NOVEL NEXT Chapter 64: Confessions of a Tyrant.
Chapter 64: Confessions of a Tyrant.
“Here, I’ll show you.” He snapped his fingers and the scene burst like a million panels of exploding glass.
Leaving the two of us, plus the avatar in a blackened space filled with other humans on one side and large crustaceans on the other. Most of the people here were blurry and undefined. More outlines than anything else.
The only exceptions were a trio clustered together. Man and woman, as well as their child.
“See that kid between them Drakey? See the way his pale blue eyes resemble chips of dirty ice? See the way they’re almost white? The way they don’t focus on anything else in the room? Here, I’ll let you borrow a tiny fraction of power. Look at that child with a little bit more scrutiny. What do you see in him?”
I did as the fool asked and backed away with a strangled gasp.
Name:
Solomon Carter
Psy:
26, 060, 800 / 26, 060, 800
Type:
Telepath V Level 212
Abilities:
[Solomon’s Inescapable Domination X] 35 / [Solomon’s Overwhelming Avatar X] 35 / [Solomon’s Inexorable Presence X] 25 / [Solomon’s Limited Omniscience X] 23 / [Solomon’s Impenetrable Obfuscation X] 14 / [Solomon’s Righteous Indignation X] 12 / [Solomon’s Enduring Empathy X] 17 / [Solomon’s Empowering Majesty X] 11
Ability Points:
1
“What the (Noble)!?”
“Is it the Psy count? Yeah. That took me by surprise too. Its like this: 300 for the first Tier since it would be 55 at level 1 plus 5 for every new Tier 1 level. We then multiply those 5 by 49 more levels. Then you add an additional 2500 for the second Tier, since its 50 times 50. Add in 25, 000 for the third Tier since each new level gives 500 Psy and double that for the fourth since each level there gives 1000. So, you end up with ((50 + 5 x 50) + (50 x 50) + (500 x 50) + (1, 000 x 50) + (2, 000 x 12)). Which amounts to 101, 800. Then you take the titles into account. Each one giving that little troublemaker a times two multiplier. One that stacks eight (Gnome)ing times since he’s got eight titles. And, yes, these estimates work without the System being present. Turns out all the System does is categorize existing changes in as way that’s legible. The bonuses were always there. So, that leaves us with, let’s see here, 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times 2 times, you guessed it, 2. Which totals a multiplier of 256. We use it on our previous total and we land on 26, 060, 800. A nice little number to…”
“YOU (Noble)ING MONSTER!”
He laughed. Harder and more merrily than before.
“You know Drakey? There’s something really sweet about the way that you, of all people, call me a monster. It’s a little ironic, wouldn’t you say? Kinda makes me want to send this info out to Granny Golden or Orphan Maker or that one principal that thought harassing humans in his Tutorial instance was a good idea.”
“Who!?”
“Doesn’t matter. What matters is this situation and the events that followed. Turns out people get real scared when a horde of monsters are headed their way, but they get even more nervous when someone shows up and enslaves all of them on reflex.”
He chuckled.
This madman actually chuckled. A manic, deranged look in his eyes.
“You see, I had no control back then. How could I? I was six for crying out loud! I still slept with the lights on!” He sighed in exasperation.
Watching on as the outlines stiffened and relaxed in a vicious cycle.
“So, I took over them. All of them. For a long, long time. Knowing full well that they hated and feared me more than the crabs. That my own parents were screaming inside of their own minds. I… couldn’t turn it off. Not then. I didn’t know how and everyone I happened to ask got real scared too. Which caused me to enslave them as well. All on reflex. Which only made the problem grow.”
He actually laughed then. Roaring at how ridiculous his own story was.
“Did you know I was the first conqueror to achieve world domination? No. I bet you didn’t. But it is true. Alexander the Great, Caesar, Genghis Khan, none of them held a candle to me. None of them came close to achieving what I achieved. You see, that power to sense minds has no maximum range at Tier 10. It’s only limited to one’s current dimension and even then, that limit can be surpassed with an infusion of Psy. There are actually 117 other alien empires in my home universe, stretched across multiple galaxies, that all worship me and me alone as their one true divine figure. I didn’t even mean to do them in! All I wanted was to stop the French from launching a second wave of nukes at me and it all sort of… snowballed from there.”
He slapped his knee. Laughing more loudly.
“There were actually two different species moving through the milky way at that point with the intent to wipe out all other life in the universe! One was a massive swarm that used a hivemind to communicate and the other was this, race of sentient machines looking to eradicate all biological life after turning on their creators. Neither lasted more than a week.”
He drew in a deep breath. Releasing it as a hiss that passed through his clenched teeth.
“Oh yeah. That’s the stuff. You have no idea how good it feels to get it all out there in the open. Yes. I, Solomon Carter, singlehandedly caused and ended World War 3. I then topped it off by living a life that could only be called hell on earth for the next year or so. Surrounded on all sides by people I loved and the mindless, braying puppets they had turned into. That I had turned them into. Never escaping the knowledge that they begged for death each and every single day.”
He came closer. His icy eyes staring down on me as I scrambled backwards in a panic.
“Imagine what that was like for me. Total isolation. No one to talk to. No one to listen. No one to tell me no or to teach me right from wrong or to truly engage with me. For a whole year.”
He shook his head sadly and retreated a few steps. Taking another bottle out from somewhere and swallowing five long gulps in quick succession.
“When I finally figured out how to free them… it… I don’t know if I could describe it to you now. It was a feeling of relief that beggared belief. I truly cannot overstate how happy I was at that point. How much I wanted to undo all that had transpired.”
His eyes had grown somewhat distant. Sad, in a strange sort of way.
“So, I undid it. Pinning the blame of WW3 on Blackjack’s mostly inept shoulders. That reprobate had been a bank robber back then, so it felt fitting for the younger me. I then pinned other events on villains that didn’t actually exist. Gaslighting the entire world in a way you couldn’t even comprehend. Even now, there are hundreds of agencies looking for people like Eclipse and Crasher and The Stomp. None of whom actually exist.”
He started chuckling again. Gasping for air as more and more giggles escaped his mouth.
They weren’t the mirthful expressions of someone expressing genuine joy however. Instead, it felt as if this were the deathbed confession of a vile criminal. A monster who wanted to get all the cards on the table before they expired, lest the knowledge drag them down towards the abyss in their final moments.
“That was when my friend was born. The Tall Man. A guardian whose sole purpose was to keep me safe and happy and ignorant. He… it… is like an Id. Oh, sorry. You don’t know about psychoanalysis. My bad. It’s a mostly debunked theory of how humans behave and what makes them tick. The Id is like the animalistic parts of you. What some others call the primal lizard brain. It has no morals to speak of. No scruples whatsoever. It can, and will, do anything and everything to ensure that a human, as an individual, survives and thrives. It is selfish, to the point where even you would find it morally repugnant. It is vicious, to the point where it will destroy friends and loved ones without hesitation if it means getting ahead. It is merciless, to the point where it will commit the worst atrocities you can possibly imagine in the pursuit of advancement. Even sinking continents like Australia, if that’s what it takes to keep the farce going.”
I shook my head; wondering if I’d heard him right.
“Did you say, sinking continents? How?”
He, at least, had the sense to look ashamed. Small tears dropping from the corner of his eyes as his hands and lips twitched. As if he were a corpse being shocked into movement.
“[Unstable Reality] at a high level and Tier 10. The Tall Man basically radiates oceans of Psy wherever it goes. Turning illusions into reality by manifesting new Intruders to take the forms of whatever he might conjure. It is basically a localized hole in regular space-time unless it happens to be possessing someone. Destabilizing the laws of physics to the point where it actually regenerates enough Psy to sustain itself and its minions indefinitely. Causing more erosion on the veil and supercharging itself before long, which causes more manifestations and you can see where this is going. It’s a spiral that has no end. I mean, (Gnome) me. Young Sully didn’t have time to react. One moment the land was there, full of people that were somehow starting to remember and then, poof. The Tall Man manifests and the entire country sinks like a ton of bricks. Just like that. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Anyway, back to the Id thing.”
He pointed a finger at his own head.
“The theory states that the Id is balanced by the Ego, which is reason, and the Superego, which is higher morality. Only, the seven-year-old me didn’t need or want reason or morality in its agent. I wanted all this (Gnome)ing awful (Gnome) to go away. To forget it ever happened in the first place.”
He paused and slapped the avatar. The psychic construct not moving nor giving any indication that it had felt it.
“And boy did my man deliver. Any and all inconsistencies were promptly swept under the rug. Just like all those who thought to ruin the good thing I had going. Altered memories stayed altered and anyone that started waking up was dealt with before I could notice and wake back up.”
He slapped the thing again and moved closer. Approaching me with steady steps. His body growing and growing within this surreal landscape.
“And that, Drakey. Leads us back to my plan. Randall is alive. For now. His power will be the means by which I travel back home on time and your power will keep me alive through the process of twisting space within the Tutorial. You two will help me save my world. All the worlds inhabited by humanity. You will be the means by which I reach atonement. You will be the catalyst of my redemption. Whether you like it or not.”
My eyes went everywhere. Looking for a chance, an escape. Some avenue that I hadn’t explored until then.
“What about her?” I asked suddenly. “The other head your avatar is holding?”
He turned to gaze back at her as well.
“Oh, Anezka. Yeah. She’s… alive. In a sense. It really does depend on what your definition of alive is. Though, as you can probably realize, she isn’t entirely…”
He licked his lips.
“Comfortable.”
“I thought you were trying to be a hero!” I accused. Hoping to throw him off his game. “How could a hero excuse such behavior!?”
He shrugged.
“I can’t excuse my behavior. Not really. After all, how could I? I mean, sure. I was but a child and this, was all a little too much. Yet that is not an excuse for all the deaths. For all the suffering. Again, I can’t give you or them any kind of explanation beyond the fact that I was small and vulnerable and scared.”
He paced about some more.
“I know I have done terrible things. Horrible, disgusting, morally repugnant things. I know my sins are blacker than almost anyone else’s. I know there is probably no chance of redemption. Not for me.”
Then that smile returned.
“But what choice do I have? Hmn? What choice is there but to try and make things right? To try and save as many people as I possibly can? Should I fall over instead? Lay down on the ground and eek out a meager existence as another regular Joe the Labyrinth kidnapped? Should I go with the flow and keep gaining levels and eventually marry Dusty or someone else and live a somewhat happy life in whatever hole the Labyrinth throws us into next?”
He laughed again.
“I can’t. Drakey. You know I can’t. Regardless of whatever else you might have planned for me; your observations really were spot on. At the end of the day, I am a control freak. And what I want, what I truly, desperately desire, is a perfect world. Filled with good, honest people who care about each other. I want to make a positive impact. I want everyone else to live in peace and tranquility and safety. I want to make my world, and all the other worlds, as close to paradise as they could possibly get. I want to be loved, Drakey. Not due to some, mental yoke I placed upon people. But due to the aftermath of my actions. I love people. Everything about them. From their joys to their sorrows. From their triumphs to their follies. I have known the might and integrity of heroes like Thunder Fist, as well as the debaucheries of Mason and his ilk and I accept them all as part of the human experience. Yet I want to make things better. I want everyone to love and care for each other. I want a world where no one needs to fear each other or the monsters that leap out of Rifts. A world where the criminals are reformed and they too can live happy, fulfilling lives surrounded by people who love them. I know and accept them all and I want to be accepted in turn. Is that so wrong? Is that truly such a bad thing to wish for? I wouldn’t be taking away their free will or anything. I don’t think I would ever stoop so low, even now. But I need to do something. To save humans from the Rifts, from the bloody gnomes, from themselves! The world, my world and all the others I have seen, are broken! And someone needs to do something!”
He stopped. Becoming as still as a statue. His cold eyes drilling into mine.
“That someone might as well be me. Drakey. After all, if I had a chance to fix things like world hunger, poverty, crime, war, addiction and all the other ills that plague my species, and I didn’t take it. Wouldn’t that make me complicit? Wouldn’t I stay the monster I was as a child? Instead of the good person I’ve always wanted to be?”
The head of Anezka let out a disgruntled moan. Intelligible, as far as words went, but I still got the distinct impressions that she was begging for death.
“Yes. I do regret that I have to do this to you. At least, some small part of me does. I mean, Anezka, she does absolutely deserve everything that’s happened to her, but I can’t truly justify doing this. I can only remind myself that she brought it on herself and that I need her to save my parents.”
I shook my head. Not sure if I heard him correctly.
“Your parents? What would they…”
He slapped his hands together.
“Ah! Of course. You haven’t seen what she’ll do. I guess its time to remedy that.”
He blinked and the walls shook with the screams of the lost and the dammed.
“For what it is worth, I am sorry it had to be this way, Drakey. But I need you weakened and malleable for when the time finally comes. Shouldn’t be too long now. You can marinate on Sarcophagus Solomon’s memories of that future while the real, current me digests you without having to worry about interference. In fact, why don’t the three of you go together!? That way you can all know what the future me had to got through because of Anezka. All while I continue to scrape bits and pieces away from all three of you. Yes. That does sound like a lovely idea.”
“NOOOOOO!!! PLEASEEEE!” Randall wailed.
At the same time, Anezka’s head came to life. Her muffled screams echoing through the ethereal nothingness.
But this Solomon didn’t pay them any mind.
He snapped his fingers once more and the floor fell out from underneath me.
My mind became blank. I wasn’t me anymore. Not quite anyway. I couldn’t feel anything. Not even my own body.
I couldn’t see or hear anything either.
As if the world itself had disappeared.
I tried to move, but my nerves didn’t connect to anything. There was, nothing there.
I begun to wonder if I had moved in reality. How would I even check?
“Where am I?”
I was startled, having spoken out loud without moving my lips. Or maybe that was an illusion caused by the lack of sensation.
Had I fallen unto the floor? I vaguely remember drinking. I think I drank more than usual.
I’ve been drinking a lot more, ever since Doris…
No. She’s gone. She’s been gone for a long time.
I was trying to forget about…Randall? Yes, that was it. Randall had…
I tried to gasp as images flooded my brain. Splitting my psyche in two.
Randall had burnt the bald man, Simeon. He’d killed the people I’d left behind. Ryan didn’t stop him. Couldn’t stop him.
He was weak. Far too weak to be of any use to anyone.
Why did I leave?
Oh, right, he chased me out. They all chased me out. I left on my own. Unable to face them. The people I’d rescued. They hated me for what I was.
‘No! I am not this person! I am the Seeking Drake! Absolute Savant of the Shifter Type! I will not be imprisoned like this! I will not be consumed like some piece of meat!’
Part of me rebelled against the intrusion. Even as the memory played on.
A voice came up beside me. Within me, as well as without.
‘Randall? Are you the one called Randall?’
The voice sobbed. So pathetically that I was taken aback for a few seconds.
‘No! Nooo! I don’t want to be here!’ He cried out. ‘Please let me die! Please don’t hurt me anymore! Please! Please! Please!’
‘Spare me your pitiful babbling, fool! Work against the flow! We must escape!’
He didn’t listen. Neither did the woman next to him. They both wailed and wept as if that was going to solve anything.
‘Why must I be constantly surrounded by such imbeciles?’ I thought bitterly.
I tried to use my mouth then. To yell at them until I got some kind of reaction.
No one answered. I kept calling out, hoping that my mouth would make some kind of noise, that I could attract someone to my position.
I kept yelling for what felt like hours, growing more frantic amidst the unfeeling darkness. The emptiness that surrounded us.
There was nothing for an eternity in every direction. No spark of life or movement. No light or colour.
There was only me and these two wastrels, still screaming and screaming and screaming.
I stopped when the effort tired me, frantically searching for any way to interact with the environment. There had to be a wall, a barrier, a floor.
No such luck.
There was an infinite void below me, and the realization drove me into a manic desperation. I was falling. I had to be falling. Why else would there be nothing below me? It was impossible. It was…
A burst of light interrupted my horror and I looked forward. Seeing through eyes that were not my own. There were colours, but there was an edge to them. They were distorted somehow. Too sharp. Too perfect. As if my senses were being forced to take in the world faster and at a higher resolution.
It was disorienting. So much so that I didn’t take note of the woman.
“Come on you piece of (Gnome). Don’t (Gnome) around with me, or I swear you’ll be stuck in limbo for the rest of our trip!”
For some reason, those words shook me far more than the void had.
“Wha…? Who are you?”
“Really? Did you forget this pretty face, Sully? After everything we’ve been through together?”
A hand slapped something hard and the sound of metal was heard in the tunnel.
My focus went to her form. To her face and hair.
“Anezka.”
“Yes sweetie. I’m Anezka. You know, your owner. The best-looking gal this side of the Warehouse. You had me worried for a second there. How did your training go?”
“My, training?”
“Yes, you clanking piece of (Gnome). Your training. I said I wouldn’t let you out until you got to level 25 on [Precognition]. Did you?”
I stammered, not knowing what to say. My confusion resulted in buzzing sounds coming from overhead, as if my mouth had been ripped out and placed atop me.
That made me panic further.
“I… I do not have [Precognition]. I am the Seeking Drake. Savant of…”
She laughed in my face. Her beautiful silver hair swirling about as she collapsed backwards into as tone wall and begun to strike it with her fists.
As if my plight was the most hysterical thing she’d ever heard.
“Oh, that’s precious Sully. A real hoot. Don’t tell me you forgot the way things are.”
She came back over and pushed me. I didn’t feel anything, even as the sound of metal hitting stone overtook my senses.
“You are not a person anymore Sully. You are property. Say it with me now, P-r-o-p-e-r-t-y. I took a sizable loan back home for those nanomachines. All so I could take you and the other juicy Telepaths alive.”
“Why?” I asked stupidly.
“What do you mean why? Do you know how much Governor Xander will pay for a seer? Oof, you’ll make me the richest gal in the colony.”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Are you going senile on me Sully? Or is this some escapist fantasy of yours? Who is this Seeking Drake huh?”
She grinned maliciously. Like a serpent who just found an unguarded nest of eggs.
“Have you been making up stories for yourself Sully? Imagining a different world when you’re locked away?”
She laughed again.
“Oh my gosh! That is so hilarious! Wait till I tell all my friends back home! They’re going to laugh so hard at you!”
“You think this is funny?” I asked, incredulously.
She looked at me again, surprised. Her mouth hanging open as if my speaking out was as incredible as the walls doing the same.
Then she scowled and pressed a button on her glove.
The pain that followed was…beyond words.
I was sure that it would kill me. Looking forward to the sweet release that death would bring.
Instead, it went on and on and on and on and on.
An unending array of fires and knives rending holes in places I didn’t know existed.
I tried to shout, to beg for an end to it. No words came out.
‘It hurts! It hurts! It hurts so bad! Please! Anyone! Make it end!’
The agony, did not end. Instead, Anezka pressed another button and forced my shells to stand, prehensile metal limbs spreading outwards from where my back should have been. I was carried behind her against my will, laid in such a way that I faced upwards. Like a coffin during a funeral march.
All while I begged and pleaded for an end to the torment alongside Randall and the actual mind of the present Anezka.
It might’ve been a day or ten, before the agony ceased.
Every single one of my nerves had been on fire for so long that the absence of it was startling.
“Now then, Sully boy. Do you have something to say to me?”
“Please! Please don’t do that again! I beg you! Please! I’ll do anything!”
Anezka sighed, clicked her tongue and wagged her finger back and forth.
“No Sully. That’s not what you’re supposed to say. You’re supposed to tell me that you’re my tool and that you’re sorry. You’re supposed to say that you’re happy to serve at my pleasure. You’re supposed to swear you’ll do better and that this discourtesy will not be repeated. What do you think Governor Xander will think of me if I can’t even train the Telepath I’m selling? Why, he might even lowball me during the sale! We can’t have that now, can we?”
She waited with a self-satisfied smile.
I…I was so astonished that I couldn’t say anything to her.
She frowned.
“Looks like someone needs more training.”
Her hand went to her glove again.
“No! Wait!”
It was too late. The void returned and my senses felt nothing.
I cried out. For anyone that might hear. I cried out for help. For salvation. For death.
Nothing happened and time went on.
I tried recalling events from my past, but they were blurred and uneven.
I tried doing some mathematical problems in my head, but the numbers meshed together until they resembled nothing.
I tried thinking of home. Of the many trophies I’d gathered over the eons and of the many would-be heroes I’d vanquished and turned into upholstery.
Those notions faded as well. Slipping away until I found myself counting the seconds or what I thought were seconds.
I reached a very high number, maybe in the hundreds of thousands, before I couldn’t tell which number came after which.
I couldn’t recall….me.
‘Who am I? What did I do to deserve this? Is this all there is? Did I dream the world I came from? Was it ever real?’
I could not find the answer. Neither could the other two.
So, we struggled and wept and waited. Praying for this madness to end.