What's in the Mind Matters
What’s in the Mind Matters
I could hear the screams of dying soldiers and I could feel the vibration of bombs blasting holes in the ground. The battle was still too unstable to set us free upon the enemy. There was a gurgling scream, like someone drowning on their own blood. I strained forward to hear the sound better, but the restraints attached to my helmet held tight. The meta-plastic dome surrounding my head prevented me from hearing the death any better. I hated the helmet and I slammed my head back into the wall, but the meta-plastic held tight.
Grendel gurgled from his hammock across the transport. His helmet had a steady drip of sedative to keep him docile. When we were finally called to battle, not if but when, Grendel’s sedative would be stopped giving the rest of us time to race into the carnage before Grendel woke enough to destroy whatever we left alive. I couldn’t see through the blinder of my helmet but I knew that Grendel’s massive form was rocking slightly in his hammock with each quake of the ground beneath us.
I pressed forward again, trying to pull free from the elasta-metal shackles that kept me attached to the side of the transport. I pushed hard, but there was nothing I could do, unlike Grendel, I was unable to rip free of the elasta-metal. I hissed low in my throat, the bit of my helmet was locked between my teeth, keeping my tongue pressed to the bottom of my mouth.
There was a growl from the back of the transport, Banshee was impatient. He growled again and I hissed back. We both wanted to be free of the transport to render the enemy into meat. Of all of our squad we were the only ones who were still considered sentient. The wires that entered our brains through our helmets had not been able to turn us into tool like the others. Banshee growled in a bumpy pattern and I knew he was laughing. I hissed in a similar manner as I laughed too. All of us who were not drugged in the transport knew we would fight today, but only Banshee and I wanted it to be with lively opponents.
There was a massive explosion and the panicked scream of many men as the transport shook hard. I was breathing hard, if the tide turned we would be let loose in desperation rather than as a clean up method. I prayed for the battle to turn against us. Banshee was snarling and I knew his neck would be wet with the drool he was probably frothing on. I quieted instead, even as the breath hissed in and out of my body.
There was a hiss as the transport door opened and I went limp. Banshee was probably doing the same, it wouldn’t do for those who held our leashes to see us straining. There were three distinct footsteps. One was the heavy footstep of the General. His name I did not know, but he was the one to set us free and I like him, if he was here it was either to kill one of us or to let us go so we could kill. The other was softer, spiked heels, the Scientist, the one who pulled the flesh from our skulls and put on the damn helmets. I hated her and longed to make her scream again and again. The last was clearly limping, probably a wounded soldier to be taken into the back should any of us be injured and need…replacement parts.
“The whole Freak Squad or individuals?” the Scientist spoke in her educated voice. I longed to make that voice beg for death.
“Banshee and Digger,” the General ordered. Only the General used us as we wished, he knew that Banshee and I would kill and return. The others were too brainless, over implanted with machinery with too much of their brains burned out of their skulls.
“Yes Sir,” the Scientist spoke. Scarecrow had once been a Scientist and he had made the mistake to ask if the General was sure he wanted to do something. The General found Scarecrow much more obedient without his frontal lobe. There was the sound of the safety shield closing off the front of the transport from the area where we were stored. The Scientist, the General, and the wounded soldier were safe from us and I hissed happily as the elasta-metal slid off my wrist back into the wall of the transport. The restraints on my helmet slid off and I stepped away from the wall waiting.
I could hear Banshee howl in his throat as his blinder was removed and he raced out of the transport in complete joy. I was forgotten, the transport was forgotten, only the thrill of the kills to come would remain until all those targeted for death were gone. My blinder slid up, over my helmet to rest across the back of my skull and I looked through the meta-plastic viewer at the other members of Freak Squad. Grendel slept in his hammock swaying peacefully. Scarecrow hung like his namesake against the wall. Harpy stood, only her helmet holding her in place, like a zombie without a purpose. I said nothing as I walked out of the transport and stared at the land we were on.
The place was probably very beautiful once, I would have loved to stare at the view from a car, like I had when I was a child. The view was tarnished now, blast holes from missals and bombs, bloody splotches where men had been turned to muck, and the corpses of those who had died of wounds. I saw one man was dying slowly and I looked down at him. His eyes gazed up at me in a mix of horror and pleading. My mind dug into his, ripping through his consciousness and pulling forth a mercy. He was a child in his mother’s arms as she sung him a lullaby. He died with a smile on his face, I made an effort not to step on the coils of intestines he had left behind as he had drug himself away from the battlefield.
Banshee was running toward the enemy, unnoticed, meaning our holo-camo was activated, presenting a hologram of what was behind us, in front of us. I smiled as I walked toward the enemy lines, there were soldiers there drinking from flasks. I hoped it was liquor, they always reacted best to me when liquor was in their systems.
Banshee had to be close to work his talent on opponents, but I just had to see them. I stared at the collection of soldiers and my mind dug into theirs. I was digging through memories, conscious thoughts, and unconscious thoughts. I found what I wanted quickly and I did my hissing laugh as I found the most buried, hidden, forcibly forgotten childhood fears.
The largest of the men, most muscled and rugged had been abused by his parents and he had forcibly ended their terror with a fire. He had watched them die in flames and so I returned that memory to him. His comrades became the shambling corpses of his parents. His screams were priceless as he brought up his weapon, a laser canon, and began shooting into his fellow soldiers.
Banshee was close enough to begin his work and he began to howl and scream around his bit, his psychonic screams began rendering the conscious minds of the soldiers closest to him into mush, they would be brain dead if he stayed near them for long.
I didn’t pay much attention to Banshee as I found a man phobic of rotting to death. He saw his left hand begin to turn black and he was quick to use a laser blade to remove the offending limb. I sent the imaginary rot up his arm, I wondered how he would try and remove his rot when it got to his chest. His friends began trying to stop him, but he slashed at them even as he tried to remove more of his own body.
I moved into the chaos, soldiers rushing to help those that Banshee had disabled while others were trying to take down the soldiers I turned into living weapons of mass destruction. I watched them die, some slow, some fast, I was careful to stay far enough away that any misdirected arms fire wouldn’t hit me. I had lost my right arm at the elbow in my second battle, since the grafting process I was not interested in another lost limb.
The men turned on each other and soon they were fighting each other without the need of Banshee or me. There was a beeping in the back of my helmet and I knew it was time to return. I turned and headed to the transport pausing when I noticed that Banshee was not following. I turned and my helmet located Banshee. He was crawling towards me slowly. Both his legs were missing from the thigh down. The suit had activated the tourniquets located throughout the suit’s limbs so his blood loss was minimal. I walked over to Banshee and squatted. He climbed onto my back and I had difficulty. He had no trouble using my mammary glands as handholds. I didn’t care, the part of my brain that would have found that touch arousing had been burned away years ago.
I made it back to the transport after a short walk. The operating table was raised from the floor and I placed Banshee onto it. He grunted, eyes squeezed closed in pain and I moved away from the table to my section of the transport. I longed to kill the Scientist, but I rather kill many soldiers than one Scientist. I moved into position and the elasta-metal wrapped around my wrists and ankles, pulling me to the wall. The restraints attached to my helmet as the bit began to excrete nutritional fluids into my mouth.
My blinder slid back over my helmet so I could no longer see the other members of my squad. I heard the Scientist enter the room and I knew the wounded soldier was dead, his legs would have been harvested as soon as Banshee’s suit was damaged. Banshee would have the soldier’s legs grafted to his stumps and he would be ready for battle again in a few weeks.
“Excellent job, Digger,” the General’s voice sounded as he entered the room. I knew that soon the status drugs would enter the helmets, putting us back into a deep sleep until the next battle where we would be needed. Even having sated my desire to feed on death and destruction I was already hungry for more. I longed to dig into the brains of my opponents and turn their own minds against them. As the status drugs brought my brain to a slow shut down I fantasized about what hidden treasures were buried in the Scientist’s and the General’s minds.
~*~*~
I don't know what came over me, I had no idea what to write for the promp but Digger seemed to come out of nowhere. I wrote this piece within two hours. It probably would have been one but I kept getting interupted. It is very hard to write something so dark when you have someone else in the room.