Chapter 21:

Plan

Dead Society


After finishing dinner and talking with Yuri a bit longer, Serenity excused herself and left the woman’s home, assuring her that she had a place to go. As she walked through the dimming streets, she contemplated the plan she’d assembled at dinner. Determined, she returned to the graveyard in which she and Yuri had met.

Once she arrived, she set out on her search for Mirus’ gravestone. After finding it, she surveyed the area in detail, making certain nobody would see her. Once she knew she was alone, she set down by the side of the grave. Within her, the drones buzzed. They emerged from her fingers like beads of sweat, coalescing into large drops that dripped onto the grass.

After a moment, the drones buried into the soil, working their way downward. Serenity smiled as they did their part. All they would need to do is analyze the corpse, she would do the rest. She summoned more drones from within, forming them into a grey, writhing mass in her hand. I need bones, she told them. Go find a body. There’s bound to be a fresh corpse somewhere in this city. Just make sure its one no one will notice disappearing.

Of course, the drones buzzed, shooting off her hand like a cloud of swarming bees. As she waited for them to return, Serenity placed her palm on the ground, sensing the life therein- all the worms, the ground squirrels, ants, the occasional gopher- and snuffed them in one strangling flick of her wrist. She smiled as the ground began to glow a soft green. Closing her palm, the light shot towards her, gathering in her closed fist.

At the same time, the drones emerged from the microscopic holes they’d bored into the ground, returning to her. She’d already processed the information she needed from them. Now all she needed was that body.

After a few more minutes of waiting, a rustling in the bushes caught her ear. It was her drones, back with a body. Serenity took a deep breath as the writhing form approached, dripping in darkness, covered in her swarm.

She needed to change the body, make it look like the man she’d seen. She’d use the DNA she’d gathered from his corpse to do so. There was still enough information there.

As the night drew darker around her, the glow of her Light grew stronger. She weaved and wove her threads into the new body, creating life where there was none. It was hard work, but she was determined to make it work. To learn, to grow. She was anxious, she realized, to make Yuri happy.

After a time—Serenity wasn’t sure how long had passed—it was done. She wiped her brow and stood, admiring her work. She felt Ceres in her head, muttering unapprovingly, but she ignored it.

Drawing upon the Worldheart for power, she pushed life into the man and waited.

After a moment, he began to cough and sputter. She fled to the shadows, jumping the distance in an instant. Interesting, she thought, searching the man’s mind. He is not the creature he was, but at the same time, he is.

She watched as he left the graveyard and worked through the streets, towards his home. As he traveled, Serenity pieced together what was happening. She had made something completely new. Neither human nor machine. It was altogether different despite sharing aspects of both.

The man had his human memories and appearance, yes, but it was Serenity’s drones that provided them, that fed them, worked them. They contained the information vital to his survival. She realized, that if she were to remove them, there would be nothing left but an empty shell.

She also realized that while the man was able to make his own choices and decisions, he wasn’t really free. She could step in whenever she desired and seize control. She shuttered at the thought, realizing her own power.

Secretly, she trailed the man until he arrived at home, then she left, back towards the slums, towards her home.

Inclined to walk and think, the hours slipped past Serenity unnoticed until she bumped into someone, jarring her from her thoughts.

She stepped back, beginning to apologize, when a hand caught her throat. “Who’s this brat?” someone said.

Serenity looked up at her assailant. He was unkept. Long strands of grey hair fell across his face. His eyes were bloodshot. Something about him looked… unhinged.

Serenity shivered but ignored the man. He wasn’t a threat. Four others stood with him. All equally ragged. Equally, she felt a darkness from them. One of them held a spiked bat in his left hand, coated in a shimmering liquid that dripped and oozed onto the trash covered road.

As he turned to face her, Serenity caught a flicker of a bundle of crimson rags behind him. Then she heard the unmistakable whimper of a child. Another form moved in the darkness behind. A woman with a neck too far to the left and a shoulder that sagged far too low.

“You bastards,” Serenity whispered.

“What was that?” the man asked, leaning forward, raising his free hand to strike her.

Serenity narrowed her eyes, watching the man’s arm fly towards her, but it was slow. So slow.

With her own hand, she reached up to the arm grasping her neck, taking it by the wrist, and squeezed. It exploded beneath the pressure of her grip.

With her other hand, she pushed the man’s head back while pulling on his shattered arm. The neck snapped from the force and the arm tore away from the socket completely. The body crumpled.

She looked up as the two closest men backed away. The one with the bat, however, charged her. She met his eyes then let her power burst from her. The alley grew dark as light was forced to retreat at her anger.

She looked at the arm in her hand, then pushed it through the man’s abdomen. Next, she grabbed both the man’s arms and tied them in a knot, taking his bat while she did so.

The remaining three assailants turned to run, but there was nowhere to go. All it took was a glance and the earth was hers to control. Walls rose on either side of the group, forcing them back into the alley with her.

With the bat, she slowly approached the last figures. Two she dispatched in one blow, separating their heads from their bodies. The last tried to grab her, but she caught his hand instead, and threw him into the sky.

She turned her attention to the bodies she’d seen earlier. The woman was delirious, obviously not processing what was happening around her. Serenity sent some drones her way to repair the damage as she stepped towards the bloodied form on the ground and crouched besides it.

It was obviously the form of a child, but there was nothing recognizing left now. The poor thing’s head had been crushed, obliterated.

A scream startled her, and she turned to find the woman staring at her, blanched with fear. “I can heal her,” Serenity said.

“What are you?” the woman demanded.

Serenity rose and stepped towards her, but the woman scrambled sideways, away from her. “What are you?” she demanded. “A devil?”

“I’m not a devil,” Serenity replied.

The woman stared at her, eyes shaking. In the silence, something suddenly smashed down into the alley—the body Serenity had thrown earlier.

The woman burst into tears. “What are you? Did you do this? What type of devil are you?”

Serenity tried stepping towards the woman again, but she screamed, waving her hands wildly at her. Instead of trying again, Serenity backed away, dropping the walls she’d created in the alleyway.

She stepped back towards the child’s form. “Why did they do this?” She demanded of the woman.

The woman didn’t answer.

Serenity frowned, however, and the woman instantly perked up. “Don’t kill me, please. I was indebted to them. I- I couldn’t pay.”

Serenity bit her tongue trying to cool her growing anger. It didn’t work.

“So they killed a child?”

“It happens all the time,” the woman said, her senses seemingly returning..

“Gangs. Thieves. Corruption. This city’s simmering in it,” Serenity hissed to herself, turning back to the girl. “I’ll heal her,” she told the woman.

“No,” the woman replied.

Serenity blinked in surprise, turning to meet the woman’s darkened face. “No?”

“No,” the woman laughed.

Serenity narrowed her eyes. She’s lost her mind, she thought as the laugh drew louder and longer.

“No,” the woman said. “Can’t you see? This is a blessing! I’m free,” she laughed through her tears. “Don’t you know what this means? I can finally eat! I can finally be free!”

Serenity clenched her fist. “What?”

The woman’s laughter began to die. “I barely scraped by because of that rat, but now I’m free! Can’t you see?”

Serenity growled, stepping towards the woman when she heard footsteps behind her. She turned to find a large group rushed into the alleyway from the side Serenity had entered, weapons drawn. “You’re all under arrest,” one of them called.

“What?” Serenity hissed. “For what?”

“For murder, it looks like,” one of them said.

“I stopped them,” Serenity growled.

“Well,” one man said stepping forward, leveling his gun at Serenity. “That wasn’t your place now, was it? That’s our job.”

“Then where were you when it happened?” Serenity asked.

“They don’t care about us,” the woman suddenly said behind her. “I bet half of them were in on it. Actually, not half, all.”

“Shut up,” the man growled. “What do you know, you stupid Nameless.”

The woman laughed. “What are you going to do? Kill me?”

“I can,” the man said.

The woman rose, walking towards the man, kicking aside one of the bodies of the thugs Serenity had killed as she did so. “I’m a free woman,” she laughed, “I haven’t done anything wrong but live in this world. Or is that illegal too? I can never remember these days with all the rules.”

“Stand back,” the man said.

“You gonna kill me?” the woman laughed.

The man steadied his gun on her.

One of the officers stepped forward, pushing the man’s gun down. “Sergeant,” she said sternly.

The man pushed her away. “Shut up, Izumi. This isn’t your place to tell me what to do.”

“The law tells us what to do, Sergeant.”

The man glanced back at her, then back at the woman a few feet from him. “I am the law, newbie. The sooner you learn that, the better.”

He fired. The woman fell.

Serenity stepped forward, but Ceres broke into her mind. “Stop, Serenity. What are you going to do? Kill them all?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“No, Ceres said. You musn’t.”

The Sergeant raised the gun at her. “What are you going to do girl? Come quietly or do I need to kill you too?”

Two of the officers were restraining the woman that spoke earlier, stripping her of her gun. “Run, the woman called to her.”

The Sergeant turned towards her, smacking her across the face with his gun. “Shut up, you stupid woman, This is how it is.”

“I’m going to kill him,” Serenity whispered to Ceres.

“Don’t.”

“Run!” the woman, Izumi, screamed.

Serenity bit her tongue.

“We’ll figure this out later,” Ceres said. “Just do what she says now. Run.”

“Damn,” Serenity said, finally giving. “You win,” she said, turning and rushing into the darkness of the alley.

As she ran something knocked into her shoulder, throwing her forward, followed instantly by the roar of a gunshot. It hurt. Not much, but enough. Serenity was surprised.

She continued to run and didn’t stop until she was beyond the city. Beyond the humans, back in the forest, back to her home.

“Damn them,” she screamed as she approached the shack where she’d stashed her body as well as Tez.

She slammed the door open into the small room. Ceres was currently controlling her body and was waiting in a crudely created armchair, waiting. “They’re just human,” Ceres said. “Can you blame them?”

“Tez was right.” Serenity said, ignoring her. “I’m waking him up. He can do whatever the hell he wants. I’m done with this world.”

Ceres sighed. “You shouldn’t make decisions in anger, Serenity.”

“Do I look like I care?”

“You look filthy,” Ceres said, pursing her lips as she looked over Serenity’s dirt covered, disheveled form.

“Shut up,” she said, marching over to the sleek and slender pod they’d stored Tez’s body in. “I’m doing this. I’ve thought about it for months now. He was right.”

“And if he wasn’t, what then?”

“Then some people die and I fix it.”

“Fix it? Do you suddenly think yourself God now, Serenity? Sure, you can replicate consciousness and build bodies, but that’s not the same thing as bringing someone back. They’d still be you.”

“Nobody knows that except us,” Serenity replied, activating the drones maintaining Tez’s life-support.

“So you’re just going to let this man commit genocide?”

“No,” Serenity replied. “I’m going to try something. I’m going to bring the dead back to life. As many as I can. If the humans accept this miracle, if it turns them from the evil I’ve seen, witnessed, then Tez won’t do anything.”

“On the other hand,” she continued, “If they continue like they have, then I’ll have Tez destroy their dead society. As he does so, I’ll plant the seeds of reform. I’ll find a leader, someone who I can trust to overcome their humanity.”

“Who?” Ceres asked.

“I have someone in mind,” Serenity replied, smiling. “And she’s already in the right position to change this world, an officer of the law.”

Ceres sighed. “To be honest, Serenity, this sounds like an awful plan.”

“It’s my mission though, isn’t it?” Serenity shot back. “They created me to destroy this world, Ceres. Us. And while there is evil, I know there is also good. To prune a tree, however, sometimes you can’t afford to be selective and simply separate the good and bad branches. Sometimes you have to cut both. I will make this people strong, Ceres. Once the bad is good, only the good will remain.”

As Serenity turned back to the pod and awaken Tez, Ceres sat quietly. If only that was true, she thought. But as black and white as this world is, everything is just a different shade of grey. There is no true dark. No true light, Serenity.