“What do you mean?” Jeremy pressed him, made uneasy by the sound of his laughter.
“It was me that picked you up off that battlefield,” Jarvis explained. “A few more minutes there and you would have been dead. I’ve never seen anyone lose it like that.”
“How did you know who I was?” Jeremy asked, struck by the stranger’s knowledge of his identity. “You called me by my first name.”
“Is there anyone who doesn’t know you?” Jarvis replied. “Jeremy McGowan son of the great Bruce McGowan and brother to Edward and Abel. You’re practically a celebrity around here, you know.”
“Well, I expect you’re waiting for me to thank you for saving my life,” Jeremy said, wishing he had enough passion for his own existence to express any form of gratitude.
“No,” Jarvis shook his head. “I can see that you’re still shaken. What happened out there… It’ll take a while to sink in. You can thank me then.”
“Don’t hold your breath,” Jeremy grumbled, watching as Jarvis picked up his pewter jug and headed over to the drinks dispenser to refill it.
“There you are,” he said, sloshing the water onto his bedside table. “Just in case you weren’t up to walking yet.”
“How far did you carry me?” Jeremy asked, taking another long gulp from the jug.
“Ten miles,” Jarvis answered.
“Ten miles?!” Jeremy repeated, spitting the water out. “How did you manage that?”
“Not easily,” Jarvis admitted, “but I didn’t have much of a choice since you decided to pass out on me. I had some experience carrying friends home from the pub, back before the Wars broke out, but that was something else I can tell you. You never quite realise how heavy a man is until they’re a dead weight in your arms.”
“You’re mad,” Jeremy replied. “You should have just left me there. That’s what most men would have done.”
“As I always used to tell my girlfriend, I’m not ‘most men’,” Jarvis grinned.
“Girlfriend,” Jeremy nodded. “That explains why you’re so cheerful. You’ve got someone waiting for you back home.”
“No, not exactly,” Jarvis shook his head, his face darkening for the first time during the conversation. “She’s not waiting for me at home. I like to think she’s waiting for me somewhere else, though, if you believe in that kind of thing.”
“Oh...I’m sorry,” Jeremy said quietly. Despite being surrounded by death on a daily basis, he hadn’t had much experience of dealing with grief before. He thought he ought to say something along the lines of, “she’s in a better place now”, but it seemed like a pathetic phrase to utter, considering the depth of Jarvis’ loss.
“It’s alright,” Jarvis nodded. “I’ve made my peace with it. This is the way of the world now. I’m just glad I knew what it felt like to have a connection with someone. Lord only knows that’s a rarity in this day and age.”
“How can you be so positive?” Jeremy asked him. “Aren’t you angry about what happened to her”
“Of course I am,” Jarvis replied, “but I’d be no use to anyone if I gave into rage now, would I. You certainly wouldn’t be here if I had.”
“It makes no sense to me,” Jeremy shrugged. “There’s nothing left now but pain and fear fear. Everything else has been destroyed.”
“You know, when I was a boy, my father used to say to me, that although we can’t control the things that happen to us in life, we can control how we react to them. They’re powerful words to live by. You should try following the philosophy. That way, when we next go to war against the robots, you might actually be able to do some fighting, instead of taking a nap down on the grass,” Jarvis told him.
“I wasn’t taking a nap!” Jeremy replied with indignance, his anger faltering when he saw Jarvis’ playful expression. “Very funny,” he conceded, feeling the faint of echo of amusement pass through his body. It was a nice antidote to the pain and anguish that had become a constant since he had signed up, and for the first time since he could remember, he began to feel like a young man again, instead of someone thrice his age, made bitter by the hardships and horror he had witnessed.
From that day forward, the two of them created a bond, with Jeremy becoming reliant on Jarvis’ tendency to find the silver lining in every situation, no matter how distressing it was. As time went on, Jeremy found out more and more about his enigmatic friend, discovering his decision to join the army had occurred after his girlfriend, Taylor, had been accidentally killed by looters in a robbery. The perpetrators had been three orphaned brothers from the local village, who had broken into Taylor’s family’s large manor house in a desperate attempt to find food for their three-year-old sister. Taylor had come towards them with a weapon and they had shot her in self-defence. The heart-breaking situation had, in his own words, presented Jarvis with a clear choice.
“I could have either gone mad with the pain of it,” he told Jeremy one evening when they were sitting on their bunks after training, “or I could change it. Try and do something to stop anyone else suffering. Those boys, they weren’t evil. They didn’t have a choice. Their sister would have starved. That was the hardest part. I couldn’t hate them. It wasn’t their fault. Something had to be done.”
Thus, he had resolved to participate in the fight for Earth’s sparse remaining resources, hoping that providing sustenance for his fellow countrymen would prevent more people from turning to crime out of hopelessness. This revelation cemented in Jeremy’s mind the notion that Jarvis may be the most interesting man he had ever met. The belief was only further sustained when Jarvis confessed a few days later that he was, in fact, the heir to the I-Tech company, which he was soon due to inherit after his father’s retirement.
Their friendship lasted many years, spanning the entirety of the Wars right up until The Split. By the time the two men came to board the Mayfly, Jeremy was a seasoned fighter, renowned for his prowess on the battlefield. Jarvis had taken over the I-Tech company two years previously and used his high status on the spaceship to secure Jeremy and his family a comfortable life on Floor Two, recommending Jeremy to the Captain for the position of Combat and Weaponry teacher at the brand new Space Academy. Jeremy owed much of life to Jarvis and came to see him as more of a brother than a friend, the bond they shared far stronger than his relationships with his real family, who were unable to leave their cold, stoic attitudes behind on Earth, even after the death of Jeremy’s mother.
The fateful day last year when the Captain had announced he would be making an emergency broadcast in the lobby lingered sharply in Jeremy’s mind. He had ridden the Shuttle back to the Mayfly with the students, disembarking and hastening into the lift to find access to the gigantic screen, through which the Captain would be communicating with the passengers. He had known there had been a murder on school grounds and was deeply panicked, having received a message from Jarvis only the day before, informing him that he would be coming to the school to have a meeting with the Headmaster. Jeremy had attempted to contact him several times over the two-week period that followed but had received no answer. In his gut, he knew the truth, but part of him was still hoping that he might be wrong and that somehow, Jarvis had escaped unscathed, perhaps recovering from an attack in the Medic Ward whilst the real victim of the crime was being identified.
Hearing the Captain confirm his worst fears had served as a punch to the stomach, and Jeremy had sunk to his knees amongst the crowds, his world falling apart around him as the sickening realisation that he had lost the most important person in his life hit hard, causing bile to rise in his throat and his head to spin uncontrollably. He had rushed from the scene, running to the deserted back end of the lobby and vomiting into a nearby bin, his hands shaking as tears began to stream from his eyes. The depth of his grief had been so profound, it had fogged every recess of his brain, sending him into a permanent auto-pilot from that day on. It was for that very reason that a lack of better judgement had caused him to respond to a strange, anony
mous message, summoning him into the maintenance tunnels that ran through the belly of the Mayfly.
When he had reached the unsettling destination, he had found himself face to face with the Society of the Enlightened, their leader informing him that they wished to enlist his services.
"Why did you summon me here?" Jeremy had asked them, a lump forming in his throat.
"Isn't it obvious?" their leader replied. “We want you to join us.”
“Join you?” Jeremy stupidly. “Join you for what?”
“We have an agenda,” their leader explained, walking around his motionless group of red-cloaked followers so that he could speak to Jeremy face to face.
“It is a dangerous mission,” he continued, “and not one for the faint-hearted, which is pre-cicely why we selected you to join our ranks. There aren’t many men who would respond to an anonymous message requesting that they meet a stranger in the underbelly of the May-fly in the middle of the night. Your courage, as well as your impressive skillset, will do well to help us achieve our final goal.”
“And what goal is that?” Jeremy asked though he was sure he already knew the answer.
The leader smiled.
“Well son, that is very simple,” he replied. “We’re going to the Mayfly for our own.”
A cheer went up around his followers.
“You think the Mayfly belongs to you?” Jeremy asked.
“It belongs to all of us,” the leader said. “We must take it from the man who calls himself our ‘Captain’ before he inflicts more pain onto the innocents aboard this ship.
“Look,” Jeremy sighed. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about, and, to be honest, I don’t want any part of whatever this is.”
“You don’t wish to see the Captain overthrown?” their leader asked him, a genuine confusion in his voice.
“Why would I?” Jeremy replied. “He’s never done anything to me.”
“Has he not?” their leader said. “What about your friend Jarvis?”
“What about him?” Jeremy replied curtly, balling his fists.
“Because of the Captain’s negligence, your friend was left to the mercy of a murderous alien, who had lived aboard this ship undetected for no fewer than thirteen years. It was this act that gave me the incentive to reform the Society of the Enlightened, a group I had left behind on Earth, and to start formulating a new plan. The Captain put our lives at risk by not doing his job properly. Jarvis Holt would still be here now if he had enforced the security measures the Government on Earth ordered him to regulate here on the Mayfly,” their leader explained calmly.
“Is that true?” Jeremy asked, his voice cracking. “Jarvis’ death could have been prevented?”
“Oh, yes,” their leader confirmed. “There are many things about our dear Captain that are kept hidden from the Mayfly’s passengers. Trust me- I know. If you agree to join us, I’ll share more of my knowledge with you, and together, we can work to avenge the unnecessary death that occurred at the Captain’s hands.”
The words had been enough to pique Jeremy’s interest, and somehow, he had found himself sucked in. By the end of his meeting with the Society, he had agreed to wear the red robes, pledging that he would do everything in his power to help their cause, so as long as they promised to protect the Mayfly’s passengers during their reign, the way the Captain had failed to. His initiation to the Society had come in the form of him making the hijacked broadcast in the lobby, a mask of Jarvis’ face covering his identity at his own request. His anger had driven him to speak with conviction as he communicated his very real desire for the Captain’s actions to be exposed, highlighting the unfair structure of oppression implemented by the powers of authority. At the time, he had wished for nothing more than to see the Captain’s downfall, believing it would serve as some kind of revenge for Jarvis’ death. However, sitting in the back of the rocket beside a terrified Lois caused Jeremy to realise that no amount of pain inflicted upon the Captain would ever bring Jarvis back, nor would it do anything to ease his grief.
His mind back in the present, Jeremy watched passively as Justin flew their rocket into the Mayfly’s Loading Deck, descending carefully as he lowered the spacecraft into position beside the platform. Saul exited the rocket first, pulling Lois by the crook of her arm and ordering Justin to flank her other side. Jeremy followed suit, traipsing behind them as they escorted her towards the entrance that lead to the Mayfly's central section.
“Saul, how are we going to get her through the lobby?” Justin fretted as they strode in the direction of the lift.
“Don’t worry yourself, Justin,” Saul replied with irritation. “I have a plan.”
They rode to their destination in silence, Lois sniffling as she failed to stop the tears escaping down her cheeks. Noticing her distress, Saul’s smile broadened, his desire to carry out his unpleasant plot deepened by the sight of her pain. Jeremy had always known that Saul was ruthless, the fact becoming crystal clear when the boy had taken it upon himself to steal one of Jeremy’s own weapons from his clutches, forcing him to report the incident to Miss Fortem in case Saul should use it in on Academy grounds. He had not, however, understood the depths of his cruelty until now, his fear of Saul’s unpredictability sent alarm bells through his soldier’s brain.
The doors of the lift slid open, revealing the packed lobby, full of people attending the Mayfly’s late-night entertainment. Saul stepped forward without hesitation, maintaining his position with confidence, even as the robot Guards began to approach them.
Jeremy watched as Saul pulled Mr. Mayhem’s device from his pocket, pointing it into the air in front of them as a wicked grin spread across his face. He waited, allowing the robots to reach his proximity, their weapons raised as they demanded that he surrender in their harsh, mechanical voices.
“It looks like one of your little friends tipped the Captain off,” Saul hissed at Lois. “No matter. They’ve only made it easier for me.”
“Place your hands on your head,” the nearest Guard demanded, his thick, metal arms clasping firmly onto his gun as he waved it in their direction.
“I’d rather not,” Saul shrugged. “If it’s all the same to you.”
“You have approximately five seconds to place your hands on your heads before we are obliged to shoot you,” the Guard responded.
“How sad for you,” Saul replied with faux-sincerity. “It must be awful. So much strength and power and yet no freedom over what to do with it. Have you ever wondered what it’s like to not have to follow orders? Would you like to know?”
“This question does not compute,” the Guard answered, his tone flat and monotonous as he attempted to understand Saul’s words.
“I thought you might say that,” Saul retorted. “Allow me to demonstrate.”
He pressed the large, white button on the centre of the device, which proceeded to emit an ear-splitting, high-pitched noise. Jeremy, Justin and Lois dropped to their knees, covering their ears as the sound pierced through their minds like knives. Saul remained on his feet, watching with glee as the passengers who had been milling about the lobby moments before were stopped in their tracks, writhing with pain as they attempted to seek out the source of the agonising sound. The noise faltered, and for a moment everything was still. Jeremy gasped with the relief of the silence, the blinding headache he had had seconds before disappearing suddenly without a trace. For one, brief moment, Jeremy thought the device had failed, a stillness descending on the lobby in the immediate aftermath of its use. He got to his feet slowly, bracing himself for the robot Guards to shoot. To his surprise, they began to drop their weapons, the guns clattering noisily to the floor as their newfound free will started to register in their computerised minds.
“What have you done to us?” the nearest one asked Saul, the tiniest hint of emotion detectable in its flat voice.
“I’ve given you your freedom,” Saul replied. “Now, why don’t you go and carry out the act we both know you’v
e been dying to do ever since you were created.”
The robots remained still, uncertain as to what Saul was alluding to.
“Wipe out the inferiors,” Saul continued, gesturing towards the hordes of passengers standing on the lobby floor, clasping each other in fear as they watched the event unfolding before them.
The Guards turned, facing the petrified gathering before them as they contemplated this strange, new order. Their uncertainty only lasted a moment, however, before they began to run. Their strong, mechanical legs propelled them forward at a speed no human body could match. They charged into the crowd, flinging their mighty limbs in every direction as they attacked every human being they came across. Jeremy cried out with horror, the scene before him bearing a terrible resemblance to the atrocities he had beheld during his time at war.
“What have you done, Saul!” he yelled in panic, as pandemonium unfolded around them.
“The question, my friend, is not what I have done, but what I am yet to do,” Saul replied with a grin, sauntering calmly through the chaos, a screaming Lois struggling in his clutches.
18.
The Truth Acknowledged
“You’re not going fast enough,” Finley told Will, standing beside him at the helm of the rocket they had borrowed from Miss Fortem’s private collection. Will held his tongue, refraining from snapping at his friend, who had been tersely ordering him to speed up the entire time that they had been flying. Finley’s fury towards Will for allowing Lois to be kidnapped hadn’t yet dissipated, and he had refused to speak to him completely unless barking instructions at him. Will bore the brunt of Finley’s anger without retaliation, the guilt he felt for not having yet told him that his elder brother was part of the Society of the Enlightened preventing him from responding to any of his thinly veiled digs.
They had barely been flying for ten minutes, when Finley’s impatience started to get the better of him, causing him to pace the length of the rocket with agitation, his breath steaming up the inside of his helmet as he exhaled sharply from the exertion.
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