Breaking Point

Chapter 11: Draygon's Puppets

"The train will take you to the foundry sector.  We do not know what to expect on the other side.  There was a major ripper infestation years ago.  Many were stung with the hallucinogen venom and not treated.  The victims may still be alive, and if they are, they may not be human anymore," said Hyun-woo as Zaid sat down in a passenger cart, buttocks awkwardly fitting across two seats.  There was room for twenty four people to sit, seats against the walls with five-point fabric restraints.  Zaid didn't fit in them.

"You know, you never told me what happens to the victims," Zaid jabbed.

The doctor replied as he used the controls to start the train, but it was too loud to hear.

It would be an hour before the train arrived at the foundry sector.  Zaid closed his eyes.

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Zaid's armor-booted feet clunked up the stairs at a breakneck pace, skipping three steps at a time.  Eighty floors up, twenty more to go.  Ballistic slugs, plasma bolts and laser beams plinked down on him from above, scoring his armor and leaving burns in the small gaps.  The security forces were little more than a swarm of bees to him, a trivial but persistent annoyance.  As he worked his way up the stairs the hail of armaments thinned as the personnel screamed and tried to flee as he approached.  Behind him was a trail of broken bodies, impact-cracked concrete walls.

Finally all the shooting and shouting stopped as Zaid tossed the last of them down the stairwell, ending with multiple crunching thuds.  The door at the top was barricaded but was no obstacle to the three-meter bulldozer of a man.

They told me not to do it, Zaid thought.  Idiots.  This war could have been over a year ago if I had done then what I'm doing now.

His footsteps clunked down the hall toward the conference room.  The Apollos, a warlord syndicate that had plagued the American continents for decades, were holding their meeting there, and he was about to capture every single one of them.  Zaid knew they had been alerted to his intrusion.  He had already cut off every known escape route.  The only way out was through him.  He knew they would be aware that their security had been obliterated.  He knew that they could hear him coming by his loud footsteps.  He was building up their fear.  The more terrified they were, the easier it would be to secure compliance.

The door was fortified, of the sort seen in panic rooms.  All the better.  More opportunity for them to soil their pants before I break down this door.

BANG!  Zaid kicked at the door, leaving a dent that he was sure would be visible from the other side.

BANG!  Another dent.

BANG!  He could hear the bolt mechanism inside crack.

BANG!

There was a beep and a click.  The security panel turned green and the door opened by itself, slowly rolling out of the way.

"Welcome, Zaid," said a familiar voice.  It belonged to the overly tall and muscular bodyguard that had accompanied some of the Apollos in their previous encounters, with long white hair and mismatched eyes, one of them synthetic like Zaid's.  "Or should I refer to you by your real name, Alan?"

Zaid clenched his left fist and a round forcefield buckler was emitted from his wrist, his right hand transforming into a sword.  "You're not getting away this time, Draygon.  The only way out is through me, and waiting behind me is a whole platoon of the best fighting men we've got."

"Tisk, tisk," said Draygon.  "If you're going to lie to me, at least make it a good lie.  Besides, I don't think you've correctly assessed the situation here.  Pay attention to your surroundings, Alan."

The twelve Apollos were all armed with pistols, all aimed at Zaid.  "You really think they can stand up to me?"

"You still don't get it at all, do you, Alan?"  Draygon made a gun gesture with his hand and pointed it to his temple.

The Apollos pointed their guns at their own heads.  Zaid's stomach turned.

"You see, Alan, these men were never in charge of anything.  None of them mattered.  I was always the one getting everything I wanted.  And I mean everything."

Zaid was getting upset.  "Liar.  We tore down and torched your factories.  We decimated your supply chain.  We stopped your bombings."

Draygon laughed.  "All you did for me was burn all the opportunities to match or counter the power I've been amassing and destroying any evidence that could tie it back to me.  You collected no data from any of your raids.  None of you pieced together what was happening.  The Apollos were scapegoats in all of this.  Who do you think leaked the information that led to your successful raids?  It was me.  And soon, Operation Golden Bow will be complete and when I give the word, I will rain fire from the heavens, and only the pure will remain."

"Not if you're dead, which you will be if you don't surrender now," threatened Zaid.

"You still don't understand the power I wield," replied Draygon.  "You see, these men have absolutely no will of their own.  I can order them to follow you to your little band of resistance and tell you whatever I want them to tell you.  And they can all be rather convincing little actors.

"But I have something better in mind.  You see, I know you're not supposed to be here.  I know there was a whole operation planned to covertly extract the Apollos.  I know about your argument with your senior officers.  I know how you feel about taking orders.  And I know about your propensity to kill without mercy.

"So with the snap of my fingers, I will kill all of them, then I will subdue you and surrender the both of us to your resistance.  I will reveal myself as a traitor to the Apollos, prove that I was the one who leaked the information to your little Resistance victories, and blame you for the deaths of the leadership.  They will all turn on you, and I will be the hero.  Then I will rise up as a leader through the Resistance after the impure are purged, and the world will be mine."

Zaid looked around.  He looked at the blank expressions on each of the warlords' faces.  Puppets, he thought.  Every one of us has just been a puppet.  I got played.  The Resistance got played.  Nobody saw this coming.  He deactivated the buckler and sword.  "So what if I just walk away right now?  If we just follow through on the original covert capture plan like you wanted?"

Draygon shook his head.  "You really don't get it, Alan.  You see, I don't make threats."  He snapped his fingers.

There were twelve simultaneous gunshots.

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The gunshot sounds in his memory woke up Zaid.  He was breathing rapidly, his body shaking.  It has been years, he thought.  Why am I still thinking about this?  I've seen worse things.  Worse things have happened to me in the last few weeks.  Why this?  Why now?

Zaid felt and heard the train roll to a stop.  He practiced his focused breathing.  In slowly until there's no more room.  Out slowly until there's no more air.  His hands quit shaking and he was able to stand again.

He stepped off the train, his steps uneven with one bare foot.  Right then.  Time to find out what "worse than death" means.