Happy Holidays! I can’t believe that this is the second year in a row where I wrote an Eric and Mira fic that got wildly out of hand and will require a second chapter. Except yes I can. So, I guess you’ll be getting a New Years present from me as well!
I hope you enjoy!
AO3
Heads
“This is stupid.”
“Shhhh,” Mira peered from around the bushes. “This was the spot, I’m sure of it.”
“You must be remembering wrong.” Eric glanced behind them, into the dark, early morning forest, lit only by their flashlight. “Come on, we’ve been walking around the woods for hours now. We’re completely lost. Let’s just go.”
“Where would we even go?” Mira asked with some amusement. “This is the future. We don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Eric didn’t have anything to say to that. Mira narrowed his eyes and held up her hand. “Shh.”
“I wasn’t talking-”
“She’s here.” Mira smiled. “I mean, I’m here.”
“Really?” Eric tried to push past her. “Let me see.”
“Stop it. You’ll scare her.” Mira peered through the bushes. “There she is. So young and innocent.“
Eric finally maneuvered into position to see past Mira. Through the twists of the branches, there she was - young Mira, maybe about ten years old. She was sitting on the ground in a clearing, her legs spread akimbo, and was pouting, poking at the dirt with the tip of a large knife. From the amount of scratches and scrawls in the dirt it seemed like she had been there all night. She hadn’t seemed to notice the two adults looming in the bushes yet.
"Wow,” Eric breathed. “You were right.”
“No, I was joking. I’ve never been innocent.”
“Not that, I just-” Eric shook his head. “Never mind. What’s the plan here?”
“I don’t know,” Mira said, shrugging. “I figured that I would just wing it.”
“What?” Eric nearly shouted. Just as quickly he clamped his hands over his mouth and hunkered down, curling in on himself. The young Mira glanced up, brandishing her knife, but when no one appeared she huffed and flopped back down.
“What do you mean you don’t have a plan?” Eric hissed. “This was your idea!”
“Technically it was Sean’s idea,” Mira pointed out. “I just went along with it. So did you.”
“Well I- I thought that you wanted to, so… of course. If it will make you happy, or give you some kind of closure, then I’ll do whatever you need.”
Mira smirked. “Well, time travel is definitely more fun than prison.”
"That was also your idea,” Eric gently reminded her.
“And now I have a better one. Just don’t kill anyone to begin with.”
“And again, how exactly do you plan on doing this? We can’t just kidnap her or swoop out of the woods, you’ll probably scar yourself for life!”
“I know. Think about what Zero said.” Mira crouched down next to him on the ground. She sunk her fingers into the damp earth beneath them as she stared unwavering at herself, a small smile playing on her lips. “A single snail caused this to happen. Something so small completely changed both our lives. That means something else tiny could change it again. Just one small action, right?”
“What… the hell are you talking about?” Eric whispered back.
"Shh…” Mira whispered. “Just a little bit longer…”
As they had been waiting the tiniest sliver of light had slipped over the horizon. Young Mira looked up, then crouched, just the way that older Mira was, and faced the road. In the silence of the early morning, Eric could just barely make out the sound of sneakers slapping against the pavement.
Mira crept out from under the bush. “What are you doing?” Eric whispered frantically, but Mira ignored him. Her younger self didn’t notice either, completely engrossed by the road. Her grip on the knife tightened. Eric stayed hidden in the shadows, holding his breath. Mira got closer, and closer, until she was just behind her younger self. She paused, waiting. The footsteps got closer. And then…
“Ah!” Mira shoved her younger self right into the dirt, making her yell out and lose her grip on the knife. It went spinning into the undergrowth. Just as quickly, she darted back into the bush, almost tripping over Eric in her rush. He hissed when she stepped on his hand.
“Shh!” she shushed him.
“What was that?” he hissed back.
“Shut up! What was your idea, then?”
“I don’t know, but-”
“Excuse me?” someone else asked. Eric and Mira immediately froze, but the voice wasn’t talking to them. Young Mira also froze. Standing in front of her was the woman who had been out jogging. She didn’t usually come this way, but this morning she had changed her route. Because of a snail.
Eric’s breath caught in his throat. “Mom,” he breathed.
“What are you doing out here so early?” Eric’s mom asked young Mira, amusement in her voice masking worry. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” young Mira said petulantly. “I’m just… hanging out.”
“In the woods? At five in the morning?”
“Well, you’re out here too.”
Eric’s mom laughed. “I’m out jogging. Just trying to get a little exercise.”
“Well, then so am I,” young Mira said petulantly.
“Is that so?”
“Yes.”
“Well, all right, then,” Eric’s mom said. “But you still should be getting home soon. I’m sure that your parents will be worried about you being out so late. Or, early.”
“Why?” young Mira asked.
“Because they love you, of course! And when you love someone, you worry about them. You want them to always be happy and safe.”
“Do you?”
“Hm?”
“Do you love someone?”
“Of course! I love my husband, and my kids. I have two sons, one’s just about your age. I love them very much.”
“How do you know?”
Eric’s mother blinked. “Excuse me?”
“How do you know that you love them?” young Mira stared at her, owlishly, never blinking.
“Huh.” Eric’s mother stopped, considering. “Well, I’m their mother, of course. Of course I love them. I can’t imagine doing anything else.”
“Is that it?” young Mira asked.
“Well, I guess I’ve never really thought about it before,” Eric’s mother admitted. “I just always have. But if you ask me how I know, well… I suppose it’s just like I said about your parents. I worry about them, and I want them to always be happy. And I would do anything to make sure that they keep smiling. When you find someone like that, someone who you would do anything for, whether it’s a grand gesture or something small, like making them soup, that’s when you know you love someone. When you want them to be happy.”
“Hmm,” young Mira said. “And do they love you back?”
Eric’s mother laughed. “Well, I certainly hope so!”
“But how do you know?” young Mira insisted. She stood and walked over to Eric’s mother, peering up into her eyes. Eric held his breath, and instinctively grabbed tightly to Mira’s hand. He could feel his nails digging into her flesh, but she didn’t say anything.
Eric’s mother cocked her head, her eyes soft, completely unaware of the danger that she was in. “Well, you just have to trust that they do. That’s part of love as well, trust. But you can tell they love you if they do the same kinds of things that you do for them. If they help you the way that you help them, then that means they love you.”
“Huh,” young Mira said. “So it doesn’t have anything to do with touching someone’s heart?”
“Well, that’s one way to put it,” Eric’s mother said. “You touch their heart by helping them, by showing them how much they’re loved. And hopefully, they’ll do the same to you.”
Young Mira nodded, looking thoughtful. She spared a glance over to the underbrush where the knife had landed. Eric’s mother, of course, didn’t know that. She knelt down in front of her and took her hands, which made young Mira look back at her. “But whatever you’re worried about, you don’t need to worry about it, alright? I’m sure that your mommy and daddy love you very much.”
“How do you know?” young Mira asked. She didn’t sound sad or anything, she sounded as though she was actually asking.
“Because I do,” Eric’s mom said. “A mother always knows.” She stood, and extended her hand. “Why don’t I take you home? You must be getting cold out here.”
“That’s okay,” young Mira said. “I know how to get home. I live right by here.”
“Well, alright then. But I need to finish my run. I was already going this way, why don’t we go together?”
Young Mira considered this, then nodded. “Okay,” she said, and reached up and took Eric’s mother’s hand. The two of them turned down the road.
After a few moments, Eric and Mira extracted themselves from the bush, with very little grace. Eric tumbled into the clearing, groaning from stiffness. Mira stood and shook out her legs, clearly also stiff but making much less of a big deal about it. She walked over to the undergrowth and pulled out the knife that had been left abandoned there. “Yep,” she said. “Same one I took. Right out of the kitchen drawer. I think I left it here last time, too - of course, then it was covered with blood.”
“Mira,” Eric said weakly, “Could we do without the details?”
“Alright, chicken,” she said, sliding the knife into the waistband of her pants. She said nothing for a moment, and then crouched down next to Eric, who was curled up in a ball on the ground. “Hey. Are you… okay?”
“Yeah,” Eric said immediately. “Yeah, of course I am, why… why wouldn’t I be?”
“Eric, you know I’m terrible with facial clues and social cues. So I hope you know how bad it is when I say that you’re a really bad liar.”
“I just… I never thought I’d see her again. Mom, I mean. She’s just how I remembered her.” He was quiet for a moment. “You know, this was the worst day of my life. And now… it’s not.”
“Hey, that’s good,” Mira said. “That means we did it. No more Heart Ripper. No more sad Eric, then. Or any of the other things Zero mentioned. Six people, right? We just saved six people.”
“Seven,” Eric whispered, his eyes wide and staring at the ground, hugging his legs.
“Seven. Hey, that’s like, almost half my victims. That’s a pretty good start. Now we just need seven more.”
Eric nodded absently to himself, not really listening. Then he furrowed his brows. “What… what do we do now?”
“Hm?”
“I mean, we can’t exactly go back to the future, right? Sean said that the device would take at least ten months to recharge, and even then, there was something about, um Schrodinger’s Cat, or something? That it might now work. Are we… are we stuck here?”
“Huh,” Mira said. “I guess so. I didn’t really think that far ahead.”
“You didn’t- what are we going to do now!?”
Mira shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not like I had anything really going on in the present, anyway, so…”
“I might’ve!”
She raised an eyebrow. “Did you?”
“…no. But I might have!”
“Sorry. I thought you knew the risks when you agreed to come.”
“I mean… I did. Mostly. But even so, I had to follow you. I… I know you don’t need protecting, not really, but still. If something horrible happened to you and I wasn’t around to help you… I would never be able to forgive myself.” Eric stood, shaking his arms out, and squared his shoulders. “Besides, it’s my life too. I wanted to fix it. I… I needed to. I owed it to myself.”
Mira nodded. “Alright, good. But if you’re going to keep following me into dangerous situations you’re going to need to stop complaining about it.”
“Right. Of course. That, um, still doesn’t solve the problem of what we’re going to do. Since we don’t legally exist in this time period. Or we do, but as children. So, um, now what?”
“Whatever we want, I guess,” Mira answered. “We don’t have jobs or mortgages or anything tying us down. We could go anywhere we want. Is there anywhere you always want to travel to?”
“Not really…” Eric said. He stared down the road to where young Mira and his mother had disappeared. “Do you… really think we did it?”
“Saved your mom? Yeah, duh. That was her, walking away.”
“I mean, yeah, but… do you think we really stopped you from killing?”
Mira cocked her head and thought. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “That speech your mom gave was pretty good. Last time it took me thirteen years and a death game to figure out that the heart was a metaphor. It’s probably going to be a lot less time now.”
“Are you worried about her?”
“Well, I don’t want this to be for nothing,” Mira replied. “Maybe it’s best to watch her for a while. Make sure she doesn’t get into any more trouble, you know?”
“Stay here? In town?”
“Is that okay?”
“Yeah, that’s- yeah. It’s okay. Actually, I’m a little worried myself - about Mom. And Chris. Dad didn’t start getting bad until after Mom died, but what if… what if he was always going to end this way?”
“And you think that if he does, you can save them?”
Eric swallowed. “I’ll have to.”
“Alright, cool. So we’ll be like weird fairy godmothers to our younger selves.” Mira shrugged, smiling. “I didn’t really have anything else interesting planned for the rest of my life. This seems like it could be fun.”
“Is this really the rest of our life now? I mean, what are we going to do?”
“Well, first, we’re going to need new names, new identities. A house, establish credit, jobs, I guess.” Mira rolled her eyes at the thought. “See if there’s anyone in town who could have a “distant relative” appear and inherit their house after they have an… accident.”
“Wow. You, uh… you really have this planned out, huh Mira?”
“Eric, I’m a serial killer.” Mira gave him a withering look. “I have to have a back up plan.”
“Can we at least try a back up plan without murder first?”
“Fine.” Mira rolled her eyes again, but then she reached down and held her hand out to him. “Come on. We’ve got some work to do.”
“Right.” Eric reached up and took her hand, and at that moment the sun finally broke over the horizon. It was a new day.
Hi! I hope you're enjoying 999 so far! Reading your reaction posts have been a lot of fun. :D I was wondering, were you planning on playing the rest of the games in the series once you finish 999?
Hi windsor! Great to hear that my 999 posts have genuine entertainment value. And yeah, I’m liking the game so far! It’s a lot more bloody and crude than what I typically enjoy, but it helps that it has an intriguing plot and that friends/bloggers are encouraging me to get through it.
I do plan to play Virtue’s Last Reward and Zero Time Dilemma next! I’ve ordered a copy of The Nonary Games (PS4 version) since it has both 999 and VLR on it with voice acting and fancy graphics (ah yes, now I can hear Santa shout expletives in my own home!). I’m considering finishing all the endings in 999 on it (assuming I haven’t already done so by the time it is delivered), but I’ve also heard that there’s a puzzle at some point that only works in the DS version, and some players considered the updated puzzle less satisfying. Haven’t researched into it too much, though. It’s a bit tricky to look up information on this series without stumbling over spoilers along the way, but I still think I’ve done all right so far with going in blind.
It’s not on the list, but I’m going with the Bowling For Soup version bc that’s much more Lup’s style.
33. Amanda Seyfried- Bowling For Soup- Little Red Ridding Hood
Cycle...god who was even counting at this point? Lup bit her lip as she leaned over, just trying to get a look at him. This was creepy, right? Supes Creep. Ugh. A branch snapped behind her, and she rolled away, squishing herself against the thick trunk, squeezing her eyes shut. She could feel his eyes drilling their way through the tree. He knew she was there. He found her out. Quick, play it cool!
“’Sup, LuLu?”
“AH!” Lup screamed, jumping backward and falling on her back in the grass. When she was able to stable herself again, she saw her brother standing over her.
“...You okay? You’re a bit jumpy.” Taako held out his hand to her.
“Ugh, dingus, you’re lucky I didn’t blast you.” She took the hand, letting him help her up, the second she was standing, she pushed his shoulder lightly.
“What are you doing all the way out here, sis?” He leaned back around the thick tree, noticing her target. “Ooooh. Planning a little surprise for Barold?” A grin grew across his face as he came back. “I want in.”
“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.” She clasped a hand over her twin’s mouth, pulling him close by his robe. “Don’t you dare give me away.”
Taako licked her hand, but to no avail. His sister was used to his tricks.
“Look,” Lup sighed. “I’m gonna tell you something, but you have to pinkie swear not to tell anyone.”
Taako nodded, holding up a pinkie. Lup crossed it with the hand she was using to hold his robe, but still didn’t return his ability for speech.
She took a deep breath, trying to get it all out in one. “I like Barry, but I’m scared that he’ll not want to spend time with me because I’m kinda mean to him sometimes and I swear Taako if you tell anyone I’ll set you on fire.”
There was a moment of silence between the two. Slowly, Lup lowered her restrictive hand from Taako’s mouth. He just start to laugh. Loudly. He bent over, holding his stomach.
“TAAKO! SHUT UP!” Lup shouted, hitting his shoulder again.
“Okay, okay.” He took a deep breath. “Sorry.”
“Hey guys, what’s up?”
This time both twins screamed as they jumped backward, but only Lup went down. The tree caught Taako.
“Oops, sorry for scaring you.” Barry smiled nervously, holding a hand out to Lup to help her up.
“Scared? Who’s scared?” Taako tried to recover.
Lup took Barry’s hand, reveling in the moment of just feeling his soft skin against hers. A chill ran down her spine. Oh no, she’s being weird. She’s holding on too long. Do something!
She yanked her hand back, bringing her blue-jeaned love down with her.
Barry fell on top of her, and where she normally would have laughed, Lup’s breath caught. They stared into each other’s eyes for what felt like hours, unmoving. Was her blushing noticeable? Was he blushing too?
Taako coughed, and Barry rolled off.
“I’m uh...gonna go back to camp. See ya later.” He gave a little wink to Lup, who’s face only got more flushed.
Barry completely missed the wink, though. He was too focused on Lup’s beautiful eyes.
Alright for the kids meme: DickBabs (you said you wanted more DC stuff!)
Thank you <3 <3 <3
From this
Who in your OTP carries them from the couch/car to the bed?
Dick most of the time, but Babs can do it too. It’s really just whoever grabs them first.
And who soothes the kids after a nightmare?
Babs 50000%. She learned how to perfectly sooth a child because of Jim, while Bruce was below average on that front. Alfred did all of that for Dick, but he’s still not comfortable talking about his own nightmares, let alone help his kids through theirs.
Who wants to throw out the car seat because the stupid thing won’t strap in?
DICK DICK TOTALLY DICK. Boy will sometimes forget how to use his phone. Poor Barbie having to put up with her technologically inept bae.
Who cries on the first day of school?
Probably Dick, and Babs would make fun of him for it, but later on she’d be sobbing.
Gets the kids into the local sports team?
Dick would absolutely be soccer + PTA mom. All the other moms will wonder if he’s just a single dad or what not, but Babs is way too busy sometimes, and when she does come to things, all the moms let a little bit of jealousy show (I mean come on, they’re the perfect couple)
And who’s the parent that gets way too aggressive at these games?
BABS. She got kicked out once for fighting a dad on the other team.
Who in your OTP lets the kids stay up and watch movies and who sends them to bed?
Dick will let them stay up, and Babs will get them to bed. She sometimes gets annoyed that she always has to be the badguy.
Who sneaks candy to the kids before school, whilst the other pretends not to notice?
Dick. Babs rolls her eyes and smiles.
Who is the parent that yells at the kid for being called to the principal’s office and who is the parent who yells at the principal?
Neither yell at their kid. Babs tries to be diplomatic while Dick flies off the handle. “hOW DARE YOU ASSUME MY PERFECT ANGEL BABY IS BAD”
Who teaches their son to tie a tie?
Barbara. Hell, Babs needs to sometimes help Dick with his.
Explains periods to their daughter?
Barbara. Dick, as sweet as he is, doesn’t even want to think about his children growing up.
Who cries at graduation?
Both of them are absolute babies. (+Bonus: so are Bruce and Jim)
Who reads the book in silly voices?
Both!! Dick is better though.
Who’s the one against sweets before dinner and who lets it slide?
Babs doesn’t want to spoil the kid’s dinner while Dick could give a shit. “Well Alfred let me when I was a kid-” “That’s because you barely ate at normal times anyway!”
Who gets rid of the monster in the closet and under the bed?
Neither. Batgirl and Nightwing get in the closet and beat the ever loving shit out of the monsters.
Which parent sneaks veggies into the kids’ dinner and who doesn’t like veggies themselves?
Dick fancy’s himself a chef, so he’ll give them veggies and Barbara usually doesn’t like it, but sometimes Dick makes it perfect.
Who in your OTP does the “hurt my baby and I’ll kill you” speech when their kid brings someone over?
Barbara “my dad was the Police Commissioner and did the same shit to me and I thought it was completely normal” Gordon-Grayson
Who goes on all the rides with the kids because their partner gets queasy on rides?
Are you kidding me? They’re Batgirl and Nightwing if one of them ever got queasy, it would make their lives impossible. Dick is a gd acrobat for shits sake.
Well, that certainly managed to expand from what I’d first planned! I hope you find this exploration of the Myrmidons in the world post-Zero-Time-Dilemma as intriguing as it was to write.
AO3
Content warnings for terrorism and suicide bombing and maybe related warnings.
12th December 2028
Today was the day. Myrmidon Trainee Left would take his final test, prove that he’d learned the skills needed to impose Brother’s will on a fallen, degenerate world. His performance would be reviewed by the Lefts that had come before him and then, Brother be willing, he’d be a fully-fledged operative of Free the Soul.
All Left had to do was undertake one single trial mission to prove his competence. So that was why he was in the staging area of the Myrmidon compound, standing against the left-hand wall and waiting for his trial to begin. Every muscle in his body was itching to move, to work off the tension that was building. But Left didn’t. Myrmidons did not pace. Anyone who wore the noble face of Left was too dignified for that.
So instead Left looked over the rest of the room from his vantage point on the side. The fleet of vehicles arrayed in the centre, the rows of armouries across the opposite wall, Left surveyed them all and grounded himself in this location. These were the tools he would need to become familiar with it as he took up the standard as an actual Myrmidon. And he also watched the other Lefts hurrying back and forth as they prepared for their own missions, his comrades against a world too vile to be allowed to exist.
Left’s attentiveness also served him well when he saw his Drill Sergeant entering the staging area through the main doors at the back end. Even as Sergeant Left advanced across the staging ground at a brisk, purposeful pace, Left was able to make himself presentable and stand at attention just as the Sergeant arrived.
“Look lively, Trainee!” Sergeant Left belted out as he came to a halt in front of Left and received his crisp salute. “Today’s the day when we find out what you’re made of. Do you know what you’re made of, Trainee?”
“Sergeant! I am made of the pure soul that will inherit the new world, Sergeant!”
“That’s right, Trainee Left!” Sergeant Left replied. “And I’m not going to be having you tarnish the good name of Left out in the field today.” He paused just a moment, his eyes scanning Left up and down as he let his statement sink in. Then he asked, “Are you scared, Trainee?”
It took about half a second too long for Left to get out his reply. “No, Sergeant!”
The Sergeant snorted his displeasure. “That’s a lie, Trainee, and you know it! I can see you quaking at the knees!” He leaned in, just close enough to let his voice blast into Left’s ear even though he’d barely raised it above a mutter. “Luckily for you, you aren’t the first lily-livered Left clone to pass through my hands. None of them failed their debut missions, even the ones who were even more maggoty specimens of Myrmidons than you are. Do you know why, Trainee?”
There was only one possible answer to that. “No, Sergeant!”
“Because you don’t have my permission to fail! That’s why you’re going to get out there, do your duty, and you’re not going to stop until you’ve made Brother proud. Do you hear me?!”
Left offered a firm and vigorous nod. “Yes, Sergeant!” He was a Left. He’d soon be a Myrmidon. If anyone had the tools to succeed in carrying out Brother’s will, he did. “What’s the mission?” he asked, respectful but increasingly impatient.
“We’re getting to that,” the Sergeant replied. He stepped away from Left and turned around, calling out to a knot of Left clones huddled in conversation near the hub of computer terminals at the back corner of the staging area. “You there, Ops? Get over here and give this Left his first assignment.”
One of the Lefts in the crowd straightened up, murmured parting words to the clones he’d been talking to, then headed over to Left and his Drill Sergeant. Left recognised him as the Chief of Operations for this Free the Soul compound, even though he’d been so far above the trainees in Left’s group as to never interact with them before now. “What’s the situation, Sergeant?” Ops Chief Left asked the Sergeant.
The Sergeant replied brusquely and succinctly. “Got a neophyte here who needs a suitable training mission. I understand you have one ready?”
The Ops chief brushed his golden hair aside with one slick motion, then nodded to the Sergeant. “That’s right. Yes, this mission is well within the capabilities of a new agent.” Turning towards Left, Ops pulled out a brown envelope from his suit and handed it to him. “Looks like you’re heading to the other side of the country, young man. Examine that briefing carefully. You’ll need to accomplish the objectives methodically and to the best possible standards if you’re to get perfect marks on your graduation as a true Myrmidon.”
“Yessir!” Left replied.
He opened the envelope and – after a quick glance at the Sergeant’s and the Chief’s expressions – opened it up. The mission briefing inside gave Left the location of a penthouse apartment in Denver which needed to be blown up at a specific time and day. Left would be provided with the explosives, but the method by which he’d gain entry and plant it would – surely to prove that he’d developed enough of his own initiative – be his to devise.
“What’s the purpose of this mission?” Left asked the Ops Chief. “Where does it fit into our Brother’s vision?”
The Sergeant cut in. “Do you have a need to know, Trainee?! Is there some pressing need you haven’t told the rest of us?” he belted out in his full disciplinarian growl.
But the Chief cut him off. “It’s important for every last one of us to understand the majesty of Brother’s stratagems,” he said. Turning around and gesturing across all the activity and materiel in the staging area with a graceful sweep of his hand, the chief explained, “The apocalypse will soon be upon us. The day when Brother cleanses the world of all the corrupted filth that’s kept humankind from perfection.”
“Amen!” Left and his Sergeant intoned in unison.
“Unfortunately, our enemies in the outside world have recognised our increased activity in the past few months. Degenerate as they are, we have to expect that at least some of them might anticipate our final operation, and move to hinder us. Therefore we need to give them multiple lines of attack to consider, to disguise our ultimate goal.”
“So… this is just a diversion?” Left had hoped to do great deeds in Brother’s name, to advance the cause of Free the Soul as best he could in one brilliant action. His frown drooped as his daydreams of heroism, and of the unanimous acclaim of his fellow Lefts, slipped away.
“Don’t worry, young Left,” the Ops Chief added. “Even if this isn’t part of the primary mission, you’ll still be striking a blow against Brother’s enemies. The penthouse you’ll be targeting is owned by a judge who’s targeted businesses owned by those who’ve been enlightened to the truth of the soul. His mockery of justice has caused him to spit on Brother’s teachings. He doesn’t even deserve the chance to survive into Brother’s new world.”
The Sergeant placed his hand firmly on Left’s right shoulder. “Shall we get this kid kitted up and ready to go then, Ops?” he asked. “Best to get him out on the road before he overthinks this.”
“Not just yet,” Ops interrupted. “We have a taskforce arriving back any moment. We’ll need to keep the staging area clear for them. Hold back until they’re settled and debriefed.”
At that moment a loud but not-particularly harsh warning klaxon sounded throughout the staging area as the blast doors at the front – the only entrance to the compound – began to rise. Once the doors were fully open three sleek black civilian cars drove in at pace, coming to a halt in the space just in front of the vehicle parking lot. Their occupants climbed out: three Left clones and the handful of Free the Soul acolytes who’d served them.
Their leader – a Left in a slick black greatcoat – locked eyes on the Operations Chief almost immediately and began to head over. Just watching him walk – poised, utterly perfect strides – it was clear to Left that this was a highly experienced operative. The ideal human form was a Left, and the ideal Left was this agent. Left felt like he should have recognised which Left this was in an instant. Maybe once he was more experienced, he’d be better at that.
“Report, Agent Left,” the Ops Chief ordered the newly arrived Left.
“Mission successful.” The Agent got into his report. “We recovered the data and ensured our enemy had no further copies of it. Not a single casualty, of course.” He flashed a confident grin. “Had to sacrifice the asset we used, in the end. But that’s a bonus, in my judgement. Nothing connecting her to us.”
“Good work, Agent,” the Chief replied. “Have your acolytes pack away your equipment and vehicles and then head back to quarters. We shouldn’t need your services for another week, but keep yourself prepared. The time is upon us.”
“Righteo,” the Agent replied. “I’m always ready to bring the fury to our enemies, whatever it takes.” With that, he turned to walk away.
Something clicked in Left’s mind. “Wait!” he called after the departing Left. “You’re that Left, aren’t you? The hero? The best of the best. The operative who rescued one of our brothers from captivity by SOIS, and successfully tracked down executed that Free the Soul member who fled after questioning Brother’s teachings.”
The Elite Agent turned back around. “That’s me, alright.”
“I can’t believe I get to meet you! And on this day, as well!”
“This Trainee,” the Sergeant said, “is just about to undertake his first mission, finish off his training. Any tips for him before he goes?”
Left nodded at his Sergeant, then turned back to the Elite, his eyes wide and hopeful. “Yessir, please sir! I’ll take anything you can teach me. Any unique killing method that only elites can manage? Or any super-specialised breaking-and-entering skills; I’ll need that for my mission.”
The Elite chuckled. “You’re an eager one, aren’t you Left?” He nodded to himself a couple of times. “If you want my advice, you shouldn’t focus on the flashy stuff. Hone your basics. Ninety percent of being a Myrmidon is just waiting. Patience, and observation. Train up those and no-one can beat you. That’s why we Myrmidons, who’ve divorced ourselves from temptation and worldly distraction, are the best in the world.”
Chastened, Left glanced away. But then he looked back up and met the other Left’s gaze. “Thank you, sir!” he belted out, probably more forcefully than was necessary.
“Let’s get you ready,” the Sergeant said to Left. He turned to the two others. “We won’t take up any more of your time.”
“Brother be with you,” the Operations Chief said. “We’ll need every good Myrmidon we can get in the new world.”
The Sergeant led Trainee Left to one of the vehicles on the closer side of the parking lot: a rugged and sturdy four-wheel drive. The explosives Left would need were already stored in a hidden compartment under the floor, the map showing his route across the country already stored in the glovebox. Once the blast doors had opened once more Left drove off, heading towards his destiny and Brother’s bright future.
He succeeded in his mission, of course. There was no way a Myrmidon could fail.
—-
31st December 2028
Today was the day. Operations Chief Left would be overseeing the most important event in human history. Brother had entrusted it to him personally, the responsibility of ensuring the safety of D-Com and the underground bunker and preventing anyone from interfering as Brother brought about the end of the old world.
“Status report,” he commanded. Everything had been quiet so far, but as the leader in control of this operation he’d need to stay on top of the incoming information in order to make the right decisions in the moment.
It was the Left on the nearest com-console that replied. “No contacts within the inner three perimeters. Some activity at the fourth line but it looks like civilians only, normal activity. We’re still waiting for reports from the fifth line.” This Left clone had only recently graduated from his status as a Trainee, and been posted to desk work in the Operations Centre to teach him temperance and iron out some of his over-eagerness. He’d taken to it surprisingly well, considering.
“Keep an eye out,” Left replied, “and update me if anything new comes in.”
The Lefts at the various com-consoles nodded and turned back to their screens with renewed attentiveness. Leaning over his podium at the head of the room Left went back to studying the large display that covered the wall opposite, studying the topography of the various defensive lines the Myrmidons had set up around the sacred site. If he was able to anticipate where the threat would come from he’d do Brother proud.
“It’s too quiet,” someone murmured.
Left twisted his head around. That voice had come from a Left leaning against the rear wall. Unlike every other Left in the Ops Centre he wasn’t in the proper sacramental robes of Free the Soul. If any concerted attack from Free the Soul’s enemies did come this Elite Agent would lead his squad in the counterattack, so he needed to be able to blend into the civilian population: he wore the greatcoat he often donned for this sort of mission profile.
“Surely that’s something to be grateful for, Left” the Ops Chief replied to the Elite. “Yet more proof that the will of the world is with us, if anyone here still needed it.”
The Elite Agent shook his head. “You brought me in here for my advice. My insights. Well, that’s what my intuition is telling me.” He paused, scratching his chin. “I wish we had footage from inside. Leaving our Brother in there with those scum…” He put on a mock shudder. “We ought to be in position to defend Him, in case anything goes wrong.”
“We cover the external security only,” Left snapped. “Brother’s direct orders. The honour of what happens today belongs to Him and Him alone.”
“I’m sure Brother’s decision is wise,” the Elite conceded, making the sign of the ‘f’ as he did so. But Left couldn’t help but notice the slight delay before he did so.
The rest of the night passed uneventfully. Not that the Chief of Operations was idle: one could never be idle in service of the Truth, and he spent each and every hour evaluating potential threats, considering countermeasures, and organising the rest of the Myrmidons so they’d be ready to defend Brother with their lives. But since no threats materialised, it seemed that the only event that would take place this night was the holy transformation of the world that would take place inside the underground bunker.
That didn’t change until an hour after dawn, when the recently-graduated Trainee stood up from his com-console and turned to salute Left. “Sir! Report from the fifth perimeter, sir! Possible Crash Keys activity, coming from the south-east.”
“Details, Left,” the Chief commanded.
The Trainee turned back to his screen, tapping away at his keyboard. When he raised his head again his expression was concerned but sure. “Our observers at the fourth perimeter got a better view, sir. It’s a small convoy: only three vehicles. But it’s definitely Crash Keys. We recognised some of their operatives onboard. And they’re definitely heading towards the Holy Site, ETA ninety minutes.” The main display screen opposite updated to show the path of the incursion.
The Myrmidons would need to respond. Left instinctively glanced over towards the Elite again, but… No. There weren’t enough enemies to justify committing the elite squad of Lefts; in any case, it could be a diversion.
“Sergeant!” Left called out towards the group of armed and kitted up Lefts that stood near the door through to the staging area. “Take a squad of acolytes and shadow these Crash Keys interlopers. Engage when they reach the third perimeter. Observation only, until then.”
“Yes, sir!” The Sergeant opened the door and began efficiently calling orders through to the other side. If this was the only threat to Brother’s plan then the Myrmidons would have it well in hand.
But then another interruption came. “Sir! There’s activity by D-Com!” shouted the Left who was manning the com-console.
By D-Com? No enemy should have gotten that close to the Holy Site.
“It’s the Mars Mission test subjects,” Trainee Left continued. “They’re lying on the ground outside. And that’s… That’s Brother! Brother’s outside, too!”
It was about the right time for Brother’s grand design to conclude. Was it complete, then? Was the cleansing of the world now inevitable? Even if it was, Left still had a job to do. “Ready your squad, Agent,” he said to the Left still leaning against the wall behind him. “Be ready to bodyguard our Brother. With enemies this close to Him we can’t take a single risk.”
“About time,” the Elite Agent replied. He stretched out his arms and his thighs. “I was looking forward to cracking some of our enemy’s heads, but if this is what I’ve gotta do for Free the Soul…”
Left turned his attention back to the Trainee’s computer screen. On it he could see Brother speaking to the subjects, though without sound he couldn’t know what was being said. It looked like none of the subjects were a threat to Brother – they were all still dazed from the anaesthetic that had been used on them, but he would be far more comfortable once he had loyal Myrmidons by his side to protect Him.
Especially since some instinct was pricking him, warning that something was amiss. He peered intently at the image of his Brother on the screen, trying to work out what was triggering that instinct. Was that… all nine of the test subjects, there? Weren’t six of them supposed to have been sacrificed to bring about the uncorrupted world?
Then, while Left’s attention was focused entirely on his Brother, the lights in the Operations Centre flickered.
“Sir…” the Left at the com-console said hesitantly, “the computers are doing something… strange. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He paused, fiddling with one of the controls. “Is this something we should expect, sir? Part of Brother’s plan for today?”
“No,” the Chief replied. At least, Brother hadn’t informed him if it was part of today’s plan. “Contact our computer technicians and get them to –”
And then everything in the Ops Centre – computers, main display screen, lights, everything – went out.
Operations Chief Left reacted instinctively. “Has anyone got eyes on Brother?!” he bellowed. The radios were still working, thank Brother, but with all the cameras down they were going to have to rely on human eyes to gather information about what was going on outside. Perfect human eyes, it was true – no eyes could be better than those that belonged to the Lefts – but unenhanced nonetheless.
Through Left’s earpiece, one of the Lefts at the innermost and final perimeter responded. “No! He’s vanished! We have eyes on the test subjects outside D-Com, but Brother’s disappeared! Just vanished!” There was silence, and heavy breathing, for a few seconds. Then the earpiece squawked again. “What’s going on in there?!”
Left didn’t know. “Get these computers back up and running!” he ordered. “There has to be some to get around what’s happening.”
The Sergeant was the first to react, “Get those servers opened up!” he ordered, leading two of his acolytes over to the back of the short wall that held all the com-consoles. Under his direction the acolytes pulled open the panels on the other side, and then the Sergeant peered in at the servers contained inside. “Brother damnit!” he exclaimed. “What forsaken soul-closed cur put that there?!”
“Details, Sergeant,” the chief demanded.
The Sergeant peered in more closely, then explained. “Some infernal device attached to the cables. There’s no way that’s supposed to be there. If we just get it off…”
“Hold it!” It was the Elite Agent who’d interrupted. He rushed over, almost barging the Sergeant out of the way. “It could be booby trapped. No: of course it’s booby trapped.” He took out a small flashlight and trained it into the server cabinet. “I’ve seen this before…” he murmured. “No. I’ve used this before.”
Left frowned. “Can you disarm it?”
The Elite scowled. “Of course I can.”
“Then get to work. We need everything up and running as soon as possible. Brother needs it. All of Free the Soul needs it.”
With that, Left could just stand at his command podium, waiting. It was out of his hands, now. He’d just have to put his faith in Brother that the Agent could remove the device.
And, after an agonising minute, he did. The lights started to flicker back on.
“Nasty little device, that,” the Elite Agent said as he pulled the guts of that device out of the servers. “Would have corrupted everything on all our computers permanently, if I hadn’t known what I was doing. But they should be up any moment now, thanks to me.”
It took a bit longer than just a moment, but one by one the com-consoles around the Operational Centre turned on. Multiple Lefts – including the recent Trainee – breathed sighs of relief as they regained the ability to do their duty. And then, finally, the main display screen returned, still showing the map of the area around the Holy Site and the footage of the D-Com test subjects. Though, another information window had appeared on the main display, one that hadn’t been there before.
It read, ‘Time to Self-Destruct: 7:58.’
The Sergeant scowled bitterly. “When did that come on? Which one of you mangy idiots turned on the self-destruct?”
“No. It wasn’t any of us,” Chief Left said. “It must have been part of the same sabotage caused by that device. We couldn’t see that it’d been turned on because the computers were down.”
“What do we do?!” the recent Trainee cried out.
It was Left’s decision to make. He was the one in command. He was the one this operation had been entrusted to. And with less than ten minutes to go, there was only one way he could reasonably choose.
“We evacuate…” he murmured. Then he said it louder. “We evacuate!”
“No!” The Trainee’s eyes were wide with desperation and anguish. “What about the Day of Truth? Are we just abandoning it?”
The Sergeant cut him off with a sharp clip round the back of the head. “Are you questioning direct orders now, kid?!”
The Operations Chief continued. “We don’t know what sort of attack will follow up this setback. Each Left who survives is one more who can seek out our Brother. Who can come to our Brother’s aid when we find Him. Who can get to the bottom of what defeated us today.” He gestured over towards the doors through to the staging area. “Open all the blast doors. Then abandon posts. Four to a vehicle! I don’t want to see any driving off half-full. Bring the acolytes with you if you can, but don’t put any Myrmidon’s life at risk to do so.”
“Where do we go once we’re out?” the Sergeant asked.
“Scatter,” was Left’s answer. “They’ll be hunting us. The degenerate world outside can’t abide having pure souls like us among them. So we scatter, evade them, and try to regroup later.”
A chorus of ‘Yessir’s came from around the Operations Centre. Left could trust that his orders had been understood, and that they would be obeyed to the best of the Myrmidons’ abilities. As the various Lefts scrambled into action, the Chief of Operations allowed one more murmur to escape his lips.
“May Brother be with you.”
—-
1st January 2029
Today was the day. Today was the day when everything went wrong for Free the Soul. And so Left, most skilled of all the Myrmidons and an Elite among all of Brother’s Elite Agents, would get to use all of his talents holding together what was left.
In the evacuation from the Free the Soul compound Left had stuck close to the Chief of Operations: his talents would be put to best use by those with more information about the bigger picture. They’d ended up in an off-road vehicle with the Trainee Myrmidon left had seen preparing for his graduation mission three weeks before, and his Drill Sergeant. They were heading east straight across the desert, not having seen any of the other cars full of Myrmidons since the compound had gone up in a ball of unhallowed flame. The Trainee at the wheel, handling the driving, allowing the three more experienced members of their reduced group to put their heads together and devise a plan for this unexpected situation.
“We need to find somewhere to regroup,” the Ops Chief said. “That has to be our first priority. If we can get a stable place to act from, we can –”
Long term planning might be the Ops Chief’s area of expertise. But evading enemies out in the field was Left’s. He interrupted. “First off,” he said, turning to address the Trainee in the driver’s seat, “turn south here. A full ninety degrees.”
“Y-Yessir!” the Trainee replied. It took a while for him to get his bearings – Left wouldn’t have been impressed with driving skills like that if he’d first seen them in any ordinary mission – but then the car began to turn, skidding slightly but controllably on the dunes.
“Huh?” the Sergeant gasped from the seat in front of the Elite. “Don’t we need to get as far away from our compound as possible?”
Left scoffed. “If we flee from the compound at top speed in a straight line it’ll be obvious to any of our enemies where to look for us. And when they spot this vehicle it’ll be obvious that it’s us. An unpredictable path will let us outwit them.”
“I presume you have a route already planned, Left,” the Chief said. He paused, considering. “Very well. Engage your plan. Where will we be once we’ve slipped any pursuers we might have picked up?”
“There’s a safehouse my squad used on a previous mission,” Left explained. “That’s where we’ll hole up as we make our plans. The safehouse has food stocked up, a cache of weapons and equipment, clothing to replace all of your robes. All I need to do is reactivate one of my previous cover identities and we’ll have access to all of that.” He paused; a thought had shot through his mind. “On that note, names.”
“Names?” the Trainee asked. “What do you mean?”
Left sighed. “We don’t know how long we’ll be out there, among people who reject Free the Soul. Among people who hate Brother, and hate the name of ‘Left’. All four of us will need cover identities if we’re going to interact with those people. I’ll be able to forge papers once we reach the safehouse, but it’s more important that you get used to acting as those identities. If you call me ‘Left’ in public instead of using my cover identity’s name – Elliot Adams – you’re going to bring a whole load of problems down on our heads.”
The Trainee’s eye twitched. “We’re… going to have to pretend to be apostates?” he asked, his voice trembling.
“Of course we are,” Left replied. Brother damn it, novices were annoying when they had to be led everywhere by the hand. “Come on. You’re a big strong Myrmidon now. This isn’t going to stop you, is it? Start thinking about a name for your cover identity. You’d better have come up with one by the time I get back to you.”
The Drill Sergeant picked a name for his cover first – Stephen Raynor – and Left murmured it a few times under his breath to make sure he could say it naturally when the time came. It took a bit longer for the Chief of Operations – they had to go back and forth a bit to find a name that sounded right, the Ops Chief not having been out in the field for such a prolonged – but they eventually settled on calling him Charlie O’Brien. Finally, Left turned back to the Trainee.
“Come up with a name yet, kid?” he said. “Oh, and turn north-east here. Keep an eye out on the freeway as we approach so no-one sees us joining the road.”
The Trainee spun the steering wheel around slowly. Left would hardly be an Elite if he couldn’t tell from the Trainee’s body language that he was doing it slowly to try and stall.
“Come on, kid. Pick a name for yourself, or I’m just gonna end up sticking you with ‘Trevor’, or something like that.”
The Trainee craned his neck around to meet the Elite’s gaze. “My name…” he murmured, “is Left.”
The Elite snorted. “Trevor it is, then. You’d best get used to it. It’s gonna be a long time before we’re around enough true believers in Free the Soul to use our real names in public.” He paused, chuckling to himself. “And if you think using a different name is bad, you won’t like the other thing we’ve got waiting for us at the safehouse.”
“What’s that?” the Sergeant – soon to be called Stephen – asked with such brusqueness it was almost like a bark. “What else do we need to do?”
“Oh, you’ll just have to wait and see.”
The rest of their flight from the Free the Soul compound went uneventfully. They joined the freeway without being seen, at which point they were indistinguishable from any other vehicle that had been on the road to any but the most observant of viewers. The convoluted route they took through the road network, including three moments when Elite Agent Left instructed the driver to double straight back on themselves, should have thrown off or exposed any tail they’d picked up. Left was pretty confident that they hadn’t been followed. When they arrived in the suburbs around Denver it was just as night was beginning to fall and the streets they were driving down began to grow dark.
Which was a good thing. It wouldn’t have done them any good if anyone had seen the other three Lefts before they had a chance to change out of their robes.
Left gave the driver directions to the safehouse, a large suburban house on the bend of a winding residential street. After a thorough look both ways down the street to make sure none of the occupants of the other nearby houses were looking out their window, Left bundled the other three Lefts out of the car and through the front door into the house. Now free from any possibility of prying eyes, Left breathed a sigh of relief.
He turned around to face the others, then gestured around the clean, well-furnished rooms they’d entered into. “This is where we’ll be living for the next few months. Make yourself at home!”
Left took them on a tour through the safehouse, starting with the wide-plan lounge, the dining room, and the well-stocked kitchen on the ground floor. Next up were the rooms on the upper floor, which had all been converted to bedrooms so that the safehouse could house as many Free the Soul agents as necessary.
As they passed through those bedrooms, observing the smooth mattresses and soft quilts on each one, the Trainee spoke up. “Is this really the sort of decadence apostates live in?” he asked. With a slight, disdainful shake of his head, he added, “No wonder their souls end up so wretched.”
“Remember your training, Left,” the Sergeant interrupted. “You’ve got to learn to steel yourself against all this, if you’re going to be an agent for Free the Soul.”
The Ops Chief turned to Left, peering intently at him. “I presume there’s a reason why our hideout is furnished so unnecessarily extravagant?”
Left had the answer to that particular question ready in an instant, of course. “Our safehouse needs to blend in among all the other houses on this street. We can’t take any risk of being discovered by our enemies.” Since they’d just finished touring the upper floor, it was the perfect time to change the subject. “Let me show you the weapons and tools we have stashed here, next.”
Since those were the sorts of items that would instantly, one-hundred-percent certainly, expose the Myrmidons to anyone who saw them, the weapons and other equipment were stored in the basement, the path down being concealed behind a false panel in the kitchen. After showing each of his comrades the trick to removing the panel – and emphasised the importance of putting it back in place correctly – Left led them down and turned on the lights.
The Sergeant gazed around the weapon racks on the walls – the collections of combat knives, various handguns, small machine guns, even a couple of assault rifles and a bandolier of grenades – with admiration. “You weren’t lying when you said this would be a good place to launch our counterattack from.”
Left let out a hearty laugh. “Now, would I ever lie to any of my brothers?” Then his expression grew serious. “Now, there’s one more thing we need to do before we settle in.”
“What is that?” the Ops Chief asked. His forehead furrowed, puzzled. “Wait… this is what you were talking about back in the car, I presume.”
“Exactly right!”
Leaving that there, Left headed deeper into the basement in search of what he needed. He headed straight past the weapons, of course, and also past the cabinets that were next along the walls and contained electronic warfare equipment, rappelling gear, field medical kits, and other equipment that the Myrmidons who used this safehouse would need to be successful in their sacred mission.
Finally Left reached what he was looking for right at the back end of the basement: a small bag next to the wardrobe which contained whichever clothes, uniforms and disguises wouldn’t be suitable for storing upstairs. From inside that bag Left drew four tubes full of gooey, viscous liquid. He checked the labels, then presented them to the others with a flourish. “Ta-dah!”
“Is… Is that what I think it is?” the Ops Chief asked.
“Yes, that’s hair dye, alright,” the Sergeant replied.
The Trainee gasped, almost shivering in place. “Hair dye?! We’re gonna have to get our hair dyed? But… But the perfect form of Left? It’s blond! We’re supposed to be blond.”
Left shook his head gently. “Look. If four identical men arrive at this house, it’ll be obvious to everyone around us. Especially if our enemies have taken advantage of our vulnerability to propagandise against us. So, we’re going to have to change our appearances. Get our hair cut, change its style and, yeah, get it dyed. You think you can do that, kid?”
The Trainee – looking so young and inexperienced even though, objectively, he had an identical appearance to all the other Myrmidons – took several deep breaths in and out. “This is for our Brother, right?” he asked. “So we can regroup. So we can rescue Him from our enemies?”
“That’s right, Left,” Left said softly.
Trainee Left nodded firmly, straightened his posture, and met Elite Agent Left’s gaze head on. “Then I can do it. Dye my hair.”
“With an attitude like that you’ll go far, kid,” Left replied.
And the Trainee would have to go far. They all would. They might have survived the disaster that had befell the Myrmidons and the Day of Truth, but they had a long way to go if they were going to rebuild.
If they were going to bring Free the Soul to its eventual victory.
—-
25th March 2029
Today was a day like any other. For three months now, Sergeant Left – he was going by Stephen, now, but he’d kept his real identity at the core of his being. He’d have to, if he was going to provide a good example to his oh-so-recent Trainee – had been waiting for the news that would let the four Myrmidons in the safehouse get back into action.
That news seemed no more likely to arrive that day than it had any day previously. Ops had been hard at work, trying to establish channels to any other cells of Myrmidons that had survived. But there hadn’t been any reply yet. Had there really been no other survivors? Had every other Myrmidon been captured; or worse, killed? The Sergeant would have guessed that their vehicle would have been most favoured in its chances of escaping, with the Elite’s guidance allowing them to evade pursuit. But every other vehicle had failed? What was the point of him training up Myrmidons for so long if his training helped them succeed in the crucial moment?
And then there was the question of Brother. How had He disappeared from the Myrmidons’ watchful sight, at the moment when it had been most important for them to be ready to defend Him? Brother could perform miracles; the Sergeant knew that. But that miracle seemed to work at cross-purposes to anything Brother could hope to accomplish; it only made the Myrmidons’ life and mission harder.
In the meantime, all the Sergeant could do was stay ready, and keep the others ready as well. Which was why he was out in the backyard of the safehouse, engaged in a sparring match so he could keep the Trainee’s hand-to-hand skills honed. They’d put on protective padding that they wouldn’t have in proper Myrmidon training. Between that and their changed appearances – they’d both cut the long golden locks of a Left down to a crew-cut and dyed what was left, black for the Sergeant and brown for the Trainee, and the Sergeant had allowed a beard to grow in as well – they wouldn’t have looked to observers like anything more than a pair of average martial-arts enthusiasts.
Particularly skilled enthusiasts, of course: Left’s Myrmidon pride wouldn’t let him settle for less, plus the training wouldn’t have any benefit if they weren’t going all out. And it quickly showed that Left was comfortably more skilled than his Trainee, when he got control of one of the Trainee’s arms with a well-time grapple, swept his leg out to kick away his ankle, then threw the Trainee onto the grass.
As the Sergeant held out a hand to help the Trainee back up, he sighed. “You’re better than this, Trevor.” Left changed the name for the benefit of any of their neighbours who might overhear. “If you take risks like that in a real fight you’re going to get hurt, you idiot.”
‘Trevor’ glowered back at him sullenly. “You’d have put me in the ground even if I hadn’t done that. Let’s face it, you’re better than me. I’m not going to beat you in a sparring session unless I take some risks.”
“You aren’t pretending you picked up that bullshit from me, are you?!” the Sergeant barked, giving the other Left a quick clip around the head.
The Trainee quickly replied. “No, Ser… Stephen!” He was still a bit out of step, keeping to their cover identities. Something else they’d have to work on.
His point made, the Sergeant softened his tone for the rest. “Nothing like that matters in a real fight. A superior opponent will just take advantage of a mistake like that even harder. That’s even more of a reason to do the right thing, every time. Remember what I taught you.” The Sergeant couldn’t say aloud what he usually would have: that as clones of Left they were unsurpassed in physical potential, and would therefore inevitably win any fight as long as they didn’t make any errors their opponent could exploit. It didn’t matter. He’d hammered it in enough during drill that it should have been as instinctive to the Trainee as breathing. “Let’s do this again,” he said once the Trainee was steady on his feet once more.
Before they could start, though, a voice drifted over the fence that divided their backyard from the next garden over. “Stephen, Trevor, at it again boys?” the Myrmidons’ next-door neighbour, an older, grey-haired, wiry-thin lady named Sophie, asked as she came to peer over the fence, her eyes only just making it over the top of the wooden panels.
The Trainee shrugged as he turned to address her. “Got to stay in shape, right?” he said. “The way the world’s coming to.” He’d been overly withdrawn the first few times they’d interacted with their neighbours, but since then he’d gotten used to putting the façade of ‘Trevor’ over his Myrmidon core.
“Oh you are right, you are right,” Sophie replied, her voice sing-songily light. “If anything were to happen around here, I’m glad we’ve got some big strong men like you around to take care of it.”
“I’m sure nothing’s going to happen, Sophie,” Left replied. Of course nothing was going to happen. The Elite Myrmidon had picked this neighbourhood for his hideout precisely because it was so safe from anything that would disturb or expose them.
“Well if you’re sure, dear,” Sophie replied. Then she perked up. “Stay there, boys. I’ve got something for you,” she exclaimed, before disappearing back behind her fence. When she reappeared she’d come round to the Lefts’ side of the fence, into their backyard, carrying a small serving tray with four glasses sitting on top. “Freshly-squeezed orange juice, just for you. Come on! You’ve got to be thirsty after all that rough-and-tumble.”
The Trainee shook his head, almost wildly. “N-No, we couldn’t.” A quick inquisitive glance the Sergeant’s way made the double meaning in that clear.
The Sergeant cut the Trainee off by stepping forward and lifting the closest glass of juice from the tray. “Drink up, lad,” he said. “Gotta rehydrate. Even we can’t keep going forever without that.” Once the Trainee had taken a glass as well and started to slurp it down, Left turned back to Sophie and nodded. “Thanks very much.”
“Take some for your housemates, as well,” Sophie said, gesturing at the other two glasses on the tray. “It’s an old family recipe, you know. The times my poor old mother would show me how to get the amount of sugar just right to make it come out right…” Once Left had taken hold of the other two glasses she tucked the serving tray under her arm, sighing as she did. “You know… I never see Elliot or Charlie around much. Are they okay? Not settling in?”
Left quickly shook his head. “Work’s keeping them busy.”
That was a completely lie, naturally. The four of them were supported, monetarily, from untraceable accounts that had been set up long ago and filled with money by forethinking Free the Soul adherents; it wasn’t like they needed employment. Nor was it in any way right for a good Left to offer his labour in service to those who controlled the degenerate world that Free the Soul needed to change. But it bolstered the cover identities they were using, and gave the Elite Agent a good explanation for the time he’d left the house vacant between when he’d first used it and when the four of them had arrived, to claim that they were working from home. Since the area they’d claimed to be employed in was informational security, the Elite had been confident that they could pretend to describe it with no-one they were speaking to being able to or even wanting to follow the details. Case in point…
“A bit of an emergency came up at work,” Left continued. “Elliot’s been up all night tracing the incursions to see if they got anything, but…” He finished off with a calm, resigned shrug.
At that moment the back door to the house opened up and Ops stepped out, a dour expression on his face. Unlike Left and his Trainee he’d kept the blond hair of a Left rather than dying it, but with it cut much shorter than any Myrmidon would usually wear it he looked more than different enough that there was no danger. “There’s news from…” Ops started off, before flicking a quick look Sophie’s way, “… work. You’d better hear it.”
Sophie just nodded softly. “You boys get on it. Don’t let an old lady like me hold you up.” She raised her voice to call into the house – “Enjoy the OJ!” – before disappearing back into her own garden.
After making sure Sophie really had left, the Sergeant turned to meet the Chief of Operations’ gaze, his expression stern and serious. “What news? Are we ready to go back into battle?”
Ops shook his head. “But you should come and see what we’ve found.”
He led the Trainee and the Sergeant back into the house – the Sergeant made sure the back door was closed and very firmly locked behind them – and up to the main bedroom, where the Elite was hunched over the computer they’d set up there. The Elite brushed the long, ginger-dyed fringe out of his eyes as he peered at the screen, scowled at what he saw, then turned to look up at the other Myrmidons as they entered.
“Can’t disagree with your analysis, Chief,” the Elite said to them morosely. “Looks exactly like what you said it was. Have you explained it to them, yet?”
“No,” Ops replied. “But it won’t take long.” He turned to face Left and his Trainee, his hands clasped together gravely. “First things first, it looks like we can be certain that our Brother failed in His anointed task to remake the world.”
The Trainee gasped. “No! He couldn’t! It’s not possible!”
The Chief cut him off with a brusque wave of his hand. “I’m sorry. But it’s true. Only I and a few other high-ranked Myrmidons were informed of how exactly Brother would accomplish it. But if it had worked, we would have seen signs of it by now. Nothing about this corrupt world has changed. So the mission was a failure.”
The Sergeant sighed. He’d known, inside, but he hadn’t wanted to believe it. Hadn’t wanted to compromise his faith in Brother. “I’m guessing that’s not the only reason why you’ve brought us here, sir,” he said.
“As you know, I’ve been trying to reunite us with any other cells of Myrmidons that escaped the disaster at the Holy Site. What I’ve found has been… disturbing. Some, even many, of them survived, and established bases from which to carry out Free the Soul’s mission. But by the time I was able to identify them one of our many enemies had done the same and wiped them out. That was true for each and every cell I tried to contact.”
“Someone’s been killing our brothers?!” the Trainee exclaimed. “We have to avenge them!”
The Elite chuckled. “Now I’d love to do that, too. But maybe you should learn everything we’ve got before you march all four of us into the meat-grinder in a Brother-forsaken wild goose chase.”
The Chief continued as though he hadn’t been interrupted. “Last week, I was able to make contact with a group of our brothers that had been sheltered by one of Free the Soul’s most devout adherents. We had just managed to confirm that our identities were true; that neither of us were impostors hoping to infiltrate and finish Free the Soul off. And then, yesterday, they too fell silent.”
“The same enemy got them.” The Sergeant didn’t need to make that a question.
“True. But this time we were able to find out who they were. Since we knew when they had been attacked, I was able to track down surveillance footage from just beforehand.” Ops gestured at the computer screen and said to the Elite, “Show them, Left.”
The Elite slid the chair he was sitting at to the side and turned the computer their way. On the screen, in grainy but unmistakable footage, was a slender, cocky-looking man with white hair, giving orders to people just off screen with a vigorous arm gesture. The Sergeant recognised the man instantly, righteous hatred swelling inside him.
Only the Trainee hadn’t had that reaction to the image. Though he did know this was someone to hate, all he said was, “Who is that?”
“You wouldn’t have been briefed on all of Free the Soul’s enemies until you were going out in the field more regularly,” Left explained. “That’s Aoi Kurashiki. He’s the brother of the leader of Crash Keys, and their most dangerous operative.”
The Trainee’s eyes widened. “Crash Keys! They attacked the Holy Site, just before it all happened.”
“That’s right,” the Chief said with an encouraging nod. “And, once I knew what to look for, it was clear that they were behind the deaths of all our other brothers as well. There was only one conclusion I could reach. One thing that could explain both the disaster that befell us on what should have been our day of glory, then the systematic hunting down of everyone else who escaped.”
“That’s gotta mean…” The Trainee fell silent, his brow furrowed. Then he gasped, a sharp, strangled rush of air. He’d worked out what the truth had to be. Why the four of them had ended up in this situation.
“… There’s a traitor. Someone betrayed us to Crash Keys.”
—-
2nd August 2029
The days were passing by, faster and faster. Chief of Operations Left had kept his cell of Myrmidons together as best he could, and their shared faith in Brother was a glue stronger than any mere camaraderie. Still, the months without anything for them to do – surrounded by the outside world and all its temptations and corruptions, the lingering threat of being betrayed to a Crash Keys death squad hanging over them – could only be wearing them down. With no guidance from Brother to lead the way there wasn’t much more they could do.
In the weeks following their realisation of a traitor within the Myrmidons the four Lefts had started working in shifts, keeping someone up and awake at all times to watch out for the attack, whenever it came. But it never had; between the increasing fatigue and the increasingly strained excuses they’d made to the neighbours for the strange pattern of activity, the constant vigil had proven to be unworkable.
So they’d gone back to living their ordinary undercover lives.
Maybe there was some other approach they could take to defending themselves against Crash Keys. If Left could work out who the traitor was, how they’d infiltrated the Myrmidons and sabotaged them on the Day of Truth, what secrets they’d communicated to Crash Keys, then maybe he’d be able to anticipate their next move. Or even lead his Myrmidons out and attack them first.
So the Ops Chief was down in the hidden basement below the safehouse, at one of the workbenches that they had set up there. The device that had been used to bring down the compound’s servers – the Elite Agent had brought it with them in their flight, after he’s disarmed it – lay open on the worksurface, its wires and innards exposed. The Elite had said that he’d recognised that type of device when he’d first found it, and now that Left was looking inside it the device certainly bore all the hallmarks of Myrmidon construction. Yet more evidence that the person who planted it was a traitor to the Myrmidons, no matter how much it twisted Left’s guts to think that.
Even the acolytes at the compound had been chosen for their utmost loyalty to Brother and were individually vetted by Brother Himself; none of them should have been traitors. And Left clones weren’t supposed to be even capable of betraying Brother.
And there was also the question of how the device had been attached to the servers in the first place. Had the traitor sneaked into the Operations Centre before the Day of Truth to plant it? No. The Ops Centre had been constantly manned, especially in the days as Brother prepared the holy site for the end of the world. And the servers had been located right in the middle of the room, where any of those Myrmidons could have witnessed and prevented it. The only way the sabotage device could have been planted was if every single one of those Lefts had been traitors, or if all of them had been struck blind at the same time but hadn’t realised that had been done to them.
And yet, the sabotage device had been found there, attached to the servers.
Left’s thoughts were distracted when he heard the panel entrance to the basement being shifted aside. After the firm click as the panel was slid back into place, footsteps descended the stairs towards Left. The Trainee emerged from that passageway into the basement chamber, a weary look in his eyes that turned to a flash of surprise when he saw the Chief sat there.
“Sir!” the Trainee exclaimed. “You’re down here as well?”
Left nodded. “I was just re-examining this device. If I just…” He trailed off. His subordinate had no need to know this. “What are you planning on doing down here?” Left asked instead.
“I need to purify my soul,” the Trainee replied.
A usual enough request. “Carry on, then,” the Chief said.
The Trainee headed over to the far end of the basement and laid out the implements used for Free the Soul rituals in a rough ring on the floor, before reaching into the wardrobe down there for the Free the Soul robes they’d stored there. When he’d donned his robes and knelt down in the centre of that ring he began the purification, closing his eyes, making the sign of the ‘f’ and chanting a prayer under his breath. When the chant was finished, just before moving onto the next part of the ritual, the Trainee opened his eyes again and looked up at Left. For a moment his lips quivered, but then he shut his eyes again and reached out for the mortification cables.
The Chief pushed the remains of the sabotage device away from his across the workbench and turned in his seat to face the Trainee head on. “You can speak up, Left, if you feel the need. Your spiritual health is important, to all of us here. Please, speak your mind.”
The other Left breathed in and out, several times, deeply, before replying. Eventually he said, “You must think I’m weak. Too weak to be a real Left. I’m needing to do this nearly once a week, now.”
Left sighed. “Do you think the rest of us aren’t purifying ourselves, also? Living for so long surrounded by this fallen world is something that threatens to taint all our souls. Never mind having to live here without His guidance. The methods He provided are a salve to us all, and it’s no weakness to rely on them.”
“But…” The Trainee shook his head forcefully. “Aren’t we supposed to be the new race of humankind? Those with strong enough wills to avoid the sins of other, lesser humans? If my willpower isn’t strong enough, if I’m not good enough, then…”
As the Trainee trailed off, the Ops Chief nodded gently. “Let me tell you something about willpower, Left,” he said. “You’re right that strength of will is a virtue. The crowning virtue, for those of us who follow Brother and act in His name. And it does you credit to want to strengthen yours. What I’m about to tell you is something you can only really come to understand from experience.”
The Trainee looked up, his eyes open and filled with hope. “What is it, sir?”
“Willpower isn’t some sort of finite resource you use up. Or some sort of quality a human can either possess or fail to possess. It’s a choice. Willpower is a choice. The choice to do the right thing, every single day of your life. You choose to keep up with your exercises and sparring, to keep your body strong. And you choose to act with kindness and generosity towards your brothers, and do good by your Brother. Those bonds of loyalty, renewed with every choice to maintain them, are what keep us together.”
“Yes, sir?” the Trainee said, nodding hesitantly.
“And look at us.” The Chief gestured around, taking in all of the basement and also the safehouse up above. “Where the rest of humankind was content to let the world fall to greed and ruin, we in Free the Soul made the choice to kill all those that cover the world in filth, to restore and rebuild it. And even when our most direct path to that was taken from us, we persevered. You made that choice, just as much as any of us, and you should be proud of yourself for that.”
“I guess so… But if that’s true, why is my soul feeling so weak? Why do I feel like my willpower is wasting away, compared to the rest of you?”
Left stood up from his workbench and strode over to the back end of the basement. He knelt down on the floor there, in front of the Trainee. “That feeling in your soul, your urge to purify it, isn’t a lack of willpower. It’s your recognition of what willpower requires. Your soul is calling out for the tools it needs to make the right choices, and you’re answering it diligently. You’re a Left, Left. You should trust your instincts.”
The Trainee pondered that for a moment, his posture relaxing. But he still reached out for the mortification cable, and his hand was still visibly shaky and hesitant as he did so. Left could tell that he still wasn’t in the right state of mind for the purification of his soul to take the most effect.
“I’m sure you didn’t come down here to discuss abstract theology with me,” the Chief added, softly. “Tell me, what’s really causing this?” A pause; the Chief took stock of how the Trainee reacted to that. “That’s an order, if it has to be.”
“Yessir.” The Trainee nodded firmly. He took in a deep breath, held it for a moment, then spoke. “We’ve been living among people ignorant of Free the Soul, right? For months, now. And we’re even having to interact with them, to maintain our covers.”
“That is a very trying situation for your soul, indeed,” Left said.
The Trainee continued, “I know these people are supposed to be degenerate, fallen, their souls filled with sin and greed. That’s what Brother taught us. It must be true. But when we’re talking to them, when I’m pretending to be ‘Trevor’, I just can’t see that. Take that woman, Sophie, next door. If her soul is as degenerate and sinful and wretched as she has to be, wouldn’t it be easier to see than this?”
Left nodded a few times. He took the moment to collect his thoughts. “Do you really believe that it’s a sin to sympathise with human beings who are not yet members of Free the Soul?”
“But we’re supposed to stay separate!” the Trainee gasped, slapping his palms against his knees. “We’re supposed to stay above them. That’s how we keep free from being contaminated by their sin, isn’t it?”
“That’s true, for most human beings,” the Chief explained, “but there are several people out there, many even, with the virtues to evade the corruption that engulfs the rest of the world. Where do you think our acolytes come from? They hardly grow on trees. They’re just ordinary humans with enough virtue to recognise the truth of our Brother’s words.” He reached out and laid his hand on the Trainee’s shoulder. “It’s no sin to associate with those with such virtue, whose souls are yearning to be free, even if they don’t yet know the words or the truths Brother taught us.”
The Trainee’s eyes brightened. “Thank you, sir!” he exclaimed. After a short pause, he asked, “Should we try to recruit her? Bring her into the fold so that her soul can be free?”
Left furrowed his brow, making a show of thinking about it. But when he replied, his answer was what it had to be. “No. If we were still at full strength, perhaps. But as vulnerable as we are right now we can’t afford to take the risk.” It wouldn’t do for the rookie to be getting idea into his head that would compromise the mission of the rest of them. Once he’d said his piece he stood up, stepping away from the ritual ring. “Finish off your purification, Left. When your soul is fully free once more, think over what I’ve told you with a clear mind. You’ll see things differently.”
And with that Left turned away. He headed up the stairs back to the safehouse, the Trainee’s grunts of muted pain receding behind him.
When the Ops Chief arrived back in the safehouse kitchen, he found the Elite Agent and the Sergeant standing around the counter there, discussing something intently to the point where they were completely ignoring their lunch. After fastidiously locking the false panel back into place over the entrance to the basement, the Chief went over to join them.
“What’s the news?” he asked them, a sharp staccato command. “Have we received word from Brother?”
The Elite shook his head. “Closer to home, I’m afraid, boss,” he said. He then turned to the Sergeant. “Give him the details, Stephen.”
‘Stephen’? The Chief’s eyes narrowed.
“Our neighbour,” the Sergeant said with a sigh, “has invited us over to a ‘barbeque’ next week. We…” He glanced out the kitchen window, his eyes pensive. “… need to decide how to deal with it. I don’t want to admit it, but I’m not sure what the best course of action is.”
“Surely we should reject it. It is in our best interests to minimise our engagement with those around us.”
“Hold up, Chief,” the Elite interrupted. “That ain’t such a good idea. If we act too standoffish all of a sudden we’re going to blow our cover to smithereens, just as surely as if we paraded down the street wearing our robes and singing Brother’s praises. We need to be cautious, but that’s no reason to make a snap rejection without thinking it over.”
“And, also…” The Sergeant glanced away contritely. “As far as I can tell, I already accepted the invitation. I apologise, sir. I had to make a decision when she asked. As far as I could tell, Brother’s will was telling me to accept.”
Left grimaced deep inside, but nodded openly. He wouldn’t have made it far as Operations Chief of the Myrmidons if he couldn’t manage subordinates having flexibility and using their own judgement in the field. “Very well. We’ll meet tomorrow at 8:30am to brief on what we should expect. I hope you’ve made the right choice, Sergeant.”
Even without an enemy directly in front of the Myrmidons under his command, directly threatening them, there was still plenty of unwelcome surprises and decisions to be made. Left would keep his squad of Myrmidons together as best he could.
—-
16th November 2029
Today was…
The four Lefts had attended several other events and invitations after that first one. Always with some trepidation – the worry of blowing their cover loomed constantly, and they were ever-wary of the impact on their souls from immersing themselves in the outside world – but each time passed without consequence. Bit by bit they were getting more accustomed, knowing exactly what to say and do to navigate the thin thread between their obligations and their cover identities. Even the Trainee was perking up, gradually recovering from the malaise that had weighed down his soul over the previous months.
And today, one more little interaction with the neighbours had wrapped up without incident. The meal they’d eaten over at Sophie’s house had been hearty and filling, without any of the unnecessary luxury and overindulgence that would sap the strength of their souls. All that was left was to clear up, and they could return to their daily lives.
“Stephen!” Sophie called out to him from the kitchen in the next room over. “Be a dear and get those plates washed up, will you?”
“Of course,” Sergeant Left replied. He gathered and stacked up the plates from Sophie’s dining table then carried them through to the kitchen. As he filled up the basin with hot, soapy water and manoeuvred the plates and cutlery into it, the Sergeant turned his head to Sophie and raised one inquisitive eyebrow. “I’ve just noticed. It’s a very large house you’ve got here, Sophie. But you’re living here alone? Is there a story behind that?”
With a light, half-empty chuckle, Sophie replied. “Oh, nothing quite so grand as all that. My husband and I moved here when we had the kids. My children have all grown up and moved to other states, now, but I’m still here. Still here…”
“And your husband?”
“He’s been gone nearly a decade now.” Sophie’s eyes dipped down forlornly. “I still miss him, so much.”
“Was it peaceful?” Left asked, after giving her a couple of moments of silence. “When he passed away.”
“When he passed away?” Sophie glanced aside, her eyes half-closing. “No… It was…” Then she shook her head. “You boys don’t want me to bring your moods all down with that story. No you don’t. I should focus on the good times with him instead. Let me tell you about…”
As the Sergeant scrubbed the plates Sophie regaled him with the tale of a holiday she and her husband had taken when she was fifty-three. She came to the story’s conclusion just as Left finished drying up, and he nodded politely at what she’d said. Sophie smiled, slightly, and was just opening her mouth to speak again when the Elite stuck his head through the door from Sophie’s dining room.
“We’d better get going, Stephen,” the Elite Agent said. “The evening’s growing long, and there’s plenty I have to get sorted before tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll be right there,” Left replied. He turned to face Sophie. “Sorry we’re having to leave so abruptly.”
“Of course, of course,” Sophie replied gently. “It’s been good having you over here. And you too, Elliot.”
“It’s a pleasure to be over here, too.” The Elite flashed Sophie a winsome smile. Then he beckoned to the Sergeant. They rejoined Ops and the Trainee where they’d been waiting by the dinner table and together they headed back to their house next door.
Once they’d arrived and closed the front door behind them, the Sergeant drew the Elite aside. “Has something come up, sir?” he asked. “It’s urgent, right? I’m ready for whatever you need me to do.”
The Elite Agent smirked a confident smirk. “It’s nothing quite. Just one more thing we need to do to secure our position here.” He gestured back towards the entranceway, where Chief of Operations Left was giving instructions to the Trainee. “The Chief’s picked up on something that might explain why the traitor wasn’t able to expose our safehouse to Crash Keys when they stabbed all of our brothers in the back. So, we need to check it out.”
“That’s right,” the Chief stated. “And not just to keep ourselves safe here. If Brother is with us then we may be able to determine who the traitor is, or where they’ve been lurking since they turned on us.”
“We’ll need to drive out a couple of hours to get where we’re going,” the Elite said. “Sergeant, you and the Trainee should hold down the fort while we’re gone. If any of our enemies show up while we’re gone, it’ll probably be because they noticed our investigation. A counterattack on our home base is possible. You’ll have to be prepared to deal with that.”
“I’m ready, sirs!” the Sergeant belted out his acknowledgement. He was a Myrmidon. He’d be ready for anything.
Once the Chief and the Elite had hashed out their planned strategy and left, the Trainee approached Left. “What are your orders, Sergeant?” he asked.
The Sergeant got to business without delay. “Head upstairs and keep watch out the front window. The Elite’s instincts are telling him something. That something’s going to happen.”
The other Left tilted his head to the side. “Why wouldn’t he tell us? Give us the details, so we can be better prepared?”
The Sergeant shook his head. “I doubt he knows what it is himself, yet. When you’re as experienced as he is, you can spot threats coming a mile off based on nothing at all. So, we prepare for the worst-case scenario. Keep watch, while I prepare the heavier duty guns for us to use.”
With the Trainee’s marching orders given to him, the Sergeant strode away. As he’d said, they would need weaponry to repulse any attack. The four Myrmidon’s had kept a handgun each so that it could be easily available in case of emergency, that was true. But that wouldn’t be enough to stop a concerted assault. They needed guns with higher penetration and stopping power.
That meant the basement. The Sergeant headed to the kitchen and opened up the false panel there, then steadily but hurriedly stepped inside. When he reached the bottom of the stair he rushed straight to the weapon rack there and sized up the guns. A pair of assault rifles for himself and the Trainee were the obvious first choice to take. A sniper rifle, too: the Trainee’s long-distance scores had been decently better than average during basic training – better than average for a Left, more than that by the standards of their enemies – so he’d be able to do plenty of damage to their enemies from that upper window and blunt the attack. There was a chance of close work inside the safehouse, so should he also bring up some submachine guns for that? No: they could wait until the second load.
It was just as Sergeant Left was reaching for the nearest bandolier of grenades that a sudden sound reverberated from above: a sharp, echoing click.
Was this it? Was this the attack they’d been expecting ever since they’d found out about the traitor? The Sergeant tensed up. His instincts were screaming at him to defend himself. Hurriedly, without much conscious thought, he loaded the weapons he’d been carrying back onto the rack to free up his hands and his handgun.
The click sounded again; it sounded like it was coming from the back door from the kitchen into the garden. And then the sound after that pounded into Left’s ears like the shockwave of a bomb: a first footstep thudded against the top of the concealed staircase.
Left wasn’t going to make it in time. He placed the bandolier of grenades carefully back on the table – couldn’t act recklessly with them – then just dropped all the other guns he was holding to the floor. He whipped his handgun out from his waistbelt and spun around just in time to train it on the figure as they emerged from the passageway.
“Stephen?!” a voice emerged from the figure, creaking and uncertain. “Is that you?”
“Sophie?” What was she doing down here? If she’d seen the Myrmidons’ concealed basement…
“You boys left the drinks glasses you brought over at mine. I just wanted to bring them back for you,” Sophie said. She peered around the darkness of the basement. “What on Earth was that panel doing like that in your kitchen, Stephen?”
The Sergeant didn’t answer the question. “Let’s get you back upstairs before you hurt yourself,” he said, stepping carefully towards Sophie like he was coaxing a frightened animal. “Don’t worry. There’ nothing…”
But then Sophie’s eyes adjusted to the dark. He eyes flickered about, taking in everything in the basement: the cabinets loaded with illicit devices, the pile of weapons Sergeant Left had just dropped at his feet, the Free the Soul robes hanging like a banner at the back of the room.
“This isn’t what it looks like, Sophie,” Left murmured, taking another tentative step closer. “Just head back upstairs, and…”
But then Sophie flinched back. “T-T-Terrorist!” she cried out.
Left knew what that meant. What had to happen. But his finger refused to close around the trigger. He couldn’t quite believe it, but his trigger-finger wouldn’t move. Instead he drew his combat knife with his other hand and leapt forward, forcing Sophie up against the nearest wall and pressing the blade in against her throat.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Sophie.” Left’s voice came out almost as a hiss. “You didn’t see anything. You’re not going to tell anyone anything. You’re going to go back to your house and act as if nothing has happened for the rest of your life.”
Sophie tried to speak, but her voice came out as just a whimper. Somehow, she looked even smaller than she did normally.
Left continued. “And if you’re able to do that, Sophie, then we’re not going to kill you and everyone you know.” He pushed the flat of the knife in against her neck to emphasise the point. “Do you understand, Sophie? Are you able to do that for me?”
Sophie was about to reply. But just as she started, there was a clatter of footsteps against the concealed stairway. The Trainee burst into the basement.
“You too, Trevor?” Sophie gasped.
The Trainee glanced the Sergeant’s way. It was clear that he’d heard the final part of the conversation. The part where he’d offered Sophie a deal and a way out, rather than doing his duty. The Sergeant looked pleadingly into the Trainee’s eyes. He couldn’t make it an order. Not for what he was doing. But, eventually, the Trainee nodded.
The Sergeant turned back to Sophie and asked the question again. “Do you understand?! You’re not going to tell anyone, and we’re going to let you go! Say yes, Brother-damnit!”
Her eyes wide, her cheeks deathly pale, Sophie eventually nodded. “Yes…” she whispered, her voice cracking.
“Good,” the Sergeant spat. He stepped back, releasing his hold on Sophie and letting her slide down the wall into a curled-up heap at the bottom. Then he gestured at the Trainee. “Get her up, Trevor, and get her back to her home. Make sure she understands what this means.”
The Trainee did so, reaching out to Sophie and hauling her somewhat roughly to her feet. Together, the Trainee leading Sophie by the wrist, they headed to the stairs back up to the safehouse. Step by step they headed up, disappearing into the passageway. When they’d risen out of sight, Left breathed a sigh of relief.
And then came a sickening thud of knuckles on flesh.
Sophie came tumbling back down the stairs. Where she reached the floor her feet landed badly, unable to find steady footing; her ankle broke with an echoing crack. As Sophie sprawled out on the floor, crying out in pain, the Trainee stepped back down into the basement, shaking out his left fist with which he’d punched her.
Left glared at him. What was the Trainee doing? Hadn’t he agreed to letting Sophie go, just then? Left peered at the Trainee’s face, trying to see why he’d suddenly changed his mind; when he failed to see any reason for it on the Trainee’s blank, leaden expression, he opened his mouth to ask.
And then the Elite and the Chief also stepped into the basement.
“Saw her sneaking in, just as we were ready to go,” the Elite said, letting out a short, hollow laugh. “Still, looks like the two of you had it well in hand, right?”
The Chief nodded. “Yes, good work.” He peered down at Sophie on the floor, eyes filled with disdain. “Do we think that she’s an agent of one of our enemies? Crash Keys, perhaps? Or any one of the other groups of apostates?”
It took the Sergeant longer to answer that question than it should have. “N-No, sir. Just a civilian. In the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Yeah, I checked the backgrounds of all the neighbours when I set this safehouse up,” the Elite said in a lazy drawl. “Nothing particularly interesting in this woman’s history. Still, it’s a shame it’s gonna end like this.”
“Yes, you’re right,” the Chief said. He clasped his hands together solemnly. “She’ll have to be disposed of, of course. No way around that.”
At his feet, Sophie whimpered. She didn’t look like she could form words anymore.
“Disposed of?” the Trainee asked.
“She’s seen too much,” Left replied. He had to play the role. “We can’t let her leave knowing that.”
In the silence that followed the Chief of Operations looked the Trainee up and down, his eyes squinting thoughtfully. “That’s right… You’ve never drawn blood in service of Free the Soul before, is that right?”
“Sir?!” the Trainee exclaimed indignantly. “I’ve completed my inaugural mission, sir! I’ve drawn blood!”
The Elite shook his head, chuckling ever-so-slightly. “That was with explosives, kid. You’ve never got up close and personal with it.”
“Well… Yeah, that’s right…” the Trainee mumbled in reply.
The Chief stepped over to the Trainee and placed his hand gently on his shoulder. “It’s important to learn. It’s something we have to be prepared to sometimes, in this fallen world we’re forced to live in. So, this is your chance to experience it, reconcile that experience with your soul.” Then the Chief stepped back; his face grew stern as he issued the order. “Draw your blade, Left. And do what needs to be done.”
The Trainee did so. He knelt down beside Sophie, grasping her shoulder with his right hand as he held the blade in the other. For a moment, Sergeant Left thought he saw the barest whispers of a ‘sorry’ on his lips.
Then the Trainee raised the knife.
The Sergeant and the Elite were returning to the house from where they’d sunk the body in the nearby river. In the dead of night there’d been the barest chance of them being seen by anyone; nevertheless, they’d taken every care that they hadn’t been trailed. They’d gotten away scot-free.
“We’re probably still going to have to relocate to another safehouse,” the Elite said, even as his tone remained completely unconcerned. “There’ll be too much attention on us, now, once she’s discovered missing.”
“What about the investigation?” the Sergeant asked. “The location you’d intended to go to tonight.”
The Elite shrugged, then opened up the gate into the safehouse’s backyard. “It’ll have to wait until another day, I suppose. We’ll need to be secure in our new location before we try. And only Brother knows if the opportunities will work out right. But what can we do about it?”
As the pair of them entered the back door of the house the Chief called out to them from the living room. “Come and see this!” he ordered. “The news we’ve been waiting for has arrived.”
The Sergeant and the Elite rushed through to the living room. There, the television had been turned on and the Ops Chief was regarding it intently, standing ramrod straight.
“News?” the Sergeant asked. “What is it? Does that mean…?”
“Wait,” the Chief interrupted, pointing at the screen. “It’ll loop round again in a moment, and you can see it for yourself.”
Just as the Chief said the, the newsreel did. The news reporter was shown on screen against the backdrop of a very familiar piece of desert. “Live on the scene in Nevada,” the reporter said, gesturing at the dune behind her. “A man going by the name of Delta Klim has just been arrested at a secret bunker near this location. Yesterday morning, officers from the Federal Bureau of Investigations converged on this site…” Here the screen switched to footage showing what were obviously SOIS agents swarming across the sand. “… and took him into custody in a bloodless raid. Soon Klim will be arraigned and tried for his crimes against humanity.”
The footage changed again. Now they showed a man, clad in black robes and heavily manacled, being dragged along a street by officers as reporters thronged on either side. As they turned the corner and began hauling the man up some stairs towards a building the hood of the robe fell down revealing the man’s face. When the man glanced the camera’s way…
“Brother!” Left gasped. It really was Him.
The screen switched back to showing the reporter, who continued. “Delta Klim claims to be the leader of the notorious cult Free the Soul as well the associated terrorist organisation the Myrmidons, who have been responsible for dozens of bombings, assassinations and kidnappings across the country. In addition, evidence came to light at the start of this year that the Myrmidons intended to release a lethal virus across the world; they were only stopped at the last moment. We can only hope that justice is served.”
“This is what we’ve been waiting for, Lefts,” the Chief proclaimed, turning to face them. “This is what we’ve stayed alive for. Thanks to all our efforts, we’re now in position to rescue our Brother. It’ll be difficult: our enemies will throw everything they have between us and him. But we’re Myrmidons! Lefts! If anyone can do this, it’s us.”
“Gear up,” the Elite said to the Sergeant. “I’m looking forward to finally getting some action again.”
“Yes, sir,” Left replied. He glanced around the room, just confirming that it was only the three of them there. “Private Left!” he called out to the Trainee. “Get down here and gear up!”
There wasn’t any response.
“Left! Where on Earth are you?!” With that, the Sergeant stepped through to the front hall to shout right up the stairs.
In the hall, he found the front door open. When he looked outside, the vehicle was gone from the drive.
Left returned to the living room, scowling. “He’s gone. Right at the crucial moment.”
The Elite’s brow furrowed for a moment as he pondered. Then he gasped, his eyes open with realisation. “Lemme just check something,” he said, disappearing off towards the kitchen. He returned momentarily, with a bittersweet half-smug smirk plastered over his face. “I was right. Several guns and all our explosives have been taken from downstairs.”
So the Trainee had taken them? What was he thinking? “Is it possible that he’s already seen this news?” he asked the Chief.
The Chief thought for a moment, then nodded. “The television was already on when I found it. And I only saw the second run-through of that news-clip. It is likely that Left saw the first time by himself.”
The Elite scoffed. “What? Does the newbie think he can rescue our Brother by himself?”
No. That wasn’t it. There had to be something more, some revelation that would make the Trainee take such a drastic step. And at that moment, just as Sergeant Left realised that, he found out what that revelation was.
The news broadcast had moved ahead again. The news reporter, after a quick back-and-forth with the anchor in the studio where they insulted everything Free the Soul stood for, reached the conclusion of their report. “One final thing we’ve learned. Sources inside the FBI and close to the main investigative team that capture Delta Klim have told us the following. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it seems that Delta Klim…”
His Brother…
“… turned himself in voluntarily.”
—-
31st December 2029
Today was the day. Today was the final test, when he would finally prove himself a real Myrmidon. He’d bring the fight to Free the Soul’s enemies and the world that had ruined so much. Brother be willing, he’d be a fully-fledged hero of Free the Soul.
It had taken more than a month to prepare. But if any wait had been worth it, that wait had. He’d cased his target, planned his attack, and picked the perfect moment to strike. The explosives he’d taken from the other Myrmidons’ hideout would be put to perfect use. More importantly, the time he’d delayed had allowed his hair to grow back in. No more hair dye. No more of that crew cut that militaries in the outside world thought was appropriate for soldiers; he’d grown his blond locks back down to his shoulders as they should. He looked as much a Left as he ever would.
And, in the end, it felt right to be standing here on the anniversary of what should have been the holiest of days.
Even so as he stood in the middle of Times Square, New York, the ignorant humans thronging around him didn’t pay him much mind. He was wearing a black woollen hat that covered most of the blond. The overly-large well-wrapped greatcoat he was wearing, which covered more than just his flesh, didn’t draw any extra attention either due to the biting cold.
Good. If the humans around him weren’t wise enough and observant enough to defend themselves from him then they deserved everything that was about to happen.
As he watched the people milling by, hatred welled with his soul. How dare they. How dare these people act so carefree when their corrupt world was taking everything good and grinding it into dust? If they hadn’t slandered Brother’s good name, telling the world that He’d just given up like a coward, then he wouldn’t have any need to do this to them. If the world had been as it should be – with no-one opposing Free the Soul’s efforts to make it a better place, with the Myrmidons leading humankind openly and proudly as they ought to have been – then on that day he wouldn’t have had to…
His left hand twitched.
So when the time came, when the Times Square ball began to drop and the cacophonous cheer went up from the crowd, there was only a second’s hesitation before he reached into his coat, grabbed hold of the detonator, and flipped the first switch.
The bombs went off exactly how he’d planned them. All around the square, rubble from the buildings he’d planted them in fell into the streets, blocking them off completely. The people in the crowd, like the mere animals they were, fled the roars of the explosions; that just drove them into the centre of the square, colliding them against those fleeing the detonations on the other side. Even such sin-bound souls as these were capable of recognising when they were trapped; they huddled together in tight fearful groups, eyes darting every which way as they tried to spot the threat.
He, who’d been expecting the bombs, reacted differently. He walked purposefully towards the stage the outsiders had set up for their empty celebration, his path cleared as the people backed away from him instinctively. As he strode forward he let the greatcoat fall away from his shoulders and removed the hat. His holy robes, which he’d worn underneath, billowed majestically behind him in the wind alongside his blond hair. Everyone would know who he was as he carried out his mission. Just to make sure none of these fools tried to stop him, he drew out his submachine gun with his right hand and fired a single shot into the air. Then he pulled out the detonator, wires tangling around as they disappeared up his sleeve, and placed his left thumb conspicuously against the second trigger.
When he reached the stage and clambered up, the so-called celebrities who’d been presiding over the event backing away as he did so, he took control of the microphone that had been left there. He’d rehearsed what he was going to say. Several times. “Humans who deny the truth of Free the Soul. I-I come to you with a message!”
As his speech reverberated from the speakers surrounding the square, the people in the crowd turned to face him. Several of them screamed. He saw one person, off in the corner of his vision, lean forward and retch. A baby cried out in its mother’s arms. And all of them looked at him with expressions of undisguised hatred.
“I have on me…” He opened up his robes to show the cables wrapped around his chest, before letting them fall closed again. “… enough explosives to eviscerate everyone in this square. Look around! Look at the routes out! They are all blocked! You cannot get out. Your so-called police cannot get in to save you. If you attempt to stop me I will detonate. If you attempt to climb over the rubble and escape I will detonate. The only chance you have to survive this night is to listen to my message!”
A pause, just to let that sink into the souls of the fallen humans. He scanned the blocked streets, confirming with his own two eyes that no-one was disobeying.
“I have demands for your so-called leaders. If they listen then all of your lives will be spared. Free the Soul is benevolent to those who listen to the truth. And if they fail to listen, if they choose a course of action that results in your deaths, then that is what you get for suffering to be ruled over by such corrupt and degenerate leaders.”
That was right. People ought to have the willpower to choose how they would be led. If bad consequences came about from bad leadership then that was the fault of their own choices. They couldn’t just get away with just blaming the leaders and saying they had no choice.
“My demands are as follows! Brother, the man you’re calling Delta Klim, will be released from your captivity immediately. You will see Him off in the full dignity appropriate to His position as a prophet. Then, once Brother is free, you will withdraw all the agents you have defiling our holy site in the Nevada desert and allow my comrades to retrieve the relics within.”
He didn’t know if the other Lefts would be able to accomplish that. He hadn’t been in contact with them for the entire month. But he had to try. He would also have wanted to bargain for information on the traitor that had torn the Myrmidons apart that day last year, but he knew that Crash Keys were separate from the government and wouldn’t even blink in response to his threats, so little regard they had for human life and the state of human souls when it got in the way of their goals. As it was, he had to get everything he could in return for what he was sacrificing.
“Once your leaders have complied with these demands, you will all go free. Once these demands are met, I… I-I will disarm the bombs and surrender myself into custody.”
Silence fell on Times Square. Had he expected any response from the crowd? Some sort of divine inspiration bringing them to the truth that would free their souls? In a perfect world, maybe that would have happened. But there was no chance of that in the world as he’d found it. He settled for scanning the crowd and the exits once more, keeping them under control.
In hindsight, he hadn’t actually thought past this point. Did he just have to wait, now? Wait in silence until his demands were met? There had to be something more he could do to speed things up and expedite the salvation of his Brother.
So, he stepped up to the microphone again. “I will permit one – just a single one! – police negotiator to enter the square to facilitate the meeting of these demands. You have until dawn to comply!”
There. Brother be willing, that would be enough to make it work.
It took a while for the police and the government to respond, sirens echoing all the while as they formed a perimeter around Times square on the other side of the rubble. After what had to an hour the negotiator appeared, waving a white flag atop the pile of rubble that blocked the main road out. After a back-and-forth of gestures and shouts down the microphone – just to make sure there wasn’t a betrayal in the plans – he allowed the negotiator to step down into the square and approach the stage.
The police’s negotiator was a stern-looking woman in the prime of her life, and she’d been kitted out in sturdy armour for the negotiation. No weapons, though: no obvious ones, at least. When she arrived on the stage she stopped two strides’ distance away, facing him head on with her hands held out at her sides.
“Your name is Left, is that right?” she said, slowly and carefully but without any lack of confidence. “I’ve heard about how things work in your society. So, I should call you Left.”
“You can call me that,” Left replied. Then, feeling the need to stay in complete control of the situation, he gave her an order, “First things first. Turn around. Keep your hands out at your sides.”
The negotiator didn’t ask for the reason but simply did as instructed. Once she was facing away from Left he swiftly and thoroughly patted her down, checking all the places where weapons could be tucked away as he’d been trained. He found her radio strapped to her back, the wires from it going up to her earpiece, but no concealed weapons. She’d come to negotiate in good faith.
Still, he couldn’t be too careful. “Let’s turn your radio up so I can hear,” he said, fiddling with the controls to make it so. “I don’t want you planning something with your comrades where I can’t hear.”
“That’s fair,” the negotiator replied, neutrally. She let him do it without moving.
Once Left had backed away and let the negotiator turn back around, he asked her. “How does the release of Brother go? How soon will you be able to confirm for me that he is safely free from your clutches.” He had to stay strong and firm of soul in front of the enemy. “If you care about the lives of the people here, that is the most important thing.”
The negotiator sighed, long and deep. “That may not be possible,” she said. In the few moments of silence that followed, she peered penetratingly into Left’s eyes. “You haven’t heard, have you? Haven’t been told by the other Myrmidons? There’s a reason why it’s not so easy for us to turn Delta Klim over to you, even if we wanted to.”
At that moment the negotiator’s radio squawked. A voice came through it: presumably one of her superiors. “Do not inform him of the reason. We believe it may reduce his stability, or even provoke him to further violence.”
The negotiator looked up at Left, flashing an apologetic, lopsided smile. “They’re right,” she said. “You certainly would consider yourself better off not knowing the reason.” Then, before he could react to that, she changed the subject. “We are willing to release ten Myrmidons in our custody in return for the lives of the people here. That is in addition to meeting your demands about the bunker in Nevada. I am sorry that we cannot give you exactly what you asked for. But this trade is enough of a victory for you and the Myrmidons that you don’t lose face, surely?”
Left knew what the answer to that question ought to have been; a year ago he would have recited it without delay. ‘How dare you compare my Brother’s life to any number of my brothers.’ But today his tongue froze in his mouth.
Still, the right answer was the right answer. And he’d made enough mistakes acting against the tenets of Free the Soul that he couldn’t bear to make anymore. “I can’t accept that,” he said firmly. “I came here to free Brother.”
The negotiator turned her head away. She closed her eyes, the torn expression spreading across her face. “There has to be some compromise we can make out of this. Some way we can both walk away from this with something.”
The radio squawked again. It wasn’t the negotiator’s boss this time, though; it sounded like one of the patrolmen outside the perimeter that Left had created with his first explosions. “There’s someone approaching, from the north-east,” the voice said into the radio. Then it called out to the person, the words still carrying clearly for Left and the negotiator to hear. “Halt there! Do not approach!”
A moment of silence. Then another voice, another patrolman.
Some rough sounds came over the airwaves. They were followed by two sharp impacts. Then a third voice spoke into the radio, this one much more familiar.
“Your men are unharmed. I’m not here for a fight.”
The leader of the police surrounding Left returned to the channel. “Why should we believe that, whoever the damn hell you are?”
“The man in there is my subordinate. What he does is my responsibility. Let me in, and I’ll talk him down for you.”
Only silence came through the radio for two good, long minutes. Left could only guess that the police were discussing their options where no-one with access to a radio could hear it. Then the leader of the police returned.
“Go ahead,” he said. “Let him through, let him through. It’s not like he can make this shitshow any worse.”
Shortly after, a figure appeared atop the rubble. If anyone else had tried that Left would have flipped the switch on his detonator in an instant. But not now. This man, who shared the physique and blond hair of a Left, could be trusted.
The figure was Left’s Drill Sergeant. And he was coming into the square that Left had threatened to destroy without a shred of fear.
Once the Sergeant had worked his way through the crowds of civilians and climbed up to the stage – his hands held out just as the negotiator’s had been, though this time to mollify her rather than Left on the approach – he rounded on Left with a withering glower.
“What on Earth are you doing here, Left?! Doing this all by yourself? Do you even have any idea for how you’re going to get anything out of this? Or are you just making this up as you go along?”
“Sergeant!” Left shouted back at him. “This is for Brother! If I can just make them give him up, let him go… It’s the right thing to do!”
The Sergeant sighed, resting his hand on his forehead. “So you haven’t thought it through. I thought I’d drilled this bullshit out of you all during basic.”
Almost scowling at that, Left asked, “What are you even doing here, Sergeant?”
“We don’t leave men behind. You should know that by now.”
At that moment the negotiator cut in, a puzzled look spreading across her face no matter how hard she was trying to control it. “Do I have this right? You’re saying that this attack was launched against orders?”
“Orders…” the Sergeant murmured. “They’re a difficult thing to come by these days, proper righteous orders. But, yes…” Then he looked up and met Left’s gaze steadily, head-on. “This isn’t the right course. We can regroup, try again as a full team to achieve the best result. If we back down now we can –”
“I can’t back down!”
The Sergeant’s eyes widened at that sharp interruption; he went to reprimand Left. But Left continued anyway, over him.
“I can’t back down! I can’t show any hesitation! Or things go wrong!”
The Sergeant paused, the rebuke just on the edge of his lips. “What do you mean?” he asked. Then his expression darkened. “Is this about… that night in the basement?”
“It…” Left let his eyes dart one way, then the other. Why would his Sergeant bring up that? Shouldn’t they have left it buried? “What about on the Day of Truth? This time last year? If I hadn’t hesitated then, if I’d noticed that something was wrong with the computers in time, then the traitor would never have defeated us as thoroughly as he did.”
Putting on a soft, conciliatory tone, the Sergeant said, “You couldn’t have changed what happened. Far more experienced Myrmidons than you were in that Operations Centre. None of them were able to stop it either.”
“That doesn’t…!” Left balled his hands into fists, only just remembering to keep proper hold of his detonator. “It stopped Brother from remaking the world! We were supposed to make the world a better place. And then it didn’t happen. That’s the traitor’s fault, but it’s mine, too.”
For a moment it looked like the negotiator wanted to say something – the word ‘traitor’ floated on the sound of her breath – but she caught herself and fell silent.
“And then Brother was captured. If I save Him, then I’m a hero: a real Myrmidon. But if I give up now…” Real Myrmidons didn’t cry, so that was rain and not a tear in the corner of his eye. “If I keep hesitating, if I keep making mistakes, if I decide to go against Free the Soul one more time…” He’d made that decision, one time, betraying the faith down to the depths of his soul. Then he’d made the opposite decision the moment after and his betrayal had all come to nothing. “… then I can’t be a real Myrmidon.”
“So that’s why your only thought was getting Him free again,” the Sergeant murmured.
The negotiator looked his way, her brow furrowed. In a low whisper, barely enough for Left to hear, she asked the Sergeant, “You know the reason releasing Delta Klim won’t work?”
The Sergeant nodded, just slightly.
Over all that, Left continued. “The only reason we kept ourselves alive this entire year was so we could fulfil Brother’s vision. That’s why it was right. That’s why it was good. So if He’s captured and we don’t do everything we can to set Him free, what was the point of every good thing we’ve sacrificed…?”
A vision of his knife driving down into the flesh of a neck flashed across his eyes.
“What’s the point of everything we’ve done?!”
His head fell forward, his energy spent. When he looked back up both his Sergeant and the negotiator were looking at him with concern.
“He really is just a kid,” the negotiator murmured. “A Myrmidon, just a kid.” She turned to face the Sergeant. “If you can get him to turn of the bomb of his own accord, I should be able to get leniency for the both of you in how you’re treated afterwards. Your co-operation, his circumstances…” She paused. “What does he need? What can we do to bring him back from this brink?”
The Sergeant closed his eyes, brow furrowed. He stayed deep in thought like for a good while, the only sound coming from the sigh that escaped his teeth. After all that time, he nodded solemnly. “I hadn’t wanted to show you this. But, as a faithful Myrmidon, you deserve to know.”
The negotiator realised what the Sergeant was talking about quicker than Left did. “You’re going to tell him?” she gasped, stepping forward to stand in between them. “No. No! We let you in here to talk him down, not send the situation straight to hell. Don’t you dare…!”
“You can’t stop me from doing anything, lady,” the Sergeant cut her off. “Not unless you want all these people to be blown sky high. Besides, I know my people. You can believe me on that.” He stepped forward, past her, almost shoving her aside. When he reached Left he stuck his hand into his pocket and drew something out, calmly presenting it to him with an outstretched arm.
“What is this?” Left asked. It was a mobile phone, but his Sergeant wouldn’t be handling it with such momentous care if it was just that.
“Listen to the recording on it,” the Sergeant just ordered him.
Hesitantly, Left took the phone from the Sergeant, looked down at it and turned it on. When the screen flickered to life the recording was already there, ready to play. And the first sentence out of it drove Left’s breath clean away.
“Life is simply unfair. Don’t you think?”
1st January 2030
The bomb had been deactivated, Left had been completely and thoroughly disarmed, the crowds of people he’d trapped in Times Square had been helped out over the rubble and away from him, and now he and his Sergeant were being led away in handcuffs. As they passed the negotiator she stopped the officers dragging the two Myrmidons away.
“I wasn’t lying about the leniency,” she said, looking down on them and taking Left’s bitter glare without flinching. “Who’d have thought it: a Myrmidon doing the right thing? Maybe there’s hope for the rest of you.”
Left stayed silent. What could he say to her, to that? He no longer had any basis on which to stand.
The Sergeant just shook his head at her. “Don’t think of it like you’re converting us, lady,” he said. “This was just the right thing to do at the time, even if your corrupt leaders agree with it.”
The negotiator sighed, took a drag on a cigar, then spoke to the patrolmen manhandling the two of them. “Take them away.”
Left and his Sergeant were quickly led to one of the waiting police vans. Once they’d been bundled into the back and the door and been closed and locked behind them, Left scrambled his way into the nearest seat. “So what now?” he asked.
“Just have to keep looking forward,” the Sergeant replied. “That’s all you can do, if you want to keep seeking a better future.”
“But…!” Left gasped. He paused, collecting his swirling thoughts. “Can I even call myself a Myrmidon anymore? Can any of us? What are we Myrmidons supposed to aim for now?”
The Sergeant’s expression was almost bashful. “We both made that decision that night. Both decisions each way: to let Sophie go and then to turn on her. I guess I can’t call myself a Myrmidon any more than you can.”
“But what we did to her…” Left started off. His voice choked off.
“Say it,” the Sergeant ordered. His voice was as strict and un-disobeyable as when he’d been Left’s Drill Sergeant.
So, Left obeyed. “What we did to Sophie was wrong.”
“I guess it was. It didn’t do anything to lead to the better world. It just made the world worse.”
Left ran his fingers together anxiously. “So what we had in that house this year was… it was good? It was worth living?” Was it okay for him to say that?
The Sergeant let out a deep, bittersweet laugh. “I guess it was.” Then he paused, his eyes squinting. Clearly, he’d come to an important decision. “I guess it was… right, Trevor?”
With that, the Sergeant glanced Left’s way, locking gazes with him apprehensively.
He would have thought he’d need to think it over. But when the question came his reply came instinctively; even so he knew it was the right one.
“Looks like we just have to see if we can do it right next time, Stephen,” Trevor replied.
—-
17th November 2029
It was the morning after they’d seen the news report about their Brother. For the first time in nearly a year, they had enough information at hand to proactively go to His aid. And, as the most talented and dangerous Myrmidon at their disposal, Elite Agent Left would be the spearhead of that effort.
“We don’t have our vehicle anymore, not after the kid ran off with it,” he said to the other two Lefts in the safehouse, “but that’s not too much of a problem. Won’t take long for me to hotwire another one for us. It’s not like we care anymore about not committing any crimes in this neighbourhood.”
“What about the Trainee?” the Sergeant asked, folding his arms. “If he saw the same news report we did, and left without consulting any of us…”
“Yes,” the Chief of Operations replied. “It’s likely that he’s going to do something… rash. I can only imagine that he’s interpreted that news in the worst possible way.”
“I still can’t believe it. Our Brother, turning himself in to our enemies voluntarily? I don’t see how that can be anything but lies,” the Sergeant said.
The Chief shook his head. “We still don’t know the full details. This could easily be the first stage in some stratagem that will lead to the revival of Free the Soul. Trust that our Brother knows what He is doing.”
A stratagem? It would hardly be the first time that Brother had used His supernatural knowledge to take steps that looked inexplicable to the Myrmidons around Him in the moment. But as the Elite thought it over, bringing all his honed instincts to bear on the problem, he became surer and surer that something didn’t quite connect up.
“So what’s the plan from here, Chief?” he asked, sweeping his dark greatcoat over his shoulders. “We’re going to rescue Brother, even so, I hope.”
The Chief nodded, instantly. “We’re one man down for it, compared to what I’d first planned on. But we’re still more than enough to break our Brother out, no matter what faces us. Now, about the Trainee…”
“What he did came from a good place, sir!” the Sergeant interrupted. “He didn’t just run away.”
After a moment’s thought, the Chief nodded. “I’m not intending on punishing him. He’s one of us. However…” Here, he frowned. “… any actions he takes will reflect on Free the Soul. And we also have to consider the possibility that whatever he attempts will interfere with our own, more calculated plan.”
There was that possibility: Left would hate for his tactical artistry to be tripped up by some random complication from the neophyte. And one glance at the Sergeant’s face made it clear where his intentions lay. So Left’s next decision was obvious.
“Don’t worry, Chief,” he said. “I’m sure the two of us can handle rescuing Brother. Sergeant, you go off and track the kid down before he does anything we all regret.”
The Sergeant’s sigh of relief was more than noticeable to someone with the Elite’s experience in reading body language. “Thank you, sir. I’ve got some ideas about what he’s got planned and where he’s going. I should catch up with him quickly.”
“And it won’t take much longer for me to hotwire cars for us than one.” The Elite chuckled.
With that, the Ops Chief pointed assuredly towards the safehouse’s front door. “You know what you have to do, men. Let’s go.”
The Elite gave the rooms of the safehouse one last look as he walked through them. It had served him well, both times he’d used it. And, after all, he wouldn’t be seeing it again.
31st December 2029
Today was the day. Today the two of them – the Elitest of the Myrmidon’s Elite Agents and the Chief of Operations of same – would once again meet their Brother face to face.
It had taken longer than they’d expected to reach this point. Sure, the news report that had divulged Brother’s situation to them had shown Him being taken into custody at one particular prison. But – the simplest trick in the book – He’d been secretly moved on from there almost immediately, long before Left and the Chief could have gotten there. The rest of the month had been spent untangling false threads and evading traps, but finally they’d done it: they’d found the facility where He was truly being held prisoner.
The time for subtlety was over; the frustrations of the pursuit might have been showing through too. Left simply elected for a frontal assault, killing all the guards at the front gate with his handgun as their vehicle skidded to a halt and then blasting the doors open with a breacher charge. From there, he actually found the attack was rather exciting. Not in terms of his enemies’ skills – the guards here couldn’t match up to the SOIS agents he’d had the pleasure to cross bullets with, and nothing in this world could compare in sheer exhilaration to the one time he’d had to evade Aoi Kurashiki the day Akane Kurashiki had also taken the field – but sheer numbers and the overriding importance of the mission made for a worthy challenge.
They’d stolen the plans to the facility the week before so the route the two of them took, Left in the lead and the Chief covering his flanks, was a direct efficient path to the holding cell at the very centre. When they reached the corridor just outside the holding cell, and after Left had eliminated all the guards there, the Ops Chief hacked the console there and resealed all the doors they’d just passed through. The two of them would have to fight their way out again but that was something for later; in the meantime the remaining guards would be kept off their back.
The Chief stood up from the console and lowered his gun to his side, a satisfied smile spreading across his face. “This is it, brother. We’ve done it. We’re here at last.”
“Like there was any chance of it going otherwise,” Left replied, shrugging a self-assured shrug. “Let’s get in and get it over with.”
They strode to the thick metal door that was the final obstacle between them and their Brother. They turned the various keys they’d taken from the guards in the holes available for them, then turned the levers one by one to the vertical position. Only then, the door opened.
And there He was.
Brother, still clad in his black robes, sat on the other side of a glaringly shiny interrogation table. Though the manacles that were still clamped around His wrists held Him down in His seat, He reposed there with His back fully straight and His posture impeccable, all the dignity that should be expected of Him. When He saw His Myrmidons enter the cell, He looked up at them with utmost calm.
“So, some of you’ve managed to find me,” He said. He looked at both of them, one after the other. “Left. And Left. I must say that I am surprised.”
“Brother!” the Elite Agent exclaimed. “How have they been treating You? Any injuries? Wounds? We’ll treat them now before they get any worse.”
Brother shook His head. “No. You’ll find that I have been treated with unimpeachable hospitality by those who hold me.”
“Then we need to get ready to leave,” the Chief said. “Brother, we’ve prepared a new safehouse for You once we’ve gotten You to safety: a place for You to reassume leadership of Free the Soul. And we have decoys ready to go so that our enemies do not follow us there. But we have to go now if we’re going to make it work.”
Brother closed His eyes. He nodded, ever so slightly. “An excellent plan you’ve devised.”
“Very well then.” The Chief turned to Left and issued the order. “Agent. Free our Brother.”
Left peered down at the manacles that cuffed Brother’s wrists. They should be easy enough to pick open. Even if that, somehow, failed, the chain that bound them to the interrogation table was so thin that he’d be able to break it without even resorting to the bolt-cutters he’d brought along. All he had to do was do it.
Huh? Why wasn’t he moving?
“Agent,” the Chief growled at Left, after five seconds of him standing utterly still. “What are you doing? Free Him!”
“I’m… trying…” Left put all his willpower into reaching his arm forward. The easiest action in the world, but still it didn’t happen.
“‘Trying’? What on Earth do you mean? Why are you disobeying the order?”
“Do not blame him,” Brother cut in, His voice soft but utterly arresting. “He cannot go against my will. That is the only reason for his inaction.”
When Left stopped trying to move towards Brother, he felt the tension in his muscles – tension that he hadn’t even realised had been building – faded away in an instant. He flexed his fingers in and out, just to confirm he still had control over them. “So it’s true?” he asked Brother. “You want to stay here, in the captivity of Your enemies? You let Yourself be arrested on purpose?”
“It must be part of your next divine plan!” the Chief exclaimed, after Brother had nodded. “Please, explain it to us! Explain so we can help You accomplish it properly.”
“A divine plan…” Brother murmured. “Yes. I supposed you could call it that. But, no. I will not explain my intentions to you. Either of you. You are not supposed to be here.”
That didn’t make sense. Brother was divinely chosen, sure, and His works weren’t always for mere humans to understand. But He’d never kept His intentions from His Myrmidons before. They trusted Him by following His will without needing to understand why it was right, and in return He raised them up by explaining the truth.
“Brother, we can’t just leave You here,” Left said. “Your life could be in danger at any moment.”
Brother’s eyebrow rose as He turned His attention to Left. “In danger? I wasn’t aware of this. Perhaps I am mistaken. If there is some threat that I have failed to account for, I will have to revise my plans.” He made his final word an ice-cold command: “Explain.”
“There’s a traitor, inside the Myrmidons,” the Chief said. “Please, forgive us for not coming immediately to Your aid after the Day of Truth. The traitor disabled our Operations Centre and scattered us Myrmidons to the winds. They’ve killed many of our brothers by treachery and sabotage. If they aim to take Your life as well… We stayed alive this entire year, put all our efforts into fending off the traitor and his allies, so we could get word of You and come to Your defence.”
To that, Brother visibly… relaxed? “I commend your efforts, at least. I hadn’t expected that any of you would survive this long. Unfortunately, you have been working under a misapprehension.”
The Elite almost bristled at that implied slur against his abilities, even as it came from Brother Himself. “Then tell us the truth. Tell us what the situation actually is, so we’re not misapprehending it anymore.”
The Chief glanced Left’s way, eyes full of alarm. “We can’t just demand that. This is…”
Brother’s mouth formed a thin, Brother-like smile. “As a reward, for your efforts, I’ll tell you. I can hardly ignore that level of willpower, after working so long to inculcate it. I cannot say that you’ll be happy to hear this truth, though.”
Left frowned. “Why wouldn’t we?” he asked.
“Because life is simply unfair. Don’t you think?”
And then Brother began to explain.
“All my life, I have aimed to create a new world, one of humans with the willpower and the ability to do what has to be done. Human beings superior to those that came before. Once the world is placed in their hands, they will remake it into a world free of greed, corruption, and sin. That is why I founded Free the Soul. That is why I made each of you Lefts, cloned from the man who matched those ideals more than any other. And that is why I prepared that bunker for the D-Com participants last year.”
“The holy site,” the Chief murmured. “You were going to release a virus to wipe out all the fallen, corrupt humans that couldn’t meet Your standards. That was how You were going to succeed.”
“That was one way it could have happened,” Brother said. “As it was, fate took a different route to the accomplishment of my goals.”
“But…” Left leaned forward, gripping the edge of the interrogation table. “The plan failed. Didn’t it?”
“Forgive me for saying it,” the Chief added, “but it’s true. The world hasn’t been made anew.”
Brother shook His head, but His smile remained. “What do the two of you know about espers?” he asked.
Left knew plenty. Nothing about how their abilities were supposed to actually work, but he’d been up against Crash Keys enough to see them in action and respect what they were capable.
“On that day, in that bunker, I gathered a number of espers to be the participants. I showed them the truth of this world, that things would fall to ruin unless people stepped up to prevent it. I tested their wills with many trials. And, once they’d proven themselves, I released them. That was my aim that night. And it succeeded.”
A flash of insight – and dread – whipped across Left’s mind. “You’re counting them among the superior humans. Aren’t You? That’s why you let them go.”
Brother replied with a nod of affirmation. “They have the moral strength to know what is right for the world. The willpower to make the choices and sacrifices that are necessary, unconstrained by convention. And abilities beyond those of ordinary humans, that will let them order the world as they see fit. I have left the future of this world to them. That is the culmination of my life’s work.”
The Chief fell a step back towards the cell door, his breathing irregular. “If You say You’ve succeeded, Brother… I can only offer my praise. But where does Free the Soul fit into all this? Where do we Myrmidons?”
“That is a complex question with a very simple answer,” Brother replied. “You don’t.”
Brother had stated it, clearly and bluntly. No amount of word-wrangling and theologising could extract any other meaning from it.
“Y-You’re… abandoning us? Brother?” the Chief asked. “But we’ve been totally loyal to You. We’ve killed for You. We’d die for You. What have we done wrong?”
Brother shook his head softly. “You were excellent tools, for the time I led you. Do know that I appreciate you for that. You were, as far as I could tell when I had you cloned, the pinnacle of both skill and strength of character. But now that I have something that surpasses you at both, I must treat you as nothing more than loose ends. Complications that can only interfere with the task of the survivors of D-Com.”
“So what were we supposed to do after that,” the Elite asked, “if You didn’t have any more use for us? Just hang around, doing nothing, wasting our skills?” As he asked that question Left caught himself. He’d remembered what had triggered Brother’s explanation to begin with: the question of the traitor. His expression darkened. “No. We weren’t supposed to be just hanging around after, not at all. Were we? The traitor…”
Still utterly serene, Brother replied, “There was no traitor. I planted the sabotage device on the compound’s servers. I set the self-destruct. And, when I found out that several of you had escaped, I supplied the information of your known hideouts so that you could be dealt with. That sequence of events is what you have been calling”
The Ops Chief was as pale as Left had ever seen him. “Why?” That question was all he could get out.
“Because the Myrmidons are dangerous.”
“You made us dangerous,” Left spat. “It’s everything You taught us.”
Brother paused, then sent him a quick nod of acknowledgment. “Nevertheless. If you take my teachings into the world I will see created, you will only damage it and harm the human beings that populate it. The world has no more use for Free the Soul. Or Myrmidons.”
Silence fell on the containment cell. Brother, still seated, still chained to his seat, seemed to loom over the two standing Lefts. A looming that became literal when the Chief of Operations fell to his knees on the cold steel floor.
“No…” he murmured. “Was it really all pointless?”
Brother looked down on him, not unkindly. “It is difficult news to hear. For anyone. Your response was not unexpected.” Then He turned His head to face the Elite. “And you, Left? What do you say to this?”
What could Left say to this? How was he supposed to respond to the leader of his faith, his Brother, utterly demolishing everything he was supposed to stand for? He looked up to the ceiling, closed his eyes and raised his voice, comfortably above what was needed for Brother to hear.
“Did you get all that?”
Brother’s eyes narrowed. “What was that?”
With his right hand, Left reached into the pocket of his greatcoat and pulled out a mobile phone. Ignoring Brother’s question, he raised the phone to his ear and spoke into it. “Did you get all that? Looks like our Brother’s said it.”
On the other end of the call, the Sergeant replied. “Yes, sir. I’ve got the message recorded.”
“How’s it going with the kid?” Left asked.
“I’m coming up on him now. Hopefully this recording will keep him from doing anything he can’t take back.”
“Good luck. I’d say, ‘Brother go with you,’ but…” Then Left pressed the button and ended the call. He shrugged at Brother apologetically. “Sorry about that. I just felt like the other Lefts who were with us deserved to hear what you had to say.”
Brother, pressing his manacled hand together, peered intently into Left’s eyes. “So you had that phone transmitting, starting from even before I began telling you the truth.”
From where he was kneeling on the floor the Chief looked up at Left, expression flickering between surprise and alarm. “You went against Brother, Agent? Right from the start? How d–”
The ‘How dare you?’ was cut off by a quick wave of Brother’s left hand. “I do not disapprove of this. In fact, I’m intrigued that you would take such initiative. Tell me: what made you consider it? It’s not any strong sense of disloyalty; so, what was it?”
Left shrugged again. “I had a feeling something like this was going to come up when we found you. Things weren’t adding up, otherwise. And…” He gestured nonchalantly in Brother’s direction. “… It’s not like I cared that much about the cause, anyway. If the action was good, that was enough for me. Guess that’s why I didn’t feel bad keeping it secret from you. If this breakout had all gone as planned, I’d just have turned it off without doing anything with it and it wouldn’t have done you any harm.”
“B-But, but…!” the Chief stammered, gripping the leg of the table and raising a hand towards Left defiantly.
“Oh get up, Left,” Left said. He reached out for the other Left’s hand, almost like to brush it aside, but then he grabbed it in a firm, clasped grip. As he hauled the Chief to his feet he added, “You were always on about willpower and righteousness and all that philosophy stuff when we were living together. Not like any of that stops being true just because the guy in charge switched sides.”
“We’ll see,” the Chief replied. Even so, he accepted the help up. When he was back on his feet, both Lefts turned to face Brother head on.
He regarded them both with dispassion, his hands clasped together in front of him. When his gaze had bored its way into the Lefts’ souls just as it had during the sermons of earlier years, he intoned, “I have come to a decision.”
“What is it, Brother?” Left asked.
“I will not be coming with you. My decision is final. And yet, I have to note the resourcefulness that kept you alive this past year. And the self-determination you demonstrated just now… perhaps there is something I failed to consider when I wrote off the Myrmidons one year. So I will not be keeping the two you here for the guards to dispose of.”
Left scowled. “So that’s it? We just walk away with nothing?”
Brother shook his head. “Free the Soul is yours, my brothers. Do with it what you will.”
When I saw the prompt soft Eric x Mira, I knew I had to choose that one, because I feel these characters are underrated, and deserve more analysis and appreciation as characters.
For this prompt I was a bit inspired by “Reminiscence”, trying to picture an image seen in dreams, a happy fantasy.
Hello! For your gift I went with your Eric/Mira prompt, and I hope you enjoy longwinded talks about emotions! There will be a second chapter some time in January, because I ended up writing a lot more than I am prepared to edit right now, but I hope you enjoy!
AO3 LINK
They were alone in their apartment. Sean was over at Sigma’s getting some upgrade or other. The two of them were in the bedroom. Eric stood very still as Mira traced her finger along his shirt.
She paused over a seemingly random spot. "Right... here."
"You sure?"
"Positive." Mira nodded, mostly to herself. She tapped the spot again with her long nail. "Right here is where your heart is."
"Wow..." Eric brought his hand up to the spot she had indicated. Mira's hand skittered away when he brought his close, like a nervous spider. He lay his hand flat, palm down on his own chest. "That's incredible."
“It’s really not.” Mira shrugged, watching him. Her expression was even more unreadable than usual. "It's just anatomy. After a while it just comes down to memorization. But yours is right... there." She took his wrist and moved his hand to the left, slightly, and shifted it up. "Exactly there."
Eric looked down at himself. If he concentrated, he could almost feel his heart beating underneath his skin. "Huh."
They were both silent for a moment. Then Eric asked, quietly, "What... what do you remember?"
Mira raised an eyebrow. "What do you remember?" she asked him back.
Too much. Eric had been trying to sort through his memories since the desert, and every time he thought about it too much his head started hurting and he got dizzy. But a few things stood out.
"I... I think I died?" he said. "A few times."
"Any one in particular?" she asked, leaning against the dresser and crossing her arms. Eric sat down on the edge of the bed, hard, and folded his hands in front of him. Both of them were far too calm for the situation, in Eric's opinion. Discussing how you died wasn’t something calm, rational people do. He would gladly volunteer to be the person freaking out, except somehow he couldn’t. It was like someone had simply switched off the part of him that panicked. It would be nice if it weren’t so worrisome.
"Umm... in the library," he said, to answer her question. "The standoff. The kid shot me... no, wait, they tried to shoot you. And I jumped in front of you."
Mira nodded. "Both," she said. "At different times."
"How do you keep track of all of them?" he asked. “The timelines, I mean. For me it's all... jumbled. I can barely keep track of our one timeline that led to here. It's so complicated."
"It is," she agreed. "Believe me, I'm not having an easier time at all. That one just... stands out more to me."
"Oh." The pod room. Mira's body. The nail marks. Out of all the timelines, that was the one that stood out the most to him. He could almost feel the too familiar icy grip of a panic attack coming over him even now, as he thought about it.
"This is weird, right?" he asked. "Like, this is such a weird thing to talk about."
"Don't ask me." Mira cracked a smile. "I don't think I have a very good grasp on what could be considered normal."
"Don't say that. You're normal."
Mira laughed softly. "You still haven't remembered everything, have you?"
Eric was silent. He moved his hand from his chest to the back of his neck, rubbing slightly. At his throat his heartbeat was much more prominent, easier to find. Harder to ignore. "What about the library? You said that it stood out to you."
She nodded, slowly. "It did."
"Why?"
"The second one. Where you protected me. You didn't need to."
"I wanted to," he said, with complete conviction. He didn't actually remember how it went down, but he was certain of that. "You're my girlfriend, after all. Of course I would."
"I didn't for you."
"Well, it happened so fast. No one could expect you to react in time. Hell, I don't know how I managed to react for you."
"Hm." Mira tilted her head and examined him, her eyes narrowed. "Do you remember the Heart Ripper?"
"The serial killer?" They did talk about that at some point, didn't they. With Sean, in the rec room. He couldn't remember why it had come up, but he did remember Sean having some impressive facts that he just threw out at them. Which, knowing what he knew now, made sense. "What about him?"
"Her."
“Hmm?”
"I'm the Heart Ripper," she said, casually and calm as you please.
"...Oh." It should surprise him more. It should terrify him, make him want to run screaming from the room. But it didn't. He already knew it, after all. At least, technically speaking. "Why?"
"Why?" She laughed. "That's not the question I usually get."
"Have you told a lot of people that you are the Heart Ripper?"
"No, not many." She pushed off the dresser, taking two winding steps forward and cradling her arms against her stomach. "Why? That's kind of a long story. I should finish the first one first."
"The first one?"
"The library." She stopped in front of him, staring down at him with her arms crossed. "You didn't die immediately when Sean shot you. You could have survived, if we had given you immediate medical attention."
"Oh," Eric said. "But I did die. I'm sure of it."
"Yes. I shot you."
"Oh." He felt something turn in his stomach, and did his best to push it back down. "Well, it was a quick death, then, that way. Less agony."
"That's not why I did it."
"I know, you wanted to get out. I don't blame you. I mean, do you remember how insistent I was about leaving? It must have been a tough choice."
"That's not why either." Mira tilted her head, her hair falling ever so slightly in front of her eyes. "I wanted to kill you. Ever since we first met."
"Oh." This supernatural calm could only hold back so much of his nature. Eric began to panic. He stood suddenly, forcing Mira to take a step back. "Why? W-what did I do? Did I hurt you? I mean, I don't think I messed up our first meeting that bad-"
"No, you didn't. You did nothing wrong." She tried to step back towards him, but Eirc scrambled over the edge of the bed to get away from her. Mira stopped, her hand hanging in midair as though she wanted to comfort him. Her voice didn't sound particularly comforting, however. It was the same cool, almost monotone voice that she always had. "Have you ever heard the phrase about touching someone's heart?"
"Um?"
"It was something my mom told me. About when you touch someone's heart, then you can understand them. Then you can feel." She let her hand fall to her own chest, over her own heart. "I don't feel. I never have. That's why I kill. That's why I take out the hearts. To touch them. To feel what they felt."
"Mira, I..." Eric laughed, surprising himself. It was just on the edge of bitterness. "That's not how it works. I mean, that's just a saying. The heart isn't actually where we feel things. It's just a muscle. We feel things in the brain, through, um, chemicals, I think."
"Really?" Mira sounded genuinely surprised. "It's always worked for me, though. I feel... something when I hold their hearts. Something different from what I always feel. Different from each other, too. Maybe it was the remnants of their spirits, still giving off their final thoughts?"
"Come on, you don't really believe that stuff, do you?"
Mira tilted her head. "Don't you?"
"I mean, I was raised that way, I guess, but I don't actually know about souls or any of that spiritual stuff."
"I don't think it's any stranger than some of the stuff that we experienced at DCOM."
She had him there. "Well, that isn't the most important part, I guess. I mean, were you just... waiting to kill me? Ever since we met?"
"It wasn't like I was waiting with a knife behind my back for you to turn around since day one. Murders take time to plan. There's a reason I haven't been caught, you know. Besides, I never try to go for a kill the moment I meet someone. I want to wait and see, you know? In case the last one was the one that flipped the switch and turned my feelings on." Her face changed, her expression adding just a hint of sadness to it. "It never does, though. No matter how many feelings I collect, it doesn't change me. I can't add them to myself."
There were a lot of questions racing through Eric's head at the moment. He chose the one that was least likely to give him emotional damage. "Why did you agree to come to DCOM with me?"
"Because I was bored. I think I told you as much the first time you asked me."
"Oh, right." He had expected her to say no when he first brought it up. It was a strange whim to begin with. Eric wasn't exactly sure why he had wanted to do it himself. It was just... something to be a part of. Something bigger than himself. If the next step on the mission was to actually go to Mars, well, then, his name would be in history books, as one of the first test subjects in the initial experiment. It was just... something that mattered. For once in his life he wanted to do something that mattered.
"And I mean, it was interesting," Mira continued. "Whatever else you could say about the experience, it wasn't boring."
"No, trauma is a lot of things, but it isn't boring," Eric said, a bit sarcastically. Mira didn't seem to notice. Eric sighed, rubbing his face. "Why are you telling me this, anyway? Why confess now?"
"Because I didn't want to lie to you?" Mira asked. "No, that's not true. It's more that I wanted to tell you something, and you need to have that context to understand what I'm trying to say."
"What is it?"
"I'm getting to it." She took another step closer, and sank down to sit on the bed. Eirc stayed pressed up against the far wall. Mira counted out her points on her fingers. "Alright. You died. I killed you. Shot you in the head. And it wasn't to get out. It wasn't to give you a quick death. It was an opportunity - finally, a perfect opportunity to touch your heart." She curled her hand up into a fist, running the fingers of the opposite hand over her knuckles. "It's easier than you think to get through the body. Once there's no resistance it's like digging through a melon. I usually use a knife, at least to get to the heart, but once you were dead I just dug in with my bare hands."
"Damn.” Eric swallowed, his heart hammering. Apparently it had heard all of this talk about itself, and wanted to make itself known. “You did this all in front of Sean?"
"Yeah. I mean, I don't usually do it in front of people, but that's only because usually people would send me to jail if they saw me digging into a body. I knew that Sean couldn't do anything about it, so I didn't mind."
"But still, he's a kid... that's not something you should do in front of a kid."
"Is he a kid?" Mira tilted her head. "You didn't seem to think so in the game."
"Well, I wasn't in the best state of mind in the game," Eric admitted. "I know better now."
"Either way, I don't think Sean minded. He didn't try to stop me, at least." She smiled, more to herself than to him. "It was the best one. You know that? Every heart that I've held, most of them are filled with fear, or with anger. Bad thoughts. Not you. You only had..." She stopped, thinking for a bit. "You really loved me, didn't you," she said softly.
"Yes," Eric said. "I do."
"I didn't really understand why," she continued. "I mean, of course I didn't. I don't know why anyone would love anyone. I don't think I gave you any reason to. But even when I killed you, you held no grudge. It makes no sense. Why are you like this?"
"Why am I... like this?" It was a strange question to Eric. "I mean, I guess I just am. Is it weird to care about someone?"
"When it's like this, yes. I've killed a lot of people. A lot of boyfriends. A few girlfriends, too. You're the only one who loved me at the end." She smiled again, worrying her thumb over her knuckles. "It felt nice. It felt so, so nice. I think... I think I felt... happy."
"Oh. Well, that's good. I'm glad."
She raised an eyebrow. "You're glad? I killed you. I don't think that you should be this happy about it."
"I wouldn't say that I'm happy about it, but... well, either way, I'm not dead now. I'm alive. That's what matters, I think."
"You're alive," Mira repeated to herself, her voice sounding dreamy and distant.
Eric slowly approached her, his hand held up in case of any sudden movements. "Um, was that what you wanted to tell me, or...?"
"Oh, you wanted more?" Mira asked playfully. "Should I tell you about the other time I killed you?"
"The other time?"
"No, I guess that wasn't everything," Mira said, before he could ask anything else. "But it's... it's what you said before. You're alive. I've touched your heart, and you're still alive. That's never happened before." She swallowed. Eric got the impression that she was nervous. It wasn't something that most people would be able to notice, but Eric had spent a lot of time watching Mira's face. He was starting to pick up on her cues. "I mean, you are the only person who's heart I've touched who is still walking around, who I can talk to after the fact. It means that... you're the only person who I can really, truly understand."
"Oh," Eric said weakly. "Neat."
"Neat?" She raised an eyebrow. "Is that it?"
"I'm sorry, I guess I just... don't really know what that means."
"It means that you are the only person who I can love."
"...Oh." Eric's breath caught in his throat. He rushed over to her side. "You mean it? You love me?"
"I said that I have the possibility of loving you now," Mira corrected. "But, yes. I guess I do."
"Really?" Eric could feel a genuine grin spreading across his face, almost without his control.
"You shouldn't be so excited," Mira said. "But yes. That's what I wanted to tell you. So..." She stood, taking a few steps away from him and the bed. Eric frowned, confused. "I don't know what you want to do now," she continued. "I don't even know what I want to do now. But if you want to leave I don't blame you."
"Leave? Why would I want to leave? Mira, wait." Eric scrambled after her. "Are you breaking up with me?"
Mira paused, half turned away. "I don't think that's my call to make," she said. She turned back to him and leaned against the wall, crossing her arms. Her body language was defensive, even though her voice was still even. Now Eric felt like he was the one who had to approach her carefully, like a frightened animal, one who was liable to bite.
"What do you mean?"
"I'm the one who has done things wrong," she said. "I think murder probably ranks above, like, cheating when it comes to relationship do's and don'ts. I've told you everything, and now you have a choice to make. Either leave, break up with me, and walk away - and I don't blame you if you do. Or, you could stay, I guess. I won't stop you either way."
"Well, I want to stay, then," Eric said immediately. "That's the one that I choose."
"Why?" She cocked her head. "That doesn't make sense."
"Does love make sense?"
"No. I just told you."
"No, I-” He sighed. “Not just to you, I mean-"
"I mean, this doesn't really follow the rules of a relationship, as far as I understand them."
“Maybe not, but Mira- it’s fine.” He approached her slowly, reaching a hand out. She didn't move, either towards him or away. She just allowed him to come. He reached down and took her hand. "For the rules of a relationship, I think... maybe relationships don’t need to have rules. Maybe we can just take it slowly, day by day."
"But I killed you."
"You're so hung up on that."
"I think you should be a little more hung up on it," Mira said. "I mean, you need a serial killer to tell you that you shouldn't be with someone who wants to kill you."
"Well, do you still want to kill me?"
Mira shook her head. "There wouldn't really be much of a point anymore."
"So, yeah. I'm not in danger."
"I might kill other people, though," she said. "Maybe people you know. People you care about."
"You won't," Eric said quietly. "You can't. There's no one left. No one but you who I care about."
"That's pretty sad," Mira said.
"Yeah, well. You’ve killed people before. Do you feel sorry about it?"
Mira shook her head. "That's the thing. I'm not. I would do it again. It's been the only thing that has worked, to let me look into what it might be like to be an actual functional human being. Do you know what that's like?"
"To be an actual functioning human being?" Truth be told, Eric didn't, not really. More and more his coping mechanisms had been failing him, letting in more of the cold, the fear, the emptiness. Deep and dark, like the depths of the lake. He didn't know how much longer he would last on his own. He didn't want to be alone anymore.
"I should feel sorry, shouldn't I?" Mira asked. "If I was really feeling things, then remorse should be one of them, right? What if all of this was just me deluding myself, and I actually didn't steal feelings from the dying hearts of my dead boyfriends."
"Ha," Eric laughed, softly, but Mira looked serious, as though this was a legitimate concern. He shook his head. "Well, I don't think that you would ever have felt things the same as most people, even if you did go about it a different way. As far as I've seen, every person feels things a different way. I don't know, I'm not really an expert on these kinds of things. So I don't really know if you should feel sorry, or if you should feel anything, really. As long as you are happy."
"Hmm," Mira hummed. She considered him. Eric was close enough to touch her now, but he didn’t. "I don't know if I'm happy. I simply am. But I don't want to change. I think, if I had to choose, I would still choose the road that led me to here. Or rather, I don't know who I would be if I wasn't who I was right now. What if I was worse? What if I was just a complete monster, with no remorse?"
"I thought you said that you weren't sorry?"
“I'm not. But... I don't know. I can't say I didn't enjoy it, because I did, but I wouldn't have done it if I didn't have to. There was a reward in it for me. Without that, there would be no reason for it. Right? I wouldn't have killed if there wasn't a reason for it?"
"I don't know, Mira," Eric said honestly. "Only you can know that."
Mira frowned, and looked down. Eric hesitated, and then slowly reached out and took her hand. Mira let him. "Hey. Okay. So, you've killed people in the past. Fine. Do you still want to kill people now?"
Eric watched her take a deep breath, and then let it out with a sigh. "No," she said quietly. "I don't think I do. I mean, I can remember what it felt like, now. It fucking hurt.”
"Okay, so. There you go." Eric smiled gently. "No more murders. That's really all that we can ask of you, I think.”
"Excuse me for asking, but are you really okay with this?" Mira asked, raising an eyebrow. "Dating a murderer? Murder, in general? You should probably be calling the cops right about now. You aren't reacting normally to this at all."
"No, I... I don't think I react normally to most things, if I'm being honest." Eric scratched the back of his head. "Like I said, emotions are difficult for everyone. Mine are... mine are weird."
"...I don't think they're weird," Mira said.
Eric smiled. "Thank you." Their hands hung down between them, intertwined. They could try for more. But for right now, this was enough.
Merry Christmas! All of your prompts were so good but I just had to do this one. Hope you enjoy!
Clover had found the apartment add on the back of a flyer left by a patron at the cafe. It was on the wrong side of town, cramped, with no air conditioners and a tiny bathroom. She had bounded up to Light at the end of her shift and told him about it, and they both agreed - it was perfect. Finally, a place they could call their own. No one would be able to find them here.
Well, almost no one. They did tell their mom where they were moving. She probably would have called the SWAT team on them if they hadn’t. As it was, there was still a weird black van and men on cell phones right outside their door, even after Clover threw a rock at them and flipped them off. They couldn’t really blame her for being scared, but it was still annoying.
“We should be grateful that we only have her worrying to be annoyed by,” Light said.
“Oh, don’t give me that,” Clover replied. “You think it’s bullshit too.”
She skipped ahead of her brother, her arms piled with boxes. She threw herself against the door, shoving it with her shoulder. Light followed behind her, dragging a rolling suitcase. He tucked his cane under one arm and reached around his sister, turning the doorknob. Clover stumbled in, then righted herself, bounding in to the room.
“Wow,” she said. “This really is garbage.”
“Is it that bad?” Light asked mildly. He moved into the first room, leaning his suitcase up against a wall.
“Yeah, it’s trash.” Clover, meanwhile, had already dumped her stack of boxes on the dusty floor. She zipped from room to room, and then was done, since there was only two other rooms: the bathroom and one bedroom. The kitchen was connected to the living room in one open space. It was devoid of furniture. Apparently the last tenements had taken what they could and ran, and the rest was deemed too moldy for human consumption. At least the window was large - it was pushed open and was letting cold air and light into the stuffy apartment.
Clover stepped into the center of the living room, right into the beam of light. She turned slowly, examining every inch. “Oh yeah, we definitely need to do some redecorating.”
“Do we?” Light found the pile of boxes his sister had so cruelly abandoned and picked up up, setting it on the kitchen counter.
Clover nodded emphatically. “Seriously, it’s bare in here. They left us nothing.”
“Well, I guess you’ll have to get busy decorating,” Light replied.
“Really? You’ll let me design it all by myself?”
“You’re the one who’s going to have to see it everyday.”
Clover squeed and clapped her hands, hugging her brother. “Thank you, Light,” she said.
“It’s nothing. You’re an adult now, you get to decide how your house looks.”
“Really? I thought being an adult meant doing your own taxes.”
“Oh, it means that too.” Light patted her on the head and pushed her away. “So I hope you’ve gotten better at mathematics because I don’t think Mom is going to let us coast off of hers anymore.”
Clover groaned. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to be an adult anymore.”
“Or you could always ask that cute girl from the agency to do it,” Light added casually. He started opening the first box up. “What was her name again? Alex?”
“Alice.” Clover pouted, a light blush creeping up her cheeks. “You know that, Light.”
“Ah, Alice. Of course. What a lovely girl.” Light smiled to himself as he kept unpacking. “I noticed you talking with her the other day at the cafe.”
“I-what-I don’t know what your talking about!” Clover said. “We work together. Of course we talk! She was probably just briefing me on some mission and you misinterpreted it.”
“Of course. And I’m sure that had nothing to do with why you were blushing afterwards.”
“I-I don’t,” Clover stammered, before hitting her brother on the arm. “No fair! How did you know I was blushing?”
“I didn’t. Not until you told me right now.” Clover groaned and hit his arm again and he laughed, brushing her off easily. “Well, fine. Even if she is just a friend or a co-worker, you could still ask her for help. Why don’t you invite her over here sometime? We could have a sort of housewarming party.” Light ran his hand over the counter he was leaning on. It came back covered in dust. “After we finish unpacking, of course.
“Yeah, maybe.” Clover half-heartedly picked up another box and put it down. “I mean, she’d probably have to sleep over, you know. Since she lives so far away.”
“Mmhm, mmhm.” Light smiled to himself. “I’m sure we can find the room for her, if we must.”
“W-well…” Clover was still messing around with the boxes, picking them up and putting them down without really opening them. “There’s really only one bedroom, though, so… I don’t know where she would sleep.”
“Well, she could always sleep with you.” Light heard Clover choke and cough and he laughed. “Is there a problem?”
“You’re evil,” she growled.
“So I’ve been told.”
“You know we really do only have one bed,” she continued. “The listing said that this was a two bedroom.”
“Let’s be realistic, if this was a real two bedroom apartment we wouldn’t be able to afford it.” Light pushed the box on the counter out of the way, leaning on it instead. “You’ll be taking it, I assume.”
Clover crossed her arms defensively, fiddling with a loose strand of hair. “It’s not really fair to you, though, is it?”
“Clover, you’re taking the bedroom and that’s final.” Light paced around the kitchen, exploring the rest of the room. “I will not have my little sister sleeping on the couch.”
Clover stuck out her tongue at him, crossing her arms. “Well, jokes on you cause the bedroom doesn’t even have a bed, so I guess we’ll both be sleeping on the couch!”
“They didn’t even leave a mattress?” Light pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. “Okay. That’s fine. That will be our first order of business then. C'mon,” He grabbed his cane from where he leaned it against the counter and made his way towards the door, “We can finish unpacking later. Let’s go.”
Clover hopped after him. “Do you think we can convince one of the black suit dudes to drive us to the mattress store?”
“Maybe.” He held the door open for her. “Do you think you could get Alice to do it instead?”
“Ahhh!” Clover pushed past him, her hands over her ears. Light laughed and followed her, closing the door behind him.
