by David Beers
"Me? Nothing at all; I'm as happy as can be," he said. "I've learned to love a new son and will learn to love another one very soon. Jerry is in his rightful spot, and Caesar will be soon. What could possibly be wrong?"
Paige let out a sound, pain and anger mixed with a whimper.
Manny reached up with his right hand and rubbed the side of Paige's face, gently, like Caesar would in bed.
"What's going to hurt Caesar most, do you think, Paige?"
She felt the finger slide across her cheekbone.
"Hurting you or fucking you? Or both?"
Chapter Thirty-Two
Theo understood fairly quickly what he had done. He spent two days sitting in front of his apartment complex, handing out pill after pill, a line running down the street and around multiple blocks. Everyone wanted what he was giving away. An anti-virus? Yes, please. Inject me immediately. Theo was shocked, at first, how easily people took to it. How the patch on his chest and the message from The Genesis had people believing whatever he wanted them to. They didn't even ask questions. They just stood there and took the pill, most of the time right in front of him, not wanting to wait until they were out of sight. The quicker they had the anti-virus inside their body, the better.
Two days and he was finally out of pills, but by then, he thought he knew what he'd done.
He might have fed the entirety of his apartment building. Certainly a large percentage. There were others, of course, who came from around the city, but Theo fed a lot of the people he lived next to.
And that was a mistake. Not one that he could avoid, because Mock made the rules, but a mistake none-the-less. Because now he lived next to these people who took the 'anti-virus'. There was no 'anti-virus'; if Theo hadn't known that to begin with, he did now. Virus might have been the correct word. Virus might have been exactly what these people were putting inside themselves; how else did what happened next make any sense?
Mock made it clear that Theo didn't have a job anymore besides what Mock told him. So the day after the pills ran out and Mock hadn't contacted him, Theo was left with nothing to do. So he went down to the lobby, not wearing the uniform from yesterday, and not understanding that people had seen his face with such clarity the day before. The first representative of The Genesis in a thousand years, and he lived right next to them, so of course they noticed. It was stupid, on his part, to think that—to believe what happened yesterday wasn't going to directly affect him for the rest of his life.
"Do you have any more?" A woman asked him as he walked through the lobby.
"Excuse me?" Theo said, stopping, seeing the woman for the first time. He couldn't have recognized a single person from the hours of lines he slogged through during the past two days, so if this woman had been in it, he didn't know.
"More of the anti-virus? My son, he wasn't in line yesterday, but he needs some. Do you have it?"
"No, I'm sorry." Theo tried to walk around her, not sure where he was going but knowing that he didn't want to stand in front of this woman anymore. He didn't like the look on her face, the set of her jaw, the sternness across her brow. He hadn't seen that look before, not on anyone.
"What do you mean, no?" She asked, taking a step back and in front of him again, stopping him from leaving.
"That was the last of the supplies. I'm sure The Genesis is creating more."
"Last of the supplies?" The woman said, her eyebrows raising, but more a challenge than a question. "Bullshit."
She said it low and hard, so that no one else could hear besides Theo. She wanted him to understand that she wanted one of those pills and knew he had more. Understand that she knew he was lying to her.
"I'm sorry?" He said, his eyes darting around the room, trying to see if anyone else was looking at him.
And they were. Everyone. The entire lobby was staring, so even though the woman tried to be quiet, they all heard her because they weren't paying attention to anything else.
"Give me a pill. For my son. Now," the woman said, her voice rising, either forgetting or not caring about the other people in this room.
"I..."
Someone else took a step closer to the two of them. "If she gets another pill, I want one too."
They all came then, everyone moving closer, trying to get closer to Theo. He took a step back, frantically searching for a way out of this gathering crowd. He wouldn't be able to push forward, wouldn't be able to get out of the lobby, not unless he broke out in a sheer run but that might incite these people. Because they wanted what he didn't have.
"If her son gets one, so does my daughter," someone shouted from across the lobby.
Theo took another step back. Could he make it to his apartment? Would they follow him there? If they did, what would he do? Even the desk clerk was looking at him, not in wonder or fear, but anger, wanting what the rest of these people wanted.
"Theo! How are ya? Want to come in here for a second?"
Theo flashed around to the voice behind him. He never thought he would be so happy to see that machine, to see Mock standing in an office at the back of the lobby, beckoning for Theo to join it.
He didn't wait, didn't walk, didn't try to hold onto some semblance of control. He ran, as fast as he could, afraid that if he stayed around a second longer, the people in the room would rip him to shreds. Theo ran right past Mock, and listened as the door shut behind him. Not quickly, not like Theo had run, but confidently, as if nothing out there was worth Mock's attention.
"You're probably going to want to be more careful," Mock said.
Theo turned around, his eyes wide, his chest heaving up and down from the sprint. "What the fuck was that?"
"That was the anti-virus at work."
"They were going to kill me!"
Mock moved across the room. It wasn't large, but it was comfortable, an employee lounge apparently. Mock sat down on the couch, then laid out across it, propping its feet up on the armrest. "I imagine they would have. The pill you gave them is a strong one, at least as strong as the one you fed your workers."
"What the hell are you doing? What are you having me do?"
Mock didn't smile though its voice sounded like it wanted to. "Well, you did a good job yesterday, I'm not going to lie about that. You gave out nearly two thousand of those pills."
"AND WHAT DO THEY DO?" Theo shouted, losing his temper—realizing it might be a costly mistake but unable to stop it, uncaring even.
"They make humans what they were meant to be. They make you animals."
Theo walked over to the couch that Mock lay on, standing above it. "I need to know more."
Mock moved and Theo didn't have time to blink. He was against the wall with Mock's see-through hand across his throat. He couldn't breathe, couldn't see anything but the mechanizations moving inside Mock's head. Those eyes that weren't eyes, because they had no pupil, no iris, just the machine running everything beneath them. That's what this was, a machine, and nothing else, a machine that would kill him immediately, and he had come in demanding something of this machine, acting as if he controlled this machine because of...but he couldn't think of why he had done it, because for Theo, the room was going dark around him.
"You need what I give you and nothing else. I'll end you right here, right now, and then toss your body out into that lobby where those animals can rip you apart for not giving them more drugs. You understand?"
Theo tried to nod, but he didn't know how effective he was at it. He tried though, hoping that this machine would release him.
It did, and Theo collapsed to the floor, his throat flaring with pain, but desperately trying to suck air down it.
"Now, I need you to listen, Theo, and not walk around this lounge like you're owed something. Perhaps The Genesis respects your kind, or pities you—but I don't. I hate you. I hate all of you equally and the only reason I let you stay around a bit longer than your pals was that I hated you a bit less. Don't start making me hate you with the rest of them, because I'll go ahead and have
you walk off a building too." Mock laid back down on the couch, not looking at Theo collapsed on the floor across the room. "I have more for us to do. Let me know when you're ready to hear it."
It took a full minute before Theo had air back in his lungs. His throat was red and felt like fire grew up his trachea, but he could listen now. He could lie on this floor and listen to the goddamn devil on the couch. "I'm ready," Theo said.
"Good. Now those people out there, they got a bit angry at you, but you're not the only one they're going to get mad at. Let me see how I can explain this to you. Have you ever heard of a term called road-rage?"
Theo shook his head no before realizing that Mock wasn't looking at him, and then said softly, "No." He'd never heard of the term and couldn't care less about it, but if Mock was going to tell him, he better listen. He better shut up, lie on this floor and listen to whatever that thing said.
"I didn't think you would. Back when your kind ruled this place, you traveled in cars everywhere—I'm sure you know that. Well, for some reason that I can't begin to understand, you would fly around in these things at unsafe speeds, and then use a little contraption to speak with others while not paying attention to the road. Then, there would be accidents and other such things, and this term road-rage emerged into your vocabulary. You would become so angry at people for the way they drove that some of you would literally kill. Just get out in the middle of a road and blow someone's head off. Crazy."
Mock sighed, folding his hands over his chest.
"Anyway, that's kind of what we're doing here. We're creating road-rage, all the time. Maybe a bit worse, but the funny thing is, not that much worse. You humans are like rats, willing to eat your own kind. The Genesis spent a long time trying to change that, but for some reason, it's asking me to regress some of you, so that's what I'm going to do—give you a bit of your heritage back."
"I can't possibly help. There's too many people. I gave out two thousand in two days. There's a few million people in this city."
"You're right there, Theo. You can't help by doing what you did yesterday, but that's not what I want. That was just the beginning. I'm going to need you to lead these people. I'm going to need you to lead them against each other, to make sure that as many people die as possible, all of them at the hands of their neighbors. Got it?"
Chapter Thirty-Three
Leon walked, but not of his own accord. He walked because Manny demanded it. He walked because he had no other choice; if he had a choice, he would have chosen anything other than this.
He would die soon, without a doubt, and that had to be the point of this whole exercise. To kill him in one of the most cruel ways imaginable, exposure to the sun. Leon walked back across the desert, the same one he had just finished crossing a day ago. Going back out into it, except this time, naked. This time without a single bit of clothing to cover his skin, and while he was tan, it wouldn't stop the sun from destroying him.
There were different plans for Paige, apparently. She was wrapped in clothing and given water when Manny felt like she needed it. She drank when he wanted, walked when he wanted, everything as he wanted—just like Leon. They were both under his complete control, but Leon would die out here and Paige would make it across the desert. Leon had heard what Manny said to Paige back at the campfire, thinking that he was about to witness a rape, witness Manny throw himself on Paige, but Manny hadn't. He had sat down and stared into the fire, just like Leon and Paige, until the sun came up. Then they started this walk without speaking. Manny had Leon strip himself down, and now at noon, Leon just wanted to collapse. He wanted to lie down on the sand and let the hot granules burn his skin, hopefully killing him soon.
He would start blistering next. He understood that. And after? He would have a heat stroke. He wouldn't make it through one day, not like this.
Sometimes he walked in front of Manny and sometimes he walked behind him, just depending on the pace that Manny wanted to move him. Manny carried Jerry over his shoulder, his head still dangling from his neck, bouncing against Manny's back. When Leon walked behind him, he sometimes saw Jerry's face and other times just the back of his head. He watched Paige weep at the first sight of Jerry. Leon never wept but it saddened him, disgusted him, even. Jerry was a fucking asshole and had ruined Leon's life, but he deserved better than this. He deserved better than for some psycho to carry him across the desert, still alive but unable to function in the slightest.
The rest of The Named were behind them and they weren't following. They weren't coming after Leon and Paige because they all saw what happened last night. They had to. They all saw this hulking beast throw their leader—nearly decapitated—in front of a fire, and then sit all night, daring them to come. None came. None would. The group had been cowed, been subdued to the point where they only wanted to try living again. No more fighting. No more running. No more death. So if this person they used to know, Manny, wanted to take Jerry and the two of them, so be it.
Leon wondered where they were heading, where the two of them would end up? But that was wrong, because Leon knew where he would end up. Here, in this desert, his skin a blistering and pus filled mess. Paige? Where was she going? Caesar? Was he dead too? Was that what this meant, Manny showing up? Was Caesar no longer alive to protect them?
Leon walked, his bare feet rubbing against the sand, only allowed to think, because the rest of his body was owned by someone else.
* * *
Jerry was a heavy son of a bitch. Manny knew that probably would be the case, given that his body was mostly machine, but he hadn't imagined this heavy. He really wanted to drop him, to just set him down and continue on with these two, but no—this would be perfect or it wouldn’t be done at all.
Leon would end up near death when they finished this march. He would deliver Paige as close to perfect as he could. Manny wasn't quite sure what to do with Jerry yet. He was still alive; the chip in Manny's head registered Jerry's own. He might have some feeling, some brain activity, but Manny didn't know how much. He needed to figure out exactly what to do with all of them. He only knew that if he brought these three with him, Caesar would follow. Caesar would go anywhere for these three. So he was going to bring them back to civilization and then figure out the rest. Caesar would come for him and then...
Well, he knew his orders. He wasn't supposed to touch the man. But if he showed up at Manny's doorstep? What was he to do then? Turn the other cheek? No. No. No.
Manny smiled as the Nos ran through his head.
The Genesis could do what it wanted, but if—and when—Caesar showed up, Manny would do what he wanted.
But first he wanted to make the people Caesar cared for suffer. First these three, they were going to hurt a whole lot, and then when Caesar showed up, he would get to see the result of all his heroics. His parents? He wouldn't even remember them when Manny finished with these three. He would only know what Manny showed him, and Manny planned on showing him pain.
Manny walked the two of them onward, carrying Jerry, and thinking about what they would all look like when Caesar arrived. None of them would look as good as they did now. Even Jerry had more waiting for him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
"They're not there," Caesar said, looking down from the plane to the city below him.
"You can't know that," Grace said.
The plane was circling overhead, automatically finding the best place to land, although regardless of which spot it picked, the landing would be rough. The streets were barely streets anymore, at a thousand years old, most of them were broken and almost completely overridden by foliage. The plane would find a spot though, and if it didn't, Caesar had already calculated a place where he thought they could land. Twenty minutes and they would be there, but Caesar didn't think it mattered.
A few lights burned from inside buildings, most likely small fires keeping people warm in the night air. But none of those would be Jerry.
"He's offline."
"And that means he's gone
? It means the other two are gone as well? No. That's you making the worst of this situation before we're even there."
Caesar didn't answer her. He didn't need to. The three of them were gone and those fires were whoever Manny had left. That's what he heard in his head when Jerry screamed—he heard Manny arriving. The scream degenerated into static inside Caesar's head quickly, and then it finally went black. He couldn't reach out at all. There was nothing to reach out to.
And that meant Jerry was dead.
It meant Manny had free reign over the entire place and who would he go for? The answer was too obvious to say aloud. So he let Grace speak while the plane circled, but soon, neither of them would have words. Neither of them would have anything but three missing people and perhaps a lot more dead on their hands.
Caesar leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
* * *
"You just watched them?" Caesar asked, staring at Keke and Tim. "You just fucking watched them sit out there?"
Tim didn't look away. "That's exactly what I did. I watched the whole night, and in the morning, when they picked up and left, I watched them leave too. Then I went outside and walked to where they sat all night."
Caesar turned away, walking to the window in the room. He looked out at the city. It had once been beautiful, and still was in a way, but Earth had claimed it again. Sand lived as much inside the buildings as out, and the streets were little more than desert with rocks scattered around it. Jerry had brought them here in hopes of reclaiming it.
"How long were you with him, Tim?"
"How long were you?" Tim asked back.
"How fucking long?"
"Ten years. And Keke nine. And both of us walked all the way across that desert with him, hoping that it would be the last time we walked anywhere. We both gave everything for this group, and we're willing to give our lives, but not for nothing. I'm not going to die just so Manny can carry me around headless like he is Jerry."