It doesn’t stop the mass of people from desperately trying to break through the exterior of the force field, their chanting of my name reaching a new deafening intensity. The echo of their angry voices will never leave me.
“Stop! Don’t do this! Don’t do this!” I try to yell above the crowd, but my voice is immediately drowned out by the wave of sound. There’s nothing I can do to get out of this. These people know the truth. Everyone does. I have the most powerful technology in the world. And now every living person wants their hands on it too.
This changes everything. I stand in shock at the edge of the gravel path, trying to figure out what to do. I can’t just stand here forever and let the crowd grow to millions around me. Soon those people will start fighting with each other and the entire thing will turn into one deadly brawl.
I could fly away in the sky and try and find refuge, but it won’t take long for millions more to catch up to me. I have a target on my back, a red, flashing target the size of the world itself. It’s impossible for me to get out of this. No matter what I do, this will never end.
To win will mean ending everything.
To make sure the cube is mine forever, I will have to eliminate every last person who is capable of taking it away from me.
I can’t destroy the Syndicate. I can’t take over China or even try and fight the United States military. In the end, they will win. In the end, this cube will be in their hands.
Unless I destroy it.
I take a deep breath and command the Chimera Cube to produce me a hoverboard one final time. As I pull the cube out of my backpack, the people watch in amazement. The chants of my name die down as everyone stops to see what this thing is capable of. When a hoverboard appears out of thin air, their frenzy reaches a new level.
I zip the cube back up into the bag and strap my feet in. The number of people smashing into the force field hits a new high, the sight of the cube giving them the extra excitement they need to charge forward. As their screams from the pain of the electric shocks echo throughout the valley, it is apparent that they will end up regretting their decision.
But I don’t care.
Today is the final day this cube will hurt anyone.
Today is the last day this cube will exist.
And my life may just go right with it.
Chapter 15
I’m an addict.
I thought this would be easy. I thought I could create a bomb that could be used to explode the cube into a million pieces. All I would have to do is set the bomb to detonate after a specified period of time and fly on the hoverboard as far away from it as possible.
The idea sounds great in my mind.
This cube could be destroyed in a minute. The threat of the Syndicate, Drew, or any other person looking to take over the world with the cube forever eliminated. In just a moment, it is possible for me to make a decision that will save the future of the world, while ironically eliminating what may be the most beautiful thing in it.
But I can’t.
I wish I could say it’s because I have hope that this technology can one day be used for good. Unlike my dad, I don’t buy into his optimistic vision for the future of the world. Anything that is ruled by humans will be imperfect, and the future of the world as well as how the Chimera Cube is implemented in it will be no different. But there is no room for error with a technology that can produce any material at will and heal all sickness and wounds at the snap of a finger.
That’s why this thing should be destroyed, the cube and the patents themselves reduced to nothing more than ash.
But the second this cube leaves the world, part of me will too. And I’m not ready for that to happen. The high from the dopamine that floods my mind each time the blue wave of light flashes over its exterior is one that I can’t get enough of. Together with this cube I have been through so much.
We have survived numerous government attacks, dozens of explosions, and managed to take down one of the most powerful regimes in the world. No matter what happened, this smooth, dense piece of computer chips and nanobots has been there for me.
Without it, I would have died months ago.
Without it, practically every single event that has happened in my life would have been different. This cube isn’t just a part of my identity. It has defined me.
Saying goodbye to this cube doesn’t just mean saying goodbye to a piece of myself, destroying this cube feels like eliminating the one last friend I have in this world. And once this cube is gone, I will have nothing. There will be no one to save me from the Syndicate, United States government, or the billions of people who have my location.
I will die.
And that thought scares me. It is something that I still don’t feel ready for as I sit on the edge of a jagged rock at the peak of a mountain. I was supposed to come here to end it. Now, I feel more lost than ever before.
“Look at what my life has come to,” I echo, not caring if anyone hears me. They already know exactly where I am, and every second I stay seated here at the peak of the mountain, the likelihood of someone finding me up here increases.
The loneliness has swallowed my sanity whole. I have spent most of my life alone, so that’s not a new sensation. Some of my best moments have been late at night, when I sit alone in my room and can just think about life. But there is a difference between being an introvert and being on an island of one no matter where I go to.
That is quite literally what my life is like.
And it might be that way forever.
“You’re my only friend!” I cry out and wrap both my arms around the cube, its exterior lighting up at my touch. For a moment I trick myself into thinking that it actually understands what I’m going through, but I still have enough of my sanity to know that this thing will never empathize with me.
Instead of letting one depressing thought spiral into the next, I take a deep breath and recollect myself. I try to find comfort in the beauty of the landscape around me, but the hole in my heart and pain from life crashing down on me forces a pair of black-tinted glasses to permanently coat my vision.
All I see is darkness, even with the sun beaming down on the valley. Tall, skinny pine trees line the multiple waterfalls and rocky streams that pour through the landscape. The surrounding mountains are much smaller in height than the ones of the Changbai mountain range and have gently sloped peaks covered in flowering trees. Dozens of bird species glide over the valley, the sounds of hundreds of animals humming and chirping all combining into one melodic symphony of the forest.
After a few minutes of admiring the landscape, I find my thoughts drifting away from the despair and instead focusing on the natural beauty in front of me. This is all the world is supposed to be. Nature working in harmony. All the creatures fighting to survive but not fighting to have the world in their hands. The trees coexisting peacefully with the squirrels, and the squirrels serving as food for the mountain lions.
Nothing can stop this machine.
It’s been pumping out life for billions of years, and in comparison, the pain that I have had to go through over the last few months is nothing. This is only a blip on the endless timeline of the universe, yet this one moment may change its direction forever.
With the cube gone, all of this will be preserved.
And that resounding thought is enough to give me the courage to open up the bag my father gave me and read the note he left at the back of the multi-hundred-page stack of patents. When I reach the pages his letter is contained on, I can already feel tears well up in my eyes as I look at his signature sloppy handwriting.
From the first line, I know that this letter was meant to be his final words to me. This is everything that he never got to tell me. And my hands can’t stop shaking as my eyes continue to scan the letter.
It reads:
Dear Sam,
I don’t know when you will be reading this or if you ever will, but when you do, it means that you have the Chimera Cube in your hands.
By now you probably know all about this technology, what it’s capable of, and the vision I have for it to change the world forever.
It has always been my dream to be able to give this cube to you, and to know that it is safely in your hands will fill me with a happiness that will never leave.
Your entire life was groomed for this moment. Since you were a baby, I knew that you were going to be the one person that this world needed most. In dark times, there must be strong men that can get us through it, and you are the strongest person I know. From day one you have been a fighter. Someone who has relentlessly fought for their goals, whether that was building a house out of wooden blocks or becoming the top salesman at Chimera. You have always been a man of principle, someone willing to sacrifice for the people they love and give their all to the causes they believe in.
If not for you, I wouldn’t want anyone else to have this cube in their hands. If anyone in this world is capable of succeeding this mission, it’s you. For all the times that I’ve been tough on you, and for all the feelings that I never allowed myself to express to you, I am sorry.
I always thought that if I beat you down into the ground, you would learn how to stand up against anyone. In truth, I never wanted to come to terms with the fact that I was the one who was scared. I was the one who was insecure about letting anyone, even my own son, know about the Chimera Cube. And I was the one who at the end of the day thought that I wasn’t worthy of this mission and took it all out on you.
For all those years of putting you through pain you didn’t have to go through and for never telling you that I’m proud of you, I am sorry. Because I am proud of you. Beyond grateful and amazed by everything you have done.
And I know that you will do what is needed with this cube. I know that you will usher this world into a new era of greatness. There is no doubt that there will be bumps in the road and things that go wrong along the way, but in the end, you will get right where you need to be.
I just hope you remember to smile on the way up. Because life is never about where we end up, or even how we get there. It’s about how we feel along the way. And if there is ever a second that you aren’t feeling confident in yourself, or ever a second that you doubt the mission you have embarked on, just know that I felt the exact same way. But it’s not worth wasting your time getting caught up in the cycle of self-doubt, pity, and sadness that plays throughout our mind at one point or another.
It’s not worth ever questioning yourself.
Because I know you got this. I know you are going to make this world a better place, and for that, I could not be prouder to call you my son. I love you, Sam. I never said those words enough, but I hope you never forget it. I hope you never stop believing in yourself and the future of the world because you have it in your hands.
And I know you are going to do the right thing with it.
He signs his name in messy cursive at the end of the note that he wrote in black ink. The ink still looks wet even though he wrote it months ago, and his musty aroma has a way of effusing off the paper. I look up from his note and at the sky, part of me hoping that my dad knows that I read his letter. That he knows that I love him more than I can express.
I spent most of my life hating him. I spent most of my life wishing that I could get as far away from him as possible. What I never realized is that he always struggled with the same monsters that I did, and that he always wanted the same thing for me and my life that I had always dreamt of.
I wish I could hug him one last time.
Tears pour down my face as I think about his brown, wiry hair and his eyes that are more often bloodshot than not due to sleep deprivation. He worked harder than almost every single human being I know combined. He sacrificed everything for the very thing that I am holding in my hands, and now I’m debating exploding his life’s work and burying his legacy and that of Isaac Savery forever.
Why does the world have to be this way?
I throw my hands in the air as if finally waving the white flag for the entire world to see. After all these years, I’m officially done. I can’t do this. I can’t make a decision that has no right answers yet affects everyone in the world at the same time.
I can’t continue on like this—the anxiety chipping away at my mind as I fear that the military and thousands of people are about to storm the mountain I am perched atop of. My dad has spent his entire life fighting the Syndicate and using their network to further his own mission. My life got caught up in the same battle until it turned into an all-out war that has no end in sight.
I won’t let them win this war.
But stopping them from winning might mean me losing everything. A few days ago, I would have told you that I wouldn’t have to sacrifice it all to ensure the future of this world isn’t one firmly in the hands of the Syndicate. Now, I know that is not the case.
My dad was right all along.
Sometimes you have to be willing to sacrifice everything for what you believe in. He believed that this cube was the singular cure to all the world’s ailments. I believe this is the one device destined to bring doomsday to us all.
His legacy isn’t about this cube.
It’s about me standing here and having the courage to do something that I wouldn’t have dreamed as possible a few days ago. I need to free myself from the cube. I need to let go of the rush of dopamine for good and accept the fact that I won’t have a magical device to help me solve my problems anymore.
I will have to fight the rest of this war alone.
And as I stand on the edge of the rock, readying to deliver the singular command that will destroy this cube forever, I feel resolute in my decision. In fact, I take my dad’s advice for once in my life and don’t question myself.
I feel confident.
Powerful.
Unstoppable, even.
But then the internal kumbaya taking place inside me slams to a halt as I am filled with panic. The one thing I have been dreading the most but knew it was arriving appears in front of me.
The aircraft is silent as it dips down from an altitude of thousands of feet in the sky to hover directly above me. The only reason I even notice it is because I feel a sudden chill to the air as a dark shadow looms above me. The hopeful thought that the aircraft is nothing more than a ginormous bird instantly dissipates as the black, sleek exterior of the aircraft comes into view.
The Syndicate is here.
And they have come to take the Chimera Cube.
I don’t have time to run away from this cube anymore.
I have to explode this entire mountain and myself right along with it.
Chapter 16
Never have I moved faster to try and kill myself.
I’ll admit there have been a few dark moments in my life where I have considered doing some pretty dark things, but when I see the aircraft falling through the sky towards my location, I know what I need to do.
There is no possible way for me to get out of this alive.
I might as well take control of my life and the cube while I still have it. It’s time for me to end it.
I place my hand on the Chimera Cube, the wind picking up around me as the aircraft comes to a smooth landing next to the rock I am perched on. They are landing in a small clearing at the top of the mountain, one normally reserved for hikers to picnic and relax before they make the trek back down.
Now this spot will become my grave.
“We are here to help,” an oddly monotone voice booms in my ear as the door to the aircraft opens. They caught me just in time before I commanded the Chimera Cube to blow us all up.
I stare at the man in shock, something about the way he says it compelling me to listen. At first, I wonder if my mind is playing a trick on me and that this is not the Syndicate aircraft. But it is the exact same model as the flying torture vehicles that they normally parade around the world in.
This is the Syndicate of Truth.
And I must kill them.
“Bo—”
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“Stop!” the man yells again, this time jumping out of the open door of the aircraft and charging towards me without breaking stride. His scream echoes throughout the mountain range, disturbing the calming noise of the wind whistling through the thin pine needles that cover the ground.
The fact that he doesn’t have any guns or weapons raised as he charges at me comforts me slightly. Couple that with the rest of the Syndicate operatives standing in the doorway with their guns at their side, their expressions emotionless as they stare at me, and I am way more confused than I am alarmed.
“We mean no harm,” the man says again as he extends his hand in front of me. Only after he nods at me do I realize that he wants me to shake his hand. Wow, I can’t even remember the last time I met a new person who hasn’t wanted to kill me.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I refuse to shake his hand, instead returning his frantic welcome with a cold stare. When he opens his mouth again, I finally realize that he never even took a breath for air while running towards me. He completed the action in one smooth motion, making the act of running across jagged rocks look effortless.
“We were sent here by Justin,” the man says, unwavering about me leaving his hand cold. It takes him a few seconds to realize that I’m not going to be welcoming him with any sort of cordial interaction and finally he places his arm back at his side.
Everything about this man seems off. He has a rubbery look to his dark skin, extremely dry hair, and a rigid manner in the way he moves that makes my spine tingle.
“Justin Winslow?” I question, backing away from him. If he says even one word I don’t like, I won’t hesitate to make him regret it.
The Syndicate is getting more advanced with their manipulative tactics, but that’s a good thing. They are scared of me. They are frightened of everything I am capable of doing to them.
The Conspiracy Chronicles Boxset 2 Page 65