“I’m sorry,” Tera commented. She couldn’t help but feel a pang of pity for the cult leader.
“When I figured out what they had done — that they planned to keep her in that horrible simulation until they could harvest her body — I felt sick. I had to get her back. So I confronted the Council and demanded to see my baby girl, to bring her back home with me. Not only did they refuse; they murdered me. They killed my organic body and then extracted my intelligence. Just as I did to the young king from Opes. They forced me to become an I.I.”
“But why?” Tera asked. “Why not just leave you dead?”
“That’s how they procreate, you see,” Nidus explained. “They need fresh I.I.s if they want to increase their membership. That requires a bit of brainwashing, if you tend to recruit your enemies like the Council did. It takes years, but eventually, an I.I. who goes through their process forgets who they were. In my case, it worked for a few decades. I was only recently able to break my conditioning and see what was done to me.”
“That’s terrible,” Tera said. “Were you ever able to find your daughter?”
The cult leader smiled warmly at the former police officer. Nodding, he said, “Yes, I think I did.”
He didn’t say anything else before looking down at the monster he sat upon. He patted the creature on its grotesque head, as if it was just a big dog.
“You fulfilled your end of the agreement,” Nidus said, cooing a little. “Now let me fulfill mine.”
With a soft thud, the cult leader hopped off the behemoth. Nidus closed his eyes and his face twitched a little. With a simple mental command, he deleted the monster’s I.I. and it fell over dead.
Shift Change
Tera stared at the dead monster with wide eyes. Gauge shuffled beside her, but didn’t say a word. Everyone around them was silent as they gazed at Nidus and his dead creature.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Reverend Nidus said, acknowledging the shock in the crowd with a calming gesture. “We had an arrangement. The Council bound his I.I. to the creature. I agreed to end his suffering so long as he helped me free the rest of the world.”
Everyone was at a loss for words. Gauge tried to speak for a moment, but only managed to flap his mouth soundlessly. Finally, Tera stepped forward.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
For the second time since she met him, Tera saw a smile cross Nidus’s face. Not a sinister sneer, either, but a warm expression of kindness.
“What was your plan if you had succeeded?” he replied. “If I hadn’t interrupted your scheme, what would you do?”
“To be honest, it wasn’t a detailed plan,” Gauge said with a sheepish countenance. “We wanted to give the power back to the people, so I suppose it’s up to them.”
“I suggest you communicate with your allies, then,” Nidus said. “Make sure everyone is in agreement with whatever you choose to do. I’m tired of living in a world where one group tries to horde the power away from the rest. Too often has a triumph over evil only led to more evil. The cycle must be broken now. Whatever you decide, it must be for a world everyone wants to build.”
Tera and Gauge looked at each other.
“The Clevingers talked about forming a representative government,” Gauge said. “Something resembling the old America, without its flaws. A governing body beholden to its populace rather than wealth or power.”
“That’s your decision,” Nidus said. He took a step back from the people who had been his enemies mere minutes ago. “I for one have no preference. I am a relic of the old, dark world. A world that enslaved the weak and nurtured a state of constant fear. That world is dead now, and my purpose in this life dies with it. I do hope, however, to see a restored planet one day. I want my daughter’s generation and the generation after that to only know a world of peace. Maybe many worlds, if things go well.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Tera said. “I hate you so much for what you’ve done despite everything. You saved us all, but I can’t help my resentment.”
“I understand,” Nidus replied. “I will not resist whatever punishment your new world sees fit for me. I don’t expect my sins to ever be erased.”
“Still,” Tera started. “We will never forget what you’ve given us today.”
Nidus said nothing while Tera looked back at Gauge.
“Where’s Ethan?” she asked the rebel.
Sharpe’s basement felt exactly as it always had. Even the smell was perfect. Ethan couldn’t help but reminisce about his time in the simulation, before everything happened.
So it wasn’t real after all, he thought. It really was just an adventure in a game.
To his surprise, he was content with the idea. After all he’d seen and done, perhaps the simulation wasn’t so bad after all. Even if it meant death at nineteen.
He sensed a sudden presence beside him and spun around to find Gauge on the couch with him. A fond grin was imprinted below the redhead’s thick glasses.
“Is this real?” Ethan asked. His tone was calm, like he was merely asking for the time.
“No,” Gauge said. “We put you in a simpod to distract you while we try to treat you. You’re healing, Ethan.”
“Was it bad?”
“It wasn’t great.”
Ethan took a deep breath and leaned back into the couch, folding his fingers behind his head. All he wanted was sleep. He was so tired.
“You’re a hero, Ethan,” Gauge said. “We won.”
“We did?” Ethan asked.
Gauge nodded, his grin growing larger. “That’s right, buddy.”
“Huh,” Ethan said, nonplussed. He dropped his hands into his lap and stared at his arms. They both felt real, like they were really there, but he knew the left one wasn’t. “We won.”
Like it was some kind of game, he thought.
Heads up!
You can get a collection of three prequel short stories that set
