Finally after Philip's body gave way to trauma from torture, he died. It was dreadful to view, even if I was not seeing it firsthand. He was my older brother, my family.
Being entertained by the footage and by my despair, Gregor responded, "Wait, it gets more interesting, we haven't arrived at the best part." Then the image changed completely. It looked to be security footage from the outer wall of the prison. The video had been edited to clarify the picture. The footage panned towards a hanging cage with a dead body in it, and somehow the image created déjà vu in my memory. Next, the image changed again to three figures standing below the cage. A man, a small boy, and a girl stood there. Now the image focused on them, and somehow the audio became clear.
The man lifted the small boy on his shoulders and exclaimed, "See Neil, that's Philip!" laughing, "He's really moved up in the world, on high for all to see... what's left of him anyways." The boy cried and tried covering his eyes, but the father grabbed his small hands, held them down, and forced him to watch. The girl protested, but the father just shoved her to the ground.
I felt completely numb, responding, "I... I remember... it doesn't make any sense, but somehow it does. I didn't remember until now, but seeing Philip hanging there in the cage when I was a boy that did happen... But then, how could he have been at Count Mondragon’s estate so many years later? It doesn’t make any sense!"
The twisting of my mind that Gregor was aiming for must have been taking shape. My numbness left, leaving my heart beating so hard that I felt as though it would explode. I felt engulfed in flame, then ice, the room spun, yet I was paralyzed all at once. I collapsed, falling onto the palms of my hands, my head barely missing the metallic floor beneath me.
Gregor walked forward, leaning down like a wraith, and digging his fingers into my lower jaw, lifting me off the ground, with his face still somehow concealed in shadow, "Neil, like I said you are a fool! You think that there is hope for you to be a good man. Your brother was never at the estate. It was you! He only existed in your mind. You killed your father, you framed that servant, and you poisoned the Count!"
Gregor then threw me against the wall of the cell with unbelievable force, triggering a memory:
I remember being a child, no more than seven years old, seeing my father sitting at a table, laughing and drinking. I asked him where my sister Lydia was, why she had disappeared. His laughter stopped and he swung towards me. Everything went black. I then woke up, in a closet, in a bag, with blood running down my face. When I woke again, I could somehow hear Philip talking to me, but couldn't see him. All my previous memories of seeing Philip after he died when I was a child vanished. I now remembered…it was me? It was me! Who did in fact murder my father all those years later, locking him in the abandoned wing of the estate, leaving him to starve and die of thirst. I hated him! He sold my sister Lydia... He destroyed our family! And more, I clearly recalled that it was I who carefully poisoned Count Mondragon, allowing Taylor Everett to serve the deadly tea to him, and ultimately take the blame for his death.
I came back to the present with Gregor standing over me. Gregor continued, "You see Neil, Philip died when you were a little child. You tried to forget about it and probably even blocked out the memory of when your father gave you that deep head scar." He pointed to the diagonal scar across my forehead, which I had tried to conceal for so long out of shame.
I couldn't pull myself up, but could only confirm the memories which were now flooding in, "Yes, I killed them…”
A slow clap from Gregor followed, with him laughing once more, "Finally, you admit what you have done. Do you really think that your nieces Bree, or even Echo would have ever cared for you once they really knew what you are?” Gregor paused, then continued in complete amusement, “And for the grand finale of your pathetic revelations, don't you remember what you did to prove your allegiance to me? You almost told Bree... don’t you remember?"
"Yes." I responded without protest.
Gregor continued, "Good, I can see you're not struggling any longer. As I recall, you withheld a antidote from people who were exposed to Teragene, and instead switched it with a contaminated batch."
Attempting to preserve what little virtue I had left, I retorted, "I know, don't remind me. I broke with you after that. You swore that those who the antidote was meant for, were no better than common criminals. But I couldn’t be part of your plans once their deaths weighed on my conscience."
Gregor burst out laughing, and then responded, "Yes, to me, they were criminals! They possessed something which should never have belonged to them. What you didn’t realize, is that those who needed the antidote most, they were your sister Lydia and her husband William... yes, Echo's parents. You killed them as well!"
What! How could this have happened? I tried to resist, but could feel myself losing my will to fight. Who am I really... what have I done? I then responded, "It can't be... there is no way I would have killed them!..." I said, trying to deny the charges. But, if this was true, if Gregor was telling the truth, I had no hope of redemption.
"Yes, you killed them Neil and my plan almost worked, except Echo wasn’t supposed to survive… You should have been more thorough! You’ve now made it more difficult for me to claim Talia, rich with Teragene. With a pesky baby heiress, traveling the known universe, while protected by the Waylay’s crew. Really, are you good at anything!?”
Gregor tilted his head, offering a discernible and familiar outline of his face, but still not enough to determine who he was, then continued, “Well, at least you did one thing right, you knocked out Ell Singer and threw her in the safe room of the Villa on Mecca Prime… It sounds like something your father would have done. Whatever your strange reasons for doing so, you played perfectly into my hands, luring Ell directly into my trap. Who would have known that Ell retained so much power, when the Fenix Service Program believed she was damaged years ago? Nevertheless, what a sad little man you are Neil. Bree, Jason, and Mark, they left you here to die because they know you are worthless!" Gregor shouted.
With what mental strength I had left, I screamed "I know… it doesn’t matter what they think of me... just kill me, but leave the rest of them alone!"
Gregor yelled back, "You miserable insect! Perhaps, if you had accomplished the one task you had been given, I would have. Now they have escaped my clutches, they challenged my power, they attacked me. You think I will let that go?! No! They are hiding behind EMP shields… and they do not want to be found… but I WILL hunt them down!"
Gregor came closer to me and put his left hand around my throat, "Neil, you and I, we are not that different. Give up, I will take what you have left and use it for its true purpose." With that final statement, I felt myself overpowered… responding to Gregor, "You win."
The Waylay -Day 385- Jason Singer
I knew Ell had to be in the blue embrace, since she wasn't with the rest of the crew when we boarded the Waylay. It was possible that she was on the bridge but I knew that wasn't the case.
I was injured enough that Gabe had carry me to the med suite, but I first needed to know how Ell was doing. "Is she ok?" It sounded as if I was pleading with Peter for information.
"She is stable. Let me patch you up and make sure you don't have any internal injuries and then you can go see her for yourself." Peter was trying to be reassuring. But I knew that she had to be deeply unconscious if she wasn't contacting me through the ship.
When we arrived at the med suite one of the scanners showed an image of a brain that was lit up with multi colored changing lights. "Is that her?" I asked.
"Yes. As you can see her mind is processing a massive amount of data. I don't know how she is handling so much. We just need to wait and see how it affects her physically." As I was laid down on the exam table Peter injected me with something.
"What was that?" But even as I finished speaking I could feel the effects of a strong sedative taking hold. I was asleep before I could hear his response.
Day 386
When I regained consciousness I was laying in a recovery room. The lights had been set to their lowest point. Peter had left me alone to rest.
…..
"Ell can you hear me?"
…..
About the Author
Morgan R. R. Haze was born in the Mojave Desert. In such a barren landscape, it’s no wonder imagination to write this story was also born. Yet there is a twist… Morgan R. R. Haze is not one, but three siblings who use their shared pen name to write novels together. While they were raised by the same parents, their life experiences have been vastly different: Love, extreme loss, being a wife, a husband, a mother, and a widower; being a manager, a government employee, a pharmaceutical technician, a caregiver, a teacher, a college student, and a humble janitor; all while experiencing or observing the kindness, the prejudice, the generosity, the egotism, the thoughtfulness, or the shallowness which humans are capable of, has brought a diverse perspective to this collective authorship. Though their preferred genre to write in is Sci-Fi, they like to dabble in mystery and exploring the human condition, all told through the multi-perspective-first-person experience. Hearing the internal thoughts or conflicts within a character during their journey can help someone to empathize with them. Morgan R. R. Haze hopes you will enjoy getting to know the characters of the Teragene Universe as much as they have.
Alpha Dawn: Book one of the Teragene Chronicles Page 27