Helios Fighter

Chapter Three

Riseand Shine; This Place Gets a Little... Jazzy

I think DMX put it best when he said "One drops. Then another and another; gun pops, goin' through you, hit your–" Alright, maybe it didn't get that far. At first, all I felt was fear. Maybe this was my punishment for firing on those officers, getting shot to death by a firing squad for a provoked shot from an unlicensed synthetically nuclear weapon. Was this semi-auto symbolic of my project? Maybe my attire was meant to make me look like I was a rogue who had gotten ahold of a weapon. I registered all of this in only a few seconds.

It was only an instant later that all of this fear turned into rage. All of this over a misunderstanding, because my caretaker didn't want to listen to me. That rage replaced the fear, and I hefted the rifle.

I became relentless.

Three snipers, each about ten meters in front of me. Chk-PRRRAA-PRRAA-PRRAA. I took them out first, and then the infantry came next. They rained fire on me, and I had to duck behind the elevator doors. It was a good suppression strategy until it came to reload time. For about a minute and a half, they emptied their clips into the door. It stopped very abruptly, and I heard a lot of clicks; the sound of reloading. I went back out with my gun aimed. A few gasps rose from my opponents. Again, rage fueled me, but I wasn't mad at them. I was mad at everything that happened to put me here. Allowing some of my reason to take over, I shot, but not to kill. I fired at each of my opponents' weapons' clips, causing them to blow up. After disarming the infantry, I ran away from the elevator, and into the battlefield. Some of the enemies tried rushing me, but I bashed them with the butt of my rifle. There was a sign above me that read "Safe House" with an arrow that pointed to the left. I turned the corner and found a lone trooper. Immediately, I leveled my rifle.

"Alright," she said, "This can go two ways."

"Does one of them involve me putting you down?" I asked.

"Maybe," she shrugged.

"Good enough for me." I took aim, but before I could fire, my everything went numb. My opponent looked about as surprised as I was, and twice as relieved. I turned around to see someone holding wielding a pistol like the lone trooper's. My rifle clattered out of my hands and I fell to my knees.

"Excellent performance, Mr. Radiatose," my second shooter said. "Very impressive." I fell forward onto face, blacking out again.

I knew I wasn't dead, because I could still think, and the only thing I thought was I need to wake up and finish this. I woke up, alright, with an adrenaline rush to boot. My head darted back and forth as I took in my surroundings. Someone was carrying me. Whoever it was carried one of those pistols that numbed me. Someone else, up ahead, was talking.

"...in now," they were saying. "Yes, it's the early one!" There was a pause. "I think he'll be a great addition." I realized that he was talking on the phone. A great addition, he'd said. To what, I wasn't sure I wanted to find out. Whoever carried me must not have counted on my waking up, because my arms were free. With no other options, I elbowed my carrier's back.

"Gah!" He stumbled backward. I reached for his holster and took his pistol, at which point, I lifted my legs over his shoulder, somersaulting just out of his reach, and spun around, numbing my carrier, I found myself aiming for my previous attackers.

"Geez!" the girl said. "You wake up fast!"

"I shoot even quicker," I said. The girl laughed. "Something funny?"

"No. But this is!" In one instant, she pulled her pistol and numbed me again. I fell on my back. Instead of blacking out, my vision sharpened. Another burst of rage settled over me. It suddenly became hotter in the room. I regained the feeling in my limbs, and I started to rise. The looks on both of my opponents' faces were those of complete shock.

"You know," I said, "I'm getting real tired of people doing that!" I raised my left hand, which was glowing with fiery orange energy. Why I wasn't surprised, I'll never know. Both of them raised their hands in surrender, but there was a clear difference between the two: their facial expressions. The girl had a look of fear, and the man had a nonchalant smile.

"Once again," he said, "well done, Mr. Radiatose. Ms. Antimatter, would you mind taking him to the Solar Division?" I need to get a few things in order." Solar Division? What kind of prison was this?

"Uhhh​... s-sure..." she said. The man departed. The fiery energy dissipated, along with some of my anger. I tried to make small talk.

"So... 'Ms. Antimatter?'" I asked.

"Yeah. It's my last name. Fitting for the division I'm part of."

"Are you part of the Solar Division too?"

"Heh, I wish. I'm a Novoid."

"Meaning?"

"'Meaning' I'm part of the Nova Division."

"Oh."

"Come on, I'll show you." She walked back towards the elevator, and I followed. When we got in, she hit the ground-floor button. Immediately, I became trepidatious about that receptionist who freaked out when she saw me.

"You do know where this place is, right?" I asked.

"Umm... Yes?" she said with uncertainty. "I can find my division just fine, but I'm not sure about where yours is." That didn't make me feel better. If we had to go to that receptionist's desk, I felt like she would've started screaming my name over and over again. I was not ready for that.

Name... name... I realized something.

"What is your name?" I asked.

"What?"

"You said that your last name was 'Antimatter.' What's your first?"

"Jhaxius."

"Jhaxius," I repeated.

"Everyone here calls me 'Jax,' and some of my friends call me 'Jazzy.'"

"Seeing you on the field, I can understand why." She chuckled.

"So, what brings you here?" I didn't want to tell the whole story seeing as how I barely knew this person.

"I... Well, possession of an unlicensed weapon." Jax looked confused. "It was supposed to be a Solar Replicator, for the Solar Fair. I wanted to be enrolled in the Noble Institution."

"Why do you think you're here?" I shrugged.

"Because I technically fired that perceived weapon." Jax squinted in even more confusion.

"What the...?"

"What? Isn't that a crime?" Jax began to laugh uncontrollably. "What?"

"Do you really think you're in a prison?!" There were tears in her eyes. "Oh, God!"

"Am I not?"

"Why would you be?"

"Because I fired that weapon on police!" Jax laughed even harder and was on the elevator floor by the time she was done. Then she looked at me and saw my face.

"Oh, my God, you're serious." I spread my hands and gave her the ya think? look. "Dude, do you really not know what you're doing here?" I shook my head. "Do you know where you are?"

"No! If I'm not in a prison, where am I?!"

"The N.I.!"

"What?"

"The Noble Institution!" The elevator dinged, and the doors opened and we were back on the floor that I came from. The receptionist turned and I braced for some form of flip-out.