Trace looks up at Sakura in complete shock, and asks gingerly –
“… So then, you do know what happened, right? About the diffusion..?”
“OF COURSE I DO! THAT’S WHY I HAVE TO FIND THE COMMANDER, AND ASK HIM WHY! W-why.. Why he made me do it…”
Sakura looks as if she is going to cry for a moment, but she regains herself quickly, stomps back down the stairs, and says under her breath as she passes by a bewildered Trace –
“Let’s just get what you’re looking for so we can get to the Commander.”
Trace nods compliantly, taken aback by the harrowing tone in her voice, and the two of them continue descending the illuminated stairwell, eventually arriving at the very bottom of the stairway, which is guarded by a huge, heavy, well-secured lead door. Trace approaches the keycard terminal, and mashes the buttons on it with an eager smile, but the door doesn’t budge. Disappointed, he turns to Sakura with a smirk.
“Well? What are you waitin’ for, missy? Just tear the door off, and let’s get back to Seymour!”
“That door is made of lead. It’s not magnetic.”
“… Well, great.. How the hell are we gonna get inside?”
Without a word, Sakura pulls out a silver keycard from a small pocket on her jacket, swipes it on the terminal, and enters a long, intricate code on the keypad. As Sakura takes her hand away from the terminal, the huge door slides open, giving way to more stairs descending into the shadows. Sakura looks back at Trace with a slight smile, who returns it with a sour glare, and together, the two enter the darkness of the chilly contraband vault. The entirety of the gloomy, labyrinthine subterranean chamber filled with innumerable dusty shelves, mounds of ripped, crumpled papers stacked almost twenty feet high, and countless abandoned crates, with fading labels peeling on their water-damaged paneling, is lit by a single row of dim florescent lights hanging loosely from the cracked concrete ceiling. The whole vault reeks of neglect, the sweetish smell of rotting wood, and the slightly metallic taste that hangs heavily in the air. Trace scans his vision as far as can, but the room seems to go on for miles, and he says with a sinking feeling in his gut –
“Man.. There are thousands of shelves and boxes… How the hell are we gonna find ‘em?”
“How long ago were the items placed in here?”
“I don’t know… Must’ve been a few months ago, at least..”
Sakura steps over to a nearby shelf, drags her finger through the thick layer of dust lying on top of an ancient-looking AK-47, and shows it to Trace pointedly.
“The most recent seized items are always taken to the back of the vault. These objects at the front of the room have been here for over a hundred and fifty years; never being touched. Mostly things seized from the Aozora Alliance during the war.”
“Damn.. They all seem to be in working order. But just because they inadvertently touched the hands of some bastard from the Aozora, they’re destined to rot in this hellhole for eternity… What a waste.”
“… Let’s just hurry up and get back to the Commander.”
Trace and Sakura trudge along the dimly lit walkway, their footsteps echoing endlessly through the vast chamber, gazing intently at the various fascinating seized objects as they pass by. Things ranging from simple firearms, to massive nuclear missiles, in ready-to-fire position. Battered bicycles, 18-wheeled freighter trucks, vials of calcium, jars of anthrax, experimental weaponry of all shapes and sizes, piles of clothing, and crates filled with charred toys are only some of the many beguiling corporeal memories lying neglected amongst the plethora of ancient confiscated objects.
“Wow… Damn.. This place is insane… If you even dropped a pin, it could blow sky high.. What were we thinking?”
Sakura glances at Trace, her suspicions intensifying, and states stoically –
“.. If you’re really who you say you are, then you should’ve been down here before..”
“Nah, I’ve never actually been inside. I was a General. Piling shit in here was a grunt’s duty.”
“Mm, right..”
Falling again into silence, the two carry on their expedition through the archaic vault of derelict mementos, which, as they progress, appear to be in better repair and condition, until eventually, they reach the end of the confiscated cascade, which consists mostly of familiar small cardboard boxes with numbered labels stamped carelessly on their surfaces. Trace seizes one of the boxes from the shelf with a relieved smile, and says to Sakura hurriedly –
“Okay, they should be in one of these boxes. Tear ‘em open, and get to searching. They apparently look like little cones.”
Sakura nods, grabs a few hefty boxes off of the shelf, and sifts through the contents carefully, searching for the conical magnetic charge isolators. After a few minutes of searching in anxious silence, Trace pulls out a locked steel box, which is barely the size of his palm. He tears the miniscule, but surprisingly strong lock off, flips the box lid open, and finds a silver disk containing six small, cone-shaped pieces of machinery with tiny, sphere-tipped rotors within. He carefully takes one of the CMCI units out of its holder in the disk, and inspects it with awe and intrigue.
“I can’t believe that kid designed something as amazing as this.. He’s certainly different from his father..”
“What’s that?”
“Huh? Oh, nothing… Well, I found the thingies, so let’s get out of here.”
“Right.”
Quickly making their way back through the enormous vault, the small steel box safe in Trace’s pocket, they eventually reach the exit, dash back out into the brightly-lit stairwell, and hastily ascend to the rendezvous point, vaguely questioning why the stairwell is devoid of security. Much to their surprise, Seymour and Elena aren’t there. After a few minutes of worrisome waiting, Trace suddenly hears a myriad of tangled voices enter the stairwell from several levels above, and echo throughout its concrete depths. Trace listens in closely as the voices slowly grow fainter.
-So, should we take these two to the General?
Yeah, I hear he’s really got it in for this one here. He’ll take care of them, I’m sure.
Trace hurries up a few more stairs, and just manages to catch a glimpse of a long sheet of white hair with dread. Sakura catches up to Trace anxiously, and whispers –
“Did you see that?”
“I did. Looks like it’s not over yet..”
Seymour opens his eyes with difficulty, his body still aching from the remnants of the poison still inside his bloodstream. He tries to move, but finds himself tightly handcuffed to a chair, and his vision still obscured by the thick black blindfold. Virtually defenseless, he listens intently for a sound to perhaps give him a clue as to his situation, when suddenly, somebody violently smacks him on the side of the head with a revolver, slams it down onto a wooden desk in anger, and a familiar voice whispers almost inaudibly, the pent-up rage evident within every hushed word –
“How... the... fuck... are you still alive?!”
Instantly recognizing the furious voice, Seymour smiles deviously, and says slyly –
“… Solari? Heheh, wow.. I must say.. You really are bad at killing me.”
“Well, that’s about to change.”
Seymour listens intently at the sound of Solari slowly pacing around the chair to which he is shackled, until finally, Solari breaks the hush by declaring thoughtfully –
“… You know, I’ve done some thinking since the incident at DIV. 1…”
“You, thinking? That, I’d like to see.”
Solari grits his teeth, enraged, forcefully snaps Seymour’s head back by his hair, and breathes dangerously –
“AND… I realized that I have been playing by your rules every time we meet, and have simply taken defeat with good nature.”
“Good nature? Is that what you call this?”
“Shut your mouth, Moreau, or I’ll have to shut it for you.”
“Oooo.. Somebody help me, I’m shaking.”
“Enough!
”
Pulling the hammer back, Solari presses the muzzle of the revolver against the back of Seymour’s head, and yells madly –
“Now tell me your secret, Moreau! How is it that you can survive being beaten, stabbed, shot, poisoned, and subjected to extreme cold?! It’s inhuman!
Tell me! I know you Magnispawn can survive a lot of abuse, but this is too much! Tell me your secret, and maybe I’ll settle with giving you life imprisonment.”
“… There’s no secret, Solari. I’m simply resourceful.”
“If it was only a matter of resourcefulness, nobody would ever die, Moreau! Now quit fucking with me and tell me!”
Seymour mulls over Solari’s assertion for a time, feeling the muzzle of his revolver being forced deeper into the back of his head with each second passing in silence. After a time, Seymour says baldly –
“I suppose.. it’s because I have friends who care about me.”
Still unable to see for the blindfold, Seymour doesn’t notice Solari’s agitated grimace as he strikes him in the back of his head with his revolver and says through gritted teeth –
“Your.. friends, Moreau? Really?”
“That’s right.”
“Hah! Don’t give me that patent bullshit! By friends, do you mean the little Lias children? My… my brother Erik? And even your own sister? You call them your friends? That’s rather callous of you, since nobody conscious of their actions would befriend someone such as you, Moreau. You had to literally control their every move just so they could stand your presence!”
Though he doesn’t want to, Seymour can’t deny the veracity in Solari’s claim, though, he retaliates by yelling defensively –
“T-that may be, but who do you have, Solari?”
“What’s that?”
“Yeah, that’s right! Nobody likes you, Solari, and for a good reason!”
Solari doesn’t reply right away; he merely opens the cylinder on his revolver and checks on the bullets within the chambers before declaring frankly –
“I don’t need friends, Moreau. I just need to have people who will obey, and recognize me as their superior.”
“Exactly my point. You take pride in your spiteful nature, which you accepted for yourself. I may be spiteful of the world, but at least I’m trying to make it better!”
“Oh please.. You mean by destroying it?”
Seymour opens his mouth to retaliate, but he doesn’t have a rebuttal. Solari snaps the cylinder back into the frame loudly, and proclaims with a devious smirk –
“You really do make me laugh, Moreau. Yet, beyond all your semantics, you and I are the same. Oh, I don’t claim to be as catastrophically insane as you are, but when it all comes down to it, we both revel in murder. We both elate in depravity. We both illuminate in sin. There’s no use acting holier-than-thou.”
“But I didn’t have a choice!”
“Well, neither did I, Moreau! You were going to destroy the world, and I had to stop you! Anybody with a working brain would agree that I am the one who is doing the right thing!”
Seymour scowls darkly behind his blindfold as Solari places his hands lightly on his captive’s shoulders, leans in close, and breathes viciously in his ear –
“But all that aside, Moreau, no matter what you say, you still have the blood of over nine billion people stained on your hands, and nobody to blame for that but yourself. And at some point, you’re going to have to face what you did, and pay for it. … I’d say this is as good a time as any.”
Solari suddenly retreats from Seymour, his footsteps squeaking on the carpeted floor, and for a moment, all that remains is silence, but it is swiftly broken by a few high-pitched squeaks of fear, which are quickly smothered. Unable to see what Solari is doing, Seymour says worriedly –
“… W-what are you doing, Solari..?”
He listens as hard as he can, trying to discern what Solari is doing, and he is clearly struggling with another person in the room, who had been quiet the whole time beforehand. Once the room falls silent again, Solari proclaims thoughtfully –
“… You know, Seymour.. Despite everything I have said in the past.. I do think you are an interesting person.”
Taken aback by Solari’s sudden admission, Seymour shifts nervously in his seat, trying to free himself from the handcuffs, but they remain resolutely locked.
“Well, I suppose it’s only natural. Anyone who could consciously murder over nine billion people and not be instantly torn apart by guilt would certainly be an certain individual.”
A loud, high-pitched squeak of pain cuts through the heavy, pondering silence, but it is quickly suppressed as Solari continues his thoughtful tirade.
“But that’s the thing. I don’t understand it at all. Not one bit. I can’t fathom why so many people are drawn to you, despite the fact that you are, under your stoic mask, a sadistic, murdering psychopath.”
All Seymour can hear is a slight struggle taking place very near where he sits, along with the metallic jangling of handcuffs and the scuffling of shoes on the carpet.
“I cannot bring to mind how many times I have asked myself why people treat you, a freakish portent of genocide and deceit, like a veritable messiah, when people like me: good, honest men, who want only what is best for the world, are left to fall by the wayside.”
“But how can you be sure that what you’re doing is what’s best for the world?!”
Solari stops whatever he is doing, and for a moment, only a heavy, pondering silence fills the room, until finally, he says under his breath –
“Mm. Well, Moreau.. How can you? If we are both merely doing what we think is right, then I suppose.. I just haven’t been trying hard enough.”
And then, suddenly, the sound of a single, piercing gunshot tears through the silence. Seymour freezes in his seat, however, it is not he who has been shot. After a few seconds of torturous silence, Solari puts his hand on top of Seymour’s head, then slowly and derisively tears off his blindfold with a maddening chuckle. Seymour opens his eyes slowly, Solari’s office coming into focus, to find the two Lias siblings sitting motionless across from him, one unconscious, and the other with a fresh, steadily bleeding gunshot wound over their heart. Seymour stares wide-eyed, the shock and helplessness washing over him, as he gazes into the blank, lifeless eyes of Elena Lias before Solari picks up his revolver, turns it on Seymour with a wide, elated smile, and pulls the trigger.
Following stealthily in the soldiers’ wake, Trace and Sakura finally reach the top of the stairwell, back carefully into the wall beside the exit, and peer around the corner. The long, lavishly decorated hallway beyond the stairwell has only one door; a tall, ornate wooden one, surrounded by a sea of tawdry blue carpet and well-armed soldiers. Trace leans in close to Sakura, and whispers hurriedly –
“That must be Solari’s office behind that door… What a self-indulgent prick. I never had my own office when I was General…”
“So, the Commander is in General Solari’s office?”
“Yeah, probably. If we’re gonna get him, we’re gonna need to fight through those bastards.
You up to it?”
“Of course.”
“Good. Let’s do it.”
Checking their artillery carefully, Trace and Sakura nod to each other, round the corner, and unload their weapons upon the unsuspecting soldiers, who are all quickly dealt with. After the firefight ceases, Trace approaches Solari’s office door, steels himself, and forcefully kicks it open. Inside, Solari is holding a gun to Seymour’s head with a disturbing look of rage-filled glee stretched upon his pallid face. He is so enraptured, he doesn’t even notice Trace and Sakura. Reacting swiftly, Sakura runs into the office, and shoves Solari out of the way, just as he pulls the trigger. The bullet barely misses Seymour’s head, slicing off more than a few strands of his white hair, and while Solari and Sakura fight for possession of the gun, Trace runs up to Seymour, and breaks his handcuffs with his rifle. He seizes Seymour by the shoulders, and de
mands worriedly –
“You okay, kid?!”
Without replying, and instead of joining their fight, Seymour immediately runs over to Elena, completely unaware of anything happening around him. He breaks the handcuffs around her wrists, pulls her onto the floor against the wall of windows, and stares into her glassy eyes with renewed disbelief. Sakura tries to rip the gun away from Solari’s hands, but he pulls the trigger, trying to deliver a lethal shot, but only shoots her in the arm. Sakura recoils in pain, breaking free of the fight. In her instant of weakness, Solari kicks her aside, dashes towards the elevator at the side of his office, and mashes the UP button anxiously. Becoming aware of Solari’s cowardly attempt to escape, Trace tries to pursue him, but the elevator doors close in his face, leaving the image of Solari’s smug, derisive smile burned into his vision. Unable to contain his rage, Trace roars irately, and punches the elevator door, leaving a deep dent upon its smooth, white metal surface. Breathing deeply, trying to quell his fury, Trace turns to Sakura, who is kneeling on the ground, gripping her bullet wound tightly, willing herself not to cry, but in vain.
“Hey, girl.. You okay?”
Sakura nods through her tears, and Trace pats her on her shoulder in what he believes to be a sympathetic gesture. Trace then looks from Gordon, who is still unconscious in his chair, to Seymour, who hasn’t moved an inch from Elena’s lifeless corpse, and who still harbors the same wide-eyed, disbelieving stare. Trace sighs in anger, staring at the bloody stain beneath Elena’s shirt on her motionless chest, approaches Seymour, and puts a wrinkled hand on his shoulder.
Paradox: The Last Day - Seymour's Story Page 20