Sigma/Star

Chapter 102: The Cure

"This is not insanity Marian. You don't know what this is do you? What the world has now is insanity, but it is contained insanity. You all fight every day, you rush into war, and you unleash these terrible weapons on each other. You even commissioned me to build these androids." Christian paused to point at Syn and Sigma. "That is insanity, real insanity, but it is within your understanding. It is a paradoxical madness that you trust and comprehend...or at least, you like to think you comprehend it. But at the end of the day, do you really know why you fight, why you go to war, or what the world is like without violence? No, you can never know that, and you never will. But I will give that to you. I will give that to all of you. I will strip the world of your existence, will end all of your lives with my army and I will rebuild. There will be no more war, no more death or destruction, no more commerce or politics. There will be only me and the Jahari, those who exist only to obey and to understand commands. They cannot fight amongst themselves, they cannot destroy their own race like we can. They are perfection."

"It's going to be rather boring all on your own, don't you think?" Marian's warship was stalled trying to get past one of the worms that floated through the air, seeking out new prey. He had dropped into the warzone from outside the area where most of the Jahari creatures had been prowling, but now he was in the centre of it all and demanding an extraction. It wasn't going to be easy.

Sigma took a wobbly step towards Christian. All of his computer systems seemed to be gone, seemed to be turned off now so that some other function could run. Whatever it was, it was pounding in Sigma's head, and he could at least assume that it came from Christian's machine. He could also figure out, from what Christian was saying and where the Jahari were looking, that Sigma had been turned into some sort of broadcast device, attracting the Jahari and overriding the hive mind. But if all of Sigma's systems were off, that meant the limiter on his actions that Christian had put in place was gone, and he was able to hurt the Emperor once more. He didn't seem to have access to his energy beams, but his metallic body would certainly have enough strength to overpower Christian. It was more than likely he could just fall on the man and it would crush him eventually. At this point, that seemed like the thing Sigma was most likely to do, as he was barely able to walk.

"It will be a utopia Marian. It will be paradise on Earth. Imagine a world without slaughter, without war, without crime or violence or pain."

"There will be a slaughter though, according to your plan."

"Just one, and then it's all over. Consider it a sort of medical treatment, a needle if you will. It hurts at first, but then it's all fixed. You just need to get a single shot before it's all over."

"And an exiled race of mutants running on biotechnology is the cure?"

"No, I am the cure, Marian, they are simply the needle." Christian motioned towards Marian, and the Jahari turned their heads in unison towards the Archangel. "Don't worry, this will only hurt for a moment." The Bahari turned to square up against the Goliath, analyzing it and looking for a weakness, waiting for any additional input from the Emperor. Marian could see past them, see to the assumed edge of Christian's control, where Bahari still fought with battlesuits, unaffected by the sphere of influence projected by Sigma and Syn. Still, if the two androids were separated, they would have no difficulty in covering most of the battlefield and controlling almost every single Bahari nearby. And then once the link was severed, the two could move on to find more Jahari until the entire race could be mobilized on a whim from Christian.

Marian leaped back, his massive chi wings beating forwards, sending out a gust of wind towards the approaching Bahari, buffeting them back only slightly. They were able to ignore the pressure on their wills that would normally be exerted on a human when Marian projected his chi like that. It seemed he would have to fight them with nothing more than his fists, and he wasn't sure he could if they all jumped him at once.