Plasma Ultra

Chapter O: Epilogue

There was mental darkness and then a voice calling kut. "You, with the Sigil of the Zebra, Miklos Santini right?" a voice called out. It was directed to the young apprentice, who had been walking down the hallway with his hands in his pockets and his head down.

"Who you after? Me?" The young apprentice responded. So deep in thought that he had almost tripped on his own feet, to come to a stop. He pointed to himself but he was looking around. He wasn't expecting anyone to look for him.

There were a lot of people in the hallway walking past, looking busy, at their phones, displays or just moving past, going to their destinations in the building. These were some of the people working hard to keep the people of Nineveh safe and here he was walking aimlessly amongst them.

He, as a young aimless apprentice, was thinking about the gulf between what he needed to do and achieve, versus what he was currently doing, which could be best summed up as feeling lost. "Why are you after me?" He asked but he was simply beckoned to go over.

He felt so alone and the sense that he did not belong here, was only growing stronger a familiar ache in his chest, as if he was some sort of alien shapeshifter. "Mr Santini, over here, please!" A voice said with a tone which offered had measured patience in it.

The young man stopped and looked to his right, he saw the figure that had talked to him. The deep gravelly voice belonged to this formiddable shadow. The other man nodded as if to say finally I have your attention. "Yes, nice to meet you!"

Miklos's tongue got the better of him, talking faster than he could think. "And you are the Mexican Wrestler Monster that everyone has been talking about?" The young man said.

"Well, I don't know about wrestling but I do know about breaking a few skulls and putting on some serious size. He said flexing his shoulders but not putting the biceps on display. He was reserved and the more observant type of man. Although he was vocally joking, quietly he was inspecting the young man.

Miklos was a young guy, 15, Smooth black skin, medium build with some extra fat, even though it was hard to tell with the overalls. The dreadlocks ontop of the head and the dark brown eyes full of mischief. "You are looking rather puny from where I am standing."

"Commander Dorado right? They weren't lying, you are bloody huge!" The young man said intimidated by the sheef size of a man who looked like he could break a ten bricks with a single punch.

"How do they fit double-xl ray mysterio into the standard issue bodysuits, let alone the armour... you must have eaten so much protein, you have become one with it to get to this level!" Miklo said, the jokes coming of their own accord. "Do you have a speciallt reinforced toilet!? I am asking for a friend..."

Miklos genuinely wondered how this guy fit into the standard armour, there was no way, it had to be some sort of specialised rig that they gave this animal. When there was no response he stopped laughing and smiling and cleared his throat. He knew he had crossed a line already and apologised. "I am sorry."

"Give me 50, just to help clear your mind."

"Right here? In this dirty hallway?"

"Looks relatively clean to me, yes to the question. Any more lip and you will be doing press ups with my boot on your back."

"Dear lord!" Miklos breathed through his gritted teeth at 40 but he had to keep going. He was determined despite the pain and burning making themselves felt abominably. The same people wakking past were now mildly fascinated by the curious apprentice doing exercise in a high foot traffic area of the building. One or two snickered and laughed.

"Teach him Dorado, the knuckle heads always need extra love and care.."

"You know it, Spiromesi!" The huge Commander agreed with a smile.

"There we go, didn't that help clear your mind?"

"Yes Sir, point taken!"

"Any other jokes?" The older man said leaning forward as if observing an insect. "You, with the inability to follow basic instructions? Punished nearly ten times in your first three weeks..." He said with a laugh, stroking the beard poking out underneath the half-face-style mask that he was wearing. "Do you know how close you are to being dismissed?"

"Well, I guess I take it back..." Miklos said feeling some heat rising into his face.

"And I guess you are coming this way my friend. I am going to be your commander, I get assigned all the best students you see, and I always get results. The commander said as he turned and led the way down the hall to a specific room where he already had some documents and a computer open with video feed from the entrances of the building.

The commander continued as he walked though an automatic door and then stood with his huge wide back at the front of the class. His arms crossed in front of him, looking at a long list of apprentices that he had written on the board with a electronic marker. "If I don't break them and get them to give up and leave... I am your last shot at making this work and we are already getting on like a house on fire..." He said laughing.

What Miklos noticed was that on the board, there were some many apprentices with crosses next to their names. "Holy smokes, how many have you booted?"

"Many young lad, too many to count." The Commander said in a tine which suggested mild annoyance.

The Commander was a military veteran judging by the manner and the ram rod posture. 6 foot 2 and built like muscle and protein shakes were going out of fashion, but the most interesting and enigmatic thing about him was the mask that he wore over half of his face. It was as if he was a luchador but without any of the colourful flare which made the masks iconic, his was technological and hinted more at a sombre skull motif than anything whimsical and fun. It was cream-white with some gold inlays, completely matching with the robes of the order, which he was swathed in. When you got close enough to this man you started to notice that the mask was hiding some very serious scars, even the beard had only been grown for this very same purpose, concealment.

"I am going to be your confidant, the one who is going to be training you until you are a force to be reckoned with. I have seen many apprentices come and go within this organisation but we are fair, we train people up and help them to become great soldiers, it is not for everyone and some people end up failing, getting injured, giving up or too traumatised, by what they see to continue in the job. We understand it is not for everyone but this is part of the reason why we train you for such a long time to make sure you are mentally, physically and spiritually ready for the things you are going to see out there in the wilderness that the surrounding forests have become."

Miklos shifted uncomfortably as he remembered his own forays into the woods, when he had been warned and then his friend had disappeared, only to reappear missing his legs. The young man had listened to his friend's screams and they had never left the back of his mind. It took a long moment before he finally returned to the classroom, mentally.

"Miklos are you still with me? Your eyes have taken on the trademark glaze that they normally have. Ah there we go, signs-of-life... hallelujah..." Commander Dorado said with dry mirth before continuing. "I said Burla, Nineveh and Mitanni are the three major cities which have this program, other cities just use robot sentinels or other means to repel the enemy force. We are more effective because we start to think like the enemy and we hunt them, find their breeding dens and blow the shit out of the hive, taking out 200 rather than 1 floating in the sky and neutralising a dozen or so targets!"

Miklos could not believe he had been talked into signing up for this, he had always felt that he wasn't living up to expectations and now he was in a position where he felt like that was definitely being reinforced. You are spending too much time in the house and eating up all the food, go join the military and make us some money...and what was worse was that he had only been here 3 weeks and already had been punished at least 8 times. He wondered and even had nightmares about how his parents would react if they saw him returning home and completely ruining their plans.

He was starting to get the feeling that no one liked him in this cutting edge institution with its polished halls, automatic doors and regimented systems of living. Not only had he left home and started living in the Manji portion of the City, a 4-block section of the city, in a small studio high rise apartment. He felt like he was being watched every day and even now, sitting in this classroom, all alone, because he was being punished again, he felt like nothing was going right for him.

All the other apprentices were out in the gymnasium or in other parts of the building doing cool stuff no doubt and here he was being punished with a lecture to try and get him to start thinking differently.

"It starts from a young age, the indoctrination, the moulding the cultivation of the next generation, as with you, you are only 16 but there is so much that we can do with you. Those young bones, young knees, elbows and back... my goodness if only I could go back to that youth..." The Commander said reminiscing for a moment before other darker memories started to cloud the moment.

"The Sigil, that you thought was so cool, you decided to go and get tattooed onto the flesh of your back, is something that is supposed to set people apart and trying to understand who is best for what position, natural abilities and how to best support you."

"I can't wait for you to tell me what I already know..." Young Miklos said with an irritated yawn. "I didn't mean to yawn there but this is all information which they started force-feeding us on the first day..."

"And do you remember any of it? or did that just go into one ear and fall out the other? By the way how much did you spend on the tattoo?"

"I didn't know I was going to get tested! The tattoo was expensive but it was my way of showing that I am dedicated to the program..."

"That is not the point, I think it was more a demonstration of how bad you are with your money!"

"You are being rude, respectfully, Commander..." Miklos said with his hands up as if to soften the tone of the words.

"You interrupted my lecture! Me being rude! The cheek!"

"I am a bit quirky yes but I am trying, I am trying to do this thing and get it right, I am sure you made mistakes yourself when you first joined the program..."

"You better get it into that head of yours that you will never be the same, your old life is over! You are operating as if any of this is optional and not really that serious!"

"If I didn't need the money for my family, I wouldn't be here."

"Who would voluntarily be here without getting paid?" The commander shot back without needing to mull it over.

"Weirdos I guess..."

"Yes I wear a mask, permanently... does that make me weird? Do you need another 50 press ups to help adjust that attitude? Or is it better for you to spend all day chopping onions or cleaning the entire armoured van with just a tooth brush and your bare hands?

"You are here to be trained as a Manji Warrior but you seem to be spending more time cleaning and cooking for your fellow men. Are you sure you don't want a job as a cleaner?

"Commander Dorado, please continue with the lecture, I apologise for interrupting.

"I can easily get you reassigned and we put an end to this sham!"

Miklos started burning with anger but he swallowed his words, he had nothing to say to this if he didn't want more punishment coming his way. He knew Commander Dorado was a man of his word and had an intensity of interest in Miklos and whatever potential that he could see in the young man that it was borderline uncomfortable.

"Well, how else can I get the point across to you? You aren't just another cog in the machine, you are part of the prestigious Manji Organisation, what is this thing that we call this weird name, pronounced 'Mahn-gee?' Well it is a pseudo military force created to protect the city from a new threat, beyond humanity's understanding."

"You want to know something really crazy?" The Commander asked leaning forward with a hint of madness in those eyes behind the mask.

"No, not really..." Miklos said recoiling in his seat.

"These fucking 'Malacast as they like to call themselves, lord have mercy, just 10 years ago they couldn't even talk. These idiotic creatures just ran at our defences, we laughed and mowed them down with machine guns and didn't take them too seriously. The would just charge and try to kill everything in sight, now they can talk and even use some tools, they have been evolving way faster than us and they have gotten to a point where they are a threat. We are fucked as a species because these things are at a point where they can read, we have tried tactical nukes and they adapted to the poison of radiation, almost making the mother-less cunts stronger in the process..."

"Commander, you are scaring the shit out of me right now!"

"You-my-chubby-little-boy, should be scared because as soon as your training and nano-machine shots are complete, we will be decking you in armour and sending you out there to fight these fucking things..."

"Do you want to know something else?"

"No, not really...respectfully..."

"Too bad, we fucking did this to ourselves, fighting over resources on this tiny little planet, when we should have been focusing on terraforming Mars, we unleashed a biological weapon on each other and now we have to live with the consequences of the worst type of idiocy. Gain of function research from 70 years ago holds no candle to what we are dealing with right here and now..."

"Fuck me..."

"Yes indeed, except the fucking is for everyone, we are all well and truly fucked! If this continues on this trajectory, we might need to leave this fucking planet and our leaders are still lying to our faces about the true nature of the problem, isn't that exciting?!"

"No, not really that sounds like the beginning of some serious bullshit rabbit hole which I don't want to go into!"

Commander Dorado came to tower over Miklos his young apprentice, a powerful and terrifying figure with his mask and his large muscular body standing powerful and commanding. "But this is where you come in boy-oh..." He said thrusting a finger at Miklos's chest. "You are here to mop up a metric shit-tonne of humanity's greatest fuck up!" He said raising both hands high above his head for emphasis. "How does that sound boy-oh, humanity in a power-mad stupidity tried to kill itself and now you are the doctor having to stitch the wounds on the bleeding corpse, still trying to get off the operating table, insisting everything is fine..."

"This doesn't sound good, where do I sign to say I am leaving this shit storm!?" Miklos said looking around to see if anyone was recording this performance. He had known being assigned a new commander wasn't going to be a good thing but this one was clearly out of his tree and swinging to the next one.

"Welcome to the horror show and you my friend have got a front-seat to trauma which will make it impossible for you to sleep at night without at least a fifth of jack or some sort of sleeping pills! But-but-but its okay because at least, we will make you rich in the process of taking away teensy-weensy bits of your sanity...come on player...how does that sound boy-oh?"

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Continued in Chapter 2