Shadow Seed 1: The Misbegotten (84 page)

More
families were being destroyed.

More lives were being ruined.

I had to block it out or I’d go insane.  I had to force myself to not think about broken bones, deep lacerations and burning flesh.  I had to ignore the smell, not hear the agonizing shrieks, the shredding of vocal cords, the grotesque pop and sizzle of charring, human meat.  It was all around me.  It assaulted all of my senses.  I had to get away, but there was one thing I needed to have before I could go.  I needed
her
.

“Katie” I called for my cousin, but she wasn’t hearing me.

She marched from the sidewalk and into the torn up street, her hands balled into fists, muttering furiously to herself.

What I saw beyond her, made me break into a sprint.

The remaining contingent of troopers we’d left back at my house had saddled up and was racing down the road in their black vehicles.  The lead was an armored personnel carrier, the one with the .50 cal. heavy machine gun.  The gunner already had my cousin in his sights.

She was faster.  She didn’t have to try and aim while being jostled this way and that in a bouncing vehicle.  She didn’t have to cock her gun.

She yelled, “
Diiiiie!
”

He did.  The entire vehicle was vaporized.

When one behind it swerved and came into view, she took that one out as well.

When the following one did the same, she dealt with them.

Two more drove onto the front lawns of people’s homes, but it mattered little.  Katie blasted them with a scream of “
Fuuuuuck!”
for the first one, and a “
Youuuu!
” for the second.

Three more remained, but they had stopped, engines idling, trying to make up their minds if they should or shouldn’t take on the petite, copper haired Muto, standing in the middle of the street, wearing only her Pj’s and sneakers.  Her eyes and mouth dripped with liquid fire.
  She looked like a demon, straight from the deepest pit of hell.

And, I was in love with her.  There was no doubt.

Katie, my cousin, my life, my savior.

Four seconds later, their tires squealed as they jammed
their vehicles in reverse, then made amazing backwards three-point turns and drove away.

I came up to my beautiful cousin and hugged her from behind.  She knew it was
me by the hardness of my skin, and leaned into me.  “You scare me sometimes,” I told her, so relieved that she was still alive.

Mama, Lucia, Martín, and my loveable step-dad weren’t…

“You scare me too.”  I frowned.  “I saw you take off a grown man’s head with a single swipe of your hand
and
… he had a helmet on.”

“I did that?”

“Yeah,” she replied.

“Fuck me.”

She reached around and cupped the side of my face.  “I’m a little tired right now, but after some sleep, I’ll put a smile on those lips.”

I smiled, grateful for her ability to make me feel good, even in the worst times.  We held hands as we walked briskly back to Sandy’s car.  Leda beckoned for us to hurry.  By the time Katie and I stuffed ourselves into the front seat, the tears had returned.

I could hear Flavia and Johan weeping as well.  Now that things were calming down, the reality of what had just happened began to sink in.

Katie turned in my lap and held onto me as Sandy drove.  All I could do was cry like a baby in those wonderful arms of hers.

Then I felt Ramona’s hand, then Leda’s and finally Tirza’s tiny palm – all of them upon my shoulders.  Sandy kept both hands of the wheel and both eyes riveted to the road before her.

We were on the run now.

We were outlaw Muto’s trying to outlive the efforts of an international government agency that wanted us all dead, no matter the cost.

It was the end of many things for us
.  But, it was the beginning of many things as well, because when the worst of my weeping passed.  I wiped my nose with the back of my hand and looked deep into my beloved cousins eyes.

“I’m going to kill them all,” I said with as much conviction I could apply to a beaten and bruised voice box.  The pampered, bored
, sex-fiend I had been died in the wee hours of that morning, and, truthfully, I don’t think I’ve ever been the same since.

Katie Lorraine Chaz held my head in her hands.  “And I’m going to help you.”  Then she kissed me so gently, for so long, I lost track of time, because I could think of one thing – how much I loved her.  I was crying again, quieter, a deeper, more personal sort of weeping came from me.  It was for mama – for my step-dad – for Martín – for Lucia.

In the driver’s seat next to us, after a few minutes, I heard from Sandy.  “I will help you too, Effy.”

Then, “I will follow you anywhere,” from Leda.

“You and me, Babes, I will always be by your side.”  Ramona.

Finally, Tirza
, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil… For thou art with me…,” said this.  I knew how blasphemous her statement was, especially for her.  She’d supplanted God for me, and she’d meant it.  The others didn’t understand the double meaning.  I guess you have to go to church for a spell in order to really get the gist of how hard it was for her to say.

The Aegis Synod…

…Katie…

…And Ramona...

…And Tirza…

…And Leda…

…And Sandy…

…
With Johan, Flavia, Jolene, Jacob… and my Uncles…

…H
ad all just declared war on the NIA.

It would prove to be a bloody one.

[He terminates the Delving program.]

~~~~~~~~~~~~♦~~~~~~~~~~~~

(Earth Summer – 2385)

Pain, Past and Present

Estefan sat there, staring at nothing, masochistically reliving the agony and sorrow he had felt that night, so many years ago.  Though the years seemed countless, he still remembered Lucia’s cherubic face, her elven giggle and the way her whole face lit up at the sight of him.  Every time - whether it was a long time or a short couple of hours since he’d seen her last - she always
had a huge smile and dazzling eyes for him.  She never failed him.  She had made him happy regardless of his day.

Martín’s was there too, crystal clear, in his memory.  He could see his big brown eyes, his broad face, his course, straight hair that couldn’t be styled.  His baby brother, with his inability to be anything other than ornery, who loved practical jokes and playing tricks, was etched permanently in his mind.  Though he would sometimes forget to think about him for years on end, his recollections of him never faded.  They were as vivid as they day he’d witnessed them.

His mother and his step-father were different in his mind’s eye.  Rather than perfectly preserved, frozen notions of the past, they were a conglomeration of thought, feelings and actions.  He had amalgamated their existence into a series of musings, he played in his head like a movie, like snippets in time all spliced together.

He could see himself at the beach when his family had consisted of only him and Johan, and their mother.  They were running on small feet, through the sand, little boys, but his mother’s age kept changing.  Her face was young, then older, like when she’d already given birth to Martín and Lucia, and then even younger when she seemed so big, so warm.  He remembered thinking she was the most beautiful creature on the planet.

He could see his step-father in the front seat of the family car, calling for his mother to get back inside.  She had screamed at the man to stop the vehicle a minute before.  He had slowed and she had jumped out, angry, bristling with frustration.  She was walking briskly, ignoring his step-father’s pleas.  He, Johan and Flavia sat in the backseat, unaware they were holding hands, not knowing why they were scared.  He recalled he had prayed then, hoping his mother and his step-father weren’t going to break-up.  They hadn’t.

He had never seen what they had done to any of their bodies after he and the founding members of the Aegis Synod had fled into the night.  All four of them had been shot to death in cold blood, murdered.  His baby brother and sister slaughtered like animals…

All he could recall was the rage - his rage, Katie’s rage and the all-consuming sense of revenge.

Katie had brought the light of the stars down on their enemies and had set his house ablaze.  He had killed for the first time.  Leda had killed.  They had destroyed his entire neighborhood in the process.

It was years before they dared set foot on the familiar ground where he had lived as a child.  He had lost his virginity in that house and when he’d seen what they’d done to it, he had wept bitterly.  His family, his friends – they weren’t terrorists.  There was no need to make it a monument to justice, a warning to other Mutos.

Later, when Angel Free Town was his, he had the placards and gaudy
“remembrance-stones” removed.  He had made all of Highland Park a recreational park that families could enjoy and had named it after his step-father, the man who’d brought so much happiness to his mother.  The man, he hadn’t the time to tell that he loved him.  Everything had gone so fast.  It was only land on the first level of the megalith that wasn’t devoted to feeding the masses.  It was set aside, forever sacred, because the blood of the Keeper of the Peace had flowed there.  Many might not remember why Enrique Ernando Regional Park had been constructed and, later, preserved for all time.  It didn’t matter, he knew, Johan knew, Flavia knew – and that’s what was important.

I miss you mama.  And, you too, Pop.

Before his writing consul, his Neuro-Nanoswarm chiming periodically for instruction, he bent down his head and wept again.  It had been a long time since he had mourned the loss of his family.  It had been centuries since he had dared to dredge up those terrible memories.  He had forgotten what it had felt like to lose something he’d loved so much, something so fundamental to the foundation that made him.  He ached to hold them, one last time, on his terms.  He wished he could hold his mother’s delicate hand and see the paper-thin skin on the back of it.  He longed to crush his step-father in an embrace, hold him as tight as he could.  Of all things, it was their idiotic half-hug, half-wrestling squeeze he wanted the most.

The tears came hard and his sobs strong, from the middle of himself.

Lucia…

…Martín…

…He would give his entire fortune to bring them back.  If it were possible, he’d give it all away…

…To smell the baby scent on the top of her head…to see his beautiful smile…

…And not see their heads explode.

It was happening again.  Once more, someone – or something - had taken a member of his family.  Once more, an outsider thought it fine to hurt what he loved, what he cherished.  What gave them the right?!?

He stood, enraged, the marble at his feet creaking with the sudden shift of his considerable weight.

Three weeks ago, the commanding officer of what remained of Jacob’s fleet had told them of the ambush they’d flown into, of the thousands of drones that had attacked them from every quarter.  He told them of the brutal, relentless assault that followed.  His eyes had brimmed with tears
, his shoulders hunched with shame.  He had gaze up at the Keeper of the Peace and begged for forgiveness.

Estefan had reached for him, laid a comforting hand upon one of those drooping shoulders and told him, it wasn’t his fault.  He wasn
’t the one to blame.

The officer had shuddered under his touch.  He let
the Keeper finished reassuring him before he said: “That is not the whole of it, m’Lord.  There was something more, something terrifying.”

When Estefan had asked, the man replied, “Something came aboard the Command Ship, horribly misshapen and rank.  It was well over nine feet tall and wielded a Mutation unlike any I have ever seen.”  He had whimpered, like a child!  A grown man with decade’s worth of military and paramilitary training, cowered like a babe!  Estefan had been shocked.  “He tore people apart without even touching them.  He just looked at them and they were ripped to shreds, and… and... and they kept tearing even after he had walked passed them.  There was nothing left of thin strips of flesh and bone, and so much blood, everywhere.

“He would’ve slain us all if it hadn’t been for Lord Jacob.  He stood before the creature and shouted for it to stop what it was doing.  The creature gazed hard at him and I thought Lord Jacob was going to be torn apart like the others, but he wasn’t.  He became indistinct, almost like he wasn’t there – like… like some scary apparition.  He was sweating profusely, trembling too, as if he were under an incredible strain.

“The beast roared at him.  It seemed frustrated, but I couldn’t tell you for sure, but that’s beside the point, because Lord Jacob began to speak.  His voice wasn’t his own.  It was resonant, no, that’s wrong, but was
rich
like the loam of good earth, like the fresh smell of the air after a solid rain.  He was so compelling even the creature held fast, considering him, and the strain on my lord appeared to ease.  It’s’ eyes became slitted, its’ mouth drawn in a straight line.  It half-turned from us.  It was obvious to me; it didn’t want to look at Lord Jacob any longer and was trying to break free of his gaze.

“My Lord took a step forward, his foot sinking into the deck of the ship a few inches before he found purchase and stepped again.  The beast retreated, its’ eyes widening, barking commands it a strange ghastly tongue that sounded more like a bear growling than an actual language.  From all parts of the ship, the drones had come for Lord Jacob.  They were unaffected by his speech, his Mutation ineffective.  They pummeled him to the ground, smashing into him with their insect-like bodies, until he faltered, his ghost-like characteristic failing him.  As he became more substantial, their blows did more damage until he was bludgeoned to the floor and moved to no more.  The beast came forth then barking and snarling, and the drones took my lord away.  I did not see him again.

“How the creature left the ship, I cannot say.  We didn’t have the time to ponder the question, for the larger drones attacked once more, en masse, and we were forced to abandon the Command Ship.  We saw it explode as we jettisoned away, watching as the tremendous weapons of this newfound enemy ripped through the Diatainium alloy hull like it was paper.  We saw what was left of the fleet Grav-jump to safety.  Thankfully the enemy drones didn’t follow, they zipped away toward the inner Solar System, so fast we could barely understand what we were watching.  We floated in space, in our lifeboats, for two days before the remnants of the fleet came back and began to round us up.”  He continued to cry when he had finished.

Estefan ordered him taken to sick bay for monitoring.  He was so distraught; the Keeper feared he might do something to himself.

When he’d been carted off, his wives had surrounded him.  Before a single question was asked, he had spoken: “We go to Luna Prime.”

That had been three weeks ago.

He gazed out the observation window at the vast expanse of Luna Prime.  He wiped his face and ran a hand over his smooth scalp, carrying away the perspiration that had coated it. 
Why can’t they just leave us alone?
  It was a miserable thought.  It should’ve never entered his mind.  He should’ve never expressed it.  He was the Keeper after all.  He was the Overlord of the Aegis Synod, god dammit!

The override alarm sounded at the entrance to his private chambers, and Flavia strode in through a throng of Aegis Marines she had left sprawling in her wake.

“Estefan, what’s wrong!?!” she demanded, her chest heaving as if she’d run the entire way.

He peered over at her wearily, through eyelids shot-through with lead.

She realized he’d been crying and froze in her tracks so quickly; she stood on her toes, the pads of her feet skidding a few inches across the marble flooring.  She wore the same black colored, bio-spandex jumpsuit, covering her lithe form from neck to ankle to wrist.  All of his wives were wearing the same outfit now, anticipating his next announcement.

If he said what they were anticipating he’s say, then they’d be ready.

“I finished,” He said miserably.

Flavia
recovered and came to him as agile as a cat.

The marines at the portal of his bed chamber, seeing all was well, left, closing the stout doors behind them.

She hugged him briefly, and then broke free to read the last portion of what he’d written.  She stood motionless; her eyes tracked each line, the Neuro-Nanoswarm’s, following the movement of her pupils, scrolled the pages for her.  She didn’t
have
to move.

Ramona and Mena came into the room, dressed exactly like Flavia.  Leda was quick upon their heels.

Flavia continued to read, tears beginning to form at the corners of her eyes.

Tirza strode in next.

Her first tear fell to the floor.  Flavia’s eyes flew across the pages Estefan had written.

Katie walked in, then Ruby.

Flavia’s hand came to her mouth.  She gasped with shock.  “Oh god, I had forgotten…,” she murmured to herself.

Sandy was the last, her ‘Swarm active, a cloud of intelligent processing units floating about her head.  “The Fleet waits -,” she began, but stopped when she realize the whole of the Synod was present.  Hastily, she waved away her Nano-comp.

Flavia turned from Estefan’s autobiography, her face streaming with tears.  “It still hurts,” she muttered through a mouth overflowing with saliva, her words distorted, almost slurred.

He walked into her arms and together they wept for the murdered.

A short while later, Katie nodded to herself, then walked toward them, embracing the both of them.  She rested her head on Estefan’s shoulder.  Then Tirza came forth and did the same.  Her actions were like a spark that awoke the rest of them.  Soon, they were one great huddle of hugging bodies, swaying slightly right, and then left – right, and then left, again and again.

From somewhere in the outer ring of the human mass, Sandy asked, “The Fleet is assembled, Effy.  They are awaiting your orders.  What are we going to do?”

Three hundred sixty-four years prior, Katie had asked him something very similar.  It had been three years after they had fled from Estefan’s childhood home, his neighborhood in flames, his parents and young siblings slain before his eyes.  They had been deep underground then, all of their plans and schemes had worked.  They’d become fabulously wealthy.  So rich, in fact, they had procured enough firepower to take on the multi-national military forces of the Northern Intercontinental Alliance.  His cousin had asked, what were they going to do, and he answered precisely, as he would many years later, on the surface of the Moon.

“The Aegis Synod will go to war.”

Back then, it had signaled the beginning of the Mutant War for Los Angeles.