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Chapter 0, Part I [cont.]
📅 MARCH 24, 2023 - 2:00 AM PST
📍 Great Basin Desert, Nevada, United States
One hour a day. That was all the time she was allowed to spend outside her cell, just like everyone else. One hour of suffocating under the heat of the Nevadan sun in the “courtyard,” a 1-acre field of sand bordered by chain link fence topped with electrified razor wire, before she would be sent back to the arid, frigid concrete walls of her confines felt more like a purgatory than anything else. A single flickering light bulb hung in isolation above the concrete slab that was her bed, its incessant buzzing steadily stripping away at her mental fortitude like layers of an onion.
Just before succumbing to her delirium, an explosion sent ripples of shockwaves cascading through the building. Catherine snapped back into consciousness and abruptly sat back up in bed, her stomach painfully churning with adrenaline. She was in a state of lucidity and alertness she hadn’t felt in months. Legs trembling and ears still ringing, she stumbled over to the door of her cell and peeked through the tiny opening. In a sweeping motion, the other cells lining the walls grew dark, and soon enough the entire building was entombed in an impenetrable darkness. Sirens and alarms wailed in the distance, a mere backdrop against gunshots that rang painfully close and stabbed at her ears.
Beams of light cut through the darkness with blindingly bright, rapid flashes of light. Shouting and screaming punctuated with bursts of gunfire erupted all around her. Catherine shook the door handle with reckless abandon and tried to force it open, her chest heaving in rapid succession with every panicked breath she took.
Suddenly, the electronic lock disengaged and the door flung open with little resistance. And so had the one next to her. And the next. When emergency lights finally turned on, Catherine realized that every cell door had suddenly been unlocked. This blessing in disguise very quickly became more of a curse as the panic increased tenfold. She ran to the nearest exit and immediately stumbled and smashed her face into the ground, her legs having given out underneath her.
The other prisoners, unsurprisingly having the same idea, all made a break for the single point of entry and exit. Hundreds of footsteps thundered all around Catherine as she struggled to rise to her feet amidst the flowing rapids of bodies that would push, trample, and shove her back to the ground. Gasping in pain, she steadily rose to her feet once again and limped towards the exit, leaning against the railing for support. She looked towards the ground floor and watched as a handful of prisoners lined up against a wall were mercilessly gunned down by a group of mercenaries wearing all black BDUs, one that contrasted the usual desert camo pattern she saw the guards wearing. Her breathing had been reduced to fervent panting and all higher functions ceased to exist as her survival instincts kicked into overdrive.
Just before she could reach the corridor leading to the central wing of the prison, she was once again knocked to the ground by what felt like a sledgehammer ramming into her shoulder. She winced and cried out, struggling to stand back up on her battered legs that felt as if they were made of jello. Suddenly, a pair of large hangs grabbed her by the ankles with a painful vice grip. By the time she registered what was happening, she was already being dragged into a nearby cell. The blood streaming from her nose left an intermittent trail of bright red on the ground as the last remaining prisoners ran by, gunshots still ringing loudly and screaming erupting all around.
Mustering what little strength she had left, Catherine jerked one of her legs free and kicked the man dragging her square in the chest. It felt like she had just kicked a brick wall, and before she could wind back for another strike, he braced both of her legs under his arms, truly immobilizing her. “LET GO OF ME!” she screamed in futility, trying to wiggle her legs free as she held onto the bars forming the wall of the cell. With a powerful yank, her grip was painfully torn loose as she was thrown into the corner of the cell that reeked of unwashed asscrack and semen. She finally caught a glimpse of the man who was about to violate her, or kill her, or maybe both. He stood almost 6 and a half feet tall wearing a bloodstained wifebeater and orange jumpsuit stretched around his barrel-chested physique. The ground shook with every heavy step he took towards the helpless, trembling Catherine, who winced and curled into a fetal position having accepted her fate, her sole wish being that the mercenaries’ bullets would soon find her and tear through her body to end her suffering as quickly as possible.
“Oh, hi!”
A muffled shout erupted above her. Catherine’s eyes shot open to see that a damp pillowcase had been pulled over the man’s head and tied off at the neck with a makeshift rope made out of torn bedsheets. It all happened too quickly for her panicked mind to properly process, but in the blink of an eye someone - or something - had climbed up onto the man’s back, legs wrapped around him from behind as she stabbed him in the neck with reckless abandon. A fountain of blood spouted from the gaping perforation in his neck as he toppled over the railing end over end, limbs flailing wildly. All was silent for a second, then a resounding crunch echoed from below.
Catherine lay paralyzed on the floor of the cell, staring off blankly into the distance having apparently forgotten how to breathe. Her guardian angel, a brown-haired, brown-eyed girl who was taller and slender than herself, bent down and brushed Catherine’s snowy bangs to the side with a bloodied hand, the other loosely holding a shank made out of plastic utensils that had just tasted its first blood. “Are you okay? Can you walk?”
Catherine was swiftly stirred from her catatonic state with a backhand across the cheek. She gasped and locked her eyes with the irises of shimmering topaz of the other girl’s. “Y-yes!”
“What’s your name?”
“Catherine!”
“I’m Noelle. We need to get the hell out of here stat! There’s some trucks in the warehouse we can take. There isn’t much time left… I overheard some of them saying they’re gonna bring the whole place down! Let’s go!!”
Noelle took Catherine’s hand and pulled her back up. Hand in hand, they ran down chilly corridors of concrete and rusty catwalks that noisily clattered underfoot as ear-splitting gunshots and shouts, screams, gurgles echoed all around. Lifeless bodies were strewn all over the floor, riddled with bullet holes from which a dark liquid seeped onto their orange jumpsuits. Bullet holes and splatters of red adorned the walls around them. Whoever this girl was, prisoner or not, she knew this place like the back of her own hand.
They finally arrived at a large maintenance warehouse in a matter of minutes. The howling screams, gunfire, and explosions reverberated all around them, albeit somewhat less quietly now. “Are we here yet?” Catherine asked in between deep, almost heaving breaths, having just gone through the most intense physical exercise she’d experienced in weeks, if not months.
“We’re here, but…” Truck trailers loaded with various heavy machinery and forklifts were lined up neatly along both sides, but the trucks Noelle mentioned were nowhere to be found. “Damn it!” she shouted, more in annoyance than anything else. “I swear they had a bunch here… unless that backstabbing son of a bitch set me up! When I get my hands on his candy ass I’m gonna fuc…” while her words trailed off into unintelligible grumbles, her annoyance turned to anger with the clench of a fist. She suddenly turned to Catherine and smiled with reassurance, abandoning in an instant the facade of contempt she so quickly turned to. “Don’t worry, I’ll figure something out. Trust me! I’m- we’re getting out of here in one piece!”
“FREEZE!”
Catherine gasped and froze in place at the sound of the mercenary’s command and multiple rifles being raised. She could almost feel their laser sights piercing through her back. Mortified, she slowly looked over to her right, seeking any vestiges of comfort from Noelle who stared off into the distance in silence, not returning her gaze.
“Hands on your head, and get on your knees! Slowly!” he barked, inching closer and closer with his two remaining squadmates. The two girls had no choice but to comply, Catherine in particular struggling to squat down as the adrenaline started to wear off and the pain began setting in.
“Sir, what should we do?” shouted one of the other mercenaries, his voice noticeably younger than the first. The tip of his rifle trembled then lowered timidly as he looked to his squadmates. “They’re just kids!”
“You heard the man. Nobody gets outta this shithole alive,” spoke the first mercenary gruffly. “Command says they’re useless without the substrate and we have no idea where the hell that is, let alone if they even have any here. We’re disposing of them all.” Those last words tore Catherine’s heart apart as an imminent, inescapable dread filled her.
“W- what do we do?” Catherine’s whispers to Noelle betrayed her rapidly faltering composure, though it wasn’t much of a secret to begin with; she trembled uncontrollably as if she physically felt the very presence of death drawing near. Her words fell on deaf ears, the brunette simply staring off into the distance. There weren’t any tricks left up her sleeve, and Catherine seemed to understand this with a silent whimper of resignation.
The younger mercenary swallowed and remained silent as every fiber of his being and conscience fought against the orders he had been given. “Can’t we just-”
“You heard what I said!” The first mercenary lowered his rifle and grabbed his bitchy subordinate by the collar, pulling him close. “They ain’t worth the trouble. In fact, I’d even say we’re doing ‘em a massive favor! You, on the other hand, seem quite opposed to all this. You know what happens to those who disobey orders. Now do as I say and light them the fuck up or you’re next.”
Catherine’s tears stung like alkaline as they rolled down her rosy cheeks, her sobs drowning out the sound of the rifles being charged behind her. She closed her eyes and buried her face in Noelle’s shoulder and waited for the bullets to tear her body into shreds.
“WHAT THE FUCK?!”
Catherine winced as a great blaring of horns sounded from behind. Not gunshots, a single train horn that seemed to drown out every other sound and even conscious thought. Noelle tackled Catherine out of harm’s way as the horn grew louder, followed by a displaced vortex of wind battering their bodies. The girls looked up and watched dumbfoundedly as an eight-wheeled armored truck barreled into their would-be executors at full speed, its wall-sized steel bumper sending them flying before their bodies were ground into a crunchy paste under massive 50-inch off-road tires. Whatever was left of their mangled remains was thrown up into the wheel wells and twisted into oblivion like pretzels, crushed bone and tattered viscera scattered everywhere.
The tan behemoth ground to a halt as its air brakes loudly hissed. Blood and congealed chunks of red dripped from the bumper and was splattered all over the front of the truck. Fearing the worst, Noelle swiped an AK from one of the bodies and aimed it at the driver’s side door as it slowly cracked open.
“Is that how you treat the person who just saved your ass?!” shouted the driver. “Ungrateful little shit!”
“Who the hell are you?” Noelle shouted back, keeping her rifle aimed at the open door.
The driver stepped out. It was a girl not much older than herself with auburn hair and freckles. She wore a white tank top under a red and white bodysuit, the top half of which was tied around her waist. Suddenly, one of the piles of twisted flesh and crushed bone previously belonging to the mercenaries gasped loudly with a choked gurgle, raising an arm towards the redhead. She drew a handgun from her leg holster and fired a single shot at his head that squelched in response. Silence rang out once more.
Noell’s eyes fixed on the driver’s suit and blinked in bewilderment as if she had been graced with a divine epiphany. She’d seen them all throughout her childhood, their distinctive designs burned into her mind from page after page of her father’s military magazines or hours upon hours of war documentaries.
“You’re…!” she gasped.
“You gonna keep staring like that or are you gonna get on?” There was a second girl inside, hidden from sight. “Come on!”
Not wasting any more time, Noelle and Catherine climbed inside the truck’s cabin. The thousand-pound door slammed shut behind them, and with an ascending growl of the massive turbodiesel V8, the truck quickly reversed out of the warehouse and smashed through a jammed shutter door as if it was a .50 BMG shell passing through a block of butter.
“Hold on!” The redhead’s shouts were barely audible over the howling of the 11-liter engine and its turbos that whistled like a banshee. She yanked the emergency brake and spun the steering wheel, causing all four girls to lurch to the side as the truck snapped about its vertical axis. Throwing the transmission in neutral and then drive as the truck ground to a rotational halt, she then stomped on the gas pedal. A primordial roar erupted from the exhaust as all eight tires gripped the pavement and sped through the airfield, launching the truck through a destroyed security checkpoint.
Noelle glued her face to the 2-inch thick bulletproof glass and watched as the base disappeared into the distance, multiple plumes of smoke rising from raging fires as helicopters circled overhead. The explosions and gunshots all around them quickly subsided and gave way to the omnipotent rumble of the diesel engine and all eight tires spinning through the rough trail of sand and rock.
“Is anyone following us?!” the redhead shouted, still alert.
“No. We might’ve been seen, but anyone who did is most likely too busy defending the base, let alone able to pursue us,” the dark-haired girl riding shotgun reasoned. She looked over her shoulder. “You two okay back there? Anyone hurt?” she asked the girls in the back.
“I twisted my ankle, but I’ll be fine.” Catherine sniffed and wiped the tears from her eyes. “You saved us… thank you! Thank you so…” She tried smiling at the two girls in front then immediately burst into tears, sobbing loudly.
“There there, it’s okay, Catherine!” Noelle hugged the hysterical girl tightly. She buried her face in Noelle’s chest, muffling her wailing as her undershirt grew soaked with tears. As she stroked Catherine’s hair, she looked up at the two girls in front. “Who are you two, anyways?”
“We’re pilo-”
The dark haired girl elbowed the redhead.
“Ow! That hurt, you bitch!” she barked. The entire truck briefly jerked off-course as she recoiled in pain.
“We’re mechanics,” said the dark haired girl. She definitely had an accent, but Noelle couldn’t narrow it down to a locale more specific than Southeast Asia.
“Like hell you are! I’d recognize those suits anywhere! The 7-pin connector on the upper back, the electrode patches… you’re Ex Machina pilots, aren’t you?”
“…”
“Why aren’t you helping your buddies out back there? Going AWOL? Or could you be…” Noelle fell silent. “One of them?”
“If we were one of them, we wouldn’t have saved you, would we?” The dark-haired girl leaned over and cocked her head rhetorically inquisitively.
“Maybe you’re just trying to take us alive!”
“I’m sure those two guys we turned into tomato soup would agree!” The redhead snapped.
“True. Where are we even gOINg anyway?” Noelle asked, her voice raising as the truck bounced over a particularly large rock.
“I have no idea. Anywhere that isn’t here,” said the dark haired girl. “We can’t use GPS because they’ll track us down from our phone signals.”
“Maybe we can use the stars to help us navigate!” Noelle suggested.
“Do you know how to do that?” Just from the tone of her voice alone, Noelle could hear the dark-haired girl raising an eyebrow.
“…no… do you?”
“All we know is that we’re going south. We’ll eventually run into a highway and from there we’ll figure something out.”
Catherine and Noelle may have been saved from certain death by these two girls, but now what? The truck continued to careen down the rough desert trail, cutting through thick dried brush and flying over every surface irregularity with ease through the dead of the night. She couldn’t help but feel like the further they drove into uncharted lands, the closer they were approaching some event horizon that loomed closer and closer, accelerating them on an inescapable trajectory to their fates, whatever that may be.
If there was but one certainty she could take relief in, it was the fact that she would bear no reservations for the future and take everything in stride, come what may.
“Hey, by the way, what are your names?” she asked, leaning forwards and peeking at the two girls in front.
03/24/2023 - 3:00 AM PST
Great Basin Desert, Nevada, United States
“The fire in block C of the barrack’s west wing has been contained!”
“All remaining personnel have been accounted for! Rendezvous and await further orders!”
“All remaining hostile forces have been eliminated! Mobilize the rapid response team and form a perimeter around both sites! Scramble all aircraft!”
The vibrant orange and yellow plumes of flame that leaked into the starry canvas looming overhead had subsided to localized, dull glows that belched herculean clouds of smoke skyward. Helicopters and fighter aircraft had been continuously scrambled for the last half hour to search for any remaining survivors and eliminate any stragglers from the invading force.
A luxury helicopter flanked by an attack helicopter and two more gunships each carrying an entire complement of armed soldiers landed on the main airfield, the vortices from its rotors sending dust and sand flying all over the runway in a turbulent wind. A Seikatsu pickup truck screeched to a halt in front of the luxury helicopter as its side doors slid open. A girl wearing aviators and a black face mask hopped outside, her asymmetrical braided twintails flapping in the wake of wind created from the rotors above her head.
The driver of the pickup truck stepped outside and opened the passenger door for the girl, saluting to her as she stepped in. He ran back inside and the truck sped off to one of the damaged buildings containing the barracks, its rear tires shrieking and scrubbing against the scorched pavement. “Good to see you, boss,” he spoke with a relaxed tone that conveyed confidence yet urgency. “Just on time as usual. We’ve sustained heavy material and personnel losses in the attack. 177 casualties have been counted so far and the number is continuing to climb by the hour. The entire attacking force, 221 in total, is mostly accounted for and dead, but we’ve captured a few for questioning as you’ve requested. Over half of the 2000 onsite prisoners, however, were killed in the attack.”
“I knew this was coming.” The girl stared out the window as visions of smoldering wreckages and covered bodies being carried on stretchers into ambulances, or dumpsters, rolled by.
“E- excuse me, boss?”
“It was only a matter of time until something like this happened. I’m just surprised they sent so little.”
They sped through an underground tunnel connecting the north and south sites of the base, surfacing not a minute later into the north site. It wasn’t hit as badly in the attack but some buildings had still sustained heavy damage. The building they parked in front of in particular was hit on its west wing, leaving a gaping hole in the wall across multiple levels through which massive plumes of smoke rose.
“Here we are.” The pickup truck’s diesel engine rattled to a stop and the glow of its reflector lights faded away as the driver and the girl stepped out, closing the doors behind them. The driver swept his hand across the building from the relatively intact east side to the not-so-intact west side. “We’re still running the numbers, but so far all personnel in the east wing have been accounted for.”
“Good.” The girl adjusted her sunglasses as they walked up the stairs to the entrance. The door was waiting for them, already open. Chaos would be a tame descriptor for the scene unfolding inside the barracks. Debris and broken glass were scattered all over the floors, their white luster having been lost under a layer of dust that had settled. Medics carried wounded personnel out of the building in stretchers and hundreds more in varying states of injury lined the walls and walked about, helping clear the wreckage and move bodies around.
As soon as the girl stepped inside, however, it was as if someone had risen from their coffin at their own funeral. Every pair of eyes focused on her, every able body immediately saluting before she belted out an “ATTENTION!” with a booming voice that betrayed her small frame. The commotion had been silenced in one fell swoop.
The girl and the driver, evidently her second-in-command, slowly walked deeper and deeper into the barracks. The presence with which she carried herself demanded a fear out of the men around her. Not a fear that arose from danger, but a fear that was more akin to a deep respect and naturally inherited a devout following not unlike that of a cult. Even those who had been so badly injured they could hardly stand or remain still saluted as she passed by, earning them a rare nod of acknowledgement that eased their pain.
Finally, they arrived at a women’s bathroom. Two exceptionally strong and tall soldiers held up a gravely injured mercenary by the arms, one of his legs hanging on by a single sinewy thread. “Here’s one of the enemy combatants we’ve captured,” her second-in-command spoke. “Would you-”
BANG!
The mercenary’s head flung back in two loose flaps of red, painting the tiled wall behind him in a flurry of red and gray chunks that dribbled down slowly. Even the two soldiers flinched in surprise as they dropped his body to the floor with a wet slap. The girl swiftly turned around and walked out, holstering the still-smoking revolver as she continued walking down the hallway.
“…and here we are,” announced the second-in-command as they stopped before a long corridor leading into a well-furnished common room. A sign reading “VTR-51 Strike Bitches” hung from the ceiling. 22 young women in tank tops wearing colored jumpsuits tied around their waists lined both sides of the corridors, each one standing next to one of the 12 doors in pairs. The oldest couldn’t have been older than 24.
As soon as the twintailed girl stepped into view, they immediately turned to her and saluted. “At ease, girls,” she said calmly. With open arms, she smiled warmly at the girls under her facemask. “It makes me so happy seeing you’re all in one piece!”
“Sha- boss…” sniffed one of the girls near the middle. Her curly, shoulder-length hair bounced as her shoulders twitched with every sob. “I’m sorry… I’ve failed as a pilot! I couldn’t defend the base… I couldn’t save them! Bec- because of my failure… others have died!”
“Shut up, you conceited bitch!” her partner whispered.
The twintailed girl, evidently known as ‘Boss’ around these parts, approached the distraught girl with booming steps from her boots that made the other girls shudder. She was so wrought with shame that she couldn’t even bring herself to look at Boss in the eye, burying her face into her hands, teetering on the edge of breaking out into full-on wailing. She gasped as Boss suddenly hugged her tightly, gently patting her on the head and feeling the soft locks of her curly hair between her fingers.
“There, there,” she cooed. “Everything’s okay.” Those four words were like a ballistic missile to the Three Gorges Dam. If she wasn’t crying before, the curly-haired girl was wailing now. Her less compassionate partner merely rolled her eyes.
“SHACHOU!!!” screamed a male voice.
“WHAT is it?” She shouted at first, lowering her voice as to not disturb her beloved Strike Bitch. She snapped her head in the direction of the disturbance. A soldier stepped out of one of the doors. Specifically, the door which had no pair of girls standing nearby. “Two pilots are unaccounted for!”
Boss, also evidently known as ‘Shachou,’ pried herself free from the crying Strike Bitch’s tight embrace and stormed over to the unattended door. Stepping inside, she immediately knew what had happened to the pilots. The room was neatly prepared (even the bed was made!) but entirely devoid of all personal belongings. The bathroom was similarly empty. Though these two pieces of evidence, however damning, might have been inconclusive, Shachou realized something else about the room, a third something that was particularly damning.
“GIRLS!” Shachou’s booming yet high-pitched, even nasally, voice was always startling for anyone within earshot. She exited the abandoned private quarters and slowly walked past all the other girls, arms folded as she eyed them down one by one. “It appears that two of your colleagues… are lost. They are not missing. They are most certainly not dead. No, it is something far worse!” Her spoken word had turned from a mere utterance to almost a raspy, guttural snarl. “They have lost their sense of duty. They have lost purpose. And consequently, they have lost their purpose within us.” She launched a clenched fist skywards. “Those that fail to share the vision of Black Rabbit are no better than dogs or rats that feed from and filter through filth! Those who are led astray… they are forever disavowed by Black Rabbit, forever bound by shame until death!”
Shachou turned around to face the girls one last time before leaving.
“The weak, the sickened, and the lost must be culled to ensure the survival of the others. Girls, you’ve got some hunting to do.”
