“Clean off. Now.”
She understood the urgency and implied reason behind his order. If the other soldiers were to see her like this, they may not be willing to believe her story. Especially Megaira. Immunity is not possible with prion diseases, despite whether this showed evidence to the contrary or not. This scientific certainty could cause Dio and Leander to also falter. And though her friendships between those two were beginning to cement, they may not see her. As soldiers they may see the blood and a comrade that had already fallen. They may shoot her, to save her from the fate of the Chaots. But Hector had given his word to her, and to him that was all that mattered.
As Hector stood guard, she swabbed the blood from her face and body with the disinfectant cloths that he had pulled from his equipment as he stood guard. Pale skin showed dimly in the cave’s light after each stroke removed the blood. The scratches that abraded her legs stung as the cleanser swept over. Face and then neck, her lips tasting the potent antiseptic as it passed over them. Tearing off her shirt, she used the replacement given to her by Hector from his pack. She then rubbed her torn pants, trying to get the traces of red off. She put dirt on the stains that refused to relent; the dark navy color of the slacks helped hide the red. Hector kept close eye on her, perhaps counting the time that passed, and with each moment he seemed to believe more and more that she was indeed uninfected. Tossing the soiled shirt, leaving any apprehension behind, they began their final trek out.
The sunlight struck, drenching the two emerging forms from the cave. Hector came first, an escape from the underground—from Hades. Should he look back, and as Orpheus have his Eurydice lost to him forever? But unlike the poet of ancient lore, he repressed the urge to turn and make sure she was behind him. And thereby he avoided the fate of the tragic Greek hero, as Nyx emerged and stepped to his side.
Her hand enwrapped into his own. Her flesh was dirt-ridden, though her intentions were as pure as the silks spun by the black widow. It was neither passion nor electricity that ran between the two, but an indescribable union. Brother and sister, not in blood ancestry but of a common clan. A loose alliance between nomads, for she saw him.
He was not like the others, no matter how he tried to hide beneath the soldier’s uniform. He fought not for values of government and justice, but for the intrinsic calling of the hunt and honor. An animal hid under the guise of warrior. A hero emulated only in situation. It was his honor alone that allowed him to walk among men. He clung to it, for otherwise he would be no different than those he destroyed.
Chapter Eleven: Hector
Over one year previous: In the rocks above
Hector stood atop a rock pillar towering over the city of Kalambaka in Greece. He looked out over the mountains; the city nestled between the pillars granted a beauty that he had never seen before. Kicking a few pebbles off the side of the cliff, he watched their descent and, as the seconds passed, their disappearance from his gaze. In spite of its beauty, this land was also deadly. One wrong step would end in a crash three hundred meters below, following the pebbles’ path. He glanced upward, the sun warm on his face. The sky was clear and tranquil, such a stark contrast to how it will soon look, with flames and black smoke blotting out the sun. But for the moment, Hector felt at peace here, in this sacred place, despite his mission.
Behind him was the Meteora monastery, whose foundation clung to the pillar’s summit. He understood why the monastery had been built here, and why it was still inhabited. Being amongst the clouds, surrounded by an unearthly, almost divine, splendor was only part of it. The isolated and impenetrable fortress also served the purpose of protection, for his mission to acquire the monastery’s weakness proved almost fruitless.
Almost.
The towering location physically safeguarded the priests; however, its Achilles’ heel was the priests themselves. And so Hector successfully established a rapport with them, and even though he tried to prevent it, they grew on him as well. Strange, that they would be so welcoming of him, a representative of the very government they opposed. But as a sergeant he would put aside any concern, any hesitation. And in his next visit, being welcomed with open arms, he alongside his squadron would carry out their orders.
The Bavarian Coalition considered the monastery a threat to the one world government, and it was his duty to eliminate this threat. A threat, maybe, but not in any militaristic nature. Its people had no governing body, no weapons. Its threat stemmed from its independence. It did not need to depend upon a paternalistic government to direct them, to tell them what to do or how to live, or tax them in order to do it. Anarchy some would say, others would say true individualism and self sufficiency. The results to Hector however, were of beauty and serenity. In the town itself, the people. And at its apex, in the monasteries atop the pillars. But it did not matter what he believed, for the threat of this town was these ideas, their teachings of independence from the ever encompassing world government. Their opposition to be under its rule. This is what damned them.
And damned himself. Killing priests ... what else could the Bavarian Coalition ask of him? But he was a soldier, he had to follow orders. Conscience and second thoughts were a risk on the battlefield. Not only on, but off, for orders needed to be followed. The Coalition punished insubordination worse than any injury of battle. And so he complied, not for his own skin, but for his squadron.
The wind swelled against him, as if waves were crashing in succession upon his form. It threatened to pull him from the cliff, and bring him to his death as if his thoughts were known. A guardian of the monastery, the wind roared in hate of his presence. Yet the priest showed none of its abhorrence. Rather, he came in greeting. Older than Hector, cloaked in robes beneath robes. A sedate smile on his face as if he alone had wisdom, and certainty of his discernment. Did he know I was ordered to neutralize them, Hector thought. Probably.
The priest ushered him inside and away from the wind chill. Hector knew it could be a trap, but it was too good an opportunity for recon for him to pass up.
“I am Athanasios,” the priest said, offering Hector bread and tea as he sat opposite of him. “I am told you traveled a far way, I hope I can give you what you seek.”
“Priest, you cannot be that naive.”
A knowing smile crossed Athanasios’s lips as he sipped the tea and listened to Hector continue.
“You started something that you cannot control,” Hector said, “and if you let me I can help you and your people. Speak to the Uprising, renounce your ideas and give support to the World Government. This is the only way to prevent bloodshed.”
Or was it? He knew the Bavarian Coalition would silence this monastery, and that this was not a meeting for truce but one to do reconnaissance. Yet Hector had to try to talk sense into the priests.
“Our ideas? Though we would be honored to be the origin of such ideas of freedom, they have been always been present within the human spirit. And we did not start the Uprising.”
The priest refilled Hector’s cup, and then sat back with his hands relaxed around his own. He spoke in broken English, as he smiled with generosity towards one who should be his enemy. “Whatever the origins, it has brought a chasm between those who want freedom and those whose purpose is to rule. Though you should ask yourself if I were to denounce the Uprising ideology as you say, would it truly stop bloodshed? The Bavarian Coalition is only the start of a totalitarian new world order where people are subservient and peace is anything but synonymous with their goals.”
Athanasios accompanied Hector to the cliff’s edge to wish the soldier farewell. If only one soldier could impact what would happen, but he felt at a lost to do so.
“I understand why you are here,” the priest said. Hector tensed and grew silent. Was the welcoming a façade to make him too comfortable and then kill him? The priest must have saw these thoughts, for his smile grew at Hector’s misunderstanding.
“No, no. I meant why you are here. I know why you climb these cliffs.”
&
nbsp; “I have no time to philosophize. Neither should you. You do not understand,” Hector responded. He knew it was against orders, but he wanted to warn them. He knew he would be back in arms, yet caution slipped from his lips. He stopped mid-sentence, unable to compromise the mission.
“I understand,” Athanasios responded, “But you do not. No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.”
Hector stayed silent, torn between two worlds. One of duty, and one that did not want to be a part of manslaughter. “You do not need to walk it alone, priest,” he finally murmured, hoping the quizzical rhetoric would inspire Athanasios to act. “You should take refuge before you are stampeded upon.”
“We must walk the path ourselves,” Athanasios repeated, “And you will need to embrace it fully, no matter the price. It is a price that we priests are willing to pay. We will not run.”
The priest turned from Hector and looked out unto the town resting below the sheer vertical cliffs of the pillars. His smile never left, perhaps knowing that one day Hector would grasp his counsel, and the world would again be right.
But for now the cryptic words slipped past Hector, taken by the wind. He looked back one last time after he prepared the rock-climbing equipment for the repel down. Amongst the clouds, secluded and sacred, the monastery served for refuge from various enemies throughout its existence. He almost hoped that Athanasios would see past his lies and push him off the pillar and to Hades below. Instead the priest offered nonsensical advice, and Hector could offer nothing in return except the silent promise of a bloody return. A soldier, he repeated to himself, knowing that he would follow orders, go down and ready his squadron, and return to attack.
“Have you ever read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Hector?”
“Enlighten me, old man,” Hector said, hoping that the longer he delayed in his repel down that the more sense he could make of what the priest said.
When Athanasios spoke, his whole manner changed into one who delights in storytelling. His voice grew deeper as if Plato himself rose from the grave to tell this age old story through the priest. “Imagine a group of humans inside a cave. They were bound tightly, unable to move and facing the stone walls their entire life. They could not look away. All they could see were the shadows on the cave walls that were cast by the fire behind them. This was their reality, this was what they knew. Imagine if one became free, how he would see the true world. There would not even be words or thoughts to explain it.”
“This is how we are. We are in that cave still. Even science is restricted, for it is limited by humans themselves. Our senses. Our perception of time. Our ideas of reality itself. But what is really outside our own metaphorical cave walls?”
“Are we but brains in a vat or in a simulation? Are we insignificant beings or rather, in stark contrast, does our consciousness create reality? The only thing we are certain of is that one’s own consciousness exists. This is the singularity. Outside of that we are akin to Plato’s cave dwellers.”
Hector listened. He understood some of what the priest said. He knew that though the priest spoke of brains in a vat, neither a physical brain or vat was needed. It was just a spark of consciousness that emerged. Not even the universe or time was a necessity, only that one thought was needed for reality to come to be. Was this more likely than the normalized perception of the universe? Could we ever know for certain?
What would come when the thought ended, he wondered. Or was it not the ‘end’ that would come but rather the consciousness continued eternally in a constant loop. Had he walked this path before; will he again, fated for eternity to look out at this sky and ask these questions again and again. Life began to feel as if a book read many times, the words never changing and the characters locked into their path. Yet each time it was read, though the words remained the same, the journey was anew.
“Plato had also wrote of the Allegory of the Sun. To truly see our reality, we do not only need a sense, such as sight, and an object for the sense, such as the city below to see. We also need a third element. In the case of sight, we also need the sun. If not for the light all would just be black. Perhaps when you find your own sun, you will see truth.”
With that, Hector looked toward the actual sun. A glimmer caught his eyes from behind the clouds. The sight he saw signaled to him that the fight no longer remained in his hands. A jet roared above the pillars of sandstone and the positioning told him one thing. The Bavarian Coalition must have deemed his squadron useless against the remote monasteries, opting for the air force’s more direct and absolute attack. And considering the natural beauty of the rock pillars, skillfully carved over millions of years, Hector knew they would choose biological warfare over nuclear or conventional weapons. He turned to Athanasios, finally being able to return advice as he shouted above the wind’s screams: “Get indoors, seal off the monastery!”
His orders were to kill them, but in his perspective those orders derailed with the presence of air artillery. Hatred roused from the sight of the planes, for it meant that the Bavarian Coalition had deemed him—and his squadron—expendable. If he helped the priests survive, so be it; all he could hope was that this trivial act of decency be repaid with the safety of his squadron in the city below.
With Athanasios running inside the monastery, Hector secured his climbing equipment, ready to repel. He looked over the vertical drop. It truly was a sight worthy of the gods. The rock pillars rose in an unearthly splendor, as if Titans breaking away from the earth and reaching to the skies to pull Zeus from his throne and back to Tartaros. To Hector though, the pillars transformed from the majestic to a hindrance, serving only as a barrier between himself and his squadron.
It was a barrier, however, that he overcame. He jumped. Secured with rope, Hector repelled down the cliffs with the speed of a falcon hunting. Trying to make the most of each second, he risked everything. Falling seven meters, followed by tethering to a lower anchor and another fall, he repelled his way down the sheer drop. The sandstone crumbled with each downfall, threatening to spit out the climbing anchor and drop the soldier to his death.
He did not falter, he could not. His squad was at risk; he had to be there for them.
The aircraft swiveled in mid-air, realizing Hector’s assumption by dropping several bombs over the city. He used one hand to secure himself to the sandstone cliffs and one to go through his backpack, finding and subsequently fitting a supplied-air bio-filter respirator over his face. He began to sweat, making it difficult to seal the rubber mask; sweat from repelling down, he told himself, not from fear.
Flames did not come. Smog did. An expansive cloud of white flooded over the buildings of Kalambaka. It settled over the valley like a milky ocean with the rock pillars as islands above the sea, though soon even those islands would face the flood. He did not retreat back up the cliffs; he continued down. Loyalty to his squadron now served as his only authority.
In the fog below
Fog drifted in and out, causing moments of total blindness. Hector held his rifle ready, looking through the sight, using its thermal vision to track the surroundings. Below the rock pillar, he ventured forth into the biological mist and to the edge of the city where his unit’s base camp was established.
He saw no one. No bodies. No survivors. Hector continued to his squad’s encampment, counting on the chance that somehow they were prepared and had also seen the aircraft. Hector knew the reality of that happening was slim, despite his far-fetched hope. The jets used by the Bavarian Coalition were lined from the bottom with high-intensity light panels and low acoustic signatures proving them to be all but invisible from the ground.
The soldier’s camp showed no sign of life. It offered no hope that his squadron survived; yet, it also offered hope that they may not be dead yet. Hector rammed his fist into the tent’s pole; the metal bending at the force. Uselessness was not an emotion he was privy to; as a soldier he needed to fight, and in this smog he could do nothing.
He turned on the encampment’s radio to contact the Bavarian Coalition in order to find out if his soldiers were given the order to withdraw from the area. Hopefully, for again he knew the protocols of war better than what was stated on the operandi. If the command center gave fair warning, they could not attest for the success of their covert operation. A leak might occur.
“Come in, Soldier 70-98-7 here,” he said. “Secured frequency, code omega peregrine. Why were weapons deployed at this locale—our squadron was still on assignment.”
An answer did not come, at least not one to his question. A metallic voice responded through the speaker: “Report situation, 70-98-7.”
“I have my gas mask in use,” Hector answered. “I was not present during the initial assault. All seems abandoned—both by the civilians and my squad. No dead are accounted for.”
A pause of static followed, before the voice came again.
“DM Prion Bio-agent was dropped. Fatality rate should be immediate at one hundred percent. Make sure bio-filter is secure and do not take off your mask. Repeat: do not remove mask.”
If the fatality rate was as said, corpses should be lining the streets. Yet Hector was not about to remove his mask to test his assumption.
“Why was it discharged, the threat was null. The civilians were unarmed—my squad was present.” Anger broke in his voice, though he knew that he would receive an insufficient answer. Orders by way of orders; the radio controller would not have privilege to that information.
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