by Jon Jacks
Images of the complex Lil had seen earlier, the rooms cracking open, the once captive children fleeing.
Only the room of infant hybrids seemed unaffected by this chaos of earthquakes, of floods and fires, the children being left to sleep on.
Everything was under attack, Lil swiftly reasoned, these images somehow beamed here, perhaps from the ‘many eyes’ Mother had boasted of.
Now those eyes revealed to her only that her realm was crumbling.
‘Earth! She’s attacking me?’ Mother wailed in irate frustration.
The locked door quivered, the quaking structure above it crumbling, tumbling; it jerked wildly of its hinges, briefly flying up into the air.
This time, it was Memesis who stepped into the room.
*
Mother reacted with incredible swiftness.
She grabbed hold of Lil, placing her in a strangling headlock. It was an amazingly powerful grip, such that Lil felt for sure that Mother could easily tear her head off.
‘Your friend’s life is still in danger,’ Mother pointed out to Sis, ensuring she was aware of the fear in Lil’s eyes. ‘I cant understand why you’ve put her at risk like this!’
Sis appeared to be carefully summing up the situation as she replied.
‘I’ve learned a great deal from Lil,’ Sis admitted, ‘and so I know she would not expect me to put her life above the lives of all these other children.’
‘She would sacrifice herself, you mean?’ Mother chuckled grimly. ‘Very noble, I’m sure; but are you really so sure you know your friend? You came seeking the Devil, remember? And yet you failed to realise you’ve been with her all along!’
*
Chapter 40
‘Tell him what you really are, dear,’ Mother scoffed, jerking her arm tighter, threatening to wrench Lil’s head clear of her shoulders.
‘I…I don’t know what she means, Sis!’ Lil gasped desperately. ‘She said I’m this sort of being made up of emotions: but not the Devil, Sis! Not the Devil!’
‘That’s right, that’s right,’ Mother agreed with clipped satisfaction. ‘But what are man’s overriding emotions?’
‘Greed,’ Sis answered assuredly. ‘Cruelty. Arrogance. Belligerence. I could go on.’
‘Exactly, exactly!’ Mother blurted out triumphantly. ‘And isn’t it these emotions that truly make man himself the Devil; for we all know, don’t we, that there really is no such person as the Devil? He’s nothing more than an excuse conjured up by man!’
‘So – if the summation of all those emotions is destroyed,’ Sis replied, as if carefully considering this, ‘then man is no longer evil?’
‘Precisely,’ Mother snorted, stepping away from Lil as a furious Sis advanced upon her.
*
Chapter 41
Sis’s hair lashed out before her.
It whipped through the air, serpentine in its motion, cobra-like in the deadliness of its strike.
Mother’s head whirled up into the air, the severed neck sparking, its wires trailing like so many useless tendrils. The body, however, wasn’t completely devoid of its brain, for androids aren’t built wholly like humans.
It launched itself at Sis.
‘Fool!’ the voice continued to hiss from the severed head. ‘I’m the culmination of all of man’s achievements, all his understanding; I was chosen to be the “human face” of what would be the rebirth of man! And you seek to destroy me?’
Sis’s hair snapped once again, and again, each strand now cutting deeply into the fake skin, the hard metal under-structure. Individual hairs pierced deeply, confusing electronic chips, setting them on a course of ever-vibrating self-destruction; machine separating from human and animal substance, a spilling of oil and blood.
The torso continued to ungainly drag itself along the floor, the voice from the head now screeching and wailing pitifully.
‘You’re destroying all hope of civilisation, don’t you see that? But there’s still hope, still a chance; place what remains of me in one of my chambers, pick me up and…’
Mother was tiring, slowing.
Lil stared in wonder at Sis, still a little unsure about what would have to happen next.
*
Outside, streams of children were heading back home.
The few remaining ‘servants of the gods’ were helping them, recognising now that they had to choice but find a way of working alongside their fellow humans,
The complex was burning, wrecked to a point where it was no longer usable. To a point where it would soon be reclaimed by nature once more.
And the nursery of hybrid children?
Sis assured Lil that she had left it running with what would be the last surges of power, the last reasonings of a dying Mother.
When they were resurrected from their sleep, these children would have to make their own way in the new world that was being created.
A wholly better world, Lil thought with satisfaction as she and Sis walked towards the sea, towards what had once been called Massachusetts Bay.
But why was she still alive to see it all?
When Mother had clicked her fingers to destroy her, had the vibrations she’d set in motion been disturbed by the quaking of the surrounding buildings, itself brought on by Sis’s reconnection with her own mother?
Or was it that not even Mother could destroy all human emotion?
Despite all these questions hanging over Lil’s survival, there was one that remained more perplexing still.
‘Why?’ Lil asked.
‘Why did I spare you?’ Sis said in return, spelling out what Lil still hesitated to ask.
Lil nodded.
‘Didn’t you believe her?’ Lil said. ‘Didn’t you believe Mother when she said that I contained every terrible human emotion?’
‘Of course I believed her,’ Sis replied with a playful grin.
She placed an arm around Lil’s shoulders, hugged her close, as if they were the very closest of sisters.
‘The Devil may be in you, Lil: but so are all the Angels!’
End
If you enjoyed reading this book, you might also enjoy (or you may know someone else who might enjoy) these other books by Jon Jacks.
The Caught – The Rules – Chapter One – The Changes – Sleeping Ugly
The Barking Detective Agency – The Healing – The Lost Fairy Tale
A Horse for a Kingdom – Charity – The Most Beautiful Things (Now includes The Last Train)
The Dream Swallowers – Nyx; Granddaughter of the Night – Jonah and the Alligator
Glastonbury Sirens – Dr Jekyll’s Maid – The 500-Year Circus – The Desire: Class of 666
P – The Endless Game – DoriaN A – Wyrd Girl – The Wicker Slippers – Gorgesque
Heartache High (Vol I) – Heartache High: The Primer (Vol II) – Heartache High: The Wakening (Vol III)
Miss Terry Charm, Merry Kris Mouse & The Silver Egg – The Last Angel – Eve of the Serpent
Seecrets – The Cull – Dragonsapien – The Boy in White Linen – Porcelain Princess – Freaking Freak
Died Blondes – Queen of all the Knowing World – The Truth About Fairies – Lowlife
Elm of False Dreams – God of the 4th Sun – A Guide for Young Wytches – Lady of the Wasteland
The Wendygo House – Americarnie Trash – An Incomparable Pearl – We Three Queens – Cygnet Czarinas