Incident 27

by Scott Kinkade

  When Ev got within thirty feet of him, Arcturus picked up his katanas and charged. Time seemed to slow down as each man prepared for the killing blow. Arcturus swung his swords and Ev his fists. Metal impacted metal, and both shattered.

  Ev knew his equipment was broken, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Arcturus’ one remaining sword which, while partially broken, still had a sharp edge which was now pressed to his throat. Both men locked eyes, knowing the battle had been decided.

  Arcturus collapsed backwards to the ground. Ev knelt beside him. All he could say was, “Arcturus.” When their weapons broke, the force of the impact caused metal fragments to become lodged in Arcturus’ chest.

  “You broke my heart, Ev. Literally.” His voice imparted a bittersweet quality.

  “I’m sorry,” Ev said. “But it had to be this way. You wouldn’t listen.”

  “You’re right. I...should have seen it sooner.” He coughed up some blood. “The Ark certainly saw it. It wanted to know which of us had the greater resolve, so it restored your powers. It understands...violence cannot be avoided. No matter where you go in this world, it’s kill or be killed. The cycle will continue for eternity. I wasn’t lying about Zero Grade’s plans. War is coming, and soon. But at least, now, I can be at peace. I’ll find Quandisa and...ask for her forgiveness. Thank you...Ev.” He closed his eyes and slowly evaporated like ephemeral snowflakes falling in reverse. Then the flecks of light recombined into the Ark.

  The same voice from earlier spoke to him. You are my master now. What do you wish to do?

  He didn’t need any time to think about it. “Return the world to the way it was.”

  As you wish.

  The entire world around began evaporating as Arcturus had done. He turned his head; his parents were standing behind him. “You’ve made us proud, son,” his faux father said. Within moments they, too, disappeared.

  It was a sad yet profoundly beautiful sight. As he watched, he thought about how this perfect world had to die. It was a damn shame, but Arcturus had been right about one thing: as long as people had free will, no world could be perfect. And yet, if you made everyone soulless puppets like he had done, it would be even worse.

  What was the answer?

  Chapter XVI

  After a brief interlude, Ev found himself back at Stonecroft—or what used to be Stonecroft. The crater was still there, along with hundreds of gallons of blood splattered all over the place from the recent battle. The Sancta Praesidium was nowhere to be found.

  Suddenly, a multitude of figures blinked into existence around him. “We’re back!” someone shouted, and they all erupted into joyous yelling.

  “I thought we were going to die in that dark place!”

  “Thank Bethos! He saved us.”

  “I’m just glad the Nephilim are gone.”

  “Ev!” Maya ran over and embraced him. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

  “Same here,” he replied. “But I wanted to more than anything.”

  She asked with some concern, “Where’s Arcturus?”

  “Dead. I had to kill him. I’m so sorry, Maya; I never should have gone along with him.”

  She smiled sweetly. “Well, we can talk about that later. For now, all that matters is that you’re back and the world is safe.”

  He remembered Arcturus’ prediction for the coming god war. “Yeah. For now.”

  Brandon, Freya, Jaysin and CiCi came over to greet Ev. Everyone else gathered in a circle around them. “Where’s the Ark?” Freya asked.

  Ev shrugged. “I don’t know. The last I saw of it, I was telling it to return the world to the way it was. After that, your guess is as good as mine. But I did bring you a souvenir.” He held out his hand, and the Blood Key appeared. He handed it to Freya.

  “Thank you, Ev,” she said. “Now we can return the Tower of Babel to where it belongs.”

  “That’s great, but what about Arcturus?” Brandon said. Ev repeated the news about his death. “Then it’s over. We won.” He shouted to the crowd as loud as he could, “We won!” Their cheers almost destroyed Ev’s hearing.

  “I think it’s a little early for you to be celebrating, though,” Freya said to Ev. “The President has a lot of questions for you.”

  He froze. This would not be pretty.

  * * *

  In Bethos’ office, Ev recounted everything that had happened after he left the Academy. He talked about the attack on House #4, the attack on the Adlo facility, the Asshole Three’s attempt to kill them, and their subsequent capture by the Sancta Praesidium. Freya hadn’t been joking; he did have a lot of questions.

  “Why did you bury the Ark under Stonecroft?”

  “Arcturus said it was necessary for activating it.”

  “And where are the bodies of Jorg, Relm and Priscilia?”

  “Jorg and Priscilia died just outside McCormack Technologies Incorporated. But the paramedics or whoever have probably moved the bodies by now. I don’t know what happened to Relm. Priscilia suggested he had gone to kill Arcturus, but I honestly have no idea.”

  “All right,” Bethos said. “Let’s go back to the part where you, Maya and Arcturus were held prisoner aboard the Praesidium. I assume you were interrogated?”

  “We probably would have been, if not for the Ark activating and knocking out all power aboard the thing. If you’re worried we gave away Academy secrets, I swear to you we didn’t meet whoever was in charge up there.”

  After an hour of questioning, Bethos leaned forward. “I have to be honest with you, Ev. You collaborated with the enemy and put the entire world at risk. According to the rules, I have to expel both you and Maya. And this time, you can’t threaten to join Zero Grade because we both know they’d just as soon kill you. Well? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Ev had thought about this all the way back to Mt. Orleia. He knew there was only one thing he could say. “I’m guilty, sir. I abandoned everyone here except for Maya who I coerced into helping me go along with our insane plan. She’s innocent in all this. Do whatever you want with me, but please—just let her stay.”

  “Come on, Ev. That’s a rehearsed statement if ever I heard one. You obviously didn’t think the plan was so insane when you carried it out. But having us all get stuck in Gehenna changed things, didn’t it? You almost got billions of people wiped out, you know.”

  Ev was silent. He knew the extent of his crime, and no amount of apologizing could make up for it. It would sound so pathetic, anyway.

  Bethos continued. “People must be held accountable for their actions. However, it occurs to me you’re as much of a victim as the rest of us. If we hadn’t made those mistakes and then tried to cover them up, you would never have become so lost. It would be hypocritical of us to punish you. Therefore, I’ve decided to pardon you and Maya.”

  Ev felt a jolt at the pronouncement. “Really? You mean it?”

  “Yes, Ev. I mean it. But on one condition.”

  Uh-oh. “What’s the condition?”

  “We can’t simply pretend like nothing happened. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place. Therefore, you’ll need to appear before the student body and take responsibility. You know, explain what happened and apologize. You think you can do that?”

  Ev stood up. “Just give me a microphone.”

  * * *

  Ev stood behind the podium on the stage in Hercules Hall. All eyes—as well as the bright lights—were upon him. He was nervous as hell; he had no idea how everyone would react to the words he was about to say. Oh, well; here goes. “As you all know by now, I recently ran away from the Academy and befriended a former member of Zero Grade. He enlightened me on certain secrets that had been kept from me by the Academy.” Now for the part he had been dreading. He told them all about how the Academy had been involved in the death of his father, the single most traumatic experience of his life. It wasn’t that he wanted to tell them; he desperately wanted to avoid it. But he knew that in order to gain
everyone’s forgiveness, he needed to be honest with them. “And so, when Arcturus told me about his plan to create a new world using the Ark of the Covenant, I saw it as my one chance at redemption.” He shook his head. “No, that’s not right. In reality I just wanted a do-over. But that doesn’t make what I did right. I ended up dragging everyone into that mess, and some of my fellow students died as a result.” He told them about the Asshole Three’s attempt to kill him, Maya and Arcturus.

  Eventually, he got around to explaining what he had learned from this whole experience. “Arcturus believed this world was hopelessly corrupt and cruel, and it definitely is cruel and corruption can be found everywhere. But I don’t buy into it being hopeless. We’re here at this school because we believe the world can be changed. We’re trying to become gods so we can guide mankind into the future. I thought forcing change on everyone was the answer, but now I know it’s not that simple. We need the wisdom to work with the mortal world, to show them the way. But before we try, we have to make sure we’re ready to take that first step.

  “Uh, so...I realize I’ve been talking for a while now. I just want to say I’m sorry and it will never happen again. Thank you.”

  He walked off the stage. Nobody cheered, but nobody booed, either. There was an eerie silence as everyone tried to process what he had just said.

  Brandon and Freya met him in the hallway. “Well, that was certainly different,” Brandon said.

  “I guess they didn’t like it,” Ev said.

  “You can’t expect instant forgiveness after what just happened,” Freya said. “You’ll have to work to win their trust back. But you went up there and opened your heart to them. For now, that’s the best you can do.”

  The students filed out of the auditorium. Ev expected a punch or two, but most of them avoided interacting with him. A few of them did, though. They patted him on the back.

  “You’re well on your way to winning them back,” Brandon said.

  “That’s good to know,” Ev said. The two professors turned to leave. “There’s just one more thing.”

  “Yes?” Freya said.

  “Arcturus said something that stuck with me. He said there’s no justice in this world. I think he’s right, so I’ve decided what kind of god I’m going to become. I’m going to be the god of justice.”

  The two professors exchanged glances. “Think very carefully about this, Ev. That kind of god carries a heavier responsibility than most other deities. Dispensing justice is a lot trickier than you think.”

  He stared them down, his face a resolute mask. “Then teach me.”

  * * *

  Maya waited until after Ev was done talking with the professors before approaching him. “That looked important.”

  “It was. I told them I’m going to become the god of justice.”

  “Wow,” she replied. It took her a second to come up with a real response. “For what it’s worth, I think, after all you’ve been through, you’re more qualified than just about anyone here to become that god. Ev Bannen, you’ll be a great god of justice.”

  “Thanks, Maya. I have a feeling that, sometime soon, the world will need justice more than ever before.”

  Her face darkened. “You mean the war with Zero Grade. Do really think it will happen?”

  “Arcturus was convinced it’s inevitable, and he was in a position to know. We have to make sure we’re ready.”

  She took his hand in hers and both felt the warmth. “We will be. But for now, let’s just enjoy this peace.”

  TO BE CONTINUED.

  Afterword

  As I write this, I haven’t even published God School yet. In fact, I’m currently editing these two novels simultaneously. God School is still in beta phase, and Incident 27 hasn’t gotten that far. What am I waiting for? It has to do with my desire to deliver the best product possible. I won’t release God School until it meets my high standards, and that means I still need to hear back from my beta readers, commission a cover and hire an editor. And those last two cost money. I’ve never hired an editor before, so I want to try and get the best rate before I do.

  But enough about that. If you’re reading this, you want to know about the process of writing Incident 27. You got it.

  Even before I finished the first draft of God School, I was kicking around ideas for the next books in the series. Would I go ahead and start the next god war in the second book? No, I decided to save that for a later day. What if I had Ev get possessed by Satan? That’s a possibility, but one I’m not ready to explore yet.

  Ultimately, I was taken with the idea of Ev meeting what essentially is his predecessor. This man was originally a clear-cut villain named Arcturus something-or-other. I honestly don’t remember what his last name was going to be, but it wasn’t Reich. I settled on the name Arcturus Reich because it sounded sinister to me. But in my oh-so-humble opinion, the best villains are the ones with valid points to make, so I changed him to more of a tragic figure that Ev could have become had his situation been just a little different. This presented a challenge; if I made him too blatantly evil, Ev couldn’t be expected to follow him, and yet I clearly show him murdering people. I came up with the solution of having Arcturus hide or downplay his homicidal tendencies, even to the point of outright lying about it. Furthermore, Ev’s emotional turmoil causes him to go into denial about his friend’s true nature. Add to the mix Maya’s strong distrust of him, and things get even more complicated. I needed her to stick by Ev’s side, but she can’t just blindly follow him like a puppy. She has to have her own voice and opinions. So I gave her some inner conflict; she knows Arcturus’ plan is insane, but at the same time, she doesn’t want to push Ev away. She decides she’ll stick by him and do her best to protect him from both Arcturus and himself.

  What makes Arcturus’ plan so crazy? The Ark of the Covenant. In God School we see some of the Artifacts housed in the Tower of Babel, but I wanted to save the biggest, baddest one for later. And to earn its status as the top Artifact, it had to be something really special. If you’ve read my previous books, you know I take great pleasure in turning reality upside-down, so it should come as no surprise that I decided to do it again. In Secrets of the New World I turned a good chunk of Washington into the Gnostagar world of Pleroma. Well, this time I took it a step further and remade the entire universe in Arcturus’ image. But unlike the Washington transformation, here the two worlds end up looking similar, and it’s really only the people and history that change. This has been done before in other stories, but it’s never been done my way. It’s not the heroes or the primary villains of Zero Grade that want to reshape reality; in fact, Zero Grade is firmly against it. It’s one sad, lonely individual who blames the world for the relationships he had to sever.

  Speaking of Zero Grade and Arcturus—I’d like to talk about the new characters introduced in this book. We have a few (villains) that I’m proud of. I’ve already discussed Arcturus, so now I’ll tell you about the others. The Asshole Three are characters I’ve been kicking around for a while now. In every story like this, there has to be a rival student, a Draco Malfoy, if you will. While writing God School, I struggled with this idea. Should I create such a character? I didn’t do it then because I just wasn’t feeling it. The notion seemed too cliché and I didn’t have any good ideas for a nefarious counterpart.

  Nevertheless, the idea persisted, and I realized it had potential. So I started writing Incident 27, and before long it came to me. There wouldn’t be just one rival, but a trio of them. I was partially inspired by the Warriors Three of the Thor comics (at least in regards to the name), but as these characters would be assholes, I decided to name them the Assholes Three. I soon dropped an “s” and they were simply the Asshole Three. They were the best of the best at the Academy, and each of them would have a special ability. It didn’t take me long to decide they would also be homicidal opportunists (this is me, after all) who would force Ev and company to fight them.

  On the other side of th
e villainy table is Zero Grade’s Set. Following in the footsteps of my Infini Calendar series, I wanted to have an historical figure show up in the story. I thought Friedrich Nietzsche would make a compelling–and ironic—character; he said God is dead, and now he is a god. But the more I thought about it, the less sense it made. It just wasn’t logical for Nietzsche to make an appearance in a different universe billions of years after his death. Therefore, I decided to instead have a god who embodies Nietzsche’s philosophies and who used him as a mouthpiece once upon a time. Thus Set was born, and it was only natural he and Arcturus would come into conflict with one another. As someone with Nieztsche’s world view, he cannot accept Arcturus’ nihilism.

  But perhaps my favorite new villain is Medusa. I love psycho chicks, and didn’t hold anything back with her. She’s as nutty as they come, but with an even more tragic back story than Arcturus. I wanted her to be pitied rather than despised. A while back I saw a show on the History Channel about Greek mythology, and the story of Medusa really stuck with me. After hearing everything that supposedly happened to her, I thought, “Wow, that would seriously drive someone insane,” and so I played with that and got the Medusa in my story.” Even now, it’s fun to go back and re-read the scene with her.