by Jordan Ervin
“The men in England…they didn’t hurt you, did they?” Lukas asked.
“They about gave me a heart attack when they stormed the palace. Lucky for me, you called them off before they found me. It only cost me thirteen defense drones and five guards. An easy price to pay for a chance to live again.”
“Was Eli Kane a traitor?” Lukas asked.
“Afraid not,” Jacob replied. “Though he was a relatively poor general. That’s not to say there are no other Patriarch Agents who successfully embedded themselves in our ranks. They will be rattled after what happened to Jamie. With time, we can use what happened to flush them and give them a proper farewell.”
“And Maria, you said she’s alive and well?”
Jacob hesitated, glancing at the door before looking back at Lukas. “I said she was alive, but I did not say she is well. I will not hide or sugarcoat the facts. She was shot twice—once in the chest and once in the face. Fortunately, fate smiled down upon her, deciding the time for Maria Brekor to die had not yet come. That extravagant necklace you gave her deflected much of the bullet that struck her chest. She broke three ribs and still has a piece of the round near her heart, but she will live.”
“And…her face?”
Jacob smiled—pausing as his eyes began to glisten. It was the closest thing to sorrow that Lukas had ever seen on the man. Jacob cleared his throat loudly. “She lost a fourth of her jaw and fourteen teeth. The scar extends from her chin to her left ear. The good news is she will speak again. They have already performed one reconstructive surgery on her face and have scheduled many more in the coming weeks. Though the doctors do not know if she will ever look the same, the nanobots we were all given as Patriarchs are helping her recover at a remarkable rate.” Jacob paused, his eyes narrowing as both pity and a flash of anger filled them. “Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about you.”
“What do you mean?” Lukas asked slowly.
“Lukas, what do you think it was I gave you three and a half months ago to destroy Sigmund’s drug?”
Lukas’ eyes darted back and forth, trying to come up with an answer. He had never really questioned what it was that Jacob gave him, trusting the effects and not the means.
“I don’t know,” Lukas replied. “The antidote.”
“An antidote for a synthetic injection composed of millions of microscopic nanobots?” Jacob said before shaking his head. “Lukas, this was not some virus that was in your veins. It was a robotic swarm. What I gave you disabled them…and every other nanobot in your system. If anything survived, it was surely killed when they used the last of the disabling injection—the N-Twelve serum. Whatever Jamie had injected you with was never activated, but it was slowly causing your blood pressure to drop dangerously. Isaac was a friend on this side of the pond and when I heard what happened, I led him to the N-Twelve I had stored secretly in the White House. He was able to save your life, though we still don’t know what it was they had injected you with. I am sorry, but the fountain of youth that once made you strong is no more. You will age again.”
Panic began to overwhelm Lukas. Since his deliverance and the creation of the Imperium, he had thought his life would be prolonged for another one or two hundred years—plenty of time to solve the problem of death and become the world’s first immortal king. Now, he wasn’t sure his body would live past eighty without a miracle. “But I…how…what’s going to happen?” Lukas asked frantically. “Is there more that we can use to—”
“The injection derived for the Brazilian’s fountain of youth was and is truly one of a kind,” Jacob replied. “I have had scientists examine my blood and the nanobots that dwell there in an attempt to replicate his brilliance. Still, they have yet to get anywhere close. Their best efforts are the drugs we give those to cure the common cold. Nevertheless, I say fear not. We were able to utilize the late Miss Rowe’s quantum computers to develop an algorithm that grants us eyes behind the Graystone devices that shroud Sigmund and the Gulf. Once we secure your borders we will expand our reach. I’ve already begun transferring old NATO and UN military assets across the Atlantic to aid you in this fight. We will take full control of the Americas while the Imperium uses what we leave behind in Europe to spread south into Africa and east into Asia. Before we are done, we will take the Brazilian and squeeze him until every drop of knowledge has dripped from his dry bones. It might take years, but that should not be a problem so long as you care for yourself.”
Lukas paused again before tearing his eyes away from Jacob, looking over at the window as he failed to kill the tears that now dampened his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Lukas finally said. “You trusted me, you fought for me, and I failed us all.”
Jacob paused, glancing back at Lukas quietly before standing from his chair and walking over to the corner. After a moment, he returned with a wheel chair and knelt down next to the bed.
“Why do you think I did what I did to save you when Sigmund had you all but beat?” Jacob asked. “Why do you think I follow your lead and not the other way around? While we’re at it, why does anyone follow you? After all, your secrets were laid bare to the world last year and they saw that the great Lukas Chambers was not without fault. I am not ashamed to say that I wasn’t convinced you’d be accepted by everyone, but still they flocked to you. Our borders swelled with refugees, all willing to establish the Imperium and follow your lead—a man they knew was flawed. So again, I will ask you; why does anyone follow you?”
“I….” Lukas’ mouth worked though he failed to think of an answer. He had never thought about why anyone had actually chosen to follow him; he simply accepted that fact. Now that the question was there, he couldn’t stop the words from echoing around inside his head like the gong of a bell. “I don’t know.”
“Lukas,” Jacob began, “they don’t follow you because of you. They follow you because of your dream. We might have played a role in destabilizing this world, but it was heading that way long before you and I came about. Mankind has damned itself. Humanity has slain hundreds of millions over the past one hundred years, all in the name of religion and duty to a country. You represent the answer to that problem. You—a flawed man leading a flawed race—can pass through the fire and come out perfect. You can purify this world. We can unite mankind and learn to coexist, but the moment your arrogance and pride overshadows that dream will be the moment those who have flocked to your bosom abandon you.” Jacob leaned in close, resting his hand on Lukas’ arm. “I still dream with open eyes, son. I am still with you if you are still with me.”
“I am,” Lukas said, wiping the last tear away.
“And as the Sovereign of the world’s greatest dream, what are you going to do about what was done to us?”
Lukas paused, his fingers clenching the sheets tighter in his grasp. He gritted his teeth, trying and failing to suppress the anger within himself. Sigmund had used Jamie to infiltrate and play him like a puppet. He had been tricked into executing his own general and almost lost everything else—Maria, Jacob, the Imperium, and his own life. His rage billowed like a fiery furnace, searching for a fissure to squeeze through. He looked back at Jacob, knowing the answer Jacob and the world needed to hear.
“We’re going to find Sigmund,” Lukas replied. “No more focusing on a city here and a town there. We gather everything we have and we cut the head off the snake.”
Jacob nodded his head and smiled, rising and turning to the side. He unfolded a wheelchair and rolled it over to the bedside. “Come. I assumed temporary command of the Imperium during your recovery and I have already begun to gather what resources we have for a final push, as I thought that would be your decision. Do not worry, I have already decreed that authority back to you. Europe will be quite enough for me to handle. Regardless, I think you and I should take a stroll.”
“To where?” Lukas asked, wincing as Jacob helped him off the bed.
Jacob smiled, looking at the door as though he were thinking of someone else. He
turned back to Lukas and cleared his throat.
“There is a girl we ought to see.”
Maria Brekor glanced out the window to her right, staring wordlessly at the birds that fluttered and danced on the budding limbs of a towering tree. She wondered if there was a nest in the wide branches, hidden somewhere out of sight. The two birds—blue jays, so far as she could tell—chirped and sang as they flew about without a care in the world. They were so beautiful and so free.
Unlike me….
Maria turned her head, the silk veil that covered the lower half of her face shifting against her rough and jagged skin. She almost reached up again to touch her wound, but forced her hand still. She knew what would be there, or rather, what wouldn’t be there. She was now the faceless queen—a shell of what had once been a beautiful woman. Though she wanted to weep, she knew she couldn’t. To allow more than a single tear at a time would be to admit defeat and she’d rather die than give in. Still, she did permit herself a lone drop of sorrow that held the rising sun and glistened as it descended her cheek, a morning star that had lost its home among the heavens.
A knock came from the door and she turned her head. Her instincts were to call out, but she quickly suppressed the urge. Anytime she tried to speak, her voice emanated as a garbled mess, like porous tar compared to the smooth ice it had once been. The doctors promised her she would be able to speak again in her old voice, though they were hesitant to say she would ever look the same. The bullet that hit her in the face had shattered bone as it passed cleanly through, though clean was a relative term. Left behind in its wake was now a network of scars draped over a hollow cavity where parts of her jaw had been. It was now fused back together, but she didn’t dare look at the horrific damage. She reached over to the see-through screen beside her bed and pressed a blue button, opening the door.
The door opened and Lukas sat in a wheel chair, his eyes immediately watering as Jacob rolled him into the room. Maria’s body suddenly felt afire with hatred. Her eyes went wide and her breath came deeply. She had learned to loathe the man she once loved, growing fond only of her abhorrence for him. In the days since she first woke from surgery, her father had attempted to update her on Lukas’ condition. Apparently, whatever Jamie had injected into him had nearly killed him. She had refused to see him or care about his condition, telling everyone to only update her if he died. Now, as he rolled into her room, she began to wonder if the rage growing inside would ever know limits.
“Maria,” Lukas began, “I….”
She wanted to howl and berate him. She wanted to tell him what she really thought of him. She wanted to scream and force her words of hatred into his skull with a hammer, but she couldn’t. Lukas had abandoned their love and taken her voice, leaving her with nothing but a hope for wrath.
She reached over to the tablet and digital pen beside her bed. She quickly wrote the only word she could think of, biting back the urge to cry as she did. The tablet translated her writing and spoke in her place.
“Go,” the digital voice said. Maria hated it, her smooth voice being replaced by a robotic lie. Still, it was either an electronic assistant or the ghastly shriek that had replaced her tongue.
“Maria, I—”
She turned to the display and tapped the screen again harder.
“Go!”
“I will,” Lukas said, the hurt on his face the one pleasing thing to Maria. “Just hear me out and I will go.”
She raised her hand as though she would press the button again, but she halted. What does he want? What could he possibly expect from me? She lowered her hand, though the scowl above her mask never faltered.
“I’m sorry,” Lukas said. “I…never meant to hurt you. I was blind and a fool. I know that now and I accept my actions. I just hope that we can work past this. I don’t want anyone else. I don’t want another queen. I want you, Maria Brekor, the love of my life. I want you and you alone.”
“Build your empire,” Maria wrote, pausing as the tablet spoke for her. “Alone, like you wanted.”
“I don’t want to do it alone,” Lukas said. “It’s meaningless without you.”
“What do you want from me?” Maria wrote, quelling the urge to growl.
“I want you by my side when we destroy Sigmund for what he’s done. No more battles for outlying cities. We’re going to strike at his heart as he struck at ours. Together, we can rid this world of him and build the empire we’ve always dreamed about. But I can’t…I don’t want to do it without you. I want you to forgive me for what I’ve done and learn to love me again.”
Maria gazed back at him, bracing herself for the urge to cry and accept his apology. She knew her instincts would be to accept his embrace and work through this together. She had loved him fiercely for years, always envisioning an endless life in a new world with him.
But as Maria Brekor waited for that dishonest love to rise from within and betray her, she hesitated. As it emerged, it emerged as a new, hopeful, and dangerous idea. She thought back to everything he had done to hurt her over the last few months. She thought back to Jamie Rowe and her attempts to dethrone Lukas. Jamie had worked covertly to fracture the Imperium and end the nightmare of Lukas Chambers. If there was one thing Maria now agreed with the dead woman on, it was her end resolve.
Lukas Chambers must die.
Still, even Maria knew a simple death was not an adequate reward for what he had done. She wanted him to fight for her. She wanted him to struggle with what he had done every day as he struggled to win her back. And then, she wanted Lukas to believe he had regained her allegiance and her love. Once that had happened, she would strike his heart. It wasn’t a physical death she desired for Lukas.
She wanted to crush his very soul.
Maria leaned forward—what remained of her jaw unmoving, though her eyes smiled. She then slowly reached toward her right ear, grabbing and pulling free the black loop that supported her mask. She lowered the veil, revealing the shocking wound that decorated her face. She then sat up and leaned forward, brushing her hand against his cheek.
“There, there, my love,” Maria said, her voice a horrifying hiss. Lukas’ eyes widened in shock as she spoke—a look that pleased her. “I will stay with you until the end—always loathing you from behind this shroud of tears. Maybe one day I will love you again, but until that moment, know that I will hate you every minute of every hour, of every day.”
Waves crashed against the hazy ocean shore as Sigmund Dietrich sat alone, daydreaming about Jamie Rowe. A breeze wafted off the sea and traveled two hundred feet to the back porch where Sigmund reclined, filling his nostrils with the intermixing scents of salt water and rain. Thunder rumbled again in the distance, growling across the beach and vibrating the ice in his glass of Bourbon atop the side table. He glanced down at his glass, pausing as he stared at it. The Bourbon—the only drink Jamie Rowe had ever cared for—had cost more than the typical car and he had saved it for her return. Now…Sigmund drank alone, taking the single glass by the hand and raising it to his lips.
It had been six days since the failed hit that cost him the life of a valuable Agent and the opportunity to kill Lukas Chambers. Jamie’s failure had hit Sigmund hard, and not simply because he had grown fond of the pretty girl. Long ago—about the time he had fully given himself over to the heart of darkness—Sigmund had abandoned the part of him that formed irrational attachments. Though his primal instincts were to weep for the woman who had lived with him for years, he refrained from doing so. While the news of what happened had sent him into a temporary isolation, it was not because of her death. Rather, it was the fact that she had been so close to finishing what she had started and still managed to fail, like a man who courts a woman for years only to have her die the night he finally weds her.
A digital screen to his right lit up with the face of Silvia Rios, though he paid more attention to the drink in his hand. Spices, a hint of caramel, and a touch of vanilla all blended together into the light burn that car
essed his throat. He closed his eyes, savoring the splendor. After a pause, he reopened his eyes and stared down at the glass.
“I’ve never been one to care much for liquor,” Sigmund said aloud. “To me, those who drank it did so more for the show of it than anything else. Still, if there was one thing Jamie Rowe did right, it was pick the finest drink to ever grace my tongue.” He took another drink before grabbing the bottle and pouring another. He stood slowly, the bottle in one hand and his glass in the other, before turning to the image and smiling. “For the road,” he said, raising the bottle and glass in hand. “I will be there in a moment.”
Silvia nodded and the screen winked out as he turned and walked into his home. For all the technological wonders the Patriarchs had discovered over the past few decades, Sigmund’s personal home was surprisingly simple. Though nice by most standards, the majority of the home lacked the futuristic ambiance all his other residences held. Hardwood floors stretched throughout the living room while granite counters and stainless steel appliances complemented the kitchen. He passed through both unassuming rooms and entered a hallway that led to the back of the house, pausing before a wooden door. On the other side would be those who looked to him for answers. They would want to know his next scheme. They’d want to know how he would recover from Jamie’s failure and manage to complete the mission. However, Sigmund knew what they must do; he just didn’t know how they would do it.
At least, not yet.
He opened the door and walked into a room much different than the room behind him. Tall walls coated in the typical pastel colors of New Orleans surrounded him. In the center of the chamber was Mahiri Onyango with his one eye patch, Silvia Rios and her unflinching stare, Sūn Vetrov’s composed appearance, and Victor Castle—a man terrified of the agony that slumbered, ready to be awakened on a moment’s notice. Rendell Boss stood against the far wall. He had never been one to sit, always concerned that someone might burst into the room with guns blazing. Still, that idea didn’t worry Sigmund right now. He didn’t care if the entire Imperium army marched into the room. He’d stare them down and dare them to raise their weapons.
