The Last Hunter

In the dancing glow of flickering alarms he came forward, smile glinting ivory in the flashing lights. His eyes, hidden in shadow, were pits of blackest infinity, where no soul lurked, long burned away by the passions of a befouled heart. Above him, the sky splintered, the shards of reflected infinity spinning down to wreak havoc in the cityscape below. All around them, the screams were raised into the heavens as mortal lives were brutally ripped apart by the crashing crystal.

Darman pursued his prey, untouched by the shouts and screams of the dying city. The bomb had done its work well. The habitat was dying. First the crystalline shells of the sky dome, and then the Quath-steel of the guard shell itself, letting in all the killing darkness of the void. All around him the people screamed and howled as the hand of Satan himself closed about their souls. Sodom was falling once again, and the damned were screaming their pleas into the deaf ear of an uncaring God.

And Darman didn't care,

He had orchestrated this, brought it about. Destroyed the polished sheen of created reality, just so he could lay his hand on this one squirming worm, this one enemy of the legion. This cringing piece of dying meat. Darman's hands were stained with his blood, but life still beat in his prey. His eyes, still wide and staring into the pits of Darman's soul. Still taking squealing breath after breath in the rapidly corrupting atmosphere of Hiroshima III.

Darman peered at his prey, cringing back against the wall, and stopped a moment to savor the sweet taste of his fear, as he fully realized his fate and what was happening around him. His name was Alexandru Danov, a Slav/Russian/Serbian/Elcionist who had come to Hiro III searching for Darman, to make the immortal pay for crimes of a distant past. For crimes no longer even considered illegal.

Little Danov who had come searching for the boogeyman on a distant sun when he could no longer find it under his own bed. What secrets had they whispered to you little Danov, to make you throw yourself out into the void? Promises of that ancient enemy religion? A faith that none except the hunted now maintained. It was unfashionable to pray to illiterate non-chrome wasn't it? All the ancient mutterings in cloistered chapels, within halls of marble, piles of burning wood, all worthless now little Alexandru. Unfashionable now. The inquisitions of the ancient past wrote their own death in the sand when they destroyed so many of us. Without the devil to believe in, what need have you of a God to protect you? Particularly when Death was no longer common, but an event occurring once a century among billions? And why not?

With the infallible super intelligences of the core worlds planning every step to the thousandth prediction before ever human life might be risked? With every detail of life checked and counter checked a thousand thousand times every millisecond? No disruptions that can't be handled now, no part of the human mind and soul that cannot be instantly replaced, made better. Humanity is a race of machines now, creeping mechanicals with bioplasm for blood and a computer for a soul. Of little use to their ancient predators.

So we come here, in the outlands, where the outcasts mine their floating rocks, and ply their ancient trades. The wildermen they are called on Prime, reckless fools who cling to old beliefs, old hatreds, old pride. And here we dance out little dance still, acting out our own little dance among the crystal cathedrals of distant Beta Cygnus. Predators and prey, lambs and lions. But not all lambs are harmless, are they little Alexandru?

Some grow a pair of horns and call themselves defenders, and some of those, mad with the taste of too much grass no doubt, call themselves hunters. But what are they really little Alexandru? Just fools, as so many of you are. Just fools squealing impotent rage and feeding off the bile of their own incompetence. Except for you sweet Alexandru, my darling.

You were lucky. Clever too, but mostly lucky I think. And Christopher....Christopher had grown clumsy. Not very, you can't be clumsy when the world is your enemy, and while that's no longer true in this time of sanitized perfection, old habits die hard. I still find myself cringing in the sudden glow of the morning lamps, though they do me no harm. And whenever I feed, I tense whenever I hear the approaching tread of unwary feet. But even the wilderman's eyes are blind to me now, poor fattened cows. But instinct, bred in the depths of an age most of them can't begin to conceive of, dies hard, and I find its voice sweet, though meaningless. An artifact of an earlier time, it eases the soul.

Poor Christopher. Sleeping capsule shattered by a drill probe, paralyzed by ultraviolet lamps that froze his heart and burned his flesh, peering up at you little Alexandru from his boiling face and cried a hate that I could hear half a solar system away. And then you killed him. Where you found the wood I can't imagine, the trees of ancient earth are well guarded treasures and to extract such an artifact as you left impaled in poor Christopher must have cost much in bribes and smuggling expense. But you got him. First victory of the children of Adam in more centuries than even I can remember. I appreciate that.

But I cannot tolerate it.

And above, the screams and shouts continue as nearly a million lives wink out, as they are carried out screaming into the void to become exploded shells, dancing statues of pain and horror in the emptiness beyond. Others, lucky enough to find shelter will soon realize that there is no shelter from the wrath of the wronged. They will be discovering soon that the power generators are damaged as well, yes, and the backups as well, and the backups backups, ad infinitum. Disrupting the safeguards of this new pacified age is enough to try even my patience. To kill these new beings requires the skill of a surgeon and the genius of a Michelangelo, the sheep guard their lives well in plastic shells and have sealed their souls in vaults of steel.

But there is no life now, all around the dead crash to the floors of their tombs. One by one the lights they have painfully constructed over a hundred years wink out, and they tumble to the floors of their habitats like falling trees.

"I have created Necropolis for you my little Alexandru. A city of the dead, and all of it comes back to you. Little hunter.".

Danov's eyes go wide as he heard the quiet words of his doom, barely made out in the rapidly decompressing air around him. Already he feels his skin tighten on his frame, his eyes begin to ache, and sudden stream of blood bursts forth from his nose. But he does nothing. The eyes of the predator holds him still.

Danov moves closer. Still whispering, still making himself heard over the death of the city around them. 'No Alexandru, you shall not die of decompression, you shall live. If you care to call it life....'

Alexandru's eyes widen as Darman approaches and reaches out with albino skinned hands to gently grasp his shoulder in a grip of iron. Even if he was not made immobile by his own dying weakness, there would be no escape.

"Nyet..", he muttered through bleeding lips, eyes wide and staring into the dead face which hung low over him. A killing moon.

"An eye for an eye, my child. A tooth for a tooth. A life for a life. This is your baptism little Alexandru.", Darman whispered to him, glancing around at the dying city. "We have children so seldom nowadays. It requires a celebration, and I have provided it. You should be honored....."

"Nyet...no...I...Father help me! Please.."

"Silence little one. You have the life of the universe to speak after this one drink."

And around the two huddled figures, the city died.