Do it.
There was no change, but somehow he could feel Maynard leave his own C.C. It was as if there had always been a constant hum in his ears, and for just a moment, it stopped.
He couldn’t see much past the cloud of dust, but he could hear a sudden screeching and tearing noise, like someone was opening the world’s rustiest can with the world’s rustiest can opener. He lessened the weight on the gas pedal almost out of instinct. Once he cleared the dust, if only for a moment, he saw the final moments of Maynard’s action.
Stewart’s car was rolling through the air, tossed up with a heap of dirt as if it had been tripped. It rolled like a crocodile in a death spiral, thrown by its own force, halted suddenly at 200 miles per hour.
Karl slammed on his own brakes as Stewart tumbled to the ground, bouncing off the road a couple of time. The car crumpled with each impact like a discarded ball of packing paper. It spread debris all over the road like some sort of shedding animal. Karl started to doubt Stewart’s survival more and more with each roll.
Eventually, the mangled thing came to a halt in the ditch on the left side of the road. So much dust had been thrown up into the air, one could swear an explosion had taken place.
Karl took a moment to observe the scene in awe before stepping out of the cab of his truck. He noticed the subtle presence of the I.I. in his head once more, which gave him a measure of comfort.
“Whew, that worked better than I’d expected,” Maynard said.
Did you kill him? Karl asked.
“No, but I can see why you’d think I did.”
Good, Karl said. He took the magazine out of his handgun and popped a few more bullets into it. Then he clicked it back into place inside the gun’s grip.
Because he’s mine.
Lies
Stewart yelled out in pain once consciousness returned to him. Blood flooded into his eyes and smoke flowed into his lungs. His screams were cut off by intermittent bouts of coughing.
With intense effort, he was able to unfasten himself from the driver’s seat. He fell to the roof of the car with a low thud, and the wind was knocked from his lungs. He writhed in the upside-down vehicle as pain took every nerve available.
He reached his hands up to his face, which stung worse than anything else, and felt loose skin. When he pulled his fingers back and looked at them, he saw a thick layer of blood covering them. With some effort, he managed to catch his reflection in a shard of mirror that remained in place near the windshield.
“No,” he muttered, his mouth full of blood as well. “No, no, no, no, no!”
He shrieked like some wild animal caught in a painful snare. With all the strength he could muster, he flipped himself over onto his stomach and started to crawl out of the opening that had once been the driver-side window.
Karl approached the wreckage just as Stewart was crawling free of it. He held his pistol loose in his hand as he took in the scene.
Stewart noticed the new presence and spun around to look at Karl.
The psychologist couldn’t help but wince. His former co-worker’s face was torn to shreds, the flesh dangling in loose clumps like a maimed Halloween mask. Bits of bone could be seen peeking their way through the gore. He no longer had a nose, and one of his eyebrows had been scraped clean off.
Stewart shrieked some more, his head eerily like a screaming skull.
“You ruined my face!” he cried. “My beautiful face! All the work, all the effort. Ruined! Mangled! MY FACE!!”
“He looks better without it,” Maynard commented.
Karl didn’t speak. He couldn’t help but feel a little weak in the stomach at the sight of Stewart’s mutilated expression. The man didn’t look familiar at all anymore.
“It’s over,” Karl said aloud. “Get up.”
Stewart was shaking with sobs and sheer adrenaline. “What?” he asked.
“Get up,” Karl repeated.
He didn’t wait for the traitor to react. With one smooth motion, the psychologist reached down and heaved Stewart onto his feet. Stewart wobbled a little, trying to stay balanced. It was clear that his left leg had been shattered.
“So, this is how it ends?” Stewart said once he could catch his breath. “You’re going to kill me now?”
“Not until you admit to everything,” Karl said. “Confess your crimes while I record you, so I can walk free.”
“You think you’re getting away with this?” Stewart said. “You’re never going to see daylight again.”
Karl ignored the comment.
“Confess,” he said. After a moment of quiet, he felt his temper rise. “Now!”
“Confess?” Stewart echoed. “To what? To the attack on the I.I.-human summit that never happened yet?”
“To the lab shooting! To killing those anti-I.I. activists! To framing me! To ruining countless lives!”
Stewart made an expression like he was about to laugh, but the agony stole the chuckle from his lips.
“Oh, Karl,” he started, shaking his head. “You fool! You’ve got it all wrong!”
Karl raised his gun in a threatening manner, but waited to hear what the man would say. Maynard remained silent.
“I want you to admit it,” Karl said.
“So you want me to lie,” Stewart replied.
“I want the truth!”
“You are asking for two different things,” the mutilated man began. “Do you want me to lie and confess to two shootings I had nothing to do with? Or do you want the truth? The truth that, like you, I am being framed.”
“Liar,” Karl hissed.
“About many things, yes, but not in this matter,” Stewart said in between winces. “Though I don’t see the point in clarifying. You seem to want to believe what you’ve been told, so all that’s left to follow is my death and the victory of your real traitor. Since we’ve both lost already, what does it matter?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve got the wrong guy, you idiot.” Stewart spit a bit of blood out onto the
