Chapter VII
They reached the church, all loading their weapons.
"Ok, follow me. I'll take us to the subspace transmitter, where we can send the emergency call." Edward said.
"In case we run into that barricade agan, Morse has the grenade-launcher." Bishop added.
They entered. Once more they were in the main hall. Only this time it had lost it's harmonious atmosphere. The windows were all smashed, allowing the red light to illuminate the hall and the wind to blow in. As they walked through, Carmen closed her eyes and laid her head on Bishop's shoulder.
"My God!" Morse said overwhelmed.
"Looks like someone had fun here." Johner said.
Edward was silent. Looking at the crucified monks and the bodies laying all over the ground, sadistically cut open, Bishop finally said:
"Aliens don't do this. They don't crucify people. What's going on here?" He said looking at Edward.
"Hey, don't look at me. I don't know what this is." He replied.
"Yeah, you're right. I expected a bloodbath when I walked in here, but this is not the work of animals." Johner said, moving closer to one of the crusified bodies, carefully examining the way the blood was dripping out of the body's mouth.
Carmen suddenly felt something dripping on her head. She looked up. She noticed red drops fall down on her. Where was that coming from? She clared at the ceiling. The ceiling was so high up. Was it coming from all the way up there? What was that?
"Hey, look up for a second. Can one of you tell me what that is, hanging up there." She said.
Johner walked further to the front to get a better side perspective of it.
"It's a body!" He finally shouted back at them.
"A body?" Morse asked skeptically.
"What in God's name is a body doing up there?" Carmen asked.
"A better question might be, who got it all the way up there, and how?" Edward remarked.
"From what I can see, he's haning upside down, the blood seems to be dripping out of his mouth. Just like his crucified brothers down here." Johner added, walking back to them.
"Let's move, Edward. Where do we go from here to get to the subspace transmitter?"
"Here, to the right."
They moved out. They walked trough dark tunnels, and even darker hallways until they encountered the barrier again.
"Morse, you know what to do." Johner said.
"Oh, yeah!" Morse said with a grin on his face. Morse fired three grenades at the barrier. They all took cover and shortly after the noice of destrucion was over. The barricade was gone.
"One would have been enough, you stupid wanker!" Johner shouted, grabbing the grenade-launcer ut of Morse's hands.
"Ah, fuck you! Let me have a little bit of fun for a fucking change, will ya!" Morse shouted back.
"Guys!...We've got some company!" Edward interrupted them pointing at a large number of aliens running their way just behind the former barrier. As Johner looked at the vastly approaching alien hive, for the first time since his hang over his eyes fully opened.
"No way...no fucking way!!" He shouted at them, aiming the grenade-launcher and fireing grenade after grenade at the creatues. It didn't take long until there was only fire and explosions in the direction of the aliens. Morse aimed his two guns and fired a rain of bullets through the fire. After a while they stopped. Slowly the fire got less and the smoke cleared away. There was nothing left, the only thing worth noticing was the fact that the hallway was twice as wide as before.
"That'll teach them never to fuck with Johner again." Johner said.
"One or two would have been enough, you stupid wanker!" Morse shouted. The two men started laughing.
"Behind us!" Carmen suddenly shouted.
They all turned around just to see an even bigger group of dragons approach.
"Run!" Johner shouted, noticing the fact that they had only two more grenades left. They ran trough the hallway as fast as they could, occasionally firing a few bullets back. Suddenly they were back in the room with the huge holy cross. The room had no other way out than the hallway they had just ran through.
"Fuck! No exit!" Johner shouted.
"We'll have to take them here!" Edward shouted, fireing his gun at the wave of approaching creatures.
Carmen stared at the ceiling. The fear was unbearable. She noticed a strange pattern in the ceiling. It was almost as if the pattern came out of the ceiling, as if the pattern was in front of the ceiling. She looked back at the aliens. Johner's grenades weren't very effective this time. They wouldn't hold out much longer, that was for sure. She put her arm around Bishop's neck and kissed his face as often as she could. Bishop didn't react, he was too busy fireing. But she knew he noticed it, and that he felt like she did. Why couldn't she just have one more hour with him? She looked up. The pattern...it was moving! It was coming out of the ceiling. The shape came near. It was an alien!
"Oh God, Bishop! From above!" She screamed.
Bishop aimed up and fired his entire magazine at the falling creature. The bullets tore the beast to pieces. Suddenly the look on Bishop's face changed. He realized the depth of his mistake. The blood would land on them...'acid for blood' he suddenly realized, covering Carmen as best as he could. The blood fell on all of them. They all fell down, screaming out in pain, while the aliens ran the last few meters towards them. Laying on his chest, Johner looked over the ground and saw the creatures surrounding them. There was alien blood burning through his back. When would it stop burning? Would it burn all the way through him? What did it matter? They'd all be dead before that anyway. His gun lay on the ground just a few meters in front of him. If he could just get...it was no use, he couldn't move. But the creatures also didn't attack, they were backing off. Slowly the burning got less intense and finally stopped. He tried to get on his feet.
Bishop saw a huge hole in his chest, the alien blood had almost burned through him all the way. He quickly tried to cover it up. But it was no use, his white blood streamed all the way down his feet. The hole in his chest was a strange feeling, but he was an android, so pain was a strong word for it. He realized that he was the only person here that didn't feel a lot of pain, yet he was almost certain that he felt worst of all. Carmen who was still tied to his back was the only one who couldn't see the white blood on his front.
"Are you all right?" She asked, moving her hands over his chest to feel if he was wounded. Then her hand felt the hole in his chest.
"Oh, my God! Bishop!...He's dead!" She cried.
"No, I'm not" He said, while getting them up.
"No, don't get up! You're seriously wounded!" Bishop got up and walked them over to Johner, who also painfully managed to stand on his feet.
"How can you walk!? It's like you've been hit by a grenade!" She cried out hysterically. He didn't answer. She looked at her hands, covered with white blood.
"Oh Jesus! You're an android!?" She shouted. Still he was silent, just standing there watching the monsters hissing at them.
"Bishop!? You're an android?!" Morse asked stunned.
Bishop almost wanted these creatures to attack, to get it over with. Everything was lost anyway. He had lost Carmen and once again he was no more than a stupid machine. Why did he always care so much about what people thought of him? What were these devils waiting for anyway? Just watching them stand there and not attack almost made him aggressive himself. Suddenly there was the most horrifying sound they had ever heard. It was a loud and sharp scream, coming from the holy cross. The aliens reacted on it and suddenly started running away like zebras who just spotted a lion. Soon all the aliens were gone and once more they were standing before the cross alone. The light in the room was different this time, there was red light, like on the surface itself. It was shining in the room trough a smashed window in the ceiling.
"What ever it was that made that sound, I'm telling you, I don't want to meet it." Morse said picking up his gun.
"Oh, but you already have." A strange voice said.
"Where the hell did that come from?" Johner nervously asked.
"It came from within the cross." Edward said.
They all faced the cross. A little door within the cross opened and Nathan stood in the door opening, his eyes closed.
"Nathan, is that you?" Bishop asked.
"I recommend you not to call me Nathan anymore, it offends me." He said while opening his eyes.
They all saw it at the same moment. His eyes were black, pure blackness, alien eyes. The voice, it wasn't Nathan's voice...yet somehow it was, only different.
"What happened to you, man?" Johner asked.
"Something wonderful, something purely wonderful." Nathan said, while walking towards them.
As he walked they noticed that he had a tail, an alien tail. And as he got closer his skin seemed unnaturally pale. He stopped before Johner.
"Now, if I recall correctly, you didn't like me very much, now did you?" He said.
"Well I..." Johner started to say. Suddenly Nahtan grabbed Johner's hand and shook it.
"Congratulations! You were right! I was an old fool, wasn't I?" Nathan said with a strange smile on his face.
"Yeah, well..." Again Johner started to say.
"Yeah! But you can't blame me, now can you?...I mean, come on, I was human. A decadent race of fools and twisted idiots." Nathan continued.
"Humans aren't always that bad." Bishop stated.
"So the machine build by humans say." Nathan replied.
"I'm not a machine, I'm an artificial person. Do you have any idea what you are?"
"No, I don't. All I know is that I am the king, and that's all I need to know."
"Oh man, he's even more deluded than before." Johner said.
In a quick move Nathan faced Johner and opened his mouth. And alien tounge fired out of his mouth and stopped right before Johner's nose. Slowly the tounge slided back into Nathan's mouth. Johner's eyes stared at Nathan like they could never move again, and his mouth was half open.
"Well, what's the matter, Johner, I thought you were a though guy?" Nathan said with a sadistic look in his eyes.
"How can you talk with a tounge like that?" Johner finally asked.
"None of you'r fucking business!" Nathan hissed.
Something walked their way, it was coming from behind the cross. As it got closer it's size began to show. It stopped nest to Nathan, overwhelming him by at least 3 foot. It was an massive alien, sith a long tail and four arms.
"We haven't seen that one before, have we?" Morse asked.
"It's the queen." Bishop said.
Nathan kneeled beforee the creature, passsionately kissing and licking it's slimy feet.
"You are so beautiful, my queen." Nathan said.
The queen opened her arms and he climed into her as a crazy monkey. After he was done kissing her were ever he could, he comfortably laid down in her arms. The queen and Nathan now looked in their direction.
"Like I said, I'm the king and this is my beautiful queen. When I came to her as a human she saw how I struggled with myself, how I never knew what interpretation of the truth to choose, as all humans struggle with thoughts. She transformed me into something more like her, but at the same time she transformed herself into something more like me. And now WE are perfect." The king shouted with an impressive voice.
There was a moment of silence.
"So what shall we do with them, my queen?" The king asked.
The queen looked at them one by one. When she inspected Edward, he suddenly stepped forward.
"Please, take me! Make me more like you!! I also want to become..." Edward hysterically shouted like a mad man.
"Edward, what the hell are you doing!?" Bishop shouted.
"Don't you see, Bishop? I've been running away from humanity all my life. Now the only pain in my life is tha fact that Iĉm human myself! I told you that I didn't see the part that humanity represented in the universe, but these creatures, they still have a chance to stay pure. Belive me, I no longer want to be obsessive compulsive." Edward said.
"Edward, you don't know what you're doing!" Bishop shouted.
The queen's head turned to Bishop. She looked at his white blood. Then her sharp claws cut the topes around Carmen. Carmen fell on the ground and Bishop was standing before the queen alone. Teh queen kept looking at him, her black eyes staring right into his. Then Bishop noticed a nervous look on the king's face.
"My queen, what are you doing, this is only an android." The king stated.
Teh queen faced the king and hissed at him in an aggressive manner. Then she threw him on the ground. She faced Bishop again. Bishop looked at the king, and there was a frightened look onhis face.
"The queen wants you, Bishop." He said.
"What!?" Bishop asked.
"She wants to make you like me."
"No way!" Bishop said.
"Oh, come on Bishop. We both know that if you say 'no', she will smash your head adn kill the others as well." The king said with a bored voice as if he already knwe what was going to happen in the next hour.
Bishop looked at Carmen. She was still laying on the ground, looking up at him. They looked eachother in the eyes. What was she thinking? Did she still love him? Well, one thing was for sure, he still loved her...and there was only one way to save her. He turned around and looked the queen right back in her cold black eyes.
"You can have me if youlet them go." He said as firmly as he could.
After a few tense moments the monster befor him opened her four arms. Bishop looked at the king with a questioning look on his face.
"She agrees." The king informed him.
"So how do they get off the planet?" Bishop asked.
"There's a shuttle on the roof, just above here. It will take them out of orbit, there they can send a signal back to earth. In a matter of days their shuttle will be picked up." The king said.
"Ok, I'll do it. But remember, if you lie to me and they're all dead, even as an alien my revenge will be like hell." Bishop said giving the king a sharp look.
"I understand...Now let the queen take you into her arms and all will be done as stated." The king said.
"No!" Edward shouted, running their way.
The queen turned to Edward and leaned over him, her mouth dripping slime as she slowly opened it with a hissing sound. Edward quickly came to a still stand and fell on his knees.
"Oh my queen, don't you see. This is just an android, he's no good to you or the hive. It's me you want. A person who admired your kind more than he has ever admired anything else. I am a philosopher who understands why your race is so important! Take me, and I don't even care what you do to the rest!"
Slowly the queen's mouth closed and she moved back to Bishop, reopening her arms. There was a sign of relieve on Edward's face and he got back on his feet and turned arond, but there he found that he king stood right behind him. There was a horrifying look in the king's black eyes as he looked on Edward. Suddenly it seemed there was nothing human about his human face.
"Hey, Nathan...uh, what are you doing?" Edward asked, shaking of fear and nervously blinking his eyes.
Faster than might be expected the kng opened his mouth and fired this sharp tounge trough Edward's head. As Edward's lifeless body dropped to the ground, the pieces of brain flew in Bishop's direction. Noone said anything, some stared at the king, others looked away.
"I told him to never call me Nathan again." The king calmly said, wiping the blood of his face.
"You were going to kill him even before he said a word, why?" Bishop asked, trying not to let his voice represent his emotion.
"Oh, Bishop! You're discriminating me! If an alien kills a human do you normally ask it why? I don't think so. So why ask me?" The king said with a fake insulted voice.
"Because you're not an animal, you're jsut a human twisted in the head by some changed in his looks." Bishop snapped.
"I think you have insulted me enough for today. Now let's have some more serious talk. The others are free to go. You see that ladder? Right there in the corner. Just climb up there and you'll be on the roof in no time." The king explained to the others.
Carmen gave Bishop a deep questioning look.
"Go." He softly said.
Morse picked her up and carried her away.
"I still love you." She said with tears streaming down her face as Morse walked off.
Bishop didn't say a thing. She still loved him? How could she? The others climbed up the ladder and were out of sight soon after. Would they really make it off the planet? Was there even a shuttle? Or could it be a trap? The person he was, would never know.
"Now, they're safe and they'll be off the planet in a few minutes. So let's get this over with, shall we?" The king said with a bored look on his pale face.
"First I have a few questions." Bishop said.
"Humans, humans, questions, questions...hurry up, hurry up, I'm bored, I'm bored." The king said moving his head to the rythm of the words.
"Why did you kill Edward? And why is this monster interested in me?"
"These two questions both lead to the same anser. You see Bishop, you're build up out of organic matter, just like humans. So the fact that you're artificial doesn't mean that she can't to do you what she did to me. After she has helped a confused little self-hating creature like I was, in becoming more like her, she found that she hadn't accomplished what she wanted to. She wanted to create a perfect mix between one of her kind and one human, but because I didn't like the human race myself I failed to be a good representation of the human part in our new hive. That is also why Edward was wrong, he also hated his own essence in the universe, that's not what the queen is looking for, she needs a creature that understands and is proud of what it is...someone just like you."
"Me!? Proud of what I am!? I'm not proud of what I am! The fact that I'm this ridiculous machine has made me hate myself for as long as I can remember! My whole life I've been wanting to be something that I'm not."
"Yes...human. You've been wanting to be human and because you wanted that so much it has made you more human than any human I've ever knew. And that is why you are the one."
Bishop looked at the king in sudden pure comprehension. He had spoken the truth, and he knew it. And a beautiful truth it was. The king smiled at his understanding face. All the horror was suddenly gone. He walked into the queen's arms, and felt her surprisingly gentle arms around his shoulders. He realized it was all there, all of Edward's pure phenomenons. The queen was simple order, the king was the beginning of complexity. And he was complex chaos to be transformed into a new order.
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Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI
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