The Overlord: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel

by Jared Paul

  In defense, I specified, "There's a slogan etched into the hall of the barracks. It was written by a great man before my time. On the wall, it says, ‘Age isn’t about how long you’ve been alive, but how much you’ve seen and done in the time that you’ve had.’"

  The Overlord, of course, was the great man behind the slogan, but he would never admit it. Instead, he resumed to take the lead as he broke eye contact. "And this great man, where is he now? Whatever became of him?"

  "He disappeared," I retold. "Some say he saw and too much and couldn't live with the things he’d seen, but I don't believe that. I think he just knew the truth and was too overwhelmed by the lies around him. That's why he left."

  In aversion, he asked, "Truth? What truth?"

  "I don't know that yet," I disclosed. "I bet you the great man knows, though."

  Still not admitting that he was the man behind the slogan, he warned, "I would start looking for another role model, boy, before you get yourself killed following a dead man."

  "He isn't dead," I obstinately added.

  "Are you sure? Maybe he's only a ghost," the Overlord suggested. "Even if he's alive, he'll be dead soon enough. That, I can assure you."

  I had no response to that. I didn't know if he was merely speculating, joking, or if he was truly on his way to a deathbed. All I knew was that I wasn't going to pry any further to find out.

  We didn't speak for quite a number of steps until he unexpectedly broke the soundless rhythm of our ascent. "What about me? Would you follow me?"

  "Am I not following you now, Doctor?" I continued.

  "Let's be honest here, Solomon. You didn't choose this squad. You got stuck with it." He was trying to prove a point that I didn't actually care about him, but I wanted to show him that I truly did.

  "If it was in free choice, yes, I would follow you, but as it stands right now, I can't make that decision." I explained the dilemma, "Commander Zero mandated that all Thrall operatives utilize secondary judgments in the stead of your demands. He called you a whacker, whatever that means."

  "That loose kangaroo is always throwing out insults that nobody can understand," Deadstock scoffed, brushing the whole matter off.

  "He said it was due to your mental condition," I foolishly decided to add. I winced as soon as I had said it, knowing full well that I shouldn't have said it all.

  The Overlord paused where he stood. Slowly spinning around to face me, he removed his shades to look me straight in the eye. "Mental condition?"

  Timidly, I froze in place as I elaborated, "The Commander believes you haven't yet fully recovered from your prolonged absence in space. Therefore, you’re unfit to retake supremacy over the Thralldom. It’s his words, not mine. I’m just telling you what he told me."

  Whether it was blood that ran through his veins or something else, I could tell it was practically boiling up inside of him as he spewed, "So Zero thinks he can just rule me out with indifference to my authority, take sovereignty for himself over my creation?" His volcanic voice resounded throughout the stairwell shaft, "I am the Overlord! Everything you Thralls have ever known was because of me! I am the master of what is mine!"

  I made an effort to save myself from this remarkable beast of fury, "I don't actually support the belief, myself. Orders are orders and I'm just trying to obey them. If you want to know what I really think, I would say that you're probably perfectly fit to take over command."

  An uncomfortable quiet then ensued as he just glared at me with those neon purple eyes that almost seemed to be staring through me. His irises were like that of some wild, uncontrollable animal that was made purely of light. Calmer, a complacent and more reflective aura came about him, but there was something ominous that still remained.

  "I’m sorry. I don’t know why I let that overcome me. Greed is a very powerful force. I speak as if the world is mine. It's not and never should be, nor will be. Besides, why did I expect anything other than a backstabbing from Zero? This matter will take care of itself and you’re right, I could take back my command if I really wanted to."

  "What’s stopping you?" I presented. "You succeeded before."

  "Have you ever asked yourself that maybe I never did?" He then twisted back around away from me, continuing to advance up the stairs.

  I asked in slight terror, "Are you saying that you never had any real control at all?"

  Grimly, the Overlord nodded, "That, my young friend, is a question that's been haunting me for some time."

  "Only you could know the answer to that, Doctor." It was all I could say.

  "You wouldn't like my answer," he said back.

  Switching subjects, I asked sincerely, "If you don't mind me asking, what was it that you meant before about the way I walk and the way I talk?"

  A chuckle snuck out from his lips, "Look, no doubt you've been through a lot, Solomon. You've probably even had to do a few desperate things just to survive, but killing someone else clearly hasn’t been one of them."

  I disputed, "I've killed before. I’ve had my share in battle, believe me."

  He enlightened, "Yeah, but was it life or death? Shooting a man from far away isn't the same thing as being neck and neck with one that wants you dead more than anything else. When you reach the point where you got to kill just to stay alive, it changes you. The way you walk and the way you talk loses its youthfulness. It loses its innocence. If that ever happens to you, I want you to look at yourself in your own reflection and tell me if you’re looking at a man or if you're just staring at a ghost of one. That's what I meant by the way you walk and the way you talk. There's something inside you that's still alive. You're not a ghost. You haven't changed into one yet. I hope you never have to, Solomon Boone. I hope you never do."

  I had nothing left to say or ask after that. What he said was beautiful, but at the same time, terrifying. I began to wonder what kind of ghost he thought he was. What brought him to that sad conclusion?

  "Come on," ordered the Overlord as he picked up the pace. "Let's move up and stay focused. Permission to speak freely is denied from here on out. Maintain complete silence unless you've got an update on the enemy. The only sound I want to hear is the heaving of our lungs."

  As we neared the top, we found the source of the light we had seen from the hallway below. It was indeed daylight all along. The ceiling was one big skylight that illuminated the entirety of the stairwell shaft. We had followed the light that far and it hadn’t betrayed us yet.

  "Any idea where we might be?" queried the Overlord, though I think he already had his own answer.

  I made a speculation as we crossed the final steps. "Looks like we made it to the center of the island complex. This must be the top of that control tower that we saw from the landing zone."

  "That’s a very confident evaluation. Are you positive?" I could tell he was already in agreement with me, but he wanted to test out the limits of my intelligence.

  I assured him, "I think I would know. I nearly got splattered against its neck on our way in from the sky."

  "You're right," grinned the Overlord. "We’re in the Fever Island control tower. The main Blood Tech generator can't be far away. It’s around here somewhere."

  At the top, the very last step led us to a grated platform where we found Nix waiting for us, leaned up against the top rail. The platform was tight and barely left enough height for one person to stand between the grate and the skylight. Reunited with Nix, we formed up.

  "Were you able to obtain a signal?" asked Deadstock.

  "No, my Overlord," stated Nix. "The static interference is worse up here than it was down below."

  Deadstock was surprisingly pleased, "Good. That means we're in the right place."

  Up on the platform, there were two other metal doors just like the one we had come in through at the bottom of the stairs. The only difference was that these two doors hadn’t been left open. Adjacent from each other, one door was closed, but looked generally accessible. The other was welded shut onto i
ts own framing. Out of all the doors we had seen, the surface of them had all been left bare and untouched. The welded door was not so ordinary. On its face, we found three lines written in graffiti.

  In an unsettling font, it read, "You have climbed too high. Your journey is wasted. All hail the Underlord."

  There was that mention of the Underlord again. Who was he? What was he? Was he just a ghostly rumor or was there something more to this unknown man?

  Nix pondered the eerie words, "What do you suppose that means?" She was more curious than me. I didn't know what it meant or cared to find out.

  "It was put there to scare intruders. It's nothing." That was my story and I was determined to stick to it. The whole thing was starting to make me nervous the more I thought about the possible meaning and its mysterious author.

  The Overlord declined to add to the speculations as he opted to go for the easy door first. It was unlocked and swung right open. The entrance lead out into the sea air. Outside, a small area was attached to the top of the control tower. There, a generator hummed and plumed with energy. The only way to get to it was a narrow bridge without any kind of guardrail. It was short and flat, looking easy enough to pass over, but it hanged over the daunting heights of the whole island. One ounce of fear and a body’s balance could be done for.

  As we crossed the narrow path, we stopped midway when Nix let out an elated scream. I nearly almost fell off in the process. "My radio's coming in clear," she said. "I’ve got a connection with Azure Squad. Transferring the signal over to you now, my Overlord."

  "Well done," he commended as they both started clicking away and adjusting their earpieces.

  "Of course, up here of all places, we finally get a signal," I said to myself as I looked over the sides at the swallowing depths below us. I knew there’d be no jet pack to save myself if I lost my footing.

  "Radio check," Deadstock began. "This is the Overlord. Violet Squad reporting in. Radio check, anyone."

  A crackled voice replied through our radios, "Nice of you to join us again, Doctor. What's your current positon?" I immediately identified the voice's host as Commander Zero. I’d recognize that Australian accent anywhere.

  "I'm at the top of the control tower," said the Overlord. "Where are you?"

  Zero responded with a laugh, "You’re not going to believe this, but we don't really know where we are. You’d think it wouldn't be that hard to find a single tower on this concrete maze of a rock, but this island has us all backward. We're lost. As you can probably see by looking up at the sky above, we at least managed to eliminate another one of the Blood Tech generators. That means there's only one left and it must be near you somewhere on that tower."

  "We’ve got it located. It’s in my sights. I'm practically standing next to it." The Overlord looked the generator over from the middle of the tiny bridge.

  "You got enough demolitions?" asked Zero.

  Deadstock veered over to Nix. She nodded in confirmation with a slip of a smile as she patted some ordinance hanging from her hip. "Yeah, we got demolitions. We're covered."

  "Right," went Zero. "See if you can't flick off that last generator then. Whatever you do after that, don’t go anywhere. Stay at the top of that tower. Send me your exact coordinates and I'll come to you."

  "Copy that. Sending you my location now." He slid down the cover of a communications panel strapped to the underside of his forearm and started tapping away on it.

  Seconds later, Zero replied, "Got it. Ace, mate! I'm on my way. Zero out."

  "Copy that," Overlord completed.

  Deadstock then returned to lead us further over the bridge. Its dimensions might as well have been the trunk of a little tree. Safely to the other side, a vast energy stream was emanating from the Blood Tech generator into the Spider's Shield above, holding up whatever last webs still remained. Nix placed the demolitions on the generator and it was all over and done with before any of us could even wince down on the way back.

  With the Spider's Shield neutralized once and for all, the "Lunar Wrath" was going to swoop in and ground more legions to take the island by storm. It would’ve made sense for the flagship to have already done so when the destruction of that first generator had left such a wide gap in the webs. Even so, it was still safer to have all the beams out of the way when the time came to withdraw.

  With reinforcements, a deep search would begin for the Plague of Phantoms, the very thing we'd come for. Before such company would arrive, however, Deadstock had a little side mission on his mind. He fixed back to the Underlord's welded door that had been purposefully sealed up to keep something in or something out. It's possible that its intent was to appear that way all along, to appear irresistible. After all, what's more enticing than a locked door?

  Back at the top of the stairs, the Overlord pulled out the Dragon's Throat and proceeded to fire multiple rounds into the welded frame. With another hefty shot into the handle, the door broke free from its place and fell over toward us.

  Cautiously, we all came up to the opening when something went wrong. It was an explosion. An array of endless white light blasted through the door from the other side. We'd been struck with a weapon of immense magnitude. The Overlord took the blunt of the force as we are all thrown backward onto the grated platform at our feet. A deafening ringing reverberated through my ears. Immobile, I couldn't move a single limb.

  Nix extended a hand out to me, "Solomon!"

  Reaching out for me from the floor, she began to wretchedly crumble before my very eyes. Her flesh and armor became like ash as her form disintegrated into an enveloping white haze. I yelled back for her to no avail, stretching out a comforting hand to reach back for her.

  I never cared much for Nix, too abrasive of a personality for my taste, but she was a human being and a fellow Thrall. She didn’t deserve to go out the horrible way that she did. Nix was one of those rare people that I didn't like, but would make the world a less interesting place if they weren't around. That interesting world was burning to ash as she did.

  All the while, I noticed that the Overlord was surging like a light rapidly fading on and off. His body was slowly being eaten away, but at the same time, the renewable energy that he carried within his veins was rebuilding him. He was caught between a state of decay and renewal.

  I felt none of these effects that I saw transpiring in that horrible instant. All I felt was myself gradually fading into unconsciousness. Before I lost all control of my senses, the last thing I remember was a splendor of the richest purples upon the deepest of blacks and suddenly becoming nothing at all.

  11

  THE DICTATOR, THE DOCTOR

  When I awoke from the horrors of the white fire, I was surprised to find myself alive and unscathed. Alone, all I could find were Nix’s ashes. I was caked in her dust. Her remains were flittering about in the air and landing everywhere. For her, there'd be no rise from the ashes like the fabled Phoenixes she so adored.

  There was no trace of the Overlord that I could find. The last I saw of him, he was still alive. I then realized what it was that had saved me from the blast. Dr. Deadstock had transported my cells during that instant, bringing me back when it was all over and thus sparing me from the effects of the radiation. In that maddening moment, he had thought only of protecting me. Why? Furthermore, where had he gone?

  From the depths of the stairs behind me, I then heard the careful pace of a single pair of feet. Coming up onto the platform was a frail and thin man. Draped in a tattered smock that I can only guess used to be white, he stepped up to my limp body. I couldn’t tell where he was looking under his tinted lab googles and a ghostly bandana wrapped about his face, so I did my best to play dead. He examined the ash covered floor, indifferently, as he stepped over me toward the door. Though the feeble man was struggling to support the weight of a radiation rifle in his hands, he displayed no interest in shooting anything.

  He approached the entrance where the welded door had been located. The door was al
l but gone, blown to bits from the blast that had come from the other side. I tried my best not move, but I had to find out what was going on. In my peripheral vision, the slender man stood in the darkness of the doorway. It was as if he was waiting for something, the right moment.

  Beyond the shadows of the open doorway, I could hear two islanders talking to each other in the room on the other side. One of them had a nasty cough, suffering from the radiation poisoning. The two Echoes were quarrelling back and forth, switching on and off from Japanese to English as they tried to decide what to do with a captive they held in their custody.

  "Never have I seen anyone survive a blast like that," said the healthier of the two islanders. "My gun must be broken. Piece of junk."

  "It wasn't the gun," the other coughed. "It was him."

  His companion snorted, "What's so special about him?"

  "I think he's the one they call the Overlord, the Space Wizard," moaned the cougher. "It has to be him. Who else could survive the firepower of a radiation rifle?"

  "The Overlord?" The alleged shooter’s voice rapidly filled with terror as he pondered that name. "Holding him prisoner suddenly doesn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. I don't like this. We should call for backup."

  The sickly accomplice scoffed at his companion's notion, "Don’t be such a fool. The fact that we have just captured him is proof enough that he’s not the great warrior he would have us all believe. Besides, who would we call? There's nobody here. We're it. Everybody else is gone. Anybody who hasn't already escaped is dead."

  The other Echo asked, "What about the Underlord?"

  "The Underlord has betrayed us," the cougher explained through his heaving lungs. "He left us all for dead. That coward went and hid as soon as the Thralldom descended from the sky. It's just you and me now."

  "Quiet!" I heard the other unexpectedly say. "I think he's waking up!"

  With that, all I could hear were the cries of terror. I couldn't tell who it was, but the horrified yelling was followed by the sound of a gust of wind, cracking like a whip. It was a weave. The Overlord was weaving, transferring his matter to somewhere else in the room.