by Alex Leopold
“Nonsense, your husband is quite resilient.” The Archon replied as he stretched out his hand and used the shift to telekinetically drag Quill’s body back.
“Get him up.” He ordered two of his Myrmidons. When Quill was on his knees, the Archon placed his fingertips either side of Quill’s skull.
“Don’t, Bellic.” Quill pleaded through swollen lips.
The Archon didn’t listen and soon their younger father began to grunt from the agony of having his mind broken into.
“I don’t want to see this.” Cooper whined from where she stood in the shadows.
“Just tell us what you want us to know so we can leave.” She begged, not wanting to be a spectator to her younger father’s torture.
“I’m sorry, but you need to know everything.” He replied.
“What is the Archon looking for?” A mortified Riley asked.
“He wants to know what I learned about the last prophecy.”
“Why don’t you just give it to him?”
“At this time I believed it was a secret worth dying for.”
When blood began weeping from the eyes and ears of their father’s younger duplicate their mother gasped in horror.
“Bellic, look at his face.” She pleaded.
The Archon ignored her and pressed harder against his skull.
“You’re pulling him apart!” She screamed.
Eventually the Archon realized he was getting nowhere and threw Quill’s body back to the floor. Then turning his attention to Kitt, he made a claw-like hand and shifted her to him
“I don’t want to kill him but I’ll do it to get what I want.” He seethed. Then without regard for her pregnant belly he threw her on top of her husband who was barely moving.
“I don’t understand.” She whimpered as her hands delicately moved over his broken body. “How could you do this to a man you called friend?”
“Friend?” The Archon scoffed. “Quill and I grew up learning how to beat starvation. We taught each other how to survive the winters and hide from the blood hunters. We were closer even than brothers.”
“Then why are you doing this to him?”
“Because that man is not the one I grew up with.” He said accusingly. “You changed him.”
Then he jabbed at his chest. “But you didn’t change me, and I want what I was promised. I want more, and with the Liberty Key, I’ll get everything.”
“It’s no good to you without me.” A weak Quill interrupted. “Remember, the weapon will only work for the Pathfinder, me.”
He winced as he lifted himself up onto an elbow. “I’ll make you a deal, Bellic. I’ll help you, but Kitt and Yin go free first.”
Their mother tried to protest but their father’s younger duplicate stopped her with a look.
“But what if I don't need you?” The Directory leader asked with cryptic amusement. “What then?”
The younger Quill looked confused. Then the Archon said something that made his face fall in horror.
“Have you forgotten about how you kept me alive, Quill. Have you forgotten about the hack?”
“What’s he talking about?” Kitt asked her husband but he seemed unable to speak. So the Archon answered for him.
“You already know I was born with a sickness that should’ve killed me a long time ago. What your husband told you is that he kept me alive by sharing his strength through the connection. What he didn’t say was that this wasn’t enough. I needed more. So he figured out a way for me to hack a person’s life force out of them.”
“No.” Quill whispered as he hung his head.
“I promised Quill, I’d only ever take a small amount, and never from the people we saw as our allies. I did my best to live up to that promise, but…” The Archon shook his head with relish. “Nothing cures you like having a whole, healthy soul inside you. Nothing.”
He patted a hand on Quill’s shoulder before turning to Kitt. “The first person we ever tested this on was Quill. He let me hack a part of him.
“So if your husband is the Pathfinder, and I have part of his soul, then what does that make me?”
“You’re no Pathfinder, Bellic.” Yin shouted at him, her nose wrinkled in disgust. “You’re a monster.”
The Archon smiled at her. “What I am, my dear beacon, is a thief.”
With a flick of his wrist he shifted Yin to him and when she was at his feet, he ordered his men to hold her still.
“And when a thief learns how to take something from one person, he takes it from another.”
He placed his hand against her chest and a second later she began to make a chocking sound.
“No!” Nakano screamed and ran to where her sister was being held.
With each shuddering breath, Yin’s skin started to fade to the color of ash as her life force was torn out of her. Nakano tried to comfort her sister, but Yin was nothing more than a memory and she could do no more than watch as events from seventeen years ago played themselves out.
“Do you know how many people your friend has done this to over the last two decades?” Nakano asked as she watched her sister’s quiet torment.
“I can only imagine.” Cooper’s father replied with regret.
“Thousands!” She spat, her body shaking with rage. “That’s how he became so powerful. And you taught it to him?”
“He was my friend. I couldn't let him die.”
Yin was quiet now and all they could hear were Kitt’s heavy sobs as the Archon went about finishing his work.
“Is the Archon right? Is he a Pathfinder too?” Riley asked, her eyes fixed on the floor.
“I don't know.” Her father sighed.
He’s asked himself this question every night for the past seventeen years, Riley realized. It’s always in the back of his head.
“If it is true though”, he warned them. “And we continue to go down this path, to follow the prophecy. Then I'm afraid we may bring about a future where the Archon comes to possess the Key and makes himself the most powerful anomaly in the world.”
“Not possible.” Nakano objected. “I saw the future. I saw the wars end.”
He looked at her candidly. “What if they end because the Archon has enslaved the whole world?”
“I refuse to believe that.” She replied stubbornly.
“Why? The Torchbearers are gone. The Directory controls almost the entire nation. Our world has turned into a nightmare we can not wake from. That feels more like the future the Archon wanted than it does mine, don’t you think?”
She said nothing so he continued.
“You want to know why I’ve been hiding in the Borderlands all this time? It’s not just because I thought the last prophecy was a lie, it’s because I also feared it might be true. For in what future would I have ever let my wife be murdered.”
“Murdered?” Cooper stammered, and looked at her father with wide-eyed confusion.“ You said she died in child birth.”
When he turned to her, she saw the defeat in his eyes.
“I'm sorry.” He whispered.
“Sorry for what?”
“For what happens next.”
Having finished harvesting Yin’s life-force, the Archon returned his attention to the girls’ mother.
“Perhaps, I’ve been going about this the wrong way.” He began, and used his abilities to lift Quill onto his knees, working his body like a puppet on strings. “Perhaps we should try something new.”
Telekinetically, he pressed Quill’s right-hand against Kitt’s chest. Riley knew what was going to happen next and squeezed her eyes shut. Yet, when her mother began to gasp in agony she couldn’t stop herself from digging her nails into the palms of her hands.
“Bellic you don’t want to do this.” Her father’s younger duplicate pleaded. “She's pregnant!”
“I’m not doing anything, Great Inventor. It’s all you, and only you can stop it.” The Archon chuckled. “Decide quickly though. Every second we wait there’ll be a little less for you to love.”
> “I don’t want to see this anymore!” Cooper cried out and tugged on her father’s arm. “Let me out, I’m begging you.”
But her father wouldn’t stop the memory.
“Okay, I’ll tell you everything.” The younger Quill shouted when he was unable to watch his wife suffer anymore. “The first part of the Key is in a vault in a dead city. The only other thing I was told is that when I find the first part, it will lead me to the rest.
“Scan my mind if you don’t believe me!” He added when the Archon didn’t stop the hack.
“He’ll let her go now, right?” Riley asked. “You’ve told him everything.”
Her father didn’t reply, and all she could do was watch as the Archon addressed three of his men.
“When this is done take him to one of the cells. I want him strong again before I hack him.”
“Bellic, what are you doing?” The younger Quill cried out still unable to pull his hand away.
“What I should've done a long time ago.” The Archon replied. Then he and the rest of his men switched away in a kaleidoscope of white light.
“Kitt, I can’t…” Quill’s younger duplicate gasped.
“It’s okay.” They all heard her calmly tap into his head even as the rest of her body shook with crippling spasms.
“The children…” He groaned..
“I’m protecting them.” She tapped as a cry of pain erupted from her throat. “Promise me, you’ll keep them safe?”
“I promise, just don’t leave me!” He begged.
The three remaining Myrmidons laughed at his distress.
“You’ll never be alone.”
From behind Cooper, two arrows passed through her in rapid succession catching two of the Myrmidons square in the chest. She turned in time to find a younger Acadia running out of the shadows with his sword high over his shoulder.
“Acadia saves her, right?” Riley implored.
She watched the last Myrmidon throw a spark to protect himself. It caught the grizzly in the chest and burnt a hole in his leather armor, but it didn’t slow him down and his sword cut the Myrmidon clean in half.
“No, it’s too late.” Their father replied as the younger Acadia tore him off his wife. “I saved her body, but she was gone.”
Cooper couldn’t take it anymore.
“Let me out!” She shouted and began backing away. “Now!”
43
The Watcher found him on the metal viewing-platform that overlooked the long underground cavern where he hid his army of predictors. Tunneled out of bedrock during the time of the lost civilization, the cavern’s ceiling was as high as a cathedral’s, and the floor stretched far off into the darkness.
As the Archon watched on, white-suited wardens with oil lamps held above their heads, moved from one station to the next checking on the health of each psychic.
Most stations had nine. First, there were the three in the center: the predictor, her beacon, and a pointer.
Surrounding them in a tight circle were the remaining six. These were anomalies with very limited predictor abilities. Yet, by absorbing their strength through the connection, the predictor in the center was able travel deeper into the void than she could ever manage by herself.
That ability was only magnified further with the help of the pointer.
Nothing but basic men and women, pointers possessed an intimate knowledge of specific lands, forests or cities throughout the nation. They acted as guide for their predictors, and through this focused search of the void, a predictor of average ability could find themselves able to see two, maybe three days ahead.
There were over thirty predictor stations in the cavern. Eleven of them had pointers from the Borderlands with orders to comb every yard of it till the Great Inventor. This was the Archon’s attention was focused.
“We’ve received a broadcast from Control.” The Archon said when the Watcher was by his side.
He was barely recognizable against the pale, sick little man he’d once been. That man was but a shadow of what the Archon had become. In the years since, he’d used the strength given to him through the hack to fashion himself a new body, one that had been formidably built. He was over six-and-a-half feet tall now, allowing him to tower over most men, and the cut of his dark grey uniform hinted at the muscular physique beneath it.
“They’ve confirmed that Quill is in the Borderlands, and know where he’s been hiding all these years.” He said.
“What will you do, Bellic?” The Watcher asked tapping a finger on the hand-rail in front of her as she spoke. She alone was allowed to call him by his given name and did so often. It served as a reminder: all this was only possible because of me.
“I will wait.” He replied. “Control will be at the location shortly, and he doesn’t want us to alert the Great Inventor or Nakano that we know where they are.”
“Remember, Quill needs to die for your prophecy to be set in motion.” She reminded him, and reached up to turn his head so she could look into his eyes.
Unlike other men his age, the Archon’s face had lost none of its youth and vitality – thanks to the hack. It was smooth to the touch and handsome to behold. Yet, it was his eyes the Watcher wanted to see, as it was there where the real Bellic could still be found. They were the color of fire and gazed back at her with a burning anger.
“He has to die.” He agreed. Then he looked back down at the cavern floor.
“Now, what do you have for me? I give you an army of predictors and you give me nothing.” His voice didn’t hide any of its irritation, but she knew the real reason for his frustration. She’d seen the slight – almost undetectable – heaviness in his eyes. He hadn’t hacked that day and was beginning to feel the pain from his sickness that was always there.
“Patience.” She told him calmly. “My best predictors are sweeping the Borderlands for him, grid-by-grid. We’ll have him and his family soon.”
“Are their pointers good?” He asked, looking down at the men who sat between the beacon and the future-seer.
“They know the land intimately.” She agreed.
“If Nakano is with them, she’ll be able to show Quill and his company all the best ways to remain undetected within the void.” He pointed out.
“That is why we have Control on the ground. The closer he gets to Quill, the easier it will be for my predictors to pick him up.”
“And what if he’s using the last prophecy to aid him?” He asked his concern rising.
Soon it would boil over into anger, and she could see him hacking half the psychics in the cavern before he calmed down.
“It’s your prophecy.” She reminded him with a nonchalant shrug. “Anything they do to follow it, will only be to your benefit.”
“You must have something?” He demanded more calmly.
She shrugged. “Not on Quill, but one of our better predictors believes she saw a vision of Control in Metropolitan Twenty-One. She believes when he’s there he’ll find something important, something he’s wanted to find for a very long time.”
The City in the Clouds, she could almost hear him think, one of the dead cities.
“The first part of the Key, perhaps?” He mused excitedly.
“Perhaps.”
“How far ahead do you think the vision is?”
“Unclear, but she’s never been able to see forward by anymore than a few days, so seventy-two hours at the most. If you want I could accelerate the future’s arrival by ordering him to go there immediately?”
He shook his head. “No, he is where he needs to be.”
Then he held her in his fierce gaze. “But I don’t want him delayed.”
“He won’t be.” She said confidently. ”This will all be over soon.”
Back in the forest and freed from the connection Cooper stumbled away from the group under unsteady feet. She had to get away, had to escape. She felt like she couldn't breathe, like the whole world was closing in on her.
A light shower of rain had b
egun falling while they’d been locked away and she was grateful for it as it hid her tears.
“Cooper!” She heard her father call after her.
“You lied about everything!” She shouted back angrily.
Their abilities. Their reason for being in the Borderlands and not with the resistance. All a lie. No more so than how their mother died.
How could he have done that, she thought? Let us believe we’d killed her. Didn't he ever think about the guilt we'd carry because of it?
Had she been paying attention, Cooper might've noticed the grass around her feet bow toward her and wither, or seen the small electrical tentacles flare off her arms.
“Cooper, you have to calm down. You don’t have full control of your abilities yet.”
He was right behind her now, must've run to catch up. Without thinking she spun around to confront him and drove her arms into his chest.
“You haven't the right!”
A rush of power punched out of her hands and her father was thrown off his feet. She should've been shocked by this new ability but consumed in anger all she felt was glad for the pain she'd inflicted.
Not waiting to see if he got up, she continued walking away. Where? She didn't know. No… that wasn't right, she knew exactly where she was going. She was heading west, heading to Sancisco, going to settle a score.
Her father switched himself in front of her and blocked her path.
“Are you going to walk all the way there?” He winced as he clutched his chest.
“If I have to.”
“You don't understand, that's exactly what he wants.”
“Then I guess it's his lucky day.” She shot back and tried to move around him, but he held onto her.
“Please don’t.” He asked.
She responded by unleashing her rage on him, shouting at his face as she threw blows down onto his body.
“Why did you have to show us how she died? You didn’t need to.” She demanded as she throttled him.
She hated him for what he did. Hated him because he must’ve known how it would’ve changed things between them, and yet he’d done it anyway.
“You had to see, so when this happens again you’ll make the choice I wished I’d made.” He said not even trying to protect himself from her assault.