The Alchemist's Children: Panacea

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  They snuck down the hall towards the door into the worshiping chamber. Callen could hear a loan voice chanting from inside the shrine. The low chant from outside the church providing a sinister harmony that made his flesh crawl. However, he felt a rush at the realization that he was going to open this door and blow Virette's head off mid-chant.

  "You can't see this entrance from the shrine." Sprocket said. "We'll have cover just in case my mother has something up her sleeve."

  "Anything you think I should know about?" Callen asked.

  "She has the scarab." Sprocket said. "But, you know that. That's the source of her control over my people. Destroy that, and my people will be behind me. But, shooting her would be simpler."

  "Agreed, but I just want a plan B," Callen said. However, he wasn't entirely confident Sprocket could stop the rush of possibly angry and confused gremlins that may want to attack the cathedral with him in it. He needed something more reliable, and he had it. He pulled up his disruptor application on his computer and prepared the hardware. There had to be a signal he could hijack from the scarab. After all, the scarab was electronic. He set his disruptor to scan for signals, identify nearby broadcasters and receivers, and targets would be highlighted on his HUD. He could then specify targets with one motion, start the hack with one button, and the disruptor would upload the virus.

  "Ready?" Sprocket asked.

  Callen drew his weapon. "Yup." He looked at Sprocket and let out a slow breath as he twisted the door handle. He slowly pushed it open. To his surprise, there were no gremlins in the pews, but he didn't stop to contemplate that detail. He moved towards the closest pew, with Sprocket following, to line up his shot.

  Virette slowly came into view as she stood with her back to the nave. Her attention was on her leather bound book on the rusty podium next to the altar. In her flesh hand, the scarab and the rune-covered coin dangled. Niknak lay bound to the sacrificial altar next to her with a variety of medical inserts in his flesh. He was conscious. He was gagged and he struggled with his ropes when he noticed Callen enter the room.

  Callen smiled reassuringly at Niknak. He paused and adjusted his grip on his pistol, like a gunfighter in the old west. He was going to call her name before he shot her, after all, shooting someone in the back wasn't his style. But, it didn't mean he wasn't going to pull the trigger the second after he did.

  Virette turned her head slightly and looked at Niknak. She wore new robes, revealing black webbing and advanced cybernetics on her body. The black growth wove together her flesh and metal. Parts of Bracket's crown poked out from under her hood. Her organic eyes were no more and had been replaced by a combination of stretched flesh and the black growth. The purple tear remained visible just under the growth. As if she was seeing him with her non-existent eyes, she glared at Niknak and grinned evilly. "I guess this is the end, my clockwork assassin, and holy prophet. The dawn of my long waited ascension is upon me. And to think, here we are, you engineered your own demise and undid everything your master did to lock the Many away...and are about to give me what I need to prove my worth. How ironic. Maybe when this moment is written in history, I'll scribe you as the martyr that gave his life to make this all possible."

  Niknak's eye grew wide with hatred as he quickly looked away from Callen, and muffled growls rolled out from around the gag. There were no twitches, and Niknak's stare grew focused. His Anger boiled.

  "I said you failed your master!" Virette mocked. Surprise crossed her face. "Interesting, it seems that works on you no longer. A pity that you can only enjoy your repair moments before your demise."

  Niknak struggled angrily and attempted to break his bonds, but they held.

  Virette cut into her own flesh with the ritual dagger. She raised her bloody hand over Niknak. The blood ran down the chain onto the scarab and the ruined coin as it trickled onto Niknak's forehead. The rune coin began to pulse.

  Callen grinned and raised his pistol. "He has a long life ahead of him, Virette, but you don't." He pulled the trigger as Virette spun with surprise, but, as he did he felt the butt of a gun smash hard into his face and his feet get kicked out from beneath him. He staggered and felt the bruise begin to knit.

  The explosive round went wide and hit the metal nalkori head idol that made up the back wall of the shine. He turned to see Sprocket's gun fixed on him. The beads of the submachine gun leveled at him.

  "Sprocket!" He spat with surprise as he picked himself up off the floor. "I thought..."

  Sprocket didn't respond. Her eye flashed with purple fire.

  "No...not again..." Callen looked at the floor and spotted his gun, but before he could pick it up, Sprocket stepped on it.

  "Don't even try," Virette said through Sprocket's body. "Think of your escaping companions...all I have to do is give the order and my soldiers in the tunnels will take them out."

  "Just like Kusari." Callen growled.

  "No, not just like Kusari..." Virette gloated. "Better. There's no chance of her will overriding my dominance because of you meddling with her programming. She is now a second body for my consciousness. Poor Sprocket, she didn't even realize. But, I must say, boy, it’s nice of you to join us, and it feels, well, rather appropriate."

  "Yeah, 'cause that was my intent..." Callen growled as he finished climbing to his feet.

  "Whatever your purpose, you're here now," Virette said. "Now come my little pawn, since you made it this far the least I can do is allow you to a chance to witnesses the end."

  Sprocket motioned for Callen to walk towards the altar with the barrel of her gun. He shook his head with frustration. He was close enough to attack and disarm her. However, hand-to-hand combat and the complexities of disarming someone, especially an experienced soldier, of a firearm wasn't exactly something he knew how to do. He also wasn't sure if panacea could heal him if he were going to be shot point blank to the head. As he walked, he inconspicuously tapped his wrist and his disruptor went to work specifying targets.

  Sprocket kept the gun trained on him while she knelt down to pick up his gun. She tucked his weapon in her belt and followed him towards Virette.

  "So, why haven't you killed me?" Callen asked as he stopped before the few stairs up to the sanctuary. He looked directly at Virette. The graphical targeting overlays appeared over her on his HUD as the disruptor finished its preparation. Virette was connected to the scarab and the scarab to every other gremlin, including Sprocket. Whatever Virette had done to her had reinstalled the scarab's ability to control her. All of the gremlin encryptions, according his programs, were simple to break. "You know I killed your boyfriend." He wondered if he should, considering his attack would hurt Sprocket.

  "Boyfriend?" Virette chuckled. "You must mean the goblin sorcerer? He was nothing more than a pawn, like you, but on opposite sides of my board. Males are such fools and easily manipulated by a woman with the right skills. He was just another loose end, which you tied up nicely. I thank you for that."

  "So, you sent me to find a cure you already had..." Callen shook his head. "I saw your lab..."

  "Oh, you did?" Virette sounded surprisingly happy. "I didn't think anyone but me would enjoy the masterpiece I created in its entirety...beautiful isn't it?"

  "If you call using bio-weapons against your own people beautiful...then, well...I guess I'm happy that your picture is beyond my comprehension."

  “For someone as smart as you, that's quite the compliment." She smiled. "But, in the end, I'm just using my talents to make the world a better place...I hope you don't hold that against me."

  "Me hold it against you? No never..." Callen rolled his eyes. "So, why haven't you killed me? I seem to be the last of your loose ends..."

  "I was asked to spare you, once they learned that you survived Forgeholm." She sighed. "Someone made the request to kept you
alive."

  "Who requested...?" Callen started to ask.

  The large church doors creaked open, as if on cue. "Ah, perfect timing. He arrives now, little pawn." Virette laughed. "I just wish I could have planned this, like everything else since I sent the cross to you!" She smiled at Niknak. "Thanks for the handwriting forgery, you made this all possible."

  Callen made the decision to attack them all. However, he didn't input the targets to begin the hack. What he saw entering the church had emotionally paralyzed him.

  An adolescent boy walked into the twisted church, with the hood of his black sweatshirt pulled over his head and a long black leather duster rippling around him. Part of a black gun belt could be seen beneath the coat and out of two slits in the hips of the duster, the dark handles of a pair of pistols hung at ready. The lower half of his face could be seen, and his flesh was a slightly translucent gray. Through the skin, the shadows of dark sporadic lines could be seen beneath the skin, like dead varicose veins, that connected to a metallic web-like black growth on his neck and hands. Beneath the black weave, there were pieces of metal that looked like they had replaced muscle and bone. Flanking him, on all fours were a pair of metallic demons.

  "Hello, old friend." The boy's voice sounded slightly hollow but familiar. Callen knew who it was before he even spoke.

  Callen's heart started pounding. "Derrick?!” he managed to get out. He felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck as the nalkori began crawling over the pews. With his goggles, he could see greater detail to these horrible creatures than he could in his old apartment. He could see bits of cybernetics under the obsidian leather-like webbing and the gaps in their patchwork flesh. Their lack of eyes and expressionless chimeric human cephalopod faces almost sent him into a full panic. He wasn't supposed to face these things again, Sir Reeves was. He struggled to keep control of himself.

  The options in his goggles shifted to compensate for the new communication signals between Derrick, the nalkori, and whatever they were receiving signals from. Their encryption was extremely complex and had been modified, and Mavis warned him that a hack would require him to devote all his computing capacity to breaking it. He couldn't attack the gremlins and the nalkori at the same time. Then there was also the fact that he didn't want to attack Derrick and that made what he was going to do next increasingly difficult to decide.

  "When I learned of your roll and the priestess' plot, I made sure she wouldn't kill you...for old times sake." He said as he moved towards them.

  "For old time's sake?" Callen asked as Derrick's words pulled his attention away from the nalkori. "Here you are, alive, after surviving a massacre of a ward full of people we were friends with and the murderers are at your side?" He struggled to find more words, but he was at a loss. "And that's all you have to say?"

  "Did you want something more? After all, aside from you of course, I'm surprised you thought I cared about those rotting corpses. But, in a way, the nalkori did them a favor. They're in a better place."

  "What happened to you Derrick?" Callen's voice was heavy with disappointment.

  "I lucked out." He admitted. "They saw I had a use. So, in exchange for my service, they cure me." He raised his arms and looked at his hands covered in black biological growth. "And they improve me...now, here I stand. So, my friend, my brother...why don't you come with me...they could cure you too and make you more than you could ever be alone. You just have to let them. And, don't worry about the nalkori, they are like hunting dogs..." He reached out and placed his hand on one of their skulls as it came to rest at his side. The other circled around behind the altar.

  Callen shivered as the nalkori's flesh wrapped tentacles squirmed. The nalkori had a deep cut on its face that still hadn't healed from when Callen's mother cut it with her tomahawk. His hand went instinctually to his holster, but he realized that Sprocket had his weapon.

  "Itchy trigger finger, old friend?" Derrick asked.

  "What do you expect?" Callen growled. "My mom is dying because of those things..."

  "No Callen." Derrick corrected. "Your mom is dying because of your father...don't blame the weapon...blame the one who put her there. Only an idiot blames a weapon for a death, when a weapon is nothing more than a tool, and I know you’re far from stupid..."

  "Why did they come for us?" Callen growled back.

  Derrick motioned towards Niknak. "What you have experienced here barely scratches the surface. But, let’s just say, the Harbingers share similar interests to Virette. Now, imagine my surprise when I find out you got away and ended up here and Virette had paved the road of religious metaphor to get you where you needed to be all along. It just didn't happen as efficiently as it should have, but that is changing and things are knitting together. But, credit must be given along with appreciation. You actually fulfilled everything...and helped strengthen us."

  "Your path was well defined," Virette said. "I saw the potential so many years ago...and now, the Many will be freed." She rubbed her clawed hand on Niknak's cheek. "And, as I said before Niknak, your existence ends here. Your dear master's failure is now complete."

  Callen noticed pain cross Sprocket's face out of the corner of his eye. Despite Virette's mind control, her expression told him Sprocket was in there somewhere watching Niknak suffer like Kusari had been. He took a breath. "What is the Many?" He asked. "And who are the Harbingers?"

  "The Many is the world's salvation," Virette said. "The cure for what rots this world, it is what they pushed away, and now they can conceal it no longer...and the Harbingers are what will deliver the cure...deliver salvation!"

  "One man's salvation spells another man's doom," Callen growled.

  "True." Derrick chuckled. "Getting wiser, I see. There are many who need to pay for their crimes so the rest can ascend. But, old friend, these are all questions that can be answered later. You are like me, like all of us who have been damned. Think of your life. Think of the pain you have endured. Come with me, and you'll be shown how to ascend and shed your frail body. Come with me."

  "That really doesn't answer my questions," Callen said.

  "The priestess calls it God and God's will. That analogy is as good as any." Derrick said. "But, what does it matter if it will shape the future for the better and put the world in the hands of the discarded?"

  "I thought you hated God," Callen said.

  "I do," Derrick admitted. "After all, more evil has been done in the name of God than anything in existence. The faiths of the world are ethically hollow, Callen. They are populated by fools convinced of their own importance. They squabble to their imaginary entity and preach good will towards all while they commit atrocities on people who don't agree with them. What I didn't understand previously, is that it was about being a part of something, whether real or imagined. Now, I do, and we are the cure for thousands of years of strife...and, for once, I'm not alone."

  "You sound nuts," Callen said. "Like you're in a cult."

  "Putting what I have been shown into words is impossible." Derrick sighed. "You must trust me. You are my best friend, my brother...join us...join me! I know you don't want to die alone, come with me..."

  Callen let out a sigh. "And if I don't want you to kill Niknak?"

  "Unfortunately, it isn't possible," Derrick admitted. "The years of him carrying the Many locked inside him has affected his entire being. It's like pulling out the critical pieces of a person's soul. He cannot survive."

  Virette looked at Derrick. "Shall I begin?"

  "You may, priestess." Derrick nodded. "And then we shall complete your synergy. This is all long overdue."

  Niknak squirmed fruitlessly. Callen swallowed hard as Niknak's eye grew wide with fear. He looked back at Derrick. The similarities between Virette, Derrick, and the nalkori were unmistakable. He wondered what exactly was done to cure Derrick, or what was being done. The un
answered questions collected in the pit of his stomach and mixed with the bad feeling that rested there. His subconscious began connecting dots. "How are they curing you, Derrick?" Callen asked. "Is that why your skin is gray and your hands...?" Callen stepped towards the altar, closer to the nalkori, Derrick, Niknak, and Virette. He felt his heart pound as he stared into the flesh wrapped faces of the nalkori. Their tentacles squirmed as he approached.

  "It's amazing really," Derrick said as he watched Virette begin chanting and returned to smearing blood runes on Niknak's skin. "I find it ironic that I made fun of you for being the prince of nerds and what saved me is something born out of what you love most. A simple change really, quite brilliant."

  "What do you mean by that?" Callen said as he crossed his arms, and tapped a button on his wrist to start a scan to get a better idea of what was changed about Derrick. The nalkori hissed as the data began processing. As it worked, he noticed that Virette wasn't connected to Derrick and the nalkori. He saw the new modifications on Virette, but for some reason they weren't electronically communicating.

  "Life has always been imperfect. Think about cancer, it lives in us, like a living creature itself, but yet it destroys its host. Humans have always been like that Callen, we destroy the very thing on which we depend on. But, with a few simple modifications we can be so much more than what we are born as. We can face what lies ahead without our imperfections pulling us down...and the Harbingers will seal our ascension...our vengeance."

  "These aren't your words, Derrick," Callen said. "You aren't that philosophical. But, whoever told you that...they do make sense."

  "I know." Derrick agreed.

  Virette stopped drawing runes on Niknak. "Alright," she said. "It's time. Step back." She turned back to face Niknak.

  Derrick turned and moved towards the nalkori, and Callen followed after a quick glance at the terrified Niknak. Flashes of his father playing Legos with Niknak and him in the lab bubbled into his head with memories of Derrick and him laughing in the hospital intermingling. He glanced back towards Niknak as Virette returned to chanting.

  The runes on Niknak began to glow and light began to pulse from within Niknak's mouth. He tried to scream, but the rag muffled the sound.

  Callen's eyes were locked on Niknak as he stepped backward to Derrick's side. His best friend was allied with the creatures that want to kill his brother, hurt his new friends, and kidnaped his sister. Then there were the pair of nalkori; the creatures that nearly killed his mother crouched behind him. Could he really be considering joining whoever started this for Derrick's sake?

  Callen's goggles flashed with the complete material read out that indicated that Derrick was no longer completely organic. There was an unnaturally high concentration of silicon in his body, but how vulnerable he was to cyber attack was unknown, but he was vulnerable. He was still mostly organic, but he had been altered enough that Callen wondered if Derrick was still human.

  He looked at the struggling Niknak. The wrinkles of his face were the same as he remembered when Niknak chose to be experimented on to help his father, their father, cure Callen's cancer. Watching him in pain was no different than watching Ania suffer. Callen knew that Niknak wasn't connected to the gremlin network, so he knew Niknak would be safe from any computer attack if he attacked Virette. So, the choice was obvious. He had to attack Virette. Maybe then angry gremlins would attack the church and he would have a chance to make a second attack on Derrick and the nalkori. He moved to activate his computer, but he felt something grab his right hand, a centimeter from the holographic activation button.

  "I let you make a scan, Callen," Derrick said. "I hoped that you would realize that there's nothing you can do. I felt your scan, as did the nalkori. I know you shut them down the first time you met them, and we are prepared. There is no way for you to break into our data stream. The Harbingers will interpret any attack towards us, or our new allies, as hostile, and I will not be able to save you. You will forfeit your position in the future and for nothing."

  "Yeah, well what about my other brother you're about to kill? Or what about my friends? Or my mom?" Callen said, he moved his left hand to allow his right finger to hit the initiation sequence, but Derrick twisted his right arm, elbowed him in the face and forced him to his knees.

  "I guess friendships are fleeting, Callen, like the Harbingers said," Derrick said, with a wave of his hand, the nalkori began circling Callen and Derrick. "And as for your replacement friends, the girl is quite a treat..."

  "YOU hurt them!" Callen winched as Derrick twisted his arm harder. Derrick was stronger. Callen felt Derricks grip begin to bruise and the cool mending touch of the frost within him begin mending it, but it still hurt.

  "You say that as if you didn't know..."

  "I suspected, but now I know," Callen growled. "What did you do to them?"

  "It doesn't matter unless you survive, and you will only survive this if you join me," Derrick said. "But, for the record, the priestess taught me. What I did here to your friends was started long before I was chosen, and in more places than just Philadelphia. I was just sent to pull together things that have been brewing for decades."

  "So, you're just a cog in a machine?" Callen grunted. "I always thought you were more than just a follower..."

  "It's a belonging, old friend. A place for those like us, those who the world discards." Derrick said. "Now, stop this, and I shall forgive you and we will make no mention of this to those who are to cure you."

  Callen laughed. "Two things, bud. One, I don't need your cure. Two, I'm always one step ahead of you."

  "One step closer to the grave maybe," Derrick whispered. He looked the slashed nalkori. It stretched its tentacles and moved towards Callen's head. "I'll miss you, brother."

  Niknak convulsed harder and the rag fell free from his mouth. His scream was like none that Callen had ever heard. The blend of electronic and organic death tore into him. "Stop!" Callen yelled. "Don't kill him!"

  "Finish it, priestess. The Harbingers are waiting for you to hear their song..." Derrick said, he twisted Callen's arm harder and forced his face against the rusty floor.

  The slime that dripped from the nalkori's tentacles landed on Callen's face. He could feel it's hot breath on him. He managed to control his panic, like his mother would, but he still couldn't move. All he could do is watch as the tentacles begin to wrap around his skull.

  He wished with all of his might that he could move and activate his disruptor. He cursed himself for delaying. He knew better. He should have attacked the nalkori on sight. He shouldn't have cared about Derrick or Sprocket being casualties. Though, Derrick did say his attack would fail to hijack their encrypted command signal, but he had to try. The nalkori was about to kill him and he couldn't just let himself die. Fear flooded his system that the weapon he spent all that time on may indeed be useless. He found himself wishing he could have spent more time working on it. He wished he had more information to go off of. He wished there was a way to prevent any of them from receiving their signals, even temporarily.

  Then, it clicked and the world seemed to slow as his brain went to work. He had the EMP installed! That would give him the time to intercept Derrick and the nalkori's command signal, and put him in control of what they received as he broke the encryption. However, the second problem surfaced. The virus might fail. He needed to improve it. He needed to know how the nalkori worked.

  He didn't have that knowledge, or did he? Isolated events began pooling together in his mind. He remembered conversations with Felix, studying Kusari, and all the information he saw in the Biocore facility. The gremlins were prototypes for the nalkori. He had the right data, all of it. He felt it in his gut. He knew, not just how to temporarily disable, but he knew how to destroy them. The EMP would also give him valuable time to get ready to face Virette and if he could hack Derrick and the nalkori fa
st enough, he could do the same to the gremlins!

  He had a solution, but he couldn't reach the buttons that hovered holographically in front of his eyes and around his wrist. He wondered if he could type fast enough, but he felt the pain shooting up his arm. Derrick still had a solid grasp on his right arm. He felt the tentacles bite into his flesh. In seconds, he would be paralyzed, unless panacea could save him. But, he had no idea. In his desperation, he felt something click in his head like it did when he first met the metallic demons and when he saved Kusari. His goggles scrolled with data as his mind linked with his computer. His thoughts began accessing his computer applications in seamless harmony.

  As Niknak let out another scream, the shimmering particles from the EMP device erupted from his wrist. The particles spread out, as if they were a swarm of nearly invisible bees, coating his enemies in the fine dust. "Bye Derrick." He felt himself say, and with the thought the targeted EMP erupted.

  Virette, Derrick, Sprocket and the nalkori froze. Callen rolled out of Derrick's arm lock.

  Since the EMP was designed for small electronics, it was only strong enough to give him a few seconds, but that's all he needed. Their biology would correct the problem the EMP caused with their electronics. The less advanced gremlin technology would take more time to recover. So, he could ignore Virette and Sprocket for now. His priority was Derrick and the nalkori.

  There was nothing between his thoughts and electronic manipulations. He easily intercepted the Harbinger command signal. He went to work on breaking the encryption, modifying all the other programs he needed and augmenting his virus to exploit everything he knew about the nalkori. His mind's demands rapidly outpaced what the computer could handle. He needed more power. It needed to go faster. He overclocked his computer and wove his programs together bonding them in a flawless sequence. His mind and computer rapidly broke the encryption, but the circuits in the computer weren't designed for this amount of processing. The temperature of his computer began to increase rapidly.

  When Derrick and the nalkori began to recover, he was prepared. As they attempted to reconnect with the harbinger signal, he sent more power to establish himself as the strongest broadcast source. He knew they would seek the best connection as they did before. He ignored the first overheat warning and started the process towards streaming communication. He was in control.

  However, Callen's mind filled with the Harbinger signal as it danced through his computer's receiver and into his nerves, further stressing his computer. He felt static dance across his skull and down his spine as it touched the deepest places in his mind. He heard whispers that he couldn't comprehend running through his brain, but their tone was alluring. His conscious mind drifted deeper with it and he didn't feel his computer's temperature starting to burn his skin.