The Deathless Trilogy

1.32. Self-Destruct

Sato hides behind one of the chambers, his gun fixed on Gunther's head.

"I believe in the cause, Alexander. You can't deny that in many ways, Roberts and Cooper and even President McCleary were right: Man is corrupt. You can rebuild the population, but man will always ruin what you've built. Unless you control the population. We finally have a clean slate. You want to allow the population to sneak back up to 10 billion again? You are asking me to support the end of man," Gunther says.

"You already did," Alexander yells in response.

"No, I supported the start of a new society."

"You've been brainwashed, do you hear yourself?"

"You know I'm right, Alexander. We can't control people unless we engineer them, and that's what we need to do."

"It's unnatural."

"No, Alexander, what's unnatural is creating so many medicines and technologies to maintain life that we negate natural selection and allow the population to get out of control. What's the difference between medically engineering people and creating our own engineered people?"

Alexander doesn't say anything.

"Exactly. Now... are you going to join me?" Gunther asks, pulling a gun out from his belt, and pointing it at Alexander. "Or not?"

"Stop!" I hear Winston yell, and his voice reverberates against the glass chambers. He approaches them from some separate entrance, armed. Sato loads his gun.

"You're surrounded, Gunther. Put down the gun," Winston says.

"Hello Dr. Fowler," Gunther says, moving his aim to Winston.

"Gunther, you need to stop this. Where is Phoebe?"

"She's with some of my best men."

"Is she alive?"

"I don't know."

"Is she alive?" Winston yells.

Gunther laughs. "I guess you two finally got together, huh? That was a long time coming. Well, in that case, I can tell you that she'll be waiting for you when you stand down."

"We won't ever stand down."

"Then I guess you'll never get Phoebe."

"She'd rather die for the cause," he says, choking a little on his words.

"Then we will have to do this the hard way," Gunther says. The back of the room fills with government soldiers, and as it does, Deathless soldiers follow in behind Winston.

Then, I can't tell who shoots first, but the room erupts with gunfire and blood. I feel someone grab my shoulder, and I jump a little before I'm pulled to the ground. It's Daniel.

"We need to get to that panel," I say.

"How?"

"Sato!" I yell. He turns back to me. "Shoot the panel!"

"I can't from this angle. You'll have to," he shouts, and tosses a second gun from his holster. I crawl out from behind the chamber to reach it before hiding again.

"I'll do it," Daniel offers.

"No, I can do this." I load the gun, and stand up to shoot. I find the panel between soldiers, aim, and release. A soldier steps into the bullet's path and it rips through his earlobe, but I can't think of the bloody bit that's been tossed from his body, or of how close I came to killing a man. I need to hit the panel.