Chapter 103

A Brighter Tomorrow

This had to be one of the strangest situations Leo had ever been in. He was in a dimly lit room sitting at one end of a long table, with a High-Level Demigod Boss, named Damien at the other end, staring at Leo with some fifty unblinking eyes, Damien's size making the large room seem small.

Leo heard loud thuds from outside the room.

“Let me in!”

The door to the room flew open and a second giant Boss squeezed through. This one looked like a giant, ugly baby with tentacles. His cherub look was completed by a grotesquely ugly set of wings.

Damien moved to the side so the tentacled cherub could join him. “I told you, I was handling this, Ambrose.”

Ambrose shot out a tentacle that wrapped around Leo's neck. “Admit you are lying,” he said through his large, grotesquely human mouth.

“That naked cherub form is not a good look for you,” Leo gasped out. “In fifty years, you take a more demonic appearance, just as ugly, but it suited you better.”

Damien extended a tentacle of his own to wrap around the second Boss's tentacle. “Now Ambrose. I said we're not hurting our prisoner. The human can't tell us anything if he's dead.”

“I can tell if you're lying, Leo, so tell us the truth,” Ambrose responded.

“No, it's true. That cherub form is not a good look for you,” Leo responded.

Damien let out a hollow laugh. “He got you there. You look like shit. We're a superior life form. Trying to pass as a mundane humanoid is demeaning.”

“No, you idiots. I'm referring to this.” Ambrose regurgitated some papers from his immense body, grabbed them by a tentacle, and splatted them down on the table. “Your testimony of the next fifty years of our new existence. You were lying to incite people against us.”

Leo shook his head. “No.”

The tentacle around Leo's neck withdrew.

“As I've stated,” Damien said, “I'm convinced Leo believes what he's saying. Like the fabled blind men and the elephant, Leo feels the elephant's trunk and believes it's a horrible snake that's going to eat everyone, rather than a majestic elephant bringing peace and order to the world.”

Leo burst out laughing.

“How many of our kind has Mr. Feels-a-Snake killed?” Ambrose responded.

“Not enough, obviously,” Leo said.

“Guards,” Damien said. "Please take Leo to his room, ensure his needs are met, and he's treated humanely."

“Sir.”

The same guards as before grabbed Leo and dragged him through several hallways to a small room that looked like it had once been someone's office.

“We've removed anything he could use to commit suicide,” an elderly man told Leo's two guards. “And we're not sure how well the toilet works, or if he'll continue having running water, so we left a bucket for him to crap in.”

“Welcome to your new home, Leo,” said the same guard who'd spoken to him earlier. “We're leaving you some bottled water and candy bars. Let us know if you need anything else, like books, or music players, and we'll see what we can do. And if anyone asks, you have not been mistreated. Got it?”

Leo didn't respond. They removed his handcuffs, pushed him inside, then closed and locked the door behind him.

Leo's new prison had a small bed on the side opposite the bathroom, with a desk facing the wall between the two. Leo noticed several cameras near the ceiling. He thought about taking them down, but decided not to bother. Going through the desk, he discovered the drawers were empty. He sat on the bed and put his head in his hands.

His friends were dead. His plan depended on his friends. He'd failed.

Two things gave Leo hope. The first was the very unlikely event that his friends had somehow faked their deaths. The second was that if, no, when—he died, he might get sent back in time again and be able to fix his mistakes. He'd work harder to get the word out, tell the implant wearers to remain in hiding, do anything to give humans a fighting chance.

Who was he kidding? The whole thing was hopeless from the beginning. The human race was fucked.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Imp. I've heard rumors that there is a way you can kill me,” Leo said.

We do not like to talk about this, Leo. But in the most extreme circumstances, such as if you're under interrogation and you have information that could get your friends killed. I can self destruct in a way that will fry out your neural synapses. Your body will be unharmed, your mind will no longer exist.

“I see,” Leo said.

It was tempting. But there was a tiny chance he might make things better if he remained alive, and no chance if he didn't.

He sat where he was until he grew too tired to remain sitting. He fell asleep on the bed, clasping his legs in a fetal position.

When he awoke, he saw someone had left breakfast on his desk. The dishes were plastic, as was the spoon he'd been given to eat with. He wasn't hungry, but he forced himself to eat the food and drink one of the bottles of water they'd left for him.

Over the next several days, he was taken from his cell three more times for questioning.

The third time, a traitor implant wearer flew Leo to a nearby park, where six Bosses, including Ambrose, interrogated him for hours, all floating around him in a circle.

To Leo's amusement, none of them asked about his plans to save the world. It was all. “As the Guardian, you intended to incite violence against our kind?” the High-Level-Boss named Elena asked.

“Yes,” he responded.

“Did it ever occur to you that maybe you could work with our kind?” she asked.

“No.”

“During your recorded interview with Mr. Osmond, you say that 'the only way humans are going to survive is if every High-Level Boss, that is every Ascended One, is exterminated.' Is this correct?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“How did you plan to do that?”

Uh, Oh. “By doing what I was doing. Giving people hope. Showing them your kind could be killed.”

“By your kind, what do you mean?” Elena asked.

“High-Level, or what we'd sometimes called Demigod-Level, Boss monsters. You.”

“Did it occur to you that instead of this pointless warfare, we could work together to bring a brighter tomorrow into today?”

You've got to be kidding. Worst slogan ever. Leo didn't bother answering. He remained silent, curious to see if they'd start torturing him. Instead, they returned him to his cell.

He went to his usual spot on his bed and put his head in his hands.

Liam messaged him.

Air-Mage 87: You're such an idiot Leo.

Leo ignored him.

Air-Mage 87: If you'd tried to work with these Ascended Ones instead of killing them, we could have saved countless lives. The alliance that we've formed, despite your best efforts, is leaving for Zabadule tomorrow, where implant wearers and Ascended Ones will work together to write a new world constitution and create a world government.

Future Man 10/16: Zabadule?

Air-Mage 87: A place the rich used to go for their secret meetings. It's a beautiful area, with thousands of acres of privately owned wilderness. I've seen pictures.

Leo didn't respond.

Air-Mage 87: You'll be coming too, of course. As a prisoner.

Sometime later, guards dragged him back to the meeting room where he'd first met Damien.

“I'm sorry for what the others put you through, Leo,” Damien said when they were alone. “I keep explaining to them that you have no ulterior motives, and honestly believe you are doing the right thing.”

Leo didn't respond.

“If you'd had a year to prepare, you might have been a serious threat. As it is, you're just another nobody revolutionary. I'm curious, Leo. Do you know the first thing I did when I Ascended?”

“Ate your serving staff?”

“Don't be silly. We are currently living on blood and blood products. A sustainable source of human protein. No. The first thing I did was go to the nation's capital and kill Congress.”

“I thought they were your friends,” Leo responded.

“They were my friends. I loved Senator Bumblin like a brother. Dog eating aside, he was the nicest person you could hope to meet. Threw amazing parties. Between you and me, though, he was dumb as a box of rocks.”

“But you killed him?”

“Yes. I didn't want to. Like the other Congress people, he'd become a semi-intelligent, man-eating monster, what you call a Low-Level Boss. Congress changed overnight from being an asset to myself and my kind to a liability threatening our food supply. As Ambrose's business partner, it is my job to identify and deal with liabilities. I wanted to tell you this, so you would understand why beings like myself rule the world while you remain a nobody.”

“I see.”

“Other Ascended Ones did similar things in their parts of the world. Britain may gain a ruling monarch again. And the Pope may regain his status as emperor of the Christian world. We're living in fascinating times, Leo.”

“I see,” Leo said again.

Leo stared at Damien's giant form as he looked back at Leo with his unblinking, fifty-plus eyes.

“Zabadule isn't a nice place, is it?” Leo asked.

“Zabadule is an amazing place of peace and tranquility, far better suited for conducting business than our current location. You'll love it. I meant it to be a surprise, but it would seem somebody gave it away.”

“I see.”

“We'll be flying out tomorrow.”