by Tex Leiko
“You know it is a shame, Crimson. You and I are not very different,” he said, his voice still amplified by the microphone. He stepped behind her and put his arm around her waist. He drew his hips in close to her and bit her on the ear. He then whispered into it something that everyone could hear. “It is a shame you saw the light too late. The truth, you know? That the common masses are evil. The good of man is very minute. You give them power and this is what happens,” he said, pointing out at the city. “Sure, you caused some of this destruction, but how much did they cause? And for what purpose? Sure, they hid behind your ideals to mask their inner beasts. They point the blame at you saying that if you had never spoken, this would never have happened… But is that true?
“Just look at history to find out, look at the past. Look at what happens in metropolitan areas where there are blackouts that last longer than a few hours. One day without power in their homes and they revert to savages. Rape, murder, looting, rioting…and that is only scratching the surface. No, your words may have been a catalyst speeding up the process, but you and I both know that this was destined to occur. You and I both know that the common society of man needs to be dominated, to be policed. This is why after today, with the help of one Thomas Cudrow, the Alexarien government will be requiring all to undergo a single genetic changing inoculation.
“Yes, in order for mankind to become civil, we must first become more than human! And those of us in power must become gods capable of ensuring change!”
The crowd grew angrier and their rage turned again toward the government. People in their homes began destroying their own possessions in fits of rage. Many in the crowd tried to rush the stage, only to be vaporized. The masses were angry now at both Crimson and the government.
Many seethed with anger and breathed threats of death toward Reginald. Their focus was constantly led astray and the threat of another riot was on the rise.
“Oh, I bet you wish that you all had a savior now, do you not?” Reginald asked, taking a step back from Crimson.
He then in one quick swipe cut at Crimson’s knees. Both of her legs were quickly severed at the knee joint and she came toppling down to the ground. Blood gushed out and Reginald was quick to give medical attention. Crimson screamed and heaved in agony as Reginald rolled her over onto her back.
“And yet, here she is; here she shall sit for the next ten days out in this beating sun to show to all of you that your life could be much worse. Perhaps you have no say in the coming change, but would you desire to have her position? That is your option. As of today, Alexarien is being placed under martial law by the military. Those who resist the inoculation shall become the same as your dear Crimson here,” he said, putting his hand into Crimson’s mouth.
She bit down on his fingers as hard as she could. Her teeth struck his bone and pierced though it. In her mouth, she held his pointer, middle and ring fingers. He drew back in pain, blood running down his hand. The pain had caused him to drop his blade on the ground.
The crowd cheered and laughed at this man of power being injured by a defenseless woman. Reginald turned red with anger and stomped over to Crimson, kicking her in the ribs. As his foot connected, she released all of the electricity she had managed to accumulate over the last day. It wasn’t enough to kill him, but it caused him a good deal of pain and embarrassment as he jolted the moment his leg connected with her body. After recovering from her final attack, he turned and picked up the blade he had dropped.
He grabbed Crimson by her mandible on the bottom side, careful not to place his hand inside her mouth again. She laughed and spit his fingers out at him as he readied the blade. He placed it inside her mouth and pulled it through her right cheek. He then placed it back inside her mouth and pulled it through the left.
He grabbed her mandible with his hand and tore it away from her. He dropped it on the stage and kicked it into the barrier. He looked out at the crowd and held up his injured hand. She lay on her back with her tongue flopped over to the side. Her breaths were deep and laborious; the suffering that was inflicted was more than anyone should be forced to endure.
“This is not for the injury she bestowed upon me. It is for the lies she spoke that I do this.” He then bent down and grabbing her tongue, cut it out from her head.
He then sprayed medifoam on his hand to staunch the bleeding before attending to the wounds he inflicted on Crimson. He flipped her over, ran a hook through the skin on her back, and attached it to a chain that was connected to a rafter that spanned across the stage.
He hoisted her up high so that everyone could see. The cameras caught it all. The heat pressed upon the angry crowd. The crowd cheered at the violent punishment dealt upon her. Many began to reason that she was the cause of the government’s plan of inoculation.
Others were still angered at the government and now wished for Crimson to be freed and still leading them to their “salvation.” Only two things were certain. One was that even those who would support her now were nothing more than backbiting dogs with spirits of cowardice. The other was that this event was the most watched thing being broadcast on the video feeds right now.
“And in conclusion, I bid thee at home one final warning,” Reginald said, bowing toward the crowd.
The stealth jets flew overhead so quickly no one knew what was coming. Incendiary bombs were dropped on the large crowd. Many were killed instantly, others caught fire. Screams of agony and flames spread. Crimson looked out over the crowd with tears running down her face from the unbearable pain she was in, both physically and emotionally.
Black smoke ascended to the sky and the smell of burning hair, bone, skin, and muscle filled the city. Many were trying to scatter to get away from the bombing when a second round of stealth jets came by and dropped their payload. The whole crowd was dead in minutes and Reginald stood on stage, bowing still. He looked to the sky filling with the black smoke while he was still bowing and muttered, “Are you pleased by my sacrifice, lord?” It was barely audible, but the microphone picked it up.
Once the fires calmed, he stood and began to speak again. “I ask, did none of you learn a thing from the events yesterday? It is much safer in your homes, I assure you. Don’t mourn those who died today, for if they had half a brain, they would have left. Change and peace cannot come without great sacrifice. See the smoke ascending? It is the offering of the stupid and weak. Count your blessings that you remained indoors. Take this to heart, do not resist. Unless you don’t cherish your life.”
At this, Reginald stepped off stage through a small hole he created in the barrier and boarded a helicopter. The helicopter flew into the sky and away to the military base. The cameras remained turned on, staring at the smoldering corpses and at Crimson hanging in the center of the stage. The video feed wouldn’t stop until the end of the ten days.
Chapter Twenty
Requiem
The moment that the rubble crushed Max’s skull, it activated the chip that Crimson had placed in his Cerebral Aqueduct. The chip exploded in a microwave that simultaneously scanned his brain and liquefied it. The microwave sent a signal with every bit of data or memory that had not been backed up after he had left the brain scanning machine.
The signal found its way to the mainframe at Crimson’s safe house. There, the signal was picked up by a computer terminal and the data was downloaded and added to the brain scan holding Max’s personality, thoughts, and memory. Within minutes after Max’s death, all of the information was being loaded onto the crystalline hard drive.
Three days after Max’s death, he had been loaded onto the drive and his eyes opened. Two mechanical eyes beamed with the spark of life, only to be stared back at by two more mechanical eyes.
“Welcome back, Max. I’ve been waiting,” Luther’s voice said.
Max didn’t have a full face yet. He was nothing more than a Kelmantrium skeleton. In the center of the rib cage was a Kelmantrium box holding the crystalline hard drive. The eyes embedded in the skull were tw
o exact replicas of the one Max had implanted in his fleshly body.
“I can’t move yet, Luther.”
“It has only been three days, Max, just enough time to finish the frame and load you into the hard drive. How does it feel? Do you feel like yourself?”
“Exactly…right down to my final memory. I killed Kris Asimov and destroyed the interface… I didn’t even fully understand what I was doing when I did it, Luther!”
“Ah, that you did. Four more days, Max. Your wiring will be completed and this skeletal frame you inhabit will have its…skin.”
“So I take it the nanobots are replicating now?”
“Indeed. I would like to see someone try to kill you once you are finished being made,” Luther said with a hint of joy in his voice. “However, I bear bad news…”
“What is it?”
Luther turned a video screen toward Max and turned it on. The feed of Crimson dangling helplessly missing her arms, legs, jaw, and tongue was still playing. It took a moment for Max to recognize who she was. By the time he did, the feed reached its loop timer and images of the entire event started again.
“What happened?” his mechanical voice screamed.
“She was caught… Her resistance failed. Even more, the government is planning to turn everyone into obedient slaves by the end of the month with the help of…Thomas—”
“Cudrow? That bastard! What then of Zarfa?”
“I don’t know, master. I do not have his com-link number and with the interface being down, I had no way to find it. Perhaps you remember?”
Max thought back and recalled seeing Crimson dial it in.
“I do. One. Four. Seven. Nine. Nine. Eight. Zero. Dial it in my communicator, please.”
Luther did as Max asked. “Max?”
“It’s ringing, Luther.”
* * * *
“I think you’re going to want to see this, commander,” Zajifa radioed to Zarfa.
They had been searching the tunnels for days for a source of food. Zajifa’s voice had the sound of glee and excitement in it. Zarfa had been resting when he heard the voice echo over his radio. He scrambled quickly over to it to respond.
“Yeah? Yeah? What is it?” he questioned in excitement.
“Hydroponics, food, real food. Not replicated crap. It appears the soil this deep is rich in nutrients. There is enough growing here to feed us all! Not to mention the storehouses I found. Everything is going to be fine, brother, food, water, what more could those down here with us want?”
“Ha! I’ll let them tell you. It has been nothing but whining and complaining from them. Even threats and murmuring about me and we have only been down here a few days,” Zarfa laughed. He got to his feet and motioned for his group to follow him. The caves were vast and impressive. There wasn’t a single inch not well lit and reinforced. They had been wandering in the caves for three days and still hadn’t gone lower than the second level.
Zarfa kept getting an eerie feeling that they may not be the only ones down there still, so he commanded that everyone remain on high alert. Unfortunately, this had resulted in some collateral damage from people with twitchy trigger fingers.
“I can see you on my scanner, Zajifa. Hold your position until my crew arrives. It might be several hours,” he said with his voice full of cheer.
“Oh you don’t have to ask me twice, brother,” Zajifa said. Zarfa could hear the smile in his voice.
“Brother,” the radio piped up. It was Sarah.
“Yes, Sarah?”
“You might want to see this too. We found… Uhhh…well…a hatchery?”
“Wasps?”
“Not quite.”
“Well tell me then.”
“I don’t want to scare anyone who might be listening in. As if being cryptic will really help my cause, but let’s just say… Can I hold my position and request reinforcements until you can come and give direct orders, please? Brother… Sir?”
“Request granted, but it might be a couple of days. You said it’s a hatchery, right? How do the eggs look?”
“Gross.”
“That doesn’t really help me now, does it, Sarah?”
“Sorry, brother, but you asked. They look…podlike. I can see the embryos inside and best guess…a week before they hatch?”
“Okay, well, I can make it in about three to four days to your location after I meet up with Zajifa. Until then, tell me how many reinforcements you need; they’ll be sent.”
“Four hundred…to be safe. Send plasma grenades and anything that can start a fire… You know, in case.”
“Granted, sister,” Zarfa said as he turned to see the faces of his squad. The talk they overheard inspired less than confidence. They all looked horrified and they weren’t even sure of what yet. Zarfa smiled at them and spoke. “Look, if my sister isn’t panicking then you guys ought not to worry. I have confidence whatever it is, she can handle it.”
The men all laughed as they cheered Zarfa on. He had a way about him that inspired good morale and confidence. Very few questioned his leadership and he seemed to be getting better at it as each day passed.
The men that were trembling before looked at him and saw that confidence and integrity filled his face and valor shined though his eyes. The way he walked was with the strut of a lion and many took pride in following him. The air about him could cheer up the most depressed and gloomy of souls and many desired just to bask in his presence.
Zarfa had forgotten that anyone may want to contact him by his communicator over the three days he had been in the caverns. When it rang in his ear, it caught him off guard and startled, he jumped. He felt the blood drain from his face and the men in his squad who had never seen him show fear, laughed.
Zarfa quickly answered the call. “Yes? Who is this?”
“Zarfa, you may not recognize my voice… It’s Max.”
Zarfa looked confused and his men wondered who he was speaking with.
“Okay? How? I tried calling you days ago and your communicator didn’t ring. That tells me that—”
“I died.”
They were both silent for a moment. His men watched in anticipation.
“Have you heard of a brilliant scientist named Luther Dewaldt? He was a leading developmental research scientist in the field of neurosciences over twenty years ago. He discovered how to back up people’s personalities in the form of data. He was assassinated and his lab destroyed upon making a great breakthrough. What the Alexarien government that commanded this be done didn’t realize was that the machines they destroyed were mocks. He had already sold them to a wealthy man who wanted them as monuments of scientific progress.
“Luther himself was backed up and restored elsewhere. He lives today. Though the storage mediums they had at the time couldn’t fit his whole psyche, he is here next to me in part. Anyhow, with the use of his technology and a new storage medium, I am…resurrected, one might say?” His mechanical voice rang over the communicator.
“Wow, Max… I don’t know what to say. Have you—”
“Heard the news?” they questioned simultaneously.
“You first,” Max said.
“Crimson saved us. With her storms and whatever it was you provided her with, she wiped out the Faraza and the Psyker Screams almost instantly! It was amazing, some even called it a miracle. If she had a presence here, I am sure some would be worshipping her at her feet here. The old ways never die, Max.
“However, after that, she called me panicked-sounding. I haven’t heard from her yet. Right now, my army and I are hiding underground in the tunnels dug out by the wasps. The same ones the Faraza inhabited. You see, upon trying to return to Ilyeion…we were declared enemies of the state. Their military opened fire on us unsuspecting. It was awful; thousands died before we realized the need to retreat. Now we are just trying to survive underground, planning our next move. Kind of ironic, we became Faraza…so to speak, hiding in the tunnels, waiting for a moment to strike.”
“Ver
y grave news indeed, Zarfa. I am sorry to hear of your losses.”
“Thank you, Max, but I guess this is the price of war. The cost of freedom.”
“It’s a shame, but it is. Now I don’t suspect you have access to any video feeds down there, do you?” Max asked.
“Not that we have found. Just today my second in command Zajifa found us food! And Sarah found us…something.”
“Very good then, I will tell you the part you missed. Synaptix is gone, erased. The interface is destroyed. I did that, thank you very much. However, I have bittersweet news. Crimson’s army turned into nothing more than an uncontrolled riot. Crimson is still alive, but Zarfa…so is your father.” Max paused to let Zarfa feel the impact of the news.
“But? How? Wait! Crimson! Why hasn’t she answered my calls?”
“When you’re missing your arms, legs, jaw, and tongue…it puts a damper on communications. I am not sure how, but they caught her, the military that is. The weather is acting strange because they destroyed the Pilvikones and the earth isn’t able to cope. I assume that stripping her of her power was how they brought her down. If you ask me, they should have known destroying the machines would cause this. Their greed and their disregard for anyone other than their own selves caused them to bring destruction to take down one person. If anyone is weak in my eyes, it’s them.
“Anyway, they have Crimson on display in her mutilated state, roasting in the hot sun. Her skin is beginning to blister and peel off. She would have died of dehydration days ago except they connected her to an advanced life support system to prolong the torture, but that isn’t even the worst of it, Zarfa.”
Zarfa’s eyes welled with tears as he visualized the pain and suffering Crimson was going through. Sure, she had her own cause she fought for, but there was no doubt that she had aided them invaluably in their fight against the Faraza. “Please, Max, spare me nothing.”
“Your father has been contracted by the military to create an inoculation that will turn the populace into unquestioning slaves. They plan to put it into effect by the end of the month. It’s dangerous and unethical! What’s more, I doubt their plan will stop there. As of now, the city and the whole country are under martial law. Anyone on the street after dark is shot on sight. Anyone who looks suspicious, arrested and taken for questioning. People can’t even sneeze without being harassed. I have no doubt after they inoculate everyone, they will have an army larger than they ever imagined, and I believe Ilyeion is next.