Fallen World: The Complete Trilogy

by Tom Jones

  Arcades realized what he told Jason and said, “Oh -- yeah. I guess what I’m trying to say is that a lot of people seem to agree with that way of thinking.” The wolf replied, “No, that doesn’t answer my question. Who told you that in the first place?” Arcades exhaled and slowly inhaled before he tried to come up with an answer Jason would find satisfactory, “I don’t think I remember anybody telling me that specifically.” The wolf shrugged, “Why would you feel the need to do that, then? Who is taking you as captive, anyways?” The fox replied relatively quickly compared to his other delayed responses, “I feel like it’s what I deserve.” Jason struggled to understand Arcades’ motives, “Why do you deserve that? Who says you deserve it?” Arcades frowned, “Nobody really told me, but captive foxes don’t deserve to have anything. Not even clothes to wear.”

  Jason shook his head, “Kurt, there’s something wrong here. You were telling us earlier about how we all still have a chance to be redeemed and everything. Why are you telling me that captives don’t deserve anything?” The fox was silent, for he did not know what to say to Jason. The wolf continued, “Kurt, from what you’ve been trying to tell us, Jesus died so that we don’t have to do that. Why would you still say you deserve it when you’ve already been forgiven?” Arcades knew that he could not defend his actions, “I’m sorry Jason. It’s what I need to work on. You’re right, I shouldn’t be doing that. Not for that.” The wolf continued to look at Arcades, but the fox did not want to look at the wolf. Jason could tell that Arcades was embarrassed, “Kurt, you told us earlier that we’ve all got something we need to work on.” The fox slowly nodded, “Yeah?” Jason replied, “Yeah, that’s right. You know, after coming from the Foundation, I don’t really wanna do something like that again.” The wolf took a pause to see if Arcades had a thought to input, but he continued since Arcades stayed silent, “From what I understand, Jesus died so that we can be free. Right?” The fox said, “Yes… He did…” Jason placed his left hand on the fox’s right shoulder, “Then you don’t have to feel bad anymore for whatever it is may be the problem for you. If you’ve already been forgiven, then why should you still be punished? Didn’t you tell us something like that earlier? I know what I tried to do was wrong, but you said that we can move past that because I’ve already asked for forgiveness. Why don’t you feel the same way?”

  “Because I’m a fox,” Arcades replied. Jason shook his head, “Does that really have to do with anything? Kurt, didn’t you tell me that we live in a fallen world?” Arcades said, “Yes…” Jason then said, “The mercy of Jesus is for everyone who accepts it, right?” The fox nodded. Jason removed his hand from the fox’s shoulder, “Then what’s the issue here? You have no reason to feel that way.” Arcades knew that what the wolf was telling him was true, “I shouldn’t have this issue.” The wolf nodded with confidence, “That’s right. You should get that out of your head.” The fox agreed, “I should. It’s not doing me anything good.” After half of a minute of silence, Arcades decided to divulge more information, “Especially since it would’ve just gotten worse over time.” Jason did not understand what Arcades meant, “How would that happen?” Arcades replied, “Well… At one point I thought that foxes shouldn’t deserve the ability to even touch their… parts regardless of if they actually try to do anything or not.” Jason thought back to when they were taken by the Omega Foundation, “You mean you wanted to get one of those cages they put over our cocks?”

  Arcades did not produce any gesture to indicate an answer, but he spoke instead, “It wouldn’t be right. There would be no end. I would keep on going and there would be no end in sight.” Jason said, “Then let’s not start. You didn’t do it, right?” Arcades replied, “I didn’t do it, but -- I wanted to at one point.” Jason reminded the fox of the Foundation, “Well, having it happen to you thanks to the Foundation, is that something you still want to do?” The fox shook his head, “No. Having actually experienced it for real… It’s horrifying.” Jason agreed, “Yeah, I’m with you on that, mate. I’m sure plenty of anthros who went to the Foundation wind up regretting it pretty quickly, but then they realize that it’s too late for them to back out of it.” Arcades said, “But we didn’t want to go to the Foundation. Yet people apparently do want to go to the Foundation. The world that we live in…” Jason replied, “Like you said, we all have our own personal issues that we need to deal with. You told us that we should be thankful that God gave us the time we need to do what we need to do to sort it all out.”

  Arcades smiled for the first time in a little while, “Thanks Jason. You’re right.” The wolf looked over to his left, and he could see that Jackie was already asleep. Arcades noticed that Jason was looking at something, so he looked over to view Jackie as well. The fox spoke, “We should probably go to sleep.” Jason agreed, “We’re going to need some rest if we plan to finally put an end to the Foundation.” Arcades sat back in the bed, “Yeah. Hey, Jason. When this is all over. Let’s give it a rest. Shall we?” The wolf understood what the fox was referring to, “Sure. What happened with the Foundation was plenty for me. I’m about ready to give it up for a long while as well.” The fox elaborated, “I know that I lost some of them when we got taken by the Foundation. They’re probably still lying on the ground somewhere out in Africa. Should we get rid of the rest?” The wolf laid down next to the fox, “I’ll let that be your choice to make. Kinda like what you told us, right?” The fox inhaled, “Yeah, I did say that, didn’t I?” The wolf looked up at the dimly lit ceiling, and he asked the fox another question, “Kurt, can you turn off that lamp?” Arcades looked to his left, and he remembered that the lamp was still on. The fox reached over and turned off the light in the room. The fox spoke to the wolf, “Christ did die so that we should be free. I can’t believe I’ve had this going on for so long.” Jason replied, “You should thank God that you did figure it out within your lifetime, right?” The fox began to close his eyes, “Yes. I will… Jesus came so that we should be set free.” Arcades and Jason both closed their eyes and prepared to go to sleep.

  Chapter 14

  Insider’s Info

  “Sir, you might want to take a look at this,” a CDI analyst alerted the supervisor on duty. The supervisor approached the analyst, “What do you have?” The analyst displayed a map of a northern island part of Canadian territory, “I believe we may have just located the location of another Omega Foundation facility.” The supervisor looked at the map and read the lettering within the digital map of the territory, “Devon Island? Where is this exactly?” The analyst toggled a different view of the island, “It’s an uninhabited island north of mainland Canada, sir.” The supervisor questioned the source of the information, “Who said it’s there?” The analyst opened another window on his computer, “This information leaked out last night. It was dumped onto various image boards. It was just a fairly basic top-down map of the island marked with an Omega Foundation emblem on the eastern coast of the island.” The supervisor looked at the leaked map, “Looks like someone threw that together in Photoshop in less than a minute if you ask me.” The analyst turned to face the supervisor, “Sir, we might’ve found them. I propose that we fly a UAV over the location and see if we can find a base or not.” The supervisor contemplated, but he decided that the cost of losing UAV would not be too harsh if it did not return, “Alright. I’ll ask the nearest CDI base to launch one.”

  Several days later, a CDI base in northern Quebec rolled a gray Northrop Grunman RQ-180 out from an aircraft hangar. The aircraft, lacking a pilot onboard, would be piloted from within a site at the base. As a manned vehicle tugged the UAV to help it taxi on the runway, the pilot of the craft was preparing to fly the mission from within his workspace. The pilot, wearing a standard CDI working uniform, placed a headset over his head and got comfortable in the pilot seat. Within a couple minutes of waiting, the camera output from the aircraft enabled, and the pilot was able to see the asphalt as well as the vehicle tugging the RQ-180 to the main runway he would u
se. When the unmanned vehicle was successfully placed on the runway, the pilot waited at the drone’s controls for the control tower to give him permission to take off.

  While reviewing the flight plan he had on his desk, the pilot heard the voice of the air traffic controller over his headset, “Scythe 1-Actual. Confirm functionality of your aircraft.” The pilot flipped a couple switches in his ground cockpit in order to activate the aircraft’s controls. Once the controls were enabled, Scythe first checked the aircraft’s control surfaces by pulling the stick in multiple directions. Though the RQ-180 did not feature any vertical or horizontal stabilizers, the pilot still pushed in the rudder pedals in order to make sure that the control surfaces on the flying wing were able to properly respond to the input of the pilot. The RQ-180 was completely unmarked, and it did not even feature the tan livery which the majority of CDI aircraft sported. The gray paint was designed to absorb incoming radar signals rather than reflect them, and the airframe was shaped so that radar waves would be deflected away from the transmitting aircraft in order to mask the aircraft from radar detection.

  Once the control surfaces of the RQ-180 were verified to be in working condition, the pilot toggled the aircraft’s engine, and he sat back in his seat as he waited for the stealth plane to complete its startup sequence. The aircraft was fitted with several cameras, and Scythe knew that his mission was to fly the craft over the targeted area while analysts watched and analyzed the feed from the camera. With the drone’s engine finally ready, the pilot replied to the control tower, “This is Scythe 1-Actual. Flight check is complete. Ready for launch. Over.” The control tower replied moments later, “Solid copy. Scythe 1-Actual, you are cleared for takeoff on Runway 1-2. Proceed with the mission. Over.” Scythe disabled the drone’s brakes on the landing gear, “Wilco.” The pilot held the throttle control in his left hand, and he slowly pushed it forwards until he saw that the craft was moving forwards. Scythe pushed the stick forwards more until the craft’s engine was outputting maximum thrust without the use of afterburners.

  The craft rolled down the runway while building up speed, and the pilot looked at his digital airspeed indicator to see that the plane now had plenty of speed to take off from the ground. The RQ-180 was a light aircraft, so it did not require too much thrust to be able to generate lift. Scythe pulled the stick towards himself, and the lightweight plane easily lifted itself from the ground and began gaining altitude. Since the pilot was flying the plane from the ground, he was not feeling any of the forces associated with actually piloting an aircraft from the cockpit. When the pilot looked back at his flight statistics, he noticed that the plane was moving fast and high enough that the takeoff flaps and landing gear need not stay deployed. With the push of a few buttons, the pilot retracted both the flaps and the landing gear, and the decreased drag allowed the RQ-180 to accelerate even faster in the air. Using a GPS system, the pilot aligned his course to match the course blotted in the flight plan, and he waited until the plane was at a high enough altitude before toggling the auto-pilot to control the aircraft while he would wait for it to arrive at Devon Island. With the unmanned aircraft now flying itself, the pilot sat back and took a sip from his drink. All he had to do now was wait and make sure that the RQ-180 was still maintaining its course.

  Zero inspected a couple blue-tier anthros holding XMP-1s in his office. The Site Director from Facility Two was standing next to the Overseer, “When do we plan on deploying them?” Zero replied to the human, “We’ve already deployed some of them.” Two did not know of the blue-tiered anthros ever being used in Omega ISG operations, “Really? When was that?” Zero stared into the gas masks the anthros wore as he replied, “A month and some change ago. I gave a couple of these to Facility Four, and they ended up using them in a staged terrorist attack on a CDI base in the UK. They were trying to kill the fox who leaked the information about the Foundation’s doings.” Two slowly nodded, “This all goes back to that one fox?” Zero turned around to face Two, “That’s right. He broke into Facility Eleven, then Facility Five, and he finally broke into Facility Twenty-Four before he was caught by one of the other ISG special forces units.” Two remembered One’s demise, but he knew that Arcades was not the one ultimately responsible for the death of One, “How did he escape from Facility One?” Zero did not reveal all of the details, “Some oversights.” Two did not entirely like the Overseer’s explanation, “Oversights? Is that how he came here all bloodied up?” Zero shrugged, “Something like that. It doesn’t really matter anymore. The Foundation doesn’t really need to keep running those facilities anyways.” Two was confused, “What?” Zero looked back over at the two blue-tiered anthros, “You see these two anthros?” Two looked at the anthros, but he was not sure what Zero was trying to tell him, “Yeah. What’s special about them?” Zero replied to the Site Director, “These two anthros were not born… naturally.” Two did not entirely understand what Zero told him, “Well, yeah, I wouldn’t call any of the anthro children born into the Foundation natural, either.”

  Zero could tell that Two did not understand him, “No, no, no. You’re missing the point. These two anthros, do you know which facility they came from?” Two studied the anthros, and he remembered something the Overseer told him mere moments ago, “Facility Four?” Zero shook his head, “Nope. All of the blue-tiered anthros were made here.” Two did not know of Facility Zero’s true operations, “I thought the XVP-1 was being built here and that’s supposed to be it.” Zero stepped away from the anthros and began to pace about the room, “While not every Omega facility holds anthros, this one does a lot more than construct Dreadnoughts.” Two used his eyes to track the Overseer as he continued to pace, “Do you ever wonder where the DNA which Foundation facilities collect from the anthros go? Or perhaps all of the facilities which collect DNA for that matter?” Two had a feeling Zero was alluding him to something, “Does it go here?” Zero paused in his walking cycle, and he nodded, “Yes. Precisely, that’s right. Do you know what we do with that DNA?” Two stood in silence, and he waited for Zero to continue for him. Two was not too fond of the game he felt Zero was playing with him. Zero spoke after a moment of silence, “We have successfully been able to create anthros here. We no longer need to take anthros in from elsewhere. We can make them all here. We have successfully been able to synthetically create egg and sperm cells from multitudes of DNA you guys have provided. Before we could only modify the samples we received, but now we can make new ones synthetically.” Two shook his head, “How come I didn’t know about this?” Zero’s face morphed into a creepy grin, “You guys don’t need to know that.” Two was both confused and concerned by the Overseer’s response, “Who knows, then?” Zero continued looking at Two, “None of you do.” Two was still confused, “Why did you tell me this now, then?” Zero’s grin became increasingly unsettling, “I’ve waited this long to see the reaction of an Omega higher-up. Somebody who has worked with the Foundation and has seen it all over the years. It’s amazing how clueless you guys really are.”

  Two looked over to the door he came in, and he could see that the two anthros were now standing in front of it holding their XMP-1s in a high ready position. The human’s face went from confusion to fright, “What are you doing?” Zero began to pace again, and he made sure to keep his distance from Two, “I’m not doing anything. What you need to know is that The Illuminati has decided that the Omega Foundation has fulfilled its purpose successfully.” Two looked at the door again, and the anthros now pointed their rifles at the human. Zero spoke again, “The NSS did more than you think they did. We had several ISG members sacrifice themselves in order to allow the Foundation to be revealed. Not to the general public, but to a specific corporation. The corporation which has managed to produce aircraft carriers, and amassed a gigantic private army. We’re talking about Castle Defense Industries. We wanted as many deaths as possible in order to deplete their numbers. We have many government officials on our side, but CDI’s nature was problematic for us. It
worked out for us since the general public knows basically nothing, and we were able to take the lives of many CDI personnel. Private organizations shouldn’t have that kind of power.”

  Two shook his head in disbelief, “What? If you’ve been able to clone anthros, then why did you have the NSS capture a bunch of them?” Zero shrugged, “It’s simple, really. I want you to think about it this way: Why do anthros have the bad reputation they have?” Two replied with the most obvious answer, “They behave worse than animals. Their primal urges overwhelm them.” Zero smiled and nodded, “Excellent. Do you know why that’s important?” Two gave the answer he thought, “Because those urges can be harnessed by somebody wanting to use them? We do sell anthros to the financial elite of the world.” Zero knew that Two was only stating what he thought the Foundation was supposed to do in the first place. The Overseer shook his head, “No, I don’t think so. Anthros are some of the biggest sinners on this planet.” Two did not understand why the Overseer mentioned this specific detail, “What?” Zero grinned, “Sinners go to hell, and that’s exactly where we want them. The more blood we spill, the more power we have.” Two did not believe what he was hearing, “Are you telling me that the downfall of the Foundation was planned all along?”

  Zero chuckled, “Heh, it took you that long to figure it out? It was all staged by the Majestic 12 and Knights Templar in the first place! We have no use for you Site Directors anymore. Nobody will ever find this place. When the time is right, the Illuminati will be able to usher in the New World Order with these anthros. We also don’t need the ISG anymore. The Majestic 12 and Knights Templar are going to use these anthros not only as an army, but to please us as well. That’s all these bastards are good for anyway.” Two stood in shock, unable to comprehend the scheme,“What?” Zero looked over to the two anthros by the door and nodded to them, but he held up his hand for a second. The anthros flipped the safeties off their XMP-1s and aimed at Two, prepared to fire. Two heard the noise of the fire-selector switch, and he turned around to look at the two anthros. While the human was distracted, Zero removed a hidden dagger he had concealed, and he quickly snuck up and slit Two’s throat. Two’s eyes widened, and he grabbed his throat to try and stop the bleeding, but the cut was made way too deep. Two collapsed to the ground, choking on his blood, and Zero whispered in his ear with an ominous voice, “This is a sacrifice.” Two’s eyes widened upon hearing Zero, but he lost consciousness within the coming moments. Zero looked down at the spilled blood and chuckled, “Hah. The more blood we spill, the better.”