The Life of an ATLAS Boy

M.I.A

"Things get better and better, don't they?"
"Irons, don't worry. Everything will be al-"
"DON'T YOU SEE?! John is now my niece's boyfriend, and now he runs out and makes a complete dick of himself by dying! And he left Dawn in a SENTINEL building!"
"First off, John did the right thing. He nearly sacrificed himself to save others. Secondly, John's not dead. Battalion ACS-099-B came to his rescue and destroyed the swarm. And lastly, Dawn is safe. There's not a scratch on her. But I have to say, I've never seen a girl cry as much when she found out that Olsteen almost died, and even more when she saw his body lying in the dust."
"Eiffely. You are a blind maniac. You have no clue what it's like, having a niece come up to you and say that she's dating one of your soldiers."
"Actually, I know that feeling quite well..."
"No you don't."
"Jonathan, I'm command to a band of KVA Soldiers, who by my order, have joined your force. Most of my men are 18, so relationships happen all the time."
"The world's changing. Order your men to find Corporal Olsteen and kill him on-site. I have a meeting, so good luck."
"What a bastard. Captain Rehf, come in"
"I'm here, General Eiffely. What are your orders to regain Detroit?"
"Get me snipers on the rooftops of all hospitals, school, any tall buildings. And I have new orders for you. Straight from General Irons. But we are disobeying them."
"Sir? What orders?"
"I want you to find Corporal Olsteen and bring him to me. Irons' command is to kill the kid, but we won't do that. We will prove that John is worth fighting. Now, go and bring the Corporal."
"Yes General. Right away."
***
I lay in the hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling that holds nothing but boring grey tiles. I'm surrounded by blue curtains on my flanks and my feet, while a wall with a picture of my organs is at my head. The curtain at my feet opens, and three doctors walk in.
"So, what do we have?" the doctor with those glasses that have the odd pointy binoculars on each lens asks he looks at the woman with the clip board.
"Internal organ damage, but nothing too major," she says as she reads her notes. "If he would've been an inch more towards the blast, he'd be as good as dead."
The glasses man looks at the MRI scan above my head, then back at me, then back at the scan. He whispers something to his other assistant. The young man nods a few times, then leaves me with the other two.
"What shall we do, Dr. DelFritz?" the woman asks the man.
"Take him to the Examination Room," Dr. DelFritz says. "And Lisa. Be careful with him. The organ damage is greater than I thought."
Lisa looks terrifyingly at the doctor, and wheels me out of my small confinement of a room. I try to count the lights and figure out which direction I'm being wheeled in since Lisa won't say anything to me, only to tell me that I'm going to be alright. I try to tell her everything's fine, but I can't seem to speak. I lift my head slightly up, but it feels like I'm lifting the whole ATLAS HeadQuarters by my head, so I put it down. I start to close my eyes when a sudden jolt startles me. After I regain my sense of direction from being spin around so many times, I realize I'm in a room. It's a larger room (then again, anything is larger than the cubical I had earlier), with a large window to my right and the door to my left. I'm surrounded by grey and black striped walls. At my feet, there's a large circular tube that I'm guessing is for scanning.
"You'll be fine," Lisa says panicky as she closes the door. Well, I think as I look out the window. This is going to be a long stay.
***
"But uncle Jonathan!" Dawn complains as her uncle paces about near his office window overlooking the city. "John is alive, and I have to see him!"
"No!" Jonathan Irons said sternly to his niece, who sat on the green leather chair she got him for Christmas a few years back. "You are not allowed to see him. He is near death, and most of his major organs are destroyed." Good lying, Irons thought to himself as he gazed upon his beautiful niece. The room went quiet, so quiet that one could hear the near silent chatter in the Guard's helmets as they guarded Irons. Dawn started to tear up, but she made the tears vanish. But they were still there. In her heart. Jonathan huffed as he turned his back to Dawn and looked at the city skyline. The door suddenly burst open as Andrew Eiffely burst into the room.
"General Irons," he said as he stood in a tired state. The Commander of ATLAS turned around.
"What do you want now, Andrew?"
"Jonathan, the Board would like to speak with you."
Surprised, Jonathan Irons walks towards the door.
"Keep watch of my niece while I attend this meeting," he whispers to Eiffely."
"Yes sir," Andrew replies with a smile that seems evil. Once the presence of Irons is diminished, Andrew walks over to Dawn.
"Guards," he says. "You are dismissed. Report to the Infirmary to check up on Patients 009 and 103. I'm sure that they can take watch."
The guards look at each other, but then walk away.
"You're Dawn, aren't you?" Andrew says as he finds a small glass and a bottle of whiskey. He pours the glass a quarter full, swirls it, then takes a sip.
"I am," Dawn shakily replies. "Why are you here?"
Andrew places his drink on the table in front of him and looks up. "I'm here to tell you what your oh-so-sweet uncle wants to do to your boyfriend."
***
"Alright," Dr. DelFritz says as he starts up the odd machine. "Beginning primary scan."
The machine whirls to life as my bed begins to move into the gaping mouth. Once I'm inside, the doctor says something, but I don't catch it. Soon, the door to the machine closes, and I'm engulfed in darkness. I keep my head still, but I let my eyes wander, trying to see what I'm in. Pretty soon, a blue fluorescent light strip is lit up, giving me a view of what I was in. It was a tube with black walls, and that was all I saw before the light went out. The whirling of machinery catches my attention. A black slab that looks like it's made of marble comes down from the ceiling of the tube and stays still for some time with it's metal arm holding it in place. Then, tiny blue lasers poked out in every direction, scanning me from the legs up slowly. When it finished, it scanned me again, and it stopped at my feet. A beep fills the chamber, and daylight floods the small pod as I'm being pulled out of the machine.
"Well, son," Dr. DelFritz says in a grim tone. "We have good news and bad news. The good news is that you'll be alive, and most of your organs have healed. The bad news, you've had so much internal bleeding that, well, we'll have to put you on the M.I.A list for a while."
"What... what do you mean?" I ask as I croak out each word.
"I'll let you see for yourself," he says as he stands beside me, waiting. I open up the chest of my shirt. I stare in horror as purple fills up every crevice of my ribs underneath my layers of skin. I can't move, only prop my head up to see what happened to me.
"We'll have to do surgery on you, then keep you here for a month or so. Then you can go back," the doctor said as he walks out of the room. When the door closes, I lay my head back down on the pillow and look up at the ceiling. The boring, old ceiling. Why did you do that in the first place? I thought as the door opened. An ATLAS Soldier walked in and closed the door slightly behind him.
"Calem?" I ask as the Soldier walks closer to my bed. When he's about halfway, he reaches for his belt and draws an old-style bayonet, it's sharp point glinting in the sunlight. Just as he approaches my bed, he stands still, then drops to the floor, dead. Behind the man stands Calem, combat knife in hand.
"There you are, little brother," he says as he sheaths his knife into a small spot in his exo. "Shudda warned ya that there are some KVA that want to kill ya."
"But Calem," I ask, not daring to move due to my condition. "Why?"
"I'll give ya the biggest hint in the world; your new girlfriend."
Shocked, I try to get out of my bed, but Calem pushes me down.
"You need rest, bud," he says in a nice tone.
"What I need is to see Dawn!" I start to yell at my older brother. "I need to make sure that she's okay."
"She's fine," Calem sternly looks at me. "She's with her uncle."
A doctor walks in, and stares at the dead ATLAS Soldier.
"It's alright," Calem says. "He's a KVA trying to kill my little brother."
The doctor nods and silently takes my bed and brings it out the door.
"Where am I going?" I ask the doctor.
"You're due for surgery," he says as he takes a sharp left turn. I soon find myself in another room. I see all the doctors preparing to do surgery on me. A doctor enters my field of view from the ceiling and has a mask attached to a tube.
"This won't hurt a bit," she says as she places the mask on my face. I see the puke-green gas move towards my face, and the touch feels cool. Soon, the mask is off, and I turn my head to look towards the door. There, I see Jonathan Irons.
Smiling.
Then the world fades as the gas's effect starts to work.
***
Enraged, Dawn slams her fist on the table.
"What do you mean?!" she screams. "Why does my uncle want to-"
"It's a bit complicated," Andrew Eiffely begins as he takes another sip of his whiskey. "Jonathan Irons- ahem, your uncle- sees John a threat to ATLAS. He points out that John is nearly dead, which is what he wants."
"Why does my uncle want John dead?" Dawn asks.
"He sees that John is a hero. He risked his life to save many, and your uncle wasn't even in the military. He was such a good strategist that he created his own military, thus forming ATLAS. He gave your cousin, William Irons, the opportunity to join, but he declined and joined the Marines. Of course, you know of how he died. Now, with his son dead, Irons didn't know who to put in charge. He could choose anyone; his Captain Gideon, his First Lieutenant Joker, practically anyone. But now, John seems to be more of a hero. That's what's scaring your uncle so much. He's afraid that your boyfriend will take over ATLAS."
"John would never do such a horrid thing!" Dawn said as she got up and stormed to the door. She opened the door, and left it that way as she walked towards the hospital John was being held. Luckily, the elevator was at her floor when she arrived. Dawn pushed the button the go to the lobby of ATLAS HeadQuarters. From there, she found the doors. As she was walking out, she turned into a dark corridor which led to a door. This was the janitors closet, but she knew that they held a PDW somewhere. Using the light on her phone, she finds the pistol in a drawer, along with an ACOG sight attached and at least ten extra magazines. I'm sure they know it was me that took it, Dawn thought as she left a blue slip on the drawer. Billy, the janitor, let Dawn use it for when she was outside the building, as long as she didn't go too far and she brought it back before his next shift. She put the PDW in her right pant pocket and stuffed the magazines in her back pockets. Dawn then made her way out of ATLAS HQ and made way for the hospital. While she walked, she gazed at how beautiful the City is on the ground. Dawn found a bench and sat down on it. She was a block away from the hospital, so she started to walk, and that's when she saw a squad of KVA Soldiers heading her way. They hold their HBRa3's steady as they start to shoot down civilians. A grenade goes off and a car explodes. Dawn draws her PDW and begins to fire. The automatic pistol almost immediately runs out, so Dawn is forced to hide behind a dumpster in order to reload. Once she cocks the slide back into the firing position, she sees a KVA drawing his pistol to shoot a man lying helpless on the ground. Dawn aims down the ACOG and pulls the trigger. Three bullets come out before she releases, and they all hit the KVA right in the head. The terrorist's body falls to the ground, limp, and drops his gun. Dawn smiles as she empties her mag, and as she slaps a new one in, ATLAS Soldiers start gunning down the remaining KVA. Dawn took this opportunity to make a dash for the hospital.
***
"Where... where am I?" I ask sleepily. A man with a face mask looms over me.
"Who... who are you?" I ask once more. Everything seems to go so slow. The power goes out, and the emergency lights turn on, and a red light starts flashing, but it's so slow. The man looks around, then closes his eyes as a sharp object passes through him, and gets pulled out, blood flying everywhere. The man falls, only to be replaced by another man wearing a black mask with orange stripes. He moves ever so slow, sheathing his knife and grabs my bed. He starts to push me out of the room and into the hallway. He starts to run, and a noise like thunder comes through the air. Bullets fly through the man pushing my bed, and as he falls, I go with him. The bed falls, and I hit the cold ground hard. I open my eyes to the unforgiving dark hall, masked men march away from a hole in the wall, which lets in the smell of a thousand fires and a white light. They march forward as they shoot their guns- HBRa3 by the look of the model. The clinck of the shells dropping to the floor seems deafening. However, the masked men are being shot down, one by one. I look away and I see multiple ATLAS Soldiers advancing, their BAL-27's firing. I crawl towards the ATLAS when a girl starts dragging me where I want to go. After some time, everything goes back to normal; no one moved slow, my hearing is in sync with the actions going on. I hear the ATLAS yelling commands at each other, the screams of the other men filling the air. I get dragged behind a hospital bed, and the girl I realize is Dawn!
"Dawn?" I ask my girlfriend. "What's going on?"
She hugs me, and says, "I was so worried about you." She tears up as she looks at me. "The KVA, they want to take you hostage."
I spy a PDW in Dawn's pocket, and I take it. I peer out from the downed bed and start to fire. I try to keep the bursts down to control recoil so the pistol doesn't fly out of my hands. I down one of the KVA, then another, and the gun decides to be empty as I aim to another. I get pulled down by Dawn just as shots missed my head.
"Thanks," I say, and Dawn smiles back.
"Corporal," one of the ATLAS say as he joins Dawn and I, "we need to get you and Miss Donell back to safety."
"Where are we going?" Dawn asks with a tinge of little-girl-fluff in her voice.
The soldier looks at her, then back at me. "To his brother's place. From there, your homes."
An ATLAS Soldier without a helmet on comes near us. This man is so easily identified that a blind man know who he is. The man is Gideon.
"They're all yours Captain," the Soldier that was once with us now dispersed back in the fight.
"Alright," Gideon says. "Who do we have here? I see Irons' niece, and, holy crap. I'm saving the life of the fucking Corporal."
I clench a fist, but I feel Dawn's hand wrap around it, so I release and hold her hand.
Gideon, being Gideon, sees what we're doing and says, "C'mon you love-birds. Stop holding hands and let's haul ass out of this place."
Dawn and I fall in behind Gideon, but running after surgery is harder than it seems. I'm at the back, trying to keep up with the group. Soon, we make it outside. I lean on Dawn, how volunteers to hold me upright while we walk to HQ. Along the way, an ATLAS Armored Vehicle pulls up.
"Get in," Gideon orders. Once Dawn and I are in, Gideon bangs on the truck, and it goes to my house, where I'll be bombarded with questions from my mother and razed by my brother.
Dawn moves beside me, holds my hand and puts her head on my shoulder. And it's like that for the ride home.