Vile Machinations

by P. S. Power

  Then, after a few seconds, powered onward with his tale from the past.

  At least he could have. The words weren't in that vein, exactly, Connor noticed. The older man seemed mildly annoyed suddenly, as well.

  "You... So far it doesn't look like your abilities will work the same way. You're more powerful than she was, clearly, which is a bit of a curse for you, I fear. As you've noticed. It’s a powerful gift though. When we were attacked, you influenced everyone inside a quarter mile radius and reports had people up to a hundred feet away from you with memory loss surrounding the event. The guard team we had in couldn't even recall why they'd been sent, until the orders were reissued from off site. Which is, by the way, why I left without you. We simply couldn't work out how to protect you, until that was under control. We need to see if you can learn to use that on demand."

  Connor was soaking in the words, finally shaking his head, which probably seemed a bit angry.

  "You were telling me about Mom? I barely remember her. Was she nice?"

  The words got an answer, since his Father didn't really have a choice.

  "Oh, no. Not at all. The woman could barely fake being civil for more than ten minutes at a time. She was a spy, for the Jason Society. Her conditioning made it nearly impossible for her to love. If it wasn't for the nanny, you probably would have starved. On top of that, she enjoyed sleeping with pretty much anyone in the world that would hold still long enough for her to make an approach. She abused you, of course, sexually. Not so much physically, which was the only saving grace there. That was how she'd been raised, being raped constantly, so it might not have seemed to be as horrible to her as it would be to some. Do you have any memory of that?"

  He didn't, of course. He recalled being a child and being bathed a lot. What happened during those times, that was gone from him.

  "Not at all. I can’t even remember what she looked like."

  That got a serious look from his father.

  "Her power, no doubt. I tried to protect you from her, as well as I could. The truth was that I was never trained to be a father, really. My parents had others raise me, so when the time came and she died, I did the same for you. Etain... Well, you survived it. Not everyone does. I paid them well for the extra work and learning you had. Trying to help you be strong, without breaking your spirit. I don't know what I was thinking, only..."

  His Father, a man he barely knew at all, misted up a bit.

  "I wanted the world we have to live in to be easier for you than it was for me. Also, I wanted you out of the way. Children destroy lives. Never have any, if you can help it. There was no way I could do my job and be a full time or even part time, Father. So, I hid you away and did my best to make certain you'd have the skills you needed for this world. Fighting, the ability to kill without taking harm from it. A base of real information that most aren't privy to at a young age. Really, Headmaster Morris should have realized that he couldn't easily frame you like that. They’d trained you and the other boys there to be resourceful. If it had been another child there, I dare say the man would have probably died."

  Connor took a turn looking away, since the raw emotion on the older man's face was hard for him to handle. He wasn't really trained for it. Even if no tears were falling, he was too close for that to be comfortable. Noticing that kind of thing could draw pain from the control harness. Etain men learned not to see such responses, whenever possible. If they had to, then mocking the other boy until they strengthened their resolve was the order of the day.

  At the moment he doubted that calling his Father a sissy would toughen him up.

  "I have to admit, killing him came to mind first. That didn't seem like enough, though, so I used my skills and abilities to try something unexpected."

  There was a nod from the older man, as he straightened his red and gold tie at the same time. It was silk, and shone slightly in the overhead lights.

  "That it was, son. No one saw it coming at all. Anyway, now that you know I'm one of the worst fathers possible, are you still in with the Order? I have to say, I like the spirit you put in to some of your plans so far. We probably can't pull them off. As I mentioned, someone we can't find seems to be behind stopping us, over and over again. Not just us, either, everyone trying to save the planet. All the groups and even the world’s governments. The best plans just… Fail."

  Those words got Connor to think for a moment, before responding.

  "Then we should deal with that first. It would mean meeting with a lot of people, but if I can get them to tell me about whoever is stopping us, if anyone has a clue..."

  The words got the bald man across from him to grin then. It was a dark thing, rather than a sign of true joy or lightness in the world. Really, is seemed nearly sinister, if Connor was going to be truthful about it.

  "Oh, that would be a very good thing, if you can find out anything, I'd have to imagine."

  Chapter seven

  Walker, the head guard, was dressed in black shorts and a t-shirt for their run. Connor was in a bit more, since the second level, even if underground, was a bit chilly for him. The older man was out front guiding them, even if the run was in a large circle, with only a few interesting turns around some of the large cement columns that held the giant room up. They didn't run at a blistering pace, though they kept it up for slightly over an hour.

  When they finished, the other man waved at him to stop. They were both covered with a salty dampness. The kind of thing that meant you were either working very hard, or dying of a fever that was about to become far more unpleasant than simply running for a while would be. Thankfully, that day, it was all about heavy breathing and a bit of movement.

  Which, when he thought about it, was a good thing, in Connor's book.

  "Not bad. We'll add in some other exercises tomorrow. There's a gym on the third level, near the back. We’ll use that after the run. See you at seven, if not sooner." Then Walker marched away. It was efficient, if not exactly friendly seeming. Then, the man wasn't claiming to be his new pal.

  It might even be part of his job to make certain Connor could take care of himself. They hadn't spoken of it. Or, really, anything else, for the length of the run. That had to be on purpose. Not that Connor was planning to force the man to give over his secrets. They all probably had them, there. In the Order.

  What his Father had told him was both interesting and distressing. For odd reasons, too. The idea of killing off most of the people in the world, even if that might include himself, wasn't exactly a fun thing to learn about. Not that bad, either. Really, Connor was willing to sacrifice everyone else, more or less. That part was fine. It was, of course, clear that the Earth had way more people than it actually needed. Most of them weren't bright or self-controlled enough to prevent everything from falling apart, so it only made sense for someone to step forward and do it for them.

  As long as there was a good chance that he wasn't going to end up dead it might be worth working on. Naturally, everyone that was doing that kind of work, trying to save the world, would be told that they would be in the special ten, or possibly five, percent that would be spared. His Father had told him the truth about that trick, however. That they might all be doomed, if they did their part. Even the leaders might well be planning to die in the actions taken.

  Which wasn't a brilliant plan, as far as Connor was concerned. Even not wanting to live all that badly, it simply didn’t make sense for other people to think that way. Normal ones with their ability to touch others and to love and be loved.

  Still, he didn’t get a choice in the matter and there did seem to be a small chance that he could survive the whole thing. At least if anyone were going to at all. Worse, the cause of the order itself seemed totally legitimate. The world was so overpopulated with human beings that each year they waited to handle the issue was a huge danger to the ultimate survival of people in general. If anyone was going to survive, most of them needed to die as soon as possible.

  After his meetin
g the night before Connor had gone back to his room and figured out how to use the computer system there. It wasn't on the web, having an in-house system, instead. One that had provided far more information on climate change, overpopulation and several related problems that Connor hadn't really thought about than his schooling had bothered with. Mainly studies that had been done on rats, showing that populations would grow without restraint, until they collapsed. That seemed to hold for human beings as well.

  So it was all real enough that way. Unless thousands of researchers had faked their data, in order to fool him, personally. A thing that didn’t sound too likely at all.

  What he hadn't found anything about was why the decently competent plans of other groups had consistently been failing. There were files on that happening, with supposition as to it being artificial, rather than internal sabotage or simple failure due to lack of skill or planning. He'd needed to sleep, so had earmarked all of the files, hoping to find some kind of a clue or pattern in them, later.

  Walker vanished into the stairwell, and even if Connor was going in the same rough direction, he didn’t catch up to the man. Instead he got back to his room, showered and changed into slacks and loafers, then started to read again, going over the seventy-three operations that hadn't worked, over the last twenty years.

  A few of them were ridiculous, of course. The plan to bring in millions of demons, using ritual magic, for instance. Instead of doing that, the group of magicians had gotten about a hundred of the things into play and were promptly killed by them.

  “Because, no duh. What part of killer demons did they not understand…” He muttered the words as he read. It was a poor habit, but not one that had ever been punished out of him.

  The file seemed to be saying it was real enough, even if demons hadn't been discussed much in his classes. Not as something other than a myth or legend. Interestingly, there were pictures to go along with the files on that event. The beings didn't look like much, mainly being swirls and clouds of greasy looking black smoke. In a few places they did seem to have faces, though it was hard to tell for certain.

  The dead bodies were a good bit more interesting, since they'd been torn to shreds. Limbs decorated the room they were in, so that part seemed like it might be effective.

  At first Connor figured that, if it wasn't a hoax, then the problem was that the hundreds of demons were simply able to overwhelm the magic being used. Except that didn't seem to be the case. The experts brought in to examine the scene believed that the whole thing had been sabotaged, from the outside. As in, someone had been using a counter ceremony to break the hold on the demons, at exactly the right time to mess the whole thing up.

  No one had a real guess who might be doing it, since that would be too helpful for his plan to find and stop the bad guys who were foiling all their plans. Those evil beings who, for some reason, wanted the whole planet to be turned into a lifeless ball of dust, instead of saving it for the worthy few.

  Most of the plans had been fairly straight forward and easy to understand. Bio agents were put into different large societies, generally being airborne and allowed to spread when the sneezing and coughing started. The first tries had all failed, which had caused more virulent and powerful diseases to be tried. Along with hundreds of initial vector points for each one. It never worked, even if the models all showed that they literally couldn't fail, doing what they were. Possibly even if someone was trying to stop them.

  Meaning that, whatever was going on, was a much bigger issue than he'd initially figured. Really, he'd sort of worked out that it might be a group of underlings in each organization, simply making sure that they weren't killed in whatever mess the different organizations had planned. If you didn’t get a choice except to try and kill everyone and knew that you were going to die if it happened, then sabotage sounded like a great option, to him.

  If so, then it wasn't just a tiny group. It would have to be most of the people, in most of the groups. Even at that, they’d eventually fail to catch the actions of one or two motivated people. Which, if it were the case, he'd be able to find out about, simply by talking to enough of them. Not that he had a clue as to how to get that kind of thing set up.

  The events that had the largest fingerprints on them when it came to stopping things were the wars. After the Vietnam police action in the seventies, each war after that had been extremely mild, comparatively. Part of that was simply the asymmetry. For instance, millions had died in Iraq, of those who lived there, while only a few thousand U.S. soldiers had. The numbers weren't anywhere near what would be needed to save the world though. War, while a big killer of humans, wasn't going to do the trick. Clearly.

  Possibly a nuclear war could do it. The problem with that was the classic one that everyone already knew. If you blew up the world, you didn't have a world any longer. That would defeat the general purpose. That only left a few things to use. Massive droughts, leading to food shortages, plagues and viral agents, and the current plan of the Order, which seemed to be about influencing people using chemicals, to cause about ninety percent to kill themselves. The weak minded and poor, who ate things out of plastic containers on a regular basis.

  So far, that one actually seemed to be working. Not that it was showing in death toll yet. The chemicals were in the water and food supply. When people were checked, they were in their bodies, at least in Western civilizations. Mainly in the larger cities, with country dwellers being safer, being on well water and at times growing their own food.

  The problem was, of course, that about twenty percent of all people in North America should have already offed themselves given the saturation levels. Something extreme and powerful was keeping that from happening.

  Which was where Connor needed to look first.

  Standing up, he started to move from the room, planning to go to the one person he knew who might be able to help him track that sort of thing down. Doc. It wasn't until he got to the door that he realized that he didn't know where she was staying. Short of just walking around, knocking on doors, he didn’t know how he was supposed to do that kind of thing there. He looked at the information on the computer, but it didn’t have that kind of thing labeled as far as he could find.

  It was tempting to become annoyed, but he shook his head and smiled instead.

  "Or, I could ask at the front desk?"

  First he needed food, so cobbled together a meal, trying to follow the instructions on the back of a can of soup. It wasn't very good, being a bit burnt on the bottom, though that and some crackers filled him up enough that he wasn't going to fall down later, from hunger. It had claimed to be chicken and noodles. If so, then something had stripped the poor bird of all flavor before he'd gotten the can open. It was too salty, as well, since he’d failed to notice that he was supposed to add water, until after he’d eaten it all.

  After that, feeling better, even if the food hadn't been tasty, in particular, he moved to the lobby area. The old man from the day before wasn't in sight, so Connor stood there, at a loss as for what he needed to do. That lasted for nearly twenty minutes, before someone called out to him, from the right of the room. Away from the hallway that held his room.

  "Connor!" Turning, hearing a woman's voice, he was only a bit surprised to see that it was Parker, the pheromone lady from the last week, at lunch.

  Smiling, since he didn’t want to be rude, he waved.

  "Parker! How are you doing?" It seemed a kind enough thing to ask, since their lives were a bit stressful at the movement. What with people trying to kill them all, like they were.

  "Oh... You know, I've been better. I was just going to go for a swim, would you like to join me?" She was in very little clothing. A bikini, except that it was tiny, even for that kind of thing. In a brilliant red.

  She was attractive enough that it was tempting to go with her. If she went into the water wearing what she was, the top was, at the very least, going to slip off of her, which would be entertaining. Except that he had an
assignment, which, as far as he knew, didn't involve him lusting after the woman in front of him. Plus, unless she was willing to have him do things to her or he wanted to simply do it, without bothering to get permission, they couldn't actually do much. Other than hang out. With a respectful distance between them.

  A thing that suddenly sounded pretty normal. She was in her mid-twenties or so and even if she tended toward being flirtatious, she was smart enough to stop about fifteen feet away from him.

  He faked a wince, and tried to look sad.

  "I'd love to, but can't right now. I'm working on a project. Just a learning thing that my Dad set me to do. I think to prevent me from getting bored. Right now, I kind of need to find Doctor Short. I have no clue how to do that, of course." He spread his hands, trying to look annoyed by the work at hand. Not that he felt that way. Then, no one was holding him under their clever anti-lying field, so he had an advantage that way.

  Pushing her chest out a bit obviously, clearly not meaning it, the woman stepped toward him a bit. Then she spoke, not seeming able to stop herself.

  "Normally I wouldn't tell you, since I don't want Doctor Nerd Girl stealing you away from me. Not that I'm having any luck there so far. It's part of my job, making sure you're willing to work with us. Mariah. That's who I'm really working for." She seemed a bit shocked at her own words, but didn’t try to run away. She didn’t even take them back or try to deflect. Then, that probably wasn’t going to really happen.

  Connor just nodded.

  "Oh? Well, sure. I mean, I have nothing against that particular group, that I know of. You know where Doc Short is though? You kind of just hinted at that." Before she'd spilled the beans about her other job. Her main one, from the sound of it.

  He didn't care though, personally. That kind of thing, infiltration, sounded like it was common. At least his mother had been doing that kind of work, before she'd died. That she'd sexually molested him tried to poke at his mind then, as well. A thing that he’d not thought about since finding out about it. At least he’d been trying not to dwell on the idea. The truth was, he didn't recall it at all. While it left him uneasy to know about, it didn't actually hurt or leave him feeling upset or angry.