Borderlands
In the shadows of a war torn city runs a young man. Running as fast as he can, he runs down a dark alley. He looks behind and sees ten armed government policemen chasing. In a panic struck state he’s confused, lost and mostly scared. Sweat drips from his brow as he continues to run pointlessly in any direction. He passes several disfigured bodies as he continually runs through a maze of destroyed buildings. Gunshots are fired narrowly missing him. As he looks back to see how far away he is, his foot misses the gutter and he finds himself toppling onto the concrete. He looks up as he slowly becomes surrounded by the officials. He can’t see any faces as he looks up all he can see are balaclavas and helmets staring down at him. One of the policemen leans down towards him, just when he thought he wouldn’t harm him, the policemen pulls down his balaclava and spits on him. Surrounded by the men he tries to crawl away but he can feel excruciating pain as he moves his right arm and his right leg. Helplessly on the ground the policeman see’s the state the poor boy is in and decides against putting him out of his misery and leaves him to suffer. Crying on the floor the young man begs for help screaming and struggling to move. After a couple of hours he finally comes to terms with his impending death. Just before he passes out he sees a figure in the distance, he shouts, ‘Please!! Please help me!’ As the figure approaches in the scorching hot day his eyes begin to give in to the pain. He finds himself slowly draining and just before the figure gets to him he passes out.
Several days pass. The young man finally awakes. As he looks up he sees a medical tent. Unawares of his surroundings he begins to panic. The machine he is connected to started alerting people to his consciousness. One lady walks in. Young, tall and blonde and wearing a nurse outfit, he sees the lady and immediately calms down. The lady begins to hold the young man down, introducing herself, ‘Hi my name is Dotty, and you are in a hospital in the City of Soteria one of our scouts found you on the ground in Plotolia. You might feel a bit disorientated, you’ve gone through a very big procedure so try to save your strength for now.’ The young man looks at her, he is startled by what she just said, he gets his words together, ’my name is Chale, I’m from the Borderlands. I accidently walked through a hot spot and alarmed the police. How long have I been out for?’ Dotty responds, ‘around two days, try to calm down, once you have fully recovered we’ll brief you on what is happening around the camp site. It will be a while until you can function properly.’ He looks down and with his left arm takes off the sheet. He scans his body and looks at his right side. Stunned, he stops breathing, staring, straining at what he sees. His right arm and leg have become these metal body parts. He looks down and he begins to move the toes and fingers. Confused and hesitant he trials the movement out. He can’t believe what is happening to him, It is like nothing ever happened, full movement and control over the prosthetics, he looks at Dotty and asks, ‘what happened to me?’ she responds, ‘the scout that found you noted that your arm and leg were beyond repair, so you were put into this prototype surgery. It gives you more strength even though it is one side it should help you on your journey from town to town. They don’t need to be oiled they are self-lubricating and self-repairing so if they get damaged from terrain or something like what happened to you, you should be fine. The only side effect is that you have become considerably slower than before. So if you get into danger either have something to fight back with or go quietly.’ Chale responds, ‘cool and not cool at the same time… oh well better than not having anything at all I guess.’ Dotty responds, ‘rest up, I’ll come back later to check up on you but save your energy, by tomorrow you’ll be up and running again.’ And like that Chale fell into a drug induces sleep.
The next morning Dotty comes in with a strongly built man. He was about 6 feet tall, dark and clearly been to battle. He walks towards the bed, wakes up Chale. Startled Chale looks up and asks, ‘who are you?’ the man replies, ‘My name is Ethan, I’m the leader of this rebel squadron that found you.’ Chale looks at him, tries to analyse him and lifts his right arm to shake Elias arm. Embarrassed he just says, ‘thank you very much, I appreciate everything you and your people have done for me, if there is anything I can do to repay you for everything you have done please let me know.’ Elias smiles and says, ‘I’m glad you said that, as a matter of fact I was wondering if you would like to help us in the fight against Kieron,’ Chale emphatically replies, ‘Yes! Yes of course! He has put my family and everyone else through hell, anything you need I’ll do what I can.’ Ethan nods and as he is walking through the door he yells, ‘good, I’ll see you out the front in an hour to debrief you and the team you will work with.’ Chale can’t believe it, excited he gets Dotty to usher him out of bed to test his leg. To Chale’s amazement, the prosthetics work unbelievably well. He walks around, grabs pencils, squats and continues to manoeuvre his new body parts. The time comes for Chale to meet with Elias, as he walks out he sees four people seated in front of Elias. As he gets close he sees two guys and two girls. As Chale approaches Elias looks at him and says, ‘Team, this is Chale, he will be working with you to fight against Kieron’s campaigns and his forces, you will train Chale and make him into a warrior. I envision that it will be you five that will finally conquer Kieron’s defences and free the Borderlands from his tyranny. You will breach the cloning facility five kilometres east of here and destroy the mainframe that controls the cloning procedure of Kieron’s army, then from there you will infiltrate Kieron’s main base in Cethin. While you four train Chale in battle I will train him in the Virtual world.’ The team respond, ’Yes Sir!’ As Elias walks away the team begin to introduce themselves. The first to introduce themselves was Ethan, he has clearly been in many of the rebel fights. Ethan explained that in a battle he lost both his legs when a grenade went off underneath him, lucky they were able to save the rest of his body. He explained that with two prosthetic legs he was a liability on the run so he trained in long range battle making him an expert with a rifle. The next was Levi, he has prosthetics although his damage was clearly visible, his torso was a metal case with his vital organs still intact. He was in a battle that went terribly wrong. All that made it through the battle was his head and organs, luckily Elias’ men were able to bring him back from the brink making him into a heavy machinery expert. The third was Theola, a beautiful young girl who like him lost an arm and leg. She was the tactician of the group, brains and beauty. The final was Marcia. She was intact, clearly a sprinter, Marcia introduced herself as the scout of the group working good with stealth missions and distractions. After everyone introduced themselves Chale told everyone to have a seat as he told them his story. He explained, ‘When I was five Kieron’s armies tore apart the town I grew up in, they killed all the men and left all the women and children under the age of 5, my mother hid me as I was just over the age limit and if Kieron’s men scanned my barcode they would of killed me. Being the oldest male left, once I got to the age of 13 the women put me through training. After two years of training I began to lead what was left of my town. Years passed and we rebuilt the town Borde to the best we could but a couple of days ago Kieron’s men had set up an internet hotspot several hundred meters from our water source. I triggered the hotspot trying to get water and once I saw the men i ran away from the town in order to save what was left. Here I am now, ready to be trained to take on Kieron and free the Borderlands from his tyranny.’ The four of them looked at Chale and expressed their sorrows but after several moments they all knew that they had to begin training.
Weeks of arduous training passed, the team had bonded and Chale was trained in all areas of the team’s expertise. The team felt comfortable enough to let Chale go through a simulation of battle. The team approached Elias’ compound. Chale walked in alone, walking up to Elias he utters, ‘Elias I am ready to enter the virtual world, let me go in.’ Elias turns around and responds, ‘I’m glad your confident, you’re going to need all the confidence once you get in there. Before you go in let me warn you, they will know you are out there, they will search for your barcode signal and they will find you. They govern the virtual world through the internet link, without the internet there is no virtual world. Even though this is a simulation it is known as a rebel simulation. Are you sure you want to go through with this?’ Chale adamantly replies, ‘Yes Sir! Anything to get back at Kieron’s men!’ Elias happily directs Chale to the booth in which Chale will enter the Virtual world. Chale puts on a responsive suit then enters the booth. Once he enters the booth he begins to levitate. Elias turns on the machine and before Chale knows his surroundings have changed. The terrain that surrounds him has now become a densely populated city. The people all look alike and have the same mannerisms. After several moments Chale realises that he is now in Cethin. Before anyone is alarmed by his differing appearance he slips into an alleyway. Elias loads a silenced pistol, a knife and a radio into the virtual world. Chale is astounded as to what is happening. After several hours of walking around the city and scouting an entrance into Kieron’s compound, Chale stealthy evades the security and enters the compound. With his silenced pistol he begins to kill the Tyrants personal guards. As he enters the room he is surrounded by twenty guards. Through the virtual world Kieron’s Commander Colt appears in the simulation. He walks up to Chale and warns him, ‘Don’t try and do this in the real world, no matter where you go we’ll find you. We control the whole area and your barcode gives a unique signal to our guards.’ And with the final word uttered Colt ends Chales simulation with a gunshot to the head. As Chale exits the booth, he runs to Elias and can’t believe what just happened. Elias looks at Chale and says, ‘don’t say I didn’t warn you. They are everywhere, in the virtual world and in the real world, people everyday struggle to evade them.’ Chale responds, ‘good. I will end this reign, I will let people live free in the real world and the virtual world, no more governing peoples freedoms and disabilities, everyone will be equal. After leaving Elias’ compound Chale heads back to his team in order to prepare for their premature departure. He instructs Marcia to begin scouting the Cloning Facility. He then gathers Theola, Levi and Ethan to get their gear ready. Several hours pass and Marcia returns. Marcia debriefs the team on the position of the security and how the cloning process took several weeks as the clones had to formulate in pods. The five got their weapons and utensils ready for a quick trek through the war torn country side to the factory. Five hours pass and they reach the Facility. Ethan sets up his weapons, a silenced 50. Calibre sniper rifle, sleek and heavy it was a masterful weapon, Levi gets his Minigun and begins loading the 7.62 mm ammunition, Chale gets his M16 and loads the 5.56 mm rounds while Theola prepares camp with Ethan. Once everyone is prepared Theola instructs the team on what needs to happen. Ethan will take out as many guards as he can while Levi and Chale begin ready to infiltrate the Facility. Ethan begins, the first shot fired tears through the security guards vest and the next guard has his head taken off blood flying everywhere alarming the rest of the guards. Ethan maintains his fire and allows Levi and Chale to run towards to gate. Levi runs through the gate with ease, using his body as a battering ram and immediately opens fire on anything in sight. The diversion is enough to let Chale run through to the main control room. Once inside the control room, Chale sets up a makeshift bomb filled with gunpowder and grenades. He begins to walk out the door shouting to Levi to begin running as he shoots the explosive. The cloning facility lights up in an inferno as Chale and Levi begin walking back to the campsite where immediately all five members of the team grab a rocket launcher each and begin levelling the facility, making sure the message goes through to Colt and Kieron. The team starts to move towards Kieron’s compound once they see more guards flocking towards to levelled cloning facility.
Another day of travel passes the team as they venture towards to compound. Fortunately no problems had crossed the team as they continued their trip. Marcia scouted the compound. The report was worse than originally anticipated. Over 100 guards in the compound heavily armed and ready for war. The five looked at each other, and without saying a word began preparing for battle. Ethan set up his rifle, getting a closer look at the extent of artillery Kieron’s men have, and the report bore grave observations. With all this known Levi, Marcia and Theola followed Chale into position. Ethan began firing causing the guards to panic as shot by shot someone falls. The four remaining team members run towards the compound. Chale opens the firing by taking out a group of 5 guards. Theola throws a grenade into a building, causing mass panic within the guard’s compound. Suddenly outcome Kieron and Colt with a special battalion of warriors. Levi immediately aims all fire towards the Tyrant. Levi is under significant fire as his ammunition finally runs out, suddenly the worst possible thing could happen. A guard sneaks up on Levi, as Chale turns to fire upon the guard it is too late, the guard sticks a grenade to Levi’s prosthetic torso. Knowing the worse was about to happen, Levi runs towards a battalion of guards exploding into a fiery inferno. Chale then manoeuvres towards Kieron and his special battalion. Ethan see’s the battle from afar and begins taking out the Special Forces and Theola and Marcia hold back to guards at the guard compound. Before Chale gets close to Kieron’s men Ethan takes four of them out each with a consecutive head shot. Chale suddenly halts when he is face to face with Kieron. A withering old man, clearly losing the battle with age. Chale approaches the man, enraged he drops his weapon and tackles Kieron to the floor. He wraps his prosthetic hand around Kierons neck and like a snaps his neck. The battle was over, or so he thought. Colt appears from the corner, Chale dives away from the firing Colt. He ducks in a corner, grabs his pistol from the holster and immediately opens fire on the Colt. Chale hits Colt in the chest but Colt lands a hit on Chale’s left shoulder. Both men fall to the ground, writhing in pain Chale gets to his feet. He runs disorientated from the pain towards to door. He runs towards the guard compound while his shirt becomes heavily soaked with his blood. He reaches Marcia and Theola, and insist that they go back to Elias and tell him of the success while he hold off the guards, after much dispute Marcia and Theola begin their journey back to Soteria while Chale prepares for battle. To Chale’s surprise the guards are too disorientated and confused to what has just happened to understand that he is there to stop their progress. Chale begins to clear out the compound. Several hours pass and the compound is empty, so too is his ammunition. He begins the dangerous journey home unarmed, after several close calls, Chale arrives at Soteria to a celebration of the victory. While they mourn the loss of Levi in battle Elias, Marcia, Ethan and Theola all run to congratulate Chale. They let Chale clean up while they prepare a ceremony for Chale. Once Chale goes to the main meeting area in Soteria, Elias is surrounded by many the Borderlands leaders as they gather to conclude who will become the leader of the newly founded Borderlands. After several hours of discussion the final decision is made, Elias is to become the new leader of a Democratic Borderlands. Upon hearing the good news, Chale prepares his items and sneaks out of the compound. He returns back to Borde where he is greeted with a Hero’s welcome, but from then on Chale becomes a wanderer as the past is too haunting to forget about it. People begun rumours that he passed away recently but whenever a good deed happens around the developing Borderlands people always speculate that Chale is a part of that deed.
By Chris Mandis
Borderlands
Christopher Mandis
Copyright Christopher Mandis 2011
Published at Smashwords