The aircraft is full of every Syndicate member tasked with taking down the Chinese government, which includes Drew, Kamala, Justin, and a few more suited figures that stand at the back of the room silently. The council themselves is currently watching a live feed of the inside of the aircraft, their voices sounding over speakers at the edges of the room.
Justin seems to be the one Syndicate member tasked to make sure that I am not going mentally insane, or at least that is exactly what his job appears to be. Normally, his paternal energy would bring me comfort. There is something about that man when he stares at me, maybe it is the richness to his olive skin or the glow in his brown eyes, but something about him feels safe. Today, all the trust in him has faded and my mind groups him into the same basket of monsters that comprise the Syndicate of Truth.
I should have never been friends with these guys in the first place. I should have killed them while I had the chance. At least one good thing would have come from all of this.
“You aren’t fine.” Justin places a hand on my shoulder, his smooth character having a weird way of subconsciously gravitating my own will to align closer to his. “You probably have lung damage from inhaling all that smoke.”
“Like that’s any of your concern.” I laugh as he pretends to care about my life. Whether he does or not isn’t the point. I know for a fact that the Syndicate doesn’t. All they want is to use me for the cube, but now I don’t have that anymore. Now I am worthless to them. “Don’t you have to be back in Washington doing your job?”
“You know how the brotherhood is.” Justin sits down at the edge of the cot, his clean, musty aroma refreshing to smell after toxic particulates clogged my airways. “We make sacrifices for each other. The country and our own lives come second. It’s about us at the end of the day.”
“Thanks for that canned response.” I narrow my eyes at his hologlasses, debating spitting at them. I don’t need the council deploying any of their manipulative tactics on me by scripting Justin’s words.
I already know their plan.
They are going to kill me.
“You are lucky we found you.” He looks around at the bright white interior of the aircraft. There are no windows anywhere inside, nothing but white metal walls and a table full of screens that control the aircraft. The room is freezing too. Every hair on my body sticks straight up as I shiver slightly, my limbs still reeling from the rush of electricity.
“You are gonna call me lucky?” I ask, shifting my body so that I sit on the edge of the cot. I push away one of the robots that tries to place some sort of bandage on my arm. Despite the fact that the IV is likely helping replenish my depleted body, I rip it out of me, a sharp pain and stream of blood effusing out of my forearm.
“No, I mean lucky that we found you. And put that IV back in your arm.” Justin stands up and picks the needle they stabbed into me off the side of the cot, beating the robots to it. “You need this if you—”
“Get that thing away from me.” I stand up and back away to the center of the aircraft. From the stability of the aircraft and lack of visibility of the outside world, I am unable to sense if we are moving or not. However, the moment that the light panels switch on the walls from white to an array of rainbow colors, my heart skips a beat.
The council must be watching me back in their mansions in the hills of America. They want to send me a message: that they are the ones in control. And even if that’s true, I won’t let the newfound rainbow colors on the wall behind the cot intimidate me.
I only laugh.
“Sam, calm down.” Justin drops the IV but instead stares at me with his arms on his waist. There is a dark shadow cast on his face from the glow of the bright lights behind him. “I know a lot has happened, but we are in this together. You have to trust me when I say that you need to sit down and rest. You have been through a lot.”
“Stop acting like you care!” I scream, suddenly overcome with emotion. I have the strong desire to burst into tears, but I hold it back. There’s something about showing my emotions in public that makes me more scared than anything, and by public, I mean when anyone else including myself can see how I feel.
When I look at Justin and see his strong body and calm presence, I can’t help but think of my dad. And knowing that these men are still living, the very men who used to be in the same brotherhood as my father, makes me both morbidly depressed and angry to the point of wanting to tear the limbs off every person here apart.
“Move now!” Drew yells at me as he smacks a button on a large clear glass tablet close to the center of the room. At first, I don’t move purposely, wanting to be defiant with the little power that I have left.
The moment I feel the floor underneath me sliding away, I jump back to the cot and sit on top of it.
“The radar detects something flying through the air below us.” Drew’s thin gray hair is pushed back from the wind, revealing his wrinkly forehead. Tons of smoke flood into the aircraft, the poor cells in my lungs getting reagitated instantly.
I stand up again as my mind connects the dots. “You don’t think it’s—"
“I don’t know,” Drew says impatiently. “It may be him. Either way, we have to get moving. I stayed because I thought he might be right behind you guys; I had no idea we would be waiting this long for him.”
“It’s barely been a minute,” Kamala says and places a hand on one of the settings of the aircraft. As soon as she does that, the ventilation kicks in at its highest gear, sucking gallons of the smoke from the air every second.
“It’s more time than we can afford.” Drew keeps his eyes locked on the radar to make sure no military aircraft are creeping on us. Every second the center of the aircraft remains open, my heart beats faster.
Ai seems to be on edge too. She is standing at the other side of the opening, her feet close to the edge as she peers down at the rubble and smoke.
Then out of nowhere Jake pops into the aircraft. I say out of nowhere because he didn’t have a relatively smooth landing inside like us. One moment he is nowhere to be found and the next moment he smashes at high speed into the roof of the aircraft, shattering a row of the lighting and causing glass to litter the floor.
The floor immediately closes as he enters, the cold metal catching him just in time after he hits back down into the ground. It only takes a split second to notice that he is knocked unconscious, the Chimera Cube strapped to his back along with the jetpack, which he was unable to turn off or slow down on his way up. This results in his body propelling to the far corner of the aircraft, his head smashing into another row of fluorescent lights and shattering them on impact.
I have to admit that as painful as the entire thing looks, I can’t help but let a quick laugh escape from my throat as Jake bounces around the aircraft like a pinball.
Then I swing into action.
As terrible as this sounds, I’m not worried about Jake’s life. The robots in the room can tend to him. I need to get to the Chimera Cube before anyone else does.
I dive over the end of the cot, knocking over a bucket of medical supplies and ramming into one of the robots. I probably am making myself sound a lot cooler than it actually looks. In reality, every muscle in my body is strained to its maximum, my movements akin to that of a drunken hyena as I fumble towards Jake, who is in the corner of the aircraft, the fire from his jetpack burning a streak of black into the floor as it mercilessly tries to propel him through the wall to no avail.
The metal robot arm that jabbed into my side and the humiliating face plant at the last second all pay off. I manage to make it to Jake’s dying body before anyone else. I press the button to shut down the jetpack’s engine the moment that my arm can reach him. From my last-minute fall, tripping over an article of clothing strewn across the floor of the aircraft, my body is now on top of Jake while my right leg got burnt in the flames from the exhaust.
The pain from the fire only intensifies my desire to burst into tears, but it is no match at ove
rcoming my willpower. The moment my hands touch the soft fabric of the bag that contains the Chimera Cube, a surge of endorphins unlike any other courses through me. It is the familiar high that accompanies feeling the power of the Chimera Cube. It’s a high that I have become addicted to, a high that has become so intertwined with my being that without it I feel meaningless.
The high is toxic, even lethal, but I don’t care.
Some things in this world are evil. But some evils are necessary to win.
“Everyone back up!” I scream as I hold the Chimera Cube up. To any outsider I probably look like one of the most harmless people out there. I am a lanky, pale man with the face of a boy who has bloodshot eyes, a hole burnt into my pants that blood is seeping out of, and I am holding up a random backpack as if it is a nuke.
And the thing is that in a weird way it technically is.
This bag is anything and everything that I could ever want it to be. And everyone in this room knows that. It’s why they all stare at me deferentially, even Drew of all people keeping his big, ugly mouth shut.
I step away from Jake’s body so that the robots can pick him up. They have no idea if what I am saying is good or bad. They are only programmed to constantly scan their surroundings and deliver care to those who need it.
“Sam, what’s going on?” Justin walks towards me. The other Syndicate members who are lined up around the control center of the aircraft aim their pistols at me. The expression in Ai’s eyes is one of fear and desperation. She’s just as exhausted as I am. She wants this to end just as badly as I do.
But we are just getting started now.
I have the Chimera Cube, and I am never going to let anyone in this world touch it. I’m not going to give this thing up until President Li is dead and the empire he has created is burned to the ground.
“I said back the fuck up.” I limp in his direction. I strap the backpack around the front of my body, opening up the zipper which is cracked open so that Jake could use it again without having to unlock the backpack with the scanner. I put my hand on the Chimera Cube, readying to deliver it a command that will put everyone in here on notice.
“I don’t want to hurt any of you.” I sigh as I step forward towards the center of the aircraft. I’m careful not to step on the center part of the floor that retracts—the last thing I want is the Syndicate trying to dispose of me by having me plummet back down to the sea. Even though I do want to hurt almost everyone in here and destroy the Syndicate for good, I still recognize that the best way to get back to shore is in this aircraft. And once I’m back there, I can’t fight the Chinese military alone. I’ve already tried that out, and that game is nothing more than a torturous version of cat and mouse.
The only way to get retribution, the only way to try and minimize the damage from the earthquakes, is with the help of the Syndicate.
Everyone needs to know that I am the one who makes the rules. That I am the one with the power.
“Sam, please let’s get out of the air.” Ai storms across the aircraft. She isn’t worried about me doing something to hurt her. She is one of the last people I’d ever hurt. She’s way too valuable and one of the only people on this Earth I can trust with the Chimera Cube in a time of need.
“Yeah, let’s do that.” I nod at her but ignore her pleas for me to stop. Now is not the time to play things conservative. “Get this thing started back to Hong Kong. We can fly and talk.”
Kamala taps a number of buttons on the screen, and within seconds I feel another set of engines on the plane turn on as we fly forward. With all the smoke gone in the aircraft and all the destruction outside blocked from view, I can almost trick myself that the tragedy we witnessed earlier was nothing more than a figment of my imagination.
Being this high in the air, we are immune to the power of the earthquakes ensuing below. I have no idea if they have struck yet, or if they are currently happening. We won’t feel it in the sky. But the entire world will feel the aftershocks of the earthquake. Every major financial market will crash as the world stops and marvel at dozens of coastal cities that will be completely leveled by a series of earthquakes that are only meant to cover up the fact that the Chinese government is enacting a planned destruction of the Chinese people and the Western world.
The initial quakes that strike and force of the nuclear blasts are nothing.
It’s the aftershocks that are going to kill hundreds of millions. It’s the fallout from the disaster that is going to alter the world forever.
“If you think you are the one who commanded her to do that then you are wrong.” Drew laughs, the white hairs that stick out the edges of his nostrils vibrating.
“Thanks for the input, Drew.” I roll my eyes at him as Jake’s body is placed on the cot behind me. Watching his lifeless body get placed down on the cot tugs at my heart strings. Ai rushes over to kneel right next to his body as the robots rip off his bullet-proof suit to reveal his bruised body.
I look back at Drew, keeping my eyes as far away from Jake’s body as possible. It’s easier to not think about it. It’s easier to dissociate my mind from the fact that the person I love the most on this Earth is on the verge of leaving it. If I don’t get the Syndicate in line, nothing will matter.
They need to fear me.
“No problem, friend.” Drew smiles. “I didn’t ever picture that we would have to do it like this, but life sometimes likes to make things difficult.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, when Justin, Charles, and I talked about potentially having China become a puppet state of the Syndicate, we thought our takeover would be much more covert.” Drew sits down on a couch on the far wall. He keeps his eyes trained on the Chimera Cube but makes a point of having extra calm body language. “We thought we could wipe out the Party and the servers that house Li and that would be the end of it. With the popular support of the people, we thought creating a new order in this country would be easy. Our plan got fucked.”
“Well, I have a new plan.” I smile and sit down on the couch next to him. I don’t need to assert my dominance over these people by puffing out my chest and acting all tough. All I need to do is keep one hand on the Chimera Cube and the backpack strapped around me and they will know I mean business.
“Stop bullshitting.” Drew spits when he talks, his chipped front teeth causing the words to whistle out of him.
“Yes, it’s simple. I’ll rebuild Hong Kong overnight with this cube.” I tap the cube, the exterior lighting up. “Then we can get every single person who is alive in this country to storm Beijing. We will burn the capital of this country to the ground, even if it takes a hundred million people storming the streets. We are going to start all-out anarchy. And all I ask of you and the Syndicate is to keep me safe and I’ll keep you safe too. You don’t take commands from the council anymore. You take commands from me. And if you refuse, well, there’s always somebody that can replace you.”
“We take commands from you?” Drew leans back in the couch and spreads his legs out as if he is about to take a nap. Kamala and Justin study him closely. They all have their hologlasses on, likely communicating back and forth with the Syndicate about their strategy to manipulate me.
I don’t care if they are one step ahead of me.
All that matters is that at the end of the day I have the power to knock their feet out from underneath them and get them to succumb to my rule.
All that matters is that I have the cube—with it, I feel complete.
“The council aren’t the ones taking over China. I am. And unless you want to be on the receiving end of my rage, it’s best you help me inflict it on Li so that we all can live.” The Syndicate members at the far end of the room lower their pistols that are pointed at me. I wasn’t too afraid of them to begin with because they likely aren’t the greatest shots, but now that the old men are finally putting their guns down, I feel that I’m finally claiming my righteous throne inside this aircraft. “If you think for a
second that the Syndicate can protect you from what’s about to come, then you are wrong. The Chinese military is after us, all of us in this room. They know we are here right now, and they likely know we are headed to Hong Kong. There’s no way we can escape them. There’s no way we can outrun them. We have to all protect each other so that we can kill President Li. And after that, we can worry about the rest. Until we save the hundreds of millions of people who are in peril right now, we can’t stop. We can’t stop until everyone in the Party is dead.”
After my words, there is silence. Ai has a hand on Jake’s sweaty, matted hair, his eyes still closed as one of the robots drives a syringe into his arm. Justin is staring at me, part in shock but part of him looks proud.
Drew meanwhile has an indifferent expression, his eyes fixated on the rainbow-colored light panels as if my words are nothing more than trivial to him.
I know by now that this is all part of the manipulation.
“I like your plan,” Drew finally responds. Then he stands up, a sudden urgency in his step as he walks to the control panel. I watch carefully as he adjusts the slider for the speed so that the aircraft can move forward at top speed. “We will be above Hong Kong in five minutes.”
I gulp, unable to respond with anything more but a nod to his statement.
Part of me didn’t expect everything to go this smoothly. In fact, me not having to pull out a laser gun or deploy a ton of smoke inside this aircraft to show people that I am the one with the power terrifies me.
The Conspiracy Chronicles Boxset 2 Page 42