The Overlord: A Post-Apocalyptic Novel (15 page)

"I wonder who that could be," mused Deadstock.

"You'll have to find that out for yourself," regretted Choke. "There's no real way of knowing. Some secrets he keeps only for himself and that is where my knowledge ends. In all honesty, I could be wrong about all of this. As I said before, Zero is a master manipulator. There's no way to tell what he really wants or why he'd want it. We all just to have to wait to find out."

"Not if I can help it." Deadstock then placed a comforting hand on his feeble friend's shoulder. "You've told me all that I need to know. We've got to take action now, together."

Choke swayed, "What is that you think I can do for you?"

"Many years ago, you helped put the Wandering Star inside of me," presented Deadstock. "At the time, it was the only way to keep it safe and out of the wrong hands, but I'm not interested in preserving its power anymore. I need your help to take it out. You told me that you've found a way. I want you to do it and then I want you to help me destroy it."

Choke wavered, "Destroy it? Such sad words!"

"You said you sought peace," implored the Overlord. "We can't create it, but we can destroy the one thing that stands in its way. Now is your time to truly help achieve the dream, the reality of peace. No more bloodshed. Please, we don't have much time. Not too long ago, I told Zero exactly where I was. He could be here any second."

Chokeberry argued, "Even if I took it out of you, what makes you think it can be destroyed?"

"You've got to have something in these piles of junk," he stimulated, propositioning to the clutter of the control room. "I know you, Choke. You always got a failsafe nearby. You've never been known to create anything without first having a way to destroy it."

Choke rubbed his hands over his long patchy hair. "There is something, but it's not ready yet."

Deadstock deducted, "The Plague of Phantoms? Zero brought me all the way out here under the belief that there's a massive weapon being built somewhere on this island, something that could destroy even the likes of me."

"You're on to something with that, but like I said, it's not ready yet." Choke then raised up a forgotten point, "Why can't you just do it yourself? The Blood Tech is linked to the Wandering Star which, in turn, is linked to your own blood. Together, it's all indestructible, expect from the inside. If you're so adamant on destroying the Wandering Star, why don't you just kill yourself and be done with it? All you have to do is cut off the life force of your own cells."

The Overlord contradicted, "Suicide is not an option, assisted or otherwise. I'm incapable of doing that."

Choke challenged back, "Even for the good of humanity?"

Deadstock returned, "Instead of righting a wrong, it'd just be making one worse. I can't do it. Furthermore, I've actually tried before. I don't condone the attempt, but I failed. The Wandering Star brought me back to life. I can be killed, that's certain, but not as long as this thing is still inside of me. Destroying it won't work from within."

Chokeberry comforted, "Oh, I see. I understand, Doctor. It's alright. It won't ever have to come to that again. Not after this."

"After what?" Deadstock dolefully queried.

Ignoring the question, Choke swung open his smock and revealed two peculiar gauntlets hanging from his belt. He slid his hands into the braced gloves and lifted them up. Lights turned on all about the wrists and fingertips as a whirring sound loudly reverberated from the palms. The glowing gauntlets were beautifully crafted and sleek in design, a contrast to the filthy scrap of the wretched surroundings.

Warily, Deadstock glanced at them. "What in the whole Milky Way are those?"

"Behold, Doctor, my latest creations," said Choke emphatically. "These are the gauntlets of humanity, made solely to take back what you have stolen from us all."

Dr. Chokeberry had suddenly turned for the worse, seemingly betraying his old friend once and for all. Whatever it was that had made him snap, he looked up at the Overlord with a malevolent grin from the madness inside of him. The gauntlets began powering up and he stretched his arms outward. His fingers clenched as if grabbing for something in the air.

Against his will, Deadstock was levitated up off of the floor. He was floating helplessly in midair. It was as if a strange flowing presence was coming from out of the gauntlets, somehow latching itself onto the Wandering Star that the Overlord kept inside of him.

"Choke, don't do this," the immobile Overlord pleaded. He shivered in pain as he slowly began to pixelate in place, on and off. I couldn't tell if it was a side effect of the gauntlets or if he was trying to break free with a weave.

"I can't let you destroy what we created," howled Chokeberry. "I helped you build it and I won't see its end, not while I'm still alive. Everything that we've lost, we can rebuild with the power that's inside of you. Who needs true peace when the whole world can be ours? It almost was. We came so close with the Last War. It was a necessary war. The cleansing of the earth was almost complete. A few more moments was all we needed to control the whole planet, but you stole that chance right from under us. I didn't realize it back then, but it was the only hope for us all. I won't make the same mistake twice. I'm sorry, but this is the last chance we've all got!"

Barely able to get his words out as he hovered over the floor in agony, Deadstock slowly reached out to his old friend, "Dictators and doctors, remember? What's it going to be, Choke? Are you going to be a dictator or a doctor?"

An inner battle was then waged through the insanity of Chokeberry's heart and mind. He yelled out as if the inner turmoil was bring physical pain upon him. His green eyes looked away as tears began filling up and dribbling down. Finally, Choke deactivated the gauntlets and Deadstock fell onto the floor.

"Forgive me." Choke's hands dropped down to his sides in surrender. The storm had settled within him as he plummeted to the ground in complete exhaustion.

The Overlord got to his feet, walked over to Choke, and lent him a hand. "Consider yourself forgiven, just as long as I can have your forgiveness too."

"Forgiveness for what?" Choke asked in defeat.

"For not being a good friend," Deadstock revealed.

"You can't blame yourself for my choices, but my forgiveness is yours all the same," Choke said as he threw off the gauntlets from his wrists and extended a hand. The two then embraced in a long overdue handshake.

Deadstock then reverted to the immediate issue, "I don’t know how I'm going to keep the power out of Zero's hands since you're strategy to destroy the Wandering Star isn’t ready yet. Your weapon, how soon can you have it operational?"

Chokeberry corrected, "The designs for the Plague of Phantoms are already finalized. All that remains is for the weapon to be built."

The Overlord put forth, "How positive are you that it can put an end to all this?"

"Absolute confidence," confirmed Choke. "It's what it was designed to do, to eliminate all of the Blood Tech through the destruction of the Wandering Star."

"Of course," Deadstock said as a realization came over him. "Zero came all the way out here to nab the one thing that could destroy his master plan."

Choke grew solemn, "Working for Zero, I designed the Plague of Phantoms beyond his council. When he caught wind of its creation, he wasn't at all pleased to hear that I was building a failsafe to his plot. He dialed down a radiation rifle's blast down to survivable effects and nearly burned me alive as a reminder for what I did." The frail man draped his fingers across his mutated face.

"I'm so sorry, old friend," consoled the Overlord. "It seems that I don't know much about Zero as I should. Actually, I'm not sure that I know much about anybody anymore."

With that, Deadstock cried out unexpectedly and grasped onto his own side, to which Choke inquired, "What is it? Doctor, what's wrong?"

Deadstock clarified as he caught his breath, "Just an old wound that's come back to haunt me. It's nothing."

His old friend pressed in, "It's from the Last day of the Last War, isn't it?"

There was no response. At least none that I could see or hear, anyway. In the silence, I assumed the Overlord was nodding to confirm.

"If you don't know much about anybody anymore, it's because there's a lot that's been kept hidden from you." Chokeberry went on, "Tell me exactly what you saw right before you left Earth. What can you remember that day?"

Deadstock exclaimed, almost agitated, "You know well what happened, Choke!"

"Yes, but do you?" Choke insisted, "I need to hear your side of the story so that I can tell you what it is that you don't know. Please, I need to know what you saw."

"The Thralls had turned against me," the Overlord began. "At least some of them, anyway."

"Why was that?" Chokeberry asked in simplicity, already knowing the answer.

"You know this, Choke. You helped write the law." He continued, "Every Thrall has the right to rule. Anyone can challenge the Overlord in a fight to the death. If victorious, the responsibility passes to the victor. On the Last Day of the Last War, a Thrall from the lowest rank challenged my authority. I didn't even know his name, but the Thrall wanted my power for himself. He was convinced he could salvage the world from what had happened to it."

"And what had happened to it?" Chokeberry investigated.

The Overlord wasn't amused. "Seriously, Choke?"

Chokeberry vied, "Seriously, go on."

Deadstock kept at it, "With the power of the Blood Tech, we had won the Energy War. Every last ounce of oil had become worthless, every last dollar had become an irrelevant artifact, and every last economy was within our renewable enterprise. Though we were in control of almost everything, the Free World revolted against the prospect of an unlimited power."

Deadstock sighed, "The Free World called for a return to traditional technology and there wasn't a single ounce of shame in their outcry. We of the Thralldom had successfully brought an end to the global conflicts that we'd all been raised up in. We had brought solutions to age-old wars, but what we didn’t know was how to solve an impending crisis that had climbed to the top along with us. We had overlooked humanity's own folly and greed. With blood at the center of commerce, people of lesser conscience took to killing each other for a mere payday."

He paused, but Chokeberry persisted, "Keep going."

The Overlord maintained, "With the Blood Tech, everyone wanted blood. Blood meant fuel. Fuel meant energy. Energy meant power. I was saddened and ashamed of what my creation had done, what it had become. That's when I came to you and asked for your help in hiding the Wandering Star, the most important fuel cell in the whole world. The thought was that by merging it with my own cells, I could control the Blood Tech and turn everything off. When I became the cyborg you see before you now, I realized that the only way to shut off the power was to die along with it. I couldn’t find it in myself to do that, so I came forward and implored my Thralls. I asked for their allegiance in my quest to revoke the accursed technology from the face of the earth, but the Thralls saw it differently."

Choke budged in, "When the weak acquire power for too long, it becomes an addiction."

"Precisely," agreed Deadstock. "The Thralls had become addicts and were ready to kill anyone who stood between them and their fixation. On the Last Day of the Last War, I found myself standing between them and their power. One by one, dozens came up to me to challenge my authority. It began with that young man, whose name I never knew. He was of low rank and I took him down swiftly and easily. Soon, another came forward to replace him. I killed him as easily as I did the first. Another stepped forward and he was quickly defeated as well. More and more bodies piled up as more and more Thralls sought to take my place."

"Eventually, a horde of them came at me all together. I vanquished all that I could until I began to sustain severe wounds in the struggle. This wound on my side was among the grievances." The Overlord lifted up the vest of his body armor to reveal a nasty scar on his abdomen.

Dr. Deadstock then seemed lost in some horrible retreat of his mind as he carried on, "Finally, they took hold of me, restraining me. I was defenseless in their arms. A Thrall swung down a sword toward my heart, but just before he could kill me, I transported my matter for the very first time. I didn't even know I could weave until that moment on that day. I vanished from that field of unending duels and escaped to a nearby airfield within the Thralldom. There, Commander Zero helped secure a safe departure for me. With the Thralls that were still loyal, he fought back the traitors as I fled the planet. Zero, as controversial as he is, saved my life that day."

Chokeberry chuckled, "Is that really what you believe, that Zero saved your life?"

"What other side of the story is there? Why'd you ask me to tell you all these things?" Deadstock was growing increasingly impatient. "If you have something to say about Zero, then I suggest you say it."

Choke somberly concluded, "There's more to that day than you know. There is more to Zero than he would have you believe."

The Overlord beseeched, "As in what?"

In that instant, Thralls broke through the skylight above me at the top of the stairs, bringing an end to the conversation that I'd been eavesdropping in on in the control room ahead. I covered my head as glass shattered all over me. It was the reinforcements.