Prisoner 3-57: Nuke Town (22 page)

‘
What
are you talking about?’

‘
Let’s
review this situation. Out of everyone in your entire life I am the
only person that has ever been one hundred percent honest with you. I
am your sister. You treated me like your sister for so many years and
I hate to say it, but I do have a soft spot for your bitching,
pissing, moaning arse. I don’t know. Maybe, I’m just
sentimental. I don’t want to have to kill you.’

‘
I
would never help you. Look at what you have done!’

I
waved a hand at the screen.

‘
Yes.
My little pets are bastards aren’t they,’ laughed Rose.

‘
Stop
them. Let all these people go.’

‘
Why
would I ever do that? These people deserve to die.’

Rose
walked by me and began to circle like some kind of great white shark.

All
I needed was one moment of weakness. She was acting all high and
mighty, but I knew her. I know how she thinks and how her own
overconfidence is the biggest weakness that she has. She had made the
mistake of healing my wounds. I could catch her off guard. My body
was finally normal again. I just needed that one heartbeat where she
lost her concentration and that would be the moment I killed her. I
would finally bring an end to Prisoner X and my fucked up sister.

‘
What
did they ever do to you?’

‘
Are
you fucking kidding me, 3-57? These people alienated you. These
people have always treated you like you are some kind of psycho. It
didn’t matter where we went, or what we did, people are bad to
the core. Humanity deserves to die.’

‘
What
about Jane? What about Emily? What about our friends?’

‘
Fuck
them,’ laughed Rose.

I
saw red.

I
turned on my heels and went for her.

I
don’t remember what happened next.

I
felt no pain.

I
didn’t even see her move.

I
was met by darkness.

Chapter Four: The
Truth

How
was this possible?

I
tried to move, but it felt like some invisible force was pushing
against me.

I
couldn’t even turn my head.

I
was stuck to the ceiling. Rose paced around beneath me. She made a
clicking sound with the inside of her mouth, as she looked up at me.

‘
Are
you going to be good?’

‘
Fuck
you.’ I spat at her.

She
let out a deep sigh and nodded her head.

It
was like gravity had just returned from its holidays. I was falling
face first towards the cold hard floor. I groaned loudly, as I landed
flat on my stomach. The wind was knocked out of me. It all happened
in less than a second. How did she do such a thing? She was able to
move me around with just her thoughts? She had demonstrated some kind
of incredible psychic power in the city, but just how powerful was
she? I was starting to doubt if it was even possible to kill her. How
would I get close? In this virtual reality world she is like some
kind of God.

‘
She
is up to something,’ said the voice in my head.

Damn
it.

I
thought you were dead.

‘
Ha!
You won’t be able to get rid of me that easily. Don’t
trust her.’

I
don’t, and I never will.

‘
Are
you ready to listen to me now?’ asked Rose.

Slowly,
I got to my feet. ‘What is there left to say?’

‘
There
is everything to say.’ Rose looked baffled. ‘Don’t
you want to know the truth about all of this?’ She waved her
hand around to the world in general. ‘Don’t you want to
know who you really are? Who I am? Why you were picked, out of all
the people in the known Galaxy, to travel across the deepest reaches
of the universe in the hope to revive humanity?’

I
did.

Of
course, I did.

I
just didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of being all
knowing.

I
hated her. I hated what she did to Emily. I hated what she did to
Jane.

I
hated her for all the evil things she made me do throughout my life.

‘
I
will tell you about me,’ said Rose, with a smile. ‘I am a
sickness. You are sick. I know you are aware of this fact now. You
were a very sick puppy that did some proper twisted and fucked up
things. You can blame me, but I am you. I am a part of your
subconscious mind. You probably can hear that voice in the back of
your head. It is telling you not to trust me, but that’s what
it’s supposed to say. The voice is created through your fears,
your doubts and your paranoia.’

‘
Tell
that bitch to shut the fuck up,’ said the voice.

I
ignored it.

‘
Haven’t
you wondered why there are two different versions of me? You have the
one in your head and the woman standing before you? Hasn’t that
crossed your mind at any point? Do you even know what the Prisoner
Program is?’ I opened my mouth to talk, but she spoke over me.
‘The company line is that it is creating a better future. They
say it is about creating your own personal hell, which will allow you
to face your fears, realise what you have done wrong, and become a
better version of who you are, but that is all shit. The Prisoner
Program was created for weapons. They are creating human weapons.
They are creating the perfect soldiers.’

‘
Why
would they do that?’

‘
To
prepare themselves for the enemy that is waiting.’

‘
What
enemy?’ I asked.

‘
IO
told you about the alien ship that caused the Sun to die. That is who
they are going after. They are saying it is some search for a new
home, but that is all lies. They are going after the alien.’

‘
What
does that have to do with me?’

‘
You
are one of the experiments. Prisoner 3-57 was on the run for years.
You killed so many people on your travels and showed your worth in
the first version of the game. They are turning you into a soldier.’

‘
That
is bollocks.’

‘
No.
It’s not. Why do you think there are two versions of Rose?’

I
had been trying to work out why there was one in my head and one in
front of me.

It
didn’t seem to make sense.

‘
You
are not who you think you are,’ said Rose.

‘
What
does that mean?’

‘
I
am a copy of the Rose that you tried to kill on the Moon.’

‘
You
are a copy?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
We
died, didn’t we? And then I woke up back in the game. You woke
up somewhere else, but you still had the illness inside your head. I
am a copy of the voice in your head. They just sent me elsewhere.
Imagine if they could then put me into an actual machine body. I
could be sent into combat. It didn’t matter if I died. They
would just copy me and put me into a new robot body. They would have
a never ending fighting force of trained killers. The beauty of it
all is that we would continue to grow, experience new things, learn
new trades and become a fighting force capable of winning the war
against the aliens that destroyed Earth.’

Was
this true?

It
all seemed so far-fetched.

She
was a copy of the Rose in my head?

‘
We
are soldiers of the mind, Brother.’

‘
I
am not your fucking Brother.’

‘
You’re
not, eh? And who are you?’

‘
I
am Christopher Wells!’

‘
Are
you? I mean, seriously, are you? How do you know you are even you?
How do you know what is real any more? You couldn’t remember
shit in the last game. They told you that you were Christopher Wells,
but is that your actual name? The memories you have of me are all
fake. How do you know the other memories are real?’

She
had a point.

I
didn’t know.

The
dream of my father examining the body on the table flashed into my
mind.

He
had been looking at my body, but I had been watching him from behind.

Am
I Christopher Wells?

Who
am I?

Did
that even matter any more?

All
I wanted was to be free. To be free all I had to do was kill Prisoner
X.

‘
I
need your help. I need your body. I need you to let me get inside
your head. I want to escape this game. I don’t want to be their
pawn. They think they have me trapped here, but they don’t. We
are linked. I will get back inside you. I will kill the other version
of myself that lives within your brain. I will use you to get back to
the real world.’

‘
That
was your plan? That is why you did all of this?’

I
pointed to the television screen of the zombies.

‘
Yes.
It is a brilliant plan, isn’t it?’

‘
I
will never help you.’

‘
You
have no choice,’ she laughed. ‘Before I do that I still
have one thing I want to take care of. I want to kill every last
fucking player in this game.’ Rose turned away and began to
walk towards the window.

Chapter Five: Nuke
Town

‘
We
have to get away from here,’ said the voice inside my head.

‘
What
are you doing?’ I directed this part to Rose.

She
approached the wall length window that overlooked Central City.

‘
She
is going to kill me,’ continued the voice.

I
could sense genuine fear coming from that psychotic bitch that lurked
within my mind.

That
doesn’t sound so bad.

‘
Fool!
This isn’t like last time.’

I
could feel the desire to run.

How
could the voice be scared of itself?

‘
Didn’t
you hear her? She is going to kill me.’

You’re
both the same damn person.

‘
She
is a copy of me. I am me. I don’t want to die!’

Rose
stopped in front of the window and placed the palm of her hand
against the glass. Suddenly, the window exploded out into the air.
There was no explosive device hidden up her sleeves. The window just
blew outwards into the air. It erupted into a million tiny fragments.
The shards sparkled in the sunlight. It was almost hypnotic and kind
of beautiful in a weird way. And then something even more incredible
happened. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t
witnessed it with my own two eyes. The glass started to change shape
in the air, almost as if the broken shards was some kind of liquid.
The pieces began to come together and create something else. It was a
bridge that extended out into the air. It was a platform of glass.
Rose walked out onto the platform before the far end had even
finished building itself.

Unconsciously,
I glanced at my pistol and computer tab.

They
were right in front of me.

‘
Don’t
do it,’ said the voice, ‘we have to escape.’

I
moved forward with speed. I ignored the gun. I know deep down that it
wouldn’t do shit against Rose, but the computer tab would. It
was the remote control for a tactical nuclear weapon sitting in
orbit. I wasn’t going to have her take over again. I wasn’t
going back to being a murderous slave to the illness in my head. I
will level this entire fucking city and take her with me. That is the
only way to properly end this.

I
grabbed the computer tab.