Epilogue
It was the morning of August 7th, 2025. Winston Severov was sitting in his office on the top floor of the Darkside Facility in Tokyo, Japan. He was casually dressed, as he was on leave and working on his own time. He wore a black short sleeve polo and blue jeans. He puffed a long cigar with one hand and was picking up stacks of papers with the other, anxiously searching for something. After giving up his search for a moment, he got to his feet and partially closed his blinds. The sunlight was blinding that morning and he had little patience for annoyances. He then returned to his desk and was just about to resume his search, when he heard a knock at the door.
“Enter!” he shouted, in a frustrated tone. Alexander Mandrake then entered the room, dressed in his formal military attire. Mandrake rolled his eyes at the sight of Winston picking over the top of his desk, like a vulture picking over a dead animal. “What are you even doing here?” Mandrake asked him.
“Trying to find my remote for the you know what,” Winston scoffed, in his barely discernable accent. “Why?” Mandrake queried.
“There was just one more thing I wanted to review, before my afternoon tee time,” Winston answered. “It was something I found when I was scrolling through it yesterday and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind.”
“I’m sure whatever it is, can wait. There’s countless billions of files on that thing,” Mandrake quietly muttered, as he took a seat in front of Severov’s desk.
“Ah hah!” Winston exclaimed. “Here it is!” He raised a black, slender touch screen remote towards the 50 inch flat screen monitor on his wall and turned it on. Four columns of rapidly scrolling ancient text appeared on the screen. “You’ll never find it,” Mandrake said mockingly. “Whatever you’re looking for, is gone. That shit moves too fucking fast and you can barely read it anyways.”
Winston walked over to an end table beneath the monitor, where he found the Talin, glowing yellow from the word characters etched into it. He held three of the symbols together at the same time, which slowed the flow of scrolling text on the monitor. “Obviously you never learned how to do that,” Winston snapped. He then went back to his seat behind his desk and used his remote to make a menu selection. “This is it,” Winston boasted with a smile. “You should stick around, Alex. You might learn something.”
The file took a few seconds to load. A moment later, a blurred image of a man appeared frozen on the monitor. Winston was about to play the file, but was interrupted by a pretty young Caucasian woman, with long red hair, entering the room. “General Mandrake,” she stuttered, before realizing that Severov was also in the room. “Oh, I’m sorry sir. I didn’t realize you were here. I just needed to see…” Before she could finish, Severov cut her off by simply pointing to the door and shouting, “Out! Don’t care! Out!”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry,” she dutifully replied, as she exited the room, quietly closing the door behind her. “Who the fuck was that?” Winston asked Mandrake. “Simone West. New science officer. Pain in the fucking ass,” Mandrake answered. “Go ahead. Play the footage. You’ve got me intrigued.”
“I knew I would,” Winston said with a smile. He then played the video file, causing the image of the man to come into focus. Alexander recognized the man immediately and asked Winston to pause the file again. “What? What the fuck is it now?” Winston asked.
“That’s him, isn’t it?” Mandrake asked, pointing to the screen. “He was the leader; the one your Martian friends want.”
“He’s called Drellic,” Winston boasted. “And he’s out there right now, just waiting for us.”
“You really believe that?” Mandrake asked. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be saying it,” Severov snapped. “He’s out there, just waiting for us to pick him up! The Martians say that the ancients were much more nourishing than the cargo we’ve sent them in the past. If we sent a team of qualified pilots on, let’s call it a rescue mission, we could deliver his frozen tuchus to Phaetos and fulfill our end of the bargain, with one single body!”
“Don’t be naïve,” Mandrake said sternly. “If you give a mouse a cookie…We’ve been through this before with them.”
“Very well. I’ll stop being naïve, as soon as you stop being counterproductive,” Severov snapped.
“Fine. Fuck it. Whatever you say, Winston. Just roll the tape. Is the translator on?” Mandrake asked.
“It never wasn’t,” said Severov.
Winston then anxiously resumed the video feed. Mandrake and Severov watched intently, as Drellic Kail was shown sitting alone on a stone staircase. He was outdoors and the sun was rising over his shoulder. Drellic seemed sad and full of regret. He looked into the device that was filming him at the time, and seemed to be staring lifelessly into Winston’s eyes, as he said, “I am Drellic Kail. I am the leader of my people and I want you to know the truth. Someone has to know the truth about the war that I started. The war that will claim us all.”
THE END
For Siren
Book Three of, “The Drellic Saga”
Copyright ©2013 Michael John Marlinski
ISBN: 9781311835789
The Drellic Saga: Books One, Two and Three Page 52