by David Beers
The happiness in his eyes died, leaving a hard rock where it had once been. He reached up with his hand and wiped away my spit, then squatted down so that our eyes were level with each other.
"I could wait. I think I might enjoy it a little more if I did. Kind of like foreplay before sex." He glanced behind him to Paige. "You could watch what happens to her. You think you would like that?"
"Fuck you."
He nodded, his eyes softening. "I'll start here then. Let's see how far we get."
My right hand moved over to my left arm.
I used to keep my nails clean. I used to keep them short. It'd been a while since I had the opportunity to do that.
My hand started scratching, hard and fast, over and over, digging into its brother's flesh. It took a few minutes of that fanatic rubbing to draw blood. But once it came, it flowed like water from the rock Moses struck. I realized why Manny gave me control over my mouth again. He wanted to hear me scream. I managed to hold it back for a while, but when I touched bone, the wind carried my cries outside, where they fell to the ground like that couple had minutes before.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Keke looked back at Las Vegas. Turned completely around and faced it full. The path she was about to take felt daunting. Huge in the way that galaxies were. She knew what it would take to cross this desert again, probably more than it had taken to get here. She followed Jerry the whole way before, walking behind him, next to Tim, content that when they arrived here they could find peace. They could rest.
Now she was going to walk back the way she had come, but there wouldn't be anyone to follow this time. She had a destination, but no one would be walking in front of her, no one beside her. Tim wasn't making this journey. Tim was done, done with Jerry, done with The Named, done with all of it. Keke had thought she was as well, thought she would settle down here in this town and try to make something of it. Try to have a life that resembled the one she had back in the city. Before The Named. Before Jerry. Everyone here wanted that and Keke couldn't point to a single event that changed their minds. It was the culmination of act after act, of disappointment on disappointment, of death piled on death.
The group that once thought they would overthrow the existing system was now content toiling away in the sun like the slaves of old.
Keke wasn't walking back out into the desert because of that, though. She held no allegiance to The Named, not anymore. It didn't sadden her that the smartest people in the world had decided that this was the life they wanted, one of hiding forever, one without a chance at anything really—anything outside of life. If that made them happy, then fine. If Tim wanted to stay, the last of The Eight, and oversee much of what happened, then fine. She wasn't angry at him, not nearly as angry with him as he was with her for leaving.
She was turning out into the desert because Caesar had.
That was it.
Jerry knew the risk when he started this whole thing. Jerry knew that he might die, and he had lived an awfully long time as it was. If Jerry died, if Paige died, that was what they had signed up for. Really, the entire Named had signed up to die the moment they left the cities. The moment that they realized they were Unnecessary. That was the life they chose, so to get angry or upset when it happened was senseless.
No, the reason she was leaving this ancient place wasn't to save Jerry, specifically, nor to keep Paige safe. It was because someone that barely knew any of them, barely knew The Named at all, had decided to try. Caesar turned out into the desert with only an application beside him. He was taking all the risk, putting everything on his shoulders, while the people that had sworn to do so stayed back, hiding. Keke wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t have some stranger live the life she was tired of, wouldn’t go down in some historical context as being the person who sat this thing out.
She turned around and looked at the desert stretching for miles in every direction. Stretching as far as her eyes could see. It was going to be a trek unlike any she had ever made, and in the end, it might be for nothing. She might show up to Allencine and find Caesar already dead. Killed or captured. Still though, if anything was ever written about this, it wouldn't say she had stayed behind. It wouldn't say that she had toiled in the sun while someone else went to battle in her stead.
Keke started walking, one foot in front of the other, to find Caesar.
* * *
"Now, I didn't expect to see this," Bradley said. "It is the slightest bit amusing, however."
Caesar heard the application but didn't look over to the flying orb.
He couldn't pull his eyes from what lay in front of him.
"What's happened?" He asked, hoping that Grace might know, hoping that one of these two applications by him might have a clue.
He stood in front of Allencine, the entire city aflame.
"I don't know," Grace answered him.
"Seems like your kind might have finally figured out a way to fuck up everything The Genesis gave you," Bradley said from his place to the left of Caesar. They had picked him up on the way through, crossing by the cave to see if there might have been any hints left by Manny. There wasn't. Just the prick application who hid when Manny showed up. Something isn't quite right about that guy, Bradley said when they arrived. Caesar took him because...well, mainly because he didn't know what to expect when he arrived in Allencine, and an application he could control might be useful.
Usefulness had left Caesar's realm of thinking though as he looked at his hometown. He had never seen anything like it before, never even envisioned something of this magnitude.
Smoke billowed from buildings, floating up into the air and darkening the sky. He could see the ransacked buildings, the fire licking up some of the skyscrapers. Some still stood without any damage, sure, but even one building burning was more than anyone inside Allencine had ever imagined possible. What was happening? What had gone wrong?
Jerry and Paige were in there with Manny. Leon too. Caesar had come to find them and then figure out the rest of this whole fucking mess, but now he was walking into a place bursting at the seams with violence. It was as if the pressure Caesar had felt growing in him when he lived here had finally infected the city, finally erupted, spreading that anger and hate to everyone.
"We're not really going in there, are we?" Bradley asked. "I mean, that would just be stupid."
They were going in. Without a doubt. Caesar wasn't leaving the three of them in there, in that burning city.
"You know we are," Grace said, almost absently.
"You should have left me in the cave."
Caesar swallowed, unsure where even to start. He stood a thousand yards outside of the city, could see trains still zipping along through the air, doing their best to act as if the city wasn't burning below them. The applications inside those trains must be losing their minds, unable to cope with the violence beneath. Why hadn't The Genesis intervened? Why wasn't The Genesis stopping this? He couldn't answer any of these questions standing outside, looking in.
"He said he was at my parents' apartment."
No one responded. They were waiting on him to decide. Waiting on him to lead. He had gone into cities before, killed before, but never walked into an active war zone. Never felt the heat of flames as things around him burned. He was scared, that's what he realized staring at the disaster. He was scared of what he would see. He was scared of what might befall him. He was going inside this city, not for The Genesis, but for three people who wouldn't really help further that cause—the one of finding The Genesis. He would walk inside this hell and risk himself, risk dying before he had the chance to make things right with The Genesis. That scared him, that he might die here in some silly attempt to save those that would end up dying anyway. Everyone died. Everyone died and then lived forever inside The Genesis' mind.
"You don't know what's going on?" he asked Grace, whether stalling for time or genuinely curious, he didn't know.
"I've never seen anything like this."
&
nbsp; "And you?" he asked Bradley.
"Your kind are insane. That's all I know."
Caesar put his hands in his pockets and looked down at his shoes. He had to go in. If he died, then he died, and The Genesis won. He looked up at the flames trying their very best to lick the sky. He would just need to make sure he didn't die.
To be concluded in The Singularity: Revolutionary...
The Singularity:
Revolutionary
by David Beers
Copyright © 2015 by David Beers
The Genesis once remade the world for peace. Now, it uses a sadistic application, Mock, to remake the world yet again. This time, though, when Mock finishes, only ash and blood will remain of humanity’s legacy.
While the world crumbles, Manny holds on to all that Caesar loves. Leon and Paige locked away in a room full of pain, and Caesar unable to make his way to them. The remaining humans built their fortress around Manny, intent on killing anyone and anything even partially resembling The Named.
Caesar must decide what is more valuable to him, humanity or those he loves. In this climactic conclusion to the epic science fiction thriller, everything Caesar fights for balances on a single choice, one that only he can make, one that will transform the future of the human race.
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Chapter One
The Life of Caesar Wells
I told you this wouldn't end well. I honestly tried to warn you at the beginning, so that if you started reading this you would be prepared for what happened.
I'll finish Caesar's story here. This is emotional for me, because... because there was so much potential. So much greatness. I never believed in what he was doing, never thought that humanity should exist without The Genesis guiding it—and even if that might change some here, I certainly never wanted Caesar to change. I never wanted him broken. The man I grew up with, the man I followed nearly to my death, he was a good person. Part of him, at least. Always part of him. I'm not sure that part exists anymore, though.
This is Caesar's story, but I suppose I should put a piece in here about me as well. Judge me the way you see fit. I tried to be Caesar's friend. I tried to be Paige's friend. I even learned to respect Jerry, despite everything. Was I strong? No. Was I smart? No. But I was Caesar's friend, his first, and I can say that I was his friend until the end. I can say I loved him for what he was and for what he could have been. I even love what he's become. I can't stop loving Caesar.
So this is the end, and if you've come this far, then let's walk the rest of the way—just don’t expect to enjoy it.
Chapter Two
Jerry regained consciousness without realizing it, and perhaps that was because he didn't understand he had been unconscious. One second there was nothing and the next, thoughts. Not many, mostly just an awareness. The chip inside his head hadn't stopped working though. The wires moving through him, somehow still connecting his head to his torso, even though stretched and strained, sent charges from his brain to the rest of his body—keeping his mechanical heart beating, allowing his lungs to move slightly, enough to provide the few human cells still inside him with oxygen. The chip in his head kept trying, kept pushing the organism it inhabited. That need for survival, that need to continue existing at all costs was somehow implanted in the chip—a desire to keep its host alive. So it worked on, slowly giving cognitive functions back to Jerry.
Even so, it could only bring him a fraction of the way back to normal. There wasn't any way to physically reconnect his head to his body. There wasn't any way to get him up and moving. The most the chip could do was keep his heart beating and allow him to process some information.
Jerry gained awareness, and then he gained consciousness. His right eye returned to him, although his left was still completely black, unable to see anything. His right eye first saw the floor, the digital material that now looked like carpet but when he had entered this apartment a year ago—when he found Caesar searching through his family's belongings—it had resembled wood. Jerry knew where he was, and the chip was now feeding him all that it observed over the past week. It didn't know everything; after Manny attacked him, there was a long period of blackness, like he was sleeping, but slowly the chip regained control of its functions, recording everything.
He was here, in Caesar's parents' old apartment. Paige was in here somewhere, so was Leon. Manny too, and Jerry barely believed what the chip told him. He didn't even want to search through the data, didn't want to know. Jerry shoved it away, disgusted and frightened. He could have laid here and died. That would have been better. What the chip showed him was unspeakable.
Jerry wanted to close his eye, wanted to welcome the blackness again, but couldn't. He could do nothing but lie on the floor, in a hallway, and think that soon he would see Manny. Actually view what his mentee had become.
Where was Caesar? Jerry tried to reach out, but it was as useless as trying to blink. No function, not outside of his ability to observe and to think. He tried to remember when he spoke to Caesar last, and thought that Caesar said he was heading to Vegas. Thought that he told Caesar about Manny. Caesar hadn't made it in time.
Now he lay here, discarded in a hallway much like a junked piece of machinery, listening as Manny continued his growth into a monster. He had control over Leon and Paige, Jerry was sure of that, or else none of this would be possible.
A strong breeze blew in through the shattered window, making its way to the hall, bringing goose bumps to Jerry's flesh—though he couldn't rub his arms.
He had woken up captured like this before, by The Genesis, thinking that all was lost. Thought that it could get no worse. Now, though, he knew that had been a silly, naive thought. He laughed to himself, because back then his head had been fully attached. No longer, Jerry. Then, Caesar had been with him. No longer, Jerry. Then Paige, and even Leon, had been relatively safe. No longer, Jerry.
He wanted to call out to Paige, to comfort her the best he could. He wanted to get up and walk them out of here. None of that would happen though. He would never comfort anyone again. He would never walk again. Jerry would die here in this hallway under the boot of someone he once loved. He would die, and Paige would die, and Leon would die. Maybe not Caesar, though. Maybe he could still push forward. Maybe he could finish what Jerry started. It felt odd, accepting death, accepting the death of those you care about. What other choice did he have, though? Lying here in this hallway, ripped apart? None. Jerry had gone as far as he could and now Caesar would have to finish this. The most Jerry could hope for would be a quick death for everyone in this apartment, although he doubted such would happen.
* * *
Manny truly didn't understand how he hadn't seen it before. It was so obvious now, had been staring him in the face for years on end. All the suffering he put himself through, all the pain, was for nothing. He could smile about it a little, at how wrong he had been, but he was also shocked at how long it took him to realize the truth.
Brandi didn't die. Jerry had tried to kill her, sure, but he wasn't successful. Manny wondered if Jerry knew that, if he knew that his carefully plotted plan for The Named, and specifically Brandi and Dustin, had failed. He would find his son once more, and now, Brandi had returned. How long had she been here? And to think that Manny wanted to hurt Paige, wanted to hurt her to get back at Caesar. That was funny too, goodness, wasn't it? That stretched a mile wide smile across Manny's face when he thought about it. He had been prepared to rape Paige, would have done it even if he didn't enjoy it—because this had never been about Paige, really, but about delivering justice to Caesar—only out of necessity. But he didn't need to. He didn't need to rape Paige at all, because it wasn't Paige lying there on the couch. Well, not totally. The transformation was slow, to be sure, but slow and steady won the race, right? Parts of Paige were still there, but Brandi was returning. So when Manny went to her, when he climbed on top and thru
st inside her, Brandi wanted it. Brandi loved him. Brandi missed him. And now she was almost home, almost here .
Dustin lived outside the apartment and Manny would go get him soon enough. He wanted to introduce their baby to Brandi again, to give her a chance to get used to how he looked—although he didn't think that would matter to her. Brandi would love Dustin no matter what, and hell, Brandi looked different now too. Not that Paige had been a bad looking woman, just different is all, and that didn't bother Manny in the slightest. He loved his wife.
So that was the good part about all of this. He didn't need to rape Paige to hurt Caesar. Because Paige had been okay. In the end, she was on the wrong side of things, but that was mainly Jerry and Caesar's fault. He could forgive her and now he didn't have to hurt her. He could still hurt Caesar pretty bad without Paige. There was Leon. There was Jerry. Manny would get a lot of miles from both of them, and there was a lot to do before Caesar arrived. When he showed up, he would hardly recognize those two pimps.Either of them. Jerry had pimped The Named for years, using them for his own benefit, and Leon...well, maybe Leon was a whore, being used by everyone around him. Either way, they were getting what they deserved.
Once Manny killed Caesar, all of this could end. He and Brandi could take their son, fix the window in the front room, and live here as a family. They could make another baby, even. And goodness, that would be absolutely great. Two children, brothers hopefully. The Genesis would still exist , sure, but things had changed in regards to it. Things changed because Manny changed. Manny wasn't under The Genesis' jurisdiction anymore. He was outside of it, outside of all those controls. So The Genesis could live and Manny would be fine with it; as long as he had his family, there wasn't anything to worry about. That's what he learned from this: family trumped everything.
He stood across the room from Paige, watched her lying on the couch perfectly still. Her face looked as beautiful as the moment they started walking across the desert. Manny still wasn't allowing her to move—not even when he made love to her—because he knew part of Paige was still in there and he didn't want to have to hurt Brandi. She lay on her stomach and stared down at the floor, the tears across her face having dried to salty streaks. He hadn't given her a shower yet, even though she needed one. He would soon, but he wanted to watch Brandi take a shower by herself; he didn't want to control his wife while she was in there.