Graphene Hearts

Clicking another X1 round into my antiparticle pistol, I drew one final breath of xenon-laced smoke before flicking embers from my fingertips. The rosy fireflies danced along the dreary, blackened room and were at once silent. I exhaled red-tinged smoke, setting my claustrophobic surroundings aglow. I feigned a smirk as I tapped the circular ring fixed at my nape, and a familiar bombastic voice stunk inside my cerebral cortex:

“-the tenth anniversary of Maharba’s coming, we celebrate His grand arrival and anticipate the Pleasant One’s newest Ascension model, which He in His limitless insight wrought for our benefit. Ascension 4.27, gifted to us last October of 2064, seems to have granted additional health benefits and immunities, though specifics are unclear. On this momentous occasion, we shall witness a truly extraordinary happening, perhaps similar to 2055’s cardiovascular Ascension, which eradicated heart disease. Who may know what-“

The broadcast ended with an impatiently dabbed finger. I flicked my pistol’s slide and chambered a round, the blood-red symbol of a cross within an upside-down triangle glinting on the side. X1 rounds were hard to come by, but they were the only thing capable of piercing Ascension 3’s nanoweave graphene. Though it was as thin as a single atom, Graphene 3 could withstand a .50 caliber from point-blank. It did not matter; if it took smashing my fists to the bone, I would end it all.

The xenon haze whispered one last goodbye, and I thought I could see her in its curdled waves.

A muted whir interrupted the quietude. “Finally,” I mumbled, putting away the fresh cigarette I began to light. Holstering my gun, I finished zipping a heavy backpack before slinging it about my shoulder. It clinked as if made of glass. “Wonder how long I have before-“

Hot light streamed into the cramped cabin, and I was instantly assaulted by the cacophony of hovercraft, advertisements, and notification dings from a million passers-by. The air was a toxic mixture of chemical blasphemies fueled by the ravenous greed of a mindless generation.

A figure blocked my exit. The crevices of her porcelain-white face blinked a cautious yellow as she shouted, “Stowaway! Come outside where you may be identified!”

Yet the female’s mouth remained motionless, and it was the voice of a man who spoke. Doubtless, the female called for assistance – the yellow indicated that much – as most inconveniences could be nullified with a simple “ping”, as they were called.

An X1 shattered the woman’s throat, tearing her graphene-coated skin into billions of atoms upon the tarmac. Her body stiffened and fell with a metal clang, the yellow flashing between her eyes and under her cheeks shifting to frightened, solid red. Her mouth hung agape, but neither blood nor scream left it. Her sparkly, silver hair suggested she was on the older side; would it make a difference if it were an infant?

As I thought, nothing but a husk. I sauntered leisurely over to the fallen Ascended, ramming my pistol into its worn leather holster. As I finally lit my xenon cigarette, I felt nothing. Pity was not something to be wasted on broken machines. But what’s this?

A strange metal glimmered in the woman’s hand. I grasped the object, and a silky chain followed; it was made entirely of gold, a material I had only seen once in my life. The shape of the object suggested a heart, but it was badly dented and scuffed. I dared to open its rusty hinge, revealing two grinning faces, one masked in drops of deep crimson. Blood. A substance rarer even than gold.

The other face was a vaguely familiar girl, yet before I could tell for certain, the blood dribbled down to obscure her visage as well.

The male voice returned from the body of the woman, his calm, assertive tone still present, yet much slower now. “Descended. You have ventured far; it would be a shame for you to leave in vain. My hands are loose in my offerings; thus, I offer parlay in the hopes of-“

His words were cut off as I ripped the voice box from the cavity of the woman’s throat. “You know where to shove your parlay.”

June 2059, 4 years after Pan-Eurasian Conflict concludes

Fallout ash fell in fetid clumps upon my shoulders. A head of wiry auburn beckoned me on with a sure but quiet hand. I leered back, where a sternly bearded brute of a man stood. He nodded, reaffirming the redhead’s command. In his hand he clasped a weapon far too petite for his colossal grip. I noticed an odd symbol on the side: a cross inside a triangle pointing down.

“Morok, we must hurry,” said the girl with hushed urgency, turning to face us. Her beautiful, perfectly formed features possessed no regret within their wholly human structure. She was a beacon in the midst of a billion unmarked graves, a reminder that in spite of the countless atrocities swept aside like a mild blunder, in spite of the Pleasant One’s arrival and his ominous designs, we were still human. The three of us, at least.

We scurried along carbon-begrimed alleyways and streets stained with silhouettes of humans vaporized from nuclear blasts in hopes of finding more of our kind. If they were not in the city, where Maharba’s influence was strongest, perhaps they would be found in the neglected battlefields or feral wilderness beyond. But in four years of searching, we came to realize with more clarity that mankind as we knew it was extinct. Humanity was no more; instead, the Ascended would claim the Earth.

As we neared the outskirts of a city long-since forgotten, the redhead squinted, raising her lean fingers to shade her hazel eyes from the nuclear sun. Beyond the tempestuous dust storms and boundless gray dunes lay a swath of faint green, an oasis, and the possibility for life. A smile cracked the girl’s lips, and she coughed as she struggled to compose herself. I found myself with a tear streaming down my face, and Morok gave a similar reaction. Hope was not something we were accustomed to, yet it was before us now. The girl embraced me, and my heart felt a warmth I had not felt since.

But she suddenly gasped, and before I knew it I was spinning violently down a sand dune, bitter grains of silt and rubble entering my eyes and throat. It seemed a lifetime before I stopped moving, though my head continued to spin long after. As I wiped my eyes, my breath was walloped from my lungs yet again. Morok lay in a heap beside me; he, too, was thrown from the hill. I gazed heavily up at the girl, and to my dismay a black hovercraft loomed soundlessly above.

A flash erupted in the front of the hovercraft, and in the same instant the hill exploded, sending sand rocketing skyward. The hovercraft, as well as the girl, disappeared.

2065, Present Day

The memories of six years prior vanished with the final puff of scarlet-colored poison, my lips quivering but my hands firm. The barrel of my antiparticle pistol seethed a relentless lust as if to speak for my wordless maw. “More scrap to sate my Lord,” it would demand, a chthonic snarl peering behind my index finger, almost grabbing it without my consent.

Bodies littered the hall leading to Maharba’s office, their soulless masses a vengeance offering to the late humankind. If I were to be the last of my race, I would have a thing to say before my final breath.

Yet it was not for humanity as a whole, but one person that I killed for. Whoever she was, all this destruction was for her. I hoped the solid red death lights that scattered the building would have pleased her. I was far from done, however; I had one more task, one final X1 in the magazine.

Maharba floated with spectral grace from his chair, his raven-black robes flitting lullingly in the breezeless room he used as an office. The room was void of almost anything save a simple wooden chair and a dingy yellow light coming from an unknown source. He swiveled gradually to face me, his deep-set eyes and angular cheek reminiscent of the Grim Reaper. Yet nothing about him would suggest he was Ascended himself. His compressed lips opened for a moment before speaking. “The bombs are already set?” He vocalized this as more of a matter of fact than a question.

“Mhm,” I affirmed, thoroughly proud of myself. Destroying Ascension Site Alpha would ensure no more major Ascensions, and perhaps the eventual collapse of all further sites across the globe.

His head bobbed as if accepting this fact as an everyday occurrence. “Then you understand the consequences?”

“Consequences?” I scoffed. “I’m not expecting to get out alive if that’s what you mean. As long as you get put in the ground I’ll be happy.”

“Can I ask you then,” he calmly responded, though the power in his tone matched his demeanor, “why is your ire directed at innocent souls, who live as well as they may, when you grovel in the mire? Do you not see the hypocrisy in your attempts at dragging others into the abyss? Or are you blind to the rage of antiquity?”

“Hypocrisy?!” I spat. My hand raised instinctively to match my gun to Maharba’s head. In my head, I had already killed him; that had happened six years ago, and every day since. Now, I would kill him one final time.

“The Ascension began long before you were born,” Maharba softly spoke. “The first Ascended lived many millennia ago, and their descendants continue to thrive today. You are one of them.”

“Liar!”

“You are already Ascended,” he stated firmly, without a hint of emotion on his brow or in his timbre. “I control your every action, your very thoughts and desires, though you are oblivious. And hereafter you shall feel your will as if it were your own to command. Yet know this, that I am the captain of your body; I am the one who possesses your soul.”

And with that, he pointed a finger at me before gradually lifting it to meet his chin. Without thinking, I put my own hand, gun in tow, to my chin. Maharba’s finger contracted lightly, and so did mine, as much as I resisted. My eyes shut, waiting for the end, praying to have an ounce of willpower to fight back. Finally, the trigger clicked.

And nothing.

I opened my eyes. In my hand was the heart-shaped locket, fully restored, in place of my pistol. I opened the clasp and perceived the two figures in the picture, clean of blood. The first was a man with a sparsely grayed beard, an aged Morok, smiling as if an entirely different person. The girl beside him was much older now as well, but shoots of curly crimson defied her otherwise silver head. I had seen her before. I had seen them both.

“Oh. No,” the words pooled like soured milk in my mouth. “It can’t be.”

I raced outside into the bustling city, refusing to acknowledge what I already knew to be true.

I reached her after an infinite time of pleading to wake up from the nightmare. She was exactly how I left her. Shattered. Forgotten. Dead. I was too late. I could not fix my mistake. It was pitiful, yet I did not deserve an ounce of pity. Pity was not something to be wasted on broken machines, after all.

I buried her body in the desert oasis, where she would have wanted to die. I placed the locket in her hands, and said one final farewell:

“I’m so sorry, Mother.”

“We can never return to the forest, but the field will do.”

The End.