“So the commander gots me sitting locked up while you go off on a fancy mission.” On the bed, Sev lied on his side with his back facing AJ.

AJ stood outside his cell. “Yeah, she said it was attacked by Russian Spectres.”

“So you’re going to fight them?” Sev asked.

AJ shook his head. “No, I’m just retrieving something they didn’t get their hands on.”

“Which is?”

“Commander didn’t tell me.”

Sev groaned. “The mission is very important then,” he said.

AJ glanced around the area. It was a large hallway with open caged prison cells. The bars were rusted and open busted pipes ran across the ceiling above head. Unlike his room, these cells had windows. Well some of them did. The lights jittered on and off occasionally. This was do to the lack of power to the base.

“So, do you have any tips for me?” AJ asked.

Sev glanced over his shoulder at AJ then looked back at the wall. “Not really man. If this is a simple retrieval mission then you should have to fight. Just avoid combat, grab what you need and get back here A.S.A.P,” he said.”

AJ just went on his first mission today with Sev. Now he’ll be heading on another one the same day but by himself. He wasn’t tired but he felt it was going too fast for him. He felt that he still lacked true combat experience to be put on such a crucial mission.

“Hey AJ, don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

AJ smiled. “Thanks, I’ll try and get back as soon as I can.”

“Hey, before you leave. Can you ask the commander when I’ll be let out of here?”

“I’ll make sure to talk to the commander before I leave.”

Outside the front gate, AJ’s spear was being prepped to go by the few technicians present in the area. They wore orange jumpsuits stained with motor oil and dirt. AJ walked over to his spear and saw his reflection in the black frame. It had been polished while he was away. It had been a long time since he had seen it cleaned like this. He rubbed his hand over it and felt it’s slick finish.

“Ya like it?” a voice asked.

He looked back and saw a man standing behind him. A gritty middle aged man with brown hair covered in grey strands. He used a dirty rag to wipe the oil from his face, but it didn’t get it all.

“Oh hey, thanks for fixing up my bike,” AJ said.

The man smiled. “No problem, the boys and I love fixing up heaps of old junk.”

“It’s not junk and it’s not old,” AJ corrected.

“Well have you seen what the new Canadians got out there?” the man asked. “Compared to what their spectres are riding, ya might as well be riding a bicycle.”

AJ chuckled. “So what’s your name?”

“The boys back at the garage call me Mac.”

“That’s a generic name for someone like yourself.”

“It’s not my name, just what people call me,” Mac said. “I’d tell ya my real name but then...I’d have to kill ya.”

AJ hopped up onto his spear. He kicked the stand back and planted his foot onto the ground to keep it up right. It felt lighter for some reason. What did those guys do? he wondered. The spear started up and he twisted on the throttle. The engine sounded cleaner, less jitter and there was also less rumble. “Hey, this runs really nice.”

“Ya can say that again,” Mac said. “All it really needed was a tightening here and there and a bit of a spit shine.” Since they didn’t have any water to waste, they literally gave it a spit shine.

Without saying another word, AJ drove off. Dust kicked up behind his spear. He drove across the desert with his sword on his back glimmering in the dusty sunlight and a general direction of where he’s suppose to go. Since the war caused most satellites to fall from the sky, the military didn’t have access to GPS or any map related software. They had to rely on scouts and long range drones to find what they needed.

While AJ went off on his mission, Sev was still stuck in his cramped cell. He lied on his bed, giving his bottom a bit of a scratch before tossing around. The hard bed and thin sheets made it hard to find a comfortable position. After the fifth toss, he gave up and decided to sit on the side of the bed. Outside his cell stood East. She had came to visit him because AJ talked to her about his release.

Sev rolled his eyes and lied back in bed. He tossed over so that his back was facing her.

“What’s the matter Sev?” East asked. “Don’t feel like talking?”

“Don’t really feel like talking to you,” he said.

East pulled out a pack of cigarettes and took two out. She placed one in her mouth and offered the other one to Sev.

“You know I don’t smoke,” he said.

“Oh that’s right,” she muttered, placing the pack back into her pocket. She then patted her body down looking for a lighter she just had earlier. “Welldamn.”

“It’s good because now you can’t smoke.”

“Mind lighting this for me?” East asked.

“You know I can’t make fire.”

“Oh that's right,” she muttered. “There’s a lot of things I keep forgetting about you. Well I guess you won’t have to put of with my smoking for a while.”

“I wouldn’t have to put up with your smoking if…” he muttered the rest under his breath.

“What was that?” she asked.

“It’s nothing important,” he said.

East took a deep breath. She’s known Sev for two and half years. Ever since she became commander he despised her. Though he didn’t show it while in front of others, he showed it when the two were alone together.

“I heard you got AJ going on another mission,” he said. “Even after he just came back from his first?”

“Yeah, I got him retrieving something that could save this base,” East said. She held the cigarette between her fingers. “If AJ completes it mission then it won’t mean the end of us.”

Sev yawned. “I don’t think the kid is ready for such a task. Wasn’t the convoy attacked by Russian spectres?”

“How did you know that?”

“I got all of it from AJ. You should know we’re pretty close. We tell each other everything.”

“He tells you everything...so he’s told you about it?”

Sev looked back over his shoulder at East. “About what?”

East smirked. “It’s nothing.”

Sev crawled out of bed and walked over to the bars of his cells. There was something she knew about his friend that he didn’t know himself. He’s a veteran, experience in combat and military secrets. He knew that there was always something the US was trying to gain from spectres.

“Don’t just drop something like that and not tell me anything,” he said.

“Sure, I’ll tell you, but first I want to know why you despise me so much,” she said.

“I don’t despise you. Why would you ask that?”

“You do, ever since I became your superior you’ve always had that look in your eyes. It’s stronger when we’re alone but you try and hide it when we’re in public.”

Sev walked back to his bed and crawled back on it. He lied on his side with his back facing East. What he held in his heart, something against East, he wasn’t going to say. He much rather it be known only to himself. Though he did dislike her, he couldn’t change the fact that what happened happened. It wasn’t East fault and he knew it wasn’t right to blame here, still he did.

East snapped the cigarette between her fingers and walked off. “Fine if you’re not going to tell me that’s alright.”

WIth that being done, AJ had managed to make it to the convoy. He parked his spear on top of a nearby desert hill and gazed out. There was a dead tree or so every mile and a few shriveled up shrub here and there. The land was covered in craters from constant bombardment and a few remnants of crumbling cities lied buried in the distance. There wasn’t nowhere the war hasn’t touched. Nothing was alive on this dying planet. Sometimes he wondered if the people were just corpses fighting an endless war for the remaining resources: water, oil, sun.

The sky was covered in a thick smog. Sometimes it would rain acid or even snowed nuclear flakes. The result of fallout that hasn’t lit up. There was areas where the smog doesn’t show and the sun’s light could hit the earth. These were valuable areas because it meant they could build clean solar power farms.

The convoy he was looking for lied on road. He quickly ran down without checking for nearby life. The large cargo truck lied riddled with bullet holes. He walked along side it, rubbing his hand against the metal which was still hot. What he was looking for was a metal briefcase that was attached to the arm of one of the soldiers. He went around to the back of the trailer. To listen to what was inside, he placed his ear against the door. He heard the faint sounds of movements that came from inside.

He unlatched the door and opened it wide. Outside, he peered into the dark trailer. There was a soldier, bloodied and with a bullet hole in her chest. She sat back against the far end, cradling the briefcase in her arms and holding a gun pointed at him.

“Hey are you-”

The soldier started firing her gun and AJ jerked backwards and fell onto the ground. He lifted up, rubbing his head and gritted his teeth.

“Hey what the hell is your problem!” he shouted.

“Stay back!” she shouted.

AJ peaked back into the trailer and looked at the soldier. Her left hand used to hold the briefcase was badly injured. Her fingers broken and hand bloodied. Her right hand was shaking, she wasn’t able to hold the gun up any longer and dropped it on the floor.

AJ jumped back into the trailer and went over towards her where he kneeled down. “Thanks for trying to put a few holes in me,” he said. “Anyways, are you alright?”

“Do...do I look a’ight to ya?” the soldier asked, taking deep breaths after each word. She tapped against her helmet that covered her face. “m’ask ya someth’n. Are you a ruskie?”

AJ shook his head. “No, I was sent here by commander East to come and grab that briefcase you’re holding.”

“I can’t let ya do that,” she said.

“And why not?”

“General Mathews gave me strict orders to hold onto this here briefcase for dear life,” she explained. “I can’t just let someone like ya to just walks right out…”

AJ gave her a good shake so that she’d wake back up. “Hey don’t die on me here.”

“Sorry, but ya idea. I can’t let you take this here case.”

“Then I guess you’ll just have to come with me then.” AJ wrapped her right arm around his shoulder and picked her up off the floor. The soldier grunted, her legs were also injured as well, but she stuck it out. She limped fast enough to keep up with AJ’s pace as he took her outside the trailer.

“So what’s your name?” AJ asked.

“I’m sergeant Harlot.”

“My name’s AJ, a spectre for the US military.”

Harlot chuckled. “A spectre huh, you don’t look like one.”

AJ stopped and looked behind him. He felt a killing intent coming from behind. There in the distance, just alongside the trailer they came out of, a woman stand. Her grey hair fluttered in the wind and she was dressed in black military combat gear. She glared at him with his fist clenched.

“That’s the spectre that destroyed our convoy,” Harlot whispered.

AJ looked closely and saw a Russian patch stitched to her shoulder guard. Aw damn, he thought. He gently sat the Harlot down on the ground beside him and reached for his sword. Before he he could take it out, the russian woman held up her hand, gesturing him to stop.

“No fight,” she said in her thick russian accent.

“No fight, what do you mean by that?” AJ asked.

“No fight, no need to. You give and no death.”

“You’re talking about the briefcase?” AJ asked, pointing to it with his finger.

The Russian woman nodded her head. “Yes, you give to me.” There was a glimmer in her left eye. Soon tears began to flow from her eyes, endlessly like a waterfall. Something had pained her that she didn’t know how to deal with. She could only cry about it.

Harlot groaned as she looked up at AJ. “I’ve heard of that woman before,” she said. “That’s the endless crying russian.”

“Endless crying russian? Why do they call here that?” AJ asked.

“Because when she start’n crying she doesn't stop until...everyone she intends to kill are dead.”

AJ nodded his head and looked back at the woman. “I’m sorry but I can’t give you that briefcase. Without that we cannot repair the water facility back at the base.”

“The water treatment facility?” Harlot muttered to herself.

“That not used for water. That used for...for...for saving lives from plague.” the russian said.

“What are you talking about?” AJ asked. “Commander told me otherwise.”

“No, used for saving lives from plague. Used russian children to make vaccine. Americans kill many russians. Russia want cut but Americans won’t share.”

The world has been devastated by a black plague that swept through all life on the planet. Something that didn’t just infect and killed humans but also plants and animals too. The United States had been using Russian’s, mainly russian children to work on a cure. Before russians had been working a vaccine on adults that later passed onto their children. But the war happened and that research was lost. Instead of starting from scratch the United States worked off the DNA of the russian children. Some lived but most had died to create that single vaccine that Harlot now holds.

The Russians promised to overlooked something so horrifying as that but...but the United States wouldn’t share their research. That was why the Russians has sent the their strongest spectre to retrieve what they believed was rightfully theirs.

“AJ, you cannot let her get the vaccine,” Harlot said. “This is the only vaccine in the world and your base is the only place with a working laboratory that can remanufacture this stuff in large quantities.”

AJ nodded his head and unsheathed his sword. He pointed it down at the russian woman. “Alright, I’ll take care of this woman real quick. You just sit tight alright?”

“If fight, then you only die,” the russian woman said. “Me, Uruski won’t die.”

“So that’s your name huh,” AJ muttered.

This was the first time he had ever fought against another spectre with the intent to kill them. He charged toward her at full speed with his sword dragging across the ground behind him. She didn’t reveal what she could do until he got into range. She wiped the tears from her eyes and they began to float in their air. She was able to control them and form them into sharp swords she held in her hand.

Harlot was just a mere human witnessing a fight between two spectres, or so she thought. For when she closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them, the fight was already over. Then came the barrage of noises from explosions and metal clashing. Their moves too quick for the sound to catch up. She had heard they fast but didn’t know how fast they were.

The two spectre’s stood there. AJ’s blade plunged deep through Uruski’s chest. The blood seeping between the blade and her flesh and the dripping down the sharp edge of his blade. She coughed up blood and slid down his blade a bit as she began to cry. Not fake tears that AJ had seen before, but real tears that came from a broken heart.

“I’m sorry Uruski,” AJ said. “I wish it didn’t have to end up like...like this.”

Uruski smiled bitterly. “It...it ok. As you said, we just corpses fighting war no end.” She held her head down and closed her eyes. “How...how you strong?”

AJ jerked the blade from her chest, tears bits of organs and flesh from her body. She fell face first on the ground at his feet. A puddle of blood flooded around her. AJ kneeled down beside her, looking down with a blank stare and no emotion. “You want to know how I’m so strong?”

“Y-Yes,” she said with her final breath.

AJ leaned close to her, and whispered something quietly into her earth. Her eyes suddenly widened and her jaw opened wide. She wanted to scream but couldn’t; hadn’t have the breath to do so. Instead she died with the only secret that he and a few others held about him. Something he’d never tell anyone who he knew could live to tell on about it.

He then walked back over to Harlot who looked up at him in awe. He wrapped her good arm over his shoulders and lifted her off the ground.

“What did you say to her?” she asked.

He smiled. “Nothing important…”