by Amanda Churi
Griffin’s heart felt heavy for a brief instant; he forced himself to look away the moment those petty thoughts arose. No, remember: you are not a human; you are a tool. Emotions have no place with you anymore.
Seek suddenly grunted. Her arms slammed into her missing gut and closed in with a violent squeeze the moment her weary eyes got a good look at what Virgil kept close watch of in the distance.
A weak Encryptor was dragged forward by two fellow rebels, both keeping their heads down. The baggage was practically dead weight, the carriers struggling to lug the limp body along as they pulled them across the ground, leaving a trail of warm blood behind. But no matter how deep or wide the wounds, the blood that the Encryptor could offer back to Mother Earth was minimal. They had given it their all… And the only thing left to possibly sacrifice was their life.
The two Encryptors entrusted with the morbid task of dropping their ally off at Death’s door did just that, not so much as flinching when his frail jaw shattered on Virgil’s boot.
“Wrath, you have done well,” Virgil praised in a deep, chilling voice, “but now, your ultimate test of courage has come.”
The fallen soldier had hardly the ability to speak. His neck held no strength, and his face lay on Virgil’s shoe, keeping his struggling eyes tuned in to the shadowed figure. Perhaps Virgil’s words were honorable, official, but the tone was so routine-like that any could tell he meant not one syllable from his gory mouth; the soldier even questioned if he was human at all, for Virgil’s mutated red eyes were pulsing with the lightest current and spinning with eagerness, seeing right through the Encryptor’s skin and evaluating the contents inside: what the fluid levels were, the ratio of muscle to surface area—
The strength of what Virgil knew was the final pulse.
Seek lost it. She screamed and stood, only to crash back to her knees as sobs broke her back. “VIRGIL! STOP!”
“Feed us!”
A slick silver club meant for the twisted minds of his enemies flew out from beneath Virgil’s trench coat and bore down upon the vulnerable skull. It was only a single swing, but that was all required to free Wrath’s exhausted brain and set it loose across the earth.
The frigid air lodged itself in Seek’s throat, and she collapsed forward with a pinched gasp. She held her head down, her face and eyes melting with pain as her nails reaped the soil.
Griffin’s ravenous stomach mimicked Seek’s sickness perfectly, but he would not move his eyes to another location. He needed to train himself and prove just how valuable he could be, and part of being valuable meant he had to be void.
Virgil retracted his club, hooking it back onto his belt and replacing it with a gutting knife. The first thing he did was kick Wrath in the chest, rolling him over and letting him flop like a fish. The blade urgently lodged itself into the gut and swiftly tore it in two, exposing the lengthy intestines.
Virgil tossed the knife aside and reached into Wrath’s body with cupped hands. Blood and excretions fell through his fingers like oil as the leader heaped the fresh guts into a large pile next to the body. Both grunts who carried their ally to his resting place kneeled next to Virgil, joining the cleaning process.
“To live is to die,” Embry recalled, her voice upbeat and magical despite the gruesome scene. “If one never passes, where is the purpose in living? Wrath will transcend forever not only in our memories but our vessels, as without his sacrifice, mounted upon many other valiant souls, we could not continue to fight.”
Merritt somersaulted from the trees, landing in the center of the path. “Enough with the poetry—let’s feast!”
“Hey!” Flye snapped. “You are going to be the last to get your share! You’ve been bingeing for centuries while everyone else has had to suck on bones!”
Merritt chuckled. “Or fingernails, I see.”
Flye bit down in such a fluster that her thumbnail broke in half.
“You don’t have to live a fulfilled life to not want to die…” Seek sobbed, refusing to lift her head. “You don’t even have to live long… Or even live being good. Life, Embry, is not defined by death, but how you fight it.” Her inverted cheeks met the sky with scraps of leaves plastered to her scalding face. “Wrath didn’t want to die, no matter how loyal he was. I don’t want to either—neither did Kaitlyn or any of the others.”
Merritt put a finger in her mouth and popped her cheek. “Why are you being the dramatic one? Neither of us can die, so why worry about the poor souls who can?”
The light within Seek’s eyes instantly died, replaced with morbid curses that she directed at her new bodyguard. “Immune to Time—not Death.”
“If you’re me, it’s the same thing.”
“No, it was you.” Seek pried her wobbly body off the forest floor and came face-to-face with Merritt, even though she fell short in height by far. “You have no idea what we’re about to encounter. Make even the slightest miscalculation, and you can kiss the rest of your pitiful life goodbye, as well as everything you’ve ever worked for.” She heatedly pointed at Flye. “Ask her.”
Seek’s statement caught Flye by surprise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Why don’t you tell her about your bloodline? That little cat-mouse game you all have had going on since the fall of Phantome?”
An angry crackle of purple electricity burst from Flye’s stowed dagger. “Don’t you dare talk about us Woodards like—”
“Oh, Woodards? That’s what you’re calling yourselves nowadays? How long has that surname lasted this time around, huh?” She took a step forward, taunting Flye’s bunching fists. “See, Merritt-sama, Rebel is called just that because since this hell began, her family has always been at the heart of it, always trying to preserve the truths that the Reveres fought so hard to destroy. You know how difficult that was? Generations of incest since they could trust no one; countless murders that led to switching their chips and warping their barcodes whenever someone caught on; learning and decoding extinct languages and reading day and night, all to absorb everything they could and pass it on before they were found out. But see? She’s all that’s left now in spite of their efforts, and you know why? Because they are sloppy in their work and don’t know when to stop.”
Rebel’s boot slid forward. “You—!”
“No, no, Flye, really! Why don’t you tell her about your parents? How their brashness—their ignorance in sharing the secrets with one person got them killed? How it took your brother’s sight? Heck, how it ultimately took his life—!”
Flye lived up to her name, a burst of anger unlike any other shooting her high off the ground and slamming her back down right at the child’s toes. “SHUT UP, YOU FUCKING GHOST! He is not dead! I know it; I can feel it! I’m going to get him back!”
“Oh, get it through your thick head, would you?! Five years! Five stupid, reckless years of you nearly getting killed for your delusions! Believe me, he is dead! Gannon would never keep someone so biologically worthless around, no matter their drive!”
Flye stomped once more and dug her teeth so deep into her bottom lip that she drew blood. “Then show me proof! Show me if you’re so holy and wise! SHOW ME!”
“ENOUGH!”
A wrench flew between the warring mouths, knocking the girls back into their petty reality. Both faces furiously swung toward Justus. “Cool down, both of you.”
Flye thought so little of him that her first method of retaliation was to spit on the base of his tree. “Go piss up a rope, why don’t cha? When you manage to crawl out of your high-tech dungeon and stick your gay little nose into the real world, then come back and tell me to ‘cool down.’”
Her words curled Justus’ lips into a disgusted scowl, furthermore lifting him up as well. A hand clutched the box he held with such strength that it trembled in his grasp, fearful of what he might do. “When will you stop judging me…? Does it matter that much that I am who I am? That I prefer colors over grays? Personality over genetics? Living over conforming?” He t
urned his wrist in and tucked the small cube in at his concaving stomach, averting the concerned eyes of his creation and apprentice. “Computers are safe… They don’t hate or judge. They let you be whatever you want; they protect your identity and only live to serve. To someone so worthless, who is always shunned by the population, they are important; the lost can be whatever they create on that screen.” He chuckled once and then shed a broken smile. “You’re lucky.”
Flye cocked her head and squinted her ignited eyes. “Is that supposed to be sarcasm?”
“No, it’s sincerity. You were born with a mission—a purpose. The only thing your parents ever wanted was for you to pass on what they tried so hard to preserve—and it didn’t matter to them how you did it or how you got there. Your life, your identity was your own.”
Flye scoffed, dipping her head. “All of your assumptions piss me off… Especially your attitudes about it. My family was not a batch of over-confident, careless baboons like you make them out to be. They were so smart and tactical that we have made it here—met the very year last recorded in the original history books. And yes, only two of us lived to see it, but we weren’t born out of a goal; we were born out of love and trusted to carry on the knowledge, nothing more. Sure, they took extreme measures to get here, but at least it followed the laws of nature.” She chuckled dryly. “And you know, it’s funny, mister test-tube. Even with all the help of science, you still are nothing but a failure!”
“FAILURE?! If it weren’t for my inventions, you would have died at my feet writhing from Typo’s poison!”
“…Justus…” Embry cooed, gently tugging on his shirt
Justus slammed the cube over his heart. “You think you’re the only one to ever cross the boundary of life and death? I crossed it before some would even say I was alive! You try enduring an abortion in the womb—when you are so young and innocent that you can’t even begin to comprehend just what you’ve done to deserve it! You try being eliminated just because of your imperfect genes! Just because you can’t carry an Eyla! Science saved you… What saved me was sheer luck—and I was so thankful that when I learned of what happened to me, I decided I would pass on the gift of life to those who could not achieve it any other way.”
“Sir, you need not reflect so—”
“And you know what?! My creations loved me, unlike humans! I had to build, create life, friends, and family of my own—ones that loved me because I loved them into existence!”
“Steel!” Virgil broke in, realizing how rough the waters were becoming.
Justus pushed out his hand in defiance. “Don’t. You’re not my leader. Pinion is my queen, not some lousy experiment who took her place.”
The blood roads in Virgil’s eyes expanded, revealing every ticking vein. “Says the experiment.”
“At least my humanity survived. Yours died with your family.”
Virgil pillaged his fists into Wrath’s inverted body while glaring down his head technician, splattering an array of blood and other bodily fluids into the air.
“Umm…” Merritt chimed in, slowly raising her hands. “Look, as much as I enjoy a good brawl, this is getting a bit extreme. I’m sure once we fill our bellies, you’ll all—”
With a seething exhale, Virgil reached for his club and stood, glaring at the sorceress.
Her split tongue nervously swiped over her fangs. “Ok, ok, you do you.” She took to the trees and scampered as far away from the battlefield as she could.
When she was gone, Virgil’s inflamed eyes rounded back on Justus. “Don’t ever talk about my family like that… You don’t know a thing…”
“Really? That seems to be the theme of the day. Let’s change that, shall we?” Justus flicked down the chip in the corner of his lens, projecting multiple screens across the slick surface. “Virgil Kunta Philbrick: born September 26th, 2115 at 5:48 p.m. to Kayla and Jeriah Philbrick. Seventy-two percent African, twenty percent Italian, and, ey, eight percent Chinese? Unexpected. Let’s see… Ah, yes, three sisters. Married Naomi Ortiz—”
“Steel,” he warned with a low, threatening growl.
“Had two children, girls, Alisoun and Kristin—”
“I swear, you keep it up—”
“Who were brutally torn limb from limb in public along with their mother in the third sector of Velhm on October 19th, 2136 because their pathetic father would not take a hint and keep his feelings about the Proxez to himself.” He pushed the chip up, coolly facing Virgil without so much as a flinch. “How’d I do?”
Virgil ripped his club from his chain-link belt so quickly that he snapped it in half, hotly contemplating whether or not to strike his smartass mechanic down.
“Don’t worry, you don’t have to kill me. Everyone here has been slowly killing me for years now.” He whisked Embry to her feet with a fuming jerk, and then, he tore away from that toxic environment that he had slaved away for, never even thinking to look back—Virgil did the opposite, never failing to let the unsettled Encryptor stray from his eye.
Justus continued on as a robot of his own, approaching the entrance to the tunnel a short distance away. At its edge, he abruptly stopped. “Griffin,” he called back with his head set straight. “Come on.”
And then he leaped down onto the route that the Encryption had used to escape persecution, providing no more information. Embry stood perhaps a heartbeat longer, shooting Griffin an affirmative yet soft glare before she too followed in her creator’s footsteps.
Griffin was unsure how to react at first. Sure, Justus was directly in charge of him, but Virgil had the final say over all, especially in this time of brewing tension.
Griffin had hardly glanced at Virgil before the leader brushed him away with a scoff, continuing to divide Wrath into servings. “I don’t care.” That was all his indifferent voice could and would muster.
An eerie, uncomfortable tension held the air at its mercy. Griffin really had no idea what to do. Of course, he found it hard to be around Justus ever since he expressed his feelings, but nonetheless, Griffin was both his apprentice and invention—his tool. Besides, the air wasn’t any more settled here; everyone looked about ready to combust if someone so much as breathed too loudly; so, of course, no one attempted to call Griffin back as he wandered off down the path at an accelerated rate after Justus.
First, he sought to walk once he propelled himself down into the hole, but then he found a sense of urgency in his long legs. Before his fuzzy brain could even tell what he was doing, he was racing down the tunnels, desperate to catch up. Many Encryptors stayed beneath the surface, working under the light of Seek’s magical souls that she had strung upon the exposed roots; Griffin took no notice of his allies, nearly knocking several into either the ground or walls. They yelled at him, pissed when he trampled a piece of weaponry or smacked the broken arm of a combatant, but he was locked into a sprinter’s mindset and had already moved on before they could catch a good glimpse of the hit-and-runner.
On far too many occasions, Griffin’s disobedience had been his downfall, and with Justus so unstable—largely because of Griffin’s own actions, might he add—he could not let it go further. He just needed to prove that he was loyal and present—that there was no reason to keep him off of the frontlines or withhold secrets. As loose as their friendship may have been, as strained, Justus had tried to help him time and time again, even going so far as to give him something to help fill his hole of gaping insecurity. Even with such unsettled emotions, he really was the only person that Griffin could rely on.
After a point, Encryptors no longer dwelled in the tunnels; there was no reason to go farther back, but Griffin had yet to find either of his mentors. When it dawned upon him how far they had wandered, the urgency of his run only increased—and then the string of Seek’s glowing souls ended, and Griffin was breaking apart the darkness with his frantic body, only seeing in mind and hoping that he kept a sound footing.
“Damn them all…” a muffled, sluggish voice came.
Immediately, Griffin slowed, trying to steady his heart and lower the volume of his needy gasps. Little light was present, but it was just enough for him to evaluate his surroundings—precisely that of Justus in the distance who sat upon a running tracker, using its headlight to illuminate the environment. Embry stood safely beside him on solid ground, not daring to tip the delicate balance of the neglected tracker.
Griffin carefully crept forward, staying well out of the tracker’s cone of light.
Justus reclined with his feet propped up on the dashboard, staring at the unseen ceiling. “They’re all bastards, Embry. All of them. If I had known that such would be the course of events to come, I would have never lent them my assistance.”
Embry tipped her head to the side. “You do not mean that of which you speak.”
“Ey, I most certainly do. Had worlds still been divided, I would have loved to see them burn in Hell.”
Embry paused. “Sarcasm not detected.”
“Nope.” He sighed, pushing his hand down on his face. “Come on out, Griffin. You aren’t fooling anyone.”
Griffin was fortunate enough to have a wall to catch him when he tottered in shock. He did not advance at first, wondering if it was just a bluff.
Justus rolled his head, staring down the pocket of space that he believed Griffin occupied—sucked that he was right.
With a dramatic sigh, Griffin separated from the shadows, shuffling toward them with his hands in his pockets. “Quit being so sharp.”
Embry giggled with aching innocence. “Haha, my condolences; you were compromised by my sensors.”
The awkward cyborg stopped next to his robotic counterpart but did not speak, waiting to see what Justus had to say.
And he wasted no time getting to the point: “We’re done here.”
Griffin did not understand. “And by that…?”
“It’s exactly what it sounds like. I’m done—we’re done. I will not stand behind a leader who I do not respect. From here on out, I’ll take things into my own hands.”