“Bio Control!” Gordon grabbed the sides of his head, willing the tissue within to form microscopic wrigglers to filter through the gaps in the myriad vessels and veins criss-crossing the inside of his cranium.
There was no way he was going down like this.
Come on, man. What are you hoping to achieve with that?
Gordon ignored the tired remark from his adversary.
There was still every chance that this was a trick, a lie, a mislead. Hell, it was more likely now than ever. Zachary had introduced himself to Gordon as someone privy to the secrets that lay behind the screen on which this world was projected; he was someone that rubbed shoulders with the cast members putting on a show for sheep like Gordon. Why wouldn’t it be possible for someone like him to resort to psychic attacks; parasites that could whisper falsehoods directly into the mind of your enemies? Gordon hadn’t figured out how to enact a strategy like that before – he’d only obtained these powers a little over a month ago – but the memories he had inherited told him that that was a definite possibility.
He’d sweep through every inch of body and flush out any foreign substances he found – no, he’d capture it first, then extrude it, force his foe back into human form, something that could feel pain. Then he’d begin to torture the fool trying to taunt him, punish him for trying to-
Look, this isn’t some sort of genetic trickery; what would be the point of that? For all intents and purposes, we’re sharing the same brain, the same body. You’re just wasting your time and mine. And my time’s more important.
Ha! Gordon crowed to himself as he manipulated the swimmers with greater vigour. So it was a deception! Why else would Zachary be speaking up now? Naturally this frantic comment was to guide him away from the truth; to lead him away from his hiding place within his body by offering up nonsense!
He had to be here.
Got you now, twerp!
Just then, he squeezed his hand into a palm, halting the wrigglers at the base of his head. They’d completed the sweep from top to bottom of his noggin without finding anything amiss. Gordon grit his teeth.
Not here, not here – but he had to be! An assault on the mind meant an infiltration in the head; to be able to speak in another’s mind meant that you had a direct link to their brain.
He could be piggybacking off of other sensory systems, the next paranoid thought came. That has to be it. Gordon released the clenched fist, his index finger flicked downwards. The wrigglers swam down towards the other major organs, paying close attention to nerve endings, abnormal growths, cells that looked funny.
…ok look, this is going to take a lot less time if I just do this.
All of a sudden, Gordon’s vision went dark. Panicking, he swiped out wildly, arms hitting nothing but air. The eyes – it had been the eyes! That’s where Zachary was hiding! But the wrigglers didn’t catch anything! So how was an attack on the visual centers of the brain-
“Good, good.” Unlike the ethereal and ever-present voice that had been taunting Gordon earlier in the recesses of his mind, the voice Zachary was speaking with was tangible now, much like someone was standing across the room from Gordon. “Now we can talk.”
More trickery! Now it was an auditory illusion! Gordon was absolutely certain that Zachary was no longer within his complex. As such, there was no way he could be speaking to him in this manner.
“What is this, Zachary?! Return my eyesight at once! I demand it!”
“This?” Zachary seemed amused as he continued. “I’m not doing anything as grandiose as blinding you, my friend. This is simply a way for Masks to talk to one another; a mental space to consult on certain matters. You wouldn’t know about it because; well, you don’t really have anyone else, do you?”
“RARGH!” Gordon swung a heavy fist at where the voice was coming from.
Which didn’t do anything, of course; this wasn’t actually a physical landscape, so the fist Gordon thought he had thrown was merely a twitch from the neurons firing inside his brain.
“Had enough? Is it out of your system yet, Mr Boo-Hoo-Everyone-Treats-Me-Like-Shit?”
“…what do you want from me?” Gordon bitterly replied. Much as he would like to continue this fight, Gordon simply could not fathom of a way to do so. How could you hurt a formless, spectral ghost that lived within your very soul? Well yes, with medicine and therapy; but that particular treatment wasn’t exactly applicable in this scenario.
His only option was to surrender – but he wasn’t going to leave the table with nothing. That was not negotiable.
“I don’t care, Zachary; I’m not giving up this body or its powers. I need them.”
“Well, what for?”
“Haven’t you been listening?!” Gordon spat out incredulously. “To exact my revenge on those that have ruined my life! To make them feel how I-”
“Ok, there we go! We’re getting somewhere now!” Zachary cut him off mid-sentence. Gordon could hear a pen click in the murky darkness. “… make… them… feel… how… you… feel. Ok, got it. Carry on. What else do you want?”
Gordon stared blankly into the black void.
“Well? Go on, I’m waiting.”
“…what is this?” Gordon blurted out. “What are you doing? Why are you talking to me like you want to help me?”
The Reclusive Scientist scoffed.
“I’ve just had thirty seven years’ worth of radically different memories crammed back into my brain, my friend; the child you’d been talking to fifteen minutes ago is taking a nice, sweet nap – you’re talking to the results-oriented adult now. And I judge that it’d be way, way faster if we work together to figure out what you want, so that I can get back on what I want.”
Gordon gulped. The offer was tantalising; too tantalising.
He’d been feeling around the dark when he was gifted these abilities; yes, it was a boon to have vastly increased knowledge – and overall intelligence – about how to neatly dissect a body in five easy steps, or the best way to crack open a ribcage without a bonesaw; but to have the originator himself on the same side? On his side?
No, why would Zachary help me? I’m the one that took his Mask. There’s no way he’d help me. Why would he? He’s just waiting for me to slip up; to let my guard down. Then he’d chant some mumbo jumbo again and wipe me from his mind! I can’t give in. It’s just another trap.
But…
What if he’s telling the truth?
For a moment, Gordon dared to dream – to believe in someone that might believe in him.
So he gave in to that slim possibility.
“… I want them to suffer. To hurt.”
The imaginary pen scribbled across imaginary paper.
“Ok, elaborate on that – hurt how? Because from what I’m hearing, you’re just angry that they shoved you into a box and left that box to accumulate dust in a musty storeroom somewhere. And yeah, I get it; must feel kind of emasculating and diminutive. But really? You’re going to jump straight to ripping out eyeballs and tearing off genitals?”
“YOU DON’T KNOW HOW I FEEL!” Gordon screeched. The words came flooding out. Yeah; why would Zachary understand? He had all these amazing powers, knowledge beyond what past Gordon, the flea that was abandoned by society, would never, ever, for a billion years, be able to obtain. How could he understand?
“… ooh, you really got me there.” Zachary chuckled. “You’re right, I’m not going to lie and pretend like I’ve got some dark backstory where I was bullied as a kid. I don’t know how you feel. Like you said; I’ve just been dealt a better hand. I’ve been given a royal straight flush, and you’re across the table with absolute garbage.”
“So what kind of better strategy are you going to come up with that isn’t global terrorism and a decade long massacre to satisfy my anger?” Gordon fumed. “I’m not budging on this; they need to feel my pain. I need to know that they’re feeling my pain.”
“Ooh, I’m working on that, don’t you worry.” The pen scribbled faster, as Zachary spoke. “Let’s talk proportionality; how big is your strike zone? Because off some napkin math over here, your little escapade’s probably significantly diminished the QOL for a couple hundred thousand citizens. The rich elite? Middle aged workers? Scum like yourself? The elderly? Babies?”
Gordon opened his mouth to spit out the obvious answer.
All of them, of course. They all had to suffer. They were complicit in the system, in the society constructed. They agreed to it because they weren’t fighting against it; so they all deserved to suffer!
But he stopped.
Surely people in the same circumstances as past him didn’t deserve that, right? Society already treated them like nothing. Like the burnt out coals at the bottom of the fireplace. They needed to be protected, just as he had needed to be.
Not them.
And babies; they didn’t have any agency. Probably not them either. And they’d die without their parents, so parents were off the table. The elderly were a few steps in the grave themselves; what would be the point? Not them either. Middle aged worker bees, there wasn’t anything they could do to change the system, they were simply trapped in the cogwheels of society.
So not any of them.
Not bee, not fly, not flea.
It had to be the birds.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“The rich. The powerful. They need to pay.” Gordon said.
“See what a little bit of discussion can do for your problems?” Zachary cheerfully commented, punctuated by the scratching of pen on paper. “Instead of lashing out at a bunch of unrelated people like you were doing, we can hit the ones really in charge.”
“My method already self-selects.” Gordon retorted, a little defensively. “It’s not like every nation can afford to build a Life Model facility; Pyrate, Wistrol, Albachnese – all high wealth concentration countries.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t exactly kill only the rich people. Weren’t you kicking in doors at every house you saw? And Life Model applications don’t end at joyrides, they can be used in medical situations, to increase life expectancy- ah well, can’t unspill milk. This’ll be better for everyone.”
The mental pen dotted the last full-stop on the single page.
“So, the rich, the elite, gotta be able to see slash feel them hurt, and to do it in a short timeframe. Let’s give it… three days.”
“Three days?!” Gordon questioned in disbelief. “It took me forty days to build up my army; three days – that’s not going to do anything! Are you sure this will satisfy me?”
“Oh, trust me,” Zachary smirked. “This’ll work like a charm. Just follow my instructions to the letter and it’ll go splendidly. Three days – I promise you that you’ll be so satisfied, you’ll hand over my body right that moment.”
~
Esther Jomnia, second princess of the Albachnese royal family, yawned as she awoke from a restful sleep at the bright hour of one in the afternoon. Stretching her arms, she let out a cute gasp of contentment as her joints cracked in just the right way.
At the foot of her bed, two maidservants awaited her. One held a tray of wild mushroom risotto, paired with a vintage red wine from the cellars. The other held another tray of scrambled eggs and tea which would summarily be thrown in the trash as soon as Esther dismissed the two. She hadn’t awakened in time for breakfast, and the maidservants couldn’t leave until they had accomplished their task, so the one who’d been in charge of bringing breakfast had been waiting for hours for their mistress to wake, head bowed as the lowly peasants ought to be.
Esther didn’t rush to their side right away, or offer an apology for her late rising. She didn’t have to; these maidservants were simply there to pamper her, after all. Objects to be treated however one wished – this was her birthright as princess. To rule over all that were lesser than she was.
She merely rose up from her bed, strolled over gracefully, and wordlessly took her place at the table. Maidservant number two gingerly placed the tray of risotto in front of Esther, then minced back into place behind the princess, hands folded demurely in front of her. Maidservant number one balanced the tray of breakfast in one hand, and deftly plucked the television remote from a pocket to flick on the news for the mistress.
“-and reports are still coming in all over the globe about a critical malfunction in the Life Models produced by genius inventor, Gordon Higgins, which led to massive loss of lives in every major population center. Experts have commented on this lapse in the development of the life-support tool as “reckless and irresponsible.” Albachnese Five News has reached out to the creator for comment, but since the tragedy just three days ago, there have been no sightings of the mysterious millionaire. It is speculated that he has gone into hiding as a result of his failings.”
Esther tutted at the report. It was lucky that she and her ilk didn’t dabble in such drivel; if they wanted entertainment, they could buy any number of desperate individuals to act as court jesters. No need to force yourself into a false simulacrum of reality when you already lived in heaven. She did hear that her fifth uncle had been castrated, though. Balls sawn right off. Served him right for being an eccentric kook and inviting the enemy into his fortress.
Lightly shaking her head, she raised her glass of wine to her mouth and imbibed the red liquid. Mmm. Notes of cedar. Or something like that. She wasn’t as familiar with wine as her father was. But it tasted divine, so that didn’t matter.
“Don’t you agree, Willow?” Esther pointed her glass to the television screen in the nook of the ceiling. “Complete poppycock, making something that could hurt so many people.”
“Yes, your Highness.” Maidservant one didn’t really have an opinion on the situation. She was mostly trying to ignore her screaming muscles pleas and keep the tray in her arms steady.
“How about you, Sandy? Isn’t it just terrible?”
“Yes, your Highness.” Maidservant two didn’t care either. She was just relieved she didn’t live down in the dirt like the other peasants. She had to serve her mistress, wait on her hand and foot, but her life was still markedly better than the mindless drones that filled out spreadsheets or filled in potholes.
“Yes,” Esther proclaimed. “We should really teach this Gordon filloow a goo leshon. Pun-eesh heem- mek heem pae-”
Esther cleared her throat. What was that?
“-pun-eesh-”
There it was again!
“Mistress?” Maidservant two offered some concern, but Esther waved it away in frustration. She could handle this herself, thank you very much; no need for a lowly servant to offer her any assistance. As if one of the poors could reach the answer before their master.
Think, Esther, think!
She massaged her hair with her free hand, wracking her brain as her beautiful, perfectly arranged hair was ruffled by rough rubbing.
For some reason, her speech was beginning to slur, as if she’d downed an entire bottle of wine-
Ah!
Of course! It was the wine!
She stared angrily at the glass of wine in her hands, stem still perched between her slender fingers.
Bad wine!
She flung the glass down with all her might, the crystal shattering into a million pieces on the ground. The maidservants retreated to the back of the room, head bowed, and careful to not let out any sounds of surprise even as glass shrapnel flew at them. They didn’t know what had caused the mistress to fly into a sudden rage, but who really knew with these rich types? Maybe a boytoy of hers was killed in that Life Model tragedy.
But they quickly changed course as the next inexplicable thing began, rushing back forwards to the princess’s side to restrain her.
For Esther, second princess of Albachnese royalty, graceful flower of the meadow, had eagerly leapt down onto the shards and scattered slivers of glass, grinding her knees into the blanket of sharp protrusions she had created, yelping as they stabbed into her skin.
And instead of getting off the thing that was hurting her as any rational human being would do, Esther instead angrily swung both fists down into the chips of glass with an angry cry.
“Bad wine!”
Thud.
“Bad wine!”
Thud.
“Bad wine!”
On the windowsill, an strange earthworm watched on as the two maidservants pulled their screeching mistress by her arms back onto her bed, forcing her arms together and preventing her from scarring her fair skin any further. From afar, it looked like any old worm, just minding its own business, being a worm. But if one looked a little closely, they might find that it wasn’t a worm at all.
What kind of worm had a miniature human eyeball protruding from its head?
“Stop iiit!” Esther wailed, her once graceful demeanour and poise long abandoned as she struggled against the well-meaning grip of her flustered maidservants. “Lemme hurt tee bad wine!”
~
“Satisfied, Gordon?” the triumphant remark came. “Told you; three days. Easy peasy. Now can we please get to what I want to do?”
“Wh-what was that?!” Gordon pointed with a trembling finger to the screen in front of them, the broadcast from Zachary’s flesh cameras having fed back to a centralised system. It wasn’t just Esther, of course; three days was enough to seed just about every human population on Yuna Prime. “Why did she-”
“It’s what you wanted, right? For them to feel how you feel; that’s what you wanted, right?” Zachary replied, hardly able to contain the excitement in his voice. “It’s been soooo long since I’ve last done this! Ah, it still feels great! Slow acting neurotoxin, delivered via wide spectrum infection and activated by critical mass – and the beauty of it is, the way we’ve set it up, all we need to do is infect everyone, and let it filter back to just the ones we want! Concentration of mercury from daily consumption of exotic fish, coupled with aged wines and booze, throw in some reactions to gold and silver; the rich make it way too easy to pick them out from a crowd! A targeted, silent pandemic – ooh, I’m a fucking genius! Muah! Another masterpiece. I just keep churning them out.”
“B-but-”
Gordon… hadn’t imagined it like this. He’d imagined something more like screams of pain and grovelling as he towered over his oppressors, crushing them underfoot. A righteous fury, descending to rain down fire on those that deserved it.
Not watching them degenerate into drooling babies, incapable of critical thought. Incapable of progressing a thought any further than if it feels good or if it feels bad. Incapable of even understanding that smashing a fist into broken glass would hurt themselves.
“Alrighty; that’s my end of the deal.”
Gordon felt the hairs on the back of his borrowed body stand up as Zachary – no, the Reclusive Scientist – chimed in with a nonchalant phrase, seemingly already putting what had just happened behind him.
Didn’t he… didn’t he feel anything? Anything at all?
Gordon was only just now beginning to glimpse the difference between him and Zachary.
His was a clumsy, angry malice – malice which was unrefined, but powerful in its own right. The swinging of a heavy mallet, the flailing of someone determined to strike back at what he deemed to be society.
But Zachary's? His wasn't malice at all.
It was apathy.
The slip of a cold scalpel; uncaring of who was under the knife.
“Although I don’t really have the ability to separate you out right this very moment… so I guess you’ll be coming along for the ride! Ha ha!”
He’d just… destroyed the lives of so many people! And… he was laughing?
“I trust you don’t have any objections? I mean, this is a give and take situation, so you don’t really have any reason to deny, right?”
And if he could do that to people he didn’t know, didn’t have any reason to hate or hold a grudge against…
“Hey… Gordon… answer me already." the Reclusive Scientist pouted. "Even someone like me can get mad, y’know? I’m thirty seven, not fifty seven; I’m still barely at the age where I’m allowed to throw tantrums. I think. Probably.”
What would he do to someone who had stolen his precious Mask?
Gordon gulped.
“Right, Zachary. Anything you say.”