by David Beers
"Why? Why would you do something like this?" Theo couldn't move past what he'd just been told. He couldn't see his way around it, couldn't come to grips with it. Children? Humanity's next generation?
"Because revolution must affect every part of your society, Theo. Not just the parts you think are worthy of destruction, or if not worthy, then permissible. And maybe, if I'm being honest with you, Theo—I want you to eat your young. I think that would be fitting. You people are here only by The Genesis' grace, a grace that I've never understood. But right now I have carte blanche to do what I want, and watching you kill your children will please me greatly. Don't look at me like that, Theo. It's not me you should hate; it's your own kind. All I did was plant an idea; they're the ones running with it. They're the ones willing to go in there and actually murder. Not me. I'll be here in my apartment."
"I can't do it," Theo said. Everything else, all of it had been a horror that he never thought possible. From the first body he watched fall thousands of feet and die on the pavement to seeing people hanging in the streets, all of it he had done and hated himself for. But this. This was too much. This was too far. This was not only disgusting, it was abhorrent in a way that could never be forgiven, that no entity—not even a God of infinite love—could look past. Theo wouldn't do it. He'd die here in this apartment, die at Mock's hand before he killed those children.
"Sure you can, Theo. You're just not thinking clearly."
Mock opened up his right palm, revealing a pill.
"You take this and you'll feel fine when you go in there. You might not believe The Named are a part of it, but you'll find some justification for what you're doing."
Theo stared at the pill, unmoving in Mock's still hand. Mock wanted him to take that pill and become just like the rest, the people that Theo despised. Become one of them, fully.
"But, if you really don't want to do this, Theo, we can sever your employment with me effective today." Mock closed its hand and the pill disappeared from Theo's view.
Theo knew what severed employment meant—severed arteries, severed tendons, severed heart ventricles. It meant that Theo died and all of this kept going on in whatever direction Mock wanted. He said he'd die here in this apartment, die at Mock's hands—and here was that choice. Up to Theo.
Die or keep living.
Die or descend into a living hell.
* * *
Theo sat in the darkness, a large jacket covering his entire body. He had a hood pulled over his head, trying to hide him from anyone that might look into his little dark hole. He was outside of the apartment complex now possessed by his group of crazies. It must have been around three in the morning; though Theo didn't know for sure. He hadn't moved in hours, not even to see the time. He just stared ahead, at first watching people come and go, but that slowed to a trickle, and now no one had come in or out of the place in quite some time.
There was no violence in there, just people living their lives for the most part.
But that wasn't right.
They were living their lives, but now their lives consisted of hunting down unseen ghosts that had to die. And the people they chased? Their lives now consisted of running. Not of going to work. Not of staying with family. Not of enjoyment. There wasn't violence breaking out at this exact moment, but everyone's life in this entire city was lived in preparation for the violence that would surely come.
Theo hadn't told them that they were to go ahead with the Population Control assault. He had taken the pill from Mock's hand, then went and found the biggest bottle of liquor he could. He had sat down in this little corner and drank it, all of it, and then kept sitting while his head swam. He had taken the pill from Mock and shoved it in his pocket, but he hadn't eaten it. Even after drinking the entire bottle, he didn't eat it.
Theo had taken the pill from Mock and walked out, back onto the train, hating himself with each goddamn step. Hearing Mock’s voice behind him, haunting him.
Be sure to swallow the whole pill, Theo.
And if he didn’t take it tonight? Then tomorrow Mock would kill him, for sure.
He hated himself for his inability to say no. He thought he had known self-hatred before, but he hadn't. It was premature enlightenment. He'd finally reached enlightenment today—finally become the Buddha. He had the opportunity to die, the chance to put all this behind him and find some kind of redemption in death; instead, he took the pill and left Mock's apartment silently. In doing that, he told Mock he would fulfill his role, that he would make sure all of those children died horrible, horrible deaths. Die in ways that none of them deserved. That no one could possibly deserve.
Now his next choice was whether to take the pill. Whether to swallow it and let his conscience die since he wouldn't let his body. Was he going to face this next piece with all his faculties, or would he take the easy way out?
The easy way out.
It sounded awful, thinking it. Shameful. He thought he'd taken the easy way so far, but he hadn't. Not the easiest way. This next piece though, Theo didn't think he could face it. He couldn't kill children and yet he couldn't find the balls to die himself. And that left him with the pill now in his pocket. The pill and those people across the street, troops ready to eat their enemies' hearts. Before all of this, he had himself and his job. Now he had a master and slaves. And a pill that would dissolve his conscience, that would turn him into an animal.
And you're not already?
Animals didn't know guilt.
He shoved his hand deep into his pocket and pulled the pill out, looking at it in the darkness, a tiny white thing that held poison.
He was going forward. He made that decision when he left Mock's apartment. Now he had to decide how he would go forward—with eyes opened or closed?
Theo gave other people this pill. Supplied them pills that both killed and created madness. And maybe he had already made this decision, maybe he made it the day he decided to go up and down that building handing out little pieces of death. Maybe at that moment, all the other choices he needed to make were made, and now he was just thinking more than was necessary. Maybe he picked his path a long time ago and he should just accept it.
Theo looked at the pill for another second and then popped it in his mouth, dry swallowing it. He stood and walked down the street, drunk and heading back to his apartment.
Chapter Nineteen
Theo felt like someone had applied glue to his eyelids while he slept.
Go back to sleep, he thought as he finally opened his eyes. His mouth was dry, feeling like he ate sand last night. There was an awful taste in his mouth as well, alcohol mixed with vomit, though he didn't remember vomiting. Still, it sat there in his throat saying that just because he didn't remember something didn't mean it didn't happen.
He sat up in the bed, slowly, feeling his temples pulsing. He remembered what he did the night before, everything except the vomit still hanging around in his throat. He had taken that goddamn pill and this was his first morning as a different person.
Theo closed his eyes, feeling sick in ways that a hangover didn't create.
How many times had he sold his soul since meeting Mock? He was using credit at this point.
Maybe I vomited up the pill, he thought. Maybe I puked it up before my body digested it. He sighed out through his nose slowly. It was a thought. A small hope, but the only hope he had.
The scroll to his left held a light green glow, and the only entity that made it glow like that was the same one that gave Theo his pill. Mock had sent him something. Theo looked to the clock and goddamn, he'd only been sleeping four hours at most. It was six in the morning.
And Mock was already messaging him.
He picked up the scroll and found the words written for him.
You need to get started today.
Theo dropped the scroll to the bed. No rest. No rest ever, no matter what happened. He'd taken the pill. He'd killed and killed and killed. None of it mattered. Onward. Always onward.
> "Call Kendrick," he said into the empty room. Theo listened as the phone rang, the sound echoing over his hangover like a screeching animal in a canyon. The ringing of the phone, unnecessary, but something The Genesis kept as a holdover from humanity’s rule—something humans could identify with. Something from their past. Today, Theo would bring back more of that past, though. Today, he would lead people to the massacre of children.
* * *
Keke knew why they were here though she'd never seen this place, or any like it, before. This is where Caesar had worked, what he oversaw for all those years—thirty-three of them, until Paige and Jerry showed up to take him away. Now Keke was here and Caesar wasn't. She was here and he was hiding in a broken apartment, listening to an application prattle on and on about nonsense.
This was Population Control for Quadrant One.
She didn't see any children, though she knew they were here—somewhere. Maybe they were being hidden purposefully, or maybe they had scheduled activities that just happened to be out of Kendrick's eyesight. The Representative was here too, the only person more important than Kendrick. The only person Kendrick gave deference too, and willingly.
They were here to ascertain whether or not this place had been infiltrated by The Named, and if so, destroy them with prejudice. Which was just to say that they showed up here to kill anyone moving. Right now, they were only doing the preliminary looking around, but that would end soon. So far, there wasn't much to see in this place. A few applications moving through the halls, some rolling, some flying, but none stopping to speak with Kendrick’s group or even inquire about their business. It was as if people constantly toured this place.
Or maybe it was the black suit Theo wore. Maybe the applications didn't question that suit any more than humans did.
But Keke didn't think so. She thought these applications would question anyone that came through here who didn't belong, whether they wore a black suit or nothing at all—because applications were still above humans, no matter what they wore. Applications were The Genesis, if only an extremity of it. So the fact that they weren't asking questions meant something else. That meant this group, Keke included, were supposed to be here. That these empty halls were expecting them.
Which meant everything was a set up. Kendrick didn't realize that; he simply didn't have the brainpower to reach that conclusion on his own, but the man in black? Theo? Yes, he probably knew. He didn't look like he wanted to be here, that was for sure. The rest of the people in this group walked down the halls with a sense of wonder, looking at a place they had only heard about through scrolls. Him though? Disdain. He barely looked at anyone in the group outside of Kendrick, treating the rest of them as if they were little more than pets to be kept on the correct path. When he did speak to Kendrick, the words were short and they held no humor. Keke had seen the man before, from a distance, but he never looked like this—disgusted. Angry.
"So what do you think?" Kendrick asked as they stopped in between two intersecting hallways.
"We should talk to someone," a woman to Kendrick's right said. Her name was Emily although Keke had never spoken to her. She was in the inner circle, and Keke was barely supposed to be here.
The man in black didn't bother looking at her, only turned to Kendrick. "Who would you want to talk to?"
"I don't—" Emily started.
"I'm talking to Kendrick," Theo answered, still not turning to her.
"I don't know, Theo. I don't know who's in charge at all."
"You're the one that said you thought The Named was here. Show them to me."
Kendrick looked away from Theo, down the empty halls before him. He'd found himself in a tough spot, one where there wasn't a single person to show Theo and no way to say that without sounding like a complete fool.
"Who would you like to speak with since you brought us here? I got us in; now show me where to go to determine that The Named has indeed taken over this place."
Keke looked around at the others, most of them only stared at their feet. None looked to Theo.
"There's a lot left to explore in this place," Kendrick said. "We've only been here a half hour."
Theo dropped his eyes to the floor, a smile spreading across his face. Keke had seen the man a few times back at the apartment complex, had been following him all day today, and she had never once seen him smile. There was no humor in it, no joy, no happiness. The smile was dead, reminding her of animal carcasses and burnt flesh. When he looked back up, the smile was still there, but his eyes were shrieking. Screams of rage that Keke had never seen in a person before. She'd never seen it in any of these people she surrounded herself with, never seen it from anyone in The Named. His eyes weren't full of anger, they were anger—they were the embodiment of this whole movement.
And yet he spoke as calmly as a priest during confession.
"There's no one to talk to, Kendrick. There never was. This place is run by machines, by applications. Where is The Named?"
Kendrick said nothing, no one in the entire group did.
"Have at it though, if it makes you feel better. Have at anything and anyone in this place, if you think that's what needs to happen."
Keke looked to Kendrick, his faith obviously shaken. He had come in here confident. Now, though, he didn't seem to care who was around him. Something in Theo's voice had changed him in only a few seconds.
"But how do we know?" Kendrick asked.
Theo didn't stop smiling. "How have you known anything so far, Kendrick? Because I told you it was so or someone else did. So why not keep going with that? This place is filled with The Named, bursting at the seams with them. So go ahead and do what you came to do."
Theo turned away from them then and walked back down the hall. Everyone turned and watched his black suit walk off, everyone silent—this inner circle truly not sure what to do. Keke didn't know anyone here well enough to understand the intricacies of their relationships, but she felt for sure that something had changed. That everyone around her knew it, yet weren't quite sure what. They had expected more direction from the man in black, expected him to justify what they thought—and he hadn't. He'd simply said go ahead and do what you came here to do.
"What's wrong with him?" The woman asked.
"I don't know," Kendrick answered. "Let's get started though. We don't have time to worry about him. Go ahead and call the rest in."
Keke listened as someone made the call outside to the larger group. The group with weapons, ready to hack this place apart, to find The Named even if they hid in the walls. Ready to sacrifice the children in this compound for the greater good, and that, apparently, was whatever Kendrick thought.
Keke stood against the wall, her mouth shut, watching as the troops came in. Watched as they took their orders, and then fell in line behind them, sure that she would die in this building rather than touch a single child. If she didn't make it out of here, she was fine with that—she'd seen enough. She'd seen too much. She didn't know if Caesar could defeat this—she was beginning to wonder if he should defeat it. Wondering if this shouldn't be allowed to consume itself, like a cancer, until nothing remained. Led by the nose wherever the man in black wanted, these people were puppets in some larger scheme. She might be a puppet now, maybe moving for the same puppeteer that moved these people—the same puppeteer that moved the man in black.
She would follow these people down the hall, but when it came time to kill, she would hide—and if she couldn't hide, then she would simply let the puppeteer cut her strings.
Chapter Twenty
The Life of Caesar Wells
I've seen what happened in that Population Control compound. There was no clean up involved. The group went through there and when they were finished, they left everything as it was. Maybe as a message to The Named, or maybe they just finally looked at what they had done and realized for the first time what was in front of them. I don't know what that pill was like, whether or not it made them black out, unconscious from their ac
tions. I don't know if they came to when it was over, and saw their bloody work. If somehow rationality took over for a few minutes. That would be one reason to leave that place as they did. It's probably still like that, even now, the stench of those bodies filling the lifeless hallways. No animals getting in to pick the bones, the meat just rotting on the bodies as the marrow died inside.
Caesar's taken a bit of a backseat to this little book I'm writing, and I see that. It's his story, without a doubt, but to understand the totality of the man, you have to understand the events surrounding him. I could retrace his day to day activities, but when he makes his decision, you wouldn't understand why he made it. This isn't a philosophy book; I'd never pretend to write something like that. I don't know the answers here; I can barely understand the questions being asked. Still, I feel it important to let you see everything, to see what Caesar saw at the end, because then—and only then—will he be judged fairly. That's all I want. A fair accounting.
So let me show you what I found in the compound when I went alone. I went only so that I could write it down here and I won't shy from that purpose now.
I had to go back twice. The first time the stench stopped me at the front door. The moment I opened it and tried to step inside, my stomach clenched and I vomited all over the floor. I fell back outside on my ass, just trying to get away from that smell. The door closed in front of me and I turned to my side, sure that I would vomit again. I didn't but I knew I wasn't going to be able to walk through that place without something to filter the air.
I returned with the filter over my face—a weird contraption I'd never used before—how many times in one's life would one walk through corridors full of the dead? Once I placed it over my head, it turned transparent so that I could see. It worked, and if it hadn't, I wouldn't have seen a thing because I couldn't breathe in that place.
Sometimes I think about that, what I was breathing in. I don't know exactly how much, but at least some piece of it was the dead. I breathed in their microscopic rotten flesh. It disgusts me, even now, even after everything else. I breathed in the dead.