by P. S. Power
He wasn't going to get any though, until after they got to the House. Yalla offered him a different weapon to carry, that she had ammunition for, but he shook his head.
"No. This is Lois. No matter what, I don't want to accidently kill her." It didn't leave him a lot to do with her though, but that got left unsaid. They didn't have prison anymore and even if they did... would it be enough for someone that had been helping to kill almost everyone in the world?
Jake wanted to cry, it was just so sad. He felt betrayed, like it was all personal, but that was silly. Lois wouldn't have any reason to be out after him at all. If she had he would have been poisoned long ago or something. After all, she controlled all the food at the House. They could all have been dead if she wanted it. Still, he'd thought they were friends.
He couldn't be close to anyone that tried to kill everyone though, that was just too much to ask.
Things moved fast and they went directly to the House with twenty Valkyries in tow. They didn't have any kids in this group either. They were all adult women with hard faces and heavy weapons. If she fought they were going to make sure she didn't leave too easily. Jake asked them to stay outside though. He had to do it himself. It was his burden.
He took the ladle and walked into the kitchen, which had only five people in it, three of them men for once, working away on the dinner meal it looked like. The rest of the people traipsed in behind him anyway, Vicki running into place by his side, Tipper in tow. They'd already been there, in case of Technologist attack. Neither one knew what was going on though.
"OK, We need everyone for a meeting, we have news." He didn't get a chance to say more since several people ran over to him.
"We'd heard you lived. Good to see you man." Samuel spoke softly, his eyes looking genuinely pleased.
"Um, you... know about Ken and the others?" He said it slowly, as if someone might just have forgotten to mention it to him. He was probably right too, if Dave hadn't been around they might not have. Trying to protect him or soften the blow. It still hurt. He couldn't believe they were gone. It just didn't feel real to him yet. It would though.
Robin... George...
God knew who else. It all ached though, even the ones he'd never met. Feeling that kind of thing wouldn't help him just then though, so he tried to set it aside. Failing, he walked to the dining room quickly so that no one would notice the tears. No one behind him at least.
"Yeah. Thanks Sam. I'll... we can talk about it all later, OK?" He didn't want to be rude to the guy, who was just trying to be his friend after all.
"Sure. When you're ready." Not for the first time Jake wondered if Samuel wouldn't have made a better Very Good Man than he was. The man was just so laid back and calm all the time. Nice too. It was what he should have been.
More like what he used to be, if he was honest about it.
"Hey Lois..." He said the words calmly, since the kitchen boss had her back to the room, probably so the Linsters wouldn't' see her face. She could have had anything in her hands the way her body was hidden. Being who she really was it could have been a ray gun or laser maybe. It wasn't though, since she started wiping down the counter with it, as an excuse not to turn around.
"I found your ladle for you. Cam stole it again. Some kind of prank or rite of passage I think. She mentioned something about going after your wooden spoon set next." He set it on the kitchen table with a thunk, trying to smile.
"Anyway, everyone to the dining room. Everyone please."
That took a while, but the remaining people there gathered not five minutes later, half of them checking everyone else with the detectors the Linsters had given them, since it was just about a perfect opportunity to kill everyone left. Close quarters, only two exits and armed people outside. If it didn't look like a trap then people weren't paying attention. Most of them seemed to get it though, seeming nervous and edgy suddenly.
Nate looked at him and tilted his head a bit, more salt in his beard than there had been six months before. Stress was aging everyone it seemed.
"So, news you said?"
Jake nodded happily, feeling bad about it, but wanting to get Lois all the way into the room before confronting her. Maybe it was a trick or set up? Someone else framing the woman?
"Yeah, I'm going to instate polygamy and marry six women. They'll let me get away with it, since I'm their messiah or whatever. Anyway, I was thinking we'd just throw out social rules and conventions. I still want a cake though. So I'm looking for suggestions, who do you think I should get hitched to?" He looked around and noticed something, to a man, woman and young Linster, everyone seemed to think he was serious and hadn't lost his mind at all. That was freaky, so he laughed. Like he could handle six women? So far he hadn't really managed one.
While he tried to think of what to say next Donald snorted and walked over to the Lois, his hand on a small box with two rabbit ear antennae coming out of it, a whole copper and silver looking affair.
He turned a small dial for a second and then hit the single button on the top. Lois hissed, but not in anger. It was more of a frustrated thing. She also seemed to grow younger, years peeling back leaving a woman that was fit looking, had mousy blond hair and looked about thirty. Still dressed in blue jeans and a loose blouse.
"Aunt Tessa. So nice to see you." The man didn't growl the words, but also didn't seem all that pleased about it.
Lois looked panicked for a few moments, but finally smiled, looking a lot more sane than she had for a good long while. Since the new telepaths had come in fact.
"Vicki, Tip... Check her pockets please. Sara, if you'd tell them what to look for? Something that can block telepathy I think."
Everyone was frozen in place for a few moments, shock rippling through them all, some muttering starting at about the time Tipper moved. They used to be teammates on a cleaning squad, which meant that if Jake asked her to do something that seemed stupid or odd, she'd still do it to the best of her ability, just in case it made sense in a way she just didn't see.
Lois moved away from her, or tried too, Vicki taking her from behind, locking an arm back.
"Easiest if you just tell us where it is Lois. I don't want to hurt you, none of us do."
Not yet. Jake was going to have to reserve judgment as to what would actually happen though.
The woman tried to look hard, but the move clearly hurt more than she was used to. Some things about her hadn't been an act then, he understood. Like her work ethic or the fact that she wasn't a very good fighter at all. Brave though, that was clear. Bad guy or not she'd stood in front of an enraged Yalla unarmed to save another Val from being killed. You didn't do that lightly if you were smart, which she clearly was.
"Its... A nano set. I altered my chemical make-up so that they can't read me easily. You can't take it off. Permanent." She sounded honest enough, but Tipper patted her all over anyway and took her shoes, socks and started on the rest when Nate stopped her.
"Is that really needed? It's Lois... I think? Or, a shape shifter?"
They had those around after all. It wasn't the case though, not at all.
Jake stared at the woman hard, shaking his head. She looked back just as hard though.
"No, she's the Lois we've known the whole time. A Technologist. One of the bad guys that created the zombies. If I have it right she also destroyed my life personally. Didn't you... Tessa." It was what Donald had called her. Aunt Tessa as a matter of fact. That might make it a little more messy if they had to kill her, even though none of the Linsters were trying to stand up for her yet.
She didn't say anything, just looking at the back of the room, at the far wall. Jake remembered falling down there once, sick after being poisoned by Carley.
He told the story out loud, knowing it wouldn't take long to get to the punch line.
"Of course she'd only treated the bullets like that because she was in love with Derrick Holsom. Since it was you that made him irresistible to women Lois, I guess it's kind of your faul
t isn't it? Then... You did it in the first place to have him take Rachel from me, did you?" Not that it had been needed. She'd left all on her own rather nicely before that.
Lois made a face, which was a lot more expression than most of the other Technologists used for the most part. It wasn't an ugly thing, it just looked pained.
"Yes. It was all me. I took recordings of everyone you knew, I worked out how to best get to you, to make you so sad and despondent that no one would ever believe you were the One. I had to. If you were easily found the world would have gathered around you and fought. This way, divided, we were able to remove most of the world's population. We only need to get rid of the Humans though. They're responsible for all the destruction. All of it. The rest can take over then and we'll be fine. The world can continue and begin to repair itself."
Jake rolled his eyes.
"So, in order to kill billions of people you had to destroy my love life?"
"That... Yes Jake. I had to make certain that no woman would love you, even if you were the perfect man for them. It took years you know. A constant campaign to undermine you here at the House too. Daily effort. Even after your energy shifted, you became something highly desirable to the women here. Even with Derrick working against you it was so close. Anyone with a mind knew that you represented life. I even added depressants to your food for months to throw you off balance. You should have been no better than the dead outside, but you fought more than I thought possible. Over and over again you defeated what I tried. The rumors, the hate, the false accusations. Everything." She smiled then, a look at least as phony as the one Jake had been using most of the time lately.
"If it makes you feel better, I did feel horrible about doing it. What kind of person makes the life of the world's nicest man a living hell?" She looked down, but it wasn't a contrite look at all. She was laughing gently.
"And now you'll kill me. The joke is that I made you into what you are. More than anyone else in the world, I created you, warped you into who you became and forced your hand. I just didn't think that I'd die doing it. I was supposed to have left months ago, but you didn't just give up. You didn't abandon humanity. You should have. Our projections showed a ninety-seven percent chance that you would on three different occasions. There's no way you could beat that. Even with Heather helping you..."
That got Donald to speak again, the little box in his hand humming slightly.
"The projections showed that Jake was just a man however, not the One... I don't understand."
Lois rolled her eyes then, copying what Jake had done minutes before.
"You don't? We changed the data that you got to see. It wasn't hard, just pushing a few buttons here and there, burning a few documents. We've been at this longer than you've been alive Donny. This has all gone to plan. Almost. There was always one variable we couldn't control." She didn't point, Vicki having not bothered to let go of her arm, but she stared at him, which made the idea pretty clear anyway.
"The One Projected. The Very Good Man. The Maitreya. Jesus returned. The one being in all of history that everyone would listen to. Most of them at least. So we hid him from the world, broke his spirit and took everything that could have formed him into a leader away from him. There were so many layers Jake, you'll never know the work I put into it. We had to though. As good as you are, as wonderful as you should have been, you'd have saved them all. The world was dying. It's still fading as we speak. The oceans are failing by the day, but we gave it a chance to recover.
The thing is... no major extinction level event has ended until the cause was removed. This time, the Homocene extinction event, it's the worst thing like it that has ever happened to this planet. There's only one way to save the world and that's to remove the true plague upon it. Now you're stopping that Jake, too soon. There are too many of you left. Humanity has to be stopped, or everything dies. There is no other way." Her voice was filled with conviction, not the blind type that a fanatic had, but the kind that spoke of years of study leading to a truth that was simply fact.
It was a hard thing to beat.
"The Technologists are Human." He spoke the words calmly, a thing that surprised him, faced with the person that had ruined his life. She'd helped to ruin everyone else's too, but that was less personal. For him at least. They, might just feel differently about it.
She spoke quickly, her eyes going to the Linsters as if begging for help. They didn't seem all that moved. It was hard to excuse genocide.
"We've trained ourselves, our whole society, to live in balance with the energy needs of the world. We tried to give the technology to you, over and over again, and were stopped each time. The governments, the big corporations, they feared losing power. It was in the projections Jake. If they weren't removed the world died. If we would have acted thirty years ago the whole thing might have been different, but as a group the Technologists don't kill. It meant we had to do things in a very specific fashion, allowing you to kill yourselves. Hence the zombies. Humans doing the work that was needed, even if they didn't know they were doing it."
Jake didn't address the blatant stupidity of the statement. He didn't have to, since almost everyone else in the room started pointing out that starting a zombie plague was just as bad as murdering a person with a gun. Worse, because it was so freaking terrifying.
He spoke as soon as people started to quiet down a bit. It was still hard to try and yell over people and he was so tired. It felt like it went all the way to the center of his being, an exhaustion that was simply from his soul being so heavy.
"OK. I guess I can see why you did it. But now you have a chance to get people to change, to rebuild in the image you want. Why not do that instead of killing all the rest of the Humans? A risk, sure, but it can't be that much more unsafe than trying to kill us all, not at this point."
She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders as best she could, the right one higher than the left still.
"Seven point two percent Jake. That's the percentage of humanity left. Survivable if they could learn, but they've never learned. Oh, small groups perhaps, but governments? Bigots and narcissists? They can't learn, their belief systems won't let them. What of religion? Do we let them rally around you and young Hope? To what end? When you die, even if you kept them in check for a while, some power hungry madman would come along and start the whole thing over again. We have to do it. Please. I don't expect you to help me, or even leave me alive, but you must let us finish our work. Please." Fat tears rolled down her face.
The awful thing was that he actually felt badly for her. The side she'd picked wasn't wrong, it was just evil. They were different things. No amount of explanation would convince her of that though. It was a thing you had to know, deep inside and if she had, then the world wouldn't be dead. Dying though. She wasn't wrong about that part.
"Well, we can't discuss this with a prisoner. How about this, get on your ladle and tell your friends that we need to talk. It doesn't have to be in person, we can debate this for a while. I won't let you kill everyone though. We might find a way to get them to change though. For instance, if you swept in and provided new technology, setting up a combined government with the other groups in the world? You seem fine with them after all. It could work as a plan." He shrugged.
"Don't get me wrong Lois. You're dead. All of you. The ones that killed billions... I can't save you, and if you imagined that you'd live through this you were dreaming. We can call in the other Technologists. Those that are left here, maybe those that moved to that other reality?" He looked at Sara, who nodded once.
"Yes. That's a logical step and in line with your stated goals Tess. Perhaps we could have you sent into exile or..." She looked at Jake her mouth tight, thinking it was all a lie.
But he could get behind that. He wouldn't let them kill anyone else if he could help it, but if they were sent away, to another reality perhaps, and stranded there, that might just be enough.
"Possible. This isn't about revenge.
Not for me. It's so bad I can't even think of a punishment that would fit and in the end it wouldn't matter. It will be a hard sell though. It would help a lot if your crew would come forward and stop trying to kill everyone though. It's a good plan, I think. Help us teach the world to be the way you want. I know it doesn't seem like a wonderful thing to you, being sent away, but at least you can know that you might have made a difference in the long run.
Especially since the other choice is... not as cheery."
He smiled, nearly feeling hopeful about the whole thing. That didn't last long though, Lois snorting at him like she used to when people tried to dodge out of kitchen duty.
"They won't just come in Jake. There was a small but real chance that I'd be taken, found out like this and forced to talk. I have to admit you had better information than we thought possible, but that's not the problem. The contingency plans will go into play the second I'm forced to contact them. Or if I miss my communication for two days. If that happens they'll be forced to release the hunters. You don't want that. They were designed to be unbeatable by Humans."
She sounded pretty certain of the fact too.
"Windigo? Mutated ones that are pale white, with long limbs and way faster than normal?"
She smiled then, her lips pulling back as Vicki cranked on her arm a little.
"Yes." It was half gasp, half hiss.
"You can't stop them Jake. Not even you. No man can. We designed them perfectly to kill the worst thing that ever existed. Mankind."
She sounded almost proud of the fact. Like she'd had a hand in it herself.
"Proud parent?"
That got a laugh from her, but no one else.
"No, but I saw them. The test subjects. Everything about them makes them unstoppable. Once released..."
He shrugged.
"They already have been Lois. I don't know who's been feeding you information, but they've already acted. I killed one of those about four or five days ago. It was tough, and fast, but a bullet to the brain stopped it. That does the trick for most things, or so I've found." His voice went low, whispering the next words to her.