“Do what?” I say, already fearing that I know his next words. I gulp, my body stuck in a weird limbo where the adrenaline pumping through me primes me for action, yet the anxiety keeps me frozen in place.
“I won’t let them win,” Jake says. The last of the tears fall off his face, his expression cold and solemn. My eyes are so focused on every one of Jake’s movements that I don’t even notice the masked figures that appear in the doorway of the airplane until it’s too late. “I won’t let them hurt you. And for all the times that I couldn’t show it, just know that I did and always will love you more than anything.”
He thrusts the barrel into the center of his chest, his finger dancing above the trigger. “I have to kill myself before they make me do the same thing to you.”
Chapter 20
His body falls to the ground in an explosion of blood.
I’m awestruck at the sight. The sound of the gunfire echoing throughout the quiet city streets doesn’t even feel real as the dull thud of his body against the ground sends reverberations throughout my spine.
Jake is dead.
Without hesitation he pressed down on the trigger and forced the bullet right through his heart. The pistol lies at his feet, swathed in a pool of blood that spills out from his chest. This roof will be forever stained with the droplets of his blood.
I scream.
Not in fear, but in pain. Watching his broad shoulders lifelessly fall to the ground as his entire body is drowned in a sea of blood is a vision I will never forget. This time I am one hundred percent sure that the body on the ground is not a humanoid. There are no wires poking out of the dead body, and there is a distinct way in which the color drains from Jake’s tan skin that can only be a product of biology.
He killed himself.
I stand inches away from his dead body, all of my muscles frozen even as my brain screams at them to move. The entire world feels like it has frozen in place but also like it is spinning at a million miles an hour.
My hands are shaking, my eyes unable to close even though the sight of his dead body only pains me more every second that I look at it. The fact that the bullet so easily sliced through his flesh and tore his heart apart is almost incomprehensible. My mind can’t even register the fact he is dead. never mind the fact that the Syndicate has been controlling him this entire time.
They could have killed him at any second.
He chose to take his own life instead.
Now, I’m in this fight all alone.
The masked figures storm down the steps of the aircraft. Killing them would normally be an easy task. They have on black robes with the same creepy white masks that the Syndicate often has its operatives wear. The rifles they hold in their hands are measly in power compared to the military attack drones that I have defeated.
In a few seconds all the operatives could be dead, and the aircraft destroyed. But suddenly, even picking up my arms that are draped by my side feels like a herculean task. I can’t open my mouth to speak because I know the second that I do, the tears won’t stop.
Jake’s entire life, all he wanted was someone to truly love him. I tried to do that, I really did. But the monster of my ambition eventually took over. In the last few months of his life, the only thing we could think about was the impending doom of the world that we had to prevent, meanwhile the entire time he knew that his life could be ripped away from him at any moment.
I’ll never get to hug him again.
I’ll never get to tell him that without him, I would be dead too. And now that he’s gone, it only feels right that my own body should lie next to his on the roof. We’ve been in this fight together from the very beginning. Maybe we should leave it together too.
That idea becomes much less tantalizing the moment the first bullet is fired at me. It connects with my upper right shoulder, the pain of the metal digging into me bringing my consciousness to the brink of blacking out. It’d be much easier at this point to just stand here and let the rest of the Syndicate operatives light me up.
After all, I have no hope left. Justin’s pretty lie was nothing more than bait to get me to travel to an area that the Syndicate could kill me without any interference. These people will be trying to kill me for the rest of my life. But for now, there is only one thing I can do.
I can’t let Jake die in vain.
“Five-foot force field,” I command the Chimera Cube, the nanobots assembling the electrical field around me before another bullet can be fired at me. With my newfound protection, I then take the liberty of healing myself with the Chimera Cube, the hot sensation of the blood dripping all over my body waning as the wound is repaired.
Even though I can’t see the facial expressions of the operatives, I can tell they are in shock by the way that they all lower their guns. Everyone has heard rumors about the technology in my hands, but until you see it, it is impossible to know the truth. And for most who have witnessed the power of the cube, they die soon after.
That fate won’t be any different for these operatives.
I’ve killed so many people. I exhale, the pain still fresh in my shoulder as my nerves try and process what just happened. Time to add some more lives to the mass grave.
The shock and sadness that threatened to cripple me moments ago are now the farthest thing from my mind. I am numb to everything, the fear, the devastation, and the hopelessness that all want to drag me down. My eyes don’t even register Jake’s body that is lying on the ground at my feet.
I know the second I come to terms with the reality, I’ll be hyperventilating and crying on the ground.
I need to be strong.
And that’s when I let the darkness take over. It’s a switch that rarely flips inside me, but when it does, I become untenable.
I command the Chimera Cube to create a wall of smoke and immediately charge forward at the line of operatives standing at the base of the aircraft. In the process I have to step over Jake’s body, his thick, red blood creating a slippery mess on the roof.
The chain of events catches the operatives off guard just like I had hoped. They are standing only a few feet away from the edge of the force field, making it so that in just a few strides the electrical field smashes into them. All of their bodies are thrown onto the ground, the shock of the lethal voltage enough to keep them on the ground for a few seconds.
That is all the time I need to destroy them.
I deconstruct the force field, allowing the smoke to flood the surrounding air. The thick, colored smoke is harmless to the lungs and is simply a visual distraction to disorient the operatives even more.
It’s the perfect combination for the next step in my plan.
The Syndicate has drilled their will inside of me with the trackers and their microphones and even the chip inside Jake’s brain. As easy as it would be to get an attack drone to shoot them all, the feeling of drilling my own will into them will be a far bigger rush.
I command the Chimera Cube to produce an electrified sword. A second later, I hold the gorgeous blade in my hands. The handle is coated in a smooth, yet firm hunk of leather, and the blade itself is made of iron with dozens of barbs engraved into the shiny exterior. The barbs are all programmed to give out an electrical charge the moment that they detect any pressure, turning this already deadly weapon into a lethal shocking machine the moment it comes into contact with anything.
I grit my teeth, raising the heavy, several-foot-long sword above my head before I bring it down into the body of the first operative. As soon as the sharp tip of the blade pierces through their flesh, their body jerks violently. Saliva spews out of their mouth, vomit soon following as the convulsions overcome their being.
Within a second of the blade slicing through their chest, all life has fled from their eyes as a stream of blood gushes out of them. The rush of dopamine after I pull the sword out of the dead operative’s body is euphoric. Nothing beats the rush of power. Nothing beats the high of revenge.
The guilt will co
me later.
The devastation and trauma will haunt me for eternity.
But for now, all that matters is killing.
“Shit,” I mutter, my left bicep strained as I swing the sword to the side. An operative is in the process of standing up, their eyes closed as the smoke continues to infiltrate the surrounding air. It is odorless and has no taste as the particles coat my tongue, but it doesn’t keep the operative from fearing that inhaling any of the smoke will mark the end of him.
I’ll leave that job to my sword.
The sword slices through the operative, severing his arm from his body in one fell swoop. I have to stomach back a round of vomit as I witness his arm fall on top of Jake as every muscle in his body descends into a series of wild convulsions. Seeing something as terrible as that should allow the grief to surface from within me.
But all I feel is the surge of adrenaline.
All I want to do is kill.
As the body falls to the ground, a bullet from the last of the operatives connects with my lower leg. But before they can fire another round at me, the blade of my sword is already tearing apart their flesh. The life escapes from their body upon impact of the dozens of electrified barbs. Yet the sharp edge of the sword wedges itself into the flesh of the operative, causing their body to lazily hang off the end of the sword. Given that my forearm will tear in half pretty quickly if forced to hold up the weight of the dead body, I erratically jerk the blade out of the body, resulting in guts and raw flesh from the operative to fly in all directions.
The body soon hits the ground, right as the smoke from the Chimera Cube dissipates. There were no more operatives on the plane besides the three masked figures. The shiny metal outside of the aircraft resembles that of a spaceship as it idly sits on the roof. Scattered around the long, narrow vessel are the dead bodies of the crew and Jake, their collective pool of blood staining every wooden plank. A tiny stream of blood even finds its way falling off the side of the building, making the carnage even more visible for those on the streets below.
I can feel the calm energy of the city shift into one of worry as people realize that something has gone terribly wrong. The cloud of smoke that the Chimera Cube produced floats into the sky, leaving a trail of thick particulate matter above the city. The dead bodies themselves leave a stench that by nightfall will permeate the nostrils of anyone in the city within multiple blocks.
Beneath the roof, I can hear the dull echo of people making their way through the building to the one small staircase that leads up. Soon the entire town will be here, a mini mob forming around me to question me about what just happened. I can’t stay to find out what happens to this city after I leave.
I can’t stay to watch what they do to Jake’s body. I glance down at him one final time. I figured it would be easy to just say goodbye inside my head and command the cube to create a hoverboard.
But right as the high from eliminating the Syndicate operatives fades, the sadness floods my mind. Moving on from this roof doesn’t feel right. Continuing this battle, persisting onward in this war, feels pointless knowing that Jake is gone.
Jake sacrificed his life for the cube.
He killed himself so that I could be saved.
“Why did this happen?” I breathe out loud, the thoughts spinning deliriously through my mind as I collapse onto the ground. Before I know it, I am lying on the roof, Jake’s blood covering my body as I fall on top of him. I hold my hand against his bloody chest, hoping to hear the soothing sound of his heartbeat.
But there is no pulse. No life left in his eyes. And no color left in his skin.
He is dead. I touch his skin, placing my palms on his cheeks to feel the temperature of his body. I had hoped doing so would be cathartic, but instead it only brings more tears to my eyes as I realize that the Syndicate would have done this to him anyways if Jake didn’t do it first.
They have taken everything away from me.
They have destroyed my life and are destroying the world. And it feels like I have no way to stop them.
“Fuck you!” I scream, my yell directed to no one in particular except the omniscient being of the Syndicate. Odds are they are still listening to every word I say, the chip burrowed deep in Jake’s skin able to detect any sound waves that penetrate it.
The anger is the thing that takes over first. It has a way of making my skin feel hot as every muscle in my body twitches, battling the urge to explode forward and punch through the roof. But the anger is only a temporary mask that I use to hide from the sadness.
It carves its way into the core of my being, leaving a deep ravine where the light and happiness used to be in my life. It will take years for that ravine to narrow, and the deep darkness that is infesting my mind will never be fully sealed.
I am shattered.
The sadness is even deeper than when my mom died. It is a crippling depression that won’t ever leave me. It makes my eyelids heavy, my muscles feel groggy, and the sun itself looks like it is surrounded in a permanent blanket of clouds. My heart doesn’t even feel like it has been ripped out of my chest. It feels like it has been shitted on, thrown into a blender, and then fed to a pack of ravenous wolves.
Even that doesn’t fully put into light the true complexity of the pain that I’m feeling. Because I know that I could have been in Jake’s position just as he could have been in mine. His body lying on the floor could very well be my own. And part of me wishes it were. Part of me wishes that I could lie right next to him so that this hopeless war could end.
But before my thoughts can spiral further into the sea of sadness that has drowned me, the latch to the door cemented into the roof clicks open. I scramble for the backpack with the Chimera Cube to try and make a quick escape, but it’s too late. A group of officers burst onto the roof, all of them with their guns raised and eyes narrowed at me.
They aren’t just random people policing the quaint city.
They are members of the North Korean military, the bright red patches on their camo uniforms a dead giveaway. Unlike the people of this town who have no connection to the Internet and no way of knowing who I am, these people seem to know exactly who I am.
I put my arms up in surrender, the tears continuing to stream down my face as I realize that my body may end up in the same place as Jake after all.
Everyone in my life is dead.
The world wants me to end up the same way.
Chapter 21
There are no peace agreements with the devil.
I wish there were. It would make my life a lot easier. All I’d have to do is explain to the North Korean soldiers that I’m tired of fighting, tired of having to kill people, tired of feeling the incessant pain, and then maybe they would let me go.
But they won’t listen.
They are here for the cube.
“If you move, we will shoot,” the man in the center shouts. There is a sinister expression in his eyes, one that knocks any second thoughts I had about battling the Syndicate right from my mind.
He has a long, gray beard and tall legs that are nearly the size of my body. Every one of the five soldiers that is surrounding me are all huge. The two women are well over six feet tall with arms easily twice the size of mine, while the men are approaching seven feet in height, all with identical beards and shaved heads.
These people are exactly the opposite of what I picture from North Korea. After all the news stories of millions of famished people in this country, the children barely able to eat enough to survive, I expected the soldiers to be lanky and frail. But these people look like there were made in a lab—in fact, they probably were. And now I have to try and defeat these lab-grown humans that have been engineered to kill.
“Don’t come any closer,” I say. “You don’t wanna find out what is in my bag.” I watch as all of them eye the bag at my feet, each of them thinking the same thing.
They think I have a bomb inside.
And that’s all I need to keep them distracted until I c
an think of a plan to get myself out of this. It doesn’t take me very long to realize that I am trapped. The dead bodies sprawled around me are a dead giveaway that I am up to no good. They won’t let their guards down no matter how many lies I feed them.
I could try and make a run for the stairs of the aircraft, but by the time I bound up them, more than enough time will have passed for several bullets to pierce through my skull. There is only one option.
I have to jump off this building.
All the soldiers glance at each other, one nodding as they prepare to attack. I don’t give them the chance. Instead of waiting around for even more soldiers to pile onto the roof, I make my break for it. I don’t care if I die once I hit the ground. The only way I can live with myself is knowing that I did everything in my attempt to win.
I pick up the bag at my feet and in one swift motion I propel myself toward the edge of the roof only feet away from me. I await the storm of gunfire in my direction, but it never comes. My lie must have worked. One more step and I will be falling through the air to the city streets below, my only hope at surviving the hundred-foot fall being the Chimera Cube.
My foot never moves forward
Before I can have a dance party midair with my newfound excitement, I feel two arms wrap around my waist.
The next thing I know I am being tackled to the ground. Turns out this was hopeless from the beginning after all. I could try and command the Chimera Cube to create a number of attack drones or tear gas, but by the time I reach into my bag, a bullet will have already smashed through my skull. I have no chance at getting out of this one alive.
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