The Infiltrators: Part Two

OSIRIAN HIGH COMMAND DATABASE
SECURITY ID: IMK1_0042_1138
SECURITY ACCESS GRANTED
Exc. from Data File 3: Untitled List #4
(Persons of Interest)
*[___] St., corner store, mom & pop shop, Chinese sweets. Rat infestation.
*Reports state that they take them to the back room and cut them up. Owners have split up. Individual locations are unknown. Five people have died as a result of sanitation issues. Prosecution Code: Deploy, Inject, Cauterize, Expose.
*DRAMATIC decrease in homeless population thanks to "TRAMP STRANGLER". Individual has been recognized. Multiple accounts of anti civil behavior on record. Prosecution Code: Expose, Pacify, Rectify.
*Palace of Fine Arts. Group of children there, use carbines. They used to gut fish at the lake. Possible murder of HR Civil Virtue Legion operative. Violation of multiple Civil Regulations. Prosecution code: Unrest, Deploy, Contain, Inject, Rectify.
*Doors fan in [Record store]. Supposedly enjoys observing the Sabbath alone in his apartment. Reconnaissance shows him spying on border guard. Possible future escapee. Prosecution Code: Observe.
*Enemy movement sighted in southwest region of Oversector. Prosecution Code: Cauterize, Restrict, Deploy.
*Peter Gynt. Male individual. Messy hair. Caucasian. Resisted against mandatory Rectification procedures and Assaulted a Civil Officer. Citizen status withdrawn. New status: anticitizen. Prosecution Code: Amputate.
*Possible anticitizen breach of Civil Virtue Legion station 09. Prosecution Code: Unrest, Sterilize, Stabilize, Amputate. [CONFIRMED FALSE]
//Preparing to deploy Infiltrator Unit- [WARNING- ADVANCED DIFFICULTY]
Loading...
<> <> <>
I awaken. My face is on the ground and I am covered in dirt. Overhead a seagull is flying, calling out to her hatchlings far away. The bright California sunset is peeking out through the fog and reflecting off of a window, illuminating the ground and directing a beam of light directly into my eyes. I grunt and roll over to the side. Children are laughing in the distance. I smirk. Laughter is rare these days. It seems that the only emotion everyone has time for is fear.
Groaning, I drag myself up off the mud and casually brush chunks of caked-on dirt off my arms and legs. It sloppily crumbles onto the ground in irregular sheets. I glance down at my clothes: a tattered brown trench coat, a pair of ragged yarn gloves falling apart at the fingertips, a faded button-up shirt, and some old ripped-up jeans. I suppose that the dirt won’t exactly harm my appearance that much, seeing as I already look like shit.
I stand up, and after dislodging a pebble that had gotten stuck on my back, observe my surroundings. Directly in front of me lies the ruined rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts. The gargantuan edifice still seemed mighty in its winter years. A giant hole had ripped through the right of dome, dripping with collected rainwater and slime. Several pelicans and other birds have made tiny assorted nests in the building’s exposed steel beams, and a low groaning roar emanates from the partially collapsed structure. The once-blue pond ahead of the dome is a dingy grey, and the towering pergola had all but fallen. Years of no maintenance had dealt their blow. How appropriate, in that the Palace was designed to look like the ruins of antiquity, and now it has joined them in their desolation.
My eyes strain to peer across the gloom, but the loud echoing blast from a gunshot alerts me to the location of other people. I have no idea why, but I feel an urge to go to them. Without thinking, I step into the murky haze to approach them.
Minutes pass. My grungy old shoes slosh through the puddles of grime and filth that line the streets. To my left, a homeless man stops peddling his few material belongings, unzips his pants and openly defecates onto the pavement. An earthy scent fills the air, but I ignore this as I continue down the roadway. For reasons unknown, I move ahead towards a path on my left and the inhabitants of the dome.
The sound of the people leads me to their exact location rather quickly. There are around 7 people, mostly teenagers, but a few children, huddled around a garbage-can fire. They stand clumped together in the center of the rotunda, the blaze lighting up their faces and bathing the Palace in bright orange light. They were all high, passing a joint amongst each other and sharing a cracked bottle of Jim Bean. I observe them for a minute, studying their faces and listening into their conversation, debating silently in my head whether to go to them or remain quiet.
“How did it feel to pull the trigger?” one of the younger boys asked.
“Come on, man, it was just a twitch of the finger. Nothing more,” said the oldest.
“But you could get caught, I mean you killed-”
They both hushed up quickly, as if they could sense my presence. All seven of them waited for around thirty seconds before dismissing the notion that someone was watching them as nothing but a trick of the wind, or a result of the whiskey. They continued.
“It was just another murder in this hell-hole of a town. The Osirians, they ain’t going to do jack shit. I’ve even heard that they’re weak as it is. Don’t let their Citadel fool you,” he said, gesturing at the colossal silhouette of the tower that dominated the harbor, reaching up for miles into the sky and seeming to dissolve into the clouds.
“What about the Infiltrators?”
“Few and far between. I’m sure they’ve got better stuff to be focused on. After we nuked most of the Osirians when they arrived from space, they basically surrendered,” he continued.
“After managing to conquer large amounts of the planet,” one of them said.
“Yeah... I suppose so. Something tells me that they’re going to be busy with that gang war between the Crips and the Bloods for a while anyways,” interceded another.
“That’s more like it,” the oldest one grinned as he took a puff of a blunt.
“Besides, if the Osirians do come out of their Citadel, we’ve got these,” he concluded. My eyes widened. From under a sleeping bag that was strewn on the concrete floor he lifted a M1 Carbine. Its barrel almost appeared to be growling at me as it glinted in the light, ready to fire a long hard blast of “Fuck You” into someone’s face. The others cheered.
“That dumbass from the Civil Virtue Legion never stood a chance,” another guy piped in. More drunken laughter.
I could feel my body tense up. For yet another time that evening I felt myself move without knowing really why. One step. Then another. And another. Slowly I turned a corner and stepped into the glow of the main rotunda. The adolescents stopped drinking and stared into my face. I stared back. They all had a similarly weathered face, a face that had seen hardship and death. Their expression was gaunt and they all looked tired and weak.
“Whatcha lookin’ at, mother fucker?!” one of them said. I paid him no thought and stepped closer to them. Like a pack of wild dogs they barked and growled at me, trying to scare me off.
“Hey, fuckface. Turn around,” their leader shouted. He reached within his stained hoodie and pulled out a jet-black pistol, aiming it at my forehead. I was 10 meters away now.
“Dude, Alex, he’s probably just crazy. Let him go, man!” said the person to his right. There was an unmistakable sense of urgency in his voice. Their leader looked at him, then ignored him, turning back at me.
“That was an order, asshole.”
I stopped.
“That’s more like it.”
I could hear the gun click. Another person loaded one of the carbines and threw it at one of the kids. The boy fumbled around with it, struggling to grip it.
“Good evening, Gentlemen,” I said in an unnaturally calm tone given the situation. I glanced at their angry faces and put my hands over my head. Every fiber of my being was crying at me to stop, yet somehow I had this urge to continue. Two of them approached me and hastily padded me down. After a moment, they seemed content in the knowledge that I had no weapons, and quickly retreated to the warmth of the fire.
“What do you want?” their leader asked.
“Knowledge,” I responded in a robotic voice.
“I don’t think you’re going to find anything here, asswipe.”
I ignored him, and continued.
“You killed the leader of the Civil Virtue Legion - Ignominious X - on the orders of the faction movement known as the Brutalists. You accept and know this to be true?”
The group stiffened. The leader’s silence was answer enough.
“Dude, you killed Ignominious X?! What the fuck?!” shouted a member of this pack in front of me. Infighting commenced.
“You said that it was just a member of the CVL! You never said anything about Ignominious X! You bastard!”
“How was I supposed to know?!”
“I don’t know, maybe because he’s the fucking Ignominious X!
One of them shoved their leader out of the warmth of the fire and under the large hole in the rotunda. He fell down into the puddle and crumpled onto the hard concrete floor. An irregular gash tore through his forehead, and he coughed up blood. He was soaked at this point. I do not know if it was from the rainwater or his own ichor. His gun had slid about five meters from his current location. He crawled towards it, tears dripping down his crimson face. Then he smiled.
“He-hey guys...” he choked. “The only people who know about this are us and h-him.”
His voice wavered. Slowly the others came to the realization of what he was implying.
“If we k-kill him we won’t get caught.”
At this point his shaking body had reached his pistol, and he fumbled for it with his right hand. He started laughing crazily.
“It... It won’t be hard... heh... just a twitch of the finger... nothing more.”
The one who had previously pleaded with his leader to stop came forward and pushed me backwards into one of the dome’s columns. I remember feeling the back of my head bounce off the cement. Then he punched me in the stomach. As he drew back his arm to get ready for another swing, my arm instinctively launched out and I pointed my index finger into his eye. He screamed and fell downwards, blood rushing from his skull. I twisted his neck as he fell. That’s when I saw the others aim their carbines. Their leader laughed once more.
“On my mark!” he cried. “One! Two! Three! Fir-”
Then I felt myself becoming very hot and my vision faded to white.
<> <> <>
I awaken. My face is on the floor and I am covered in blood. Whose blood? I forget. I roll lazily onto my back and stretch out my arms and legs. I groan. My head hurts and my stomach aches. I stand up, and after dislodging a rock that had gotten stuck in my back, observe my surroundings. I gasp. There are the remains of six boys scattered around me. Their faces are contorted in silent eternal screams, and insidious black needles of an unknown material are stuck in their heads and torsos, smoking as if they were burning. From my right I hear sobbing and turn in the general direction. In a puddle lies a teenager, at around eighteen years old. His eyes widen as I draw closer.
“Stay back!” he shouted. His face is drenched in blood, but I notice that only a small amount of it is his. In his shaking hands is a Glock 17.
“I said stay back!” he shouted once more. He hurriedly held up the gun, but his hands were twitching so erratically that I knew he’d never hit anything. I looked at his scared face and traumatized eyes and stepped towards him. He broke down into a blubbering mess. He dipped his forehead down, almost to the handle of the pistol. Rivulets of water dripped off his wet hair onto the butt. It started to rain outside and the blood trickled off of his face, sloshing down his stained hoodie and down his soiled cargo pants, until collecting in a puddle at his feet.
“Is there any way I can help you?” I shouted. By now, the downpour was torrential and the smell of ozone was mingling with the odor of the garbage fire and with the reeking stench of carnage. Seagulls and other birds were staring down at the two of us from their perches in the hole in the roofing. At last, a dark raven swooped down and began making short work of the dead, shredding ligaments with its crooked beak and dragging hunks of stinking flesh back to its nest. I did not remember where those bodies came from.
“Oh my god... you’re an Infiltrator!” he whimpered. His eyes bulged like a cow in a slaughterhouse. The way he used that word made me cringe. Somehow, I knew it was bad. He turned his head to the side and fixed his glazing eyes at me, then craned his neck to stare across the bay at the Citadel in the harbor. He closed his eyes shortly after.
<> <> <>
OSIRIAN HIGH COMMAND DATABASE
SECURITY ID: IMK1_0042_1138
SECURITY ACCESS GRANTED
Exc. from Data File 3: Untitled List #4
(Persons of Interest)
*[___] St., corner store, mom & pop shop, Chinese sweets. Rat infestation.
*Reports state that they take them to the back room and cut them up. Owners have split up. Individual locations are unknown. Five people have died as a result of sanitation issues. Prosecution Code: Deploy, Inject, Cauterize, Expose.
*DRAMATIC decrease in homeless population thanks to "TRAMP STRANGLER". Individual has been recognized. Multiple accounts of anti civil behavior on record.
Prosecution Code: Expose, Pacify, Rectify.
*Palace of Fine Arts. Group of children there, use carbines. They used to gut fish at the lake. Possible murder of HR Civil Virtue Legion operative. Violation of multiple
Civil Regulations. Prosecution code: Unrest, Deploy, Contain, Inject, Rectify.
[INFILTRATOR UNIT DEPLOYED- MISSION SUCCESSFUL.]
[INFILTRATOR UNIT DEPLOYED- MISSION SUCCESSFUL.]
[INFILTRATOR UNIT DEPLOYED- MISSION SUCCESSFUL.]
*Doors fan in [Record store]. Supposedly enjoys observing the Sabbath alone in his apartment. Reconnaissance shows him spying on border guard. Possible future escapee. Prosecution Code: Observe.
*Enemy movement sighted in southwest region of Oversector. Prosecution Code: Cauterize, Restrict, Deploy.
*Peter Gynt. Male individual. Messy hair. Caucasian. Resisted against mandatory Rectification procedures and Assaulted a Civil Officer. Citizen status withdrawn. New status: anticitizen. Prosecution Code: Amputate.
*Possible anticitizen breach of Civil Virtue Legion station 09. Prosecution Code: Unrest, Sterilize, Stabilize, Amputate. [CONFIRMED FALSE]
PREPARE FOR MEMORY WIPE PROCEDURE//
Wiping....
Category:Computers and Internet
Category:Space
Category:Dreams/Sleep
Category:Beings
Category:Disappearances