mas·sa·cre

/ˈmasəkər/

to deliberately and violently kill (a large number of people).

 

“M,” Persy begins, scanning the crowd gathered in her middle school’s auditorium. “A, S, S, A.” 

 

She pauses. The last three letters always stump her.

 

All three judges stare intensely, waiting for a mistake, ready to give the title to Titus if she can’t remember the last letters.

 

Her mother waves – it’s easy to see with her gold bangles reflecting the overhead lights. Both parents wear matching navy blue, one in an elegant cocktail dress and the other in a simple button up with matching slacks. They almost look like the mother and father of a bride.

 

“C.” Persy follows her father’s silent instruction and takes a deep breath. “R. E.”

 

It can’t have been more than half a second, but Persy swears the silence is hours long. The judges whisper to each other and she has to find her mother’s stare again. Those perfect white teeth flash in a supportive smile. 

 

Her mother’s scrunched eyes betray what must have been another sleepless night. Ever since some politician made a deal with her parents, neither have spent much time away from the office. Something big is in the works.

 

That isn’t Persy’s problem, though. All she must do is win this competition.

 

“With that, the winner of the 3341 Hegemony Middle School Spelling Competition is… Persephone Mythic Morningstar!”

 

The technician looks up from his clipboard expectantly at her with piercing green eyes.

 

“Yes, that’s me.” Persy stands from her spot on the floor beside a snoring Dorian. They only spoke a few words to each other since the other two entered the operating room, but it was enough to settle both of their nerves. Or, at least Dorian’s.

 

“Age?”

 

“27.”

 

“Female?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Allergies?”

 

“Apples. Pears. Some cherries.”

 

He snorts. “Drug allergies, I mean.”

 

“Oh. Not that I know about.”

 

With a curt nod, he motions her to the door and through some dangling plastic protection. Inside the makeshift sterile environment sits a metal table. The various dents and scrapes stick out in the intense fluorescent light, making the place seem more like a torture chamber than an operating room. Still, she does as she’s told and crawls onto the cold surface.

 

“We’ll have to cut away some of your dress.” Not a question, a fact. A cold, empty fact. “Maybe some hair.”

 

Persy frowns and resists reaching a protective hand toward her hair. “That’s fine. Just try not to take any length.”

 

He gives another curt nod, setting the clipboard down on a nearby rolling cart. The wheels shriek as he draws it closer. “You’re about to go under. I’ll ask you some questions as you do, just answer all of them you can. There might be a pinch with the IV.”

 

“Okay.”

 

Two nurses materialize out of what seems like nowhere until Persy spots the other entrance. They all wear surgical masks stained to various degrees with dark brown and red, matching their equally stained scrubs. She inhales deeply and tries not to flinch as an oxygen mask is laid over her mouth and nose.

 

“Alright. Where are you from?” The technician’s voice sounds distant, almost dream-like.

 

“D-Demeter.”

 

“Where did you graduate from?”

 

“Ascendant University,” she mutters, wondering how everything he says is being repeated over and over again. He huffs, and it loops with the rest of his words. “W-what?”

 

“Tell me a fond memory,” he restates, louder this time.

 

“I won… I won a spelling competition i-in middle school.” She hisses with a harsh prick in her hand. 

 

“There’s the IV,” he explains, tapping her shoulder reassuringly. “You won? What word did you win with?”

 

Static dances across her vision as Persy blinks slower than usual. “It was… massacre.”

 

“You’re telling me,” Clay spits, leaning against the most stable pile of rubble he could find. “Sure you wanna be here?”

 

Persy nods, slowly navigating her way down the torn up street. Among the bodies being recovered are bullet shells the size of her torso, pools of blood and viscera, even lost limbs and entire bones. 

 

“Alright.” He clicks his tongue and pivots on his heel, beginning his ascent to the other fireteam near the railway. “Just hurry up. I don’t want Arven getting mad at me for stealing you away from training.”

 

"Understood." She runs absent fingers across the metal disk at the base of her skull, still unused to the feeling. It’s cool to the touch, hard, and already earned a few scratches. Nothing about it matches the natural feeling of flesh that surrounds it. It feels somehow brand new and like it’s always been there. Maybe it has. Maybe Persy was always doomed to tether to the death machines Kell made with her money.

 

“Can I help you, miss?” A man in dark overalls extends a hand, helping her step over a particularly large pool of innards. “You look lost.”

 

She laughs politely, letting him guide her toward the main plaza. “A little bit. I can’t remember which alley I ran through yesterday. I lost some jewelry in the chaos and I was hoping it’s still around here somewhere.”

 

The man scratches his beard and shrugs. “Well, you can try and retrace your steps. I can’t guarantee it’s out there, but that’s your best bet. I’ll be cleaning up over here if you need something.” He gives her a small salute and marches back the way they came.

 

Persy has half a mind to return the cute gesture. A small amount of friendliness could be good for her soul, if there was one still in there. 

 

She steps out into the plaza, sliding around fallen mining equipment and the odd pile of bodies under rubble. It doesn’t take long to find it; a large, dark mark of blood and gunpowder that gave her the shrapnel scars up her left side. Though the big brown boots are long gone, Persy can still picture the remains – if they can be called that – of the Union man who stood beside her. 

 

A man in a mask dragged her forward from this spot. The deafening noise of bullets and screams has grown fainter since yesterday, but Persy doubts she’ll ever stop hearing them in the silence. 

 

Dorian was here, hiding under the stage. He played the piano so beautifully she almost forgot why she was at the summit. The scrap of black wood and various torn wire before her once gave a man the means to make art. Now it sits among the dead, shredded by its divine opposite; a thing of metal and wire created to kill the men who make music. 

 

She extends a hand to an invisible Dorian, looking up from the piano’s remains to the nearest alleyway. Another pair of overalls drags the lower half of a person toward a growing pile.

 

“Stop,” Persy shouts, winning the woman’s attention. “Have you seen… the rest of him?”

 

“Sure, I just haven’t grabbed it yet.”

 

Persy treks over the rubble and glances at the black dress shoes hanging from the disgustingly bloated feet. She can still see the scuff Russel covered with permanent marker on the train. “Where?”

 

The woman points over her shoulder just barely out of the light of the open plaza. Several other people in overalls wear masks – the same large-eyed ones they did during the attack – spraying the concrete with peroxide. Powerful chemical smells nearly overwhelm the stench of early decay and blood baking into concrete.

 

Breathing burns but she does it anyways. The sting in her lungs is almost welcome. Ruining her insides seems only fair as she kneels beside the upper half of her only friend.

 

She can’t help the tears that slip past her lashes, falling from her cheek to the torn jacket of his navy blue suit. His face is down, concealing the worst of the damage made by the concrete. Luckily, if that can even be said, the chain around his neck unclasps without having to move his corpse.

 

It clinks against her neurojack as Persy dons the golden dove. It’s small, barely noticeable, yet weighs a hundred pounds over her heart.

 

She feels his blood-matted hair before she realizes her hand found its way to it. Small clots catch on the fabric of her gloves and the still wet parts dampen her exposed fingers. Like a child with a doll, she sits on the concrete and digs the blood and dirt from the updo he spent too long preparing for the summit. With how much he did for everyone on Halcyon, he deserves to be burned with dignity and clean hair.

 

“Stupid Russel,” she hisses with a sob, “you know that bullet was meant for me. It should be you in this Fireteam. You deserve to fight, to live.”

 

He doesn’t answer. Persy rises to her feet and wipes most of the blood onto her pants, allowing the masked woman to come and take his remains once Russel is far out of her sight.

 

She walks until the sun hits her face and stands for a moment, letting it dry her tears.

 

“I thought I’d find you out here,” Russel mutters, leaning against the balcony rails beside her. “Tough day.”

 

Persy nods, letting her gaze trail from the blue sky to Russel’s hazel eyes. “If I see one more poster celebrating that massacre, I’ll tear my hair out.”

 

“Not your hair,” Russel gasps. He takes a tuft of her curls and fluffs it like a pillow. “It’s your best quality.”

 

“Oh please.” In spite of her still wet eyes, Persy laughs and knocks Russel’s hands away.

 

He shrugs. “If you tear anything out, let it be Kell’s eyes. I can’t stand much more celebration either.”

 

She watches his fingers worry over the little golden dove around his neck. “I don’t know how you do it. If I were in your shoes, I’d have snapped and killed him by now.”

 

“Wish I could,” he chuckles. His eyes cloud with sadness as he swallows heavily. “I don’t think it’ll bring them back, though. My parents, my friends, none of them. We lost everyone. Besides, who am I to deprive all the other survivors of their due justice.”

 

“There are other survivors?”

 

“They're not as public facing as I am,” Russel states. “Although, there’s one cousin of the Samej family that lobbies for Kell. And I think Nazari’s kid is still trying to get into politics. But that’s all I’ve been able to keep track of.”

 

“Two other survivors,” Persy echoes. “And both are Kell’s.”

 

“So am I.” Russel shakes his head, finally releasing the dove in favor of Persy’s hand. “I dream of the day I’m not. When I don’t have to celebrate the anniversary of my parents’ death to stay alive. I dream that dad’s dove will see the day peace returns to the galaxy.” 

 

“I dream that for you too,” she mutters. Persy leans against Russel’s shoulder, letting his tears slide into her mess of red hair. “I’d like to see a rebel Russel. He’d be an interesting guy.”

 

“Ha, I’m sure he would be. I guess we’ll find out once you contact Glen.”

 

“I love you, Russel.”

 

“Love you too, Pers.” He sighs. “Are you ready?”

 

“Ready for what?”

 

“The link,” Arven shouts, standing on top of several crates to be as level as he can with Persy’s cockpit. “It’s gonna feel weird for a minute.”

 

“Will it be anything like that harvester?” She grips her controls tightly. The seat is comfortable enough, surrounded by monitors that reflect her hesitant face above the new patch boasting her callsign.

 

“Uh, kind of? It’s different when it’s your own mech,” he admits, waving a dismissive hand. “I’ve piloted this one before, it isn’t too wily.”

 

Persy grimaces and braces her feet against the small floor of the cockpit. “Alright. Let’s do this.”

 

The same invasive feeling of a hundred invisible wires slips into her neurojack. A thousand new thoughts – none of which are her own – slam against her mind like waves on rocky shores. Inputs reading everything from elevation to the frame’s stats to Arven’s every move are bursting her mind as it hits what she thinks is max capacity. It eventually settles enough for her to decide to close the cockpit, which happens not unlike moving a finger. Instant. Beyond instant. Like it’s thinking for her.

 

“How are you doing, Seraph?”

 

Persy blinks a few times before registering her callsign. “Good. Just adjusting.” Her voice comes through the external speakers as easily as shouting. Part of her wonders if it even left her own mouth.

 

“Alright.” Arven nods and meanders to the hangar door. “I’ll leave you alone to figure yourself out. Scream if something goes wrong.”

 

Persy nods. Or was it the mech who nodded?

 

Okay then, she thinks at it, like the war machine can respond. Let’s get accustomed to each other. 

 

Moving her limbs – rather, the frame’s limbs – is as simple as she expected. Stomping around the area is easy too, instinctual even. She can feel the heft of the weapons on her arms and shoulders, sense the light levels shift as the sun begins to set, and even smell the machine oil from nearby mechanic carts. It all reads like the frame is her body instead of the smaller person in the cockpit.

 

It’s all so precise, so personal. The computer inside the frame waits for her command like a squire that moves faster than light. The flash of a muzzle enters her mind as she recalls how quickly the mech in the plaza evaporated the man next to her. No hesitation. The monster inside the machine only thought and it killed a human without blinking.

 

This is exactly what Kell wanted her money for. A weapon piloted not by computer, but by the only thing that can be as cruel as he needs: a human being. Both he and the Union want to train soldiers to hate so much, so viscerally, that they’ll kill people with only a thought. Less than a thought.

 

This is Kell’s precious future. This is what he fought for when he killed the Hegemony and everyone in the plaza. The people in those mechs may be monsters, but Kell is by far the worst of them all. He needs no mech to massacre with less than a thought. They are all like him. Reflections of the nightmare he calls democracy. He built an army in his disgusting, selfish, foul, wretched likeness-

 

Persy jumps as a round from her pulse rifle fires, obliterating a large poster for the summit with Kell’s face plastered in the center. It was something recovered from the plaza rubble Arven used to train the others in firearm safety, which now sits split in half on the ground by a bullet fit for her twenty foot frame.

 

She looks down at her – its – hand, takes a deep breath, and takes a step back.

 

Archangel can read her thoughts, her inputs, as much as Persy can read Archangel’s. It knows her mind. It knows her intentions. It knows her wrath.

 

For the first time in nearly three days, Persy smiles.

 

“Good girl.” 

 

Her father swoops down and hugs her while her mother admires the plastic trophy.

 

“I told you that practice pays off,” her mom chirps. “You did a wonderful job, darling.”

 

“We’re so proud of you.”

 

“So this is your daughter?” A blond man approaches wearing a bright red suit, carrying a single rose the same color. Persy squints a bit and recognizes him as the politician who visits her parents every night. Her usual view of him is the top of his head while hiding on a staircase landing, and this front view seems much friendlier.

 

“Hieronymus,” her father says, “this is Persephone. I’m so glad you finally get to meet her.”

 

“Ah, I see the resemblance.” The man kneels and holds out the rose. “You performed excellently.”

 

Persy giggles and accepts the rose, taking a long sniff of the center. There aren’t many flowers on Demeter that aren’t fake; this man must have money to import a fresh one. “Thank you, sir.”

 

“I wish I’d ordered more roses, I should have assumed you’d win.” He stands up, brushing a wrinkle or two from his suit. “I rather like that word. Massacre. It’s the kind of word that rolls off a tongue and makes you sound smarter than you are.”

 

Her parents laugh. She wrinkles her nose. “You know what massacre means, right?”

 

“Of course I do,” the man states. “It’s just a lovely sounding word, that’s all. Maybe when you get a little older, you’ll understand what I mean.”

 

As the man walks away with her parents toward a refreshment table, Persy holds up the rose in her hand and taps her thumb against the thorn, surprised by how sharp it is. She stares at the man’s red suit, wondering how many thorns he has.

 

“To deliberately and violently kill,” the judge had said when she asked for a definition. To kill someone was bad enough, but to do it deliberately and violently? It would take an especially cruel person to do that.

 

Persy tucks the rose into her red curls and straightens her dress, deciding that no matter how old she gets, massacre will never be a lovely sounding word.