Enhanced

Aiden raced across the field of war, kicking clods of mud in his wake. The servos in his enhanced knee joints screamed under the pressure of his pace and strain creaked through the steel rods that strengthened his leg bones. His breath came ragged and his throat was hoarse. The optimised oxygen dispersal of his lungs and enforced muscles of his heart could only do so much under the exertion. All of it was regulated by the control unit embedded in his right forearm, which flashed incessantly in warning. None of Aiden’s revolutionary augmentations had been able to withstand the relentless assault of the enemies ground troops. There were just too many. The militia of these backwater countries may be primitive in technology, but they knew the land and had the spirit of men defending their homes. It was as if the entire nation had rallied against the liberation effort. Gunfire split the night sky above him in golden streaks. The thin foliage, growing ragged amid the decimated, wet landscape, shredded under a barrage of metal fired from legacy firearms. Shouts echoed through the cold night air and a horde of enraged natives amassed unseen at his back. Aiden caught glimpses of what remained of his regiment, scattered across the space in no-mans land, all running for their lives. He was as good as alone, his comrades broken and in flight, with only his enhanced body to rely on for survival.

Ducking behind a stack of stones that might have once been a wall, Aiden took a bare second to catch his breath and allow the metal exoskeleton that ran through his entire body to breathe. He flicked a finger against the console in his arm to silence the angry red alarms. Sucking in air, the cool sensation of his joints auto-lubricating spread through his limbs and made him groan in satisfaction. The acrid smell of the oil burning, as it hit the overheating components, caught in his throat. He gripped his rifle tight, checking the illuminated magazine read and blew out a sigh. Five rounds left. Five rounds that could easily pierce a tanks armour, but useless against an entire population of enraged fathers.

“We never should have come here” He whispered, shaking his head.

Aiden jerked his head down as stone exploded from a direct hit, pelting his back. He shed the debris from his shoulders and took off at a renewed sprint. Embedded in his eyes were lenses that mapped the terrain and highlighted any danger. Every enemy, ditch and point of cover within sight glowed brightly, shedding data that he absorbed at speed. He was supposed to be the perfect example of a modern soldier. Yet, there he was, working his way between dangers to find the most efficient path of retreat. He wondered how many had already died, how much tech was lost to the dirt, trampled by the locals and ignored. Aiden pushed away the fledgling thoughts that dwelt on the failure, and swallowed his fear for his own life. Instead, he focused only on what he had been trained to do. Comms were down, but he already knew his single goal. Reach rendezvous point alpha, and do it alive. He flinched, as more stacks of stones took hits either side of him and he strafed behind more cover, always moving and staying unpredictable. He pushed hard and refused to admit the truth, that he was not going to make it. Shaking his head clear of the persistent doubt, he let his body take control. It took him darting toward a small abandoned fox hole, hidden in a fold of the barren terrain. A place to lay low and stay hidden. Where he could weather the storm of pursuit and repair his systems, hopefully avoiding discovery until sunrise.

An avalanche of sodden dirt and stones pushed into the hole as Aiden half fell into it, slamming his back against its wall once his feet slid to a stop in its bottom. Tree roots decorated the walls and scraped his side as he entered. Thankfully, his read outs had been correct, and it was plenty deep enough to conceal his exaggerated height. He had barely blinked the soil from his lashes, before movement sent a spike of adrenaline down his spine and automatically snapped his rifle up into readiness. Panting from the shock, he sighted down the barrel and saw, resting an inch from the muzzle, the face of a young boy. By his estimate, around ten years old. His innocent eyes were white with fear and his hands raised wide in submission. Aiden held firm, his fists clenching around the weapons grip and his teeth grinding against one another.

“Please…sir,” the boy whimpered, his words translating in real time through the filters in the soldiers ears, “I want to live…”

Aiden had heard of these kids. Empathy traps. They usually hid weapons or explosives beneath their innocent facade. He held his weapon motionless, its hot iron forcing sweat from the child’s forehead. He knew what had to be done, but still, his lips pursed and he sighed from his nose under the decision.

“Are you one of them?” The dirt-stained lips of the boy whispered, breaking the silence, “Are you a monster from across the oceans?”

Aiden did not reply. The worst thing he could do was register the enemy as human. That would guarantee his own end. Instead, be growled in frustration and reached forward with one hand, patting down the old, stained clothing the child wore, then spinning him around and doing the same to his back and lifting his shirt to reveal nothing but dark skin. The boy squirmed in discomfort against the roots. Aiden kept his weapon trained on the lads skull. Only after the youngster proved clear of anything dangerous, or anything at all in fact, did he drop his guard and sink bank against the cold dirt, careful to keep the full span of the foxhole between them and his grip hard on the only weapon between them.

The pair sat in silence for some time, listening to the deep booms and scattering fire that lit the night above and perpetuated the war beyond. Both of them glanced intermittently at the rim of the hole and at each other. Aiden sank into the feeling of his tech completely cooling and his arm unit slowly bathing them in green light rather than red. His muscles calmed and his rushing blood slowed. Eventually, once he had regained some stability, he began to tire of the stillness.

“So…what are you doing here, kid?” he growled, tiny speakers in his arm console translating on the fly.

“I live here…” the boy answered, his eyes dropping to his feet at the admission.

“You got parents? Family? You should have bailed on this place weeks ago when warning was sent.”

“We got no warning. Everyone I know is now dead or fighting.”

“Hmm” Aiden nodded. The same was true of most of the locals.

Desperate to remain passive toward the child, he set to work on the communications module at his wrist. It had been damaged, but it looked like the major components were intact, assuming the assessment of his enhanced lenses was correct. If he could just replace a few of the wires, he might be able to call in an evac drone.

“What is that!?” the boy asked, fear coating his words, “Is that for your demon magic?”

“No, son” Aiden said, as soothingly as he knew how. He could not remember the last time he spoke to a child, “Despite what your people believe, I am not a monster or a demon. I am just a man, with access to things you have never seen. Things we would like you to have, once you are free from the oppression of your masters.”

The child’s eyes darted from side to side in contemplation, before his jaw set and he looked Aiden directly in the eye.

“Are these things worth the lives of my family?” He questioned, genuinely curious, with tears filling on his lids.

Aiden flexed his fingers on his rifle hilt and did not answer.

With a final fraying of his patience, Aiden threw the tiny wires across the dirt hole with his free hand and spat after them. The comm unit was toast. He rumbled anger in his throat and the boy shrunk against the far side of the hole. Aiden looked up at the sky, still fractured with flaming projectiles, and swallowed his frustration.

“You are alone too…” The youngster said, drawing Aiden’s gaze down once more.

“What makes you think that?” he asked, careful not to give nothing away about the status of his men, not even to this child.

“I see it in your eyes.”

“You’re a smart kid,” Aiden said, attempting a smile, “brave too. Let me give you some advice though. Stay in this hole. Stay until the world goes quiet. Long after I am gone. It might keep you alive.”

“No shit, wise guy. I’m not some shaltan” The translation filters buzzed, unable to convert the local slang. But Aiden got the context.

He smiled, which despite his best efforts, widened rapidly. A bubbling laugh followed, freed from where it slept in his chest. He laughed until his ribs ached and when the uncontrollable mirth finally subsided, he wiped stray tears from his eyes. Aiden could not remember the last time he had enjoyed such a feeling, and at something so small. The young boy looked up at him confused, and with a tinge of fear returning to his ever watchful scrutiny.

“What's your name, kid?” He asked, before he could tame the urge to know.

“Nahad. What's yours, monster?”

“Aiden. Nice to meet you. Wouldn’t have thought to be sharing this pit and I’d wish you elsewhere if it were possible. But…can’t say I’m not grateful for the company. Hard to remember real people exist, especially out here…”

“I was fine by myself” Nahad said, and Aiden had to fight back another bought of joy.

The darkness of the night went on and the stars finally began to outnumber the metal in the sky. Conversation with the boy had stalled and Aiden sat with his head pressed back, staring up through the foxholes opening and fighting to keep his eyes open. He hadn’t eaten in days and fatigue was setting in. He had reduced his vigil of Nahad, satisfied that if the boy were a danger, he would have acted by now. The console in his arm read two hours till sunrise, at which point he would expect the battle to subside and give him an opening to run for home territory. There he would find safety…and rest.

“What will you do?” Nahad’s voice dragged the soldier to attention. The words reading his thoughts.

“What do you mean?”

“When you leave here, will you go to your home? Across the ocean?”

“No, son. I will be reassigned.”

“To kill more people?”

Aiden did not answer.

“I know you are a monster. That you lie and kill and steal. That you come to destroy. It is what you do. But you speak like a man...and you laugh…so…why do you wish to kill us? We talk and laugh as well.”

“I do not want to…but I must.” Aiden admitted, for the first time out loud.

“Why?”

“…Because more powerful people than I, have decided that it is needed. That a greater good will come of all this struggle.”

“So you wield these strange powers…which all look like they hurt you,” He said, nodding to the steel carved into Aiden’s arm, “to kill others, which you don’t really want to do…all because someone told you to?”

“Its more complicated than that…” Aiden whispered.

“These greater monsters…will they kill you instead, if you don’t?”

“In a way…they would imprison me…cut me off from the world and my tech…”

“So then why, demon, would I want your world, instead of mine? You bring hell to our doorstep.”

Aiden sighed and looked up to the stars once more. He did not have an answer for the child. It was exhausting to try and explain. He did not even have an answer for himself. Not really. Almost too late, his augmented lenses caught the movement. Nahad was wise to go slowly, to reach back and slide the blade out from where it was buried under the roots and dirt behind his shoulder, without any rapid movements. Avoiding an aggressive lurch stopped any alarms ringing through Aiden’s system. Had he not happened to sense the strike coming from his periphery, using very human instincts, he would be dead. Instead, his rifle had snapped up in meticulously trained motion and his finger had squeezed the trigger before his conscious mind even registered the decision. Nahad was gone. It took only a second.

The soldier remained in his foxhole for several hours longer, long past the sky turning blue. Unable to lower his eyes to look upon the corpse of his victim, slow tears ran down his face. The boy had been right. A child had seen what he had ignored over a life long career of violence. Nahad had reacted as any sane person would, and had died for it. Killed, by a monster. For no human could do the evil his hands had wrought.