Drake left the three behind and they all went their separate ways after going to the edge of the city. Drake went back to the hospital his father worked at, where he lived. His father was married to his job and worked constantly, so his father building a bedroom for himself and his son seemed like a good idea, but it turned out to only blur the lines between work and rest.
He loved and resented his father at the same time. For a majority of his life he always thought he never had a mother, and that he was a test tube baby. It was only a few years ago when he found out he actually had a mother, but she was dead. A year after that, his father admitted that his mother wasn't dead, he was done with his constant lying. He thought about her constantly as of late, wondering why Father never told him about her before. Was it to protect him? Why did it take his suppressed demon side taking over for him to tell the truth?
He entered the building, paying no mind to Jack, who was behind the front desk this time. He went over to where Elaine's room was. He still felt remnants of his mother's essence lingering in the air.
"I knew you would come back here." His father's voice was right behind him. There was no fear or dissatisfaction in his voice when he spoke.
He jumped, and spun around. His father, Dr. Gage, had his hands behind his back, and had a grin on his face. His father's sudden change of mood from distant to loving unnerved him. His father had been lost in his work for months, which meant little or no time for him.
"W-what is it? What's got you so happy?" Drake said with an awkward laugh.
His father took a hand out from behind his back. What he saw in his hands froze him in place. It was a device that had metal shaped to fit around the back of someone's neck, in the middle of it there was a metal protrusion covered in many different colored wires that went outward. He knew exactly what this was. It was a device that connected straight to his mother's mainframe.
"You… How?" Drake said breathlessly, unconsciously reaching towards it.
"I thought this would calm you down, I know how much she means to you. She gave me this before she left." His father held up the contraption.
Drake walked over, his heartbeat in his ears. He felt full of energy and tired at the same time, a flash of sickly warmth cascaded through his body. He reached out to touch it, but then he remembered gaining control of his body again with his hands covered in blood. He remembered the other half of him that was locked away, the one he cannibalized. He pulled his hands away. Thinking of Marissa, and how his other side had murdered her.
He could never forgive himself for what happened to Marissa. It was years ago, but every time he remembered it still felt recent. It may not have been completely himself, but it was still his body. Her blood was still on his hands. Waking up to find that the one he loved was gone was physically painful, like dying all over again. He could still remember looking at her as she stared out over the balcony at the Weather Center. It was the highest place in Lyserge, and he would go there with her to just hang out. He remembered her smile, her laugh. He felt like his heart was going to collapse in on itself from the pain.
"Will… Will he be there? The other me?" Drake asked while he clenched his hands into fists.
"Haven't you ever wanted to talk freely with him? Have you never had any questions to ask him?" His father lowered his hands a bit.
"I've only ever talked to him about five times. Seeing myself in him was disgusting. I couldn't take it anymore, all the innocent people he's killed. You know I had to do it. It was a mistake to give him his own body." Drake scowled, his gloved claws putting stabbing pressure on his palms.
He hated his demon side, the one he named Glitch. He knew that Glitch was an extreme misanthrope, to the point of killing people just to remove them from existence, at least that's what he thought. He only had second-hand accounts of what Glitch would do when his body was under Glitch's control. He attacked his own father, killed countless innocent people, including Marissa.
He didn't talk to him much after they got separate bodies, because even being in the same room with him made him sick. Letting a psychopath have a superpowered android body was the worst idea. Glitch easily broke out and escaped into the city. The only thing he could do to rectify the situation was to kill him. He gave the bastard a few close calls, but eventually he did it, he finally got revenge.
"He's going away soon. You only have a finite amount of time before he's completely gone. He can't hurt you anymore, either. You can talk to him without fear now," he said and held the machine up again.
His hands relaxed, his fear of facing Glitch subsided. He needed her. So, so badly. He'd do just about anything to get closer to his mother. Why would he let his other self get in the way? He had to face the much more unsavory part of himself if he was going to get to know his mother better.
He reached out for it again, taking it into his hands this time. He stared at it. Thinking of what it would be like to live inside his mother's brain. He almost dropped it, then fumbled it as his hands shook.
"Are you… Are you sure I can take this?" Drake said.
"Yes, I'm sure," his father said as he lowered his arms to his sides.
His breathing became quicker, he clutched the device in his right hand, turned around and ran to his room. Bolting through the hallways, although he felt completely out of energy, he kept going. The rooms zoomed past him as he ran, and he gripped the contraption in his hand tightly, so it wouldn't fall out of his grasp.
He reached his room, and stopped in his tracks, slouching over and putting his hands on his knees. While he tried to catch his breath, he brought the hand that held the device up, and looked at it. A drop of sweat escaped his face and hit the glossy metal.
This was it, he was finally going to be as close to Mother as he could possibly be. He rose up and opened the door to his room. On the plain white countertop sat an unfinished pair of augmented reality glasses he was working on earlier. He had been trying to make them look like regular glasses, using some recent technology. He was getting close, but he was working with flimsy material, and wanted material that was less prone to breaking.
He walked over and laid down on his bed, the green bedding below him rustling slightly. He looked at the device, and on the back of it there was an arrow at the top end of the protrusion where it said to turn it. He put it onto the back of his neck, and turned the contraption. His vision went black and he felt an electric shock from the device go into and through his body.
He instantly felt her presence, and the feeling of the soft bed below him was exchanged with the feeling of wood. He opened his eyes, and found himself on a wooden platform held up by chains that was lowering itself down. He sensed who he feared would be there, his other self. He hoisted himself up by his arm, and looked over to the other edge of the platform.
There he was, Glitch. Staring back at him with red colored eyes. His Fallen mouth was showing, making his visage even more menacing. Glitch scratched at the stitches holding together his patched together skin; some were a raw pink, some were a sickly green, and some were a deathly blue, the rest were normal but all different variants of lighter pigments. Glitch's right arm was missing, all that was left was a stump covered in patched together skin like the rest of him.
He stood up slowly, not saying a word. Menacing stares didn't phase him. He looked to the nearest wall, which was behind him. Protruding halfway out of the wall was a giant version of what his mother would have looked like if she was still human. She was covered in raw flesh, as was the rest of the wall. Various tubes, pipes and wires were connected to this giant version of her. All of them threaded out of sight. He remembered this place, this was where he went the first time he died.
"You motherfucker," Glitch said with vitriol in his voice.
"What took you so long to respond, you murderer?" Drake retorted, clenching his hands into fists again.
"Thought I could at least let you get your bearings again before I start explaining why what you did was fucked up." Glitch looked away from him and the wall as he rolled his eyes.
"Fucked up? And murdering Marissa wasn't?" Drake said through his teeth as he clenched his jaw shut.
"That's something entirely different, and you know that. I am a product of your father's want to keep you from being ostracized, taking that shit out on me instead of him isn't exactly fair. I didn't ask to exist. Never wanted to." Glitch looked back at Drake and held up his hand.
"Why did you do it? Why did you kill her?" Drake relaxed his jaw enough so the words he said would get through his teeth.
He almost choked up as he tried to get those words out of his mouth. He never asked Glitch why he killed Marissa, since it was such a touchy subject. Too afraid to ask Glitch in fear of him mocking him over her death.
"You know I had to do it. She was too pure for this world. I loved her too, you know. You could have asked me how I felt about her. But you never did. All you thought about was yourself, your loss. Not mine. You never once asked me how I felt. I'm not a cold unfeeling robot, I have emotions like anybody else in this god forsaken existence," Glitch said, tears pooling slowly under his eyes.
"I don't get it, if you really loved her, wouldn't you have wanted to spend more time with her?" Drake asked, confused because of the mixed signals he was getting from Glitch.
"I didn't want her to suffer. Existence is suffering, Drake. Why do you think I killed? Because I enjoy it? No, it's because I was freeing them. She needed saving the most, I couldn't stand seeing her suffer any longer. That world ruined her, turned her cynical. And yet she still tried. Tried to help me. Tried to save me, in her own way. But there's no real escape from suffering besides death." Glitch put his only hand up to his face to hide his tears.
"If the world didn't have suffering, there would be no meaning to happiness! The specter of death and the existence of suffering and pain is what gives life meaning! If nobody died and nobody got hurt, what kind of life would that be? It would be meaningless!" Drake shouted.
"Isn't that what humans call Heaven?" Glitch retorted as he took his hand away from his face, which was wet with tears.
"That's… Heaven and life is supposed to be different for a reason," Drake said, now unsure about what he was saying before.
"Don't try to backpedal with me, if I was any different from what I am now, I probably wouldn't be like this. I was pulled, kicking and screaming into life. My mission was to end all the suffering and let God sort them out. I didn't destroy your body because I still had work to do," Glitch said as he put his hand to the side of his head.
"What about Mother? She can't die, remember?" Drake asked as he tried to get the upper hand in the argument.
"I know that, I knew from the start I couldn't save her, and that's what hurt me the most. It's too late now, anyways. Soon I'll be gone, and your race can continue its endless cycle of suffering. You win. Are you happy now? Does this satisfy you?" Glitch said with a shaky voice, tears ran down his face a second time.
"I… It didn't make me happy. I wasn't seeking to be satisfied, I was protecting people from you," Drake said
"Liar, as soon as I was reintroduced to your body I felt the rush of satisfaction you had in what you did. I may not be able to control your body anymore but I can still feel your emotions. You wanted revenge, I get it. Since you think life still has meaning, me taking her away from both of us was a perceived slight against you. You wanted revenge. Why then, did you not chase after me immediately after I broke out when I got my own body? Was it because you questioned yourself? Maybe you knew, deep down, that I'm right," Glitch said as he covered the stump where his arm once was.
"I only felt that because I hated you, not because I wanted revenge," Drake retorted.
"Hated? As in, past tense? Is it different now, now that you know where I'm coming from?" Glitch said as he wiped his face dry.
"Maybe I don't hate you now, just resent you. But nothing will ever make us friends," Drake said angrily.
"It doesn't matter now, anyways. I'm already starting to lose parts of myself. Soon, there won't be anything left." Glitch said with sadness in his voice, his hand trailing back to the stump where his arm was again.
"Is that why your arm is gone?" Drake asked as he folded his arms.
"Yeah. By the way, we're almost there." Glitch said, raising his hand away from the wall.
"Almost where?" Drake said, since he had only been on the wooden platform before, and thought that the platform went nowhere.
"You didn't think this was all there was, did you?" Glitch laughed.
Drake wondered where the platform was going to. He looked to the wall, they were at Mother's ankles now, which meant that where her feet were, there was floor. He only saw the device he was wearing to get here when Skyler showed him his a few months back. He remembered wanting to borrow it, but Skyler refused. The interaction devolved into Drake trying to grab for it while Skyler kept it just out of his reach. He should have asked Skyler what he saw while he was there, instead of incessantly asking for him to give it to him. He felt stupid now, and wanted to see what was beyond the platform for himself.
Read the rest of the book here: https://www.moonquill.com/book/46