Beck hauled herself to the highest rung of the ladder, slinging her duffel bag off her shoulder and onto the platform. She slid it further down the perforated metal surface, making room for herself as she crawled up onto the platform and laid back, taking a breather. The rigid steel felt awkward against her back. It was three in the morning last she checked, in her mind the perfect time to pull a stunt like this. After a moment, she rose, looking up at the billboard hanging overhead.

“Kerras Energies Incorporated, Trusted Innovation of Tomorrow,” she read aloud, eyeing the bolded words of the sign, “what a load of crap.”

Beck wasn’t sure exactly when she’d formulated this childish and, in the grand scheme of things, pointless plan to vandalize a billboard. It’s not like it was one-of-a-kind, it was just the one she’d had to look at the longest. Growing up on the poorer side of Morgan City, in a particularly bad side of town lovingly dubbed The Meadows, she’d had to see that same billboard in the sky every time she looked up. No matter where she was it seemed, it was just high enough and just big enough to be seen from seemingly every alleyway, every apartment, every classroom window that had the “luck” of facing it. The cartoonish oil droplet mascot that took up its left half, with its dopey smile and its noodle arm giving a thumbs up, almost seemed to mock her while she went about her day-to-day.

It wasn’t the company’s only influence on her life, far from it. The Meadows earned its reputation by being right on the front lawn of one of Kerras’ largest west coast power plants. Through the years, the behemoth of a property, with its tall smokestacks and endless series of metal tubes and sub-buildings, began to sap the area of any life it once had. Beck’s parents, like most of the parents in her part of town, joined up with the company long before she was born, earning their pittance through back breaking labor day after day. That wasn’t the issue, though. Low wages had become quite common in the year 2103. The real problem was the water.

Despite objections from nearly every interest group and city planner under the sun, the company had mustered enough red tape and lawyers to distract from the fact their state-of-the-art facility was producing enough run-off to infiltrate Morgan City’s water table. Most in the city had the filters necessary to avoid the majority of damage this would’ve caused, but not those in the lower class, and especially not The Meadows. Beck only noticed when she got a bit older. Classmates were coming to school less often, bottled water prices skyrocketed, and she’d begun to notice people covered their heads with hats or scarves more often. One day, it had all boiled over for her, and there she stood.

Beck bent over and unzipped her duffel bag, revealing its contents. It had taken her quite a while to gather the materials. The three cans of spray paint she’d received from doing a friend’s physics homework for a full two weeks coupled with three packs of smokes, which she’d parted with grudgingly. The real prize was in the other compartment. Beck opened the main compartment of the bag and pulled out a long, knotted rope which ended in a shiny multi-pronged hook. She’d fashioned the grappling hook herself from scrapyard junk. It was a royal pain, but it’d be worth it in the end. Taking the paint cans, she stuffed them into her jacket before swinging the rope in the air a few times, letting go and tossing it over the top of the billboard.

“Yes!” she exclaimed, clipping the rope to a harness she wore over her street clothes. She tugged on the rope a few times, testing its strength. When she was ready, she placed her feet at the base of the sign and took a step upward. Slowly, Beck moved herself upward until she reached the face of the oil droplet, its big googly eyes and piano key teeth staring her down.

“Time to wipe that smile off your face,” she said with a grin of her own, pulling a paint can from her jacket and shaking it with glee. She’d been waiting all day for this.

When she was done, she planted her feet on the metal grating of the platform and unhooked the rope from its harness, admiring her work. The vandalism was crude, but she couldn’t help but smile, staring up at it, knowing how long it’d taken her. She’d turned the oil mascot into a little devil, complete with horns, sharp teeth, and a pitchfork in place of its obnoxious thumbs up. The slogan she’d written over completely, but the message was clear.

“BURN THEM ALL DOWN.”

“Good enough,” she said, feeling satisfied with herself. There was a safety railing installed at the edge of the platform. She leaned over it and lit a cigarette, looking across the cityscape. The Meadows were on the outer fringe of Morgan City. From her vantage point, she got a good look at its grandeur. The tall, glass towers at its center seemed to stretch endlessly into the sky, lit by neon lights and building sized floating advertisements which clung to the skyscrapers like weeds. Even at this hour, she could make out the distant hovercars floating along the various superhighways winding through and between the towers. It really was a city that never slept. And of course, much closer, was the power plant, a large blocky pyramid continuously pumping gray smoke into the air, breaking any illusion, if there was one at all.

Beck sighed, hanging her head over the railing, blowing smoke of her own. The thrill was gone now, and she could only think of how she had class first thing in the morning, how she’d need to sneak in through her bedroom window for the fourth night in a row. In another year, she’d graduate and be out in the real world. She’d promised herself five hundred times over that she wouldn’t get a job at the power plant, like everyone else in her class. She’d be different. She’d make something of herself. The wind blew cold, and she took another drag from the cigarette, listening to the sound of distant sirens and barking dogs.

In the middle of her thoughts, a white light had switched on in the darkness. Beck lifted a hand to her face as the light began to draw closer to her. At first she didn’t mind it, probably just a passing cargo drone, although those were rare on this side of the city. She finally figured out what it was upon hearing the faint sound of a whirring engine.

Cops. Cops!

“Stay where you are!” The voice boomed from the hovercar, which had switched on its proper lights, bathing the surrounding buildings in flashing red and blue. How long had she lingered in this spot? It didn’t matter now. Beck bolted toward the platform’s edge, grabbing the duffel bag by the tips of her fingers. The police vehicle, suspended in the air by anti-gravity engines where wheels would’ve been, maneuvered around the billboard as Beck slid down the ladder, jumping off at the halfway point and hitting the gravel rooftop with a thud. 

“Don’t move!” The speakers blared as Beck stumbled to a sprint across the roof. She’d never planned for this, she thought she’d be in and out quickly. She’d gotten carried away. The engine noise roared in her ears as she rapidly approached the edge of the building. Eventually, she ran out of path, and she placed her foot on the brick bordering the roof and launched herself into the air. Apartments in The Meadows capped out at six stories tall, more than enough for Beck’s heart to skip as she jumped the gap between the buildings. She cleared it, landed on the other side, and rolled, trying not to trip over her own feet as the police vehicle gave chase.

A charge started building in the air, a static feeling she’d felt before and dreaded upon feeling again. Beck jerked to the right, covering her head as she ran, and with a low THWOOMPH the gravel where she’d been moments before erupted. Bits of rock and dust were kicked into the air, like a whole box of firecrackers had gone off at her feet. Beck knew Tesla beams were no joke. She’d seen a friend’s brother struck by one just two months earlier. The poor kid seized up and hit the sidewalk. They didn’t recover for a full three days. These guys meant business.

This was overkill for petty vandalism. Beck couldn’t risk getting hit on the second blast. She was coming up on another gap in the buildings, and the metal cage of a fire escape came into view. Without thinking, she kicked off the building’s lip and aimed her fall toward the stairs. 

She hit with a loud crash that sent shockwaves through her bones, but she couldn’t stop to appreciate the pain. As lights in windows clicked on in the nextdoor apartments, Beck clambered down the rusted steps of the fire escape. There wasn’t time. She was still too high up, too visible to the chasing hovercar. At any moment, it could just fire another Tesla beam and she’d drop like a sack of hammers.

“This better work,” she panted, pulling the grappling hook from her duffel bag. Once she reached the landing, she clinked the hook through the bars of the fire escape and threw herself into the stagnant air of the alley. For a moment, she thought this would work, holding on for dear life to the tattered rope as she fell past the fire escape. It almost did. The rope went taught, and Beck braced for impact as she swung directly into the brickwork of the building. Her shoulder absorbed most of the impact as they made contact with the wall, and for a second she hung there, suspended ten feet from the concrete floor of the alleyway. She had just enough time to laugh to herself, blood pumping in her ears, then, the metal shook, and-

THWOOMPH.

There was the snap of thread, and the sudden drop.

Beck flailed her limbs in terror until her body was engulfed by something not quite hard, but not quite pleasant either. She shut her eyes on impact. Whatever she’d landed in, it smelled terrible, and there was the sensation of plastic rubbing against her body. With the air knocked from her lungs, she blinked them open to see the dark shape of the police vehicle pass overhead, the red and blue lights casting shadows across the brick walls of the alley. It stopped briefly, that same spotlight gliding slowly across the alley. She dared not move, the white light moving over her body without notice. When it lost interest, it silently gilded off, red and blue disappearing from the alley, leaving her only light source a purple neon sign overlooking her.

Bleary and sore, she looked around to see she’d been buried by a sea of trash bags. She sat up, her back popping as she rose, and realized by some miracle her fall she hadn’t been hit by the blast. Her fall had been broken by an open dumpster. Letting out a sigh of relief, she reached over and slung a hand over the rim of the grimy box, pulling herself from her plastic sarcophagus. Any other night, she might’ve just laid in that dumpster until morning, but she’d had enough heat for one night. Now, what she wanted more than anything was the safety of her own bed. That, and a change of clothes.

Her shoes hit the pockmarked concrete of the alleyway, and just as she began checking herself for injuries, she heard a new sound. Still on edge, she turned to look at the gap between the buildings. It was the sound of an engine, not a hovercar though; she was fairly certain the cops had given up the chase. Instead, a black motorcycle rolled into view. The rider’s face was concealed by a helmet. “Oh man,” the rider put a foot down to stop the bike, “oh, that was great!”

“Who are you?” Beck wasn’t in the talking mood tonight, especially from a random passerby who’d apparently been watching her without her knowledge.

“Oh, hang on.” Beneath the purple glow of neon, he pulled the helmet from his head and set it in the crux of his arm, letting her get a look at the stranger. He looked similar in age to her, maybe a year or two older at most. He wore a faux-leather jacket and jeans that’d seen better days. The jacket was marked with well over a dozen handmade patches, and his hair was long and wild.

“Name’s Eli,” he said, walking the bike off the street and into the alley. He leaned it up against a brick wall and extended a gloved hand to introduce himself, but quickly retracted it once met with Beck’s blank stare. “Anyway, that was a hell of a stunt you pulled with the billboard. Landing in the dumpster to break your fall? Fantastic.”

“Uh yeah, no. I didn’t plan any of that, it’s a miracle I wasn’t paralyzed.” Beck had hardly even thought of it, but it really was a stroke of luck the dumpster wasn’t filled with glass shards and used needles. All the more reason to leave. “Look, I appreciate the praise, but I need to get home.”

Beck brushed past Eli, making for the exit. He let her through, but she stopped when he spoke up again. “You really hate them, don’t you?”

She turned around, “huh?”

“Kerras, the corpos, all of them. Hell, since they own the police you could argue they just tried to kill you. Why else would you be painting a billboard at three in the morning?” He sounded so casual when talking about it, almost like it was rehearsed.

“Yeah, I can’t stand them… what’s your angle, man? What are you trying to get from me?”

He sheepishly held his hands up in the air in a mock surrender, “Well, I’m part of this group, and we’re looking for new people.”

She was beside herself now, shocked more by the attempt than the proposal. “What, like a gang? This is a recruitment thing?”

“For the record, we’re not a gang,” Eli blurted out, trying to save face, “alright, look. Kerras, Sunstone, Vertigo Tech, Magnus-Barker, they’re all the same. They think they own us. They grind the world to dust and make us foot the bill, and we’re suffering for it. I’m part of a group, and there’s a whole lot of us, and we want to make a change. Just one giant middle finger to everything they stand for, taking them down a peg. Part of my job is looking out for recruits. You know what I’m getting at, right? If you had the chance, wouldn’t you want to get some payback?”

Beck remembered something, then. She was young, looking through the crack in her bathroom door. Her mother was inside, bent over the bathroom sink. There was that horrible, retching cough again, the kind that always seemed worse than the last. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Her face must’ve darkened somewhat, and Eli’s expression reflected that. He didn’t want to push the issue further, instead moving to the subject at hand. “Right, well, you seem like the kind of person we’re looking for. What was your name?”

She was somewhat hesitant to tell this stranger her name, but in the end decided it wouldn’t hurt anything. “It’s Beck.”

“Beck, okay. Well, Beck, I think you’d fit right in. You definitely have the guts for it. Maybe I could talk with the others and-”

“Stop,” she held up a hand, but her tone wasn’t as harsh as he thought it’d be. “I see where you’re going, and I can’t do it. Believe me, it sounds great, but no. I can’t just run off on some revenge quest against the most powerful corporations on Earth. I’d just get killed, or worse. I’m not special, and this stuff? It’s just… it’s not real. I live in the real world, where I have class in the morning and people to take care of. So no. Sorry, Eli.”

Eli seemed to deflate, his confident attitude slipping a little, “I get it. I’m not going to force you, but hang on a minute.” He started fumbling with the pockets in his jacket, pulling a scrap of paper and a pen. Messily, he scribbled something down before handing it to Beck.

“Here’s my contact info. If you change your mind, if you really want to make a difference, all you have to do is call.”

Beck paused, considering the offer, “why do you trust me so much? You’ve known me for all of five minutes. What if I just went to the police instead?”

“I’m a good judge of character, and I think, deep down, you want to help people just as much as we do.”

She looked at him, then the paper, then him again, before finally relenting, taking it from his fingers and slipping it into the crux of her jacket.

He beamed, “okay, get home safe. From what little I know, you’ll be just fine.” With that, he hopped back on his bike and kicked the engine to life. Before Beck knew it, the mystery man was gone, tail lights disappearing beyond the ramp.

The road home took longer than it should’ve. She kept to the alleys and avoided the main roads, just in case the police were still on the prowl. When Beck reached her building, she made sure to climb the fire escape rather than take the main entrance. She didn’t want to get caught this late in the game. Quietly, she crept in through her bedroom window, only taking a breath once the window was finally shut behind her. Home safe.

It’d be dawn soon, only a few hours left until first period started. It was a long night, and if Beck was lucky she’d get an hour or two of dreamless sleep. Exhausted, she collapsed into bed, thoughts still racing. She wondered if she should’ve taken Eli’s offer, to join up with whatever group he was a part of and make real change. At the same time, how do you fight a mountain and win? Was it even worth it to try? Would she regret not trying at all?

Mid-thought, Beck heard something. Like every apartment in the building, hers had thin walls, meaning she could sometimes hear her parents moving in the bathroom through the wall they shared. She honed in on the noise, wondering if she could make out if it was her mom or dad. She didn’t like what she heard.

Worried, Beck pressed her ear against the wall, and her suspicion was confirmed. It was her mom, and she was retching again. She listened, the coughs wet and guttural. The water was getting worse. Her condition was getting worse. How many others were dealing with this, she wondered. How many would need to suffer before it got better? She moved to the edge of her bed, holding the paper slip in her hand. Beck stared down at the numbers, and when there came another painful cough through the wall, her mind was clear.

“Hello hello?”

“This is Beck. I’m in.”

“I thought you’d come around, welcome to the club.”

“What’s this club even called?”
“The Dryad Army.”

“Tell me that’s not the real name.”

Six Years Later

“Come on, come on…”

“Just give him a minute, alright?”

Beck itched at her mask, reassuring Eli for the fifth time in three minutes. He was fidgeting again, flexing the fingers of his metallic hand back and forth. Even years after receiving the implant, it still felt uncomfortable for him. She looked around for any sign of danger. The four of them, huddled by the electronic side door of the facility, were trespassing on company ground, and though it might’ve been the tension in the air, their cans of gasoline were beginning to feel heavy.

Tonight should be normal operating hours for a Kerras Energies factory, with workers toiling away on the factory floor until the early morning. However, after the detection of a mysterious gas leak, the higher ups decided to cut their losses and evacuate the building for the night; an open target. All according to plan.

She was on lookout, scanning the scene for any remaining guards on patrol. Even with the dark clothing and backpack she was assigned, she still felt exposed. The side of the building was massive compared to the simple, metal door they were trying to break in through. Fifty yards away, across an empty asphalt parking lot, was the barbed wire fence they’d had to scale, a dirty mattress still draped over the top. Beyond that, was their van, engine still running. Beck could see her friend Mia drumming her fingers on the wheel. Mia noticed her and gave a thumbs up. A nice gesture, but it did nothing to calm her nerves.

Alex was still perched on the ground by the door. In front of him sat a homemade brick of a laptop connected to the security panel the group had pried off the door. He was the newest member of the Dryads, around the same age as Beck when she joined. His skin was pale, his hair was a mess, and he was thin as a reed, but the most striking thing about him was his eyes: two metallic implants, more camera lenses than eyes. The result of a work accident, he told her once. “A few more seconds,” he muttered.

“You know, I could just pry open the door.” Solomon said, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. He was right, too. As the only military veteran in their group, he was heavily built, with stubble on his face and scars that ran down his arms. Those arms, modified with military grade cybernetics, could be enough to open the door, but for now their purpose was to hold a whopping two cans of gasoline instead of one.

Beck rolled her eyes at him, “I wouldn’t call “prying open the door” very quiet, Sol.”

“Fine, fine,” he moved off of the wall, “you done yet, kid?”

“We’re in,” With a keystroke, the four of them heard the sound of a lock coming undone, and Eli pushed it open.

“Way to go, kid,” he ruffled Alex’s hair as he began packing up his laptop back into its box. “Alright, everyone knows the drill. We got ten minutes til the alarm comes back on, we get in, and get out. Spread this stuff as far as you can and light it up. Beck, you’re with me. Sol and Alex, you go ahead. Get to the security office first, we don’t want any camera footage.” 

The two of them filed in, disappearing into the darkness. Beck reached up to her forehead and clicked on her head lamp. She took one more look around at the parking lot before Eli’s urging got to her, and she moved inside. All according to plan. For now.

The side door led straight to the expansive factory floor, which took up a majority of the building. Assembly lines snaked throughout the room, twisting their way around large machinery and metal grated walkways. The upper half of the far wall was made of windows revealing the starless sky of Morgan City. To their left was a large staircase leading up to an elevated room jutting out of the factory wall, overlooking the facility.

Eli pointed to the staircase with his light, “security office. Alex, that’s your queue.” Alex and Sol were already soaking the nearest equipment. The boy looked up with his camera eyes, and gave an awkward salute, dropping his can and moving quickly for the stairs. Sol followed after, spreading gas all the while.

Beck followed their example, climbing onto one of the metal walkways and tossing gasoline over the railing. The room already stank of the stuff, and she wished she wore a gas mask instead of the dark green cloth covering the lower half of her face. She imagined the staff as she poured, working endlessly and giving their all for a fraction of their boss’s salaries. She imagined how, like her parents, they were trapped in a cycle that started long before they were born, one which they had no choice but to accept. Their plan would reach fruition, this place was going to burn. Whether or not they were caught, that was what she worried about.

Suddenly, she felt a hand touch her arm. It was Eli. “Hey, I need you to come with me real quick,” he said, pointing over his shoulder to an area below the security office, two double doors which led further into the factory.

“Alright, lead on.” In the back of her mind, she could feel the ticking clock. Eli wasn’t above impulsive decision making. What did he want this time? He led them along the walkway and back down to the cold concrete floor, aiming his flashlight at a sign above one of the double doors. 

“What does that say?”

It was a directory sign, with various arrows indicating where the hallway would lead. One of which intrigued her. “Executive Office,” she read aloud before looking over at Eli, “want to check it out?”

“Hell yeah I want to check it out. Could find something of use.” He pushed open the double doors and started spreading the gas around the inside while Beck followed, flashing her light down the hall. The walls were a bland shade of gray, dead lights overhead, the only hint of personality being the odd vending machine or bend. Every few feet there’d be another set of doors which lead off into a windowed office or workshop of some kind. A few liters of gasoline later, they’d reached the office, a frosted window looking inside. He tried the knob, but the door was locked. “Dealer’s choice. How you want to open it?”

Beck responded by tossing her can of gas straight through the window and into the office, sending shattered glass all around the room’s interior. “We still have a bit of time left,” she told him, carefully stepping over the newly made gap in the wall, “let’s look around.”

“Okay, look at you go.” He did the same, and shone his light around the room. Despite its small size, the office was nicer than they imagined, with a large desk and rolling chair sitting in front of a wide TV screen. On one wall was a large bookshelf, lined with books they were sure had never been opened before, and on the other was a series of abstract paintings lined in a row.

Beck started poking around, rummaging through drawers and file cabinets, while Eli emptied his can of gas onto the desk. He asked her a question, “Hey, if you were one of these rich guy types, what would you do with the money?”

“What do you mean?” She shone her light into the bookshelf, trying to find anything worth taking. “Like, if I had a bunch of money or if I was running one of these factories?”

“The first one.”

“Well, I guess I’d try to do my best with it. Probably pay my dad’s debt. Maybe I could’ve given Mom the help she needed.”

Eli grimaced, stopping in his tracks, “God, I’m sorry Beck. I didn’t mean to bring that up.”

She dismissed his concern, “No, you’re fine, I’ve just been thinking about her a lot more tonight. Her and Dad worked in a place just like this. Bad memories, that’s all.”

“Okay, well” he replied, “if I had a bunch of money, I’d probably hide it first.”

“Hide it,” she repeated, intrigued. Walking over to the paintings, one by one, she began tearing them down. Eli looked on with curiosity as they came down. When the last one fell, the two of them were staring at a safe embedded into the wall. “Found something.”

“Holy shit, Beck.” Eli came up from behind and shook her shoulders, “I think you just hit the jackpot.” All the safe had was a keypad, they’d need a code to get inside. That, or a lot of force. Either way, it was progress.

“Hey!”

A new voice boomed through the room, and the two of them turned to see someone’s light in their faces. Reflexively, they each put their hands up. A guard stood outside the window to the office, a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in the other. He was agitated, the light moving quickly between their masked faces. “Who are you freaks? How’d you get in here?”

“Don’t shoot, okay?” Eli took a slow step forward, positioning himself just in front of Beck. “You have us.” 

Beck stared the man down intensely, slightly annoyed at Eli’s gesture of protection she didn’t need.

“Oh I more than have you,” training gun on them, the guard clipped his light to a holster on his shoulder, taking something off his belt and holding it up, “you’re screwed, buddy. Now get on the wall! This is an arre-”

The guard was interrupted when he was struck in the head by a flying chair. The man dropped like a sack of bricks, his gun clattering to the floor and light rolling further down the hall. Solomon stepped into view, “I got ‘em.”

“Great,” Eli dropped his arms, taking a breath while motioning to the safe, “you mind giving us a hand with this?”

“Sure,” Sol shrugged, stepping over the window gap. As they started working out the safe, Beck unlocked the office door and stepped into the hall. The guard moaned from his place on the floor, seeing stars no doubt. They wouldn’t have to worry about him.

“Oh, there you guys are!” She turned around and saw Alex coming down the hall. “I disabled all the security cams, nobody’s going to know we were here.”

“Nobody except for this guy,” Beck nudged the guard with her foot. She knelt down to see what he held in his hand. To her, it looked like a black box with a red, blinking light on it. “Alex, you know tech way better than I do. This isn’t a bomb, right?”

He reached out and took it from Beck’s hand, examining it with his metal eyes. “I don’t think it’s a bomb.” He mulled it over in his hands a few times, fiddling with it like a rubix cube.  “I’ll look it over.”

“Great,” she walked back inside the office, “we need to go soon, you guys find anything in that safe?”

Eli and Sol looked over. The safe door had been torn off, and in Eli’s hands was a single manila folder which he held up for them to see. “Yeah, this was the only thing in there. It’s transport plans for some device, but half the text is blacked out. Something about a prototype? They’re shipping it to the White Oak Site.”

“The Brig?” They all knew of the place. The White Oak Site was one of Kerras’s indentured servant facilities. Debt had become a major problem for the people of the 22nd century. For those approaching bankruptcy, corporations began offering programs that allowed one to sign a multi-year contract and work away their debts. White Oak was one such facility, nicknamed “The Brig” due to its sheer isolation, positioned at the very edge of the Pacific Oil Fields, an oil rig in the mountains. Nobody in the Dryad Army had ever seen the inside before, but conspiracies were rampant. “Why are they shipping it there?”
“Who knows, apparently this stuff is top secret. No security listed either, it’s just a lone cargo truck moving through the mountains, straight through the pacific forest to White Oak.” Eli flipped through the file, mesmerized. “This could be big for us.”

Suddenly, she heard a loud stomping noise from behind. Alex had dropped the black box, stamping it into the ground. Panicked, he looked up. “It was a transmitter! We need to go, now!”

Just as he finished his sentence, they all heard a commotion from just a few doors down. The four of them bolted out of the office and down the hall, the sound of footsteps and shouting growing louder as they went. When they emerged from the double doors, each of them ducked behind the staircase, turning off their lights.

A group of five soldiers had entered the factory floor, decked in black military garb and holding rifles. They wore dark helmets, like those of pilots, an on each of their shoulders was a patch they all recognized: the image of a white, snarling wolf. “DIRE mercs,” Eli spat. After the Dryad Army had made a few too many dents into the company profit margin, Kerras had employed private military corporation DIRE International as their militant right hand; pet soldiers with the sole purpose of hunting them all down. They held no allegiance but to the highest bidder, and under the employ of Kerras, they guarded the one way out of the building.

“Spread out,” a soldier spoke with a modulated voice and signaled with his hand, and the soldiers did as they were told. Slowly, they moved out in sets of two, one of them standing guard at the door.

“Great,” Beck sighed, eyeing the guard by the door. They were so close to the exit. “Anyone got any bright ideas?”

“I do,” Eli shoved the manila folder into Beck’s arms. Before she could question what he was going to do, he took out the guard’s gun and ran blindly out from under the staircase, firing wildly all the while. “Hey! Over here, asshole!”

“God damn it, Eli!” Beck shouted, but her cry went unheard amidst a hail of gunfire.

Sol went next, “I’m going after him! We’ll be on the other side!” He ran out from under the stairs and tackled the distracted mercenary, taking his rifle before running off in Eli’s direction. Beck grabbed hold of a terrified Alex by the wrist before ducking out the exit, running into the parking lot as fast as she could. There was only one car in the parking lot now, an armored car across the lot, empty. She looked around, but the van had disappeared from its place behind the barbed wire fence. All they could do was run as someone started firing at them from behind.

“Where is Mia?” As if on cue, the white van came screaming down the street, barreling straight through the barbed wire fence they’d scaled before and headed towards them. Gunshots rang out. Beck shouted at Alex not to look back, and the van swerved to a stop just ten yards ahead of them. 

The doors were thrown open, and Mia stood in the opening, “come on!” Another gun shot, and the van’s side mirror exploded into a shower of glass. The two piled in one after the other, and before they could even shut the door, she had already pressed her foot on the gas pedal, sending the van rocketing across the parking lot. “Did the others make it?”
“They’re being stupid,” Beck said from her place on the floor. Alex was hugging the van wall for dear life while Mia rounded the corner of the factory. Beck got up and pulled back the door on the opposite side. The factory was burning now, smoke emanating from every window in the building. The gasoline was working wonders. From the inferno emerged two figures, running while waving their arms. “That’s them!”

“Oh, they really are stupid, then. Hang on,” Mia jerked the steering wheel and Beck had to hold onto a hand rail to not fall out of the vehicle. The car only slowed down enough to allow Eli and Sol to jump inside in a flurry of flailing limbs and metal appendages.

“Go go go!” The four shouted in unison, and Mia swerved the car again, aiming for the newly made hole in the fence. There was a surge of momentum, and then they were free. Beck watched the burning factory disappear into the distance. The police would surely be on the way soon, but they’d be long gone by the time they arrive. Beck parked her head behind the chair of the driver seat, taking deep breaths.

Eli was the first to talk. “We did it!” He shouted, to which Beck sat up just to slap him across the face. “Ow! Hey, it worked out! Everybody made it unscathed. We’re safe.”

“Never do that again, idiot,” she groaned, falling back against the driver seat again. She heard something click near her ear, and noticed Mia had reached around the chair with a lighter, flame close to her face.

“Need a light?”

“Oh, definitely.” She took out a cigarette from her backpack and lit it, taking a long drag. Mia lit her own cigarette, humming to herself as the factory grew farther and farther in her rearview.

“Alright,” Eli stood up in the middle of the van, “everybody alive?”

“Remind me not to wake up tomorrow,” Sol winced, picking himself up off the ground and taking a spot next to Alex, who still seemed to be processing being shot at.

“Great,” he then looked at Beck, “you still have that folder?”

In the calamity, she’d almost forgotten what he’d given her, sliding it across the floor wordlessly. He picked it up and flicked through it again.

Mia took notice, “what is it?”

“This,” he held it up, so she could see it in the mirror, “is our next step against Kerras.”

The Day of The Heist

In stark contrast to the heavy, acidic downpours of Morgan City, the light rainstorm of the forest felt freeing on Beck’s skin. She held up her palm, feeling the cool water trickle down the length of her arm. Looking up, she traced the length of the trees with her eyes as they stretched endlessly into the night sky.

“You done yet?” Mia asked from inside the car.

“Yeah, almost,” she replied, “there’s just so many stars out here.”

It was true. This was the farthest she’d ever been from Morgan City, where the skyscrapers and light pollution made stars a distant fantasy, and even though they were stationed on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, it felt like a vacation in comparison. The wind smelled fresh, there were plants all over, and the best part? It was quiet. No sirens, no construction, no humming of drones overhead, just swaying trees and tapping rain.

Before climbing back into the vehicle, she took one last look at the forest around her. The car was pulled off on the side of a simple two lane road, sitting just far enough inside the foliage to not be seen by oncoming traffic, not that there was any this late at night. The road was placed halfway down the mountain; one side being a gently sloping hill while the other, separated from the road by a steel guardrail, a sheer cliff dotted with trees which plunged into the valley below.

The trees themselves were what fascinated her the most. Trees alone were rare in the inner city, those that weren’t synthetic at least. Seeing this many in one place was staggering for Beck. It was the moss, and the lichens, and the texture of bark under her fingers. It was so different from what she knew. 

“God, this place is great,” Beck said, stepping back into the car and shutting the door behind her. Sitting down, she reached up and slid back the roof panel, revealing the sunroof dripping with rainwater. Mia was leaning back in the driver seat, having opened her third soda of the night, the box they’d taken for the stakeout sat half empty in the back.

“Yeah,” she said between sips, “when I was a kid, my dad would save up the money to take me up here and camp out for a night or two. Happiest I ever was back then.” She drained the whole can in seconds and tossed it over her shoulder. “Now, it’s under threat of becoming the world’s largest parking lot.”

“Hard to believe this is one of the last ones left,” Beck pressed her head against the passenger side window, “God, Mom would’ve loved this place.”

“She ever take you here?”

“No, she was always too busy with work, but she’d tell me stories. Fairy tales. It all sounds so babyish now.”

“Humor me,” Mia cranked her seat back to eye level, “it’s boring out here.”

Beck looked at her skeptically, but it couldn’t hurt. They could kill time all they wanted until Eli and Alex radioed to them from further up the road. “Sure, fine. Well, her stories sometimes blended together, but she brought up this one character a lot: The Woodsman.”

“So, like a lumberjack?”

“Not a lumberjack, the opposite, actually. He was this mysterious figure, nobody could ever see him, but he was always there, waiting. He was immortal, not human and not an animal. The Woodsman was there to defend the wilderness from the evil men who’d intrude on it. Real cheesy stuff, but hey it kept me entertained at four years old.”

“Huh,” Mia pondered, “well who needs him when you have us?”

The two locked eyes and laughed. It was needed after a long night of waiting for a mystery truck that, for all they knew, wasn’t coming. After the laughter subsided, Beck tapped against the windshield. “Hey, you know who he’s on a call with?”

Mia looked to where Beck was pointing. It was Solomon, standing beneath a tree and trying to take shelter from the rain. For whatever reason, he’d left the car about twenty minutes earlier to take a phone call. He never gave another reason.

“Beats me, maybe it’s his wife?”

“I guess so, but the guy’s been really quiet the whole night. It’s not like him. Why’d he bring it with him to begin with?”

“Probably just nerves, it’s been a while since we’ve done something on this scale.”

Beck didn’t buy it, but before she could press further, the quiet ambience was shattered by the sound of radio static. Mia quickly grabbed one of the walkie-talkies that’d been sitting in the cupholders between them. “Go for Car 2.”

“Mia,” Alex sounded distressed, “the truck is coming! One of you needs to lay down the spikes now! ETA: two minutes. We’re tailing it now.”

Beck heard it loud and clear. She grabbed her own radio before throwing the passenger door open. The spikes were Sol’s job. She stepped out into the rain and waved her arms in his direction. “Solomon! Get the spi-”

A thunderclap boomed overhead, drowning out her plea with the noise. Sol didn’t take notice, he was still on the phone with whoever. She didn’t have time for this. Beck ran around the side of the car and the trunk popped open. Quickly, she rifled through its contents until she came to a wide, matte gray square layered heavily with large nails.

“Hurry,” the radio urged from her back pocket. Even through the rain, she could see the oncoming headlights growing closer in the distance. She ran out of the foliage and to the road. Then, she tripped.

“Ah!” Beck’s shoe slid in the mud, sending her and the spike palette tumbling onto the asphalt. Like a spring, the palette expanded, stretching across the street and stopping just short of the guard rail. She landed on her hands and knees, right in the path of the oncoming truck. That was, until she felt firm hands grab hold of her from behind.

“Got you!” Sol’s deep voice blasted in her ear. Forcefully, he hauled her out of the path of the truck just in time. The two of them watched as the truck rolled right over the spikes… and kept rolling. The tires were never punctured. The truck sped down the road and the two of them looked on, dumbstruck.

Neither Sol nor Beck moved an inch, not until another vehicle abruptly stopped in front of the spike trap. Eli rolled down his window and leaned out, shouting, “plan B! Move the spikes, we’re going after it!”

All at once, the Dryads leapt into action. Sol quickly hauled the spikes out of the road. Mia kicked her car into gear and drove forward, allowing Sol to get in. Alex reached back and opened the door for Beck, who scrambled inside. In seconds, they were ready to act. Eli’s radio crackled to life from where he’d mounted it on his dash. It was Sol.

“Are we sure about this?”

“Damn right we are,” Eli gunned the engines, and the two vehicles were sent flying down the road after the truck.

“What’s the plan?” Beck moved between the two of them to see out the windshield better. It didn’t take them long at all to catch up, soon they were right along the truck’s left side. She looked through the rear window to see Mia and Sol swerve to be in position directly behind the truck.

“You,” Without looking away from the road, Eli reached into the gap between his seat and the console before pulling something out and handing it to her, “are going to use this to intimidate the driver and get him to stop.” It was a small, black pistol, which Beck took readily,  “This is going to go a whole lot smoother if we get the truck to stop.”

“Careful!” Alex looked nervous again, his metal eyes slanted with worry.

“I always am,” she stuffed the gun into her jacket and rolled down the window, allowing the rain to flow in. Slowly, Beck eased herself out of the window, bracing against the wind. At this speed, it felt freezing, and her double grip on the glass pane of the window was all she could do to keep from slipping. She lowered herself closer to the ground, growing scarily close to the asphalt below. If she messed this up, she’d be a stain on the pavement. 

She let one hand fall, allowing her to look over her shoulder at the truck. Eli moved the car closer to the cabin of the truck. There were two wide steps leading to the door, her target. Ten feet, then eight, then six. Beck took a breath, and time slowed around her. Without another thought, she jumped for it. Her heart skipped a beat as her hands made contact with the metal of the truck, slick with rain, but she made it. Without skipping a beat, she reached into her jacket, climbed up to the window of the cabin, and pointed it into the glass. “Stop the truck!”

There was just one problem. Beck’s eyes widened, and she traded out the gun for her radio, yelling just to be heard over the roaring wind and growing storm around her. “Eli! There’s no driver inside!”

“What?” He replied, staring at the radio in disbelief. This was something he hadn’t planned for. Was Kerras so intent on keeping this delivery a secret they used a self driving vehicle? What was this thing carrying? It didn’t matter now, they were in too deep. They had to keep going. “Alex, you’re up,” he said, patting him on the back.

“Huh?”

Four shots later, but Beck shot out the glass of the truck’s cabin, reaching in and unlocking the door from the inside. She was forcing it open against the wind when she saw Alex climbing out the window, a large satchel slung across his back. “Oh no,” she thought to herself.

He was trying to copy what Beck had done before, but with half the finesse, losing his grip before quickly reclaiming it, resting his head against the window with a grimace. She leaned down on one of the steps, her other arm slung around a safety rail, calling out, “take my hand!”

With a scream of both courage and genuine terror, Alex threw himself at Beck’s arm. He was far lighter than her, but she wasn’t prepared. Upon contact, she grabbed him by the wrist, her knuckles going white with the effort, but the sudden weight caused her arm to slip from the safety rail. Alex was sent straight into the side of the truck with a loud thunk. For a moment, she thought he’d lost him. “I got you!”
“Please don’t let go!” She caught the railing by the tips of her fingers, and she began to reel them both into the cabin. With one final push against the now pouring rain, they fell back inside, gasping for breath. “Thank you, I’ve never done that sort of thing before.”

“Don’t mention it. What are you going to do?” The cabin itself was cramped, seemingly modified from a regular transport truck. The seats were left intact, however the wheel had been removed entirely. The dashboard was replaced by a series of screens with information that, to Beck, was all but meaningless data. On the back wall was a small, see-through hatch that gave a view into the trailer.

“I’m going to try and interface directly with the truck to try and stop it.” Alex pressed past her, moving into the driver seat. He began searching for something, focusing on a specific screen on the left side of the cabin. “If I can just,” he beamed, “there we go.”

He reached up and patted a spot on his neck, just behind where the jaw met the bottom of the ear. There was a small, metal square embedded in the skin. He pressed down on the implant, and pulled a long cable from the base of his neck, three feet in length. Beck winced, “every time I see you do that, it looks painful.”

“It’s really not,” he explained, “to me, it feels as natural as anything else.” He guided the cable into a port located behind the screen he’d been inspecting before. Once it was placed inside, Alex’s body seemed to relax completely, his mechanical eyes staring into space.

“What do I have to do?” She waved her hand in front of him a few times, just to see if he’d react.

“Take the satchel,” he spoke robotically, lost in the system, “you need to pilot the drone yourself. This could take a while. Kerras put a lot of firewalls in this thing. Too many for comfort.”  She opened Alex’s bag and took a look inside. The device itself was a set of goggles connected to a mechanical wreath, something meant to sit around the user’s neck during use. A bundle of wires connected the goggles to a pair of black, padded gloves. Beck had only ever seen cargo drones operated on TV, and had never piloted one herself. Time to learn.

Beck tried to peer through the hatch, but all she could see was darkness on the other side. She slid back the door, tossed the satchel inside, and squeezed her body through behind it, landing with a thud on the metal flooring.  The trailer’s inside was dark, the only sound being the faint rolling of tires from underneath and the pattering of rain on the roof. Just as Beck was searching the satchel for some kind of light source, there came a humming noise, and a series of light strips that encircled the trailer’s ceiling buzzed to life, allowing Beck to get a glimpse of the cargo.

It was oddly underwhelming at first. Whatever the cargo was, it was covered by a massive sheet restrained by thick, polyester straps, which were bolted to the floor on either side of the object. The cargo itself took up a significant portion of the trailer’s inside. The object’s height reached up to Beck’s neck, and its width was just small enough that Beck could walk to the other side of the room without being pressed against the wall. “This is it?” She expected something more extravagant, but nonetheless, she had a job to do. She took a small pocket knife from her jacket, and right as she began cutting away at the straps, there was the sound of rending metal from the back of the trailer.

She didn’t mind though, she knew what came next. The sound escalated until the doors themselves, held together by an electronic lock, were forced apart by large, metallic fists, and Sol’s silhouette stood in the new doorway. He dropped his arms to his sides, his metal augmentations visibly shifting back into place, his muscles no longer under stress. Behind him was the open road, Mia trailing along in her car, throwing out a thumbs up from her window.

“Took you long enough, help me with this, will you?” She said it jokingly, but Sol didn’t reply as he stepped inside. Beck felt a little uncomfortable, the giant of a man being so few of words tonight. Still, he began to rip apart the restraints, snapping them with his hands. When they were finally done, they each grabbed a corner of the sheet and ripped it off, discarding it in the corner. Beck cocked her head to the side, confused, “What is this thing?”

“Wish I knew,” Sol mumbled. The object was cylindrical in shape, and appeared, at a glance, to be part of something bigger. It was shiny and metallic, with a large, smooth panel on one side next to a keypad with various numbers and symbols. Several transparent tubes jutted in and out of the main body. There was exposed wiring in various places, like it was shipped out ahead of schedule. There was only one word written along the panel in bold, black lettering, “PROTOTYPE.”

Beck held up her radio and spoke into it, “Eli, we have the cargo.”

“Roger that. Go ahead and use the drone, we can’t wait any longer for the truck to stop.”

“Copy,” Beck knelt down and pulled out the goggles, setting the rest of the device to hang around her neck. She donned the padded gloves and flicked a switch, letting the dual screens inside the goggles transition to a boot up screen. She took a breath, and Sol spoke up.

“Beck, I don’t think-

“Trying to concentrate, Sol, we can’t mess this up.” The next thing she saw was a camera feed. Cargo drones were far too big for any of their vehicles to transport them effectively, so the group compromised by hiding it deep inside the woods, far from the road or any prying eyes. Despite the tarp they’d used to cover it, the night vision camera was still speckled with droplets of water. She raised a gloved hand into the air, and the drone took flight, ascending rapidly into the air. Her ears were filled with the sound of high pitched, whirring motors. Slowly, she moved her hand to the side, maneuvering the drone until she saw the headlights of the trio’s vehicles moving along the mountains in the distance, flashlights in a dark forest. So far, so good.

Then, the drone was gone.

“What?” Beck’s screen goggles went dark, and she threw them off. Through the open doors of the trailer, she could see the burning fireball in the sky that was once the drone hurdling into the woods below. From behind a mountain emerged a massive, black shape. A streak of lightning spread across the sky, illuminating what it was, and the thunder that came with it was almost as loud as the alarm bells that rang inside Beck’s head. It was an airship.

“Eli! We’ve been made,” she screamed into her radio, dread mounting in her chest as the ship turned and flew towards their position, “the drone is gone, we need to get out of here now!”

“Beck.” She turned around. Sol wasn’t smiling as he held up his phone. He looked like a beaten dog, remorse clear as day on his face. “This doesn’t have to end badly.”

As the radio frequency began to crackle to life in her hand, the voices of her friends overlapping in blind panic, her fear turned to rage. “You sold us out?”

“I had no choice,” he took a step toward her, but she stepped away in return, disgusted. 

“You traitorous bastard.” He’d crossed the line, committed the ultimate taboo. She had so many things she wanted to say, all the vile insults she could think of wouldn’t be enough to express how she felt. Yet, she’d never get the chance.

Suddenly, the air erupted with noise. Beck clapped her hands over her ears and spun around, horrified at the sight before her. The airship had closed in on them fast, hovering thirty feet in the air and keeping pace with Mia’s car. It was larger than a helicopter but smaller than a plane, anti-gravity engines keeping it suspended in the air. The ship was gunmetal gray with stained black windows. The insignia of a wolf was stenciled onto the side of the ship doors in stark white paint.

“We’re not afraid of you! Come get some!” Mia had opened fire on the ship, her pistol shoved through the opening in the sunroof of her car. The bullets went wild, the recoil of firing with one hand led what didn’t land in the trees to spread across the length of the ship’s hull. As if in response, a wide door on the ship slid back, revealing one of many mercenaries huddled inside. The man, dressed in combat gear, was sitting at a large, mounted weapon. Without warning, they retaliated.

“No!” Beck watched helplessly as Mia’s car swerved to avoid the sudden burst of gunfire. The edge of her car was shredded in seconds. Tires popped and metal squealed. She had  lost control of the car, weaving left and right, left and right, and before Beck could even react, Mia’s vehicle had slammed into the guardrail. The barrier twisted, bent, and snapped, sending the car careening into the forest below. The radio abruptly went dead in Beck’s hand.

Screaming with blind fury, she ran up to the edge of the trailer doors, drawing her pistol as she went, and started firing on the airship herself. Without the need to watch the road, she managed to strike the ship’s gunner in the shoulder, who quickly turned the weapon and aimed squarely at her. Realizing her mistake, she ducked back inside the trailer, another rapid burst of gunfire trailing along the road towards her. Beck would’ve been torn to shreds, had another soldier not intervened, pushing the gun out of the way. For whatever reason, the airship pulled up, ascending again until it was out of her sight.

Sol, mortified, tried to explain himself, “they told me they wouldn’t harm anybody.”

Blood pumped in Beck’s ears, adrenaline giving way to tunnel vision. She wasn’t thinking clearly. “This is all your fault,” she spat. With another scream, she bolted, taking the pocket knife from her jacket and lunging toward the man. Sol reached up, catching her arm and holding her in place.

“Stop! Stop this, please! I don’t want to hurt you.” She struggled against his literal iron grip, tears in her eyes, until at last,  “I didn’t want this to happen!”

Sol shoved her back. Beck’s body collided with the strange machine they’d come to steal. She hit the object hard, but there was a new sensation building in the room. Sol seemed concerned, but he wasn’t looking at her, past her. Confused, Beck turned, and noticed her hand had collided with the keypad of the machine. It was starting to emanate a weird, high pitched ringing noise. It didn’t matter, not to her. She lunged at Sol again with the knife. His face looked panicked, “Beck, no!”

This time, Sol picked her up and threw her across the trailer. She hit the floor hard, skidding to a stop at the edge of the trailer doors. The noise of the machine grew louder and louder, buzzing and rattling, an eerie blue light emanating from the cracks and screw holes that made up its exterior. Lightning crackled in the air, and the two of them started to feel strange. 

The atmosphere in the trailer had shifted completely. Deep in their bones, they each had an indescribable feeling that something was wrong, a growing, primal fear they couldn’t shake. The large panel on the machine’s side flipped open, revealing the spinning, glowing interior. With a pulse, there was an eerie blue light, a burst of energy, and the lights on the trailer’s ceiling began to go haywire, flickering and popping with power.

From her place on the floor, Beck watched in horror as Sol began to writhe in discomfort. Whatever the blue glow was, it was doing something to him. He dropped to his knees, staring at his hands, and maybe it was the flickering lights, or the sheer chaos around her, but Beck could’ve sworn they were aging. The skin on his hands seemed to stretch and thin, withering away. Sol’s hair seemed to be growing rapidly, graying at the temples. He was shrinking, muscle melting away before her, and all the while, the man couldn’t scream. His jaw hung open, but no sound came out as whole years were ripped from his body in seconds.

Then, the machine surged with power, engulfing the inside of the truck with the blue glow, and the lights went dead. The mechanisms that kept the vehicle on track to its destination gave out, and the truck’s three passengers went straight through the guardrail, screaming into the valley.

Beck panicked, surrounded by darkness, the sensation of freefall overtaking her. She caught a glimpse of trees speeding past the doors, and then, it was over. There was the loudest sound she’d ever heard followed by nothing at all.

As the Dryads fell over the cliff, something in the forest took notice of their predicament, and, as was its purpose, it decided to intervene. END OF PART 1 OF 3.