Ah, the mysterious man – just who is he, and why is he trying to make Cydia collapse? There no way to know for sure right now, but it’s certain that he’s got a buch of conspirators behind him.

Word Count: 44,157

————————————————————————————————————————————————

I felt the cold barrel of a gun against the back of my neck. My snooping had gotten the best of me – a man had caught up with my from behind.

“Don’t move,” he said, “or I’ll send you away with one blow. No offense, of course.” I recognized that voice – but I couldn’t be sure who it was until I could turn around. But I couldn’t turn around, or my neck would be blown out, and I’d be sent straight to The Collective. I remained still, silent, unwavering, with the cold metal pressed to my artificial skin. It didn’t feel any less cold than it would have, even if I had been in my real body. It was always times like that when technology frightened me. I was beginning to forget what it was like to have a real body – the conveniences of the fetch were starting to feel commonplace.

I could sense my immortality. Part of me wanted this man to shoot me. After all, I had done something unforgivable. Breached a government facility and attacked several innocent workers – all for what cause? Was I going to save the planet on my own? What was I – who was I – against the massive injections of Taconic Rasase? And this man, with his cold gun barrel pressed against my neck, so cold it burned my skin, was he justice?

“You know,” he said, “I didn’t really consider you much of a threat. But I suppose I was wrong. I believe you’ve taken something that doesn’t belong to you. I recommend that you return it to its rightful place.”
I knew that voice. It was him – the prude shitbag who had tried to capture me. How had he found me?

“You must be wondering how I found you,” the well-coifed gentleman said in his most polite voice. “Do not underestimate The Collective, Vincent. I can see you everywhere; I can find you at any moment. I can travel wherever I please. There is no running, there is no escape.”

“But you didn’t foresee me getting this information?” I asked.

“The Collective is all-seeing, not all-knowing, I’m afraid. But it knows when to eliminate a threat.” He pressed the barrel of the gun harder against my neck. I heard his fingers grip the trigger tightly. But it was then I realized – this was not a Mu Gun. This was not the barrel of any gun I’d ever seen or felt. Even if it was standard issue, I thought I could use this observation to throw the man off while I escaped.

“What is that?” I asked.

“What?” The well-coifed man replied. “You won’t be able to trick me to save yourself.” He pressed the barrel of the gun even harder against me, creating a dent in my skin. A painful mark was being imbued in my neck, a bloody scar that I was sure I’d see later – if I lived to see it later. The blood trickled down my neck, cool from the gun’s metal, sending a shiver down my spine.

“This gun,” I said, in pain, “I don’t recognize it. What type of gun is it?”

“That’s none of your business,” he said. I could tell I had shocked him. The gun was clearly something special. I decided to continue to play off the gun and keep him busy; keep him from shooting me.

“I’m surprised you’d keep that information from me, if you’re just going to shoot me anyway. I’ll find out as soon as I assimilate, you know. Whatever little treasure you’re holding in your hand, that you so desperately want to destroy me with – I’ll know all about it, once I’m in your head. Why keep secrets, friend?”

“We all keep secrets from each other, when we have to. Even you… friend.” I felt the gun quiver. What could be so special about it that was making him waver in shooting me? I could feel the gun pull back slightly; he was trying to grip the trigger even tighter. But, for some reason, he couldn’t find the resolve to fire the weapon. Not yet. But how long would that last?

————————————————————————————————————————————————

Curie was strapped to a heavy table. He could still see, straight up. Several men rushed around him, holding wires off all colors and lengths, connecting them to far-off devices. From the ceiling, Curie’s face stared down at him. He could see his whole body, his pitiful body, laying helpless on the metal sheet. He could see all of the activity going on in the room – including several men at a tall, blocky machine, no less than twenty scientists studying various cell cultures, and a scientist walking toward him, carrying a stiff bundle of cables.

What’s that man doing with a bundle of connector cables? he thought. But there was no time to think – the man had arrived, and was already working to attach the cable to the ports on Curie’s neck. The entire room worked silently – Curie couldn’t even hear the footsteps of the scientists as they worked. They connected the cables to him without noise. They spoke to each other, and yet made not a sound.

Curie wanted to clear out his ears, but couldn’t move his hands. Suddenly, his eyesight cut out – now he couldn’t see or hear anything in the room. All he could do was feel. A sharp pain shot through his neck and down to his stomach, a pain which he had never experienced before and could not describe to anyone, even if he tried. This pain continued for hours, or minutes, or days – he could not tell how long. His entire world was nothing but pain, caused by these demons in their lab coats! Or were they even still experimenting on him?

Curie’s fetch had been, for some time, the subject of various experiments. He had been pulled in and out of consciousness at least a dozen times by now, but had never lost control of his own senses. His body had been shocked, beaten, scraped and scratched, stretched and torn, and never had anyone answered a single one of his questions. There was no way for him to escape this torment, this seemingly mindless ritual the workers forced him through. Soon after he lost his eyesight, he began to give up; his body, tired and weak from distress, refused to struggle any longer against the straps that held it.

He lay there, limp and helpless. His mind still begging for a savior. The connector cables lodged in his neck, doing God-knows-what to his body.

Suddenly, his eyesight returned. The blinding light of first sight made him scream out in pain and shut his eyes. He tried to move his hands to his face to cover it, but his arms were still bound. After a minute or so, he began to open his eyes again and adjust to the light of the room. It was the same as before. How long had he been blind? Men were still walking about the room, tinkering with machines, moving connector cables in and out of the various ports behind his neck. Again, his hands remained lifeless. His body still.

For the first time in his life, Adam Curie had given up.

————————————————————————————————————————————————

The gun still pressed to my neck, I had to think of a way to distract him – perhaps even get the gun away from him. Luckily for me, I didn’t need to think too much – after a minute and a half of silence, him holding the trigger tightly, millimeters away from firing, there was a loud crash in the distance. Footsteps. Screaming. People were running, and in our direction to boot.

While the well-coifed man had been distracted by the noise, I bent down and doubled back around him, knocking the gun out of his hand. Just as I did so, he finally pulled the trigger; I heard a loud noise, and an object flew out of the gun, ricocheting off of the walls and sending sparks flying. It grazed the man’s right cheek, sending oil dripping down his face and neck.

He was in a fetch, too. That meant I didn’t have to worry about harming him – he’s survive, no matter what I did. As quickly as I could, I picked up the gun and turned the tables on him, holding the barrel up underneath his chin, prepared to fire upwards into his mouth. His head twitched at the chill of the metal and tried to move away, but I followed him wherever his neck turned.

“Yeah, I thought so,” I said. “This gun is pretty weird. Tell me about it, won’t you?” Now that I had the upper hand, I could try and verify the information I’d just gathered from the terminals in the other room – but I had to work fast, before whatever caused the commotion down the hall was headed our way, and I didn’t want to be here whenever its rampage arrived.

“The gun is none of your business,” the man said, unwavering. “There are certain things people like you don’t need to know, including the information you gathered in that room. I suggest you return it before you become a wanted criminal.” At this, I couldn’t help but laugh – here I was, about to be forcibly assimilated into a neural network, then potentially burned as fuel, and this man wanted me to worry about becoming a criminal! “Fine, shoot me if you must! I suppose I deserve it, in your eyes.”

“Guy,” I said, still not knowing his name, “I don’t even know what you’ve done. Not really. All I know is that you know that I’ve done something – something that you don’t like. I’m just defending myself while looking for answers. If you’ve got them, perhaps I won’t shoot you.”

I thought again of Maiya, how she probably would never have hesitated to shoot this man. Even if I had gotten the information out of him at that moment, I doubt I would have shot him. My hand began to tremble slightly; I didn’t have much time left to extract what I could from this man.

“I told you, shoot me if you must.”

“Tell me what you’re doing with the rasase injections first. Then, perhaps, I will liberate your soul. For now, you’re stuck here with me, and you’re not going anywhere until I know what’s going on down here.”

Suddenly, I felt the man begin to move. He raised his hand up to my arm, which had been wrapped around his chest, and began to pry his way out of my grip. Yet, there was a calm to his movements; he did not speak, he did not stress his body, he simply pushed my arm and the gun away from him so that he could step away. Like a fool, I practically let him escape my grasp. Free, he turned around and looked down. Brushed his suit off with his hands, then looked at me – right into my eyes, calm as could be.

“I can only assume you know what you want to know already, and that talking to me is merely a formality.”

“Well, that’s what I’m here to find out.” Realizing I still had the gun, I raised it up with both hands, tightening my grip on the handle, pointing it at his forehead. The man, still unfazed, continued to speak.

“Taconic Rasase is an enzyme that dissolves Taconic Slate, breaking it down into its key elements. As the structural stability of the slate mines has decreased,” he went on, “there has been a rather extensive push by the Cydian government to find living situation for the planet in the event of a catastrophic failure, especially for those living in the mines. This, you could say, is my solution – though I’ve been acting fairly independently.”

“Your solution?” I asked.

“Yes. Did you not hear me before? The Collective is my creation; everything you have seen and experienced of it was my doing. Now, you probably assume it was with malicious intent, but I assure you that my intentions are good. Everybody shall benefit from this. Perhaps you cannot yet see it…”