Lionel had no interest in Guinevere or Jace. Not anymore.
They were convenient and useful back in Atlantis, but their morality and worthless emotions would always get in the way.
Lionel was more than happy to surrender to The Stragglers. And, he believed, he managed to keep his dignity while doing so. Of course, Guinevere seems to think differently. And, Lionel admitted, Ukko himself didn’t seem to be very fond of how Lionel handled things. Jace’s opinion was non-existent. The man was obviously trying to deal with the dangerous cocktail of his bloodlust, past emotions for Callista, and some sickening nostalgia.
None of it mattered.
Even if these watch dog researchers that Ukko had sent to keep tabs on him looked at him like some kind of insect, it didn’t matter at all to Lionel.
He would show them soon enough. He would create the sort of weapon that would turn him into an object of worship for generations to come. He would single-handedly alter the course of fate. He would make Guinevere’s little pet project look toothless by comparison. In fact, Lionel was almost certain he didn’t have to worry about Guinevere’s little Trahir project being compared to his own. The girl was apparently trying to sabotage it. She was beaten ruthlessly by the guard dogs. Lionel took no particular pleasure in seeing her beaten, but he was happy enough that her project was doomed to fail.
The Trahir system had a fatal flaw. Literally fatal. The thing was just a glorified suicide box. Even with fine tuning, a pilot would only be able to get a handful of battles in before they would melt. Lionel didn’t think Guinevere would ever push the Trahir system to its limits like that though. She was just too emotional. She would consider the pilot used up once they lost their mind.
The truth, as Lionel once supposed and now was sure of, is that even a pilot who had lost their mind could be used. If you could turn the cockpit into a vat and lock the pilot in, they would have a longer shelf life.
In fact, Lionel was very proud of this recent discovery. It was just like the hunters of old: one should use every part.
Make no waste.
Be efficient.
Efficiency. That was the word that spoke to Lionel’s very heart. Use the pilot until there is nothing left. That was the ideal.
Lionel pushed away from the table he had been eating at. Jace and Guinevere were still pretending to talk to each other. They never really talked. Or more to the point, they talked around each other. Never going so far as to try to understand the other. They both sat in willful ignorance of the other’s issues while agonizing and pleading for their own issues to be solved.
Lionel didn’t need that. He didn’t need to complicate his world with emotions. All he needed to do was survive and work.
And so, he walked back to his section of the truck. It was easy to convince Ukko to install the dividers for this section of the truck once Lionel brought up his interest in the canisters.
Yes.
Finding that canister. That was the true turning point of Lionel’s life. It may have taken seventy odd years but that was the moment Lionel could finally see his destiny.
Ukko, the fool, didn’t show much interest in Lionel’s ideas. It was clear that he brought along the Atlantis researchers in the hopes of finding an alternative to these canisters.
The way that man spoke of these miracles. The disgust and hatred that suffused his voice. If Lionel was a stronger man, he would have punished Ukko for looking at such a marvel with that kind of disdain.
Ukko and Guinevere had some deranged fantasy about perfecting the Trahir system. The theory was to push the pilot to their utmost limits. They believed that the excess mental energy that wasn’t utilized when piloting the MAC was what ultimately fried the brain. Their ultimate goal was to essentially merge the pilot and machine into a single organism during combat. That way the mental toll would be spread over not just the pilot, but the machine as well. Then it would just be turning the machine into the ideal ‘heatsink’ for mental stress and voila the perfect MAC. All rainbows and unicorns and everything good in the world.
It was nothing more than childish fantasies. The theories were completely unfounded, and it was all just some idiotically human desire for ‘perfectly happy solutions’. It was almost laughable considering what the Trahir system was now and what they wanted it to be. The absolute idiots wanted to make a miracle machine out of a suicide box.
The world was not a place for such idiotic fantasies. When, Lionel wondered, did these ‘perfectly happy solutions’ occur in history? Where are the concrete examples of such wonderful and good outcomes?
Lionel was well aware of all the bad and awful things that seem to appear on every page of every history book. Yes, it was those bad and awful things that actually made differences in the world.
Fantasies were what Guinevere and Ukko were chasing.
What Lionel was chasing was real.
Lionel had a couple canisters to experiment on.
One was filled.
One wasn’t.
He started to focus his efforts back onto his work. Thinking about all of those fools wouldn’t help him one bit. If he was going to accomplish his goal, he needed to work.
But working when you’re being held prisoner by a bunch of nomadic mercenaries can be rather difficult. The entire truck began to shake. Not slightly either. It rocked and jolted and somehow jumped. Lionel clung to his work and tried his best to tighten up some of the security straps.
The shaking seemed to grow fainter and fainter at a surprisingly quick pace. It was almost as if some sort of solitary thunder cloud was passing overhead.
The rolling thunder was followed up by faint and consistent pops in the distance as well as the occasional ‘too close’ concussive blast.
Lionel left once he secured his research station properly and tried to make his way out of the vehicle to see what was going on. The guard dogs for the Atlantis researchers had already made their way outside. Lionel wondered how many of his fellows would try to use this opportunity to escape. Lionel, of course, had no such thoughts.
He proceeded outside, though at this point it was more accurate to say he was ‘pushed’ outside.
The heat was the first thing Lionel noticed. Even with the sun nestled behind the mountains, the overbearing heat was more than enough to make him beg for his air-conditioned prison.
The second thing he noticed was the smoke. They were in a valley and both mountain sides were now covered in thick clouds of smoke that rolled down into the valley and coated the entire convoy. More smoke, as well as other airborne chemical concoctions, filled the narrow valley as MACs began to launch from their carrier trucks. Lionel watched as mechanics flooded out of one such warehouse sized carrier. They flipped switches on the outside to throw up blast doors and hinge open the roof. The machines always felt awe inspiring, even in their most basic form, when you stood underneath them on your own two feet. The MAC was levered into an upright position and then fired off its thrusters for an initial boost into the sky.
If those blast shields weren’t secure, Lionel was sure he would be nothing more than a pile of melting remains. Even with them up, the heat was enough to evaporate any perspiration left on Lionel.
One by one, MACs of all different types up and down the convoy took to the skies, followed by massive chem trails that made the world smell of metals and poison.
Explosions were occurring all across the surrounding mountains. More explosions could be seen growing from the opposite sides of these mountains. Minor rockslides barreled down toward the convoy, but by some dumb luck or impressive skill of the artillery crew, the damage was minimal.
Lionel was already trying to push his way back into the truck. He wanted nothing to do with another disaster like this. He’d had his fill of sitting in the front row for genocides perpetrated by these brainless beats. He wanted to develop MACs; he did not want to see them in action.
But he couldn’t press his way back into the vehicle.
There were simply too many bodies. It didn’t matter how loud Lionel shouted or how hard he pushed. It was as if he didn’t even exist.
The world was crumbling again.
Just like in Atlantis.
The smoke. The sounds. The horrors of war playing out in real time.
The MACs and soldiers firing at anything that moved. The former with deafening results and dangerous showers of human sized casings, the latter almost pathetic by comparison but still effective enough to turn a creature from ‘is’ to ‘was’.
Lionel wondered, though only briefly, about how beautiful a world without all this would be.
He quashed the thought. It was ridiculous. It was that dreamer talk that idiots like Guinevere would spout out endlessly. It was much more realistic to apply for a comfortable position far away from the risk of battle.
Yes, a place where you could look away from the horror.
If an old man is still allowed to dream, that would be the dream he would clutch in his boney, arthritic fingers.
Lionel focused his thoughts on this dream. He tried his best to drown out and escape from the reality of war that surrounded him.
That was, until a voice called out to him, “Cockroach!”
The voice was unmistakably Ukko’s. Though, ‘the voice’ may not be the right choice of words. Lionel only realized it was him due to that nickname. Ukko was the only one who called him cockroach directly, though Lionel was sure many of the lessers of this band of mercenaries called him that name far away from his research.
Lionel’s research had quickly become known as rather taboo. No one knew the specifics and no one wanted to, hence the mockery. Well, Lionel’s apparent reputation as a coward didn’t help either.
But Ukko was always direct with Lionel. He didn’t care if the research was taboo, as long as Lionel got results, “Your lab! Now!”
The man pushed his way through the mass of humanity thanks to the jeep he was riding in. The jeep was also likely the only reason Ukko could move at all. The man was hardly more than a gory mess. If Lionel had to guess, he would assume about twenty some odd percent of the man was not in the jeep. It was very nearly sickening. Things that should be on the inside were strewn about the vehicle, leaking out of the man with each passing moment. His head had a deep cut that oozed a strange assortment of colors. That injury was clearly some wound from a battle. The rest of him, however… Lionel couldn’t understand where any of that damage came from. Parts of his body were simply… shriveling up. As if his innards were being rolled out like one would roll out the final bits of toothpaste.
But to Lionel, the most amazing thing was how clear it was that Ukko had no vested interest in his own survival. He wasn’t doing anything to stop the deadly process of leaking out all the important bits of himself. Instead, he was clutching that urchin, the Vice Admiral.
She didn’t look good either, but she looked better than Ukko.
That was due to the simple fact that she was dead. Nothing more would flow from that cut to her neck. There were no pumping organs or spasming limbs. Just death.
One of Ukko’s personal guards hopped out of the jeep. He tried to touch Ukko, but Ukko quickly slapped the hand away and pointed at the Vice Admiral.
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His guards were nothing if not professional. They quickly picked up the corpse and forced their way into the truck that housed Lionel’s research. They grabbed Lionel by the collar and dragged him along.
He found it odd that there were only two of them. His guard was supposed to be eight.
They laid the corpse down very gently before leaving Lionel’s research room. Lionel never understood why anyone bothered to treat the dead with such reverence, it’s not like they’ll ever repay the favor.
Lionel sat and stared resolutely at the makeshift door that separated his research lab from the rest of the truck.
It wasn’t long before the two guards returned with Ukko suspended between them. They sat him down in an open chair. One left, presumably to get some medical supplies to try to save the nearly dying Ukko. The other stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him.
“I don’t know what you’ve been led to believe, but I’m not a doctor.”
Ukko responded, his words coming out surprisingly calm despite his situation, “Fix her.”
Lionel looked at the corpse. He gulped, hopefully not audibly. He wasn’t going to tell this man that the Vice Admiral was dead. Let some field doctor break the news. Lionel didn’t want to be summarily executed for revealing uncomfortable truths to a mercenary, “I’m not… I’m not a doctor.”
A guard returned with medical supplies and began to administer first aid to Ukko. Somehow, even on the verge of death himself, his voice still remained completely calm, “She doesn’t need a doctor.” He paused for a while, staring at the corpse, “Her brain should still be suitable.”
Lionel was sure he was currently on a knife’s edge. This was the sort of conversation where one wrong word would lead to his death. She doesn’t need a doctor? Her brain was suitable?
Lionel was intensely intrigued by the idea that seemed to be growing in his head. But if he was wrong…
“You want to… preserve her?” It was the only delicate way Lionel could come up with to ask his question.
It was…
a long time.
A long time before Ukko glared into the eyes of Lionel. His one eye, which seemed to regain sight only recently given his sensitivity to the artificial light, was filled with a nearly endless pool of hatred. The hatred, Lionel was sure, was not directed at him. In fact, it wasn’t even the sort of ‘hatred of the world’ that one might expect given Ukko’s… unfortunate circumstances. It was a hatred that seemed to speak of its own accord. It was a hatred that made itself known through an endless barrage of guttural anger directed at some foreign object.
It was…
Lionel thought for a moment, trying to understand what he saw before him.
It was like the hatred one might feel for the fire beneath their feet as they’re burned at the stake.
Yes.
It was like that.
Only after his hatred had completely filled the tiny sectioned-off room did Ukko decide to speak, “Do it.”
Lionel’s heart was buoyed by the simple words. Four letters, and yet they meant all the world for Lionel.
Even with the explosions still sending shockwaves deep into his bones, he was overcome with pure happiness.
This.
This was exactly what Lionel had been waiting for.
It was a young body. But all of the canisters were filled with young bodies. They were the ideal. Older bodies would lead to complications and certainly wouldn’t be as productive. The current cannisters, with their younger occupants, accomplished enough for Ukko’s group to keep using them.
But they could be better. It was what Lionel had spent all this time trying to figure out.
The Vice Admiral was exactly what he envisioned. She was a young body with a love for war. A desire to fight. She was filled with all kinds of emotions. Her little brain was chock full of experiences that made her an excellent MAC pilot. It was submerged with thoughts of death and destruction that had been normalized. It was positively drenched with bloodlust and a thirst for battle.
Lionel hid his smile. The look in Ukko’s eye made it clear he wasn’t pleased with this outcome.
Another barrage of explosions was followed up by small arms fire.
Lionel looked at the corpse.
No, Lionel thought, not a corpse.
Lionel looked at the perfect battery.
~~~
Guinevere watched as Jace ran off into the clouds of smoke. He sprinted toward a downed MAC that an injured pilot had just crawled out of and seemed to look truly alive for the first time in weeks. His eyes burned with such an intense passion that Guinevere couldn’t even attempt to stop him. She tried very hard to think up an excuse as to why the Jace she knew, the old Jace, would run off into the fray like that.
It wasn’t easy.
Luckily for Guinevere, she didn’t have to. Something happened that made for a convenient distraction. Ukko himself showed up at their truck. The man was hardly even alive. It seemed to be a miracle that he was even upright.
Guinevere had a hard time seeing the whole scene. The crowd that had formed was nearly impenetrable. It was mostly mercenaries trying their best to throw themselves into the fight.
It was slow going, but she managed to follow Ukko back into the makeshift prison.
A nervous guard was standing outside of Lionel’s little alcove. A trail of blood seemed to trace its way straight to him. With this much blood loss, Guinevere would be impressed if Ukko was still alive.
This sent a worrisome chill up Guinevere’s spine. Currently, Ukko was a fairly important part of her plan to face her own cliff. If he was already dead… would Guinevere still have the will to continue with the Trahir system? She was doing her best to think of it as merely a way to get revenge on this group of savages. But if Ukko died, The Stragglers would probably disband. Then she would be building the Trahir system for the only reason left: to make a new weapon of war. She wasn’t sure she could stomach that. But building the Trahir system up seemed to be the only way for her to face her cliff with the surety that her father faced his.
With her head consumed by muddy and complex thoughts, she made her way to the door that separated Lionel’s lab from the rest of the truck. She was never terribly interested in what the man was doing. She was sure it was beneath her. So it was her first time even coming close to his work station.
There was a faint smell of rot that seemed to barely escape the thin-impromptu walls.
He couldn’t already be dead, right?
There was no way. She had to at least be there when he died. She deserved that much, right?
She shoved her way past the nauseous looking guard. It was likely thanks to the wretched circumstances that the guard didn’t react as quickly as he normally would have. If Guinevere had tried to do this any other time, she would have been killed on the spot.
But it seemed like everyone was sick. The guard outside, and everyone inside as well.
Except for Lionel. He was doing a very poor job of hiding a deep and fulfilling happiness.
In short order, the sickness had infected Guinevere as well.
She didn’t exactly care for the little girl. She was just too frightening. The way she thought about war and killing. Her morals were completely screwed up. Guinevere always thought of her first and foremost as a stimulant for Jace’s corruption. The little girl always brought out the parts of Jace that made him just as… maybe more frightening than the little girl. But, right now, she was nothing more than a child with a deep wound on her neck and a deep scarlet stain on her oversized trench coat.
Guinevere fell to her knees.
She wanted them all dead, didn’t she? Of course she did. Then shouldn’t this be just fine, Guinevere thought. For all the excuses she tried to make for the Vice Admiral, she was still a culprit in the massacre, the destruction of her city - of her Atlantis. She was one of them. Ukko needed to die by her hands, by her Trahir. But the rest? She didn’t care how they died, right? She just wanted them dead.
Yes, yes Guinevere was sure: she couldn’t be happier. But, for some reason, there were tears streaming out endlessly.
She didn’t understand. Her head couldn’t make sense of any of this. Why did happiness feel this wretched?
As her mind turned into a pool of pure confusion, her stomach did about the same. The vomit rushed up, burning the insides of her throat. She made a gagging sound as her body prepared to expel anything it could in the hopes of fixing what was wrong with her.
Just before the vomit escaped, however, Ukko hit her across the face. She fell back into the guard who had come in behind her. They both toppled from the force of the blow and landed outside of the room.
The puking didn’t stop for a while. The guard beneath her was still too shocked and horrified by the state of the Vice Admiral to even care that his black suit and white dress shirt were being stained with the contents of Guinevere’s stomach. Even when his ornamental sword and fancy looking pistol had their etchings filled in by the bile he didn’t seem to notice.
Ukko hobbled, almost miraculously considering his condition, out after them and pushed their bodies away from the door. He closed it shut tight behind him and seemed to lift his personal guardsman up from the ground with just a stern look, “You get paid extra so that you perform in these situations. I expect better.” The monotone and neutral voice Ukko used could have been suggesting a pay dock or a firing squad as punishment. Guinevere couldn’t tell. Neither, it seemed, could his guard who quickly blanched and returned to his position beside the door. He didn’t look any less sick though.
With that settled, Guinevere waited for Ukko to pull out his gun. She… she was starting to think she would welcome that sort of an end. She didn’t want to have to think about her emotional turmoil anymore. It was only getting worse anyway. She was tired of it.
I’m sorry father…
I didn’t get an answer…
I didn’t even find a cliff…
But I’m so tired…
“She’s in a bad enough state. The least you could do-” Ukko’s voice broke uncharacteristically and he continued in a quieter tone, “the least you could do is let her have some dignity.”
“You’re going to shoot me, right?” Guinevere stared at the ground, begging her mind to shut up for just a moment. She just wanted to die without thinking.
He didn’t respond right away. He was mentally somewhere else entirely. But this, this very moment, was Guinevere’s whole world; she waited patiently. He let out a sigh as he spoke, as if he was trying to let go of a little bit of the rage that was surely filling him now that the Vice Admiral was dead, “No… no I can’t kill you.” He slumped against the wall and lowered himself down slowly. His age and his wounds made the task look extremely painful, “I can’t just go killing because I want to… I’ll find something to take this out on later. Right now, well, right now I need you to work.”
Blood was still seeping out of him and onto the floor. Another of his personal guard, the one who had been in the room treating him, was doing her best to keep him alive.
Guinevere was amazed that Ukko was even moving around in his condition. Maybe the pain of losing his comrade was enough to make him forget about his own bodily suffering.
Or maybe he’d lost his mind and no longer understood the danger he was in.
Due to the fact that he was just standing up on clearly broken legs, Guinevere had to assume it was the latter.
Guinevere didn’t respond to him. She had no idea what to even say. Ukko simply continued on, almost as if to himself, “Yes, you’ll need to work. You’ll finish the Trahir system. Then you can help to redirect Lionel’s research. Yes, that should work fine.”
He sounded oddly pleased with himself, but Guinevere didn’t understand why. The one thing she did realize, however, was that Ukko had no intention of killing her. This realization didn’t bring her any joy. “Redirect? What does that mean?” Whatever Lionel was doing behind that door was something Guinevere wanted nothing to do with. Why in God’s name was he suddenly in charge of that little girl. He was no doctor. Even if he was, that girl was dead. There was no saving her anymore. Whatever Lionel planned to do with that corpse was far beyond any moral line in the sand that Guinevere had made for herself.
And, ultimately, this was all more than what she wanted to deal with.
But Ukko responded, completely aloof to her situation, “That girl… I want her to live.”
Guinevere stared at the man. Surely he knew that she was dead? Or maybe he really had lost his mind.
Ukko averted his gaze from Guinevere. His eye was now firmly locked onto the floor beneath him. His guard continued to wrap gauze around the man, seemingly now at random. It was almost a mystery as to where the blood would well up and burst out through his skin next. She was frantically hissing into her radio asking for a med team to be sent to her position.
Her language was impressively creative.
The explosions and gunfire that seemed so close moments ago, was now far off and away. It seemed more like a distant thunderstorm that had passed them by. Guinevere had no idea how The Stragglers fought and won at the bottom of a valley like this. Boxed in by the enemy on all sides. Either a very thorough slaughter had just taken place outside, or the enemy decided to disappear into the mountains. Guinevere shook her head. These thoughts were pointless. She needed to calm herself down. She needed to regain her footing.
Ukko seemed to be working out a very difficult internal problem himself. He squeezed his eye shut, causing a strange pinkish fluid to ooze out. He stayed frozen like that, obviously hoping something would start to make sense.
What did Guinevere want? She locked the haunting visage of the Vice Admiral away into some far and untouched corner of her mind. After this, the answer was clear: revenge. Just as before.
It took a bit more effort than she would like to admit to convince herself that she wasn’t lying. But she did it.
So, Guinevere thought to herself, if revenge is the answer, how do I get there?
It was now, as her head started to clear and her stomach started to settle down, that she realized nothing had changed at all. In fact, if the Ukko in front of her is anything to go by, her job may well have become easier.
Yes, as long as she ignored all of this… all of these events, then her path was still crystal clear. Lionel’s research meant nothing. Lionel meant nothing. Anything that occurred after her revenge was utterly meaningless to her. Because after her revenge, after she finished this goal, she would be ready. The Trahir system would be perfected and cast out into the world. That act would give her the answer she would need when she stood on the cliff’s edge. Her revenge would be complete. She would be able to make the bastards that hurt her so much pay the ultimate price.
She would arrive at the western coast with its beautifully raised rock shores, shores that would send any jumper to life’s ultimate conclusion, and she would be at peace. She would stand for a moment, spare a thought for her father, and look out to the ocean-
The ocean? Why? Why did that word make her so lonely now?
Guinevere felt as if her mind were tearing in two. Why was it so hard to ignore the difficult parts of life?
Luckily for her and her fragile psyche, a psyche that still needed time to properly lock away the memories of today, Ukko seemed to be finished sorting out his own problems, “Guinevere. That child is very important to me. It is the only excuse for the life I’ve led.” He kept his eye shut. He now had three separate individuals in white gowns that were slowly being stained red working on him. Guinevere wondered just how lost in her thoughts she was to not even notice those medics make their way in. “Those canisters,” he gestured to Lionel’s corner, “are far greedier than I expected. They don’t let go easily. I can’t seem to change it: the magnetic fate those canisters possess.” One of the doctors shoved a needle into Ukko’s arm. He sagged abruptly, nearly passing out, and seemed to stay awake by some otherworldly will, “Their life support functions are miraculous. It’s why the cost is so high. It’s why it steals the fate of those locked inside.” Ukko’s words started to slur and, for some reason, Guinevere was trying her best to understand them rather than putting this whole situation out of her mind, “I can give them back their fate, I can give her fate back to her. She’ll come back. But I need your help… please…”
Ukko fully collapsed into the arms of the nearby doctors. They hoisted him onto a gurney and rushed him out of the room with one of his guards close behind. The other still stood watch at Lionel’s door.
Guinevere locked her eyes shut once more and tried to imagine that cliff by the ocean.
“Damn it. Damn you.”
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t picture herself alone. That little girl was there.
“You’ve poisoned me.”
Her father didn’t go to his cliff alone either.
“You’ve all poisoned me.”