of Sun-flyers circled and dove down into the icy waters of the sea for now there were great open places in the ice, and poking their head up from the gloomy depths were Depth-divers, leviathans that spent most of their long lives in the silent darkness of the ocean, endlessly waiting for the sun to gently call them to the surface and anointed their massive scaled heads with warmth.
“Okay let me get this straight” Friends voice was no longer sad now it was filled with curiosity, “you say that we are both some kind of projection made by someone or something that we don’t know for a purpose that we also don’t know is that right?”
“Correct”.
“And we were both in some kind of limbo and now we are here?”
“Again correct”.
“So we’re not human”.
“No”.
“Just great” Friend said throwing up his hands, “now what, we just sit here and wait for someone to find us?”
“I don’t think it is that simple” the old man said as he examined the dead man in the chair further, “this man here is humanoid that’s is clear to see, and from the looks of him I would surmise that he was an iatrical part of the surrounding machinery, and sense we are here it follows that we are part of the same master plan”.
“Oh sure” Friend said rolling his eyes, “everyone needs an old man to tell him things, you’re way wrong on your thinking pops”.
“Old age is far more than white hair, wrinkles, the feeling that it is too late and the game finished, that the stage belongs to the rising generations. The true evil is not the weakening of the body, but the indifference of the soul”.
“I rest my case!’ Friend said loudly to anyone that could hear.
“Do you have a better explanation of what has occurred?” the old man said as he sat down on a venting pipe and adjusted his robes.
The naked man did speak of some time and it was clear the he was having trouble coming up with a suitable answer, then with a wide grin he finally replied.
“Hell!” he said loudly.
“What do you mean?” the old man asked.
“Don’t you see, I’m dead and this is some kind of Hell and you’re here to torment me, yea that’s it, I’m in some kind of Hell and you’re, well you’re the devil”.
“You think that I am an evil spirit that rules Hades?”
“Sure, you don’t have horns and a pitchfork or things like that but you must be him, yeah, it all fits now, you put me here and now I’m in Hell”.
“We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.”
Friend rose up and began to look around the chamber again, “you know for a devil you sure talk weird”.
“I read a lot” the old man said.
The naked man sat himself down in front of the command chair and looked into the face of the dead man, “okay, if I’m dead and you’re the Devil and this is Hell who’s this guy?” pointing to the cadaver.
“I do have a theory but I prefer to wait until I have all the facts”.
Friend continued to stare at the dead man, he looked deep into the hollow codfish eyes and the thin lips with the golden wire that held them shut, he looked at the sharp cheekbones that jutted out through the parchment dried skin, he saw the wires penetrating the melon skull and the corrugated cable that was attached just behind the left ear and suddenly he was hit by a wave of remembrance, nothing certain, just a strange feeling of the past shaking hands with the present, it was like when you walk into room and suddenly you feel that you have been there before, Deja vu they call it.
“I think I know this guy” Friend said, “Yeah, I think I met him a long time ago, now where was that?” he tried to remember but every time he thought he had the answer it faded away like a mist in the hot sun, he got only flashes of recall, vague outlines of places and things, voices in the darkness, echoes of echo’s, gossamer, fragments, bits, “Oh I give up” he said putting up his hands, “this is Hell and that’s all there is to it”.
“For mortal men there is but one hell,” the old man said, “and that is the folly and wickedness and spite of his fellows; but once his life is over, there's an end to it: his annihilation is final and entire, of him nothing survives”.
“I don’t know” Friend said as he sat back and dropped his head, “I just want to know what he was?”
“He’s collateral damage jerk-head” a voice in the chamber suddenly said.
“What did you say?” Friend asked turning to the old man, but his companion shrugged his narrow shoulders and shook his heavy head, “Hello, is anybody there?” the naked man asked the empty air, “come out, come out wherever you are?” but there was no response, “okay, stay hidden if you’re afraid”.
Slowly a light began to grow in the room; it continued to expand until a figure replaced it.
“I’m never afraid asshole!” the image said.
It was another man, tall and strongly built with a scarred but somehow familiar face and angry eyes under a steel helmet, he wore armor plating over a tattered survival uniform and heavy combat boots, his right hand was large and meaty but he had no right, instead his appendage had been severed at the elbow and replaced by a weapon, a large pulse-rifle with laser sighting, like its owner it was also worn and damaged, it was easy to see that he was some kind of future soldier from some past war, he sat in the corner of the chamber like a cat waiting for his prey.
“Who are you?” Friend asked.
Slowly the soldier took a crumbled cigarette from a small pocket in his vest and lit it with a broken match, he took a long slow drag and blew out the smoke in a perfect circle, “who wants to know?” he replied.
The old man approached him slowly and looked him over from head to foot, “hummm a Mark-one fully operation combat enforcer equipped with a bio-mechanical multi-plane self-sitting short range phase rifle, very pleased to meet you” and then he held out his hand, but the soldier turned away and took another long drag on his cigarette and said nothing, “perhaps later then?” and then the robed man turned away.
Friend approached the smoking man carefully, “you said something a moment ago, what was it?”
The weary soldier blew out another smoke ring exactly like the first one, “I said he’s collateral damage jerk-wad, now did you hear that or should I talk LOUDER!”
“Collateral damage?”
“Of course” the warrior said, “I’ve been listening to you two lip-spout for a while now and I couldn’t stand it anymore, so here I am, you got a problem with that naked boy?” and he pointed his arm weapon at the man’s genitals.
Friend covered himself and moved back, “if you have been listening why didn’t you say something before?”
“A good soldier gathers intel before he makes his move, I was just waiting till the right tic-tocks that’s all, at first I thought you two were info-gatherers or something, you know checking out the terrain and all that, but then I realized that you guys were just two dumb-ass noncombatants that got caught up in the crossfire”.
“What crossfire?” Friend asked.
“Why the War of course, what’s the matter with you guys you been hit with brain-bugs?”
“What war?”
“What war? Why the Big-War, the war that’s been going on from the start of the past and the war that will be going on until the end of the future!”
“And you were a part of this war?” the old man asked.
“You bet I was grandpa” the soldier said proudly, “I was there when Kane killed his stupid brother, crushed his thick skull like an egg, I was there when the Babylonians rose up and slew all those that apposed them, I was there when Ramies the second lead his warriors and ground the Hittites into the dust, it was me who whispered in the ear of Alexander the Great to get a move on before all the good stuff was taken, and I stood beside Leonidas and died with him holding my brass shield at Thermopylae, it was I who screamed the loudest as Hannibal sack
ed eternal Rome of all her stolen glory, I was the one who drove the chariot of Boudicca as she led her warriors into Londinium, I rode beside Cortez when we kill a God, and I was the one who died last at the battle of Waterloo. I was the one who invented mustard gas and it was me who lit the fires in the gas chambers at Buchenwald, I dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, I burn the village in order to save it, I pushed the button that started the third world war, and the forth and the fifth, I did it all, I was the one who destroyed the earth, I was the one who exterminated mankind, I did it all, I DID IT!”
For a long time no one in the control room said a word, then it was Friend who spoke first, “there all gone, all of humanity?”
“Yep” the soldier said without emotion, “Kaput, every last one of them, and good ridden if you ask me”.
“Why would you say such a thing?” the naked man asked.
“I’ll tell you why” the warrior said standing up and slowly moving around the dead man in the chair, “what the hell did they ever accomplish anyway huh? A few buildings, a statue here and there a few books that nobody understood and that’s about it, the rest was raping the land and seeing how many toys they could collect, graffiti and nonsense that’s all, trash ready for times junkyard, oh and I almost forgot, they screwed their brains out, and now they’re all like this guy!” he lifted his weapon to the dead man’s face, “dead and gone, no more misery, no more pain, no more”.
“They weren’t all bad” the naked man said after