Hunger
The humid Florida air curled around the penthouse suite of the abandoned SunTrust Center. It was a miasma of swampy rot, ozone from a recent storm, and the musty ever-present scent of burnt garbage and decay. On the expansive marble floor, Revenant knelt. Before him lay his palette: a slab of polished black granite scavenged from a collapsed bank lobby, its surface cool and smooth. With a practiced, delicate motion, he squeezed thick, rich colors from scavenged tubes of oil paint. Cadmium Red, Ultramarine Blue, Ivory Black. Next to them, a small, dark pool was beginning to congeal. Blood leaked from the corpse next to him, the remnants that had yet to drip from the massive hole in her chest. She was a haggard looking woman that Revenant had speared in the overgrown remains of Lake Eola Park that morning. The fact she had survived so long without submitting to one of the villain warlords was impressive - but she had only managed to make it about 20 feet before succumbing to the wound he had inflicted.
Her sacrifice would serve as the perfect first coat for Revenant's work.
His canvas was a massive, gallery-stretched frame propped against the skeletal remains of a floor-to-ceiling window. It offered a bird's eye view of the southern district. His subject today, much like most of his pieces, was one of violence. Little else was as pervasive or enticing within the Zone. At its heart was a building, stark and alien: the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Orlando Research Center. A mouthful - most stragglers in the Zone referred to it as 'The Research Center' or some similar title. A sterile, modern cube of white composite panels and solar-tinted glass. It was a relic of a time when the cities greatest problem was sustainable agriculture, not surviving the tantrums of parahumans. At one point in time, it was one of the most advanced hydroponics facilities on the east coast. It had lain dormant since the walls went up, its automated systems on a low-power standby. Forgotten by the chaos. Too clean, too far from the city center to be an immediate target for looters. Crops had rotted before its doors were kicked in, and the unpowered technology was of little interest to the survivors (bar a few Tinkers). No Warlord even sought to claim it, the positioning of the University of Florida campus far too precarious - bordering three separate factions and with no natural defenses, it was far more trouble than it was worth.
Until two days ago. Revenant, from his perch, had seen the change. First came the smoke. Not from a fire, but a thin, greasy haze that clung to the ground and refused to dissipate in the stiff breeze. That sight alone was enough to scare off most humans - at least, the ones who've experienced the night terrors. Then came the figures, emerging from the haze like ghosts. Wonderland. They were a cult, he knew. The mad flock of Nightmare, one of the more 'active' warlords in the Zone. The followers were dressed in smooth, black armor that seemed to drink the Florida sunlight, their movements oddly fluid. Each one had a bizarre, personal touch painted on their gear in garish contrasting paint - leering asymmetrical red eyes, weeping green spirals, gaping and screaming white mouths. It was an effective psychological weapon. Had he seen them earlier in his career in the Zone, even Revenant would be disturbed by their silent, steady march.
They had secured the research center with relative ease. No one was there to stop them, other than scant stragglers camping in the abandoned dormitories. Likely press-ganged into the group, if they weren't tortured and killed. But when the lights of the institute came back on, it was a signal to every other faction in the city. A source of food that wasn't reliant on the Forest or the scant gardens and farms established by the various Warlords. It was the reason Revenant had bothered to stay in this secluded spot. A perfect vantage point for his next piece of art.
The fact that the inevitable response only took two days was surprising. To the west, a convoy of three rugged armored vans barreled down a debris-strewn street. Revenant recognized the markings painted on the side of the vehicle - a simple hand print design on a circular white background. The Black Hand. They weren't a cult like Wonderland; they were survivors who had organized. A protection racket that had become a de-facto government for their small slice of hell. Pragmatic, violent, and utterly serious. The closest thing to the old order you could come to find in the Zone. Outside of the Resistance, of course - but they were barely clinging to life, even with Hopeman and Teacher.
Revenant dipped a sharpened talon into the congealed blood. He didn't need brushes. His work required a more personal touch. With a practiced ease, he began to sketch the scene’s foundation onto the canvas. The sharp, clean lines of the lab. The swirling, chaotic approach of the vans. The performance was about to begin, and he had the best seat in the house.
“Three minutes out. Final checks. Get ready,” Toshiko’s voice was flat, cutting through the roar of the engine and the rattle of loose gear in the back of the van. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the frame of her seat.
The intel was easy enough to get - street-level informants noticing the presence of people in macabre armor and archaic weapons, the lights surrounding the University during the middle of the night. The real cinch was the appearance of the haze that now hung limply in the air around the campus. Only one group in the Zone could do something like that, and be close enough to claim the facility so quick.
The UF/IFAS center was one of the few places in the Zone capable of producing a stable, long-term food supply. Leaving it in the hands of a predator like Nightmare wasn’t an option. It was a strategic asset they had to contest, and they had to do it now, before he could fully entrench his bizarre cult. Retaining the center would be difficult, but would massively reduce the need to raid the Forest or deal with smugglers.
As they drew closer, she felt it. A heavy, cloying pressure in the air. A profound weight that made her eyelids feel like lead and her thoughts move as if through water.
Shit. She thought the Tinker air filters would have done a bit more to slow that. Would have to talk to her PRT contacts.
“It’s his Master effect,” she snapped, her voice sharp and piercing. “That sedative aura. That’s him trying to put you under. Fight it. Stims on my mark.”
She watched her crew through the gloom of the van’s interior. They weren't good people, but they were good soldiers. Had to be in this city. But they were still human, and Nightmare's power preyed on one of the most basic human needs.
“Mark!”
Around her, there was a coordinated hiss of compressed air as her team slammed their auto-injectors against their thighs. Toshiko felt the familiar, fiery jolt as the cocktail of adrenaline, amphetamines, and nootropic agents flooded her system. It was a dirty, brutal necessity. A concoction brewed up by whatever chemists were employed by the PRT, the recipe and reagents disseminated to the group via Black Hand's connections. It burned away the unnatural drowsiness, leaving her buzzing with a raw, jagged energy that felt like ground glass under her skin. She knew the crash would be hell later, but falling asleep here would be far worse.
The van screeched to a halt several dozen meters from the institute. The doors flew open. The world outside was blanketed under a thick haze. How much of it was Nightmare's field and how much was the ash and smoke from the dozens of pit fires that dotted Wonderland's territory was anyone's guess. Besides the soft crackle of burning wood, the outside world was quiet, still, and profoundly unsettling. Dozens of figures in that black, hand-painted armor that were ubiquitous amongst the Wonderland were waiting for them, spread out across the plaza. They stood perfectly still, their silence more menacing than any war cry.
Then, a tendril of black smoke, thick as a python, snaked out from the haze. It coiled in the air twenty feet in front of her, the tip swirling and coalescing into a crude approximation of a human face with a gaping, dark mouth. Toshiko tried to ignore the look of agony as it moaned. A psychological ploy. She knew it was this group's gimmick. Can't play into it.
A voice hissed from it, calm and monotone, yet still possessing a chilling human cadence. “This territory is under my protection. Your presence here is… disruptive. Leave, and you shall be granted passage back to your territory. Resist, and you will be pacified.”
One of her men, a new guy named Sal, laughed nervously. He was a defector from the Forestry Commission that had only just finished training, and had little interaction with the various factions that ruled the city proper. “Pacified? What the hell does that mean?”
Toshiko didn’t answer. She already knew. She bent slightly as she assumed a boxer's stance.
From the rooftop of the research center, Nightmare observed the unfolding situation. His core body stood near the edge, a tall, dark figure obscured in the shadows cast by the setting sun. His form was more fluid than usual, the particulates flowing in set cycles and patterns that formed a 'silhouette' in the rough shape of a humanoid. When he was less solid like this, he felt more at ease. More free. Closest you could get to that in the Zone. He felt the rush of air as the vans approached. If he had a mouth, he would have frowned. Things were going far too smoothly...
His followers, his Wonderland, were in position. He had gifted them his smoke, shaping it into armor that would protect their bodies, forging it into blades that would never dull. He had filled their sleeping minds with visions of purpose and ecstatic joy, erasing the fear and pain of their waking lives. In return, they gave him their absolute, unwavering devotion. If he asked them to jump, they would ask how high. If he asked them to die, they would rush to obey. They were sufficient, much better tools than the stragglers and the lesser factions' goons, even if their eccentricities was sometimes… grating. Now they stood eager, high on the promise of conflict and the wonderful dreams they would be rewarded with, their hand-painted armor a gallery of their delusions.
He watched the woman, Shukuchi, emerge first from the vehicles. He saw the alertness in her posture as the stims took hold. So they raided a PRT scouting party? He recognized her as the primary threat. The others were background noise, a tide to be managed. He dropped from above, his form shifting slightly to take advantage of the stealth that came from the fire's smoke.
To give them an ultimatum was a formality, a final check on the probability of a peaceful outcome. It was, as he expected, rejected. He felt no disappointment, no anger. It was simply the next step in a logical sequence. Tendrils of smoke slowly extended along the ground, grabbing onto fallen debris and loose stonework. Each item degraded at his touch, lightening into more mist that filled out his body.
He preferred to grow like this before a fight.
When her team opened fire, he observed the results with a detached interest that could only be cultivated by an incorporeal being. The smaller caliber rounds from their assault rifles ricocheted off the hardened smoke-armor with sharp, metallic pings, leaving spiderweb cracks but failing to penetrate. The punches that the masked woman threw, however, were more effective. He watched as she ran at a cultist, only for the man to fly backwards. If she threw a strike, it was imperceptibly fast. TK, perhaps? The armor cracked, several chunks flying off, but the man was on his feet in moments. In the exposed part of his helmet, a wide, ecstatic grin could be seen spreading across his face, a trickle of blood running from the corner of his mouth. He began to laugh, a high, unhinged sound that echoed across the plaza.
“It tickles!” the man shrieked with glee, and charged forward, utterly unconcerned by the deep, bloody wound in his torso.
The rest of Wonderland followed suit, surging forward not in a disciplined line, but as a joyous, terrifying mob. They howled and laughed, their voices overlapping in a chorus of madness, eager to close the distance where their smoke-forged weapons would be most effective. The first man was struck twice more before he could blink, a sharp dent in his head ending his life. Nightmare's vision narrowed slightly as he scowled. This was the problem of using humans as tools.
The world erupted into a storm of noise and violence. “Line formation! Suppressing fire! Vic, you’re on the heavy rifle, target their legs!” Toshiko’s orders were clipped, professional, barked into the comms unit clipped to her collar.
Her crew responded instantly. They dropped behind the meager cover of their vans and the plaza’s decorative concrete planters, laying down a disciplined wall of fire. The heavy crackle of their rifles mixed with the deeper thump-thump-thump of their one heavy machine gun. Toshiko saw the bullets spark and whine, saw the larger rounds punch through the strange black armor, but the attackers didn't stop. They didn't even slow down. They laughed, they cheered, they ran into the hail of bullets as if it were a summer rain, their eyes wide with a terrifying, drug-fueled glee.
One cultist, armed with a long, flexible spear made of the same black material, used it to hook a Black Hand member’s ankle, yanking him out of cover. Two more, wielding bladed gauntlets, descended on him before he could even scream.
“Focus fire!” she yelled into her comms. “Don’t let them get close!”
She moved, the world seeming to stutter around her. She wasn't teleporting, just moving with an impossible, instantaneous burst of speed. The difference was negligible for the mundane combatants. A laughing cultist swung a wicked-looking obsidian axe at her head. She was no longer there, appearing a dozen feet to his left and kicking at the back of his knee. His leg buckled, bone spiking out from the other side, but he just giggled and tried to crawl toward her. She stomped down at his head, and he finally lay still.
Outside the Zone, something like this would have been unthinkable. Guns didn't show up in cape fights, and death was rare outside of Kill Orders or background gang violence. She tried not to let it get to her though.
This man died a long time ago. His body was only now following suit.
Another salvo of machine gun fire fired off into the crowd, but no impact came. Toshiko backed away as a thin wall of smoke shot forward, interposing between the gunshots and the cultists. Every bullet fired into the wall seemingly vanished.
Disintegrated to join the mass. Had Nightmare expected their arrival, had time to gather more mass?
Didn't matter. His powers were more supportive than hers. In a battle of attrition, her and her men would eventually fall to his field. She had to put pressure on him now while she could. She ran towards the wall, stopping just short as she threw a dozen punches at open air in less than half a second. The impact occured all at once, a wall of phantom afterimages moving forward and blasting a hole in the 'wall' of smoke.
No damage, of course, but it disrupted his form. Forced him to pull himself back together.
Bought time.
In the moment of weakness, another salvo of gunfire shot out. The cultists snapped back to awareness at the noise, rushing forward once more and clearing the distance in moments. Toshiko didn't hesitate, moving after Nightmare's core body and throwing more strikes at him as he reformed. He retreated as he reformed, pulling away from the conflict.
Good. He could end things too quickly if he directly engaged them. Like this, her soldiers only had to deal with his crazed followers.
Nightmare began to retreat as another swarm of afterimages struck him, using the momentum of the strikes and his gaseous nature to float upwards towards the roof. He faded into the smoke from the fires as he sailed upwards. Toshiko gave chase, leaping nearly ten feet up to a narrow window ledge. Before she could lose momentum she pushed off again, landing silently on a ventilation unit. Another jump and another seemingly impossible parkour-skip up the side of the building. She managed to climb four stories in 20 seconds.
Nightmare stood at the center of the roof, perfectly still. He wasn’t a man in a suit. He was made of that same living smoke, denser, darker. Before he could react to her appearance, she was on him. She lashed out with a lightning-fast jab aimed at his face. Changers like him were usually durable, and while killing a faction leader had its benefits, the vacuum it would leave could be dangerous so close to her territory.
Her fist didn’t connect. It sank into his form as if plunging into freezing, viscous water. There was no impact, only an invasive cold. A horrifying sensation of absolute numbness flooded her hand. It shot up to her wrist in a fraction of a second. With a curse, she ripped her arm back, the trained reaction saving her from the cold spreading further. Her hand, from the wrist down, was completely inert. A useless lump of meat at the end of her arm. Thank god her fist was still clenched.
She stumbled back, her heart hammering against her ribs as she tried to coolly assess the situation. Direct contact is poison. Have to stick with the phantom strikes. Have to evade, but time for her men to weed out his cultists.
The smoky figure tilted its head, a gesture of mild curiosity. “Mover? Have to be to get up here so quickly. Striker as well, I assuming?”
Tendrils of smoke began to peel away from his body, lashing out toward her. She danced away, her movements fluid and measured. This was his arena now. One grab and she'd be done. A deadly game of tag.
“I would think someone like you would be more knowledgable on his neighbors. I try to keep files on all the major players in the Zone, let alone the ones I share borders with." Toshiko's tone was calm and collected, but underneath the veil of calm she was tiring. Dodging the smoke like this was straining, and was undoubtedly burning through the stims in her system more quickly. The only reason she was even engaging with him was to try and distract him, make his tendrils less coordinated.
She feinted left, before throwing a strike at empty air. A phantom afterimage of her left fist snapped forward, the smoky apparition of her punch flying through the air and striking Nightmare’s form. It passed through him harmlessly, but the force of it caused his form to ripple and disperse for a moment, forcing him to momentarily reform. One less tendril followed in the next few seconds.
At least it was something.
“Territory changes hands quickly in the Zone. Keeping tabs on every parahuman is energy that could be spent consolidating one's power. Attention and resources must be expended for optimal benefit in an environment like this.” Nightmare’s voice echoed, his form solidifying again. More tendrils, faster this time, whipped out. They shot at odd angles, moving for blindspots and to cut off her mobility rather than directly tag her.
She ducked under one, spun away from another, and used a short burst of speed to appear directly behind him. Another phantom punch, this one to the back of his “head.” Again, his form dispersed. She couldn't hurt him, but she could annoy him. She could keep him busy.
Her comms crackled. "Boss! Garcia's down! They swarmed him!"
She backed away before throwing a glance over the edge. It was true. Garcia, one of her better fighters, was on the ground. A Wonderland goon had tackled him, and in the second he was stunned, another had stomped hard on the side of his head. Another kick at his teeth and he was unconscious.
Toshiko had recovered Garcia once after he was captured by the Empire. He had been tortured for two days - lost an eye and most of his fingernails. But the tough bastard never gave up the location of the Black Hand's lair. Didn't even wince as Toshiko helped him out of the basement she found him in.
It didn't take 10 seconds after falling asleep for the sounds of Garcia's screams to echo across the plaza. It was a piercing sound, one that struck many of the soldiers to their core. The laughter of the cultists was quick to follow, as the two around Garcia began dragging his body back into their ranks.
That was it. They couldn't win. They were losing people, losing ground. The objective had to change.
"Plan B!" she yelled into her comms, her voice tight with a new, desperate urgency. "Breach the west loading bay! Smash and grab! You have sixty seconds on my mark! Go!"
The game on the roof changed. It was no longer a duel; it was a holding action. A delayed punch she’d thrown ten seconds ago suddenly took effect, a phantom impact striking a cultist below who was about to finish off one of her men, sending him stumbling. Another of her actions, a kick at the ground delayed in time, caused a piece of rooftop debris to fly up and intercept a lashing tendril from Nightmare. She barely reacted as an explosion rocked the building, rolling past two tendrils of smoke attempting to 'bisect' her.
An explosion. A new variable. The loading bay door was breached. Nightmare noted the change in the situation. The woman on the roof was a diversion. The true objective had shifted to resource extraction. It was a more logical plan than he had credited her with. Pillaging supplies would harm Wonderland and support her group at the same time, while avoiding the difficulty in maintaining a high value asset like the University. A respectable, if ultimately futile, effort.
He processed the new state of affairs. The attackers were retreating with a small number of ration crates. Suppressive fire kept his minions at bay - they could certainly rush, but bringing the fight inside the facility would risk irreparable damage to the hydroponics. Elias, one of Nightmare's more autonomous followers, was educated enough to maintain the facility - but he was no Tinker. Repairing damage that extreme would require commissioning someone like Mulciber, and the less contact Nightmare could have with the Money Men, the better. The primary objective - the facility itself - remained in his control. The loss of some supplies in the present was an acceptable outcome when compared to the acquisition of a permanent source of food.
The logical decision was clear.
He allowed them to go. He watched the parahuman woman vanish from the roof in a final, instantaneous burst of motion, and he let her. He echoed an order to stand down to his followers. The Black Hand didn't seem to notice.
The chaotic noise of the battle subsided. The frenzied laughter of his followers died down as the adrenaline of the fight ebbed, replaced by the serene euphoria he now fed into their minds as a reward for their service. He flowed down from the roof, his form seeping through cracks in the concrete like water through a sponge, and surveyed the scene. He sealed the breach in the loading bay with a wave of hardened smoke. More formal repairs could be done in the coming weeks - beginning production was the priority.
The four enemy combatants they had “pacified,” including the one named Garcia, lay unconscious on the ground. New additions. He knew more about them the moment they fell asleep than many of their old allies ever learned. He knelt beside Garcia, a tendril of smoke gently touching the man's temple. He felt the man's panic, a useless and noisy signal. He quieted it, overwriting the primitive anxiety with a deep and dreamless peace. In his mind he stood on a perfect, sun-drenched beach from a life he’d never lived. The man’s face relaxed into a soft smile. He was a resource now. A body to carry out Nightmare's will, another mind consigned to the garden. Accounting for the 3 dead and 8 injured, the encounter had been a net positive.
Order was restored.
The back of the van smelled of blood, gunpowder, and the sour tang of the stim-crash. Toshiko cradled her right hand with her left, the limb still cold, numb, and utterly useless. The feeling of that invasive paralysis was seared into her memory. They’d escaped. They had a dozen crates of high-nutrient paste - enough to feed her people for weeks. But they had paid a heavy price. Four people left behind. Four families she’d have to talk to, four empty bunks in the barracks.
She wished they died. Death was better than whatever those freaks had in store for her soldiers.
She stared out the grime-caked window as they sped away from the silent, white laboratory. The jagged energy of the stims had fled, leaving behind a bone-deep exhaustion and a pounding headache. She felt a hundred years old. She was just thankful none of her men passed out until they left Nightmare's radius.
The ride back to their territory was in complete silence. No one wanted to talk about the loss of Garcia and the others. Another month without raiding the Forest was a meager prize.
But in the Zone, few had the luxury of knowing when their next meal was. At least for now, her people were secure for the next month or two.
As the haze outside slowly dissipated, Toshiko sighed and slowly closed her eyes.
The final touch of Revenant's painting was a smear of Cadmium Red, applied with his smallest talon, tracing the arc of Shukuchi’s final leap from the roof. The painting was done. He stepped back, his bird-like head tilted. It was more than a record of a fight. It was a thesis. The ordered lines and dark color scheme of the Black Hand contrasting sharply with Wonderland's chaotic and garish coloration. The dozen or so casualties lying on the ground in indecipherable red smears was his favorite aspect of the piece.
A beautiful, pointless struggle. He titled it in his mind.
Hunger.
A bit on the nose, but art critics were in short supply in the Zone.
The creative impulse was satisfied, the itch scratched. The scene below was now just a static aftermath, devoid of interest. Revenant contemplated briefly if the two day wait was worth this - he had hoped for parahuman blood to spill. For a more impressive showing. One which might prove a threat to him
He cleaned his talons meticulously, capped his paints, and left the large canvas leaning against the broken window, a gift for whatever scavenger or storm might find it next.
The act of creation was more important to him than the end result.
With a powerful leap, Revenant launched himself from the skyscraper’s edge. He fell, a dark, avian shape disappearing into the labyrinthine canyons of the dead city.
Seeking his next source of inspiration.