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I sit here and stare at the stars wearing nothing but a towel. I feel like we might be the last people left. On the island. On this planet. X says there will be others. Thousands in time. They will come, he says. Or we will go get them. We can’t inbreed after all.

A chill creeps over me and I know there is something else. Something that X isn’t telling me. Telling us. Where’s Gordon? X

says not to worry, he’ll know when he is coming. I’m not so sure.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

May 14, 2024

1. JACOB

I stand at the back of the house, gazing out the wide open french doors at the sun rising over the horizon. I can’t see her from here, but I know she exists. I can smell her salty spray, and the body of water calls out to me. There is no response from me today for there is no time to play.

We all woke up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. No surprise there. X went over the plan again and again. It has to work. But some things are out of our control. There are no survivors at the gate, nobody looking for help or answers. There may be some, but we haven’t seen them yet. And as far as the mainland? We assume it is similar.

We talked about numbers. There were maybe 7 billion people when the first virus hit. The survival rate was about half a percent. That left about 3.5 million people after the first wave. So many were killed, especially the elderly and the very young. We estimate about 3 million people worldwide were hit by the second wave. X felt that the survival rate will be even worse. There might be a couple thousand people spread across the planet. Stuck on their various continents and islands. There have to be airplane pilots and ship captains in that mess. Or not. We will place a beacon, set up radio communications, and see what we can find. But not yet. We have things to deal with here and now.

I wander to the back gate, my extra large t-shirt blowing in the wind. There are costumes to wear, and we can only hope he won’t look too close at the smoke and mirrors. It is hot already, or maybe it is me. I’ve never been very good at deceit. And with my record of failures there isn’t a high percentage in what I am trying to do. Plan A.

The rest are back at the house, watching and waiting. Prepared. If I don’t make it back, then so be it. I’m not married, not a father, and never will be. I am the most expendable. We pray that he doesn’t go for a head shot, but we’ve tilted the deck in our favor. But every dealer busts and sometimes two face cards still lose.

The jungle is quiet. Only the jasmine drifts to me, the perimeter that X hates. His little cage. No birds calling back and forth, or insect chirps. No rustle of leaves by tiny rodents. I stop at the gate and turn back to the house for one more glance.

There is the click of the hammer cocking and he presses the gun to my head. Right on time.

2. MARCY

“Should we go out?” I ask.

“Sure,” X replies. “You all know what to do. Let me do the talking. Don’t make any sudden moves. I hope that our initial plan works. Otherwise, you know Plan B. I’ll see you on the other side if that happens.”

“Baby, can we talk about this...” I plead.

“No Marcy,” X says.

Jimmy and Madison cling to each other, a faded shade of green. Roland has already puked once this morning, my baby. But he’ll be okay.

Silence drifts over us and there is nothing left to say. We’ve exhausted the possibilities. Maybe it all ends right here. Maybe the world moves on without us. Maybe it all fades to black. My eyes soak up the raw beauty of my common-law husband and my only child. They say cats have nine lives. I’m down to eight now. I hope we don’t need them all today.

Jimmy and Madison remind me of the couple in the horror movie that always has sex. People are getting hacked to pieces, ice picks in the temple, chainsawed in half. And yet, they have the need and the lack of control that only young lust can create. Maybe this isn’t that kind of movie. Maybe this is a comedy. Flashes of bodies in the cave, broken bones punching through flesh, the screams of a hundred men, eyes bulging as they fade into nothingness. Every time I would look for a sign, some glimpse of a soul leaving, some wisp of spirit floating in the breeze. I never saw anything. No, this was not a comedy. A tragedy maybe.

He says we are all needed, and that we all have a place, a role to fill. Much like Noah populating his ark with two of each animal, X had filled his vessel with the necessary pieces to start over. Jacob is a simple man, but he has played many parts on the island, and back where we came from. Phoenix was it? He has been a plumber, and an electrician. An amateur chef and green thumb. A math and science teacher. And his mother lived to be 102. We all have jobs to do. Only the women can get pregnant though, so for once, my womanhood will be used for more than a rollercoaster ride and country line dancing at The Stumble Inn.

There is movement at the edge of the clearing and I can see the top of Jacob’s head. Gordon’s with him, the gun pressed up against the back of his skull. Jacob is sick with tension and my heart pounds furiously in my chest. The sun has gone white hot bright and beats down on us with reckless abandon.

“Okay guys, fan out into a line like I said to do. Stay relaxed, and I’ll handle this,” X whispers.

We spread out across the patio and X shouts down to Gordon.

“Hey buddy, what took you so long? We’ve been waiting for you.”

X stands there with his massive arms spread wide and a grin on his face like he is greeting a long lost brother. And in a way, he is. We’re counting on that.

3. JIMMY

The minute she is out of my touch, I panic. I don’t trust X

any more and I take a step forward. His gaze swings around to stop me in my tracks. I see in him for a moment so much more than we’ve been allowed to know. And it scares me. What is his motive, why does he care? I can only assume it is his family now. Marcy and Roland. Whatever he is or was, they are important to him now. Flames lick at his eyeballs, hidden in the specks of brown and yellow that float in his black irises. Good thing he’s on our side I guess. And then it’s gone, and his attention goes back to Gordon and Jacob.

“Gordon, how are you? What’s with the drama? What are you doing to our friend Jacob here?”

Lost in Gordon’s blue eyes is a cold, distant sheen of ice that gives me pause. I shiver for a moment, although the sun beats down upon us with no hesitation. I glance to my left at Madison, and as pale as she was, she now quivers translucent. She licks her lips and swallows her fears. Good. I nod my head in agreement.

“Fuck you, X,” he says, spittle flying, the gun shoved into the back of Jacob’s head again. Jacob winces, his arms at his sides, dangling as he sweats for his life.

“That little bit of cosmetic surgery you had, the lenses in your eyes, they never hid you from me, my friend. You know that don’t you?”

“I know one thing X, my Judas in sheep’s clothing. I know you sold me down the river and I know that I had to do what I had to do. It got me hired and it got me here. Basking in the glory of the end of the world.”

“Gordon, nobody is left back there. They’re all gone now. There is no payday, money has no meaning anymore. It’s all gone. We are what is left. Us and maybe a thousand more like us, who remain immune against all odds. With God’s will, and a mix of modern medicine and ancient remedies, we are here. Dawn of a new day. You can do this with us.”

“God’s will. Is that what put you here, trapped on this island, on this parcel of land? We messed with some things we shouldn’t have. And they woke up and smacked us down. I’m not putting my money on you guys, that’s for sure.”

“But Gordon, you’ve changed,” X continues. “I know you have.”

A crooked grin works its way across his face as he lowers the gun to Jacob’s right knee and pulls the trigger. For a moment I see more in his face, a twitch of unease, and bits of data swim through my head, the sounds of a keyboard clicking. Gordon tilts his head a bit, and I can see some sort of cable leading out the back of his skull. It runs down to a small metal box attached to his hip.

Jacob’s scream drowns out all thought, empties our heads as we jump back, arms raised out of instinct and self-preservation. Jacob falls to the ground, grasping his knee, as blood spurts across the lawn. Rolling back and forth, his eyes are clenched shut, teeth bared in anger and pain.

“That’s what I’ve become, X. Nothing but a hired hand.”

He raises the gun at X now, a gleam in his eye, as his hand shakes back and forth.

“X,” I whisper, “Do you see...”

“I know,” he mumbles out the left side of his mouth.

4. X

It’s what I’d hoped for. They finally merged. It was up to Gordon now, but whether his finger pulled the trigger, or Assigned made it happen, either way, it was what I wanted.

“Can I speak to Assigned for a moment please?”

Gordon’s eyes widen, and the gun lowers an inch.

“What? You’re not making any sense, brother.”

At his feet Jacob still rolls back and forth, holding his knee, tears pushing from his eyes.

“Would you get him away from me, I can’t think with him bleeding at my feet and whining like a little bitch. Marcy and the dark haired cunt. Grab him and take him over to that chair and then back in line.”

The girls don't move, only glance at me. A quick little nod.

“MOVE you fucking whores. NOW!” Gordon yells, his face mottled red, as his right eye wanders a bit up into the socket, and his left leg shoots out as if loosening up for a race. A tear of blood seeps out of his left eye, but he is oblivious to such things. His body and senses are not his own anymore.

They run over and pull Jacob back to the house, and up into a chair. Kneeling in front of Jacob, Marcy quickly lays her hands on his knees, her back to Gordon.

“No Marcy, not now,” I whisper, but she doesn’t listen. I can see the pain ease out of his face, as Jacob stares into my eyes, uncertain. A barely visible glow emanates from her hands and then she is up, standing again, a quick glance back at Gordon. She asks Jacob a question, louder than needed.

“You okay NOW Jacob?”

I stare at him, pushing thoughts into his head, willing him to understand. He gets the message.

“Awwwwwwwww, fuck it hurts. Don’t touch it. Get away from me.”

Back in line she goes.

“I said, Gordon, let me talk to the man behind the curtain. Don’t you know what’s going on? You’re not a killer anymore, you’re a pawn. This is a game he and I have been playing for millennia, and he finds it amusing and entertaining. He is very petty for such an enlightened creature.”

“What the...listen X, it’s time for you to go away,” he chokes out, raising his left hand to his head, wincing. His fingers run over the back of his skull, tracing the outline of the cable. He pulls his hand back and stares at the bloody fingertips. He glances up, twitches, and raises the gun.

In quick succession he fires the gun at Jimmy and Madison before they can even move. Two bulls eyes directly over their hearts and they fly backward into the brick of the house and fall into a heap of tangled arms and legs, as if embracing. Blood splatters the ground and seeps down their shirts.

Jacob leaps to his feet forgetting that he is supposed to be hurt. He is rewarded with a shot to the chest and he tumbles back over the chair, metal scraping tile as he grunts and lies still. No sounds or motion from Jimmy and Madison.

The rest stand still, trembling in place as Gordon tilts his head and coughs, blood spraying out of his mouth, and gurgling down his chin.

“Gordon, wait,” I shout. “It doesn’t have to be this way. We can work something out.”

Two quick shots and Marcy and Roland collapse in a pile, clutching out for each other as their chests explode, bits of shirt and blood, with a tiny curl of smoke drifting to the heavens.

I raise my hands and walk towards him, keeping my arms spread wide, allowing him ample room to empty his clip. He does not deny me. Or I should say, Assigned is so predictable.

There are twelve rounds in the gun, and he empties them into my chest. All but one. I feel the impact and jolt backwards as my chest is riddled with bullets, eyes wide, still standing but only for a moment. I want to watch the finale, and I can’t do that if I’m lying on my stomach. I lurch back, and fall sideways to the ground. Blood pours out of me, and the rivers of deceit paint the patio with the hopes of our wayward souls.

He’s falling apart. It was a mistake for Assigned to enter him. It’s too much for one man.

5. GORDON

It comes and goes in waves. But the last thing I remember is the dark room, the pitch black, the reverberation of bass and the cold slick surface of the machine against the wall.

I can see bits and pieces, distorted and out of focus, like glancing up at the sun from the bottom of a pool. I don’t know what he has done to me, but I’m barely here. My body is immersed in waves of pain, a throbbing from the base of my skull. But it runs deeper. It runs deep into my head and down throughout my spine. The pain is so much that I keep passing out, and yet I am still standing, as his computer hard drive at my waist overrides my nerves, my body’s own sense of what is right and wrong, what should be done to fix it. Bursts of electricity surge through me now and then, and something is not right. Well, a lot isn’t right, but something is not working. He is not 100% in control, and I am not 100% gone. Yet.

Words come from me, and yet I don’t remember thinking or saying them. I feel my jaw move and my tongue and lips do a dance that must be talking. My limbs twitch intermittently, the nerve endings hyper sensitive, and out of my control.

It is like trying to do long division in your head while somebody beats you with a lead pipe. Like running down the street in shoes filled with bits of broken glass while you recite the presidents of the United States of ...OHMYFUCKING GOD that hurts.

//

Black

//

Spinning. Black circles wind around and

around. One bullet left.

//

SYSTEM

FAILURE

Circuits overloaded, must find

alternative source