by Poppet
Swivelling the chair back to the painting I bow my head and cover my eyes. “I’d like to be alone.”
“Of course,” he says, and I wait until I hear the door close, and then I breakdown. I cry for everything I longed for and never had. I cry because I was the wrong son, the one unworthy of his love. The one he kept from ever knowing love.
I am the plant fed petrol, Niel is the plant fed nutrients. How did I survive with so little spiritual and emotional nutrition? Alpha broke my wife because he needed me to be alone. He needed no one to miss me, no one to look for me, no one to pray for me.
I had nothing, and I still have nothing.
I have nothing.
I am nothing.
~ Chapter 26 ~
Now, if the work of the levitical priests had been perfect, there would have been no need for a different kind of priest to appear
– Hebrews 7:11
Alpha:
I AM SO proud of Niel. He brought in the surgeon I trained myself back when Ridley Manor was established under my rule, and the skin grafts he did are immaculate. I used the parabiosis to speed the healing process as it also accelerates the growth of bone and skin. I look good as new. Victor would be so disillusioned to see all his hard work eradicated.
I smile at that. Few things give me pleasure, but that thought certainly does. I am in this world, but not of it. Using the latest technology they created a matrix of hyperelastic bone, essentially giving me back a new hand, one my own body has grafted to, and they gave my new hand nerves from transplants from a ‘donor’. One no one will miss as his birth was not registered. My organisation will never register births. I had the newborn flown in myself. Juvenyouth continues to give my bank balance music, and now benefits me personally. The joy of my new hand is that it has no fingerprints. Victor has given me a brand new idea to market to the criminal element, and I’m exhibit A for a success rate at having new hands without fingerprints. It’s a criminal’s wet dream. His wet dream is my good fortune. Most fortuitous.
It’s also fortuitous how easy it is to create bone with technology. Did my son really think I wouldn’t heal myself? Is he that retarded?
I am God. I am resurrected. God has knowledge and his knowledge is his power in the ocean of the insipidly ignorant. This world is overrun with my sheeple, and the longer I live the better it becomes. My churches rake in billions, annually, tax free. How foolish are the sinners to think they can buy their passage into heaven. They buy me guns, luxury, and safe passage for my criminal endeavours.
Niel kisses my hand, his adoration so dear to me. Tonight Cerberus will devour those at the door, and they will have no recourse left but to succumb to my will.
I gave them life, I can take it away. I am healed like the bones I drew back together and animated, I brought the dead back to life. Ezekiel 37:5 In truth I always wanted to find Victor’s body to try my hand at necromancy. It’s a gift I gave to King Solomon, which means it’s buried in my latent memory somewhere, and I was willing to try hypnosis to uncover it, but alas he lives.
It seems he relishes in the art of disappointing me.
He revels in his disobedience.
•
Victor:
I’m finished. Fucking destroyed. He didn’t need to lay a fucking finger on me, this would’ve sufficed. Dad gets game, set, and match. With one well aimed ace he whitewashed me off the court.
Standing from my desk, shunting the chair back so hard it tilts and crashes into the credenza, I storm from my prison. It is a prison. I’ve lived in them my whole life, hiding from the consequences, avoiding law enforcement; and my homes, all of them fortresses to keep me inside, far away from where the righteous can hear me scream while my father spiritually and physically violated my quintessence.My father raised me behind barred windows, without a playground, without fun and recreation. I’ve been primped and sculpted from birth to be a monster.
I greet no one. Jude’s trying his damnedest to stop me but I’m running faster than he can, escaping into the medical wing, to Polina.
She’s awake!
“Hey babe,” I grin, hiding the desecration in my heart. “Aren’t you sick of these walls? Fancy a ride on the back of my motorbike?”
She smiles like I just offered her eternal salvation. “Da! Yes, yes!”
“Gimme a sec,” I say, marching to the extensive wardrobe full of clothes I had Ethel compile for her imminent awakening. I never want her to feel poor again. She’ll have the best of everything.
I need to update my own last will and testament before dad caps me for good. Polina gets my fortune and fuck dad and the rest of my family who abandoned me.
Yanking leathers from the walk in closet I vamoose back to her, quickly helping her dress. It’s distracting as fuck. She’s so soft, so toned, so fucking tempting.
Get a grip you old perv.
“We in urgent?” she asks me.
“Da.” I grin at her. “Jude wants me and I’m running away before he can give me more bad news. I’ve had my fill for one day.”
“We in secret runaway?” She smiles, giggling, her tone erotically breathy.
“Absolutely we are,” I say, grabbing her hand, then changing my mind, hoisting her in a bridal lift and virtually sprinting the other way out of her wing. Every wing has an access to the basement and I’m praying that Jude isn’t anticipating this escape.
Hitting the elevator, going down, I’m overjoyed when we enter the garage and it’s devoid of human activity. Grabbing two helmets on my way past the racks, I hand her one. “Have you ever been on a motorbike?”
“Njet.” She shakes her head.
“Just hold on to me, tight as you can. Okay? I need to get out to clear my head, and bet you could use the same thing, yeah?”
“Yeah.” She smiles and nods. She looks like she just got a free pass to Buckingham Palace.
I lift her again, bulleting to my Ducati, helping her get her skid lid on, then my own. Straddling the bike I wait patiently for her to join me, offering her my strength.
The elevator doors are opening again. Shit!
I start my baby up and gun it to the exit, the wait for the metal door sliding up the most exasperating wait of my life.
Jude’s yelling, so I rev the bike, drowning him out.
Fuck off, Jude. Give me a break, for one fucking hour give me some space. And we’re away, speeding as fast as my black steed will go, into the night and away from the shit I call my life.
Life? It’s never been a life.
Polina grips me with more strength than I thought she had. I’m impressed and inexorably turned on.
I take the scenic route, driving us leisurely to Graftham Water, wending our way into dips on the weaving roads, luxuriating in the joy of avenues with blind corners and no straight lines.
The streets aren’t laid out like they are in the States, the USA have roads that look like they are grids separating prison blocks, whereas here the roads flow organically.
She takes my lead, leaning with me, and we sway low enough to kiss tar, and then we’re up and leaning the other way. It’s a dance better than a tango when a woman feels the music of the road, never resisting but trusting me to lead, trusting I know what I’m doing, and the closer we get to the lake the more I fall for the sweet blonde waif melting her wiles into my back.
I’m speeding and should’ve been pulled over twenty times already, but this is swankytown and money talks. This is an area where the law turn a blind eye to the entitled shitheads of lords and ladies.
But it’s worked, hasn’t it. I’m relaxed. I’m enjoying the hot body cradling mine, I’m enjoying the way she runs her hands up my thighs and back down again, the way she keeps worming her hands under my jacket, fiddling with my t-shirt, tracing my abs.
A man could get used to this.
Lights come at us from the rear and I’m really bloody hoping they don’t belong to Jude. Solitude shattered.
I glance over my shoulder, checking out the blac
k Lamborghini encroaching on us at an alarming speed. I gun the Ducati until the engine is screaming, speeding us away toward Titchmarsh. There’s sod all here, just fields and fields lining long roads that worm through the countryside.
The Lambo assumes I’m in it for the ego boost and he’s racing us like this is a match between Schumacher and Rossi. The shit thing is the closer we get to Stanwick Lakes the foggier it’s becoming. Shit is gonna happen soon. This lunatic needs to back off.
Polina is squeezing me, laughing and screaming her approval at our recklessness. We’re covering distance faster than I can see the road and the premonition of danger creeps into my skin with the mist. It’s patchy. One moment it’s clear, the next I can’t see squat. We’re playing hopscotch with the devil.
Glancing behind us again at the lights slicing through the mist, I note it is a Diablo. He comes so close, his speed unnatural. That is one suped up motherfucking piece of metal he’s got under him.
I wave for him to pass us, not willing to risk Polina’s life in such short succession. He accelerates and I take to the verge, expecting him to pass us. My eyes are peeled like carrots for Sunday lunch, trying like hell to keep us off gravel at this speed. I was a religious man but can honestly say I’m living on faith right now. If we hit one patch of loose stone we are goners.
His engine roars, the sound pure power, when his lights finally move far enough forward next to us so that I’m not blinded by them. I glance his way, seeing very little with the moisture now wicking off my visor. I wave him on, giving him the thumbs up at his exceptional superiority on the richter scale.
The second I take my hand off the grip to give him the thumbs up, he swerves toward us, veering us off the road and ploughing down an embankment. Polina screams, sailing past me as a projectile into the impenetrable night, and I’m taken for an unholy rumble with a metal beast down an incline.
I don’t hold on. I was taught to roll out of moving cars when I was just four years old. I can drop and roll out of anything, or off anything, and not even sprain a wrist. Instinct just kicks in.
Releasing my hold on the Ducati the second Polina flies off, I thrust away from it, sending it flipping over and away from me, and I just tumble through wet grass over and over, until friction halts me. I can thank my fucktarded father for preparing me for survival in a road accident. I even have in cab training to survive a fatal impact in a motor vehicle. Gotta love old dad, he made sure I’m like the black death, I just keep coming back, more virulent than ever.
Yanking my helmet off I scramble to my feet, listening. “Polina?”
I look around, because I can’t see shit in this thick mist but I can hear boots walking on gravel. That means I’m still very close to the road. At least the asswipe stopped to see if we’re okay. What was he thinking? Except, a dude who wants to check on you doesn’t stay silent. He’d be calling out to us. This guy is quieter than a mummy in a crypt. Like a revelation returning my sight I know this wasn’t an accident. The driver of the Diablo was sent to take me out. I’m his hit. I’m the target. There are so many ways to kill a man and he chose a really shitty way to do it, with a precious passenger holding onto me.
I’m quiet, stealthy, dipping low trying to see through the diaphanous cloud which seems to coagulate faster than I can hunt his footfalls. Cloud always distorts distance, undulating and wafting every pertinent scrap of recon away from me. He could be anywhere. He could be right on top of me.
Slowly I extract my Glock, peeling off the glove on my right hand, tucking it into my pocket and replacing it with a teflon grip.
Crunch crrrr.
I hinge back, facing the other way, trying to locate the fucker. I don’t dare use the light on my phone to try and find him, I’ll become a beacon and blind myself with reflection at the same time.
It takes me crucial moments to hunt up the incline, hunched over and silent as a prayer, to the shoulder of the road. I need to end this, Polina needs me. Every second she could be fighting for life.
What the fuck? So am I! I’m always fighting for my right to breathe air.
Crunch …
I snap back, knowing for sure with a sense that has no name that my assassin is in front of me. With my Glock aimed to fire, supported in both hands and poised in front of my face, I breach through the cloud for a nanosecond.
It’s a lifetime of pain. It’s an eternity of persecution. I stare into a face identical to my own. My twin, my doppelgänger, he’s right in front of me.
The brother who denied my existence. I am Esau and he is Jacob. He’s painted a saint, but I’m saturated in the stain of a sinner. I know without conscious deliberation that despite sharing a womb, I hate him.
Muzzle flash sears the night, hitting the ballistic plates in my jacket. Dead on. He aimed for the heart. He aimed for my fucking heart. If I didn’t have bulletproofing as standard procedure in my clothing, I’d be dead.
Life slows to a cobweb of sanity, a dot of essentia, and I am the reptilian brain. It’s all I am. I don’t hesitate, I plant a bullet in my clone’s kneecap and crotch, felling him. He unleashes slugs into the night as he goes down, but none of them are even remotely near his target. I’m counting rounds, needing to know how many his magazine holds. He’s fired seven shots. I’m guessing he has one round left.
One round is all it takes to end my life.
Cortisol muddies my blood and the urgency of survival bleeds into my every cell. Adrenaline is coursing and I launch for the hand holding the gun, gripping his wrist and aiming it up, doing everything I can in an epic struggle with my nemesis, crunching and writhing over gravel in a bid to secure my next breath.
I finally gain the upper hand, with leverage because he’s under me, straining against his power, pissed off beyond belief that he’s of my stature and strength. Bending his hand back until the first song of bones fracturing choruses into the unhallowed evening, he gives me the second of slack I need. I punch and punch and punch, unleashing every atom of hatred in my bitter heart, pulverising the almighty champion boxer into a bloodied mass of fragmenting bone. His cheekbone gives and I’m fucking overjoyed that this prat gets to feel pain!
It was my daily bread, it was my manna, and it’s my duty to deliver to him his portion of my share. I pound on him until there’s no resistance left, until my knuckles are so bloodied and throbbing that I may well need a cast.
The stranger’s hand goes limp under the onslaught of my wrath, dropping his gun after I repeatedly smash his wrist into the asphalt. I’m breathing like a rabid animal, my lungs searing, and finally I realise I broke his wrist. He’s not moving. Staggering backward, dazed and crazed, I have the sense of mind to check his pulse.
He lives. How unfortunate. Ending this arsehole’s life would destroy my father. I look at him, the mirror of me, my shadow self, and divine inspiration curdles my mind.
I can end my father. I can get behind those god forsaken gates of his palace. I need to get this clone back to the estate, I require him lucid asap because I need the security codes to enter my father’s fortress.
Turning from my broken brother I rumble down the incline again into long and damp grass, hollering, “Polina!”
It takes me too long, with my phone on, when I comprehend I am compromised. I’m not thinking straight anymore. It’s all been too much. I just discovered I have a twin and within the hour he is here to end my existence. Jesus! You can’t make this shit up, it’s just not possible. Shakespeare was right, hell is empty and all the devils are roaming this planet with impunity.
“POLINA!”
If Jude hadn’t warned me, if he didn’t find that intel when he did, I’d be dead. The surprise would’ve left me open for a head shot.
“POLINA!!!!”
Fuck this, the shock, it’s addled my brain. I have that fucking app. Fumbling with my phone I launch the app, twisting left and right looking for a heat signature. I find her!
Jesus she flew far.
Running, sliding, I skid
to her side, checking her vitals, shining the phone’s light in her eyes.
She’s alive, but I’m afraid she might have damage I can’t see. Spinal damage. I just saved her and the last thing I want to do is lift her and give her paralysis for the rest of her life because I’m an epic tosser.
My phone beeps and vibrates again. Jude just won’t quit! I felt it in my pocket the entire ride, and now when I don’t have time for more shit he’s killing my battery life with his emergencies. I have my own goddamn emergency!
I answer the call because he needs to airlift Polina out of here. I can’t call for an ambulance, at this point I trust no one on the outside of my inner circle. No one.
“VICTOR!” bellows in my ear when I press accept on his call.
“Jude, Polina’s hurt,” I say, cutting his scolding short.
“The virus from Cerberus, it released the documents, Victor. Interpol know about Alpha. They know everything, even your identity. You’re going to be hunted as bad as he is. Shit just got real, Vic! I expect your dad’s palace to be swarming with news and choppers and MI6 within the hour!”
“Jesus.” I sink backwards, collapsing in cold grassland.
My spirit hovers outside of me instantaneously, this news too much. It’s all unravelling, spooling out like a megalodon has the silver cord Ecclesiastes 12:6 to my body, pulling me so far outside of myself that I find it hard to process, to think, my heart just compresses and I fear I may pass out.
“Vic, they have a full list of Alpha’s illegal activities, the drug Manna and its distribution, all of it, it’s gone to the FBI, CIA, NSA, Scotland Yard, MI6, Interpol, and every major news channel – including the fake news websites who are the only final reliable source of getting the truth to the masses. We’re fucked Vic. You and your dad!”
Sitting up, I look at Polina and make a decision. One that will change everything, forever.
“Then I’m on a tight deadline. I have to reach Alpha before MI5 do.”
“I said MI6.”