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Speaker 1: your guess. Chapter eighteen Sasha. Sasha didn't feel safe out
Speaker 1: on the street. After Anne's abduction. The next day, she'd
Speaker 1: volunteered for four extra hours of duty in the emergency ward.
Speaker 1: She changed bandages and administered antibiotic salves and delivered food
Speaker 1: to wounded soldiers until her eyes started to glaze over
Speaker 1: and doctor Brandt ordered her home. She'd barely had the
Speaker 1: energy to eat that night, but by the time her
Speaker 1: driver dropped her off at the House of Miriam, it
Speaker 1: was dark and there'd been no one waiting for her.
Speaker 1: That strategy hadn't worked. The day after that, doctor Brandt
Speaker 1: had even tried to send her home early. Sasha had
Speaker 1: talked him out of it, but not out of sending
Speaker 1: her back downtown at the normal time. She was sure
Speaker 1: her driver must have noticed how anxious she was. By
Speaker 1: the time they reached the main drag, she was drenched
Speaker 1: in sweat her hands were shaking. She asked him to
Speaker 1: drop her off a half block down from the normal
Speaker 1: spot so she could enter the square from the left
Speaker 1: side and get a good look at who was hanging
Speaker 1: out near the house us of Miriam. Alexander had been there,
Speaker 1: of course, sitting out in front of a building two
Speaker 1: doors down from the house, along with one of his friends.
Speaker 1: Avoiding them had brought her to the Cafe Clement, and
Speaker 1: then something she could only assume was God's providence had
Speaker 1: bumped her into a manual. He was sweet and fun
Speaker 1: to talk to, and it was actually refreshing to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with someone who didn't constantly quote scripture or
Speaker 1: pastor Mike. She was surprised at herself for feeling that way.
Speaker 1: A few weeks ago, she'd have given anything to have
Speaker 1: an open conversation about her beliefs, but now that she
Speaker 1: was deep within the Kingdom, it was nice to talk
Speaker 1: about normal things with a normal boy. The next day
Speaker 1: had brought her back to the hospital, which was filled
Speaker 1: with wounded soldiers from an air strike on a troop transport.
Speaker 1: Sasha had spent nine hours without a break helping doctor
Speaker 1: Brandt cut clothing off of horribly burned young men. She'd
Speaker 1: applied slick, gummy burned dressings and changed ivy drips of
Speaker 1: pain killers. The day was long, bloody, and brutal. Four
Speaker 1: men died in front of her eyes, and there was
Speaker 1: no time to really think about it. She knew that
Speaker 1: she should have been more horrified at what she was seeing,
Speaker 1: but the exposed organs and burnt, shriveled limbs didn't feel
Speaker 1: like parts of people. Even the screams felt more like
Speaker 1: rhode hazards or bad weather than damaged pieces of human beings.
Speaker 1: They were obstacles to be dealt with. She and doctor
Speaker 1: Brandt dealt with them well. A still small voice in
Speaker 1: the back of her mind recoiled in horror at the
Speaker 1: sheer volume of human misery she saw that day, But
Speaker 1: that voice was quieter than it had been on other days,
Speaker 1: and it grew quieter as the day went on and
Speaker 1: the death toll mounted. Sasha had read about post traumatic
Speaker 1: stress disorder back in school. She understood the mechanics of it,
Speaker 1: that people tended to cope with terrifying situations by suppressing
Speaker 1: their fear. But this didn't feel like that. It felt
Speaker 1: like she was just doing her job, and she enjoyed
Speaker 1: her job. Before she knew it, ten hours had gone by,
Speaker 1: and doctor Brandt demanded she find a ride back to
Speaker 1: the House of Miriam and get some rest. That was
Speaker 1: the first time in the entire day when Sasha felt
Speaker 1: truly scared. It started in her chest. Her heart fluttered
Speaker 1: faster and faster, until the flutter turned to a pounding
Speaker 1: so loud it felt like someone was smashing a hammer
Speaker 1: on the inner walls of her cranium. She pressed her
Speaker 1: back hard into the seat of the jeep and hoped
Speaker 1: her growing panic wasn't obvious to the driver. He dropped
Speaker 1: her off on the other side of the square again.
Speaker 1: She didn't see Alexander or his comrades near the House
Speaker 1: of Miriam this time, but she knew that didn't mean
Speaker 1: they weren't watching the place. She had plans to meet
Speaker 1: Emmanual again anyway. Sasha half expected him to have moved
Speaker 1: on since she'd been so late, but he was there
Speaker 1: standing out in front of the Cafe Clement when she arrived.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm so late, she said. He shrugged in response,
Speaker 1: I just got here myself. They dismissed us late. We
Speaker 1: had a special lecture before dinner about a His face
Speaker 1: grew red and he trailed off about what she poked.
Speaker 1: Maybe let's just sit down first, huh. So they found
Speaker 1: a seat and ordered their coffee. Manny tried to change
Speaker 1: the subject by asking Sasha about her day, but she
Speaker 1: is curious about his reaction and would not be dissuaded.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you all about my day. If you tell
Speaker 1: me about that lecture and why just thinking about it
Speaker 1: made your face go red. He grew redder and stared
Speaker 1: down into his coffee. Pastor came over to lecture us
Speaker 1: about our duty and helping to heaven the kingdom grow.
Speaker 1: You know our duty, Emmanuel gave her a significant look.
Speaker 1: She gathered his meaning, and then she blushed too. That's
Speaker 1: why they bust us out here every day, he continued.
Speaker 1: It's so we can get to know the local women
Speaker 1: and then get to know them in the biblical sense.
Speaker 1: She laughed in spite of herself. I think that was
Speaker 1: the first off color joke I've heard in weeks. It
Speaker 1: felt good and risque. It was actually the same sort
Speaker 1: of thrill she'd gotten back home when she'd sneakily read
Speaker 1: issues of Revelator and browsed the media feeds of various
Speaker 1: martyrs brigades. You know, Emmanual, she said, You're not quite
Speaker 1: like anyone else I've met here. It's nice to meet
Speaker 1: someone who wasn't afraid to joke. I didn't think I'd
Speaker 1: as that. He was quiet for a little while. Manny
Speaker 1: stirred his coffee awkwardly cast his eyes down. He went paler,
Speaker 1: you seem different too. I don't know this place. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's not exactly what we thought it would be. She
Speaker 1: should have gotten angry at that. It was the kind
Speaker 1: of common that could have gotten a manual into a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble. Why would he say that to me,
Speaker 1: she wondered, And why am I okay with all this?
Speaker 1: Maybe it was Marigold rubbing off on her. Maybe it
Speaker 1: was just gradual disillusionment, the climax of a process that
Speaker 1: had started with Alexander's betrayal. But the heavenly Kingdom no
Speaker 1: longer felt magical or even all that holy. It's complicated here,
Speaker 1: she finally said. I mean, before I came here, I
Speaker 1: knew it couldn't be perfect no places, but yes, it's
Speaker 1: not what I'd hoped to find exactly. Sasha felt a
Speaker 1: spike of panic as soon as the words left her mouth.
Speaker 1: You barely know this man, Sasha. His whole job might
Speaker 1: be ferreting out potential disloyalty. She coughed and tried to
Speaker 1: walk her admission back a little. It's still better than
Speaker 1: the STF or any of the other Heathen states. I
Speaker 1: have to keep telling myself that what's important is what
Speaker 1: we're fighting for, not the imperfections we have to live
Speaker 1: with in this moment. Hmm. He gave an oncommittal grunt
Speaker 1: that surprised her. She hadn't expected anything specific exactly, but
Speaker 1: that surprised her. He started to say something else, then
Speaker 1: his eyes went wide. Who he started to say? Sasha
Speaker 1: heard boot falls, She felt the presence of several tall
Speaker 1: men behind her. The heavy, familiar scent of Alexander's cologne
Speaker 1: filled her nostrils. Modern Emmanuel Sanchez, Miss Sasha, May the
Speaker 1: blessings of the Lord be with you and also with you,
Speaker 1: Sasha replied by rote. Emmanuel chimed in a second or
Speaker 1: two later. He sounded a bit awkward, like he wasn't
Speaker 1: exactly sure which words to use. Alexander pulled up a
Speaker 1: chair and set it against the right side of the table.
Speaker 1: He sat down, placing himself between them. He rested one
Speaker 1: arm on the table, but his left arm hung directly
Speaker 1: over his eyed arm. He looked at Emmanuel, smiled, and
Speaker 1: then looked at Sasha. She felt a wave of nausea,
Speaker 1: grabbed her by the guts and tug His lips curled up,
Speaker 1: revealing his straight white teeth. Excuse me, Manny said, but
Speaker 1: who are you? Alexander looked back to Manny, his expression unchanged. Mada,
Speaker 1: Alexander du Bois, I'm a friend of Sasha's, he glanced
Speaker 1: back at her with a wink that curdled her stomach.
Speaker 1: And I'm also in charge of recruitment for the Storming Battalion.
Speaker 1: Never heard of it, Emmanuel said, in a gruff, clipped tone.
Speaker 1: Sasha realized she was shaking a little. Alexander's lips curled
Speaker 1: up into an even more ghoulish variant of his already
Speaker 1: unsettling smile. He replied, there's a reason for that, Mada Sanchez.
Speaker 1: The Storming Battalion plays a key role in our success
Speaker 1: on the battlefield. They've been central in every one of
Speaker 1: our victories. We don't publicize their work for various reasons,
Speaker 1: but I assure you it's a distinct anna to be
Speaker 1: recruited by me. That's actually why I'm here, Emmanuel. We've
Speaker 1: chosen you. By now, it felt like the pit of
Speaker 1: Sasha's stomach was boiling. Something terrible was clearly happening. Even
Speaker 1: Emmanual seemed to realize that his face had gone pale.
Speaker 1: His pupils were the size of dinner plates. I ah,
Speaker 1: thank you for the honor, but I'm happy with my unit.
Speaker 1: I e feel that's where the Lord needs me. My
Speaker 1: friend Aaron Alexander put a hand up, flat palm facing Emanual,
Speaker 1: your comrade will be taken care of, and we'll be
Speaker 1: the judges of where the Lord needs you. Trust me,
Speaker 1: We've got a lot more experience interpreting his will than
Speaker 1: you do. There's a reason the cross flies over this
Speaker 1: entire city. Emmanuel half stood in his chair. It was
Speaker 1: a sudden gesture, and a faintly aggressive one. Sasha noticed
Speaker 1: his hands were bawled up into fists. His eyes darted
Speaker 1: left and right. He seemed to be looking over the
Speaker 1: heads of Alexander and his men. Alexander tensed. Both the
Speaker 1: men put hands over their side arms, but Emmanuel didn't
Speaker 1: take any further action. After a few turns of his head,
Speaker 1: he stopped looking, relaxed his hands, and sat back down. Okay,
Speaker 1: he said, I get the feeling you want me to
Speaker 1: go with you now. Alexander smiled. It was a vicious,
Speaker 1: oily thing, and it confirmed in Sasha's heart that he
Speaker 1: had something terrible planned. Yes, that's exactly what I want
Speaker 1: He cocked his head up and pursed his lips in
Speaker 1: an exaggerated gesture of consideration. Well, actually, I want you
Speaker 1: to go with these men. I need to stay here
Speaker 1: and have a wood with Sasha. Emmanuel looked into her eyes.
Speaker 1: He was scared clearly, but he kept his voice steady
Speaker 1: when he spoke, Sasha, I've got to go do my
Speaker 1: duty find errand for me. Will you tell him I
Speaker 1: am wish him the best and I hope to see
Speaker 1: him soon. He put definite emphasis on that last word,
Speaker 1: and then he gave Sasha a very deliberate and odd
Speaker 1: before he stood and stepped towards Alexander's men. Take him
Speaker 1: to the factory for his intake process, and I'll be along, showtly,
Speaker 1: Alexander said. He put a hand on Emmanuel's forearm as
Speaker 1: the young man passed by, and said, you should give
Speaker 1: a prayer of thanks, brother, God has blessed you with
Speaker 1: a great honor. Emmanuel smile was as false as Alexander's
Speaker 1: God bless you, Martyr du Bois. I'll pray that you
Speaker 1: and all your men grow closer to our lord. Was
Speaker 1: that a threat? She wondered, before deciding, of course, it
Speaker 1: was in a more normal situation, Sasha would have molled
Speaker 1: that over it certainly was not the sort of comment
Speaker 1: she'd have expected from a true martyr, But just then
Speaker 1: she was far too consumed with terror, both for Emmanuel
Speaker 1: and for herself. Alexander's guards led Manny away, and Alexander
Speaker 1: took his place at the table. He took a long
Speaker 1: sip from Emmanuel's cooling coffee and smiled his snake smile again.
Speaker 1: I must say, Sasha, I thought you had better taste
Speaker 1: than that. For the first time in her life, Sasha
Speaker 1: found herself trying to stare daggers at some one. Oh
Speaker 1: if only I could shoot knives out of my eyes,
Speaker 1: she thought, as she imagined one striking Alexander in the
Speaker 1: forehead with enough force to burst out the back of
Speaker 1: his skull. Is that something chromed people can do, she wondered,
Speaker 1: and decided she'd ask Marigold if she had forgot another
Speaker 1: chance to talk to the woman. Hey, he snapped his
Speaker 1: fingers in front of her eyes, and she hated him
Speaker 1: a little more. She was sort of surprised to learn
Speaker 1: that was possible. Look, I know coming here can be disorienting.
Speaker 1: I know this is a lot to get used to,
Speaker 1: but him a fuckin's it's people like him who filled
Speaker 1: this continent with them mongrel spawn and tore American civilization
Speaker 1: to splint us. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ,
Speaker 1: she said. We are all the fruit fruit of the
Speaker 1: same tree. Yeah, I know, I've met past A Mike.
Speaker 1: I know God made us all, and I also know
Speaker 1: he made some of us better than others. There's a
Speaker 1: reason civilization reached its peak under white men, and there's
Speaker 1: a reason it crumbled once we let them take the reins.
Speaker 1: For a while, it's not worth arguing with him, she
Speaker 1: told herself. So Sasha decided to ask a blunt question.
Speaker 1: What's going to happen to Emmanuel? Alexander smiled, Exactly what
Speaker 1: I said was going to happen to him. He's going
Speaker 1: to the factory for a trainin' and then he'll participate
Speaker 1: in the invasion of Waco as part of the Storming Battalion.
Speaker 1: And what is that? In a way, it's the luckiest
Speaker 1: unit in the heaven, the Kingdom's whole military. They are
Speaker 1: the first ones in guaranteed glory. He took another long,
Speaker 1: slow sip from Manny's coffee. His eyes bored into her
Speaker 1: all the while and guaranteed modydum. Sasha felt a little
Speaker 1: pride for not crying. Tears threatened at the corners of
Speaker 1: her eyes. Praise be to God, she choked out, followed
Speaker 1: by I still have duties tonight at the house. May
Speaker 1: I go? Alexander sneered at at and then he waved
Speaker 1: his hand in a gesture that was surely meant to
Speaker 1: be casual and dismissive. It looked calculated, though, like it
Speaker 1: was important to him that she feel like this didn't
Speaker 1: matter to him. For some reason, that observation made Sasha
Speaker 1: feel a little stronger. Go on. Then he said, we'll
Speaker 1: talk tomorrow. Maybe we'll do more than talk. Maybe not.
Speaker 1: She stood up, still fighting back tears, and left the
Speaker 1: cafe without a response. Sasha wanted to go to someone,
Speaker 1: anyone in the wake of all this. There's nothing to do.
Speaker 1: The smarter, colder part of her brain, the part that
Speaker 1: always sounded like her mother, warned her, anything you say
Speaker 1: will only make it worse. She knew that was true.
Speaker 1: Even Helen couldn't do anything for emmanual. Now she'd made
Speaker 1: it very clear that military matters took precedence over everything
Speaker 1: else in the heavenly Kingdom. It made sense, and yet
Speaker 1: shouldn't right and wrong be what matter most here? She
Speaker 1: wasn't even sure what either of those words meant anymore.
Speaker 1: Was this really what God wanted? Was this how a
Speaker 1: society based on his laws operated? Sasha told herself over
Speaker 1: and over again that she'd made the right decision, that
Speaker 1: the Kingdom wasn't perfect, but it was the best of
Speaker 1: all the other options. That voice grew quieter and less
Speaker 1: convincing as she walked through the doors at the House
Speaker 1: of Miriam and noticed another missing person. Where's Suzanne, she
Speaker 1: asked Helen, after scanning the dining room for her friend.
Speaker 1: The older woman smiled, but it wasn't the warm look
Speaker 1: Sasha had come to expect. Helen looked strained, tired, perhaps
Speaker 1: even a little ill. Suzanne met her husband to day,
Speaker 1: Sasha narrowed her eyes and fought down an immediate surge
Speaker 1: of rage. She met him or did he see her
Speaker 1: and claim her? Like Anne's suitor. Helen did not like that.
Speaker 1: She almost growled her next words, be very careful with
Speaker 1: what you insinuate, miss Sasha. I know this isn't what
Speaker 1: any of you dreamed of but you did come here
Speaker 1: to help further the kingdom. This is how that looks
Speaker 1: Sasha knew in that moment that there was nothing else
Speaker 1: she could say to Helen. What would be the point?
Speaker 1: So she nodded meekly, and she apologized, and then she
Speaker 1: ate her dinner like a robot and cleaned up for bed.
Speaker 1: Throughout all that, Marigold's words rang louder in her memory.
Speaker 1: You got suckered into a fucking nightmare. It's time to
Speaker 1: wake ups, Time to wake ups, time to wake up
Speaker 1: to Sasha went to bed around nine. She'd had a
Speaker 1: long and exhausting day. Tomorrow was sure to be more
Speaker 1: of the same, but she couldn't sleep. Now that she
Speaker 1: was safely in bed, hidden from the world, the tears
Speaker 1: refused to stay hidden behind her eyes. It was all
Speaker 1: Sasha could do to avoid audible sobs. She lay awake
Speaker 1: for an hour, maybe more, until she heard a thwack
Speaker 1: followed by a thump. She opened her eyes and rolled
Speaker 1: over to face the door, and the time it took
Speaker 1: to complete that motion. She heard the door whosh open,
Speaker 1: and then a series of thumps so rapid they sounded
Speaker 1: like one long drum roll. Sasha felt a rush of air,
Speaker 1: and then since the presence of a new person. The
Speaker 1: instant before she completed her roll, she looked up to
Speaker 1: see him man at the side of her bed. He
Speaker 1: was big, broad, and clad in a torn and bloodied
Speaker 1: martyr's uniform. He had a heavy metal pipe in his hand.
Speaker 1: Sasha rose her hands up in an instinctive gesture of
Speaker 1: self defense the moment before she saw the hooking man's
Speaker 1: face and realized who he was, Aaron. The man blinked.
Speaker 1: He looked confused for a moment, and then he laughed,
Speaker 1: all right, yes, not my name, Han, you can call
Speaker 1: me Roland. What do you what's happening? Are we under attack? Yes,
Speaker 1: sorta by me. I knocked out the old lady. He
Speaker 1: gestured his head back towards the other girls sleeping in
Speaker 1: their beds. I knocked them all out too, just minor concussions,
Speaker 1: but they're out cold. I am very confused, Sasha said,
Speaker 1: in a flat voice, and very frightened. You're not frightened.
Speaker 1: She was surprised to realize that he was right. Sasha
Speaker 1: knew she should have been scared, but her heart rate
Speaker 1: didn't elevate. She didn't start to sweat She did feel confused,
Speaker 1: but she also felt calm. Maybe I've just been so
Speaker 1: scared the last few days my body can't handle any
Speaker 1: more of it. Maybe I've reached the limit of my
Speaker 1: capacity for fear. I guess you're right, she said, I
Speaker 1: should be afraid. This is also She trailed off, grasping
Speaker 1: for words. Yeah, it's fucked, Roland said, and then he
Speaker 1: pulled up a canteen that had been hanging from his
Speaker 1: shoulder and took a deep poll. The scent of alcohol
Speaker 1: wafted over to her. You want some, he asked. I
Speaker 1: made it in my guts, filled a canteen as I
Speaker 1: finished up at the base. Wait, Sasha said, what happened
Speaker 1: at the base? Roland gave another shrug and took another pull.
Speaker 1: The boss guys told me Manny had been reassigned to
Speaker 1: some sort of I don't know, suicide battalion. This pissed
Speaker 1: me off, so I broke exactly half of their bones.
Speaker 1: Sasha could hear sirens now often the distance. It sounded
Speaker 1: like there were rather a lot of them. She imagined
Speaker 1: this was connected to whatever Roland had done. I'm going
Speaker 1: to guess you and the manual aren't really martyrs. Are you,
Speaker 1: he chuckled. I mean maybe some days, sister. Just now,
Speaker 1: I don't say any causes worth dying for, but I
Speaker 1: get your meaning. And no, I don't give a shit
Speaker 1: about your heavenly kingdom. Many actively hates it. We're spies,
Speaker 1: or we were spies. Now he's a captive and I'm
Speaker 1: a terrorist again. Oh, she said, And then I think
Speaker 1: I would like a drink. He handed her the canteen
Speaker 1: and she took a generous gulp. Sasha had only tried
Speaker 1: alcohol once before. She'd been thirteen, not yet a Christian,
Speaker 1: and at a party she'd been far too young to attend.
Speaker 1: She remembered the sensation of gentle warmth spreading down her throat,
Speaker 1: and the sense of elation and well being that had followed.
Speaker 1: She'd taken a few more SIPs, which had made the
Speaker 1: world far too spinny for her comfort. She'd vomited not
Speaker 1: long after, but she figured if there was ever a
Speaker 1: time to try alcohol again, it's now. The drink tasted
Speaker 1: like beer, but it burned like a shot of hard liquor.
Speaker 1: Sasha passed the canteen back. She felt like taking more
Speaker 1: would be a bad idea. All right, Then Roland said
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make a few guesses. I guess one is
Speaker 1: that you're a little less than enthusiastic about the heavenly
Speaker 1: Kingdom now that you've seen it up close. Guests too
Speaker 1: is that you're looking for a way out. And Guests
Speaker 1: three is that you know something about where my little
Speaker 1: buddy went. Huh, Immanuel, Manny, you know where he is?
Speaker 1: I don't, she started. I'll bet you do, even if
Speaker 1: you don't know, you do. I know you were there
Speaker 1: when he was taken. I could smell it in the street.
Speaker 1: Smell it. He sighed, and needed the bridge of his nose.
Speaker 1: This is the time where you explained things. The time
Speaker 1: where I explained things comes later, or maybe never. He
Speaker 1: lifted up the pipe in his hand so she could
Speaker 1: see how bloody and dented it was. I have the pipe.
Speaker 1: Whoever's got the pipe doesn't have to explain shit. Sasha
Speaker 1: couldn't argue with his logic, and she did want to
Speaker 1: see Emmanual free and safe. Look, she said, this, this boy,
Speaker 1: I know, Alexander. He found us at the cafe. We
Speaker 1: were just sitting down to coffee. He had two men
Speaker 1: with him, and he said Emmanual had been selected for
Speaker 1: the storming battalion. Do you have any idea aware they
Speaker 1: took him the kids sent trail grows cold about a
Speaker 1: mile from here. Sasha racked her brain. Of course, she
Speaker 1: didn't know where the Heavenly Kingdom did this sort of training.
Speaker 1: But Alexanders said something about the factory, and at that
Speaker 1: Roland's eyes lit up. He turned around as if to leave.
Speaker 1: I know where he is. Then he looked back and
Speaker 1: down to Sasha and said, moment of truth time, Darlin,
Speaker 1: you want to stay here in this ship pile kingdom?
Speaker 1: Or He jerked his thumb to the door. Do you
Speaker 1: want me to break you out? And I'll make offers
Speaker 1: like that often, so take it as a compliment this time.
Speaker 1: It didn't take long for Sasha to make up her mind. Yes,
Speaker 1: she said, I'd like to go with you. What grows
Speaker 1: in the forest trees? Sure know what else? Girls in
Speaker 1: the forest. Our imagination, our sense of wonder, and our
Speaker 1: family bonds grow too, because when we disconnect from this
Speaker 1: and connect with this, we reconnect with each other. The
Speaker 1: forest is closer than you think. Find a forest near
Speaker 1: you and start exploring. I discover the Forest dot Org
Speaker 1: Brought to you by the United States Forest Service and
Speaker 1: the Ad Council. Hello, and welcome to our show. I'm
Speaker 1: Zoe de Chanelle and I'm so excited to be joined
Speaker 1: by my friends and cast mates Hannah Simone and Lamar
Speaker 1: and Morris to recap our hit television series New Girl.
Speaker 1: Join us every Monday on the Welcome to Our Show podcast,
Speaker 1: where we'll share behind the scenes stories of your favorite
Speaker 1: New Girl episodes, reveal the truth behind the legendary game
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Speaker 1: the end when he says you got some Schmidt on
Speaker 1: your face. I feel like I pitched that job. I
Speaker 1: believe that I feel like I did. I'm not on
Speaker 1: a thousand percent I want to say that was I
Speaker 1: tossed that one? Now? Listen to the Welcome to Our
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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, Chapter nineteen. Manny he knew where
Speaker 1: they were taking him as soon as the transport exited
Speaker 1: Highway seventy. It took Exit forty B White Avenue, McKinney.
Speaker 1: He visited the town a few times as a kid,
Speaker 1: before things in this part of d f W had
Speaker 1: gone entirely to ship. Manny thought of the satellite photos
Speaker 1: Reggie had shown them. He thought about that Tesla plant
Speaker 1: and what strange mysteries it must hide. Somewhere in that
Speaker 1: plant was the answer to how the martyrs had so
Speaker 1: thoroughly befucked the stf's defense network. Manny hadn't exactly planned
Speaker 1: to find an answer to that question on this trip. Now,
Speaker 1: it seemed like he wouldn't have a choice in the matter.
Speaker 1: His escorts, Alexander's men, hadn't said much. They directed him
Speaker 1: to the proper transport and told him to keep his
Speaker 1: mouth shut when he asked for an explanation. Manny did
Speaker 1: as they asked, because he half expected them to gun
Speaker 1: him down if he made a real fuss. Roland's bound
Speaker 1: to find me. He can find any fucking one. I
Speaker 1: just need to stay alive long enough for him to
Speaker 1: get here. Once upon a time, the Tesla Factory had
Speaker 1: been an immaculate sign of what some commenters called the
Speaker 1: Texan Renaissance. After the fall of the old United States,
Speaker 1: the Republic of Texas had been one of the first
Speaker 1: functional states to arise in the southwest. Dallas had been
Speaker 1: wrecked by the Lakewood Blast, but the rest of the
Speaker 1: state still had tens of millions of people and abundant
Speaker 1: natural resources. For a while, the hardcore libertarian policies of
Speaker 1: the Republic had created a minor economic miracle. Tesla had
Speaker 1: gotten this factory going about three years before that boom
Speaker 1: went bust. The first room they were taken to had
Speaker 1: clearly been some sort of reception area, and probably a showroom.
Speaker 1: At one point. There were three large oval shaped plinths
Speaker 1: that had once held cars, and a handful of metal
Speaker 1: desks bolted hard into the ground. There were also several
Speaker 1: benches stripped of whatever they had once been upholstered with,
Speaker 1: and a few dozen folding chairs that were clearly recent additions.
Speaker 1: Manny could see signs that the walls had been attacked
Speaker 1: at several places in an attempt to strip them of wires.
Speaker 1: The damage was obvious, but not as extensive as he'd expected.
Speaker 1: De Muertas standards, this building was in good shape. A
Speaker 1: dozen martyrs occupied the room. They wore quality, nonpowered body
Speaker 1: armor and toted rifles that ust have been looted new
Speaker 1: from the Republic's armories. One of the desks was manned
Speaker 1: by a haired looking young man in an off white suit.
Speaker 1: He wore no sign of rank, but did have a
Speaker 1: white cross arm band around his left bicep and a
Speaker 1: golden cross pin on his lapel. He was balding, baby faced,
Speaker 1: and the deep bags under his eyes spoke of severe exhaustion.
Speaker 1: His face lit up when he saw Manny another my
Speaker 1: prayers have been answered, as the Lord wills it. One
Speaker 1: of Manny's escorts replied. They brought him to the desk,
Speaker 1: and the besuited man looked up at him. He had
Speaker 1: a hungry look in his eyes. He'd started to sweat
Speaker 1: a little too. You may call me Isaac. What's your name,
Speaker 1: young man, Emmanuel Emmanuel Sanchez. The little Man jotted that
Speaker 1: down on a piece of paper and then continued asking questions.
Speaker 1: What's your date of birth, Do you have any family
Speaker 1: history of allergies or illnesses? Have you ever undergone surgery before?
Speaker 1: What biomodifications, if any, are currently active in your system?
Speaker 1: Do you have any inactive modifications? And so on. After
Speaker 1: about ten minutes of questioning, the little Man told Mannie
Speaker 1: to stand up and follow him into an examination room.
Speaker 1: His tone was cordial, even warm, but Manny tasted doom
Speaker 1: behind it. He smelled death in this place, and his
Speaker 1: soul cried out against heading further into its bowels. But
Speaker 1: there was nothing to do but follow. Alexander's men left
Speaker 1: after dropping him off, but there were plenty of guards
Speaker 1: on the front room. Two of them followed Mannie and
Speaker 1: the young man backed through the double doors and into
Speaker 1: the heart of the facility. They walked through what had
Speaker 1: once been an open floor office. There were a few
Speaker 1: overturned desks and chairs, but mostly the place was barren
Speaker 1: and half cannibalized for scrap. It was ill lit and derelict.
Speaker 1: What are we doing here, Mannie asked. Isaac put a
Speaker 1: hand on his shoulder and smiled. We're doing God's work,
Speaker 1: he said, the same as everywhere in this blessed kingdom.
Speaker 1: I know that, Manny said, in a slow, careful tone,
Speaker 1: but I don't understand why I was pulled out of
Speaker 1: training or why I was removed from my unit. What
Speaker 1: is this place? Isaac didn't answer. Instead, he walked Mannie
Speaker 1: to a door in the back of the empty office
Speaker 1: and opened it to reveal a small, well lit, white
Speaker 1: room with a bench, a weight scale, and a computer
Speaker 1: terminal built into the wall above a rolling cabinet. Isaac
Speaker 1: weighed him, marked down his height, and then pulled a
Speaker 1: strange measuring device out of the cabinet. It looked like
Speaker 1: a cross between a protractor and a pen vice. This
Speaker 1: is a craniometer, Isaac explained, once he saw the confusion
Speaker 1: on Manny's face. It's for measuring the size of your skull.
Speaker 1: Isaac set right to work. He fit the strange device
Speaker 1: around Mannie's head and tightened it until the vice grip
Speaker 1: bit into Mannie's scalp. Isaac jotted down some more numbers
Speaker 1: on his notepad and removed the craniometer. He looked pleased
Speaker 1: that alone was enough to turn Mannie's stomach. Can you
Speaker 1: please tell me what this is all about? Isaac's eyes
Speaker 1: darted up from his paper. For just a moment, he
Speaker 1: gave Mannie an insincere, distracted smile. Everything will be explained
Speaker 1: soon enough, young man, right now, which should be enough
Speaker 1: to know you're doing the Lord's work. May and he
Speaker 1: was very, very tired of that response. Isaac finished his
Speaker 1: notes and led Many out a back door in the
Speaker 1: room and into what Manny had to assume was the
Speaker 1: final step in their journey. The scent of blood in
Speaker 1: the air was too heavy for anything else to be
Speaker 1: the case. Many felt hair stand up on the back
Speaker 1: of his neck, his shoulders went tents, and a moment
Speaker 1: later he felt the strong hands of his guards on
Speaker 1: either bicep. This new room was part mechanic shop, part abattoir.
Speaker 1: It had once been the main factory floor, and it
Speaker 1: was filled with the half looted carcasses of robotic auto workers.
Speaker 1: Several of those machines had been restored to some level
Speaker 1: of functional capacity. Many could see twentish new vehicles and
Speaker 1: various states of construction across the vast space. Instead of sleek,
Speaker 1: consumer grade electronic cars, most of these vehicles seemed to
Speaker 1: be very old and worn sedans and trucks. A handful
Speaker 1: of them were outdated and nigh obsolete. Military drones. Palettes
Speaker 1: of plastic explosives sat outside several of the vehicles. Many
Speaker 1: could see human workers packing blocks of it into a
Speaker 1: battered off white key a few dozen feet in front
Speaker 1: of him. None of this was particularly shocking. Vehicle based
Speaker 1: improvised explosive devices had been de rigueur for terrorists insurrections
Speaker 1: for the last seventy years. Two things about this factory
Speaker 1: struck Manny as strange. The first is that none of
Speaker 1: the vehicles in construction had any armor added to them.
Speaker 1: Most V B I E d S would be covered
Speaker 1: in thick slabs of concrete and welded scrap metal to
Speaker 1: ensure they made it safely to their target. The vehicles
Speaker 1: here seemed like they would look normal when they finally
Speaker 1: rolled off the reassembly line. The second odd thing was
Speaker 1: the dozens of surgical tables and the rather significant amount
Speaker 1: of red blood coating the floor underneath them. Five of
Speaker 1: the beds were occupied with bodies covered by blood speckled
Speaker 1: white sheets. The men under them appeared dead. Oh God,
Speaker 1: Manny forgot his cover in the dawning horror of the moment.
Speaker 1: What the hell is this place? What's your mouth, young man,
Speaker 1: Isaac snapped. This is a temple of the Lord, where
Speaker 1: young heroes delivered themselves into the waiting arms of eternity.
Speaker 1: A tall in in a lab coat made his way
Speaker 1: over to them. He had gray hair and warm brown
Speaker 1: eyes behind horn rimmed spectacles. He gave Manny a warm
Speaker 1: smile and extended out a hand in greeting the Lord
Speaker 1: be with you, Emmanuel, I'm doctor Ernst. I'm sure you
Speaker 1: must be full of questions right now, gentlemen. He glanced
Speaker 1: towards the guards, who still had their hands on Manny.
Speaker 1: You can let him go now. This young man is
Speaker 1: a hero and he should be treated as such. The
Speaker 1: hands loosened. Manny heard the men step back. He flashed
Speaker 1: a nervous smile back at the doctor. Keep him talking, Manny, thought,
Speaker 1: The longer you drag this out, the more time Roland
Speaker 1: will have. What is going on here? These uh, he
Speaker 1: grappled for the correct terminology, These martyrdom devices seem different.
Speaker 1: And I don't know what's going on with with with
Speaker 1: all the medical equipment and the bodies. Doctor Ernst finished
Speaker 1: his question without so much a break in his warm smile. Yes,
Speaker 1: God bless him, but diplomacy is not Isaac's strong suit.
Speaker 1: He gets rather focused on the task at hand. Many
Speaker 1: noticed that the odd little man End had already wandered
Speaker 1: off towards a rolling tray of medical equipment near one
Speaker 1: of the surgical beds. That set Manny's heart beating even faster.
Speaker 1: Follow me, said doctor Ernst, and I'll explain everything. The
Speaker 1: doctor led him to one of the shrouded bodies and
Speaker 1: pulled its covering down, revealing the dead man's face. Manny
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly surprised to see that it was Jonathan, the
Speaker 1: young man from Atlanta he'd met just a few days before.
Speaker 1: Jonathan was, of course quite dead. A bloody red line
Speaker 1: ran across his skull, just above his ears. His eyes
Speaker 1: were closed, and his lips were turned up in a
Speaker 1: beatific smile. You know this man, yes, doctor Ernst asked gently, Yes,
Speaker 1: of course you do. The doctor chuckled. You're both colored
Speaker 1: men and the heavenly Kingdom. I'd be surprised if you
Speaker 1: hadn't developed a connection. It's only natural to gravitate towards
Speaker 1: your own kind. Many fought down the urge to slap
Speaker 1: doctor Ernst. Jonathan here started his journey to martyrdom just
Speaker 1: a few hours ago. I know he appears dead, but
Speaker 1: as it was with our Lord and Savior, appearances, quanby
Speaker 1: quite deceiving. His brain is still quite alive and alert.
Speaker 1: It's just been moved. Doctor Aren't gestured over to the KIA.
Speaker 1: Many saw that another lab coated worker was now carrying
Speaker 1: a peculiar metal box over to the v B I
Speaker 1: e ed. The box was about head sized and covered
Speaker 1: with sockets and plugs. A single green light flickered on
Speaker 1: one side. See they're loading him into his chariot now,
Speaker 1: and soon he'll pilot this anointed engine of heavenly will
Speaker 1: to the ruin of our enemies. Many thought, backed that
Speaker 1: last day before the invasion, to Reggie's questions about that
Speaker 1: mysterious checkpoint bombing, This must be how they did it.
Speaker 1: He realized the SDFS checkpoints were perfectly capable of reading
Speaker 1: the itinerary of any autonomous vehicle that drove towards them.
Speaker 1: They'd shoot anything that didn't broadcast its destination, but the
Speaker 1: Kingdom had found a way to hide a human driver
Speaker 1: capable of taking over once the car was past the checkpoint.
Speaker 1: His eyes drifted over to a combat drone lying half
Speaker 1: disassembled on the table a few yards to his left.
Speaker 1: He was a hefty, beetle black monster with a heavy
Speaker 1: under slung machine gun. It reminded Manny terribly of the
Speaker 1: drone that had almost killed him in Reggie a few
Speaker 1: days earlier. This explains why the STF drone jammers didn't work.
Speaker 1: The Heavenly Kingdom wasn't really using drones. Manny realized with
Speaker 1: dawning horror that the drone's open cavity was likely the
Speaker 1: intended resting place of his brain. Ah. Doctor Ernst smiled,
Speaker 1: I see you've already spotted your chariot. Yes, Emmanuel, you
Speaker 1: are quite fortunate. Martyre Ditmar noted your intelligence and suggested
Speaker 1: you be implanted into a drone. I assure you it's
Speaker 1: a high honor even in this sacred place, Manny's heart
Speaker 1: thudded like the tolling of a church bell. For a while,
Speaker 1: he couldn't hear anything else. He felt himself gripped by
Speaker 1: a sudden claustrophobic terror. The worst thing wasn't even the
Speaker 1: thought of being cut open, torn apart. It was the
Speaker 1: thought of being trapped inside that little metal box, forced
Speaker 1: to kill and die in the name of a cause
Speaker 1: he abhorred. Manny knew he'd started to shake, but there
Speaker 1: was nothing he could do to quell the terror. Doctor
Speaker 1: Ernst to put a hand on his shoulder. Many assumed
Speaker 1: it was meant to reassure him. It did not have
Speaker 1: that effect. Immanual. I know this is quite a lot
Speaker 1: to take in, but all you really need to know
Speaker 1: is that you've been blessed, truly blessed with the chance
Speaker 1: to play a real role in making the Heavenly Kingdom
Speaker 1: a reality. The Storming Battalion are God's elite, the holiest
Speaker 1: of our martyrs. I'm sure once the shock wears off,
Speaker 1: you'll realize what a privilege this is. Manny heard footsteps.
Speaker 1: He didn't need to look to know his guards were
Speaker 1: stepping back up behind him. He felt the noose titan
Speaker 1: and his hope slip ever farther away. Where the hell
Speaker 1: is Rowland? I am um, he stuttered, Can I have
Speaker 1: some time to er to prey on this? Of course? Emmanual?
Speaker 1: Doctor ernst smile never looked false or forced. He put
Speaker 1: a hand on Manny's shoulder. It will be a few
Speaker 1: minutes before we're ready to begin the operation. I commend
Speaker 1: you devotion. This is an ideal time to pray for guidance.
Speaker 1: A few minutes, his heart pounded so hard he thought
Speaker 1: it might beat its way free from his chest. He
Speaker 1: was sure Doctor Ernest must have heard it, but if
Speaker 1: he did, he said nothing about it. Instead, the doctor
Speaker 1: led Manny over to a small carpeted area that looked
Speaker 1: to have been set aside as a prayer room for
Speaker 1: the soon to be martyred members of this battalion. It
Speaker 1: consisted of a half dozen shares at least they're padded,
Speaker 1: a three foot tall white stone statue of Christ on
Speaker 1: a cross, and two small inn tables, each with a
Speaker 1: couple of dog eared bibles. Manny sat down. Bereft of
Speaker 1: any better idea, he grabbed a bible and flipped it
Speaker 1: open to a random page, King Nebuchadnezzar made an image
Speaker 1: of gold sixty cubits high and six cubits wide. Manny
Speaker 1: rolled his eyes with the flaming ale is a cubit.
Speaker 1: He skimmed the next few verses until he realized which
Speaker 1: story he'd stumbled upon. His religious schooling hadn't been intense,
Speaker 1: but he had gone to church most Sundays for the
Speaker 1: better part of a decade. He'd listened to enough sermons
Speaker 1: and attended enough Sunday school classes to know the story
Speaker 1: of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, three stupid assholes who'd wandered
Speaker 1: into a furnace entrusted in Deus ex deos to save them.
Speaker 1: If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God
Speaker 1: we serve is able to deliver us from it, and
Speaker 1: he will deliver us from your Majesty's hand. But even
Speaker 1: if he does not, we want you to know, your Majesty,
Speaker 1: that we will not serve your gods or worship the
Speaker 1: image of gold you have set up. It struck Manny
Speaker 1: that his current predicament had more than a little in
Speaker 1: common with these ancient men, if they'd ever existed in
Speaker 1: the first place. The chief difference was that, of course,
Speaker 1: Manny wasn't praying for the help of a god. He was, however,
Speaker 1: strongly hoping for rescue from a godlike being that felt
Speaker 1: close enough to give him a sense of kinship Towards
Speaker 1: the men and the story. The king's command was so
Speaker 1: urgent and the furnace so hot, that the flames of
Speaker 1: the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrak Mishak
Speaker 1: and to bed Nego. And these three men firmly tied
Speaker 1: fell into the burning furnace. He hadn't remembered that bit
Speaker 1: from Sunday School, the part where the king's soldiers were
Speaker 1: burnt alive by the heat of his fire. Many wondered
Speaker 1: what kind of soldiers would so willingly step into a
Speaker 1: pointless death at some mad king's command, and he remembered
Speaker 1: where he was. He looked up from the Bible at
Speaker 1: the twenty or so armed men stationed around the factory.
Speaker 1: I really really hope someone comes along to burn them
Speaker 1: to death. Many heard footsteps behind him. He looked back
Speaker 1: this time and saw doctor Arnst advancing with two guards.
Speaker 1: In Isaac, the bald little man was visibly excited an
Speaker 1: obscene smile played across his features. He held an almost
Speaker 1: comically large needle in his hands. Manny looked over from
Speaker 1: him to the Doctor Emmanuel. Doctor Arnist said it's time.
Speaker 1: Many stood. His mind raced for some sort of delaying tactic.
Speaker 1: I need to uh pray more. I I need more pray. Time.
Speaker 1: Confusion passed over all the men's faces. Time is of
Speaker 1: the essence here. Doctor Arnst insisted, don't delay this important
Speaker 1: work because you're scared. Trust in the Lord, open your
Speaker 1: heart to his will. See, I have, I I totally have.
Speaker 1: Manny stammered, and I'm pretty sure he's actually not down
Speaker 1: with us. Yeah, I think he wants me to be
Speaker 1: a soldier, a regular soldier with a gun, not a
Speaker 1: brain in a drone. Doctor Ernst glanced back at the
Speaker 1: two guards flanking him. He nodded, and they advanced. One
Speaker 1: man had a kalashnikov on his back, the other had
Speaker 1: a holstered side arm. Both men were much larger and
Speaker 1: more muscular than Manny. He glanced around for a weapon,
Speaker 1: as if anything left around would be useful against two firearms.
Speaker 1: There was still a bible in his hands that probably
Speaker 1: would have been enough for Roland Manny had no doubt
Speaker 1: the posthuman could kill a dozen men with a book,
Speaker 1: more if it was hard cover. Immanuel, the doctor's voice
Speaker 1: was low, soft and as comforting as a lullaby. I
Speaker 1: know this is a frightening thing, but you must trust me,
Speaker 1: You must trust all of us. The heavenly Kingdom would
Speaker 1: not spend your life this way if we were not
Speaker 1: certain your sacrifice would further the will of our Lord.
Speaker 1: That is why you came here, Emmanuel. I know if
Speaker 1: you listen to God, you'll see what's right. Manny closed
Speaker 1: his eyes. He listened not for the voice of God,
Speaker 1: but for the sound of footsteps. After a few seconds pause,
Speaker 1: he heard the guards move towards him again. He gripped
Speaker 1: hard on the Bible in his hand, and he tried
Speaker 1: not to think too much about what he had already
Speaker 1: decided he had to do. The footsteps grew closer until
Speaker 1: Manny could almost feel the heat coming off the other
Speaker 1: men's bodies. Very good, Emmanuel, Doctor Ernst Cood, God loves you.
Speaker 1: Manny opened his eyes. The guards were right in front
Speaker 1: of him, now reaching for him. Manny swung the Bible
Speaker 1: up underhanded into the kalashnikov. Man's chin. Then he dove
Speaker 1: to the right and slammed his head into the other
Speaker 1: man's crotch with all the force his five foot ten
Speaker 1: inch frame could bring to bear. The man howled. Manny
Speaker 1: half fell, caught himself, and dropped into a dead run,
Speaker 1: aimed straight for Isaac. Both the bald headed needleman and
Speaker 1: doctor Ernst stared at him in astonishment. Belatedly, Isaac raised
Speaker 1: his arms up in defense. The gesture did nothing to
Speaker 1: stop Manny from plowing into him and knocking him to
Speaker 1: the ground. He punched the other man in the face hard,
Speaker 1: and then scrambled back to his feet too. He felt
Speaker 1: the pain of the gunshot before he heard it, or rather,
Speaker 1: he didn't register the sound of the gunshot as a
Speaker 1: gunshot until the pain made it clear he'd been shot.
Speaker 1: And then Manny was on the ground. His world shrunk
Speaker 1: to the space below his belly button, which now pulsed
Speaker 1: with spurts of deep red blood. His hands covered the wound,
Speaker 1: pressing back against it in an instinctive attempt to protect himself.
Speaker 1: He stared in fascination at the spreading red. He watched
Speaker 1: as his blood turned chunky and thick. The spurting faded
Speaker 1: away to a slow ooze. The pain caught up to
Speaker 1: him now, and Manny's vision went black for a moment.
Speaker 1: The world faded into view after a while. Doctor Ernst,
Speaker 1: Isaac and both guards were standing above him. The guard
Speaker 1: with a handgun had a drawn a wisp of smoke
Speaker 1: trailed up from the barrel. Manny watched, enthralled as it
Speaker 1: curled up to the sky and gradually disappeared into the
Speaker 1: air around them. You've made a grievous error, my boy.
Speaker 1: Doctor Ernst's voice was grave, now, devoid of all compassion.
Speaker 1: You was so close to paradise it almost brings me
Speaker 1: to tears. The doctor was only a few feet away,
Speaker 1: but his voice sounded distant and muffled. I'm dying, aren't I?
Speaker 1: Manny thought, no, if that was a kill shot, I'd
Speaker 1: be dead by now. The bleeding's already stopped. The thought
Speaker 1: did little to calm his nerves. He'd thoroughly blown his cover.
Speaker 1: Even if they never guessed his true purpose in coming
Speaker 1: to the Heavenly Kingdom, he'd be executed for trying to flee.
Speaker 1: This is going to put us even further behind schedule.
Speaker 1: That was Isaac. His nose was bleeding, but it didn't
Speaker 1: look broken. I wish I was better at punching. Take
Speaker 1: about side, Doctor Arts said to the guards, and make
Speaker 1: it quick. There's no sense in stringing him up in
Speaker 1: public for simple cowardice. So this is how it's going
Speaker 1: to end. Manny was confused by how it peace. He
Speaker 1: felt with that some of it was guilt. Alejandra was dead,
Speaker 1: Amide was dead, Oscar was dead, mister Perrone was dead.
Speaker 1: This was nothing more than he deserved. He was pleasantly
Speaker 1: surprised to find that. As the little robots in his
Speaker 1: blood flooded his system with happy drugs, that sense of
Speaker 1: guilt began to fade. He felt wonderfully detached from the world.
Speaker 1: He wondered if this was how Roland felt all the time,
Speaker 1: disconnect it and pleasant in a vague, indefinable way. The
Speaker 1: guards bent down, many felt their hands on his arms.
Speaker 1: He felt them lift him up. He felt a terrible,
Speaker 1: shifting pain in his gut as another rush of clotting
Speaker 1: blood poured out of him. Manny thought of mister Perrone.
Speaker 1: He could almost see his face. Maybe the Christians were
Speaker 1: right about the afterlife. That was a nice thought, actually,
Speaker 1: he thought, mister Perrone would be proud of him. I
Speaker 1: tried to do something, Sir, I really did. Many didn't
Speaker 1: see the source of the noise. It sounded like something
Speaker 1: heavy falling from a high height onto something soft and squishy,
Speaker 1: some one soft and squishy. He realized. The guards dropped him.
Speaker 1: Men started to yell. Gunshot gunshot gunshot, Manny thought, and
Speaker 1: he giggled a little bit. The sounds of chaos and
Speaker 1: violence that had erupted inside the factory could only be
Speaker 1: Roland's doing. Manny lifted up his head with considerable effort
Speaker 1: and looked over towards the waiting area, where most of
Speaker 1: the guards had sat idle. It was a mess now.
Speaker 1: Several of the chairs in one of the big tables
Speaker 1: were mashed together with a chunky red paste that resembled
Speaker 1: good salsa. People salsa, he thought, and then giggled again.
Speaker 1: Manny caught a glimpse of Roland as the chromed man
Speaker 1: rocketed across the factory floor and into a trio of guards.
Speaker 1: The men didn't even have the chance to fire their weapons.
Speaker 1: The first guard burst like a balloon full of jelly.
Speaker 1: It was hard to tell exactly what happened next, as
Speaker 1: it occurred under a red cloud of human viscera. Manny
Speaker 1: slipped in his own blood and fell back onto the floor.
Speaker 1: He stared up at the ceiling for a little while
Speaker 1: and just focused on trying to keep his breath steady.
Speaker 1: There was nothing else he could do here anyway. Immanuel Sasha,
Speaker 1: he thought, Lah, he said, it's okay. He felt her
Speaker 1: warm hand on his forehead. Don't talk. You've been shot,
Speaker 1: but you're probably not going to die. Probably, he had
Speaker 1: to admire her fundamental honesty. I'm going to try to
Speaker 1: drag you out of here. If you can walk, that
Speaker 1: would be really helpful. She grabbed Manny under the armpits
Speaker 1: and tried to pull him up. He let out a
Speaker 1: coughing cry at the pain of being moved again, but
Speaker 1: he also realized late in the game that he still
Speaker 1: had some control over his legs. He pushed up, and,
Speaker 1: with Sasha's help, fought gravity well enough that he soon
Speaker 1: stood under mostly his own power. Sasha wrapped one of
Speaker 1: his arms around her shoulder and took some of the
Speaker 1: weight off his weakened limbs, and then together they hobbled
Speaker 1: free of the chinel factory that had almost been his
Speaker 1: tomb An hour later, Manny sat with Roland and Sasha
Speaker 1: on the roof of an old Bank of America and
Speaker 1: watched as the Tesla factory burned in the distance. Manny
Speaker 1: had passed out almost as soon as Sasha had got
Speaker 1: him out the door. He recalled waking up a few
Speaker 1: times during the run away from the factory. At some
Speaker 1: point Roland had met up with them and started carrying him.
Speaker 1: He'd come too, on the roof of the old bank building,
Speaker 1: just in time to see Roland dribble a trail of
Speaker 1: weirdess blood into his gunshot wound. He'd felt a little
Speaker 1: revulsion at the act, but it had passed once his
Speaker 1: pain dissolved. I should really find a way to bottle
Speaker 1: that stuff, he thought. What happened, Manny asked, Once reality
Speaker 1: had solidified a little more. Roland found me, Sasha said,
Speaker 1: just after they took you. I told him that Alexander
Speaker 1: had mentioned a factory, and then well, he seemed to
Speaker 1: know this must be the factory they'd been talking about.
Speaker 1: Thanks for that, Reggie, he told me he was going
Speaker 1: to She coughed a little and her cheeks reddened. An
Speaker 1: embarrassment feed them their own dicks, and that I should
Speaker 1: wait until they were engaged to run and drag you out.
Speaker 1: A large explosion echoed across the city. Escape and the
Speaker 1: Trio watched a small orange mushroom cloud light up the
Speaker 1: sky where the Testla factory had been. It's about damned time,
Speaker 1: Roland grumbled. The detonators those fuckers stole from the Republic
Speaker 1: were garbage. Hey, He looked over to Manny. The hell
Speaker 1: was that place anyway? Yes, Sasha added, and how exactly
Speaker 1: did you end up getting shot there? Manny related the
Speaker 1: whole story as best he could. Sasha's face went pale
Speaker 1: white with outrage and disgust when he explained exactly how
Speaker 1: the Heavenly Kingdom had managed to get its suicide vehicles
Speaker 1: past the SDFS checkpoints. Oh god, she moaned, Oh God, above, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Roland just laughed. That's as clever as a two headed crow.
Speaker 1: I'll give him that. He clapped Sasha on the shoulder.
Speaker 1: Come on, lady, you can't still be surprised by how
Speaker 1: funk the Kingdom is? How many people did you watch them? Hang?
Speaker 1: Sasha didn't respond. She just sat there, eyes red and watery,
Speaker 1: and stared out at the burning factory. Manny felt like
Speaker 1: he should have said something, but his mind was still
Speaker 1: catching up to his body after the events of the
Speaker 1: last couple of hours. Staring straight ahead represented the extent
Speaker 1: of his abilities right now, Sorry, Roland said, in response
Speaker 1: to the silence, I forget your kids aren't used to
Speaker 1: this sort of ship. I'll tell you it gets easier.
Speaker 1: What almost dying, asked Manny. We're being betrayed by the
Speaker 1: only thing you ever believed in, asked Sasha. Roland shrugged. Both.
Speaker 1: I guess, I mean neither is much fun. But hey,
Speaker 1: y'all pop some cherries today, so it's got to be
Speaker 1: nothing but downhill from here on out. Neither of them responded,
Speaker 1: but Roland plowed right along. I meant downhill and like
Speaker 1: the positive sense of the word, you know, sledding like
Speaker 1: that or something more. Silence Roland's side and took a
Speaker 1: loud gulp from a piece of sheet metal he'd been
Speaker 1: into a makeshift cup. The beverage inside smelled like another
Speaker 1: batch of his gut liquor. It burned Manny's nose from
Speaker 1: three feet away. A minute went by, and then another
Speaker 1: without a word. They listened as emergency sirens sounded and
Speaker 1: drew closer to the side of the blast. So what
Speaker 1: the fund do we do now, Manny asked. Roland grunted
Speaker 1: and then belched, Well, he'd probably gotta roll back into town,
Speaker 1: break those ladies out of jail, and then I don't know,
Speaker 1: we should probably leave, right. Manny rolled his eyes. The
Speaker 1: casual recklessness of Roland's confidence had been fun and reassuring
Speaker 1: when he wasn't recovering from a gunshot wound. The events
Speaker 1: at the Tesla plant had proved to Manny that the
Speaker 1: post humans protection wasn't enough to guarantee his safety or Sasha's.
Speaker 1: He was the deadliest thing Manny had ever seen, but
Speaker 1: he couldn't be everywhere at once. Wait, who are you
Speaker 1: breaking out of jail? Sasha asked those three negotiators, Manny said,
Speaker 1: from the City of Wheels, the woman he examined, and
Speaker 1: their male companion. Sasha gave Manny a look he couldn't
Speaker 1: quite parse out what he asked. Is that why you
Speaker 1: started talking to me? She asked, Because you knew I
Speaker 1: was working with those women, and you thought I might
Speaker 1: be able to get you into the jail. No, started Manny,
Speaker 1: I mean sort of right, finished Roland. That was sure
Speaker 1: as shed a big BLUs. Many glared at the post
Speaker 1: human Rowland had all the tacked in diplomacy of a chainsaw.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm here in the first place, he reminded himself. Look,
Speaker 1: Roland continued, there's no point in dressing any of this up. Sasha,
Speaker 1: you fled your home to join a militant terrorist organization
Speaker 1: that butcher civilians. Manny, you kind of manipulated her in
Speaker 1: the hope of getting information. I just beat like twenty
Speaker 1: people to death, plus I fed Martyr Dittmar his own hand,
Speaker 1: and I feel genuinely bad about that. Roland shook his head.
Speaker 1: I'm really trying not to fall completely off the murder
Speaker 1: wagon here, guys. But when I get angry and the
Speaker 1: battle drug start flowing, he shivered, I get ugly. Once again.
Speaker 1: Roland's words were met with stunned silence, and once again
Speaker 1: he plowed forward. Nonetheless, what I'm saying is this whole
Speaker 1: situation as ugly as fun, and none of us as
Speaker 1: a hero. But we're probably the least shitty people in
Speaker 1: the city with any kind of power. So let's all
Speaker 1: forgive each other's trespasses and use that power to try
Speaker 1: to save a couple of nice people from being crucified
Speaker 1: or whatever it is Christians due to the people who
Speaker 1: piss them off. Is it just hanging I? Sasha started
Speaker 1: to respond, then shook her head in exasperation. Probably not,
Speaker 1: she said. Instead, all right, Roland clapped and put on
Speaker 1: a bright smile. So how do we get in there?
Speaker 1: I mean, I can just sort of bawls my way
Speaker 1: through the front door or the ceiling. But since this
Speaker 1: is an actual jail, it's probably reinforced. There's a good
Speaker 1: chance they'll kill the hostages before I punched my way
Speaker 1: into the cells. Manny could almost hear the wheels turn
Speaker 1: and Sasha's head as she caught her thoughts up with
Speaker 1: what was now apparently her reality. To her credit, she
Speaker 1: responded in short order, that's probably the case, she nodded.
Speaker 1: There are armed guards outside of each cell, and there's
Speaker 1: a real disgust for those captives among the martyrs. They
Speaker 1: probably would shoot those women rather than let them escape.
Speaker 1: And what about the guy? I never saw him. I
Speaker 1: dealt with the women Marigolden Oh what was her name? Tully,
Speaker 1: but I assume he was in the same jail. He is,
Speaker 1: Roland confirmed, or at least he was last time I
Speaker 1: sniffed around there. Manny's mind finally spun up to full speed.
Speaker 1: The pain in his guts had subsided, as had the
Speaker 1: light headed, bloodless feeling he'd woken up with. He felt
Speaker 1: comforted by the mere fact of having a simple problem
Speaker 1: to solve. At the core, this question was a logistical one,
Speaker 1: just like the problems he faced every day as a fixer.
Speaker 1: He needed to deliver his team to a certain location,
Speaker 1: the jail, in a limited time frame, so Manny's first
Speaker 1: job was to figure out what connections he'd need to
Speaker 1: make in order for that to be possible. Sasha, he asked,
Speaker 1: who can help us get inside that jail? Do you
Speaker 1: know anyone who has the authority to come and go
Speaker 1: from there with impunity? Doctor Brandt? She replied. He's a
Speaker 1: good man, I think, but he's committed. He's not going
Speaker 1: to work with us to betray the Kingdom. He doesn't
Speaker 1: need to, Manny assured her. I'm going to guess he's
Speaker 1: a smart guy, right. He has to be somewhat roldly
Speaker 1: to be an actual doctor. Sasha nodded, He's not a
Speaker 1: mindless zalid If that's what you're asking. Most of us.
Speaker 1: Aren't you know there was a reasonable case for supporting
Speaker 1: the Heavenly Kingdom at just She trailed off, and Many
Speaker 1: put his hands out in a placating gesture. No, No,
Speaker 1: that's not not what I'm getting at. I want to
Speaker 1: make sure this guy has a sober, realistic understanding of
Speaker 1: what someone like Roland can do. Sasha's eyes went cloudy,
Speaker 1: but she nodded. He talked about them with me a little,
Speaker 1: she said, I would say he has a healthy respect
Speaker 1: for post humans. Good Manny said, So we find him
Speaker 1: and we make him an offer. Either Roland tears the
Speaker 1: heart out of the Kingdom or doctor Brandt helps us
Speaker 1: get those captives out of the jail. If he's a
Speaker 1: sensible man, who'll have to see the reason in that.
Speaker 1: Sasha didn't look so sure about that, but after some consideration,
Speaker 1: she nodded and agreed that it was at least possible. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we find this doctor Brandt, We use him to
Speaker 1: get inside the jail, Roland does Roland things, and then
Speaker 1: we beat feet to get out of Demuerta. Roland shrugged
Speaker 1: and took another deep pull from his gut beverage. He
Speaker 1: seemed on board. Sasha raised another question though. Okay, so
Speaker 1: who are you two supposed to be? Then? Every time
Speaker 1: Dr Brandton I visited the jail, we had a driver
Speaker 1: in an armed guard. But you two don't exactly look
Speaker 1: like you fit the bill. Right now, you, she pointed
Speaker 1: to Manny, clearly just took a bullet, and you, she
Speaker 1: jabbed a finger at Roland, look like you just murdered
Speaker 1: dozens of people, which I guess you did. Right, Manny
Speaker 1: clapped his hands. That's easy enough to fix. It's what
Speaker 1: five am. Now the city is starting to wake up.
Speaker 1: Do you know what shift Doctor Brandt's expected to work today, Sasha?
Speaker 1: Lately he's been doing seven to seven and Roland. Manny continued,
Speaker 1: Do you know where the vehicle pool is? The big
Speaker 1: man nodded, Oh yeah, I dragged that down there in
Speaker 1: my first recon day. It's about thirty minutes away on
Speaker 1: foot for you guys five minutes from me. We'll go slow,
Speaker 1: said Manny. Sasha, you let us know when you recognize
Speaker 1: Dr Brandt's jeep and driver will stop them, relieve them
Speaker 1: with their uniforms and drive on to the doctor's house. Roland,
Speaker 1: you think you can take out two men without bloodying up?
Speaker 1: Their uniforms. He gave another shrug. All right, Manny nodded,
Speaker 1: that's plan A then, and what's planned B? Sasha asked,
Speaker 1: close your eyes and hide behind Roland. Hi. I'm Robert
Speaker 1: sex Reese, host of The Doctor Sex re Show. And
Speaker 1: every episode I listened to people talk about their sex
Speaker 1: and intimacy issues, and yes, I despise every minute of it.
Speaker 1: And she she made mistakes too, kill everyone at her wedding.
Speaker 1: But hell is real. We're all trapped here and there's
Speaker 1: nothing any of us can do about it. So join me,
Speaker 1: won't you? Listen to The Doctor Sex re Show every
Speaker 1: Tuesday on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcast. I'm Colleen Wit Join me
Speaker 1: the host of Eating Wall Broke podcast while I eat
Speaker 1: a meal created by self made entrepreneurs, influencers, and celebrities
Speaker 1: over a meal they once ate when they were broke.
Speaker 1: Today I have the lovely aj Crimson, the official Princess
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Speaker 1: We're here on Eating Wall Broke, and today I'm gonna
Speaker 1: break down my meal that got me through a time
Speaker 1: when I was broke. Listen to Eating wall Broke on
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, on Apple podcast or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. The art world it is essentially
Speaker 1: a money laundering business. The best fakes are still hanging
Speaker 1: off people's walls. You know they don't even know or
Speaker 1: suspect that they're fakes. I'm Alec Baldwin and this is
Speaker 1: a podcast about deception, greed and forgery in the art world.
Speaker 1: You knew that the painting was fake. Um listen to
Speaker 1: Art Fraud starting February one on the I Heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, Chapter twenty,
Speaker 1: Rowland that looks like them, Sasha whispered into his ear.
Speaker 1: The three of them were stationed on the third floor
Speaker 1: of an old office building that overlooked the Kingdom's vehicle pool.
Speaker 1: Based on the posters and decorations inside, the people in
Speaker 1: this office had once helped co ordinate for a string
Speaker 1: of restaurant supply stores. Roland suspected the coming of the
Speaker 1: war might have been a relief to the people who'd
Speaker 1: been stuck working here. He was positioned by the window,
Speaker 1: sitting down, so only the edge of his face would
Speaker 1: have been visible to any one looking in from the outside.
Speaker 1: Manny had elected to take a nap out of view
Speaker 1: behind one of the desks. His ability to fall asleep
Speaker 1: any time, anywhere marked him out as a true expert
Speaker 1: in war zone survival. Sasha had situated herself on the
Speaker 1: other side of the window frame. Roland had warned her
Speaker 1: to keep her head out of view until he saw
Speaker 1: new arrivals to the vehicle depot. He'd called for her
Speaker 1: eyes six times already and gotten six negatives. Now it
Speaker 1: seemed their target had arrived. Are you sure, he asked.
Speaker 1: Pretty sure, she said, and nodded. The driver walks with
Speaker 1: a limp. One of his legs is shorter than the other.
Speaker 1: I think it's a birth defect. He must have come
Speaker 1: from some part of the continent where those still happened.
Speaker 1: Good eye. Roland was genuinely impressed. The girl had potential.
Speaker 1: So what do we do now, she asked, you rouse, Mannie.
Speaker 1: I'll keep an eye on things. When they depart, I'll
Speaker 1: carjack them into unconsciousness and bring back the uniforms. And
Speaker 1: that's more or less how it went. The garden driver
Speaker 1: departed in a jeep. Five minutes later. Roland bounded down
Speaker 1: from one of the rear windows and landed on the
Speaker 1: hood as they took a right hand turn out of
Speaker 1: view of the vehicle depot. The guard did not do
Speaker 1: his job title proud, Roland slammed his face into the
Speaker 1: dashboard and knocked him out. He also knocked out most
Speaker 1: of the man's teeth, but his hind brain told him
Speaker 1: the guy's odds of a fatal brain hemorrhage were only
Speaker 1: about six percent acceptable. He broke the driver's job with
Speaker 1: a right cross, took the wheel, and steered the vehicle
Speaker 1: to a stop while he was still hanging outside it.
Speaker 1: Roland tossed both men and back of the jeep and
Speaker 1: pulled into the office buildings underground parking lot. He stripped
Speaker 1: them both and cursed when he realized that the guard's
Speaker 1: bleeding face had stained the neck of his uniform shirt.
Speaker 1: He found some bottled water in the trunk and managed
Speaker 1: to wash out the worst of it, but the stain
Speaker 1: would still be visible to anyone who really took the
Speaker 1: time to look. Still, it'd probably be enough to get
Speaker 1: them through the door of the jail. He stashed both
Speaker 1: men in a janitorial closet and dragged an old metal
Speaker 1: dumpster in front of it to wedge the door shut.
Speaker 1: Someone would probably find them before they starved to death.
Speaker 1: He felt a pang of guilt for how little he
Speaker 1: cared about what happened to those men. I should feel
Speaker 1: worse about this. Roland knew the battle drugs had suppressed
Speaker 1: his conscience. He knew that the longer they stayed in
Speaker 1: this dangerous place, and the more fighting he did, the
Speaker 1: more tempted he'd be to kill outright. Roland leaned against
Speaker 1: the dumpster and closed his eyes. He tried to force
Speaker 1: himself to take long, slow breaths and meditate on the
Speaker 1: flow of air in and out of his lungs. He
Speaker 1: helped taking a breather would prompt his system to reduce
Speaker 1: the drip. Instead, he found himself flashing back to more violence.
Speaker 1: Red siren lights screeched and blinked on walls of institutional
Speaker 1: White men and women in lab coats ran and screamed
Speaker 1: and died, died, died as he squeezed the trigger of
Speaker 1: his sig sour. Roland kicked at a locked door and
Speaker 1: the metal buckled inwards, revealing a room with giant glass
Speaker 1: organ filled vials. He shook his head and tried to
Speaker 1: banish the memories. He'd started flashing back to this place
Speaker 1: when they had rescued Manny, but the memories had kept
Speaker 1: coming even once the violence subsided. Please, Rowland, the old
Speaker 1: woman begged through blood stained teeth. He looked down at
Speaker 1: the hole in her gut, the red blood on her
Speaker 1: white lab coat. She slid backwards on the tile floor
Speaker 1: until her shoulders hit one of the racks of that
Speaker 1: grown organs. Please don't do this, Roland shook his head.
Speaker 1: He didn't know why this was happening exactly. It was
Speaker 1: likely just a glitch, some unforeseen interaction between the wet
Speaker 1: wear of his hind brain, the procedural memory stored at
Speaker 1: his DNA, and the battle drugs that flowed through his system.
Speaker 1: He questioned again whether he really wanted his memories back.
Speaker 1: This wasn't the time to ponder that question, though. Roland
Speaker 1: headed back upstairs to grab Manny and Sasha. He led
Speaker 1: them down to the garage and handed Manny the unbloodied uniform. Dude,
Speaker 1: that's really obvious, Manny pointed to the bloodstains on Roland's
Speaker 1: own uniform. They're going to notice that, you think so.
Speaker 1: Roland was so used to normal humans not noticing much
Speaker 1: of anything. He sometimes underestimated their senses. I've got an idea,
Speaker 1: Sasha said, pop the hood. Roland and Manny were both
Speaker 1: a little surprised, but he popped it for her. The
Speaker 1: girl stared at the engine, reached for the dipstick and
Speaker 1: pulled it free from its slot. She rubbed her hand
Speaker 1: down the shaft and it came away covered in sticky
Speaker 1: black grease. She rubbed the grease onto Roland's collar, coated
Speaker 1: the dipstick again, and repeated the process two more times.
Speaker 1: When she was done, he looked like he'd been working
Speaker 1: on an engine rather than beating a man half to death.
Speaker 1: Fucking brilliant, Roland said. Manny nodded his agreement. Then he said,
Speaker 1: all right, let's go abducted doctor. The abduction itself was easy.
Speaker 1: Doctor Brandt lived in an undamaged mansion about two miles
Speaker 1: away from downtown. As one of the kingdom's few medical professionals,
Speaker 1: Doctor Aunt had apparently earned himself some luxury. Sasha hid
Speaker 1: in the trunk so the doctor wouldn't notice anything was
Speaker 1: off until he entered the vehicle. Where's Jerry and Samuel,
Speaker 1: Doctor Brandt asked as he opened the door and sat
Speaker 1: down inside the jeep, Many gunned the engine and peeled away.
Speaker 1: Roland put a hand on doctor Brandt's thigh and squeezed
Speaker 1: just hard enough for the man to feel like his
Speaker 1: thigh bone might shatter. I stuffed him in a closet somewhere,
Speaker 1: he explained, with a smile. My name is Manny, the
Speaker 1: fixer said. The guy who's about to break your leg
Speaker 1: is named Roland. We're kidnapping you, ah, said doctor Brandt.
Speaker 1: Roland had to give credit where credit was due. The
Speaker 1: doctor endured the pain with a stony face and without
Speaker 1: any signs of panic. We need you to help us
Speaker 1: get into the jail, Manny continued, where those negotiators from
Speaker 1: Rolling Fuck are being held. Doctor Brandt grimaced, either from
Speaker 1: the obscenity or just due to the continued pain of
Speaker 1: Roland's iron grip. And what makes you think I'll give
Speaker 1: you any aid? There was a bit of strain in
Speaker 1: his voice now, but the doctor's features stayed decidedly neutral.
Speaker 1: I may be a doctor, but I'm no less prepared
Speaker 1: to die for my kingdom than anyone else here. You
Speaker 1: might as well just go ahead and kill me. Roland
Speaker 1: relaxed his grip The doctor's sighed in relief. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: thought you might say something like that, said Manny. That's
Speaker 1: why Roland and I prepared an alternate proposal. Roland drew
Speaker 1: the guards stolen side arm from its holster. He gripped
Speaker 1: the pistol in one hand and then crushed it in
Speaker 1: his grip like he was bawling up a piece of paper.
Speaker 1: The doctor's eyes widened in shock and horror. So Manny said,
Speaker 1: my friends just full of chrome, high grade stuff. He
Speaker 1: could walk right through a tank if he wanted. You're
Speaker 1: an educated man, you know what people like him can do.
Speaker 1: The doctor nodded, but didn't say anything. Our offer is simple.
Speaker 1: You help us out and we'll leave with our people.
Speaker 1: You refuse to help, and we'll get our people anyway.
Speaker 1: Only Roland here will take a little detour to burn
Speaker 1: half the city to the ground. I see Roland could
Speaker 1: smell the fear wafting off doctor Brandt now, but the
Speaker 1: man's expression didn't change. You wouldn't be a doctor if
Speaker 1: you didn't see value in human lives. Manny's voice was soft.
Speaker 1: His reasonable tone wouldn't have been out of place in
Speaker 1: a boardroom. If you refuse to help us, We won't
Speaker 1: hurt you, won't harm a hair on your head. But
Speaker 1: my friend here will break this city and a few
Speaker 1: thousand of the people in it. You'll be hail and healthy,
Speaker 1: so you can pick up the pieces, and you'll know
Speaker 1: that every ounce of that suffering could have been prevented
Speaker 1: if you just helped us out. It's true, sir, Sasha
Speaker 1: spoke up. Doctor Brandt stiffened. She sat up from her
Speaker 1: hidden position in the back. The doctor was a smart man.
Speaker 1: He put together that she was not being held as
Speaker 1: a prisoner. His eyes narrowed in contempt Sasha. Doctor Brand's
Speaker 1: voice was cold. I'm sorry to see you in such
Speaker 1: poor company, Sir, I'm really sorry. But but nothing, he snapped,
Speaker 1: and now the anger showed on his face. Have you
Speaker 1: been a traitor this whole time? Or did your will
Speaker 1: simply fail Sasha. Manny spoke up, We really don't have
Speaker 1: time for this. Rowan disagreed. His hind brain estimated Sasha
Speaker 1: and the doctor could afford a solid eight minutes of
Speaker 1: emotional closure before they got too close to the jail.
Speaker 1: Is eight minutes out of time for you people. Everyone
Speaker 1: stared at him, their individual disagreements forgotten for a moment.
Speaker 1: Roland realized late that he had spoken out loud. Sorry,
Speaker 1: he said, I was just supposed to be in my head.
Speaker 1: They still stared. Well, now you only have like seven
Speaker 1: minutes and forty seconds. Ignore that, said Manny. He's a maniac.
Speaker 1: That's why you don't want us to let him loosen
Speaker 1: your city, doctor Brandt. Sasha added, I know you're a
Speaker 1: good man. The Lord put you on this earth to
Speaker 1: save lives. This is your chance to do that. The
Speaker 1: doctor needed the bridge of his nose with his hand.
Speaker 1: Hated an admirable job of not giving too much away
Speaker 1: with his body language. But Roland could smell the truth.
Speaker 1: The scent of stress wafting off the doctor faded. It
Speaker 1: was a sign the man had made a decision. There
Speaker 1: was something about choosing that calmed the human soul. You
Speaker 1: are correct, of course, Sasha. I never approved of us
Speaker 1: holding those women in the first place. It was foolish
Speaker 1: to antagonize things like him. He nodded towards Roland. If
Speaker 1: I can avert a massacre, I will, But I sincerely
Speaker 1: hope you planned to a gape with them, Sasha. I
Speaker 1: won't hide to protect a traitor. I'll leave Sasha said.
Speaker 1: The doctor gave a somber nod. I won't be able
Speaker 1: to get you out of the jail with those prisoners,
Speaker 1: you know, he said to Roland. I can get you inside,
Speaker 1: and I can probably get them to send the prisoners
Speaker 1: into an examination room, but the guards won't let them
Speaker 1: leave the building. I'll take care of that part, Rowland promised.
Speaker 1: I'm real good at making doors. Rowland was aware of
Speaker 1: the old saying no plan survives contact with the enemy.
Speaker 1: For some reason, his hind brain remembered the original version
Speaker 1: of the quote from an old Prussian general named Moltke.
Speaker 1: No plan of operations extends with any certainty beyond first
Speaker 1: contact with the main hostile force. People who observed Roland
Speaker 1: and battle tended to think he just sort of winged
Speaker 1: it and ballsed his way through on violent potential alone.
Speaker 1: But Rowland was at his core a planner. Having a
Speaker 1: plan was essential to take maximum advantage of the way
Speaker 1: his hind brain worked. A plan was nothing more than
Speaker 1: a clear set of tactics meant to accomplish a concrete goal.
Speaker 1: In this case, the goal was free the prisoner and
Speaker 1: take his new friends to safety. The plan he constructed
Speaker 1: to achieve That goal was based mainly on Sasha's recollections
Speaker 1: and his own espionage on the jail. He knew it
Speaker 1: would change once the shooting started, but the fact that
Speaker 1: he had a rubric would give his hindbrain something to
Speaker 1: focus on while it zeroed in on the best tactics
Speaker 1: for the evolving situation. At any rate, the plan Manny
Speaker 1: and Sasha had cooked up actually did survive first contact
Speaker 1: with the enemy. Rowland and Manny had posed as guards
Speaker 1: and followed doctor Brandt and Sasha right through the door.
Speaker 1: The martyrs inside were all used to seeing the doctor
Speaker 1: and his assistant, and they didn't pay a different set
Speaker 1: of armed guards any mind. When doctor Brandt requested they
Speaker 1: send all the prisoners into the examination room, the officer
Speaker 1: in charge didn't even blink at the request. The only
Speaker 1: thing that had seemed off to Rowland was an odd
Speaker 1: scent of anxiety in the air. It wafted off the
Speaker 1: guards and hung in a thick cloud above the entrance room.
Speaker 1: The Odor reminded Rowland of countless hours spent sitting with
Speaker 1: nervous men in the cramped belly of an a PC
Speaker 1: or a drop aircraft. He assumed this had something to
Speaker 1: do with a giant explosion he'd caused earlier, or his
Speaker 1: escape from the training facility. Of course, these guys are
Speaker 1: unhigh alert, he thought. Some nut fuck monster man blew
Speaker 1: up a factory this morning. Doctor Brandt led them into
Speaker 1: a large waiting room and closed the door. He let
Speaker 1: out a long nervous sigh and slumped back against the wall. Okay,
Speaker 1: you'll have your prisoners soon enough, and no one else
Speaker 1: will need to die. Right, he looked straight at Roland. Right,
Speaker 1: Roland said, and then added up till you Fox invaded Dallas.
Speaker 1: I've gotten years without killing anyone. I'm actually pretty good
Speaker 1: at it. The doctor did not seem comforted by this fact.
Speaker 1: Roland opened his mouth again, but Manny put a hand
Speaker 1: on his shoulder. No, he said, and Roland nodded. I
Speaker 1: could have avoided so many violent misunderstandings with his kid's help.
Speaker 1: Roland molled this over and wondered if Manny might be
Speaker 1: interested in an adjoining mountain top shack. Just then the
Speaker 1: door opened, a guard entered. He was followed by the
Speaker 1: three prisoners and then two more guards. Rolling Fox negotiators
Speaker 1: were all handcuffed to each other. Roland had been shown
Speaker 1: pictures of all three captives before they departed the City
Speaker 1: of Wheels, so it wasn't hard to recognize Marigold, Toulli,
Speaker 1: and Rick, but they all looked different. Marigold's bright purple
Speaker 1: hair was limp and greasy. The sockets on her augmented
Speaker 1: arm had been filled in with some sort of resinous substance. Toulli,
Speaker 1: bald in her pictures, now had a head full of
Speaker 1: peach fuzz. Her necklaces and amulets and rings were all gone.
Speaker 1: Of course, she looked pale and deflated. Roland could see
Speaker 1: the ghost of an old black eye, likely earned during
Speaker 1: the initial capture. She walked with a limp, but otherwise
Speaker 1: looked healthy enough. And then there was Rick. His wounds
Speaker 1: were fresh and extensive. He was covered in bruises, and
Speaker 1: it looked like his guards had cut into him, writing
Speaker 1: over several of his scarified tattoos with a combat knife.
Speaker 1: His left eye was broken and looked dead. Roland could
Speaker 1: tell the man's orbital bone had been shattered, and with
Speaker 1: the slow juttering way his good eye looked around the room,
Speaker 1: it was likely he'd suffered at least one concussion. Doctor
Speaker 1: Brandt sighed and went right to the injured young man.
Speaker 1: Have the other sit down, he told the guards. He
Speaker 1: started to examine Rick, his jaw clenched, his eyes narrowed.
Speaker 1: Roland felt the doctor's heart rate accelerate and anger. You've
Speaker 1: been at him again, haven't you, Doctor Brandt sounded angry.
Speaker 1: I told you all this had to stop. He's clearly concussed.
Speaker 1: You could have killed him. The lead guard shrugged and
Speaker 1: rolled his eyes. One of the other guards snickered. Roland
Speaker 1: could tell by the look of fury on the doctor's
Speaker 1: face that he was not used to being treated this way. Soljia,
Speaker 1: I am the senior medical doctor of this entire kingdom.
Speaker 1: I will bring your superior into this and I will,
Speaker 1: Roland heard, and then smelled six new men into the jail.
Speaker 1: His mind rocketed downstairs, away from the petty argument and
Speaker 1: started to analyze the new arrivals. There were soldiers, he
Speaker 1: could tell by the sound of their footfalls and the
Speaker 1: strong smell of gun oil and powder that wafted off
Speaker 1: of them. One of them smelled familiar. He'd been present
Speaker 1: when Manny had been abducted to the factory. Roland guessed
Speaker 1: this was the guy Sasha had told him about during
Speaker 1: their impromptu rescue mission. Huh, Roland said out loud. Manny
Speaker 1: was the only one who seemed to notice what. Manny asked,
Speaker 1: in a voice low enough that the guards wouldn't hear
Speaker 1: it over the sound of doctor At dressing them down.
Speaker 1: That guy, Alexander, he just entered the building with a
Speaker 1: squad of armed men. What does that mean? Uhh, Roland shrugged.
Speaker 1: Probably an ambush. Roland was a bit embarrassed that it
Speaker 1: had taken him this long to piece it together. That's
Speaker 1: why the guards had been so accommodating of Doctor Brand's
Speaker 1: unusual request. It's why they'd smelled so nervous. Somehow the
Speaker 1: rescue attempt had been spotted before it had gone down.
Speaker 1: The soldiers of the Heavenly Kingdom must have assumed the
Speaker 1: doctor was a traitor too. Roland stood up. He knew
Speaker 1: that violence would need to happen here. There were too
Speaker 1: many decent people's lives at stake for anything else. The
Speaker 1: instant his forebrain made that decision. His hind brain started
Speaker 1: pouring adrenaline and battle drugs into his synapses. He felt
Speaker 1: the electric crackle of chemical glee start deep in the
Speaker 1: back of his neck. It spread out to his shoulders,
Speaker 1: down his arms to the tip of his fingers. Roland
Speaker 1: fought back against the building euphoria. While he analyzed the situation,
Speaker 1: the world slowed down around him. He had plenty of
Speaker 1: time to watch as the guards started to reach for
Speaker 1: their side arms. The word ambush had keyed them in,
Speaker 1: but it didn't matter. They still moved too slow to
Speaker 1: effect anything. His hind brain calculated that Manny and Sasha
Speaker 1: were relatively safe. No one had a gun on them
Speaker 1: just now. The prisoners were his priority. Then they were
Speaker 1: exposed both to the door that enemy reinforcements which soon
Speaker 1: rush through, and to the guards already in the room.
Speaker 1: Doctor Brandt was a tertiary responsibility. He seemed like a
Speaker 1: decent enough guy in spite of it all. Alexander and
Speaker 1: his men are two point oh four seconds from the door,
Speaker 1: maybe faster if they dropped into a dead sprint. Roland
Speaker 1: stepped forward into the lead guard. He grabbed the man
Speaker 1: by the hair, lifted him into the air, and slammed
Speaker 1: his skull hard into the second guard's face. Bone cracked.
Speaker 1: Sixteen point three and twenty eight point seven percent chances
Speaker 1: of fatal hemorrhage respectively. Roland dropped the first man and
Speaker 1: plunged his fingers into the third guard's eyes. He gouged deep,
Speaker 1: stopped just short of the man's brain, and then pulled
Speaker 1: his hand free. The man staggered back, opened his mouth,
Speaker 1: and started to scream. A surge of battle drugs hit
Speaker 1: roland synapses at just that moment, and in a fit
Speaker 1: of gleeful pique, he grabbed the man by the jaw
Speaker 1: and pulled. His intent had been to yank the man's
Speaker 1: head into his knee, but he pulled a little too
Speaker 1: hard and ripped the whole jaw free. The man fell back, gurgled, bled.
Speaker 1: Huh my bad, Roland said to no one in particular.
Speaker 1: He shoved the jaw into his front pocket, figuring it
Speaker 1: might make a useful weapon when the reinforcement showed up.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, he set to work ripping the prisoner's
Speaker 1: manacle chains apart. It'd have taken too long to remove
Speaker 1: the manacles, but at least with the chains free, they'd
Speaker 1: all be able to move with What are you? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, Roland? What ha? Doctor brand Manny and Sasha
Speaker 1: finally reacted. Roland had to remind himself that their brains
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been able to properly process what he'd done
Speaker 1: while it was happening. The whole altercation had lasted barely
Speaker 1: a quarter second. To Manny, Sasha, and doctor Brandt. The
Speaker 1: violence had been disorienting and almost unintelligible. The three negotiators
Speaker 1: from rolling Fuck, we're not stock Sapien. They'd reacted faster
Speaker 1: and gone to ground almost as soon as he'd rushed
Speaker 1: the first man. At least the women had. The young
Speaker 1: man was too dazed and battered to react much at all,
Speaker 1: so his friends pulled him down and shielded him with
Speaker 1: their bodies. Of the other three, Manny was the first
Speaker 1: to react. He grabbed Sasha by the shoulder and shoved
Speaker 1: her down below the window line. Roland was proud. He
Speaker 1: would have said something about that, but everything went disastrously
Speaker 1: wrong a fraction of a second later. Roland had known
Speaker 1: Alexander and his men were rushing the door. He'd estimated
Speaker 1: a solid one point four seconds before they breached the entryway.
Speaker 1: That's why he'd occupied himself by checking on every one.
Speaker 1: He'd trusted his senses and trusted that the Heavenly Kingdom
Speaker 1: didn't have any gear. He hadn't already seen. That proved
Speaker 1: to be a mistake, because, unbeknownst to Roland, two men
Speaker 1: in powered armor hung off the outside wall of the building,
Speaker 1: directly underneath the window. Their suits were bleeding edge stealth
Speaker 1: technology utterly absent from Roland's pieda bites of memory. His
Speaker 1: passive censors had missed them entirely. Roland first realized they
Speaker 1: were there and that he'd aired terribly when they opened
Speaker 1: fire close to a hundred thirty cow lebr slugs tore
Speaker 1: through the wall of the jail at roughly forty two
Speaker 1: hundred feet per second. They were fired at such close
Speaker 1: range and with such total surprise that Roland was unable
Speaker 1: to dodge or prep his subdermal armor for impact. Nineteen
Speaker 1: rounds hit him fifteen in his center of mass, one
Speaker 1: in his left thigh, and three in his right shoulder.
Speaker 1: Two hit Manny, ripping a hole through his left hand
Speaker 1: and another through his kidney. Doctor Brandt, who had only
Speaker 1: half turned to face Rowland at this point, was torn
Speaker 1: apart in a fusillade of steel. Rowland also registered hits
Speaker 1: on their not yet rescued captives, one in Tullie's left
Speaker 1: butt cheek, one that severed Rick's index finger, and another
Speaker 1: in the young man's shoulder. Rowland staggered back from the
Speaker 1: impact of the rounds just as Alexander's point man burst
Speaker 1: through the door. The coordination between the two teams was impressive,
Speaker 1: as was the fact that the suited man hadn't hit
Speaker 1: their allies on the other side of the door. On
Speaker 1: a normal day, Roland would have ripped the shotgun out
Speaker 1: of the point man's hands and castrated him with it.
Speaker 1: But this was not a normal day, and Roland's brain
Speaker 1: was occupied with a damage to his body. The point
Speaker 1: man fired twice and sent one ounce tungsten slugs through
Speaker 1: both of Roland's knees. He dropped, rolled, moaned, and then
Speaker 1: the rest of the team was in the room. They
Speaker 1: moved well, not like vets, but like men who'd trained
Speaker 1: a lot for entries like this. They all wore heavy
Speaker 1: body armor. It wasn't powered, but it provided solid protection
Speaker 1: against small arms fire. The mostly packed auto shotguns smart choice,
Speaker 1: Roland thought, when fighting post humans, go for tissue damage.
Speaker 1: He was hurt, nothing fatal yet, but the loss of
Speaker 1: momentum and control had cost him dearly. Now six men
Speaker 1: had a beat on him with weaponry powerful enough to
Speaker 1: do some real damage. Roland listened as one of the
Speaker 1: stealth suit smashed the remainder of the window in and
Speaker 1: crawled inside the room. This armor was much more subtle
Speaker 1: than the standard Air's pattern power armor. Aside from plating
Speaker 1: at the chest and shins, it didn't look like it
Speaker 1: added a substantial amount of protection. But the suit was
Speaker 1: covered in high definition display panels. The man was hard
Speaker 1: for Roland to see. He would have been nigh invisible
Speaker 1: to a normal human. Shit Roland's bat blood and looked
Speaker 1: up just as a very satisfied looking young man stepped
Speaker 1: into the room. He was tall, handsome, and well built.
Speaker 1: He wore the same armor as his men, but lacked
Speaker 1: a helmet. Instead, he had a red beret with a
Speaker 1: lacquered gold cross pin to the front. Roland took one
Speaker 1: look at the boy's prominent jaw line and well tanned skin.
Speaker 1: He grudgingly agreed that it would have been a crime
Speaker 1: to cover up that face. How new were those fucking suits,
Speaker 1: he asked the fancy man. The Republic had some very
Speaker 1: choice gear in its armory. The youth replied, My superiors
Speaker 1: will be happy to hear how well it worked against you.
Speaker 1: He sauntered into the room like a conquering king, waving
Speaker 1: his pistol lazily at the captives. Hello, Sasha, he said,
Speaker 1: with a smile and a cheery wave of his free hand. Alexander,
Speaker 1: she replied, in a tone as cold as ice. The
Speaker 1: young man Alexander stopped in front of Roland, peered down
Speaker 1: and grinned the ship, eating hist grin in the history
Speaker 1: of eating shit, you know, he said, It was rather
Speaker 1: easy drawing you into this trap. Once you played your
Speaker 1: hand at the training camp. We knew you'd come here sooner.
Speaker 1: Oh Laeda, I was rather surprised to see you involved, Sasha.
Speaker 1: He looked up at her, Awanda, Was this your plan
Speaker 1: all along? Or are you merely an opportunist clutching to
Speaker 1: these men because my proposition injured your ego? He laughed prickishly.
Speaker 1: Roland wanted to hit him, but the situation merited further
Speaker 1: analysis before action. Much of the damage done to him
Speaker 1: in the ambush had already healed, and none of it
Speaker 1: was substantial enough to impede his deadliness, but his position
Speaker 1: was rather tenuous. The second armored soldier crouched at the
Speaker 1: window adhered to the outside wall. The first stealth suited
Speaker 1: soldier had one gun trained on Manny and another aimed
Speaker 1: at Roland. Alexander's men all had him dead to rights,
Speaker 1: shotguns leveled in fingers on triggers. He could perhaps move
Speaker 1: fast enough to take out one or two of them,
Speaker 1: but the others would do a significant amount of damage
Speaker 1: in the meantime, and more to the point, Roland could
Speaker 1: do nothing to insure Sasha and Manny's safety. He considered
Speaker 1: their deaths unacceptable. I really am a bit disappointed, and
Speaker 1: how easy the saul was. The young fuck continued, I
Speaker 1: thought we'd be in for more of a fight here.
Speaker 1: I guess the stories about your kind were exaggerated, after all,
Speaker 1: I suspected. So no amount of scientific tinkering can replace
Speaker 1: the blessings of God behind a righteous men. Roland sensed movement,
Speaker 1: not from Manny. He was frozen still next to Sasha
Speaker 1: under the gun of one of the power armored troopers.
Speaker 1: It didn't come from any of Alexander's men either. It
Speaker 1: was Marigold. The woman had gritted her teeth and inched
Speaker 1: her hand towards the body of the guard Roland. A
Speaker 1: dee jawed, he watched she wrapped her hand around the
Speaker 1: grip of his side arm. Alexander stepped around him and
Speaker 1: headed towards Sasha. The other soldiers still had their weapons
Speaker 1: trained on Roland. They didn't seem to have noticed Marigold.
Speaker 1: I warn't you, didn't I? Sasha? Alexander asked, as a
Speaker 1: smile played across his lips. I'll warn't you what came
Speaker 1: of defying God's will? And then you allied yourself with
Speaker 1: a beast whose very existence is a sin against our
Speaker 1: heavenly Father. If Christ had intended, Roll never got to
Speaker 1: hear the rest of that sentence, because Alexander never got
Speaker 1: to say it. He was interrupted by Marigold, pulling the
Speaker 1: pistol free of its holster and swinging it up towards
Speaker 1: the groin of the squad's point man. She fired twice,
Speaker 1: switched targets, and pumped two more rounds into the unarmored
Speaker 1: belly of a second man. Roland was up and off
Speaker 1: the ground. Between the second and third shot. He swung
Speaker 1: his fist hard into the face plate of the nearest
Speaker 1: soldier's helmet. The plexiglass shattered, and Roland's knuckles pushed shards
Speaker 1: into the man's cheeks and eyes. The martyr screamed and
Speaker 1: fired a shot that went wide because Roland dove to
Speaker 1: the left as he retracted his fist and pivoted to
Speaker 1: rush the power armored man holding a gun on Manny
Speaker 1: and Sasha. There were no good options here. Marigold's intervention
Speaker 1: had given them all a chance, but Roland had been
Speaker 1: forced to make a choice between going after the armored
Speaker 1: men and saving his friends, or taking out the entry
Speaker 1: team and saving Marigold and her friends. He heard her
Speaker 1: fire two more shots and heard them impact, but then
Speaker 1: his attention was consumed by the two men in powered armor.
Speaker 1: They had recovered first, and both men opened up Roland
Speaker 1: as he charged. There was no dodging at this distance.
Speaker 1: It was barely possible to mitigate the damage in any way.
Speaker 1: Roland took thirty high velocity rounds to the face, neck, shoulders,
Speaker 1: and upper chest. Some of them were stopped by his
Speaker 1: subderm alarmor, most weren't. He felt, holy shit, real pain
Speaker 1: for the first time in what felt like years. Roland's
Speaker 1: wired nervous system rewarded this with a flood of chemical bliss.
Speaker 1: As he charged, he smiled and whooped like a sixteen
Speaker 1: year old. Railing his first line of blow, he dove
Speaker 1: into the first man hands first, grabbed his enemy by
Speaker 1: the neck, and then bum rushed him into the man
Speaker 1: hanging outside the window. This knocked the top of the
Speaker 1: second man's body free from the wall and sent him
Speaker 1: reeling half back into open air. The man's feet were
Speaker 1: still attached to the building, but his body flailed free.
Speaker 1: Roland kept his grip and focus on the first armored man.
Speaker 1: The martyr's neck armor had hardened to resist the crushing
Speaker 1: strength of Roland's grip, so he shook the man's head
Speaker 1: back and forth and slammed it into the frame of
Speaker 1: the building as hard as possible. The soldier pumped another
Speaker 1: dozen rounds point blank into Roland's body. He saw red,
Speaker 1: He felt red. He was numbly aware of the tremendous
Speaker 1: amount of damage being done to him, but none of
Speaker 1: it had yet rendered him unable to throttle this motherfucker.
Speaker 1: So he continued to squeeze until the armor's neck seals failed, cracked,
Speaker 1: and Roland's fingernails bit deep into the meat of the
Speaker 1: man's throat and crushed his windpipe. Roland tossed the body
Speaker 1: aside and went for the second man still flailing outside
Speaker 1: the window. He was interrupted when Alexander fired a slug
Speaker 1: into his temple. The round impact at his reinforced skull
Speaker 1: and ricocheted off, but the impact the force of the
Speaker 1: blow itself made him seize stars it hurt Roland staggered
Speaker 1: back into the side. Then several things happened in very
Speaker 1: quick succession. Marigold fired another round her last. It was
Speaker 1: followed by the sound of the two remaining guards opening
Speaker 1: up with their shotguns. Roland heard as she was torn apart.
Speaker 1: Just as his eyes started to focus again, Alexander fired
Speaker 1: two more shots directly into his head. The man on
Speaker 1: the wall finally found his grip again, and Roland felt
Speaker 1: the power armored soldiers steady himself to open fire. Roland
Speaker 1: akenhind brain advised him that going for the armored man
Speaker 1: was probably his best decision, so he surged forward, less
Speaker 1: steady than before, and hunched his shoulders in anticipation of
Speaker 1: taking another slugger for to the brain pan, but that
Speaker 1: didn't happen. For the second time to day, Roland was
Speaker 1: surprised by the actions of a normal human. This time
Speaker 1: it was Sasha. She'd gotten up from where she and
Speaker 1: Manny had taken shelter from the gunfight and crawled over
Speaker 1: to the body of the first guard Roland had disabled.
Speaker 1: He'd been dimly aware of this in the semi conscious way.
Speaker 1: He was aware of the traffic passing outside, his brain
Speaker 1: had opted to not focus on it, since the heavily
Speaker 1: armed men were a more pressing concern. But then Sasha
Speaker 1: had removed the unconscious guard's helmet and rushed towards Alexander.
Speaker 1: She swung first for his gun hand. Roland heard her
Speaker 1: knock the pistol free of his grip. Then she hit
Speaker 1: him in the face, over and over and over again.
Speaker 1: Roland felt the urge to thank her, but just then
Speaker 1: the power armored man became a concern again. The fucker
Speaker 1: managed to get off three more shots before Roland ripped
Speaker 1: the weapon free from its forearm mount and used it
Speaker 1: to cave in the armored face. Light. Blood spurted out,
Speaker 1: and the man fell limp back out the window. His
Speaker 1: feet continued to adhere to the outside wall while his jerking,
Speaker 1: bleeding body dangled in the breeze. Roland turned just in
Speaker 1: time to take another two slugs from another two shotguns,
Speaker 1: but then the men were empty. They'd pumped most of
Speaker 1: their rounds into Marigold's body. They fumbled to reload, panicked
Speaker 1: and clearly unused to carrying out the task in a
Speaker 1: combat situation. Roland could smell the terror as it wafted
Speaker 1: off their bodies. Their fear hit his nervous system like
Speaker 1: an ounce of crystal meth. He loomed towards them, and
Speaker 1: for a second the only sounds in the room were
Speaker 1: his footsteps and the dull thwap of Sasha pounding her
Speaker 1: helmet into Alexander's now shattered skull. Roland whipped his left
Speaker 1: arm out A massive blade not unlike a straight razor,
Speaker 1: tore through the flesh of his inner forearm and locked
Speaker 1: into place. The men screamed, one dropped his shotgun and
Speaker 1: tried to run. Roland tore into him first, using the
Speaker 1: blade to sever the fucker's arms. Battle drugs and pure
Speaker 1: liquid satisfaction flowed into roland synapses. His dick went hard,
Speaker 1: and he dreamed in wordless joy as he slashed downwards
Speaker 1: and sliced off the man's face. The poor bastard fell away, burbling,
Speaker 1: and Roland turned towards the last soldier. He died an
Speaker 1: equally terrible death. And then it was done. The battle
Speaker 1: was over. Quiet reigned. The only sounds audible to a
Speaker 1: normal human would have been the blood spurting from dead
Speaker 1: and dying bodies, and the sound of sobbing. Tully sobbed
Speaker 1: for Marigold, Sasha sobbed for Roland guest her lost innocence.
Speaker 1: And then out in the city beyond came the sound
Speaker 1: of a hundred sirens. The martyrs were coming for them. Hey,
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