Clockwork Immortal

by Sam Ryan

  “Where are we?” Sophia asked, trying her best to look around whatever room they were being stored in. The glass was crystal clear making it easy enough to see through it. They looked to be in a large room with countless devices propped up on tables. The devices only half assembled.

  “This is my lab,” came a voice.

  Stella walked into view then. She was still wearing the same red officer’s uniform she had on earlier, only now she wore what looked to be long tailcoat over it. Her hands casually stuffed in the pockets as she slowly walked in front of them, her head turned so she could look at each of them.

  Halting her step mid stride, Stella twirled around, her coat spinning behind her. She came to a stop, stomping her foot on the ground, facing the four of them. Her long black hair falling neatly around her shoulders and down her back.

  “My actual lab,” Stella added, slightly parting her coat, her hands still stuffed in her pockets. Her voice muffled due to their glass prison. “The one underneath the lab you were in.”

  “Wait.” Sophia narrowed her eyes. “You have a secret underground lab underneath a secret underground lab?” Sophia took a breath and nodded. “Clever,” she complemented with an impressed nod.

  “Thank you,” Stella smiled, and for a brief moment that smile made Sophia forgot that she was the enemy. It held no animosity, no hatred or bitterness towards them. She simply looked like she always had. “I do try.”

  “So you going to tell us what this is all about yet?” Sophia asked. Her expression turning hard as she glared at the woman in front of her.

  “I have a lot of work I still need to do,” Stella said, turning around and walking away from them.

  “But you promised that if we met before it was over, you would tell me everything,” Sophia reminded. Her words gave Stella pause, her foot hovering off the ground mid step.

  Stella let out a long sigh, slouching her shoulders. “I suppose I did.” She nodded, turning back around. “Though if you are trying to buy time it’s not going to do you any good. This glass was built to contain Immortals and underneath you is a strong anti-magic signet. Even you,” She turned her head and looked at Allora “won’t be able to use your magic in there.”

  “I noticed,” Allora said coldly.

  So had Sophia. While she had not tried to use her magic, just like when she had visited the Palace in Rouen, she could feel the slight prickling feeling on the back of her neck, though this was much, much stronger.

  “But if you really think that any place could hold us for very long then you are deluding yourself.” There was not a trace of doubt in Allora’s voice as she said that. Many would likely think it overconfidence or maybe even bravado.

  “I am aware.” Stella nodded. “Luckily I don’t have to hold you for long. You were right to not wait around for the King of Lear or Representative Blake to try and mobilize their forces against me. I should be done with my work long before they have time to mobilize.”

  “And what is your work exactly?” Sophia pressed, her chest tightening in anticipation. Part of her still wanted to believe there was some noble goal or purpose to Stella’s actions. Stella knew the way she did things was often frowned upon by the others and it was still possible she was just trying to do something good and was only working against them because she feared that they would try to stop her. And just maybe after hearing her out, there would be some sort of compromise or reasoning with her.

  But Sophia remembered the look in Stella’s eye when she had told them she could care less that hundreds of people would die. Even Stella would feel remorse for those that she deemed a necessary sacrifice. This was like she had stopped caring all together.

  “It’s nothing complicated really.” Stella grabbed a chair from a workstation, pulling it out and setting in front of the glass tubes. She moved around the chair while keeping her hand gripped on the back as she sat down and made herself comfortable. “Allora has told you about the Glowdose project, yes?”

  Sophia glanced over at Allora, pursing her lips together. “She has. It’s her little project to kill Immortals,” Sophia said, returning her attention back to Stella. “What about it?”

  “And nothing,” Stella shrugged. “I plan on finishing the work.”

  Sophia frowned, glancing over at Allora hoping that she understood something that Sophia was missing. Judging by the look on Allora’s face, she was just as lost and confused as Sophia.

  “But I thought they were still clueless on how to kill us,” Sophia stated, returning her attention to Stella.

  “Are they?” Stella raised her chin up so she was staring at Sophia out of the corner of her eye.

  “Yes they are,” Allora assured.

  “The power of five Legendary Relics,” Stella said, holding up five fingers. “Isn’t that the projected power needed to vaporize us to the point where we can’t come back?”

  “But it has to be delivered instantaneously,” Sophia said, recalling what Professor Jarrad had told them back in Itona. “A Legendary Relic takes several seconds when it explodes.”

  “And that is where my work comes in.” Stella nodded, placing her hand in her lap. “Containing the burst of energy and then releasing it all in an instant. Of course there was more to my work than simply building the device. For one, I needed five Legendary Relics. Trouble with that is they can’t be made anymore. Even if you may know how to, it simply takes stronger magic than what is possible in this day and age.”

  The way Stella spoke made it sound like there was no room for doubt. Sophia almost feared what things Stella might have done to become so sure.

  “Luckily, I knew where I could find them,” Stella continued. “I was able to acquire two through various means. Black Market trade and all that. You don’t live as long as us and not accumulate a few contacts.”

  Unless you were like Sophia who had forsaken almost all outside contact for the better part of three hundred years. In which case, you likely do not know who to buy flour from, much less powerful ancient relics.

  “But to acquire the rest, I knew I would have to recover them from where they were buried in the old Arcana Ruins,” Stella continued. “In order to do that, I needed both funding and authority. So when the new Trevelian Government was being formed, I put myself in a position where I could easily acquire both. Kings and the like are always anxious for more powerful weapons and are willing to let you do just about anything if they think you can provide them.”

  Stella gave them a playful grin as she patted her chest proudly with her hands.

  “It was child’s play manipulating them into sinking a small fortune, not only into my research, but into excavations all over their kingdom,” Stella said with a laugh. “They even thought finding the Relics was their idea. Of course I gave them a show of reluctance when they approached me, feigning my doubts and having them slowly persuade me. When in actuality it was me who planted the idea into their heads.” Stella smiled, shaking her head at the memory. “But we were only able to find the two before you showed up and started poking around. I knew it was only a matter of time before you figured out enough to try and put a stop to things.”

  Stella let out a deep sigh, sloughing forward in her chair.

  “So it was then I decided to use this to my advantage. I knew Jezebel was in Trevelia and had her base somewhere in Boulder. So I had planned to have you meet up with her there and lead her to the ruins of Albion where I could get my hands on the Iron Rose’s Legendary Relic. But alas.” She let out a sigh. “You never arrived, instead you darted off to Itona. So I used the peace talks I had been staging to instead lure the Iron Rose there instead.”

  “But I had been working on those peace talks for over a year,” Allora stated. “This has all happened in only a few months. How could you have possibly staged them?”

  “You honestly think that you are so wise and powerful that you were impervious to my manipulations?” Stella asked, glaring at Allora. “While I will admit that using the talks to
lure out the Iron Rose was not my first intention, That I had instead planned to use it as a final diversion for you.”

  “Final?” Allora frowned.

  “Yes.” Stella nodded with a large grin across her face. “I had always feared, given your nosey nature, that you would become an annoyance when I began using a kingdom to search for the Relics. That is why two centuries ago started to cause little ‘incidents’ in your Empire.”

  Sophia heard Allora gasp in horror as the realization hit her. Allora’s entire body stiffened up as her fist clinched next to her sides.

  “They were nothing major.” Stella shrugged like it was no big deal. “Small little power plays here. A few drought ridden people there. All of them were meant to chisel away at your resolve over a long period of time. Then a few well-placed suggestions from me to you, or to someone else you trusted who would then relay the suggestion.” She smiled looking over at Elena, still unconscious in her glass tube. “And in less than a hundred years you had all but stepped down as ruler. Eternal Queen in name only. This way you were basically blind to the world around you and I was free to work in peace. Anyone else who might try to stop me were no threat.” Stella smiled as she crossed her legs and looked up at the ceiling laughing slightly as she talked.

  Sophia was not so amused by her story. She had told her the how but she had yet to tell her the “Why?” Sophia whispered. “Why are you doing all this? What do you gain by creating a weapon that could kill us?”

  Stella let out a breath, leaning back in her chair, resting her hands on her knee. “Have you really not figured it out by now?” She glared at Sophia, her previous amusement now gone from her face. “I want to die,” she said flatly. “Is that really so hard to understand?”

  With those words things finally started to click in Sophia’s head. Everything that Stella had done up until now. All the risks that she had taken. It was because she did not plan on living with the consequences. But Sophia could not argue with one thing that Stella had said. Sophia understood perfectly why she wanted death. A thousand years was a very long time. And without even the promise of eventual death, it soon became a burden. The only thing to look forward to was even more loneliness and misery.

  “When I first implanted the idea to find a way to kill us into Allora’s head nearly five hundred years ago, I assumed it would only take a few centuries.” Stella was not looking at either of them as she talked, instead she was staring at her feet, her gaze off into some faraway place. “I was fine with waiting, so long as such a means was eventually made. But it soon became clear to me that Allora had reached a point where she dare not go any further. Not so long as it might put others in danger. So, I decided to continue the research myself. I had already been secretly monitoring the progress, so it was a simple matter for me to begin my own Glowdose Project.”

  “But it’s only a theory,” Allora reminded. “They can’t be sure that it will actually work.” Her voice was beginning to fray slightly as she spoke. Having learned that Stella had been using her this entire time was a hard thing for her to take in.

  “I am willing to risk it and find out,” Stella said, looking up at Allora. The cold detached look in Stella’s eyes was terrifying.

  “But an explosion that large,” Sophia said, remembering the destruction of the test site she had seen. “If one Relic could take out five miles, then I can only imagine the destruction five would make.”

  “Oh, I can imagine it quite well,” Stella said. Her voice was so detached and uncaring that it sent a shiver down Sophia’s spine. “The destructive power of five relics being set off simultaneously will create an area of destruction of around a hundred miles in diameter, at the very least. And I am being rather conservative with those numbers.”

  “But there is no way you can unleash that kind of force and not catch innocent people in that blast,” Sophia said. Had Stella really not considered that?

  Stella let out a snort. “What do I care?”

  The casual way she said those words made both Sophia and Allora gasp in surprise. Sophia had seen a hint of utter disinterest on the Iron Rose and this now confirmed it. Stella had truly stopped caring. About anything.

  “Every single person on this planet is going to die eventually,” Stella stated. She straightening her back as she stared at the two women, casually resting a hand on her knee. “What does it matter if it’s today or a hundred years from now? Dead is dead. Nothing in this world last. That is of course except for us.” She was growing more riled up with every word, her fist clenching her trousers as she gnashed her teeth.

  “Stella,” Allora said with a soft voice that was flowing with both concern and pity. “Where is this coming from?”

  “I want to die!” Stella shouted leaping out of her chair and stepping forward. The act of standing pushed the chair back a few inches. “I have come so close to death that I could actually feel its embrace around me.” She held up her hand, pinching her two fingers together. “For the briefest of moments I actually thought that I was, in fact, dead. Do you have any idea the anguish I feel, having been that close and yet still being alive?”

  “Are you talking about the time you were kicked into the molten metal?” Sophia asked. “That was nearly nine hundred years ago.”

  “That’s right.” Stella nodded. “And as the centuries dragged on the desire and sense of longing for something I almost had, grew. What value does life even have if you never die?”

  “You could help change the world for the better,” Allora stated, her words pleading with Stella to come to her senses.

  “To what end?” Stella snapped. “What does any of it matter? People are born and then they die. Everything that happens in-between is meaningless in the long run.”

  “How can you of all people say that?” Allora gasped. “You should know better than any of us the impact a single life can have on the future of the world.”

  “And?” Stella said, raising her hands. “Once they die what do they care about the ‘impact’ they had on the world? They are dead. At even the best of times, humans are nothing more than cogs in a machine. Spinning around aimlessly their entire lives, their actions turning those around them. When they die they are only replaced by another cog, doomed to forever repeat the process. An everlasting process of clockwork. Nothing we do will ever stop it. It will simply keep ticking away. Day after day. Never changing. Forever. Well I want out of this immortal clockwork.” She jabbed her finger at the ground to emphasize her point. “And if I have to destroy that clock in order to do it, then so be it.” She swiped her hand across her body with a fierce look.

  Sophia closed her eyes, lowering her head. “You’re wrong,” Sophia said, shaking her head slightly. “How dare you long for death?” Sophia opened her eyes again and glared at Stella. “When you’ve refuse to even live.”

  “Oh now that’s rich,” Stella scoffed, sneering her lip. “Coming from the woman who has isolated herself from the world for the past three hundred years. You dare lecture me on what it means to live?”

  “That’s right,” Sophia declared, pressing a hand to the glass in front of her. “I wanted nothing more than to die. I had grown tired of living in this world. I was tired of the pain and suffering this world had brought me time and time again.” She narrowed her eyes, glaring at Stella. “You should pity me, not emulate me.”

  “Enough of this,” Stella huffed, waving a dismissive hand in front of her face. “I promised I would explain what I was doing and I have. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work. In a few days, I should finally have the suppressor working and when the time comes, I will do you all a favor and take you with me.”

  Stella spun around and grabbed her chair by the back, dragging it over to the desk.

  “Oh,” Stella snapped her fingers turning back around. “About what you said about not being able to hold you for long. You should know that at the tops of your tanks are vats filled with the most corrosive acid I could make.” She pointed above
their heads, but try as Sophia might, she could not position herself to see what she was pointing at. “It won’t kill you of course but it will cause you lots of pain. That’s why I decided on glass for your prisons instead of say metal. With a pull of a lever, I will dump that acid into your tanks and you can spend the rest of the next few days crying out in agony.”

  “Why not do that anyway?” Allora asked.

  “Don’t give her ideas,” Sophia pleaded.

  “I’m sure we would be more secure that way,” Allora continued, ignoring Sophia’s warning.

  “I thought about it.” Stella nodded, resting her hands on her hips. “But I have no wish to make you spend your last few days alive in constant pain if I can avoid it. Despite all of this, I do still care for all of you.” She looked over at Sophia letting out a short breath. “I was genuinely touched by how much my death affected you. I had always thought you despised me.”

  “I did,” Sophia said with a casual shrug. “But you were like my sister. My opinion of you has nothing to do with it.”

  “You normally sleep with your sisters?” Stella asked.

  “About that,” Sophia leaned back as best as she could. “You’ve slept with Tara. That is the only way you could have been so convincing that night.”

  “Who of us hasn’t slept with Tara?” Stella said with an eye roll.

  “Yeah?” Sophia looked over at Allora, narrowing her gaze. “Who of us hasn’t slept with Tara?”

  Allora rolled her eyes, neither confirming nor denying the hinted accusation.

  From a brass box on the table behind Stella came a loud sound of indistinguishable noise, like that of heavy rain bouncing off pavement.

  “Commander Stella. This is patrol team four,” came a distorted voice from the box.

  Stella slowly walked back towards the box and reached out a hand, grabbing a small device that was resting on top of the box. The device in her hand had a wire hooked to the bottom that connected to the side of the box.