The Conspiracy Chronicles Boxset 2

by Michael Evans

  “Who is the superior one now?” all the Li clones shout in unison and maniacally laugh. Their sickening voice booms above the sounds of the screams and gunfire.

  I can’t help but think that Li directed that comment as a personal note for me. It’s his way of saying “screw you.” But he has no clue what is coming for him. Dozens of people grab the bullet-proof suits from the stack and put them on, their bodies shielded from the gunfire in seconds. I can make tens of thousands of these same suits in seconds.

  I can save everyone here.

  I have to kill him first.

  So far, the plan is going about as horribly as I could wish. The people who have managed to pick up the rocket launchers and fire them at the Li clones are not too happy when they find out that the rockets do nothing but bounce off the exterior of Li. These giants are made of impenetrable nano-carbon tubes and steel.

  We can’t kill them with any conventional weapons. But I know one thing that may work.

  “Electromagnetic pulse,” I command the Chimera Cube, a wave of blue light flooding over it as it unfolds in my backpack. The beauty of its internal components, the thousands of flashing lights blinking on and off like a skyline of a miniature city, never ceases to wow me. The contrast this display of technological awesomeness has with the bloodshed around me is startling.

  The bullets continue to rain down upon us. Dozens have hit my own body, and practically everyone who did not rush to grab a bullet-proof suit is now dead. A stream of blood effuses out of the dead bodies, some still covered in their hazmat suits, while others are midway through putting them on.

  I see children, grandmothers, and people of all ages and sizes whose bodies managed to be freed from the rubble but were killed almost immediately. The giants begin stepping on top of them, some of the clones even picking the bodies up and tossing them hundreds of feet into the edge of the force field, where they ricochet off and lazily fall to the ground.

  The sight is something beyond my worst nightmare.

  I came here to save these people.

  But instead each person I have healed with the Chimera Cube is meeting a death no better than suffocating in the rubble. I hope the electromagnetic pulse can save them.

  After a few seconds of waiting, my body being pushed by the stampede of people around me that are running away from the army of Lis, I realize that the electromagnetic pulse has no effect on the giants. They must have a shielding effect built into their exterior that makes them immune to any electrical pulses. There won’t be any easy hack to simply shut down these beasts.

  The only way to destroy them will be with brute force.

  As they close in on the last remaining group of surviving people that I am at the center of, I try and think of one last-ditch effort to get us out of this mess. My eyes have been so focused on the Chimera Cube and everything I’ve been commanding it to produce that when I take a second to look around at the scenery, my brain is unable to believe what my eyes are telling it.

  I am in the middle of a battlefield.

  I am at the beginning of a war.

  And it feels like we already lost.

  On the exterior of the force field I can hear the dull echoes of the thousands of ginormous Li clones stomping on the rubble and digging through the shattered buildings and debris to shoot the people that are still alive.

  There are no other military vehicles surrounding the force field. The army that the Party has chosen to decimate us all with is one made solely of its leaders. And from the strategic way in which the clones have raided in the fallout of the disaster, I know that Li must be carrying out a similar operation in every city on the eastern seaboard of China. The only place where the clones aren’t terrorizing the people is in the epicenter of the explosions. The heavy film of smoke has dissipated enough to reveal the large crater from the explosions.

  Nothing but ash is left from the wave of energy that overwhelmed every structure and person within the blast radius. Within seconds, hundreds of thousands of people died from the overwhelming heat of the atomic blasts, and this is only the beginning. The smoke hanging above this city that makes the water and mountains surrounding it invisible won’t go away for weeks.

  This entire half of the country will likely fall into a nuclear winter, and for whatever people are left surviving this disaster, from all the chemicals the government will spray in the air it will be almost impossible for anyone to make it out of here alive. Li’s mission of murdering every member of the Han Chinse is well underway. And the only reason he chose to have his own clones charge into battle is because he wants every single person to know that not only is he powerful, but every member of his dying culture is too.

  Up close they are even more terrifying than from afar.

  The giants all drop their machine guns in unison, the guns themselves nearly the size of cars. They encircle the only surviving people in the force field, their hungry eyes and large feet only a stone’s throw away from stomping us to bits. Outside of the circle of hell they have formed around us, thousands of dead bodies lie on top of the rubble, their blood the only streak of color in what is otherwise a sea of gray-colored rubble.

  I can barely move my arms as everyone squishes together around me. There are only a few hundred people left living, about the size of a small school assembly, except the shrill screams are not of excitement but of pure terror.

  I don’t care how intuitive one is, there is no way anyone would ever guess that their final day would end anything like this. No one pictures being shot down by literal giants after surviving a massive earthquake and bombing of a city. No one pictures being at the center of a frantic group of people, our bodies so close together that it is a struggle to even look around at the dead bodies surrounding us, which is probably a good thing.

  One glimpse of a large clone of a young, ferocious man is all someone needs to see to be scarred for the rest of their life. These humanoids are embodiments of the true Li Wang, not the plastic-surgery-ridden self he manufactured to blend in with the Chinese elite.

  Despite the fact that the exterior of the clone is metal and shiny, the color of the metal still matches Li’s skin tone. The gray hair forming the beards and lining the arms of the robots is long, black, and wiry. That doesn’t even mention the extreme detail that accompanies his nether region, which pokes out through the robe and is visible from the side angle. Needless to say, giant robot dicks are big, ugly, gross, and something that I want as far away from me as possible.

  Li has other plans.

  After he realizes that his giants have no use shooting their machine guns at a group of people that have bullet-proof suits on, he switches up his tactics. All the giants open their mouths. The time it takes them to drop their guns and all stand in a circle with their arms outstretched is faster than a blink of an eye.

  I know I should be reacting in this moment.

  I should be serving as the hero of the day, doing my all to fight back these giant robots and save the remaining people. But everything hits me at once, and suddenly all the trauma and shock from this situation causes me to freeze.

  I watch the dozens of Lis around me. Each of them are only a few dozen feet from us, and from how high their large heads tower above me, I feel like I can reach out and poke their eyes out. Even with their mouths wide open, they all seem to be smiling. These monstrous creatures make everything look easy; with arms the size of semitrucks and legs the size of tree trunks, their power is unrivaled by any earthly being.

  I am staring at a group of gods.

  What happens next makes me think I am already delusional and dead or high on some insane drug. Each of the clones holds hands as if in kumbaya. They all hum and walk around us in a perfect concentric circle.

  Their speed gradually picks up along with the volume of their humming. It seems to be an ancient chant that Li’s grandparents would sing to him at night. As the sound waves flood over me, all sensation of the surrounding world dissipates. We all stare transfixed
at the clones. Everyone must think that we are already dead, that’s why the screaming stops and the frantic movements come to a halt.

  There is something so soothing about the specific frequency of sound emitted from the clones that I feel a series of warm vibrations course through me. In a way it is euphoric and brings me back to the days when I was a kid in the summer and would sing around a campfire without a care in the world.

  But it’s all smoke and mirrors.

  And the second the sound starts to hijack my senses, and make my skin feel numb, I swing into action. I don’t know if it’s the desperation or the sheer madness that wills me forward even when I’m almost certain there is no way out, but I tap the Chimera Cube.

  Time to create some mythical creatures that can fuck these giants up. Nothing better than to start combating fire with something even hotter.

  “One dozen giants.” I double-tap the cube after delivering the command. I only tried this once in the woods near Gyurtog with Jake, and let’s just say that the event went even more poorly than I could imagine. The giants are really a code word for the Chimera Cube to build a massive fire-breathing structure of metal that is roughly thirty feet tall, and ten feet in every other direction. These things are absolute beasts, and the moment that it came to life, it locked right onto Jake and nearly killed him.

  I can’t let them do the same with the people still left living.

  “Run!” I scream at the top of my lungs, trying to force the people around me into action as the giant metal structures form right around me. The sea of bodies covered in black compression suits disperses in an instant. I realize after saying to run that I should be the one really running because now after all these structures are formed I will be in the middle of a field of giant killer robots that I have no clue how to program to not kill everything in their sight.

  As long as they kill Li, I will be happy.

  The Chimera Cube folds back up as the robo-giants collide with the ground. Then absolute pandemonium erupts.

  The second that all the giants form, their structures being built from the top to bottom at the same rate that a waterfall descends from the top of a cliff, the Li clones strike back. Inside the open mouths of the Li clones are an array of missiles that poke out of their dark insides like crooked teeth. When the giants form in the middle of the crowd of people, all the missiles are released in a single instant.

  I am thrown back onto the ground, a few empty and cracked cans digging into my back as the rubble around me flies everywhere. The once peaceful humming that filled my ears is replaced by the harsh sound of explosions and screams as the giants go to battle. Two of the robot giants are right next to me, their metal feet so large that I have to roll out of the way to avoid being stomped.

  Some of the remaining survivors don’t end up so lucky. The metal giants produced from the Chimera Cube that look like massive versions of the robots that people often battle in competitions trample people without even noticing it. The bottoms of their metal feet are covered in spikes, making the end a gruesome one for anyone that is stomped on by the giants. With me being at the center of all of them, I am spared from having my body chopped in half by the thousands of pounds of force digging into me, but I can’t escape the pain of the missiles.

  At least a hundred missiles are shot in all directions. Some connect with the people running away, our bodies nothing more than tiny rats compared to the size of the giants, while dozens more connect with the ginormous killer robots that have large spikes for eyes and dozens of swords rotating around their bodies, preparing to kill anything in their path.

  I try and get up after the first round of missiles knocks me back and throws me deep into a pile of rubble, but everything is out of my control.

  With my body thrown into the rubble, save for the likely concussion I have suffered and sharp pain in my back, I am in good shape. The cement blocks and trash coating my body will make it hard for any of the giants to lock onto me, but as the Li clones and giants punch each other, I know my time is running out.

  There’s no way I can save these people.

  The Syndicate was right.

  Li is too powerful. I can’t do this alone. I can’t win without them.

  I close my eyes as another round of missiles is fired out of the Li clones. One of the ginormous metal robots falls to the earth, its body landing only inches from my face. From the force of it falling, I find myself, along with the rubble around me, being thrown across the wreckage. A sharp metal pole digs into my stomach, likely piercing a bone or organ. All I know is that from the sharp pain that pushes me to the brink of passing out, I don’t have much longer till I’m one with the millions of dead bodies.

  There are entire hills full of rubble and dead bodies. Even the mountains themselves are lined with destroyed homes and lives lost too soon.

  The idea of becoming one of them sounds appealing, even enticing enough for me to close my eyes and hold on to the backpack with the Chimera Cube. No matter how hard I try to wish away my past mistakes, it will be impossible. I can’t bring these dead bodies back to life, and I can’t stop the battle to the death ensuing around me until every last person is gone from this earth. The Li clones are already winning out against the giants in the few short moments the battle has lasted, and the group of surviving humans has dwindled down to only a few dozen.

  In minutes, everyone will be dead.

  I wish I could join them. I wish that this could all end and that I never would have to experience this same feeling of pain and horror again. But the moment I think about dying, I think about what will happen after I’m gone, and that’s when that reality becomes the most abhorrent thought I could dream of.

  I can’t let these giants gain control of this cube.

  I need to kill him.

  But first I have to save myself.

  “Collapse force field,” I command the Chimera Cube as I hit it. I’m too disoriented with all the chaos to know if the command worked, but I don’t waste any time in delivering my next command.

  “Ten-foot force field.” I double-tap the Chimera Cube immediately after it glows blue. Although I can’t feel the force field form around me, the second that a missile deflects off it and explodes midair, I know that it is working.

  Then I deliver it one of my favorite commands. “Jetpack,” I say, and after double-tapping the cube, I find myself with a jetpack in my hands that I hastily strap around my back.

  I’m ready to go.

  The force field is programmed to ensure that it is centered around the Chimera Cube, thus as long as I keep the cube with me, the force field will protect me. I take off the top of my hazmat suit and the black fabric around my face. Although I will be inhaling radiation for a few seconds, I’m willing to up my risk of cancer and other terminal diseases knowing that Li is going to watch my face smiling at him as I fly off into the sky.

  So, I do exactly that.

  I stand up on top of the rubble and look up at the tiny hill that the giants are battling it out on. Over half of the robots are dead, their bodies landing in a mess of wires and charred metal to the ground. On all sides the fighting still continues, but there are only a few stragglers left in their bullet-proof suits, some hiding underneath the rubble while others are simply running around in terror.

  The hardest thing I have ever had to do is look right at them, knowing that I can’t do anything to save them.

  I press the button on the top of the jetpack and the engines immediately roar to life. As soon as I hover through the air, a number of the Li clones and robot giants lock onto me instantaneously. Now that I am higher than their upper ankles, their eyes can easily target me and fire missiles at me. But all the shots the Li clones fire at me ricochet off the force field, and the robot monsters that reach out and try to grab me from the sky fail in their attempts.

  The force field is impenetrable.

  Anything that touches it is shocked into oblivion.

  I am going to make it out of this
alive.

  I breathe a sigh of relief as I press another button on the jetpack, causing it to kick into the next gear. I am now rocketing upward into the sky through the same section of air that is almost devoid of smoke due to the Chimera Cube. However, with the force field gone from surrounding a vast swath of the city and with my expanded vision I witness the thousands of Li clones charging into the center of the battlefield with their machine guns raised.

  A few hundred feet above me, the dark smoke clouds from the destruction perforate into the once clean air in the force field. The dust- and ash-filled cloud that has surrounded this entire city will continue to block out the light for days, but even with the darkness, the carnage below is visible.

  Thousands of people lie dead on the rubble, their corpses covered in blood, dust, and ash that are falling from the sky. The giants continue to shoot missiles at each other and throw their fists like giant babies having a temper tantrum.

  It only takes a few more seconds for the Li clones to win.

  They all scream, their bellows so loud that even from hundreds of feet in the air I feel like they are all right next to me. The thousands of them group up together, all joining their hands as they sing a warrior chant that will leave me with nightmares for the rest of my life.

  Each one of them is stomping on the bodies of the dead, dancing in the cleared section of rubble as if they won the lottery. They all have their heads turned to the sky; their eyes locked onto me as I fly into the thick of the smoke.

  Seeing their display of excitement at dancing on what is now the mass grave of millions of people causes me to shake with anger.

  He deserves this.

  I close my eyes as the ash and dust infiltrate my lungs. I cough, a sharp headache accompanying the rush of blood to my brain. I know I’m not thinking correctly. Scratch that, I’m not thinking at all.

  But I know what my instincts are screaming at me to do.

  “Ten thousand pounds of bombs,” I tap and yell at the Chimera Cube so that my voice can be heard above the wind and the roar of the engine. As I open my mouth, the rush of smoke into it causes my lungs to burn nearly as much as my skin.