25 - All Threads Can Be Cut
The Wreath
Jonathan Huynh's Stage
Udeav Minor
Colonial Space
Endgame. Lit sunbeams of joy streaked within Jonny, perhaps the only light left at the moment. Shine. Guide them home!
The rainstorm had rolled in right as Jonathan Huynh had taken center stage. Both unpredicted and unwelcome to this new, congregate thrall of a thousand silent partners. But, Jonny had held it all together. A professional, the white-furred ape smiled throughout; even quipping at the first few droplets.
He'd liked to have believed it was his own expert oratory that had done it, but he knew it was his creation's idea that had held captive the imagination of every investor, speculator and neophyte blend-in the upper platforms. So much so, that their fast-moving attention spans held even with the fast approaching tempest. Dark clouds billowing behind the initial smattering of rain drops, the thunderclap and the lightning.
Jonny raised his eyes to the heavens. The black trail of clouds promised a much stronger storm, though it didn't frighten him anymore.
At the summit. He grinned. Jonny was at his crescendo, his moment of peak. The stage was never meant to be interactive, the crowd was never expected to be deeply invested, but the faces that had leaned over the edges of their balconies told a different story.
"Neurlink is," the white-furred ape boomed before pausing for effect.
All of his poise, the great power of a well-placed pause, and Jonny couldn't have given a damn about it. His unmerged self was where it wanted to be. Soon, the memory and the sensations would all be his. One man, two journeys.
In the picosecond his well-rehearsed mind took to formulate its next line, the blue-eyed simian pictured the next hour. He imagined a defeated Demitrius fleeing the colonies; the ironic disgrace of the old-money class that had once hunted his people for near sport. ''
He'd retire before he was even asked, the influx of new capital finally drowning out the old relic. It would only be natural, of course, for Demitrius' keystone shareholder to take over; a younger man with boundless energy and a vision unsurpassed.
It wasn't just Demitrius, either. Jonny practically climaxed hypothesizing the shock on Percival's face when he realized it would not be him to ascend the mantle. The hairless, disgusting mole probably already knew. It would be a practical decision, one without a wake of lymed skeletons. Well, none attributed to Jonny.
All this triumph existed within the keep of Jonny's mind. Its halls filled with the music of his invincibility. Its battlements tested; its garrison stocked with enough recorded vice to blackmail in the open. The war was won.
All this, until Jonny Huynh blinked.
What?
A different stroke of 'endgame.' A single twitch, and the vision suddenly ended. His mouth ran dry, his pupils scoured for focus. The deliberate pause overstayed its welcome as Jonny's demeanor retreated vacant for a long moment. It was all wrong. All those years spent struggling shattered in an instant.
He dropped to his good knee, his shimmering steel cane he'd forgotten he'd needed struck the decking as a fog rolled through his mind. As if his very soul had been lifted and slammed back into his mind. The layers of his consciousness pancaked together as the simian glanced downware for a mere moment, catching his own panicked reflection in a puddle cradled in a diverted imperfection on his teakwood flooring.
Who am I? Where am I? What is happening?
Jonny's finger's numbed as a seizing red engulfed his vision. The numbness spread down his back to his feet and crawled back up his left side.
"Neur….Link," Jonny rushed out, rubbing his burning temples. "I.. Neurlink, IS."
As he tested the crowd's patience, the eye's on him shackled weights on his shoulders. There may have been two or three murmurs, but Jonny felt the yield a thousand fold.
The monkey recoiled, averting his eyes upward. Leaving the others to only see the whites of his eyes. The numbness on the left side of his body finally brought him to the floor.
The simian slammed, crumpling to his side; feeling his heart beating frantically in his throat as he writhed.
"I didn't mean for this," he sputtered, chuckling obtusely when the words left his mouth. He heard his voice echo strangely throughout the floating platforms above him as the concerned murmurs grew. Blood rocketed down his nose and sprinkled onto the concourse.
Whispers. That's when Jonny's vision truly died. A new set of unnatural whispers in his head that he couldn't resist. Why had he never heard these before?
He saw him. Blue eyes and a smug grin. On the balcony to his right! No! Off the fire-escape on the left. Maybe he wasn't really there at all.
Descend. An authoritative wellspring required within him. Not quite a voice, but ripples. And, in the most imperceptible way, Jonny knew exactly who it was.
Flashing images, whispers and commands. Utterings of the most beautiful nature from below. Jonny heard them clearly as a single sick laugh slipped its way out of him.
My task. Your time. It's a fair trade, Jonny. And, you know what needs to be done.
Vauquelin. Jonny emitted a deranged giggle as the bootfalls of rushing medical staff shook the stage. He didn't feel them strapping him into the gurney, nor did he hear the mutterings of the crowd. Jonny understood one language with one priority.
The haunting siren of Marcus' voice resounded again as his enemy's beliefs became his.
Redeem yourself. Destroy that mirror.
The Wreath
Armstrong Vikr's Platform
Udeav Minor
Colonial Space
Demitrius leapt, his eyes pried open as wide as the twin suns rising on a new dawn. The elderly ferret breathed out the fluttering palpitations of a dead man walking.
Like distant drum beats, three dull shudders had slashed through the air. That's all he felt, and only because he'd been expecting them as he nervously wracked himself back-and-forth on his wicker armchair.
They were secondary charges, set on delay timers by his unwitting instruments; Ketumat. No doubt alarms would sound in the lower hepts within a minute or, but it wouldn't change anything. Tremendous pressure was building in the unmonitored ballasts, and it was only a matter of time before they ruptured.
The charcoal gray ferret's gold-lined eyes scanned across Armstrong's inner circle for signs of a similar unease. He was pleased, so far, to see that their faces held their usual assured calm. The same superior smugness they, and he, had enjoyed since birth. Untouchables.
Untouchable! Demitrius sneered to himself as Jonathan Huynh's nauseating voice reverberated off the finewood panels in Armstrong's lounge. He was nearing the end of his address.
The acrid musk hovering to Demi's right had told him that Percival had arrived late. Of course he did, the mole finally summoned by the only man who could do so. He sat on the other end of Vikr's booth, at the end of Armstrong's vacant family table pretending he was capable of enjoying himself.
Armstrong himself, that titan, leaned forward confidently. His head nodded in approval with every inflection of Jonny's voice, eyes sparkling with a feigned joy. His chiseled jawline and roguish smile for all to see. He did it for the cameras. He did it for the christening of his new prodigy yapping uselessly below. And, despite the sick pageantry; Demi knew the stag was mentally vacant. His mind elsewhere, anywhere but here.
But, Armstrong Vikr smiled on as if he wasn't shackled to the seat. A stag held captive of a machine that had never once stopped; the cogs of which had never failed to produceambitious upstart heirs to replace his own. All the riches in the world could not soothe him from the exacting toll the colonies collected from him. A very-different Demitrius, a long time ago, might have sympathized.
The mood was calm. And now, the only indication of the impending stress was the help; animals Demi was usually only vaguely aware of. The wind had picked up even further when the dark clouds rolled in. Their knee-length chartreuse aprons swung furiously as shiny black shoes click-clacked on the freestanding observation deck. They, alongside their mechanical drone equivalents, struggled to haul the deck furniture out of the observation areas as the wind-swept sheets of rain stung them.
Demi noticed his legs were shaking, again. He stiffened up. He found enough peace in his fast-approaching eternity to forgive himself for it; judgment was all but here now.
Those merely considered rich enough to attend stood below, scurrying for cover on the surfaces of their creation; the mortally wounded wreath. They were ignorant of the fast-spreading, unmeasurable parasitic infection growing thousands of meters below their feet. They were standing on a bomb.
Others, the more hopelessly wealthy lineages, were floating amid the nimbostratus with Demitrius. They clung together tight waiting for the storm's siege to break. They listened attentively as Jonny spoke about his toy, huddled together in the custom-made platforms floating amidst the stage. They, too, indignantly squeezed the torrent out of their hands, shirts and ties.
Armstrong's people. My people, too. This is who I am. Demitrius remembered. He exhaled, his personal shame submitting another guilty plea on his soul. My people. My collaborators. Us, my daughter's murderers. I am among them. There was some rhythmic justice at play, he felt. Rich, poor. All guilty, here by choice. All had all fled for shelter. Everyone was running from something.
Everyone except Aster.
She stood alone, ten meters to Jean-Starkly's front. The hybrid hung over the railing on the same teakwood deck that all the others had once stood on. Aster stood sentinel, whipped by wind, smashed by the pouring rains; she did not waver. She had defeated the tempest's bluster, unmoved as if she was among the stars in the twenty-eighth hour's sky.
Demitrius appreciated her elegance. Her resolution. The deliverer of Ariane's last words.
A slight turn of her head indicated Aster was listening again.
It's time. Demitrius begged.
He agonized, stuck in the cyclic trappings of rage as the monsoon beat down on the vaulted ceiling and the oven-kilned tile roof over his head. He suffocated in it. His teeth grit. Demi's hateful eyes stared through her back as her white-tipped tail danced in the wind.
I am ready now.
A zephyr rushed the observation deck, blowing napkins off tables and empty glasses off trays.
Aster swiveled her head further as a near-puddle of the North Sea's icy squall rolled down her scalp and down her neck. Soaked down to the bone, she didn't even jump as the frigid water beaded across the vertebrae on her spine. The purple irises which had always been so focused, so compelled, were almost glassy; as if she'd been interrupted from her most peaceful rest.
Aster. Demitrius thought. It's time.
Teeth. First the incisors, then a full set of canines as she grimaced back at him, regarding him fouly. Aster's eye's sprung back into the world of the living as the familiar, almost carnal beat of war-drums returned to her gaze. Demitrius trembled terribly.
I thought I'd be able to break you, by now. Aster's disembodied voice spoke directly into his thoughts, penetrating his mind completely. The calamity behind her leer freezing his heart in its place for a moment. War is not about the glory of the kill. It's not about revenge. It's about victory.
Aster's unmouthed chiding began, as a sweet soliloquy followed. A village well is not loved for how much clay was removed to dig it. Nor by the hands stilled in desire to create it. But, by the life its waters produce.
Aster peered over the edge and down the spiral of wealth scattered among the platforms surrounding them. She studied each hept-wall, every population center on every surface. It was only a few seconds to Demitrius, but he knew it felt an eternity to her.
What life will this produce? Her desperate voice petitioned.
Demitrius' inner voice responded swiftly, as he nearly stood and yelled it.
No more parables! This is the war you asked for. This is it!
Demitrius heard echoes of his daughter tug at his heart for a moment. It occurred as it had for fifteen days, now. Regret, just asecond before the image of his daughter's tears possessed him; their last fight. Eight years ago. She'd been a child then, and now he'd never seen her grow up.
Can you be satisfied with this end? Aster's disembodied voice asked.
I will die with them. Demitrius resolved, twiddling around Timoteus' datadrive in his rightmost jacket pocket.
Aster lowered her head briefly before releasing the railing. She left her solitary perch toward Demi's last-minute invite seat, indignation on her face.
The other's watched fecklessly as Aster dragged a small lake of rainwater across the high-pile carpets. Aster's sopping wet tail didn't bounce so highly now. Some held their breath as her wrath carried it's way over. For others in Armstrong's court, the time for shameful mutterings began.
Aster was unmoved. She stood over the suited mustela, who remained shivering in his chair. Their pupils never left the company of each other, their private conversation incomplete.
My daughter dreamed of peace.Demi thought, a tear emitting from his left eye. I will die with them.
Demi could feel the eyes of a dozen poorer animals on him. He no longer cared for the optics of others, as he put his arm around his tantric muse. She was hypothermic now, hardly attending to her own condition; a carefree being, honor-bound to her task.
She remained standing over him, her posture rigid. Aster's eyes, half-lidded, cast a cold, disdainful lour on him. You deserve far worse.
Demitrius Jean-Starkly blinked. His guns fell silent; finally understanding the weight of his crimes.
"I know," The charcoal-furred mustela accepted verbally. He'd said it quietly, but half the room heard him say it; the first words spoken between them in nearly a half-hour.
A struggle ensued. Aster rifled through his pocket, furiously gripping the datadrive firmly before ripping it from him as the others watched with perplexity. She strutted for the door without saying another word. More than a few confused eyes followed her.
Demitrius pursued, a lifetime of aristocratic impulse compelling him not to idly tolerate the disrespect he was just shown. He could feel Armstrong's false concern track him as he cooled off. Perhaps it was relief, an excuse to remove me. He expected Percival was scoffing as well, though there was only hatred for him now.
"Aster! Wait!" Demitrius yelled, approaching Aster from behind. He didn't need to leap, as she froze in place. It wasn't Demitrius, nor was it nerves; something new was wrong.
"Don't!" Aster spat back, but not before Demitrius clasped her shoulder, his fingertips digging in.
The hybrid yanked away, releasing herself from his grasp. She turned, displaying a fiery indignation. Demitrius sighed, accepting the new truth between them.
"Get out as soon as you can," Demitrius begged anyway. "You don't have to go with us."
He attempted to latch onto her again. This time, Aster caught him by his wrist, halting him in his place completely. She held him, feeling his staggered breaths pulse off her forehead as she stared upward to meet his gaze.
"All threads can be cut," she said, the rich purples of her eyes trembling.
"Even yours?" Demitrius asked with a broken heart, knowing full-well the answer lie below. Aster released him.
"Especially mine," Aster said with a bittersweet smile. "This is where we say goodbye, Demi."
He cradled her head with his hands, and the two rested foreheads. Their eyes closed, an imperfect unity of purpose.
"For fucks sake!" Percival spat from across the table, "Leash your pet, Demi."
Armstrong also leaned in further, unable to silence his discomfort with the pairing despite his dwindling reserve of empathy for his old friend.
"What is the meaning of this?" The stag asked harshly.
The antlered figurehead's words pierced through the clutter, forcing open the odd-couple's eyes again. She looked through Demitrius with a final resenting glare, and he looked back. Only this time, the resentment was shared. It was a microsecond at best, but when the odd couple's eye's met again their symbiotic relationship returned. A twinkle in both, acceptance.His rank hatred fused to her mission. It reignited their plot.
Aster winked at him, and Demi released her. She exited swiftly, her tail bouncing as she quick-stepped to the production office below.
It was only then that the first rolling chorus of gasps was heard to the stageside viewing. Something was happening on stage, and as the murmurs fractured, attention from uncouth Demitrius spectacle panicked.
Demi was appalled at the thought that his time was prematurely up. With a quickness, he peered over the nearest railing, expecting to see his plan performing off schedule.
His mouth hung wide in horror, witnessing the slunk form of a white simian being carted off. One of the few men Demi had hoped would see his plotting culminate in his own destruction. And, now? It damaged Demitrius to his core that that parasite Huynh might pass peacefully in the cradle of his own mind.
Not now, you filth! You do not get the easy way out! The ferret thought, sprinting to the next railing for a closer look. Jonny was at least thirty meters away, but even Demitrius' aging eye could see a streak of red running from his nose.
Once it had become apparent that the Ape had hit the floor and wasn't getting up, the financial alliances in Armstrong's box soured even further. Distressed power dynamics grew worse as Armstrong's underlyings fractured their pacts. Voices raised as all vainly vied for a semblance of control.
It was only then that Jean-Starkly realized the humor in place in all this. All threads can be cut.
Demitrius Jean-Starkly laughed. He roared. It had started as a low chuckle, rising to a full-throated, almost maniacal cackle, reverberating off the cold aluminum walls. The madness silenced a floundering Armstrong. Demitrius laughed at the cruelty of the world he'd helped create, the hollow promises of it's justice. He'd thought himself different just this morning.
But, really? Now, He knew he was right where he belonged.
"Demitrius," Armstrong pronounced, nearly frothing at the mouth. "What's so goddamn funny?"
"Meaning. That's what you asked for, right?" Demi snarled loudly at his fellow blue-blood. "What greater meaning could you appreciate? What words could I provide that would grant you an understanding of the butchery we've accomplished here?"
He extended his arm out over the balcony, into the plummeting rain. His widened hand swept, indicating the behemoth below them.
"I thought this would feel better. The dismantlement of it all. I thought I'd wait until my daughter's words rang in every household, in every ear. Like they soon will."
Demitrius' own eyes rose to meet theirs. It was a scorching, steaming rage.
"But, now I understand," He laughed sickly, his catharsis having taken full hold. "This disappointment I feel now? It is not a curse. It's her final gift to me. Perspective, Ariane's last lesson."
Armstrong, having lost a billion credits and his chosen replacement in the last thirty-seconds could not spare Demitrius even a minutiae of sympathy. His right eye twitched, recoiling at the outburst.
"Jonny's on a fucking stretcher. And, you're dancing on the edge of being committed," Armstrong thundered, all two-hundred centimeters of him standing in a fizzling rage, "What the fuck are you rambling about?"
Demetrius, blessed with a serene tone, replied plainly to his oldest friend. "I'm telling you it's finished. All of it."
Silence. Just the rain and voices from outside the box. A roll of thunder a distance away. Guests held their drinks at half-mast, frozen in time waiting for the next Jean-Starkly word to hammer down.
"Two short weeks ago I learned what devastation I was capable of," he continued. "But, only today. Only now, do I fully accept it."
"What are you on about?" A self-described powerful man asked smugly, one whose name eluded Demitrius. Despite his multi-million net-worth he was barely considered an aide, maybe. A dog silently regarded by Armstrong, Demitrius and the other privileged few as nothing more than elevated pondscum. Gods, Demi pitied him, whoever he was; self-sentenced to be serving in the same web as predators such as they.
Jean-Starkly waltzed two steps and removed his flute glass from the lowborn dog's hand, never once breaking his sympathetic look. He tilted the fine glassware upward and consumed the rest of its contents, before shattering the flute with a toss behind his right shoulder.
"I'm talking about the future," the mustela said. "Perspective changed it. I mistakenly understood that this day, this reckoning, was for you. I thought this would be the end. But this is just the end of the beginning."
The duke moved on, addressing the divided group from the center. He stood and circled, ready to eulogize his enemies and friends alike. They gave him a wide berth.
"How would we have even understood?" Demi accused. "How could we hear the quaking of boots from our marble palaces? How would we have seen the silent starving? I was wrong. This day, it's for me as well."
"All threads can be cut. This is the end of ours. But, everyone else persists. This is the end of it," Demitrius said again, pointing vindictively at the brown-furred dog before him. "There are no more colonies in our grip after today. And, if any remain they'll be without me. Without you. Without us."
Percival Powell grunted. The two connected glances.
Weakness whispered into Demitrius' blood again. He should have known to wait for their end, patiently. Percival Powell simply had the most gain by his departure. But the sight of him? Gods only knew what cruelties he had inflicted on his daughter. Demitrius hadn't slept in days trying to eradicate the infecting theories from his mind.
"One without him first!" Starkly screamed impulsively.
Percival glanced left, right, up and down before he even acknowledged the accusations. An actor's feat in a feigned attempt to protest his confusion.
Demitrius growled, unsheathing his anger in an unrestrained advance toward the most feared man in the room.
"You know what you've done!" He barked.
The terror smiled subtly. The mole almost had the nerve to grin. A rare gift of closure from a merciless wretch. Demitrius knew everything he needed to know. Even in his end Percival thought he was untouchable.
"What you did to her."
He didn't need words. The meaning was all there. Percival's sufficient response was the glinting, swirling blacks of his eyes Idle in the knowledge of his depravity. It was enough.
Demitrius lunged at him, screaming in a bloody rage as he hopped onto his table and clamored towards Percival. He smacked away piles of hor d'oeuvres and silverware
It all happened so fast, after that. The first blast shook the floating parade, shattering windows and silencing ears with ringing without discrimination. Shockwaves under pressure carrying terror and death through the air.
Demitrius continued his frenzied march across the table, possessed by an uncontrollable fury as bits of glass, metal, wood and bone tossed in the air from below.
The mole jumped, but then froze to his seat. His grin gone as Demitrius' hands wrapped around his throat. A well-deserved fear earned in his eyes.
"My little girl!" Demitrius raged in Percival's face, as the ends of his nails clung into the mole's neck. "My only daughter!"
It was the last thing Demitrius Jean-Starkly ever did.