Global Union: A New Life Page 6

  “My mom’s not scared of those militants out there,” Teo said. “She says those Fronties should stop their nonsense if they don’t want to be targeted like that.”

  “I feel bad that innocent people got hurt though. Some of them hated the HDF too.”

  “Yeah, that’s the sad part about it.”

  A month wasn’t much time for the city to recover, never mind the occasional rain keeping DeMarcus cooped up inside just as much as another militant attack. They were lucky there hadn’t been any yet, but his mother wasn’t taking any chances when she bolstered the city with more soldiers and automated units with the police. Good thing too, since she caught a small group of HDF militants last week planning retaliation for that last attack.

  With all their essentials packed, he and his mother made their drive to the airport. DeMarcus sensed his mother’s relief of her part here in Houston—her smiles out the window at the streets said everything.

  “Hey DeMarcus, have you noticed there aren’t many HDF protesters here?” she asked.

  They probably realized their cause was pointless. Or maybe they didn’t want opposing militants targeting them? DeMarcus was glad either way, although he didn’t show it as he slumped on the windows as they prepared to leave the city he grew attached to.

  “There should be even less of them in Grand Detroit,” Sekhmet continued.

  But fewer Fronties meant a bigger haven for groups like the Amalgam Concord, which DeMarcus didn’t find comforting. “There’s still other groups there though,” he said.

  “If you ask me, they’re much less of a nuisance compared to Fronties,” Sekhmet said.

  Reaching the airport and loading their stuff into a private shuttle-plane, they strapped into their seats and took to the skies. DeMarcus played on his OmniMorph, glancing out the left window at the Gentilis flying with them over the old UCR badlands, where blasted metal and concrete tubes of an old hyperloop littered the black blotches of land between the Gulf and Atlantic regions. Another major target of the Solar War. If it were still up, they’d have reached Detroit faster than a shuttle-plane.

  After a quick nap, they arrived at the airport, and grabbed their stuff on the way to their aerocar. Slouching against the window from their long trip, DeMarcus stared at the greenery consuming the rusty-brown skeletons of the decaying buildings of an abandoned town. “So, how long before you finish everything?” he asked his mother.

  “Not too long. The folks at Detroit were able to get started without me, so it gives us more time together.”

  “Great!” DeMarcus shouted. “Let’s explore the city then.”

  “Actually, I’m going to teach you to defend yourself,” said Sekhmet. “That last attack had me worried about you. Sad to say, but I won’t always be around to protect you.”

  Now did seem like the best time. Although, he wasn’t sure how he’d fight off militants on his own the more he thought about it.

  Following their approach along the streets and metal walls was a sign that greeted them on their way through the city limits. The thick, dark blue buildings and giant domes like turtle shells rose in the horizon by the green towers and landscapes spread around them. The “military capital” of the NAF, Grand Detroit. And crumbling off to the east were the ruins of the parts of the city that used to be, separated by tall walls that kept the grimy water from the pristine Detroit River. Even this place was touched by the war.

  Hexagonal docks floated in the waters on the Detroit River, where large ships and small boats sailed around. As they drove within the city, DeMarcus noticed people here were surprisingly relaxed compared to those back in Houston—maybe because of the scores of Iuvian and NAF soldiers out and about in the streets and rooftops.

  The drove to a Terraport in Western Detroit, the Tavilla, a wide, white dome near a lake shared by a joint Iuvian-NAF base on the other end. Sekhmet signed them in, and they took the elevator to the second floor to their apartment, room 24. DeMarcus rushed in and fell onto the couch, putting his feet back and relaxed, but his mother tapped his head. “Uh-uh, what did I say?” she reminded him.

  “Huh? Now?”

  “Yes, now.” Sekhmet went her room. “Get changed and we’ll head to the gym.”

  Straight to business, as always. At least she had time off. No telling when they’d have this chance again. DeMarcus went and changed into navy blue athletic shorts and a red and blue shirt. His mother waited in her black trackpants and red shirt, tying her hair in a knot before they went downstairs for the gym. There were a few soldiers and civilians lifting weights and running along the track, many of them from the NAF. A few took to the training rooms, with empty one that, Sekhmet led the way into.

  Sitting her bag down and pulled out boxing gloves and a vest, Sekhmet strapped on and tossed a pair at DeMarcus. “Alright, let’s do this,” she said.

  A cold shiver ran down DeMarcus’s spine. “Do what?”

  His mother threw a light slap on his forehead, and he flew into a rage. “What was that for?”

  “Stop asking questions and fight.” Sekhmet threw another slap at DeMarcus, and he ducked and backed away. “Good. Keep going.” She dashed towards him and threw a punch, missing as he ducked away again. “DeMarcus.”

  “I’m not fighting you!” he shouted. “You’ll kill me!”

  “No, I won’t,” she said, looking at him in confusion.

  A fourteen-year-old against a war hero. That totally looked like a fair challenge. “Mom, I’ve seen you fight militants on the news,” DeMarcus protested. “I’m not doing this.”

  Sekhmet scratched her neck, muttering to herself. “…how did Keith do this?”

  As DeMarcus inched away, his mother called him back. “I have an idea.”

  DeMarcus shook his head, cautious of her tricks, but his mother wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Relax,” she said. “We’ll start simple.”

  She went through some basic moves on a punching bag: jabs, hooks, kicks to the legs, and strikes with the knees. DeMarcus repeated them with soft hits, putting more force with Sekhmet’s encouragement as she held the bag. Then he jumped back from his mother’s taking a swing toward his face.

  “Mom!” he yelled.

  “Come on, DeMarcus,” she said. “Just dodge the hits as you swing.”

  For the next hour, DeMarcus pounded at the bag and dodged his mother’s hits, though he got aggravated at a few smacks she scored on his head. Then he went at it on boxing pads, ducking and swerving away as his mother took light swings at him. “Watch your footing,” she said, dashing up and smacking him again.

  DeMarcus felt a sharp sting in his neck from the last hit. “Ow, mom! My neck!”

  “Sorry,” she said as she massaged his neck. “I guess that’s enough for today.” Packing up and returning to their apartment, she turned to DeMarcus with a few words of encouragement. “Some advice my friend Keith taught me: never fight fair.”

  “I hope I never have to fight,” said DeMarcus. “You pulled a lot of cheap shots.”

  “Well, those ‘cheap shots’ could save your life. You’ve got to do what you have to do—it may not be easy, and it might not be nice, but you should learn and adapt.”

  Learn and adapt? Isn’t that what he’s done most of his life, moving around and starting over in a new place? Not like he had a choice since his mother kept travelling all around the city, from Downtown to the River for Rec-Work.

  But next month came with a change of pace—she came home earlier than usual, arriving just in time for dinner. She sat with him at the table, receiving her plate from the caretaker android as she told DeMarcus about her day. “I went to the southern district to oversee this new Civil-Military Compound being setting up. It’s a little something between the NAF and Iuvia that Keith wanted done before he arrived, but everyone kept telling me that Little Iyrons can take over and allow me some off time. I should go see him someday.”

  “Little? But Keith’s older than you,” said DeMarcus. Rather odd of her to call
an old friend she looked up to little. “And I thought he was still at the Sinic Republics?”

  “I meant his son, James,” Sekhmet corrected.

  “Oh. Didn’t know he was here,” DeMarcus said, stuffing his mouth with chicken.

  Sekhmet’s OmniMorph beeped, and her eyebrow raised at a message from the Iuvia. “What could they want?” she questioned as she opened the message.

  An image of rust-red, jelly looking objects projected from it, with the words “Top Secret” and “Red Phoenix” at the top in bold. DeMarcus squinted at the words before his mother closed the message. “What was that?” he asked.

  Sekhmet smirked at him. “Don’t worry about it. It’ll get you in a lot of trouble.”

  DeMarcus gulped and looked away as he finished his plate, but that word “Red Phoenix” stuck to his mind all day. It was probably better he forget about it. Can’t get in trouble for something you don’t know, right?

  September 1st, 891 RNC, two months since they moved to Detroit and his mother was finally done with Rec-Work. Training in the gym, DeMarcus bobbed and weaved his mother’s strikes and returned punches and kicks at every opening his mother had. Then she raised blocks and pillars in the room like a small city and simulated a chase. Zipping past the blocks and pillars away from her, DeMarcus watched his mother leap over the obstacles after him. Stopping at a dead end, and smiled and raised his fists, dodging his mother’s punches before shooting his fist under her chin.

  But he veered his arm away, his mother flinching at his knuckles skimming the cheek of her headgear before catching his next feint. “You missed,” Sekhmet said.

  “Didn’t want to hit you,” DeMarcus said. “You’d get mad.”

  “I would not,” she said, yanking him over and rubbing his messy hair.

  DeMarcus broke free and smiled. “Sure, you wouldn’t,” he mocked.

  She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Let’s get cleaned up and head out.”

  After a shower and change of clothes, they flew off in the aerocar toward the green and white center of the Ves Plaza, a lonely conical building sitting by the outskirts of Downtown. The changes to the city had come in a blink since they first arrived—a new manufacturing plant from Coalesce Industries sat between the North and Eastern Ruins, along with a large dome at the edge of the Terraport and the city.

  There was another dome near the river, one with an open air out towards the waters where a green globe projected over a pedestal, the Rula Megaplaza, as said on his OmniMorph’s screen. Was that always there? He tapped the image on his display and looked at the stores and activities, the one sticking out being Magna-skating. If only it wasn’t so far away from the Terraport.

  “So, how’s Keith doing in the Sinic Republics?” DeMarcus asked.

  “Not sure,” Sekhmet answered. “Haven’t had a chance to speak to him yet, given he has no clue how to relax.”

  They landed in Ves Plaza parking lot, just as an alert from his mother’s OmniMorph gave a red warning: “Hostiles in the city—Beware.”

  A group of militants operating in the Great Lakes? The warning puzzled his mother as she looked at the screen. “That can’t be right?” she said.

  DeMarcus thought she’d stop everything and take him back to the Tavilla Complex, but all she did was warn him to be careful as she covered her red shawl over her head before they went inside the mall. It was a sigh of relief—his mother was finished with Rec-work, and a militant group shouldn’t be a problem in the military capital that is Detroit.

  “This place seems small compared to the Galleria,” DeMarcus muttered to himself. And it had no magna-rink to skate on. But it did have an AR arena, one that made up the entire plaza. Around him were other kids like himself with AR scopes over their eyes. DeMarcus took his own out and projected his avatar onto the floor, sending it running and jumping off the virtual cliffs and steppes of the plaza. All this time, and he hardly made any new friends—he wanted to change that today.

  He stood up and paced around the directories near fountain, panning his screen for his avatar to follow until he brushed against someone in his path. He lifted his AR scopes and turned to a blonde human girl who looked at him in disgust. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to—”

  The girl pulled away and gasped. “Ew! Get away from me, freak!”

  “Wait…what?”

  “Maylee? What’s wrong?” The girl’s mother turned and saw DeMarcus, then guarded her daughter from him. “Shoo, you little freak!”

  “Yeah, shoo!” shouted the girl, pushing DeMarcus to the ground.

  “Hey! What the heck!” DeMarcus laid in shock at what happened, looking at the girl, Maylee, sticking her tongue out before stomping his tail. He yelped as she pressed her heel down hard, the pressure feeling like a claw chopping at the tip of his tail. “Aah! Stop! Get off!”

  “DeMarcus?” Sekhmet called. Maylee ran behind her mother as Sekhmet came out, seeing DeMarcus on the floor. “What’s going on here?”

  “This grey-skinned sheer-mouth was disturbing me and my daughter!” pointed Maylee’s mother. “I don’t know what he’s doing, but he should go somewhere else!”

  DeMarcus jumped at the fierce glint in his mother’s eyes and winced as her fist cracked against the grown human’s jaw. The human spun in her fall to the floor, and Sekhmet’s tail thrashed about as she stared her down. “Call my son a ‘sheer-mouth’ again and I’ll make yours a broken one,” she snarled.

  As the human picked herself up, two officers, a human and a parahuman, noticed the spat and rushed over. “What’s the problem here?” asked the human officer.

  “This woman just assaulted me while we were shopping!” said the human mother.

  The officers turned to Sekhmet. “Ma’am?” asked the parahuman officer.

  Sekhmet shrugged. “She left out the part where she and her daughter attacked my son.”

  “Your son was harassing my little Maylee, you bitch!” said the woman.

  “I was just playing a game and bumped into her!” DeMarcus protested. “I said sorry!” His blood rushed from the girl flashing her tongue at him.

  His hand squeezed into a fist, but his mother held him back. “It’s okay, DeMarcus. I’ll handle this.”

  “Well, we’ll have to take the both of you in to sort this out,” said the human officer.

  DeMarcus took one look at his mother and knew that wasn’t happening as she stared down the officers and took off her shawl, asking, “You really want to detain the Bloody Leo?”

  “The ‘Bloody’ who?” asked the human officer.

  DeMarcus wondered the same thing as he noticed the odd smirk his mother made. And once she flashed her ID, the parahuman officer was quick to jump between her and his human partner. “Whoa! No, ma’am! That won’t be necessary!”

  The human officer stood confused. “What are you—”

  “We can’t…That’s Sekhmet Leona from Iuvia! She’s been here for Rec-work and is the absolute last person in the world you want to piss off!”

  But the human mother didn’t appear to care. “So what? Arrest her!”

  “M-Ma’am…we’d literally need an army to even try,” stuttered the tiger-striped man. “I-I’m sorry, but there’s really nothing we can do.”

  “No worries, gentlemen,” Sekhmet said as she went to the human mother, looking her in her eyes as she snarled. “Listen, bitch. This isn’t the Era of Hell anymore. You assault my son again—or anyone else for that matter—not only will it be your last move, but I’ll see to it a ‘sheer-mouth’ takes your daughter in your place! Clear?”

  The woman paused, backed away, and quietly took her daughter’s hand as she walked away. The embarrassment on her face almost made DeMarcus smile, but he stopped short of that as his mother spoke to the officers. “I’m sorry for that, officers. Didn’t mean to cause you any trouble.”

  “It’s…okay,” said the parahuman officer. “You take care, ma’am.”

  With a tug from his mother, DeMarcus mad
e his way out of the mall. He couldn’t believe that a city as progressive as Grand Detroit had such a vile woman living here, or that he had the misfortune to cross such a person. At least it didn’t get any worse.

  “You okay?” his mother asked him.

  “Yeah,” DeMarcus answered. “Don’t know why that lady was so mean, though.”

  “I wouldn’t call her a ‘lady.’ But don’t worry about her. I’m surprised you let that girl push you around.”

  “I’d thought fighting back would look bad.”

  Sekhmet stopped him. “Listen, I may have raised you to be a gentleman, but this isn’t the Dark Ages. That girl was trying to hurt you, and you know what I’ve said.”

  “Defend myself, I know.”

  “That’s right. I don’t care if it’s a girl—she doesn’t act like a lady and wants a fight, give her one. Hopefully, she’ll think twice before causing trouble.”

  CHAPTER 4 – ON THE BRINK

  Dense clouds clustered in the sky, and a moist, shivering breeze blew throughout the city as DeMarcus and his mother descended from the highwalks. He thought their Gentili flew a little too close before checking the weather on his OmniMorph—cloudy with a chance of rain that made him wish he brought a jacket. He probably should have checked the news as well, given the small crowd of HDF protesting in the streets behind a police line against other humans and parahuman bystanders.

  His mother grumbled at the crowd. “Even here? Those Fronties just don’t quit.”

  “So, what’s this about the ‘Bloody Leo,’ huh?” DeMarcus asked. “I never heard you call yourself that until now.”

  Sekhmet gave him a cold glance. “I’d rather not talk about it. Brings back bad memories.”

  That didn’t stop her from scaring the police with that name. Not like he didn’t know how she earned the title though—he figured it came with being a war hero…or something more brutal, one of the two.

  At a crosswalk, his ears caught the idle words of a human in a navy-blue jacket, speaking on his OmniMorph’s earpiece, “No sign of them yet. But be careful coming here, they’re definitely somewhere in the city.”