Extensis Vitae - By Gregory Mattix
Chapter 1
“Can you hear me?” a distant voice asked. “Are you awake? You’ve been injured… There was an accident. You are going to recover, but you may feel disoriented for a while.”
Somewhere far off in the darkness, the white noise of humming machinery droned on endlessly. As time passed, another sound became discernable, this one nearby. Beep…beep…beep. Slow and constant, like a fine-tuned watch.
The comatose man slowly began to gain awareness. The beeping sound was like a beacon, and he was able to focus on it. Slowly, he tried to open his gummy eyes, but grunted in shock as harsh light seared his retinas. After a moment, he tried again, this time averting his gaze from the overhead lights. Squinting and allowing his eyes to adjust for a moment, he was able to make out a gray metal ceiling with a track of LED lights. Everything slowly came into focus around him.
The man couldn’t feel anything. It seemed that his sight and hearing were the only senses available to him. He turned his head and took in what appeared to be some sort of laboratory. A mix of unfamiliar machinery and computer terminals were along one wall. A sink and some storage cabinets lined the other side of the room. The source of the constant beeping was a machine on a wheeled rack next to the steel table he lay on.
There was nobody else in the room. He didn’t know if the voice he had heard was real or a dream.
Opening his mouth to take a breath, his gag reflex took over as he choked on the tube running down his throat. As his body convulsed, he instinctively tried to grasp for the tube, but he realized that he couldn’t move his arms. A brief moment of panic struck as he realized that he was unable to draw breath or move any of his limbs. The machine began beeping more rapidly in response to his elevated pulse. After a moment or two of thrashing around, some protective instinct kicked in and he fought to calm himself. Eventually he was able to relax enough to the point where he could breathe through his nose. Relief flooded through him, and once he was breathing calmly and relaxed again, he drifted back into the darkness.
***
“Reznik! Hey, are you ready?” A man wearing camouflage fatigues and face paint was beside him, looking at him expectantly. The man’s face was familiar to him, yet he couldn’t quite place it. “You’re losing it, man. What’s with the thousand-yard stare?”
Reznik grunted in acknowledgment. Before he could reply, some chatter came through his earpiece. A voice was talking about the ETA for air support that had been radioed in.
The two of them lay prone behind a boulder. A steep slope rose in front of them up into the tree line. Glancing sideways, Reznik noticed another pair of soldiers crouched behind a fallen tree about thirty yards away. Seeing his glance, one of them nodded and turned back toward the high ground.
“This time, these fuckers aren’t gonna escape back into the hills. We’ve got them surrounded on all sides, and Williams’s squad is waiting on the other side of the ridgeline, ready to cut them down when they run. Hopefully they won’t make it that far, though.” The other soldier had an eager gleam in his blue eyes. Nash…the name came back to him now. He didn’t look much like a normal soldier due to the growth of beard covering his face and mop of unruly blond hair sticking out from under his boonie hat. His fatigues were totally unmarked.
“You okay, buddy?” Nash asked. “You better get your head in the game!” Reznik nodded, looking at the rifle in his hands. It was a standard issue M-4 with a night vision scope.
“Lock and load, everyone! Move into position!” barked the voice over the radio. Reznik checked his weapon without thinking about it, his hands moving of their own accord. He had been through this routine thousands of times before. Muscle memory, he thought as he chambered a round and switched off the safety.
“Let’s go, hoss.” Nash moved out from behind the boulder in a crouch, M-4 held at the ready. The pair on their right flank began advancing, as well.
Reznik and Nash crept up the slope for about seventy yards, taking care to move quietly. After a few minutes, Nash waved him to a halt and they went prone again behind a bush. “Bravo in position,” Nash called softly into