I remain, I remain, I remain. Lucia’s voice echoed in bubbling whispers from the place at Poseidon’s knees where water became ice. Kiara looked up. That spray came crashing down. It clothed her in frost and the tears of the oppressed people under the feet of this self-made idol.
Kingsley paused in the spray. He could see it now, clearly as the daylight trapped in the trident’s grate. Lucia was a cheap imitation of this power, and so was Leona. In the end, they were all this sculpture. It passed itself off as solid gold, formidable as the dawn from a distance. When they got closer, they could see that the ribs of this statue were an iron and clay mixture. Cheap imitations of the great wealth this Order boasted.
Kiara turned back. The voice grew louder, but they could scarcely hear it. They were lost in the moment where they had been victorious. Perhaps not over gods and kings, but over themselves. When they had begun their journey together, they could not have done this. Now, when the moment of previous pure dread and unwillingness had come they had only peace.
“Lucia is the priest. His power is caught up in doctrines. His doctrine is that poison in the glass is the greatest blessing of an empire. If I go down, I will take all his secrets with him. He will go down too, but his name never will. In a way, I pay with my silence. My eternal, infinite…” Kiara went to the smoothed jet stone bed. They had built this for her, programmed it with the chemically reconstructed data that had shaped this whole world, a long time ago. Before she and Kingsley had even met, he’d laid her down on it. She had died once, long ago. The life she’d known by her good doctor’s side had only been the life of a dreamer and of walking in dreams.
Kingsley stepped forward. He held his breath.
“Tell me…What happens exactly? How does it work?” Kingsley reached up and touched the altar.
“You remember how I drank the blood of Leona victims to absorb their injuries at her hand? I must now drink Lucia’s blood and absorb the sins of the order. The malicious power of ideals and the strength of their mind theory will fall into everlasting, confounded slumber with me. My comatose will be the tomb of collective consciousness.” Kiara slid her hand along the bottom of the Altar. She produced a chalice. One that was filled with a black liquid, a syrup so dark it burned the eyes to look at.
“This is the neurotoxin that ends it, that in some dark sense revived and suspended and controlled me through my years. Now I will drink and I will sleep.” Kiara nodded.
“We will.” Kingsley stood up on the Altar along with her. He clutched the other side of the cup. He would drink first. It was the only end that made sense.
“No one should have to bear the weight of darkness on their own. I will shift some of the weight to me.” Kingsley smiled. Kiara nodded.
They heard the execution drums from high above. Startled, they turned to face as far up the Poseidon as they could see. Lucia’s paralyzed body was encrusted in the chest. They couldn’t see past that point but they knew that the music came from the shoulders.
“I wonder what’s happening up there…If they came to justice. If she took out her fury on all those people her hatred burned against and if that hate, at last, destroyed her. Caroline Riveaulx created herself. Only she could bring about her own end.” Kiara turned and studied Kingsley.
“Give me the cup now. However it went, will soon not matter. Let’s bury the dead. Close this book.” Kingsley nodded. Kiara paused. She hadn’t wanted to die. Yet now, now that she had him beside her…
“I didn’t want to be alone in the end. That was always my worst fear.” She smiled. A cracked, incomplete smile that said she had many wasted years behind her that she would never be able to redeem.
“You aren’t alone. What do you think Altars are for, hmm? See, by going into the dark with you, I will, in essence, have married you forever.” Kingsley smiled. There was a commotion sound above them. A loud crack. Sudden heat! The Poseidon’s belly shook under it. Water broke from its eyes, from the tip of the trident, even from its spine.
“So, do you, Kiara Riveaulx take me to be your husband, as death now unifies us?” Kingsley held the cup to his lips. It was now or never.
Kiara knelt down on the Altar.
“I do.”
Kingsley nodded. He lifted the cup to his lips. The liquid contracted the blood vessels in his throat so violently his Adam’s apple fractured. He groaned, drinking exactly half. He marveled that there were fill lines inside of the chalice. It was as if someone knew this day would come.
Kiara stood up. She eased Kingsley to his knees and took the cup from his hands. Finally, she looked to the sky and toasted it.
“Caroline, hear me. For now, I am the destroyer and savior of worlds. The tides have shifted.” Kiara knocked back the chalice. It slid down her throat, constricting her insides so violently that her collar bones were thrust from her body like swords. She gurgled and landed on Kingsley’s chest.
A few seconds remained of conscious life. The last thing Dr. Kingsley would ever see, in life or in death, was Kiara Riveaulx’s eyes searching his. He reached up and kissed them closed. Kissed her.
The floods came tearing down from on high. Whatever had happened in the world around them no longer mattered. They were asleep before they ever knew that they had lived. It was over before it had even begun.
The Altar shook, with the mighty seizure of a demon leaving the body. The chains placed on this world and in Kiara’s soul were breaking loose with her mighty ending. Soon the destruction would overtake all the shapes and shadows of this place. The Fulton Order that had plagued the generations and had risen to its zenith on She-Hitler’s wings would never rise again.
I REMAIN. I REMAIN. I REMAIN. Lucia’s mantra screamed into the water, into every element of the air, demanding and audience. The waters swallowed him and his empire up. For all of his sins, for all of the seeds and deeds he’d sown to grow his power, he was no more than a watermark on the Universe’s memory now. Thus always to tyrants.
*****
Chapter 21
Leona stood surrounded by the voices in her head. She was trapped now, mastered by the same technology that had once given her power.
“So, this is the end for us?” Dante stood beside her. He was looking out over the world they’d created and framed. Taylor was going to make them walk the plank in a matter of speaking. Straight for the Poseidon’s throat. There they would absorb the nuclear radiation core that made for the statute’s heart and had fueled this place, making it all possible. It would explode. The supernova would mark the official final moment of She-Hitler and Dante and their poisoned love. They wouldn’t just die. They would no longer exist.
Leona turned as much as she could on the mime manipulation she’d been forced into. She swallowed.
“You said it yourself once, a long time ago when I was only a foolish child in pigtails trying to impress a boy. ‘We are a darkness a sickness at our core, but our edges are beautiful, unstained.’ We were all satin without. We were Romeo and Juliet of a god’s stage. There is no other way it could end that would make any sense.” Leona’s eyes filled with tears.
“You’re crying? You? The murderess? The destroyer of whole civilizations?” Dante was appalled.
“The woman…The woman that loved you.” Leona shook her head. These weren’t tears of self-pity or regret. Now she was smiling. They were tears of pure joy. Dante was horrified, taking a single step back. Her passion was undeniable when it broke forth.
“Caroline…” Taylor stepped up, jaw squared. Leona looked at him, confused. This was her hour. It had only just begun!
“It’s time.” Taylor thrust the keys forward. Each former lover stood back from the other, forced to bow by the power in the key.
“Before I go…Tell me, who will be the one tasked with cleaning up the confetti? I certainly was quite the one for spectacles, wasn’t I?” Leona giggled and flounced her hair. The closer she came to the ending, the more it affected her behaviors. Animated, her body language screamed for the
encore she knew she wouldn’t receive. She might cease from being an entity today at their hands. But they would remember her.
“I won’t give you the pleasure of knowing.” Taylor swung the tuning fork, standing Leona’s spine up rigid. She howled with laughter.
“See this, you little rodents? I want you to remember mummy dear. Remember your mommy, eh? You will be my life and my disciples in a world to come. My genius is in your veins. You have a gift thus. Use it for humanities bettering! Be the gods! You must find a way or no one will!” Leona raved now, foaming spit at the mouth.
Reilly sighed. “Maybe that’s true. My only regret is that they won’t have a nuke like this to microwave me in should I crack up like you.” Reilly cleared her throat. She was trying and failing to pretend that all of this didn’t unnerve her.
Taylor drove the tuning forks in the ground once She-Hitler and Dante had reached the end of each hallway. The biker gang grabbed a hold of every EMP weapon they could find. They detonated their electron charges into either arm of the Poseidon. Then they sealed off the doors with boulders from the mountain wall.
Knowing that she wouldn’t escape, or live to fight another day, Leona embraced the full-scale swing of her madness. There was one last person to frustrate that madness on. She turned to him with all her fury.
“Hold me while the night is young, my love!” Leona dove for Dante. They saw through the charred bones of Poseidon’s breast that she tore into him demonically, exacting all her rage upon him. It was mercy for Dante when at last the charges reached Poseidon’s deep set heart. A fire rose in a great pillar of white up the statues’ throat. Leona, Dante, and Lucia would all be killed at the heart of the god they’d made.
The onlookers were caught up in the landslide of the mountains as they melted away like cigarette ash in the wake of nuclear destruction. The sand that had once been a stone left them lying on ground level, gaping up with uncertainty. There was graveyard silence. Then Poseidon’s head exploded like the cap on a fizz-erupted soda. It shot into the air a full Mt. Everest’s length and came sailing to the earth again like the sun dropped from the sky.
Poseidon’s body wreathed and danced, a silent waltz to the dark lovers that had created him. At last, his knees gave out and he slid backward into the icy river beneath him.
“And now it’s finished.” Taylor treaded water, searching for his family. He pulled Reilly close to his chest and tucked another protective arm around Kendra. What happened next was solely up to whether or not their friends succeeded.
*****
Chapter 22
This was where the road ended. They had gone as far as they could go.
Jane stopped. She closed her eyes.
The ice broke all around them, thundering as Leona’s Great Fish stirred in the belly of the deep. Dexter felt entrails knocked loose. He was pretty sure that his knees were only held up from collapsing by the electron voltage in the air.
“I can’t do this…” Jane stopped, hands out. She was dizzy, eyes wide. Fire swept the way of sorrow. Dexter looked up and saw Kingsley and Kiara climbing to the Great Altar.
“Nobody said you had to. This was your choice.” Dexter took a step closer. He put his hands out for Jane.
All this time, she had been strong. Made of steel and nuclear energy. She had held the world upon her shoulders for them. Everything she’d ever been asked to face, torment, death, hell. She’d gone without complaint, without even batting and eye. Had she made mistakes? Yes. Had she failed, to be honest with Dexter and fallen into despair? More than once. Was she stronger than her demons? That was still to be determined.
Jane had never once balked at anything she was asked to do. Now, faced with this ultimate choice, with her spirit dangling above the teeth of oblivion, her strength finally began to falter. She realized for the first time how impossible the odds were stacked against her.
Jane shuddered. Her hands quaked, terrified. She nodded, blinking back tears. She’d given up her youth, her sanity. She’d died a terrible death and been subjected to the monstrosity of the Andromeda. She’d been her own worst nemesis and conqueror, yet she’d come through. Hadn’t she paid enough? Did she deserve to suffer anymore?
“A choice? I have…” Jane groaned. She looked at Dexter desperately.
“You shouldn’t have to die with me. I might not have a choice. It might be too late for that. But you…” Jane swallowed, rubbing her wrists in between her fingers until there were red welts on them.
Dexter took one long stride forward and took her hands.
“You are my choice. You have always been my choice.” Dexter pressed his forehead against Jane’s. She swallowed a loud hiccup, straining to see if Kingsley and Kiara had made their way to the Altar yet.
“I just— They have a reason. They have things to atone for. Dex, none of this was really my fault.” Jane, for the first time, owned her innocence.
“I know.” Dexter smoothed her cropped golden hair out of her eyes. She drew a shuddering breath. Chewing her lips, she debated the last hardest thing she had ever been asked to do. The Great Fish yawned bellow her. Dauntless Jane stifled a scream. Dexter somehow retained his calm. Only because this time she needed him to be the strong one.
“I said I wouldn’t leave you…I meant it. I meant every word. Jane Lewis, I love you. If you don’t hear another word I say today, please hear that and believe it. Let it give you strength. Strength to decide for yourself if this is worth it to you. It’s okay. You have a choice. You can walk away.” Dexter felt tears in his own eyes now.
“I just…For so long. It was you I was protecting. You and Lindsey and Ivy. Leaf, Derek all of them. It was Dad I was trying to make proud. It was our town and our friends. It was my life I was trying to save by losing it. Now everything I ever loved could die in this fire...I will lose so much more than…”
Jane gnashed her teeth. She looked at Dexter and studied him truly for the first time in a long time.
“Dex, I can see them.” She looked up. His eyes followed her gaze. There along the last Athena’s Ring they gathered. Myriads of humans throughout the generations who had been afflicted by the secret order the Fulton Empire had financed. They crept like shadows to the edges of the rocks. Maybe they were only shadows. Holographic images created by Leona’s twisted justice system. They were as a real as every other spirit here. Dexter’s breath caught.
Victims of Hitler’s Holocaust had gathered here. They wore uniforms pasted with the Fulton crest. Burns on their child-sized bodies and machine scars told Dexter and Jane that they were inmates of one of the Order’s special camps. Their dark eyes shone in the arctic twilight begging. Jane couldn’t turn back now! Who would grant them justice if not for her?
Child-soldiers from the blood diamond war in Africa stepped forward. Their scrawny bodies were slashed and branded with the Fulton crest. They had been victims of their enterprise. Who would bring their enemies to ruin if Jane didn’t walk this last line? She was the only one who had the courage it would take. She was their Andromeda.
All throughout the generations that the Order of Lucia had plagued the human world, people had fallen under tyranny. They were marked with its ashes, drenched in its hate. How many times had they climbed this same fateful mountain, praying for the day when someone would stand for them? There might be no one who could save them. Maybe there was no one who would ever come up from this fire. Yet who would stand? Who would say no more? Someone had to put down their heel on the head of this snake. Someone had to crush the serpent where it would never rise again.
Jane looked at Dexter. Her eyes were wide. She caught her breath, jaw gaping. Her face drained of color until she and this arctic world were the same shade. She shook her head at first no. But it slowly turned to yes. Yes, she would be the one to go before them. Yes, she would lay it all on the line. Because they as one, as humans…The sanctity of their life or their right to be was worth it all.
“I just need to know one thing.” Jane gulped
. She became calm. Let out a puff of air and straightened herself. Dexter nodded. Anything for her…Even this horrible ending.
“If we had forever, and I was the one…Would you have married me? Would you have called me by your name if there was anything left to put on my stone? There will never be a grave now. No memory…I thought. Well, if you…I could do this if I knew the answer.” Jane was crying shamelessly now. There was no shame in being afraid in the face of the impossible. There was no bitterness in her tears. Honestly, her heart’s last moments were filled pain. It had a right to be. She had the right to weep.
“Yes. Jane Owens…That’s your name. They all heard me say it. You may not exist anymore after this…But, don’t think you will be forgotten. Don’t say that. They will know…They are witnesses. The world will know your name.” Dexter kissed Jane. She leaned against him for a moment. She only had one left.
Drawing up now, steady as a crane at the water’s edge, Jane squared her jaw. She swallowed, nodding to him as if saying goodbye. He nodded in reply. He’d be behind her every step of the way.
She swallowed and turned back to the pier of solid ice. Taking a shaking breath, sobbing a little, she took one ginger step forward. The sea pitched and stood up in huge peaks. Fire rained from the rings walls. Jane swung her arms out in the shape of the crucifix. She was letting go.
She stepped forward at first stumbling. With each step, she got stronger. Her purpose was renewed. Their eyes trained on her. No one dropped their gaze. They knew they were essentially seeing her for the last time. They wanted to remember the Andromeda. Not the monster counterfeit that wore her name. They wanted to remember the girl that put herself on the line to save them from the unspeakable acts that had been bred in this darkness.
In one accord, the victims of the world’s tyranny spread their arms out to emulate Jane’s position. Then, rising at first with the base tones of a funeral pipe organ and then with the rising tones of a concerto, they sang in unison:
The Good Death Box Set: A Hard SciFi Science Fiction Series Page 55
