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Chapter Twenty Nine

“Please tell me what you are thinking.”

“I’m thinking that maybe you’re looking at this wrong. Maybe instead of me trying to be like you, you should all try being like me.”

“What would that accomplish?”

“It would put an end to the lies you tell yourselves.”

–Subject: ‘The Father’. Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. 5 Months After.

* * *

It was over. Liam had failed.

After all this time, after all this fighting, it had been for nothing in the end. He had made his harrowing escape from Purgatory, braved the Atlantic on his dinky little raft, explored the shores of this post-apocalyptic land, and fought countless of its inhabitants. He had followed his wife’s footsteps, met brave souls and watched them fall, all while clinging to this dream that it might one day be restored. Not just for himself, but for everything that had come before.

And yet, he had failed.

Hades had brought them to a place that had once been some poor soul’s stronghold. The brick walls were less aged than the world outside, and the windows were reinforced with rebar. Whole walls had been gutted to make extra space, no doubt for the countless refugees this sanctuary had once held.

Now it was just another place for Hades to set up shop. There were no survivors left, nor would anyone come to save them. Humanity had been exterminated by his captor, and no one could stand against his insurmountable might.

Not even Leah.

That was what gave Liam the greatest pause. The two had spent well over a month together, and though there had been no shortage of friction, she had revealed her true nature before the end. Leah had been cast in the same mold as Liam. Sure, she did not have a family, nor a television series, nor even a heartbeat, but they shared their proclivities regardless. Where Liam had wasted his life shunning that which he loved in pursuit of surpassing any challenge the natural world could throw his way, she had done the same. Leah had formed her Hunters, created wealth and fame beyond her imagination, and become the dominant authority of post-Hollowing survivalism. But by aiming to persist without end, she had sacrificed the very reason for doing it. Survival had been as much her prison as his, and it was within those narrow, lonely walls where she had driven all that she’d loved away, until there was nobody left to make the struggle worth it.

Except, perhaps, in her final moment. When the bullets were flying and death was inescapable, Leah did not prioritize her own safety above all else. She had cared only for saving Liam, even with the odds so far against them. It was her defining moment of martyrdom. Her exercise in self-sacrifice. So long as Liam escaped and a cure became manufactured, it no longer mattered what happened to her.

Leah had escaped the prison, and the world had killed her for it.

The door to his cell opened. Xander marched in. His crimson eyes were barren beneath the black wall of a raised neckwarmer, and his feet hardly made a sound at all. Only the eagle’s feather in his cap showed any degree of life. It shivered with each step.

Liam was dragged into the hall, with Xander pushing him along. Was this how humanity ended? Not with some grandiose display, but with one lonely man being walked to his death?

“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” Liam said when the silence became too much.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Xander asked, his tone even.

“You know what Hades is going to do. Doesn’t it bother you to know that any chance for a cure dies with me?”

“Nope. A contract’s a contract. Doesn’t matter what the job is, so long as it pays.”

“So you’re just a mercenary who goes for the highest bidder. That about right?”

“You could say that.”

Liam scoffed. “Do you even care about how many of your own have been sacrificed to get to me? How many that you’ve gotten killed?”

“You think you know shit about us, but you don’t. There’s no right or wrong out here. No good or evil. There’s only the Hunt, and how much Rez you spend and how much Rez you gain.”

“Well, I reckon that we’ve taken a lot more from you than you’ll ever get from me. Seems that you’re worse off for the effort, mate.”

His grunt turned more bitter. “Yeah, you got me. The books will be nice, but I was only in this to bring Leah down.” Liam froze with her name evoked, but another hard shove forced him back into the march. Xander chuckled. “Liked her, huh?”

Liam grit his teeth. “She saved my life.”

“And killed my friend in the process.”

“Your friend would’ve killed me.”

“That sounds like a problem that should’ve been settled between you and Spike. Outside the Styx, Hunters have their own autonomy. Our own honor to defend. We trust each other to handle a contract once it’s been taken, and no one has the right to interfere. But Leah didn’t believe that. Not really. Too much time feeling mighty made her arrogant, and she valued her reputation as the best above all else.”

“No, she wanted to strive for something other than picking at the carcass of the civilization that humanity left behind.”

Xander yawned. “Only proves my point. No right and wrong involved. Just a Hunter deluding themselves. Me though? I’m sick of your whiny voice and couldn’t give a shit about what happens next.” He shoved him through the next door.

Mastermind squirmed at the sight, but he was powerless against the ropes he’d been tied in. Mother sat besides, body still and head down as she dared not catch either in the eye. Both had been secured to an exposed pipe in the wall, with just enough room to Mother’s side for Liam. His arms ached as they were twisted once again behind his head and locked in place. There was only a single other chair in sight, and the light of a nearby lantern danced on its surface.

Xander marched away, leaving them alone.

Liam turned to Mother. “You led us into a trap.”

“No,” she said. “I led you to the one place where I thought you’d be safe.”

“Then how did he find us?”

Mother stared downcast. “I don’t know. We were waiting at my outpost outside Cheyenne until a few days back, trying to keep hidden until you showed yourself. But you took longer than I expected, and Hades found us first. My people were better equipped for dealing with hollows, not Hunters, and he had plenty at his disposal.” She frowned. “I’m the only one left now. Hades had the rest consumed for sustenance.”

Liam shook his head. So many lives had been so pitifully wasted to reach this point, and there seemed to have been no reason at all. What had it been for?

The door opened with a moan, and Hades marched through. The wrinkles in his face were alive in the light of the lantern, and his red eyes seemed to glow. An earsplitting creak erupted as he dragged the chair across the room, letting it sit across from Mother.

Hades gleamed. “Gotta say, this has been one hell of a time. I don’t know about all of you, but I’ve been having a fucking blast this past month. I got myself back in the field, I saw the country, I cleared out a few Enclaves…”

He stroked his chin. “Oh, you guys totally missed it. This one Enclave we found thought the secret to immortality was wearing the skin of the dregs they Hunted. Can you imagine that? Their skin!? Crazy, right? Well, I got to talking to their leader, and he made a pretty strong case. Almost had me convinced. So I busted out this awesome line about how I’d always wanted to be immortal, I just needed more skin. Next thing you know, I’m wearing a half-dozen skins for the next week like they were an overcoat. I even got to have a sweet-ass nose from their leader, but the damned thing kept falling off, so I tossed it along with the rest.”

He looked to each of his captives as they sat in tense silence, then waved a dismissive hand. “Ah, you had to be there.” With a flick of his wrist, he drew his revolver and started unloading it. He went slowly, removing each round. Metal bullet, then the paper that held them in place, and finally the black powder beneath. “Guess it’s about time we get this whole shindig over with, huh?” He turned to Liam. “Let’s start with you. What the hell’s your deal, anyway?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why do you suck at this so badly? It’s been twelve years since the Hollowing began. Twelve fucking years. What were you, stuck in a coma that whole time? You should be the kind of hard motherfucker who’d kill a dozen of my guys, and then turn their dead bodies into a tank, and then drive that tank straight through the heart of Elysium, and sword-fight me on the roof, butchering everyone along the way. But instead, you’re so shitty at this thing that you didn’t even try to take me out when your big friend had me distracted. Perfect chance too. Then my guys would’ve gone all ‘Ah, oh no, not Lord Hades! What do we do now!?’ and you could’ve turned the tables on those pussies too.” He reached the final round, but left it in the cylinder. “This all begs the question… How the hell did you make it this far?”

“I was trapped on an island.” Liam said, meeting him head-on. “If you’re going to make a crack about Cast Away, don’t bother. I’ve heard it all before.”

Hades stared at him sideways. “What the fuck is Cast Away?” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. My point is that as fun of a time as this has been, you’re definitely the biggest disappointment. To think that I was getting excited for some final showdown, yet here we are, and it’s just a boring execution.”

“You don’t have to do this, Hades,” Mother said. “You can let us go.”

For a moment, he seemed to almost consider the prospect, but then he shook his head. “Nah, I can’t do that. It’d just piss everyone off, myself included.”

“This power play has gone too far. You won’t be able to keep what’s happened here under wraps.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you think I’m doing? That this is some chess game to keep myself in power?”

“We both know why you’re doing this.”

Hades chuckled. “I don’t think you do. I don’t think any of you truly get it.” The revolver clattered as he gave the cylinder a spin. “I couldn’t care less about leading our kind. I never did. It only fell to me because I happen to be the motherfucking best at this shit. But when push comes to shove, I’m just an asshole with a gun. Want proof?” He pressed his revolver against his head and pulled the trigger. The click was met with silence.

Hades gave the cylinder another spin and cocked the hammer, this time pointing at Mother. The two focused only on each other, as if no one else was in the room.

“You helped usher in this world,” Mother said, her tone even and unafraid. “If not for power, then why do you play the short-sighted despot? Does your hatred really run so deep that you’d burn the whole world down just to be the one to piss on the ashes?” When the revolver clicked, she didn’t even blink.

Hades put the gun back on himself. “Sometimes I think you weren’t paying attention, Mother. Have you seen the world that humanity created? Torture. Greed. Murder. Rape. Hell, some of them make me look like a fucking girl scout, and I flayed a bunch of dudes and wore their skin the other week. You want to bring that back?” Click. Silence. He grinned. “Maybe you’re so blind with self-loathing that you don’t see that you’re the only one repeating history.”

Mother held firm. “I might have lit the fuse that burned their civilization down, but everything I’ve done since then has been to correct that error.” Click. Silence.

“What are you talking about?” Liam asked.

Hades paused, the revolver against his skull. “Shit… No one’s told you, huh?”

“Told me what?”

His gun fell limp in hand. The wrinkles in his cheeks stretched wide as Hades frowned, as if he was about to tell Liam that they were getting divorced.

“It’s occurred to me that we’ve never been properly introduced,” he said before pointing the gun. “What’s your name?”

“Stop!” Mother shouted, but Liam shooed her off.

“Liam Fenix,” he said.

The revolver clicked, and Liam lurched in spite of himself. Having a gun waved in his face turned out to be more than he’d been ready for.

“Hello, Liam,” Hades said, the revolver back on himself. “My name is Elijah Campbell.” Click. Silence. “Or was, back before I went hollow.”

“That name supposed to mean something to me?”

“Probably not, unless you’ve ever gone to church in some shithole north of here called Larkspur.” He dangled the revolver back at Mother. “But it’s her you’d be interested in meeting. For real.” He cocked the hammer.

Only now was Mother addled. Her magenta eyes were blinking through the growing moisture, and her body slunk an inch.

“Go on!” Hades ordered with more force.

Mother stared at Liam, and a tear ran free. “I am Dr Ava Sherman, and I was the architect behind HBRS-15.21.”

Liam gasped. She was the one who created this nightmare? Everyone who had been lost, all the lives that had been surrendered over this mission, and Mother was the only reason they’d been here!

“How could you not tell us!?” Liam spat.

“Would you have trusted me, if I had?”

“They all died because of you!”

“Yes, they did. Even Leah, and she knew my past. That was the reason she’d always hated me.”

The blood rose to his cheeks. “You told me that you had no idea who you were.”

“No,” Mother corrected. “I told you that I have no memories of my past life, and that has always been true. The only way to know is to be told, and I am one of the unique few who had been gifted with that opportunity.”

Liam glanced to Mastermind. “Did you know too?” He couldn’t believe this!

He frowned. “Leah had insisted that I never tell you. She was worried you’d abandon the mission.”

“Of course I bloody would! That woman is the reason we’re all here. The reason I can’t be with my family anymore! You should have put her in the ground, not followed her straight off a cliff.”

Hades guffawed, then grinned when Liam glared his way. “Oh, don’t mind me. See, now we’re getting somewhere. This soap opera shit is real good!”

Liam squirmed as the revolver pointed his way, and flinched again as it went off. He blinked through the tears. How much more of this madness could he take!?

“Enough with the juvenile theatrics!” Mastermind shouted. “This is no game of roulette, Hades. You’re using sleight of hand to ensure that the cylinder never lands where the round is located!”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, shut up, Mastermind.”

Hades gave the cylinder another spin and pointed the revolver at Mastermind. This time a piercing bang burst out, followed by the dull ring of a gunshot going off in such close quarters. Liam’s heart skipped a beat as he watched blood pour out of his friend’s throat. But as Mastermind looked at the wound, his eyes didn’t roll over, nor did he go limp. He only sulked in silence.

“Not so clever now, huh, Mr Smartypants?” Hades mocked. “That outta keep you quiet for a while.”

Mastermind opened his mouth to speak, but more blood spilled out instead.

“So as I was saying, Liam,” Hades continued as he reloaded his revolver. “Dr Sherman and I go way back. You see, I wasn’t always the coolest motherfucker to ever walk this Earth. I used to just be some Bible Thumper in the middle of nowhere. And when the Hollowing came to my doors, I ordered all my parishioners to their deaths with some kinda cyanide-laced Kool Aid. I know, I know. Real Jonestown shit. Don’t blame me. Elijah’s the guy you want, and I’ve never met him. But he must’ve fucked up and been bit before, because they all stayed dead and I didn’t, leaving me with the perfect feast.

“That’s how it works too. Building a strong Rez is a slow and steady process, but for those of us who get enough free grey matter, we bounce right back. A room full of dead yokels gave me everything I needed, and I was back to thinking and kicking ass within weeks. Of course, that’s when those folks in Cheyenne got a hold of me.” He turned back to Mother and waited.

She took his queue. “After the Pentagon fell, the remainder of America’s government and Aeon’s chief scientists fled to NORAD, located in Cheyenne Mountain. My former self was among them, and it had been her goal to reverse the Hollowing. When they found Hades, they studied him to that end. No one had ever seen a rezzer before then.”

“That’s what they said,” Hades interrupted, “but I think they just wanted an excuse to play around with yours truly.”

“It was there where I was infected,” Mother said. She narrowed back on Hades. “He was the one to do it.”

He frowned. “Oh, don’t give me that look. Was I really supposed to sit in that hole by myself? We’d already spent so much time together, so I thought we’d get ourselves a little more.”

“Ava must have deduced rezzer creation, as they harvested enough grey matter from donor corpses to help fortify my own reservoir. I started thinking and speaking again within the month. They called me Dr Sherman, and they showed me images and videos of myself played back to me, but I never considered them as mine. Even when Ava’s husband introduced himself and I saw the emotions on his face, I felt nothing in exchange. So instead of following their recommendations, I shunned my identity and built another. Hades was only known as ‘The Father’ then, so I took the mantle of ‘Mother’.” She leaned back, resigned. “I was so young at the time, and didn’t see the truth for what it was.”

“And what truth is that?” Liam asked.

“That our past defines us, no matter how hard we pretend otherwise. Hades became Hades through a derivation of ‘The Father’, and that title had come from his priesthood before. I might be ‘Mother’ now, but I’ve never earned the title conventionally. HBRS-15.21 is my true lineage, and not even death can wash that sin away from me.”

“So that’s why you’re so desperate for a cure,” Liam inferred. “This has nothing to do with saving me or mankind, and everything to do with mollifying your own guilt.” Yet again, Liam felt the fool. Was he no more than the broken chess piece in the middle of their contest?

Mother shook her head. “It was supposed to be easy. If Leah could make you disappear in the one place that Hades would never think to look, we could solve this problem, once and for all. Humanity could go on, and the slate would be wiped clean.”

“Almost worked too,” Hades admitted. “I never thought I’d see Cheyenne after we escaped it. But an investment I made years ago has finally paid off.” He held up his radio. “There’s this fun little old world tool called ‘Global Positioning System’ that lets you locate anything on the planet. The satellites go off course if they aren’t updated, but I managed to restore them back to functionality after setting up relays at a couple outposts in secret. Then I tagged every car we’ve ever rebuilt with GPS trackers in case any got lost or stolen, including those at the Larder.” He smiled. “I had you guys the moment you left Reno.”

Of course, Liam thought, remembering the GPS transponder that he’d found on the Xin Yue Jiang and used to get back to Santa Monica safely. The one bit of his journey that he’d taken without dwelling, and it was the sole reason they’d been found.

“Why won’t you just let me end this?” Mother asked. “No more games. No more spin. Tell me why you’re fighting me so hard on this, Hades.”

“You want to talk for real now, huh?” Hades said. He holstered his revolver. “Very well, then. If you want some hard truths, I’ve got plenty for you.

“A philosopher once said that ‘while there is life, there is hope.’ It became one of the maxims I heard back in Cheyenne. So long as my overlords’ hearts still beat, there was hope that the future might improve for them. But you know what I saw when I was locked in that cell? When I read their mythologies and religions and watched the world I’d been presented? The opposite. ‘While there is hope, there is no life.’ I said that to you once, Dr Sherman, during one of our interviews. Oh sure, you and the rest could run around that bunker and mix one test tube’s contents with another, but what were you doing? I mean really. What kind of existence was that?”

“It was survival,” Mother countered. “Without survival, there is no way for life to continue.”

“Life,” he repeated with a bitter laugh. “What an odd buzz word that we use so callously to define our experience, and yet one that conflicts with itself. A man could survive in a bunker for well over a hundred years doing nothing other than eating, shitting, and sleeping, but most of us would say that he never lived a day. Yet if we took that same man and let him drink, fuck, and party into an early grave, we’d turn around and say nobody had ever lived harder than him.”

He spread his gloved hands wide. “Life. Death. Survival. All made up nonsense just to confuse from the one bit of truth in this world. The now. I exist in this time and at this room, as do you. That’s all there is to it. That’s all there’s ever been. And that’s all that’ll ever be. I trust that if I jump out of the plane, I’ll figure out how to work the parachute before I hit the ground. And if I don’t? Well, then I’ll have made one bad-as-fuck splash. Where does hope factor into all that?”

“It gives us a chance,” Mother said. “Sure, it’s thrilling to live only in the present, but without hope, there can be no future. Hope is needed to keep us from stagnating into extinction.”

Hades raised a finger. “That is where you’re so fucking wrong, Mother. Hope isn’t the savior. It’s the goddamned warden. It exists to invite doubt and hesitation and fear into your blood, lest your actions go at odds with that which you strive to see done. Then you are crippled by the very hope that raised you up. What was Elijah Campbell, but a man who wasted his life under the thrall of the hope that his god would gift him eternal salvation? What am I, but the very incarnate of everything he could’ve been, had he merely abandoned his delusions in place of living in the present?”

“Is that all you are, Hades? A narrow-minded nihilist?”

He gleamed. “When you believe in nothing, you become capable of anything. Let’s not act like our predecessors had some higher purpose. They wasted their time in cubicles or staring at electronic screens, surviving when they should’ve been living. Instead of embracing the day for what it was, they existed with the hope that their miserable lives would someday change, all the way until it killed them. Hell, I’d go so far as to say that the Hollowing never needed to happen. Most of humanity had already hollowed inside.

“At least we rezzers are honest. We have no past and no future. We are what we are, and that’s that. But you start upsetting that balance with an unhealthy infusion of hope, and the next thing you know, we’ll live in times that haven’t come, just like them. Maybe start surviving for the sake of surviving. You know, hope for things to change on their own.”

“You deem yourself the savior of our kind by crushing out any aspirations we have,” Mother deduced.

“That’s right. You’re not the good guy in this.” He pointed to himself. “I am. You’d reduce everyone’s Rez to mush waiting for a ‘cure’, and they’d sit there and take it, just like the drones that they were before. But so long as I’m here to kick them until they’re down, they’ll always have something to fight against.”

“And so long as I’m here, they’ll always believe that they can rise back up.”

His red eyes seemed on fire in the shifting light of the lantern. “That’s what makes our relationship so beautiful, Mother. Yin and yang and all that shit. This is the ideal civilization for our kind. No future. No past. No point. Just creatures living their days as if they were their last, with all the confusion and anarchy that comes with it. A chaotic, liberated world. Pandemonium embodied.”

He turned to Liam. “So that’s why I’m gonna kill you. Not for what you’ve done, or what you could do, but because your existence gives me a sense of hope. No more complicated than that.”

“Just be done with it,” Liam said. “I’m not afraid of you.”

“Oh no, you don’t get off that easy. None of you get to enjoy the sweet release until I figure out what Mother’s been hiding in that bunker. It sure as fuck isn’t old world medical equipment she’d use to make a cure.”

Liam looked to Mother. “What does he mean?”

Hades chuckled. “You won’t get her to break. Believe me, I’ve bashed my head against that wall the past week trying. Her people knew fuck all about her plans, and she didn’t crack an inch, even when we ate them all in front of her.

“But you’re gonna help me now that you’re here, Liam. Let’s kick this interrogation up a notch!” He pulled out his radio. “It’s time, Dean. Bring it in.”

There was a pause as Hades stared awkwardly at his captives.

“I said it’s time. Get back here.”

Only static responded.

Hades pulled the radio closer. “Come on, Dean. Pick the fuck up. Do you have any idea how much of an asshole you’re making me look like right now!?”

“Dean’s dead,” Leah said through the radio. “And you’re next, Hades. It’s over.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake…”

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