Paradox: The Last Day - Seymour's Story

by Rachel Charman

  “You think we’d actually applaud a perverted bastard like you? You may be trying to save the world, but your world isn’t one I’d particularly like to live in. I think I speak for all of my Seeker brothers when I say that you are the worst human being alive on this planet, and that I would love nothing more than to rip out your heart and fire your lifeless corpse from a cannon. Er, well, I don’t think I can say that for ALL of my Seekers… I’m sure they’d like to kill you in their own ways too. So yeah, I’ll applaud you, but the only way you’ll get me to is if you cut off my hands and slap them together yourself.”

  Baring his teeth in rage-filled humiliation, Solari primly straightens himself in the midst of the Seekers, who all howl with laughter at their leader’s proclamation, and although his voice is calm, his eyes burn with fierce fury.

  “You just made a big mistake, Seeker scum.”

  “Oh? Is that right?”

  “It is. I will have my men come and dispose of you all for insulting me!”

  “Don’t be such a baby, Solari.”

  Solari furiously cracks his belt down on the metal ground, making the sound echo all down the dark tunnel, and the Seekers suddenly fall silent, watching Solari’s brick-red visage through the shadows with trepidation.

  “… You.. The way you talk reminds me of someone I know…”

  “Oh yeah? Well, isn’t that fascinating. .. We’ll be going now. We have some of your men to massacre.”

  Cheering in energized ecstasy, the Seekers take off down the tunnel before Solari can react, tearing towards the exit at top speed, all except the covered Seeker, who notices Seymour lying behind Solari’s legs, and tries to approach, though Solari furiously stands in his way.

  “Don’t you even dare, Seeker shithead. This man will stay dead this time, and there’s nothing you can do to make me move!”

  “Really..”

  With a smile and a tilt of his head, he grabs Solari by the forearm before the General can react, and crushes the bone with almost no effort. Crying out in shock, Solari tries to break free of the Seeker’s grip, though it proves to be too strong. Solari glares furiously at the Seeker through his pain; he smiles widely beneath his coverings, reaches up, and pulls off his sunglasses to reveal a set of burning scarlet eyes. Solari stops struggling instantly and goes pale.

  “I-it is you…!”

  The scarlet-eyed Seeker winks derisively at Solari, tightens his grip on his crushed arm, and sends him flying headfirst into the tunnel wall, where he smashes his skull against the metal, and falls unconscious. The Seeker drags his limp body across the ground roughly, walks over to one of the side chambers filled with dead bodies, forcefully tosses him down the stairs, and shuts the door, submerging the chamber within in complete darkness. Laughing at the General’s impotence, the Seeker returns to Seymour and kneels down next to his asphyxiated form. He seizes the hem of his tattered black coat, and his eyes widen in surprise. He then slides Seymour’s lifeless body up into his arms, and takes off down the tunnel in the wake of his comrades.

  While two soldiers drag the still-unconscious Trace and Sam out of the tunnel and into an APC, the remaining soldiers in the circle turn their guns back onto Elena and Data, who clutch eachother tightly, too terrified to move, when the sound of a mass of charging footsteps suddenly echoes throughout the tunnel around them, along with the distant din of exuberant roars and thunderous cheers. While the soldiers search for the source of the ruckus, it soon becomes clear, as a group of over a hundred well-armed Seekers pour out of the shadows, and circle around the ring of PRIME soldiers encircling Elena and Data.

  “What are you all doing here? This is a PRIME operation, and you’ll be arrested if you interfere!”

  The Seeker with the swathed head steps away from his band of brothers, and pretends to shake in fear of the PRIME soldiers surrounding him, a look of devious amusement shining from behind his dark glasses.

  “What kind of fucking soldiers are you, anyway?! Tryin’ to kill defenseless girls and one-armed guys wearing glasses?! That’s not right. Not right at all. Am I right, men?!”

  The Seekers in the band all cheer and cry in raucous agreement, and draw their weapons.

  “PRIME operation or not, you bitches are on our turf. And I believe the agreement between us and the PRIME is that we stay holed up in this filthy tunnel, and you don’t interfere with us, or invade on our turf.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Well, it appears as though our agreement… has just become null.”

  With an incensed shout, the man in the scarf raises his gloved hand into the air, and flicks his wrist forward. Instantly, the Seekers charge into battle with the PRIME soldiers, screaming and yelling with delight as they confidently rip through the bewildered troops. In their clash, they are too distracted to notice as Data quickly pulls Elena onto her feet, and together, try to run out of the tunnel. As they race through the thick throngs of warring factions, a soldier near the exit of the tunnel spots them dashing through, and aims his rifle straight at Elena. Noticing the soldier’s pointed movement, Data reacts just in time to shove Elena out of the way of the soldier’s bullet, and is pegged in the stomach. Taken by surprise, Data trips over himself and slams hard against the tunnel wall. Gasping in shock, Elena turns to the soldier, and furiously dashes toward him, magnetically displacing his bullets with her MFIs as she tackles him to the ground. She grabs onto his head as he fitfully flails his arms and legs all about, and after a few seconds of him struggling, she forcefully snaps his neck. Hurriedly returning to Data’s side as he lies slumped against the tunnel wall, grasping his bullet wound painfully as blood leaks out from between his fingers, Elena eyes fill with tears as she tries to take his hand away from the wound, but he pushes her away with a painful grimace.

  “I’m fine. Just get out of here.”

  “Shut up! I am NOT leaving you behind!”

  “I’ll be fine… I-it’s not too bad…”

  Elena smiles at Data through her tears, presses his shaking hand against her burning cheek, and says sadly –

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Gordon… You’ve watched too many stupid movies. I’m gonna get you to safety.”

  “I s-said go! I-I’ll just slow you down, so get out of here before you’re spotted.. Get s-somewhere safe..”

  Tears sliding down her face, Elena gives her brother one last hug before dashing out of the tunnel - covering her head with her hands as bullets fly all around her - and into the muggy lights of the Trajit slums.

  Hey.. C’mon, Seymour.. Wake the fuck up!

  Feeling a hard slap on the side of his face, Seymour opens his eyes suddenly, coughing hard from lack of oxygen, to find a portable silicon oxygen mask affixed to his face. His vision remains just as blurry, if not more so, than before he blacked out. The stab wound on his shoulder throbs painfully, and the bruised flesh on his throat above his choker stings intensely. Weakly brushing his hair out of his pale face, he sits up against the tunnel wall, as the bright orangey light streaming in from the tunnel exit burns in his eyes. All around him, he can hear voices, which echo terribly and indiscernibly in his pounding head, though he is only able to disentangle a few disjointed sentences from the noise, such as “burn the solders-“ and “line the dead up on the ground-“. Feeling himself slipping back into unconsciousness, somebody beyond his blurred vision slaps him hard in the face again, much harder than the first time, which fully snaps Seymour out of his breathless stupor. As his vision comes into focus, so too does the hidden face of the Seeker entrenched in his black scarf, who is hovering over Seymour’s shoulder while he wraps a thick bandage around his wound.

  “… What the-.. You’re not.. Where is.. Solari..?”

  “We took care of him. Don’t worry ‘bout it.”

  “… Huh? You guys… helped?”

  “Yep. The PRIME was on our turf. They know what happens when they step over their boundaries. It was a hell of a fight, and we lost a lot of our men.. It’s just too bad your f
riends got caught in the crossfire as well..”

  His breathing labored and shallow, Seymour tries to make sense of everything happening around him as he continues to cough breathlessly behind the oxygen mask.

  “But.. Y-you said.. didn’t help… strangers…”

  “Well, turns out you’re not quite the stranger I thought you were. Hard not to recognize the face of the most wanted man in the world.”

  “Y-yeah.. everyone knows who.. I am…”

  The man seems to grin under his scarf as he finishes wrapping the bandage around Seymour’s shoulder. He then pulls Seymour to his feet roughly, and grips his arm tightly as he sways dizzily, his mind still foggy and disorganized as he slowly removes the mask from his face.

  “You gonna be okay? I’m surprised Solari was able to do so much damage to ya.”

  “… I-I’ll be fine…

  Still short of breath, Seymour hangs from the man’s shoulder and watches as a cavalry of Seekers line up the bloody bodies of their fallen comrades, and the even-bloodier eXo PRIME soldiers’ bodies, along the ground. Approaching the assemblage of corpses, he spots a familiar-looking one sitting against the tunnel wall, gripping his stomach with one arm, his face white as a ghost, eyes closed, sporting a look of stricken pain on his bespectacled visage.

  “Data!”

  At Seymour’s urging, the man helps him over to the opposite side of the tunnel and drops him at Data’s feet before retreating to check on his Seekers. Seymour hurriedly checks Data’s pulse on his throat, though he weakly brushes Seymour’s hand away with a grim, though slightly amused smile, and mumbles dazedly –

  “… Still alive, I see..”

  “What happened to you?!”

  “… Got shot.”

  “Where’s Elena?”

  “Don’t worry.. As far as I know, she made it out safe..”

  “What about Trace?”

  “… I don’t know..”

  Data winces in pain as Seymour inches closer, trying not to panic as he watches blood seep through his companion’s fingers.

  “L-listen, Seymour.. Go find Elena.. She can’t have gotten far.. Make sure she’s safe..”

  “Of course, but.. You’re coming with me, right?”

  “Heheh.. Don’t worry about me… Just find Elena.”

  Despite Data’s protests, Seymour shakes his head, and refuses to leave him behind. He pulls the MFI apparatus out from his pocket, activates the battery hanging loosely from the main body, and, holding it over Data’s bullet wound, magnetically siphons the bullet out from within the subcutaneous lesion. The sheer pain of the extraction makes Data pass out, and as the wound leaks more blood, Seymour quickly reaches for the nearest PRIME soldier’s corpse, rolls it onto its stomach, reaches inside its backpack, and, with relief, pulls out a small package of bandages. Seymour swiftly tends to Data’s haemorrhaging wound, while the remaining Seekers in the tunnel crowd around, and watch curiously as Seymour finishes bandaging. Once finished, he picks Data up in his arms, and turns to them with a look of panic.

  “This bandaging won’t hold forever.. Is there anywhere we can go so I can help him better?”

  The Seekers look at each other in confusion, and the one who had slapped Seymour back to consciousness emerges from the crowd with a hidden smile.

  “You ever heard of The Raven’s Nest?”

  Seymour frowns slightly; the name stirs something in his memory, though through his somewhat deoxygenated brain, he has trouble remembering.

  “… The Raven’s Nest?”

  “C’mon, Seymour. The fallout shelter in Liberty?”

  “Oh.. Oh yeah! That place would be perfect! Er, wait.. How do you even know about that place?”

  “Uh, we were PRIME soldiers once too?”

  “Oh, right.. Well, that’s a good idea… The only problem is that it’s in Liberty District.. There’s no way I could make it there on foot with him..”

  “Ah, don’t worry ‘bout that. My men and I’ll help you get wherever you need.”

  “Hm… Why are you so quick to help me..?”

  “Like I said.. You ain’t a stranger to me.”

  Turning from Seymour to face his crowd of eager-looking men, the Seeker motions to them to return to their base, which they do swiftly, though Seymour holds the Seeker back warily.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Don’t worry. You just wait here. We’ll be back in a minute.”

  The remaining Seekers and their leader hurry back down the darkened tunnel, leaving Seymour alone amid the scores of dead. He cautiously checks on Data’s bandage, though thankfully, no blood has leaked through yet. Seymour sits in silence against the tunnel wall for over ten minutes, when the air around him suddenly fills with the deafening sound of tires screeching. Searching for the source of the din, Seymour sees a massive 18-wheeler truck with the crimson Seekers of Peace emblem emblazoned on the side come abruptly screaming from out of the shadows, grinding to a halt right in front of Seymour. The helpful Seeker leader opens the passenger side door, and beckons Seymour inside with a lively smile.

  “Put the kid in the back. My men are in there, and they’ll take care of him.”

  “Alright, thanks.. uh.. I don’t know your name..”

  The Seeker leader shifts somewhat nervously in his seat, and after a moment of awkward silence, he exclaims in a forced offhanded tone –

  “… Eh, what the hell. It’s Mikael, Seymour. Mikael Valkyrie, leader of the Seekers of Peace.”

  The Seeker takes off the scarf wrapped around his head to reveal a spiky shock of teal-colored hair, and pulls off his glasses to show shining scarlet eyes glowing from out of his visage of yellowy skin. Seymour steps back in complete shock, his eyes widened so much that it hurts, and stammers in total disillusionment, while the man called Valkyrie smiles down at him amusedly –

  “M-M-Mikael?! But I.. you.. I-I thought you were dead!”

  “Heh, let me guess.. Solari told you I died, right?”

  “Yeah, he did! H-he said the Magni virus killed you!”

  Mikael sighs wearily and leans against the steering wheel, his brow furrowed as he explicates calmly –

  “I made that story up, Seymour.”

  “W-what..?”

  “Yeah.. I hated to lie to you, but I knew Solari would go to any lengths to eliminate anyone who had ties to the Aozora Alliance. I knew it was only a matter of time before Solari took me out, so I made up the story about the Magni virus being lethal so I could disappear from the PRIME without anybody knowing.”

  “So.. That’s why it never killed me?”

  Valkyrie nods sadly, his head still resting against the steering wheel as he mutters apologetically –

  “Mine was a perfect symbiosis too, like yours… Other than the hair and eyes thing. It’s what helped me live this long, I think.”

  Expecting Seymour to be furious at him, Valkyrie is taken by surprise as he smiles up at him, with no trace of anger in his colorless eyes.

  “I-I’m so glad you’re alive, man.”

  “Oh, uh... yeah.. W-we should probably get going.. Your friend is in pretty bad shape as it is..”

  “Oh, right..”

  Rounding to the back of the truck, Seymour pulls the doors open, and finds the entire cargo area packed with Seekers, all heavily armed and stirring anxiously in their seats.

  “Oh.. Is it okay if I-“

  “Yeah, just leave him here. We’ll look after him.”

  Seymour nods, lays Data down on the bench at the very end of the cargo area, and, after shutting the doors, returns to the front of the truck, and climbs into the passenger seat. Valkyrie guns the engine, and takes off out of the dark tunnel, and into the bright orange lights of the desolate Trajit slums.

  ~Santuc TerraDome: Trajit District~

  Speeding along the cracked, empty streets of the decrepit Trajit slums, Seymour worriedly fidgets with the MFI apparatuses in his lap, his mind working hard and fast, while Valkyrie haphazardly w
inds the truck through the maze of crumbling buildings, which gradually come into better repair as they slowly work their way towards the eXo PRIME Liberty/Trajit Checkpoint. There is a long silence between the two old friends, which Valkyrie finally breaks by asking Seymour tentatively –

  “So, uh… I just wanted to know, Seymour.. I-is, y’know.. Aiden.. Is she still..?”

  Seymour glances over at Valkyrie nervously, trying to find a delicate way to explain while not implicating himself. After another long silence, Seymour finally responds by muttering –

  “No... No, she isn’t, Mikael. She’s been dead for a while now.”

  “.. Ah… I see. … Well, I suppose it was inevitable, with her working for the PRIME for so long..”

  Seymour hears the bitter, resentful tone in Valkyrie’s voice, and he thinks that perhaps it contains an accusatory note, as though he already knows exactly what Aiden’s fate was.

  “… Do you blame me, Mikael?”

  “Well… Only if you swear that you didn’t have anything to do with it. You didn’t, did you?”

  “N-no.. no, I.. I didn’t.”

  Mikael eyes him suspiciously for a moment before sighing sadly and nodding forlornly. The two fall into a solemn silence before Seymour breaks it by putting his MFIs away and saying quietly –

  “So, Mikael.. Why wouldn’t you help me before when I first asked?”

  Valkyrie lets out a bark of laughter at Seymour’s question, effectively breaking up the somber atmosphere, and he says amusedly, his eyes still fixed on the winding roads of Trajit –