Quartet for the End of Time #6
The soldiers, a few even pulling pens and scraps of paper from their jackets for autographs, happily escorted Glenn out of the woods, back after Buck.
Everyone was headed to the same spot, on a ridgeline near the trees.
As Glenn ran he jumped over stone ruins, the facades of fallen temples.
They were right in the middle of the old location of the Morlon Kastaun set. The fake ruins of a fake battle.
Gunshots rolled from the center of the fighting, but it wasn’t the Portuguese. As Glenn approached the center of the line, his eye was drawn toward the figure marching around, shooting whoever came near. He wore a cloak, and he carried a rifle. He was shrieking. Angry.
Glenn, without even meaning to, walked into the field of fighting, and right up to his old friend.
“Where is it?” Jules shouted at him. “You have taken it from me!”
“You’re not well, Jules,” Glenn called back. “Tell them to stop this and go home.”
The queen’s men were cheering. “Gregorian has come to save us!” Glenn looked at the damn fools and saw Hannah running among them. Glenn did not have a weapon. He had nothing, in fact.
“You tried to take it from me!” Jules hissed. “You tried to take it for yourself!”
The queen’s soldiers, as if suddenly receiving orders, rose over the ridge, running toward Glenn and Jules. From the opposite side the Guild’s army ran forward as well.
“No more!” Jules shouted. “I bring with me the doom of all!” He slung the rifle over his shoulder, raised a small receiver in his hand, and pressed down on it.
A loud, guttural roar echoed over the entire valley, and then there was a strong blast of wind. A red-and-black metal dragon flew out from above the trees, fire blowing out of its mouth.
“Jesus,” Glenn said. “It still works.”
The dragon circled above. Some of the guildsmen stopped their fighting to watch the dragon. “Magic!” they yelled, pointing at it. “Magic has returned to the Malicarn!”
Kreek stood nearby, arms held wide, cackling. “This is what it is! This is what it is!” The pilot stood beside him, looking in terror at the men running around him, the dragon in the sky, the tanks fast approaching.
The fighting near Glenn and Jules was scattered, erratic.
Nobody knew what to do. The guildsmen and revolutionaries fought the queen’s men, and the Portuguese troops fought everybody.
Glenn saw Hannah standing on his left, at the ridge, pointing her knights toward Jules.
She stood just above him, and when Jules noticed Glenn looking up the hill he followed his gaze, and smiled when he saw her.
“How is this for a dramatic twist?” Jules turned toward Hannah. “With the daughter, the Necromancer finishes the job he began with the father. It is poetic.”
Above them was an explosion, and the side of the dragon blew into flames.
A helicopter flew low over the trees, spitting fire from its guns at the dragon.
The dragon buckled and fell from the sky.
Kreek stood right underneath, and was still cackling wildly when the metal beast collapsed on top of him and exploded.
The pilot dove out of the way and then ran toward the tanks, keeping his arms raised high, weeping and shouting, “It’s me! It’s me!”
Jules sneered at Gregorian. “Was it you who called in the goddamn air force? Enough of this!” He raised his rifle at Hannah and fired.
Gregorian jumped in front of the gun. The shot hit him in the stomach and he crumpled to the ground. Jules looked down at him.
“You fool,” he said. “I would have written such a better end for you.”
He lifted the gun again, but there was the quick flash of metal swinging through the air, and for the second time that day Jules was hit over the head. He fell backward. Buck dropped the neuroscanner and leaned over the fallen Necromancer.
“Papapa?” Buck grabbed the Necromancer’s shoulders and began shaking him violently. “Papapapapaa?”
“Get off me, ah!” Jules howled in pain as Buck climbed on top of him and started shouting gibberish and slapping him across the face.
The guildsmen ran back into the forest. The death of the dragon and the loss of Kreek spooked them. The queen’s men chased the retreating forces while the helicopter hovered overhead, slowly lowering toward the ground. The tanks surrounded the position and the fighting ebbed.
Gregorian lay on his back. The bullet had torn into his gut and lodged in his spine. He reached a hand out and found that Hannah was holding it.
“Gregorian?” Hannah asked. “Are you all right?”
“Glenn,” he said. “My name is Glenn.”
Beside him sat the neuroscanner where Buck had dropped it. One side was dented, blood smeared over the surface.
“Bring it here,” Glenn said. Hannah dragged the box close to him.
What were they going to do to her? He hadn’t taught her anything, not really. She was just a child. He had lied to her. He had done nothing to show her the world. He had killed her father and he had done nothing.
“There’s no time,” Glenn said. “They’re going to take it away and then you’ll never know, not really. You have to see.”
Glenn pressed a few buttons on the box, and it started to buzz, the central display lighting up. The sound was more erratic than earlier. Glenn took the red cord, pressing the node against his temple. He passed the end of the green cord to Hannah.
“No,” Hannah said. “You need help.” The blood beneath them formed a shallow pool.
“Just do it, Hannah. Please.”
In the final estimation, Glenn Mackey was a very selfish man. But he could show her. He was always good at putting on a show.
Hannah held the green cord’s node up to her head, then Glenn held the red one tight on his as he pulled on the central switch.
The machine buzzed loudly, extracting, feeding into the hard drive, and immediately implementing on the other end.
As the bytes of data streamed through the neuroscanner, they took with them Glenn and everyone else they found inside its hard drive.
Buck. Lilly. Souard. They clashed together and melded and diverged and converted themselves into an electrical signal that shot up the green cord and into the cerebral cortex of a sixteen-year-old girl.
Hannah took a breath. It was like the ground fell away. She leapt forward into a deep pit.