~4~
When some of my strength returned, I was allowed out of the infirmary. But it was one cage to another. I was back to being the chained dog, back at Joseph's mercy. And without Bliss lingering in my system, I was living in a world smaller than any I'd ever known. My thoughts were free and clear, not lifted, diluted, or twisted by the drug. I needed a focus. Without it, I started to...think.
No. Don't think. Stop thinking. Don't think about it. Don't think about...about them—NO! Don't think!
Joseph unwittingly helped keep me occupied. He had a routine he followed ritually every day, sometimes involving me, sometimes elsewhere in the bunker. Figured he was trying to get me used to his ways. To train me. Instead – and though I loathed to admit it – it was creating a rhythm to which I was growing comfortable with. Redundant and repetitive as it was, I was used to rhythm and pattern and discipline. With those came control. With those the days went by steadily, one at a time, gradually reeling in that distant horizon. And it wasn't all prayer time and book club. When he was feeling generous, Joseph would cuff only one of my hands to the bed and give me a pack of cards. Sometimes we'd play together, him talking, me retaining my stony silence as we duelled for random prizes found around the bunker: a book, batteries, the food shaker for the fish (amazing what caring for another creature did for the morale) or sometimes, it was the right to a shot of whisky, of which Dutch had left plenty. For a farmboy turned prophet, Joseph had quite the poker face. Me being a soldier, I had that down pat. Sometimes I won, sometimes he won. But while he might see this as bonding time, I just saw it as a way to make the day go by faster. And the occasional shot of whisky went a long way too.
He spoke his mind as we played. Talked about how the old world had the potential to be a better place. But there had been so many petty distractions, too many 'conveniences.'
"We once worked hard for everything, from scavenging and hunting for our food, to finding drinkable water. We used to clothe ourselves with what the land offered, and we communicated with our tongues, not our thumbs. Comment-wars did not exist, people did not feel the need to tell each other what the weather was or post pictures of their breakfasts..."
I let him ramble, hearing a lot of the same crap Jacob ranted about over the recorded broadcasts. And just because I agreed with some of it, didn't mean Joseph had the right to go blowing the world to hell. If I made it out of here, I figured I could live without a lot of the luxuries and conveniences, like wifi, television, grocery stores, even plumbing. But there were a few things I knew I'd miss dearly: streaming music, toilet paper, and cheesecake.
Joseph was now going on about how our lives were going to be without cars. Without oil or the means to unearth it, vehicles wouldn't be polluting our new home, and the ones that used to would be scattered about, burned and useless. I could see it. An abandoned highway littered with dozens upon dozens of empty, smouldering husks with blown windows and headlights, tires melted to cracked pavement and the acrid stench of burning modernization carrying on the hot wind...
Cars would not die so easily, I knew. When there was a will there was a way, and out there was someone with a will. Abundant fuel or no, they would get vehicles moving again, even if they have to...improvise. I imagined a happy slappy family of four sitting in a sedan, smiles plastered on their faces and their feet sticking out of holes in the bottom, running down the road. Yabba-dabba-doo!
I smirked to myself. Joseph misinterpreted and smiled at me.
"Yes. You see what I see. A simpler world is a greater world... I fold." He set his cards on the floor. I won the shot of whisky that night.
"A shame more people won't be enjoying it," he said, sitting back and regarding me. That look was in his eye. My stomach flopped and my face drained. "How many of them would have been given the opportunity, if only the Gates hadn't been destroyed."
There it was. Below the belt, foul, red card. My teeth were clenching so hard they hurt.
"Deputy, you're bending the cards."
My hands snapped open and the ruined cards fell to the floor. Joseph 'tsked' and picked them up, trying to smooth them flat.
"I think that's enough for one night."
I was fuming when he left to get dinner. I refused the food. I ignored my winnings – the whisky shot – as well. Joseph asked me what was wrong, even though he damn well knew what was wrong, the twatwaffle. He shrugged and put the food back, then spent an hour reading before turning in for the night. I never once moved from my position, concentrating all my focus on one thing – burying the poisonous thoughts Joseph seeped into my head on a regular basis.
Not my fault...not my fault...not my fault...
I hadn't seen a deck of cards for a while now. Joseph seemed to have forgotten I was a creature of intelligence and needed something to do. Or, more likely, he was neglecting me on purpose for wrecking the queen of diamonds and ace of spades.
Right now, he was writing. He'd only started doing it in my presence a few days ago. For hours he would just sit there, cross-legged on the floor, scribbling on individual pieces of paper until they were full. Then he would stick them on the walls, too far away for me to read. I had my suspicions as to what he was writing, but didn't much care.
Today's session seemed extra long. Joseph must be on a roll. I was dozing off, jolting when I almost fell over. He saw it out of the corner of his vision and looked up. He didn't see me. His eyes had that distant look, his mind in another world. I wished I could escape like that. Get out of this tin can, soar above the earth in a good bird...
He blinked, and his eyes cleared.
"Oh, I almost forgot." Setting the pen aside, he stood, as limber as a young man, and grabbed his Word from the bed.
Uuugh.
He sat on the floor again, just out of reach, and began reading a passage near the beginning.
"'Have we used our hands for good? Have we extended them in peace? Have we ended starvation, poverty, disease? No. We have taken that which is exquisite and wasted it in pursuit of the banal. Our short lives pass, devoid of meaning. Even worse, we debase these precious gifts, by clenching our hands into fists. We make war when we could be holding one another. Comforting our brethren. Building a society that will nourish every body and lift every soul...'"
I didn't try to keep awake, even with the fucktrumpet so close, and the passage he was reading didn't require a lot of passion, so his voice became a blur of white noise...
And that blur became the drone of a war plane. I was flying. A lush valley spread out below, and I dipped the starboard wing, catching a glimpse of the river—
I held the stick until I was spiralling into a barrel roll, avoiding the barrage of bullets aiming to puncture the armoured hide of The Dogfighter. Shoving it forward, she plunged into a dive, dropping a hundred feet, three hundred, five. And then I hauled the stick back towards me. The plane shuddered but obeyed, pulling out of the dive, pine tops tickling her belly. I glanced over my shoulder. The black plane Affirmation stayed on my ass, tailing me as I took to higher skies.
But I was not alone.
"Let's get this sonovabitch!"
A yellow seaplane plunged from on high, swooping around me with the grace of a hawk and driving Affirmation off course with a round of bullets. I had never seen a more beautiful sight.
"Nick Rye! Have you already forgotten what I told you?" John Seed's voice came over the radio from the black plane. It sounded gleeful.
"Fuck you! You're a goddamn demon and we're gonna send you straight back to hell! You hear me? You're a dead man!"
"My, my, my, how contagious Wrath can be! I'll just have to kill you both."
I turned as sharply as I could, lining John up in my crosshairs and blasting him with everything this bird had. I was no ace, but I was angry. The black plane wove side to side to avoid my retribution.
"The Father gave you a chance for salvation and you threw it away!" John snarled. Affirmation tilted skyward but I stayed on her, shadowing her loop-the-loop. I could not let John get behind me again. "Look at what you have done! Look at the Wrath you have wrought!"
On cue came Nick Rye, flying Carmina like no other man could, driving John down and away. I was forced to pull to starboard, to get out of his way, because I wasn't nearly as good a pilot and the thought of hurting Nick scared me worse than crashing myself. But then the yellow plane was gone.
"Gun's overheatin'! Get 'im, Deputy!"
I needed no prompting. I pounced on John again, hammering at him. We had him. We were taking him down!
John was laughing, and I could picture his face, the same face he had when I was bound in his bunker, my chest exposed, all that bare skin ready to be inked with my sin.
"Look at you! The will, the tenacity! Such a waste!" And again he pulled upward, and I went to follow—
The sun burst out from behind a cloud and I screwed my eyes shut. No one had cleaned the glass of this canopy, ever, and I couldn't see a thing. I twisted the plane hard to starboard, wings perpendicular with the ground, and swooped around until I was flying in the opposite direction, sure John had done the same and would be in my sights...
I saw no one. Head on a swivel, I sought foe and friend, but an entire quarter was a blinding blaze of light.
And then a voice, slick with smugness, slithered over the radio.
"In my crosshairs."
"Deputy! On your tail, partner!"
Nick's warning was unnecessary and tardy. The Dogfighter shuddered as bullets the size of my thumbs pounded her flanks, cracked the canopy, ripped apart her tail. I tried to evade but she didn't respond, and then a second volley hit. She decelerated, spewing smoke from her engine like a dying dragon. Affirmation roared ahead of me, mere feet above, making my plane tremble. Lights and alarms blared at me from the dashboard.
John had me beat. He would come back around, and that would be that.
I knew what I had to do.
The poor plane shuddered as I forced her into John's wake, to hide and buy myself a nanosecond, and then picked up my bow from the footwell.
Sorry, Nick.
I allowed the plane to slow, hit the eject, and abandoned her. I had no idea how I wasn't struck by the remnants of her tail as it shot past, but then I was in freefall, two thousand feet above the earth. I spread my arms, my legs, slowing my plunge as best I could without opening my 'chute. If I did that, I was a bigger, more obvious target.
John whooped over my earpiece. I watched The Dogfighter spiral down, down...
She crashed in the woods, a cloud of fire bursting spectacularly. I could barely hear it over the rushing in my ears.
"You sonovabitch! I'm gonna kill you!" Nick raged. Did he not see me eject? Then John, too, might not have seen...
"You never should have crossed me, Nick. And now, your family is mine!"
I did not hear but I could imagine Nick Rye screaming in paternal fury. Carmina dove out of the sun and he unloaded everything the yellow bird had on Affirmation's starboard wing. By the time he peeled away, there was little left besides some tattered aluminum and spitting cables.
John's voice barely made it through the fritzy radio.
"Aaargh, no. NO! I'm losing control! I have— going down!"
And down he went, plunging faster than my own aircraft, while my heart soared.
Yeah, Nick!
I pulled my 'chute at last, clutching my bow tighter and grunting as my freefall was broken, and then I watched Affirmation strike the earth and explode, never to plague the skies again, her sadistic pilot nothing but a charred crisp—
But...wait...
No...
Some three hundred feet below me, I could make out a tiny speck against a golden field. I might have thought it a bird, but birds didn't use parachutes.
John's headset had survived, and he was now broadcasting for all to hear.
"Brothers, Sisters..." He coughed painfully. "Do not fear. We have prepared for this. The Father has shown us the way. Prepare my bunker. I am coming to join you... We will await the Collapse together."
A few seconds later, a Peggy's voice, panicky, sounded, "John's plane's crashed! Father protect him!"
I could not let John reach that bunker first. He had the only key, the only means of rescuing Deputy Hudson and everyone else imprisoned inside. He was on the ground; I could see a discarded parachute but not him. It would be a waste of time trying to hunt him in the woods. I had to stop him at the bunker.
As I descended I gathered my bearings. I knew the area. Steele Farm was just there. Follow the driveway south, turn east on the main road, and book it until the We Love You billboard on the other side of the bridge, then up the winding path...
I landed hard, legs buckling, arms too weak to stop me from collapsing onto my face. There was a lot of gravity on this particular spot. Or maybe it was the adrenaline. I tore free of the parachute pack and harness and bolted for the building I could see through the trees. There was a truck, right there in the farm's driveway. A Peggy-mobile, decked with a mounted machine gun. There were bodies but I didn't stop to investigate. I threw myself in, yanked the door shut and turned the key waiting so considerately in the ignition.
Wrrr-wrrr-wrrr.
Tried again.
Wrrr-wrrr-wrrr.
Come on!
Wrrr-wrrr—BRRUUM!
Boo-yeah! I threw it into reverse, twisting in my seat and slamming my foot down. The one-ton tore down the curving driveway, then smashed through the row of saplings between it and the main road. My head cracked on the ceiling when the ass end launched out of the ditch and slammed down onto the pavement, but I barely felt it as I shoved the shifter into drive and turned as sharply as I could. Tires spat up gravel and the mirror smacked into a power pole as I floored her east.
John knew this land better than me, would know the fastest route to his refuge. But what were the odds of him finding a working quad—
Fuck!
I slammed the brakes and tore the steering wheel to the left as a figure darted out of the trees, onto the road. Tires squealed like wounded animals as the back end skidded forwards, bringing me perpendicular to the road. But I kept my eyes locked on the figure turning towards his demise in seemingly slow motion...
John's bright blue eyes widened, jaw dropping, and I couldn't help mirroring the look as the truck kept sliding sideways, and it body-checked the youngest Seed before coming to a stop. The solid thud startled me from the shock. Seizing my bow from the passenger seat, I leaped from the truck, only for shots to ring out. Fire tore across my ankle. John was shooting at me from the ground, under the truck.
I bolted towards the trees opposite from where John had emerged, clearing the fence in one bound. But the ground sloped away and my grazed ankle buckled. I went down cursing.
Expecting further attack, I crawled back up the bank, but when I peered through the tall grasses, John's black jacket vanished into the woods.
I did not give my ankle permission to fail as I clambered back over the fence. I ignored the truck – it was too big to make it through those trees – and tore after John Seed with a fury unlike anything I had ever felt before.
What he'd done to innocent people...What he would do to the people I cared about if I let him escape...What he would do to Kim and the littlest Rye—
I could see him, but did not have a clear shot. I took one anyway – the arrow thudded into a tree just ahead of him. He did not turn around, but ran faster, clutching an assault rifle. If we got out in the open, he would fill me with so much lead it would be a closed-casket funeral.
But then, we were in the open, and he kept running. I saw why – a low-bed truck, unburdened by any load, still running as though left for him on the side of the road.
Where the sudden speed came from, I didn't know or care. Suddenly I was right behind him, my balled fist aiming for the joint of his jaw. But he'd heard the pounding of my boots and began to turn. My knuckles hit the back of his skull, which slammed into the door of the truck with a clunk.
"Shit!" he roared as I thought, ow! My fingers were stuck in a fist. The butt of his assault rifle rose as John spun around. I had a second to get my arm up to protect my noggin, but the impact sent me crashing sideways into the low-bed. My ribs caved against the edge of the deck, and I staggered back, hunched to the side, gasping for breath.
I had made a mistake. I'd wanted John to face me when I killed him. I'd wanted to see the light leave his eyes, because then I'd know for sure he was gone, and it was because of me. And for that, John now had the upper hand.
His face twisted in a snarl, he smashed the butt of his rifle down on my left shoulder. My arm went numb, the bow clattering to the ground, and he back-handed me, my lip bursting against my teeth.
"You were given a choice!" John struck me again. Blood gushed from my nose. "You were offered salvation!" He kicked me in the balls, and as I doubled over he kneed me in the chin, knocking me to the ground. He grabbed me by the shirt and hauled me close to his face. "Why do you not want to be saved?!"
I swung a fist into his eye. John barked in pain and let go, covering it. I sat up, fumbling for a knife, for anything, blinded by the tears caused by my busted nose. I blinked them away, and with blurred vision I saw that John had gone.
No. He'd not gone. His arm came into view from behind, hooking around my neck. I clawed at his forearm, but John pinched his wrist in the crook of his other arm, locking the hold, and slowly increased the pressure on my windpipe. I gasped pitifully.
"I have seen your soul." His breath was on my ear, hot and minty. He cut off my airway a little more, relishing the moment. "I know what is in your heart. You wanted this. Deep, deep down, this is what you truly desired." I couldn't get anything in my lungs now. I thrashed uselessly, vision darkening. "And you wanted me to do it." His breathing was loud and quick, trembling with excitement. "So I shall indulge you. Sleep well, Deputy. May God have mercy on your—"
The roar of an aerial engine. I opened my eyes. A white blur was fast approaching; a one-ton laden with Peggies was tearing up the road towards us, the Chosen in the turret ready to fire. But a gloriously yellow plane was swooping in behind them, like a goddamn guardian angel. A voice crowed over the radio:
"Welcome to Strafe City, population BRAT-A-TAT-TAT!"
Nick obliterated John's rescue team with a single pass. The Baptist released me and dove for cover as Carmina roared a mere fifty feet overhead before pulling up, over the trees. With one inhale my mind cleared. Coughing coarsely, I rolled away, towards my fallen bow. John's gaze was locked on Carmina, a cat eyeing the bigass canary with a vengeance, hatred plain on his face. And I seized my chance.
I grabbed a broadhead from my quiver and set it to the string. John looked at me, fear of his own mortality blatant in his eyes until I replaced it with pain, by releasing the arrow into his neck.
I woke up. Joseph was still droning on, so I closed my eyes and contemplated the dream, a playthrough of an actual memory. John had clung to life just long enough to tell me of the monster I was, of how all he ever did was save people, protect them from the Collapse. I'd paid no heed to the words of a dying freak, because until a few weeks ago, I had thought them nonsense.
It took one monster to kill another, it seemed. I was no protector, no saviour, no fucking hero. And at least I didn't have the pretension to think I was. Didn't use self-righteousness or religion to justify my actions so I could sleep at night.
But I couldn't help but feel that he, John, and his family, well...had been right.
The Collapse did come. And if I hadn't destroyed the three biggest havens in the valley, more people would have survived. They would be prisoners – tortured, brainwashed, the whole nine yards – but they would be alive.
And what kind of life was that?
I think I knew, for years, in the back of my mind that we were all fucked seven ways from Sunday. It was as Joseph said. Something is coming. You can feel it, can't you? And it did come. Warnings came in snippets over fuzzy radio broadcasts. Tension was higher for those who'd served. Usually those feelings were shrugged off as paranoia and PTSD, but some did prepare. I'd stumbled across dozens of bunkers and stashes across the county, and knew someone, somewhere, was out there, waiting just like we were.
And if I had walked away, allowed the Peggies to stuff unwilling civilians into cages, to spread their creed, to preserve their way of life, well, what would happen but a rebirth of that cult when it was safe to emerge back into the sun? It would have changed, sure. Evolved in the darkness underground. But it would rise again, still Project at Eden's Fucking Gate, led by my shitstain warden, and it would spread like cancer. Only this time it would be more firmly attached to humanity, because social diversity simply wouldn't be there anymore.
There have always been men like Joseph. There would always be men like Joseph. The only thing little troopers like me could do was slow them down. And boy, did I slow them down. This wasn't about morality. None of it. It wasn't about doing good, or doing bad. It was culling the herd. Just like Jacob said. Only Jacob's problem was that he mistook compassion and pacifism for weakness. Faith sold ignorance as happiness. John put all his faith in the divine and not in humanity. These were poisonous ideas. Prone to fester in society and make it frail, created strong unions within groups and deep, violent divides with others. It brightened the light, casting darker shadows. Pushed people to the extremes.
And now, here we were.
I had been on the fence, but now I knew: I did not regret my actions. If given the chance I would do it all again. Maybe not exactly the same, but I would fight for what I believed to be right, fight to take down those who created monsters out of decent (or at least half decent) folk. The Reaping? Joseph hadn't needed me for an excuse. The nuclear war? That was out of our control. Out of my control. But with everything else, I had a choice. There was always a choice.
"Are you awake?"
I opened my eyes, turning my head to Joseph. Hell yeah, I was awake. He was gazing evenly at me, book open on his lap. I realized then that I did not hate him. Hated what he did, totally, and what he preached, what he was doing to me. But the man himself had qualities that were so rare these days.
As barbaric the methods he and his family had used were, Joseph was a great leader. Not good, but great. He could have saved a lot of people if he wasn't so wrapped up in being right. About being God's prophet. Using his God as a beacon alone would have saved hundreds, but that hadn't been enough for him. He wanted to save those who didn't believe him, or in him, and so he sent his flock to punish them and drag them, kicking and screaming, to their salvation.
The bottom line, though, was that he was a born leader. And for some reason, I had a feeling that he didn't recognize that in himself properly.
Joseph set the book of Peggy scripture aside and crawled over. It took all my willpower to not draw back as he knelt in front of me, hands grasping either side of my head.
"Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive..." He rested his forehead against mine. "And you will be forgiven."
Understand. Understand and you will be understood. Not that simple of course, but I knew that to survive this, there would have to be compromise. For both of us. I would listen to him, but only if he listened to me, viewed the world as I did, tried to understand that you couldn't hurt people because they didn't think as you did.
I could never believe in God. The idea just wasn't compatible with my mind. But I had faith Joseph would see the error of his ways one day, and he would put more stock in the natural goodness of people rather than the guidance of a deity.
I shifted just enough to get his attention. He withdrew a few inches and opened his eyes.
"Deputy?"
I held his blue gaze with my brown. And I spoke for the first time in ages, my first words ever spoken to the Father:
"Isaac," I said. "My name is Isaac."
A glimmer of triumph shone in Joseph's eyes.
Day 98
The Bliss has been purged from the deputy's soul. It was in his eyes. I knew it the moment I saw them.
But they are still hard when they look at me. I care for him, yet he sees me as the enemy. I do not understand. He is the one who brought this upon himself, upon everyone. If he had just walked away...
I must show him his faults, his guilt. It is the only way to be reborn, sinless and untainted, the only way God will forgive him. But even if I succeed, will I be able to forgive him? He murdered my kin, sent countless of my flock brutally to the Beyond, and incurred God's wrath upon the world.
My mind says no. But my heart, my soul, says anyone can be forgiven. They just have to atone, to confess, to say yes to salvation...
The deputy. Isaac. He refused my little brother, violently as was his wont. But the ones who fight the hardest need the most help. And that is why it was imperative that he survive the first trial – the cleansing. Not the baptism, no, but the purging of Bliss. All the Chosen had to undergo the suffering, and only the truly devout passed through the eye of God and returned to join the ranks of those promised a spot in a bunker, a place in Eden's Gate.
It was a great responsibility. A clear mind is vulnerable to the temptations of sin. It is perpetually close to the basic, primitive animal that prowls within us all, tameless and selfish. But that is why I put the deputy through it. Weening him off, bit by bit, even after he started recognizing something amiss and fought against me. The day I spilled Bliss oil on my hand was the day he discovered my tampering. Of course, if I hadn't tampered, he would have died horribly, his mind snapped. I've seen it before, on the earlier experiments on Angels. I made the supply of Bliss last as long as I could, but at the eleventh hour decided to preserve the last stoppered vial for emergencies, leaving very little oil for the final few days of weening and a rougher journey for the deputy. God may have kept him alive after the crash, but the purging had been a battle for Isaac, and Isaac alone.
...I look at him now. He has fallen asleep again. I wonder whom he will watch burn in his dreams tonight. Yesterday he muttered Burke, the marshal he'd torn from the caring embrace of Faith. He was calling for Burke's help. I wonder if he ever got it.
Oh, Deputy. I wonder if I will ever stop calling you that. I must, for you are a deputy no more. There is no such thing as Law now. No constitution, no anything. You are free, and you have a choice to make. Two paths lay before you. One, you will continue to carry your guilt but remain steadfast with your beliefs. This is a dark, short path, one that will end only in merciful death. The other, similar in that you shall carry your guilt but instead of thrusting it aside, you will wear it, consume and be consumed by it. You will come to understand what you have done and it will destroy you. But I will be here. And I will fix you. Because you are my family, and I love my family.
Rest well, Deputy, for your next trial begins.
Disclaimer: Excerpt from the Word taken from Far Cry: New Dawn, dialogue of John Seed and Nick Rye is from Far Cry 5, "Wrath" mission, and Joseph's "judge not" quote is from the "Walk away" ending.
"Even now, the world is bleeding. But feeling just fine, all numb in our castle, where we're always free to choose, never free enough to find. I wish something would break, 'cause we're running out of time."
Overcome, Live