CHAPTER 14

  "Maybe I was just a Lost Soul, trapped in time

  Livin in between life, and the cracks were blind

  Even though we had hope for dreams that never came

  Yet and still we all feel pain"

  -2pac

  Royles was holding Carls written report on the events of rift three. Certain things were omitted of course.

  "Are you ok?"

  "Yes sir."

  Royles piercing gaze seemed to know how to make Carl squirm.

  "We can slow the pace Carl. I know you want to get home, but this is dangerous work."

  He was right of course, but Carl couldn't slow down, he wouldn't. Home could be in any one of those rifts.

  "I'm fine. I'll tell you if I need to slow down. Besides I still owe you."

  "For what?"

  "Everything. I could be sitting in a prison cell right now."

  "The officer."

  "Yeah. And Frank Mastersons driveway...you guys did fix that right?"

  "I think so."

  "Good, he was a nice guy."

  "Do you need any money?"

  "What?"

  "Your kitchen is empty, your card was deactivated."

  "Well, I ate a sandwich with Steve earlier...he's a really great guy ya know."

  "I do."

  "I guess just get my card reactivated and I should be fine."

  "I'll have it done by tomorrow."

  "Thanks boss."

  "Are you sure you want to go so soon?"

  "Yeah. I'll just be a bit more cautious this time. So, we ride at dawn?"

  Royles gave him a small smile, a rare occurrence.

  "We ride at seventeen hundred hours."

  "You're not gonna wear the armor?"

  "Matt showed you that huh?"

  "I mean, it looks pretty cool."

  "It weighs a fucking ton."

  Carl nodded and jumped through the rift.

  Andy grabbed his bag and jumped. On the ground Carl walked straight to the rift three red X.

  "Hey! Throw me the spraypaint!"

  Andy threw him the can, Carl shook it a couple times and wrote DO NOT ENTER around the X in big letters.

  He walked back over to Andy and handed him the can.

  "Where's number four?"

  Andy looked at the hand drawn map he was keeping in a notebook.

  "Right over there."

  Carl ran to where he pointed, flew halfway through the rift, just his head and shoulders, and looked around.

  Nothing crazy, the world looked normal. He flew in, went straight to the ground, and made the armor disappear. He had seen some houses in the distance, no sense causing a disturbance. He stood stock still for a moment, just listening. Birds, distant traffic...nothing out of the ordinary. The trees swayed in the breeze, this seemed like a nice world. Maybe they have Fun-dip. Wouldnt matter, they probably use simoleons or some weird shit as their money and he was fresh out of those. He Chuckled to himself and started walking towards the houses he had seen in the distance when a swarm of spherical drones swirled down from the sky and surrounded him. They were all screaming the same thing:

  YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF CODE 8. PLEASE REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE UNTIL THE POLICE HAVE ARRIVED.

  Carl armored up and flew straight up towards the rift. The drones started surrounding him again, attempting to attach to his body and bring him down. He popped the claws and started slashing at them relentlessly.

  "NANO! WE NEED TO GET OUT OF HERE!"

  The thrusters shot them forward and up and they flew through the rift. Carl spun around on the other side. A few drones had followed him and he slashed at them. He flew down to Andy.

  "Fuck that rift. Homicidal drones man."

  "Geez, are there ever any nice rifts?"

  "Yours isn't bad."

  Andy was chewing on his lip, a worried look on his face.

  "Can I tell you something?"

  "Yeah, whats up?"

  "I don't know how you do this. They want me to take your place if you go home, and it kinda scares the shit out of me."

  Carl smiled at Andy.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  "If I'm being honest, I don't know how I do it either. I just know I have to."

  "To get home."

  "In this situation, yes. I've been walking a crazy path for a long time though, this armor changed my life."

  "Yeah, well, unless you got an extra set gor me I think I'll resign if they try and make me do it."

  "I don't blame you. Its not easy work."

  "You ready for the next rift?"

  Carl sighed loudly.

  "Lets take a break."

  "We've been here like twenty minutes."

  "Yup, and we're the only ones that matters to. Maybe I'm actually flying around rift four right now and finding nothing."

  Andy grinned.

  "You know the body cam is recording everything right?"

  Carl smiled and held his finger to his lips.

  "Ok, fine. Fifteen minutes."

  "Excellent, now, please tell me you brought snacks."

  "Of course."

  Carl hovered next to rift five.

  "You sure you dont want to come with me?"

  "Nah man. I'll be seeing what I can recover from these drones you slashed up."

  Carl turned and entered the rift. He landed in a hot, dusty, desert. He could barely see with all the dust and smoke on the wind. There were screams, explosions and steady thuds in the distance.

  "I recommend keeping your helmet closed in this environment Carl."

  A shadow loomed over the land. Above him a massive ship, panels on the side opened periodically and shot out long tubes with pointed ends. He watched this for a moment and realized he needed to find some cover. He was in a damn warzone. There was no vegetation, the land was barren and pockmarked with craters, but there was clusters of rocks. He ducked behind one and watched the tubes descend to the dusty terrain.

  "Zoom in buddy."

  His visor whirred as it zoomed in on the pods. They opened and he squinted through the dust to see large armored warriors stepping out. They turned and retrieved weapons from the drop pod before taking off. They carried large rifles of some sort. More loud thumps in the ground, they were getting closer. A pod slammed into the ground only forty or fifty feet from him. He ducked lower and watched as it hissed open. Up close the armored warriors were a terrifying sight. They stood at least seven feet tall, their armor was a sleek black with the sigil of a wolf's head on the chest. It was their faceplates that made them scary though. They were fashioned to resemble a grinning skull. The skull wasnt human, it was too wide and the teeth were too long and sharp. The deaths head warriors all seemed to be running east as soon as they emerged. Carl waited a moment, then when they were far enough away, he ran to the closest pod. Inside was a small rack of weapons and explosives. He grabbed a tubular shaped grenade, (at least thats what he thought it was) and stuck it to his belt, a triangular pistol of sorts, and one of the rifles. Royles had urged him to recover any tech they could study. This ought to fit the bill.

  "Lets get the hell out of here!"

  He fired his thrusters and shot up to the rift. On the other side he descended to the ground and dropped his stolen weapons. He spun around, his blaster ready and aimed at the rift. Andy ran up behind him, his gauntlet gun at the ready.

  "What do you got?"

  "I dont think anyone saw me but I wanna be sure. There's some kind of war going on and I swiped some weapons."

  Andy nudged the rifle with his toe, revealing the triangular pistol beneath it.

  "Royles is gonna love this."

  Still nothing came through the rift. Carl relaxed and the blaster retracted back into the armor. They both turned to pick up the weapons and get home.

  "I think we're in the...OOF!"

  A single warrior had thumped to the ground and punched Carl in the back. He went flying forward onto his face. Andy was firing at the warrior, the bullets pinged off his helmet and he roared something in another language. The warrior turned to look at Andy, the strange skull faceplate fixing its hidden eyes on him. Before he could attack, Carl had recovered and was flying straight at him. He had hoped to knock the warrior to the ground, but instead, Carl just pushed him back some. The warrior punched Carls back again, slamming him to the ground.

  "Ahh...fuck!"

  He rolled to the side and jumped to his feet again, his back was singing with pain. He didnt have time to consider that though. Another warrior flew through the rift and landed next to the first one. Both of them pulled the rifles from their backs. Carl took a step back, Andy was still aiming at them, hes not wearing armor, if they shoot him...

  "Andy! Get to the rift! I'll handle them!"

  He stepped between the warriors and where Andy was.

  "I can help..."

  "GO! NOW!"

  Andy hesitated a moment and fired his jet pack up, flying towards the rift home. Carl was drawing their fire, running in a circle, not letting them see the rift Andy was going through. The rifles they were using, shot some kind of red laser bursts. They didnt seem to cause much damage to Carls armor, but they hurt. The massive warriors were heavily armored, blades weren't going to cut it unless he finds a crack in the armor, he was going to have to get in close and rely on his strength for now. The enemies backs were to his rift, Andy had his bag and was jumping through. Carl focused all his attention on the warriors now. He was firing his thrusters in bursts, zig-zagging across the field, dodging laser fire. He kept his knees bent, his body loose, his back was in pain, but adrenaline was dampening that. He faked left then fired full thrusters and went right. He punched with every ounce of superstrength he could put behind it, his fist dented the warriors chestplate and threw him back off his feet.

  The other warrior was behind him now.

  Shit.

  He tried to turn and intercept, but the warriors rifle butt hit his helmet and knocked him off his feet.

  Fuck, they were really strong.

  He rolled backwards, and shook his head, trying to maintain his bearings. The other warrior was getting up, he turned to him, jumped up and brought his fist down hard on his helmet, knocking him back down. He spun around to see the other warrior bearing down on him. The warrior threw a punch and Carl dropped backwards, the fist flying mere inches over his face as he fell. He rolled to the side and punched the guy in the ribs. He roared in pain and grabbed Carls arm and spun him around like a ragdoll, letting go, and sending Carl tumbling across the ground. He popped the claws and dug them into the fake grass to slow himself. The claws retracted and he ran at the warrior, keenly aware the other warrior was approaching to his side. Carl had been searching for weaknesses in their armor, he thought he had identified openings in the elbows and knees. He fired his thrusters and used his momentum to drop and slide on his knees. He slashed at the space in the warriors right knee. The big warrior screamed and dropped to his other knee. Carl turned and jumped on his back his wrist blade glancing off the armor as he tried to slide it under the helmet. He found a crack and pushed in hard. The blood that poured down the armor was not red, it was a brownish black, like oil. They were not human. He didnt have time to think about that though, the second warrior was firing his rifle full auto. The bleeding warrior fell to the ground grabbing at his neck and gurgling, Carl rolled off of him. The laser bolts were hitting him hard, Carl felt every impact through the armor like someone hitting his bare skin with a hammer. He threw up his arm, a hard light shield forming. He ran sideways to the pile of weapons he had stolen that started all this and grabbed the triangular pistol. One side of the triangle was a grip, there were two triggers, one he pulled with his index finger, the other with his pinky. He aimed and started firing. The rounds from the pistol were punching through the armor like hot coals through tissue paper. The creature roared in pain. It dropped its rifle and grabbed at its wounds, carl dropped the pistol and ran at the howling creature. The shield disappeared, and a blade shot out of his gauntlet. He jammed it under the aliens helmet and pulled it to the side. Silencing the creature and ending the fight. The blade retracted and he dropped to a knee, his chest heaving, his body hurt everywhere.

  There was silence.

  He was still alive.

  He laughed, it hurt his side, but fuck it.

  The universe had tried to kill him...again.

  He had survived...again.

  He picked up the weapons and limped toward his rift.

  "I hope these things were worth it."

  Carl stood leaning on the table in Matt's lab, the stolen weapons and a mostly intact drone laid out in front of him. Matt was grinning and taking pictures of the weapons for the file on rift five. Royles walked in and examined the items.

  "Good work gentleman."

  Andy nodded and Carl grunted with a wince. Royles looked concerned.

  "Are you alright Carl?"

  "I might need a day or two, that fight was...messy. Oh, here."

  He pulled the body cam from its spot on his chest and handed it to Royles, its metal housing scratched and dented, but still intact. They could just review the footage for the brief, he felt like shit.

  "Andy, you have anything for back pain?"

  "I think we can find you something, you should go lay down."

  "Agreed."

  He turned, left the lab and walked down the hallway to his apartment.

  He was walking hunched over. He found his doorknob, entered, and collapsed on his couch. He sucked in through his teeth as he rolled over. He could be mad at the alien assholes, but he did steal from them, guess this is karma coming to collect.

  "Fucking hell...how bad is it Nano?"

  "The worst of it is a cracked rib Carl. It will be very painful, but you will live."

  "Thats reassuring."

  He looked up and his eyes caught the painting, he scoffed to himself.

  Who knew trying to be the good guy was so fucking painful?