tumultuous in his head since the near thing he had experienced in CBT. There had been unending pain, searing and tearing at him like a wild animal. Relentless and unavoidable, then there was nothing. A floating void where he was there and disconnected from the pain of being connected to a broken machine.

The nerve connection had been severed, his brain still functioned and though his heart had stopped beating he was still alive, in the minute or so that it took to reinsert him into the Pod and restart his heart and nervous system. That interim state took an eternity in Liam’s mind. The amazing rush and thrill of pure dopamine felt slow and dull to him when he got the bonus, he wanted back into the void. He understood, unlike his teammates that the consequences of injury and death were incredibly serious, but the upside of attempting the crossover were unbelievable. Each person who experienced it, they had to be as grateful and joyous as he was in finding that place.

Nirvana.

He had thrown himself at the enemy with gusto, self-preservation and the undeniable need to meet objectives prevented him from just walking up and zeroing out at the first opportunity, but giving himself as many opportunities to take that path, that was the answer that would satisfy everyone. It was too good, too all encompassing to not want to drop into it’s depths once again.

He wanted it, he needed it back but he was prevented from taking it, from surrendering to it. It grated at his soul how close it was, but the brash and reckless approach he was taking brought him closer and closer, but held success at arm’s length.

There was a way to approximate it though, an unexpected bonus of the loss of missing out on the field of engagement. There was a way to get closer to it, to feel a shadow of what it was like. He could give it as a gift.

Slow right down, and zero out the opposition, once and final cessation. It’s visible in their eyes, and he can see it, recognize it. Taste it, feel it and when the change happens? The sweetness of the crossover, there is no coming back from the crossover any more; it’s a one-way trip to oblivion, the final objective to be met. There is a moment, the teetering on the edge where you fall into the chasm of calm and finality, where you slip and the truth is realized.

He could see it, a light flashing and then fading inside of them, behind their eyes and seen through the same way. The first person he had zeroed out he missed seeing it, the second saw it coming and in silent supplication begged for the end. That man was in pain, the kind of pain and conflagration of nerve endings and emotions that Liam could understand. He severed the connection to the harshness of that life and delivered him to the release he desired, he needed and had earned.

The next one the same, but this time he was ready for it and he took his time savoring the experience. Get to the kill quickly, but he was reading the man on the way down, recognizing the change when the link is pulled apart and the chains of life fall away. Then comes the shot, the blow, the cut, whatever it is that aids the traveller on the path.

He gets relief and Liam touches the void again, he feels it and it is at best half of the strength of the real thing. The fading of his memory and the dilution of the experience with time make it a fleeting and inadequate simulacrum, but the only one his situation will allow.

Each one a gift, only the enemy can provide for him and only he can deliver finality to them. The orders, the objectives and the Team, they are all demands and they are all stepping-stones on the path. His own Team Mates are off limits; he can no more send them to the prize than he can take his own body offline. He can deliver them to the door and let fate step them through, leaping and bounding at it himself.

The weight of the world is pressing on him as Brodie and Sharpe have wrangled the team and the Team Leader into harnesses and signaled ready for take off. Gravity makes him it’s bitch, thrusting back against him and crushing the air and blood inside of him like the inside of a beaten drum. Then comes weightlessness and then Liam sees the looks on his Team’s faces, feeling the oppression and then accepting the release.  If it were not so pathetic in comparison he would have laughed, but he held the secret to a relief so great that death was a mere punctuation mark in the scheme of things.