CHAPTER 23
A TOO-PERFECT ENDING
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My betrayal, cupcake, was complete. I didn't give a shit about the whole planet and the lives Charon threatened. I didn't give a shit about duty. I wonder if that was part of Burris' plan from the beginning.245Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYBT3ryqdfH
I let Bob disappear into the darkness, not even thinking remotely about a failure. Yes, trusting him made everything easier.
I found the right entrance to the vents, crawled upward and then, without even continuing to follow my SAI's directions, started down again. The smell of death and my instincts were enough to guide me toward John. I didn't know what I would find once in the Judge's room either, and I didn't want to know. One certainty was enough for me, however, that there would surely be at least one dead body at the end of the affair. Either mine, or his. "I'm coming for you", I kept telling myself after every meter inside those damn ducts. "I'm coming for you".
I broke through a grate and emerged from the cold tunnels without caring about any lurking enemies. Possessed by my purpose, I stepped out into the light and started shooting at anything that could resemble a human being.
I shot down two guards and an officer who were staking out the secondary entrance to the Judge's Hall. This time, however, I certainly did not have a key to enter, and it was far too late when I realized it.
By eliminating the guardsmen, I had set in motion the psychic alarm that bound all of Charon's creatures together. My cover had been blown and so had Bob's. I had been impulsive, and the alarms that began to rumble through the corridors were just reward for my mistake.
I cursed as I seized the rifles of the two demi-humans and launched myself on the attack in search of another way in. Attracting them to me would give him hope. After traveling less than fifty meters at a breakneck pace, I ran into the first resistance: a squad of a dozen or so demi-humans stood in front of me, led by a pair of officers in black. Caught off guard, I quickly managed to take them all down, including one of the two officers. I threw my weapons to the ground, drew one of my pistols from the holster on my thigh and threatened the surviving officer, seeking information. I had very little time for interrogation. "How do I get into the Judge? HOW?", I shouted, pressing the barrel of the weapon against his temple until he screamed.
"Fuck you!", he shouted, not at all inclined to cooperate. I snapped his arm, breaking the bones in his elbow. He screamed in pain as another squad of demi-humans was emerging from an elevator just ahead. I grabbed another pair of rifles and engaged in a rather uneven fight. Fortunately, as with the earlier team, the demi-humans were crowded and squashed together, constrained by the size of the base corridor. By firing randomly and taking advantage of their low will to live, it was easy to eliminate them quickly. There were three officers with them, and one of them managed to skim wound me using one of those eccentric energy weapons, while another hit me in the prosthetic arm. After two more accurate bursts than the previous ones, I managed to send them to hell, with cynical good wishes from their leader. I resumed my interrogation.
I forcefully grabbed the broken part of his arm, causing him excruciating pain. He screamed audibly, then gave up: "It's a ring! Okay? You just have to follow it... straight twenty meters... there you find junction 2 with the outer ring... once there left to the next junction...".
"Too long!", I shouted. "Shortcuts?".
"None!", he cried in pain.
I cringed again. I would never make it alive by following the road to the ring. I heard a sound of approaching footsteps, a signal that more demi-humans were on their way. For a moment I thought of the simplest solution: the time before I had taken a laptop from one of the officers in black.
I searched the bodies but evidently John had organized himself to deal with such eventualities. Unable to face another confrontation against more demi-humans, I took the energy weapon with a couple of batteries and put it on my hip. I slipped into the air vent one more time, closing the grate again. I had been such a fool. I was losing composure and lucidity. I had to do something but I didn't know what. I retraced my steps, retracing my earlier route in reverse. Perhaps I could have tried to get to the other side of the hall still by the ducts but it would have taken me too long. Following my thoughts and not caring where I was going, I found myself catching my breath after a vertical climb near a pair of vents. I had not noticed them previously, perhaps because of the darkness. A dim light filtered from them, and I couldn't help but take a look.
I had been there before. Months before, those grates were as black as everything else in the burrow. But at that moment the sunlight was brightly illuminating the Judge's room. I successfully searched for the rope I was holding behind my back, attached one end to one of the two grates, then with all the strength I had in my legs I hit the other with both feet.
I threw myself into the void without even looking at how far the floor was from my feet. The thin steel rope was only a dozen feet long, and it took only a few seconds for it to find itself stretched to its fullest extent. The lattice fell to the floor with a tremendous metallic racket, splitting in two parts. I found myself swinging like a pendulum about five meters above the ground. Undeterred by the height, I let myself fall unhooked.
The impact was violent and I soon found myself lying on the ground with my belly up. I had heard a dangerous crunch at the level of my ankles at the moment of impact and for a moment I feared I had broken something. I tried to get up again and looking once I was on my feet at the ceiling, I finally realized the risk I had taken.
"Who else", said that unmistakable voice. "It could only have been you. Isolate the Judge Hall and direct all non-essential personnel to defend the Inducer. I will soon be there with the huri, make sure that intruders do not sabotage the mechanism. If we lose the Inducer everything will have been in vain".
I lowered my gaze and guided only by the sound I had picked up with my ears, I shot in the direction from which he had started, without even looking where I was aiming. But he, as always, was faster. A bullet hit my gun a few millimeters above the trigger with such force that it was impossible for me to hold the weapon in my hand, forcing me to drop it to the ground not far from me. He stood in front of the teardrop-shaped windows from which I had fallen months earlier, again perfectly intact. To his left stood the Judge's throne, of which I could see only the back of the seat rising to the floor. At his left hip, John carried his usual gun, drawn used and put back in less than a second.
"The first time you had used one of our ships to board. But this time? Only fate could have let you in. Really, I'm curious, what absurd plan did the old man put together to get you in?".
"The old man?", I asked.
"The old man yes, your Grand Master", he said disparagingly. "How did he let you in? The Fortress hasn't had any entrances in weeks and we're hermetically sealed, as well as a double energy shield... More importantly, why are you in this room? The Viral Inducer is supposed to be your…oh. Well, well! You came for...".
"I'm here to set the score", I said, searching my eyes for Deena.
"No, you’re not. You're here for the girl", he smiled. "You're here for the little, sweet, Deena. Are you really you, Daith? Do you neglect the mission to save a woman?".
"I grew up over the years, John. While you were going crazy, I became a man!" I replied.
John let out a big laugh, the first I'd heard him give in ages. "A man? No kidding, such wisdom in you!".
I became as furious as when, as a kid, he would tear me apart in everything feeling like an inept child again in front of his older brother. "Fuck off!", I retorted childishly.
"I made a mistake, I missed something, you're here now", he said, turning serious again. "But not for the reasons I would have expected. Instead that scum over there… they expected it, am I right? They're using you, idiot, they knew you'd come here to kill me for her instead of just heading to the Inducer! That's why you're not here alone, am I right? A team of four, maybe?".
"So what? I'm okay with that!", I retorted. "Stop talking! I'm not interested in your mental trips, I just want to know where Deena is!".
"You sound like the obtuse protagonist of a first-gen video game. Where’s the princess, where is she? She's right here, she's just fine", he said pointing to the staircase with a thumb. He stepped back, taking a few steps, as if to invite me to come closer. I made to duck to pick up the weapon, but he with amazing speed shot it toward the ground and pushed it even farther away. "You won't need that one", he said, smiling.
I slowly pulled up until I was only a few meters away from him. I turned my gaze to the right to see the small figure of Deena sitting on the steps leading up to the seat. She was terrified and looked at me with eyes swollen with tears.
"Are you okay?", I asked her. She showed no signs of being beaten but was strangely in shock and staring at the ground. She was shaking conspicuously.
"She's fine, she's just scared", Charon reassured me. "For her, this is the safest place in the world, if it weren't for you. There are still a couple of hours to go before her providential intervention to rid Terra of the scum". I looked at him with all the hatred in my heart. "Her fate is written," he continued. "She will free Terra. She will become the spiritual mother of a new world, one without Humanity. Free of the gods. It could be your world, too".
"Mine? You have always tried to kill me... and now you propose salvation? Why?".
"Killing you was never on my priority list, you fool. If you had stayed away from me, nothing would have happened to you. When things were done, you would have been free from fate, too, without even realizing it. But I still don't have the power to change it. Little insignificant events impossible for us to see, one after another… and here you are, threatening me with death. How much I wanted to avoid this. I knew it would not be possible. That is why I had to free myself from the chains of my humanity, Daith. What binds me to a weak and emotional nature had to be broken. I am no longer their slave. I have the strength to do what I must, when I must, without scruples or hesitation. Killing you was a necessary action because you were not ready to accept the truth. Neither are you now, however...".
"However?".
"You're here for yourself, Daith. You're not here to be a fucking hero. To save Humanity. You are here for selfishness. To save your woman, the one you desire. Which gives me hope that perhaps a chain has already naturally broken. Follow that selfishness Daith. Free yourself from the chains. We can both be free of the curse and live under the same sky", he said seriously, almost longingly.
"I am not like you", I replied dryly.
"You are condemned to be. Despite our mother's absurd plans".
"You...", I said, trying to catch my breath. I no longer knew what emotion to dwell on. "You are... you were to me... everything. I have always tried, in every way to... I have never been like you".
"That's true", he replied. "It was not even contemplated that you would be born".
"Why Sean? Why? You had everything! You had money, fame, authority, honors, admirers, you were loved and esteemed as a hero… why Sean? Why did you do all this? Answer me!".
He assumed a disgusted look, then turned his back on me. He lifted his chin before answering me. "Should I live like a dog just because the food is good?".
"What?".
"Like a dog Daith! Like a tool! Used as one uses a dishcloth, to wipe other people's dirt and then be thrown into the garbage. Daith I am doing all of this to free our family from the burden of the curse and the yoke of Humanity!".
"What curse are you babbling about! And to do that you would kill every man woman or child on the planet?", I asked in exasperation.
"What are you talking about? Who ever said that? Only angels will die for now. They shield themselves with men, it is inevitable that I must hit that shield to get to them! The Judge has given me in his hand the chance to avenge myself and to get rid of my fate, and I have taken it! It is up to me, who among men is the strongest, to take up this task. Terra will be purged of evil and we will finally be free!".
John was in total delirium. In the grip of paranoia, he thought he was somehow haunted by Humanity and tormented by a curse that he said would make us kill each other. I could not tolerate that a man as great as John Lester could still exist in such a miserable state of madness. His face was now no longer impassive and inscrutable. Fear animated every wrinkle of expression in his face, creating furrows over his eyes and around his contracted lips.
"You are about to commit extermination based on delusions", I sentenced.
"For the greater good and for freedom".
"It was never denied to you".
"Really?!", he shouted, inflaming himself with a wrath I had never seen. He was scary, looking like a demon out of who knows what hell. "Did you perhaps choose to be what you are, Daith? Me, you, our father… we are merely pawns, useful and pampered pawns in the hands of servants of an evil false god! Exploited without restraint and condemned to serve them for our own worthless survival! Exploited for our own gift, for the divine blood that runs through our veins, that curses us! But I will have my revenge Daith! A revenge that you too should taste! From these stained glass windows! You and that coward father of ours if he were here!".
"Dad died for what he believed in, and I will not be outdone!", I said facing him by retreating my shoulders and showing my chest.
He burst out laughing as one laughs when seeing a child stumble shortly after taking his first steps. He looked at me with supreme pity. "Anyway, even if I explained things to you as they are, you wouldn't believe me, would you? If I told you about our father, you would laugh in my face, wouldn't you?".
"What’s there to explain? There’s no truth or logic in the mind of a poor fool".
"Just wasted breath".
"If I die, it will be by taking you with me".
Immediately I found myself at a disadvantage. I was left with the gun within reach of my left hand, not exactly my favorite; nevertheless, I had no choice. I drew my weapon almost simultaneously with Charon, always ahead of my moves, at the same time throwing myself for cover behind the steps. In fact, the throne was in the shape of a rectangular trapezoid, on whose lesser base rested the throne, and on the oblique side climbed the steps. I fired a full magazine at John before I found myself on the ground, as he flew out of my path jumping to my right, disappearing behind the steps.
The gun puffed gas and the empty magazine popped out of the handle. I slipped in a fresh magazine and the weapon loaded itself, automatically putting the slide in the firing position with the usual click. Instinct told me where I could find my target: I leaned over and took a shot toward the other side of the ladder.
Charon was exactly in front of me at almost five meters, so wide was the trapeze under the throne. And Deena was in the middle. I fired passing my shots within inches of the girl, who took to curling up like a hedgehog plugging her ears. I was afraid John would shoot her. The shots passed by her and her screams almost covered the bursts of our two guns. I finished another magazine and took cover behind the ladder again, "Deena, get out of there, get away from there!", I yelled at her.
"It's just you, Daith!", said Charon as he reloaded the gun. "Just you who risk hitting her! Let her do her part! I've made sure the mechanism won't kill her! There is blood stored to keep her alive when things are done!".
"Really? And how do you think she would live knowing that she has exterminated humanity?".
"Damn the hard head you have Little D!", he shouted. With uncommon agility he took a very high leap. I was about ten steps off the ground, sheltered by five feet of solid wall. When I saw John above me, it was too late. A shot pierced my left collarbone so that I fell pushed by the bullet's trajectory on my stomach. Charon was there watching me from above the stairs, pointing his gun at me mockingly. He fired another shot, this time purely for the purpose of intimidating me, directed a few inches from my right ear causing me to lose hearing on that side. I still held the gun tightly between my fingers.
"Give up Daith. You’re right, you have become strong. If you still care, fine then, you have my respect. But you can't kill me. Do you understand? You’re too weak. But you can trust me", he proposed then taking on a compassionate tone. "Let's break this curse now!".
"You’ll be the one to end up... broken", I said putting my left hand to my mouth and swallowing one of Johnson's magic capsules. Immediately the effect of the solution began to unsettle me and cause violent spasms.
"Poison? Daith, holy shit...", he said, observing me as I reached the second stage, stillness. He sighed in disappointment. "Well, it was meant to be. Rest now, Little D".
Charon turned his back on me, thinking me now on my way to hell and back to staring at the stained-glass windows, beyond which raged the battle and the retreat of the troops of Humanity covered by the Palladium’s fire.
Deena's distraught sobbing caught his attention for a moment. "Don't look at me like that", he said in a loving tone. "You're not thinking of beguiling me like you did him, are you? I have taken all the necessary precautions. Besides, you don't have to fear, I've already explained it to you. We've saved up a lot of blood these past weeks. I will take care of you. Both of you. You should be grateful for what I allow you to be, huri. There is not much for your kind, other than slavery. You will be special, and maybe, we will free the others too".
"I don't know what I am... mais toi... I know what you are... you are... a devil", she sobbed. She had hidden where Charon used to target me, behind the dark staircase, curled up with her knees in her hands. "What... did you do to him?".
"The real devil must be quivering right now. Who knows what a god looks like when he's trembling", he said, resuming staring at the ruinous retreat. "Control! Did you catch the intruders? It's about time, too, isn't it?".
“We checked the area around the Inducer no sign of federal personnel”, someone replied, communicating on short waves through the device John wore on his head.
"They are there. They must be. Let's move up an hour, it's worth the risk at this point. Eyes open, I'll be there shortly".
“Copy that, Charon”.
"Son... of... a bitch...".
John widened his eyes. "Make up your mind Daith, for once. Either die or kill me just make a fucking decision!".
"The best is yet to come", I said as I raised the gun in Charon's direction. My heart was pounding, my senses were those of wild animal.
"For once I agree Daith!", he shouted, drawing his weapon again. This time, however, he was not the fastest. Acting in perfect synchrony, as when moving in front of a mirror, we both fired at each other. The effect of the capsules made me in every way like my brother, and only then I understood how he always beated me. Our reflexes were such that each bullet fired by our opponent was answered after a few thousandths and our respective shots would collide, bullet against bullet, until they stopped in midair or deflected each other to random, lateral trajectories. We finished the shots at the same time, he fired the last one first and I stopped his bullet a few decimeters from the barrel of my gun. They collided in midair, merging together unleashing myriads of sparks, then fell to the ground with a clink. "You... how can you...?", he asked stunned. My gun puffed gas spitting out yet another magazine from the handle.
I had no time for further talk, so I launched myself into the attack propelled by the pill charge. We engaged in a hand-to-hand fight, not very technical to tell the truth. It was mostly an Irish-style fistfight, a violent brawl that I fought with my brain clouded by the stimulant. It was John's lucidity that benefited him: he slammed me violently into a teardrop-shaped glass window, then landed a kick on my Adam's apple that decisively knocked me out. I fell to my knees holding my throat and coughing.
"Oh yes, I got it. A chemically induced riastharta, they definitely got to study our gift, didn't they Daith? Too bad it didn't help, because you can't control yourself!", he said wiping the blood running down his lips and nose. "I have no more time for you".
He lifted me up with one arm, while with the other he went through my suit pockets until he found what he was looking for: he took the bullet I kept in the breast pocket near my heart, then threw me to the ground. I was stunned and weak. I saw him staggering away toward his gun, saw him pick it up and load it with that bullet. But that was no ordinary bullet. That shot "...that's not for me," I said in a barely audible rough voice.
John approached me again slowly, stretched out his arm and pointed the barrel near my head. He assumed a serious and solemn air.
I stared into his eyes, going back in time to that fateful day. He had the same expression on his face that day. It was not the capsule this time that gave me strength. Suddenly wrath seized me and I sprinted toward him so fast that I managed to grab his wrist and hit him with a kick to the stomach that knocked him down a meter and a half from where he was before. I became lucid again immediately.
The situation was reversed; now he was the one on the ground and I was the one with the gun. I approached him as he got straight up on his knees. I pointed the gun between his eyes. "Sean!", I shouted one last time. I did not see him move. It was my instinct to contract that cursed muscle that blasted me. The empty hall filled with that dull burst and not yet satiated repeated it with its malignant echo.
Suddenly I saw things that should never have appeared in a context like that. I saw a smiling young man playing basketball with me on the academy courts. I saw a cheerful boy joking with his teammates as he returned from a muddy drill. I saw my brother holding me at our father's funeral as he consoled our mother bent over a white coffin with a blue flag on it. I widened my moist eyes shocked by my action: inside I hoped that Sean had shrugged it off and even stood there ready to give me the coup de grace. I stared at him and saw his head bent back. Then he slowly returned perpendicular to the black floor. I will never forget that blood-stained face, with that contracted look in the last moment of life. He fell flat without a groan.
Of all of them, that was my greatest sin little one. Of all of them, only that face stays with me again and again, every time before I go to sleep.
I breathed in several times with my eyes closed the smell of gunpowder surrounding me, then threw my brother's now unloaded weapon to the ground. Just beyond, the glowing shell casing engraved with the two letters CT stopped rolling. I had decided long ago that that would be revenge for Christelle and by a twist of fate, so it was. I opened my eyes. It wasn't over yet.
An explosion, violent and dry, originated in the depths of Diĝir-ga-šum, jolting me into the air and then violently to the ground. A foul-smelling mist surrounded me, making it impossible for me to scan the space around me. I waited patiently for it to clear, rubbing my irritated eyes.
Before long the smoke slowly began to thin, like a curtain opening around that dark figure dressed in white, up there on his throne he had waited patiently and silently for the duel to end. Bob had scored the blow of his career. If the Inducer was in pieces, I just had to get Deena out of there.
He stepped out of the half-light with an unsteady, almost pained step. A reedy forelock covered a pair of dark, icy, malevolent eyes that stared at me wrathfully, piercing me to the depths of my soul with their gaze. I noticed that he had a kind of tabard on, a snow-white cape that came down to his knees and totally enveloped him. He looked sick and old, not as fearsome as everyone painted him.
"So you are the famous Judge", I said. I got no answer. "Did the cat eat your tongue son of a bitch? Why all this? How did you lead my brother John astray?".
The man, sturdy but bent over, with great effort abandoned his head back and began to speak. "The hero is dead", he said in a rough voice. He descended the stairs, struggling to coordinate his movements, with ungainly and disheveled gestures. "The hero is dead. Kia remains in their hands," he groaned. "Vengeance remains untamed. Your fate will be bloody. You have ruined everything".
"How sorry I am, you bag of piss!", I laughed. "Get ready now, because now it's your turn!".
He stared at me with a look that made my blood run cold. I was overwhelmed by an invisible, enormously powerful force. As if a plummeting aircraft had run right over me, hitting me in the gut. My body simply exploded from the waist down, and the glass windows behind me burst into a thousand pieces letting outside air into the room.
I had ended up on the ground, I couldn't move. I felt cold, I could see the world disappearing from the sides toward the center of my view, the sounds dulling.
Although there was no life left in me, a vibration in my chest kept me constantly conscious. An oscillation moved by my deepest thoughts, love for Deena, friendship for my comrades, and then revenge, hatred, hatred and more hatred. An ever-increasing vibration, growing to such an extent that it felt as if my heart would start beating again out of resonance with that alien motion. First one stroke, then two, then three-I suddenly stiffened. I began to pant, louder and louder, then began to scream. I felt an enormous sudden heat pervade every single molecule of me.
I stood up as if resurrected, clenched my fists. I sensed my limbs swelling and hardening as my hair grew several inches and stood fading on top of my head. I turned and stared at him. I felt nothing but anger, rage and a desire to kill this man, my enemy.
The Judge, confused, cast another glance at me. He had no time to hit me with those ESP powers of his. I reached under him and forcefully planted my hand beyond his flesh, under his ribs to his heart, grabbed him and ripped it clean off his chest. I kicked him up until he was sitting on his throne, then I grabbed the energy weapon I had picked up earlier from his side and unloaded a continuous beam on the filthy being. He screamed as it ignited, vaporizing almost instantly. His crown, the seat of his digital consciousness, fused against the haunting man's head, dripping down his blackened skull. Pieces of that monster fell from the pew as, confused, I threw the weapon violently away from me.
Overwhelmed, as I felt my strength leave me and my snow-white hair suddenly fell grown back down my sweaty cheeks, I fell mouthfuls almost unconscious.
I heard light footsteps in the distance become closer and closer and two soft, warm hands lifted my head and then laid it gently in a warm and pleasant place. I slowly opened my eyes and looked at her: I smiled.
She lifted me further off the ground helping me to sit up. "Daith!", she cried, clutching me to her chest. A moan slipped out of my mouth. "How did you get here?".
"By the worst system in the world", I said with difficulty trying to get back on my feet. She had come out of the state of shock she was in, perhaps because of the Judge. I looked around, observing every inch of the room devastated by the clash: everywhere there were cracks, splits and fragments of stone and glass. My gaze fell inexorably on Sean's body.
Freeing myself from Deena's support, I crawled crawling over to his corpse, holding my torn stomach with one hand and leaving a trail of whitish blood behind me. I looked at him for a few seconds with anger and contempt, but then shocked with remorse I began to cry like a child: "You son of a bitch!" I screamed with eyes swollen with pain, punching his corpse. "I hate you! I hate you! I hate you...", I screamed between sobs. I slumped over the lying corpse, in tears. "What have I done...", I whispered crying. "A monster. How could I have done this to you? Why did you make me kill you, why?".
"Enough Daith!", shouted Deena as she approached.
"Don't come near me! What have I become? What has happened to me? I am ... like him!".
"Non!", she cried with tears in her eyes. "You couldn't do anything to help him! Charon preferred to die rather than surrender! It was not your choice! You saved everyone, don't you understand? Even if you had spared him, what future would he have had?".
I reflected on the consequences, for a moment lucid again. Surely, he would have been passed over by a firing squad without even a trial. Still, I could not help but feel guilty. Deena reached out and dried my tears with one hand, then kissed me on the cheek, holding me in her arms. "You came. You came for me", she whispered. She was fine, she was safe.
"We have to go. Bob has finished and soon the Palladium’s cannons will reduce this place to a sad memory".
"C’est bon! Tell me your Plan B then", she smiled confidently.
"Plan B?".
"Oui, your plan B. How you want to escape from here by carrying the helpless princess to safety. They didn't teach you to be a hero in that damn academy, or did they?".
"Helpless? You?", I asked, finding strength even to joke.
"Daith!", she then exclaimed halfway between exhaustion and fear.
"Are we... moving?", I asked as I watched the horizon change.
Deena stepped back for a moment and looked through the glass, finding that DGS was flying toward an unknown destination while accelerating. "Oui!", she replied. "We can see the sea! We're going there!".
"Then we will leave", I said. "We will leave, although the whole thing will lack originality". "What do you have in mind?".
"One more dip", I replied.
"Oh non, Daith", she sighed. "Again?".
"Taxis don't fly in this part of town", I joked, taking the inertial limiter from a pocket. They had given it to us because the obvious escape route for us was only that: jump.
"What is that thing?", she asked. She could not imagine that it was only for one person.
"It harnesses small amounts of negative matter to generate anti-gravity, like an aircar repulsor. This laptop is used for emergencies, you'll feel a good slap when you arrive in the water. We will count to ten, press the button and land gently like a leaf in the wind". I felt a cold chill run down my spine. I had little time left; I had to hurry. "Come on, let's go to the window".
"Oui", shesaid, smiling, and with immense effort helped me up off the ground. With difficulty we reached the gash in the glassy wall. Deena shuddered as she looked down. The base from after the burst was drifting following a random course. Below us now finally the sea and a few hundred meters away a rocky beach.
"Red button. Count to ten. I saw you swimming on the island, didn't I?".
"Christelle taught me", she nodded. "The first day".
"Yeah", I smiled at the memory. "You were... beautiful".
"But you'd better take care of it", she said worriedly.
"Red button, up to ten", I repeated. Deena was no fool; she understood my real intention but I was quick to push her downstairs. I heard her shout my name, then comforted by the glow of the limiter activating, I let her manage on her own. My strength left me again as the base began to sink. The impact of the lower cone with the water tilted the entire space station for a moment, causing me to slide thankfully toward John's body, which instead remained motionless. Crawling slowly, as the effect of the capsule wore off leaving me near the end, I came to him.
"Here I am, Sean", I whispered clinging to him. "Did you really think I was going to leave you here all alone?". The base returned parallel to the surface of the sea with another jolt. "We're leaving together. Why? I told you I'm not like you".
A mighty blast accompanied a huge explosion on the other side of the base. The Palladium was getting busy with dismantling operations. The blast ripped the base nearly in half, fragile now without its invincible shield. The ring began to tear as the joint corridors began to give way. A second blow came, weaker but deeper, tilting the station this time in the direction of the glass windows. Soon the base would crash into the sea. It was my last chance. I screamed gathering all the strength I had and ignoring pain and exhaustion, lifted John up, got to my feet, and ran toward the glass windows until I threw myself into the void. We were damn high, and in the fall, I lost my grip and let John's body swirl free.
The impact with the water was terrible and painful. I allowed myself to be battered by the waves and with my lungs bulging with air, I reached the surface without moving pushed by the waves caused by the fortress as Sean's body sank into the depths.
The water continued to get the better of me, my strength deserting me. I had made a promise to Deena and another promise to Sophia. I could not give up. I heard a huge crash.
Diĝir-ga-šum had finally fallen on its side, raising a gigantic wave. It was that violent wave that pushed me toward the beach. At first, I was submerged by it, then I managed, struggling with my last strength, to emerge, at least for a few moments. There was no silence in the depths of the sea. I could hear the water rushing in my ears and penetrating my nostrils. As I gave myself up semi-conscious to the billows, lo and behold, a strong hand grabbed me by the collar of my suit and I took in the sea air again.
Deena was dragging me to shore. She was walking as I floated, mistakenly convinced that there were who knows what oceanic pits beneath me. If I had been strong enough, I could have made it to dry land with little effort, but I could barely get my heart to beat. I touched the beach gravel with my back, then finally found myself dry.
"Daith! Hang in there come on! It's over! It's over!", repeated Deena between tears of joy and terror.
I was shocked. I felt cold, I could not move, every limb was as if made of stone. Deena laid me on her lap, holding my torn belly firmly. I stared up at the sky. It was a clear blue day.
Besides the waves and distant explosions of the slowly drowning space station, I could hear the flocks of fighters circling over the area, and my mind lingered for a moment on Sophia. I smiled, thinking of the happiness she was feeling at finally seeing that nightmare over. Then I turned my gaze to those gorgeous, bright emerald eyes. Here perfect features, that dark skin glistening from the sea drops that bathed it.
"Deena...", I whispered with what little breath I had left. I wanted to tell her so many things. Now my body was lighter, I didn't even feel pain anymore. I could almost smile.
"I'm here. You did it! I'm here now", she said, smiling and taking my hand, infusing me with some of her warmth.
'Sean', I could only think in my last moment of consciousness. 'I'm sorry, for everything’.
I'm not going to lie to you baby. I really wanted to leave for good. I was serene, even though I was in pain to see the person I loved disappear swallowed by darkness. I believed that dying would solve everything. I was too afraid to live with the weight of my actions. A fragile, terrified little boy who just wanted to run away, away from everything.
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