by Jared Paul
"Yes, but do you?" Choke insisted, "I need to hear your side of the story so that I can tell you what it is that you don't know. Please, I need to know what you saw."
"The Thralls had turned against me," the Overlord began. "At least some of them, anyway."
"Why was that?" Chokeberry asked in simplicity, already knowing the answer.
"You know this, Choke. You helped write the law." He continued, "Every Thrall has the right to rule. Anyone can challenge the Overlord in a fight to the death. If victorious, the responsibility passes to the victor. On the Last Day of the Last War, a Thrall from the lowest rank challenged my authority. I didn't even know his name, but the Thrall wanted my power for himself. He was convinced he could salvage the world from what had happened to it."
"And what had happened to it?" Chokeberry investigated.
The Overlord wasn't amused. "Seriously, Choke?"
Chokeberry vied, "Seriously, go on."
Deadstock kept at it, "With the power of the Blood Tech, we had won the Energy War. Every last ounce of oil had become worthless, every last dollar had become an irrelevant artifact, and every last economy was within our renewable enterprise. Though we were in control of almost everything, the Free World revolted against the prospect of an unlimited power."
Deadstock sighed, "The Free World called for a return to traditional technology and there wasn't a single ounce of shame in their outcry. We of the Thralldom had successfully brought an end to the global conflicts that we'd all been raised up in. We had brought solutions to age-old wars, but what we didn’t know was how to solve an impending crisis that had climbed to the top along with us. We had overlooked humanity's own folly and greed. With blood at the center of commerce, people of lesser conscience took to killing each other for a mere payday."
He paused, but Chokeberry persisted, "Keep going."
The Overlord maintained, "With the Blood Tech, everyone wanted blood. Blood meant fuel. Fuel meant energy. Energy meant power. I was saddened and ashamed of what my creation had done, what it had become. That's when I came to you and asked for your help in hiding the Wandering Star, the most important fuel cell in the whole world. The thought was that by merging it with my own cells, I could control the Blood Tech and turn everything off. When I became the cyborg you see before you now, I realized that the only way to shut off the power was to die along with it. I couldn’t find it in myself to do that, so I came forward and implored my Thralls. I asked for their allegiance in my quest to revoke the accursed technology from the face of the earth, but the Thralls saw it differently."
Choke budged in, "When the weak acquire power for too long, it becomes an addiction."
"Precisely," agreed Deadstock. "The Thralls had become addicts and were ready to kill anyone who stood between them and their fixation. On the Last Day of the Last War, I found myself standing between them and their power. One by one, dozens came up to me to challenge my authority. It began with that young man, whose name I never knew. He was of low rank and I took him down swiftly and easily. Soon, another came forward to replace him. I killed him as easily as I did the first. Another stepped forward and he was quickly defeated as well. More and more bodies piled up as more and more Thralls sought to take my place."
"Eventually, a horde of them came at me all together. I vanquished all that I could until I began to sustain severe wounds in the struggle. This wound on my side was among the grievances." The Overlord lifted up the vest of his body armor to reveal a nasty scar on his abdomen.
Dr. Deadstock then seemed lost in some horrible retreat of his mind as he carried on, "Finally, they took hold of me, restraining me. I was defenseless in their arms. A Thrall swung down a sword toward my heart, but just before he could kill me, I transported my matter for the very first time. I didn't even know I could weave until that moment on that day. I vanished from that field of unending duels and escaped to a nearby airfield within the Thralldom. There, Commander Zero helped secure a safe departure for me. With the Thralls that were still loyal, he fought back the traitors as I fled the planet. Zero, as controversial as he is, saved my life that day."
Chokeberry chuckled, "Is that really what you believe, that Zero saved your life?"
"What other side of the story is there? Why'd you ask me to tell you all these things?" Deadstock was growing increasingly impatient. "If you have something to say about Zero, then I suggest you say it."
Choke somberly concluded, "There's more to that day than you know. There is more to Zero than he would have you believe."
The Overlord beseeched, "As in what?"
In that instant, Thralls broke through the skylight above me at the top of the stairs, bringing an end to the conversation that I'd been eavesdropping in on in the control room ahead. I covered my head as glass shattered all over me. It was the reinforcements.
Some operatives hovered down from the broken openings while others flew up the stairs. Sentria was among them. She leaped to my position and helped me through doorway where Thralls were seen shattering through the observation windows of the control room. They had all stormed in, along with what remained of squads Azure and Ivory.
From the broken panes, a high wind was hurling throughout the whole tower. The wild breeze served as an announcement for the entrance of Commander Zero. Gracefully, his jet pack landed his boots onto the shattered bits of glass on the floor. The shards cracked and crunched as he paced measuredly into the swarming commotion and raised up his Brawler gun. As the ammunition charged up, his cold blue eyes aimed out for Dr. Chokeberry. Choke was helplessly surrounded, separated from the aid of the Overlord.
They couldn’t even see each other in the multitude of legions, but Deadstock plunged through the wall of operatives and fruitlessly ordered, "Hold your fire! No! Wait!"
In a futile attempt, Choke had been defending himself with his radiation rifle, but it was still charging. By the time it was ready to fire, it was all too little and too late. He was mercilessly peppered with a dozen hyper rounds. The ruthless torrent sent Choke down to his knees with more holes ripped through him than a tattered flag in a storm.
"No!" The Overlord quickly weaved over to his friend's side and caught Choke just as he was about to fall forward, pummeling onto the floor.
Rapidly fading, Choke whispered to him with sincerity, "Dictators and doctors, old friend. Dictators and doctors." In one last breath before death, his head fell limp into the comforting arms of the Overlord. Chokeberry was gone. From the radiation poisoning that afflicted his body and from the sickness that tormented his mind, he had at least found some kind of peace, at last.
Zero walked casually up to his kill and examined the distorted flesh, nonchalantly asking in false pretense, "Who was that?"
Deadstock was trembling with fury. His matter was in a state of uncontrollable pixilation. In his anger, he stuttered, "It's Dr. Chokeberry, at least it was before you killed him."
The Overlord then returned to normalcy as he gently placed Choke down, to which Zero invented an apology, "Chokeberry? I'm so sorry. If I only I had known he was here. All of our information on Fever Island came directly from the United Corps intelligence. It appears that our mutual friend, President Nightwood, has been hiding a few things from us all."
Deadstock knew Zero was lying from what Choke had told him earlier, but why had Zero killed his only accomplice so abruptly? Was it to cover up his tracks? Or did Zero have a conspiracy within his own conspiracy?
The Overlord's presence began to fluctuate into pixels again. It wasn't rage this time, it was a condition. The Wandering Star inside of him hadn't yet recovered from the forceful trauma of the gauntlets. Deadstock's cells were going haywire as a result, weaving on and off.
Taking notice, Zero asked, "Why are you doing that? What's going on with you?" The Commander then picked up the gauntlets that had been thrown to the floor and deviously inspected them. "What has Chokeberry done to you?"
The Overlord carefully expounded, "Choke tried to take the Wand
ering Star out of me. I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?"
Zero grinned defensively, "You began weaving too soon and now you're destabilized. It's just a brief tremor. The effects will soon pass."
"I know what you're doing," Deadstock whispered. "Put down the gloves, immediately."
Zero held up the gauntlets, "Beautiful, aren't they? Our friend was quite the mastermind."
Deadstock angrily regarded, "He was a doctor, like me, something that you'll never be. Stand clear of the gauntlets, Commander, or I'll have you restrained."
Zero snapped back with a smirk, "I'm afraid nobody here answers to you anymore." The Commander then slid his fingers into the gauntlets and mockingly raised his hands up. "We wouldn't want anything getting into the wrong hands, now would we, Doctor?"
Deadstock attempted to enter into a weave, but found that he was still too weak. Instead, he opted for a more old-fashioned approach and drew out the Dragon's Throat from his holster. "I'll give you one more opportunity. Stand clear, Commander."
Zero paid no heed to Deadstock's threats and kicked the gun out of his weak hands. The Dragon's Throat went sliding over near Sentria's feet. She picked it up, deciding to hold onto it for some opportune time. Most likely, she was waiting for any opportunity to hand back the legendary weapon back to its rightful owner, but the room had too many watching eyes and she held back the urge.
Without delay, the Commander then powered up the gauntlets and made a clenching motion toward the Overlord. Once again, Deadstock was sent levitating up off of his feet. Zero's course of action did not sit well with most of us Thralls. The younger ones, the lowly Bottom Bunks, were outraged over Zero's heresy against the man we'd all been trained to look up to as our Space Wizard.
"Defend the Overlord," Sentria rallied us.
The younger Thralls all jumped forward in attempt to intervene. Helmets were thrown about. Shouts and calls were propelled. The room was all on the verge of violence.
"Stand down," Zero hollered back while holding the Overlord in a midair grip. "All Thralls, stand down! Squad leaders, control your units!"
The older Thralls, the senior ranks, held us back with the stocks of their assault rifles as barriers. Apparently, the more seasoned operatives knew something that we lowly Bottom Bunks didn't. I could see it in Fossil's eyes as he bid me to put my guard down. He did so with regret as if he knew a terrible thing was about to happen. Out ranked, we all soon cowered down as our leaders instructed us to, but Sentria was still adamant on doing something about the Commander's mounting disloyalty toward our esteemed Overlord. She loomed on up, confidently.
Zero called her out upon approach, "That means you, Sentria. Stand down and focus on your squad."
She obeyed, frustrated and reluctant after a reassuring nod from Fossil. Meanwhile, Deadstock winced with severity as he dangled in midair. He was mostly unable to move with his limbs outspread. He couldn't really speak beyond grunts and moans. Zero could tell that the pathetic picture he had painted was tugging at the hearts of us Bottom Bunks.
"This is no betrayal," he inaugurated. "It's the Overlord who's betrayed us. He's turned his back on all of you. Did I not promise that a Space Wizard would descend from the outer universe to restore our power and bring peace? Well, he's come, but it's not this man. The Overlord merely stole the power and kept it for himself. So join me in taking the power from this false savior. Who is with me?"
With that web spun, my fellow Thralls didn't know who to stand with. Growing cold and unfeeling, they'd all been programmed since training to be vulnerable to such brainwashing. Zero had persuaded them all to listen and believe in whatever poisonous words he spat out. My own common sense made me immune to his poisonous preaching, but I wasn't alone. Sentria wasn't buying into it either.
A loud cry then brought my attention back to the front. The Commander gripped harder as he twisted and turned the gauntlets in various positions. Deadstock, in his stationary lingering, was bellowing out in agony from the motions. Zero then pushed one hand forward while pulling the other back as if he was splitting something in two with the strengths of his arms.
The Overlord's countenance blew up into a billion weaves, some separating and departing while others remained behind. Violet energy flew from his separating pixels, vacuuming into the gauntlets and taking the form of a purple flame upon the hardware palms. The fire in Zero's metal hands was like a dancing circuit of energy. It was touchable and reactive, not at all a consuming fire, but a lasting light.
The lingering pixels then reformed into the fragile flesh of Dr. Deadstock. His irises, once two iridescent swells upon a violet sea, had become regular and brown. His onyx skin had flattened into dull flesh. He was no Space Wizard anymore. Whatever magic of science he once was, just a plain man now remained. Maybe not even a man. Maybe he was just a ghost of a man as he had told me. Maybe he had just become more of a ghost than ever been before. Completely spent, Deadstock fell to the floor as caught his breath with empty lungs.
"You're relieved of your power, Doctor," taunted Zero. "You've journeyed long, but your walkabout has come to an end. Now, this is my time."
Back amongst the ranks, Sentria unexpectedly grabbed the back of my head and pulled me around toward her. We exchanged a long and passionate kiss. At first, I was downright confused. I've always enjoyed her lips, but it was hardly the time for that kind of behavior. It proved to be no ordinary kiss though. It was full of emotion and ferocity. As familiar as her lips were to me, Sentria had never kissed me that way before. I then became aware of what it really meant. She was kissing me goodbye.
"Forget the kations," she whispered into one of my ears. She then left me standing there while she progressed over to Deadstock, barely alive.
Zero didn't like her sympathetic motivation. "Let him be, Sentria. Let him wallow in his defeat."
She obeyed, but Sentria had a plan known only to her. She wandered off by the control panels and various worktables without any interest, only that's what she wanted everyone to believe. Nobody else seemed to be paying attention to her, but Fossil and I watched as Sentria collected a small sheet of blueprints from a workbench. She silently folded it up and stuffed it into the suit beneath her clear body armor.
Rotating away from the worktable, Sentria swung around the radiation rifle that Zero had given her after the defeat of the survivor with the strange hat. Aiming it out, all eyes fixed onto her. With nobody knowing what to do or what to expect, Sentria was able to nab Chokeberry's own rifle from the floor beside his dead body. Dual-wielding, she charged the guns up and came to stand between Deadstock and everyone else. The coned muzzles began to swirl wildly as white haze glowed from the barrels.
Zero unlatched his retractable machete and activated its full length, "For the Thralldom!"
Before Zero could stop her though, she fired out two beams into the expanse of the ranks as she roared out herself, "For the Overlord!"
Thralls went flying into ashes and the walls of the control tower blew up into little fragments. The beams had flung out at angles, leaving the position where Fossil and I stood unharmed. She must've purposefully aimed to miss us. At least, that's my hope anyway.
Those who had endured the blasts were temporally blinded and stunned, including Zero who had narrowly escaped an ashy doom by leaping off to one side. In the ensuing aftershock, Sentria had fled the control room with the Overlord in her custody. Nobody wanted to jump up and go after her. We all knew that Fever Island was crawling with Thrall reinforcements at every point. They'd surely be apprehended or shot down in no time at all.
As I brushed myself off from the dust, the only thing I could think about was the fact that I'd been left behind by the only person I truly cared about. Worse, she was the only person that truly cared about me. I could only hope that she knew what she was doing.
I tried to run out and follow her. Zero probably thought I was pursuing to intercept them, but in all honesty, I just wanted to leave along with h
er to wherever she was going. He threw out an arm to hold me back.
"Let them go, Solomon," he eerily chuckled. "They've made their choice. They no longer matter. Their purpose has been served."
With the Wandering Star in his grip, the Commander propped himself against one of the walls that'd been turned to gravel. Chuckling to himself, he became increasingly hysterical. With the violet light shining upon his face through the ash, he spoke out to the clouded air in front of him, but there was nobody there. I think he thought he was talking to a ghost. "We'll meet again, Doctor. We'll meet again."
Zero then clenched the gloves into fists and the Wandering Star slithered into little tubes and chambers attached to the gauntlets. He breathed in and breathed out. His breath cleared the floating ash and dust around him. Sliding down the ruined wall, he sat onto the floor.
"Far Stranger, come in," he requested through his radio.
"This is Far Stranger, reporting," the ominous intelligence responded. "Proceed."
"The time has come," Zero said. "Prepare the Lair. Begin the end."
The deepness of the artificial voice spoke back, "It has already begun."
12
THE ANGEL GATE
Daylight spoke out through the falling clouds of dust as papers flittered about the control tower. Thralls heaved and grunted themselves back up to their feet. Out of those that had survived Sentria's unexpected display of true colors, most were either in shock or wounded. Those that had fallen victim to the dual blasts of her radiation rifles were floating into piles of silent ashes.
Among the pandemonium of clutter and clamor, Commander Zero had since turned off his gauntlets, focusing his madness in a desperate search about the room. His hands clawed at every flying paper only to discard each one upon discovering that they did not possess what he sought. Rummaging through every scattered piece of junk, worktables were cleared and desks were overturned. Whatever it was that Zero was so adamantly looking for, the object of his obsession was eluding him. Turning to Dr. Chokeberry's motionless body, he searched every pocket and fold, but still nothing satisfied him.
