Crimson Dawn: Nigeria 2048

CHAPTER TWO: SCARS & WARS

The air smelled of burning oil and ionized metal.

Aisha crouched behind the skeletal remains of an armored truck, her plasma rifle humming in her grip. Around her, the ruins of Port Harcourt smoldered another "rebel stronghold" reduced to rubble by the Council’s orders.

"Maverick-037, status," crackled Commander Idowu’s voice in her earpiece.

She didn’t blink. "Sector clear. Six hostiles neutralized."

She’d counted seven bodies. The last had been a boy no older than twelve, clutching a rusted pistol. She’d shot him through the chest before he could raise it.

"Good," Idowu purred. "Proceed to extraction. Maverick-556, cover her flank."

Aisha moved, her boots crunching over broken glass. Zainab materialized beside her, her sniper’s cloak shimmering with active camouflage.

"You hesitated back there," Zainab murmured, her voice barely audible.

Aisha’s pulse spiked. "I didn’t."

"Liar." Zainab’s gold-flecked eyes narrowed. "I had the shot. You waited three seconds too long."

Aisha opened her mouth to speak but no words came out.

The scream cut through the battlefield like a blade.

Aisha spun, rifle raised, scanning the skeletal remains of the refinery. It wasn’t the scream of a rebel dying, she knew those too well. This was raw. Unfiltered. The sound of something breaking.

Zainab was already moving, her camouflage rippling as she darted between crumbling walls. Aisha followed, her breath sharp in her throat.

They found Emeka standing over a body in the shadow of a collapsed pipeline.

The giant was frozen, his weapon dangling from one massive hand. At his feet lay a man, not in rebel fatigues, but in the tattered remains of a laborer’s coveralls. His face was streaked with soot and blue fluids, one leg pinned beneath fallen debris. His chest rose and fell in ragged, wet hitches.

Aisha’s training kicked in before her thoughts could form. "Maverick-071, report."

Emeka didn’t answer. His shoulders were rigid, his breathing too controlled.

The man’s eyes fluttered open. His cracked lips parted…

A burst of static screeched through Aisha’s neural link. The Council’s voice, usually so smooth, fractured into jagged noise:

“CONTAMINANT DETECTED. TERMINATE. TERMINATE.“

Zainab’s rifle snapped up. "He’s armed."

Aisha’s gaze darted to the man’s empty hands. "Where?"

The man's body suddenly jerked like he'd been electrocuted. His back arched painfully off the ground as he started choking, thick bubbles of saliva and blue fluids forming at his lips. His hands scrabbled wildly at his own chest like he was trying to dig something out. His wide, terrified eyes locked onto Emeka's face, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, trying desperately to speak but unable to make a sound.

Aisha could see his throat working violently, the tendons standing out like cables as he fought to force words past whatever was silencing him. His fingers left blue fluid streaks across his dirty coveralls, nails tearing at the fabric over his heart. For one horrible second, his entire body went rigid, veins bulging at his temples, before the man's body suddenly spasmed. Smoke leaked from his nose. His head fell to the side, his eyes turning dull and empty.

A sharp buzzing sound came from his clothes. Zainab swore and pulled Aisha away just as the dead man's chest burst open with bright sparks. The air stank of burnt wires.

Aisha stared at the charred wreck of the man’s chest. Her implant pulsed not with its usual calming static, but with something jagged. Almost like... pain.

This wasn’t the first time. But it only happened to Council-built humanoids, the ones who tried to reveal the truth to their assets

“Human-Keepers" or HK-Vanguards had evolved. Developed reasoning, turned independent, rebelled. Every upgrade, every assault on the Council failed.

Aisha's child soldiers fought these relentless machines for years. Destroy one, three more would emerge. A war without end.

Dike crouched over the smoking chassis. The chestplate bore its maker's mark: "PROPERTY OF THE NIGERIAN COUNCIL OF PURITY." His lips twisted. "Third dehumanization this month."

The Council's cruel irony: Rebels weren't just destroyed, they were ‘dehumanized’, stripped of their supposed humanity. A final insult from their creators

Emeka finally moved, his voice hollow.

"He was trying to say something."

Zainab’s hand closed around Aisha’s arm. "Doesn’t matter. We have our orders."

Zainab muttered, Platoon 2, do you copy?”

Static crackled in her earpiece before a voice replied, “Yes, Platoon 5, I read you. Status?”

“North of your unit clear? We’re evacuating through there.”

Richard, Maverick-447, Platoon 2’s captain, scanned the area with his AR combat helmet. “Clear. No threats. Move!”

A few seconds later, heavy footfalls thumped in the distance.

“Platoon 5, do you read me?” Zainab responded.

Richard’s voice was low. “Stay clear. I hear movement approaching fast.”

“How close?” she asked.

“500 meters.”

“Visual?”

“Confirmed.”

“Numbers?”

“Three HK-Alphas.”

Zainab paused, then snapped into action. “Maverick-447, I’ve got a plan.”

“Make it good,” Richard shot back.

“We join you, fight them off. You cover our escape. Agreed?”.

Richard sniffed inside his helmet and gave a quick, thoughtless approval.

The HK-Alphas, towering nine-foot humanoids were upgraded, deadlier versions of the HK-Vanguard. Thickly armored, armed with built-in lethality, and crushing power in their massive feet, they were unstoppable juggernauts. After the Council exiled them, they rebuilt into an army that left only annihilation in its wake.

Unlike the Vanguards, the Alphas felt no pity especially not for child soldiers. The only thing more terrifying than their brutality was their eerie diversity: no two shared the same face or skin. How? That was a secret the outside world had yet to decipher.

Nearly indestructible yet still bent beneath the Council’s will.

An HK-Alpha’s goggles flickered. Movement. Behind a wall. Its massive machine gun roared to life, shredding concrete as Richard’s squad scattered. Retreat. Regroup.

Their mission was simple: Stall until reinforcements arrived. Seventeen men against these giants? That wasn’t a fight, it was suicide.

The HK-Alphas closed in, scanning, hunting but found only empty shadows. Their goggles burned red, then flickered green. Targets acquired.

Too slow.

Zainab's squad erupted from cover, railgun rounds screaming through the air. She vaulted onto a crumbling church rooftop, sights lining up on an Alpha's exposed cranial port. Below, Aisha's suppressing fire sent sparks dancing across armored plating as Richard's team joined the assault.

The giants tanked the barrage, their hydraulic limbs whining under tonnage of armor as they lumbered to reload. Every earth-shaking step kicked up dust but they didn't falter. The first shot sent Mavericks scrambling positions collapsing into chaos. Zainab cursed through clenched teeth, her scope jerking between the brawl below and her wavering crosshairs.

A metallic click cut through Emeka’s focus. Empty. His voice crackled over comms: "Change of plans."

The team listened. Hesitated. Agreed.

Bullets weren’t working. Time to get reckless.

Emeka burst from cover with a sharp whistle. One HK-Alpha whirred to face him. "Come get me!" he roared, fists raised then sprinted toward Zainab's nest.

The perfect bait.

Zainab's scope locked onto the charging giant's forehead. c***k! The round punched through its cranial plating but the behemoth only staggered, optics flickering. A second shot dropped it to its knees.

Suddenly, the other HK-Alpha jumped launching itself thirty feet through the air and landed hard on the rooftop.

Zainab lost her footing. She rolled off the roof and slammed onto an abandoned car below. A sickening c***k, her leg broke on impact. A scream tore through her clenched teeth.

“These bastards got upgraded again!" Aisha spat, her face hardening.

Emeka didn't hesitate. He charged the wounded giant, scaling its shuddering frame like a predator. With brutal efficiency, he wrenched its jaw open, primed a grenade, and shoved it down the machine's throat. A leap backward

BOOM!!!

Shrapnel and fire engulfed the area as the HK-Alpha erupted from within.

Across the battlefield, Aisha emptied her magazine into the other giant useless, but it bought time. The mechanical titan swung, its massive hand carving air as she ducked.

Click.

Her combat knife extended to full length with a lethal shink. What followed was a blur of calculated violence precise cuts to weak points; groin, calves, thighs. The giant staggered, its hydraulic systems sputtering blue fluid. The HK-Alpha’s goggles flickered; combat sensor active. It studied her, processing, predicting. Before Aisha could react, it had already mapped her next three strikes.

A brutal counterattack. Fists like piledrivers. Aisha hit the ground, ribs screaming, vision blurring.

The giant loomed over her, one massive foot rising, a hydraulic press ready to crush bone. Aisha played dead, her body limp, her mind sharp.

Closer!

Closer!!

NOW!!!

Her hand snapped out, driving the knife clean through its foot blade erupting from the other side in a spray of sparks and blue fluid. The HK-Alpha’s shriek split the air.

Aisha moved like lightning. A second knife flashed into her grip. One leap, one vicious s***h.

The head toppled, trailing severed cables and gushing coolant. The body swayed, then collapsed like a felled tree.

Final Stand.

Richard's knife flashed through the air only for the HK-Alpha to snatch it mid-flight and hurl it back. The blade buried itself deep in Richard's gut. He crumpled, hands clutching the wound as blood seeped between his fingers.

Dike's voice cracked over the comms, "Medic! Evac now!".

The extraction team arrived in under three minutes. "Clear the area!" one shouted. "We're dropping the hammer!".

The soldiers barely reached cover when the explosion lit up the battlefield. The HK-Alpha's massive frame vaporized from the shoulders down, its remains scattering in a rain of molten metal and synthetic flesh. The medics swarmed the battlefield, stabilizing Zainab’s shattered leg, plugging Richard’s gut wound with coagulant foam. Rotor blades whipped dust into a frenzy as the first evac helicopter touched down.

Aisha watched the wounded get loaded up, her muscles still taut with adrenaline. Then she caught the faintest glint of metal amidst the charred flesh; a tiny, hexagonal device still sparking in the corpse’s sternum. She’d seen that design before.

Medbay hissed with the sound of biometric monitors. Richard lay rigid as drones stitched his abdomen, while Zainab’s leg hung suspended in a regeneration gel tank, both alive, neither whole.

The debriefing room smelled of fading disinfectant and stale adrenaline. Commander Idowu’s boots struck the floor like a metronome.

"Officially, a success." He flashed a humorless smile. "But your comms got... chatty at the beginning." A chuckle, low and dangerous, as he circled the room. His shadow fell across each soldier in turn.

Emeka stared straight ahead, spine rigid. Aisha loomed beside him, a storm barely contained.

"Rebel propaganda," Idowu dismissed, fingers digging into Emeka’s shoulder. "Garbage meant to break you." A pause. "You performed admirably, Maverick-071."

Silence.

Then…

Emeka crouched suddenly, face inches from Aisha’s. His voice dropped to a rough whisper, pride flashing like a blade, "You’re a damn beast." A calloused hand clapped her shoulder. "Knew you’d gut that tin bastard. My little leopard never fails." The lie festered in his skull like a bad circuit.

Aisha had lowballed the casualty numbers but would let it slide due to her earlier performance.

Straightening, he barked at the squad, "Showers. Food. Bunks. Move!."

The barracks room hummed with the static of faulty overhead lights.

Aisha stood before a fractured mirror shard, her reflection warped in the grimy glass. Behind her eyes, a storm of fragmented thoughts, glitching, resisting. She exhaled sharply, surrendering, and collapsed onto her cot. The duvet swallowed her whole.

“Do you ever wonder?"

Arike’s voice was a whisper, yet it pierced like a needle.

Aisha’s implant flared, a spike of pain behind her eyes. The voice slithered in,

"DANGER. DO NOT LISTEN TO HER!".

Her fists curled. "Wonder what?".

Arike rose slowly, shadows pooling under her eyes. "If we’re the real monsters.