Paradox: The Last Day - Seymour's Story

by Rachel Charman

  “But all joking aside, kid. You should do what I’m too old to do, and burn the whole fuckin’ city to the ground. Oh, and the people with it.”

  Seymour stares at Trace in complete shock as he pulls out a rather crushed box of bent cigarettes from the depths of his black vest and slides one between his yellowed teeth. However, his face suddenly screws up into an angered scowl, and he reluctantly flicks the cigarette against the side of the fridge.

  “Uh, so.. does that mean… You’re okay with it?”

  “Am I okay with it? Kid, it would be my honor to help you do it.”

  “You’ll really help me?”

  “Oh come on.. You and I have always been on the same level of thought, even when you were the PRIME’s littlest Lieutenant. We need to stop this shit in its tracks, before it’s too late. Besides, I’ve always said I wanted to go out with a bang.”

  “… So, you have no problem with anything I’ve done, or am going to do?”

  “Don’t make me repeat myself, kid. Now, what’s your plan?”

  Seymour smirks slightly, only now realizing how much he has missed Trace’s presence and his support. With difficulty, he removes his own bloodstained shirt, and slips on the one Trace loaned him with a grateful smile.

  “… Thanks, Trace..”

  “Yeah, yeah, just don’t get all sentimental on me, kid. It scares me. Just tell me your plan.”

  “Okay, well, I need to build another two MFIs, and install them into Gordon. After that, we go find Adrian and Sam.”

  “Whoa, hold up… Adrian? As in, your brother Adrian? He’s alive? I thought he’s been dead for years.”

  “Yes, well, apparently that wasn’t the case.”

  Seymour pulls his tracer off of his belt loop, activates it and scrutinizes the tiny red screen carefully. Elena and Sakura’s signatures travel slowly away from the cellar where he and Trace are concealed, but Sam and Adrian are nowhere to be found on the scarlet display.

  “Damn. Anyway Trace, I can track them with this little tracer, but I think they’ve gone out of my scan range.. So basically, I have no idea where they’ve gone. My tracer device only puts out enough energy to perform a complete 2D topographical projection within a hundred miles..”

  “Wait.. I never heard about any of this type of technology at the PRIME..”

  “Because the PRIME didn’t make it. I did.”

  “Really?”

  Trace snatches the tracer out of Seymour’s bandaged hands and examines it curiously, his bluish eyes alight with excitement.

  “Man.. I knew you were smart, Seymour, but goddamn.. Inventin’ all this stuff puts me to shame, heheh.. And you know what? I think I know what can remedy that situation. I’ve heard there’s a secret military radio wave amplifier in Santuc, at the PRIME’s military headquarters.”

  “A radio wave amplifier?”

  “Yeah, apparently, it has enough scanning power to monitor the entire world from the one terminal. The PRIME used it to intercept Aozora transmissions back when the war was on, but the Aozora were one step ahead of them, and didn’t use radio waves for transmissions. So now, the PRIME pretty much just uses it to spy on people’s conversations inside Santuc.”

  “That’s perfect! I can configure the proper output and frequency from there, and perform a world search for them. Thanks, Trace.”

  “Don’t mention it, kid. You just get to buildin’ that MFI thing you were talkin’ about.”

  “Sure. There’s just one more problem..”

  “And that is…?”

  Trace tosses the tracer back into Seymour’s lap, and he replaces it on his belt loop before answering.

  “I might be missing the most vital component of the apparatus. It’s a conical magnetic charge isolator, or CMCI unit. If I don’t have that, then the whole thing is scrap metal. It might be in one of those boxes, though.”

  “Well, how ‘bout I search the boxes for it, and you get to buildin’, alright?”

  “Good idea. Thanks.”

  “Heh, no problem. … It’s just nice to feel useful again.”

  Seymour uneasily walks into the side-room of the basement where his many boxes lay innocently, sits back against the wall, and pulls a box towards him, searching for components. As he searches, the bandages on his hand slip slightly, and he finds that the veins around his stab wounds are slightly blackened. Despite his trepidation at the sight of the odd discoloration, he continues his work in silence.

  Two monotonous, slow-moving days later, still holed up within the cramped confines of the dark, dreary hideout, Seymour sits cross-legged on the cold metal floor, working diligently on the MFI, using surgical tools recovered from his boxes to wire each component with supreme delicacy and precision. However, Elena and the others have yet to return from Santuc, and his unhealed wounds beget greater pain with each slowly passing hour, making it steadily harder for him to focus on building the apparatus, and soon, he starts to feel feverish and shaky, while small little black dots begin to appear at the sides of his vision. On the second day of waiting, Trace enters into the tiny side-room, carrying one of Seymour’s heavy boxes in one arm, and slams it down roughly on the ground at his feet without looking at him.

  “Hey, I searched through this box too. That’s a lot of random shit you got it there, but there’s no, uh, whatever it’s called.. The thing you’re lookin’ for, but I’ll keep checkin’.”

  Seymour thanks him in a weak, rasping voice, his head hidden in a box lying close to his side. Trace glances at him with a smile, which disappears when he notices that, as he takes his head out of the box, Seymour is extremely pale, shaking uncontrollably, and breathing in short, sharp intakes. Trace hastily crouches down to Seymour’s level, and worriedly shakes him by the shoulder. The veins around the choker on his throat are strangely ebonized, and as Trace looks down, he notices that the flesh around the wounds on Seymour’s hands are blackened and bleeding. He shakes him harder, and after a few seconds, Seymour raises his head up to look at Trace, though the side of his eyes have a sickly purplish tinge to them, making them look bruised.

  “H-hey, are you okay?”

  “I’ve… been better..”

  “Well, what’s the matter?”

  “… I think I just realized something..”

  Pulling off the bandages wrapped around his shaking left hand, Seymour frowns in revulsion, given that the flesh throughout his still unhealed wound is blackened and dead, and oozes a purplish-black suppuration. Trace recoils in disgust, but Seymour merely exclaims in a stoic tone –

  “Those knives Solari stabbed me with.. They must’ve been coated with Serpiente del Pecado venom.. I noticed something earlier when my hands were bandaged, but I just ignored it.. But I shouldn’t have.. Now, it’s killing my muscle tissue… And judging from the way I feel right now, it must be spreading..”

  “Oh shit! Can those Seraph Tears cure that?”

  “No.. Tears can only artificially close wounds, but they have no antiseptic qualities.. I’d need an antivenom to get rid of the poison itself from my bloodstream, but I’m pretty sure closing off the wounds would stop any more venom from spreading from the point of ingress..”

  “Ah, man.. Well, that’s good, I guess… Once blondie gets back, we can find you an antivenom.”

  “Yeah..”

  Trace sits back on his knees, watching Seymour nervously, and after a few tense moments, he says in a slightly patent tone –

  “Hey, uh, stupid question, I know, but how did you not realize you were poisoned? Aren’t most venoms fast-acting?”

  With his eyes fixed on the half-completed MFI apparatus in his now-exposed hand, Seymour says distantly –

  “… This particular venom.. it’s different. It becomes sequestered in major arteries and matures before any serious symptoms become noticeable..

  But when they start, they’re extremely fast-acting.. and.. lethal.. There must’ve just been more delay of symptom onset because of the Magni virus…”


  “Well, what does it do?”

  Ducking his head back into a nearby box, Seymour sifts through the contents listlessly, and after a few moments of searching, he says with his head still in the box –

  “… I, uh.. studied the symptoms and the effects of the venom on rats while I was synthesizing the SIN toxin.”

  “You mean the SIN toxin is made from this venom? … Shit. That’s bad.”

  “Yeah… Well, anyway.. first is.. extreme pain, branching from the initial wounds.. Then, I think, numbness caused by severe tissue decay as the matured venom spreads through the bloodstream.. After that, hallucinations.. Then, convulsions caused by drastically increased blood pressure… Then death. Death by cardiac arrest.”

  Emerging from the box, having found what he was looking for, Seymour looks up at Trace blearily, who stares at him with his mouth slightly open, completely taken aback by his calm demeanor.

  “S-so.. How long does this all take?”

  “Well.. If I stay calm, I’d say I have about.. maybe.. three hours before the venom kills me.”

  “Only three? Fuck… What should we do?”

  “… There’s nothing to do but wait… Wait until Elena and the others come back.. Then find the antivenom..”

  “But you seem awfully calm about this! What if they don’t make it back in time?”

  “Don’t worry, Trace. … They’ll make it. I have faith in her..

  In the meantime, I should get back to work..”

  Seymour weakly reaches over search to another box, but Trace grabs his hand roughly, causing him to wince in pain.

  “Forget that, kid! You can’t work like this. You’re dying. I think that’s an adequate excuse to slack off a little, wouldn’t you say?”

  “… No.. I have to get this done, no matter what.”

  He shakes his wounded hand out of Trace’s grip, and resumes searching through the box. Sighing wearily, Trace lies down on his back, rests his arms under his head, and asks worriedly –

  “Okay, kid.. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “… Just make sure I don’t stop working. When and if the time comes, no matter how much I protest, or how much pain I’m in, don’t let me stop working until it’s done.”

  “A-alright..”

  Seymour nods, and resumes wiring the MFI with shaking hands.

  Trace gets to his feet apprehensively, exits into the main chamber, and grabs another box to search through. He returns to the side-room, sits back down on the floor across from Seymour, and examines the contents inside, while Seymour continues his work in awkward, tense silence. Over an hour later, and still waiting on Elena’s return, Seymour suddenly stops working, and drops his forceps to the floor with a small groan of pain. Trace worriedly looks up from his box, and asks in a panicky voice –

  “W-what’s wrong?”

  “I-I can’t feel my hands.. Too much tissue has decayed..”

  “But you have to keep working..”

  “I know, I know…”

  With unfeeling hands, Seymour hurriedly sifts through the small piles of assorted tools sitting by his side, then scoops up a tiny scalpel and a bundle of thin green wires and hands them to Trace before explaining in a harried, pained voice –

  “Here, take those, and make incisions here in the center of the palm, the back, and slightly below the wrist. Then insert the ends of the wires into the incisions, and hook them into the MFI battery. If it works properly, it should shock my muscles, and bring back temporary feeling..”

  Trace stares down at the tiny tools in his hands, and says, completely mystified –

  “… You thought of all that just now?”

  “Yes, now please hurry!”

  “Oh right, sorry..”

  Trace takes the scalpel, and gingerly incises exactly where Seymour has specified. He then takes the wires, places them into the incisions, and hooks them up to the MFI battery, just as Seymour has instructed. Instantly, Seymour yells in pain, swiftly grabs the wires, and pulls them out. He anxiously tests his hands’ movement, and gives a weak smile of thanks to Trace, who doesn’t return it.

  “D-did it work , kid?”

  “S-somewhat.. It, ahh.. certainly hurt enough…”

  “… How’d you know that was going to work?”

  “I didn’t.”

  Seymour shakily retrieves his forceps, his fingers still tingling from the shock, and continues constructing the apparatus under Trace’s wary eyes. After another hour of discomfited silence, Seymour picks up the tiny circular battery in his forceps, carefully places it within the second MFI’s core, and hands it to Trace with a satisfied smile.

  “Right then. The entire apparatus is built, except for the isolator. Did you find it?”

  “No. This is the last box, and it’s not in there. Sorry, kid..”

  “It’s fine. I know where to find it, so once Elena and the others get back, we’ll go get it.”

  “Well, we’ll figure all that out later.”

  Trace holds the near-completed MFI unit up to his eye and examines it curiously, while Seymour wipes the cold sweat off of his face with the bottom of his shirt.

  “This thing is pretty impressive, kid, even without the cone thing. How’d you ever figure it out?”

  “I.. don’t really know.. I just had the idea one day, and once I started building, things just sorta clicked into place… Though, the Magnetic Force Initiator did take me five years to perfect…”

  “Well, you’re definitely the one with the smarts in your family, kid. That’s for sure.”

  Seymour rests his head against the cold concrete wall, and nervously wraps his arms around his knees, his whole body trembling fitfully. Trace puts a hand on his knee and says worriedly –

  “So, uh.. What now? You gonna be okay..?”

  “No.. I need something to do.. I need something else to concentrate on.. Focusing on the pain makes it more likely that I would panic and die faster.”

  “Well, what is there to do? What can you do, kid?”

  “… I don’t know.. I-I can’t think properly.. I can’t.. think…”

  “… Kid?”

  Seymour seems to stare at nothing in particular for a few moments, his eyes sporting a strange glaze, then he takes a deep, shuddering breath, and suddenly, his body starts to convulse before Trace’s eyes.

  “Whoa, shit!”

  Too shocked to move, Trace simply watches in terror as Seymour falls forward in sickening paroxysms. Trace grabs him before he hits the ground, and holds him at arm’s length against the wall, watching completely helplessly as Seymour grabs Trace’s wrists, and pitches forward, vomiting reddish-black colored blood as he falls to his knees. Trembling, still tightly gripping Trace’s wrists, Seymour looks up into his face, his eyes glassy, and stricken with an uncharacteristic expression of terror.

  “… T-Trace.. P-please… I-it hurts..”

  “S-Seymour, it’s okay! R-remember what you said? T-this is nothing, right..?”

  Shaking his head back and forth slowly, his face frozen in abject horror while blood seeps from the sides of his mouth, Seymour shudders and cries in pain; Trace staggers against the wall, his wrists still being tightly gripped, and covers Seymour’s tear-stained eyes with his trembling hands while he gasps in aberrant terror –

  “N-n-no… no more.. M-make it stop.. Please… I-it hurts..”

  “Seymour, it’s alright! W-whatever you’re seeing, it’s not real! It’s just you and me here.. Seymour..”

  “… Trace.. I-I can’t..”

  His bruised eyes wide and glassy, Seymour takes another sharp breath, abruptly relinquishes his grip upon Trace’s wrists, and falls back into him, ashen-faced and motionless. Trace’s heart beats wildly in the fathomless silence, and, unable to move, or think properly, he suddenly hears the basement’s cellar door swing open, throwing a gust of cold wind into the chamber below. The sound of footsteps thundering down the creaky stairs draws closer, and Elena dashes into the main room wit
h a relieved smile on her wind-beaten face, which instantly disappears at the sight of Seymour lying against Trace, completely still and silent.

  “You’re too late. He’s dead.”

  Elena stares wide-eyed at Seymour’s limp body in shock, too stunned to speak. Instead, she approaches Trace with staggering steps, and suddenly, her sadness turned into white-hot rage, forcefully strikes him in the face, knocking him to the ground. Trace grips his nose tightly, and yells furiously –

  “W-What the hell was that for?!”

  Her eyes burning with rage, Elena seizes the front of Trace’s vest and screams wildly at him –

  “What happened?!”

  “I-it wasn’t my fault! H-he was poisoned… Solari’s knives were coated with snake venom, and it killed him.”

  “But.. But he said he could hold out ‘til we came back!”

  “He had no idea he was poisoned before it was too late.. But he tried. Believe me, girl.”

  Putting a trembling hand on Seymour’s clammy, ashen cheek, she whispers breathlessly, the sides of her eyes prickling with hot tears –

  “N-no… It can’t be..”

  “… He must’ve been in terrible pain.. I can’t even begin to imagine.. But he just couldn’t hold out for you forever.. The venom was too strong. His heart just… stopped.”

  Elena stares at Seymour’s lifeless face, letting the wave of guilt wash over her, when suddenly, she remembers the seized items list they were reading together back at DIV. 1. On the first page, in box #1, was VENOM injectors.