Yet, many greeted the new year with an optimism that was familiar. Repeated 14 other times, regardless of how futile it seemed. That this year would be the end of the suffering and loss. That man would finally turn back the machines that had once served them, destroy the executioners of civilization. Undo the twisted designs of a single man, and a single machine. And, there was some renewed vigor. After all, 3/4 of Project: New Order had been demolished. Thanks to the valiant efforts of the Resistance, and in particular the Power Team, the machines had, for once, been dealt a major defeat. For the first time, it looked possible that the Metal Wars could be won.
Yes, even in the face of the great loss... The loss of the Power Base and the technology it contained...
And, the loss of a martyr...
Hawk, Scout, and Tank stood around, laughing, talking with those that came by. Cypher, head leader of the Resistance, went around pouring distilled, drinkable water into makeshift cups. Scout watched in amusement as Hawk sneaked up on Tank with a noise maker and blew it in his ear. Tank, startled, turned to his friend, laughing. "Can it, flat head!" he quipped, snatching the funnel in a quick movement and lightly tooting it at Hawk.
Cypher came by them to refill their glasses. "Hey," he began, looking around. "Where's our resident hero?"
Scout looked up from his drink. "He's... uh, busy..."
Hawk remained silent. Tank finally spoke it best. "He's got a few things to sort out." Cypher's expression changed to one of understanding; he'd known her, too. He walked past the large Tank and towards the ramshackle Christmas tree that had been assembled the week before, still standing for the New Year's festivities. He raised his glass of water to the angel perched atop. "To Pilot," he breathed, softly, fondly.
The words lifted Hawk's attention from his drink. His mind had been elsewhere, but, surprisingly, not on the obvious. He had been savoring his water, along with thinking about recent events, and made a rather odd comment to himself. He sipped some more water, and remembered the orange slice he had had before, supplied by John, the only Eden II contact he'd ever come across. He wondered if he'd ever see him again. He "knew" better, yet somehow... actually, he hoped more than he knew... for his thoughts were on... her. Eden II. He wished, strangely, that the water could have been orange juice at that moment, savoring that delicious morsel that hinted at so many possibilities in Eden II. He raised his glass into the air, symbolically to where ever Eden II was. "To Vi."
Scout raised his water, too. "To mother." Hawk, Tank, and Cypher looked at him. "Thought I'd join in." He smiled, but, deep down... something was eating at him. Something he didn't want to face again, that he had recently... He hoped neither Tank nor Hawk saw it. But, somehow, he felt they knew.
He simply couldn't bear, again, to look at another Christmas tree... not so soon after...
Tank is normally a man of few words to begin with, mostly. But, what he has to say generally hits the mark. "To Rose."
It was Hawk who voiced the question on all of his, Scout's, and Cypher's minds.
"Who?"
Tank smiled, almost hollowly laughing, as he pulled his lips from his cup. "Oh, someone I met once... in a place with a lot of books... Her name was Amanda. I liked her middle name better. Rose. I call her by that."
He paused for a moment, almost amused for a moment by some passing though. "Not many know of her; the story's rarely been told..." He thought back to one of those books. That good book he'd liked so much. All the nice things it had to teach on the way people should live. He knew better than to ask such things, but, with all the recent things that had transpired in his life, he found he couldn't help but ask. To himself, because he dared not utter the words aloud, just in case, "If you really exist, why did you have to take Jennifer from us..."
Jonathan was out sorting through several things. In his own way. By talking a walk through the Passages. He wanted to be alone, but, he wasn't entirely alone. However, in the area he walked through, few would give him a kind word, so, it was pretty easy to drown out their words. The ones he knew would be hurled his way when he went by. They were the, how shall it be put, lesser quality areas of the Passages. Darker, colder. They were the places were prisoners were most often kept. And it was by them that Power was passing on his trek, thinking. Thinking about himself, his actions, the loss of... and he finally came to admit to himself... Jennifer Chase. The woman he had loved. Who had tried to show him similar feelings through innuendo... and could only come to admit it openly herself... only when it was too late to do anything about it.
Thinking.
Thinking of blocking out all the voices tossing insults and Dread slogans at him...
And not entirely succeeding...
"Well, well. If it isn't the innocent, little boy."
Power spun around to face her, recognizing, with searing hurt THAT voice.
"Grow up any?" the Overunit who many people didn't even know was a plant, at one point in their lives, spat at the captain. Power stood grim faced, stare to stare with Christine Larrabee, who most knew better by her cover name, the one most knew she never even was...
Freedom One smiled at him, but, in disgust. She had heard of the rumors passing from the people who came by to check on them. The gossip that floated around as food was delivered. That the treacherous youth leader Chase had been terminated. And, she knew how much it cut Power to the core. But, maybe, she under-estimated a tad...
Power stood there, doing nothing but eying her vile smirk of pompous self-confidence for quite some time. He was about to step forward and do something with those teeth when a clattering behind him drew his attention. He turned to see an older man, in tattered clothes, pushing a tray along the corridor, following the path that he had taken. He started dispensing trays of food into the grabbing hands that stretched from the cells. Despite their loyalty to the superiority of the machine, flesh still had its needs, and selfishly wanted them met, regardless of the mind. Power approached.
The old man looked up, and immediately beamed at the familiar image that he'd heard descriptions of many times. "You're Captain Power, ain't ya?!"
"I am," was his simple, almost emotionless expression. He looked at the food trays, and almost seemed insulted, disgusted. "These killers get THIS much to eat?"
The old man was a bit taken aback, but answered the legend's query. "Well, it is New Year's. We give them a little something extra to show... well, that we ain't like them. We's better, ya see. That we can't go being worse than they if'n we wants to stays men, ya know?"
"Yes, I do," Jon answered, with an almost added "now," but refrained. "Let me help you with that." He took one food tray in each hand.
"Thank ye kindly!" the man perked up, grateful not only for the assistance, but by such an esteemed man as Captain Power. Power walked back to Freedom One and showed her and her cell mate the plates of food. Immediately, both females (It was unwise to keep male and female prisoners locked together in the same cells. Regardless of their philosophical beliefs, things are the way they still are...) shot their hands out between the bars, grasping for their allotment. Power handed Freedom One's cell mate a plate and watched as the other woman scurried away to a secure corner and ate. He waited until the other was finished, before...
Power turned and walked away with the food tray, taking bits of the comestibles off it, and devouring the food himself, making sure Freedom One could quite clearly see...
We all do those things we wish we didn't have to do. Likewise, we all do things we wish we hadn't done. And, though Jonathan Power felt some sense of satisfaction with his actions... he still felt a sense, equally, of disgust... with Freedom One... and himself.
The old man looked past the current cell he'd been distributing food to and to the next. It was the one he'd seen Captain Power walking to. He moved to the other end of his cart and began to push it back to get to the cells on the other end of the split cavern. After all, the great Captain Power had taken the food down there himself. There was no doubt that the job had been completed... totally...
Jon resumed his apparently directionless walk. Just wondering, thinking. When, he passed by an open room. One of many he'd passed during his having left Freedom One to go hungry. But, this one had something inside that distracted him. He stopped and retraced his steps back to that open door. Inside was what he had thought he'd seen, what had caught his attention. A checker board. And, upon which, chess pieces set up in a way as to indicate a game in progress.
It couldn't be... but, it made sense. After all, chess pieces. The Passages. He made his way into the room and sat down by the black's side. He studied the pieces in relationship to white's remaining army. He had played what seemed like an eternity ago. Well, he had had one game recently, but... He made the final mental calculations to predict the outcome of black's apparent gambit. He would have laughed, if not for how he was feeling as of late.
"Aggressive..." he finally breathed out. "It's the only way to win..." Absentmindedly at first, but with growing determination, Jon found his hand gripping his blaster and lifting it from its holster. He stared down at the weapon in his hands. A testament to his father's creative abilities. Solid mass made from stored energy. He ran his gaze along its golden contours. How many lives had he saved with that pistol? Innumerable. How many clickers did it bring down? Myriad. How ineffective, though, against Bio-Dreads. He recalled his first encounter with Blastaar, and how his first, almost Pavolvianly pre-programmed response to the creation, was to whip out his trusty weapon and blow it to pieces. How ineffective. How many lives that single weapon had changed. But, all of them for the better.
That was, until earlier. Yesterday. About how, for the first time, it almost took a human life. No, how HE almost... How if it had not been the hand of a friend, similar to the one holding his blaster to his temple, that he would have killed. Broken his solemn oath, his promise to his father, and the vow he made others take.
But, if he couldn't follow his own code of honor, how could he sit right with himself? He couldn't.
He couldn't... what? Sit right with himself... or follow his own code or honor?
It was that train of thought that led Jonathan Power to point the gun to his head.
He was worried of its coming. Within each of us lurks a monster. It's different for everyone. But, there's always something, some event, some loss that will trigger its release. And, if we cannot keep it caged, it will be loose. Power's personal monster was almost released when he so desperately wanted to kill that Overu-... that man. Jennifer "Pilot" Chase meant a lot to Jon, but could only come to terms with that by losing her. How often we never know what it is we truly have until its gone. And, with Pilot, his love, he was now losing his life.
First, symbolically. He was becoming more morose. More willing to be like his enemy to stop his enemy. Adopting that any means justifies the intended end. Even at the sacrifice of one's integrity. Even at the loss of other human lives. Even, friends... He thinks in shame of how he almost would have shot Matt who protested his actions. Just so he wouldn't have to deal with caging that monster. To let it loose, give in to its cooing in his mind's ear.
He feared he would. As he almost did... It was that monster's rationalizing arguments in his head that caused his hand to falter at the trigger. Shake the gun at his temple, to keep him from killing its host.
It had to be this way. If Jonathan Power couldn't resist his own monster, if he would kill, he would make sure it was only one life. One life for many...
It had to be done...
It was denied.
Her hand shot through the air and snatched the gun from Jon's grip. The action startled the young man, and he looked up to see a familiar face.
Many things were running through Athena Samuels's mind when she returned to her room and found her old friend, Jon. How happy it was to see him so unexpectedly. A sudden returning thought of Pilot and about how he must be feeling. Confusion at the object in Jon's hand. Panic at the fact that he was holding it to his head. Swift, decisive action when she added it all together.
As she stood there, trying to get her respiration back down to normal after the exertion and emotional shock, many more things were going through her head. Why was the obvious one. But why on the why? Jon lost both his mother and father, and he still found the resolve to fight. The death of friends, companions on the battlefield, she herself had even tried to kill him to spare him the torture of digitization, and still he didn't flinch. Could it have been so easily simple? That only one person could shake the mighty pillar known as Captain Power? Had he, the one who would have willingly agreed to be digitized just so that one other human being did not have to suffer alone, too, died along with Pilot?
After all of those thoughts, the next step: anger. "What the click do you think you're playing at?!" She shook the gun at him. "This, then, WAS the answer all along? What about your mighty words? That it IS better to live rather than die and escape life?! Is it only a one way street?! Fancy ideas for others, but only words for you!?" She tossed the gun aside for emphasis. "You call yourself a captain when your real title should be Pharisee!"
Several of the same things that had been running through Athena's mind also ran through Jon's. First, the usual questions, the usual shocks. Then, anger, too, welled up within him at the accusations.
"And, just what do you mean by that?!" he almost jumped on her, from his sitting position from the chess board.
"People trust in you, Jonny! They... I do! If you go and just take your life, up and end it all, it makes my sacrifices and pain and everyone else's less than useless! It makes them a joke! And, what's worse... you'd be showing the hypocrisy of your own words to me. That Dread would be right... that it would be better to die than to face the machines..."
At that, Power almost slapped his friend... almost. He remembered his thoughts about actions towards another friend, too. Hawk. And that restrained him. "Who are you to preach to me?! YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW THE REASONING BEHIND MY OWN ACTIONS?! I do! And... I don't... and, that's why I thought it had to be done... my life for many... before I get too far gone... before I end up... causing the death of someone else... again... I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!" The uncharacteristic mood swings worried Athena a bit. Jon, seeing that in her eyes, looked up from Athena and into the ceiling. "YOU HEAR THAT?! If I'm wrong, then TELL ME! IF YOU'RE ALL UP THERE! GOD! DAD!"
But, the darkness answered him not...
"...jennifer..."
At the mention of her name, as the implications, reasons, and impetus of his actions and recent events finally rolled over him like an unstoppable ocean current, Jon fell to the floor in something rarely expressed by Captain Power. Emotion. Displays of it, rather. He was always seen as the staunch leader, the beacon of hope and guidance when all else was Hell around them. But, he was just a man, like any other, and he finally had to admit it to others... what he always knew underneath...
For the first time, Captain Jonathan Power expressed, in spoken words, his feelings for Pilot to someone else. Athena heard and listened well, as strands of music started filtering in from down the hall.
Down that hall, another chorus of the perennial New Year's favorite, "Auld Lang Syne," was being started up. By Scout, naturally.
"Should old acquaintance be forgot, and the days of auld lang syne?"
Cypher. Scout. Tank. Hawk. The words, their meanings, the implications personally of those meanings to each. Pilot. She would never be forgotten, even unto the days of auld lang syne.
Four glasses, once again, were raised in the memory of one Jennifer "Pilot" Chase.
Down the hall, one man held tightly onto a friend, and someone who may have, at one time, been more than that. If only he could have seen if it was or if it wasn't. But, those times were past now. And, regardless, the friendship remains. As it almost always does.
"You've got to promise it to me," Power managed to stammer out.
"I do..." She didn't want to... but we all do those things we must, but may not want, to do. If she ever sees him going too far to save, she will deal with him if necessary. She didn't want to... but, she would... "I will..." She paused for a moment, trying to remember the exact words she had once heard; she couldn't. So, she did her best to encapsulate. "But, you've got to promise me something."
"What?"
"Hope. That you'll keep on hoping, as well as fighting. Hope is light when all around is darkness, warmth when the soul grows cold. For, if we lose that, on that day, Dread will have won."
Jon looked up, shocked, surprised... but mostly.. hurt... at the words. How ironic life works sometimes. Athena didn't mean to hurt him at all with them, of course... so, he said nothing.
But, she caught that look on his face.
"You remember the words, too, then?"
The color momentarily left Jon's cheeks. "Indeed, I do..." The soft, feminine voice of the Resistance. Broadcast for all who could receive her frequency. The words spoken often to keep up the good fight, and never give up hope. Designed to keep the fight going against Dread, no matter what.
The words of Freedom One, a Dread mole, designed to not only monitor Resistance movements from the inside, but also to provide false "hope" to keep people fighting in the face of impossible odds, only to grind them down later. Make their defeats that much worse. For the defeated and those still fighting on, as a symbol for those who would oppose the will of the machine.
Hence, the replacement of Freedom One with Freedom Two, Elzar Polarski, a real leader in the Resistance. To keep the words pure and the fighting spirit unsullied.
The secret of Freedom One "died" with her; Freedom Two said that his predecessor was simply no longer available. The decision was made by Resistance leaders to keep the real story of Freedom One under wraps. At least, until the end of the war. For moralization purposes.
To keep up the good fight. A convenient, even if unwilling, martyr.
Besides, who would believe some Overunit babbling away in a cell? After all, they were all liars and people who wanted other humans they didn't think as good as themselves dead. Who would believe one of them rotting away in one of the Passages' cells?
The secret of Freedom One "died" with the creation of Freedom Two.
"Freedom One was a great inspiration to us all," Athena said, with a bit of marvel in her voice. And, almost solemn reverence to her "sacrifice."
"And, she still is," Power added almost mindlessly, to keep up the illusion. Athena Samuels would never find out the secret of Freedom One from Jon... "And, so is Freedom Two..." And, she never did, from anybody...
"Some need for me guidance," Power continued after a short pause to recover from the latest of life's little ironic assaults of salt in his wounds. "People look up to me for hope. But, I'm only one! Just a man... who, right now, needs someone else..." Then, he remembered. Some familiar words. "Hold me, old friend... for now... just hold me..."
She remembered the words quite well. Athena wrapped her arms around her close friend, and, just did the simple thing of holding him when asked...
And, from down the hall, the singing drifted in again.
"For auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne! We'll take a cup of kindness yet for the sake of auld lang syne!"
Sometimes, it's just enough for the mere cup of kindness in times of auld lang syne, when we make those mistakes, have to own up to those things we wish weren't facts. But, unfortunately are.
We all do those things we wish we didn't have to do. We all do those things we wish we hadn't done. But, we do them anyway. Yet, for once, Jonathan Power was glad something he had wanted done wasn't. That Athena Samuels had stopped him from pulling that trigger. Because, people needed him. She needed him. He needed himself. Both the hero, and the man, even when both made mistakes.
Copyright 1998 David Minter - no unauthorised reproduction without author's express permission.