Ember’s ashen body slammed into Rain’s.

  The impact knocked the air from his lungs; her fingers were in his long silver hair, her mouth on his shoulder, teeth biting, her voice tearing itself raw as their naked bodies collided. Time collapsed.

  Sweat. Blood. Her weight. Her impossible heat. She arched, shuddered, and went still. Rain tasted salt, iron, and burnt gunpowder. He pressed his face into her neck as if that could pin the moment in place—as if holding her hard enough could make the past reconsider its cruelty. They lay tangled. He pulled a blanket over them with shaking hands. For one heartbeat, the dead world ceased to exist. The past was rewritten. Her smile hovered inches from his face. Her eyes, blood-red, pupil-less were fixed on him. Palms pressed flat against his chest, right over his heart.

  A mechanical voice cut through the silence.

  “GW-015-988-669-G5H. Report to B1 in ten.”

  “NO!”

  Rain surged forward. His hands reached for her, but closed on nothing.

  He opened his eyes.

  His hands were still extended, grasping at Ember’s ghost. He lay alone, a thermal blanket between him and the fuselage floor. As his vision adjusted from slumber to reality, Geiger and Glass came into focus nearby, already gathering their gear. He felt the aircraft descending.

  His hand found his cigarettes by instinct. He took a deep drag before reality could fully seep back into his senses.

  He got up.

  Blood lay curled on the floor a few paces away, folded into a fetal knot, her hands locked around the steel leg of a seat. He took a drag and exhaled smoke toward her, saying her name.

  Nothing.

  Geiger pointed at her and nodded.

  Rain crossed the distance and grabbed her shoulders. She was rigid like a ripe corpse; every muscle clenched, breath coming fast and shallow. Her eyelids screwed shut. He shook her. No response.

  “Get the fuck up!”

  He kicked her back. She tightened around the seat leg—a reflex—her teeth chattering.

  “No! no! Holger! Come back!” she cried, shaking.

  Rain looked at Glass. She wasn’t watching them. Her eyes, behind thick black goggles, were fixed on the horizon, Geiger’s arms locked tight around her.

  Then the horizon bloomed. An impossible globe of light invaded the cabin and vanished in the same instant; an artificial sun, born for the worst of reasons.

  Rain lifted his boot. Blood sobbed once. A tear cut a clean line down her cheek.

  He lowered his foot and knelt beside her. He laid a hand on her head—her hair soaked with sweat—and eased her down, settling her head softly against his thigh. His fingers moved slowly, mechanically, combing through the red tangles.

  The tension in her neck began to loosen. He stayed there as the aircraft descended. Outside, distant nuclear detonations flared against the green clouds; brief suns made the present known, bleaching away the past.

  “Rain. Blood. Buckle up.”

  Geiger’s voice cut in as the clamps engaged. Blood’s eyes snapped open. Rain pressed a Marlboro between her lips and lit it. She wiped her tears and drew in hard.

  He stood. She caught his hand. He strained and hauled her up—all two hundred and fifty kilos of her. They sat side by side as the VTOL vectored its thrust for final descent.

  Glass murmured something to Geiger. His severe expression eased; a faint smile broke through. She leaned into him. Their hands met, fingers threading together.

  The turbines spooled to maximum RPM. The aircraft decelerated hard. Rain glanced through the circular window. Thick clouds of chaff and flares burst from both sides of the fuselage, burning bright against the green sky.

  Blood stiffened, held her breath, and pressed back into the seat, fingers white around the armrests. Rain took her hand.

  “Standard procedure… rookie.”

  Seconds passed as the cabin shook during their final approach. The light of the nuclear explosions slowly faded as they descended toward the underground base. A soft thud resonated as they touched down. The engine drifted toward silence, its mechanical moan answered by a hydraulic groan. Above them, the steel roof slid shut, sealing out the wasteland.

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  Rain unclasped the belts and looked outside: a circular tarmac faintly lit by runway edge lights.

  “Will I have to suck your slit next time for you to get up?”

  Blood stared at him wide-eyed. Rain’s mocking smile returned as his hands traced a bullseye on the back of her palm.

  “Or maybe your ass... anything, just ask.” His claw bit deep into her skin.

  "I'm sorry, Rain. I haven't slept in a week..."

  He unclasped his belt and got up. Geiger and Glass were already retrieving their gear from the aft of the fuselage.

  “Grab your shit.”

  He strode toward his gear—a rucksack and a suppressed battle rifle—securing Blood’s arsenal next. Geiger and Glass locked eyes with him; Rain offered a sharp nod and a thumbs-up. They looked away as the aircraft door groaned open.

  Geiger jumped. The aircraft recoiled like a cheap boat in a swell, a heavy thud echoing across the tarmac. He was always first out, last in. Glass leapt next, then Rain landing without a sound. Finally, Blood stepped out, the fuselage groaning again as her weight left the craft and slammed on the deck.

  The base was a classic 2060s BLUFOR design: a football-field-sized landing pad shielded by a slightly smaller, half-meter-thick sliding roof. Twin blast doors dominated the far wall—one could barely fit a recon car, the other could easily fit the VTOL. Both hung uselessly on their hinges, torn open by explosives and left to rust away.

  The roof was enough to block a cruise missile and deflect a close-in blast. The doors wouldn’t do shit against a tactical-nuke direct hit, but Rain doubted the Blues had nukes to waste on this shithole.

  Two gunships idled on the tarmac. One was heavy with steel—30mm gunpods and racks of rockets. The pilot paced the perimeter of the airframe, clipboard in hand, with a mechanic hot on his heels. They were shouting over the turbine whine about the loadout; the bird was already packed with a disagreeable quantity of weapons, yet the pilot kept screaming about the lack of ATGMs. The mechanic replied with a variety of profanities, which the pilot returned in earnest.

  The other helicopter had obviously barely made it back. Its starboard side was riddled with what looked like shrapnel from a MANPADS impact. Ground crew doused the flames of its gas turbine with fire extinguishers and carried the pilot on a stretcher through the smaller door.

  A pair of stealth light transport helicopters also stood ready to take off. Kamov-92s were a rare sight. Inside the larger door, four or five attack helicopters were undergoing maintenance alongside another light transport. Next to the smaller door, a pile of body bags was stacked high.

  One smell dominated all else: kerosene, rotting flesh came second. It was the typical soundscape of a forward operating base—a cacophony of barked orders and distant nukes, maintenance and intel, all seasoned with an unhealthy dose of gene warrior humor. Rain smirked at some of the more inventive instances of casual profanity; one involved a pair of megaton yield nukes being actively utilized for a female pilot’s pleasure—or torment, he couldn't be sure.

  Rain and Blood caught up to Geiger and Glass. Geiger turned around.

  “We’re gonna find Havoc, get a sitrep, you go settle in…” He paused. “Oh, and Rain... keep her out of trouble.” His gaze drifted to Blood

  Then handed her all of the gear he and Glass carried. Blood winced under the weight.

  “Aight, boss,” Rain saluted.

  Geiger and Glass hastened their step to a jog and entered the smaller door. Glass ignored the pile of body bags; Geiger whispered something and saluted.

  Blood staggered forward under the immense weight: her squad’s rucksacks packed to the brim, her own massive arsenal, Geiger’s HMG, and Glass’s AMR.

  “Alright, we’ve found something you’re good at, rookie.”

  Rain paced toward the door, spared a splash of alcohol for the dead, and then took a long swig himself. Blood’s footsteps now sounded like a heavy exosuit. No one was guarding the blown-out blast door; the interior door was in even worse shape. The decontamination chamber was rusted to fuck. No lights were functioning inside.

  His infrared vision instinctively activated.

  No fucking cockroaches here... at least none left alive. Good.

  Quick footsteps; the gray-white image resolved in his eyes. A Gen-4 clad in a mechanic’s greased suit, PDA in hand, dashed his way.

  “Brother! Molot platoon HQ!” Rain threw him a cigarette.

  “Can’t miss it!” The mechanic caught it without slowing down and gave a thumbs up.

  Dead ahead, less than ten meters away, a corridor intersected the path they had entered from. Nine doors lined the junction. Command sat on the left end of the hallway, with the Armory next to it. An empty MRE bag was nailed to the opposite door—obviously the chow hall. To the right end were Storage, Officers, and Personnel quarters.

  That left the last three. One was marked by a bloody sledgehammer wrapped in rusty barbed wire welded to the steel. Another featured a human skull nailed to the center, wearing a green beret and pink, heart-shaped sunglasses. On the last one, bones and spent casings were glued to resemble a battleaxe: casings formed the axehead, while bones made up the haft.

  The smell of blood, cigarette smoke, and gunpowder finally choked out the kerosene. Laughter, jests, and screams of agony rose up, drowning the distant hum of the turbofans.

  Haven’t been in a party for a while.

  Rain stood at the door and waited for Blood to catch up. She dropped the bags on the floor and began to catch her breath.

  “You good?”

  She wiped the sweat from her brow.

  “Alright, logitruck... listen up.” She straightened herself. “Observe. Do not reveal jack about who you are or what you did. Repeat it!”

  “Observe, and tell no one about myself or my past.”

  “Correct. These warriors will test you. Show respect, and never show weakness. This is a recon mission. Got it?”

  She nodded, her jaw clenched.

  “You will see some weird shit. Do not stare, do not ask, and above all, never tell them what to do unless they are in your face or up your ass. In that case...”

  Her jaw eased, her eyes widening again.

  “It was a joke. If someone touches you, they’re a corpse.” He placed a fist on her shoulder.

  “Rain, how do we communicate? Whispering won’t cut it.”

  “Morse code. Cover your fingers; they can read it, too. You know that shit, right?” He tapped ‘Guten Tag’ on her palm.

  “Affirmative!” She smiled—possibly for the first time in weeks.

  “Oh, and... pull the past out of your oversized beautiful butt.” He slapped her ass and returned the smile.

  She hauled the gear onto her shoulders and he opened the door; her smile lingered. Their new platoon stood ahead.

  "In a world of pre-written limits, one man seeks the Absolute."

  Slow-burn Dark Fantasy | Mystery | Psychological