by P. S. Power
Everyone was frozen in place for a few moments, shock rippling through them all, some muttering starting at about the time Tipper moved. They used to be teammates on a cleaning squad, which meant that if Jake asked her to do something that seemed stupid or odd, she'd still do it to the best of her ability, just in case it made sense in a way she just didn't see.
Lois moved away from her, or tried too, Vicki taking her from behind, locking an arm back.
"Easiest if you just tell us where it is Lois. I don't want to hurt you, none of us do."
Not yet. Jake was going to have to reserve judgment as to what would actually happen though.
The woman tried to look hard, but the move clearly hurt more than she was used to. Some things about her hadn't been an act then, he understood. Like her work ethic, or the fact that she wasn't a very good fighter at all. Brave though, that was clear. Bad guy or not she'd stood in front of an enraged Yalla unarmed to save another Val from being killed. You didn't do that lightly if you were smart, which she clearly was.
"Its... A nano set. I altered my chemical make-up so that they can't read me easily. You can't take it off. Permanent." She sounded honest enough, but Tipper patted her all over anyway and took her shoes, socks and started on the rest when Nate stopped her.
"Is that really needed? It's Lois... I think? Or, a shape shifter?"
They had those around after all. It wasn't the case though, not at all.
Jake stared at the woman hard, shaking his head. She looked back just as hard though.
"No, she's the Lois we've known the whole time. A Technologist. One of the bad guys that created the zombies. If I have it right, she also destroyed my life, personally. Didn't you... Tessa." It was what Donald had called her. Aunt Tessa as a matter of fact. That might make it a little more messy if they had to kill her, even though none of the Linsters were trying to stand up for her yet.
She didn't say anything, just looking at the back of the room, at the far wall. Jake remembered falling down there once, sick after being poisoned by Carley.
He told the story out loud, knowing it wouldn't take long to get to the punch line.
"Of course she'd only treated the bullets like that because she was in love with Derrick Holsom. Since it was you that made him irresistible to women Lois, I guess it's kind of your fault isn't it? Then... You did it in the first place to have him take Rachel from me, didn't you?" Not that it had been needed. She'd left all on her own rather nicely, before that.
Lois made a face, which was a lot more expression than most of the other Technologists used for the most part. It wasn't an ugly thing, it just looked pained.
"Yes. It was all me. I took recordings of everyone you knew,. I worked out how to best get to you, to make you so sad and despondent that no one would ever believe you were the One. I had to. If you were easily found the world would have gathered around you, and fought. This way, divided, we were able to remove most of the world's population. We only need to get rid of the Humans though. They're responsible for all the destruction. All of it. The rest can take over then, and we'll be fine. The world can continue and begin to repair itself."
Jake rolled his eyes.
"So, in order to kill billions of people you had to destroy my love life?"
"That... Yes, Jake. I had to make certain that no woman would love you, even if you were the perfect man for them. It took years you know. A constant campaign to undermine you here at the House, too. Daily effort. Even after your energy shifted, you became something highly desirable to the women here. Even with Derrick working against you it was so close. Anyone with a mind knew that you represented life. I even added depressants to your food for months to throw you off balance. You should have been no better than the dead outside, but you fought more than I thought possible. Over and over again you defeated what I tried. The rumors, the hate, the false accusations. Everything." She smiled then, a look at least as phony as the one Jake had been using most of the time lately.
"If it makes you feel better, I did feel horrible about doing it. What kind of person makes the life of the world's nicest man a living hell?" She looked down, but it wasn't a contrite look at all. She was laughing gently. "And now you'll kill me. The joke is that I made you into what you are. More than anyone else in the world, I created you, warped you into who you became and forced your hand. I just didn't think that I'd die doing it. I was supposed to have left months ago, but you didn't just give up. You didn't abandon humanity. You should have. Our projections showed a ninety-seven percent chance that you would, on three different occasions. There's no way you could beat that. Even with Heather helping you..."
That got Donald to speak again, the little box in his hand humming slightly.
"The projections showed that Jake was just a man however, not the One... I don't understand."
Lois rolled her eyes then, copying what Jake had done minutes before.
"You don't? We changed the data that you got to see. It wasn't hard, just pushing a few buttons here and there, burning a few documents. We've been at this longer than you've been alive, Donny. This has all gone to plan. Almost. There was always one variable we couldn't control." She didn't point, Vicki having not bothered to let go of her arm, but she stared at him, which made the idea pretty clear anyway.
"The One Projected. The Very Good Man. The Maitreya. Jesus returned. The one being in all of history that everyone would listen to. Most of them, at least. So we hid him from the world, broke his spirit and took everything that could have formed him into a leader away from him. There were so many layers Jake, you'll never know the work I put into it. We had to though. As good as you are, as wonderful as you should have been, you'd have saved them all. The world was dying. It's still fading as we speak. The oceans are failing by the day, but we gave it a chance to recover.
"The thing is... no major extinction level event has ended until the cause was removed. This time, the Homocene extinction event, it's the worst thing like it that has ever happened to this planet. There's only one way to save the world, and that's to remove the true plague upon it. Now you're stopping that Jake. Too soon. There are too many of you left. Humanity has to be stopped, or everything dies. There is no other way." Her voice was filled with conviction, not the blind type that a fanatic had, but the kind that spoke of years of study leading to a truth that was simply fact.
It was a hard thing to beat.
"The Technologists are Human." He spoke the words calmly, a thing that surprised him, faced with the person that had ruined his life. She'd helped to ruin everyone else's too, but that was less personal. For him at least. They, might just feel differently about it.
She spoke quickly, her eyes going to the Linsters as if begging for help. They didn't seem all that moved. It was hard to excuse genocide.
"We've trained ourselves, our whole society, to live in balance with the energy needs of the world. We tried to give the technology to you, over and over again, and were stopped each time. The governments, the big corporations, they feared losing power. It was in the projections, Jake. If they weren't removed, the world died. If we would have acted thirty years ago the whole thing might have been different, but as a group the Technologists don't kill. It meant we had to do things in a very specific fashion, allowing you to kill yourselves. Hence the zombies. Humans doing the work that was needed, even if they didn't know they were doing it."
Jake didn't address the blatant stupidity of the statement. He didn't have to, since almost everyone else in the room started pointing out that starting a zombie plague was just as bad as murdering a person with a gun. Worse, because it was so freaking terrifying.
He spoke as soon as people started to quiet down a bit. It was still hard to try and yell over people and he was so tired. It felt like it went all the way to the center of his being, an exhaustion that was simply from his soul being so heavy.
"OK. I guess I can see why you did it. But now you have a chance to get people to change, to rebuild in the image you
want. Why not do that instead of killing all the rest of the Humans? A risk, sure, but it can't be that much more unsafe than trying to kill us all, not at this point."
She took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders as best she could, the right one higher than the left still.
"Seven point two percent Jake. That's the percentage of humanity left. Survivable if they could learn, but they've never learned. Oh, small groups perhaps, but governments? Bigots and narcissists? They can't learn. Their belief systems won't let them. What of religion? Do we let them rally around you, and young Hope? To what end? When you die, even if you kept them in check for a while, some power hungry madman would come along and start the whole thing over again. We have to do it. Please. I don't expect you to help me, or even leave me alive, but you must let us finish our work. Please." Fat tears rolled down her face.
The awful thing was that he actually felt badly for her. The side she'd picked wasn't wrong, it was just evil. They were different things. No amount of explanation would convince her of that though. It was a thing you had to know, deep inside and if she had, then the world wouldn't be dead. Dying though. She wasn't wrong about that part.
"Well, we can't discuss this with a prisoner. How about this, get on your ladle and tell your friends that we need to talk. It doesn't have to be in person, we can debate this for a while. I won't let you kill everyone though. We might find a way to get them to change. For instance, if you swept in and provided new technology, setting up a combined government with the other groups in the world? You seem fine with them after all. It could work as a plan." He shrugged.
"Don't get me wrong Lois. You're dead. All of you. The ones that killed billions... I can't save you, and if you imagined that you'd live through this you were dreaming. We can call in the other Technologists. Those that are left here, maybe those that moved to that other reality?" He looked at Sara, who nodded once.
"Yes. That's a logical step and in line with your stated goals, Tess. Perhaps we could have you sent into exile or..." She looked at Jake her mouth tight, thinking it was all a lie.
But he could get behind that. He wouldn't let them kill anyone else if he could help it, but if they were sent away, to another reality perhaps, and stranded there, that might just be enough.
"Possible. This isn't about revenge. Not for me. It's so bad I can't even think of a punishment that would fit, and in the end it wouldn't matter. It will be a hard sell though. It would help a lot if your crew would come forward and stop trying to kill everyone. It's a good plan, I think. Help us teach the world to be the way you want. I know it doesn't seem like a wonderful thing to you, being sent away, but at least you can know that you might have made a difference in the long run.
"Especially since the other choice is... not as cheery."
He smiled, nearly feeling hopeful about the whole thing. That didn't last long though, Lois snorting at him like she used to when people tried to dodge out of kitchen duty.
"They won't just come in, Jake. There was a small, but real chance that I'd be taken, found out like this and forced to talk. I have to admit you have better information than we thought possible, but that's not the problem. The contingency plans will go into play the second I'm forced to contact them. Or if I miss my communication for two days. If that happens they'll be forced to release the hunters. You don't want that. They were designed to be unbeatable by Humans."
She sounded pretty certain of the fact too.
"Windigo? Mutated ones that are pale white, with long limbs and way faster than normal?"
She smiled then, her lips pulling back as Vicki cranked on her arm a little.
"Yes." It was half gasp, half hiss.
"You can't stop them Jake. Not even you. No man can. We designed them perfectly to kill the worst thing that ever existed. Mankind."
She sounded almost proud of the fact. Like she'd had a hand in it herself.
"Proud parent?"
That got a laugh from her, but no one else.
"No, but I saw them. The test subjects. Everything about them makes them unstoppable. Once released..."
He shrugged.
"They already have been, Lois. I don't know who's been feeding you information, but they've already acted. I killed one of those about four or five days ago. It was tough, and fast, but a bullet to the brain stopped it. That does the trick for most things, or so I've found." His voice went low, whispering the next words to her.
"So it looks like Heather's Cannibals really are coming. Guess what though? We'll win. You designed them to take out Humans, unarmed ones, not armed people ready to fight to the death. How did you let yourselves become so jaded that you forgot that about your own kind? When backed to the wall people have always responded with overwhelming violence."
Leaning in he whispered, but everyone in the room heard him anyway. He did it on purpose.
"You and your group of killers will lose if you try that, Lois. If you don't make your next move carefully, you lose everything. Because if we have to fight a war against things like that, when we win, and we will win, no place will ever be safe for you. Not another reality, or dimension, pocket universe or backwoods village. If you push us to that, the few survivors will be the worst thing you can imagine. And it will all be your fault."
This time there was no laughter from the woman, in fact she stared deep into his eyes and saw something there that she'd seen before from him. Conviction. He might not pull it off, of course, but he was sure as heck going to try and woe betide anyone that got in his way.
"I... Jake... Mickey... I can't. They have rules. We do. They won't listen to me ever again, the second it's found out that I've been captured. You can't tear the world apart..."
"Do you mean that I can't, or that I shouldn't? I'm the fucking Very Good Man at the end of the world. If I need to risk destroying the whole world to save it, I will. Didn't you think before you decided to make me insane? Didn't you pay attention to what Sammi said? I have to become whatever the world needs me to be most. You do not want that to become a real killer. Trust me, I've never been that, not yet. You think I can't tear the world apart? Think again. I can and will. I will do whatever it takes to have a chance to save everyone. I would have thought you of all people would have gotten that about me by now."
There was a slight stirring behind him. Burt walking forward, his eyes looking sad. He stared at the woman, the young looking one in front of him, a tear shining in them. Jake knew that they were "together". The closest thing the House had to a married couple even. The betrayal must have been huge to the man.
Jake nearly apologized to him for the whole thing, his instincts coming into play with his friend, one of the people he felt closest to in the whole world. Closer than anyone else in the room, except maybe Cam. Vicki was in there somewhere too, but that was so complicated.
"Lois..." Burt sounded as sad as he looked, but everything changed when he faced the Linsters.
Hal looked up at the thin, white bearded man that had played Santa at the Christmas party and built their windmills for them from bits of scrap. All their technological stuff really. Jake figured it out about half a beat before the boy spoke.
"Grandfather?"
Chapter eight
It was out of place, but the only thing that came to mind for Jake to say was a joke.
"Damn Burt, you really let them name the kid Humperdinck? I would have thought that you of all people would have spoken against it. Oh, sure, for a few years he can go by the cool nickname of 'Humper', but once that wears out what is he left with? Dink? It's a sad thing. Just sad."
The Linsters didn't pay any attention to what he was saying, but Burt nodded, face far more serious than Jake would have thought given what he said next.
"I actually counseled against it at the time. Always hated the name. It's why I suggested he go by Hal instead."
Donald was staring so hard that he actually shook a little, and Sara was scrambling at her waist for something that, if it had been Jake
doing it, or even one of the people from the House, would have been a weapon. Instead she just held the little rectangle, about the size of a pack of playing cards, up and waved it at him. Nothing happened. That didn't seem to make her happy at all.
"It's him." She said, voice slightly panicked sounding.
Donald didn't move, not even to blink, for nearly half a minute. His face was white and his hands started to shake so strongly it seemed like he was about to have a breakdown. When he spoke it sounded horrible, like someone had killed his puppy and then served it for dinner.
"How? I... Aunt Tessa I can see, she was never happy with the outsiders' treatment of the planet, and let it be well known, but you? You were our leader! You... You were supposed to have led everyone to the new world. How are you here? I don't... Why are you involved in this father? You always spoke out against such ideas, saying that violence was always wrong when not in direct defense of self, and even then you encouraged people to use non-confrontational tactics whenever possible..."
Burt took a step closer to the man that had turned out to be his son and made a sad face.
"Don... I didn't have a choice. We were simply too close, as a world, to losing everything. The outsiders wouldn't listen to us at all. Even as their own people started to show them proof that things were dangerously close to being lost they struggled against it. I had to do something, and over the years I came to understand that there was only one thing that would work. Humanity, the way it stood before, had to be removed." He turned to look at Nate and then, almost as an afterthought, at Jake.
"Understand, this wasn't anyone else's doing. The plan was mine. I didn't do all the work, but it was my responsibility the whole time. From inventing the biological interface that created the nanomorphed dead, to finding and hiding the One. It was all me. I know that I won't survive it. That was never the plan. It's why I didn't leave with the others, and why I sent along a copy of myself to see to their well being. Some things are too big to dodge out on the responsibility for."
