Post-Mortem
For Greg P., who taught me set my mind free from the past that haunted me.
The past may be hell, but the future is to be explored. And you just might find heaven.
Besides, we just gotta go where no man has gone before.
Thank you,
Riley
Welcome to the dawn of a new age, Admiral.
An age where MY destiny flourishes.
I walked about the abandoned warehouse, unsure what to make of the disturbances that were reported. Albeit, this was right next to a Borg camp that we’ve somehow manage to prevent from expanding, but the reports I’d received were… Different at best.
The clouds above the shattered skylights congregated about the sky, shrouding the warehouse and the rest of the desolate, ruined city in the middle of Wyoming in their condescending shadows of authority and raw power.
I simply walked about the warehouse, picking up small things here and there that I found useful. The metal of the decrepit storage facility groaned as mighty winds swept the city. As I continued wandering, I heard something skitter across the dust before me.
I was quick to draw my revolver, a silk black MP412 (Yes, weapons have come much further than gunpowder/projectile, but they work surprisingly well) that I customized myself with a small Dacter reflex sight, suppressor, laser pointer sight, and bullets that I fashioned with 20 pellets of birdshot. Looking down at where I heard the dust scatter, I find a simple rat, going about its business.
I debated silently whether to shoot it, as I was not one to trust anything and everything in this horrid, depressing hellhole of a wasteland caused by the Fourth World War and the Third Borg Incursion of Sector 001, the former still ravaging the continents of Earth and the latter barely won by the now obliterated United Federation of Planets.
I decide against shooting the animal, as I go on an “eye-for-an-eye” basis. I still kept my pistol in hand, though; better safe than sorry. As I dug out a small piece of dark gray scrap metal from a pile of rotted, moldy wood, I noticed that the groaning of the metal has been continuing for a lot longer than it should have despite the mighty winds. I decided to semi-briefly survey the warehouse, my Vulcan mind of logic kicking in. I let my Oculus, a small, yet effective glass/holograph visor that covered my left eye of a brutal wound I dared not reveal, emit a Thermal Pulse (It’s like thermal vision, only in a shockwave). It reaches to the walls, finding no abnormally high spikes or drops in temperature.
I’m suddenly startled by a monotone voice, sounding like mine only a tad deeper. But as I process the event, I could not help but surrender my spine to the chills that wished to ascend it.
“I knew someone would send your pitiful soul down here.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“How sad. Some people in this damned city think you’re a god. ‘The savior.’ But others like us see you as another pushover. An obstacle that we will not only destroy, but assimilate. Now, do us a favor…”
‘Us.’ The Borg have created some deranged copy of me! Doing the only thing I can at the moment, I close my eyes and open my mind to the auras around me.
I’m not a normal Vulcan. I was born with a gift. My mind is much, much more advanced than a standard Vulcan’s. I can sense the… The goings-on of others’ minds. What they feel. I am also diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, but that’s irrelevant at the moment. Considering that I’m facing the me from hell.
I can’t help but shudder again as the doppelgänger began his “favor” assertively in a monotone Borg voice I dread;
“Lower your weapon. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your being will adapt to service us.”
“Resistance is futile.”
Resistance is futile. I let that reverberate in my head as I’m reminded of the past. You see, I have a different perspective. Some yearn for the past. Some just ignore it.
But me? My past is the living hell that is now.
But again, irrelevant. I only have one phrase to sum up my current opinion of the situation; I’m royally screwed.
I continue opening my mind to the auras around me, and I’m suddenly overwhelmed, almost hurt by what is probably the most powerful aura I’ve ever felt from something out of the Collective. But I noticed something different; his mind was separated from the hive.
He was Locutus. The Queen had found a replacement. An artificial, demonic replacement that was designed to be the anti-Vice Admiral Cecelius Pixive Dmitri.
I slowly holster my revolver and ask as emotionlessly as humanly (and Vulcan-ly) possible,
“Who are you?”
“I am you. The you that should have been. The you that could not be Locutus of Borg. The you that would not give in to success. Power. Perfection.”
I was suddenly overwhelmed by an emotion that was beyond my knowledge, forcing me to shut my mind off from the outside, and the soul- or lack thereof- within it that would haunt my sleep for weeks to come. If I ever claim sleep after this encounter.
The soul that stood no more than 30 meters behind me.
I stood my ground. If there were a time where my personal vendetta with the Borg would hinder me, it’s now. I put the past aside, and decided to face my fear. I turn around, showing no emotion as a normal Vulcan would, and stared up at the being before me.
He- er, I mean it was wearing simple, gray clothing; Shirts, pants, shoes. The only visible implant was a small plate on the left eye, a red laser emitting from where the pupil would be. Its skin bore that cold, pale light turquoises that all assimilated drones do.
I decided that there would be only one outcome; Me or it. And I was gonna try my absolute bloody hardest to make sure that this disgrace of a Borg creation would cease its function.
I flipped a sheath at the side of my left leg outward, drawing an elegant blade carved out of tritanium I found from a downed shuttle. Smooth, curving indentations that flowed with the contours of the blade were engraved with emerald. This blade never ceased to fail me, and it sure as hell wouldn’t fail me now.
I hope.
He met my action with a similar one, drawing a much more straightforward broadsword out of a straight sheath on his back. He suddenly dives at me, and I quickly parry it. The sparks began to fly, as steel struck mighty steel in a clash of positronic strength. But I found myself being overwhelmed. His blade suddenly made mine retreat with each strike I blocked. His blade simply made mine bounce towards me whenever I tried to go offensive. I start making split-second decisions now, my first being to activate my first lifeline; Quantum Acceleration. My decision is suddenly interrupted, but not changed, as his blade suddenly struck my tritanium exoarmor with excruciating force. I suddenly find my uniform gone; he struck only of my holoemitters. My jet-black armor now exposed, I tap into my mental interface and trigger the Quantum Acceleration drive, lighting the contours of my armor with light-blue, glowing veins of pure quantum energy. I feel my energy emerge quickly, and suddenly the tables turn. My blows made his blade flinch; his parries were leaping towards him.
As the complex, and to be honest draining, fight continued, his complex patterns of attack began to surpass mine yet again. He was right, he is the me I could not be. I decide to make one last attempt to come back. By now, the sparks that ran desperately from the blades as they clashed provided the only solace from the cold storage facility that may soon be my grave. I lash out and send his blade backwards, the edge behind his back. I Reel my blade over my head to land my first blow, and he suddenly lunges.
He had pulled a charade.
His blade strikes mine. Sparks shower me, but this time, it’s different. My blade feels lighter all the sudden.
As I stagger backwards, I suddenly see, and hear why. I hear the edge of my blade dig itself into the ground several feet away. But I look at my hand, and can’t suppress the gasp of shock; the hilt and a very small portion of the blade were still in my hand.
The hellish being before me laughs maniacally, though briefly, and slams my wrist with the broad side of his blade. My hilt drops to the floor and I stagger back. He strikes me in the head twice, also with the flat of his sword, and I find myself on the dirt ground.
My head is ringing now. My vision is blurred. I hear heavy bootsteps crunching the dirt. Advancing towards me. My hearing is in flux. I can’t tell whether I’m deaf or hearing better than I normally do.
It laughs again.
But before I have a chance to groan, I am met with the most painful thing I’ve ever experienced.
His blade thrusts through my back. Metal tears as if it were paper. I feel my organs being grazed and sliced by the cruel razor of a weapon. It soon finds my chest, the armor proving again to be useless. The blade pierced the tritanium plating, then the ground below it. Unsettled dust soon stung the outside of the wound, compounding a brutal stinging to the insatiable rage that is the pain that coursed like blood throughout my body. The only difference is that blood escapes my now lifeless figure. The pain showed no sign of resentment.
The ground cracks below me, suddenly breaking to admit the colossal broadsword within it to retreat form the earth’s mighty grasp, which until now would have been the only thing able to stop it. I find the sword being slung behind his back, like a fisherman poised to cast his rod, only I’m the bait.
The lifeless, metal bait that he now lifts with demon-like ease. I can only watch through my horrendously blurred vision as I am hoisted upside-down behind the drone’s back, blood soon streaming down my back and dripping onto my face, the warm grasp being a dramatic contrast from my icy tritanium.
He suddenly hurls his blade forward, my limp corpse (or at least it felt like my corpse by this point) launching like a rag towards a box. I came to a conclusion that he purposefully aimed for that, because I learned the hard way that he does not miss. I slam into the box hard, finding myself inside it (a surprisingly perfect fit) as the crate tumbled.
It felt like an eternity before the crate came to a halt, tilting on a side before it slammed to the ground. The now looming figure walked with utmost confidence toward me, laughing ever so slightly.
“Welcome to the dawn of a new age, admiral!”
He emphasized Admiral mockingly…
He’s won… And he knows it…
“The age of the Borg. The age where MY destiny flourishes! The age of PERFECTION.”
He kicked the crate closed, and I hear my fate seal as an electronic lock triggered.
He gave my new, high-tech coffin one last kick, breaking the lock and sending it tumbling into what sounded like wood. A lot of it.
My ears start ringing. The pain in my chest and head is unfathomable.
The ringing is escalating. I can’t make out anything. Even though it’s pitch-black, I can still see my vision blurring intensely. But it soon is replaced by white. Slight at first, like a distant lamp. But it grows. Grows like an infection until it coats my vision.
And just like that…