One Last Time part 1

Sector Five greeted the rising sun with silence. The wind made no sound as it swept across the roads of an abandoned city. The maintenance bots made no sound as they about the tasks hard-coded into them. The ghosts of the people that once lived there didn’t even try.

The source of that silence was a ragged man in dirty old clothes walking in a derelict building. It was the little things that made that man almost-smile those days, and that day it was finding an abandoned armory.

He’d been in Sector Five for about a year. He’d thought he’d picked the city clean, but hell, even gods made mistakes. He was living evidence.

The armory was untouched, which was surprising. The Last Launch, or The Cowardly Flight of The High and Mighty Filth as Lucy called it, was a noisy affair that left all the armories of sector Five with nothing more than the stench of panicky soldiers and dried up puddles of their piss.

He would’ve loved the array of choices in that particular armory, Lucy would have. Lucy liked guns the way he liked wine. The older the better, he used to say. What he really meant, of course, was the noisier the better.

They made an odd team in that sense, Lucy and he. Lucy loved cacophony, but his superpower was to exert silence. Yet in the ways that mattered, it was a perfect team. Covert ops, a brief stint as bank thieves, even the goddamn rebellion they came through unscathed. The one day he couldn’t have Lucy’s back, his partner went up and died on him.

The first time since he listened to Lucy’s last words, he felt a tickle in his head that meant someone was speaking. Schweigen, it said, long time no see.

It had been a long time since he’d heard that name used, and the unkempt man felt a wave of self-hatred, guilt and sadness flow through him. His hands trembled slightly in his pockets as he continued to stare at the guns, his back to the suddenly arrived.

The ragged man who was once called Schweigen did not move for a while. The person in the dark clothing and mask stood behind him, similarly still, waiting. Finally, with great effort, Schwiegen lifted the silence that lay upon the city and pulled that stifling blanket back into himself.

***

One more off the list, thought Specter as Bounce jumped off the tallest building in the world. ‘Have I ever told you that you scream like a little girl,’ he shouted after Bounce, grinning as he listened to Bounce’s fading cry of joy.

Specter took the piece of paper out of his pocket, ticking the appropriate item. There were only two left unchecked. The grin slowly faded away.

The illusion that masked their aimless existence would fade away once those two things were done. They would be adrift in an empty world. He’d been trying to find the right moment to broach the subject with Bounce, but could find none.

They would have to return to Sector Nine. Find a role to play amongst the last of humanity left on the planet. They could make a new list of course, inventive and entertaining, but Specter was unable to bring himself to like the idea. The vacation had gone on long enough, and the thought of doing nothing constructive frustrated him.

What he feared though was that he would be unable convince Bounce. It was almost a month ago, when Specter mentioned High-Command in the passing. They were reminiscing about the good old Rebellion days, and Specter wanted to gauge his reaction. Bounce suddenly went very still, and his generally amiable face became scarily expressionless. Don’t ever mention that bastard’s name in my presence again, Bounce said, and that was that.

Specter watched Bounce fly across the city, over rooftops of buildings that once would’ve been overflowing with people. He smelled a slight stench and reminded himself that they'd have to head back to the Repository so he could possess a new body. The last time he'd waited too long his corpse had decomposed to such an extent he literally had to clip his nose. Bounce refused to travel with him, claiming he'd puke his entire digestive system out if he came within a mile of Specter

‘How’s life, Specter?’ asked a grating voice, startling him out of malodorous memories. ‘Haven’t heard that one before,’ snorted Specter sarcastically to the figure in the black clothing and mask that had abruptly appeared beside him.

***

High-Command looked at the map that marked the current locations of the Supers. Three down, two to go, he thought, watching the dots that marked Specter, Bounce and Schweigen move towards Sector Nine.

It had been a busy three years since High-Command had last seen them. He had helped the normals organize, turn them into a functioning society. Sector Nine had three hundred people now, each with a sense of purpose. They still searched for more of course. Every month saw two or three increase their numbers. There is hope for those left behind, Priest always told them, we're not abandoned as long as we have each other.

It was just a few days ago in their weekly meetings that Priest had said that he no longer had to use his power to raise their spirits. About time they grew a pair, Buzz replied as Priest shook her head disapprovingly and High-Command brought out the bottle of champagne to celebrate.

All that they had built now stood to be destroyed. The last people on earth faced a threat that could wipe them out. If they were to stand a chance, High-Command would need all the Supers to re-unite.

With a feral grin on his face, High-Command planned for battle, for what could very well be the last time.