Serpent and the Sun, Chptr. 7 – Xperience Fiction – by Liam Sweeny.
“Adam, please pay attention.”
“Why do you drink this stuff… coffee?” Adam was sitting behind a table with a cup of digital coffee in his right hand. It looked just like the one Jameson had. Adam was starting to show age, though in reality he was ageless.
“It perks me up.” Jameson replied.
“And what does that mean?”
Jameson turned up a dial on the back of Adam’s housing. It controlled Adam’s power differential, and thus, his processing speed. He had to be careful, only adjusting it a slight amount. As he turned the housing back around, he noticed Adam was, for lack of a better word, tweaked.
“Whoa!” Adam wobbled a bit. He looked dizzy. “How do you all turn it off?” Jameson flipped over the housing to another whoa! And notched the power differential back to normal. He turned the housing back around, and Adam had one hand over his forehead.
“Ouch!” he cried, “Why would you humans drink this stuff?”
“It’s an acquired taste,” Jameson said, “And most humans have a degree of immunity to stimulants.”
“Mike said I wouldn’t need any… immunities.”
“He’s right,” Jameson replied, “You don’t. But we need to pay attention to today’s lesson.”
Adam grunted. Jameson realized that Adam was becoming harder to teach. He was asserting himself more, and, as a consequence, goofing off more.
“Adam, we’ll not have many more of these lessons, and it’s important for you to know what brought us to the world we now live in.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “Jameson, I can find out anything I need to,” he said, “by just connecting…”
“All they have are lies.” Jameson responded. “The truth has been taken out of the information stream long ago. What we’re learning; what I’m teaching you, I could get killed for it.”
Adam paused. A serious look passed over his face. Solemnity, almost.
“Okay Jameson,” he said, “what’s today’s lesson about?”
Jameson leaned back in his seat. “Energy.”
“Throughout the history of man, energy has played perhaps the most vital role in the expansion of power.” He said. “From ancient cultures, that energy came from legions of men working together to build megalithic structures. And, throughout history, man has evolved technologically, making these great types of achievements possible with less manpower.”
“Arguably, technology made possible the division of humans by class; that, and it made urbanization possible.” Adam nodded.
“As I said, today’s lesson is about energy.” Jameson continued. “And in the last two centuries, from the advent of steam-driven industry to oil-driven industry, energy, the source of it anyway, has become more and more important.”
“More important, in fact, than the humans it’s supposed to be helping.” He added.
“Are you referring to the Energy Wars?” Adam asked. A picture came up on the screen of the Middle-East. Mike must’ve supplied him with an electronic copy of his World War Three map. Mike’s was the only one Jameson had ever seen.
“Yes, in a way,” Jameson replied, “but it’s important for us to understand the non-military side of the War.”
Jameson got up, spinning Adam around to face a chalkboard. He had a map of the United States drawn out, rough but recognizable.
“In the first half of the twentieth century,” Jameson said, “gasoline, the derivative of oil, was inexpensive.” His map had points on it to mark major cities like New York and L.A. He placed the tip of the chalk on New York City, and drew lines outward.
“People could afford gasoline, and the ones that could afford to leave the crowded cities moved away, to an area they called the suburbs.” Adam looked on as Jameson shaded the New York City suburbs in hash-marks. Then he drew new lines out even further.
“Eventually, some people felt that the suburbs were too crowded, and they moved even farther out.” He said.
“Because gasoline was cheap?” asked Adam.
“Precisely,” replied Jameson, “The entire structure of America was transformed by cheap oil.”
“Just America?”
“Well, the whole world,” Jameson said, “But we’re using America as our, well, case-study. You know what a case-study is, right?”
“Yes, I do.” Adam said, “It’s an example.”
“Right. And so in America, the landscape was altered because of the availability of oil.” Jameson said. “So what do you think happened when oil became scarce? Let’s see how well you’ve learned.”
Adam thought for a moment. He appeared to be making shapes with his fingers.
“They all moved back to the cities?” He said.
“Tried to,” Jameson said. “You’re close, Adam. The population pattern collapsed toward the cities.”
“Was that a bad thing?”
“It was when all the tax-money was spent in the suburbs.” Jameson replied. “The cities were unable to handle the ‘crunch’, as they called it. And it was then that the wealthiest people started what is now called the Sanctuary system.”
“What was it called then?” asked Adam.
“Luxury Communities” Jameson replied, “Big apartment complexes, basically. The first two were called the Atlantic and Pacific Hydro-Towers. Now they’re the called the Atlantic and Pacific Sanctuaries.”
“Were they bad then?” Adam asked. “’Cause Mike says they’re evil now.”
Jameson paused. He knew he had to be objective. In his opinion they had always been evil, but he had his own reasons for believing that.
“Originally,” he answered, “they were just a way to get far from the problems in the cities, like an escape for those who could afford to buy in.”
“But eventually, they became so cut-off from the plight of us, terrestrials, they completely sealed themselves off.”
Jameson went to the chalkboard, drawing a circle around Central America. “They fully developed the PEALE system in 2035. When Apep struck Nicaragua a year later, they used the event to take control of the Earth.”
“How?” asked Adam, “How could people in sealed-up Sanctuaries take over the whole planet?”
“They took control of the weather.” Jameson said. He turned to see Barry Jones with his head ducked in the doorway.
“That’s it for today’s lesson.” Jameson said.
“But I still have questions…”
“…that will be answered tomorrow. I promise.” Jameson said. “I have to go talk to Barry.”
“Must I go to sleep?”
“No, Adam,” Jameson said. “You can stay up. I’ll have Susan bring you downstairs.” Jameson pressed the intercom, politely asking Susan to baby-sit Adam. Susan and Adam had bonded in recent days. Not like a mother; more of a nanny, but Jameson didn’t exactly feel a father bond either. Adam was something else entirely. When Susan brought Adam downstairs, Jameson and Barry sat down to talk.
“Give it to me.”
Barry got up, walking over to the chalkboard. He flipped it over, revealing a world-grid on the other end. It was a white-board, and Barry pulled out a black marker, barely writable.
“They’ve generated a hurricane to wipe out the New York City resistance.” Barry dotted New York. “We haven’t gotten through, but based on our link-in, it’s estimated at a Category Eight.”
“Jesus.”
“That’s not it,” Barry said, “We’re also picking up some activity in Albany, the old capital upstate. It looks like a lightning storm, but there’s also been seismic activity.”
“That’s gotta’ be Blake,” Jameson scratched his chin, “He was getting supplies in New York. The depot’s in Albany.”
“That’s not why I’m here, though,” Barry said. He walked up close to the desk, bringing his voice to a whisper.
“They’ve released a virus.” He said.
“I know that,” Jameson said, “I’ve heard it, anyways…”
“But you haven’t heard why.”
“Okay,” Jameson said, “humor me. Why?”
Barry leaned in even closer. Jameson could smell the burnt wood of Barry’s time spent in the boiler-room.
“The ionosphere’s becoming drained.” Barry said. “They’re running out of energy.”
“What!?!” said Jameson, “That’s impossible! The ionosphere is…”
“I know, I know… continually replenished,” said Barry. “That’s common knowledge anyways. But while the energy is constantly replenished, the catalysts used to manipulate it are weakening. It’s not as responsive as it used to be.”
“Are you shittin’ me?” replied Jameson, “They just sent a Cat Eight to New York City!”
“Jameson, I’m serious,” he said, “You know the difference between one point and the whole graph. The whole graph says their runnin’ out of juice.”
Jameson stared at the world-grid. The ionosphere output-graph flashed through his head.
“They’re makin’ a move,” Barry said, “while they still have cards in their hands.”
***
The skies above Albany erupted with the fury of two gods engaged in earthly combat. Lightning coalesced into a ball above the front lawn of the abandoned capital building. Windows that hadn’t already been smashed by years of nature’s reclamation were being blown to bits by baseball-sized hail-stones. Fires below burned everything combustible, hot enough to create their own micro-cells. Blake and Cyrus hovered in the middle of an F3 tornado, neither giving an inch, both being periodically impaled with debris.
“C’mon Blake, just give up,” Said Cyrus as he pulled a chunk of telephone pole from his mid-section, “I’ll let your little depot survive, I promise.” He wore a vicious smile on his face. The wound in his midsection never had time to bleed, sealing up instantly as the submicroscopic machines inside him went to work repairing his organs, blood-vessels and muscles.
Blake winced as he took a large sliver of steel to his neck. It tore through his jugular as it passed through, but like Cyrus, Blake’s wounds sealed.
“You’ve lost your mind, Cy’,” said Blake, “Ya’ been out too long!”
“…and you’ve been alive too long,” Cyrus replied, “I think we can find a solution to both problems.” Cyrus clasped his arms around himself, drawing in energy.
Uh-oh, Blake thought to himself. He could feel his energy wane. Cyrus couldn’t kill him, but he could take away Blake’s access to energy. His connection to the ionosphere was PEALE’s connection, and Blake couldn’t top it. He began to feel himself being lowered to the ground, robbed of the wind to stay aloft. He had to do something fast.
Blake gave up his hold on the ionosphere. He used the last remaining energy he had to take him near the plaza. He hit State Street hard enough to crack the pavement, and he started running. He didn’t have to see Cyrus; he could feel him hovering in the air above. As long as he held the energy, Blake couldn’t fight him. But he wasn’t fighting Blake. It could mean that Cyrus was afraid to fight. Blake contemplated that as he ran to an old sub-level entrance at the Plaza, smashing the locked door with a push. As he flew down the steps to the Depot, the other explanation ran through his mind.
“I’ll let your little depot survive, I promise.”
Cyrus wasn’t after him in the first place. He’d merely been following him. It was the depot he was after. For Blake this was confirmed by a massive rumbling below. Shit, he broke through, Blake thought. He was running as fast as he could down the stairs, hopping whole flights. He reached the thick steel door to Sub-Level Two, and as he grabbed the door, it exploded inward, sucking him through. For the first time since he was made immortal, Blake lost consciousness.
Blake awoke buried under concrete chunks and covered in fine dust. He scanned the building for integrity, and though the area he was in was collapsed, the depot as a whole had survived. And, as curious as it was ominous, he didn’t pick up life signals of any sort except his own.
He felt energy flowing through his system. Whatever had happened made Cyrus release the stranglehold he had on the ionosphere. Blake flexed his chest muscles, channeling energy into the debris he was buried in, freeing himself. He was in the depot, but it was dark. Dust wafted through the air, blanketing what little light streamed in. Blake drew in energy and released it into the dust, causing it to ionize. The dust that choked the depot became a light source.
Blake walked through the depot, stunned by the silence. The equipment had a thin coat of dust on it, but appeared unharmed. Thank God for that, Blake thought as he turned the corner to the main area. What he saw stopped him dead in his tracks.
Donnie was dead; his shirt was the only thing that identified him. His body was little more than a skeleton. Five yards from Donnie lay Ralph. Though Blake hardly knew Ralph, it was easy to identify his body. He had suffered massive chest trauma, but his body was still intact. And standing twenty yards from the two of them was… Cyrus.
Only he wasn’t standing. He was frozen in place, as if his body had been bronzed. He was crouched menacingly, and Blake recognized the stance. It was a stance they taught UEC Guards to use before an energy strike. Blake was incredulous. He approached Cyrus slowly, unsure of whether or not it was a trick. He noticed a chunk of concrete on the ground, and with a thought he launched it at Cyrus with as much speed as he could manage in the closed space of the depot. It struck Cyrus’s shoulder. With the sound of glass shattering, Cyrus’s shoulder, and with it his arm, hit the ground, shattering even further.
“What the fuck happened here?” Blake said aloud. It was Cyrus; Blake could pick up his bio-signature. Even dead, Cyrus had a signature. Blake made his way to the edge of the depot. Cyrus had blown it wide open before coming in, and as Blake stood at the edge, he saw a clear sky where just moments ago cataclysmic weather held the day. Somehow, some way, Cyrus got killed. Blake turned back to find out how.
He went to Ralph’s body. Blake noticed something in his hand. He hadn’t paid attention to it earlier; he was focused on finding Cyrus. Now that he was focused of finding Cyrus’s cause of death, the object in Ralph’s hand was a potential clue. It was small; he pried it out of Ralph’s fingers delicately, though Ralph would hardly have noticed. It looked like a flashlight; white plastic casing, squeeze-button activated, no larger than the palm of Blake’s hand.
He didn’t know what would happen if he pushed the button. He looked at the statue that was at one time his nemesis. It was enough to keep his curiosity at bay. Blake tucked the device in his pocket before going to check the equipment he’d need to haul out of there.
***
Gerhardt’s room reverberated with the sound of old, pre-millennial rock music. When he checked in, they gave him a room right above the bar. He liked the music, but since he’d gotten out of the Sanctuary, he had a continual headache. He walked over to the window, prying open two blinds to gaze upon the street. It was dark, with few lights dotting the light-poles. In fact the brightest illumination came from the aurora in the sky. HAARP’s Aurora; Gerhardt had read about it in grade-school. Though he’d seen pictures and videos of it, it was amazing to actually see it. He reached down, opening the window with one hand as he rolled up the blinds with his other. A cold, crisp breeze greeted him as he pulled a box of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket.
Smoking was frowned upon in the Sanctuary. Illicit drug use of any kind was not tolerated, and the inhabitants were tracked and monitored. Not that it was a problem; the people selected for the Sanctuary were non-users, and a generation had by then grown up in a world without drugs. Even alcohol was prohibited in all but ceremonial occasions.
The music blared on, and with the window open, Gerhardt could hear the sounds of merriment. He was warned that Apep was a rough place, but he wanted a drink, and Apep was the closest spigot. Besides, he could take care of himself. All men in the Sanctuary were trained in self-defense. Gerhardt never understood why in the Sanctuary; violent crime was rare, almost non-existent.
Gerhardt grabbed his side-arm; a Heckler-Koch i980 Compact. Elle’s father gave it to him as he left the Sanctuary. He packed it in the pod-cruiser; shareholders were not allowed to possess DE weapons in the Sanctuary. It was a simple enough mechanism, and Gerhardt tested it out over the ocean, frying a dolphin that jumped too close to the pod-cruiser. He grabbed his trench-coat and his hat, looping the key around his right finger as he walked out the door.
He made his way to the hotel vestibule. An old woman sat behind the safety-glass cage, typing away on an old lap-top computer.
“Excuse me, miss?” asked Gerhardt. She looked up with surprise, as if unaccustomed to being addressed as miss. She nodded.
“Is there a cover-charge at the bar?”
She smiled, and started laughing. “Ain’t no cover,” she said, “Ain’t no class, neither. You’d best ta’ stay away from there,” She rapped her long fingernails along the counter.
“I need a drink.”
The woman pulled out a clear bottle without a label from under the counter.
“My uncle Joey makes the best white lightnin’ in the diamond,” she said, “better than that scrape-shit they swig in Apep.” She put the bottle back.
“That’s OK…”
“Sheila,” she said, “Sheila Walters.”
“That’s OK, Sheila,” he said, “I really need to get out,”
“You’ll need to get outta’ there, too,” she said.
“Thanks, Sheila,” he smiled, “I appreciate it.” Gerhardt walked out the door before Sheila could say another word. He got the sense that she was hitting on him, and though she was attractive, she wasn’t Elle. No one was.
Gerhardt hadn’t stopped thinking of her since he left the Sanctuary. The curls in her hair, the perfect, healthy blush in her face when she was embarrassed, the fire in her eyes when she was excited, which was frequent, and her iron, indomitable determination all haunted him as ghosts in the hollow solitude of his travels. How he missed her. As he approached the front door of Apep, he could smell the cigarette smoke mingled with rotgut alcohol and musk. The music rumbled through the door with the shouts and whoops of the patrons. He wondered what Elle would think of him walking into such a dingy place.
As he entered Apep, he saw a woman to his right and a large, burly man to his left. The woman had a wand in her hand, and as she waved it down the front of Gerhardt it went off. The man frowned, and the woman pointed to a sign on the wall.
“Can’t you read?” she asked. Gerhardt looked over at the sign.
No weapons allowed.
No mechanicals
No DEs.
No Exceptions. (Please check them in.)
“Shit,” he said, “Sorry about that,” He reached into his pocket for the Compact. He pulled it out and dropped it on the table in front of the woman. She looked at it in shock, as did the man. She looked at Gerhardt quizzically.
“You ain’t from around here, are ya’?” She asked.
“No, ma’am,” Gerhardt replied. That caused the burly man to laugh. He looked over at the woman.
“Yeah, he definitely ain’t from around here,” he joked, “Ma’am…”
“Shut it, George,” she said before throwing her eyes back on Gerhardt.
“Where are you from, kid?” she asked.
“The Pacific Sanctuary,” He replied.
“Well, what in the hell are you doing here?”
“Well, I’m staying upstairs, and,”
“No,” the woman said, “What are you doing in Anchorage?”
Gerhardt paused. He didn’t really know.
“Running away, I guess.” He said. The woman and the man looked at each other. Inside Gerhardt could see a few of the patrons looking his way.
“Running away from heaven to hell, eh?” She said. She moved to the side, motioning with her hand that Gerhardt, disarmed, was cleared to enter.
“Welcome to hell.” She said. “Enjoy.”
***
Michael pushed the control stick forward, accelerating through the desolate night on the highway’s periphery. Sarah and Daniel were fast asleep, oblivious to the change in speed. Sarah had been up more or less since they met; the night’s sleep she claimed in Bozeman was a night with one eye open, to be sure. But she couldn’t hold out forever. She was human, and such a condition required sleep.
Michael remembered sleep, though his experience of it was a distant memory. Nano-System Integration, or infusion, as it was called, kept the body and the mind continually refreshed, erasing the body’s requirement of sleep. Michael had not slept, lost consciousness or so much as cat-napped since he became timeless.
He looked over at Sarah, curled up in the passenger seat, looking so innocently in her slumber. Michael could only pretend not to miss it.
They had to get to Seattle if they were to have any chance of getting through the Anchorage perimeter security. Michael was well known there. Well hated in Denali. Everyone in the Third Tier of the Sanctuaries had a death wish for him. They felt him undeserving of the immortality he bestowed upon himself. But if it weren’t for him, they never would have had it. It was his invention.
It wasn’t always a venomous relationship. When Michael hacked the nano-vaccinator, he was invited to the Denali Sanctuary as a student. He spent four years there, completing his college education with a Bachelor’s Degree in Nano-Biophysics. By then he’d met Blake. It wasn’t long after his graduation that he’d formulated the plan of the Escape. Blake went along, with minimal resistance.
A single beep sounded, raising and lowering in pitch. Blake. Michael pushed a button on a pendant he never took off.
“You survived Albany, I take it.” He said.
“Yeah.” Blake sounded tired. Odd.
“Ya’ OK, Blake?”
“Yeah, Mike,” he said, “I’m fine. It ain’t me.”
Michael turned up the cloak to ascend. He could make better time if he went as the crow flies. “Well who then?”
“Donnie.” Blake replied. “Him and Ralph,”
“Aw, I’m sorry to-,”
“And Cyrus Swift,” He said. Mike would’ve hit the floor if it wasn’t a hundred yards below.
“What!?!” he exclaimed, “Cyrus can’t die; what the fuck happened!?!”
Blake paused. Michael could hear him breathing heavily. It was eerie; Michael knew Blake a long time. The last time he knew Blake to be out of breath was during a race they had in Denali. Before he was infused.
“Ralph had something in his hand.” Blake said. “Man, Mike, ya’ should’ve seen it! It was like Cyrus was a bronze statue or something!”
Mike banked left, careful not to take the turn too sharply. “So what was it?”
“I don’t fuckin’ know,” Blake said, “It’s small; it looks like one of those old flashlights that you squeezed to turn the light on.”
“What happens when you squeeze it?”
“Are you kidding?” Blake responded, “I saw what it did to Cyrus. I only took it for that reason. As long as it isn’t killing me, I’ll be perfectly content to just hold on to it.”
“Pussy,” Michael said. Blake laughed.
“Yeah, you too,” Blake said, “So how’s your end of things?”
Mike sighed. “Well, I think she believes me.” He said. “Or she’s humoring me until she gets to a populated place.”
“Where have y’all been?”
“Just Bozeman,” replied Michael, “East Yellowstone too. She lived there.”
“Ah, I see…” Blake said. “What’s the status there?”
“East Yellowstone was wiped.” Michael responded. “Bozeman’s intact, but they activated the virus there.” Michael was silent.
“Everybody’s dead.” Blake said.
“Yeah.”
“Sorry, Mike,” He could hear Blake cough. Another odd thing. “They didn’t die in vain.”
Michael reached cruising speed. The rough, rocky terrain of Northern Montana became a blur.
“That’s yet to be seen.” He said.
They talked for a few minutes. Their link was secure. It wasn’t based on any equipment aside from the two pieces each of them had with them.
“New York was wiped out,” Blake informed Michael, “Cat Eight.”
“About damn time,” Michael replied. Blake didn’t respond, apparently shocked at Michael’s statement.
“C’mon, Blake,” Michael said, “You and I both know that New York was a diversion,” He flicked a thoroughly-chewed matchstick over the side, where it spun away, “There never should’ve been a resistance hub in New York City, you know that.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“You know I’m right,” Michael replied, “Now we can focus on New Rochester, a bit more defensible, wouldn’t you say?”
“Yeah,” Blake said, “Oh, by the way, I got Adam to Jameson.”
“Good, I figured as much.” Michael said. “You and Jameson both are gonna’ have to meet me in Seattle. Adam will let Jameson know.”
“That’ll be fun,” Blake joked, “Jameson was afraid of his own shadow when I visited.”
“So would we.” Michael said. “It’s easier for us to be brave.”
“Infused or no, I wouldn’t be scared.”
“I would.”
Blake laughed.
“So you scrapped Cyrus, eh?”
“For a hot minute,” Blake said, “Literally.”
“How was our old bastard?” asked Michael, “Any changes from, well, normal?”
Blake paused. He never made an assessment without pausing. He called it letting the wind blow before he spoke. It made him deadly accurate with reconnaissance.
“He’d grown facial hair,” Blake began, “Which is prohibited at Denali. Judging by the amount of growth, he was out for a while; at least a month, if not more.”
“Go on…”
“He came with five other Guard members. They were most likely scouts.”
“What told you that?”
“He killed them all.”
“He could’ve fried for that,” Michael said, “Denali would’ve-,”
“He didn’t give a fuck about Denali,” Blake said, “He had a crazy look in his eyes, Mike. He snapped. He had me in his sights, and he went after the Depot!”
“Yeah, that’s strange,” said Mike. “How did the equipment fare?”
“Some minor damage; no problems with the stuff I got.” Blake said.
Michael heard Daniel stirring in the back seat. He looked back to see him peeking, only pretending to be asleep. God, the kid needs a dad, he thought to himself.
“Hey Blake, I gotta’ go,” he said, “I’ll call ya’ back when I can.”
“Aiight,” Blake said, “Peace.”
“Peace.”
***
Kenny sat in the dark room, still tied to the chair. Borland turned off the light when the men walked out, and Kenny couldn’t see in front of his face. He felt suffocated, but his heavy breathing had more to do with fear than anything else. His life hung in the balance of a conversation of men who all had a reason to want him dead.
He could hear muffled voices in the background. They must have been deliberating right outside the door. Kenny had to have some hope; he wasn’t dead already. The rebels wouldn’t have hesitated to blow his brains through the back of the steel shed they had him in. He couldn’t say he’d behave any differently were he in their place. When Borland asked him his kill number, Kenny tried to hide it. He was ashamed of it. But not three months ago, he considered it the highest measure he could have. The number of desperate, hungry people he had killed. He shivered at the thought that, regardless of the outcome of their deliberations, he deserved to die.
Kenny craned his neck as light poured through the growing crack in the doorway. Roger Borland walked in, turning on the overhead. He was followed by three men, all armed with mechanical rifles. Kenny just stared ahead, preparing for his fate.
“Well, Kenny,” Borland said, “we’re not sure what to do with ya’.” He paced the small of the room. He pulled out a piece of paper from the inside pocket of his coat.
“You died yesterday,” he said, “that’s, of course, according to the Anchorage census sheets.”
“So killing you wouldn’t send a message, except that they didn’t kill you the first time.” He leaned close to Kenny. “We’ll let that be our little secret.” He whispered.
“Same goes for holding you for ransom.” He continued. “I doubt anyone in the perimeter gives a rat’s ass about ya’ now anyway…” Kenny could hear chuckles in the background. They were right. He had no one who cared about him in Anchorage.
“But the problem is this;” Roger said, “In order for us to keep you, we gotta feed you, clothe you, et-cetera. And judging by what we found on ya’, you weren’t prepared for long-term survival.”
“I had food…” Kenny said.
“Oh yeah, that SynMix,” Roger responded, “That lasted one meal, and I’ll apologize for using it to feed our kids instead.”
“No,” Kenny said. He tried to reach the philosophers stone in his coat pocket. They hadn’t taken it from him. Kenny heard the clicks of rifle safeties.
“No, I’m not looking for a weapon, I swear!” Kenny said, “I have a,”
“What?” asked Borland. Kenny paused. The philosopher’s stone might be the only bargaining chip he had, and if he told them about it, they could just take it, and kill him. He’d have to trust them, and he knew they didn’t trust him.
“Whattaya’ got?” asked Borland again.
“A philosopher’s stone.” Kenny said.
“What the hell is that?” one of the men asked.
“It’s a transmuter,” Borland said, “A black-market transmuter.”
“It’s in my pocket.” Kenny said, “I can make SynMix, as much as you need!”
Borland was quiet. He scratched his beard as he continued to pace. He lifted his finger, and Kenny felt hands behind him, untying the rope.
“I want you to make some,” Borland said, “You got four guns on you, three that you can see. Don’t try anything funny.”
“Got it,” Kenny stretched as he got up. He was careful not to make any sudden moves. He fished the philosopher’s stone out of his pocket.
“I need some substrate,” Kenny said, “Anything will do.”
Borland tossed him an iron pot. Borland was fast; he barely had time to catch it.
Kenny held the philosopher stone against the pot, enumerating the ingredients and molecular structure of SynMix. As soon as he had a fix on it, the pot dissolved against the stone, turning into the SynMix that spilled to the floor. He looked around to see the shocked faces of the men. Except Borland; he’d seen them before.
“May I ask where you got it?” He asked.
“Uh,” Kenny said, “I stole it from evidence.”
“Oh really?”
“Well, I never logged it as evidence; same difference.”
“And who was the criminal you stole it from?”
“I don’t remember…” Kenny was lying.
“Try again.”
“His name was Wiley,” Kenny replied, honestly this time, “Wiley Millack” Kenny saw a blur before feeling the butt of a mechanical rifle smash across his jaw.
“That was my uncle, you son-of-a-bitch!” he shouted. He lunged again, but Borland caught him, and held him back.
“What happened to Mr. Millack?” Borland asked.
“They took him to Denali,” Kenny replied, spitting blood, “from there, I don’t know; I really don’t!”
“I believe you.” Borland said. He kept pacing the room, obviously deliberating Kenny’s fate amongst himself. He picked the philosopher stone up off the ground, where it landed when Kenny was struck. He held it up in front of Kenny’s face.
“You do realize that you just gave away your only real bargaining chip, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir” Kenny replied.
“So the question goes back and around to the first question we’ve been asking ourselves since you crossed the perimeter.”
“Should you live or die?” He added, not as a question. He looked about the room. Kenny looked at the faces of the men in the room. He couldn’t get a read on any of them. All stone-faced.
“You could’ve killed me,” Borland said, “Ya’ know, when I escaped. You had me in your sights. And for whatever reason you had, you didn’t.”
“So, in a way I do owe you my life.”
“Nah, it wasn’t,”
“If you want to live, learn to shut up.” He said.
“Sorry.”
“As I was saying,” Borland walked to each gunman, lowering their rifles with his hand, “I owe you my life, technically, and I am a man of honor.”
Kenny was silent. Borland got to the last man, drawing his weapon down.
“So you’ll live.” He said. “You were trained a soldier, and that you’ll remain. You will teach our boys, and myself, everything you know that’s of value. You will use that philosopher’s stone to create food, munitions, weapons; anything you can.”
“And you’ll meet some of the survivors of your kill number.” He added. Then he extended his hand.
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