The Lover's Parable Through A Seven World Journey (48 page)

“You,” the man wailed through his raspy, wheeze, “must take my place.”

John raised his pistol towards the man’s head. He had a burning hatred towards him. Pulling the trigger, the report of the shot echoed throughout the underground bunker, ringing his ears and momentarily blinding him with the blast… but it was just another life ending.

As he stood alone, considering what he had accomplished, John felt hollow and empty. There was no glory once again, just as there had been no glory in the killing of Corona and Arlington. It was just another event, no different than wiping his nose or cleaning the dust off of his weapon. Another mountaintop reached with no prize awaiting him, just a lonely view of a desolate surrounding. What was the point of it all? How could this act have been the saving grace of humanity?

With the report of John’s weapon echoing down the hall, Sofia slowly made her way towards the bloody print on the wall at the far end of the trail. She wanted to run, but she was only able to bear a minimum weight upon her wounded extremity.

Reaching his hand to his throat, John called in the victory message as he pinched the mic, “The Top Man is eliminated. I repeat: the Top Man is eliminated.”

As he turned to walk out of the room, leaving his handiwork behind him, the computer screens began to flash, decorating the walls with their strobes of white light. The glass-hinged cover of the knob automatically lifted from its position on the console, exposing the red button to John, the lone occupier of the room.

Stopping to look at it, he wondered what its purpose was. Why had the Top Man been so focused on it? Would it set off an alarm, or would it send thousands of missiles of death raining down upon his kingdom, destroying his enemies as a final blow to his rebellious citizens? Would it matter at all if he actuated it, now? Sofia was upstairs, dead, for all he knew. Perhaps this mission was not only Banks’ one-way ticket, but his and Sofia’s also. Stepping up to the mysterious device, he placed his palm upon its convex surface… and depressed it.

A red light mounted on the wall beside him began to flicker. As the screen above the button began streaming coded messages upon its face, the light of the room turned that same sickly green hue, like that found on the scanners of Labor. The wall beside it began to slide open, revealing a series of elevator booths with a single, belted chair situated within each one.

The computer screen beside him brought up a display, an image of a planet within a planet. Written beneath it were the words,
Black Heart: Access to Nether World Permitted
. Walking up to the booth, John looked it over, searching for actuators or trip devices at the threshold. But it appeared safe to enter in.

Curiously stepping inside, John stood upon its clear, glassy floor. It appeared to hover just above the metallic plate beneath him. The ceiling was a decorative brass network of carved beams, thin and symmetrical. The seat before him was elevated above the glassy surface by a single metal cylinder. The securing buckles of its chest harness dangled from its sides. A series of buttons were overlaying one of the armrests. Before John could touch his fingers to them a thin, brass slider enveloped them under its veil, the door slid shut behind him, pressure sealing him inside, causing his head to momentarily spin and his ears to ring. There were no more buttons to press, no switches to operate: he was trapped.

The base beneath the glassy window of his feet separated at the center seam like the opening of a curtain, revealing a slowly rotating, miniature planet, its surface suspended within the core of Black Island, several hundred meters below. Like the view from a high mountaintop, John could see every tree, every structure that rolled by under the dim glow of the phosphorescent atmosphere that provided the eerie green-yellow hue that the celestial orb was encased in.

Without notice, the elevator booth was released, freefalling towards the planet, bringing John into a state of zero gravity, floating with his feet mere centimeters above the place where he had just been standing. Pulling himself into the chair, he grabbed the harness, locking himself in.

As Sofia entered the control room, the image of the bloodied, disfigured remains of the Top Man caused her to drop her rifle and stumble back through the threshold and onto the floor of the hall. The hollowness of the vacant compartment of a recently released capsule howled through the cracked seals, flashing with a strobe of lights beside the other awaiting booths. The dim, sickly green glow illuminating the empty chairs seemed to be calling to her, as if to tell her they would lead her to John.

The vibratory sensation of the capsule as it became exposed to the friction of the inner planet’s atmosphere was brutal on the senses, bouncing John’s head against the thinly padded seat. As he leaned forward, attempting to gauge the distance to impact, the vehicle rotated upside down, initiating its reverse boosters, countering the gravitational pull exerted upon it.

Engulfed in blackness, the capsule’s hull was secured by mechanical landing machinery of the host planet’s docking system. Rotated right side up, the immediate vertigo John was experiencing resolved upon touchdown. The elevator’s door opened. Unlatching himself from the restraints, he walked out into a world of glowing haze and silhouetted jungle. Silent and humid, the cool, yellow lights of a building of unobservable detail glimmered from the windows a few meters from the landing port. Bringing his rifle to bear, John advanced toward its location. Shining his light into the shadows of the multi-story structure, he located an entrance just ahead.

The door flung open under the force of John’s booted foot, splintering the jam and ripping the knob from its core. An old man, facing away from him, was sitting in the shadows of the room upon an old leather couch, covered over with hose-like formations. It was difficult to discern what exactly surrounded him, but they seemed to move like snakes, slithering about his body.

“I knew you’d come, John,” the mysterious stranger said without looking behind him.

Closing the distance between them, the light of John’s rifle reflected off the grotesque image of wires and cables protruding from the sides of the humanoids head and spine. They appeared to be fused to his nervous system through the portals of his skin. His face was a pale-green distortion of death. His eyes were cold, lacking any pigmentation. As he turned to look upon John, his mouth began to
open.

“Neither Corona nor Arlington could achieve the greatness that each of them desired,” he said. “They were weak minded, foolish. I was once a young man like you, full of hatred and hell-bent on destroying everything around me. I stepped on everything in my path to reach the top. And you know what, John?” he continued. “There really is fulfillment there.”

As John moved around to the man’s front side, the shadows cowering from his face allowed him to see the timid, elderly gentleman, similar in demeanor to Mr. Sanders, sitting plump and helpless in his place. His hollow, gray eyes looked up to him, and John felt a saddened compassion for the disfigured man.

“You don’t recognize me do you?” the humanoid asked with a calming smile.

“Why should I?”

“I created you. I also chose you, guided you, sent you to war to fight and learn.”

“Are you the Savior?”

“Some say I am. I
am
in control of the Seven Worlds. They are mine, John. I have a connection with them, with all of nature. I supersede all mankind. My ancestors were men of war. Your ancestors were men of technology. Together they created me. Does that not make me the Savior?” the creature asked.

John did not answer. He did not know what to say to him. The light of his rifle blazed into the old man’s eyes. It should have been blinding, burning, but the pathetic
thing
just gazed into it without blinking or any appearance of pain.

“Why do you stare at me like that, John.”

“How do you know my name?”

“I know everything. With these,” he said, lifting his arms into the air, raising the cables off the floor. “I have access into every person’s life. Do you not think that I have the power to choose the destinies of man at will? I alone create and destroy. And I alone have chosen you to take the position as my
Top
Man
.”

Although the creature was a curious item, seemingly brilliant and genuine, John’s finger began to bear down on the trigger of his rifle.

“I don’t want anything to do with you,” he said.

“Oh, but you cannot kill me, my son. I’m the father you always wanted… unlike that
monster
back on Labor.”

The pressure of John’s finger began to release, as the man’s knowledge of him was becoming more revealing.

“And you, you are my heir. The son I’ve always wanted. Go ahead. See if you can kill me.”

John continued to stare at the grotesque being. He found it difficult to take his eyes off of it on account of its bizarre and novel appearance.

“You cannot, can you?” it said to him. “You need me, son. I need you. I need an iron-fisted man to be my prophet, as it were: to bring my message to the world.”

Taking aim at the center of the humanoid’s face, John intended to end its insanity. This was the final target, the last in line. There would be no more mountains that he would need to conquer. It would be the concluding act of his own story, his raison d’etre. But he could not get himself to depress the trigger, to release the hammer of his weapon. He was burning up inside. His desire was there, but his will to achieve was not. Removing his eye from the rifle’s sight, he eventually brought the weapon to a non-threatening posture, leaving the brightness of his flashlight as a shroud upon the god-man.

“I knew you couldn’t do it,” the creature smiled. “How could you possibly kill yourself? I’ve created within you everything I could never be, John. You will lead the worlds as I intended. You will be like a king. Sofia will be your queen. I will give you riches and honor among the sons of men. Just think about what all that entails: you will finally have the peace that you desire. Those that ruined your youth can be made to suffer. Come to me, my son. Let us enjoy the fruits of our labor together.”

The humanoid held his hand out to John saying, “Through me the worlds will bow down to you.”

John’s yearning for the peace, the escape from all the hardships that he and Sofia had endured, the authority he was being handed, the power to meet out punishment at will, was urging him to give
in.

“The masses will worship you, John.”

Taking hold of the cold, pale hand, submitting himself to the caricatured father figure sitting before him, John could not find a reason to refuse as he lowered himself to the knees of the flesh-covered deity.

With his head bowed down, he was unable to see the sinister smile that spread across the pale lips of the face of evil.

“And through you, they will worship
me
.”

A crack of gunfire scorched the air as John lifted his head to meet the splattering droplets of blood that splashed across his face: a witness to the exiting bullet boring a hole through the eye socket of his spiritual captor. Crumbling to the floor, the cables and wires that meshed with the cells of the dead man’s skin coiled and rolled along the ground. The planet began to rumble with fierceness, quaking violently and rolling like the waves of the sea.

Behind the couch, leaning against the splintered threshold, Sofia was propped up, weak and trembling. A thin stream of smoke streamed from the barrel of her pistol.

As if he had just awaken from a terrible dream, trying to determine which dimension was the true reality, John asked her, “Sofia, what did you do?”

The pistol fell from her fingers as she slid to the floor along the frame of the door, crying and grasping at her thigh.

“I heard you calling. I had to find you. He had you, dear. I know you couldn’t see it. But he had you. And I couldn’t allow it.”

Maneuvering through the softly packed snow while bearing Sofia up in his arms was like running knee deep through mud: John was making little progress while exerting the greatest effort. It had taken him hours to get her back up to the Island’s surface and out of the mansion’s maze of hallways.

The icy marble staircase, now several hundred meters behind them, had been a welcoming site upon exiting the front door of the compound, as it signaled the nearness of their escape. But the glacial air of the outdoors, at first a respite from the suffocating interior, was now taking its toll upon John’s legs, sucking out the much needed heat from them while causing his muscles to cramp and
stiffen.

Having made the descent of the steep slope, he knew that the transporter was somewhere nearby, concealed behind the veil of windblown snow. He and Sofia were a single, unified entity moving across the frigid wasteland. The culmination of the mission was just within reach.

“I’m so cold, John,” Sofia mumbled, her arms held limply about his neck with her face buried in the heavy padding of the chest of his jacket.

“Just a little further, girl. We’re almost there,” John panted, the steam of his breath twirling about his face. “I can see it. Almost there.”

Under a mound of powdery whiteness, the transporter’s deep, gray body was scarcely visible through its veiled covering. John cleared the entryway for Sofia, assisting her inside. Curled up in the fetal position, she was fast asleep the moment he shut the
door.

“Banks, this is John, do you copy?” he spoke into the mic.

There was no reply, just the same static return that he had been receiving for the past few hours. As he walked around the vehicle to the driver’s side door, John could not help but look back at the mansion’s glowing presence upon the distant hill. He wondered, with a hardened heart, what the outcome would have been had Sofia not killed the peculiar man of Black Heart.

Through the haze of swirling flakes, the transporter’s headlights reflected off of the airship’s hull as John and Sofia made their approach. Behind the static of his earpiece, John could make out the sounds of Banks’ voice. The closer that they moved to the air transporter, the clearer it became.

“John, this is Banks, do you copy?” the Captain’s voice came through with clarity.

Pinching the tab on his neck, John called out, “Banks! We’re inbound to the airship. Target: Top Man, eliminated. Target of unknown person, Black Heart, eliminated. How copy?”

There was a strange cross-chatter between Banks and an agent from Central, but John was unable to discern the specifics of their verbal exchange. After a moment Banks returned to him, “John, we need to make a run for it ASAP. Military is en route. You need to move fast. As soon as you’re onboard we’re lifting off, so make sure you two are secure for the ride.”

“Roger that,” John shot back.

Moaning under the pain that racked her nervous system, John could not understand why Sofia was so ill. The infection had been advancing rapidly, and John still had no knowledge of its destructive presence.

The bay doors were opening, bringing with it the fluorescent brightness of the interior lamps that haloed within the snowdrift, filtering through the windshield. The mechanical extension of the ship’s cargo ramp was in full swing. John could feel the anxiousness in his gut from being so close to freedom, so close to leaving the frozen world of the Island behind.

As he made the ascension, the lights flooding the interior of the airship felt welcoming and warm, even if they were not actually dispensing any heat. Skidding to a halt in the cargo bay, he hopped out of the vehicle, securing the tie-down straps to the
tracks.

“Banks, we’re in,” he shouted into the mic. “Get us out of here!”

The odd, incomprehensible cross-chatter between Banks and Central initiated once again, followed by the clear voice of the Captain sounding off in John’s ear.

“Ten seconds, John! Stay clear of the door,” he said with eerie calmness.

Climbing back inside their vehicle, John put his hand over Sofia’s ear as the rising drum of the firing engines, igniting with their brilliant flames outside, began their roaring escalation. Under the violent upheaval of the airship struggling to break free from the gravitational pull of the planet, Banks returned to the mic, “Mission complete. Are you ready to go home?”

Depressing the actuator of his microphone, John relaxed his head back in the chair, saying, “I’m ready to be done, Captain.”

With the airship reaching the outer atmosphere, the engines died down. The ride immediately became smooth and stable. Feeling the sensation of weightlessness slowly taking hold, John felt a sense of relief knowing that they had reached the emptiness of outer space.

“Banks,” he said. “When’s the debriefing?”

After another cross chatter session, the Captain returned, “We’ll worry about that later. Try to get some sleep, friend. Fighting for freedom can be exhausting work.”

Sleep. That was something John had not had a good dose of in a long time. He brushed his hand through Sofia’s wet hair. She was burning up, sweating profusely. He figured that a good rest would help to heal whatever it was that she had caught.

Watching the snow float in cakes of melting ice and spheres of liquid off the top of the engine’s hood, John could not help but think about how their little corner of the universe was on a path of change, hopefully for the better. But for now, philosophical inquiry was of no interest. Sleep sounded like the only good
proposition.

Settling himself into the seat, he was able to relax for the first time in years. To close his eyes without the images of death filling his mind was true freedom indeed.