The act of having my hands around his neck with my body pinning him to the floor is satisfying in a way that I hate to admit. I love being able to dominate him with the power of my arms alone.
Blood from my hands and wrists covers his neck as large droplets fall from my shoulder onto his face. I don’t waste any time like I did with Drew trying to preserve his life. I squeeze as hard as I can around Jake’s neck, not allowing any air to escape from his throat—that way he can’t deliver any commands to the cube that will kill me instantly.
I dig my nails into his neck, scraping his flesh as his bones crack underneath my fingers. The process of watching the color slowly drain from his face and the life wane from his eyes is one that gives me great satisfaction in the moment. It’s easy to pretend as if Jake is nothing more than just another Syndicate goon who deserves to be choked for eternity.
But right as the life starts to leave his brown eyes, his body that was squirming moments earlier coming to a halt, I feel a wave of emotion overcome me. The killer switch in my mind that has dissociated all emotion from my actions is turned off, the reality hitting me that I am in the process of killing the closest thing to a brother that I have.
The strength carrying me through the moment leaves as my grip on his neck loosens. Eventually, I give in to the pain entirely, my body collapsing on top of him before I squeeze the life out of him for good. He is still alive, but his body is shocked from being choked to death. I have one moment to take this cube and use it to save me before he springs back up to attack me.
With the trauma hitting a new level in my shoulder and back, and my hands struggling to pick up the Chimera Cube with my lack of skin, I do my best to stand up. My next command to the cube is one out of necessity, the dark rings surrounding my vision threatening to swallow me whole if I don’t do something and fast.
“Heal me,” I say to the Chimera Cube, knowing well enough that Jake’s body that lies at my feet will have all its external wounds healed right along with me. But I don’t care. My goal isn’t to kill him. It’s not even to kill everyone inside of this plane. The only way to do that would be by creating an explosion that would inevitably kill me.
My one goal is to escape and run for my fucking life.
But with nearly twenty armed figures surrounding the force field and the entire ship on lockdown, that task will be no easy feat.
“Stay on the freaking ground!” I scream at Jake as he tries to get up, his head moving a few inches off the carpet. With the powers of the Chimera Cube and its helpful army of nanobots, the skin on my hands, wrists, and thighs has been healed, the bullet wounds on my back, shoulder, and legs disappearing. It will take a round of the internal wound repair from the Chimera Cube to transfuse a sufficient amount of blood into my system, but for now the physical agony eating away at my sanity is gone. The only visible remnants of the torture and bullets is the torn white cloth I am wearing that is covered in blood stains that make it a revealing, yet frighteningly realistic Halloween costume.
Jake doesn’t listen to my command, but I know just how to counter him. Instead of commanding the cube to produce a weapon or using my fist to beat his skull in, I sprint backward. This leads to a glorious chain reaction of events that send off a flurry of sparks in the air.
Jake is unable to stand up in time before the edge of the force field collides with him. Whatever prayer he had of standing up and attacking me instantly goes away as he smacks into the ground, his entire body covered in hundreds of sparks. He cries out in pain, my rapid movements running to the back of the aircraft resulting in not only Jake’s collision with the force field but five of the operatives. They were positioned only a few feet away from the exterior of the force field, their bodies flying into the glass walls of the aircraft as the high-powered electrical field zaps them. They have no idea that the force field is programmed to always have the Chimera Cube remain at its center, essentially turning me into an electrified wrecking ball.
I run backward a few more steps, causing Jake’s body to smash into the force field again. His body flies through the air and lands at my feet, the perfect position for me to rip the backpack off and regain control of the patents and instructions to operate the cube inside. He is positioned face down on the ground, his legs and arms shaking as his body tries to deal with the wave of electricity crashing over him. I put one of my feet on his back to steady him, not being gentle with him at all, and rip the backpack off him.
I catch the large stack of papers right before it falls out of the backpack, keeping the Chimera Cube nestled between my chest and right arm.
These people are pathetic. The high of feeling unstoppable overcomes me along with a new burst of confidence. I have everything I need.
Now, all I have to figure out is how to get Ai within this force field and Jake out of it, and then I can fly to the horizon away from the Syndicate. If I had time to think of a million different ideas, I probably could come up with a few decent ones. But with Jake already getting ready to stand up again and charge at me, I only have time to say the first thing that comes to my mind.
“Red smoke,” I say to the Chimera Cube, double-tapping it immediately after it glows blue upon receiving my command. The cube folds open, the nanobots inside it producing a potassium chlorate and red dye mixture that combine to form an odorless, thick, colorful gas. The gas immediately fills the entirety of the space within the force field, the gas molecules unable to penetrate through the barrier of the force field.
It’s time to change that.
I run to the side, knocking down five more of the Syndicate operatives who are backed into the glass wall with their hands up begging for mercy. Their bodies are shocked immediately upon hitting the exterior of the force field, the quantum computers inside the nanobots forming the exterior of the force field bending around the interior walls of the aircraft, the sensors inside it able to pick up that they are immobile objects.
Jake hits into the side of the force field again, his legs knocking into my ankles as he is forced to the ground once again. Now, I have my chance to fill every inch of air in this plane with the gas.
“Deconstruct force field.” I tap the Chimera Cube, the sparks from the gas molecules hitting into the field disappearing instantly. The thick, red gas diffuses throughout the aircraft within seconds, making it impossible for any of the operatives to see in front of them, never mind accurately shoot me at the center of the smoke.
My escape route is now clear. Even with the bullets firing in my direction and all the operatives screaming at each other, I feel in control. All I have to do is break out of the aircraft before one of the bullets hits me.
But that means leaving Ai behind.
My chances of reaching her without getting shot are slim to none, and if I surround myself in a force field again, I will only make it impossible for her to escape with me. I need to do this alone.
The ambition and killer instinct flowing through me seconds ago are replaced by pure anxiety. In the panic, my mind reverts back to its survival instincts, the one thing that never seems to solve my problems but always seems to let me wake up and see another day.
I need to run.
Or in this case, I need to cut a hole in the wall and hoverboard out of here. So that’s exactly what I do. I command for the force field to reform around me. This time it only extends four feet in each direction from the Chimera Cube, the electric barrier barely large enough to fit me inside it. Jake’s body is just out of reach of the interior of the force field, his attempt at tackling me again an utter failure as I see a burst of electricity in the sea of red gas.
It’s impossible for me to see what happens to him next, but odds are that he will be knocked out on the ground for a while. The body can only handle a surge of energy so many times in a row like that until it gives up.
I run through the gas, knowing that at some point I will hit a wall that I can cut through. In the process, in only a few strides I knock several bodies to the side with
the force field, their groans audible above the sounds of the gunfire. The bullets bounce off the force field, only adding to the field of sparks in the red gas.
Once I feel the glass sheet in front of me, I put the Chimera Cube in the backpack hanging off the front of my body and command it to produce the impossible knife. The impossible knife is easily able to cut through any material, the sharp blade effortlessly slicing through the thick glass sheet lining the exterior of the aircraft.
In a few seconds, I already have cut a hole large enough for me to fit through that allows me to escape into the outside world. The late-afternoon sun floods into the aircraft as the red gas diffuses out, an ominous trail of red mist following the rays of sunlight.
A hoverboard pops up in front of me right as I command the Chimera Cube to produce it. I slide the impossible knife into the backpack, the knife unable to slice through it without me applying pressure behind the blade. Then I guide my bare feet into the straps on the hoverboard and lean forward so that its engines propel me out of the aircraft. The shouting and screaming taking place inside feel a world behind me as I blast off into the air.
The red gas surrounds me, making the force field look like a ginormous red orb flying through the sky.
I made it out alive.
But Ai is still unconscious and chained to the leather chair. Ai is in the hands of the Syndicate.
I must save her. I must save her before she ends up like almost everyone else I have ever loved.
Dead.
Chapter 10
I’m on the edge of a cliff.
This is far from the first time that I have been in this position. But I can’t say that I’ve felt this kind of despair before. The emotions are all still hitting me, and they likely never fully will. Some pain is too complex to ever truly digest, but the familiar feeling of guilt plagues me stronger than ever before.
Images of Ai’s face, her smile, and the way in which her body was slumped over and lifeless in the last few moments I saw her bring me to tears. I left her with the Syndicate.
I left her abandoned, all alone in an aircraft full of some of the evilest men to ever live. Men whose oxygen comes in the form of power and domination and whose currency has notes marked with blood. I left her in a place that is worse than death, a position in which she will be tortured till they get tired of hearing her scream and her body turned into nothing more than a vehicle of pleasure for the bystanders.
The thought alone makes me want to puke.
Knowing it is actually happening as I stand on the edge of this cliff, with the wind blowing my hair in my eyes, does tantalize me with the idea of jumping off. To be aware that something so horrific is being endured by someone that I love, and knowing that I had the power to stop it and instead took the easy way out, only justifies the thoughts screaming in my mind that I’m a shitty person and that I don’t deserve this cube, this world, or even my life.
But when I think about the stakes at hand, those thoughts are quickly silenced. I have a mission. And my mission is not to just get Ai back, and it’s not just to kill the Syndicate, it’s to destroy the very system the modern world is built off that sets up our society for self-destruction.
I look out over the water below, the glare of the sun burning my eyes as it reflects off the surface of the lake. The temperature is a bit brisk, but the rays of sunshine pound heat onto my pale skin that is still draped in the same white cloth the Syndicate had us wear. I would tell you I’m too lazy to change out of it, but the real reason I still have it on is because the feeling of having my balls hang freely in the wind is a glorious one. In fact, it is the only pleasurable sense I am experiencing in the moment.
Despite the beauty of the landscape around me, my eyes can’t stop scanning the surrounding mountaintops, searching for predators. I am roughly a thousand feet above the lake. The crystal-clear waters allow the tree-covered mountaintops to reflect in the water, making the lake look like one massive painting. Various rock formations line the lake. Some are icicle-like pillars of stone that tower along the shoreline, while some of the rocks form arch-like structure with thick blades of bright green grass and tall pine trees at the top. In the middle of all the tall trees and thousands of bushes and wildflowers, dozens of species of birds fly over the lake along with blue sheep, and horned wild mountain goats roaming the grassy fields. Encasing the lake and tree-covered rock formations around it are large snow-capped mountaintops that are thousands of feet high at their apex.
The entire scene is something straight out of a movie and a place that is so serene, it can give one chills just breathing in the mineral and salty hints of the dry mountain air. According to the map on my hologlassess that I commanded the cube to make, it says I am in the middle of the Changbai mountain rage in northeastern China, only miles away from being in the middle of North Korea.
Twenty-four hours ago, there was no way you could have told me I would have ended up here, but with me escaping the Syndicate aircrafts only a few dozen miles from here, this was by far the most remote place I could find. But I don’t plan to sit around like a Tibetan monk would and meditate on top of the mountain. I am thinking about doing something that may just be my most desperate move yet.
Years ago, I stood at the edge of a cliff after I lost the person I loved most in life, my mother, and contemplated ending it all. I got close, real damn close, but the desire to keep fighting—the hope that there was still light left—is what kept me going.
Now I am standing on the edge of a cliff again, trying to come to terms with the fact that I just lost the last two people I love in this world. The idea is still hard for me to fathom, even after flying through the sky on a hoverboard for well over an hour, my force field protecting me from anyone who tried to take me down.
But there was nothing but silence.
Unlike the constant gunfire and explosions that have battered me for the last few days, I finally had a few moments where there was no one to listen to but myself. The Syndicate aircrafts refused to follow me as I glided just above the peaks of the mountains, and with no Chinese military or United States military aircraft in sight, I have been left all alone in a wilderness so vast that it makes me feel as if I’m nothing.
I have many reasons to be terrified. And I have over a dozen explanations as to why my arms are trembling as I approach the edge of this cliff.
But being alone is the scariest part.
I have spent most of my life alone by all accounts. I spent almost every waking hour of my childhood with my mind engrossed in virtual worlds. And taking after my father, deep emotional connections with others has never been something I have been blessed with, and as far as the physical connections go, the one girl I’ve ever loved is dead.
Even so, I’m comfortable when I’m the only one in the room and when all the pressure falls solely onto my shoulders.
But I’ve never felt anything like this.
I sigh, a loud, high-pitched sigh as I attempt to allow the anxiety and desperation to ebb out of me. It doesn’t work. The thoughts are still racing through my mind and my heart is beating so fast that it’s beginning to hurt. The world seems to move differently around me when it feels like I’m the only one in it. Even in the dark moments that feel like forever when I’ve been sitting alone in my room, wondering when the tough days will end, there is usually a sliver of hope that I can see amid the darkness.
This time I see nothing.
I can’t even trick myself. Even with the shock still causing my breaths to be short and the world around me to feel like it is spinning, enough of the pain has hit me to know that there is no end in sight.
Jake betrayed me.
My blood brother. My best friend. My everything. He chose the Syndicate over us. He chose the money, fame, and power they promised him, over doing what’s right.
He chose to kill me.
That thought alone makes me lose any faith I had left in humanity. It’s impossible to even trust the people I love, when all hu
mans really are just a bunch of hungry addicts constantly chasing the next best high. For Jake, that high was the promise of furthering his father’s legacy. It was the high of getting to destroy me and my father and take over the world.
But I won’t let him.
I won’t let him win, and I will never let the Syndicate win.
That’s why I have one last plan that is a shot in the dark at best, but it’s my only hope. If I can’t see any light in the dark world surrounding me, I’ll illuminate the sky on my own.
But it requires me doing something that I once would have thought is crazy. In fact, I still think it’s crazy. And a big reason why I’m even agreeing with the voice screaming inside me that I should do this is because I did a line of cocaine earlier. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking, I’m the biggest hypocrite for calling Jake out a moment ago for chasing a high and then I myself turn around and get high.
The thing is, I’m getting high for a purpose. The only thing that could keep me from falling asleep from the exhaustion is some wild burst of energy. And frankly, after barely escaping with my life from the Syndicate aircraft, I am drained of all the strength in me. I needed something artificial to boost me to new heights. After all, if I succumbed to the crushing exhaustion and desire to collapse only to allow the Syndicate to scoop me up with the location trackers they have embedded inside me, the world would end.
And that is not a fucking hyperbole.
These people are so close to winning. They have Jake. They have tiny chips sending them my location flowing in my bloodstream, and they likely have all the powerful governments of the world after me.
But they don’t have the Chimera Cube.
And as long as it stays that way, this world has a fighting shot at seeing a better future. But I also know that the cube is only one part of the story. If I destroy this thing, there will be another technology that is invented that will allow this group of people to do egregious things with it. The cycle will never end, and the constant threat to the well-being of all of humanity will be an ever-present of reality of the new world.
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