by David Beers
He raised the piece to Pierre’s head, holding it there for a few seconds, and then he pulled down on the trigger.
Chapter Thirteen
The Life of Caesar Wells
By Leon Bastille
The only hope left for this whole enterprise is Jerry, I suppose. Well, not Jerry anymore, per se, but Jerry’s plan. I have to give that to him, it was genius. Almost on par with The Genesis. Almost. Indeed, if anything saves Caesar now, it’s Jerry’s plan. I didn’t know, not when it happened, none of us did. No one knew what Jerry really wanted when he went out there to that man, to Gary Pierre. We thought it was to retrieve information.
But that was only part of it.
The other part was to retrieve Caesar.
Or create Caesar.
I never thought he could do it; I never thought Caesar could kill someone. All those years we were friends, the thought never crossed my mind, and yet he went out there with Jerry and committed murder. That’s what Jerry wanted though. He wanted someone capable of killing at close range. I don’t know the truth about Caesar’s parents’ death. I know what Jerry told us and I know what The Eight believed. That it was all a mistake and that Caesar was supposed to be extracted before The Genesis could get ahold of him. But at the same time, I look at what Caesar did in that room, I think about what that blood must have felt like as it hit his own skin, warm and fresh, and I wonder if Jerry set it all up from the beginning. I wonder if Caesar’s parents died because Jerry needed Caesar to lose his heart, to lose his soul. I wonder if Jerry killed Caesar’s parents, not with his own hand, but with a long-tailed plan, so that when Caesar finally came to him, he would have no conscience.
The person that saved a little girl and put his own life up for ransom turned around less than a year later and murdered a mentally handicapped individual for a single piece of information. Over where an application resided.
I don’t know. I can’t know for certain, but I’ve always wondered. Jerry played the long game in this, just like The Genesis; he created a murderer, something none of the other Eight could be. None besides Jerry.
Jerry created Caesar. I do know that, if nothing else in this whole enterprise. The man I grew up with, the man who arrived in that compound is not the person whose name is known throughout the world. We weren’t told about Pierre at first; Caesar told me later, on his own. Imagine hearing something like that from your best friend—from your only friend. It wasn’t until I saw it myself that I truly believed it though, until I saw Caesar kill without remorse, without hesitation. I heard what Caesar told me and I heard what the rumors whispered about him, but until I saw it myself, I believed he was still the same person. I believed he was the man that laid down his own life for a girl he didn’t know.
I want to be very clear here: Caesar is not that man. Jerry created a different person, built him the same as The Genesis builds its applications. Are there pieces of Caesar still in there, pieces of the person I grew up with? I think so. Grace would say yes. But the pieces are rotting, even now. Every passing day they die off just a bit more, leaving us with what Jerry created instead of what his parents raised.
Am I still Caesar’s follower? Yes. I am. I don’t know what other choice I have at this point. I’ve come so far with him, what else am I supposed to do? Forsake him now? After everything I’ve supported? After everything I’ve seen? Everything he’s shown me? He’s not the person he once was, but he couldn’t have done the things needed if he hadn’t changed. It was necessary, if horrible. Gary Pierre is dead now, dead for a long time, but I’ve broken bread with Caesar a thousand times since then. I’ve shared wine and I’ve hugged him. So am I supposed to just cast him away now that I’m bringing these things to the light? Am I supposed to forsake him because the choices he made are the exact choices The Genesis has tried to eradicate? I’m not the smartest individual to ever live, but I traded on Caesar once and I won’t do it again. I’m going to follow him until this thing is over, and blessedly, that will be soon now. If I’m being honest, I’ll follow Caesar until he slits my throat.
I lost my friend at some point. I don’t know if it was then, when he killed Pierre. I don’t know if I lost him in the things he did later. But I lost him, and I lost him because Jerry needed a leader. Jerry needed someone that lacked humanity in order to save humanity.
Chapter Fourteen
Jerry sat under the tree, a block of cheese in his hand. He sliced off a piece and put it in his mouth.
Forests surrounded them in every direction. The temperature had to be in the eighties, even as the sun sank behind the horizon. Sleep would be tough tonight, if for nothing more than the humidity arising from the moist dirt.
“What happens when The Genesis finds out he’s missing?” Caesar asked. He sat with his back against the tree too, looking out into the forest, seeing nothing and everything at the same time. A mass of green but no details.
“I doubt anything. He knew too much. It won’t be able to tell exactly what we were after in killing him. Maybe it was simply another way to scare people, maybe he was the only person out on the streets, so we did it for that reason.”
Caesar remained quiet, still looking into the forest. “I’m going for a walk,” he said and stood up. He didn’t look back for Jerry’s approval, but walked away from the tree and into the green.
Branches and barbs reached out at him, scraping across his clothes, but he kept going. He wore different clothes than the ones he had in that room with the autistic. Gary Pierre. That had been his name. Had been. A body didn’t have a name did it? He didn’t think so. Once the life left the person, so did the name.
He walked away from Jerry because he wanted to think. Jerry hadn’t said anything about what he’d done. They left the body in the room, the knowledge of where they needed to go next firmly in their heads, and then left the city. They stopped to rest, or rather, Caesar needed to rest; Jerry didn’t. Jerry’s body would keep going as long as he wanted it to.
“What did I just do?” Caesar said.
“I don’t know,” Grace whispered back.
She sounded bewildered. She sounded lost. Caesar wanted to walk so he could talk to her, so that he could explain himself, not just to her, but to himself as well. And now, for the first time in his life, it sounded like she didn’t want to speak.
“What are you thinking?” He asked the computer floating somewhere near him.
“I’m wondering what you were thinking,” she said.
He knew what he had been thinking, knew it when it was happening and knew it now. He’d been thinking about his family. About Cato. About his Dad and his Mom.
“They were there,” he said, his voice low.
“Who?”
“My parents. My brother.”
Grace remained quiet for a few seconds. “There were only three people in that room, Caesar. Three people and me. No one else. You know that, right?” She spoke slowly, as if he might not understand what she was saying.
“Yeah. Even so, they were there. I brought them there.”
He remembered looking at Gary Pierre, understanding what Jerry wanted him to do. Jerry wanted him to pull the trigger on the little gun he held in his hand—painless, Jerry described it—and zap Pierre’s brain. Caesar held the weapon, but even at that point, didn’t think he would be able to do it. He had just told the man that he would go home. That all he had to do was tell Caesar what he wanted to know and Caesar would free him.
He had just finished torturing Pierre, not physically, but psychologically for sure. Now, he was going to murder him? Murder him after giving him hope of safety? Was that the person Caesar wanted to be? Did the ends justify the means here? Or was that Jerry only pushing him?
Caesar didn’t want to do it. Wasn’t going to do it, despite holding the weapon in his hand.
He brought Cato back from the dead then.
One second he saw only Pierre in front of him, and the next Cato stood next to the chair that held Gary captive. Not q
uite the melting, murdering Cato from Caesar’s dream, but closer to his brother—the way he had looked when he was alive, when he was happy. Almost. Cato wasn’t smiling and his eyes were completely black except for those white stripes that fell down them in an infinite drip.
“What do you mean you brought them there?” Grace asked.
“I saw them. Cato first. Then my parents behind him. They stared at me, not looking at Pierre at all. Just at me. Looking at me as if I could have helped them, but I didn’t. Looking at me as if I disappointed them.”
Had Cato not been enough? Is that why he brought his parents into the vision as well? Cato’s sadness, his death, that hadn’t been enough to push Cato over the edge—and he wanted to be pushed over. That’s what he knew now. He wanted to kill Pierre. He wanted payment for his family’s death. He needed the push though, needed to see his parents and his brother and needed to know that they blamed him. Because it was his fault. His fault, Gary Pierre’s fault, The Genesis’ fault, Jerry’s fault, Paige’s fault—all of their fault. Everyone’s fault except for his family. They did nothing, and yet they were the ones dead.
“I wanted to do it,” Caesar told her. “I wanted to hurt him.”
“Why?”
“It didn’t have anything to do with finding out that information. It didn’t have anything to do with finding that application. I wanted to hurt him because...”
But he trailed off. He didn’t want to say it out loud. He didn’t want to say it because it was sick. Because had his father heard him say these words, he wouldn’t have recognized his son.
“Because it felt good,” Grace finished.
And it did. Pulling that trigger felt like freedom, like everything that had built up inside him over the past six months was finally having a chance to release. A chance to get out. A chance to have its say. And what it wanted to say was that a little bit of pain for someone else was okay.
“What do you think Jerry feels about it?” He asked. He didn’t need to tell her she was right; Grace knew.
“I think he wanted you to kill that man. I think he’s going to want you to kill a lot of people, and I think that he needed to see you were capable of it.”
“I guess I showed him I was, huh?” Caesar shook his head. “I don’t know what to do.” His voice cracked on the last sentence, emotion finally boiling up.
“Quiet,” she said, her voice changing, no longer the detached disappointment. She sounded scared, alert, and the word made Caesar look up from his hands. “Run. Back to Jerry. Run now!”
* * *
He heard her words but knew immediately that he wasn’t moving fast enough, that he wasn’t going to be able to move fast enough. Caesar got to his feet, but even that felt slow given the urgency in Grace’s voice.
“Run, Caesar. Run now.”
She wasn’t shouting, but speaking with a dead calm, a certainty.
“What is it?” He said, still not moving.
“If you don’t go now, you’re going to die. Run goddamnit,” she said.
And Caesar started running, his legs pumping up and down like pistons, slamming into the ground and then right back up. The same barbs now scraping across his face and arms, because he took no care to move them out of the way. He heard it. Whatever it was, whatever Grace sensed, behind him, moving now, through the branches the same as him, but faster, so much faster. He wasn’t going to make it, wasn’t going to get to Jerry in time. Whatever was in here, after him, it would catch him and kill him.
“Scream!” Grace shouted. “Scream for Jerry!”
Caesar started shouting.
Running and shouting, knowing that he wouldn’t make it, that he was dead.
Chapter Fifteen
“Why do you think Jerry’s right?” Manny asked.
“He hasn’t been wrong yet,” Paige answered. “Why is this the first time you don’t think he’s right?”
Manny shook his head. “Caesar’s going to make the transformation? That’s what you’re telling me? He’s going to do what Jerry did? Because we both know there’s no other way for him to go against The Genesis. He has to become Jerry and I don’t see it in him. He doesn’t have what it takes.”
Manny’s thoughts had crystallized over the past couple of days. Before, he hadn’t been sure, but now he was. He went back over everything he knew again and again, thinking through each interaction he had with Caesar, trying his best to understand the man that Jerry brought in, to look at him objectively. And, objectively, there wasn’t a chance in hell he could do it. Jerry was wrong. Jerry was endangering the whole operation, not just himself. He was risking The Eight; he was risking Brandi; he was risking Dustin. Risking everyone in this compound by trusting in Caesar, by thinking he was the one they searched for.
“Oh yeah?” Paige asked. “You talked to him about it, did you?”
“There’s a reason Jerry hasn’t mentioned it to him either. He offered it to me much quicker than six months into my time here. Why hasn’t he done the same for Caesar?”
The two of them sat outside, two chairs under an umbrella. The sun was setting in front of them and Manny held a beer in his lap. He didn’t drink Jerry’s brew often, but he did this evening because he was happy. Because he knew the truth now, even if no one else knew it. Even if Jerry didn’t know it and Paige didn’t know it and everyone else in the compound didn’t know it. He knew it. And he was going to prove it to them all as soon as Jerry got back.
“I don’t know. Maybe he asked you so quickly because he knew what the answer would be. Maybe he’s waiting on Caesar because the answer will be different, and he knows that too.”
“The answer won’t be different, Paige. When they get back, I’m telling Jerry he has to ask. We can’t wait anymore. Every moment Jerry prances around with that guy, he puts us all in danger. That’s what you’re not getting. If Jerry dies because he thinks this guy is the one he wants, then we’re all going to die. Then this whole movement is going to stop. Then eventually, my wife and kid are going to be hunted down by The Genesis. I’m not going to let that happen, Paige.”
“Are you drunk?” She asked, sitting in her chair, her eyes looking down to his beer.
He asked her out here, to tell her this, to tell her what he was going to do when Jerry got back. If Jerry got back. He was going to tell the rest too. This wasn’t something to hide, wasn’t something to keep from everyone. They had all been blinded by Jerry’s fanaticism, by his belief in Caesar, and someone needed to turn the tide. Someone needed to bring them back to reality. Caesar was smart, but that was all, nothing else. Nothing special. Nothing that would take down The Genesis.
“No,” he said, smiling. “You can’t tell me one reason why Caesar is who Jerry says he is. Not a single one. You believe because Jerry believes, and that’s not enough. Not with what’s at stake.”
“So you’re going to tell Jerry what to do? That’s your plan?”
“I didn’t realize Jerry was a God. First among equals, maybe, but not a dictator.”
“Good luck with that,” Paige said. “I’m sure that will go over great with everyone involved.”
“And if I’m right, Paige? If Caesar refuses to make the transformation, then what? What do we do next? We don’t even have a plan because Jerry put everything into him.”
“I don’t think he’ll refuse.”
Manny heard the door open behind them. He turned his head, looking to see who was coming out. He hoped another member of The Eight, because it was time for them to start hearing this.
Leon stood at the door, letting it close behind him.
Manny turned back around, ignoring the fact that he even saw Caesar’s friend. He was the second worst part about all of this. Someone too dumb to get here on his own, but that wasn’t really the point; it was that he loved The Genesis, that he wasn’t any different than all those people in the cities. He was only here because of Caesar, the false prophet, and now they were stuck with his sidekick. Manny didn’t want to hu
rt him, nothing that drastic, but damn it, why did he have to be here? It was a constant reminder of Jerry’s fault, constantly showing how bad he had fucked up.
“Hey, Leon,” Paige said.
Leon didn’t respond, but walked the few feet to them. He stood above Manny, looking down.
“What?” Manny said and took a sip of his beer.
“What are you talking about? What about Caesar?”
Manny finally looked up at him. “You don’t believe he is what Jerry says he is either, do you? You’ve known him your whole life, and you know it’s not true, that he’s not bringing The Genesis down. That’s why you told your wife; you knew all those thoughts he had were crazy, huh?”
Leon didn’t say anything for a second, just stared, his eyes narrowing.
“If I hear you talking about him again, to Paige or anyone else, I’ll kill you,” Leon said, finally. “I don’t care if I die after, understand that. I’ll kill you and then I’ll take whatever happens to me. Don’t mention him again, not where I can fucking hear it.”
Manny stared at him for a few more seconds, the sun partly shining into his eyes, hiding Leon’s features partially. He finally looked away and stared off into the distance. He didn’t say anything else, just looked at the sun setting. Eventually Leon walked off and eventually Paige did too. Manny sat thinking about what Leon told him. I’ll kill you.
Maybe he would. And, if so, was another risk that needed to be dealt with.
* * *
That motherfucker.
Leon wanted to kill him right now. To go back up to the ground level of the compound, walk outside, and strangle the prick right there on his lawn chair. He hadn’t said April’s name, and that might be the only reason Leon hadn’t ended him. He mentioned her, but not her name. Had he changed the wording just a bit, to that’s why you told April, then Manny would be dead now. Sitting on that chair still, his eyes bulging from his face and blue veins pushing against the flesh on his forehead.
Leon heard their entire conversation. Paige and Manny going back and forth, both trying to decide Caesar’s future, both talking like he didn’t have a choice in the whole affair. Manny was going to...what? Try to turn everyone here against Caesar before he returned? That’s what it sounded like. The man harbored his doubts, Leon knew it, but they had seemed like healthy doubts. A week without Jerry, without Caesar, and the healthy doubts had diseased, turned into something that could injure, could maim. Manny wanted Caesar’s return to involve him walking into a snake pit, everyone primed and ready to strike at him.