Death. Destruction. Defilement.
The world has fallen into ruin, and Todd Gruely is left to navigate its aftermath, his identity buried in a time long forgotten. With Ocean and Josh at his side, their bond is tested as hope withers. Above them all, Ramsley Stuart rules from his Tower, weaving a web of deception and domination.
The Calypso’s crushing victory has darkened the horizon, yet a new shadow emerges—Barath, an entity of unknown power, reshaping the battlefield in ways no one can predict.
Forced into hiding, Todd and his companions search for the faintest fracture in their enemy’s hold, even as the supernatural war deepens around them. Todd must confront not only the horrors of this new world, but the truth of his place within it. For him, there can be no escape—only death… or victory.
Todd must shape the answer to the only question left—whose death, and whose victory?
A young girl stood peering around the dark corner of the doorway with her silver eyes watering ever so slightly – her voluminous black hair braided messily behind her head. She watched her parents – Ella and Charles Morales – in the other room, attempting to quietly quarrel, but the sound had reached Ocean’s ears while she tried to sleep. The prickly unease of disagreement gnawed on young Ocean’s heart strings, and she could not help but get up to see the source of the dissonance.
“You can’t stop me Charles… I’ve already filed for divorce” dispelled Ella, her image so much like her daughter’s, differing only in her brown hair, pulled up in a bun. “I’m going back to Portland to be with my family… I can’t take it anymore!”
“Honey… let’s talk about this,” Charles attempted to calm, his broad shoulders acting like barriers, as if Ella was contemplating bolting through the door, then and there. His hair was buzzed short, and his sharp jaw line commanded respect.
“No Charles,” Ella returned, attempting to move past him, “I’ve made up my mind… no more moving… no more having to make new friends… all because you’re putting your career above your family.”
Charles grabbed her arms, trying to bring her back to the conversation, but Ella swung away, her eyes pooling with tears. “You know it’s important to me to serve our country,” Charles explained, turning as Ella started walking away, “this opportunity at Rock Island is calling me Ella… every bone in my body is yearning to go… like it’s fate.”
Ella’s eyes were now streaming, and she forewent any attempt to make eye contact. “Then I guess our fates are different,” she expressed, wiping her eyes, the mascara around them now fully smearing. “I’ve been away from my family for too long… I’m sorry Charles, maybe we should have never started this…”
As she spoke this commencement of her will, Ocean ran out and grabbed onto her dad’s legs, bawling heavy cries, the weeps doubly intense due to coming from a child. “Daddy, please don’t go!” she begged, dropping to her knees. “Please don’t leave me, Daddy!”
Charles grabbed Ocean by the shoulders and picked her up into an embrace, holding her sweetly in a rocking sway. “It’s ok, Ocean,” he attempted to console, “I’ll come and see you often baby girl.Life is sometimes unpredictable, but me and your mother both love you very much.”
Ocean cried into his shoulder, repeating the words, “please don’t go” amongst wet, gasping sobs. Charles felt the sting of having to make difficult choices, but at that moment, his verdict was final, and he stood firm in his decision.
Charles left in the dead of night, taking only a suitcase with him. A cab waited outside expectantly, and he took a distilling breath before opening the back door and getting inside with his luggage.
The cab driver eyed him curiously through the rearview mirror and said, “Mr. Morales?”, in an unamused tone that implied negligible concern that the correct person was entering his car. Charles’ throat was knotted, and he stated a few choked up words to confirm his identity.As soon as the door closed, the driver took them fluidly through the empty streets, barren in the bold darkness with the streetlamps creating pockets of light throughout the city blocks.
Charles kept his attention towards these pockets, letting his thoughts be distracted by what little he could see. Each passing street sign was one less opportunity to change his mind, but he assured himself with each doubt that this was the right choice.
“Traveling for business?” asked the cab driver while flicking the turn signal and switching lanes.
“You could say that,” replied Charles in a cold tone, images of his playful daughter haunting his mind, knowing what he was leaving behind. The uncertainty battered against his soul.
“Where you headed to?” continued the cab driver lightly, not reading Charles’ reluctance to speak.
“Illinois,” Charles answered with a wavering tone, “Rock Island to be exact.”
The driver eyed Charles again in the rearview mirror, now hearing the distress in his voice. “Sounds like you’re not thrilled,” he observed, putting his eyes back on the road, a sign above their head indicating that they were on the correct path to the airport.
“It’s not just a trip,” Charles expounded, unsure how much he should confide with this stranger. “I’m moving for the foreseeable future… a great opportunity… but I have to leave my daughter behind.”
“Tough choice,” the driver sympathized, “I don’t envy you. I might work the night shift, but I get to see my wife and kids every day.”
“Yeah,” Charles returned, his mind spinning with his decision. Deep down, a hook was attached to his will that pulled him along this path. He could not explain the draw, but he felt he was making the right choice. There were many choices in his past that he regretted, but this was not one, though the pain of separating from his family was still intensely broiling. Visions of Ocean swam through his mind’s eye, and he reminded himself that this sacrifice would be worth the suffering in the end. Purpose is sometimes bigger than family, he thought, though undoubtedly some would not understand, if not most.
The night drive ended at the airport, and Charles stepped out, relinquishing all doubt as he steadfastly marched onward towards his new life as the Garrison Commander of Rock Island Arsenal.
The next day, as Charles was welcomed to his new position, he was surprised to learn that the previous Garrison Commander had left unexpectedly and would not be doing a change of command ceremony. This disheartened Charles, who expected to see this tradition upheld and was relying on this pivotal moment to exercise good faith in the garrison staff, who would be his new coworkers, with which he wanted to be sure he embodied a positive relationship.
Despite this, Charles quickly moved past the missed opportunity and presented himself in full force to all whom he met that day. There were many handshakes, as the Sergeant Major took Charles on a tour of the facilities and introduced him to key personnel across the base. Each location at Rock Island Arsenal was met with a quip of historical background, though Charles had done his own research before coming. By midday, Charles had not been presented with a single piece of information that he did not already know.
The Sergeant Major informed Charles that the latter half of the day would be spent touring the weapons manufacturing facility, which was run by the JMTC Commander, Ronald Dison. This tour left Charles unsurprised until he came to learn that the technological research the arsenal was undergoing was far outside his own imagination, and this is where he first came to hear the term, “The Miracle Metal”.
This was also the first day he met another extraordinary element of his life – Dr. Elizabeth Tanien, a joyful friendship that sparked and grew during his time at Rock Island. Tanien worked in the mechanical engineering division of the JMTC, and she was the first to introduce him to the labs that housed the United States’ experimental research with the Miracle Metal, a moment that he would never forget.
“Very nice to meet you,” Charles endowed, taken aback by the buoyant strawberry hair and chipper, freckly face of Dr. Elizabeth Tanien. Commander Dison had just introduced them and then asked Tanien to show the Garrison Commander around.
“The pleasure is all mine,” Tanien replied, feeling luminous in Charles’ presence, before turning around to hide whatever entrancement she may not be able to hide, “I’m sure you’ve heard of what goes on here Commander.”
“I have,” agreed Charles, “I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I didn’t do my research.”
“Good,” Tanien commended, walking forward through the building built of beige walls structured in a way that embellished the factory format, choosing utility over fashion. She gave him a tour of the tanks and of the assembly lines that crafted weapons parts, such as mounts and armor systems.
Their playful banter splashed, as Charles started to settle into the idea of spending the next few years on Rock Island, and as Tanien continued to take him to more thrilling inventions, he wavered between the pain of missing Ocean and the excitement of a novel experience.
“Well, there’s definitely one piece of technology that I know you haven’t heard of,” Tanien teased, the two being alone now that the Sergeant Major had left them to tend to some afternoon duties. “I’m not supposed to show you,” she revealed in a hushed tone, checking the vicinity to make sure no one was listening in, “but I won’t tell, if you don’t.”
Charles did not verbally respond, but his countenance was such that he almost egged Tanien to cross the line. Tanien slipped away down some less-obvious pathways, and Charles pursued her tail, wondering what could be so secretive. The idea of secret weapons was not surprising to him; if anything, this was to be expected at Rock Island, but the way Tanien voiced her statement gave rise to a chilling mystery that he would not be able to leave unsolved.
After their short jaunt took them further into isolation, Tanien stopped at an elevator door that required a badge to open. She tapped hers nonchalantly on the reader and looked Charles in the eyes with a lightning stare. “You’d never be able to guess what’s down here,” she speculated while the distant hum of the elevator could be heard ascending to their location.
“I suppose I’m lucky to have you here then,” Charles imparted, “so I don’t have to.”
Dr. Tanien turned around again so that her thoughts did not seep from her eyes, and soon after, the door opened, and the two dropped down multiple floors in the mechanical carriage until they reached the floor that Tanien chose with the push of a button.
The halls below were baren, the walls being made purely from concrete, reflecting the stinging buzz of the fluorescent lights on the ceiling in a pinching way. Tanien took them round a couple of corners before stopping at a firm, heavy door that also required her badge to enter.
“Well, here it is,” Tanien introduced, opening the door slowly, as if a sleeping child were on the other side, “the most secret weapon’s system research in the whole United States.” Inside the room was a large saucer sitting on a workbench, and Charles noticed the shimmery surface of the liquid contained, at first assuming that this was simply mercury.
Tanien led them forward, and with no preface of action, she rose her fist up and slammed it against the pooled, metallic liquid – the force of the colliding objects sent a hearty thud of reverberance about the room. Charles was left in awe to see that her hand landed on the wavy surface as though the substance were hard as a rock.
“This is Miracolium,” she explained, looking down at what was clearly liquid metal on closer inspection, “otherwise known as ‘The Miracle Metal’.”
“How did it do that?” asked Charles intriguingly, still firing neurons in attempt to make sense of the extraordinary transformation of state to solid.
“This metal is a non-Newtonian liquid,” explained Tanien, poking the sample next to them to show that her finger was met with resistance, “and that’s pretty crazy by itself, but then you add electricity, and it’s able to lattice inside to create shapes.” She picked up a cube from the table with the same glimmering sheen as the liquid metal and tossed the hand-sized object to Charles. “At first, they needed a web of electromagnetic signals to control the shape externally,” Tanien continued excitedly, “but this wasn’t as effective as pure electricity, and recently they were able to craft a way to source the signals to control this internally.”
Charles eyed the cube with healthy discernment and speculation, trying to follow along with the logic, despite the mind-bending reality of what he was hearing. Seeing his reflection in the shiny surface, he started to realize that this metal was in a weapons engineering facility, and he wondered exactly what uses may have been crafted thus far.
“Before he passed away,” Tanien expounded mysteriously, “the inventor of the Metal figured out how to structure the molecules in such a way as to generate near limitless amounts of electricity… and once they figured that out, they had the basis for a material that can change shape to fit the utility of the moment.”
Charles could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Go ahead, give it a test,” Tanien added, gesturing towards the cube in his hands, “give it a double-tap and see.” Charles did as he was instructed, and the cube morphed into a pyramid quicker than his eyes could capture.
Over the following months in his position as Garrison Commander, Charles yearned for the updates on the Metal’s progression that Tanien gave him until one day when he was finally debriefed on the top-secret project himself, and they did not need to be so secretive about this transfer of information.
Charles was made aware – in part – because he had gained the respect and trust of those around him, though the event that triggered this was the hosting of a special guest at the base, a man named Ramsley Stuart. The other officers wanted Charles to understand why this man was being treated with such high esteem, despite his unofficial affiliation with the U.S. Army. They explained that Mr. Stuart had previously been privately funding the research into the Miracle Metal before seeking a relationship with the U.S. to garner more resources.
He was to be treated with the utmost respect, they instructed Charles, which would have made little sense if he did not know the origin and story behind the Miracle Metal. Charles accepted this with intrigue, now being able to pay even closer attention to the weapons they were crafting below the base.
Many more months passed until one day he was walking through the halls and overhead a conversation around a corner. He stopped along the edge of the wall and listened carefully to the people talking on the other side, one of which was Commander Dison, and the other being Ramsley Stuart.
“You need to push for more resources,” Ramsley demanded of Dison like a fiery coal burning against the skin. “The Metal is interesting at-best… we need more minds like Dr. Frenzel… we need more weaponization… need I remind you the bargain that we made?”
“No sir,” Dison responded in a quaking tone, a resonant fear in his voice that Charles had never heard in an officer before. “It’s just that… the government can be slow… you know that.”
“That was supposed to be your job,” Ramsley spat back at him. “You’re getting what you wanted, now it’s your turn to get me what I wanted… get me more scientists… the brightest the country has to offer.”
Charles was left in deep suspense by what he was hearing. What sort of deal had been struck here that left Dison so terrified?
“I’ll get them,” Dison promised, “I’m speaking with the AMC Commanding General today… I’ll make sure we get the funding for more engineers.”
“Good,” Ramsley accepted, letting down his intensity. “I may have been given oversight of what takes place with the Metal, but it seems the web of bureaucracy is thick… I will need to go higher… and I will take you with me, if you can uphold our agreements.”
“Yes sir,” Dison responded.
“Once we have an insurmountable weapon,” Ramsley continued, “then we won’t need so much Politicking to get what we want… we will simply take it.”
Upon hearing this, Charles did not wait another second before taking off in the opposite direction, not wanting to risk being caught overhearing the two. As Garrison Commander, he was not explicitly involved in the weapons manufacturing at Rock Island, but he worked hard from then on to stay informed through friendly banter and close ties with Dr. Tanien.
Tanien was one of the engineers that worked on developing the capabilities of the Metal, and she and Charles would often escape away on long walks to talk about what was being engineered. Between the two of them, they soon put together that Ramsley Stuart’s ultimate goal was to fuse the Metal with humans to create unstoppable super soldiers, and more importantly, this fusion would be used to extend the lifespan of those humans indefinitely.