Bayorn fired a burst into the throng below, and his rifle clacked dry. He tossed it aside, and roared. The Tarsi and humans exchanged knowing glances as the horde cleared the final step.
“It’s been an honor, Tar-san,” Maka shouted over the din.
“Indeed. I will see you in the halls of our forefathers,” Bayorn replied.
The first of the mutants to scrabble over the final step surged toward Maka. He swatted the creature away, sending him tumbling down the dogpile of writhing bodies. But more mutants came after the first, waves of them, an endless sea of wrongness, unchecked and unrestrained. Maka went down under the weight of a great pile, and Bayorn roared.
The fell creatures roared back, and Bayorn was surrounded, grasping, diseased hands dragging him down as well.
Then, as if smote by the hand of the creator, the mutants collapsed, and their limp bodies tumbled down the side of the temple.
****
“The procedure is complete. The genetic anomalies have been eliminated. Databanks are stable. I am reading solid communication from the hive mind.”
Genetic anomalies? Bastard.
“The nanoparticles will dissolve the genetic anomalies’ remains. The city is safe. Thank you, Letho.”
Letho stared at the holographic representation of a dead man. He thought of the lifeless bodies in the pods, dissolving as the tiny machines in their bodies broke them down into bits of carbon dust.
Congratulations, Letho, you’ve just murdered thousands of poeple, his copilot whispered.
But it’s what they wanted. They wanted to be free.
“Come on, Thresha. Let’s go find our friends.”
****
Letho and Thresha found Maka and Bayorn on the top steps of Abraxas’s temple. They embraced and laughed, ecstatic to see one another still alive. Deacon landed his ship on the street and rushed to join the reunion. Maka and Bayorn even greeted Thresha with open arms. She had proven to them, at last, that she could be trusted. It was one less thing that Letho had to worry about.
Maka and Bayorn introduced Adum to Letho, Thresha, and Deacon. They took to the small man right away, drawn in by his unabashed kindness.
But Letho found that he could not share in their joy. Images of Saul’s head, ripped open by the fire-talk of his hand cannon. It was different thing to kill a human being.
A brother, his copilot reminded him.
“Well, it looks like we did it,” Deacon said, extending his hand to Letho.
Letho took his friend’s hand in his own and shook. Then he looked at Deacon like he didn’t recognize the man. Deacon recoiled a little, searching Letho’s face for the meaning of his expression.
“It is not finished,” Letho said. “Abraxas and Alastor are still out there. Who knows what their plan is?”
“Well, you could still celebrate a little, you know. This wouldn’t have happened without you,” Deacon said. Letho felt a slight stab of emotion as he saw the disappointment and confusion in his friend’s eyes.
Without responding, Letho turned and walked away. He felt no emotion, no joy in their victory, just a gnawing emptiness. The combined gain and loss of his father still weighed heavily on him, and he expected that that loss would always be with him no matter what happened or where he went. Cruel fate had dangled this new morsel in front of him, and just as he had taken the first sweet bite, had glimpsed the warmth of a kinder future, that morsel had been snatched from his jaws like he was a lowly dog. He thought of Saul, whom he had dispatched as though he were cattle to be slaughtered.
He stopped at a balcony and looked out upon the Tarsi below, free at last of their burden, returned to their original state; he saw former Fulcrum citizens embracing. All that was missing was a sea of drifting ticker tape and confetti. But they, unlike him, had not been forced to kill one of their own. It was different killing Mendraga, for they had made a choice, had become something different. Letho had killed a friend. A brother. It hung now upon his neck like an anvil. Something he would have to carry with him as long as he lived.
When he turned back, he saw Thresha and Deacon embracing, and an involuntary rage welled up inside him. In an instant, he felt a psychotic urge to strike them. It was then that he knew that he had to get away. That perhaps what he had become was not fit to live in this new world he had helped create.
Deacon looked over and smiled and waved, as did Thresha. But Letho did not return the gesture. They stared at him, confused, and a knowing worry spread across Thresha’s face.
I have to get out of here.
Letho felt something thrumming inside him, some untapped well, something new and powerful. Without really knowing why he was doing it, he crouched down on one knee and placed his hands on the ground. He pressed with both his hands and feet, as hard as he could, and launched himself upward.
The ground shrank beneath him at alarming speed, and the people below him became insect-like as he plowed through the air. The wind roared in his ears, drowning out the heavy thoughts that burdened his mind. From up here he could not see the fearful expressions that some cast upon him. Though he had fought tooth and nail for the people below, he knew that many of them regarded him as an aberration, a freak. One not to be associated with.
Soon he reached the apex of his climb, a height where only eagles dared fly, where the atmosphere became thin. And from there he looked down at the spectacle below. It was much like what he had seen when he had first pierced the atmosphere of mother Eursus. She bore many scars, all of them from wounds dealt by his race. He felt shame that such majesty had been diminished by his people, and for such trivial pursuits.
And then gravity took him, and the ground began to grow again. The earth below approached at an alarming rate as he rushed toward his fate: becoming a splattered red paste across the planet’s surface
But as the ground grew closer and he could make out streets, buildings, and wasted vehicles, he remembered Abraxas’s invisible, crushing fist, and he wondered if he could wield such a power. He tapped deep into himself, and there it was—power. He willed himself to be lighter, to slow—and somehow, it happened. His body crashed to the ground heavily, but not hard enough to shatter his bones or liquefy his flesh as he rolled across Eursus’s rough hackles. He gained his footing, surveying his wake, then crouched and pressed his hands to the earth again, imagining that he was shoving the planet away from him, altering its cosmic trajectory. And he bounded again and again, until Hastrom City was but a mere twinkle in the distance.
****
“What the hell?” Deacon shouted. “Did anyone know he could do that?”
“The gifts of the chosen one are not recorded by our people. We do not know the extent of his powers,” Bayorn said, looking up at the pristine night sky.
“He just left us. I can’t believe it,” Deacon said.
“Our friend Letho is very troubled. He needs time alone,” Bayorn said.
“Don’t worry, Deacon. He’ll be back. I know he will,” Thresha said.
They stood together on the moonlit landing of the temple, their skin and fur resplendent in the milky glow. And all above them a ring of twinkly stars—the Fulcrum stations—watched the people below like silent sentinels.
Epilogue
Shortly after the battle, Bayorn had returned with the others to Haven. It was, after all, the final resting place of Zedock Wartimer, friend of the Tarsi, and the dormitories deep beneath the surface had reminded him and his fellow Centennial Tarsi of the underneath from their beloved Fulcrum.