Dragon (A Histories of Purga Novel)

Liza stared at the monitor in front of her, trying her best to keep her composure. What she was watching was the most atrocious thing she’d ever seen in her life. The Behemoth was equipped with a tiny camera that captured all of its movements and sent it through a classified signal to her computer. What she was reviewing now was the decimation of the Imperial Guards, the Royal Infantry and the civilian refugees that had managed to escape Roanoke.

I killed them, she thought, feeling clouds of depression hanging over her. I killed them all.

She tried to dry the tears on her cheeks, but they just kept coming. She didn’t know how she was going to live with herself now. She had dedicated her entire life to creating things that would help people. That would prevent disease. That would cure and heal. Now the monster of her creation had been let loose and it had killed thousands. In a matter of hours. She couldn’t reconcile her terrible deed with herself. It would forever stain her and she knew it. She may have saved the lives of her family, but she had done so at the cost of so many others.

Suddenly furious, she slammed her hands against the desk she was sitting at. Pain exploded immediately in them but she didn’t care. She didn’t even acknowledge it. She swept them to the side and knocked the monitor to the floor. There was a slight coughing sound and then smoke trailed up from its paper-thin, cracked surface. She stood out of her chair so fast, it was thrown to the floor. Then she grabbed her computer’s terminal, lifted it and threw it across the room. All of her data, all of her work and research, was stored on its hard drive. It crashed into the cement wall and fell to the floor. The only damage it sustained was a cracked housing.

“Not good enough!” she screamed as she raced over to it. She picked up the evil thing and bashed it relentlessly against the wall. In a few moments, all she was holding were scraps and broken pieces of motherboard. “Still not good enough,” she murmured.

She picked a blueprint that she programmed herself, by hand (the old fashioned way), and extended her arm, her nanos flying out. In a moment, they had formed into a curious weapon. It had a bulbous, ball-like barrel that melded seamlessly into the design of a standard issue blaster, despite the fact that it was illegal for civilians to own lethal weapons. The weapon was meant for Wilhelm but her life’s work would serve as an adequate substitute. Her hand tightened on the grip, her finger hovering over the trigger. She sighted down its length and fired. The gun hummed for a second and purple lightning seemed to gather at its end. There was a loud explosion and suddenly, she was flying through the air at a speed she knew was going to be lethal.

She didn’t care.

She welcomed it.

Right before she was would’ve hit the wall, something burst through it and caught her as easily as if she were a ball. The collision still knocked the breath out of her and whoever held her was far from gentle, but she was alive.

A big, rough hand set her down.

Liza turned around and looked up to find the Behemoth staring back at her. His blank eyes watched her without any emotion, empathy or even depth. She had erased all of that per Wilhelm’s instruction. He wanted a monster that he could control absolutely and for the price of her family, that’s what she made for him.

“Leave me!” she yelled at him. Her anger overflowed. All she could feel was a raw, seething hatred for the creature. She sank to her knees as despair surged through her.

The Behemoth cocked his head at her like a dog and just stared. The few lights still working in the room glinted off the metal weapon that engulfed its lower right arm. The sharp point of the sword-like protuberance looked deadly.

“Go! Get away!” she screamed again.

But the Behemoth stayed. His head was still cocked to the side.

“What do you want from me?” she asked, her voice hoarse from yelling too much.

The monster came forward, laying his hand on her shoulder. A shudder of revulsion ripped through her at the touch. The hand tightened and then lifted her to her feet as if she were a kitten.

She looked at him and found his eyes boring into hers. She almost thought she saw flickers of emotion burning in their depths now.

When he had her undivided attention, his ponderous head turned to the tank where he’d been created. The monitor she used to program him was still there, untouched.

He was waiting for her to do something.

“Kill,” he suddenly said. His voice was rough and the word came out slightly garbled, as if he were a baby just learning how to talk. “Me.”

Liza stared at him, shocked. She had spent countless hours erasing every memory, every section of the brain capable of emotion or reasoning. She had, in essence, wiped away everything that made him a thinking, rational person. The only things she left were base instinct and primal urges. Now, he was reasserting himself. All on his own. And he had come to her so that she could kill him and end his misery.

She nodded slowly to him and walked over to the monitor. She stood in front of it with her fingers spread over the virtual keyboard. She hadn’t been able to save all those people and that killed her inside but she recognized the fact that the man beneath the Behemoth was giving her a second chance. He was helping her right the wrong by sacrificing himself.

She entered the kill code and was about to push it.

“If you value the lives of your family, I wouldn’t do that,” a voice called from the doorway.

Liza jumped slightly. The Behemoth, however, uttered a loud, painful howl. She covered her ears, her heart hammering away at her chest. She slowly turned around and found Wilhelm there, his dark hood hiding his disfigured face.

“I wouldn’t want you destroying my new toy,” he went on. He walked up to the Behemoth and laid his hand on the monster’s shoulder.

Liza could see the anger and pain in the Behemoth’s face now. It was fully visible and she wondered how it could be. He was regaining his former self. The thought made Liza go cold. If he was, then he was fully aware of the monster he’d become. She could think of no fate worse than that.

“I thought his job was finished,” she responded, trying to keep her voice calm and measured. “I was only trying to eliminate a potential threat. Keeping the Behemoth alive might prove disastrous for you in the long run.”

“Why?” Wilhelm asked.

Liza cringed when she heard his voice. There was something unsettling and scary about the odd metallic sounds to it. It reminded her of bells ringing in an empty room with their echoes going on forever.

“My rebellion has just started. I thought you would realize that having such a valuable tool would help make my takeover go more smoothly,” he said as he walked fully into the room. “I mean, look how well your creation served me in the Duanti Forest. The Imperials and Infantry both wiped out along with all the cowardly refugees that survived the initial attack. It only seems fitting that he serve as a bodyguard as well. Figures such as myself are often the target of assassination attempts.”

“I want my family back,” Liza said, coldly. “You said that if I created that monster you would give them to me. I’ve done what you’ve asked. Where are they?”

“You miss them?” Wilhelm asked.

Liza simply nodded, grinding her teeth angrily.

Wilhelm smiled and even though his hood obscured his features with shadows, she still saw the skeletal, wasted ruin of his mouth. She grimaced.

“I will return them to you,” he said. She felt a momentary joy that was soon popped like a soap bubble. “When you have fixed the flaws in your work. His mind is supposed to be an empty husk and yet he looks at me like he would love nothing better than to rip me to pieces. I can’t have that.”

“But…,” she tried to say.

“When your work is completed to perfection, then you will see your family again. Whole and alive,” he said, interrupting her. “I promise.”

He smiled his hideous smile again and then left without another word, leaving Liza to fume and rant to herself. She looked at the Behemoth. He was standing off to the side, watching her with quiet intensity. She thought about her situation for a long time. Finally, something like a plan forced its way into her mind. Something that even stood a chance of succeeding.

Figures such as myself are often the target of assassination attempts, Wilhelm had said, and how right he was going to be.

Liza went back to the monitor.

“Come here, monster,” she called.

The Behemoth dutifully walked over to her, his passage loud and heavy enough to cause the floor to shake. She wondered briefly if he would simply fall to the room below. She’d made a lot of genetic changes to the man she was forced to use to create the Behemoth. One of them was to alter the tissues in his skin in a way that they resembled a highly dense compound nearly invulnerable to harm. That, combined with overly developed muscles and strength, created a super heavy being. She was surprised the floor could handle his immense weight.

When it was standing next to her, she grabbed a cable that plugged into the monitor. She took the other end, went around the Behemoth to the back of its neck, and plugged it in. There was a port there that gave her complete access to the monster’s mind. It allowed her to code and program her creature. But her monster was too tall. She couldn’t reach the port.

“Sit,” she commanded and the Behemoth quickly plopped to the floor. She felt it shake underneath her feet again but she ignored it. She turned her attention back to the computer screen and keyed in more coding. It was long, tedious work but she knew it would be worth it in the end.

She looked at the Behemoth who was staring at her again.

“Kill…..me?” he asked, almost hopefully. It must not have been able to follow the conversation between her and Wilhelm.

“No,” she said, watching as he dropped his head in defeat. His thick hair fell across his face, hiding his misshapen features. “Not yet. Look at me.”

It raised its face so it could look at her. Its emotions seemed to be growing stronger by the minute and despite herself, she was fascinated. She was watching a human brain literally reconstruct and heal itself from the enormous trauma she inflicted on it. If her situation wasn’t so desperate, she’d spend countless days and hours just studying him.

“If I kill you, then my family dies,” she told it. She wasn’t sure he understood, but she went on. “But we can still get what we both want. I can get my family back and you can destroy Wilhelm Coran. Do you want that?”

She watched the Behemoth think. She watched it for a long time. Finally, it nodded.

“Okay,” she replied. Her fingers went over the virtual keyboard in a blur. She was typing furiously and without even pausing to look up. The code came naturally to her and she quickly programmed the Behemoth with exactly what she wanted it to do when the time was right. She kept the emotions its mind was rebuilding intact and left the memories she saw re-awakening as well. She wanted Wilhelm to see the man he made her destroy come back to himself. She wanted him to see it burning in the Behemoth’s eyes right before he was killed in as painful and slow a manner as possible.