Chapter 4

Julian Bless

"You okay?" Julian Bless studied Citizen.

She's different, changed, perhaps, or evolving.

Brown, knee-high boots covered her feet and shins, and she wore a gray top with ribbon-tied sleeves. Leather ran through the eyelets of her top. Less than twenty-four hours ago, he thought this girl was just another refugee from the wasteland.

He was suspicious of her, just like any other new member. Then once they began fighting the horde of Trolls, he thought she was an incredibly gifted fighter. But now, he was almost positive she was a Sythy.

This was the third time he had formed an opinion about her today.

No one can jump and move like that.At least, not the way she did without genetic enhancers and flexor cables.Was she a Sythy?Almost certain. Could he trust her?That was still to be determined.

"There they are." Bless settled down on the rock beside Citizen.

They had a good view overlooking the burning buildings and what remained of the village. Citizen had probably been studying them with her IR or night vision already. If she was a Sythy, she was doing a damn good job of blending in.

Sid trotted up and laid next to him.

"Yeah, I see them." Citizen rested belly-down on top of the rocky slab.

Inches from her, he studied her up close. Her ribs and upper body moved with each steady inhalation. If it was simulated, she did a damn good job of mimicking breathing.

Bless peered through his night-vision goggles. There was a whole herd, all right. He performed an initial count of the Trolls. "There's at least forty of them."

Countless dead bodies were scattered around the walking horde. Some of the Trolls sat on their haunches eating human remains.

"And there'll be more by nightfall." Bless sighed.

He and his men had responded too late, and a reactive stance did nothing to protect this village. His heart ached. He wanted to save everyone. Bless and his followers could only do so much. But this was unacceptable.

"What now?" Citizen rolled onto her side.

"We gotta move out."

She only nodded in response.

The Trolls were using the infected humans to collect the dead bodies.

"Looks like they're using scabbies as slave labor." It would be dark soon. They didn't have much time, and they definitely didn't have the manpower to launch an assault as he had initially planned.

"How many do you think are really down there?" Citizen turned her gaze to the horde once more.

Julian squinted into his binos. "There are usually about double the number below ground. Team Two said they got a good fifty or sixty on the other side of the village. So, we're looking at around two hundred, more or less."

"Two hundred of those things would tear through New Therian." Citizen stared into the distance as if she could see the township from there.

"Why'd you go with the skulls?" Bless' arm brushed hers.

"What?"

"The skull designs on those daggers of yours?"

"I found them," she said. "I like the skulls. They remind me of death. That we can die at any time." She paused a moment. "Why the katana?"

Bless shrugged. He didn't want to tell that story. "Practicality. It's the most effective."

Interesting.He took a deep breath of the early evening air. She's trying way too hard to be human. And she's trying to change the subject.

Julian knew what he had to ask, and now was as good of a time as any. "Are you a Ronin, or did the Federation send you?"

Her head whipped towards him. "What?"

He stared into his binos like the question was completely normal, then turned to her.

"You're obviously a Syth-L." Julian lowered the binos. "But I think you're a Ronin." He pauses a moment, formulating his next words. "If the Federation sent you, you'd have killed me already."

Her red hair perfectly framed her face. Her golden-yellow eyes focused on him.

The sensitive lenses were probably recording every micro-expression and every slight change in the color of his skin for clues to help identify his emotions. Her eyes narrowed, but she remained silent.

She's a most curious distraction,he mused.These new model Syth-Ls looked more lifelike than before.

He knew Sythys had human organs, but he couldn't tell if her eyes were natural or not. It was as if she was hungry. He saw the same look on the people's faces who followed him.

They came to him for answers. They came hungry. And he provided sustenance.

But how could this Syth-L crave the same kinds of answers?There was something special about her.

"I had my suspicions," said Bless, "but when that Troll didn't bite through your arm, I knew. I've seen them bite off too many of my people's limbs."

"So, you've seen them before, many times?" She avoided answering his question.

"Yes, and I don't think they have come across a Syth-L before."

"Why do you say that?"

"When that one bit you and stopped attacking, it was talking to the others. We have no way of understanding their speech, but it looked like they were in awe of you. Almost as if they were, well, worshipping you."

"That would make sense." She gazed out into the early evening twilight. "A primitive life form coming in contact with something exponentially advanced would be difficult to understand. Life forms often attribute spiritual qualities to things they don't understand."

Bless nodded. "They crave human flesh. And to come across something that looks human but clearly is superior like you would certainly cause them not to want to harm you. They would want to keep you, worship you, maybe even study you."

"So, I would be like their god." A smile rolled across her lips.

"Yeah, but they don't treat things like normal humans. They'd likely tear you apart, piece by piece, and then hang the little bits from their poles."

"Maybe being their god isn't such a good idea after all."

"Nothing about them is good." Bless adjusted the sword on his belt.

"Why does the Federation want you dead or alive?" Her question hit him like a slap in the face. "I am aware of the threat your group poses to New Therian leadership, but the amount of resources they've put into finding you indicates you have a much higher value."

Bless ran a hand through his mess of thick hair.Value? What an interesting way to look at it.

"I was the youngest member of the Microbiology Task Force."

The Sythy cocked her head to the side. "TheMicrobiology Task Force? As in, the Federation program that lost the virus?"

"Not only did we release the virus, but we also created it."

She leaned back and nodded, taking in those words. "I see."

"Once the virus results escaped and the program was shut down, they wiped away all knowledge of the project. They kept us under watch. My whole family was under surveillance, and they monitored all our codes and programs. It was like being under a microscope." Bless recalled those awful, fear-filled days.

"How did you end up out here?" Again, she expressed a most unusual need to understand, along with an unwavering curiosity.

Bless took in a breath, then let it out with a hearty sigh. He didn't want to drudge up the old feelings again.

But this Sythy was responding to honesty. So, he had to keep going.

"I broke ranks. I was the whistleblower. We eventually made a plan to leave. It took a while, but I escaped. Thanks to all my credits and some friends I knew in the academy, I made it to the Autonomous Zone. I've beenpersona non-gratato the Federation ever since."

"They've been trying to kill you?" A flicker of emotion swirled in her eyes.

"Yes." Julian nodded. "The only way to survive was to get off the grid. It's my mission to inform the people, so everyone will know the truth of what happened."

"And what is that truth?"

"The Federation thinks they can control everything. Even life through genetic manipulation."

"And what they can't manipulate, they extinguish."

"Exactly, but I cannot infiltrate New Therian without numbers. Now, with Elysium, I have a chance. And you?Ó He faced her. "You're perfect for Elysium. You have the compassion to help others."

"No, I don't. Compassion is an emotion."

"Compassion may be an emotion, but it is also knowledge."

She paused for a long time after that one. "Who else?" Her eyes held a curious expression, demanding an answer.

"What?" Julian asked.

"You said, we," said Citizen. "They were tracking your family too. What happened to them?"

Julian's face burned. "Not that."He couldn't talk about that. "Not now." Avoiding the question, he gazed out into the darkness.

He pursed his lips together, trying to squeeze away the pain. He let out a slow breath of air.

Breathe, just breathe. Don't think about that day.

Julian focused on his breathing, stuffing the pain and anger deeper into his chest. He reached down and took a drink from his hydro-pack.

Relax. Relax. Change the subject."We have to tell the others about this herd." He got up.

"You are not answering the question."

The Sythy still had a lot to learn about emotion. It was apparent she didn't want to go there.

Bless gritted his teeth. His hands clenched, and he started to sweat.

Just breathe. One breath at a time.He would not talk about it.She didn't need to know, just like everyone else.

"Why do you think I left?" He ran his hands through his thick hair. "Don't ask me about my family again."

"I do not understand. Your heart rate has doubled," said Citizen. "My sensors indicate your expression of anger is hiding an emotion of fear. And there's a 73% chance you're feeling sorrow right now. But you do not show it."

"You are a Sythy, then?" Bless grinned.

She looked at him. "Yes."

Julian looked away. "Humans are complicated."

"I have the latest approved field version of micro-expression interpretation available, and I still do not see a preponderance of evidence that you're deceitful. But all other indicators reveal you have conflicted emotions."

"I believe the people should be told the truth."

"Are you telling me the truth?"

"All of your high-tech sensors and software can't tell you if I'm lying?"

"None of them read a hundred percent."

"Well, we humans rarely feel something that's a hundred percent, so you may be more human than you think."

Julian rubbed his weary eyes, then took in a deep breath.

His temples throbbed in pain. He had been getting less and less sleep these past few days.

"I no longer believe man was supposed to be in charge of human evolution. It didn't work. It will never work. Life isn't an algebraic problem that is waiting to be solved. Some things are meant to be mysterious, and others, we were never meant to learn or understand."

"If I'm from the Federation, why not just have your men or your dog kill me?" Citizen pointed at the bot.

Sid's gears buzzed. He tilted his head, and one ear lifted.

"Well, I have no reason to kill you yet. For whatever reason, you found us. And you are worth a hundred fighting men. And besides, if I told anyone else, even I wouldn't be able to stop them."

"Stop them from what?"

"Disassembling you," Julian whispered. "If Elysium knew you were a Sythy, they would turn on you. The level of tech you possess in your body would be enough to hack into the Federation system and infiltrate them from the inside. Your body alone contains ten times the data we've fought five years to discover. And your tech would give us a fighting chance to overthrow the Federation and win this war."

"So, the Trolls want to disassemble me, and now, your people also want to rip me apart?" She looked away. "I think your people would have a hard time containing me."

Julian nodded. "We would lose a few, that's for sure. But remember, we're not a group of individual people. We are Elysium. We work together. We fight together."

"And you would all die together, Snowball."

Bless laughed. "You said that wrong."

"What."

"Snowball." He chuckled again. "Correct use would be, ÔYou have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding.'"

"Perhaps, but I prefer to call you Snowball - an anomaly of sorts." She paused a moment. "And to your point, Julian Bless, you and your Elysium followers have a snowball's chance in hell of taking me down."

"You are strong, no doubt, but enough bodies can eventually overpower even the strongest carbon-fiber muscles."

"So, why don't you kill me now?"

Julian looked through his binos again, watching the Trolls chain up another infected human. "I believe you are here to help us."

"And what if you're mistaken?"

"I hope I'm not." Julian shrugged. "That's what faith is all about. Call it a gut instinct. Although, I doubt your programming has reference points for human concepts like faith, belief, and hope. Unless you have some super-advanced emotion chip that I'm not aware of."

"So, faith is the same as hope?" Her tone changed.

He was right about her. She seemed curious about humanity.

"Kind of, but not really," said Julian. "Faith requires one to believe in that which an individual cannot see."

"How can hope be kind of like faith, but not really?" Her brows furrowed in confusion.

"Now, that's funny." A chuckle passed his lips.

"I do not understand."

"Exactly."But you want to, he thought.

How could he get a computer to understand the complexities of the human condition that humans themselves struggled to grasp?

"They are similar, and their meanings do crossover, but at the core of their guts, they're not the same. Think of a Venn diagram - where parts of two circles overlap, yet they remain independent circles."

"I understand the definitions," the Syth-L said. "But they are still separate. How do humans overlap, as you say - or define?"

Honesty is what made Elysium what it is - what it shall always be.So, how does he now explain this to a non-fleshy?

"Well, to be honest, we humans don't really understand it. We just know it. We feel it in here." He tapped his chest where his heart was.

She's probably struggling to differentiate between the concept of the heart as a soul and the physical muscle.The thought made him chuckle.

Citizen looked as if she was still processing the information.

"What else do you know about these Trolls?" Citizen turned back to look toward their prey. Her computing brain went back to logic, solving the next highest priority problem. It was always tricky talking with a Sythy.

"We've had a theory that it was inbreeding. But I don't think it stops there." Julian cleared this throat, then took another sip of water.

"What do you mean?"

"We raided an outpost about six months ago. It was a safe house for Federation Patrols. There was one unit that was still transmitting when we broke the door down. I hacked in and stopped the decontamination before they destroyed the entire datapad. We extracted a gold mine of info. It took us a while to sort it all out."

"And?"

"Some of it we can never use, but there was one beneficial file. It talked about Project Goldfish."

"Goldfish?" Her brows arched into bows over her almond-shaped eyes.

"The file was incomplete, of course. But it described a secret genetic testing lab. We still don't know the location of this facility, but we do know they were doing DNA enhancements of Gollums, specifically."

"Only Gollum DNA?"

"Yes. The report said the strands were more stable than anticipated but that all test subjects failed."

"Failed to do what?"

"We don't know. That's still a mystery," replied Julian. "Our best guess, with putting all the pieces together, it was some kind of roadmap to reverse-engineer the Gollum DNA. But since the subjects failed, we believe this to mean they mutated."

"Mutated into the Trolls?"

"That's right." A yawn escaped his lips.

"Do you still have this data?" Citizen held his gaze. "Can I see it?"

"Why would you want to see it?"

Citizen stared off into the darkness again. "Perhaps I can fill in some of the missing pieces."

Julian stared at her. "I never met a Sythy that didn't go by her serial number."

She stood and dusted off her pants, then turned away.

Julian sprung to his feet. He grabbed her arm, spinning her to face him. "Why are you here?"

She hesitated. "My story is complicated."

"As is mine." Bless swung his arm in the direction of the rest of the party behind them. "So are all of ours."

"I cannot reveal why I am here. But I can say I am not here to hurt you."

"Then, if the Federation sent you, what keeps me from alerting everyone else?"

"I am here to help," she said.

He didn't completely believe her. Why would a Federation Sythy be here and not kill him?

She stared back at him for a long time. "My name is Citizen Hill."

"Citizen Hill? Like the township?"

"That's where I was born," said Citizen. "You fleshys are named after your parents, correct? Well, my parents were from a secret facility. A lab in Citizen Hill." She walked off.

Bless headed back to the group. Sid remained by his side. The bot's metal claws clicked on the rocks.

I don't recall any Sythys giving themselves a name before.

He set out to find the three seniors - Clark, Dunlam, and Dester - who made up the rest of the advance party.

Citizen Hill was away from the group but walked towards them once their voices met her ear.

"There's more." Bless kept his eye on her general location. "There's many more. Team Two said they're attacking towns all over the outskirts. This large herd is headed straight toward New Therian, and they're destroying everything in their path. They could reach the city in as early as two days."

"How big is the herd?" Citizen approached and took a seat on a burnt stump of a tree.

"Two hundred." Bless turned his attention on her. "Maybe more."

Dester walked up, holding a makeshift spear. "We shouldn't talk here." He motioned his chin toward Citizen.

"She's fine." Bless waved off Dester's words of caution. "We can trust her. She saved my life. And she's good in a fight."

Dester glared at Citizen. "She's an unknown in the equation."

She looked back at Bless. "What happens when that herd reaches New Therian?"

"Nothing good, I'm sure." Bless shook his head.

"We must warn them," said Citizen. "They'll be defenseless."

"No." Master Clark raised a hand, then said, "We don't have to do anything because they . . ."

"No. We do have to." The ghosts of Bless' past echoed through his mind. "The formidable obstacle they'd pose to the Federation Leadership isn't worth the many innocents who would die." He adjusted the katana hanging at his hip. "Let's clean up. We move out at first light."