The Conspiracy Chronicles Boxset 2

by Michael Evans

  After years of feeling lost, after years of not having direction, this chaos gave it to me. But at the same time nothing has changed. I want to be a better man than my father. I want to silence the voice in my head, the voice of my father all those years telling me that I’m not good enough. I want to be the person that releases the power of the Chimera Cube to the public, to be a person who changes history more than any other.

  I want to triumph over everything.

  I want to give this world a reason to have hope.

  The platform locks into the stage as my body is enveloped by the energy of the audience. I am standing directly in front of the podium, holding a sleek, black microphone that the stadium staff gave to me.

  The crowd is impossible to see with the bright lights shining down upon the stage, but the energy of their excitement crashes over me, leaving me hyped up in its wake.

  The fact that there are thousands of people in every direction, their screams smacking against me from every possible angle, is a powerful feeling that causes the hairs on the ends of my arms to stand up.

  There is no greater high than being validated by millions.

  The cheers from the crowd suddenly grow silent. It is my turn to speak.

  I need to show everyone here that I am strong, and that they can be strong too.

  I take a deep breath, preparing to deliver the first line of the speech that I spent hours rehearsing earlier today.

  But when I open my mouth the stadium dissolves into chaos.

  All the lights in the stadium are now on. Everyone is screaming, but not out of excitement. They are screaming for their lives.

  My heart almost throbs out of my chest at the number of people pouring onto the stage, trampling over people in an effort to save themselves. There isn’t a fire, or an earthquake, or any other natural disaster.

  There are at least a dozen armed shooters firing away into the crowd, the sound of their bullets echoing above the cries of thousands.

  They are blocking each exit.

  Everyone is trapped.

  Chapter 10

  I burst out from my position behind the podium.

  I have no clue who these attackers are or where they are coming from, but given how my life has been going recently, I’m going to take a wild guess and say that they are here for me.

  A bullet connects with the glass behind me, shattering a section of the thick glass that forms the exterior of the gaming portal. These glass cubes are not designed to withstand the high impact of bullets. Nothing in this stadium is.

  Yet there is no way to get out of it.

  I drop my fiberglass helmet on the floor, feeling naked without the Chimera Cube. I’m at the center of a stage surrounded by thousands in all directions. There is no possible way for me to get out. Running towards one of the exits will require forcing my way past thousands of people, and even if successful in this endeavor, the chances that one of the shooters won’t kill me upon reaching the door is slim.

  My only chance at survival is escaping underneath the stage, and it’s the crowd’s only chance at survival too.

  I have to make this happen.

  The crowd swarms the stage. And by swarms, I mean dozens of people climb onto the circular platform each second. Some are shot down by the hailstorm of bullets, while others successfully claw their way onto the stage and begin sprinting at us from all directions. I glance at the professional gamers. Most of them are either staring at the crowd in shock or banging against the floor beneath them, trying to get the same platform that carried us up to the stage to open up and transport us back underneath it.

  None of the platforms will budge.

  And now every single person that still has any mobility in this entire stadium is rushing towards us in a desperate, terrified mob, trying to make their way to a safe haven that doesn’t exist.

  A woman must know I am American and have no clue what anyone is saying as they scream in Mandarin, so when the first person of the wave of thousands reaches me, she grabs my shoulders and yells, “Help!”

  One of the bullets connects with the side of her chest, causing blood to rush out of her and drip onto the floor. The trail of blood following her footsteps combines with the dripping blood of dozens of others to form an awful dark-red pool on the stage.

  Hundreds have been shot in the minute of chaos, and from the sounds of the gunfire that are only increasing in intensity, they won’t stop until no one is left.

  “Okay!” I yell back, my voice launching from my throat much louder than I meant for it to.

  Usually I can shut down all the fearful parts of my brain and focus on survival. But this time, with thousands of people’s lives at stake and no Chimera Cube to protect me, scanning my environment is much harder.

  I can’t let all these people die. I can’t let another tragedy cause me any more guilt.

  One glance at everyone filling the mosh pit of dead bodies and bloody flesh on the stage and it is easy to realize that there is no way to escape from here. Instead of running to escape, the gunmen have effectively herded everyone in the stadium into one concentrated section, and with every moment that passes I hear bullets connect with people feet away from me and bullets whizz by me, shattering the gaming portal behind me.

  Any second a bullet can connect with me fatally.

  Logic would say for me to stay at the middle of this pile of people and lie down, hoping that by the time enough people are dead to make it easy to fire at me, that emergency responders and the military are already here.

  But I still hear no sirens. And from the eerie stillness that seems to blanket the exterior of the stadium, I have a sickening feeling that no one is coming.

  I need to do something crazy.

  I shove my way forward through the crowd. I feel like a shitty person at first for pushing over people rather violently who are bleeding out and panicked, but it’s my only chance to save them. It’s my only chance to destroy these attackers.

  The bullets continue singing by me, one whizzes by my head so close that the force of the wind hitting against the side of my face hurts. I’m taking a huge gamble—in fact, this will be the biggest gamble I have ever taken in my life. I need to search for an escape hatch at the bottom of the stage next to the first row of VIP seats. The only problem is that doing so will expose me to the bullets and the grave danger that I may die leaving the Chimera Cube to be found by world powers or the Syndicate itself.

  But I need to save these people now.

  If I don’t try, the guilt will tear me apart.

  If I don’t have the courage to do the right thing now, I won’t in the future when I have the power of the world in my hands.

  A bullet clips the side of my knee. Now, this isn’t my first rodeo. I have felt the horrible sensation of my blood being infused with shards of metal as a flying projectile wipes out a large swath of my flesh. But going through the same traumatic pain multiple times doesn’t make it any easier, it just brings up more memories.

  “Fuck,” I grunt, the mystery of how the bullet dodged the ten bodies in front of me and landed on my knee something I do not have time to think about.

  All I know is that the closer I get to the outside of the crowd of people, the more likely it is that the bullets will connect with somewhere that will end up with me sprawled out on the floor like the hundreds of people surrounding me. There is so much blood and dead people that all the fresh blood and other bodily fluids are forming a smell so terrible, my head pounds.

  But nothing matches the deafening ring of the bullets.

  They echo off the ceiling and walls designed to have some of the best acoustics in the world, which makes the agonizing sound of the bloodshed even more unbearable.

  Above the screaming of the hundreds of people and panicked movements as everyone realizes there is no exit are the harsh words coming from the attackers. One holds up a megaphone, their deep, nasty voice projecting over the audience. Their short, harsh words only seem to evoke mor
e fear.

  Everyone knows this is the end.

  As I break my way free of the mosh pit, the oddest thing I have ever seen ensues. The people at the inside of the circle, knowing that they are likely to die in moments and can’t do anything about it, begin to rip off their clothes. Some make out with each other. Men and women lock lips, women lock lips with other women, and I step over the intermingled body of two men who are on the floor, enjoying the last high of their lives surrounded by dead bodies and rivers of blood.

  The people partying to the end of the world still make up a small minority, but the spontaneous energy seems to be taking over the crowd, with more people beginning to scream for the hell of it, streak into the seats only to be shot horrifically, and have sex with whomever is closest to them.

  This is starting to turn into an orgy from hell. It’s almost what I picture music festivals in the desert being like except with less gunfire and blood and a lot more acid to take its place.

  I elbow one man out of the way who is currently ripping off his shirt. It’s safe to say I don’t want to see what he is about to do.

  “Shén!” the man screams, his flabby body freed from his shirt. Sprinting forward, he jumps off the stage and into the stadium seats. Hundreds of dead and seriously wounded bodies lie on the seats. Most are motionless, but the ones that crawl along the carpeted floor, trying to escape their agony, pain me to look at.

  Within a second of the man yelling and running off the stage, he is lit up. Running a gauntlet naked with bullets flying at you in all directions is a recipe for disaster.

  And that’s exactly what I have to do.

  I sigh, building up the courage to do the unthinkable. I accidentally step on top of one of the dozens of dead bodies that line the edge of the stage. The scene is so horrifying that it takes only an expert in repression like me to not burst into tears. Everyone who is not currently losing their minds in the body of someone else is having a full-on mental breakdown as they spasm on the ground and hyperventilate.

  We are witnessing one of the worst massacres in modern history.

  And I have to stop it.

  “No!” a woman yells at me and pulls my arm back. She is young, with vibrant eyes and long, brown hair that in any other moment than this one would make me want to kiss her.

  I hit her hand away more rudely than I intended to and she lunges at me again. She knows what I am about to do. I am free of the mob of people. Fully exposed to the gunfire, and only feet away from being able to jump off the stage.

  She knows that doing this will end up with me dead.

  But after living my life sacrificing everything for my own goals, I’m not about to stop now. I have to save these people.

  Riva would have done the same thing.

  I hop over another body shot to pieces on the floor of the stage. As my body vaults over the person they hack, blood pours out of their throat and lands on my ankles.

  I suppress the urge to vomit and jump off the stage, every second slowing down to hundreds of frames that my brain is now analyzing. I am in the zone. I know the location of each gunmen, every emergency staircase along the edge of the stadium, and even some more farcical escape routes along the catwalk hundreds of feet above us.

  All this information is useless, though.

  Only one thing matters: getting the platforms to work again and allowing the people to flee to safety while they are still alive.

  I keep my body pressed up against the stage, the dark metal side towering above my head. Unless one is in the audience, it is hard to perceive how large the stage is. It is nearly the size of a professional basketball court and is raised one story off the ground, putting each of the players on a godlike pedestal. Multiple sets of staircases lead to the top, the same staircases that the thousands of people piled up, and the same ones that dozens of dead bodies lie on.

  The dark color of my suit blends in with the color of the stage, but from the masks each of the assailants is wearing, it is likely they have infrared technology embedded inside.

  So, in other words, no matter what, I am screwed.

  After dashing along the stage for a few moments, no bullets even firing remotely close to me, I find exactly what I was looking for. Behind one of the staircases is a tiny door with a latch. Once I open that, I will be underneath the stage into safety. Then I need to find a way to get these platforms working again, likely with brute force.

  I approach the mini door quickly, my heart beating in my chest faster than it ever has before. It’s one thing when you are responsible for saving your own self. It’s an entirely other thing when the lives of hundreds are at stake.

  Now I finally have something to lose.

  With the Chimera Cube, everything is different.

  I have to live.

  But these attackers are hell-bent on killing everyone.

  Another deafening bellow is emitted from one of the megaphones. In that instant, all the lights in the stadium cut off. I am blinded. I can barely see in front of me, never mind keep my eye on the movements of the assailants in the perimeter of the stadium.

  The hysteria of everyone still living reaches a new height. The energy in this room is enough to give anyone an anxiety attack by walking into it. After being in it for a few minutes, it is enough to make one go mad.

  I continue sprinting forward, keeping my arm along the stage to guide my movements. I don’t care how much of this facility these attackers have taken over. I won’t let them stop me.

  My body slams into the staircase. Even after my face collides with it, I am still unable to decipher even a vague silhouette of the structure in front of me. Ignoring the pain in my face, which is only a dull throb compared to the searing ache in my knee, I fumble around for the same latch that I noticed seconds ago.

  Heck yes! After shuffling my hands erratically against the metal siding of the staircase, hoping that by some insane chance no one shoots me, I grasp the small metal latch in my fingers. I jerk the latch to the side and shove my body into the door. Light from underneath the stage floods my eyes, illuminating the tight corners. I stay bent over, my lower back killing me as I try to move in a way that takes most of the pressure off my knees.

  I slam the door behind me, the small concrete platform I am standing on the only thing stopping me from falling to the floor of the pit.

  On the one side of the concrete platform that isn’t surrounded by the stage is a thin metal ladder whose rods look like they will break underneath the weight of my body.

  But the sight of the ladder is only the first thing I notice when I glance into the pit of the stage. I freeze when I see the dozens of soldiers with their guns pointed directly at me.

  Each one has one of the stage technicians, managers of the players, or volunteers in their hands, holding them hostage. Everyone is silent. In fact, the stage blocks out all the sound from above, the only thing audible being the reverberations of the bodies hitting the ground at a rate of multiple per second.

  Each soldier has on the same red protective gear that has become the signature of the Chinese Imperial Army of the last year.

  None of them have masks on, their eyes all narrowed at me, the energy of their evil, sinister glares causing me to want to open that latch and run right back out into the gunfire.

  Something tells me I have a better chance at surviving out there.

  Any possibility of me saving these people is gone.

  They have won.

  The barrels of the guns switch from being pointed at me to the heads of the dozens of people. Then, I finally see Jake. He is in the front row of people, an especially burly soldier wrapping one arm in a chokehold around his neck and using the other arm to forcefully shove a gun in his face.

  “No!” I scream. I know well enough I don’t have enough time to scramble down the stairs and watch what happens. I’m not letting them hold him hostage. I’m not letting anyone take away another person that I love.

  I jump off the platform, using my no
n-injured knee to propel myself in the air. My only goal is to smother the body of the soldier holding Jake hostage before I am lit up, my body being reduced to nothing more than thousands of broken pieces that will never be able to be put back together.

  None of the guns fire at me, and to my surprise I find myself flying through the air, headed on a direct collision course with the burly soldier. My body smashes into his. His muscular build doesn’t do much to cushion my fall, but it is better than falling on the hard floor below. I feel Jake’s body collapse to the floor along with me and the soldier, the wind knocked out of all of us. The room stays silent except for a few of the hostages yelling out in fear.

  I stand up partially because the massive man is actively pushing me off him but also because I want to prove a point to myself and exhibit that my knee can still support my weight even after losing a concerning amount of blood.

  All the lights shut off the moment I regain my footing. Once the entire room is blanketed in darkness, the sound of every bullet of the soldiers firing in unison shakes the foundation of the stage.

  Every single body drops to the ground, the military disposing of their lives as if they are nothing more than rats.

  Everyone speaks in unison, “We did this for you, our master.”

  The energy of their voices reverberates every atom in my body until the thoughts in my own brain dissolve into a horrible mush.

  I feel two hands wrap around my shoulders.

  The only sound in the room is of my tears.

  Chapter 11

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I say, not holding anything back. I have never been one to hold much back, but now I am letting everything loose. I want him to feel every last bit of my anger.

  I want him to know that I am going to take him down one day and don’t care what he does to try and stop me.

  I have completely lost it.

  But I feel that I have that right after ten thousand people were massacred in that stadium, Jake and I being the only survivors in what would go down as one of the most tragic days of the twenty-first century if it weren’t for the fact that the government has silenced the news from propagating online or in any media outlets.