by Lee Bond
Jimmy’s very unsubtle hints about what lay in store for him weighed heavily on Garth’s mind as he hurried after his mad host.
8. Saturday in the Park
Vasily Tizhen sat there, in the torrential downpour, staring at the laid out chessboard, listening to the rain fall. At his side, a Sheet displayed Tomas’ apology. He was an old man, the message said, and as much as he enjoyed playing chess with his oldest friend, he was too old to go out in this weather.
Then, because Tomas was Tomas, the message ended with a sly indication that he was spending time with Si Stonigvale, the lusty next door neighbor who’d been pursuing an old EuroJapanese immigrant for more years than was even imaginable.
Vasily grunted at that. At least someone was finding happiness. Tomas deserved it. All the pain and suffering he’d experienced, he had every right to find comfort wherever he could.
“I am sorry, old friend, for what happened.” The words were barely audible above the rainfall. Vasily turned his eyes to the thick clouds. According to the tech update on his prote –which was and probably would remain in his apartment from now on- Huey’s efforts at building vast flying machines designed to take the poisons and toxins floating in their atmosphere as a result of the Port Disaster and turn them ‘harmless’ had been successful.
A downside of those machines saving their world from toxic overload was continual rainfall in areas where those poisons, be they chemical, radioactive or other, were most concentrated.
Vasily didn’t mind. He liked the rain. The sound was soothing. It filled his senses, kept him from thinking of the last important thing he’d ever done. Gods, how his heart ached at that. A sarcastic grin flickered at the corners of his mouth. There was no one around to chastise him for thinking the religious word.
In this day and age, with the theory that Harmony was spreading from the soldiers to the populace, Vasily wasn’t even so sure that anyone would think twice if he set up an IndoRussian mosque in the center of town and started offering up prayer service.
Years ago, when he’d first met Fenris and his dark horse brothers, had listened to them talk about helping the Goddies out of the pit of chemical despair the Latelian Regime had tossed them all into, Vasily had known this day would come. How could it not? His children, his large, chemically-induced-stupid children were at last coming into their own, all thanks to Fenris and the Harmony. And so naturally, his gentle giants would find themselves incapable of refraining from telling long-lost family members of the wondrous method that had helped them find their way back to sanity, of the internal song that was cleansing their systems from the raving madness that was the drugs they’d been forced to take.
About the only thing these newly born Goddies kept to themselves was the fact that ‘nutrient supplements’ had been designed to keep them stupid, keep them addicted.
“Thank God for that.” Vasily said to the rain, enjoying the devious thrill of breaking the law. If the peoples of Latelyspace discovered that their God soldiers had been made to suffer on purpose … no amount of backpedaling or explaining would save his sorry hide.
But it’d been necessary. They’d never been able to find a way to stop the Goddies from evolving from ones into twos and twos into threes and threes into fours. Each successive trip up the ladder meant more chances for those evolutionary upgrades to turn the soldier into a maddened and powerful lunatic. The addictive part of the supplements kept them chained, so if –when- some of them went mad from what Vasily now knew was Harmony trying to break through … when they went mad, the drugs coursing through their duronium-encased veins kept them … pliant enough to put down without too much loss of life.
Oh, and of course they’d had to find ways to keep the men stupid, especially after they’d lost their contracts with Trinity to pound Cordon-systems into the dust. Out there, amongst the stars, it’d never mattered whether or not the men knew how old they were, how much of their history they could recall. Fighting wars on thousands of fronts kept the Goddies away from home, away from family who might want to know they were still alive, still existed, still fought for the glory and honor of the Latelian Regime.
Once those God soldiers had come home and been forced to stay home … they’d started talking about going to their families, of standing tall and saying ‘I am Gorrak and I am your great-great-great-great grandfather’.
And that could not have been allowed to happen. In the beginning, during Scottsdales’ reign as Chairman, he’d instituted a very rough and ready version of Hollyoak’s far more refined method because back then, Latelyspace had been boiling over with internal strife. More often than not he’d deployed Goddies against rebels and terrorists alike and it would have been epically awkward had one or more of those soldiers recognized the men and women they were killing as family.
And then, oh and then Alyssa had come along with her grand and glorious scheme to conquer the Universe under cover of Dark. Then it’d been necessary to cripple the Goddies even more, to retard the evolutionary process further because, ironically enough, chaining them down meant more of them survived to change, and the older they got, the less effective the drug became.
A soft sigh of wry amusement escaped Vasily. If Harmony hadn’t come to his children, they would’ve had more Foursies than ever by the time Alyssa’s plans got off the ground. Possibly even some Fivesies.
Vasily turned his eyes to the sky once more, let the rain fall on his face.
Oh yes, he liked the rain all right. Easy to hide your tears in the rain.
Someone sat at the table. “Shall we play a game?” The deep rumble of Fenris’ voice seemed to rattle the playing pieces.
Vasily wiped the rain from his face and looked the dark horse up and down. “I see you decided to look normal for this.”
Fenris gestured wide. “What is normal these days, OverCommander Vasily Aurick Tizhen? Normal, in an Unreal Universe? That would be truly spectacular to see. I imagine it would be like a unicorn, only less … mythical.”
Laughter choked out of Vasily. He was getting well and truly drenched and the demigod in front of him didn’t have the decency to do the same. “OverCommander no more, Fenris. Your lot saw to that.” He gestured to the board, and moved a pawn.
Fenris followed suit, responding with his own move. “My kind?” he asked scathingly, though his tone was smoothed out with a hint of sympathy. Some were not taking well to the presence of the original God soldiers. Those that knew who they were, anyways.
Vasily moved again. “Yes. Before, when it was just the Goddies, everyone looked at them as … soldiers. Enhanced beyond belief, yes, but soldiers still. You and your … brothers … are so beyond the pale that you seem …”
Fenris gestured and the rain falling on Vasily stopped for a moment, tiny droplets beading in the air around the IndoRussian commander. “Godlike?” The Harmony soldier tilted his head in acquiescence, smirking a bit at the look of irritation on the other man’s face.
Vasily’s heart unclenched when the rain started falling once more. He nodded grudgingly.
Fenris moved a bishop, though it was only for form’s sake; Vasily was apparently willing to talk, so long as the pretense that a game was being played was maintained. “Science made us as well, OverCommander. Science beyond your ken, of course, but it was machines that gave us life, not some deity.”
Vasily slammed a hand down on the sodden stone game board. A few pieces bounced, but none fell. Not yet. “Stop calling me that! I … surrendered my right to lead when I saw you and … and my damned grandfather! Now that the Goddies are coming back into their own minds, finding their own voices, remembering the things they did … they are infinitely better tacticians, each one, better commanders, better soldiers. I … am just a man. Never fought in a true war, never stood on alien ground and ordered the deaths of millions. Never … never did any of those things. You … you have surpassed me.”
Vasily flicked his King to the side.
Fenris roared his approval, clappi
ng his hands long and hard. IndoRussian males. So … dramatic. Why, he wouldn’t put it past the brooding commander to’ve arranged this little meeting somehow, to assure that when his refusal to recognize the problems his behavior was causing was brought to the attention of someone who’d do something about it would be witness to this little … act. “Bravo, OverCommander. Very theatrical. The rain, the outrage, the sorrow, the surrendering of your king. Very … metaphorical. Also, utter, utter self-serving bullshit.”
Vasily narrowed his eyes. “Why are you here, Fenris? Shouldn’t you be helping Herrig and the others deal with the incursion forces? I hear tell you’re having a hard time catching them, even with our own black hole ships.”
“Well informed, for a man who claims not to be OverCommander any longer.”
Vasily shrugged. “When Tomas is not busy trying to pry loose Si Stonigvale’s lips from his, he is still in charge of decrypting chatter from the opposing force. He keeps me informed.”
“Lucky for the two of you, then, that your continued letters of resignation fail to make it to proper channels.” Fenris flourished the latest one, a handwritten –so delightfully archaic, was their OverCommander, in all things proper and authoritative- missive with two words and a thumbprint. It burst into flames.
“How do you do those things?” Vasily demanded, that new fear crawling up through his feet forcing him to grip the table lest he start shivering. It was magic.
“It isn’t.” Fenris assured. “It is purest science, Vasily. The Unreal … our universe is easily manipulated. The forges and forces of creation in this vast magnificence were meant for this sort of thing, if only so that when things are done the proper way, our children will have myths and legends.”
Vasily covered his ears like a petulant child. The Unreal Universe. How could that even be a thing? If everything around him wasn’t real, then how could he hurt so much? He opened his eyes before the memory of Alyssa’s last second filled his mind. The ex-OverCommander straightened in his seat. “I ask again, Fenris. What are you doing here?”
“I am told that your children come to see you on a regular basis. That they stand or kneel in your presence as the mood strikes them. That you ignore them.” Under normal circumstances, Fenris wouldn’t care one way or the other what Vasily did, would, in fact, prefer it if this conversation wasn’t even necessary but … but Harmony had other things in mind.
“They are not my children any longer. They have grown up into wise and terrible beings who will one day blot out the sun and fill the void with souls.” Vasily laughed at the goosebumps on his skin. “They have no need for a man who might not even live to see the End of Days.”
Fenris wanted to throttle Vasily where he sat, desperately ached to choke the life out of the maudlin old bastard. Life had treated the man unfairly, yes, it surely had, but that was what Harmony did to those it needed. “You call them that, though, do you not? For the entire time you’ve been OverCommander?”
Vasily nodded once, slowly. “I did.”
“You stood over them, protected them, made them feel better about themselves, no?” Images and memories unclouded by drugs and despair flooded at Fenris. He batted them away. All the God soldiers were doing these days was think about the OverCommander. Every unguarded moment had personal memories filling Harmony. The time God soldiers started crying because they were afraid of the dark. The time God soldiers went mad and tried to kill themselves and each other. That one time when someone almost became a Fivesie … atrocious.
And through it all, staunch OverCommander Vasily arrived, silly hat and foolish cloak snapping in the breeze. Through it all, a mortal man half the size of those moronic giants stood and talked to them, told them it was all right, everything was going to be okay, everything was fine.
Vasily found he was clenching his jaw rhythmically, that he was clenching his hands until his fingers ached. “You obviously know the answer to that.”
Fenris smiled flatly, no such emotion reaching to his eyes. “Every single Goddie in this system knows you, OverCommander. Every single one has a personal story to tell. With the advent of Harmony filling them, each story has become everyone’s story.”
“I cannot help you with that, Fenris. They are yours now.” Vasily rose to leave. He was well and thoroughly drenched. His toes were squelching in his boots. “And you will lead them to certain death.”
“No!” Fenris slammed his palm down on the stone table and the chess pieces puffed into stone dust. “No. You do not get to leave until I am done. Do you think,” Fenris raised his hands, gestured to the weather, to the city he was in, to the planet he was on, “do you think I am not needed elsewhere? You are so very correct, OverCommander, in that I have better things to do. Trinity’s forces are proving wilier than anticipated and Huey’s insistence we need as many of them alive as possible is one we cannot ignore. Easier to kill them all. More practical in the short term. But no. I am here. Coddling a cranky old man who’s lost his playthings. So you will sit, OverCommander Vasily, and listen to what I have to say or I will make you sit.”
Vasily couldn’t tell if Fenris’ mood was affecting the weather or if it was all happenstance, but the clouds far above Hospitalis grew darker still, showed signs of lightning. He chewed at his lip. He did not want to be here any longer, had no desire to hear a single word coming out of the dark horse’s mouth, but … no one could stop Fenris. He was thousands of years old. He could make the rain stop and cause things to burst into flames.
He could make one old man do whatever he wanted.
Better, then, to appear to make the choice voluntarily, if only for the sake of form. He nodded brusquely before sitting back down. “Say what you have to say, Fenris. It will not change my mind.”
“That,” Fenris smiled acerbically, “that, I doubt. I am uncertain of many, many things, OverCommander. Most of all, I have gnawing doubts that we will be successful in our ultimate endeavor, but the one thing I am sure of more than anything else is that when I am done speaking, you will come with me.” The Harmony soldier raised a hand to quell the OverCommander’s biting reply. “To be clear, I would rather see you buried in the deepest grave I could personally dig with my bare hands, OverCommander. You are, in your mind, a mortal messing about with those filled with divine purpose. I quite agree. There is no place in the coming war for men like you, or Herrig. But alas. Providence and N’Chalez disagrees.”
“Gee, thanks.” Vasily rolled a hand for the ‘man’ to speak his piece.
“How much do you know of Harmony?” Fenris asked intently.
“I know that it’s some kind of telepathic connection you all share.” Vasily showed the palms of his hands. The Harmony. Everyone was embracing it, whether they could actually feel its presence or not. Too soon to tell if anyone save Goddies could embrace it, or what would happen if all showed signs of hearing the song. “That … that it gives you the powers you have. I … I don’t really know. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“Honesty at last.” Fenris smiled toothily. “A telepathic connection, yes. That, and an empathic one. And so much more, but your grasp is good enough for the purposes of the story that I need to tell.”
“Go on.” Vasily appreciated one aspect of Fenris’ personality more than anything else; the Harmony soldier had absolutely no need for societal pretense. The man sitting across the gaming table obviously had no doubt in his mind that he was hated with a passion, yet he wasn’t letting that hatred stop him from doing what he imagined needed doing.
It was so refreshing to not have to pretend.
“One aspect of Harmony is shared memories. It assists us, helps us grow stronger, shows us many paths to a single conclusion.”
“A hivemind.” Vasily had read reports of Offworld consciousnesses such as that. There was no individuality there and that was one of his greatest fears. The vast and mighty Latelian Regime, reduced to shambling worker-drones born and bred for a specific purpose. Horrific.
“Hardly.” Fenris
wished Vasily had picked a better spot to play chess. He felt like a fool talking to a stubborn old man who refused to come in out of the rain. Stupid mortals and their need for drama and pageantry. “More like a library. But I digress and this rain is making me irritable.”
“Then cut to the quick, Fenris. You’re not even wet whilst I am drenched to the bone. I tried to leave, you insisted I stay. Threatened me.” Vasily crossed his arms defiantly, daring the Harmony soldier to change his mind. Petty victories were victories no matter how you looked at them.
Fenris bit back a retort. He’d talked long into the night with Lokken and the others about this problem, had tried to find some other way of dealing with the … attachment and abandonment issues his … their God soldiers were suffering from, to no avail. The only one who could heal the wound … the cancer spreading through their glorious Harmony was the irate old man across from, who was sitting there with a wry grin on his face as though he’d won a major point.
“It is your children, OverCommander Vasily.” The Harmony soldier glared at the OverCommander, literally daring him to deny that sentiment one last time. For a wonder, the IndoRussian did not rise to the bait. “You are killing them. You are taking the second chance at life Harmony has given them and you are throttling it out of them every single time you refuse to look at them, refuse to acknowledge their presence. I am told that two of the eldest God soldiers in the entire army knelt outside your building for a full day and night, mute and impassive as statues, waiting for you to come to them.”
“I know it.” Those two massive men, Foursies on the cusp of Five, had terrified the entire building, prompting the building manager to come speak to him.
“What you cannot know is the sorrow they felt at your refusal. The utter woe. And that woe spread. Is spreading. Why do you ignore them?”
Vasily swallowed. He looked away.
Fenris shouted the question again, the boom in his voice frightening birds taking shelter across the park into the air.