Downfall And Rise

by Nathan Thompson

  The greatest find was that the subject's ability to resurrect is exhaustible. The nature of the death had no bearing, but after a certain threshold of terminations was reached, the subject began to resurrect more slowly, and in an increasingly damaged state, no matter which method of termination was used. After approximately one hundred terminations, the subject was unable to create a projected body at all, even after waiting a significant period of time.

  To remove eventual evidence, SA's original body was moved through our portal network into Avalon. For reasons unknown, SA found the use of our portals to be more traumatic than any of his earlier terminations, eventually placing the subject into a coma for a period of time that lasted longer than his final resurrection. It is believed his original body will be unable to return to Earth, however as SA's original body is now due for final termination that information is now irrelevant.

  SA has awoken from his coma and is currently displaying a low-level of awareness for his surroundings. He appears to have resumed his earlier disabilities to their full extent, suggesting Primary Containment's protocol has finally achieved success. As staff has gained all relevant data from the the subject, we recommend a final termination for the subject's original body.

  This report concludes both our study and our obligations to said project. All staff is now switching to other roles in their new respective worlds.

  He's all yours, Rhodes. Just be sure and clean up afterwards.

  End of Final Log.

  Chris's Perspective

  “Come on, Chris,” My father said to me as we walked back through the portal.

  “What?” I asked my father “You want me to take my original body this time?”

  “Yes, Chris. I assume my son would feel safe enough to take his original body into our original headquarters, like everyone else in the company is doing.”

  I bit down my father's latest insult. After eighteen years, I had finally figured out that this was his way of controlling me, of pushing me to develop while always feeling inferior to him, so that I would also feel dependent on him. But telling him I had figured it out wouldn't do me any favors, so I just shrugged and tried to figure out why he wanted the most vulnerable part of me in their newly discovered little wonderland.

  “Just wondering,” I said. “Every other time you've only let me project over there. Was just curious to see if I was going to take over a new role,” I lied.

  I had no interest in their magical fairyland. Daily bullshit notwithstanding, I had been perfectly happy with my life on Earth. Getting assigned to Avalon or Camelot or whatever the hell that place was would have been the second worst scenario I could think of.

  “Did anyone say that you had a new job?” Rhodes Sr. growled.

  “No Father,” I said formally. “Just exercising my brain.”

  “Apparently not hard enough,” my dad growled. “Now shut up and do what I say.”

  “Got it,” I replied neutrally.

  There was a thin a line here, and even after eighteen years I was still learning how to walk it. On the one hand, my father didn't want a weak son, so I couldn't be as submissive to him as the rest of the staff. His six-and-a-half foot tall combat staff could grovel at him, and that was fine. But I had to show I had a spine. But not too much of one, because if I had disrespected him, public or otherwise, he would take it as an attack on his position, and he'd be forced to retaliate.

  The hardest and most important rule about being the firstborn son was this: never make Dad look weak.

  But apparently I had pulled it off this time, because Dad just snorted and we made our way to the glowing, spinning purple disk-thing located deep underground in Dad's special building that most people thought was just a power plant. I kept my eyes forward and paid no attention to either the nearby computer terminals or the people chanting nearby in black robes. Sights like this were just part of growing up for me, and the minute I start having a problem with them was the minute Dad finds another way to make my life worse.

  The portal, however, was going to be a bigger problem. But I can't afford to let Dad see it, so I just square my shoulders and step through the swirling purple energy at the same time he does.

  Everything disappears for a moment, and then a bunch of half-formed images I'll never be able to describe appear. They only last for a split-second each, not even long enough to leave a memory. But the words they speak are easy enough to hear and let linger.

  “Traitor-prince!” Mouth-less voices chanted. “Traitor-prince! Give us back the traitor-prince!”

  This was a new development, I had heard someone tell my father. These voices started back when we dragged Wes' body through the portal. Maybe that was the reason for his coma.

  “Traitor-prince! Traitor-prince! Maim his flesh and damn his soul and give us back the traitor-prince!”

  This was another reason I hated Wes Malcolm. Because no matter how bad your day was, he was always, always having a worse one, and the cock-blocking prick made everyone else look bad by almost never complaining about it.

  But I got the feeling that wouldn't matter after today. In fact, if either of the two scenarios I was thinking of happened, both my problems and Wes' would be largely over very soon.

  The portal and creepy voices ended the very next moment. Concrete bunker-type walls were replaced with underground dirt and stone, like some kind of medieval mining tunnel. Light still came from the oily black torches and the purple glowing stones Dad's freaky alien friend had somehow taught us how to build. I had to suppress a shudder whenever I thought of that thing. I was not looking forward to dealing with it ever again, but as soon as my father noticed that fact he was going to make me deal with it every chance he could. We walked down the halls and saw Dr. Dalfrey leaning against the stone wall. She still was still wearing her chic business suit, because down here modern clothing was a cheaper form of keeping uniforms and made it easy to tell who worked here from who was a native trying to spy on us or escape.

  “Morning Rhodes,” She said with a smile. She seemed very happy today.

  “Morning,” we both replied at the same time, which earned me another scowl from my dad. Her eyes twinkled at our reaction.

  “Why aren't you boys happier?” She asked with another smile.

  Dad didn't answer her. I just shrugged.

  “It's been a long day and it's still not over yet. Why are you so happy?” I replied. I didn't add that I was wondering why I was here in my original body instead of my projected one. Seeing my father work over the years had given me a healthy respect for what other people called paranoia.

  She seemed even more pleased that I had chosen to answer her.

  “Can I tell him, Warren?”

  My father gave an indifferent nod, not even reacting to her use of his first name. She almost pranced with happiness.

  “Well I'm happy for the same reason you should be. The last and worst piece of my old job goes away for good after today.”

  “Is that what I think it is?” I asked carefully.

  “Only if you're smart enough to think that the worst part of my old job was listening to a sad little virgin brood and mope about his problems for the last two years.”

  For a half-second I almost pointed out that Wes never really moped, no matter what we threw at him. Then I hated myself because I had inadvertently taken his side again.

  God damn it.

  “Ah,” I said instead. “We're done with him then.”

  “Yes,” she replied with a smirk. “Finally.”

  “Are we really the only ones watching?” I asked. “Didn't Barnes want to tear into him for out-bibling him that one time?”

  “We're getting rid of him tomorrow,” Dad grunted. “Consider this his farewell party. And we're not the only ones. Just the first in line.”

  “Really?” I asked. Then I kept my mind as blank as I could.

  Because this just might be the perfect opportunity I could get.

  “The three of us all have th
e biggest grudge with him,” my father growled. “We're first. And anything goes, as long as he doesn't die.”

  “You're serious?” I repeated.

  “It's not like he needs to be in top shape for his last day tomorrow. This is mostly just a morale exercise for the company.”

  Company. He still called our freaky, magic-using, world-ending organization a company. As if the people being cursed by our magic or eaten by our monsters could buy our publicly traded stocks. That was cute.

  But that wasn't the important point.

  “I want to go last,” I said firmly.

  My father slowed in his steps and looked at me.

  “Last?”

  “Yeah, last,” I risked affirming.

  “You want to be last in line, in the opportunity to hurt your most hated enemy?” His gaze was considering me. I reminded myself that I was used to it and didn't flinch.

  “Exactly. I want to show that even after everything has been taken away, even after he finally lost everything he thought possible, that I can still hurt him. I want permission to finally hurt him as much I want, without restraint. Without worrying about letting him escaping because we still need him for something. So that by the time he dies he knows for a fact that he's finally been broken.”

  “He's already broken,” Dad replied. I shook my head.

  “I finally figured out there's one more thing that can be done to him. And I'm not telling because I want to be the one who does it.”

  My father looked at me carefully for a moment.

  “You're finally learning,” he said, nodding after a minute. “Good.”

  My father's approval washed over me the way a half-inch of rain washes over a long-dead landscape.

  Too little, and far too late.

  “We're here,” Dalfrey said as we came by a reinforced door. “This is his new cell.”

  She opened it, and we stepped inside.

  Wide space and a high ceiling greeted us. Apparently my father had intended to use this room as a kind of conference space, or for 'company'-wide events. Or possibly for training troops or doing mass rituals. It was hard to tell at this point.

  But today, we were apparently using it to beat the hell out of Wes Malcolm one last time.

  A morale exercise, my father called it.

  In the direct center of the room was what was left of my high-school nemesis, wearing some uncomfortable sackcloth rags we made him wear because fuck him. Wes' red hair had grown long and ragged and it draped all over his face, sometimes plastered against it and blending with the bloody wounds all over him. He seemed almost motionless until we got closer. Then I could see his limbs twitch, making the familiar spasms his condition had made back when it was at its worse.

  I suppressed a frown when I thought of the day we did that to him. I even remembered calling the play that was designed for nothing but making him a broken wreck. We gave up a touchdown on that play and had lost our most dependable tight end for good. But I was just following orders, I told myself at the time. Not that it would have mattered. With the new laws, I would have found to have been an accessory in juvenile court at the very least. I remember the time I'd told my father that, and how hard he had laughed at me.

  That was the only way I knew how make Dad laugh this days. Mutter words like “jail,” “court,” “indictment,” or “consequences.” I’d get a humored snort at the very least, every time, guaranteed.

  “Well look at that, Chris,” Dad said, and judging by his tone he was in the best mood he'd been in all month. “You finally get to see the result of your handiwork.”

  “Yeah, finally,” I admitted. Because the truth was, I didn't owe Wes any favors. Had the little shit made one, just one, decision differently, it would never have come to this. Dad's ego would have been appeased, and I could have had another purpose in high school other than “spy on, control, and destroy Wes Malcolm.” But the prick had refused to take the hint and play ball, so that was how I had spent the last four years.

  “Alright, normally I'd go first, but the idiots I'm meeting with are running late. Since Chris wants to go last, we have time for you to go first, Dalfrey.”

  “Really?” The blonde woman's eyes twinkled.

  “Just be done in ten minutes,” My father answered with another grunt.

  “I won't need anywhere that long,” she answered brightly. Her heels clopped as she walked toward the limp figure lying in the middle of the room.

  I looked at him again, watching carefully. After being his nemesis for this many years, there were signs I had learned to look for. Subtle cues that told me I wasn't getting to him today, but he wanted me to think I was, so that I could just fuck off for once and we could both get back to having our own lives for a bit. I made a point to never share these signs with anyone, because that would just make my job harder, and give me less time for things I actually enjoyed.

  I found those signs again.

  His whole body was having spasms, but they always happened on the same count. But you had to count a long time to notice, and I think only I did that. His breathing tore out of his mouth in ragged gasps, but if I counted to thirty I would always hear the exact same gasp tear out of his mouth. Then he'd go through the same pattern of tormented breathing, of carefully rehearsed spasms.

  Son of a bitch, I swore in my skull. But secretly I was relieved. See? I wanted to say. He doesn't ever crack! It's not just me! You all couldn't do it to him either!

  I would have been vindicated. But it would have ruined my plans.

  “Careful Doc,” I called out. “Remember how strong he had gotten last time. He could still be dangerous.”

  The blonde doctor just chuckled at me and tossed her hair.

  “That's cute of you to worry, Chris. Rhodes, you should have told your boy about his best friend. Our little Wes is back to normal now.” She made long, arrogant strides around the rasping form on the ground. “No magic powers. No freakish strength. No special trick that lets him resist and recover from wounds. Just back to being a sad little boy,” She snickered, stepping closer to his head. “A sad boy with a broken brain, once again. How does it feel, Wes?” She taunted. “To take a dozen steps forward, and then a thousand steps back?” She walked even closer. Very carefully, her foot kicked the long, unkempt hair out of his eyes. “But then again, you're probably relieved. You were never good at being strong. I could tell that, just after three meetings,” she bent her leg, so that her skirt would slide up, mocking him with a better view of her limb. “You were never more than a sad little boy in a grown man's body, afraid of his own masculinity. I dared you every session to try and take what a real man would have wanted, but you were always too shy. The sad thing was, if you had been a lot smaller or younger, it would have been attractive on you,” she stepped away. She didn't notice that he hadn't looked away from her leg because he hadn't needed to. As soon as she stepped in front of him, he had just looked right through her, as if she was a sack of something dead and offensive. That was Wes' stare when he wanted you to think you were getting to him, the fake, glazed stare, that was actually focusing on something else. Something that wasn't in the room, but he had still set his eyes on it, some goal he was still after for that particular day.

  “It's a pity your parents never taught you about girls,” she continued obliviously. “Woman like two things, Wes: a cute boy that's pitiful, harmless, non-threatening, or a big strong man, that's useful, and brave enough to get what he wants. You were the wrong mix of both of those things. So you died,” she added simply, then she turned on her hip and swayed away from his face.

  “If it makes you feel any better, Wes,” She added, turning her head to look at him as she walked away from him. “I've been writing down that you actually were brave enough to try for me, every session, but I always resisted you. On our final session, I actually got scared enough to call for help, and you escaped, stumbling out of the door to our total shock. This way, you get to die looking stronger than you actually wer
e. Just like your dad did,” she couldn't help adding, and I sneered inside. Her last comment was like a player taking a cheap shot that didn't help the game. Wes had been hearing lines about his dad the whole time he'd been tortured and killed down here. Even I knew that. If there was one thing he had almost three years to get hardened against, it was the shit he had taken from people about his father.