TheLoneRook
Death's Secretary
A dimly lit office space houses a man frozen behind a computer. His eyes glaze over hundreds of lines of text, data he doesn’t care about, things he’s already read, anything he can look at just to kill time. It’s 8:57pm, 3 minutes away from the start of a project he’s been working on for 20 years.
Dr. Rober Leumas’ head raises to receive a knock to his office door. He grunts and a sharply dressed man enters. “Is everything prepared for launch?” Leumas asks, not even bothering to lift his eyes from the computer screen. The sharply dressed man fixes his cufflinks with a little chuckle. “Yes, Doctor, we were ready a half an hour ago, just as you requested. “ Leumas nods and his monitor screen moves from a cluttered mess of articles to a small display of windows, each labeled and marked with a name. The windows all show heart rate monitors and live brain activity feeds. It’s all quiet, for now.
Dr. Leumas sighs and closes the computer screen, slowly rising out of his chair and taking his old cap and trench coat from the rack by his desk. The sharply dressed man holds the door for him and they take a walk down a long concrete corridor. “Joeb, I want you to know, this may be the last chance we get at this.” Leumas says, checking his watch anxiously. The sharply dressed man rests a hand on the old scientist’s shoulder. “I think it just might be the last chance we’ll need.” Leumas smiles at the hopeful words and Joeb steps in front of the doctor before a massive steel door. A 12 digit code, retinal scan, and thumb prick later, the door groans and cranks itself open.
Behind the door is a bustling operations room. Men and women fly to every corner, calling out commands and instructions, furiously typing on tablets and keyboards. It almost looked like they were about to launch a space shuttle, though nowadays, such events were less hectic. A plump executive with a mustache approaches the two and shakes each man’s hand swiftly and with gusto. “Gentlemen, is everything in order for the 9th Revival?” Joeb gives his signature grin and gestures to the operations room. “If it isn’t at this point, we’re in serious trouble.”
Leumas silences any further remarks from the two with a wave of his hand and approaches a raised podium where he normally oversees the affairs in this division.
“Ladies and gentlemen. It’s come a long way. Some of you have been with us for decades, others maybe not so long. What I want you all to know is, regardless of how this all pans out, you’ve done an outstanding job, and I couldn’t ask for a better team to help me win back the freedom of our world. Without further ado…” Leumas lifts the glass case off of a small yellow button on his podium marked “Jump”
“…let’s get started.”
John woke up to darkness. He sat up and his head went into a metal ceiling, flooring him right back down. The smack didn’t even hurt. He didn’t know where he was. Then he remembered. The kitchen, blood going into his cereal. He’d been shot. This certainly wasn’t a hospital. He could feel the metal of a wall on his toes. Feeling around he noticed a seal, it was an opening. He didn’t think about it too hard, he just kicked. The door not only came off its hinges, but there was an audible crash as it went through what he could only assume was a window. The light hurt his eyes as he managed to slip his way out of the box. That’s when he felt it. Something attached to his lower back. Except it wasn’t attached, he could feel every bit of it. His hand shot back and grasped flesh, warm and familiar. He had to get a look at himself. He practically clawed his way out of that box and pulled himself to his feet. His reflection was something he’d never have expected to see.
His arms were gray, and dense, covered in something like bone. He touched his arm, he could feel his finger just as well as he always could have. This wasn’t makeup, or a trick. He scratched at the plating on his arm, it stung a little. This was a part of him.
He looked down and legs were the same way. They didn’t feel different, or off, or even heavy, just a bit thicker than he’d remembered them, like he’d put on some weight but never noticed. Then he remembered the flesh on his back. He twisted and there it was. A tail, resting behind him. On the end was a ball of the same bone-like material. He could feel it against the ground, he could twist and pull it like it was a loose and wiggly arm.
What scared him most was that it didn’t scare him. He didn’t feel strange, he felt like he’d always been this way. His mind knew he hadn’t, but his body didn’t act like anything was wrong. It didn’t seem like anything was wrong. He took some pacing steps, observing his own movement. His tail picked itself up and balanced with his footsteps as if it had been on his ass since he was born. It felt strong, and when he pressed the club into the ground he realized he could even pick himself up and balance on it like a strangely flexible third leg. He laughed. This was the most batshit crazy dream he’d ever had, that was for sure.
He looked back at the metal box he’d pulled himself out of. It was one of many, a morgue wall. Oh, so I did die, how imaginative of me, he thought to himself. He noticed a folded slip of paper tucked into the door next to where his had been. He took it gently, surprised by his own dexterity, and started to read. It was long and formally written, like an acceptance letter to Harvard or something like that.
His eyes scanned the words quickly...his mouth opened slightly. He looked down and found clothes on the ground, just like the note had said. His breath slowed as he read the final few sentences. “We made a rough estimate on how long it would take you to figure this all out, and based on that estimate, you have 30 seconds left before an alarm goes off and the building is evacuated. Get a move on, Johnathan.”
Sirens went off the moment his eyes saw his own name. He heard commotion above him, hurried feet running across linoleum flooring. Shit, shit, shit. His head spun around and he’d forgotten the door he’d kicked had legitimately blown a hole in a wall. He didn’t have time, the footsteps were getting louder, he heard men talking about how to “approach the suspect”. He needed to get out of there. He ran to the service elevator faster than he thought he could, breaking the button when he went to push it. Right, really strong now, careful, he thought. He waited but heard no elevator on its way. The footsteps grew louder. He sunk his fingers into the crevice of the door, they pushed their way in with ease. He pulled and the door gave to his strength like it was made of cardboard. Unfortunately he had no time to gawk at his own physical prowess. He jumped into the elevator shaft, looking up was about 23 stories of height, the elevator seemed to be at the top. He scanned the note again and hoped what it said was 100% true, but before he jumped he remembered he was still stark naked. He ran and hurriedly put on the baggy pants that had been left for him. There were boots sitting next to the pants, but his feet didn’t look like they were going to fit into those, and he’d just landed on sharp metal and wiring without even flinching, so he doubted they’d be necessary. He shot back into the elevator shaft as the door across the hall was kicked down and he saw the barrels of rifles descending upon him. He crouched down and pushed for all he had.
The push crushed the ground beneath him and he was flying. Well, not quite, but he was definitely moving. Straight into the elevator above, in fact. His hands went up instinctively and there was a crunch of metal and a loud crash and he felt stone and steel scraping against his super-calloused arms and then he felt the night breeze. His eyes opened and his velocity slowed and he toppled onto the roof of the building he’d been resting in so long. He looked up to see the shining skyline of Old London, bustling about as if nothing had ever happened, as if John had never been shot. He had, though. He looked at his hands, at his bare chest, the hole where the bullet had struck nowhere to be seen. He looked to the note, still tight in his hand. The instructions were clear enough. He cleared his head. His parents were fine, they’d attended his funeral last week. He didn’t have a name anymore, or a life to go back to. All he had was the slip of paper, and a subtle threat that if he didn’t do what it said, that someone with a better bullet would come and finish what they started. The paper didn’t have his answers, but it led to them. That, for now would suffice. He flung one leg, and his tail, over the side of the building, digging his toes into the wall. He began to climb down, the piece of paper stuffed into his pocket, and the word “Sorry” scatched into the rooftop. He had places to go.
Michael woke up from a pleasant dream and rolled over, planting his face into the pillow. It was darker in his bedroom than usual, but he didn’t mind. Today was one of his first days off in weeks, and he was going to make the very most of it. His eyes opened.
He already had.
He took Lyra to dinner. He helped Paige ride her bike without training wheels. He’d seen someone put a gun to his chest and pull the trigger, late into the night. He started to panic and suddenly the room he was in was lighting up. He smelled smoke and looked up to see silken upholstery inches from his head. The lining of a coffin. He gasped and his hands flew to the top of the coffin, they were bright orange, and getting brighter. The orange cut to an edged blue as Michael stared in horror. His suit was starting to burn off of his chest. He was on fire. He was on FIRE. He screamed only a moment before he fainted, the last thing he saw was a white flash.
Michael woke up not too long after. He opened his eyes to the stars of the night sky, framed by a circular tunnel of dark black sand. He started to remember and suddenly he realized the tunnel was a hole, and the sand was disintegrated dirt. He lifted up his hands and they were still on fire, but they didn’t hurt. The flame was white, pure white, and it cooled down to a normal orange as it went up his arms. He felt warmth against his back too, and the hiss of singing wood, he must have been burning back there too. He sat up and felt flames lick up off his shoulders, confirming his suspicions. What the hell had happened to him?
The fiery new man managed to climb his way out of the hole after disintegrating every patch of earth he touched until he managed to burn himself an inclined ramp. He found himself on a pretty hill, overlooking the suburbs just outside of Old London. He looked behind him to find he’d been buried under a tree, just like he’d asked. He accidentally burned up some of the roots, but he hoped that the tree would make it out alright. He saw his tombstone, that was an interesting sight. It was almost surreal to look at the stone slab that you’d think would confirm your demise, and yet here he was. The flames had stopped bothering him now, but they weren’t going away anymore. He thought to the positives like he taught his students to. He was his own personal flashlight now! He could offer to light people’s cigarettes, though he didn’t smoke himself. He could…burn things to the ground? Sure to come in handy somehow. What he thought of at that moment was that he was alive, when he thought he was dead. His thoughts were interrupted when he noticed a thin metal slate resting on his tombstone. He walked to it and picked it up. The first words were enough to make him laugh. “We would have used paper, but you probably wouldn’t have understood the message very well that way.”
Reading the note was enough to cause a tear to evaporate off his eye. He coughed and sniffed and cleared his throat, but it made sense when it was all on paper. This wasn’t something he had a choice in anymore. This was what his life was. He looked behind his headstone, the paper was right. A pile of suit-like technology sat neatly in the shadow of his tree. He picked it up and strapped the chestpiece to himself. It fit snug, obviously made for him. Putting on the gloves made him feel better, the light of his body dimmed as it was covered until all you could see was the slight glow from the vents on the…”augment” they called it. It made him feel safe at least, like a blanket of metal and wires. He’d never felt so warm, not even after hours of drinking in college. There was a holster lock on the side of the chestpiece, and Michael looked down to see a sword, its sheath displaying a key to the lock. He picked it up and set it against the lock, the two pulled together magnetically, holding firm. The note had said to use it in case of emergencies. It felt like a sword he’d had a long time ago, and he looked at the hilt. His breath stopped. It was the same hilt. The same words scratched into the pommel. “BE SAFE, I LOVE YOU SO. ~LYRA” The tear was cold enough to roll that time.
Michael only knew two things. He knew his family was safe, and he knew they might not be if he didn’t follow these instructions. That was all he needed to know. His hand gripped the sword for comfort, more than anything. He’d make it out of this in one piece, just like the last time. He’d come home, he had to. He donned the clothes they’d left for him, made sure all of his augment was securely in place, and started to walk towards the city. The rank of Corporal rested on each shoulder of his augment. He didn’t know these people, but if they were this considerate, they must have had good reasons.
Dr. Rober Leumas’ head raises to receive a knock to his office door. He grunts and a sharply dressed man enters. “Is everything prepared for launch?” Leumas asks, not even bothering to lift his eyes from the computer screen. The sharply dressed man fixes his cufflinks with a little chuckle. “Yes, Doctor, we were ready a half an hour ago, just as you requested. “ Leumas nods and his monitor screen moves from a cluttered mess of articles to a small display of windows, each labeled and marked with a name. The windows all show heart rate monitors and live brain activity feeds. It’s all quiet, for now.
Dr. Leumas sighs and closes the computer screen, slowly rising out of his chair and taking his old cap and trench coat from the rack by his desk. The sharply dressed man holds the door for him and they take a walk down a long concrete corridor. “Joeb, I want you to know, this may be the last chance we get at this.” Leumas says, checking his watch anxiously. The sharply dressed man rests a hand on the old scientist’s shoulder. “I think it just might be the last chance we’ll need.” Leumas smiles at the hopeful words and Joeb steps in front of the doctor before a massive steel door. A 12 digit code, retinal scan, and thumb prick later, the door groans and cranks itself open.
Behind the door is a bustling operations room. Men and women fly to every corner, calling out commands and instructions, furiously typing on tablets and keyboards. It almost looked like they were about to launch a space shuttle, though nowadays, such events were less hectic. A plump executive with a mustache approaches the two and shakes each man’s hand swiftly and with gusto. “Gentlemen, is everything in order for the 9th Revival?” Joeb gives his signature grin and gestures to the operations room. “If it isn’t at this point, we’re in serious trouble.”
Leumas silences any further remarks from the two with a wave of his hand and approaches a raised podium where he normally oversees the affairs in this division.
“Ladies and gentlemen. It’s come a long way. Some of you have been with us for decades, others maybe not so long. What I want you all to know is, regardless of how this all pans out, you’ve done an outstanding job, and I couldn’t ask for a better team to help me win back the freedom of our world. Without further ado…” Leumas lifts the glass case off of a small yellow button on his podium marked “Jump”
“…let’s get started.”
John woke up to darkness. He sat up and his head went into a metal ceiling, flooring him right back down. The smack didn’t even hurt. He didn’t know where he was. Then he remembered. The kitchen, blood going into his cereal. He’d been shot. This certainly wasn’t a hospital. He could feel the metal of a wall on his toes. Feeling around he noticed a seal, it was an opening. He didn’t think about it too hard, he just kicked. The door not only came off its hinges, but there was an audible crash as it went through what he could only assume was a window. The light hurt his eyes as he managed to slip his way out of the box. That’s when he felt it. Something attached to his lower back. Except it wasn’t attached, he could feel every bit of it. His hand shot back and grasped flesh, warm and familiar. He had to get a look at himself. He practically clawed his way out of that box and pulled himself to his feet. His reflection was something he’d never have expected to see.
His arms were gray, and dense, covered in something like bone. He touched his arm, he could feel his finger just as well as he always could have. This wasn’t makeup, or a trick. He scratched at the plating on his arm, it stung a little. This was a part of him.
He looked down and legs were the same way. They didn’t feel different, or off, or even heavy, just a bit thicker than he’d remembered them, like he’d put on some weight but never noticed. Then he remembered the flesh on his back. He twisted and there it was. A tail, resting behind him. On the end was a ball of the same bone-like material. He could feel it against the ground, he could twist and pull it like it was a loose and wiggly arm.
What scared him most was that it didn’t scare him. He didn’t feel strange, he felt like he’d always been this way. His mind knew he hadn’t, but his body didn’t act like anything was wrong. It didn’t seem like anything was wrong. He took some pacing steps, observing his own movement. His tail picked itself up and balanced with his footsteps as if it had been on his ass since he was born. It felt strong, and when he pressed the club into the ground he realized he could even pick himself up and balance on it like a strangely flexible third leg. He laughed. This was the most batshit crazy dream he’d ever had, that was for sure.
He looked back at the metal box he’d pulled himself out of. It was one of many, a morgue wall. Oh, so I did die, how imaginative of me, he thought to himself. He noticed a folded slip of paper tucked into the door next to where his had been. He took it gently, surprised by his own dexterity, and started to read. It was long and formally written, like an acceptance letter to Harvard or something like that.
His eyes scanned the words quickly...his mouth opened slightly. He looked down and found clothes on the ground, just like the note had said. His breath slowed as he read the final few sentences. “We made a rough estimate on how long it would take you to figure this all out, and based on that estimate, you have 30 seconds left before an alarm goes off and the building is evacuated. Get a move on, Johnathan.”
Sirens went off the moment his eyes saw his own name. He heard commotion above him, hurried feet running across linoleum flooring. Shit, shit, shit. His head spun around and he’d forgotten the door he’d kicked had legitimately blown a hole in a wall. He didn’t have time, the footsteps were getting louder, he heard men talking about how to “approach the suspect”. He needed to get out of there. He ran to the service elevator faster than he thought he could, breaking the button when he went to push it. Right, really strong now, careful, he thought. He waited but heard no elevator on its way. The footsteps grew louder. He sunk his fingers into the crevice of the door, they pushed their way in with ease. He pulled and the door gave to his strength like it was made of cardboard. Unfortunately he had no time to gawk at his own physical prowess. He jumped into the elevator shaft, looking up was about 23 stories of height, the elevator seemed to be at the top. He scanned the note again and hoped what it said was 100% true, but before he jumped he remembered he was still stark naked. He ran and hurriedly put on the baggy pants that had been left for him. There were boots sitting next to the pants, but his feet didn’t look like they were going to fit into those, and he’d just landed on sharp metal and wiring without even flinching, so he doubted they’d be necessary. He shot back into the elevator shaft as the door across the hall was kicked down and he saw the barrels of rifles descending upon him. He crouched down and pushed for all he had.
The push crushed the ground beneath him and he was flying. Well, not quite, but he was definitely moving. Straight into the elevator above, in fact. His hands went up instinctively and there was a crunch of metal and a loud crash and he felt stone and steel scraping against his super-calloused arms and then he felt the night breeze. His eyes opened and his velocity slowed and he toppled onto the roof of the building he’d been resting in so long. He looked up to see the shining skyline of Old London, bustling about as if nothing had ever happened, as if John had never been shot. He had, though. He looked at his hands, at his bare chest, the hole where the bullet had struck nowhere to be seen. He looked to the note, still tight in his hand. The instructions were clear enough. He cleared his head. His parents were fine, they’d attended his funeral last week. He didn’t have a name anymore, or a life to go back to. All he had was the slip of paper, and a subtle threat that if he didn’t do what it said, that someone with a better bullet would come and finish what they started. The paper didn’t have his answers, but it led to them. That, for now would suffice. He flung one leg, and his tail, over the side of the building, digging his toes into the wall. He began to climb down, the piece of paper stuffed into his pocket, and the word “Sorry” scatched into the rooftop. He had places to go.
Michael woke up from a pleasant dream and rolled over, planting his face into the pillow. It was darker in his bedroom than usual, but he didn’t mind. Today was one of his first days off in weeks, and he was going to make the very most of it. His eyes opened.
He already had.
He took Lyra to dinner. He helped Paige ride her bike without training wheels. He’d seen someone put a gun to his chest and pull the trigger, late into the night. He started to panic and suddenly the room he was in was lighting up. He smelled smoke and looked up to see silken upholstery inches from his head. The lining of a coffin. He gasped and his hands flew to the top of the coffin, they were bright orange, and getting brighter. The orange cut to an edged blue as Michael stared in horror. His suit was starting to burn off of his chest. He was on fire. He was on FIRE. He screamed only a moment before he fainted, the last thing he saw was a white flash.
Michael woke up not too long after. He opened his eyes to the stars of the night sky, framed by a circular tunnel of dark black sand. He started to remember and suddenly he realized the tunnel was a hole, and the sand was disintegrated dirt. He lifted up his hands and they were still on fire, but they didn’t hurt. The flame was white, pure white, and it cooled down to a normal orange as it went up his arms. He felt warmth against his back too, and the hiss of singing wood, he must have been burning back there too. He sat up and felt flames lick up off his shoulders, confirming his suspicions. What the hell had happened to him?
The fiery new man managed to climb his way out of the hole after disintegrating every patch of earth he touched until he managed to burn himself an inclined ramp. He found himself on a pretty hill, overlooking the suburbs just outside of Old London. He looked behind him to find he’d been buried under a tree, just like he’d asked. He accidentally burned up some of the roots, but he hoped that the tree would make it out alright. He saw his tombstone, that was an interesting sight. It was almost surreal to look at the stone slab that you’d think would confirm your demise, and yet here he was. The flames had stopped bothering him now, but they weren’t going away anymore. He thought to the positives like he taught his students to. He was his own personal flashlight now! He could offer to light people’s cigarettes, though he didn’t smoke himself. He could…burn things to the ground? Sure to come in handy somehow. What he thought of at that moment was that he was alive, when he thought he was dead. His thoughts were interrupted when he noticed a thin metal slate resting on his tombstone. He walked to it and picked it up. The first words were enough to make him laugh. “We would have used paper, but you probably wouldn’t have understood the message very well that way.”
Reading the note was enough to cause a tear to evaporate off his eye. He coughed and sniffed and cleared his throat, but it made sense when it was all on paper. This wasn’t something he had a choice in anymore. This was what his life was. He looked behind his headstone, the paper was right. A pile of suit-like technology sat neatly in the shadow of his tree. He picked it up and strapped the chestpiece to himself. It fit snug, obviously made for him. Putting on the gloves made him feel better, the light of his body dimmed as it was covered until all you could see was the slight glow from the vents on the…”augment” they called it. It made him feel safe at least, like a blanket of metal and wires. He’d never felt so warm, not even after hours of drinking in college. There was a holster lock on the side of the chestpiece, and Michael looked down to see a sword, its sheath displaying a key to the lock. He picked it up and set it against the lock, the two pulled together magnetically, holding firm. The note had said to use it in case of emergencies. It felt like a sword he’d had a long time ago, and he looked at the hilt. His breath stopped. It was the same hilt. The same words scratched into the pommel. “BE SAFE, I LOVE YOU SO. ~LYRA” The tear was cold enough to roll that time.
Michael only knew two things. He knew his family was safe, and he knew they might not be if he didn’t follow these instructions. That was all he needed to know. His hand gripped the sword for comfort, more than anything. He’d make it out of this in one piece, just like the last time. He’d come home, he had to. He donned the clothes they’d left for him, made sure all of his augment was securely in place, and started to walk towards the city. The rank of Corporal rested on each shoulder of his augment. He didn’t know these people, but if they were this considerate, they must have had good reasons.
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