Entropy

XVIII - The Smell of War

February 10th, 2267.

The decaying bodies of three young adults in their late 20's have been found in an underground ruin currently in process of being excavated. The full autopsy has not been completed yet, but when it is, they will find that these three had died from exposure to neurological toxins about a month ago. These toxins were inhaled, not digested. Their next of kind have been notified. The media will focus on their bizarre deaths for the next few days, but they will soon be forgotten after a video of a kitten on a hoverboard goes viral on the internet.

It is currently nighttime.

In a certain part of the city, a man stands in a penthouse with a full view of the skyline. He is in his forties, has light stubble and a sleek suit. Your typical successful businessman, nothing new. But this man is not the same as the others. You can see it in his dark eyes, the confidence bestowed by power. He pours himself a glass of wine. Another glass, empty, sits beside it.

"Wine, at this hour? Isn't it little bit early for that?"  

A woman entered the room and approached him with a smile. Her waist-long, cascading hair swayed as she moved.

"I just felt like celebrating, and it's too early to bring out the champagne."

"Oh? For what?" The woman filled the other glass and held it in the air under the cool ceiling lights, inspecting it. "It has a lovely color."

"All of the operations are proceeding smoothly, and one of our minor setbacks just fixed itself." He raised his glass. "I would drink to that."

"A setback?"

"It's nothing to worry about, my queen. Just a minor issue."

In jest, she hit his arm with the back of her free hand. "Well don't be coy, Daedalus. I want in on all the juicy details! I have 5,000 years worth of scandals to catch up on after all!"

He chuckled. "Well, if you insist. There was a rat in our inner circle, Coeus. He suddenly balked as we were preparing for phase two and ran away thirty-two years ago."

"That doesn't sound too bad."

The man scowled; there was a disgusting taste on his tongue, as bitter as a bad memory, and he would like to be rid of it. "The problem was that he stole some information from our archives in the process. The concern was what he would do with that information, but a little birdie has just informed me that his plan has just crumbled. We had kept some tabs on him, sent some people over, but didn't put much effort into stopping him. And now, we don't have to!"

"A toast then, for human foolishness!"

There was a harmonious ring as their glasses clinked.

"By the way, my queen, I didn't know that you could drink. Your body handle the alcohol?"

A sly smile crept across her lips. "Are you curious about my body, Daedalus?"

He respectful smiled back, his eyes reserved. "You know exactly what I'm referring to, with all due respect, my queen."

"Oh." Sullen, she took a deep sip from her glass. "Worry not, my dear adviser. This body was built to have all the metabolic capabilities of natural human body. You are from this era; you have never experienced our technology before, but you must learn to have faith in it. The combined knowledge of this infantile civilization would be but a speck of dust before our archives. That being said, this wine is disgusting?"

"Ha ha, really? I was rather fond of it. I suppose then that your wine tasted like ambrosia?"

"It was fit for gods..." Gently, she set down the glass and walked out to the balcony. The streets were sprawled out below, filled with yellow and red car lights pulsating to the city's rhythm. "This is nothing compared to the view from the palace in Anamaglia. It was...beautiful."

Silently, the man came over. He saw the haunting pain in her face, but could do nothing about it. After a moment, he spoke.

"Do you miss it?"

"I do...I used to spend a lot of time there before it was destroyed in the war. We had something called floating islands, and the palace was built on one. It hung in the sky over the main city...It was where I had met my husband, in the courtyard."

"...You won't have to miss for much longer. Soon this world will begin the path to self-destruction once more, but we'll be able to stop it this time, and we'll finally be able to restore it to its ancient days of glory."

The woman took a deep breath. The air probably wasn't clean from all the car exhaust below, but it didn't smell of burning embers, screaming flesh, and smoldering blast sites. It didn't smell like war.

Yet.