Page 32 of The Godhead Complex
But his words surprised her. “Stop the emergency shutdown, and inject me already.” His voice was just as rough as the way he handled the woman’s life in front of him.
Alexandra could work with this. “Not so rough, Mannus, these faithful employees of Nicholas are our new friends and perhaps they’d like to be employed in anewway.” She held her palms open, faceup, showing she had nothing to hide. Her power of persuasion only needed to work long enough for one of the three women to trust her. “Every end is indeed just a new beginning, and while this ends the reign that Nicholas had over your studies we can begin to now make history together. Don’t you want your hard work to be a part of the turning point of humanity?” She fed them a gentle smile. “We can bring you to New Petersburg and—”
Mannus went off the rails. “We can’t fit five people in that boat. You’ll inject me now. Here.”
Alexandra stepped up to him. She squeezed his elbow with two fingers, just between the bones where it pinched him enough to lower his knife.Would all the Pilgrims of the Maze be so selfish?She needed to remember that there would be ways to sort out the worthy from the unworthy.Alaska would be seen as the great frontier once again, ahead of the rest of the world and guiding the way to the future.
“We can’t just inject you.” Tall rubbed her neck where the point of the knife had been just moments ago.
Alexandra wasn’t leaving without getting what she came for. If she couldn’t take the vials and the science back with her, she’d settle for taking it in the veins of Mannus. She walked backwards to the balcony where the woman who’d greeted them to the island had set her gun down. Her heel slipped for a moment on the tile and a white odd-shaped marble rolled from under her boot as she bent down for the gun. She picked up the weapon with strength.
“Listen . . .” She commanded everyone’s attention. She didn’t want to kill three people today, but would pull the trigger if it meant igniting the final stages of the Evolution. No, that was madness. But perhaps she needed those mad thoughts to drive her forward? Every person in power since the beginning of days had at one time or another done something they thought they’d never do, made a choice they wished they hadn’t needed to, and this responsibility was now in Alexandra’s hands.
“I don’t want to hurt any of you. I want us to work together. To help the world evolve further than what has been possible. The Cranks can only be Cured physically but their souls can’t be saved. They will always have a monster within them even when their DNA is reconstructed.” She needed to look no further than to Mikhail for that example. “But for those of us who are able-bodied, who are ready for more—we can have it. We can have the Cure and the Evolution within one. A whole new generation without the Flare. Can you imagine what the coming generations could do without the fear of the Flare holding them back and with the advanced DNA sequencing?”
She almost laughed at the pureness of her vision. Everyone in the world living up to an infinite potential. How beautiful the world could be if they would just embrace the Cure. The three women stood there and said nothing. Alexandra lowered the weapon to reason with them. “What will you do and where will you go if the other Villa isn’t supposed to know of these studies? Where will you live and work?” Again, silence from the women, so Alexandra answered for them, “In New Petersburg alongside me. With the Godhead.”
“Enough of this bullshit. Give me the Cure already.” Mannus cleared away beakers from a lab table with his hand. Glass shattered on the floor in a million pieces as he laid his arm on the table for an injection.
Short responded with surprising confidence. “No, we can’t.”
“You will,” Alexandra demanded, and with the gun still in her hand, the scientists obeyed.
“Do you have the Flare? Before The Gone?” Tall asked as she inspected him with her eyes.
“Do I look like I have the Flare?” Mannus replied.
“What about fevers? Have you had any fevers lately?”
“No.”
Middle, who was neither good at making tea nor taking orders, and who said the least of any of them, walked over to Alex. “This isn’t perfected. He’s got a sixty percent chance of falling over dead before the day is over.” Alexandra didn’t understand what she was talking about. “The horns,” Short said. “He’s got . . . predispositions.”
Alexandra laughed and shook her head. “The horns aren’t from his DNA, you idiot, he had those sewed on by choice.”
The soft-spoken scientist looked back at the others before explaining to Alexandra, “It’s not the horns, it’s the DNA sequences visible in those who typically make . . . such rash decisions.”
“He’ll be fine.” Alexandra couldn’t care less if Mannus lived or died at this point. As long as they left right after his injection, he’d steer her back to the city and he would either make it back onto shore or he wouldn’t. If he lived, then she’d share his story as an example for the Pilgrims of the Maze to see the potential in the Evolution, and if he died, then she would have to regulate the Cure accordingly.
Short insisted. “I will not be responsible for what will happen. If you want to end your life as you know it, fine.” The woman readied a syringe and handed it to Mannus.
“Yes. I want a greater life!” Mannus shouted and spit flew from his chapped lips. Being on the precipice of mental power had already changed relatively mild-mannered Mannus into something Alexandra did not quite recognize.
The short woman had an incredible amount of patience. “Whatever happens is the result of your own hand. Good or bad. We don’t have enough studies of how your specific DNA will change, and we should really first take your blood and then. . . . Evolution needs to happen in steps, in slow methodical steps. Creatures on Earth who’ve evolved have done so slowly, over time, like the environment, and this need not be any different if you want it to be successful. Because this,” she motioned to the lab’s contents, “this has infinite possibilities based on blood type and genetics for each person, and we simply don’t know its full effect until we have a catalog of every possibility and those possibilities are as infinite as the human race.”
Alexandra shifted the weight of the gun in her hands. Infinite possibilities was not something to be afraid of, it was something those of the future could embrace. “If thirty years of studies isn’t enough, then what will be? It is time. The Evolution is ready.” She motioned with the gun for Mannus to go ahead, to become a part ofherevolution.
Mannus uncapped the syringe and hesitated for only a moment before injecting himself in the crook of his elbow, even as he stood in the middle of all that broken glass and spilled chemicals.
Alexandra watched for any change in his face. His jaw muscles tightened and his shoulders twitched. The other women seemed to hold their breath collectively as they observed and waited. His face relaxed, his jaw softened, and Alexa imagined his body cooling from the Cure. She remembered the sensation of her own Cure way back when, the way her body had felt cold and just a bit tingly before a warming band of fireworks traveled through her veins, tickling her from the inside out. Cleansing her.
And as if Mannus could hear what she was thinking, he turned to smile at her, his right cheek still red from where Alexandra had slapped him. His bottom, middle tooth was missing, but he certainly didn’t seem to care.
CHAPTERSIXTEEN
War Path
The Remnant Nation held only one secret: the identity of the Great Master in the Golden Room of Grief. The Great Master who gave commands, rewards, updates, and promises. The Great Master whom no one had ever seen—until today. All of it a practice in pretension.
