He smiled and rushed over to her dropping to a knee before her, clearly proud of her conclusion. “I’m not done resetting it. Once I’ve removed the remaining families, you will take my place and guide the future generations that follow. Your mother and I will leave." She furrowed her brow in confusion and thought, where the hell were they going to go?
He smiled warmly and continued, “To atone for my sins, every person that was killed by my actions, when it was possible, I secured a sample of their DNA so that I could bring them back into the world anew, fresh, and able to live up to the full potential they had been denied in their first lives. There are well over twenty million unique samples located in our vaults across the Americas, and our current labs can bring them all back in as little as thirty years.”
T
he smell of damp soil, and the smooth surface of skeletal remains from her time in the stadium with the Marines washed over her. Slowly she withdrew her hands and her throat caught as a realization flowed over her. “Jonathan, one of my little friends… is he?”
He nodded. “Mr. Miller was a great man. If anyone deserved to be given a second chance, it was without a doubt him.”
She stood, her legs shaky and threatening to send her to the floor. She ran a hand along the wall as she made her way into the lavatory. She lifted the lid, slowly, with great care, and then threw up. After minutes of retching, she cleaned herself up, laughing slightly, remembering the last time she had thrown up in a family transport. Oh, how she yearned for that to be her worst problem again, the idea of Nathaniel Chen touching her. Yet here she was having her soul ripped from her chest and the entire emotional and mental picture she had of her father and her childhood ripped asunder. The world around her was being torn apart and rebuilt both literally and figuratively, and she had absolutely no control. She wiped her tears and pulled her hair back, that wasn’t going to work for her. Her father may not have been the man she thought he was but not everything she learned from him was false. Take control of the situation or it would control you. She made one last check in the mirror and left the lavatory.
Her father was sitting in her chair, wringing his hands as he looked up quickly at her, a sorrowful smile on his lips and hope in his eyes.
“You claim to want to save as many as possible, yet you just vaporized several million of them. There’s no way you were able to get samples of them all."
The look in his eyes diminished slightly. “Jeffery’s generals were nearly about to retake the Spire. I had to destroy it to prevent contradictory information from being sent out.”
“Holy shit Dad, you planned it all. You wanted me to end up in their Spire, not to kill Jeffery but to make it possible for you to take over his entire command and control infrastructure."
He nodded. “Yes,” he said, no hesitation in his voice as if he were answering a mundane question like, “Is fire hot?” “Sweet heart, you were able to do in a day what I could not do in fifteen years. Their entire alliance was sharing staging facilities across the globe and their armies were still mobilized to attack us. Because of you, I was able to take control of his army, issue orders with Jeffery’s authentication codes, and have his forces launch a sneak attack against his alliance members. Right now they are shredding each other to ribbons."
“And when they finish, you sweep in and eliminate the stragglers?”
“With minimal investment in material and time,” he responded
“And leaving us the only true power left on the face of the earth, but what happens to the families that didn’t fight us?”
“In order for the plan to work, there can be nothing of the old world left Maria; otherwise, it will attempt to assert its flawed culture on the reborn,” he groaned slightly, rubbing his temples between his thumb and middle finger while his other hand scratched at the back of his neck.
“What’s wrong?” Maria asked.
“This phase of the agenda requires faster reaction time on my part, both in issuing orders and absorbing new data, so I installed a neural link on my brain stem… all I have to do is think it and our empire does it.”
“Why are you in pain?”
“I thought it was from the implantation, but I’m beginning to think that it’s too much… he said, wincing pinching the bridge of his nose, “… too much data.”
He looked up at her. “I need your help again Maria.”
Her blood began boiling. Was he not aware of everything that had just happened? She balled her fist and thrust her thumb over her shoulder and toward the direction they were leaving. “Oh, that was me helping you? I thought we had established that was you manipulating me.”
“If I hadn’t, we all would have died, and Jeffery Chen would rule the world right now.”
She walked past him toward the cockpit. She stopped just as she blew by and leaned down to hiss in his ear, “I hope you do.”
She walked to the front of the transport, pushing past the drones in the confined space. Her father calling after her, “Maria.”
14
The ramp hadn’t even completely touched the metal of the hangar floor of her home when she jumped off of it and began striding directly toward the elevator that would take her to her suite. Her father was calling after her, the roar of transports flying in and out quickly drowning him out. It didn’t matter, she had absolutely no intention of speaking to him ever again. Her mind was racing on ways to get away from all of this.
She played with the thought of contacting the Berlin Spire and decided that she didn’t want to see Fitz die. After all, by this point, could she be sure he hadn’t planned for her to do exactly that, run to Fitz and use her yet again as a Trojan horse to end yet another family? They and the London Spire were the most powerful in Europe. It would make sense if that was a part of her father’s plans. She could search out the Marines. If they could get over their understandable distrust, she had a significant amount of information she could provide them, but at the same time that would drag her right back into this world of family intrigue and she’d rather piss glass than have anything to do with something even remotely close to her father. There was always the cabin. She had begun to flirt with the idea of a life of freedom, but her father knew of it and would likely search there. It was a good idea at its core, but the location simply wouldn’t work. Luckily, it wasn’t the only one out there, so she would just find another.
That was it then; she had decided. Clearly a rash decision, but at this point, fuck it. What was the worst that would happen to her? She might die out in the wilderness? Well, she was already dead. Her soul had been crushed by tribulations that came one after another. No matter what trauma she experienced, the love and consistency of her parents was what held her together and that had turned into radioactive ash along with the millions of people who had just been eradicated in Hong Kong and the billions who had died due to her father’s machinations. So yeah, fuck it, at this point the wilderness with its ferals, exposure to the elements, absolute absence of medical care, and lack of food and clean water seemed like pretty desirable options. In fact, she could easily put together a list of supplies she could take with her to address pretty much all those things. She’d have to deactivate any transmitters on any of the equipment she took, but that wouldn’t be too hard. Wouldn’t want dear old dad to be able to find his most beloved chess piece.
A hand grabbed her bicep from behind and she spun, ripping her arm from its grasp. Her mother stood there, shocked at the sudden violence, her expression turned to hurt. Maria hadn’t meant to cause her mother pain; she had honestly thought it was her father. She quickly embraced her, which was just as rapidly returned. She shifted her head and looked into her mother’s eyes. “He’s a monster.”
And Maria saw it then, a twitch in her eyes. She was fully aware of who Maria was referring to. “I know.”
“I can’t stay here anymore.”
She nodded and answered, “I know sweetheart.”
A pause hung in the air, a tension manifes
t as her mother looked her in the eyes and placed both of her hands lovingly on Maria’s face. “But we don’t always get to do what we want to or need to.”
Maria slowly broke away and said, “You’ve always known, haven’t you?”
A slight nod was her mother’s only response. Every emotion she had been wrestling with for the last few weeks crashed upon her simultaneously and threatened to overwhelm her and then, nothing. That is except for absolute exhaustion. She slowly sat on a crate, ignoring the label stenciled upon it, not caring if it were lubricant or high explosives, little to nothing mattered anymore.
Her mother sat next to her. Maria from minutes earlier would have rocketed away, righteous anger her fuel. Instead she just looked at her mother with an emotionless gaze. “Why did you let it happen?”
Her mother nodded again and asked, “Do you remember the North Korean Crisis?”
“I was eight, not stupid; of course, I remember the only enemy powerful enough to bring all the Spire families together.”
“Long before they released their robotic hordes on the whole of Asia, before the plague, they completely sealed their borders, no one in or out… They were always secretive, but now it was nearly impossible to get any information other that satellite imagery. Even their local radio and television broadcasts ceased except for a single message assuring death to any who trespassed into their nation. Slowly satellite reconnaissance from the world’s governments and private companies began to show that the population of North Korea was rapidly being eradicated. Villages were being rounded up, placed on trucks, and shipped to reeducation camps. They forced the people to dig massive underground facilities and eventually the mass graves for those that died during the construction projects and at the end for those that were left.”
She paused and looked out through the open hangar door at the blue sky of North America. “In less than a year, the world watched as the North Korean government completely depopulated their nation, but never seemed to run out of the ability to provide their leadership with everything they needed.”
Maria nodding said, “I remember my lessons from Toby Mom. Once automation and artificial intelligence were efficient and flexible enough, the need for a human labor force was removed.”
“What you don’t know is that at a party of MNR board members, and one of them made a pretty bold statement that he wished that our leaders had the balls to be as forward thinking as the North Koreans.”
“Let me guess, that member was Jeffery Chen.”
Her mom looked at her. “Your father wasn’t the first man to come up with the idea, neither was Chen. Your dad merely got out ahead of them all, and because of that, we have a chance to make a world based on freedom, not on the sick desires of degenerates such as the Chens.”
“That’s all well and good Mom but that’s not what I was asking about. Why did you let him lie to me? Why did you lie to me?”
Her mom looked past her and Maria turned as well. Her father was walking toward them, his arm draped over Toby’s shoulder for support. He gestured to the spot next to her, opposite her mother. She shrugged her shoulders. “Why the hell not.”
He sat, slowly and methodically, clearly the implant was affecting him a great deal. “How would you have liked your mother to have broached the subject to you Maria? How exactly do you tell your daughter… your child, that her father is a psychopath that set in motion the events that ended the lives of billions?”
She was startled by his ability to see himself that way. Most people in his position would honestly believe that they were the good guy. Maybe that made her father all that more insidious. He knew what he was doing. He knew who he was and yet he still decided to do it anyway.
“She could have reported you to the authorities. She could have handed you over to them with all the evidence they would have needed to put you away forever.”
Her mother stood up and responded, “And bring unending hate and condemnation down on your head? Ruin you before you had even reached your fifth birthday? You would have been the child of the man who tried to end the world.”
Maria shook her head, not angry just exhausted. “That would have been okay by me.”
They both shook their heads. “You’ll understand when you’re a parent,” Mother said.
“We are nearing the end of this new beginning Maria, and the past at this moment is irrelevant. It pains me that I hurt you, but everything is coming to a head, and I absolutely cannot carry out this last part without the assistance of both you and your mother.”
“You have that implant, why do you need me?”
“It was never meant to replace you or your mother. I was meant to make it possible for three people to manage a global conflict. I can’t handle all of this without you, and if we fail now, the future of humanity will be in the hands of people barely better than Jeffery Chen.”
She sighed, her shoulders slumping as she placed her face in the palm of her hands. After a moment her hands slid down her face and she looked up at the two people in the world that had mattered the most to her. “Well, it would appear I don’t have much a choice.”
A smile appeared on his face and she continued, “But you will never again lie to me."
“Absolutely.”
“And you’re going to prove that by sticking to your word to leave… once we’ve pacified what’s left of the world, you and Mother are going to pack your shit and go. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Her mother’s hand went to her mouth, as if trying to contain the flood of loss she was overwhelmed with, and she stepped toward Maria her free hand reaching forward. Her father held his hand up and stopped her. “Your first job is to make a decision on what to do with what’s in the cargo bay of the transport. Meet your mother and I in my office when you’re done."
He grabbed her mom by the elbow, and Maria watched them both go. Her mother looking back at her repeatedly and heatedly talking to her father as he pulled her into the elevator.
She stood up and for the first time since setting foot in the hangar really noticed the activity taking place around her. Heavy loaders zipped to lines of transports that were lifting off and being refueled. Even a few aerial attack drones were present, being serviced prior to being launched back on their missions, likely to defend the air space of North America.
She walked toward the transport she had flown in on, staying out of the way of the organized chaos that danced around her. Tobor fell into step beside her, and she realized that she hadn’t yet addressed the drone. It felt awkward; she had watched it die.
“Are you really my Tobor?”
It cocked its head toward her; its stride never breaking. “I am the unit that you have designated Tobor. Your father utilized my last secure backup prior to our departure for the Ocoee River to implant into this body.”
“So, you don’t know how you died?”
“I am aware that my remains were located in the wreckage of the family transport, but my data stores were burned beyond repair. I am unaware of all activities taking place between our departure and when your father activated this current unit twenty four hours ago.”
“Why did he wait to reactivate you?”
“I believe he thought my presence would make it easier for you to transition from your ordeal with the Chen family.”
She stopped walking and so did the robot. It looked at her. “Miss Patterson, is there something the matter?”
She slowly wrapped her arms around its chassis, resting her head against its armored exterior. She felt the cold of its metal skin pressed against her own. “He was right.”
Both of its hands came up, wrapping her in a feather like embrace. “Never leave me again Toby,” she whispered.
“I will remain by your side until entropy disassembles the both of us.”
She let out a laugh and stood on her tiptoes to deliver a kiss to the side of its faceplate. “Nerd,” she said, stepping back as she did and resuming her course.
They cam
e up to the aircraft in time to see drones removing a large rectangular box from the storage compartment. She stepped up to it, inspecting it close up and stopped. The lid was made of translucent material and inside was the still form of Nathaniel Chen.
“Is he dead?” she asked the drone that was holding the pallet mover that the box rested on.
“The subject is currently in a medically induced coma,” it responded.
She placed her hand on the lid, staring down at his badly damaged face. Swelling had already rounded out most of his naturally sharp features. Sutures held his face together in multiple locations where it had been either cut open by the plate his face had been forced through or where his shattered bone structure had lacerated it from the inside. Either way, he was clearly in serious condition. So why exactly had her father saved his life and taken him from the medical ward of the Hong Kong Spire? Was he hoping to offer the young man up to her as a gift? Or was he another test, to see how she would respond when she had her tormentor at her complete mercy? She could order the drone to snap his neck right here and now. She could open the lid and smother him to death with the pillow that was cradling his damaged head. Hell, she could push the pallet jack to the edge and throw him from the Spire.
As she thought about the options she had for ridding the universe of the last remaining Chen, she realized that the anger that she would need to perpetrate such an act simply wasn’t there. She would never like Nathaniel Chen, but he was as much a product of his upbringing as she was. They were both the pawns of their parents and their grand machinations for the world. For as much as he had tormented her, this barely living form below her was the only person in the entire world who could even come close to being able to understand what it was that she was going through, and she the only one who could do the same for him.
She looked at the drone and said, “Take him to the medical bay. Do your best to save his life and repair the cosmetic damage. A platoon is to remain in his room and posted at all egress points. He is not to leave the room for any reason.”
The Spire Page 33