Paradox: The Last Day - Seymour's Story

by Rachel Charman

  |Oh, that makes sense. Going through the sewers… Yeah.. Too bad I didn’t get in there first.|

  While the soldiers assemble around the warehouse, setting up their weaponry, Seymour slips into the back end of the warehouse loading zone, approaches the wall, pulls off his helmet, tosses it aside, and ascends quickly, making sure not to be seen by PRIME troops this time around. Scaling the wall for almost five minutes, Seymour reaches a large, blown-out breach in the brick wall, and peers into the tiny office room within. Inside, he sees Adrian and Data standing over Sam’s unconscious and mangled form lying upon an office desk, looking harried and once again arguing with each other.

  “-Alright, alright, hold yourself. I’ll fix her up, but you have to stand guard. This could take awhile, and if those PRIME assholes break through my fortifications, I don’t want to be interrupted. Can you handle it by yourself?”

  “Of course I can. I’ll leave you to it then.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell you when I’m finished. But I’m warning you. Just because I fix her up, that doesn’t mean she’ll wake up.”

  “Just do what you can.”

  “Yeah..”

  Seymour continues observing through the breach as Adrian turns and exits the dusty office with a curt nod, leaving Data on his own. He sighs wearily, straightens his glasses, and sets to work on Sam with his small, pocket-sized surgical tools. Though he only has one arm, his movements with the tools are extremely dexterous and precise, taking Seymour by surprise as Data works to remove the shards of glass embedded deep into her skin in stiff silence, still unaware that he is being quietly observed.

  |Hm.. If he’s going to fix her up, that would be a huge help to me, but fixing her could take awhile.. Guess I’ll just have to wait ‘til he’s done.. Patience is a virtue, after all..|

  Spotting a low brick window ledge jutting out from the dilapidated warehouse, Seymour drops carefully onto it, and waits patiently while Data works on Sam, delicately checking on his wounded leg while it continuously throbs with pain. After over an hour of sitting in silence upon the window ledge, Seymour decides to ascend back to the wall breach to check on Data’s progress. He is nearly finished. From the look of it, he has used a copious amount of Seraph Tears to treat all her wounds, and a small pile of blood-stained glass lies beside her head, having been removed from beneath her flesh. Data tries to rouse her, now that her wounds are relatively healed, but she doesn’t stir. Wanting to waste no more time, Seymour climbs into the office, and jumps onto the dusty floor roughly, startling Data with his sudden entrance.

  “Heya, kid. Thanks for fixing her up.”

  “What the- W-who are you?!”

  “That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Sam needs to come with me, so get out of my way.”

  “Wha..? But- S-Sam is Adrian’s sister!”

  Data points his blood-stained scalpel at Seymour, his eyes wide with shock, and nervously moves closer to Sam.

  “I don’t know what you want with her, but you’re not getting near her!”

  “Very well then. I suppose I’ll just have to force you out of the way.”

  Seymour grabs hold of a nearby wooden chair, strides confidently into the room, and wedges it roughly under the office door’s knob, preventing Adrian from interfering. Turning back to a completely nonplussed Data, and cracking his knuckles with a smile, Seymour grabs Data’s wrist before he can react, and tosses him forcefully into the office wall. Unshaken, Data stands, and charges at Seymour with his scalpel, who pulls out his revolver, and shoots him in the shoulder with peerless accuracy. Data skids to a sudden halt, grasping his bleeding shoulder in pain. Seymour approaches him and kicks him into the stack of office desks on the far wall, throwing a huge plume of dust into the air. While Data lies dazed amongst the broken desks, trying to disentangle himself from the wooden wreckage, Seymour approaches Sam’s motionless form, expectantly reaches inside the leather satchel hanging from her waist, and pulls out a thin syringe filled with thick, grayish-colored liquid, while a loud banging sound emanates from the steadily cracking wooden office door.

  |Heh, good. I knew she’d hold onto it.. Might not be perfect for my needs, but at least it contains some Midazolam.. This will definitely make things easier..|

  He curls his fingers around the plastic syringe with a sick smirk, then glances at Data out of the corner of his eye, bears down on his stunned, trembling figure still stuck in the sea of broken desks, grabs his throat roughly, and forcibly injects half of the leaden serum into his bloodstream. The shock of the injection makes Data scream in anguish, then without warning, he passes out, and slumps forward into Seymour’s arms. Seymour breathes a small sigh, slightly surprised by Data’s reaction, and tosses him back into the pile of wrecked desks. Tossing the half-empty syringe aside , Seymour returns Sam’s side, and makes to pick her up, when Adrian suddenly bursts through the door, knocking the splintered chair aside, his eyes of green and hazel shining with rage. Reacting swiftly, Seymour quickly turns his revolver over to point at Adrian’s head. His brother now stands plainly in front of him, his pistol gripped firmly in his outstretched hand, pointed straight at Seymour’s head, a hate-filled glare screwing up his handsome young face.

  “Hello, Adrian. It’s certainly been a while.”

  “So, you are alive, Seymour. I knew it was you.. Why did you come here?”

  “For the same reason as you, Adrian: Sam.”

  “What do you want with her?”

  “Mm.. She and I have a certain.. obligation to fulfill. So, I’ll just take her and be on my way.”

  With his revolver still trained on Adrian’s head, Seymour reaches behind him, and gently takes Sam’s wrist in his hand, making Adrian bare his teeth in rage and fire off a warning shot just to the right of Seymour’s head, though he doesn’t even flinch as the bullet flies dangerously close to his face. Seymour smiles at Adrian amiably, his hand still gripping Sam’s wrist, but Adrian does not return it; he glares at Seymour furiously, and demands in a vicious yell –

  “What are you talking about?!”

  “Never you mind. Suffice it to say, her assistance is needed.”

  “I won’t let you hurt her!”

  Seymour laughs quietly under his breath, and with his head tilted back, he says amusedly –

  “Trust me, Adrian. I would never do that. … Unlike you.”

  “SHUT UP!”

  Fueled by pure detestation, Adrian fires off two more shots at Seymour, making him leap behind the desk that Sam lies on for cover, using her body as a shield so that Adrian ceases to shoot. He stealthily reaches out from underneath the desk, grabs the dust-caked, overturned chair lying innocently near his legs, then smirks, springs to his feet, and smashes the chair as hard as he can into Adrian’s side, throwing him against the wall and successfully disarming him. Yelling out in pain and fury, more whitish-blue streaks of electricity inexplicably spring out from Adrian’s skin, and as he scrambles back to his feet, he furiously throws a volley of the energy straight at Seymour, forcing him to hurriedly roll out of the way, though he clearly only missed by inches, as he can smell burned hair mingled with the musty air. Seymour hastily rights himself, when Adrian suddenly charges at Seymour, his hands sparking with electricity, and a truly terrifying look of pure malice on his face. Seymour once more dodges out of the way, frantically seizes the half-empty syringe lying close by on the stained, dusty floor, and forcefully shoves the tip deep into the side of Adrian’s neck. Unable to stop, Adrian smashes violently into the back wall of the office, throwing another thick cloud of dust into the air. Before the dust settles, Seymour quickly approaches Adrian as he struggles to free himself from the splintered debris, grabs the syringe sticking out of his neck, and pushes the plunger down, injecting the rest of the contents into his brother. Seymour jumps away quickly as Adrian cries out in agony, and takes a desperate swipe at him, though he misses by miles. Shaking his head to clear his vision, Adrian rubs the bruised injection point on his neck gingerly,
and finds a viscous, iron-colored liquid leaking out of the tiny wound. Adrian scrambles to his feet, and with his hand over the side of his neck, he screams through gritted teeth –

  “W-what the hell did you just do, you fucking lunatic?!”

  “Ahh.. Something to which you should pay no mind, unless the need should arise.”

  “You bastard! Tell me what you just injected into me!”

  “Hm.. Very well.”

  Seymour approaches Adrian quickly, drags his finger through the trickle of grayish liquid leaking down his brother’s neck, and shows it to him pointedly before declaring with a smirk –

  “This here is a nanoid-based GPS infix serum, which convenes upon the outer tissue of the prefrontal cortex of the brain. It’s impossible to locate, yet it’s brilliant in its ability to locate anything.”

  “What?!”

  Still standing dangerously close to Adrian, Seymour suddenly seizes a fistful of his reddish-black hair, and breathes viciously in Adrian’s ear –

  “Now, since I have been truthful, you tell me something. Tell me how you can produce electricity from within yourself.”

  Incensed, Adrian wraps his fingers tight around Seymour’s wrist, and shocks him with his electricity, making him yell out in pain, and relinquish his grip on Adrian’s hair. Seymour staggers away from him, gripping his reddened wrist with an infuriated scowl, and looks back up to find that Adrian has retrieved his pistol, and has it trained on Seymour’s head once again, a twisted expression of pure, unrefined hatred slathered across his stark face.

  “Like hell I’d tell you!”

  Seymour sidles carefully around the dusty, ruined office room, while Adrian follows his movements obsessively with his pistol. He steps in front of Sam defensively, still agitatedly rubbing the bruised injection point with his one free hand, and to distract him, Seymour says in a condescending tone –

  “Heheh.. Looks like twenty years later, you’re still an argumentative, stubborn little shit.”

  “And you’re still a selfish bastard!”

  With a smile so bitter, Adrian can actually taste it, Seymour backs up against the wide breach in the wall, his hands hidden behind his back, and under the stream of dull, orangey-green light, Seymour declares seriously –

  “Well then, I guess this is goodbye for now, Adrian. I sincerely hope you have fun with your headache.”

  And with that, Seymour suddenly leaps out of the wide, crumbling hole in the office wall; Adrian reacts with a furious, startled yell, and fires off two more bullets, but much too late, merely hitting the brick. Seymour freefalls for a moment, then reaches out and forcefully grabs hold of a brick window ledge just feet from the ground. After making sure that Adrian is not following him, Seymour steadily climbs back onto the wide shelf just below the breach, and surreptitiously listens in on Adrian’s conversation in the office above. Adrian’s voice is accompanied by another, more feminine voice; Sam’s voice. Seymour continues to eavesdrop on his siblings’ conversation tentatively, rubbing his burnt wrist, still completely clueless as to how he produces electrical energy as he does. Finally, the sound of footsteps recedes from the office above, and after a few minutes of silence, Seymour decides to peer back into the musty room, to find Sam sitting alone upon her desk within. She is crying silently, fiddling with her purple glass, claw-shaped necklace, and whispering softly to herself.

  “… That piece of shit.. How could he lie to me?”

  Climbing back into the office, going completely unnoticed by Sam, Seymour causally sits down on the wall breach, leans back, puts his hands behind his head, and says offhandedly –

  “… Good morning, Sam.”

  Jumping as though she is hit with an electric shock, Sam falls back off of the desk, pushes herself away from Seymour with trembling arms, and asks in a shaking, terrified voice –

  “S-Seymour?! I-is that you?”

  “Yes, I’m glad you’ve been fixed up.. I must say, you were quite a sight, with all that glass stuck in you.”

  “G-glass…?”

  Sam glances nervously over at the small pile of bloody glass shards strewn amongst the debris, and says distantly, still trembling in fear from Seymour’s presence –

  “O-oh, yeah.. A-all I remember about that is you and me, crashing through that window in Trajit… How long has it been since then?”

  “About two weeks, I think. Seriously though, that Lias kid certainly has quite a talent for fixing people up… Actually, while I’m at it, I might as well-”

  Without elaborating, Seymour slides off of the brick ledge and climbs inside the office, crosses the dusty floor, and picks up a small green plastic jar off of the dusty ground. While Sam watches him nervously from afar, he scoops out a small amount of what remains of the cloudy, viscous substance within with two fingers, and says under his breath –

  “Should be enough..”

  Seymour leans down, rolls up his right pant leg, pulls off the dirty makeshift bandages Elena made him, and spreads the substance inside his wound, which begins to burn as the open veins start to slowly heal over.

  “What happened..?”

  “What, this? I was just shot. Nothing new.”

  “Huh. Too bad they didn’t get your left leg instead.”

  With his hand suspended over his wound, Seymour looks up at Sam with an amused smile, and says with a chuckle –

  “That’s funny, I was thinking the same thing. Interesting how often we think alike, isn’t it?”

  Sam eyes Seymour’s slowly healing wound with a slightly nauseated look on her face, which then gradually cedes into a look of comprehension, and she says angrily –

  “Hey, that’s right! Now I remember! Y-you lied to me, Seymour!”

  “Lied about what?”

  “You promised you were going to kill me after we helped you escape from DIV. 4!”

  “… Oh, yeah.”

  Seymour avoids Sam’s incensed glare somewhat shyly, staring instead at the dust swirling lazily in the orangey-green light streaming in through the bulletholes in the brick wall, and after a few moments of awkward silence, he says quietly –

  “I know I said that. But, I still have a job to do, and I need you and the others.”

  “But you promised!”

  Chucking the empty tub of Seraph Tears over his shoulder, Seymour picks up one of the discarded bullet casings from Adrian’s pistol from the ground and examines it thoughtfully before saying to Sam dismissively –

  “Well, regardless of what I said before, I would never think of killing you, Sam… The fact is I need you.”

  “Why though?!”

  “You don’t need to know why. You just need to do what I say.”

  “No, Seymour! I’m not going to help you kill any more people! I’m done listening to you!”

  Sam gets to her feet unsteadily, and makes for the door, but she hesitates, her hand on the doorknob, and says under her breath –

  “If you’re not going to do it, then I’m going to ask Adrian to kill me. He’ll save me from you, Seymour.”

  “You really think so? You think that Adrian will kill you, when you and I both know he’s obsessively dedicated his life to keeping you alive?”

  “Yeah.. but, I can convince him!”

  “No, you can’t.”

  Seymour reaches out to Sam, shows her the empty casing lying in his palm with a pointed grimace, and declares seriously –

  “C’mon, Sam, think about it. Adrian is the most stubborn person I’ve ever met, and you know that’s true. Coupled with the fact that he’s sworn on his life to keep you safe, I’d say your chances of convincing him are quite low.”

  “Well, who cares what you think? I said I’m done listening to you!”

  Sam irately smacks Seymour’s hand aside, making the bullet casing fall to the ground with a light tinkling noise. Seymour stares at the shell in disappointment, while it glimmers dully in the light still streaming through the holes in the wrecked office’s walls, and pronou
nces to Sam quietly –

  “… You’re acting like a child, Sam. You don’t have a choice here.”

  Sam scowls at Seymour darkly, then wrenches the door open, but doesn’t pass through it. She stands still in the threshold, her hand clutching the doorknob, and her face taut with hesitation and contemplation. She bows her head sadly, her eyes filled with despondent tears, and without looking at Seymour, she utters in disbelief –

  “… How could you make me do it, Seymour..? Why would you make me kill all those people…?”

  “You were the one who came to me, Sam, not the other way around. You have no one to blame for getting you involved in this but yourself.”

  While bitter tears slide silently down Sam’s stark face, Seymour tests his leg once more, and finds with relief that most of the pain has faded as the wound continues to slowly heal from the inside out. He approaches Sam from behind slowly, puts his hands on her shoulders, and breathes gently, in a voice so sullenly dark, all light seems to be sucked from the room –

  “… If you don’t want to be a part of this, just take your own life, Sam.”

  Standing stock-still, her shaking hand clutching the doorknob tightly, Sam states in a shuddering voice charged with fear, her eyes resolutely averted from Seymour’s –

  “B-but…. I-I-”

  “Come on, Sam. Man up, why don’t you? Why do you need somebody else to kill you, when you can just do it yourself?”

  Seymour can hear her teeth grinding together in terror while she trembles fearfully in his grasp, the words caught in her throat as she chokes out in a near inaudible voice –

  “B-because I’m… I-I’m scared to die..”