Nowhereland

Nowhere Land.

By Anton Basson.

For the New Militia, I miss you guys.

 

 

“Do you understand the terms of your employment, Mr. Jones?”

“Yes. Please call me Oz, Mr. Bastes.”

“Ed.”

“Alright, Ed. When do I begin?”

“Tomorrow. Dr. Rules will show you around now.”

The men had no idea what they had begun.

 

Ultimate Peace Solutions is the world’s largest supplier of arms and arms related systems, every new weapons system is developed here and then sold through its subsidiaries. No one knows about it. One must not think that anyone employed here ever chose a career at UPS, they were chosen for their skills: weapon engineers, bio-chemists and warriors all tasked with the job of creating the ultimate weapon. Ozmand Jones was chosen for his skills in psychological warfare and assassinations, its best to think of him as a psychopathic psychiatrist

 

“So how big is this place?”

“About the size of Britain.”

That was rather abrupt, thought Oz; in fact, everything Rules had said on this tour was undercut with a sort of tone. It was the type of tone you get when you ask an absurd question, make an inappropriate comment or , perhaps, when people think you are inappropriate.

“I know why I’m here, the terms of my contract.”

This was an odd moment for Oz, he usually didn’t care what people thought of him or his work, he was after all a self proclaimed bigot. Rules looked up.

“ I know you’re here to kill my daughter. Don’t prolong her agony.”

“ I assure you sir, whatever suffering she’ll endure, will be of her own doing.”

Sensitivity? Odd for both of them.

“ Your living quarters.”

 

No one would know what Peace saw. Oz, for once didn’t have to do anything. But Rules and  Bates both felt a near sense of loss. Its true what they say, women tend to go after men that remind them of their fathers and in Rain’s case , at their happiness’s sake.

“ How long has she been hanging?”

“ About two days, Edward.”

“ Seems like a waste, this loss of beauty, almost. Can we still use her, Rules?”

“ Yes, have you found her yet?”

“Yesterday on the Bomb Green range”

“Didn’t you run tests on that range, yesterday?”

“And the day before. It’s actually amazing she survived.”

Despite their feelings of loss they felt more concerned about their projects than about the person that just died. A woman they both professed to love; Rain.

“Cut her down. Where’s Peace now?”

“ Ozmand Jones is working on her now.”

 

The girl was barely 16. Despite her attempts to hide behind her beauty Oz could see that she was broken.

“Peace how you doing.”

“ Alright. My mother killed herself and I spent the rest of the time dodging bombs.”

“ Most people, you know, avoid the question. They tend to be defensive after...”

“ Seeing someone die? I,I didn’t see anything.”

“But you were t…”

“ Are we done?”

“um, Yes you may go.”

 

Oz felt relieved when he returned to his room, it was welcoming after his day. It was grey. A knock pulsed through the door.

“WHAT!”

Aggression? Ever since he’d arrived he had been acting odd.

“ Morning, sir. Mister Bates wishes you to meet him at A-7”

“ A-7”

“ Oh, right you’re new here. All the buildings here are numbered. The factories are numbered with an A and…”

“ Okay. I understand. Now tell me, why?”

“Didn’t say. Be there at 17:45.”

 

“ Ah, Oz. Glad you made it.”

“ It’s hard to miss a building with a giant A on the side.”

“ Glad you like it, but that’s not why you’re here.”

It was odd seeing someone who was clearly excited sound so impassive. Oz could see why Peace was so dead and why he didn’t have to work on Rain. Listening to Ed was enough to damage any one. They entered the building.

“ Jones. Do you know how one designs a weapon?”

“ Not really, but you’re going to tell me.”

Whoopy.

“ You test it on its intended target. The Americans did it in ’45 and that’s why they supply weapons to the Israelis. I also believe that a weapon is no good with out a soldier to use it. And the only way to train an effective soldier is to send him to war.”

“ And how do you intend on sending them to war?”

Oz couldn’t help but wonder what he was he going on. He felt nervous.

“ Behold the ultimate weapons training and development tools in the world.”

“ My God!”

Oz has never been shocked in his entire professional career. He watched Serbs snipe children and families getting hack up in Rwanda. He killed people for a living, though he preferred to have his targets kill themselves, he wasn’t a humanitarian. He had buried those feeling deep inside him years ago. But this made him sick. The tanks filled with over grown fetuses and the massed surgeries. It looked like a butcher’s shop.

“Didn’t know you were religious, Jones.”

“I’m not. But this is sick. I, I, does this have anything to do with my contract here?”

And yet he felt the need to pray.

“Yes.”

“But?”

“I see. I would have thought you would understand. Never mind these aren’t people, well, only chemically. No, that not reassuring.”

“I don’t…”

“Understand? I’ll explain.”

Bates’ smile changed disturbingly.

“Merkava set up a demonstration in pit 2.”

Then turning back to Oz.

“They’re not clones or actual people. We reserected them. They serve us in our work. They have no conceous thought or will. They allow us to test anything medication, surgery but primarily weapons. And unlike paper targets or chronographs they tell us exactly how deadly a weapon is. Do you understand?”

“So far I’ve gathered you think your both God and Satan. Giving and taking life and serving your own ends.”

“My dear Mr. Jones. God and the Devil are the same. They are men with guns and bombs. It is always the way it has been.”

 

Ed and Oz entered a room. Inside there was a small clump of techntions and on the facing wall a clear panel. Oz could see five figures through it. He gathered that the unarmed ones were these resurrections of Edward Bates.

“Now with every piece of new technology there are certain problems. Look at the targets Jones. You see that they are wearing what appear to be gas masks and back packs. There is a chemical in a human that gives it life, it is unique and individual. We extracted from dead bodies and then synthesize it to gain a useable amount and bath the remains in it. This causes the regeneration of flesh and organs. It makes them live again.”

Oz was struggling to take this in.

“In these units it has to be recycled as, unlike us, they can’t do it themselves. The backpack holds the control and recycling units. The mask covers the neural connections and the tubes that carry the recycled chemical to the brain.”

This wasn’t making sense to Oz. He, like a good student, had turned off. He didn’t turn on again till he saw one of the units get hit in the head and explode and the other get shot in the backpack and do the same.

“One of the problems I was taking about. They also have aggression problems and require filtered air. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to my late wife and show what you are helping to accomplish.”

“I can’t wait. How main of these things do you have here?”

“Two hundred thousand.”

“And if they went wild? Couldn’t they kill us all?”

“They won’t, tell me if my daughter saw something like this would if push her over the edge?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Tomorrow you will meet my wife.”

 

Oz never did get to meet Rain. Nobody knows what happened at UPS. All they found was a traumatized girl who keep on saying “God and The Devil are one and they my father. My mother is the Arc-angle.”

“Miss Bates. We’ll be landing shortly.”

It had been ten years but now Peace was going home. After the incident, the media had been quick to dub the facility Nowhere Land. All of a sudden there was a large island that no one knew about with only a single living soul among a million. She always longed to return, but she had been committed for six of those ten years, being “treated for long term psychological trauma.” But now she was “acceptably recovered, and permissible in society”, like she was some sort of vulgar creature. She was better. She met someone and felt loved for the second time in her life. The plane touched down.

 

“So what are you looking for?”

“My mother Ben, my mother.”

A tear ran down her cheek, they hadn’t even cleared up the bodies.

“So where is she?”

“There.”

She pointed to the only building left standing. A long concrete structure, with a large faded A-7 on the side. They entered treading lightly round the bodies.

“Peace, what is this place?”

“A factory, Ben. You see that body there. He died twice.”

“What?!”

She ignored him. She was on auto pilot, reliving that night.

 

“Do you want to see your mother?”

“That’s what I said didn’t I. I know you turned her into one of those things.”

“Very well.”

She, Ben and the ghosts of the past headed down the elevator to a room. In it a single body with large metal “wings” attached to it. Ben couldn’t take it. He regretted following her here.

“What the hell is that! Honey?”

“Mommy.”

 

“Father what gives you the right to play God.”

When Peace first saw her mother that night she couldn’t believe that the crumpled industrial spill before her was indeed he mother.

“Because God and The Devil are the same, they are men with…”

“Guns? And because you make most guns that make you the God of Gods?”

“He is both.”

Peace look down she barely heard the creature speak.

“I’m sorry for abandoning you, for you having to watch me die and for what I’m know, arch-angle.”

“ssssh. It’s fine he’ll turn you back.”

“Run. Hide by the tree.”

“What?”

“The Arc-angle shall punish the creatures of this hell, but your mother will keep you safe.”

 

“Peace? Are you alright?”

“She killed every one to avenge her suffering.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Not everything needs to be understood.”

This is after all a land of nothing. And nothing always makes sense.

“Let go. And leave the dead as they are.”

 

Perhaps she was right but as events in the future will show one can not turn ones back on the past; a tomb opened can not be resealed.