Road

Anger beat within his breast; he still could not believe how much had been wagered. Humanity's ambition had always outstripped its rationality and morality.

The Captain's mind flicked to the last time he had been to Earth. The last time he had seen his son.

That particular memory was a road he did not like to travel. But there was nowhere else to go.

Footsteps echoed in silence. Autumn wind howled along the vacant streets.

"Five hundred meters." - Ariella's diction was normally clear. At this moment, her consonants were strained.

"Calm down." - The Captain's low voice resonated like a cello.

The Captain's armor told him that something was close. The armor functioned like an extension of his body; he could feel the chill in the air on his 'skin.' Sensory data was processed by thousands of tiny computers, then fed into his mind as mere thought.

This 'mind' reacted the same way that a lion would have, when the scent of rotting flesh touched it. Panels snapped open on his forearms and calves - scalding energy erupted and singed the air. His eyes glowed with deep, white fire.

A low, tense, and dissonant whirring emanated from his body. The armor's fusion reactors - nestled between his heart, liver, and stomach, had shifted into readiness.

"Three."

The Captain looked around the street. It was odd to not see women in thigh-high skirts and men in tailored suits.

"Five!" - Ariella's voice rose in panic.

The Captain pressed himself against a building - instinct drove him out of cover. A long piece of metal spooled from his hand and formed a rifle; it was a deadly extension of his body.

The rifle swept across Madison Avenue - it had no moving parts, but super-hot energy flowed through it like blood through a body. He primed it, waiting...

"I can't make it out through the radiation cloud." - Ariella waited in tense silence.

A deer came into view. The Captain's eyes softened and the rifle powered down as he lowered it.

"Their migratory patterns changed." - Ariella's clipped voice had not lost any tension. The Captain smiled and studied the deer; he appreciated its grace.

"No wolves." - The Captain's voice rose in pitch - a mid-octave tremor that contained worry.

"Deer or not, you have something else coming your way." A pause. "We should not have done this." - Ariella's voice was hard to decipher - any variations that the Captain chose to interpret were slight. Her terror was unmistakable.

The Captain's body, armor, and mind reacted at once. He fell to one knee and the rifle swept up 63rd Street.

The rifle's quantum slugs made no sound, save for the silken tear of air. A moment later, a tortured scream echoed. And then another.

Streaks of fire lanced through the air. The Captain's wings opened and he made a tight pass around Central Park.

Smoky and obscured forms attempted to trail him.

"What are they!" - panic seized his body and was quickly replaced by practiced calm.

The Captain's wings closed and he tucked his body tight. He somersaulted into a building, then sprang off of its side with a powerful leap.

The building was scorched by fire.

"I don't know - I've never seen this!" - Ariella's voice was frantic.

His wings opened and stabilized his erratic movement. As he accelerated, he extended his arm, felt the tight insides of the rifle...

The wings closed and he diverted all the power he could muster into the rifle. In free fall, he dodged between lances of fire.

The Captain's eyes narrowed: he could not discern the true form of his assailants. Shrouded in dark mist, they resembled beings that had once been men.

The Captain's eyes created a road map of possible aiming angles, bullet trajectories, and entropy. Then he told the rifle to hit four targets.

The rifle erupted.

Descent

Cold air flayed his skin.

His heart and stomach exchanged places; the falling sensation was acute.

Above, the silver-egg starship silently banked higher, to the East.

The jagged teeth of decrepit skyscrapers grinned at him from below.

The Captain closed his eyes and took a breath. In the space between inhalations, his body changed. Golden threads of metallic liquid enshrouded his body; the threads hardened and he was sheathed in metal.

The metal sculpted itself; alloyed wings sprang from his shoulder blades - they were multifaceted and glowed with faint red heat. Engines.

The Captain took another breath, inhaling the liquid metal. He was never accustomed to the feeling; his insides burned as the metal wrapped around his organs.

His next exhalation contained hot fire.

The Captain righted his descent. The embers within the wing-engines became infernos. A blinding shockwave rippled across the barren New York skyline.

"Captain."

He maintained altitude; the organic metal reflected the harsh sunlight at several stark angles. A glinting, black raptor.

"I see it, Ariella."

A peal of thunder rippled around his body as he accelerated post-hypersonic. Suddenly, he was between the skyscrapers - the cadaverous Chrysler Building and the stygian skeleton of the Seagram Building. He flew through a giant hole in the Rockefeller Center.

"Your suit's sensors show nominal activity."

The Captain banked hard and landed - fault lines extended from the epicenter of impact.

"You are beneath the radiation cloud. Sensors are alive and well."

The Captain's eyes narrowed; inside of the irises, microscopic circuitry clicked and whirred. His brain dissected the images around him.

Again, the anger. Again, the frustration.

"Ariella?"

She paused.

"Ariella." His voice was firm.

"I'm sorry. I didn't think it would be so hard."

The Captain walked up Park Avenue. His voice softened and he touched her with his voice.

"Don't torture yourself with guilt."

Tears soaked her words.

"We could have stopped it."

He continued walking. Something hellish awaited.

Awakening

Rays of sunlight caressed the Empire State Building.

It had been worn down by time. If one gazed at the vacant
streets long enough, pedestrians - or their memory - flitted about
like ghosts.

The last 500 years had not been good to New York City.

The Captain watched the sunlight yawn over the gray megalopolis. He
adjusted the thrust levels of his starship, then craned his head to
take in as much of it as possible.

Pathetic.

He had always loved New York, but no pity stirred within his breast.

Foolish.

The Captain rose and swallowed a pillar of anger.

Arrogant.

'Ariella.' The Captain's voice was a low, infinite rumble.

'Twenty seconds to drop, Captain.'

The Captain's emerald eyes glowed and his olive skin was hued with
faint lines of gold. They resembled circuitry.

The pulses of golden light washed over his skin with cardiac rhythm.

"Seventeen seconds."

The sparse ship did not have much. The Captain did not need much.

"Captain?"

"Yes, Ariella?"

Her honeyed voice paused for a moment.

"No signs of life."

The ship began to hover. The Captain took a deep breath and stepped into the middle of the ship.

His silence told her that he knew what was on her mind.

"But...there is something."

The Captain nodded. The floor began to vibrate; the metal beneath his feet seamlessly yawned open.

New York looked worse from this angle.

"I know."

He stepped out of the ship and fell to the ground below.