novelraw Chapter 215 - The Convergence of Wills, Pt. 4
Chapter 215 - The Convergence of Wills, Pt. 4
Chapter 215
The Convergence of Wills, Pt. 4The holo feed from Dubai dominated Marcus’s viewing chamber, the press conference playing in crisp definition across the curved glass. He’d switched the curved glass wall to full opacity twenty minutes ago, blocking the assembly hall entirely. The debate about AEGIS could wait. What was happening in Dubai could not. He knew many of the representatives would be doing the same.
Guang stood at his left shoulder, arms folded, watching the feed. Hahn remained at the door.
Marcus had listened to Khalida’s entire presentation without moving. She was masterful. Every charge laid with precision, every piece of evidence timed to maximize impact. The cooperative investigation lie injected elegantly, so much so that even he would have missed it had he not already known the truth. The Priscilla Gant callout was vicious.
Then Alexander Rooke had taken the podium and torn the veil off the Prophecy of Eight.
Marcus closed his eyes.
The irony of the timing was not lost on him. Eight years. Eight years of careful management, of balancing factions within the UEG, of keeping the evacuation programs quiet while fighting for resources to aid the construction of shelters and expand emergency response budgets for those that remained. And in twenty minutes, a supervillain with a flair for the dramatic had burned it all to the ground on live television.
He couldn’t even be angry. As far as he was concerned, the man was right. Plenty of the UEG’s representatives thought so. They were just always a minority.
“Councilor,” Guang said quietly. “Something’s wrong.”
Marcus opened his eyes. On the feed, Alexander was holding out his hand toward one of his seated companions. His hand froze mid-gesture.
Someone was clapping.
Marcus watched the man in the grey suit applaud. Watched Priscilla Gant turn in confusion. Saw her go still, unnaturally so.
Then the man spoke. His voice carried clearly, and something about it made Marcus’s skin crawl.
“Ugh. The only reason I even came to this pretentious display was to see if the Machine God and the Dragon Lord were going to reveal some clue to how we become Divine.”
Marcus paled. He knew that voice. Not the timbre, nor the pitch. But the cadence. The casual arrogance. The way every word was delivered as though the speaker was enduring a conversation beneath them.
He’d heard it around conference tables. In briefings. Within the Assembly Hall. Never face to face, though.
On screen, Alexander trapped the man inside an orange spherical barrier.
Marcus leaned forward. That was the tech gifted to Rooke on the Nexus. But there was no way it could end that easily. The man who’d fought passionately to establish and lead the Global Oversight Liaison Directorate, followed by the Augmented Entity Governance & Investigative Service, was not passive. He did nothing without a dozen plots buried within a series of plans.
The Executor grinned. Then exploded.
Marcus jerked back on the sofa.
“What the fuck?” Guang muttered.
Priscilla Gant’s head snapped backward. Blood sprayed from her mouth, followed by an arm that began to pull the rest of its body out.
Marcus looked away. But he’d seen enough. The pieces fell into place.
Nine years since the establishment of GOLD with Executor Jacobs at its head. The Panama Vampire incident, which led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, had given AEGIS global legitimacy and power in its wake.
All caused by the most notorious monster since the birth of superhumans.
“Guang.”
“Sir?”
“That’s Jacobs.”
Guang’s arms unfolded. “The Executor?”
“Yes. And also the Panama Vampire.” Marcus’s jaw tightened. “The investigation reported that he could turn anyone that came into contact with his blood. That the…” He trailed off as he recalled a fragment of memory. “‘That the lost could be turned anytime their prophet called.’ I remember reading that in a report.”
Guang blinked at him. “How could anyone miss such an obvious fucking clue?”
“Because it predated the Prophecy of Eight. We weren’t looking for it then…” Marcus swallowed. “He’s had years as the head of GOLD and AEGIS. He’s… he’s shaken hands. Held secret meetings. It’s given him access to representatives. Superheroes. Government officials.”
When he looked back, the feed had devolved into chaos. People were screaming, some in fear, others in pain. Heroes and villains stood back to back, struggling to hold off the Lost, their eyes filled with blood and fighting with a fury that defied the fact that they were already dead.
An alert chimed.
Marcus glanced up at it. Then frowned. One of the viewing chambers was reporting the sudden loss of one of the occupants’ vital signs.
Another alert chimed. Then another. Then three more in rapid succession, each from different sealed chambers. More followed.
Marcus jumped to his feet. “Computer, display internal feeds for chamber 17.”
“Denied. As per section—”
“Override. Galactic Councilor authority. Thorne. Marcus. X-dash-12041.”
“Authorization accepted. Displaying internal feed of chamber 17.”
A new feed replaced the live stream of the events taking place in Dubai. Inside the representatives’ chamber, a woman was busy tearing the throat out of a man.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Marcus recognized the married couple immediately.
The door to the room slid open, and a guard stepped in, responding to the alert. The woman threw back her head and screeched, then closed the distance faster than humanly possible. She crashed into the guard, and they both disappeared as the automatic door slid closed.
“Computer, display chambers with active emergency alerts.”
“Displaying. Warning. Too many feeds to display at once. Cycling feeds.”
Chambers flashed one after another. Many were already empty, though smears of blood told the story in full. In others, people were attempting to fight off those who had, just seconds earlier, been friends or colleagues or loved ones.
“Sir.” Guang’s voice was steel. “We have to leave. Immediately.”
Marcus closed the feeds. His hands were shaking.
“What… is… happening?” Hahn asked from behind them, his voice choked.
Marcus shook his head. “The Executor played everyone.”
A grunt from behind made them turn.
Hahn was bent forward, one hand pressed against the side of his head. His left eye was twitching, the iris bleeding red from the outside in.
Guang moved instantly, placing himself between Hahn and Marcus. His posture shifted, weight dropping, hands open at his sides.
“Hahn.” Guang’s voice carried the edge of something more than authority. “I Command you. Fight it.”
Hahn groaned. He began to shake as sweat broke across his forehead in an instant. “I’m... trying... sir...” His voice came through clenched teeth. “I can feel it moving inside me. Taking control.”
Guang looked at Marcus. “How does it work? The vampire’s power.”
Marcus’s mind raced. “I don’t know! We never caught him, because he was the fucking Executor.” Then his eyes widened. “But there are records from Panama. The medical reports on the victims all showed foreign clumps of blood concentrated in the organs. The heart and the brain in particular. Blood that didn’t match the victim’s blood type.”
Guang turned back to Hahn. He took one step forward, hand extended.
“Hahn. Focus the infected blood into your right hand.”
Hahn’s face contorted. “I... Guang, I don’t know how to...”
“My orders don’t require you to know how,” Guang said. His voice had changed. Deeper. Resonant. Carrying a weight that pressed against the air itself. “Only that it can be done. Now, hold out your right hand.”
Hahn’s arm raised. Not voluntarily. The muscles moved against themselves, fighting and obeying simultaneously. His hand extended, trembling, fingers splayed. Beneath the skin, something shifted. Dark lines crawled along the veins, converging from his arm, his shoulder, his chest, all flowing downward, concentrating into his hand. His fingers darkened. The skin took on a bruised, mottled quality that hadn’t been there seconds ago.
Guang made a single slashing motion with his hand.
“Be cut.”
Hahn’s hand separated at the wrist. Clean. Instant. As though an invisible blade had passed through bone and flesh without resistance. The hand hit the floor with a wet sound, the darkened fingers still twitching.
Blood spurted from the stump. Hahn screamed, grabbing at his wrist, staggering back against the wall.
Guang caught him by both sides of his head, forcing Hahn to meet his eyes. The remaining red in Hahn’s left eye was fading, the natural color bleeding back in.
“I Command you to heal. Quickly. We have to move.”
Hahn’s scream cut to a groan as the stump began closing over. Skin crawled across the wound, sealing it in seconds that should have taken weeks. The color drained from Hahn’s face. His body sagged, suddenly carrying the exhaustion of a man whose body had spent nearly every reserve of its energy.
But his eyes were clear.
Guang released him, turned to Marcus. “We go. Now.”
Marcus was already at the door. He pressed his palm to the panel and the seal disengaged with a hiss. The open floor at the end of the hallway beyond was a nightmare.
Two people grappled against the far wall, one pinning the other while blood poured from its mouth into the screaming face beneath. Further down, a woman in a delegate’s formal attire sprinted on all fours, her movements wrong, too fast, joints bending in directions they shouldn’t. A security guard lay motionless near the intersection, his face ripped free of the skull beneath.
Marcus froze.
Guang stepped past him into the corridor. “You move only when I move. Stay right on my heels.” He glanced over his shoulder. “And do everything I say. I will get us out of here.”
He drew a breath, planted his feet, and spoke.
“Absolute Command: Stillness.”
The words hit the air like a shockwave. Everything stopped. The grappling figures locked mid-struggle. The sprinting woman froze in a position that defied gravity, one hand and one foot on the ground, the others suspended. Blood that had been arcing through the air hung in droplets, vibrating intensely. Even the security guard’s pooling blood ceased its spread, the edge of the dark stain struggling against some invisible containment.
The air itself stuttered, slowed, thickened. But then kept moving.
Marcus couldn’t, though. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t blink.
Guang reached back and touched his shoulder. Then Hahn’s. The paralysis released like a rubber band snapping, and Marcus gasped, stumbling forward.
Hahn caught himself against the wall with his remaining hand, breathing hard, eyes wide as he took in the frozen horror around them.
“It won’t last long,” Guang said. His face was tight, beaded with sweat. “Let’s go. We’re making a break for the shuttle and getting off-world.”
They ran. Past frozen bodies. Past blood suspended in the air. Past open chamber doors that revealed the deaths of most of the United Earth Government’s leadership.
Then they burst through the building’s main entrance into the open air and daylight.
A concrete walkway stretched ahead, flanked by manicured gardens and low hedgerows. Flowerbeds lined the path in neat rows, untouched by the carnage inside. The flags of every nation on Earth stood in a wide circle around the assembly complex, their fabric snapping in the alpine breeze.
Above them, two superhumans collided in midair, the shockwave rattling windows across the building’s facade. A third streaked upward from the rooftop, eyes blazing red, chasing a fourth who was trying to gain altitude. Somewhere out of sight, something detonated, sending a column of smoke rising above the treeline.
Guang didn’t look up. Didn’t slow. He moved with the focus of a man who had decided which threats were his problem and which were not.
Marcus followed, keeping close. Hahn stumbled after them, running on fumes and willpower.
The private landing pad sat at the end of the walkway, separated from the main complex by a security gate that Guang simply collided with, tearing through the mesh and ripping the gate free. He peeled it off and tossed it to the side.
The shuttle waited on the pad, sleek and dark, the Galactic Council seal etched into its hull.
Guang slapped the external panel. The entrance ramp descended and the hatch slid open.
He was inside before it finished lowering, spinning on his heel and seizing Marcus by the arm to haul him up the ramp. Hahn came through a few seconds later, nearly falling over the threshold before catching himself on a bulkhead.
“Pilot.” Guang’s voice filled the cabin. “Take off. Make for the jump limit and set course for the Nexus. Now.”
The pilot didn’t question it. The ramp sealed, the hatch locked, and the shuttle lifted with barely a tremor. Through the viewport, the assembly complex fell away beneath them, the circle of national flags shrinking into a ring of color against green lawns and grey concrete. The smoke was visible from above. So were the flashes of light where superhumans fought in the sky below.
Marcus watched it disappear. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Then he murmured, “No.”
Guang turned from the cockpit. “What do you mean, no?”
Marcus met his gaze. The shaking in his hands had stopped. His voice was steady for the first time since witnessing Priscilla Gant die.
“We’re going to Dubai.”
Guang stared at him. The muscles in his jaw worked. His eyes flicked to Hahn, slumped in a seat, then back to Marcus.
“他妈的,” he said quietly.