Glass crunched under Jonathan's shoes. He wished he had his boots, for the polished shoes were riddled with holes, the once polished leather peeling away. His blue jacket was ripped at the shoulders, his white shirt bloodied and unbuttoned. As much as he had once hated this uniform, he felt slightly attached to it for it was the shell of the reality he had once known. Now bloody and bruised, in a reality that finally all made sense to him, Jonathan paced slightly, trying to decide what he must do next. He had no soldier to guide him, no God to whisper in his ear or a ghost to give him a riddle to solve.
A hand suddenly grabbed Jonathan's hand, bringing him back to the present. He turned, meeting Tyler's wide-eyed stare, his hands shaking with shock.
"I d-died...I was shot…" Tyler stammered. "I died...I don't…" He trailed off, letting go of Jonathan's hand. He was quiet for a long time, his bloodshot eyes down on the floor but they moved rapidly as if searching for something to explain everything. "I don't understand…" Tyler said quietly. "What am I? Dead or alive? I don't know…" Jonathan stepped towards Tyler, placing his hands on his shoulders.
"You're like me...And Evan. You are both alive and dead...You are a living consciousness in a dead body. You're a ma…" Jonathan stopped, knowing that what he was about to say would be the cruellest thing possible to ever be said to Tyler. Taking a deep breath, Jonathan knew he had to say it. "You are a machine." The small cry of pain and shock that Tyler let out broke Jonathan's heart.
"Oh...Oh God no...No…" Tyler shook his head, experiencing such a wide range of emotions that made Jonathan fearful of him freezing up. "Did you do this? Did you do this to me?" Tyler suddenly yelled, grabbing Jonathan's collar. Jonathan stumbled back, almost landing on Evan's body on the table behind him. The needles that had still been in Tyler's arms were pulled out, blood and morphine dripping to the floor. "Were you so selfish?"
"Ohm did it! Me, Lui and Craig...We ran! We ran back to the truck but we couldn't go any farther! We had to come back...to finish this! I have to get us out of here, past those men out there to signal Lui and Craig. I didn't think that you would be...The three of us just decided that we had to do something and if it killed us all...well at least we did something for this world." Jonathan explained frantically. Tyler stared at him, disbelief written across his face.
"You idiots…" Tyler said quietly, letting go of Jonathan's bloody collar. He looked down at Ryan who lay bloody and unconscious on the glass covered floor, probably wishing it was him who beat him bloody than Jonathan. "I'll help you."
The doors to the front lobby suddenly swung open, two machines dragging the now slightly conscious body of Ohm behind them.
"Shit…" Four Zero said loud enough for the other two machines to hear.
"Fucking shoot them!" One of the others yelled raising his gun. A flash of sharp metal in the harsh light caught their attention, forcing Four Zero to raise his hand to stop the other. Jonathan held the scalpel to Ryan's throat, keeping his face as calm as possible.
"Pull that trigger and I'll do it. Don't try me." Jonathan snarled. "Drop your weapons." No one moved. Tyler's grip tightened on Ryan's collar. Jonathan could hear Ryan's shuddering inhale, each movement full of pain like it was for Jonathan. Four Zero shifted uncomfortably, not sure if he should tighten his grip on the trigger or not. Jonathan took a sharp breath, glancing at Tyler. "You killed Bryce because he wanted to be free." Jonathan said, looking back at the others. "You killed him because you were following orders...I have a feeling that the want to be free is shared. Put down your guns...No one has to die today. We'll go back to Old Town, we'll make this right."
"Make it right?" The one who had wanted to shoot them before yelled. "Do you know what you fucking did to New Towners? You killed us! We have no home!" He screamed at them. "Everyone is gone! My best friend fucking ran into the Wasteland and I don't think he's gonna stop until he dies!"
"Spoon." Four Zero said sharply, the name sounding odd to Jonathan but such names had been common once in New Town.
"Ohm was going to fix it! Fix it all! Bring back our futures! Bring Smitty back out of the Wasteland! Bring us back from our guilt! Yeah, we fucked up! We did horrible things but do we deserve to live like prisoners? To die blamed for everything that happened? You were a New Towner, Jonathan! What you are doing to us, is what we did to you!" Spoon screamed, his voice breaking.
"You killed people!"
"We gave them new life! We gave them immortality like you have, Jonathan!" Spoon cried. The fact that he didn't say that Tyler had it now too unsettled him. "Isn't that the human dream? To live forever? To never have to fear what's on the other side of that door that is death? Why are we evil to you? Is what we did really that wrong?"
"You stole a human consciousness and made it mechanical! You put it in a machine!" Tyler yelled.
"How is that wrong?" Spoon yelled back. "Because some of your human parts have been replaced? Fuck, you probably thought Evan was human or reincarnated when you ran him over! You even thought that Jonathan was human but the minute you knew he wasn't human, you were scared! Your whole world was fucked! But why? Why is that wrong? He's sentient! Evan was kinda sentient! You are sentient, Tyler! You are human but have a machine for a heart! Is wrong because that is what you were told? Told to believe that it was wrong?"
"Shut up!" Tyler suddenly yelled, making Jonathan jump. He didn't want to admit that Spoon was right, but he couldn't say that he was wrong. Yes, New Town had put a wall between them and Old Town; told Old Towners that they couldn't have the luxuries that New Town had and New Town killed them...But was anyone right? Smitty wanted to keep walking, to find something to give purpose to what he had seen and done. Spoon was right, and Evan had even said it. He was immortal, an idea that could not be killed though he knew now that there were many ways to be immortal; that was how one lived forever in this world.
"There is always a price to pay for being immortal…It's always a sacrifice...Become the demon, the God, the ghost, the monster or the machine...Either way, you lose something that once made you...you." Jonathan whispered, glancing at Tyler who seemed confused, unable to comprehend anything that was happening since he awoke. "Come back with us. Help us stop the violence...And we'll find a way!"
"No...There is no way." Spoon snapped and raised his gun, pulling the trigger. Jonathan and Tyler scrambled backwards, Spoon's emotions getting the better of him. He couldn't hit them no matter how much he wanted to, his aim off. Spoon threw down his gun, letting out a cry of anger as he suddenly burst into a run towards them. Before Tyler and Jonathan could drop Ohm and brace themselves, Four Zero tackled Spoon to the white floor, the other men in the room looking on in shock and silence.
"It's done! We're done." Four Zero said, holding him back from getting up. "Jonathan is right...He's right. We'll compromise...We'll figure it out."
"I'll get Lui and Craig." Jonathan said, slowly picking up the fallen gun and moved towards the front door. He pushed it open and fired three shots into the cold, dark sky. Walking to the gate through the snow, his footsteps bloody, Spoon's words still floated through his mind. It starting to feel wrong to go back to a place that wasn't home anymore, to a place that wasn't the same just like he wasn't the same anymore.
"Shit...Jonathan are you okay?" Craig and Lui were running up to him, the blood on him glinting in the harsh white light.
"Did you actually do it?"
"Tyler's alive...Well, not really alive but alive." Jonathan breathed. "He's a machine like me and Evan."
"Oh god." Craig looked sick.
"Was it Ohm?" Lui whispered so no one could hear the grief in his voice. Jonathan nodded. Lui suddenly pushed passed him into the large base, storming towards the front doors. Craig remained still, his eyes on the snow.
"Of all the things that could have happened...this is the worst. Tyler won't be happy anymore...He never thought that machines were right, that they were wrong in every way. Now he'll think that about…" Craig trailed off into silence, the cold wind suddenly picking up to pull at their clothes and pinch their cheeks. Jonathan took a breath to say words that he knew wouldn't help but stopped when Craig moved past him, following Lui into the base that had become haunted for all of them. Jonathan looked up at the dark clouds, wondering when it would snow again.
Jonathan had never wanted to burn down a building so bad before. He had burned the tower in New Town, his home, but hadn't wanted to. It was what was right. Now, though, he was horrified and furious. Screens covered the far wall, each one full of details for machines that Ohm controlled; several were ready to attack what was left of Old Town. There was one for Evan that had gone dark, and another for Tyler. Most disturbing of all, there was one for him, listing off details about him such as current heart rate, how long he had been running, how long he had been consciousness. Jonathan watched his heart rate rise as he stared at the screens, barely able to comprehend what he was looking at. He knew that there would have been something like this, a screen that made him into nothing but numbers that got larger with every second, but he wasn't ready to see it and it fully made him realise how different his world had become and how he didn't belong in it like he used to.
"Turn it off. Turn it all off." Lui suddenly snapped at Ryan, startling Jonathan out of his thoughts. Ryan, now as awake as he could be, glanced at Lui and shook his head.
"You don't want it off." Ryan muttered, spitting blood to the floor.
"What the fuck does that mean?" Lui's hands curled into fists, clearly wanting to hit Ryan but he had been told repeatedly by Jonathan not to hit him anymore because the only way they do this without anyone dying, was to get him to go back with them alive, so the people of Old Town and what was left of New Town could decide what to do with him.
"It's not just simply shutting down a system…" Four Zero said quietly, his eyes on his own screen. His gaze lowered to meet Jonathan's, his eyes welling up with tears. "Every machine Ohm controls...shuts down."
"There has to be a way around that! There is a way around it!" Craig suddenly yelled, looking up at Tyler who was still dazed, overwhelmed with everything that was happening around him.
"There isn't a way." Ryan said, his eyes narrowing on Craig. "I made it that way because I knew this would happen eventually...There is no winning this."
"Fuck!" Craig ran a hand through his hair, turning away from the others. Jonathan couldn't say a word, could do nothing but stare at the screen and watch his heart rate.
"You can't reverse it? Can't go in and override it?" Lui cried.
"No." Ryan said. The machines around him remained silent, all three of them trying to make a decision that none of them, regardless of what they had fought for, thought they would have to make. They stared at the screens with their names on them, and the one that had gone dark, knowing that if they turned it off, they would go dark themselves.
"You should have listened." Spoon spat. Jonathan slowly turned, wondering if he was talking about his outburst, or the ghost and the red-haired woman whose beloved had been turned into a machine.
"Turn it off…" Tyler whispered, his hands shaking. "This…" He pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the mechanical heartbeat there. "Should be dead."
"If he's alive though and held captive, he can't send the machines to attack! We don't need to turn it off!" Craig cried, tears falling down his cheeks. "We can just leave!"
"How do you know that?" Ryan said calmly. "How do you know that you can just leave?"
"Don't listen to him! He's trying to get in your head!" Lui cried.
"Now is the time you should be listening to me. This is my system. I know the ins and outs of it!" Ryan raised his voice, annoyed now with everyone.
"You could just shoot him and that's the end of it." Attention went to Anthony, who hadn't spoken a word since Tyler and Jonathan dragged Ryan into the foyer. "It doesn't matter then, not our problem anymore. What we don't know can't hurt us. What we don't know isn't our fault."
"But if you didn't know...and something happened, say more people died; then that's something you gotta live with because if you don't use this time now to make a proper decision, then it's all on you." Ryan said sharply. "If you turn it off, you'll know."
"You'll still have some fucking victory because three of us, including someone who was loyal to you, will be dead!" Lui yelled. "You're a fucking monster!"
"That is what people will call you if you walk away with me dead because more people will die and it will be your fault." Ryan snapped. Jonathan met Four Zero's gaze. They both knew that Tyler would want to turn it off, but they didn't know about each other. Jonathan and Scotty stared at each other, waiting. They wanted the other to make the decision that they could not. Finally, Scotty nodded.
"Turn it off." Jonathan said, doing his best to keep his voice steady.
"What?" Lui was shocked.
"Turn it off."
Snow drifted from the slowly brightening sky. The wind would pick up and swirl the snow around in small flurries, sending the snowflakes dancing among the trees before they settled on the ground where the early morning light made them sparkle. If one looked closely, they might have seen footsteps leading to the spot where it seemed that a door had opened, sweeping the fresh snow to the side, and closed.
Jonathan stood by the gate, watching Lui, Craig, Spoon and Anthony pack up one of the trucks that had been at the base. Ryan sat still in the back, staring at Jonathan who wanted nothing to do with him. He had no power over him yet he couldn't help but wonder if the right thing had been done. Jonathan pushed the thought away for it was too late now.
They had made Ryan turn off the main system first and the machines that were replicas of Evan. Then they said their goodbyes. They all knew that if the power somehow came back on they would be back, so they decided it would just be a long, deep and peaceful sleep. Jonathan didn't belong in this world anymore, he had done all he could for it, and he hoped the next world would be kinder to everyone.
And so, one by one, their screens went dark. Yet as Scotty and Tyler shut down, gently lowered to the floor so they wouldn't fall, Jonathan remained standing, staring at his dark screen and waiting for his world to go just as dark as it but nothing happened. Confusion followed by fear was written across Ryan's face as he turned to look at him.
"You're...You're sentient…"
Now, Jonathan met Ryan's gaze, giving him a bitter smile. In a way, they had won after all, though it hurt and would continue to hurt for a long time afterwards. Overhead, an eagle coasted on the wind.
"We're ready." Lui said, jumping down from the back and motioned for Jonathan to join him in the front. "Come on. It's a long drive."
"I'm not going." Jonathan said, surprising all of them.
"W-What?" Craig jumped down from the back and stepped towards him. "I don't understand. It was your idea to take Ryan and the rest of them back home! This isn't because of the same reasons that you left us in the first place, right?"
"No...Well in a way but that isn't home for me anymore. I don't recognise that place as home and I barely recognise myself anymore. I have a lot to...to think about, about myself, about everything." Jonathan explained. "I just can't go back there. I don't belong there anymore."
"So you're going to stay here then?" Lui looked horrified. Jonathan shook his head.
"No. Maybe only for a little bit. There is so much of this world that I want to see, Wasteland or not."
"But you'll be alone!"
"I don't think so." Jonathan shook his head. The ghost in the red jacket that stood behind him smiled slightly. "Because parts of me are machine...I can't age or die...Not until they break down at least." Jonathan sighed. He didn't want to live forever, but he appreciated how much time he had. "Maybe I'll go back there one day...I'll find you. But for now...this world needs me."
"You gotta do what's right." Lui smiled and gave him a hug. "We'll miss you."
"I'll miss you too." Jonathan moved away and hugged Craig before waving to them as they turned away, heading back to the truck. Craig waved back as Lui started up the engine, the truck slowly starting down the snowy road. Jonathan watched them drive away till they turned the corner and were gone, only the faint sound of the engine still heard among the trees. Jonathan turned back and headed back inside the quiet base, inhabited by the dead.
He wandered among the halls, having nowhere to go in particular. He slowly made his way back to the room that Ohm had kept him in, finding his old clothes and the jacket with the faded owl patch. He changed out of the dirty blue suit, pulling on the darker and warmer clothes. He traced the thread on the owl patch before pulling the jacket on and laced up his boots. He found his pack in another room, the third owl patch still inside. He gathered up what he could find, including the letters from another life, and Evan's letters to Tyler. He found some food but had no appetite because of what he had to do next before he could leave. Sitting down to think about it, Jonathan decided he would wait, instead wanting to sleep for a little bit. So he did. The next day, he wandered around the halls again, more like a ghost than a living being. He didn't want to it today either or the day after that or the day after that. Finally, when he realised that if he was going to leave, he would need food and he couldn't stay here forever, he decided it would be today.
Pushing open the door to the lab where the floor was covered in glass and dried blood, Jonathan took a deep breath. Evan's body lay on the far metal table. In the reflection of the glass, the ghost in the red jacket watched Jonathan as he walked towards the table. He brushed Evan's hair off his face and reached for a scalpel. He needed the blue chip, for he hoped that he could find another tablet somewhere, and bring him back, as the Vanoss-III.
The sun rose and it set and rose again. The wind blew or it would be completely still. It snowed, or it was a clear day. After walking for what must have been months, he wasn't counting the days, Jonathan decided to walk south for he was sick of so much snow and there it rained. On his travels, he met people, some who had heard or were from Old Town, others who were born in Wasteland. None of them though looked like the friends he once had. For the first few months, Jonathan would see movement among the trees around him and he would smile for they were his ghosts but then they disappeared, not even visiting him in his dreams. He missed them, but his hand would curl around the consciousness chip in his pocket and he wouldn't feel so alone despite the hours he had spent sobbing with his hands covered in blood on that glass covered floor after he took it out, the chip held tight in his bloody hand.
Sometimes he wondered if he would find Smitty and Marcel out in the Wasteland, wondering how he could tell him the story of how they stopped Ryan but he never did find him. If their paths crossed again, they never knew it.
One night, sitting by his campfire, Jonathan realised the thread of his owl patch was falling out. Remembering that he had seen the road to a large town a while ago, he started walking back towards it the next morning. A few days later, he reached it, walking down the road into the city. There were towers rising into the bright morning sky, the streets busy with people. This place seemed familiar. Wandering the streets, Jonathan wondered where he could get some gold thread. The thought occurred to him that maybe he could find a tablet here too and he would finally have Evan back.
It was then that he heard a laugh, rising among the crowd and louder than the other voices. He stopped, turning around to see where it came from. Then he saw them, walking in the direction that Jonathan had come. How could they have walked pass and he didn't notice? Jonathan reached into his pack, finding the other two owl patches and hurried after them. He caught up to them, his hands shaking with excitement and fear. They wouldn't recognise him, but he recognised them.
"Excuse me." They stopped then, turning to look at him. Jonathan's breath caught in his throat. "I know...I know this is a bit weird, but it would me a lot to me if...if you had these." He held the owl patches out to them. He knew that they might have different names now, but to him, Brock, Tyler and Evan smiled at him.
"Thank you. Did you make them?" Evan asked as he took the patches, running his fingers over the faded thread.
"A long time ago...yes." Jonathan thought he would cry with happiness.
"Do...Do we know you?" Tyler wondered. Jonathan shook his head.
"No...But that's okay." Jonathan smiled. Snow caught on the breeze, swirling around them on the busy street. He met Evan's gaze, fighting back his tears of joy. "This world needs you."