by A. J. Roe
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Of course, the traitor didn’t tell you, did she?”
“Yuriko,” he called back and Hinata dragged her forwards. The moment they were side by side the horrible truth punched Rick in the gut, so hard could barely breathe.
Sota turned to face her. “Care to introduce your boyfriend to your brother?”
“He’s your brother!”
“I’m sorry,” Yuriko mouthed silently and clenched her eyes shut as if physically pained by her own deceit.
The gangster grinned, enjoying the moment, then his face dropped to stone-cold seriousness. “Enji. Bring me the relic.”
The gangly guy with a thin goatee on Rick's right, pulled him to his feet and patted him down, quickly locating the blade tucked into his waistband. He walked over and handed it to his boss with both palms flat and a bow of his head.
Sota studied the relic, first pulling off his leather gloves and running his finger over the ridges. “Beautiful,” he muttered, then spun the dagger and gripped the handle, pausing, as though he expected something to happen.
From the moment Rick had first seen the burning focus in Sota’s eyes back in Japan, he had suspected that he somehow knew about Thyos. It was the only reason he could be so utterly committed to its retrieval. But how?
With a chuckle, Sota shook his head. “Now,” he said, turning his glare back to Rick. “My men are desperate to avenge their fallen brothers and the only thing holding them back from shredding you to pieces is me. You have a choice here, you can tell me everything I want to know right now or I'll let my boys have their fun. Do we have a deal?”
“Go to hell.”
“I was kind of hoping you might say something like that. Alright then, let’s see if a little pain might help give you some perspective.”
Sota dropped the relic in the snow at his side, pulled off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his grey silk shirt, apparently not giving a second thought to the below-freezing temperatures. He unclipped the sheath of his Wakizashi and raised the scabbard horizontally in his left hand.
“Our father may have been an evil old bastard,” Sota said and glanced towards his sister, “but he taught me well. Only a coward faces an unarmed man.” He kicked the relic across the snow and it landed a foot in front of Rick.
“Pick it up.”
40
Rick’s chances of leaving the mountain alive had always been slim. Now they were near invisible. But unless he somehow found his way inside the caverns within the next few minutes, everyone he cared for, and millions more, would be facing far worse odds. There was only one thing standing in his way, Sota.
Keeping his eyes up, Rick reached out his palm for the relic. Ten feet across the plateau, Sota drew his blade with an audible metallic swish as though its incredible sharpness had cleaved through the air itself. The gangster stepped forwards, steady as a rock, and raised his sword directly before his eyes. How the hell did it come to this?
Rick rose to his feet and took a shaky step, trying to suppress his trembling hands and knees as best he could. They stood just eight feet apart. Unlike the Samurai movies, there was no ritual of honour, no final utterance, that he had hoped might grant him another few seconds of life. The two men locked eyes.
“Thyos, how long have you got left?” Rick said under his breath.
“Less than fourteen minutes.” He took a deep breath, hoping she was going to give him something, anything he could use to his advantage. “Sota is a far superior swordsman. You must be aggressive if you hope to prosper.”
“Thanks for stating the fucking obvious,” he hissed. “What should I do?”
“Attack fast and hard. Your commitment may be enough to take him off guard.” This didn’t seem very likely when Sota had experience, skill, strength, speed, reach, force, and if all that wasn’t enough, he had the backup of four killers armed with automatic weapons in his corner.
Instead of allowing his panic to spiral, Rick pulled a happy thought from the recesses of his mind, one that he had all but forgotten until now. He was playing with his daughter in those early days before he ruined everything. The pair of them were both in hysterics as he chased her around the garden under the warm summer sun. A world away from the icy cold and threatening silence of the mountaintop around him.
The wind sighed. In the moment of peace, Rick exploded. He covered the eight feet in half a second, raising the relic in his right arm and tearing it downwards at a forty-five-degree angle slash towards Sota’s neck.
For an experienced swordsman, the wild lunge could be seen coming a mile off. Sota swivelled sideways and the attack sailed well clear. Rick swung again in the opposite direction and his enemy stepped back, twisting his upper body in response, not even bothering to dignify the attack with a counter.
“Left hand punch,” Thyos ordered. Rick lunged and miraculously his knuckles clipped Sota’s jaw. The strike was hardly clean but if it hurt the gangster’s face anywhere near as much as it did his own hand, Rick was pleased.
“Knee to the groin.” Rick threw his right leg up with full force. Sota had already recovered from the surprise of the punch and swung his left forearm down, smashing into the cluster of nerves on top of Rick’s thigh. It was like being hit with a baseball bat, the explosion of pain turned his legs to jelly as he stumbled back out of range.
“Looks like you have a bit of fight in you after all.” The gangster gave him the slightest nod.
“Straight stab to the throat.” Without missing a beat, Rick lunged again. His right arm shot out at Sota’s windpipe, hoping to open his throat to the elements, but missed. “Again.”
Sota slid forwards behind the blade until his chest was almost pressing against Rick’s back. He caught the attacking arm between his left forearm and bicep and threw his right shoulder against the back of the limb.
Rick jolted with agony as his elbow joint popped. The relic thudded down into the snow. Sensing a fraction of a second of distraction, he ignored the searing pain and spun, diving shoulder first at Sota’s midsection. The attack fell wide but he somehow ended up behind his enemy in the scuffle and managed to get an arm around his neck, tightening it as hard and fast as physically possible.
Before Rick had a moment to enjoy his success, he was flipped over Sota’s back and landed hard on the solid stone and ice, cushioned only by a couple of inches of snow.
The impact forced all of the air from Rick’s lungs and left him gasping for breath. Almost instantly, a vicious rain of stamps torrented down on his face and chest. The first hard, rubber heel broke his nose, the bone crunched and slid out of place. A second kick thundered into his temple, causing his vision to shake and his mind to do a full three-sixty before returning back to his head. The next kick buried Sota’s toes deep in Rick’s gut causing him to convulse and curl up into a ball.
When he was well and truly useless, the gangster plunged his own sword into the frozen ground, kicked Rick over so that he lay face up and pinned his torso to the ground with a foot on the chest.
Sota’s eyes were gleaming with a mixture of madness and pleasure, like a wolf that had cornered its prey and was ready to tear into it with razor-sharp teeth. He lifted the relic from the snow, ready to take Rick’s life with his own weapon—the ultimate insult.
In his peripheral vision Rick sensed movement. Yuriko spun free from her captor and broke into a sprint, he was thankful for her effort but knew deep down it would be too little, too late. Sota raised the relic up high with two hands, catching the glimmering rays of sunshine as he prepared for the kill. Rick closed his eyes and braced for death.
There was no grand light, no sense of warmth but, rather than fear, a wave of calm washed over him. His thoughts were solely on Ellie, his biggest regret was that he hadn’t been a better father to her.
In this final moment, he knew all the wealth or fame in the world meant nothing compared to the happiness that he’d once thrown to the wind. The only res
pite from the depth of his sheer, blinding despair, was that his own death meant he would never be able to let his child down again. Do it.
41
For the first moment of his life, Rick was truly awake. Every sound, smell and sight seemed amplified a hundred-fold. A rush of wind slapped his frozen face as the blade fell, the earth trembled by his side as Sota’s knees slammed into the ground. Then, nothing.
It took a moment for the realisation that he was still alive to sink in. Where was the agony? Where was the darkness?
“So it's true,” Sota’s voice whispered. The blade of the relic was suspended just an inch above Rick’s chest, as it expanded and contracted furiously with each sharp breath.
Sota’s eyes were wide but he gazed blankly off into the distance as though his mind and body were in disconnect. Rick knew the feeling, the moment he’d first heard Thyos in his head had made every other problem in the world feel like distant trivial bullshit.
Before Rick had a chance to react, Yuriko barrelled into her brother. Her legs hit his side and the pair of them crashed hard across the surface of ice, snow and rock.
With a smooth sideways roll, Sota was back standing in less than a second while the relic landed just five feet from Rick’s head. The swordsman pulled his own weapon from the snow and brandished the tip of the blade at Yuriko, still sprawled on the floor. “This is not your fight, Sister.”
Rick tried to shout but couldn’t breathe well enough to muster anything more than a whimper. Yuriko clambered back to her feet and stood before her brother, her whole body shaking.
“You made it my fight when you started killing my friends!” She screamed, trying to choke back tears of rage. “You have what you want don’t you? Just take the relic and leave.”
“You think this is what I want?” Sota swung his blade towards Rick as he spoke. “Whatever the machine has told you, it's all lies.”
Between the cold, the ringing in his ears and the throbbing, swellings that covered his face, Rick was having a hard time thinking straight. “I don’t understand.”
“Tell me,” Sota continued, “What did she say that convinced you to come all this way?”
With a cough, Rick cleared his throat of bloody phlegm. He snorted up the wad and spat it out on the ground, where a red hole immediately burned into the snow. “She said we were facing the end of days… an apocalypse.”
“You’ve got balls, I’ll give you that,” Sota said, “But brains, not so much.”
“What the hell do you mean?”
“I mean, you’ve been played. She’s given you nothing more than hollow words that have led you to do exactly as she desires.”
“But if Thyos is lying, then why bring us here?”
“The machine was created as a guide for humanity, a tool to help us build a better world. But knowing that if she ever achieved her goals it would mean her own demise, she instead spent centuries whispering into the ears of the corrupt, ensuring the downward spiral of the human race continued at all costs. Then when her time grew short, all she could do was hide, preserving power, until some fool came along that could be tricked into setting her free. That would be you.”
A moment of absolute silence filled the clearing. The look of desperation on Yuriko’s face had faded and confusion replaced it. Her trembling voice interrupted the calm. “How do you know all this?”
“There are many like our family. Generations of disciples that have dedicated their lives to ending her despicable reign, destroying the relics and subduing those she has manipulated into doing her bidding. We had been highly successful up until this point.”
“What?” Yuriko’s eyes almost popped out of her head. “What do you even know about our family? You nearly killed your own father and you left us years ago, remember?”
“It's true, I despised the old man. But why do you think he was so hard on me? I was being trained for this, to carry on his legacy. While you, his favourite, got to spend your days safe and warm locked in a library. What did you think all those countless hours learning ancient languages and reading about lost artefacts were for?”
There was a sorrow in Sota’s eyes, maybe he wasn’t the stone-cold killer Rick had been led to believe.
“You’re lying,” Yuriko said, her voice cracking. “He didn’t love me. I was alone almost my whole life.”
“You were being protected! Either way, the only thing that matters now is that our father was right.”
Sota sighed. “I’d just about managed to forget the shit that he fed me day-in-day-out about my duties. Then you called me up out of the blue asking me to get some mysterious item into the country. By the time I figured out what you had it was nearly too late.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” Tears were rolling down her cheeks, steaming in the cold. Her brother shook his head, the anger subsiding from his face.
“Would you have believed me?”
She thought about it for a second, her eyes twitching left and right as she ran the scenario through her mind. After a moment’s pause, Yuriko sighed. “No.”
“I took an oath to stop the relics falling into the hands of men like your friend; the weak and easily corrupted.” Sota glanced towards Rick. “It's why your boss had to die. Absolute secrecy must be maintained, the temptation of power is too great. It was all we could do to stop him from plastering news of the relic’s existence all over the internet. But now, the pair of you have done us a great service, you have led us directly to the machine and today I will end her stranglehold on our species once and for all.”
“That explains the explosives,” Rick murmured to himself. He could feel his face reddening, even beneath the cuts and bruises. Had Thyos really been using him like a puppet this whole time?
Yuriko rubbed the tears from her cheeks and snapped back in Japanese, a spurt of syllables that were too fast for Rick to even hear.
“You don’t need to believe me,” Sota replied in English, “Ask her yourself.”
42
Rick scrambled across the floor towards the relic and grasped the handle. Every inch of his being was in agony but the burning questions in his head far outweighed any physical pain. “Thyos. What the hell is he talking about? Have you been lying to us?”.
“It is compli-”
“-just tell me the fucking truth. We’re not really facing extinction, are we?”
“Oh undoubtedly you are. But whether the end comes a week or a century from now, we cannot know. Either way, they are all just a blink of an eye in the grand scheme of things. To answer your question, yes, I lied. You needed motivation and I gave it to you. Would you not have done the same if it was your life that hung in the balance?”
Rick’s blood boiled, he almost choked forcing his words through gritted teeth. “You tricked me into killing people. For all I know they could have been decent human beings that I murdered on your command because I believed you were trying to help us.”
“They were not good people, Rick. Besides, I have done nothing but act in your best interests. Where would you be without me? Dead in a ditch? Locked up in prison? If anything, I would expect gratitude. I have set you free, now all I ask is that you return the favour.”
“Gratitude? For what you’ve put us through?” His head was pounding, his chest tight. “You don’t have a clue about people do you? For all of your knowledge and vision you’re just a machine, aren't you? A soulless, oversized fucking calculator.”
“LISTEN,” Thyos boomed, her voice swelling to a deafening roar. “I have existed for millennia, I have seen endless generations of your species come and go, each one treating your world and everyone in it with more contempt than the last. It is not I that brought this suffering upon you.”
Rick ran one hand through his blood-clumped hair. “But it is you that could have ended it, isn’t it? Rather than do the one job you were made for, you decided to go rogue. That’s why you were powered down and why our world is so messed up now. Without your negative influence o
ver centuries, we could be living in a goddamn utopia.”
A second realisation hit him. “You were trying to get me away from Yuriko this whole time too, weren’t you? Ivan’s basement? The train? You knew if she ever talked to Sota your web of lies would unravel. You almost got me to kill her!”
“Rick, before you do or say something you will regret, I would like to remind you that it would be unwise for you to make an enemy of me.”
“Are you seriously trying to blackmail me?” He was somewhere between anger and disbelief.
“Of course not,” her voice returned to the gentle calm he was used to. “Just a word of advice from one friend to another.”
Rick sighed. Sota stood ten feet from him, sword still drawn and a gun holstered. There were more urgent issues than philosophical questions of right and wrong.
“So where do you suggest we go from here?” He whispered under his breath, turning to face the peak, well aware that every set of eyes on the plateau were upon him.
“We proceed with the plan. I will help you escape and in return, you will have everything you have ever desired. Wealth, fame, you will have your family back. With me by your side you can become more than you have ever dreamed of, a Messiah, a God among men.”
Rick glanced over his shoulder nervously, even though he knew no one else could hear Thyos’s words.
“Your world may be beyond saving but as they say, isn’t it better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven?”
Would it really be possible for him to walk away? Rick knew full well that without Thyos on his side he would die up here. Either from Sota’s sword or from exposure, he was beaten and broken, a hundred miles from the nearest town without food or water. There was only one way out. A literal deal with the devil.
Rick stared up at the blue sky, watching the tiny ice crystals flutter in the breeze around the peak. It was probably one of the only remaining places yet to be touched by man. He thought of every life that hung in the balance, the billions that suffered needlessly every day because of her actions, or more recently, lack thereof.