The Last Revolution (7 page)

Rain splattered against the buildings and sidewalk. It was impossible to tell what was going on. He’d been spotted; the individual in front sprinted off into the woods. He was carrying something large. The remaining figure collapsed to their knees.

Alden sprinted towards the kneeling figure.

“Father McKinley!” Alden yelled.

Sliding across the wet pavement, he was able to grab hold of him just before he hit the ground. He laid Father McKinley’s head on his shoulder for support. Blood seeped down Alden’s pants mixing with the puddles forming around them. From the depths of his soul, Alden experienced the most incomprehensible pain and anger flooding to the surface. He was back there, on the mission, covered in blood.

“Help! I need a doctor. Somebody please help!” Alden screamed at the top of his lungs.

“My boy. You came for me.” Father McKinley looked up at him. He tried to reach out his frail hand and touch his face.

“Helllp! Please somebody help!” Alden’s eyes stung, he couldn’t catch his breath. Debilitating pain surged through his skull once more.

“Shh… listen to me. No one lives forever,” Father McKinley said.

“Noo…I can’t lose you too!”

His back arched in pain. “Promise me something.”

Alden wiped his eyes. “Anything.”

“Forgive Gabriel for everything that’s happened between you two.”

“Why?”

“Don’t worry about that now. Just promise.”

“I promise.”

“Alden, you are meant for something far greater than this place.” He inhaled a shaky breath. “I upgraded your wrist deck, please take it back.” He fumbled the device out of his pocket and handed it to Alden. With that, Father McKinley gave several harsh coughs. Bright red blood trickled down the side of his mouth.

“I need a doctor! Please!” Alden gasped for air as he yelled. Rain poured down around them. Thunder crackled overhead. Gunfire and faint explosions could still be heard in the distance. His words were lost the moment they left his mouth.

“Alden, please look at me,” McKinley said in a soft voice.

Alden dropped his gaze once more, wiping the blood from Father McKinley’s face. “I’m so very proud of you. No matter how dark things get, always remember that I’m proud of you.”

Alden could barely hold back his sobs. “I can’t lose you. I need you. Please, please stay with me. The doctors are on their way. They’re coming.”

Father McKinley smiled once more through broken pain. Alden grasped him tight. “Who did this to you?”

Leaning in close, he could see Father McKinley beginning to struggle to speak. This was followed by several body spasms and the gut-wrenching sound of liquid bubbling inside his lungs.

He mumbled several words, but the only one that was audible was “Khasim.” Father McKinley’s chest rose and fell and then all was still. Alden felt like all sound had drained out of his world, there was a deafening pressure on his temples and an invisible force was squeezing the life out of him. Each breath was more laborious and it was all he could do to hold on. As the feeling slowly returned, he felt an awkward object pushing into his hand. Reaching down, Alden saw the handle of a knife sticking out of Father McKinley’s abdomen.

He couldn’t think of anything else to do, so he wrapped his hands around the handle and slowly pulled it out. Alden’s gut clenched shut and through sheer force of will he held on, until the weapon had been dislodged. Without thinking, he dropped it to the ground and listened as the metallic blade came to rest against the wet path. It was done and Father McKinley was free.

Alden slid out from underneath the body and carefully laid it down. Reaching up to Father McKinley’s face he closed his eyes. After a few moments Alden looked down at the deck he’d returned to him. It was the last thing he would ever give him and Alden slipped it into his wrist socket and clicked it into place.

“Don’t move!” Thousands of needles stabbed Alden all over his body. They had caught him; he was dead. Slowly looking up, he saw three automatic rifle barrels pointed at him.

A sudden wave of relief passed over him. “Thank God it’s you, I thought for a moment you were one of the other soldiers. Please move your weapons away from me. The person that did this ran that way.” Alden pointed off towards the woods behind them.

“Alden, don’t make this any harder than it has to be. We don’t want to hurt you.”

“What?” Alden said in a flat but irritable tone. He stood up to full his height and stared at the three Island guards.

A fourth guard walked up, his side arm pointed at Alden. “Get down on your knees and put your hands behind your back!” Alden looked at the last guard as he moved closer.

“Are you part of the attack on the Island?” Alden demanded.

“No, you are,” the fourth guard responded.

“Excuse me?” Alden responded.

One of the other guards added, “There’s a capture or kill order out for you. It says you were involved with the lunar terrorists trying to overthrow the Council.”

“You expect me to believe that? I’ve given my life to defend this Island. Now we’re under attack and I expect to find the person that did this.” Alden motioned at Father McKinley’s body. “Contact General Sokolov or Gabriel. They’ll clear this up!”

“General Sokolov is missing,” one of the other guards responded. “And Gabriel has been reported KIA.”

“What, no! This isn’t possible!” Alden yelled back.

Suddenly a clear picture emerged in his mind. With the command structure destroyed, Vasentus’s status in question, and reports listing him as the traitor, he would never be able to prove his innocence in time to capture the individual responsible for killing Father McKinley.

“The reactor has been stolen!” one of the guards yelled. “Only a member of your team could have done that. And you’re the only one left! Now you’ll do as we say or we will shoot you!”

The fusion reactor has been stolen.
The suffocating force abated long enough for the guard’s words to cut deep. It had cost Alden part of his soul and half his team—his family—to bring that weapon back to this island. The pain he had worked so hard to move past had returned. It was over. Gabriel had been right after all; should have destroyed it when I had the chance. Now Daniel, Mary and Gabriel really had died in vain. How many more will suffer because of me?

Alden lowered his head and dropped to his knees. Father McKinley’s body lay next to him. Be at peace. Turning from the guards, Alden raised his hands and placed them on the back of his head. How could this be happening? He had to go after the killer now. In a matter of moments the reactor would be out of their reach for good. They will pay for what they’ve done.

Chapter 2

The guards stood their ground, barrels pointed at Alden. He sat on his knees in a pool of water and blood, hands tucked behind his head. One of the guards moved forward, handcuffs in his outstretched hands. In the span of a heartbeat Alden shot his left hand back and grabbed the guard, using his weight as leverage and swinging to the right. The guard was shoved into the middle providing a shield between him and the soldiers.

Alden rotated around as he drew up to his full height, kicking the hostage guard so hard that he went sailing through the air and into one of the other guards. In the same swift motion Alden used the momentum to land a debilitating blow into the third guard’s chest, cracking several ribs and sending him to the ground in a heap. The final guard was leveling his weapon, but it was like he was moving in slow motion compared to the advanced reflexes Alden had been given through the Transcendence program.

Alden grabbed the barrel of the gun and pushed it out of the way. In the same motion, he came in with his other hand and nailed the guard in the throat. He kicked him in the back of the knees, dropped a shoulder and flung him several feet away onto the soaking wet concrete. To his left, Alden saw the first guard reaching for his side arm and with a swift kick he too was left unconscious. The entire fight was over in seconds.

Rain poured down around Alden as he stared at the guards lying motionless around him, Father McKinley resting in a pool of his own blood. The knife sat glinting in the light. The gunfire had died off and every alarm on the Island was blaring. His problems had only magnified; he would never be able to explain this situation in time. It was now or never.

Alden stared at the school, would he ever see it again? Only time would tell, but he would not let that reactor fall into the wrong hands, nor would he let Father McKinley’s murder go unpunished. Turning back to the woods he sprinted as fast as he could towards the airfield.

Alden pushed through the last set of branches and emerged at the far end of the landing strip. His clothes were tattered and soaking wet. The sheets of rain made it nearly impossible to see. There! He made out a shadow running amongst the rows of perfectly lined fighter jets. He needed to take this person alive, but there was a very real possibility he’d tear him apart with his bare hands.

Sprinting across the open space he arrived at the first row and pressed himself against one of the fighters. Faint beams of light could be seen from the depths of the jungle. It was impossible to tell if it was the invaders or Island guards, but at the moment it didn’t matter. Alden moved further into the airfield as he searched high and low for any clues. How long had he been holding Father McKinley’s body? How long had he taken to get through the jungle? Straining his hearing, he searched for anything that would give the killer away. Rain battered the metal crafts around him, creating a deafening silence. Distant sirens and the rhythmic beat of his heart were the only other sounds that punctuated the storm. He was alone.

Alden dropped to his knees and searched for any sign of movement. Popping up and moving around the nose of a jet, he turned and searched for something, anything. Was he being watched? On the other side of the jet he was shocked to see a cavity amongst the line of fighters nearest the runway. He grabbed a few pieces of dirt and moved the gravel around between his fingers. Barely any moisture, the killer had taken one of the jets. There was still time, time enough to catch them if he hurried. Alden weaved through the line and found his fighter; he pushed a button on his wrist deck, but nothing happened.

The sound of dogs barking punctuated the downpour. They were getting closer. What is wrong with this thing? Glancing down he remembered the new deck; none of his passkeys or authentication information had been transferred over. He latched on to the thin metal stairs and pulled himself up to the canopy, punched in his code, and shoved the cockpit window open. He strapped in and then flew through the pre-flight checklist as fast as he could. From his vantage point he could see dozens of soldiers emerging from the jungle.

He slid the cockpit window shut, locked it and then fired up the engines. Pulling the stick back he moved out of the line of jets and on to the runway. Small arms fire suddenly erupted around him and dozens of violent tremors could be felt as the bullets ricocheted off the carbon fiber hull. He was starting out halfway down the airfield, there wasn’t enough space for him to launch, but if the engine was hit he wouldn’t live long enough to feel the H3 cell rupture.

It was now or never. Alden pulled the stick the rest of the way back and the engine flared to life. His eyes grew heavy as they pressed into the back of his head and the jet accelerated down the runway. Everything melted away until the only thing he could see was the edge of the runway and the cliff that dropped off into the abyss. It had terrified him at first, but now it served as a gateway between the physical world and the limitless one that waited.

The craft was just lifting off the ground when he ran out of runway and flew off the edge. Although he had been trained for these kinds of events, his heart was still beating at full speed and now seemed securely lodged in his throat. He was out over the ocean but falling fast. Holding his breath Alden put everything he had into the controls and pulled back as hard as he could. Finally, the nose picked up, and the ocean, runway and Island disappeared.

He was alive. It was the most exhilarating feeling in the world, freedom. He banked the fighter to the right and headed west towards land. Their school sat on a lonely island in the middle of the Pacific. It was several hundred kilometers to the shores of the Sino-Russian Federation, but tens of thousands of kilometers to the shores of the Alliance. The killer had to have gone to the SRF; not only was it the closest but they also had one of the strongest black markets on Earth.

Alden switched to night vision and a pixilated green hue worked its way across the cockpit and filled the screen with all the gauges he needed. The moment his sensors and control panel came online, every alarm possible went off. He had flown straight at the hurricane. He hadn’t been able to see anything until the night vision was activated, but now he could see the massive water funnel straight ahead. It was as if the mighty Poseidon had come to destroy the Island and everyone on it. Alden whipped the craft to the right and turned into a tight barrel roll to avoid being torn apart. Yellow tracers ripped through the night around him.

Two hostile dots appeared on the radar, along with the indication of incoming fire. The distinctive sound was nearly lost amidst every other catastrophic alarm going off. Alden turned off the alarms, tightened his grip on the controls, and settled back into the seat. They would not kill him; this was where he belonged. Flipping the plane into a tight corkscrew, he did everything he could to avoid the hail of fire.

His options were limited, but there had to be a way out. The gravity-defying wall of water and chaos surged in every direction. If he veered off course by even a few meters the jet would be torn to shreds. He pulled a hard right to avoid the second round of incoming fire and then pressed a button to deploy the solar flares. He needed to distract the targeting computers in order to give himself some breathing room.