Humanity

  * * *

  Lord Young sat with other members of the House of Oxen and watched as the votes poured in. The end of day was nearing as was the end of the election. As he watched he was also reading over his victory speech.

  “You were right about the downtowners giving you a boost,” one of the other Oxen members noted. “They certainly bumped you up another notch.”

  “Which is why we have to make sure that the downtowners can see the projectors during my speech.”

  “They should be able to,” another one assured him.

  “And we’re sure no Rebellion group is gonna try to fuck things up tonight?” Adina asked.

  “Chief Kothari has confirmed that,” Koris stated. “She and most other members of our security team have the rooftops covered and downtown points of interest monitored.”

  “Police and security officers from other Houses are doing the same thing,” one of the security guards in the room informed them.

  Young looked back to the glass door across the room. Through it he could see Andromeda and Melody sitting and talking. Flick and Perseus were back at the apartment watching the election stream live.

  Just one more day and I’ll sort all my family shit out, he thought before he turned back to look at his speech.

  To his surprise, he received a message from Lord Jordanis. It was unusual for two rivals to talk as the election votes were coming in, but not illegal.

  Jordanis: You’re absolutely thrashing me.

  Koris cocked an eyebrow upon reading the message.

  Young: Hardly. A 13% lead isn’t much.

  Jordanis: But it’s enough. Make sure you thank Fae. She’s the one who got you all these voters.

  Young: Yes. I must also thank the downtowners.

  Jordanis: And make it clear to them that all the promises you made may not come to fruition.

  Not this again.

  Young: I’ll keep my promises. I will raise the downtowner minimum wage and I will unite Manticore.

  There was a good minute before Lysander replied.

  Jordanis: See what happens when you fail. Manticore will crumble due to unfulfilled promises.

  Koris read the message and chose not to reply. He was not about to get into this bicker again. He had practically won and had nothing left to prove to Lysander.

  “Twenty-two minutes until victory,” Adina told him as she looked at her phone.

  Soon this will all be over, Koris thought with a relieved sigh. Lysander is wrong. I can change so much when given ten years of power.

  Nikhita Kothari made a few calls to other security guards before she parked in the KING CO. garage. She had used cloaking to get there and, according to the traffic records, she was patrolling the rooftop of another building closer to the Parliament House.

  The KING CO. building was closed due to the election so nobody saw her as she carried the limp body of a downtowner up the stairs. It certainly worked to her advantage that this was one of the last buildings in the whole of Manticore – and that was the exact reason she chose it.

  “Hmmph!” Erik groaned through his cloth gag. Nikhita had decided to gag him just in case he screamed.

  “I know, Erik,” she said in a distracted manner as she focused on making up the stairs with him and her sniper rifle, “I know.”

  “Hmm!”

  “This isn’t personal. In fact, I think you’re a great kid. This is a case of unfortunate bystander. The good must suffer so that the great may succeed.”

  She took a break and leaned against a wall after the fourth flight of stairs. Yes, she was strong and Erik was light, but carrying a body was still not an easy task.

  “But you see,” she panted as she continued up the stairs, “this isn’t your city. This is a city humans took away from the svellik and ruined. We have to cause some chaos before the svellik can rebuild their city. Gotta break it before you fix it, if that makes sense.”

  Erik didn’t understand. He no idea what was going on.

  “The same imperialism happened back on Earth. They took my homeland. I fought, I failed, I ran, but it’s going to be different this time. The svellik will have their home returned to them. Will there be bloodshed? Yes. Do good people have to die? Yes. Is it worth it? Oh yes.

  What is she talking about? Erik thought. His mind was the last thing he had any control over. What do the svellik have to do with anything?

  Finally they reached the top of the KING CO. building. The faint light of the Jhard could still be seen off in the distance, but it was safe to move around outside now.

  Nikhita had to act fast. Carrying Erik up the stairs had taken longer than she had expected.

  She set up her sniper rifle to face the Parliament House’s courtyard where a podium was set up. Grabbing Erik’s hands, she rubbed them all over the rifle and especially around the trigger. It was expected that her own DNA would be on the thing seeing it was registered in her name, but Erik’s DNA would help prove that he was the deadly sniper. After all, he was a crazy downtowner who she had unwittingly let into her home, but she had been tricked and he stole her rifle to cause chaos.

  “It’s on auto target and set to fire twice,” she told him a she adjusted the rifle on its weapon mount, “so you don’t have to worry about aiming. You just have to sit here and look guilty.”

  “Ghlph!”

  “Indeed,” she said in a condescending manner. “I’ll probably be back in fifteen minutes. See you then.”

  Erik tried desperately to move as he saw Nikhita disappear into the stairwell, but it was no use. He had no way out of this situation.

  Lord Young laughed when Adina hugged him. The voting had stopped and he had won.

  This is all so surreal. I can’t believe I’ve won, he thought.

  “Two minutes till you go to give your victory speech,” Adina warned him. “Don’t screw it up. Everyone is watching. And when I say everyone, I mean everyone.”

  “Got it. Let me just quickly say something to my family.”

  To his own surprise, Andromeda kissed him when he entered the room they were in.

  “Nǐ not mad at wǒ?” he asked curiously. She and Melody had given him the cold shoulder all morning.

  “Wǒ not going to ruin nín de big moment,” she assured him with a sincere smile. “That is no way to start nín de chairmanship.”

  “Have wǒ ever mentioned that wǒ ài nǐ?”

  “Not enough.”

  “Nice job, Koris,” he heard Melody say. She had not moved from the couch and still had her eyes on her phone.

  “Talk with her afterwards,” Andromeda muttered. “Just get through this speech.”

  “Will do.”

  “Go time, Young!” Adina said as she opened the door.

  Koris kissed his wife one more time and strode away, practically skipping.

  Time to tell Manticore what the future holds.

  Erik lay there on the roof sobbing. He could not see what was happening, but the sniper rifle began to move on its weapon mount, adjusting itself.

  People won’t think I fired this, he reassured himself. I can’t even move.

  His eyes shot open when the rifle suddenly went off. His body would have also jolted, had he been able to move.

  Oh, fuck.

  It fired again.

  Lord Young stood at the podium with a confused expression. Where did everybody go?

  As soon as he stepped up to the podium the whole world had gone silent. The reporters, security, everyone was gone. And they didn’t just leave, they vanished.

  “Ugh,” he rubbed his temple. He suddenly had a splitting headache.

  “H-hello?” he said into the mic, but it wasn’t working.

  What the fuck is going on?

  “Nín hǎo, Koris,” he heard a soft, familiar voice say behind him.

  He gasped when he turned around.

  “Fátima,” he said in disbelief.

  His sister.

  It was impossible, but there she stood, weari
ng purple and black – her favourite colours.

  Immediately he stepped on the podium and started towards her, but he had to pause briefly. The pain searing through his head was almost blinding.

  “The pain will go away soon,” she assured him in Mandarin.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. Although he loved seeing his sister, the surreal situation had completely disoriented him. “Did I pass out?”

  Fátima gave the “eh, kind of” gesture with her hand.

  “Did I, oh, God,” he shook his head feverishly. “Am I dead?”

  His sister gave him a sad smile followed by a slow nod.

  Lord Young paced back and forward a few times as he tried to process what was going on, but in the end he just fell to his knees sobbing.

  “Why?” he asked through the tears. “What about everything I was going to do a-and, oh, God, Me-Melody?”

  He felt a soft hand on his shoulder.

  “A cruel twist of fate has brought you here,” she said softly. “I do not think it was your time, Koris, please know that, but we cannot change what has happened.”

  “H-how did it happen?” he asked as he tried to regain his composure. He wasn’t sure why he was trying to keep it together, only his sister could see his breakdown. “Why did I die?”

  “That does not matter,” she said simply.

  “Tell me!” he hissed. He had never liked being mad at his sister, but due to the circumstances he couldn’t control himself.

  “Nikhita Kothari.”

  “What?”

  “Nikhita Kothari killed you.”

  Koris froze. That was almost a greater shock than dying.

  “S-she was my friend,” he stood up and looked his sister in the eyes. “How could she kill me?”

  “It’s not that she wanted to kill you,” she assured him, “but it was necessary in her eyes.”

  “Why? Why would my best friend think she needed to kill me?”

  “She needed to kill the chairperson – whoever it turned out to be. Her desire is destroy humanity so that the svellik may rebuild their society.”

  He took a few steps back while shaking his head.

  “That is not the Nikhita I knew.”

  “But that is the Nikhita who killed you.”

  There was a long silence. Koris walked around the courtyard. Processing all this madness was incredibly difficult. A part of him still believed he was just having a nightmare and that he would wake up soon.

  Looking down over the fence, he could see that the streets of downtown were barren just like everywhere. It was truly just him and Fátima alone in this strange universe.

  “Ugh,” he groaned again as more pain shot through his head.

  “When you’re ready, we will leave and all the pain will go away,” his sister informed him, the sad smile returning to her face.

  “Leave and go where?” he asked while turning to face her.

  Without saying anything, she opened the door that had once led back into the Parliament House, but now a bright white light filled the archway as the door slid open.

  Heaven? Koris thought.

  “The beyond,” Fátima replied – reading his mind.

  “Is… is it heaven?”

  “No.”

  Koris’ heart sunk. He let out a surprise laugh.

  “Please tell me it’s not hell.”

  “It’s not hell,” she said with comforting sincerity in her tone.

  Koris sighed.

  “My conscience will die when I go through that door, won’t it? I will be consumed by the eternal oblivion.”

  “You will have to find out for yourself.”

  He looked back to the podium: the symbol of his crushed dreams and ambitions.

  “I was so close,” he said more to himself then to his sister. “So close to making a real difference.”

  “The universe is a cruel place,” she said honestly, “and when you are ready, we will leave it and rest in peace for all eternity.”

  “I don’t feel ready.”

  “Nobody ever is, but take your time.”

  “If I wait long enough, will the Jhard rise?”

  “This version of the Jhard, yes.”

  “I’m going to wait for that. I’ve never seen a sunrise with my own eyes.”

  He plopped himself down like a child at the edge of the courtyard and stared in the direction that the Jhard would rise from hours from now. Fátima sat down next to him.

  The siblings talked for hours, Fátima even managing to make her brother laugh. To his own surprise, Koris was beginning to feel at peace. And, after watching the blazing Jhard appear in the sky, he followed his sister into the light as his mind got consumed by nothingness.

  Utter chaos had broken out in the living realm. A minute had passed since Lord Young’s lifeless body had collapsed beside the podium, but nobody had reacted. Everyone was in too much shock – everyone except Chief Nikhita Kothari.

  Her walkie-talkie was buzzing with all the security guards trying find out what had happened and where the source of the fire was from. She didn’t answer them immediately and instead got a head start for the KING CO. building so she could set up the scene.

  Only when she reached the garage of the KING CO. building did she finally reply to all of them: “I’ve tracked the source of the fire to the KING CO. rooftop. I repeat, KING CO. building.”

  “I’m on my way,” Ghoad hissed.

  No surprise, Nikhita thought. The svellik was on the rooftop nearest to KING CO. so that no other security guards would be close enough to see exactly what went down on that rooftop before the shots were fired.

  Chief Kothari ran up all the flights of stairs and kicked the door to the stairwell open. Unsurprisingly, the poor little downtowner was still lying on the rooftop next to the sniper rifle.

  “Assassin sighted and armed,” Nikhita said into her walkie-talkie. “I’m preparing to make an arrest.”

  She knew Erik had heard that when he let out a desperate moan.

  Nikhita removed the little remote control from the rifle so that it looked like it had been fired manually. People would be suspicious if a downtowner figured out how to work the automatic fire control. She then removed Erik’s gag.

  He tried to scream something, but the mapo had made him lose control of his words. Only guttural moans escaped his mouth.

  “Subject resisting arrest,” she said into her walkie-talkie as he continued to wail at her through his tears.

  Ghoad landed with a thud on the rooftop.

  “Hello, Nikhita,” she said calmly.

  “Hey, could you hold him up?” her chief requested as she took a few steps back and prepared her handgun. “Make it look like he’s standing. The coroner will be able to calculate the angle that the bullet pierced his head so we have to get it right.”

  “Cerrrtainly,” the creature replied as she lifted Erik up by his shoulders.

  Erik sobbed. It was all he could do.

  “I know, Erik I know,” Nikhita muttered. “Ghoad, hold his head up properly.”

  The svellik complied. Nikhita was glad that Erik was facing away from her. She would have a much harder time looking an innocent boy in the face as she killed him.

  Taking aim with her handgun, she fired once. Ghoad let go out of surprise when the bullet passed near her hands and pierced the back of Erik’s skull. His lifeless body dropped like a wet towel hitting the ground.

  Nikhita again responded to the buzzing voices coming from her walkie-talkie: “Subject terminated. Ghoad has just arrived at the scene as well.”

  Both women looked down at the body of the lifeless downtowner.

  “I feel bad forrr him,” Ghoad hissed.

  “Me too,” Nikhita agreed.

  Erik had never stopped falling when the svellik dropped him. He passed through the floor and fell into the white oblivion.

  The downtowner didn’t know what to do besides scream. Would he fall for all eternity? Is this what death was?

/>   No. He was surprised when he felt himself land in someone’s arms. Slowly, he opened his eyes to see who had caught him. Fear slowly drained from his body when his eyes met the familiar pair of his brother’s.

  “Mark?”

  Lord Jordanis stood up when he saw his rival collapse dead next to the podium. He was just shocked as everyone else.

  “Holy shit,” Princeton gasped, causing his cigarette to fall out of his mouth. “Was… was he shot?”

  Lysander didn’t answer. He was still looking at the screen and trying to understand the situation. The cameras did not pan away from the body. Usually he would think that was insensitive and inappropriate, but right now his morbid curiosity got the better of him. The blood pooling around the chairperson’s head certainly suggested he was dead.

  Then a cruel thought appeared in Lysander’s mind: I won. By default I have won.

  “I gotta call Melody, see if she’s okay,” Princeton said more to himself than to his father as he got up and dialled his ex-girlfriend.

  Jordanis looked through the glass door into the other room. He assumed it was just as chaotic in there as it was in the House of Oxen room, but for different reasons. The House of Oxen members would be grieving, but also figuring out what that meant for their party. The House of Dragons, however, were more excited that Lysander now held the chairman position.

  Although Lord Young had technically won the election, he was not officially chairman due to the fact the inauguration ceremony had not taken place and therefore he was still only considered an chairman candidate – but now Lysander was the only eligible candidate left.

  So much death. What a strange election this has been.

  The image on the screen switched to the reactions to the sudden death of Lord Young. Most were just staring blankly trying to figure out what happened, but the downtowners were already rioting. Now there was no chance that they would ever be treated equally to the uptowners. They knew that, and fires had been started.

  Humans become animals when they’re angry. Hope is lost for them.

  A head of the House of Dragons entered the room. Lysander assumed they were here to discuss his chairmanship, but the odd look on their face suggested otherwise.

  “The police are here for you,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Princeton stopped talking to a distraught Melody when he heard the head’s words.

  “I have to go,” he said heartlessly. “My father’s in trouble.”

  “What do they want?” Jordanis asked.

  Before the head had time to answer, two police officers stepped into the room.

  “Lord Lysander Jordanis,” the taller one began, “you are under arrest for sexually assaulting four Olympians and one count of rape.”

  “What?” Lysander shook his head. “What on Manticore are you talking about?”

  “Four complaints have been filed against you. Now, will you come willingly?”

  Lysander looked back at his son. Never had he seen such a look of hate in his eyes.

  “How could you?” Princeton hissed, but he remained absolutely stiff – he was in shock.

  “Yes,” Lysander said, avoiding eye contact with the officers, “we must get this sorted down at the station as soon as possible. This is some kind of mistake. I believe I’m being setup by the Olympians.”

  “That’s the thing about Olympians,” the shorter cop said, “they can’t lie.”