Project Damien: Lord of Shadows

Chapter 7: Three Musketeers

A group of elite fighters took me to the hovercraft that was waiting for us not far from the farm house where the tragedy happened. The hovercraft was much larger and better equipped than the one I flew on the first time. This was the first to withstand the energonite storms that often happened outside the safe zones. Although this was the first one I experienced and it had stopped long ago, only clouds of lights fell to the ground like wildly colored snow. If we go in this hovercraft from the beginning...

If Sam and I were sitting in it, none of this would have happened. I wouldn't have my friend's blood on my hands.

I boarded the hovercraft and within seconds I was already flying through the air, but my mind was somewhere else. I no longer admired the nature below me, I did not look for anything that could live there. Everything wanted to kill. My thoughts drifted away from memories that now seemed years away.

We sat in the underground tunnels, hidden from the world up there - from the System, the Corporation, everything that limited us, the people, and decided to control everything it could, and it expanded its control beyond the world that they could no longer protect. Me, Luke and Sam were sitting on the stones, with grins on our faces and pouring from a bottle that Luke got from one of the vagrants roaming the underground.

"Isn't it great? We're drinking alcohol here, which the Corporation has banned. It's said to be harmful to health."

"You think so? I happen to feel great"

I answered with a grin on my face, already slightly tipsy, and took a sip from the glass that Luke was pouring for us.

"I feel like I'm about to throw up"

Sam replied, to which I started laughing and Luke started laughing along with me.

"It's okay, it's the first time, you'll get used to it."

Luke said and took a drink as well, still wearing the same grin he had when he came out of the tunnels, enthusiastically waving the bottle at us in greeting.

"Wait, you've been drinking before?"

Sam asked, sizing us up drunkenly. We both just nodded, clinking our glasses and setting them next to him.

"Now you are among us, the star among us. Even if they offer you a job or a place on the council, you will refuse it and join the army, right?"

I asked and all three of us drank the burning liquid and let out a satisfied sigh.

"Of course. My father was a captain, distinguished himself in the battles against the Arrax. He expects the same from me. I can't let the family down. What about you? Where do they put you?"

He thumped his chest with a hiccup. Me and Luke looked at each other, remembering the same moment when we crossed the barrier hand in hand and found that we were immune to the toxic atmosphere.

"In due course...Well..We will definitely be drafted into the army."

I said, looking a bit contrite at the empty glass, which Luke immediately refilled just so I could drink it almost instantly.

"Don't worry mate, the three of us will be in the unit together, fighting, sweating, crying and bleeding for the good of the Corporation.. or at least to survive and die together if it comes out that way."

Luke said, trying to lift our spirits.

“Like the three musketeers."

Sam hiccupped and we laughed again.

"One for all!"

"All for one!"

I looked sadly out the window while we slowly or quickly approached the destination. I felt nothing but a stinging memory that reminded me of the friends I had lost. Several times after that, we met like this in the underground tunnels - Sam was a bit honest and aimed higher, he wanted to become one of the respected members of the Corporation, a man, a soldier who protects the little of humanity that is left, defends the little with all his strength. That's why he didn't like to break the rules, but since we were more brothers than just friends, he wasn't afraid to take risks.

What would be the worst that would happen to him? He would go to the army, to which he voluntarily submitted an application even before the System was supposed to enroll him and become the soldier he wanted to be. And his legacy lies in a forgotten house in the desert and no one even cared about the sacrifice he made.

Luke was a different matter. He was naughty, restless and interested in everything that was forbidden. And, of course, me along with him. Life in a cage full of orders and prohibitions, obligations and ultimatums given to us by the Corporation did not suit us. We were immune to the toxic atmosphere and many times we wondered what it would be like to escape from that world in a cage where the only punishment for every crime is compulsory service which ends either in death on the battlefield or killing at a distance. Just press one button and whoever is afraid to follow the order will die.

How easily the Corporation controlled people's lives. However, Luke was unlucky and was once caught in his wanderings underground by a patrol and taken away a year ago. And now here I was, the last of us three musketeers, being led somewhere that would decide my future life in a cage. I looked out the window and wondered if I was supposed to die down there in that forgotten house, along with one of my brothers.

We landed, the door opened and a group of soldiers led me through the door to a room where a group of people in white coats were running around. One of them, an older man with a bald head, a long goatee and round glasses hiding his dwarf eyes, approached us.

"Hello, I welcome you to our modest base that is developing something that can save humanity from extinction. And you will certainly help us with that. You will become part of Project Damien."