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All Good Things, Part 3:
Wulfgar's internal log, final entry:
I stood there, slowly recalling the events of the last few days. There was something horribly wrong with the way that Parca Mortem was speaking to me.
"El Jefe? Are you all right?"
More surprised was I to hear my voice reply to him.
"Aye, Mortem. It was...nothing. Just a passing fancy. I can't feel him the way that I feel the others. Why, Mortem, WHY? I know that he's there! I felt him pour in...and then...nothing..."
"El Jefe, that is to be expected at this time — unlike the others, he is more...self-possessed. That is why you wanted him, si? To command the Voices?"
As the cadaverous, skull-faced scientist spoke, I began to get a sense of being within a dark, cavernous dungeon. I "felt" others nearby — they began to speak...
"Brother, we are lost."
"Brother, we are alone."
"Brother, we are Broken."
"Brother, we are Dead."
"Join us, Brother..."
"Mortem, I hear them calling him-" I saw what were ostensibly my hands grab the mummy-like Peruvian madman by the front of his lab-coat, "-what am I to do-!"
"Calm yourself, Jefe; HIS desire to exert control and to command others will be triggered by them, and he will, in order to preserve his own sanity (and as a by-product, yours), have to take control of them. You should still be able to access their memories and skills, but the personality bleed-over should end. Think of all that accumulated knowledge, Jefe!!!"
It was maddening; I felt myself awash with memories of love, life, combat, hopes, death-I was Carnaby, my neck broken by rogue sumo wrestlers-NO!-I was Ringo, stuffed into Mons Meg- NO!-I was Logan, cut down in a crossfire between the Mossad and ScotIntel Black Ops forces- NO-I was Aragorn, slowly suffocating as the air in my diving-suit turned foul...
"NO!" I ‘shouted' inside ‘my' head-"I'm Wulfgar-Wulfgar010!!!" and I remembered...
...We'd left Joyleaf and her family behind and we secretly crossed over the Canadian border, keeping to the old rum-runners' roads.
"You seem pensive, Milord Wulfgar." This from Lady Eboshi.
"Nay, lass-just thinkin'", I responded.
She laughed. "This One believes that you did that on purpose."
"Sh!" said I, "tha' would ruin muh reputation!"I studied her face-"I'm stumped. Lass. Who air ye?"
:"Oh, Milord, that take all the fun out of it for This One!" She smiled. "You knew This One as Sylia Stingray."
Sylia Stingray! My mind reeled a bit. We'd been...friends...in Japan, but duty had called me away. I'd left her my lucky wolfskin cloak as a remembrance.
"God's teeth, lass, ye seem sae different-!"
"This One has been through many changes, Milord." She had a strange, sad expression on her face. "Would that things had turned out differently-"
"Aye. So there's nae-"
"None, Milord. This One serves Master leary's cause now..."
"Aye-" I saw my sib returning from scouting ahead.
"Brother, I have found the SecureMaxx compound." There was blood on his duster.
"What's this, boy?" I said, indicating the reddish-purple ichor.
"One of Ms. Joyleaf's ‘bears'" he said, calmly, "It shall not trouble us further."
With that, we passed through the underbrush to a small bluff overlooking a fenced-in area. It was double-hurricane fence, with concertina-wire secured atop it. We waited until nightfall to make our attempt.
It was child's play to bypass the fence and the electronic security systems. We made our way through the place, until we found an unoccupied office that held a computer. Zero checked out the system, hacking into the database.
"I've found a floor-plan to this place, and there are cells containing our sibs located on a lower level...here...", he announced, indicating the image on the screen.
"Well, old boy, that was fast."
"It was rather simple, Mr. Branagh."
"This One opines that it may be a trap."
"Quite right, Lady Eboshi. Perhaps Mr. Branagh and I should take the point on this, and scout ahead."
"Nay, Ms. Phan, ‘tis nae gude tae separate."
"That's right", said Richard sardonically, "haven't you ever watched any spy movies? Five'll get you ten that anyone that goes on ahead of the others will be found as dead as Bond's CIA buddy."
"Let's roll."
Following the print-out that Zero had made, we found the cells. It was a ghastly scene. 'Monica' and 0-1-0 were filthy, bruised, and semi-delirious. 0-1-0 (or "Owen" as ‘Monica' preferred) was curled into a fetal ball, clothing rent here and there, showing off the cyberware that made it possible for him to walk, speak, and breathe. Wires were torn, almost extruded out of his arms and legs. Branagh used an old MI6 trick to short out the security systems on their cells. It wasn't until I smelled the peculiar scent of the Black Lotus that I heard the hiss of gas escaping from hidden vents in the walls.
-I struggled against the clawed fingers of my unseen assailants as the flood of memories nigh- o'erwhelmed me, but I shrugged them off-
When (in my memory) I opened my eyes, I found myself staring into the grinning skull-like features of Parca Mortem. I was strapped into something that looked like a cross between a glass octopus and the lab set from MARY SHELLY'S FRANKENSTEIN.
"Ah, so you are awake, si? El Jefe will be pleased that we took you without damage. It is unfortunate about the Asian woman-"
"What d'ye mean, ye shite?!?" I cursed at him as I struggled against the straps.
"Please don't do that. You insult my professionalism. You are too well strapped in to get free. The lady? She must have gotten too intense a dose of the Black Lotus gas. She never recovered consciousness. Ah, well, a small loss in a big operation, si?", he rubbed his hands together,
"You are going to help make history, clone."
-I found (in the here and now) the weak places in the armour of my foes in the dark dungeon, and exploited them, bringing them low, one at a time-in my memories, I could see the rest of the lab-
It held the requisite numbers of goons with guns, white-coated techs, torture equipment, genetic monstrosities awaiting the time when they would be decanted from their cybercreches-
Then I saw HIM.
"I', i' cannae be!"
"Hello, my offspring."
Standing before me was a near-mirror-image of myself. He was a trifle heftier, muscles a touch better-defined, but unmistakably ME.
"Which one are YE?!?" I spat.
"Oh, Mortem, do you hear the spirit in him? Ho! This is as good as I'd hoped!"
"Si, Jefe."
"My boy", the mirror-Wulf said, "I am the First."
"Nowt th' Progenitor, ye're not-he died in Canada when he retired-"
"I know, boy; I killed him myself. I am the First, soon-to-be-only, example of the Thirteenth Knight program." He grimaced, as if in pain, and his features distorted horribly; he drew a gun reflexively, and began firing. Two techs fell, and some equipment sparked and smoked slightly. Mortem nimbly danced around this mad scene, deftly extracting and using an inoculation-gun- like device to inject the raving gunman with a dose of bluish fluid.
The killer's face cleared, and he put away the pistol. The corpses were removed, and other techs took their places. Repairs were made on the machinery.
"There, Jefe, that should do for a few hours..."
"Do you see what I must put up with, boy?"
"What th; Divvil was tha' display aboot?!?"
"One of your predecessors, or sibs, struggling against my control-the ungrateful bastard."
"What-"
"It was...inconvenient...to have him, and all the rest of you, running around mucking about with things. The lot of you might have tumbled to my plans. I had him, and the others, killed, and their wonderful memories and skills downloaded from their ‘biotracers'. They had so much useful information inside their heads-I couldn't just let it all go to waste. The downside is that their personalities came along with them."
"But WHY", came a familiar voice from behind him, "do you need Wulfgar? This HAS all been an elaborate plot to get him into your hands, right? But one man couldn't be that much of a threat to your plans-"
Richard! He was alive (and as peevish as ever, it sounded like), and possibly the others, as well.
"Ah, Professor, so good of you to join us. It is a shame about the Princess and the big Russian- but he was a traitor, and she-"
"WHAT?!? You sonofabitch! You mean-? If my hands were free, I'd-"
"Oh, Professor, I would expect such low-class threats from THIS one (indicating me), but not from so educated a man as yourself. Do not become tiresome; you may live to see the morrow. Yes, it was my men, Homeboy and Dick Stroker that ‘took them out'-although it was supposed to be Branagh and Phan."
I could see the rage in Richard's face as he was brought forwards; Ms. Phan, Branagh, Zero, ‘Monica', and 0-1-0 (who had reverted to his earlier fetal position, cyberwires glinting in the harsh laboratory light) were with him. I could see the look of wheels turning behind his eyes.
"I think that I've got it, now. You mad BASTARD."
"Richard", Philm Phan said, "what do you mean?"
"Simple. Crazy, but simple; we saw what happened when one of the buried personalities surfaced-that can't be good for morale, and it probably endangers whatever loony plans that ‘Highlander Jr.' has. So he's going to have Dr. Caligari here download Wulfgar into his pointy head, in the vain hope that Wulfgar will run interference, to quell the raging spirits that dwell within him. Christ, I feel stupid for even SAYING that."
"I quite agree, Old Bean; that sounds madder than an old MARVELMAN or DAN DARE story. You might see it on DR. WHO, mind you..." Branagh piped up.
"It shall work; it MUST. That's why you scum (the First spat at my sibs) shall continue to draw breath; he (indicating me-I could see his gestures becoming more jerky and grandiose) shall master the others, and control them so that they interfere not with my plans. If he turns on me, or refuses, my men will torture you to death...slowly."
Zero spoke:"Mr. Branagh is correct. This is utterly mad; what leads you to believe that my brother will retain enough of his strength of character to command the ‘Others'?"
"DO NOT QUESTION ME!!! I should have you fed to the mantids, or the horned bears.
"Mantids?"
"Yessss, the mantids-do you mock them?"
"I do not even know what they are."
"Well, then, see for yourself!" With that, Mortem pulled out what looked like a beeper, depressed a button, and a panel in one of the walls slid aside, revealing several 7' tall insectoid...things. One of them stalked out from this niche, slowly making its deliberate way to Mortem.
"Isn't it lovely? It's made of biological components-I grew them myself in the vats, and assembled them, like a clock-radio."
The thing had an armoured exoskeleton, a triangular head with large eyes and many-bladed mouth-parts, and six limbs-two for locomotion, two with manipulative digits (like boneless three-fingered hands) and a pair of large scything blades above these.
"It's a biological robot, in a sense-and it shall revolutionize warfare."
"YES, YES, IT WILL BE WONDERFUL!!! Thousands shall fall before them, screaming their last as they are scythed out of existence-!" the sweat stood out on the First's forehead as he raved.
"Jefe, do not let yourself become agitated-adrenaline reduces the efficacy of the synthetic hormones that suppress the ‘Others'."
The mad First grunted, and looked directly into my eyes. "Well, Mortem", he said. "Start the procedure, then...
(To Be Concluded...)
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