Kai received the report with great anxiousness. Someone had tried to assassinate Stratego Fleury in her own quarters. How could the would-be assassin even gain that type of access? The Lux Orbis headquarters building was immediately locked down and searched, but the assassin had yet to be found.
Kai had an armed guard of fifteen Berserks surrounding him in his control center as he read the report. He knew he was safe in their presence; they were not Spartan Berserks, who, while great warriors in their own regard, spent their lives delving more into the inner workings of the mind than as warriors. These were Berserks, and these fifteen were some of the best; they rarely spoke, and Kai was beginning to think they couldn’t speak. But Kai could read their thoughts through their steely-gray eyes. These Berserks wanted blood.
Kai had a Berserk guard dispatched for the Stratego and other dignitaries who could be targets of assassination. According to Stratego Fleury, the mirror in her bathroom had swirled before a laser shot out of it. Kai thought about this and wondered at the technology the assassin had used. “Once the assassin is discovered, keep him or her alive for interrogation.” Kai ordered.
Kai had to know what this technology was, how the assassin acquired it, and how large the clone network was in the Seven Pillars. Was it even the clones who ordered this assassination? Kai’s mind raced with possibilities.
He departed with his Berserk guard back to his quarters, where seven Berserks followed him inside and the remainder posted-up outside, covering all access points to the Consul’s quarters. Kai lived in the top two floors of the Lux Orbis headquarters building. As he entered, the seven Berserks spread out, searching the two floors of living space for the Consul of Earth.
If they can get to the Stratego, they can get to me. He consumed another dose of the green-blue pills.
Kai stood at the base of the cherry blossom tree that served as the center point of his apartment. Kai had lived here for sixteen years and planted the tree himself when he first occupied the apartment. It gave him a sense of peace to stare at the pink flowers that he had created with his own hands while the Berserks searched for someone who might kill him.
The Berserks finished their search and signaled to Kai it was all clear.
Kai sat at his desk and continued writing in his journal, a task he began before he learned of the attempt on Stratego Fleury’s life. Kai knew that one of his most important tasks was to compile a record of his knowledge of Odina and Nova Gnosis, along with how he ascended to Consul, so his successor could know the truth…whenever that day arrived:
I was a nobody until I saw and heard Odina’s message all those years ago. I left my community with five-thousand other people to make the thirty-four-day journey to what is now the Chicago Pyrἰnas. It was as if Odina’s message unlocked a portion of my brain that had been dormant and I felt great anger when I realized my ancestors never knew of the clone’s betrayal, or why they lived like peasants to feudal overlords. I walked with a fury the entire journey, eager to obtain one of the Susurrus that Odina had promised would let the taker obtain full enlightenment.
When I arrived at the Chicago Pyrἰnas, Odina appeared to me like a goddess, seemingly able to change her molecular structure to teleport to and fro on this plane. She personally handed me the Susurrus and watched me as I eagerly swallowed it, awaiting my transformation. The effects were immediate. A prism of colors invaded my mind and knowledge of mankind’s past fluttered into my synapses; I could see the history my ancestors had lived, through their eyes. I grasped my head in pain, as my hippocampus, neocortex and amygdala pounded from the strain of this emergence. I fell into a deep sleep where I dreamed of mankind’s history and awoke two days later in what Odina called her Astroluna. I was amazed and asked Odina why she had brought me there and what the place was. She said that this was her spaceship, and I was to lead humanity in a great awakening, what she called the Nova Ortus. She said she chose me mostly because of my reaction to the Susurrus, and that I was a descendant of the…
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
A loud knocking on Kai’s door took him away from his memoirs. Another interruption. “Come in.”
“We captured the assassin, Consul,” said Gunnar, Kai’s aide and proxy, with elation. “She was hiding in the sarcophagus of Zavyr Paxt.”
“Good. Very, very good. I will see her right away.”
----------------------------------------
The assassin was drenched in sweat, with deep cuts that had been cauterized on her abdomen and thighs. She was splayed out on a medieval stretcher, turned upside-down.
Kai didn’t approve of the methods of the Shadow Berserks, but they were employed for a reason. And this ‘person’ being tortured was clearly a clone, not a real person. How could a true human want to assassinate the Stratego and help Proxima Borealis?
“So, you attempt to assassinate the Stratego of Lux Orbis, and then you have the audacity to hide in the tomb of the great Zavyr Paxt? What is your name?” Kai said, eerily calm.
“My name means nothing, for I am nothing.”
“Very well, nothing. I will call you X then, for the remainder of this life you have.”
Kai walked over to the Shadow Berserkr Thegn and whispered in his ear. The Shadow Berserkr walked over to X and flipped her right-side-up, then injected X with a black serum.
“Do you know the pain I will order to be inflicted on you, X?” said Kai. “I want to know what the technology was that you used against Stratego Fleury, and how many more are in your clone-spy network.”
X spit at Kai with a feral look in her eyes. “You think I am a clone? Ha! You think you have only one enemy. Go ahead and inflict pain, I couldn’t care less. You do not inspire fear in me, Consul.”
With that, X ripped her hand free of the straps that bound her and punched her hip in blindingly fast movement, writhed in pain, and died.
Kai jumped into action. “Quickly, Thegn, get the iris scanning equipment!” Time was a factor now. Why hadn’t X been checked for any suicide devices, a standard procedure for even the most rudimentary prisoner? How did X get her hand free?
The Shadow Berserk Thegn ran to a panel in the concrete wall and pulled out a device the size of a first aid kit and began expanding it. Kai ran over to X and held her head between his knees and her eyes open.
The Thegn placed the device over X’s face and activated it. Two long, thin needles protruded from it and entered X’s eyes.
They would have everything they needed regardless of whether she killed herself or not.
“I want to know who brought her to you, Thegn. Why wasn’t she searched?”
“I’ll make a report and send it to you with all hast, Consul,” said the Shadow Berserkr Thegn with a growl. He wanted to know the same thing.
“And send me the contents of the deep-iris scan when it is ready. I don’t want a summarized report, or a third-party analysis compiled beforehand. I want to see it all myself.”
Kai looked down at himself and saw he was covered in X’s blood that had spewed from her mouth. He knew he should have let his Berserkr guards rush to X and hold her head for the deep-iris scan, but Kai never squirmed away from a task—no matter how menial. He believed that being an effective leader meant doing everything he asked others to do, even the most tedious task.
Kai returned to his apartment with his Berserkr escort; he swallowed another pill. She said she wasn’t a clone… Kai kicked the chair in his office in frustration. Then what in the bejesus was she trying to assassinate Fleury for?