Reckless
"What the casual studier of history often overlooks is not the wars themselves, but the aftermath of them, the profound effects that they have on all societies. All wars have a deep impact on their participants, and while you may understand the battles, you must look farther into what happened after war to truly learn their lesson. The Third Great War is no exception to this. In this chapter, you will read about what ended up being the darkest hour of the former United States of America and Canada, following the defeat of the Allied powers in the Third Great War.
The biologically enhanced soldiers of the war caused a massive impact on not only the very idea of modern warfare, but the outcome of the war itself. But their greatest change in history was not during the war that they were created to fight in, but the society that they eventually had to return to. When the Ottawa Treaty outlining the terms of North America's surrender was signed, these soldiers were forced to reintegrate into society; one already out of control and poorly policed. In this chapter, you will learn and discover what impact these enhanced soldiers, and their children, had on America's post-war collapse, and eventual rebirth."
- Extract from History Now!, Chapter 12: The Aftermath, Copyright June 2104
"And this just in... an update on the AVN-6R case. As you may know, the Ottawa police department has released official confirmation that the sole item stolen in last week's raid of the 55th Precinct station was the AVN model 6 development armour. The AVN project has been marred in failure in the past; as many of our viewers may recall, it was announced three years ago as a means of providing the police with armour capable not only of withstanding virtually any handheld weapons, but easily eliminating gang targets while allowing minimal collateral damage, with no injury to the officer inside.
"What the Police Chief will not confirm, however, is if any of the weapons intended for use by the AVN were stolen along with the armour. If they were, this could be a very grim prospect for the already nearly powerless Ottawa police department, especially if it has fallen into the hands of one of the city's many gangs. It is suspected that the Nightmare Crew is involved-- a gang well known for its control of not only significant portions of the west end, but also a significant presence in the cities Toronto, Halifax, and St John's. A police investigation is still undergoing.
"And in other news, the activist group PESBLA is worried that high school students may be more likely than ever to..." the 6 o'clock newscaster, Jenna Rook, continued to read. She was wincing as she appeared on the television, as she was suffering from a rather nasty headache. Jenna wished that she could just take a break for her newscast and take some kind of painkiller.
But that's got all of nothing to do with this story, and really, neither does anything else about the newscaster Jenna. The only important thing is that one of her viewers in particular was having a lot of trouble watching the newscast on television inside the electronics store he was in. The difficulty was probably caused by the fact that he was wearing a bandana covering most of his face, and the fact that he was too busy running out of the store with a bag full of cash in one hand, a very loaded gun in the other.
Robberies of that type don't often work out too well; store owners caught on pretty quickly that keeping a gun behind the counter tends to be a good idea. But sometimes there are those who cannot afford to keep a weapon, or figure that the $100 they slip to the local gang every month will keep them safe from would be robbers. Not often did any partaking in such a robbery ever succeed; and tragically for the thief, this would not be one of those rare occasions when they do.
It wasn't the store owner that prevented him from taking off with the money; it was the figure in the large black armour that had appeared in the doorway.
A good observer would have noticed that the armour looked a whole lot like the one featured in the newcast, the one that'd been stolen. Same large black features, white highlights painted on it, large plating covering his body. If not for the menacing white mask, it would have been very remiscent of medieval heavy plate armour. That, and the guns on the arms. And all the crap welded onto the legs. But other than that, it would have; and although the construction looked rather shoddy, it was still not something you want to see standing in front of you in a doorway.
But either way, he was standing in that doorway, and the would-be robber wasn't going anywhere.
"Hi," a loud, synthesized voice boomed from the armour. "You are going to go put that money back right now."
"H-holy shit..." He stammered, running back into the store.
The person inside the armour was grinning.
***
"So then he took the guy, and just dragged his ass down to the police station? Shit, man." Ken Jacobs asked his friend, slamming his locker down closed. Of course, Ken already knew all about it; and not from watching the news three hours later.
"Just like that, man. That's some crazy shit, huh?" Steven Summers, however, had only been able to see it on the news, and was telling him all about it.
"That's gotta be pretty fucking awesome. Having the armour, I mean. That's gotta kick a whole lotta ass." Ken replied, pushing his wheelchair down the hall.
"Well, I dunno, man," Steve started, walking beside Ken. "I mean, yeah, that's gotta be cool. But justified, oh, hell no. You steal an anti-gang weapon, and go against some dude committing minor theft? That, man, just ain't cool.
"Hey, I also heard something about the Nightmare Crew probably being involved when it got stolen." They were both on their way to first period, both being rather good friends. "Isn't that the gang you were playing around in? You know, there ain't any good in that sorta shit... none at all. I don't know why you still stay with those pieces of shit."
"What're you talking about? I left those bastards like, days ago. It made me feel like shit being around them... I just wanted to see what the rest of my generation sees in those losers. And seriously, I don't know what the fuck's wrong with them." Ken told him. He then started to add a bit of lies, since he wasn't able to tell them why he really joined the gang briefly. "Too bad I left before they stole that armour. I totally could've gotten their asses busted for that, or somethin'. Or maybe not, since the police ain't got any power... but hey, y'know."
He'd in fact, left the gang right after it was taken, but Steven wasn't being told that. In fact, he'd left less than an hour after it was taken. I think you can guess why.
"Alright, well, good job, then, man." Steve knew that Ken was full of shit, but hey, if he was out of trouble, did it matter? He didn't think it did.
They walked into class, missing the bell by about a minute. Mr. Spellender was pissed off at them, anyway. Probably because he had a short fuse, and the two were arrogant kids who thought they were better and smarter than him, and gave him hell for it whenever they could, like most kids do. He gave Ken a dentention; both knowing full well that he'd never show up. In fact, Ken figured that skipping the last period in the day would be nice.
By some amazing marvel of chance, the second sighting of the person in armour was that same afternoon that Ken skipped. He does deserve credit, though, at least for managing to get out. Cutting just one class out of a day ain't easy; since as long as anyone can remember, schools have had an amount of security that can only be measured with the term "shitloads." Metal detectors, alarms on doors, and windows blocked off with steel bars were just some of the problems. More and more of the gangs that controlled North America's cities were just kids, teenagers, so it wasn't unheard of for drive-by shootings to target students in rival gangs, or for people to sneak into schools who definitely are not the type that you want to be inside schools. Or near children, period.
So while it's a whole lot harder to slip out of school, it sure isn't impossible. Ask any member of the school staff if that's true, and they'll deny it, but the janitors regularly deal with fixing metal detector sensors that have been smashed in and broken. Just one hit with a crowbar, or anything heavy, really (crowbars are hard to get through metal detectors), will take 'em out for a while. Granted, it's still a whole lot of work, especially when it's just easier not to show up in the morning.
Ken, however, needed to deal with metal detectors every single day, so he certainly knows how to get around them. But that's not really that important, in the grand scheme of things.
What's important is that Ken did cut the last period that day. And amazingly enough, that was the very same time that the person in the stolen AVN armour was seen again.
"Drive-by shooting at Main and Carleton, two injured. We need a bus immediately," announced the voice over the AVN's internal police scanner. "Attackers driving away in a green Ford van, heading north on Main past Carleton."
The van in question was very old; built years before the war. Automobiles were damned expensive, and not many people could afford them, even in a city like Ottawa, which was one of the better off post-war North American cities. It was unlikely that there'd be another green Ford van in that part of the city to confuse the one mentioned with.
"Five-five Jackson, got it," another person said over the police radio. Two more cops responded, in addition to an ambulance. And someone who wasn't quite a cop.
Oh, hell... this might as well be the first one I respond to, Ken thought to himself.
Ken arrived on the scene barely a minute after the ambulance did. He walked in, quite happy to be walking again. Before he'd stolen the armour, he barely had any memory of being able to walk; for as long as he could remember, his legs were too weak to support his body weight, and he'd been confined to a wheelchair. Wealthier people with his condition could just use leg braces to support their weight, but Ken couldn't afford them. His family could barely afford food. But the armour functioned just like them, letting him walk again. And walk he did, stomping towards the ambulance.
His enthusiasm was quickly killed when he saw who the two victims were.
"Fuck off, man," one of the paramedics told him. "For god's sake, your bunch have already done enough harm here."
Ken took a good look at the two bodies being carried into the ambulance on stretchers. Neither looked older than 11 years old, both still holding onto schoolbags. Just small kids. Probably the sons of a guy who pissed off the wrong gang banger. He took a deep breath, trying hard not to be physically ill at the sight.
"Are they okay?" Ken asked. His real voice was full of concern, but the paramedics heard a deep, cold, metallic voice instead. After stealing the armour, he'd set up the armour to mask his voice when he spoke, so not just anybody could identify him.
"What, here to finish the job? They're both dead, you piece of shit," the paramedic said with a scowl. Two cop cars sped by, chasing after the van.
It took Ken a moment to figure out what the hell the paramedic was talking about. Then he realized; of course, they probably figured that he was just another gang member. The news had reported that it was stolen by a gang, after all, something which wasn't untrue. It just wasn't well known that the AVN armour wasn't in control by gangs any more... but he'd make a point to make that well known.
You know, I bet if I wasn't wearing this damned armour, they'd still think I was in a gang, Ken thought to himself. Just because I'm a kid. Christ, that's what's wrong with this world. How have we fucked ourselves up so much?
He considered responding to the paramedic, to say how much better than that he was; but he realized that actions would speak a whole lot louder than words here.
"Computer, flight, activate. Straight forward." Ken instructed the armour. There wasn't much in terms of manual flight navigation, the armour's computer did all that.
He shot ahead forward, the large, clunky armour flying metres above the road. The roads were clear, and the cop cars were doing at least 100 km/h; so few people drove on the roads that speeding never really was a big an issue. But Ken could go a whole lot faster than that, and the gang van probably could, too. He wouldn't be surprised if it was going 160 km/h instead.
"Computer, increase flight speed: 180 km/h," Ken told the computer.
"Affirmative. However, travelling faster than 150 km/h is not a safe procedure and no--" the armour's automatic warning started to chime in.
"Shut up and do it," he snapped at it. Why the hell is that message even still in there? Guess there's still a lot of shit to take out. Apparently his modifications weren't as extensive as they should have been.
He sped up rapidly, and started to feel a bit sick; he realized why it was not intended to jump from low speeds to 180 km/h. He took a deep breathe, trying to stop himself from puking inside the helmet. The speeding van appeared in his line of sight quickly enough, fortunately.
"Computer, target... everything faster than 100 km/h," he impatiently said. The transluscent screen built into the eye slits of the mask partially lit up, causing Ken to see a yellow box around the van. "Match target's speed, maintain a distance of 5 metres." He left most of the flying control to the armour's computer. It knew how to fly a whole lot better than he did.
He lowered his right hand, aiming his arm at one of the back tires of the van. He lined up the cannon-like bulge on his arm to the tire carefully.
"Computer, load right arm. Fire," he instructed the computer. A blast came from his arm, the bullet hitting the van's tire. He then shot the other tire, trying to take the van to a stop.
After a few seconds, it became very clear the the van was not slowing down. What the fuck, he thought to himself. I guess that doesn't actually work. Now what the fuck do I do?
It took him a moment, but then he figured out an idea that sounded just as stupid as his first to stop the van. He made a mental note that he really needed to find an effective way of stopping cars.
"Computer... parallel flight to target," he instructed, flying up and alongside the van. He took a deep breath, and threw all his weight to the side, causing him to slam right into the side of the van. The van rocked violently. Ken slammed against it again.
That time, it toppled right over, screeching as the metal scraped against the ground at such a high speed. Not too many people filled the street, but those that did, ran the hell away from the van. Ken hovered above, and the van eventually came to a halt, crashing into a lamp post.
"Get the hell out of the van," he boomed loudly at the passengers, all emotion lost in the metallic, cold, monotonous voice.
"What the fuck're you doing?!" the driver of the car shouted at him. He was bald, flames tatooed across his head, going down his neck, and wearing pretty obvious gang colours. Nightmare Crew. Ken could tell by the tatoos and the rank markings that he had at least some power in the gang. Ken aimed his arm at him, lining up the shot perfectly with the computer.
The other man held a handgun at his side, and was wearing a red bandana. Same gang colours. He was shaking all over; Ken figured he was around 17 or so. Probably a new recruit.
"Alright, man! Don't shoot! Don't fuckin' shoot! I-I'm coming out, I'll surrender, man... but don't shoot me!" the younger one pleaded.
"No way, man. You don't do that. You know what happens to traitors?" The tatooed man scowled at the other one, reaching into his jacket. Ken saw from where he was hovering, that he was reaching for a gun.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, he thought. This isn't right. It ain't supposed to go down like this. What do I do? If I shoot... aw, shit, this is bad. This is really bad. You know how time seems to slow down just when something bad's going to happen? Well, that's what happened to Ken. He was probably just as scared as either of the two in the van. I can't kill him... that ain't right....
They killed two little kids, and now another's going to die... he thought to himself. The man pulled the gun out of his jacket, and started to bring it towards the 17-year-old in the van. On the spur of the moment, Ken made his decision.
"Computer, fire."
***
"You can't stop me. You know that, right?" Ken flatly told the police officer in front of him. An ambulance drove off with the dead gang member's body in the background, and the kid he saved sat in the back of the patrol car.
"I don't know what the fuck you think you're doing, kid, or who you're working for, but you're out of line. Way out of line," the police officer snapped at him. "And if you're trying to do good, you ain't succeeding; that was the most reckless thing I've ever seen in my damned life."
"Screw you," Ken quickly responded. He had neither time for taking shit from a police officer-- he knew that the police had so far been near completely powerless in protecting people in the city-- or for second guessing himself. The latter, he had plenty of time to do later. "Are you going to lecture me, too? Should I be more careful?" His deep voice echoed loudly.
"Computer, flight activate. Take me home," he instructed.
The officer yelled at him as he flew off.
Copyright © 2005, Chris Love