The Dragons of Men (The Sons of Liberty Book 2) (52 page)

“Who?” Adam asked.

“Names don’t matter in this army,” Derrick said with a shrug.

“What did you mean by quality of men?” Adam asked, shifting his weight as he slowly rose to his knees. “What are you going to do to us?”

Derrick glanced at Adam before shaking his head again and looking over at Jack. “You look like you understand what’s going on,” Derrick said. Jack looked up and glanced over at Adam before nodding his head. “Why don’t you explain the situation to your friend or do what needs doing.”

Jack glanced back over at Adam, concern lining his face as his eyes flickered down to the pliers. He sighed heavily before clearing his throat.

“They want soldiers who are willing to forfeit their souls to follow orders,” Jack replied. “They want a man willing to kill his own friend and they want us to decide whether that man is you or me.”

Adam’s eyes widened before he too glanced down at the tool.

“No,” Adam said. “I’m not going to kill him.”

“Typical response,” Derrick said, nodding to the other guys. “Let’s go. We’ll have food for you every eight hours, if you last that long, and we’ll be back every twelve. If you do the math, that means every other electrotherapy session will also be feeding time. Those tend to get a little messy, especially since we feed you first. But you’ll eat well when you do eat and the guy who wises up and gets the job done first gets a nice, juicy steak. We don’t want our soldiers getting weak on us, now do we? Might even throw in a girl or two if you really impress us. And remember, those synthetics from Brazil could arrive any day now. Word is we have no more than ten, maybe twelve days of waiting, so long as nothing else interferes. If you’re both still alive by then, I can assure you you’ll wish you were not. You think you know pain now? Well, let’s just see who gives in first. Go ahead, get comfy and talk freely. It doesn’t matter how close you are. In the end, one of you will cave.”

Derrick turned without a word and opened the door. He and his two armed friends left the room, shutting the door behind them and sliding the lock back in place.

“No one is killing anyone,” Adam said.

Jack sighed before walking over to the wall and leaning up against it. “Adam, I worked some pretty shitty parts of town when I was a cop. I dealt with murderers, rapists, drug addicts, and madmen more often than I care to think about. As different as they were, they all shared a common trait. They wondered where they went wrong. They wondered where they took a wrong turn. They might not have always said that aloud, but I could see it in their faces. No one wants to be the bad guy, but sometimes…well, sometimes it’s forced upon us, leaving us to wonder where we went wrong. Needless to say, I refuse to live like them. I won’t go wrong.”

“Jack, I’m not going to kill you,” he said. “Your wife. Alan. Everyone that’s been with you since this all started. Don’t give up on them. Don’t give up on me right now. We can beat this, together. We can outlast them, no matter what they do to us. And we’ll find a way out of this.”

Jack reached up and wiped a tear away, glancing to the side before his eyes flickered down at the pliers. After a pause, he lay down and rolled over, facing the other way.

“Look at the bright side,” Jack whispered. “I don’t think anyone recognized you. I’ve got a feeling we’d be in a heap of shit if they did. I say we keep it that way.”

Adam paused before slowly nodding his head.

“Get some sleep,” Jack said. “We’ll need it if we get a chance to get out of here.”

Despite everything Adam had said, he too glanced down at the tool meant to usher in death. He tried to imagine killing anyone with a set of pliers, but all he could think of was dying by them. It was sadistic, and he wondered if he would die quietly should Jack choose to fight.

Adam slowly laid down—closing his eyes, though he knew no sleep would come. As he fought back against the hopelessness that overwhelmed him, he began to cry. Adam wanted to pray for comfort, courage, and deliverance from evil, but all he could manage to do was quietly weep.

C
hapter
E
ighteen

A Shroud of Tears and a Laugh of Daggers

Awareness slowly enveloped Lukas Chambers as he was pulled from the blackness that had overwhelmed him for some time. A constant and rhythmic beeping filled his ears, much like that of a bus or a dump truck backing up. As his mind awoke further from the void, a voice echoed through the darkness.

“…shouldn’t have trouble breathing, but I want your eyes fixed on that monitor. Alright, his eyes are opening. Lukas Chambers, can you hear me?”

Lukas opened his eyes gingerly. A thin, horizontal spear of light sliced through the stupor as his ears slowly registered the words of the man in white that hovered above him.

“Check Oxygen levels,” the man said before glancing back down at Lukas. He tapped Lukas twice on the cheek with a gloved hand. “Lukas, can you hear me?”

“Who…who are you?” Lukas was surprised with the weakness of his voice.

“I’m Doctor Isaac Livingston. Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Lukas replied. He tried to swallow, but his throat felt as though a jar of sand had been poured down it. He then tried to cough, but all that escaped was a frail groan. “Where am I?”

“You’re at the White House,” Isaac said. “How’s your breathing?”

“Fine,” Lukas said, though he took the deepest breath he could to prove it to himself.

“Good,” Isaac replied. “Do you feel any pain?”

Pain,
Lukas thought, his mind probing his body for any signs of discomfort. He felt one part throb, three parts numb. A distant ache emanated from his thigh, though it was so weak he wasn’t sure it was actually there. However, the one thing he knew to be very real was the panic as he thought back to the car, Jamie, and his wife.

“Maria,” he said, trying to push the doctor’s hands away. “Where…where is she?”

“Lukas, look at me; I need you to focus. You’re weak and incoherent and I need to ask you some questions before—”

“Where is she?” Lukas shouted, though it was more of a whimper than anything. “Please, you have to—”

“Blood pressure is lowering,” a voice called out from the side. “Heart rate is rising.”

“Put him back under and administer five CC’s of the N-Twelve,” Isaac said quickly. “Watch his heart rate and program the injection for core targeting. If he loses extremities, so be it.”

“Maria…is she….” Lukas’ eyes fluttered shut again, and the darkness began to return. The last thing he thought about before being swept up in the nothingness was love and betrayal.

Maria….

Time stretched on into nothingness before the beeping slowly returned, intermixed with a sad and euphonious symphony. Lukas opened his eyes. No doctors or nurses stood above him now, only the fluorescent lighting and a few meandering motes of dust. He thought back to the doctor’s words and suddenly wondered if he had lost any limbs. He flexed his fingers, grabbing his sheets with weak hands. The air he breathed and the muscles he failed to move—everything felt heavier than it should have. It was almost as though he was submerged in gelatin, unable to do much but fight the panic inside.

“Hello?” he said.

A few seconds passed before a quiet voice called out from the right.

“Ah, there you,” a familiar voice replied. Lukas shifted his head slightly to the right and watched as Jacob Brekor pulled up a chair to the side of his bed. Jacob pressed a red button above the bed and sat down before closing his eyes and raising his chin ever so slightly. “They call themselves
Two-Cellos
and the song is titled
Benedictus.
Not one of the ancient classics, mind you, but an unquestionable modern masterpiece. I have found that no other composition can cultivate such sorrow and…hope. I once spoke to you not far from this room that I would share with you my favorite tune when the timing was right. Well, here we are at last. I had hoped for better circumstances, but such is life. So tell me, my son, how do you feel?”

“What day is it?” Lukas asked quickly. “What happened? Maria, is she…did she….”

“It is March twentieth, twenty thirty-one,” Jacob replied, raising a see-through tablet and reading his notes scribbled on the screen. “On this day in history, Albert Einstein published the theory of relativity, the USA illegally invaded Iraq for the second time, and my favorite novel of all time—Into the Breach—was released. As far as what happened and why you are here, you were nearly killed by Jamie Rowe six days ago, though she failed at the cost of her life. And Maria…she’s alive, awake, and nearby. I can take you to see her tomorrow once you’re—”

“No,” Lukas began as he tried to sit up, “we can go right….” He fell back down to the bed, shaking his head.

The door opened and in walked a throng of doctors and nurses. Isaac Livingston—the doctor at the front—walked over to the bed, examining Lukas as the nurses examined the equipment. Eventually, Isaac smiled as he glanced over at Jacob.

“Jacob,” Isaac said with the nod of his head.

“Doctor Livingston, I presume,” Jacob replied with a smile.

“Well, that never gets old with you, now does it?” Isaac said as he shook his head and laughed.

“Never,” Jacob replied with a grin.

“I don’t
presume
to think you’ll be bringing anymore of that miracle injection anytime soon?” Isaac asked.

“Afraid not,” Jacob replied. “That vein in that gold mine has run dry until I can locate and…persuade an old friend to provide more.”

“That’s a shame. I’d sleep easier at night as the Sovereign’s new emergency physician knowing I had something like that on hand.”

“What happened?” Lukas said. “Am I…paralyzed?”

“No,” Isaac replied. “Your body will be weak and you’ll be unable to walk unassisted for the next three to six months. Once the last of N-Twelve wears off, you can graduate to crutches and eventually walk again. Until then, you’ll have to use a wheelchair.”

Lukas nodded his head, wiping a tear away from his eye as he soaked in the news.
Three to six months,
he thought.
All because of your selfish ignorance. You worthless coward! You fool! And what about Maria?

“Isaac, I thank you for everything you’ve done,” Lukas said. “The Imperium…no, I personally owe you a debt. It will not be forgotten.”

“Your dream is my dream, my Sovereign,” Isaac said with a bow before motioning to the other doctors and nurses. “A world united as one.”

Lukas nodded back, struggling to keep the tears at bay as everyone but Jacob left the room.

“Jacob…I’m sorry,” Lukas said as he fought to keep himself composed. “I did this. I shouldn’t have listened to her. I—”

“We did this, Boy,” Jacob said with a frown. “As much as I’d like to lay the blame at your feet, I am the one who brought Jamie to your home in the first place. No, I did not know who she really was, but that is no excuse. Our enemies are plenty and my failure to identify the loyalties of one nearly cost us both everything. So please, forgive me as well.”

“The men in England…they didn’t hurt you, did they?” Lukas asked.

“They about gave me a heart attack when they stormed the palace. Lucky for me, you called them off before they found me. It only cost me thirteen defense drones and five guards. An easy price to pay for a chance to live again.”

“Was Eli Kane a traitor?” Lukas asked.

“Afraid not,” Jacob replied. “Though he was a relatively poor general. That’s not to say there are no other Patriarch Agents who successfully embedded themselves in our ranks. They will be rattled after what happened to Jamie. With time, we can use what happened to flush them and give them a proper farewell.”

“And Maria, you said she’s alive and well?”

Jacob hesitated, glancing at the door before looking back at Lukas. “I said she was alive, but I did not say she is well. I will not hide or sugarcoat the facts. She was shot twice—once in the chest and once in the face. Fortunately, fate smiled down upon her, deciding the time for Maria Brekor to die had not yet come. That extravagant necklace you gave her deflected much of the bullet that struck her chest. She broke three ribs and still has a piece of the round near her heart, but she will live.”

“And…her face?”

Jacob smiled—pausing as his eyes began to glisten. It was the closest thing to sorrow that Lukas had ever seen on the man. Jacob cleared his throat loudly. “She lost a fourth of her jaw and fourteen teeth. The scar extends from her chin to her left ear. The good news is she will speak again. They have already performed one reconstructive surgery on her face and have scheduled many more in the coming weeks. Though the doctors do not know if she will ever look the same, the nanobots we were all given as Patriarchs are helping her recover at a remarkable rate.” Jacob paused, his eyes narrowing as both pity and a flash of anger filled them. “Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about you.”

“What do you mean?” Lukas asked slowly.

“Lukas, what do you think it was I gave you three and a half months ago to destroy Sigmund’s drug?”

Lukas’ eyes darted back and forth, trying to come up with an answer. He had never really questioned what it was that Jacob gave him, trusting the effects and not the means.

“I don’t know,” Lukas replied. “The antidote.”

“An antidote for a synthetic injection composed of millions of microscopic nanobots?” Jacob said before shaking his head. “Lukas, this was not some virus that was in your veins. It was a robotic swarm. What I gave you disabled them…and every other nanobot in your system. If anything survived, it was surely killed when they used the last of the disabling injection—the N-Twelve serum. Whatever Jamie had injected you with was never activated, but it was slowly causing your blood pressure to drop dangerously. Isaac was a friend on this side of the pond and when I heard what happened, I led him to the N-Twelve I had stored secretly in the White House. He was able to save your life, though we still don’t know what it was they had injected you with. I am sorry, but the fountain of youth that once made you strong is no more. You will age again.”

Panic began to overwhelm Lukas. Since his deliverance and the creation of the Imperium, he had thought his life would be prolonged for another one or two hundred years—plenty of time to solve the problem of death and become the world’s first immortal king. Now, he wasn’t sure his body would live past eighty without a miracle. “But I…how…what’s going to happen?” Lukas asked frantically. “Is there more that we can use to—”

“The injection derived for the Brazilian’s fountain of youth was and is truly one of a kind,” Jacob replied. “I have had scientists examine my blood and the nanobots that dwell there in an attempt to replicate his brilliance. Still, they have yet to get anywhere close. Their best efforts are the drugs we give those to cure the common cold. Nevertheless, I say fear not. We were able to utilize the late Miss Rowe’s quantum computers to develop an algorithm that grants us eyes behind the Graystone devices that shroud Sigmund and the Gulf. Once we secure your borders we will expand our reach. I’ve already begun transferring old NATO and UN military assets across the Atlantic to aid you in this fight. We will take full control of the Americas while the Imperium uses what we leave behind in Europe to spread south into Africa and east into Asia. Before we are done, we will take the Brazilian and squeeze him until every drop of knowledge has dripped from his dry bones. It might take years, but that should not be a problem so long as you care for yourself.”

Lukas paused again before tearing his eyes away from Jacob, looking over at the window as he failed to kill the tears that now dampened his cheeks.

“I’m sorry,” Lukas finally said. “You trusted me, you fought for me, and I failed us all.”

Jacob paused, glancing back at Lukas quietly before standing from his chair and walking over to the corner. After a moment, he returned with a wheel chair and knelt down next to the bed.

“Why do you think I did what I did to save you when Sigmund had you all but beat?” Jacob asked. “Why do you think I follow your lead and not the other way around? While we’re at it, why does anyone follow you? After all, your secrets were laid bare to the world last year and they saw that the great Lukas Chambers was not without fault. I am not ashamed to say that I wasn’t convinced you’d be accepted by everyone, but still they flocked to you. Our borders swelled with refugees, all willing to establish the Imperium and follow your lead—a man they knew was flawed. So again, I will ask you; why does anyone follow you?”

“I….” Lukas’ mouth worked though he failed to think of an answer. He had never thought about why anyone had actually chosen to follow him; he simply accepted that fact. Now that the question was there, he couldn’t stop the words from echoing around inside his head like the gong of a bell. “I don’t know.”

“Lukas,” Jacob began, “they don’t follow you because of you. They follow you because of your dream. We might have played a role in destabilizing this world, but it was heading that way long before you and I came about. Mankind has damned itself. Humanity has slain hundreds of millions over the past one hundred years, all in the name of religion and duty to a country. You represent the answer to that problem. You—a flawed man leading a flawed race—can pass through the fire and come out perfect. You can purify this world. We can unite mankind and learn to coexist, but the moment your arrogance and pride overshadows that dream will be the moment those who have flocked to your bosom abandon you.” Jacob leaned in close, resting his hand on Lukas’ arm. “I still dream with open eyes, son. I am still with you if you are still with me.”