by David Beers
Maybe not, but too late now.
Jerry waited a few seconds before speaking again. She wants you to come back, in a way that I don’t think anyone else can.
Caesar spoke to her before he left, but not since. He couldn’t. She hadn’t cried when he left and they hadn’t mentioned the wound on her back or the fact that he might die. They had hugged and kissed and then Caesar left. Simple. Basic. He wanted to talk to her though, wanted to tell her...What? That he loved her? Was that what he was going to tell the woman he had ignored for the past six months? Did he?
I will right? Make it back?
Yeah. You will.
And you told her that? Caesar asked.
Yeah, I told her the same. I picked you because you will make it back. You’re the only one that can.
If I don’t...Caesar paused, thinking about what his next words would be. The chip in his head could have picked out a billion in an instant, but he wanted them to be the right words, the ones that he chose for very specific reasons. If I don’t come back, just tell her I’m glad I met her. Okay?
Jerry chuckled inside Caesar’s head. That’s one way to put it. You’re glad you met her. That’s what you want me to say?
Yeah. It encompasses a lot.
Jerry was quiet again, most likely understanding everything that came along with those few words. That meeting her killed his parents, his friend’s wife, and completely destroyed his life. That he was here now, about to go into a world completely blind and look for something that would most likely kill him, despite what Jerry said—and even so, he was glad she was in his life.
I’ll tell her.
If I don’t make it back, what happens to the rest of The Named? What happens to everyone else?
I’ll take care of them, Jerry said. But you’re going to make it back. In two days you’ll be back here with us.
And if I don’t, what happens? That’s what I’m asking.
Then I suppose The Named will end in a few years, Jerry said.
You won’t try to find another one of me? Caesar asked.
I don’t have the energy to. I found you and that’s what I set out to do. If we can’t succeed with you then we won’t succeed with anyone, at all. If you don’t come back, I’ll take care of the group, but when the last one dies, The Named dies.
That’s what Caesar thought the answer would be; he just wanted to hear it aloud. He wanted Jerry to say it. If you don’t succeed, that’s it. We’re done. He wanted the finality of this in his head, that Jerry wouldn’t try to go on, that no one else would try, that what The Genesis began breaking would shatter if he didn’t survive tomorrow.
So it’s pretty important that I make it, huh? He said, laughing from his brain to Jerry’s.
Not really. It’s been a lot of work meeting you. Might feel good to rest for a little while, Jerry quipped.
They waited for a few seconds with neither of them saying anything. It felt like sitting in the same room with someone, both of them silent, but more intimate, too. Like they both stared at each other in that room, neither looking away amid the silence.
Thanks, Jerry said. Thanks for what you’re going to do tomorrow. Humanity doesn’t know it, no one does, but the entire human race owes you thanks. No one else has ever attempted anything like this; you’re the only one. But, I’m not just thanking you for what you’re doing for them. Thanks for what you’ve done for me too, Caesar. You’ve given my life purpose again. You’ve given me something that was missing for nine hundred or more years. You’re going to make it tomorrow, and I’m going to die happy because of you. So thank you for that, too.
Caesar thought the words might be lies even if Jerry didn’t know that they were. He would try tomorrow, would kill everything that got in his way, but he might die. According to Grace, he probably would, so Jerry might be wrong. Still, the old man sounded like he believed it. It didn’t sound like this was just a pep talk for Caesar’s sake. The old man was actually thanking him, not quite tearing up on the other side of the conversation, but close.
Get some sleep, Jerry said. We’ll talk tomorrow night.
* * *
Wires lined every wall in the building, crisscrossing each other in a web that left virtually no space for even air to travel through. Wires, in fact, lined every wall in the city, allowing for information to travel from building to building. It obviously wasn’t the only method of communication available to the entities inside the city, but it was probably the oldest, and also allowed for other things to take place when needed.
Such as now.
No one could see the wires, of course, but a living organism was growing on them. Tiny red dots, barely the size of a pen tip, began sprouting from the wires, coalescing on the copper. Leon would have recognized them instantly as what he saw floating through the air at the compound. Small dots at first, tiny ones, in sporadic places, but the speed picked up as the message came down. The dots practically took over, covering the copper, tiny living organisms growing like moss in between the walls. Those tiny dots were alive, entities the same as any other application, but with one purpose. Self-destruction. When they were told, or decided, it was the right time to die, fire would erupt from each one of the million organisms—so many that the tiny eruptions would feel as if one large detonation had occurred. Fire would engulf the entirety of the room and the floors above and below it as well. Fire would burst out from the descending escalators and streak long into the sky. If the organisms self-destructed, with the millions already growing, no one in the room would have chance of surviving.
Just precautions, though. That wasn’t anyone’s goal in this endeavor. The Genesis hadn’t gotten this far, however, without being prepared for all possible eventualities.
The interior of the walls, that which humans could see, looked normal enough, but of course they weren’t. Blankets lined the entire interior of the room, from the center of the floor to the center of the ceiling. Blankets that would coalesce onto any figure they needed to, all at once.
Other applications were coming now too, ones that not even the first iteration knew about. Some walked through the front door of the building and others floated in through the open windows. Leon might have described The Genesis’ approach as overkill. All the applications were deadly, capable of killing hundreds in seconds. Most were also capable of detaining, but The Genesis wanted a few around that only knew to kill. Just in case. Success was paramount tomorrow, and it knew that. It knew the importance of instilling compromise.
More would continue arriving. Enough so that even if the theory brought an army with him, none would escape. No chances could be taken tomorrow; things must go exactly as planned. Compromise must be had. It must be instilled.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Caesar looked at the entrance. Grace remained silent next to him, hovering around his ear. He knew she was frightened, knew she didn’t want to be here and didn’t want him to be here. Still, she hadn’t left.
The building contained three separate rooms, each inside and slightly lower than the one before it, like a Russian doll that fits inside one another. He would have to get through the outer two rings to enter the final room, where The Tourist should be. He laid everything out in his head the same as a blueprint on paper. He had thirty seconds and he would need to begin his move.
Thanks, he said to Grace.
You’re welcome, she answered.
Caesar stepped forward, walking to the glass door in front of him. He waited for Grace to say something else, to ask him one more time to stop, but she didn’t. She said nothing, and then the glass door was opening, lowering into the ground so that he could step forward into the outer ring of the apartment.
A human stood at the counter, just as he should have been. A young guy, probably just starting out in his assignment—hospitality, Caesar imagined. Caesar walked to the counter, quickly, not flashing his eyes to the left or right though he knew the applications waited there.
“I’m sorry, sir. This
is a private building.”
“Is it?” Caesar asked. He saw the man’s eyes waver, looking to his left first, seeing what was happening with the applications. This hadn’t happened to the kid before, and he didn’t know what to do or say. Everyone knew this building was for private use; no one came in here for any reason. But here this man was, asking something that he shouldn’t have been asking, in a place that he shouldn’t have been, and what the hell was the kid supposed to do? No one trained him for this.
Caesar saw it all in the kid’s face, watched as the temperature in his skin rose a few degrees from the blood speeding to it. Everything was as it should be.
He felt the application reaching for him perhaps a second before it grabbed him.
Caesar moved. He lunged up and over the counter with one pump of his leg, the invisible clamp trying to come down on his arm missing by an inch, and then he was standing behind the kid. Both applications were invisible, and if they hadn’t just moved directly in front of the kid as Caesar predicted, it might be over. He planned on them being there but he still couldn’t see them. They had to be there at this exact moment or he had no chance of ever seeing them.
Caesar pulled the knife from his pants lining, a small thing, but sharp. He held the blade in between his thumb and finger, moving with a speed that was hard for the human eye to keep up with. One moment his hand was empty and the next it held the weapon. He flashed his fingers forward, the chip in his head calculating everything as he moved, knowing exactly where and exactly how.
The knife cut an inch into the kid’s neck, going straight through his flesh, digging deep into the meat but missing any chance of bone or spinal cord, not wanting to stop moving. The knife exited the front of his neck, having sliced an inch deep from the very back to the very front, and with the final flick of Caesar’s wrist, the blood sprayed out in front of the dying kid. Caesar saw the kid’s knees beginning to buckle, so grabbed his hair to keep him from falling.
The blood did exactly as Caesar planned.
It sprayed out like water in front of a fan, dousing the two applications in front of the counter, showing them for the first time. Both stood seven feet tall, the clamps that had been about to lock down on Caesar’s wrists actually something closer to a tentacle. Neither one contained a head or legs, but were floating globes that resembled squids, except possessing no eyes. A torso with those tentacles coming off of them, tentacles that were meant to grab and trap, not to release until given permission. Before he had seen through them; now they were the color of blood, with more of each one being revealed every second as the arteries in the bellhop’s neck sprayed out their contents into the small foyer.
Caesar grabbed the top of the boy’s hair and jumped again, lifting both himself and the bleeding kid on top of the counter, continuing the spray, trying to douse the things in front of him as much as he could. But the applications were moving now, having recognized what was happening. They were moving in tandem spreading to opposite sides of the room, trying to make him choose which one he would attack. Already other applications were being alerted, Caesar knew that. Seconds, that’s all he had. Seconds to finish off these blood coated creatures.
He released the boy who immediately collapsed onto the counter, blood now only trickling from his neck.
Leaping straight out, Caesar stretched his arms to either side, grabbing onto one tentacle of each, and either by plan or reaction, the tentacle wrapped itself around Caesar’s wrist, locking both of the applications to him.
He pulled.
He felt the strength of the applications, felt their fear too, felt it pulsing from those tentacles into his own body.
No, please don’t!
The applications shouted the exact same phrase at him at the exact same time, communicating in maybe the only way they could, directly into his mind. They were strong, but not comparable, not to what his own body had become.
He looked through the clear glass door in front of him. No one should have been there. The building was too low underground, too far off limits for someone to have shown up. Especially a dead person. Cato was there though, looking at him. His eyes were the white snow of The Genesis. He stood solid; his body not melting off piece by piece. Caesar looked at his dead brother while his hands gripped applications that must have been similar to the ones that walked him into Cato’s execution. The boy’s blood dripped from Caesar’s wrists as the tentacles spread the wealth from themselves to him. They were begging, the applications, knowing almost intuitively that they couldn’t overcome what was before them, couldn’t stop it. They had never known fear like this before, the fear of dying, the fear of no longer existing. Caesar realized for the first time, holding those two creatures, that they didn’t understand mortality until this moment. That none of them, save maybe Grace, understood such a concept. They were gods, supposed to live forever, and for the first time they realized they wouldn’t.
The words they communicated with turned into panicked shrieks as they realized they couldn’t pull away. They couldn’t break the man’s grip.
Caesar kept watching Cato. His brother didn’t move and Caesar’s hands didn’t weaken their grip. Cato’s eyes weren’t vibrating with rage like they had before. They were calm. Just watching. His entire face taking in what Caesar was doing.
The applications’ fear grew so that begging was impossible. Pure, insane, panic controlled them. Had they known that feelings like this were possible? Had they known it from the other humans they walked to their graves, or their vats. Had they even cared?
No. They hadn’t cared until this moment. Until Caesar had them locked in his hands and death was imminent.
The chip activated.
Currents flowed from Caesar’s brain, electrical currents that should have killed him but instead channeled through the metal muscles that moved him. The currents flowed to his hands and then into the creatures he held. Creatures that he didn’t understand, that he didn’t want to understand. Creatures that had walked any number of people to their deaths but now stood shrieking and crying to be spared.
Caesar felt the moment that they knew there was no escape. Felt the fear sink into him the same as it did them, knowing that death had arrived and what a peculiar fucking thing that was. Death, for gods.
The two blood coated applications dropped to the floor, Caesar still holding onto the tentacles.
He blinked and Cato was no longer there. Only a glass door with blood spattered across it. Other applications were coming now; he had to move.
* * *
He went down the escalator like a ghost, barely touching the stairs as he threw himself across them five and six at a time.
Caesar reached the second ring of the building. One away from The Tourist.
But he knew immediately, without any doubt, that he would never get to The Tourist the moment his foot came off the escalator, the moment he touched the floor of the second room. It was supposed to be empty. No one was supposed to be here. Not at this time, not on this day. And yet, his eyes didn’t deceive him. Something was here with him, something that showed The Genesis knew—it knew he was coming and the thing before him waited. Waited for him to make it past the first ring and into the second, waited for other applications to come and block his exit.
Caesar was trapped. He turned his head and looked back up the escalator. It would take him seven seconds to reach the top, another four to make it across the lobby, and maybe ten more to get out of this vicinity. That wasn’t enough time. They would fall on him, the coming applications, before he ever had a chance. The only way out was forward. The only way to survive was to try to get to the inner ring and take The Tourist. He couldn’t go back.
Caesar’s father sat in front of him.
The second room was circular, with a hallway going to Caesar’s right and left, and the door to the third and final room sitting directly in front of the escalators. All he had to do was cross ten feet and open the door. Except his father, Sam Wells, sat in front of
it, on a chair with one leg crossed over the other. His father that was as dead as Cato had been upstairs, but Caesar wasn’t having a vision now. This thing was real. This thing, if Caesar was to walk up to it and place a hand on its arm, wouldn’t disappear. Its eyes weren’t black with streaks of white running down then. Its eyes were the exact color that Caesar’s father’s had been in real life.
Real life.
“That’s not him,” Grace said. “You’ve got to go. Forward or backward but you can’t wait here any longer.”
He’d been staring at this thing for a few seconds, wasting seconds that he didn’t have, that couldn’t be wasted.
“Hey, Caesar,” his Dad said from his chair, looking at him with the same face he had used countless times when Caesar arrived at the old apartment. Looking at him as if he wasn’t dead. As if he hadn’t been fed to children. As if he was real and this was real and Caesar and he were goddamn kin.
Caesar went forward and grabbed the thing by its neck, lifting it into the air from the chair, bringing it to eye level. His father’s eye bulged immediately, his face cringing at the assault, as if it hadn’t known what would happen, as if it was completely shocked at his son’s reaction.
“What are you doing?” Sam’s voice croaked out.
His grip loosened just a bit, hearing his father’s voice question him, wondering why his son was strangling him.
“End him,” Grace said. “Now, or we die.”
“No,” Sam said, his voice barely above a whisper, unable to get air into his lungs.
It wasn’t his father. Not in the slightest. It shouldn’t have been here at all. His father was dead and this thing was here to do exactly what it was doing, to slow him down if only for a moment. To leech that much more time away from him and his goal. The eyes wide in shock in front of him weren’t his Dad’s, weren’t anything close to his father. It was another application, a trick, a goddamn play on his emotions to keep him out. To keep him away for just a few more seconds.