The Good Death Box Set: A Hard SciFi Science Fiction Series

by Doug McGovern

  Dexter closed his eyes. It was beautiful and terrible, marking the end of all things.

  *****

  Chapter 12

  Kingsley woke up on his back in a forest. He blinked three times, feeling like his insides had been put through a trash compactor. Jumping transversals between points A and B weren’t this hard on him in the past few months. He’d gotten off rather easy with the whole transition from human being to being a godlike genetic-serum test subject.

  The sun pierced through his heightened vision. Spinning with the force of helicopter blades, he felt the weight of his many holographic double forms moving through the airways surrounding him, finding places to light. It was like his soul was snowing on the pines that swayed in an unnatural wind above him. He tasted ashes and felt fire shooting up somewhere not far from his feet. This jarred his eyes open.

  Kiara bowed over him, struggling to breathe.

  “Hey, Doctor.” She smiled, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

  Kingsley took Kiara’s hand and pressed her fingers to his lips. He closed his eyes, on the verge of tears. After all that had happened in a short few months, especially the most recent incident resulting in her injury, he didn’t know if he could press on much further. The world coming to an end wasn’t worth losing the only woman he was certain he loved for real.

  “Kiara…” He tried to sit up, but she leaned against him where he couldn’t.

  “Wait. Do you know where we are?” Kiara paused, reluctant to bring it home to him. Kingsley nodded.

  “This place is kind of ingrained into me now. The smell of the trees. That and I can feel Jessop Riveaulx’s beady little eyes on me from all the way over there.” Kingsley eased himself up. He looked to where Jessop had collapsed against a blazing tree-trunk. Jessop turned to look his way, grimacing.

  “Welcome home to Centralia, Doctor Kingsley. Looks like we’ll be engaging in some pagan sacrifices, whether we like it or not.” The altered boy nodded to his siblings to forge deeper in the woods, leaving Kingsley and Kiara alone to collect themselves.

  Kiara eased Kingsley to sitting and clutched his face in her hands.

  “Normally, such a transition from a place like Cuba to Pennsylvania wouldn’t be such a difficult jump for you, Doctor,” said Kiara. “You adapted better to the serum than any of the others so far, with little side effects and no effect on your mind. I have to thank you. Because of you using your enhanced senses to hold me magnetically in place on your shoulders, I was able to survive the trip. But that was a great strain on you, which is why you feel like you do now.”

  Kiara smiled sheepishly. No one in her life had ever gone to such lengths to keep her safe or help her heal. It meant more than Kingsley could guess. The look in her eyes, the broken look that was lost now because of what her sister had done, was enough to drive Kingsley over the edge. He cleared his throat.

  Gently, he reached and kissed Kiara. She collapsed against his chest for a moment, still exhausted by the sky elevators.

  For a moment, they laid on the burning forest floor watching the sky. It was singed a dull diesel fuel and amber shade. Kingsley groaned, realizing that his life had taken on the nature of a horror movie. He wondered how long the saga would go on before it ended.

  He was drawing in a deep breath to say something when a flock of frenzied bats tore over them, sliding like razors through the trees. Splinters scattered like shrapnel in a war zone. Their screams sent a throbbing into Kingsley’s altered bones. So cold. So filled with trepidation in the wake of whatever it was that he was walking into.

  After the bats came vicious crows, that’s beaks were filed to fine points as if instilled with brass. They caught the bats by feet and tails, grappling them and tearing them viciously like fighting dogs, tossing them to the ground. Blood splattered in hard droplets like a hailstorm. Kingsley rolled over atop Kiara, covering her head from the shower, from the onslaught of nature.

  “What the?!” Kingsley couldn’t finish his sentence. His eyes went wide. The air began to fill with tiny gnats, so many that they stuck to each other’s sides, filling the air with blackness.

  “It’s Medusa. When we broke open the Altar… when we contacted the other side, it must have broken through the universal locks she placed between the dimensions via human sacrifice. That would have sent a sort of mania into nature that would make the animals react with malice.” Kiara’s eyes floated upward. She swallowed, not wanting to believe what she was seeing.

  “Locks? How could Leona put locks on the universe? That sounds like something a wicked witch would do in a fairytale. I don’t understand.” Kingsley’s voice was drowned out by a sudden influx of cardinals. Their blood red wings beat the sky, stirring the flames of Centralia’s eternal fire. They swallowed up the gnats, bodies bloating they engorged themselves so rapidly. The sparks caught in a rush, coursing over their bodies even as their insides ruptured. Their screams were muffled by the explosive force of gasses rolling up from sudden holes opening and closing like strobe lights in the sky. The woods were quiet again.

  “If the entire mystery of Caroline Riveaulx’s fall and the rise of Leona Kelley could be explained, then mankind would have mastered science and philosophers would run out of questions.” Kiara paused and looked down her nose, contemplating deeply how she should explain this to him.

  “The murders. Her methods of murder. The collective consciousness itself. It started with me you see, Doctor? I was her first sacrifice. Those people she managed to use black scientific arts to contact in other dominions required blood sacrifices to continue their lessons. She couldn’t pay them enough with the blood of bulls. It would need to be virgins too. Who better than the little sister that stopped at nothing to reform her?” Kiara looked at her feet.

  “So, that’s why. Professor Lucia taught her how to communicate between the worlds. When she realized that he would hold her accountable to him, she used his science against him to make bonds. Your blood was the first to make these electrical data bond. It’s like an encryption on the universe’s complex digital photonic code?” Kingsley felt like he was taking a stab in the dark.

  “It’s more complex than all that I can tell you, Kingsley. You are right and yet you are still aways from the mark. There is a place in the other dimension. A place of courts and accountability. She first fell from their graces when she kept the corpse of the man she loved rather than fully sacrificing it.” Kiara paused, looking over her shoulder afraid that the creatures would erupt into another frenzied attack.

  “The boy we called Dante? Keith Fulton was his real name. His family corners the market on more than just automotive companies and a few military science projects, Doctor. They are also part of deep secret society activity, stretching all the world over. Through this Luciferian prodigy union of Dante and Leona, they were able to develop their own. It was a match made in Hell if you will. They were going to fund a secret wedding for their two young think tanks, deep in the heart of Florence.”

  Kiara stopped again, trying to clear her throat. She was struggling with this story. There was something that she needed to tell Kingsley but lacked the strength to utter. He took a single pace forward, taking her hands firmly in his own. Whatever it was, however dark, he needed to know it. If they were ever to have a future together, he would have to atone for the sins and shadows of their past.

  “But the lies and the half-truths and secrets come early in the wee hours of love and fidelity, don’t they, Kingsley? Leona had always loved Dante, even before she knew about the Fulton family’s intentions for their union. She made advances on him many times in our misspent youth. His excuse was always that he was an asexual and that he didn’t want to be defined by his father’s definition of civil union. What he failed to tell her was that he used his body for pagan rites to draw DNA samples from as many different people as he could. He was a serial murderer/ rapist in New Orleans all those years ago. All that he extracted from his night runs were translated to the Fulton family’s DN
A sample asset holdings. In medical plazas all across the Planet.” Kiara stumbled. Her shoulders sagged now.

  “Leona was jealous enough to agree to his murder but guilty of the same sins. This interdimensional tutor she and Dante acquired through the device the Fulton company exacted in the back property of the old Centralia-locale home place became a lover to her as well. Eventually, he also became her master. He commanded her that if she wanted to become the tyrant she so dreamed of being, then she would have to do away with Dante. That’s why she sacrificed him like she did. It had to be elaborate. It had to be something thrilling that she wouldn’t be caught doing by the New Orleans justice system.” Kiara frowned, shaking her head.

  “The deal was, though, she had to surrender the inward pieces to her tutors for further study. Instead, she used pieces of it to make the Geryon and she began testing it with her serum prototypes to make doubles, to make her toys, you know... Her teachers contacted her, from a place they identified as the Poseidon Gates. They were going to use technology that they hadn’t used since the time of the Mayan Empire, or so they claimed. They had given her the increase in her knowledge to match her ambition. Now they were going to take it off the earth, take her from the earth. They were going to bind her in their torment prisons. Unless she paid for it. With something she prized.” Kiara’s lips began to tremble and turn blue now that Kingsley’s eyes showed he understood. She clenched her fists, talking faster.

  “The original ritual had my body die and my consciousness trapped in those Poseidon Gates, somewhere imprisoned in their torture chambers. I was then revived to act as a minister of their will on earth, Leona’s personal assassin but also the parole officer that would act on impulses of my radio extension consciousness delivered from another dimension. In the event that she was to step out of line again, I was instilled with the heightened instinct to be able to do away with her, by mirror neuron activity. Meaning I can use my own electromagnetic enhancement, that only surfaces when they allow it to, to link onto her conscious brain stimuli and drag it back with me into the Void I was taken soulfully into. Do-do you understand what I’m saying, good Doctor?” Kiara was on the verge of tears now.

  Kingsley stumbled, knees going weak. This was like all his terrible nightmares coming true. How could she possibly expect him to accept what she was saying? How cruel could she be?

  “I would have prepared you. Told you, if only I knew. Time and forgetting… Fear and torment and acting on the zombie impulses of orders both from the She-Hitler and from elsewhere that I thought were my own consciousness, that’s why I didn’t. The things I’ve done ever since they made me, you know, this way… Oh, Kingsley, you never truly got to know me! I wish you could. I wish I could make this easier. Time borrowed is time not long spent, you know?” Kiara was crying now. She shook her head and waved her hands trying to explain.

  “My consciousness began waking up the night that…that you were changed. Then, only a while before, when the Andromeda hurt me, umm…It came back like Noah’s deluge. I don’t have long. You made Frankenstein your intended bride, yes? Now will you walk me to the Altar? I’ve never spoken so plainly with you before now, but now we don’t have time. Will you love me until death do us part?” Kiara extended a shaking hand.

  All the world was spinning now. This was the shadow of the man he’d been come back to haunt him with an avenging angel’s fervor. Kingsley took Kiara’s hand and pulled her closer to himself.

  “I’m sorry, that’s not long enough. You and I both know that there are many sins to atone for. The DNA Leona passed to me when she…I have a feeling that it’s the reason how I’ve managed to do so well with this serum because she was already under its influences and the whole collective consciousness thing triggered some sort of immunity. If my theory is correct, you’ll be taking a passenger along on your journey to the dark.” Kingsley smiled. Kiara’s eyes fluttered. Her bottom lip twisted over her teeth.

  “Where I’m going…There could be no foreseeable redemption. The fires never cease there and the worm dies not.” Kiara’s eyes were taking on a strange discoloration as already the darkness was calling her back into its eternal throng.

  “I’d rather spend Eternity in your hell than in someone else’s heaven. The world is a closing book for us, baby.” Kingsley bowed closer to her, cupping her chin in his hand. He kissed her again, holding his breath. He closed his eyes.

  However this ended, wherever they ended up, he was ready. Ready for her and for any future that still had her in it.

  *****

  Chapter 13

  Leaf Manson woke up with voices in his head and the arches of the Florence Cathedral looming above him. He swallowed, listening to their words.

  We have to fight. All we have left depends on what we do now. If you’re with me, get rolling.

  Jane’s subconscious was talking to him in the collective pool. He felt the syllables of her hidden thoughts like a buzzword in his stomach, egging him on.

  Because we do know each other, Leaf. From before. You and Derek, a long time ago helped me and dad and Timlin. Remember when they called Leona the Comare? When your dad was ‘murdered’? It’s been 10 years, broken promises, empty hopes and a lot of grief later. But you’re still my engineering genius. You and Derek still have the power between the two of you. Timlin’s here. I’m here. We are all one in the light of our conscious choice. Act now. Stop them before the snake rises….

  Her thoughts were cut off in the recesses of Leaf’s mind. Something seemed to be blocking her words. A dull, annoying ringing, like the sound of a teaspoon against the edge of a wineglass. Leaf cringed, fighting the urge to scream at what came next.

  It started as a steady dripping, increasing the hollow ringing sound. Blood dripped dead center of his forehead, followed by large drops of many colored paints. Leaf leaned up, almost blind by a sudden intense light. He swung out his hand, groping along the floor until he reached Derek’s arm.

  Hey? Can you hear me, man?

  Yeah. Where are we? Derek groaned from where he was. He was fighting his natural seismology with all he had in him now that he’d dispensed with the headset the Altered children had given him to stabilize it.

  I think this is a church. Leaf felt his breath catch. His father’s voice interrupted their internal conversation. It had taken on a depth and tenor that shook the walls of this place to their fiber, sending the bloody rain down in sheets.

  “It’s strange how our gods spring from our machines. One day, we think we hold the world in fists and clenching fingers. All the while, it’s sand, seeping through the hourglass of trendsetting academia and commercial opinion.” Cyrus stepped out of the light. His hands were bound by clear electrical fields that looked like heat waves emitting from his palms. Leaf and Derek hauled each other up, exchanging a confused glance.

  “You made it all possible, the war that’s about to go down on the streets of this unsuspecting Italian city. I swear I had no part in this division of it all. I was just building the future. I was profiting from plans that were meant to mislead overly-ambitious think tanks and never actually see the rise of human capacity. Then, my own kid steps straight out of the pages of mythology to haunt me forever with my fraudulent ideals. This is where it ends, Leaf. He brought us here. The maker of this madness.” Cyrus held his hands out, orbiting. Only now did Leaf and Derek see that the sonic vehicle technology they had raided the Fulton Empire of circled in midair about them.

  “You…They sent you out to fight us to distract from the overall master plan.” Leaf clenched his fists. They burst into flames. Derek looked sidelong at him and held out his arms, allowing his tremors to roll in waves over the flooring.

  Cyrus smiled.

  “Son, you’ve only barely begun to learn the depth of my depravity. Of all of this. The Fultons are more than a few miserly moguls, make no mistake.” Cyrus grinned, electric sparks projected with bullet weight from his lips. Derek positioned himself in front of Leaf, spinning his arms in a
Thai-Chi fluid crescent that deflected each of the projectiles.

  “It doesn’t matter anymore,” said Leaf, and took a step forward to stand at Derek’s side. The Captain’s eyes widened, anticipating Leaf’s thoughts before he’d even thought them.

  “Oh?” Cyrus thought that this meant Leaf was giving up. Then he saw how the fire was rising in a new white aura around him like it never had before. It was gathering an intensity so great that his form began to flash, reflecting himself in trace images that filled the air like water marks and quickly dissipated.

  “I know how this ends, Dad. I have known all along. It doesn’t matter what you threaten. I’m going to get justice against you, now or in another life.” Leaf’s eyes flashed and turned white, shooting out all the colors of the prism-like tears in a fan-shape across his features. Derek stared at him, transfixed, realizing what he was saying.

  “We’re just channels. Conductors, to be specific, Cyrus. We know the cost of focusing the Andromeda’s energy to our own bodies, but we don’t care. Bringing you down is worth the risk to us, here or hereafter. Whatever is waiting on the other side is just going to have to get ready.” Derek smiled. He balled his hands into fists and tilted his head back.

  Energy began to crackle and roll from his heels to his forehead like the streams of a shower flowing in reverse. He laughed as his tremors were isolated to his own form. Doubles of him split from him and ran in a tight cyclone shape around his person, beat to death by the isolated quakes emitted from his heels.

  “I’m surprised at you, Captain Matheson. If you have no material profit in mind, my son isn’t worth much effort to keep around. He’s like a machine with his calculations. This that you’re setting yourself up for is worse than dying. He isn’t even worth dying for.” Cyrus looked his son up and down, brows furrowing, nostrils curling in disdain. Derek glared at him, sending transparent shock waves through the air between them that knocked Cyrus off his balance.