by Jerry Hart
Sons of Chaos
Jerry Hart
Published by J.W. Star Publications at Smashwords.com
Copyright © 2012 by Jerry Hart
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Cover artwork: Wil Whalen
Smashwords Edition: February 2014
Part 1: Brothers of Chaos
Prologue. Beyond Suspicion
Armenus knew he was being followed and hoped to lose the nosy assistant as he raced down the dimly lit hall. He was almost certain he was being spied on, but he couldn’t prove it yet. He wondered if his father knew what he was up to.
If his father did indeed know, things were about to become a lot more complicated. Armenus’s project wasn’t yet complete—it needed only a few adjustments—and the only place to finish those adjustments was here on the research vessel. The tools and test specimens were all here. He couldn’t afford to be captured at this stage.
“How are things, Armenus?” a voice asked.
Armenus spun around and saw that ugly human Calvin (or was it his twin brother Claude?) staring at him with a big dumb grin on his tanned and leathery face.
“Fine,” Armenus replied, anxious to get back to his lab. The two of them were standing just beside the stairwell that spiraled up to the labs along the inner walls of the spherical ship.
“Sorry to bother you,” Calvin or Claude said in his rather acceptable imitation of Armenus’s language, “but I was wondering if I could ask you a question about the specimens.”
Armenus glanced up to his lab slightly to the right, far above them. “What about them?”
“Well, Claude and I have noticed you’ve been requesting quite a few of them lately.”
“And?” So, this was Calvin.
“And, we can’t find any records of the research you’ve been doing. Why is that?”
Armenus sighed heavily. “Those records are classified.”
“But why are they classified?” Calvin asked, losing any civil tone he once had.
Other scientists walked past them, silver-and-blue suits flashing from the fluorescent lights that lined the paths of the ship. No one was paying any attention to Armenus and Calvin’s conversation.
“If you must know,” Armenus hissed, “I’m fascinated by these creatures. We’ve been collecting them from other dimensions for years and I’m just very intrigued by them.”
“Is that all?” Calvin asked, raising an eyebrow.
Armenus gave a curt nod of his thin, sharp head. The contrast between the two couldn’t be more pronounced. Where Calvin was tanned and leathery, Armenus was pale, his skin so tight and thin it was practically translucent.
“Well, then, can you explain to me why we found the body of a class-four hound in the disposal unit with its head missing?” Calvin ran a hand over his short salt-and-pepper hair.
“I know nothing about that,” Armenus replied quickly. The hound, which had its head bitten off by a class-three parasite during one experiment, should have been incinerated days ago. Someone must have interfered with the disposal.
They were in a foreign dimension now, and Armenus had just come from exploring the land. The atmosphere was dangerous to them, so they had to don protective suits. Armenus wished he’d kept his helmet on; he could have slipped by, unnoticed.
“There are no secrets on this ship,” Calvin said. “Especially from your father.”
“Not everyone on this ship jumps when my father snaps his fingers.”
“He’s the captain!”
“And why is that?” Armenus yelled, catching the attention of a few passers-by. “This ship belongs to you and your friends. Why did you allow my father to take control? Is it because we outnumber your kind four-to-one? Are you afraid of us?”
Calvin stepped closer. Armenus smelled his tobacco-laced breath. “We didn’t let him ‘take over.’ We’re all working together, as equals, to find another home. Your father is an excellent leader, something you’ll never be because you’re too selfish.”
That hit a nerve in Armenus, but instead of lashing out physically, he simply said, “You’re just upset because you and your brother can’t find your way back to your home. You can travel to other dimensions, but not your own. You’re stuck with us. Face it, you had no choice but to make peace.”
Instead of backing away, Calvin merely grinned. “And you face this: Before we came along, your world was infested with leeches. If it weren’t for my race coming along and helping you out, you probably wouldn’t be here right now.”
“You call that helping out?” Armenus asked. “You incinerated my world with those scepters. You destroyed our homes, and our world is slowly dying because of your actions. And still there are leeches.”
That caught the human short. “But not nearly as many. Before, there were hundreds of thousands, but now there are only hundreds, maybe less. As far as I can tell, you’ve been experimenting on them as well. Why?”
“And where did you hear that? Your little spy? I know you’ve been having me followed by that little assistant of yours. I want it stopped immediately.”
Calvin laughed. “Sure thing. Just tell me what you’re doing behind closed doors.”
“You certainly are paranoid, though I guess, in the long run, this doesn’t stack up to your theory about how our life began. That one being created us, including the leeches.” Armenus chuckled. “The Beast with the Orange Eyes.”
“Not all life, and certainly not my life,” Calvin snapped. “However, I can say with certainty he considers you the failed prototype. He said so himself.”
“You’re a liar!” Armenus spat.
“What do you know? You’re just a kid.”
“I’m seventeen.”
“A kid,” Calvin said, as if his point had just been made.
“Seventeen in my world is not the same as in yours,” said Armenus. “You stated that yourself.”
“No, I said you aged differently than anyone I’ve ever seen. Why is that?”
Armenus spun on his heel and started up the path without another word. On the outside, he was calm and cool. On the inside, he was a bomb waiting to explode. How dare that hairy-headed beast refer to Armenus’s race as a “failed prototype.”
What a ridiculous theory.
As Armenus trudged to his lab, he wondered what he believed in. Who did create him? Deep down, he didn’t believe any one person created him. He believed life just evolved in his dimension. The fact there were other dimensions out there didn’t matter to him. He knew he was not a “failed prototype.”
As he sat down at his silver desk, he glanced around the green-lighted lab; the light helped him to think. He was surrounded by creatures from other worlds. They lay in their steel cages, and he looked at them as he crossed the lab to get to his safe. It was located in the wall next to a particularly vicious creature. It was a class-four hound, and it looked like a large brown-furred dog mixed with a saber-tooth tiger. The class system was based on which dimension each creature originated. The higher the class, the more dangerous the creature.
The creature’s mate, the one Calvin had just mentioned found in the incinerator, had been killed in an experiment not too long ago. Armenus nodded in its direction as he approached his safe. Inside was his prized experiment, one that would tilt the balance of power in his favor.
He opened the safe and reached in, making sure to be careful. The object
was durable, but unfinished, and he didn’t want to take any chances.
As he pulled it out, he marveled at its polished red-marble surface. He hadn’t removed his suit yet, but didn’t see the point in doing so now. His time on this ship was limited and he would soon have to leave. But that was okay with him.
The orb was almost finished.
He grabbed a silver bag from his desk and gathered some tools he would need to finish his weapon. He then went to one of the cages. Inside were eleven tiny dark creatures that looked like—according to Calvin and Claude—“hairless baby primates,” with bald round heads and glossy black skin. Armenus knew he had to take them with him; he needed their venom for his orb.
These baby leeches weren’t completely useless, and they would grow very quickly, developing long limbs and insatiable appetites for blood. Armenus would either set them free...or exterminate them. It would depend on his mood at the time.
On the other side of the room was a shiny blue tool cart. Armenus dragged it up to the cages and loaded everything in. Then he exited his office and walked down the rolling path to the ground level, which was above the hangar. In the hangar was the exploration pod that would act as his escape pod. If he could get there.
* * *
Bruce watched Armenus leave his lab and head down a hallway. The lowly assistant followed, determined to fulfill the task appointed to him by the twins. They had their suspicions about Demetrius’s son—that he was constructing a weapon—but they needed proof.
Bruce would provide the proof.
Armenus was walking quickly, pushing a blue tool cart in front of him. Bruce struggled to keep up without giving himself away. He was a portly fellow, and he cursed himself for not keeping in better shape. If Armenus got away, there was no telling what might happen. The twins’ theory about the captain’s son was disturbing.
That’s why he was given the task of finding out what Armenus had planned. It had been a great honor to be in charge of this, and Bruce vowed not to fail. He combed his fingers through his thinning gray hair, touching mostly his bald, sweaty scalp in the process.
As he sped down the path, he saw Armenus go through a door to his left. Bruce knew that door led to a bathroom. He followed quickly, trying to seem casual about it in case he ran into Armenus.
The moment he made it through the door, however, he was seized in a headlock and forced to the floor. His knees ached as they struck the ground.
“Why are you following me?” Armenus asked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bruce choked out.
“Don’t lie to me. I know you’ve been following me, you little monster. How much do they know?”
Bruce struggled to come up with an answer. He didn’t want to admit Armenus’s suspicions were correct—the whole operation would be blown. “I just came in to use the toilet.”
The pressure of the headlock ceased as Bruce was spun around to face Armenus. He could see own his frightened face reflected in the pale creature’s black eyes. Armenus placed his hands on either side of the spy’s face, and Bruce immediately felt an unbearable pressure building in his head.
And then he saw images in front of his eyes. They were his thoughts, his memories. Bruce tried to hide them away so Armenus couldn’t get to them, but it was no use. Bruce had heard rumors of this ability, but he’d never seen proof of its existence until now.
“They know everything,” Bruce heard Armenus whisper. “Everything.”
The pressure built even more in Bruce’s skull. The thoughts flashed faster in his mind’s eye. He could feel blood spill from his nostrils as the pain grew worse.
And then his head exploded.
* * *
Armenus’s fellow explorers were busy with numerous tasks to pay any attention to him. He hated them as much as he hated the twins. He hated them as much as he hated his own father.
Once he reached the hangar, which made up the bottom third of the spherical ship, Armenus looked down from the platform at the shiny black hangar floor. The round exploration pods lined the perimeter. All he had to do was pick one; they all looked and functioned the same, with their silver-blue metal surfaces.
“Stop him!” a voice shouted from above. Armenus looked up through the open canopy into the rest of the ship and saw Calvin and Claude pointing down at him. “Stop him before he escapes!”
It was Calvin who’d shouted.
Armenus pushed his tool cart down a ramp and ran toward the closest pod. After getting everything inside, he took control of the wheel and shot out of the ship like a bullet from a gun. There was slight wind resistance that caused the pod to wobble slightly, but before long he was far from his home away from home, far from his father and those insufferable twins.
But he had everything he needed to continue his work on the orb. As soon as he found a safe place to land, he would finish and then return to the ship to take control of the crew. He weapon would see to that.
Armenus attached his copper-visor helmet when he hit a great deal of resistance over the strange bright landscape consisting of giant mushrooms the size of trees. The sun had risen hours ago and cast everything in a bizarre red light. He pulled up on the controls to avoid hitting any of the mushroom-trees.
Something was happening to the pod. He hadn’t hit wind resistance after all; he had taken a hit from a projectile. He pressed a button on the control panel and three similar pods appeared on the view-screen in front of him.
He was being chased.
Another missile was deployed. It exploded right next to Armenus’s pod. There was no way he could take them all on by himself. He had to get out of there. Before he could even think of how to do that, something happened. A bright, warm light filled up the entire inside of the pod. Armenus squinted through his copper visor. He could only imagine what would have happened to his eyes had he not been wearing the helmet.
And then he found himself in blackness. He looked out the side port and saw what looked like Earth, only instead of blue water and green landscapes, he saw black water and gold landmasses. He looked down at this bizarre sight, noticing only the sound of the quiet pod engine could be heard, and shivered. He was traveling between dimensions now, and though he’d done it a few times before, he still hadn’t gotten used to this terrifying, beautiful sight where everything was black and gold.
A few tense moments passed and then the light returned. The pursuing pods had not. Armenus looked out through the windshield at his surroundings. There was orange light coming from the horizon—the sun was setting. Hadn’t it been early in the day when he left the ship? He wondered if he’d fallen unconscious for a while, but thought better of it.
Armenus was somewhere else. Another dimension. Of that he was certain.
He hadn’t been aware the pods had the ability to move through the dimensions the same way the main ship did. That was interesting. Only when he was sure he was no longer in danger of being apprehended did he remove his helmet. He then brought the pod up into the thick cloud cover, fearing someone or something on the ground would spot him.
Once he felt safe, he brought the pod to a halt and simply hovered among the pillowy clouds. It was time to check his inventory. The specimens he brought were all making nervous sounds in their cages. He tried to soothe them, but the creatures were not easily consolable.
Armenus sighed and focused now on his other project—the supplement.
The vapory substance floated inside a large round jar in one of the cart’s drawers. It was something that had not existed in nature before, and its applications would prove to be monumental...if he could get it to work properly. Armenus had created the supplement in order to make him stronger and smarter, just as he had created the orb in order to influence others to do his bidding.
He knew his people would never understand why he was doing this if they ever found out. According to Bruce’s thoughts, everyone had vague notions of Armenus’s plans but had no proof. They would think him a traitor to his peopl
e because of what he planned to do. Armenus considered himself anything but a traitor. His people were simply afraid of him because he was different.
Could he blame them for being afraid? Unfortunately, the answer was no.
After all, Bruce had just seen how deadly Armenus’s difference could be. But Armenus hadn’t meant to kill the poor assistant. He had only wanted to read his mind. And now he knew he could never return home. At least, not without the orb.
There were times he wished he weren’t a product of two worlds, two races. It was a miracle no one else knew of Armenus’s heritage. Only Father knew. Father! Chances were good Armenus would never see him again.
Not unless he could get the orb to function properly.
Armenus grabbed the jar from the cart and allowed the supplement to fill his head. There was an unpleasant freezing sensation in his brain, but it lasted only for a moment. And then he felt smarter and stronger. But it was too much, more than what he needed for now.
He grabbed a long, silver rod from a drawer and placed it to his forehead. Then he extracted a bit of the supplement and placed it back in the jar. Much better. Before, he’d felt jittery, as if he’d consumed too much caffeine (the awful stimulant Calvin and Claude had brought with them from their world). Now, though, he felt just right, and in the proper mind to tackle his task.
He looked at the orb again, wondering what was missing.
Suddenly, he realized something was wrong. Not with the orb—with himself.
He couldn’t remember how to activate the orb. How could that be?
Armenus looked back to the remaining supplement in the jar, and then extracted the half in his head. He replaced it with the jar-half then, and noticed right away something intriguing: He couldn’t remember what the orb’s purpose was.
He poured the extracted half of the supplement into another jar, and studied the half still inside his head. He sifted through its general structure, which was like connecting dots to form a picture. Somehow, when he’d extracted only half the supplement from the jar, he managed to divide the information it contained. After all, without this supplement, he wouldn’t have conceived of the orb in the first place.