Awakened Horror, page 26
I knelt down, bringing myself closer to Tynan’s level.
“What do you feel guilty for?” I inquired.
Could he be feeling remorseful?
“All of it! How I treated you … how I treated Ichirō … the ships I destroyed, and the people onboard … that I killed … oh god – I killed so many!”
“There’s more to it than that, though, isn’t there?”
Tynan looked up, meeting my gaze once more. “Please … please don’t add to the burden that’s weighing down on me. I don’t know how much more I can take!”
“Good – that means you’re already cracking under the weight of your guilt. Let’s see how much it takes to break you, aye?”
“What?” Tynan asked, a flash of fear crossing his face.
I doubted he’d felt much fear during his brief existence, but I wanted him to feel it. I wanted him to experience what he’d put so many through. As the memory of Tynan’s hands wrapped around my throat surfaced, I knew exactly what words to use.
“I want you to live the rest of your life struggling to breathe, feeling trapped, suffocated, frantically searching for air, and never finding any. And just when you lose hope, I’ll let you take a breath.”
Tynan blinked at me and whispered, “Tynan?”
“What?” I demanded. “No, you fucking idiot. Why would you think that?”
“I couldn’t tell who was speaking. I thought he had arisen again.”
I felt a pang of guilt, and Amorina’s words echoed through my mind.
“I see the fire glowing in your eyes. You think you’re different from Tynan but I’m not so sure.”
Tynan couldn’t tell if he was talking to Raith or Tynan. Amorina couldn’t tell. As I continued to kneel before my doppelgänger, I realised the dark tone I’d been imparting … and I liked it. I could understand Tynan’s confusion and his difficulty in knowing who he was speaking to. Should I tone it back?
Ah fuck it. In for a penny, in for a pound, right?
“You need to take it,” I said as I refocused. “You need to own the consequences of your actions.”
“Am I not already?” Tynan implored. “What other actions could there possibly be for me to own?”
I smiled, and Tynan’s face shifted into an apprehensive expression.
“Imagine this,” I said, wanting to paint a picture in Tynan’s mind. “Zavis comes to you one day with a report. A signal has been discovered, coming from deep space.”
Tynan froze, the blood draining from his already pale skin, leaving him looking deathly.
“A signal from deep space,” I repeated as I continued. “That’s kinda cool, you think – it piques your interest. You ponder this mysterious signal, trying to understand what it is.”
“Stop,” Tynan croaked.
“The report says … this signal is a radio transmission containing a binaural beat.”
“You shouldn’t remember this,” Tynan said as he began to rock back and forth. “Stop. Don’t say any more.”
“You researched what these binaural beats were and learned that when the brain processes them, they induce theta waves. And so, you research theta waves … and that research gives you some ideas, doesn’t it?”
“I said stop!” Tynan said more insistently as he got onto his hands and knees.
“You invent designs and build machinery that is capable of rewriting people’s minds. It takes a few tries, but you finally build a machine that can do the job, one person at a time. You also get new reports during this time, detailing how the exploration vessels sent to find the source of the signal have stopped transmitting. You knew your vessels were capable machines – for them to stop broadcasting – they must’ve been destroyed. That means whatever is out there is either a weapon or a thing with great offensive capability.”
Tynan was crawling towards me now. “I fucking said stop!”
“You design a device capable of mass conversion. It will work by blasting out theta waves and rewriting millions of people’s minds simultaneously. Of course, your own mind is overwritten by your more primitive machine before you can see this plan realised, but your advisors carry on your hard work.”
Tynan lunged forward, reaching through the bars and grabbing a hold of my shirt. He tries to pull me in towards him but lacks the strength to do so.
“Please,” he begs, his eyes moist and his lips quivering. “Stop!”
I lock eyes with my doppelgänger. “You didn’t know what was on the other end of that signal, but you built a dinner bell, and you rang it anyway, anticipating that it would bring the source to us. And it worked.”
I paused and watched Tynan’s face. He knew there was one last line to say, his expression begging for it not to be said.
“But you don’t have to imagine … do you?”
“You’ve made your point! For the love of all that is good, please stop!”
“I haven’t finished,” I snarled. “Do you know how many people were on Akka? Ten thousand.”
Tynan let go of my shirt and clutched the bars of his cell, pulling himself closer.
“Please … I’m begging you! Stop!”
“Do you know how many people were on Gaia?”
“Please!” Tynan whispered.
“Four hundred thousand people. And every one of them is dead because of you. Because of your choices. So, when you’re looping through all the actions you feel guilty for … make sure you include all of those people. Cause that’s all on you, too.”
Tynan let out an almost inhuman wail and sobbed against the cell bars. I quickly stood and moved away, shivering as a chill ran down my spine, triggered by his screams as they echoed through the hall.
“Tell me!” Tynan yelled. “T-t-tell me … how to g-get rid of t-these feelings!”
“You can’t get rid of them!” I snarled.
Tynan’s body trembled as he fell silent, as if trying to fight back the tears.
“There has to be … s-some way of … getting r-redemption?”
I shook my head. “Honestly, Tynan … I don’t know that you ever can. With everything you’ve done – I think you’re irredeemable. The salvation you’re looking for – I don’t think it exists for people like you.”
Tynan’s body went limp, and I couldn’t help but think this was the moment of critical failure. I’d crushed his spirit and broken his soul. There was no absolution for his sins, no way to undo his deeds.
The bulkhead doors opened, and a man walked in with a plate of fresh, hot food.
“The plate of food you ordered, sir,” he said as he neared, handing over the dish.
It seemed that Bitsy had hitched a ride on the man and took the opportunity to jump off and scuttle back over to me.
“Thank you,” I said as I took the plate.
As Bitsy settled back onto my right wrist, I watched the man leave the hall. Once he’d gone, I slid the food into Tynan’s cell. But rather than immediately grabbing the plate and devouring its contents, as I’d expected he’d do, Tynan just sat there, staring at it forlornly. A calmness seemed to have fallen over him.
The calm after the emotional storm, perhaps?
“So, tell me,” he whispered as he wiped his eyes dry. “What’s happening up above? What plans are in motion to clean up my mess?”
Odd questions to pivot too.
“It’s like I told you a few days ago – we’re going to take the mass conversion device and try to lead the Horror away.”
“How?”
I narrowed my eyes. What information was Tynan seeking?
“We’ll attach the device to a ship, setting it to trigger periodically, with the ship being piloted to just keep ahead of the Horror. With any luck, it’ll follow the theta blasts and we can lead it back into deep space.”
I noticed a gleam in Tynan’s eye.
“A person would pilot the vessel?” Tynan asked as he glanced up at me.
I nodded.
“Surely that would harm them,” he uttered. “Being so close to the device and repeatedly exposed to so many blasts?”
I nodded again. “We don’t know what effect it will have for sure – the blasts won’t be applying any kind of profile. It’d more be like white noise, but we don’t anticipate it positively affecting the individual. The crazy thing is we’ve had no shortage of volunteers for the piloting role.”
Tynan picked up a roast potato from the plate, placing it in his mouth whole, and I smiled as it gave a satisfying crunch. After he’d chewed and swallowed, he looked over at me.
“Let me do it.”
I studied him with narrowed eyes. “Do what?”
“Let me pilot the ship.”
My eyes shot wide. “Ah … absolutely not!”
“I know … I know I’m irredeemable, but surely – surely if I do this, it must count for something, right? Let me be the one to get fucked over by the theta blasts. That has to be a worthy punishment, right?”
I narrowed my eyes again, suspicious of Tynan’s motives. Was this a genuine act of self-sacrifice, or a ploy to escape?
“If you’re playing an angle, it won’t work. Volunteering for this mission isn’t some … get out of jail free card.”
“I know.”
“If you think you can use the device bearing ship as an escape vessel, you can’t. It’s going to be a hunk of junk, only just capable of staying ahead of the Horror – no warp capability. If you think you can deviate from the course we set, to lead the Horror back towards civilisation, we will vent the ship remotely. You will die a sad death, alone in the void of space. If you think you can tamper with the conversion device, you can’t – it’ll be mounted to the ship's exterior. You’ll not be provided with a space suit.”
“I mean what I’m saying. Let me be that person – let me be that pilot. I don’t want to run. I want to atone. Let this be my penance. Please!”
I watched as Tynan pleaded. It really seemed like he was being genuine.
Could he really be willing to sacrifice himself like this?
If he meant what he said, this would be a win-win – get rid of Tynan and spare an innocent person from suffering a terrible fate in the service of humanity.
“I will … consult with others about your offer. I’ll let you know in due course what we’ve decided. For now, enjoy your roast before it gets cold.”
I turned and began the walk back towards the bulkhead doors. Uncertainty and doubt swirled through my mind. Offering himself up like that was a very Raith-like action. My cruelness during the conversation had been very Tynan-like. The encounter with “the real Tynan” in the throne room had really done a number on us both.
Who even am I anymore?
[)
There had been a surprising appetite for Tynan’s offer to pilot the vessel. Thanks to the Insurgency’s monitoring of the Horror, we knew where the monstrosity had gone. The Chupacabra was equipped with fabrication equipment, materials, and the ship that would be the MCD bearing vessel – it would be prepared for its mission on the way. After loading the passengers into cryosleep, including Amorina and Tynan, we set off for our rendezvous with the Horror. I opted out of cryosleep, choosing instead to oversee the MCD vessel’s preparations and construct a new arm for myself. I also wanted time to be alone and reflect on who I was. Who I wanted to be.
Every day I would go to the observation deck, sit down cross-legged on the floor and meditate under the hazy blue light cone of warp travel. I sat close enough to the window to see my faint reflection in the glass.
Who am I?
I stared at my face – my tired, scarred, aging face. A face that was too old, too bent and broken for the time that I had used it.
What am I?
I am alone in the universe. There is no one else like me, and if I had my way, there would be no one else like me either. One body that had played host to two very different lives. One lived cruelly and cowardly, serving only the self. The other lived kind and courageously, serving all but the self.
Which am I?
But which was which and which was I? One was born from the other, like a phoenix, rising from the ashes of the previous. But this new life, its skin was stained by those ashes – a discoloration that could never be scrubbed off or erased.
Which do I want to be?
I looked down at my left arm, reborn out of oil and steel. It was more than just an appendage now – it was a tool, like a hammer. I closed my metallic fingers, curling them into a fist. Now I could wield it like a weapon, capable of demolishing, bending, and breaking. I opened my fist, spreading my fingers out flat and wide. Now I could wield it like a tool, capable of building, mending, and making.
You are what you choose to be.
Good or bad. Tool or weapon. That was the question. I was capable of both. Tynan and Raith lived inside me, their personalities and traits present in my neurons and genes.
“My choices affect others … so choose … choose how those choices affect them.”
[)
One year later, I stood in the hangar bay control room. There was a monitor to my left with a live video of what was left of Ares, the Horror almost complete in its destruction of the planet. Amorina was standing beside me, and we watched as a group of Insurgency members led Tynan into the hangar bay. As they undid his restraints, he slowly raised his head and fixed his gaze upon me. I hadn’t spoken to him since that day in the prison, but with a subtle nod, Tynan conveyed all that needed to be said – thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to try and redeem himself. I nodded back in acknowledgment and watched as they pushed Tynan into the vessel, and the door closed behind him. The Insurgency members quickly left the hangar, and I reached out and activated the depressurization process.
As we waited for the process to complete, I turned towards Amorina. “You know when we last talked?” I said, referring to the argument that had happened only a few days ago for her but a year ago for me.
“Yeah?”
“You said you didn’t know where I ended and where Tynan began.”
“I remember,” Amorina said curtly.
“I couldn’t answer that,” I said, pausing as I considered how to proceed. “And that man down there … he couldn’t answer it, either.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that he wanted to be Tynan but couldn’t be – there was too much Raith in him. He couldn’t separate what was Tynan and what was Raith. If it wasn’t for that part of me inside him, he wouldn’t have felt remorse, and without that guilt, we couldn’t have beaten him – not like we did. Nor would he have volunteered to do this.”
Amorina shrugged. “What are you getting at, Raith?”
“That I can tell the difference. I know where the line is. In myself, but also in Tynan. I knew how to manipulate him because I understood, intimately so, the guilt that he was feeling because that’s the guilt that I feel.”
“Hanger depressurised,” announced the control console.
I pressed a few more buttons on the console, opening the hangar bay doors. As they slid apart, Ares and the Horror came into view, the planet looking tiny and helpless compared to the bulk of its captor. The ship below powered up, rose off the floor of the hanger, and slowly eased itself out into space. Once it was clear of the doors, I initiated the closing sequence and focused on the exterior view of the ship. Tynan’s vessel flew to its designated coordinates and a 30 second timer appeared on screen.
“Tynan’s willingness to sacrifice himself is a product of both the guilt and the empathy inside of him. Those are both attributes they mistakenly copied from me. You want to know where one personality ends and the other begins? That’s the dividing line.”
The timer reached zero and on-screen we could see a pulse blasting away from Tynan’s vessel. The Horror reacted immediately, its great swarming tendrils retreating from Ares and moving towards the ship instead. On-screen the timer had started again, and Tynan had begun to move the ship, keeping it ahead of the Horror’s arms.
“That may be true,” Amorina said slowly. “But the fact that there’s a line at all means that there are traits of Tynan’s that you will always have …”
I nodded. “Yes, but I control those darker impulses – I have been doing so for years.”
“Is that enough, though? Enough to keep the darkness inside you suppressed?”
“I have to believe so,” I said as another pulse emitted from Tynan’s ship. “I didn’t think witnessing what we’re seeing right now was possible. That my doppelgänger would not only volunteer for but follow through on an offer to self-sacrifice and lead a civilisation killing threat away from … well, civilisation. Even the impossible can happen when guilt leads to good.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I did a lot of soul searching over the last year. Trying to understand what I am, who I want to be … that kind of thing. The first step is admitting you have a problem, right? I acknowledge that there are elements of Tynan within me … and there always will be. But I am the master of my fate – by my actions and choices alone – I determine who and what I am.”
Amorina looked at me with a concerned, teary gaze. “Don’t make me a promise you can’t keep,” she whispered.
“Good or bad. Tool or weapon. I am capable of being either. You are what you choose to be, and I choose to build, not demolish. I choose to mend and make, not bend and break. This is my promise – to never be cruel or cowardly.”
“For both our sakes … I hope so.”
I nodded.
I hope so too.
“Can you forgive me? For all the pain I’ve caused you?”
Tears rolled down Amorina’s face. “You have already been forgiven, my dear. The problem is your actions have not been forgotten.”
I nodded again. It made sense. It was in her nature to forgive, but to forget, well … very rarely was that a choice – for anybody.
“Do you think we can move past this? That you could trust me again?”
Amorina shrugged sadly. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I can’t promise you that a year or two will pass and that things will magically be as they were before. But I will try … to move past this. To trust you again. But … there’re no guarantees.”
