Alive
A fan fiction in progress by
Bryan Harrison
Pt7
A fire had been built in a large clearing. David could not see it from where he lay bound, face down on the muddy forest floor. But he could hear the flames crackling as the fire devoured its feast of forest branches. He heard footsteps growing closer and then felt himself being roughly freed from his binds and hoisted up onto the shoulder of the madman that Johnson Johnson had become, had perhaps always been. The man laughed manically and started walking toward the flames that David could now see were surrounded by the man's unholy flock.
"Wot you fixin' on doin', Lord?"
The voice broke through the night and David felt Johnson Johnson stop. "Get yer damned metal arse outta my way!" the man bellowed. David looked over his shoulder to see Jeggs, pacing and fretting in Johnson Johnson's path.
"But you says you loves all the toys! All the little toys in da world!"
Johnson Johnson responded with a kick that sent the old Mecha backwards into the brush. "I'll deal with you later!' he bellowed as he made his way toward the flaming pyre. David struggled to no avail and then found himself set on his feet. Johnson Johnson was holding him from behind as he stepped closer to the flame, pressing the boy forward like an offering
The fire raged against the night, a violent beast of writhing flame whose tongues dashed into the darkness and licked at the swollen forest revealed in the malicious glow; spat mad embers that flared against the starlight and disappeared. The heat of it pressed on David's skin, ran furious caresses of heat over his face and exposed skin. He screamed and struggled against his captor's grasp. But Johnson Johnson only barked a vile laugh and moved closer to the fiery monster.
"Feel it, lad!" the madman laughed. "Don't be afraid! It's only the flames of Orga passion. Isn't that what you wanted … to know the passions of the flesh? Isn't that what led you on your quest of blasphemy?" He laughed again, and threw David back to the forest floor. The boy recoiled and rolled away. His face was hot, his hair smelt of singed flesh and felt like a sizzling cap against his skull. He rose to his knees and tried to escape, but his path was blocked by the encircling throng of simulants, lost in their voiceless prayers. He cried out and tried a escape in another direction. If he could get beyond the circle of Mecha he could run, take sanctuary in the dark. But the simulators shuffled on their knees to block him again.
"Why?" he roared at their frozen faces. He was once like them. He once knew their language, shared their digital morality. "Why do you just obey?" he screamed. But they offered no response. He shot forward, but they closed in again, arresting his flight to freedom.
"Where ya goin, boy?" the lunatic roared behind him. "Don'cha know there ain't no escape? Nobody breaks the rules! No one gets out alive!"
David saw Jeggs standing on the periphery of the throng, the dirty and torn cloth of his baggy suit rolling in the heat, his roaming eyes darting to and fro, focusing on nothing. David waved his arms frantically at the decrepit clown Mecha, imploring him to help. But Jeggs eyes would not stay on him.
"There ain't no help boy!" Johnson Johnson said gently, as if in sympathy. "Not this time. No crowds of whimpering softies ta come to yer aid." David was quiet a moment and turned a desparate gaze on the man. "Don't do this! I'm a boy... a real boy! You can't kill me!" For an instant David thought he saw something breaking through the man's madness, a gleam in his eye that suggested a moment of clarity in the mind that gazed through them. But then the eye fixed on him and the gleam was glazed over by a cataract of rage and vengeance.
"I lost everything!" Johnson Johnson screamed. "And I was left only with my hate and my dreams of revenge. But now that my dream is coming true, I can see that you did me a great service!"
David was moving back, his eyes darting around for an avenue of escape. But Johnson Johnson's words caught his attention. Amazingly he found himself listening to the maniacal rant.
"I thought they loved me, see? … that I was their leader. I fought for them, built an empire fighting against the cancer of Mecha that had spread and corrupted the world. But oh, how they lied to me. How shallow their faith really was. And t'was you who showed me boy; you who showed me that I was never really their leader. When they chose you over my command, I understood that they were incapable of loyalty!" He smirked and lifted his chin to look down on David. "Now I have found those who are truly loyal: those who follow with no reservation."
David looked around at the mindless throng and finally understood. The revelation cleared his mind. Somehow his fear fell away and he saw his captor with new eyes. The man no longer appeared as a monster, some unstoppable force, but had become something pathetic and spiteful; a shriveled, insane creature. David bared his teeth with an anger he had never felt before. "You… you…" he started, but had no words to complete the realization that was forming in his new Orga mind.
Johnson Johnson laughed again and David gleaned from his voice a sense of the savagery the man had planned. "Had you come to me as you left, a Mecha, I could have forgiven you. Had you the malleable brain of an innocent, like those who were once your brothers." He flung his arm to gesture to the obedient, kneeling robots. "I could have programmed you too. You could have atoned for your trespasses through obedience. But instead you come to me with the deceitful heart of an Orga, wrapped in this treacherous, selfish, lustful body of flesh. And you shall burn in it!"
The sense of defeat and anger burned its own flame in David's heart. It was a primal thing that could not be contained; a living force that broke on his skin in an angry, cold sweat and built a scream in his throat. He had been here before, strapped to a post, ready to die for the pleasure of a throng of screaming Orga. And here he was again, in the clutches of insanity. The entire human race had been here countless time; splayed and torn open on the steps of Mayan temples, pinned like cattle in the ghettos of Warsaw, dying like lemmings in the jungles of Guyana, slaughtered on the bloody soil of Wounded Knee and hanging like strange fruit from the poplar trees in the haunted forests of Mississippi. Nanking. Dresden. Rwanda. Hiroshima. Humanity held hostage in the clutches of psychopaths.
But David knew nothing of the tragedies of Orga history. Even when the factual details of those things had been stored into his digital memory, he would not have understood their meaning. But now he did, and in the most visceral way. Something roared in his soul and erupted from him.
"You are a lie!" he screamed. Johnson Johnson was taken aback. A bemused expression crossed his mad, determined features, spurring David on. "Everything you are is a lie. You can't lead anyone anywhere because you… you… aren't real! "
Johnson Johnson regarded the boy with surprised eyes for a moment. Then a sardonic smile spread on his cracked lips. A malicious mirth erupted from his belly and shook his entire body. But David's attention had been caught by something else; a small shape that appeared at the edge of the firelight and dashed into the throng of praying robots.
David knew that shape!
"They are not loyal to you!" he screamed, trying to keep Johnson Johnson's attention, trying to keep the madman from seeing what he had just seen. Johnson Johnson seemed only too happy to allow David to continue; seemed to take pleasure in the hatred coming from the boy. "They can't be loyal. They can't even make that decision. They can only be led like… like robots… mindless machines!" He didn't know where the words were coming from, didn't know from what dark corner of his new Orga soul they sprang, but he kept screaming. "And that is the only reason that follow you! If they could know you, if they could think for themselves, they would leave you!"
Jeggs had noticed the small thing now and David felt a surge of hope when he saw the beaten robot stop its frantic pacing and move towards the small thing to kneel and talk with it. Johnson Johnson was too lost in his victory to notice.
"You say that you were betrayed by the Orga at the Flesh Fair," David yelled, his voice breaking. "You blame them for … for listening to their… their heart and … and letting me go." His voice was catching as the horrific images of that fateful night came alive in his mind's eye. His heart raced. Tears streamed down his face. But they were not the tears of sadness. Nor was it fear that moved him. He was not just trying to keep Johnson Johnson's attention anymore, he was telling the man something, something that he had somehow just realized, and a thing that he knew Johnson Johnson's warped mind was incapable of understanding. "You say they deceived you and that… that they betrayed you! But you were never betrayed by anybody! You are the betrayer! You betrayed them! You betrayed their hearts with hatred and fear! Because… because that's all you are and always were... a little, empty man who is nothing without hate!"
The words stopped Johnson Johnson's laughter like a slap in the face. The gleam came back into his eyes and for a moment it seemed he understood that he was looking at a small helpless child crouching in fear in the dark forest; suffering at his own hands, from his own madness. But the look disappeared just as fast as it had arrived and he raised a shaking fist, indecipherable curses gushing from his rictus grin. "No more words boy," he spat. "Time to find your salvation in the eternal flame!" He sprang at David but was stopped suddenly by a large gloved hand on his shoulder. He turned to see the broken features of the aged clown Mecha, the discarded Circus bot he had salvaged from the pits and put into his service. But the clown wasn't smiling anymore.
"You says you love all da little toys," Jeggs moaned in a tone that Johnson Johnson had never heard before. "But you a lie! You a lie!" the robot said and wrapped the man in a strong embrace. Johnson Johnson punched and kicked at Jeggs as it started moving. But the aged robot was stronger than he'd known. He roared in frustration., "I'll tear you too pieces you piece of junk! Put me down before I …" but his voice stopped as he realized where the robot was headed. "No! Jeggs! No!" Johnson Johnson screamed in a frantic whine. "Nooooo…"
His plea was cut short and the night erupted into a flurry of cascading embers as Jeggs jumped on powerful legs and launched them both into the mouth of the ravenous flames. The horror of the scream that followed made David wretch, and burned itself into his mind. He would never forget that sound or the sight of dark shapes moving against one another in the fire until there was no life left in them. The kneeling robots gazed at the firelight but made no move to help, or to rise or escape. Nor did they move to stop David when he broke from his shock and stepped around them to the place where Teddy stood, calling his name.
"David! David!" The little bear barked in its mechanical tone. David thought there had never been a sound he was so happy to hear. He grabbed Teddy up and held him close, snuggled his face into the toys warm fur, soaking it in his tears of joy and relief. "Teddy! You found me!" he cried. He so wanted to thank his new friend, to question him on what he had said to Jeggs, to apologize for taking him for granted and express the powerful emotion that was coursing through his veins. But there was a sudden whoosh of heat from the place behind him. David turned to see that burning logs of the pyre had fallen from the stack and rolled into a cluster of brush. The flame was already moving up the side of two large trees to continue its feeding frenzy on their branches.
"We'd better go now, David" Teddy suggested urgently. But David didn't need to be warned about the frailty of his new flesh. He had felt the heat of hatred enough before and could still feel the sting of its physical manifestation on his skin. He was running, racing into the darkness as the flames of Johnson Johnson's hatred spread into the forest and began to feed on the throng of silent worshipers. They knelt in robotic obedience, never fleeing for safety or even flinching as they were consumed in the flames let loose by the raging heart of their false messiah.
In time a fleet of airborne firefighters arrived and drenched the forest from large copters. The fire was quickly drowned and the investigators landed to try and make sense of the event. But there was nothing left that would help them understand the cause of the fire, and David and Teddy were already far, far away from the scene of another in a ancient line of pointless Orga tragedies.
(cont...)