Legion

“Where the hell is the Devil?”

It had been a few hours since Legion had brought the young man and kid to his apartment. He had expected his phone to get hacked again and hear his jovial voice but nothing; he had gone dark. That worried him a bit.

Legion got out of his studio and into the long, narrow corridors of his apartment. He ravaged through his jean pockets.

“Where the hell is my smoke?”

He rewound the video feed from his cybernetic eye. He noticed that he had left it on the empty bedroom night table. He must have been smoking and forgot about it. That room always made a mess of his mind.

Legion decided to take it at a later time, he did not want to go back there so soon. With lazy steps, he walked towards Ludomir and Eve’s room. Sometimes the old wooden floor would creak when his metallic feet would hit it. Maybe he had to spend some cash renovating the place.

He stood in front of their door. There was no doorbell, because Legion had taken them all off. The only thing working were the water pipes and some electricity for the most basic needs of his guests. Otherwise, thanks to his studio being so power hungry, he would need to buy fuel for his generator daily. Legion knocked loudly on the door.

A few seconds later the door opened. The kid, Evelyne, hiding behind the door, looked him straight in the eye. The two stare at each other for a while, different thoughts going through their minds.

“She does resemble her quite a lot…”

His partner had told him than once he reached his sixties he would start living more in the past than in the present. He was jealous of how she was always right.

“Is Ludomir awake?” Asked the old cyborg after a while.

The kid just nodded, opening the door fully. With a nod, Legion went inside.

It was a simple three room apartment. The walls and floor were a dull gray, but surprisingly, there was no sign of dust or webs anywhere. Legion liked to keep the rooms themselves clean, so he had some of his robots clean it. In the living room, there was the young Polish man, being currently treated by a med bot.

Evelyne excused herself and went to the bedroom. Legion, seeing her childish face, had an idea. He ordered through one of his drones to bring some snacks to her room. After doing so, he walked towards the injured man, looking closely at the movements of the bot. You never knew with these machines.

“Where is the Grinning Devil?” Asked the cyborg in the boy’s native tongue.

Ludomir's eyes widened a bit, but he quickly regained his composure.

“I am in your same position.” - he answered in Polish after putting some pills in his mouth, painkillers most likely - “The guy does not seem keen on sharing his plans with others.”

The cyborg tsked. He hated being left in the dark like this, usually he was the one to do that, but the Devil was one to reverse the game on people if given the chance.

“You know, I did not expect you to know Polish.” Said the young man.

It reminded him of her, those few times that they spoke to each other. But he would never tell him that.

“An…acquaintance of mine was of Polish descent, learned it from her.”

“Her? Is she someone to you?” Pressed the boy, with a curious glint in his eyes.

“Not something you need to know.”

There was a part of him that wanted him to push more, and seeing the expression that the young man wore, it looked like his desire would not come true.

“Fair enough.” Shrugged Ludomir.

Now Jack wanted that damn e-cigarette.

“I always thought Unknowns were less interested in people.” Seeing how the young man was curious about his personal story, it made him change his views of them a bit.

“I do like to know the people I am going to work with.” Affirmed honestly the young man.

“Just temporarily kiddo.” Added the cyborg.

After the Devil was done with his business in Ural Polis, they would go back to a neutral, maybe cordial relationship.

“Even for a short time, I think it is best to do so.” Insisted Ludomir.

A sight escaped the old cyborg. Normally he would never allow himself to be questioned, but maybe if he gave him something, he would tell him some details about the Devil. Information about him was as rare as Mk III Enhancers; having them would be quite profitable.

“Ask away.” Said Legion sitting on the sofa in front of the young man.

“I have never heard of an Unknown named Legion before.” Started the injured man.

“Well, because I am not one?”

Ludomir’s frown was able to steal a chuckle from the old cyborg.

“I work with Unknowns, like you and the Devil.”

“Because of the cash?”

“No, because I want this job to kill me.” The thought never came out of his mouth.

“You could say that.”

“You need the cash for someone?”

What was it that made Legion feel so comfortable? Was it the fact that he was speaking a language so filled with significance to him? Nevertheless, the old cyborg felt more open about his past to this young man.

“Needed it when I had a family.”

Ludomir stayed quiet for a bit.

“Was it after the Bright Light?”

Those words reminded him when they dropped the explosives. Among them was an anti-matter bomb, one of the few of its kind. At the time, Legion… Jack worked as a military official. He had seen its effect on paper, but when he saw it with his own eyes, the feeling was much different. His hand touched his cybernetic eye, which saw that explosion with all of its glory, for the price of its sight.

“It was after…”

It was the 8th of August 2042. Cities were gone, alongside most of the population in them. He immediately ran out of his military compound to reach his apartment back in Moscow. Jack stole one of the humvees and floored the pedal. He was breaking protocol, but fuck it, he had to go check on Konstantina and his children back home.

The sight of the destroyed city could be seen from so far; it was like half the city had disappeared into nothingness. He pressed even harder, trying his best to not make any debri along the way. Sometimes people would call him out for help; with a heavy heart he ignored them all. It was selfish, egoistic but he had his objective, he could hate himself after saving them.

He reached his neighborhood a few hours later in the late night… but there was nothing. Only the steel foundations could be seen. Jack jumped out of his car and rushed closer, but nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. He felt his legs give out and he found himself on his knees, a deep pain started spreading from his chest to his whole body.

He took out his phone and tried to call her. A vain hope, but surprisingly someone picked up. But it was not her. It was someone else. Then he heard a scream and someone shouting. He recognized it: it was his daughter.

He felt something running in his veins. Adrenaline? Whatever it was, it made him jump on his feet and he ran around the neighborhood like a mad man, with phone in hand, trying to pinpoint the location. It was not far. Though he hoped he arrived sooner.

Jack looked inside one of the old businesses, the scene that he saw made a shiver go down his spine. Three grown men with their pants down around a seemingly lifeless figure; one of them noticed him. He saw the man’s jaw drop and his face lose all blood in it.

With quick, practiced movements, Jack aimed his gun at the man and shot him right on the knee. The other two men fumbled while drawing their weapons, which gave Jack enough time to shoot them both down.

Jack walked closer to the figure, went on one knee and brought her head closer to its chest.

“Tata tu jest” He told her repeatedly, but to no avail. His daughter never answered him back.

He gently grabbed her hand, now noticing the tears falling from his face onto it.

“Przepraszam…” He remembered nurturing every possible apology under the sky to her.

He looked down at her, her school uniform mostly torn and underwear and bra in tatters.

They had… dirtied her… his beautiful little angel… they had…

His vision turned red, he was no longer able to rationalize.

Jack gently laid the body on the cold ground and turned his attention to the only other survivor. The moment he turned his head, something cut him just above the eyebrow. The other man had just thrown him a knife. The wound immediately started bleeding, covering the vision from his left side. Not that it made any difference to Jack.

Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

He walked with his gun out to the man that still had his pants down, showing his shame to the world. Jack did not hesitate to shoot at his intimate part. The screams of the man were deafened by the sound of his own thoughts. Of how he had failed, in everything. Jack noticed that the man was still conscious somehow. Good, he had to suffer like his daughter did.

The man begged him. His voice now gone from all the screaming. He demanded to be put out of his misery, but that was something only for animals; and he was much, much worse. Jack bridal carried his daughter out to the humvee.

The moment they were out, he was something shimmering in the sky, then his eardrum exploded. The last image of that was the Bright Light that illuminated the eternity of Europe, after that, only darkness.

Jack regained consciousness an untold amount of time later. His eye stinged like a motherfucker and he could not feel his legs, but he did not care. In front of him, a few meters ahead of him stood his little angel, untouched by anything; her chest slowly rising up and down. A smile appeared on his blood stricken face.

The last thing he saw before passing out was his fellow colleagues rushing in to save and help the survivors. Among them, sticking like a sore thumb, the figure of the giant sergeant Fjodor Anisimova. The big man helped with the heavy lifting of debri from the survivors, Jack included.

They woke up later in the makeshift military hospital. Jack had lost the use of his legs and right eye. His daughter was in a catatonic state, but psychiatrists were already helping her.

While he had lost his wife and did not know where his son was, he was able to find his daughter at least, even if he hoped to find her in a better state.

Jack would later enroll in the experimental cybernetic project of the military, to make soldiers like him come back to the front. The treatment was successful but when he was done with it, the War was already over. Fjodor offered him a position by his side in the group he was starting, the Lion’s Share. He was hesitant, Jack wanted to search for his son's whereabouts, but he could not leave his daughter alone, especially now that she was getting better. So he begrudgingly accepted, and for a few years worked as his right hand man.

Until the day his daughter commited suicide. After that he left the Lion’s Share and decided to engage in the business of information dealer for the Unknowns, with little hopes that maybe he could find something about his son or that one of these nut jobs killed him, either would do. He changed his name to Legion, as to fit better with them and worked hard on his computer skills so he could live up to that Title. If there is one thing that Legion lived by, is that he would never hope again, life would make you almost reach what you want… just to shatter it so it can see the despair in your face.

He started smoking, drinking, going out in the red light district just to not think…and yet doing so made him feel even worse. Sometimes Jack would play with a loaded revolver, he would aim it right in his head… just to hesitate at the last second. When the Church of Redemption came, he even used the Purple once. It did as advertised, he was able to see his family again.

His wife was the most vivid one. She was just like the first day they met in that brothel. She was a simple immigrant from Poland, selling her body to afford rent; he was a simple soldier. Yet, like in those fairy tales of old, they both fell in love and through some hard work and hard cash, they were able to reach happiness together. He still remembers her smile after his daughter had been born. The thought filled him with joy, something he had not felt in years.

But he caught a glimpse of his reflection when he was by her side. He was an old man now, if you could even call him that. The cybernetics ran deep in him, he was more machine than man now. This was not who he was. This was not the man she had fallen in love with. This was not Jack.

He took some more purple pills, maybe if he took all of them he could truly see God. One way to know. But something stopped him. He felt something blocking his hand. He looked and saw her, with that pure smile tempered by a hard life; pitiful but that hid kindness in it.

Legion, no, Jack cried. All those years of silent pain, of keeping it all in, now the Pandora Box had been opened. The old cyborg cried all night, with the slowly vanishing image of his wife fully disappearing at dawn. He felt like something had been taken from his chest. He was not happy, but he was sure that his wife and daughter would never want to see him like this. He would never be happy, but now he could distract himself better and could now properly mourn both of them. He dedicated a room for his family, adjacent to his studio. He would occasionally go there to speak to them. It was stupid maybe, but he always felt better after doing it and at this point it was a ritual of sorts.

Legion told some pieces of his past to the curious young man. Just enough to satisfy his curiosity.

“Wow… I did not expect that.” Admitted Ludomir.

“Every person has a story, old ones are just most likely to have long ones.”

“True…kinda wish I had one…”

“Most Unknowns do have one, you will too.”

“Hope so, having a Title would make finding contracts easier.”

Titles were the mark of a successful Unknown. It meant that he had done something that organizations around the world recognized and that they feared him because of it. But they made for good workers, or at least, reliable ones. And that was all that mattered in this biz.

“You know how the Grinning Devil got his Title?” Asked curiously the young man.

Legion frowned.

“You really don’t know?”

“I am just a small time Unknown. I know that he is dangerous but not why.” Ludomir defended himself.

Fair enough. Most of the D class Unknowns like him died in the first days of their work. It is a dog eat dog world; one needs to sharpen its own fangs instead of listening to gossip. Shame that for Legion this gossip was his job.

“How much do you know of the Hong Kong Massacre?”

“I remember it was where the Red Demon died.”

“Do you know who killed him?”

“It was not multiple A class Unknowns?”

“Pfff.” A laugh escaped from the old cyborg.

“What’s funny?” Ludomir’s face could not hide his irritation at being laughed at.

“No amount of A class Unknowns could deal with someone like the Demon… they needed to send someone of the same caliber.”

“The Grinning Devil…”

Legion nodded.

“They say that the survivors are still haunted by the sight and sounds of that battle. Two mad men going at each other's throat while smiling and laughing.”

“Sounds like the stuff of nightmares all right…”

It would seem that Ludomir did not know much about the Devil, so his plan to get more information out of him went down the drain. But honestly, Legion did not care. He did not know how much he had missed speaking to another human being, especially one that made him feel such nostalgia of his past.

So, unlike his usual self, he decided to ride this moment and talk to Ludomir. About bits of his past, of the young man’s, of their present and their future. Would he have talked to his son this way too if he was still alive? Jack did not know, and for now did not care. He enjoyed the moment, that was all that mattered for now.

----------------------------------------

Grinning Devil

“I hate when my clothes get damaged.” Said the Devil while putting on his modified military vest. “It is not like there are shops that sell graphene chest pieces.”

“You could always make them.” Offered Khutulun, putting on her newly made mask. It looked similar to a deigan mask, though the lower part of the face was changed into the same grin design the Devil’s helmet had.

“I am glad that the workshops work here even after the war.”

This was the best case scenario for him. The bunker had some hidden solar panels that always kept the batteries at full. These gangsters that were occupying the place before did not know what this bunker hid and used its energy only to power the security room.

“Guess it pays to stay green.” Said Khutulun with a shrug.

“Just don’t take it as far as the Nordic States.”

Imagine giving all the power to an all-powerful AI that was programmed to care and protect you. The Devil found that thought to be almost as scary as an angry Khutulun. But he could hardly deny the results. They were the only place to get least contaminated by the after war.

Khutulun was working on her laptop to get power to all the subsystems of the bunker. The Devil has asked her many times to change that old ass piece of antique with something more modern. Hell, one of the most recent Pads could do what her laptop did, maybe even better.

But she was so attached to it. Khutulun had been bringing that piece of junk around even before they had met. It was a gift from her brother, one of the few he could give to her. That laptop meant to her more than he could possibly imagine, so he never got quite the courage to tell her directly… thought he subtly hinted to that.

After she was done, she dramatically pointed her finger up and slowly pressed enter. The lights flickered out for a second, but in that small amount of time, the Devil saw something glimmering in the dark. Quite a number of things, actually.

“Hundred and one fully operational battle androids are ready for use, GD.”

The doors of the workshop opened and androids flooded the room. Fortunately it was big enough to contain them all. Looking at them all, the Devil felt something swelling inside him, though he could not pinpoint the exact feeling.

“Perfect!” The Devil brought the tip of his index fingers to where the helmet’s mouth was. “Now it is time to join the others at the game table.”

His comically evil laugh, and Khutulun groans, were the last human sounds that the bunker would ever hear again.