Clothes hang from clothesline in the middle of the streets as various vendors have set up shop on the sides of the cramped pathways, some selling food while others sell essential goods like soap and deodorant. We have entered a miniature city. One that can easily fit thousands of people, crammed into an area not even a square mile in size.
Something about this place reminds me of a larger, more industrial version of Zion, the clean trees and nicely manicured grass fields replaced with dirty cement and wooden homes that form a settlement akin to one that I’d picture being in a slum on an alien planet. The temperature is warm and a bit stuffy inside this new world, and it smells distinctly of charcoal. In the middle of this settlement, I can see a grove of trees springing up from the mass of wooden shacks. Yet the bright, colorful clothes hanging from the sides of the buildings are the most beautiful part about it all. Somehow even though this place was surrounded by thousands of killer robots, it feels welcoming.
The welcoming vibe disappears as a bunch of people appear on the top of the roofs, their guns raised and ready to fire at us. They aren’t going to let us go without a fight.
“Hey!” I scream, trying to get their attention. There is a distinct human quality to the way in which they narrow their eyes at us. There is no way in hell these are humanoids. This must be a group of the last surviving Uyghurs that Li rounded up, the population spanning from senior citizens to children so young that they can’t even crawl.
I can’t kill these people.
“I don’t think they are listening,” Jake responds as the people on the roofs continue to point their guns at us, some yelling back and forth to each other. The crowd that had once gathered in front of us, surprised to see any visitors, has since run away into their homes, the streets completely clear of all people. I suppose I can’t blame them—not only are we not wearing the most welcome outfits given that we are covered in black from head to toe, but they don’t exactly have regular visitors from the outside world.
“What the hell do we even say to them?” Ai says, all of us keeping our laser guns aimed at the people on the roofs. They all have large assault rifles, but their weapons are no match for the arsenal of the Chimera Cube. “We don’t know that they aren’t involved in this somehow.”
As soon as Ai speaks, all the men on the roofs fire at us simultaneously. I have been shot at enough times that I don’t even flinch when the bullets pelt against me. I know they will have no effect on me, but I am surprised at the killer accuracy of their shots.
My finger hovers above the trigger of the laser, but I hold myself back from shooting at a particularly old, overweight man with a long beard and bald head. I wish I did. That same man rears his arm back and throws a grenade down at us. It explodes immediately upon impact with the pavement next to my feet. If it wasn’t for the bullet-proof suit, I’d be dead. With it, my entire body is in pain, and metal shards dig into my skin in multiple spots as I fall to the ground. I scream, the agony hitting a new level as the heat of the explosion overcomes my body. This pain is right up there with the worst I have experienced, but I don’t let it win. I channel all the adrenaline within me, using the endorphins to block out the pain and push through the tantalizing desire to let the sensation of blackness overcome me.
I roll over, placing my palm on the Chimera Cube.
“Ten-foot force field,” I utter, immediately double-tapping the cube as it glows beneath my fingers. Then I command the Chimera Cube to repair my external wounds, the shards falling out of the suit as the nanobots work to repair my damaged wounds.
Ai and Jake are on the ground too, both their bodies writhing in pain. I let the Chimera Cube service them both, the nanobots working to bring them both back to full health in seconds, but mentally we are all scarred for life.
There’s only so many times a person can fall and get back up until their mind can’t take it anymore. I haven’t hit my limit yet. But one day I will.
“We need to find these computer servers,” I yell to both Jake and Ai, waving them in my direction to run forward. With the force field, we don’t have to worry about any of the grenades and bullets fired at us. We are invisible to any of the projectiles that they throw at us. If anyone decides to charge at us from the ground, the force field will instantly make them regret that decision.
But their gunfire is only the beginning.
The Chinese military is headed for us. And when they get here, there won’t be anything I can do to stop Li from killing us all. Time is running out, and if we don’t find how to get to the servers fast, then this will all be for nothing.
“Let’s check the middle of this place.” Jake points to the tall tower at the center of the town. “Maybe there is some sort of tunnel that leads under the ground.”
I nod, all of us sprinting as fast as we can through the network of narrow pathways to get there. We pass by dozens of wooden shacks, all of them nearly identical in appearance. Some are a bit larger than others, while others are a bit weathered, the rickety boards falling off the beams and allowing anyone to look inside. From the quick glances I get inside of the shacks, they are all as simple on the inside as they are on the outside, with used, ripped couches for seating and muddy carpets for the floor. They must have gutted all this stuff from the abandoned buildings in Urumqi.
The pack of people shooting at us from the roofs of the buildings only grows as we continue deeper into the settlement. Everyone who met us with their guns loaded at the entrance continues to hop from roof to roof, relentlessly throwing grenades and bullets at us. From the amount of firepower they have, it is obvious this day was one they saw coming for a while.
Nothing they could have done would have prepared them for a force field that renders all their attacks useless.
We make it to the middle of the settlement. Surrounded by a large grove of trees and a playset for the kids is a narrow, tall building. From the special attention to detail placed on the outside, adding an extravagant amount of bright-colored cloths, it is apparent that this building is of importance, probably a meeting ground for the people of the town.
We all burst inside, the word burst a bit too descriptive given the fact that the door is unlocked and it takes almost no effort to push it open. Once inside, the same dull carpet that lines the floor of the rest of the buildings is here. No pictures are on the walls and no furniture is on the first floor. Instead there is one spiral staircase that leads to the top of the tower, where there is a bronze bell.
Nowhere here is there some mysterious tunnel that leads down to the servers. I am about to lose my mind as I run outside, hundreds of people charging at the tower, yet the one thing we came for is nowhere in sight.
Maybe this was all a trick. Maybe this was all a setup.
I curse myself a million times in my head as I ball my fists up. I drop the laser gun to the ground, the desire to give up and break down on the floor stronger than ever.
Jake looks to be in about the same mental state that I am, both of us looking out at the group of people shooting at us, all of them too scared to come too close.
“Guys, come here, look at this!” Ai yells from back inside the tower that is devoid of people. We run inside, only to find that in the few seconds we have stood outside, contemplating the misfortune of our lives, she has torn apart a large section of the carpet. Underneath it isn’t dirt, pavement, or wooden planks like one would expect. It’s flashing lights and dark metal broken up into hundreds of small components that look exactly like a bunch of tiny hard drives melded together to form one large one.
This is it.
This is the data storage center; this is the place that houses the hive mind of Li. I scream with excitement. We are going to win this thing.
Without hesitating, I shoot a laser at the part of ripped-open floorboard. The hardware ignites in flames on contact, turning the flash of light into a flash of fire.
“There’s no way the storage is only located right below this building,” Jake says as we all wat
ch the flame spread from the server to the carpet. Soon, this entire tower will be on fire. It will only take minutes for the wood to burn to the ground. As I hear the crackling of the fire, the ash sprinkling in the air, something suddenly makes sense.
“The storage is built into this city.” The words rapidly fire out of my mouth. “It’s beneath all the homes, in all the walls. He placed it there because he knew no one would find it. He knew that even if someone did come here, they would never suspect the computer equipment to be placed inside the homes.”
Ai’s eyes light up at my words. It all makes sense now. We have to burn this entire place down.
“Three flamethrowers.” I tap the Chimera Cube. Within a second, three flamethrowers full of fuel are produced. The fuel cells are near the two handles of the gun, while a long-pointed nozzle directs the flames in whatever direction we desire. With the fuel cells filled to the max, the flamethrower is easily fifty pounds, straining my sore arm muscles even more.
We all run outside of the burning tower, the wooden planks easily catching flame. We exit the room in time before we are trapped inside by the ring of flames eating away at the walls. The moment we step outside, a row of Uyghur men collide into the force field.
They seem to have gotten over their fear of us, all of them charging desperately towards the force field as soon as they see the fire. They are screaming, some crying and begging for mercy as at least a dozen people run past us and into the burning tower.
There is no way they are going to make it out alive.
In the doorway of every home, there is a man standing with a gun, all of them readying to fire at us.
“Run!” I scream at them. “Please go, we don’t want to hurt you.”
No one listens. They are hell-bent on protecting their homes even as they see that their attempts at taking us down are all but useless. A million thoughts spin through my mind as I figure out what to do. We have already caused this town and people way more pain than they deserve. But to defeat Li we will have to destroy everything these people have.
To defeat Li, we may have to kill every last person here.
Chills shiver down my spine as we run through the grove of trees into the area of homes that are tightly packed with narrow pathways and clotheslines hanging so low that they hit my face when I run by. Everything about what I’m about to do feels so wrong.
But I run the simple calculation in my head. At most, a few thousand people live here. And at a minimum, ruining these people’s lives will save hundreds of millions.
The answer is easy.
“Burn everything in sight,” I scream at Jake and Ai, who both look hesitant as we enter the main town square. The wooden structures are all three stories here, with seating areas outside and even a building that vaguely resembles a school. I direct the nozzle of the flamethrower directly to the side of me, letting the flames overrun the wooden structure to the left of me. As we run forward, we continue igniting the wood, the force field protecting us from the relentless attacks of the Uyghur people.
We make our first turn down a narrow pathway, successfully lighting an entire block of homes on fire. People jump from the top of the buildings onto the force field. The second their bodies touch the electrified exterior, they fly dozens of feet.
These people either must all be delusional or have a death wish. Shooting ten thousand bullets at a force field doesn’t magically cause it to break. But it’s the only defense they have, and with the Chinese military still late to the party, we have all the time in the world to turn this city into a ginormous bonfire. By the time we turn down the next street, the fire has already spread to most of the homes. The clothes on the sides of the home ignite first, the flames even reaching the turquoise flags on each one of the streets.
The sounds of the bullets die down as many of the people run out of ammunition, but that doesn’t stop people from throwing explosives at us, fuel canisters, and even charging ahead into the force field, hoping that the strength of their bodies alone can pierce through the electric field. They all find out their attempts are futile.
We continue to run through the maze of streets, working in tandem to set as many buildings on fire as fast as possible. Soon the flames will spread to the entire city. A thick, dark smoke billows off dozens of the buildings, filling the once clear air with a dark haze. The flames are hot and orange, much too intense for the Uyghur people to put out. As the homes go up in flames, I expect to see the women and children hiding in the homes run out and search for cover elsewhere. But when I look inside one of the homes, I see them all shoveling water on the walls, furiously trying to put the flames out as they let themselves burn alive.
The crying of the children breaks my heart, but all of them are diligent in their attempts to put out the flames. As their tears continue to fill the air, the mourning of the people turning into a sickening background noise to accompany the crackling of the fire, I realize what is happening.
They aren’t crying because they are about to die.
They are crying because the computer systems are melting and exploding right in front of their faces. They all know about the network of storage centers buried within the infrastructure of the city. They were the ones that built it.
Li Wang isn’t a person.
Li Wang doesn’t even exist.
These are the people that control him. These are the people behind the desires of the hive mind. And now they have to watch the singular life blood that has held their civilization crumble before their very eyes.
They’d rather die with their computer than escape the flames.
“We need to get out,” Jake yells into my ear as the flames swathing the city reach a new intensity. “These flames are too bad. This place is going to explode.”
Instead of responding to him in agreement, I pivot my direction to turn and run back to the small door that marks the entrance to this place. I drop the flamethrower onto the ground, Ai and Justin doing the same as we all sprint forward as fast as we can.
The murals and paintings on the cement walls are invisible behind the wall of flames. The firestorm has caught every wooden shack in this settlement, the explosions of the storage centers exploding causing my ears to numb.
This entire place will be nothing but ash and rubble. It will look no different than Hong Kong.
For over a minute we haul ass through the town. If my life weren’t on the line, there is a good chance I’d get lost in the network of pathways, everything blending together with the cacophony of the fire. But we all manage to navigate through the maze of pavement, none of the streets up in flames yet, running faster than we all ever have in our lives.
As the cement door we pushed through to get in becomes visible in front of us, the flames reach a new intensity as they migrate to the streets. The top of the tower at the center of the village falls, a deafening boom reverberating off the stadium walls. The flag at the top slowly floats to the ground, the cloth not igniting on fire until it touches the flames tearing apart the grove at the center of the settlement.
Once we exit the stadium, the thousands of destroyed humanoids of Li still laying in a pool of blood on the ground, I collapse to the ground.
Everything finally hits me.
This is the moment I have been waiting for. This is the singular thing I have risked my life for, killed dozens of people for, and even teamed up with the same secret organization that has caused me so much pain.
I wait for the intense high to overcome me as the realization that we just saved the lives of hundreds of millions becomes my reality. But instead, I lie on the ground shaking, tears pouring out of my eyes as the stench of gasoline fumes and battery acid swathe my nose.
I unzip both the top of my wingsuit and bullet-proof suit, giving my face the much-needed opportunity to breathe. It doesn’t change the fact that I still feel like shit.
I thought that getting revenge on Li would make it all worth it. I thought that the feeling would be amazing, that it would j
ustify killing so many people and allowing this cube to destroy so many lives.
In reality, revenge feels like shit.
I thought causing Li all the pain and hurt in the world would free me of all the pain I feel inside myself. Now, I feel even worse.
I just killed the last of the Uyghur people. I just completed the genocide of an entire culture of people. Nothing this cube will ever do will be able to bring that back. No number can ever quantify that loss.
I may have just saved hundreds of millions of lives, I may have finally won against Li, but deep down inside I feel like I lost.
“Dude, what’s going on?” Jake’s voice is shaking as he takes off his bullet-proof suit and looks around at the city of Urumqi that is in the process of being burnt to the ground. “Why are you upset? We are the new rulers of this country. We just became some of the most powerful people in the world.”
“This is about more than that. Don’t you understand what we just did?” I scream through tears, the floodgates of emotions inside me all opening up at once. “Li never existed. It was just a group of people fighting to make sure that they never had to suffer again. It was a group of people just like us. And we killed them all!”
After my words, there is silence. Ai keeps her suit on, her body remaining frozen as she stares out at the fires encapsulating the city.
Only one thought bubbles up in my mind above the shock and pain: I have to get rid of this cube.
I have to make sure no one in this world gets their hands on a technology this powerful. The human mind isn’t made to handle this kind of power. The human mind isn’t made to handle a technology like this—one that can destroy lives at will.
I gulp as I think about the Syndicate, the United States government, and the remaining Party leaders, all of which would love to see me dead.
I need to destroy the Chimera Cube for good.
But that may be impossible.
Lone Wolf
The Conspiracy Chronicles Boxset 2 Page 52