Simon and Alex returned to the main hall to find Paul and Anthony grieving helplessly over their fallen brother. They knelt in Luke’s blood, their hands hovering impotently above his lifeless form. Alex and Simon came and stood at their eldest brother’s feet. For a time, they were all transfixed.
Alex was the first to speak, cutting through Paul’s sobs, his tone empathetic, but distant.
“It is tragic that once more we are subjected to a bitter loss. However, this time we can take some satisfaction in the knowledge that he died for a cause. He died making a difference in this world. We will always remember him. Perhaps one day we will even be privileged enough to feel the impact of what he began,” he placed a hand on Anthony’s shoulder, “Wrap up the body; we need to move. Where was the surveillance room?”
Anthony stared in horrified awe at his younger brother. He gestured, mouth agape, eyes glazed, to the upper levels. Alex marched off towards his objective without looking back. The others remained in silence for a short while afterwards, then set about doing Ultor’s bidding.
*
Upon Alex’s prompting, the brothers disposed of Luke’s corpse in an inferno of their making. They found a hut at the edge of a landfill in the outer hovels and torched the place. The flames raged until nothing remained but ash.
*
Simon and Alex propped themselves against the steel railings of a broad walkway, spanning the gap between two of the metropolis’s numerous high-rise skyscrapers. From their vantage point they had a perfect view of one of the many shopping districts which formed between the massive residential blocks like moss between stones.
With the massive surge in population growth, everything seemed to have grown to accommodate. Buildings were taller than mountains, and dispersed more densely than the trees in the few remaining forests. Lights pricked almost every inch of concrete, blaring garish advertisements, attempting in vain to chase the darkness away from a city that lived in its own shadows. Whilst lances of puce-tinged illumination reached out of apartment windows, testifying to the existence of yet more masses concealed in the pockmarks of the giant metal and stone monoliths. Countless shops and pseudo-food outlets had spawned to accommodate the vast herds of people. It was as if the soil itself yielded fields of asphalt, bulbs of light, rather than flowers, and its weeds were disconcertingly happy vendors, who blossomed with words of bargains and ‘special prices’ on their tongues. Nature had for a long time taken the side-line and watched as man demonstrated its remarkable art of systematic expansion and destruction.
Alex leaned back and drew in a deep breath.
“Depressing, isn’t it? So many souls, and yet this place is utterly soulless.”
Simon nodded absently. He could tell his brother was gearing himself up to approach the matters they had collectively tried to ignore for the past few days.
“You caught my eye in there, Simon,” Alex waited, but his brother gave no response, “You were different to the others; more determined, more active.”
“I did what had to be done.”
“That’s precisely my point. I know what the others say and think of me. They think I have become obsessed with the idea of revenge,” he gripped the railing, “They think I enjoyed handing out retribution.”
“Didn’t you?”
Alex gazed down at the ocean of heads.
“Absolutely. I enjoyed every second,” he held up a halting finger, “but not, as you may think, because I relish the slaughter. Pain, suffering, misery, I hate to see them as much as any. I enjoyed what we did because for once I was making a difference. These hands finally worked for good! They worked for the people, not just for themselves.”
Simon frowned watching his brother curiously out of the corner of his eye. The vacant expression Alex wore, the distance to him, suggested he was losing himself again in a realm of memory and fantasy.
“I did what had to be done.,’” Alex parroted, “I could not have said it better myself. Anthony, Paul, they don’t see it the same way. They think it’s someone else’s problem. They think this is all someone else’s mess to clean up; we didn’t cause it, so why should we be the ones to sort it out? They are right, in a way, but if everyone buries their head in the sand then what hope do we have?
“Change is required. The world, the people, the government, everything cries out for change. We have plummeted. As a species our efficiency has led to complacency, and those who cannot build towards progress instead find pleasure in destruction. It has become a hobby to mar what those before us strived to nurture and build,” he tapped some inane graffiti his hand happened to be resting on, “We need to strip it down and start again. This is no longer about us. This is no longer about you, me, Luke, mother, father. This is about duty. As a person, I am not proud of myself, but as servant to this city? I am overjoyed that a start has been made. I think you see it that way too, or at least are beginning to.”
Simon wasn’t ready to buy in just yet.
“You think that people really want more death and destruction on their plates? These people just want a peaceful life,” he gestured down towards the bustling streets.
“Something needs to be done, and violence seems to be the only thing they understand. The approach may seem cruel, but that is because you are still looking from the perspective of the individual. As awful as it may sound, we must become objective. We must supersede morality so that we may better understand it. If a few lives are the price the world must pay for balance, then this is no real loss. If a decade of terror is what these people must endure so that our children may finally know true peace, then that too is acceptable. A peaceful life is not something that can be chosen, it is something that must be worked for,” Alex looked pained, “It is like I said, we can’t be people in this. We must embody ideas. Nobody here will know real happiness until we root out the inherent evils in our society. Sadly, the time to achieve that through words and diplomacy has passed. Now it will take someone to be the villain in order to teach the villain. It is a kind of tough love, brother. Lavish presents upon a child and he will become spoilt and greedy, sometimes punishment is the kinder gift.’
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
For a long time nothing was said. The first heavy raindrops from the bleak grey sky began to sound on the metal grating behind them.
“Why us?”
“Why not anyone? We may say to ourselves that we started off with a reason, with a purpose dear to our hearts, but in truth everyone has as much reason as the next person. We aren’t special. I have no delusions of grandeur, no god complex. It falls to us because we accept it, and as soon as others begin to accept it then it shall fall to them also.”
“Simon Blanc, ‘saviour’. It’s got a nice ring to it, but somehow I don’t think that’s going to be received all too well.”
“Not Simon. Not anymore. You are our Polias! You are our city protector. In the past, the title was bestowed upon the gods of old. Now it belongs to the world’s new gods - man. Take a good look around, Polias. There is much to be done.”
With that, Alex left. A smile and the charge of all of Tartarus were his parting gifts.
When Simon could no longer hear the dull thud of metal on metal, he took another look into the rash of people teeming on the surfaces below him. He surveyed the domain for which he was now responsible.
*
An awkward silence pervaded, like a joke had failed to land.
Paul fidgeted awkwardly, nervous scratching the only sound that could be heard in the cramped living room.
Finally, after it became clear that Alex was not going to respond to any amount of glaring, Anthony spoke up, “This is fucking crazy. You’re God damn crazy.” he growled, holding out an accusing finger, “We know what you’re suggesting, and the answer is no. In fact, it’s hell no. We did it once, and we paid for it. We’re not doing it again.”
Alex shook his head, exaggerating the movement to drive home the extent to which he felt let down and yet not at all surprised by his brother’s uncooperativeness.
“Brother, you lack vision. I have seen you rush into the road to aid a pedestrian struck by a car. That is the kind of caring, selfless individual you are. You would risk your life for others. The principle here is the same! The playing field has just been enlarged, and there is far more at stake than a single life,” Alex edged forward and placed a loveless hand on his brother’s shoulder, “I understand your scepticism. I understand your fear even. Don’t you realise though that matters will only get worse? We must change the course of things. We owe it to world, to the people,” he paused, “ We owe it to those we’ve lost.”
An involuntary shudder coursed through Simon upon hearing the insincerity in Ultor’s voice. The tactic was one of clear manipulation, but apparently it struck a nerve with Anthony.
“I can’t do it. We can’t do it. We’re not cops, we’re not senators. We’re nothing when it comes down to it. We don’t make the rules, we’re just the ones who get trodden on by them.”
Ultor began to pace painfully slowly, “Do we not all have a responsibility to uphold these laws, as well as abide by them? Who better to decide the fate of people than the people? If the institutions you mention were performing their allotted tasks, then I would need not even entertain this idea, but you know as well as I that power has fallen from its traditional seat.”
“Maybe it has, but it certainly hasn’t fallen to us. I’m not dying for your ideas, and I’m not going to watch you lot get yourselves killed.”
“They are not my ideas, Anthony. If they were my ideas. I would keep quiet and leave them in the confines of my head where they belong. But these are the ideas of man. Justice is an idea implemented upon man, by man. Ethics is a device to create order and harmony among people, by people, for people. These are all ideas put in place by our predecessors so that we may work, live, strive and progress with one another. It pains me to see that mankind has crumbled to such an extent that it cannot even abide by its own basic principles.
“Alas, self-obsession and gratification are the driving forces behind today’s man, and it is no longer in the interest of the one to consider the many. The idea of unity has been overruled by the greed of the individual, and so long as this continues there will be a bloody power struggle until mankind has all but wiped itself out.
“People need to be reminded why they were as one in the first place. They need troubles and hardships to relate to, so they may better understand why they need one another. I’m not asking the world to do anything that it does not want to do, nor anything that it has not done in the past, I am simply proposing we guide it back on track.”
Alex walked over to an antique looking computer, nearly hidden by the mound of books and sheaves of paper which strangled its base. He punched a few keys and a grainy image emerged on the poor resolution screen. Despite the distorted picture, the scene was perfectly recognisable. The screen showed five armed men storming a casino, killing and destroying as they saw fit.
Anthony crept closer, bent forward until his nose nearly touched the tiny image of himself climbing the stairs and terminating a handful of croupiers cowering behind the banister. He spun and grabbed Alex by the jacket with both hands. Alex made no attempt to move.
“You bastard! Blackmail? You’re threatening your own brothers for Christ’s sake!” the veins on his neck had swollen and his eyes screamed.
“If you choose not to help me then I can only assume that it is out of fear for yourself, since I know you not to be an immoral person. If you are scared for your life, then I am afraid that prison is the safest place for you, brother. It will remain the best place for you until order has been restored to this barbaric place.”
Anthony’s head fell and his grip became feeble. He collapsed in on himself, his arms briefly flopping to his sides, before being redirected to attend his tear-sodden eyes.
Alex cut off the recording and safely deposited the memory stick in his coat pocket, “Understand, brother, I have your best interests at heart. Yours and everyone’s.” he picked up a paper file from the heap of notes, “I have decided upon our next target. He is a man well known by the police, yet for some reason the hand of justice has failed to quash him. We shall remind the law enforcers of their purpose, and demonstrate to all others that there are places and people in this world still devoid of corruption.”
Ultor threw the file to Simon, which was awkwardly received, and began his march out, “Oh, and for the sake of discretion you shall no longer require your current names. Anthony, you shall take the name of Iustus; Paul, you shall be known as Libertas. Justice and liberty are what you shall represent, and they are what you shall become. Simon is to be known as Polias. That report traces the targets movements as given in the media and through official police statements. Study it carefully.”