Deadwastes

His hands were cold, even through his gloves. The back of the van wasn’t a comfortable place to hide, especially without his mask. Cold, biting wind gnawed at his face, and he had to shove his head down into his coat just to make sure that he wouldn’t lose anything important. The metal pressed against his side, freezing and hostile.

Mason marveled at his own bravery. A few weeks ago doing something like this would have sounded completely insane. He never, ever did anything crazy in his life. But this terrifying new world had pushed him, and he felt like he had to push back. Instead of letting something happen to him, he was going to happen to something else.

The thoughts invigorated him, giving him the willpower to keep pushing forward through the frost.

The van made a sharp turn behind the line of vehicles, following them around a corner and making Mason grip the back handles even tighter to avoid getting flung off. It sped down the street, and Mason could feel every single bump, hiccup, and pothole in the road. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.

For a moment, though, he saw the world around him dim. The light started to fade, and he felt an icy whisper run through his mind, as the van hurtled through the city and through the snow. It wasn’t the voice that he knew was living in his head, and it didn’t even seem to be aware. It was more like… a strange memory.

“Do you think that I’m a good person?” it asked, quietly and solemnly. It was a woman’s voice. A face popped into his head, the girl from his visions, or dreams, or whatever you would call them. She looked terrified.

Suddenly, he was standing on top of a roof at night. They were in a big city, with bright lights shining from skyscrapers and neon signs. She was sitting with her back turned away from him, with a short grey jacket and her blonde hair pulled back in a bun. Next to her, there sat a young man wearing a… large, black coat. Mason cursed to himself. It was the voice. They both had their feet hanging off the edge of the roof.

“Ferris?” the girl asked, and Mason suddenly realized that that must have been the voice’s actual name. He remembered Samuel calling him that, and he could have sworn that he must have heard it before. But it had never really clicked, at least until now.

Ferris leaned back, Mason’s dark twin. He looked at the girl for a long time, not saying anything, before he sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. It must have been summer, because there were hardly any clouds in the sky, and it felt much warmer than anything else had for a while.
But then again, anything would be warmer than the world now, Mason thought to himself.

“Good is… subjective. I don’t really feel like anyone is good or is evil. We just are.” he said, sounding rather neutral. The girl shook her head slowly, then leaned over and rested it on his shoulder. He didn’t move.

“I think you’re a good person.” she said to him. He turned slightly, looking at her. Something in his gaze made Mason think of a hawk, watching a mouse. A predator. Then he blinked and the look vanished, replaced by one of regret.

He turned back towards the city, looking out across the skyline. The moon shone through the smog in the sky, beaming down onto the streets and buildings. Ferris lifted up his hand, watching lightning swirl and spin around his fingers. The girl looked at his hand, and Mason walked forward, standing almost between them. He saw the blue glow light up her face, and she smiled contentedly.

Ferris snapped his fingers, making the lightning vanish, and stared downwards, looking at his feet dangling off the edge. He breathed in deeply, staying silent for a while before he finally responded.

“I’m not.” he whispered to her.

The world around Mason stopped. The clouds above him halted their advance towards the east, the wind stopped blowing gently around him, and the people on the street below paused where they were. Ferris stood up, breaking through the strange, time-lost picture, and turned towards him. The girl remained on the edge, frozen.

Turning towards him, Ferris crossed his arms and stared, his now-orange eyes fierce and intense. Mason took a half-step back, wary and nervous of him. Ferris lifted up his hand, and once again electricity swirled around it.

But instead of his bright, blue energy from before, it was an angry, burning orange color. It crackled and spun around his outstretched palm, and in the light it cast, his face stared at Mason with a hateful glare.

“I don’t know what it is you’ve done to me, or how you keep dredging up all of these thoughts I’d like to forget, but I’m sick of it. This power… it feels unnatural. Wrong. It chose you, but somehow this has remained. I don’t understand it.” he said, looking at his hand.

Mason moved back a little more, getting his feet into a ready position. He wasn’t going to be taken by surprise again.

“I’ve toppled skyscrapers. Ruined armies. I’ve built myself out from nothing. But all it took was one person to ruin it all. One damn person…” he said, then let his hand fall, the orange electricity fading away. The anger in his eyes vanished, turning into sadness.

He looked back at the girl, still leaning on the side, then looked at Mason. He might have been imagining things, but he could have sworn that he saw a tear fall off of Ferris’s face.

“This isn’t how I end.” he said, then walked backwards, falling off the edge. Mason stepped forward quickly, trying to see where he had gone, but the ground below had vanished, replaced by a gaping void.

Like a black hole, it sucked everything around it in, pieces of reality crumpling like dry paper. Within moments, it pulled down the building, and Mason was dragged downwards, until all he could see was darkness. His body twisted and contorted, stretching like a rubber band until he finally was shot back into the real world.

His eyes shot open, exposing themselves to the freezing cold air. He blinked, looking around, and realized that he was still holding onto the back of the truck, his hands wrapped tightly around the handles. He stopped a moment and took a deep breath, trying to process what was just happening.

These flashes felt like puzzle pieces, scattered and tossed around by a frantic child. He had no idea how to even begin to put them together.

Feeling his heartbeat slow, he gazed around him, with a steadier eye. The truck had stopped, along with all of the other vehicles it had been following. Glancing around the side, Mason realized with a shock that they were in front of the airport. Nobody was around him. The cars were all empty.

He hopped off and hurriedly ran through the snow, towards the entrance to the underground base. Shoving past the doors, his eyes wide and nervous, he ran towards the door and quickly ripped it open, barreling down the dark stairs.

A stray piece of ice caught his foot halfway through, and he tripped and fell, smacking his head on the cold concrete. Pain exploded in his brain, and his heart began to pound relentlessly. He pulled himself up, breathing heavily. He sat back on the stairs for a moment, rubbing his forehead. But he shook his head. He had to keep going. His head throbbing, he stood up and went as fast as he could while keeping his feet steady down the remainder of the stairs.

He burst through the final door, prepared to fight, but stopped, confused. Everything was still, at least for the most part, normal. People moved about their business, blissfully unaware of what was on the surface. He spotted Jackson, reading a book thoughtfully by himself in the corner of the room, and immediately ran towards him, in pain and out of breath.

When Mason reached him, Jackson saw him out of the corner of his eyes and stood up with a start.

He put the book down and grabbed him by the shoulders, his eyes nervous and concerned.
“Mason? Is that you? We thought you were dead!” he exclaimed. Mason took a deep, struggling breath, desperately filling his lungs with air before he passed out. His mind felt like it was going to burst, and the stress was making everything seem blurry, fading.

He grabbed Jackson’s shoulder, then pointed upwards.

“They’re…” he started, then gasped, his head feeling like it had split open. Jackson cursed, then grabbed him and walked him over to the tent. The doctor, whom Mason blearily remembered being named Maria, turned from her work and looked at him, eyes widening. Jackson set him down on a small, cramped cot, his legs hanging off the edge. She noticed the dried blood on his shoulder where the monster had got him, and let out a little gasp.

She slid his coat off of him, eventually taking off his shirt. The air was freezing, and goosebumps rose up across his exposed skin. She took a roll of gauze out of her pocket, but stopped, looking at his arm. He glanced, seeing the puncture wound. It was melted over, the skin seared to stop the flow of blood. The voice had done that, and until then he’d forgotten that it was there. Too many things were running through his head right now.

She wrapped it around anyway, then wiped off his belly with an antiseptic rag and wrapped it there too, around the wound from the monster’s kick. He was pretty beat up, he realized.

“What happened to him?” she asked, at the same turning around and looking through a bunch of dusty old cabinets, before finally taking out a bottle of pills and pouring a couple into her hand. She grabbed a bottle of water and handed it to Mason, along with the pills. Shakily, he lifted it to his lips, and shoved the pills into his mouth before drinking the entire thing in a matter of seconds. He wiped his face off and handed Maria the bottle, then sat up, still feeling an intense pain in his head.

Both she and Jackson were looking at him now with confusion. He blinked, looking back at them, trying his best to ignore the feeling of a hammer pounding into his skull.

“What?” he asked, a hand held to his forehead and a grimace etched over his face.

“Didn’t you say something about a burn?” Maria asked, staring at him. Mason felt his face go pale. The mask was gone. They could see him now.

Jackson leant down and looked at him for a long time, staying silent. Mason suddenly felt incredibly uncomfortable, and he stood up abruptly, remembering why he was here.

“That doesn’t matter right now. The Locksteels… They’re here. All of them. Well…” he started, but then realized he couldn’t exactly tell them he’d electrocuted a good deal of them in a cage. He coughed, looking around. “At least I think it’s all of them.” he said, trying to recover. He saw Jackson start trembling, and Maria’s eyes widened to the size of saucers.

“How the hell did you get down here then?” Jackson asked him incredulously. Mason nervously shrugged, looking around anxiously. He felt the pain in his head barely start to recede, barely.

Barely.

“I don’t know what they’re doing. They had all of their cars up there, but no one was with them. All of them had just abandoned their vehicles.” he told them, trying not to let the fear creep into his voice. They may not have been able to use them on him in the arena, but they definitely had guns. A lot.

Jackson took a look around at all of the people, then walked hurriedly towards a stack of boxes in the center of the room. He climbed onto the top of them, this makeshift stage, and held up his hands to his face. Wasting no time, he immediately began to shout at everyone inside.

“We have a major problem! The Locksteels have decided that this is the day they’re going to attack us! All able-bodied men and women need to go and get a weapon, right now! The rest of you, go outside to the top! They’ve abandoned their vehicles up there, so you need to try and hide! Now move, move, move!” he said, then hopped off the platform as people dropped whatever they were doing and started to scramble around.

Maria handed him his clothes, still staring at him. He quickly put his shirt and heavy coat back on, buttoning it up tightly.

He stood up, looking around nervously. A tap on his back made him whirl around, instinctively holding his hands up. He lowered them, though, when he saw that it was Erin, leaning her shotgun against her arm.

“So what, you show up after a week of complete absence and decide that you’re gonna freak everyone out? What kind of a sick joke is that?” she asked him, shaking her head. He looked at her incredulously.

“Do you really think I’m lying about this? I’ve been gone for a week because those assholes captured me!” he said, pointing away from himself in a vague direction. He still had no idea where they’d gone.

She raised an eyebrow, eyeing him with suspicion. “Really? So you’re telling me that a bunch of idiots with guns and a bad temperament captured YOU? The guy who can literally electrocute them until their heads pop off?” she said, starting to walk towards the tent that had the guns in it.

Mason followed behind her, noticing that a line had formed, with people walking inside and getting whatever meager armaments they could. The last he’d seen there wasn’t a terribly large amount of guns inside, and certainly not enough for everyone to be armed. He hadn’t even thought about ammunition, either.

She walked to the back of the line, tapping her foot impatiently. Mason stood next to her, trying to convince her of the truth.

“Look, it wasn’t those guys who got me down. That… fire guy, he showed up out of nowhere and blindsided me. I nearly died. Ironically I think it’s the Locksteels fault that I’m alive.” he said, and she turned her head slightly to look at him, shook it almost imperceptibly, then looked straight back ahead.

He sighed, then looked towards the door that lead to the surface. A line of older people and the few young children that lived here were slowly filing upwards into the dark, followed by two men with shoddy-looking rifles. After a minute, they emptied out and the door slammed shut. Mason turned back to see that Erin had moved on past him, now almost inside the tent.

He walked towards her slowly, pausing halfway when another spike of pain went through his head, making him feel dizzy. After it subsided, he caught up with her just as she walked outside, throwing a bandolier only half-filled with shotgun shells around her chest. She gave him a baleful glance, then walked away to talk to Jackson.

Staring after her for a moment, he figured he’d better just leave her alone for now. She was angry at him, but he couldn’t really understand why. He looked back at the door, then his eyes slowly wandered over to the gate that lead into the tunnels. A thought went into his head, and he started to feel nervous. He had an inkling of what the Locksteels might be doing.

He walked over to the gates, then looked around. The engineer, Brent, was clumsily trying to load a small pistol with ammo. The bullets kept falling out of the clip, and he kept leaning down to pick them up and tediously load them back in. Mason went over to him, picked up the remaining bullets, and handed them to him.

“Thanks,” he said as he scanned the ground for any others. Looking back up, he stepped back with a start, seeing Mason’s face. He quickly looked him up and down, then his eyes widened in recognition.

“You’re the kid who never came back, aren’t you? Uh… Mike?” he asked, trying to remember his name.

Mason looked at him for a moment before correcting him.

“Mason. I’m Mason.” he told him, and Brent nodded absentmindedly, now trying to get the gun to keep the clip inside. With a snap, it clicked shut, and he sighed before turning on the safety and awkwardly putting it into his belt.

He looked back up at Mason, and the slight flicker of unsureness that had gone through Jackson’s and Maria’s eyes went through his as well. Mason ignored it and pointed to the gate.

“How secure is that?” he asked him, and Brent looked past his shoulder, his eyes thoughtful. He shrugged.

“There’s been a couple of monster’s that’ve tried to break it down, but they never could manage. That’s a foot of stainless steel right there. I can’t imagine anything getting through it.” he told him.

Mason looked at the gate. He wasn’t so sure. He got close to the two huge slabs of steel and put his ear against it, the cold metal burning into his skin. He tried to see if he could hear anything, but the steel seemed to absorb all sound that could be coming through.

Walking back to Brent, he pointed at the door again.

“You should keep an eye on that. I feel like something isn’t right on the other side.” he told him. Brent nodded in the affirm, and Mason could see the relief of being given a non-violent job flicker across his face. He sat down at the control panel, keeping one hand on his waist near his gun.

He turned back and walked back across the large room, to Jackson.

Still deep in conversation with Erin, Mason stood nearby and waited for them to finish. Erin nodded at something he said, then walked away, angrily brushing past Mason on her way to the door that led upwards.

Jackson walked over to him, his arms crossed, a tense air about him. The way he stood reminded Mason of a cat, ready to spring at any moment.

“I’m not sure what’s going on, but I don’t like it.” Mason told him. Jackson rolled his eyes in an
“You’re an idiot” way that made Mason feel, for a second, like he was back in school. Shaking his head to clear the memory, Mason looked at the gate, drawing Jackson’s attention to it.

“You think they’re going to try to get through the gate?” Jackson asked him, a slight tone of disbelief in his voice. “They’d be stupid to try. Nothing, nothing at all could even put a dent in those doors.
Not even Locke, that crazy bastard.” he told him. Mason was still unconvinced. He’d seen the fire in Locke’s eyes, the hatred when he’d saw that Mason had those powers. He had a feeling that he wouldn’t let a door stop him if he wanted something.

Jackson walked off to talk to someone else, and Mason moved to the back of the room, trying to keep his eyes open and ignore the pain. He leaned against the chill wall, his coat barely providing a barrier between it and his skin. Sliding down slowly, he took this time to try and catch his breath. He hadn’t stopped since he’d woken up in the Locksteels basement.

He held his hands out in front of him, trying to stop them from shaking so much. He realized just how hungry he was, and desperately wished he hadn’t lost his bag too. At least it had something edible in it. Shaking his head slowly at what was going on around him, he rubbed his face, feeling the stubble growing on it. His hands were callused, now, and he felt a strange sense of familiarity with the scene that played out before him. Probably something stupid with Ferris again.

Standing back up slowly, he walked over to the tent that had held the food in it. Sneaking in while everyone was busy getting themselves armed, he grabbed a few granola bars and a bottle of water, then slipped back out. Going back to the wall, he sat down and hastily devoured them, then chugged the water. His stomach stopped rumbling, slightly, but he was still hungry.

With all the other, weaker people gone, the ones still remaining had begun to take the various tables and chairs that were scattered about, dragging them into a wide circle in the center of the room and setting them on their sides, making a barricade of wood and aluminum.

Mason watched them for a while, wondering what the Locksteels were doing that was taking them so long to make their move. Erin came back eventually, carrying something long and slender in a case. She glanced over at Mason, half-hidden behind one of the tents, sighed, then walked over to him.

“So, you were right about them being here, at least.” she said as she came up and sat down next to him, the case held carefully in the crook of her left arm. He stared at the empty bottle of water in his hands, feeling slightly sick.

She looked at him, her gas mask hanging around her neck. “What happened? How did you even get here right now? Did you ride with them or something?” she asked, concern replacing the anger in her voice.

He shrugged. “I held onto the back of a car. They just didn’t see me, I guess.” he replied, still staring at the bottle. A shudder passed through him. He remembered the way the voice had killed all of those people, the horrible, consuming smell of burning skin and hair. It only really started to sink in when he started to think about it. The voice, Ferris, had been so casual about it, even seeming to delight in the mayhem.

He let out a long breath, then held his hands to his temples, rubbing them. The pain was receding still, but it was taking it’s time. Another shudder rippled through him.

“What happened, Mason? Did they do something to you?” she asked. He looked at her, surprised to see genuine concern and worry in her face. It was something he’d forgotten in this place. But he put his eyes straight down again, not wanting to tell her.

She sighed. “They took your mask. It’s only a matter of time before people realize who you are, you know.” she warned him. The case shone in the yellow, electric light. He absentmindedly nodded, wondering now how exactly they got all the electricity to run in here.

Erin got to her knees and set the case down in front of her, unclipping it and pulling out a gleaming, black rifle with a long scope. She stared at it for a while, silently looking at it’s metal curves and pieces.

Mason leaned forward, looking at it. It was the biggest gun he’d seen, and looked like it weighed a lot. She took out a seperate case from her bag, revealing it to be a small box with about ten rounds in it. Slowly, carefully, she took the rifle into her arms and began to load it. It wasn’t any sniper rifle, but it was still fearsome to look at.

“It was my dad’s.” she told him. He said nothing, and simply watched her, waiting for her to continue. He respected her enough that he wouldn’t interrupt her with pointless questions. She finished putting in as many rounds as she could, then shut the chamber with a loud click. Then, she continued.

Her voice sounded tense, like it was holding something back. “He was a hunter in his spare time. Not a great one, not a bad one. He was just a hunter. He’d take me out sometimes when my Mom was out at work, sneaking us off into the woods to show me how to shoot. He always warned me that if I had to shoot another person that I’d best be sure that they would be willing to do the same.” she told him, and he saw a drop fall from her face onto the barrel of the rifle.

“I’ve had to shoot a lot of people. And I know that every single one of them would have shot me without blinking. But… I’ve never had to shoot someone with this. Never. I hid it away, promising that I’d keep it free of human blood. But now I have to break that promise to help keep everyone else safe. It’s crazy to think that so many of us, so many humans with hearts and minds and feelings, would be willing to throw all of that away so easily. The world is a shithole now, and we’re just all waiting to get flushed.” she said somberly.

He watched her, wondering what to say, if anything. He tried to imagine what she felt, but found it difficult to relate to what she had told him. Back home his parents had always been a bit… disconnected. They’d usually left him to himself, and sometimes he wondered if they’d cared more, that maybe he would have turned out better.

So he pulled back the hand that he was about to put on her shoulder, letting her deal with it on her own. After a few more moments of staring at the gun, she sniffed, then stood up. Walking away, she climbed up a ladder to one of the conveyor belts, and sat herself behind a pile of boards that someone had left up there, using them as makeshift cover.

He waited there a moment, watching her clamber behind the boards until she disappeared, and the barrel of the rifle poked out from behind them. He looked back at the ground, threw the empty bottle aside, and got up as well. His eyes wandered to the chained blade that was loosely held in its sheath. Pulling it out, a loud clanking noise echoed throughout the room as the chain fell to the ground. A few eyes glanced back at him, but quickly looked back at the two entrances to the room. Everyone else was sitting in a hushed silence, waiting for the storm to break.

Leaning down, Mason picked up the chain and wrapped it around his forearm, feeling the cold metal sink into his skin. He held the blade away from his hand, with about half a foot of chain between them. He didn’t think that it was the best weapon, but all the guns were gone, and he had a feeling that Ferris wasn’t going to let him use one anyway.

“Mason.” someone said from behind him, and he turned to see Jackson looking at him, a thinly veiled anger hidden behind his face. “Come here.” he told him, then walked into his personal tent. Mason gulped, once again reminded of the teachers he’d known back in the other world.

Following behind him, he saw Jackson sit down at a shambled-together desk, scraps of paper and a barely functioning lamp scattered across it. He sat down at it, and Mason sat at the other side, feeling nervous.

He leant forward, his hands crossed in front of him, and stared at Mason.

“I realized, now, why you’ve been hiding your face so much. Why you lied about being burned.” he said, intensely. Mason felt Ferris rising up inside him, and desperately tried to control his fear.

Jackson shook his head, “I can’t believe this. The self-proclaimed “God of Storms” himself has come to my doorstep, acting as a meek survivor. Well, Mr. Ferris, how do you like it here? Is it up to your standards?” he asked him, a scathing tone lacing his words.

Mason held up his hands, trying to think of a way to fix this. “I haven’t done anything to you. I don’t want to hurt anyone, and I don’t want to make anyone afraid.” he said, fully meaning every word. Jackson looked at him with immense disbelief and disapproval.

“No. There is no way in hell you’re telling the truth. You’re a monster who kills for fun. You’ve murdered more people than I can count. I watched you, once. There was a protest going on in front of a government building in New York, people who had gotten fed up with you and that bitch you kept with you doing whatever you wanted. You flew in out of nowhere and killed them faster than I could blink. All that was left were ashes and dust. And you. Standing in the middle of it all, smirking to yourself like you’d just proven yourself better than them.” he said, then pointed at the door.

“Get out. Leave. Right now. Hell, for all I know you LED the Locksteels here. I don’t want you anywhere near any of my people.” he said. Looking at him, Mason was reminded of Greg and Louise, screaming at him in fear. Mason hung his head. In his heart he knew this wouldn’t have lasted long. Sooner or later someone would have put the pieces together. He only wished that he’d been able to stay for a bit longer.

He sighed and stood up, but the ground below him shook violently, and he fell back down into the chair. Jackson cursed and pushed past him, running back out into the room. Mason got back up and left the tent, staring at the gate. It looked like smoke was pouring through the cracks.

Another boom hit them, and amidst the shaking he saw the center of the door push outward. His eyes widened. Whatever was going on wasn’t going to end well.

He ran forward to the steel gate, sprinting towards it and standing away at a distance of about ten feet. He dimly heard Jackson yelling at him, but he didn’t listen to it.

Boom.

The center of the gate curved outwards even more, and he could see the darkness of the tunnel inside. Lights glinted, goggles and metal armor reflecting the light that had started to escape from the room. He stepped back even more, trying to figure out what the Locksteels were doing.

Boom.

The doors blasted open, and Mason was flung backwards by a bright explosion that shook the entire room. He landed on his back, and quickly shook his head and stood back up. The blade hung by his side, the metal gleaming in the light.

As the dust cleared, he saw what, exactly, the Locksteels had done to bring down the gate. With a loud rumbling noise, it rolled through the gate, pieces of metal and stone being crushed under its treads. Locksteels walked on either side of it, grinning like madmen. Behind them, he saw more and more Locksteels following behind, an army of maniacs and murderers.

The tank that Locke had somehow brought aimed its barrel straight at Mason, and he heard a chink as it loaded up another shell. Mason stared at the darkness of the barrel, before he felt a punch in his gut, and fell to the ground.

He glanced around, and saw Ferris actually standing next to him, glaring down, before he faded away like mist.

Mason got back up and jumped away, as did everyone in the center of the room. Jackson had stopped yelling at him, dumbfounded by the machine that was going to destroy everything he’d worked for.

Gritting his teeth, Mason felt like he was, for once in his entire life, in control. He knew what he had to do. He just hoped he had the willpower to do it.

Holding out his hands, he felt a surge build inside of his palms, and blue lightning began to spark out of his fingertips. A gasp went through the survivors behind him, and he heard multiple Locksteels curse. In the distance, he could feel Erin’s eyes boring into him, ready to shoot him if he decided that he was going to snap.

He took a deep breath and sprinted forward, feeling something that he knew he had never, ever felt in his life.

He felt like he was doing something right.