Fisher’s body slumped long before Rhodes finished pulverizing Fisher’s head against the wall.

  Rhodes swam out of his frenzy and stared down at Fisher’s body lying limp and dead in his hands. Rhodes’s fingers remained locked in Fisher’s shirt. Rhodes couldn’t command his fingers to relax.

  Half of Fisher’s head caved in. Blood and brains covered not just Fisher but Rhodes, too. Gore saturated his hands up to the elbows and soaked his sleeves.

  Rhodes yanked his hands away in a flash, but he couldn’t take back what he just did. Fisher’s body sprawled on the straw where he’d just been lying.

  Rhodes stared down at the body in abject horror. He did not just kill Fisher. That did not just happen.

  Rhodes turned his hands over and stared down at them. The blood dripping from his palms and fingers was still warm. Flecks of bone and brain covered his hands.

  He staggered backward still unable to tear his eyes away from Fisher. Fisher couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t be.

  Rhodes spun away and stumbled out of the barn. Where could he go? He couldn’t go anywhere with Fisher’s blood on his hands.

  He had to get out of Stonebridge at all costs. He couldn’t face any of his friends or family with this hanging over his head.

  He stumbled a few paces down the road and stopped. Night had fallen completely now. All of Stonebridge lay dark, silent, and bathed in starlight.

  Just for a second, Rhodes considered going home to Ora and the children. Ora would help him. She would clean him up and decide what to do about Fisher’s death.

  Just for one instant, Rhodes experienced the flood of relief, happiness, and love of belonging to that family. It enveloped his whole being. It was his whole being. It was the bedrock of everything he knew about himself.

  He took a few steps toward the house when those words drifted into his mind from somewhere far away. Get….out……Captain……The Grid…..

  Fisher. Fisher didn’t die because Rhodes defended himself.

  The real Fisher wouldn’t have attacked Rhodes like that because the real Fisher was a computer program in The Grid.

  That body in the barn wasn’t the real Fisher. The real Fisher was the one dying from some internal torture. He suffered that pain to give Rhodes a message—again.

  Rhodes’s fury erupted all over again. These fools tried to make Rhodes kill Fisher.

  Was this the beginning of some new, more insidious plan? Did the Masks plan to turn everyone in the battalion against each other?

  Who would be next? Would the Masks send Lauer to kill Wild for the crime of trying to talk some sense into him? Would Zen try to kill Dietz just for knowing that he was a prisoner?

  Then there was Dash. How many of these SAMs had already malfunctioned and tried to kill someone? Was it really that much of a leap to think of someone trying to kill their own SAM?

  Rhodes didn’t have to worry about killing Fisher—not here. This Fisher wasn’t real. The real Fisher was still online somewhere. He was probably the one whispering in Rhodes’s ear right now.

  He set off walking through Stonebridge. He had no idea where to go or what to do or even who to talk to. He couldn’t rely on anyone in the battalion….except Dietz…..and Wild…..

  He needed to think and decide what to do, so he wound up just walking….and walking. He walked all the way through town until he approached the bridge on the other side.

  How far should he keep going? He could keep walking forever and never get out of this fantasy land. What the hell did he really have to lose anyway? He was a prisoner either way.

  He got within a few hundred yards of the bridge when he heard a deep rumble coming from beyond the hills.

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  The sound vibrated the ground underfoot and built to a steady din as it got closer. The sound made his hair stand on end.

  He stopped there in the middle of the road. Something was about to happen—something big.

  He faced the open road, but he didn’t see anything over there, not even any light coming from the distant horizon.

  The throb of noise escalated to a deafening roar until, without warning, a colossal tide of Legion soldiers charged over the nearest hills.

  They flooded down the slopes heading for the road, the bridge, the stream, and anywhere they could get closer to Stonebridge.

  Rhodes froze for a second facing hundreds or maybe thousands of soldiers all armed with Jackhammers.

  At the same instant, five Ravagers wheeled out of the night sky. Where in the name of God did they come from?

  Rhodes braced himself. He stood alone between the Legion and Stonebridge. He didn’t even have a rifle to defend himself and everyone he loved.

  The soldiers opened fire on the town. None of them fired at him for some strange reason he couldn’t figure out.

  The Ravagers smashed fusion shots into Stonebridge, detonated houses, and blasted the place to the ends of the earth. People ran screaming from their houses only to get cut down by Jackhammer fire.

  The soldiers crammed themselves onto the bridge rushing into town. More of them sprinted down the stream banks, splashed through the shallow water or sprang across the stepping stones, and clambered up the other side before they flooded into town.

  Just for an instant, Rhodes’s fury spiked off the charts. The Legion was about to kill his wife, his children, and everyone he knew and loved.

  Another Ravager fired at the town and a different house exploded. Was that Rhodes’s house? Was Ora in there trying to protect the children while he stood out here too stunned to do anything worthwhile?

  The thought of Ora and the children in danger flipped another switch in his mind. He dove for the nearest soldier, seized the guy’s Jackhammer, and tried to tear it out of the guy’s hands.

  The soldier resisted, and while they still wrestled over the weapon, one of the other townsfolk charged over and hit the guy over the head with an axe handle.

  The soldier lost his grip on the Jackhammer, folded in a pile at Rhodes’s feet, and left the weapon there in Rhodes’s hands. Now he was armed.

  He spun around planning to kill anyone who threatened his family.

  As soon as he turned to face the town, his mind shifted gears again. Ora and those children weren’t Rhodes’s family. None of these people were.

  Not even Fisher was Rhodes’s friend. All of this was fake. It was all a trick designed to manipulate him and make him question his own loyalties.

  The Masks put him in a position of having to kill Fisher the same way they put Rhodes in a position of having to kill Legion soldiers to defend a family he didn’t even have anymore.

  That one thought pushed him all the way over the edge. His family was out there somewhere—somewhere in the Treaty of Aemon Cluster.

  The Legion—these Legion soldiers right here—these were the people fighting and dying to defend Rhodes’s family. These Legion soldiers sacrificed themselves to protect Rhodes’s family even when he couldn’t protect them himself.

  The last shreds of the veil dissolved. He swept his Jackhammer to his shoulder and opened fire, but he didn’t target the soldiers.

  He rampaged through town killing every single last person who lived in Stonebridge. Thackery came rushing out of her house with her husband. Rhodes blasted her head off and then turned his weapon on Koenig and Van who were coming out of their eatery across the road.

  The screams of dying women and children drifted through the air, but they only fueled Rhodes’s bloodlust. He wanted to destroy all these people. God, he hated them!

  The Ravagers kept bombarding one building after another, but that wasn’t quick enough. The Ravagers might leave some of this charade standing. Rhodes couldn’t stand that.

  He raised his hand. He still looked like a normal man, but that was all part of the illusion. Somewhere underneath this fa?ade, he still had lasers and thermal cannons.

  He fired his thermal cannon at Koenig’s building, and just like that, the illusion vanished—or part of it.

  Rhodes’s implants materialized in time for him to set fire to the building. People screamed from the upstairs windows, but he only fired his Jackhammer at them.

  He marched through town slaughtering everyone in sight and burning every house, barn, and chicken coop to the ground.

  Soldiers rushed all around him. He only stopped himself from killing them. He made sure not to harm them. Everyone living in Stonebridge was fair game.

  He kept going until he made it as far as Ora’s house. He got there just as the door burst open.

  She dashed outside herding the children in front of her. Rhodes didn’t hesitate. He shouldered his Jackhammer, fired, and mowed down all three of them. He savored the sight of them lying torn and bloody on the ground right there in the doorway.

  He fired his thermal cannon at the house and set it on fire, too. Then he set the barn on fire with Fisher’s body still in it.

  Rhodes was glad now that he killed Fisher when he did. Rhodes destroyed Fisher’s house next.

  Rhodes didn’t see Thara or Fisher’s children anywhere. They might have still been inside the house.

  Rhodes really hoped they were. He would have killed them, too, if he did see them.

  He worked his way back and forth across town killing and destroying at will. When he got to the far western edge of Stonebridge, he turned around and systematically canvassed the entire town to make absolutely certain he didn’t leave even one person alive.

  By the time the sun rose and the shooting stopped, bodies lay scattered all over town. The only buildings still standing were still on fire, but they were already starting to collapse in on themselves.

  The Legion platoons searched the whole area for anyone left alive. When the soldiers didn’t find anyone, they headed out of town along the eastbound road. They filed over the hills going back the way they came.

  End of Chapter 33.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

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