by William Cray
Was that it? Was that their secret? Is this the technology that allowed the Intruders to dominate so many minds?
The basic copula could have come from the mothballed fleet of warships on Phobos above. You couldn’t just build something like that on your own. But you could modify it.
Duran came out of the shadow just a few feet from the figure, his hand tensed on the Talon. The head of the shadow rose slightly, looking in Duran's direction. Duran felt the slow pressure of the Intruder building up in his mind as he closed in through the cleared area, towards the Intruder. The probe was different but unthreatening. He allowed it to pass through him. He was stronger now. Changed.
Duran searched the darkness for Celeste.
As if sensing Duran's wonder, the Intruder raised an arm out straight, his palm extended towards the ceiling, casting a long black umbra to the edge of the machine. There, Celeste stepped out of the darkness, her long figure bracing the tip of the outstretched shadowy arm.
Both targets are in sight, Duran thought. No hesitation, act now.
Duran gazed at Celeste. She stared back with an accepting demeanor, giving nothing away in her eyes other than a deep exhaustion.
The Intruder remained still, sneering under a calm mask as Duran felt the wicked energy vibrating off of him. The light still prevented him from making out the details of the Intruder’s face, but he remembered its features now. The Intruder moon.
The figure in front of Duran bowed ever so slightly towards him in recognition, then the assault started.
The images and emotions flooded through Duran, filling his mind with the realities of countless people passing before him. The experiences rushed through his mind in a bewildering array. In an instant he had been a child suckling a young beautiful mother in an overcrowded and dirty work camp, feeling the warmth and love enveloping him from the woman. In the next instant he was living the accelerated life of an old man, toiling in the lonely streets of a burned out city, feeling his abandonment and despair. The next experience was of the early days of Lauran's expedition and the excitement of their expectations. He felt the love of a woman as she glowed in his presence. The deaths of loved ones brought tears and anguish to his eyes, quickly quashed by fleeting moments of victory, then back again to loss. There were dozens of experiences flashing through his mind, hundreds maybe. All of these lives he lived in an instant, their experiences as they experienced them. All the emotional drain and fulfillment merged in the life of each individual. Each person differing in status and condition as their lives culminated in their last moments. Each of those lives ended, consumed by a common thread of horror. A tormenting death brought about by the Intruder
He knew the Intruders name now. Odo. Odo Rinsler.
Duran saw his first tentative experiments with his gifted powers, enabled by the alien secret on Lauran's World that infected the entire colony. As Odo experimented with the power and its limits, he dominated a lesser colleague who planned to notify the colony counsel of his masochist suggestions. There was a control group of volunteers that participated in his program that resulted in a terrible maiming. He saw murders and the tormented experiments continue until his interment on Idora, the Intruder moon.
Duran saw the day he led his team to the moon. He saw the Intruder’s escape from his prison and the torture and murder of his jailers before Duran's team arrived. He witnessed the murder of Celeste’s parents as they struggled against him as he attempted to gain control of Duran. He witnessed all the deaths on Mars and experienced the horror of each ritualized moment of their suffering. The Intruder reveled in his confessions.
Celeste's life passed through him. It was fraught with emotion and pain. Every moment of joy and sorrow stung deeper as he lived her life. He experienced the sharing they exchanged just a night ago. But more than anything, she was afraid. Afraid of Rinsler, afraid of him, afraid of having no control over what happened to her. Afraid of what she would become. Every action she took was to survive another day. She craved the gift because she needed to be able to control her life after her parents left her behind.
Through all of the lives he saw everything but the life of the Intruder. Everything had been through the eyes of those he had encountered and dominated. As the flood of experiences subsided Duran was drained by the emptiness that was left. The void left him disoriented and hungry, hungry for more. There was also something at the periphery, like a rumor in the Intruder’s mind. Its clarity escaped him because it was either hidden, or surrounded by a cloak of doubt. Rokons. Many, many of them, buried by time, under his very feet, like shifting red sands.
The alien signal. He was trying to communicate with them.
Duran came to consciousness lying on the floor on his side. Celeste stood by, looking into Duran as he suffered. He turned his eyes back to the smiling Intruder, who nodded at Duran.
“Now you know the truth of it,” the Intruder said. “More than you can understand, but it is there.”
Duran sat up, struggling to one knee, his face flush with sweat, broken blood vessels behind his eyes. The images cascaded again through his memory, reliving them in a confused moment of despair. Duran took a sharp breath, attempting to restore equilibrium against the hunger for more. Each imparted memory of euphoria, anguish or sheer terror, but each of those unique and singular lives came to an end the same way. One last confused and agonizing ending for all of them through eyes that stared back at him now.
“You have the answers to your questions now Rory Duran. “ The Intruder leaned closer, glancing at the Mag-gun that lay on the floor next to Duran's outstretched arm. “Now I require your help once again. We are old friends after all.”
Duran rolled over, and spat.
The Intruder closed the distance again. This time, the attack was direct, the shredding intimacy of domination. The creature in front of him knelt down, holding Duran’s head in his hands as he bent Duran to his will, the familiar sneer on his face. The Intruder’s eyes were on fire with utter focus, but the dark glee was gone now. A singular bitterness and hatred reflected back. Duran suffered under the attack, but within moments the Intruder released him, frustration burning on his expression.
Stunned and hazy from the focused attack, Duran wavered under the implications. The purpose of all this suffering was just at the edge of his understanding. The Intruder believed he was the first of a new race he would start with Celeste, a race that could control the Rokons. He intended to usher in a new phase of humanity through the child that Celeste carried, but before he could begin he had to expose the Emperor by provoking him. Make him over react to another Intruder incident. One he would perpetrate on a world where the Emperor couldn’t hide the results.
Then, this new race of Intruders would rise in the Emperor’s absence.
Odo stared back at him. He turned his head slightly, squinting his dark eyes. He pushed Duran’s face away with his hand. “There is much much more Rory. You are only scratching the truth. I will awaken the Rokons and force the Emperor to come here. He will be tried on Mars as a war criminal then I will take his secrets and use them to safeguard humanity. He is already beaten.”
Duran looked up from the floor. “You’re mad. You can’t dominate every living human.”
“I won’t have too once they know the truth. They will flock to me as a savior. It’s inevitable. I will send out Luarnite ambassadors to all the worlds. All of humanity will evolve or die, one or the other. The choice is binary. I’ve already defeated his strongest weapon sent against me twice. You.”
The Intruder stood, taking a few steps back as shadows began to move in the debris around the circle.
With strength flowing back into him, Duran laughed. A great awful laugh that was part maniac, part asthmatic. “All this… You think you are saving us. You are fucking crazy.”
With a quick fluid motion Duran rolled down to the floor, retrieving the Talon in his left hand, coming up to one knee, bearing the gun in the direction of the Intruder. Duran tensed on th
e trigger as he looked down the mag-slide, gaining his sight picture, but Celeste stood between Duran and the Intruder, her arms wrapped around him in a covering embrace. She looked back at him with one crystal eye over her slender shoulder, shielding him from Duran’s wrath.
Duran knew the frail body of Celeste wouldn’t protect the Intruder if he pulled the trigger. But the recoil didn’t come. One pull will end it all, Duran thought. One instant and it would be over, but he held fire. The Intruder and Celeste moved back together, Celeste covering him in the armor of her flesh. As they retreated in unison into the shadows, the Intruder exclaimed from the darkness, “I know you better than you know yourself.”
Duran looked left as a detail of armed men came out of the shadows from all points of the compass, collapsing towards him, weapons raised. Duran rolled away as rounds splashed on the floor. With a roar from his Talon, an approaching phalanx of men fell as his Talon rounds detonated in the group. The recoil of the Mag-gun pushed him to the floor as he landed near the cover of a debilitated hulk of an interceptor. With a twitch he was back up. Another group of armed police came at him in an expanding fan from behind of a debris pile. Duran drew a quick bead, dispatching two before a sharp crack impacted on his back, knocking his wind out and thumping him to the floor, loosing his gun and blurring his eyes with tears.
Without waiting for breath he pushed himself up as the attackers closed. As Duran gasped he reached for a tall muscular cop with his free hand. Duran snatched the man’s arm, with a dull snap he broke it at the forearm, then without hesitation he shot his rigid fingers into the next mans throat which collapsed him in a pile. Unseen, another attacker brought a gun on Duran's temple but before the man could pull the trigger Duran kicked out with his left leg, unbalancing him. Duran swept up the Talon with his free hand and crushed the attackers skull with a blow from the butt of the gun. Leveling, then firing point blank, another armored cop went down as a round went through his helmet and into his skull, folding him to the floor. The explosive bullet ripped through him, failing to detonate at close range. Instead it traveled through the attackers helmet face shield and into his right eye, through to his brain, carrying out gray matter, blood and bone through the backside in a shower of gore.
Duran gasped for air, dropping him to one knee. A wet patch expanded on his back as blood rushed around the bullet lodged in his shoulder, piercing the ablative nano mesh below his skin.
The Talon was down to three rounds. Duran tensed it in his hands, starting to rise again as footsteps approached from behind. Duran spun, turning the gun with his aching torso towards the approaching threat, feeling the action open his wound further.
With a start, the Intruder stepped in front of him, a piercing jolt of pain sliced through his mind. The avalanche of pressure overwhelming his weakened defenses. His mind spun in a thousand images, as the wavering gun went slack in his hand. With ebbing strength, Duran lunged at the Intruder with both hands, grasping his throat, but the ability to crush it and thresh the life from his bones was not there. Duran stared into the intense eyes of the grinning Intruder. The eyes of a thousand deaths looked into him.
“So this is how it will end.” The Intruder whispered. “Much like it began don’t you think?” The Intruder easily pealed Duran’s fingers from this throat and Duran collapsed.
The Intruder stepped back and reached out for Celeste who took his hand. Duran could see the hazy outline of Kari emerging from the shadows. Her void stare showed how near to the physical end she was. Blood seeped through the swirling colors of her bright party dress. He commanded her to come closer.
Celeste gasped, moaning out loud, “Why?” Her voice cracked.
“I told you she was unworthy. I warned you. She was always going to die with them Celeste. But don’t worry… she will keep the Major company until we are gone.” He sneered. “It’s time to go.”
Duran struggled to focus on Celeste. Tears formed at the corner of her eyes. She turned away without saying a word.
The Intruder turned his dead eyes back to Duran. “Before you go, I’ll need the elevator controls unlocked. Lieutenant Braiselle will be here soon. I should greet the Emperor’s niece properly don’t you think?”
The Intruder plunged full force into Duran's mind, shredding its synaptic organization in favor of a new hierarchy. Duran's mind popped with brilliant flashes, disorienting him and bringing him down to his knees as the flood of energy disemboweled his cerebrum. It was like before on the Intruder moon. The loss of motor control followed by the surrender his of will. He felt himself slipping away.
Duran felt the brutal waves of malice and hopelessness bombard him from the Intruder. Duran countered the assault, but his strength was gone and he was blinded by light and nausea. The architecture within him, unaffected by the psychological trauma, fought the physical damage with furious tenacity, sealing broken vessels and dumping the remaining chemicals into his blood stream. As a last resort, the machines would dose his human body with a massive sedative, to bring him down in a last effort to gain control, but Duran’s architecture was designed to keep him in the fight, keep him conscious and while saving his body only gave the Intruder more time to do damage to his mind.
As his mind gave way to the assault, a renewed strength flowed into him, bolstering his weakening defenses. Before fading away, a tiny beacon echoed from the past.
Open your mind to me.
The new energy coursed through him like an infusion of cold water, shaking the fog. Duran grasped at it, obeying its renewed call. Duran looked up at the Intruder as a new system within his architecture came alive.
The monster had murdered Kari. Celeste stepped back in horror. He had sliced away parts of her organs and planted a bomb inside her as punishment. Kari stood there, next to Duran, and intense sadness coming through her eyes. She was ready to pull the cord.
Her master tortured Duran, ripping his mind apart from the inside. She recognized the look on his face through Duran’s memories. His brown eyes burned with a snarling ferocity. His lips were curled up into a condescending sneer. It was the same face her parents had seen before he murdered them.
She used the gift of the Intruders to reach out to Duran. She tried to reach him. Tried to calm him down. Give him something to focus on. Something the Intruder couldn’t find and pervert. But her master had almost broken Duran. She needed something he would recognize. Something he would run to.
Open your mind to me.
The Intruder turned to look over his shoulder and dropped Duran’s head, leaving him broken on the floor. He turned to face her, his vicious brown eyes locked onto hers as he took a step towards her. He was drunk on the ecstasy of power and was breathing heavy from the exertion of ripping Duran apart.
“I’m disappointed Celeste. I see now you will be unable to finish the journey we began. A pity, but not surprising considering your pedigree’s narrow mindedness.”
He wiped his sleeve across his forehead. The he attacked her.
Celeste wavered in anguish as the Intruder poured into her. The joy of his secret revelation creased his lips in a grin. Celeste resisted by countering the Intruder's advances, walling herself off but he had already resided in her mind for too long. He knew her capabilities too well and quickly penetrated her defenses. She backed up in a futile attempt to distance herself from the shredding attack. Within a moment she was backed up against the mind control machine, pressing against it to prevent herself from folding to the floor. He was able to begin erasing Celeste's cognitive processes with casual ease. Celeste collapsed to the floor of the elevator, the Intruder’s sneer, evolving into a sly grin.
She held out for as long as she could but it was only moments, buying time as the Intruder reordered her vulnerable mind. Celeste could resist the terror and anguish no longer. She opened the bag on the floor next to her. She reached inside and raised the heavy silver and black Talon. Her arm shook as she pointed the heavy gun at him. The Intruder took an
involuntary step backward as she waved the gun.
“Stop.” She moaned. “Stop this.”
With the terrible grin still smeared on his face he said. “If you wish.” He turned to Kari.
Celeste held her finger down on the trigger, pulling hard, but the gun remained silent. She used her last ounce of strength to reach out to Duran.
Help me.
Duran felt the shift of the attack as he lay on the verge of collapse, his body wracked and his mind disembodied from his control. The machine inside ignored his distress and continued its own furious battle with torn flesh and metal. Duran’s secondary architecture recognized the signal, and did its job, routing a small indicator of the status change on to Duran’s optical filament. Through Duran’s closed and bleeding eyes, the small green light appeared, a critical system was ready and waiting for orders. Now within range, Duran’s internal fire control computer linked with his stolen Talon outstretched in Celeste’s hand. A sharp green dot turned red as she depressed the trigger. Duran’s eyes cracked open in a moment of clarity as the blurred figure of the Intruder appeared under the crosshair.
Bolstered by Celeste’s desperate and fading link to him, Duran signaled to the Emperor’s waiting machine, still fighting even as his flesh had failed him.
The echo of recoil confirmed assent. Message received.
