The Life of an ATLAS Boy

The Dark Side

"Happy now, Andrew. John's alive."
"I am happy, thanks Irons."
"Why did you send your men to the hospital?"
"What?"
"You sent your men to the hospital. Why? To get John? To keep him safe from my plan? Andrew, I thought we had a deal."
"We did. But when I first made the deal to join ATLAS, I didn't read "killing children" in the files. Unless I skipped over a part, and if I did, enlighten me. Why do you want to kill John? Is he a threat? Will he be the heir to ATLAS, and you're afraid of what all your precious commanders will think? I kid you not, John is better than you think."
"I know the boy's files. He is good, but he will make ATLAS fall. That's why he needs to be dead. And that's why you need to be too."
"Jonathan... you... you... will pay... for this!"
"And how might that be? You have a knife stuck in you and you can't do shit. Farewell, my dear friend Eiffely." Just pull the trigger.
"No..."
"Damn. That guy was getting on my nerves... Guards!"
"Yes sir."
"Dispose of Commander Eiffely's body."
"Yes General Irons. Right away."
***
I hear all the time that people are tired from doing work. Well, sitting at home, watching the same thing over and over is tiring too! It's been a few days, but I'm better now, even though I was scared half to death when I saw Dawn was in the firing range.
Well, now I'm sitting around, waiting for one of the ATLAS Captains to come by and pick me up for extended training with bigger guns. I'm pretty excited, I have to say. According to Calem, I get to shoot the ATLAS 20mm, the XMG1, the MORS and the MDL. I'm already in y full gear when the doorbell rings. I walk towards the door and open it. I'm expecting to see Captain Gideon, but rather I see Captain DeRose, a man 1.5 times the size of Dawn.
"Sir," I say as I look up.
"Hello, young Corporal," Captain DeRose says in his deep voice. "Ready for today?"
"You bet I am, sir," I say cheerfully. Captain DeRose smiles as he leads me to his jeep, where from there, we head to the ATLAS Hangar where all the Warbirds, Goliaths, Paladins, and really anything that moves. The Captain isn't as strict as Gideon; DeRose feels as if he gets all the "big-boy toys" as he calls them. When it's true; he tests each one to make sure it's alright to use in battle. He leads me into the back of the hangar, where a cylindrical-like object stood in the middle.
"Go on," Captain DeRose nudges me towards the thing. "Pry it open."
Cautiously, I walk over to the thing. When I'm an arms length away, DeRose calls out, "When you open it, just get in."
I chuckle under my breath as I reach my hands out and yank the cylinder apart. In it is a clump of metal. I see a handle, so I instinctively grab it. I put my feet in what looks like boots, and they click in. I lean forward, and my back gets pulled in as something traps me. What looks like a thing of metal peels back as it comes back together to form a chest plate of some sort. I put my arms in slots where they should go, and a robotic noise, kinda sounding like a Transformer, fills the room and the whirling of a chain gun catches my attention. My right hand feels a stick of some sort, so I pull it down, and I see that I am holding a chain gun. The metal heap stands up, and that's when it hit me.
I'm in a XS1 Goliath.
Smiling, I turn and face Captain DeRose.
"Sir," I say. "You shouldn't-"
"But I did," Captain DeRose laughed. "I'll set up some targets, and I want you to shoot them." He types something in on his wristpad, and in front of me, human-like targets appear. Keeping my finger in the trigger, I look at who's in front of me. Two guys are on my right, three on my left and one in the center. I aim at the guy in front of me first. I pull the trigger, and the gun rotates as bullets fly out of the three rotating barrels. I aim for the targets on my right. These put up a bit more resistance by firing back, but they were just as easy as the first. Now I turned my attention to the targets on my left. These simulated real action. I tried to hit one of them, but he'd always duck before I could hit him. They were all spaced out; left, right and center. I saw the occasional shot, so I shot when I could. The one target in the right popped up, and with timing, I hit the target. I continued to fire to keep the final two targets down. The one in the center ran for me, and I instinctively hit him with my knife. But without a knife, the giant Goliath fist knocked the target aside, marking it dead. The final target was a pain. He kept on popping up, and narrowly missed my shots. Angered, I walked to the barrier where the target hid and bunkered it with the chain gun. Captain DeRose clapped as I was finished playing with the XS1 Goliath.
"Well done, Corporal," he sounded impressed. "Others would've given up when they'd be on the last target."
I smiled, impressed with myself.
"C'mon," the Captain said. "Let's see how you handle heavy weaponry."
I followed DeRose to the Shooting Range. Surprisingly, it was empty. However, each station had a gun planted on the stand.
"Go on," Captain DeRose said as he outstretched his arm as if to show me the wonders of the world. "Pick one."
Pondering, I look back and forth between the choices. I head to the weapon at Stall 4. It's an old looking gun, with a belt inside a box that attaches underneath the gun frame. On the side, the name says Ameli. It's outfitted with a fore grip, a laser sight and a variable red dot. I pick it up, and my arms nearly rip off due to its weight.
"Ah, the good old Ameli," Captain DeRose says as he walks over to help me lift it. "A SENTINEL light machine gun, used before by the Ghosts. It's more meant for use of a Squad Automatic Weapon, but now, production has slowed a little. Go ahead, try it out."
Captain DeRose stands back as I look at the first target. The kick makes me miss my first few shots, but then I counter it and hit the target with a little more than the needed amount of bullets. I continue to shoot through the rest of the targets, and then the belt runs out. I put the gun down, and my arms feel weightless. I move over to Stall 5, where two miniature looking Gatling guns are perched on stands. I look at them, and I'm not seeing any trigger or grip.
"I see you found the XMG1," the Captain said as he walked over. He takes his hands and put them in a tube, and the XMG's spring to life, a metal flap covers the hammer system.
"This is the normal firing mode," Captain DeRose says as the Gatling guns don't rotate, but rather fire rather slow as the barrels retract like the barrel of the Barrett .50. Captain DeRose hits all the targets on the field. He then raises the guns and the drum magazines pop out, and he reaches for two new clips without taking his hands out of the guns. He readies them again, but he leans back and the barrels extend into four rotating barrels.
"The XMG's have an alternate mode, called Lockdown Mode," the Captain says as a new set of targets come on the field. "The fire rate and accuracy are increased in this mode. However, your movement is limited to only looking around."
The Captain aims at a target, and the barrels rotate as the shots fire quickly, and in no time, the clips are empty and the targets are gone. He takes the weapons off his hands and places them back on the stands.
"Go ahead," the Captain motions me to pick them up. "Give 'em a shot."
Carefully, I put my hands in the tubes that Captain DeRose put his. My hands come in contact with a grip fitted with multiple buttons. I run my fingers along the buttons; I feel a trigger for my index, a switch for my middle finger and a square for my ring and small finger. I pick up the XMG1's, and flick the switch. I'm put in Lockdown, pull the trigger, and wreck havoc in the shooting range.
***
Dawn walks around ATLAS HQ, looking for John. She sticks to the sidewalks to avoid the oncoming Arial Recon Drones flying by and multiple Jeeps on the roads. She walks by the Grenade Range, and sees a man with a prosthetic arm practicing his grenade throws. When he turned around to get more grenades, he looked a bit like the new guy Mitchell. As she looks at what he's doing, she accidentally runs into a patrol of three. The man she ran into turns around.
"Wat- wait? Who are you?" he asked.
"That's Irons' niece," the one beside the man said with a snicker. "So watch yer mouth."
The group leader turned around and kept walking, while the others followed. That was close, Dawn thought as she continued walking towards the Shooting Range, where the rumors have said there to be a kid in there. As she walked, the Guards kept looking at as if she were a prisoner. Soon, she reached the Shooting Range, and a single Guard stood watch, Pytaek held closely to his chest.
"Sorry ma'am," he said, his eyes barely visible through his ATLAS Infantry sunglasses. "Civilians aren't allowed to enter. Please, turn back."
"But my boyfriend is in there, and I want to make sure he's alright," Dawn said shakily as she remembered the Pytaek that could be fired at a moments notice.
"Ma'am," the Guard said once more, this time with a tinge of fury in his voice. "Turn around and exit this section of the facility. Now." He raised his LMG and aimed it straight at Dawn's chest. Shocked, Dawn began to walk away until a voice caught her attention.
"Hey!" a man with an English accent called. The voice came closer. "Is that a way to treat a woman, Thomsan?"
Now it was the Guard's turn to be scared. "Sir," he tried to sound firm, but the hint of terror was noticeable. "She won't obey simple comm-"
"What does she want?" At this point, the British man stood across from the Guard. His beard and hat made him noticeable; Captain Gideon.
"She wants to go in to see her boyfriend," Thomsan shriveled his face up, "just to make sure he's alright, and do what any other pair of lovers doe-"
"Why don't you shut up?!" Dawn became raged. Thomsan and Gideon, along with a few nearby Guards looked in her direction.
"We've only been together for a month, and about half of that was spent with him either in a SENTINEL cell or in the hospital being saved from bleeding out! I haven't seen him for long, so-"
"Do you know who this girl is?" Gideon calmly interrupted Dawn before she could fully explode on the poor man.
"No, sir," Thomsan shakily replied. "It's only my second week..." Thomsan looks down.
"This," Gideon said as he pointed at Dawn, "is General Irons' niece."
Thomsan mouthed "shit" and swallowed.
"Oh, I'm sorry ma'am," Thomsan said as he moved away from the door. "I don'tknow who's who yet."
"Sorry for yelling at you," Dawn replied in her normal, sweet voice. "I didn't know it was your second week on the job. If I knew, then I wouldn't have gone out on you like I did."
Thomsan smiled, then asked, "Are you Corporal Olsteen's girlfriend?"
Dawn nodded. "The one and only" I hope.
Thomsan immediately unlocked the door. When Dawn was inside the Range, it was a corridor. As she walked closer, she could hear faint shots being fired. Soon, she reached a door, and when it opened, there he was. John stood in a Stall with a MORS shooting away at targets. However, when the door opened, John dropped the sniper.
***
"Dawn!" I said as I ran towards her. When we met, I embraced her, and lifted her up. Her melodic laugh filled the air as she felt the freedom of flight, and she still laughed even when I put her down.
"I missed you," Dawn said as she looked up at me, her eyes twinkling.
I smiled, and said, "I did too." She smiled back at me, and Captain DeRose spoke.
"Alright lovebirds. Break it up," and he laughed. Dawn laughed, then I laughed, and soon, the room was full of laughter. When it stopped, Captain DeRose excused himself to do another duty. When Dawn and I were alone, we just looked at each other, silence surrounding us. Dawn came closer to me, and I wrapped my arms around her waist, and her arms around my neck. Then she reached up and kissed me. When our lips parted, she smiled. I smiled back, half surprised and half a feeling I don't know.
"You have the lips of an angel," I tell her. She smiles, and kisses me again, except this time I held her closer to me when she did. It was a long kiss, Dawn's lips pushed on mine, and I kissed back. I have to say, the feeling I felt is something I never felt before. And I liked it.
"I love you," I whispered to Dawn. She smiled, and laughed a little.
"I love you too," she said, and she kissed me again, and we held it longer than the last. The door opened, and our lips left each other once again. I was expecting Captain DeRose to be in the doorway, but when I saw the figure, I immediately knew that it was Irons.
"Ah, John," he says surprised. "I didn't expect you to be here."
"Nor was I, sir," I say, trying to hold my anger in. Irons reaches up to his right ear and takes out an earphone.
"Sorry about that," he says as he holds his hand at his side. "Being the leader of ATLAS is a pretty tou-"
"General Irons," a voice came through the earphone and got made louder because of the way Irons cupped his hand. "The bombs have been dropped over Sector 105 in San Francisco. You're pretty crafty using SENTINEL- grade alloy. Should we send in a cleanup team to ensure target-" Irons covered up his earphone, and muffled the voice.
"Uncle?" Dawn asks quietly. "That's my city sector..." She begins to tear up. "My parents are dead... what did you do?" Then Dawn began to cry. I held her close to my chest. Irons' eyes spoke of fearfulness, while his body stayed strong, and his voice full of lies.
"My dear Dawn," he starts. "I did it for the sake of you. There was heavy SENTINEL activity in... uh... the sector. We had to drop a bomb or two to rid them of-"
"You killed my parents!" Dawn screamed at her uncle. I still held her, except she was turned around. I saw where she kept the PDW. "Why would you kill your own family?! That is unheard of... Not only did you kill my parents, but you killed at least 900 000 more innocent people! How cou-"
"My brother, your father, was ways better!" Irons raged. "He made it into NASA, and I got kicked out! So I created ATLAS, a worldwide organization bent on controlling the ground. I want to stop NASA from going into space, but SENTINEL and the KVA got in the way, so I have to eliminate them. But I never forgot my goal..."
I drew the PDW and aimed it at Irons in rage. "You aren't a leader," I growl. "You're a monster. I can't even imagine killing my brother. I thought that you were a new father to me." I lower the PDW and I feel Dawn's hands grab mine. "But I was wrong." Dawn suddenly grabs the PDW out of my hands and is about to pull the trigger when Captain Gideon came in.
"Well well," he said. "So what he have here?"
"I was teaching her how to shoot, sir," I say as I take the gun from Dawn and holster it. "I told her she needs to practice drawing and aiming, and when General Irons came through, it startled her and she did everything perfectly."
"I'm impressed, Corporal," Gideon said as he strolled out of the shooting Range. Irons scowled at me, and left.
"Stupid asshole," Dawn said angrily. "That bastard killed my family, and I don't want to stay with him."
"Well, I'm sure you can stay with me," I say as I kiss her.
"I hope I can," Dawn says as she reaches up and kisses me again, and I pull her close. We stand in the Shooting Range, me holding her and her holding me.
*
My phone buzzed. It was Dawn wishing me good morning. She stayed at her grandparents, and we planned to see each other today. School is finally out for two months, and hopefully I can spend done time with Dawn. I got out of bed, and walked to check to see if ATLAS has any events scheduled for today:
-Captain's meeting
-Scouting
-Battalion A-234 Mission Debrief
-Basic Training Exercises (First Sergeants only)
Nothing really struck an interest for me, nor did I need to do anything. I decided to go to ATLAS Park, a place where one can practice with their exo-suit. I got all my gear on, put on my pair of ATLAS Vigilante sunglasses and an old red and white Bass Pro hat, grabbed my training gun, which looks like an AMR9 with a red dot and foregrip. The mags hold 24 rounds each. I walk out, and everyone looks at me and moves out of the way. When I reach the Park (which is in the middle of nowhere), I set up the electronic targets and begin. I start off at the starting point, and three guys rush at me. I set the AMR9 to automatic, and lay hell to the targets. I duck, and the electric bullets hit the wall that I was hiding behind. I pop out and knock down the last target. I hop the barrier, and when a target saw me, I boost up to the top of a building. I set the fire rate to 5-round burst, and hit the target. I see a sniper off in the distance, and jump just as a shot was fired. I strafe back into a building where I had a clean shot of the target. As I aim, a SENTINEL Transport lands in the park. I hide, and I hear Gideon's voice say, "Find Corporal Olsteen. We need him to join SENTINEL, and even his precious girlfriend joined us in the fight against Irons."
At that, the sound of exo-suits walking along the gravel filled the air. There was an electronic buzz, and I turn around to see a target stand over me. I can't shoot, or else it'll give away my position. I pull my knife out, but the targets shoots me and the electric bullets that hit me make a loud buzz. I scream as the shock feels like a real bullet. I grab my side and realize I was only in a sim. By then, beautiful Dawn is standing over me in a fully outfitted exo. I smile, and she smiles back. I get to my feet, walk towards her and kiss her. She kisses me back, and a SENTINEL Soldier marches up the stairs.
"Uh, Corporal," he nervously says. "Captain, I found him."
Dawn and I follow the SENTINEL back to the Transport, where many ex-ATLAS Soldiers are waiting, including Gideon and a new guy Mitchell and my brother, Calem.
"Hello Corporal," Gideon welcomes. "I know what Irons did, and we're all here to get revenge. Are you in?"
I look at Dawn, then my brother, then I say,
"Yes."