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Corey Roya had never liked fighting. He had seen what it did to his father and it had destroyed his mother.
But maybe he had been wrong. Maybe the only road to peace was overwhelming power. Maybe just this once he could let go and burn down everything that stood in his way.
"Operation Cipher commencing." Kathryn sparked to life on Corey's wrist, paying no heed to his distress. Her next announcement was drowned out by a peal of thunder but the minister knew what was next.
If he did this then everything would be okay. He took in a deep breath and forced himself to believe that, waiting for the power to flood his veins, to turn him into something even his father would be wary of.
Dawn, I'll find you.
Corey turned to the remains of the gate, his eyes sifting through the sight as though he could pinpoint Dawn's location from the rubble.
"Commencing loading process." Kathryn's detached voice was alien to him now, not that he used her often enough to know but Dawn had programmed her to be emotional. "5%."
Corey started making his way to the beast that he had to fight, the creature Dawn must have been fighting before she. . .
Corey took in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the cold air.
He could ignore the rain, the way his clothes dragged him down, even the possibility of his own death, but he couldn't suppress the chill that seized his heart the moment he saw the gate fall.
She wants me to use it.
Dawn had warned him that he couldn't ever let the thought cross his mind. There was only a small possibility of him getting hurt beyond the repair of 26th century medicine but she had relented.
He remembered how much he had to beg for the second activation code, and now she was the one who started it.
Corey didn't know when he started crying but he could taste the salt as it ran down his cheeks, mingling with the rain before getting washed away. "Dawn," he let out a choked cry, cursing the way things had turned out, how fast it had all happened, "you can't die. . . not now."
"Loading process, 15%." Kathryn reminded him as he stared at his chip. He should have been preparing himself, getting ready to focus on his goal and locating his targets. But he couldn't. Even though he only had a limited amount of time to wield the Cipher Code, he couldn't think of anything but Dawn.
She would have wanted to see it, her project in all it's glory. He remembered her saying that it would be her two favorite things in one, 'him' and the ability to 'whoop Gideon's ass any day'.
Despite the current circumstances, Corey found himself laughing at the memory. She had been so pure back then, long before he became minister and she had to kill to protect him. He had made her do what she hated the most.
He was no different from their father.
It should be me. Corey thought for a moment as he brushed his finger against the scar on his wrist. I should be the one to die.
He asked me to save the capital. But Dawn can't die.
"Kathryn, where is Dawn?" Desperation tinted his voice as he lifted his writ to eye level, narrowing his gaze at the faint glow under his skin. "Tell me where she is."
"Pinpointing pair activation code. Scanning immediate vicinity."
Corey waited, the rain suddenly falling in pace with the beats of his hammering heart. This is taking too long.
Something clicked in his mind and he saw faint images of a woman bleeding out on a pile of rubble, her quiet voice calling out to him, begging him to help her. The scene flickered and sometimes the woman was Dawn, other times it was him mother.
"No," he shut his eyes, "this can't be happening."
"No match found." Kathryn announced after a moment of silence.
"Increase the search area." The minister bit back his anger, kicking away a stray piece of shrapnel in his way. Anger wouldn't solve anything, he just needed to see Dawn. It had been too long since he had seen her.
He just needed-
"Command acknowledged. Loading process at 42%."
"So find her!" Corey was loosing his mind, suddenly overwhelmed by panic. Dawn was in the capital. She had to be around the gate so why weren't the scans picking her up?
"No match found." Kathryn answered dully.
"Increase-" he started again. Their had to be a mistake somewhere. Dawn had to be at the entrance of Auro, there was no other way for her to activate Operation Cipher.
"Pair activation code has been disassembled, no trace remaining."
Now, Corey paused, his mind growing fuzzy with trepidation. "What does that mean?" No part of him wanted to know the answer but he had to ask.
"Primary Code host has lost possession of authentication sequence, pair code has been deactivated. Full access now granted to the minister."
Most of the words flew over Corey's head, he didn't care about any of it. The A.I had not answered his question. "What is the location of the Primary Code host?" He bit out.
"Primary Code host no longer exists."
Corey balked. "What?"
"In other words," pain flared through his wrist, "Dawn Draekon has seized to exist. Loading process at 50%, preparing for attachment sequence."
Before Corey could fully comprehend what he heard, the pain in his wrist intensified and spread through his entire body.
The minister collapsed to the ground, curling up in pain as his body twitched and convulsed.
Corey didn't remember ever moving or making a sound, but the tortured screams echoing in the background seemed to be his. He had never experienced such pain in his life. It made him wish for death.
Every cell in his body seemed to be screaming in agony. He couldn't move, not because he was paralyzed but a simple twitch sent spasms of pain through him.
He didn't know how long he had endured the pain but he was aware when it stopped. Silence, like it had never existed.
Corey sat up slowly, still hesitant to make sudden movements. There was no pain anymore, in fact it felt like a dream. Even the memory of it seemed to vanish slowly.
If not for the fact that he was covered in mud, he would have had a hard time believing that just moments ago he was in so much pain that he subconsciously wished to die.
"Congratulations Minister, you are now fully integrated into North's defense systems. Continuing loading process, 64%"
It took a moment for Corey to register Kathryn's words, but when he did they knocked the air right out of him. His head felt heavy but strangely he was refreshed, like he had shed old skin and been reborn.
Corey cracked his knuckles, relishing the crisp sound they made as he took the time to examine what had changed.
He stood up and blinked, gaping at the ruins around him in both shock and wonder. He could see. It wasn't just his body that had gotten stronger, his sight had improved as well, but that wasn't all.
"Kathryn, what is this?" He asked, his voice wary as he stared at the spot in front of him and also seemed to be looking at it from far away and from every angle possible.
"You have been granted access to the satellite images of the entire nation."
Corey blinked again then reached up to rub his eyes. "So, omnipresence?" He seemed to ask himself. "Dawn really outdid herself this time."
The thought seemed to sober him up and he cleared his throat, tempted to keep his eyes closed to evade the sudden bugeye vision he was granted.
No god's eye. He corrected himself as he told Kathryn, "I want to view the entrance of Auro."
"Yes minister," she said. "But you don't need to tell me. The satellites are now your personal binoculars."
Corey almost smiled, it seemed like whatever had overridden Kathryn's programming had worn off. She was back to her animatronically bubbly self.
The minister focused and thought of the fallen gate. Instantly, as though he were there himself, he saw it.
He saw everything. The melting snow, the limbs that speckled the outskirts of the capital; the mush of blue and red that was mixed in.
Corey saw the battered bodies of humanoid beasts and the massive, featureless creature that had tumbled down with the gate, but he didn't see Dawn.
Running out of the capital, he zoomed in, searching every piece of crumbling building, and body parts that seemed to have been lost in an impossible fight.
Corey felt bile crawl up his throat at the thought of one of the twisted limbs belonging to Dawn and his stomach churned at the thought of her being buried under wreckage.
He was so lost in thought that he barley heard Kathryn's next announcement.
"Loading process at 100%, commencing weapon activation."
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