It was nearly midnight, a time where a minimal amount of people were awake around camp. My dorm in particular was dead quiet, considering that not many people stayed in my building. I decided it was a perfect time to sneak out into the night and head towards the city, away from A.X.A.
I was going to revisit the apartment where Emanuel and Kyra died.
It had been just past a week since our expedition to that building with the objective of finding success in Operation Zenith. But what awaited us there, and what we encountered, was much more than we had anticipated.
Ian Sedia, the self-proclaimed founder of Heathen, and the supposed Sin of Sloth.
He spoke to me through one of his proxies, telling me all sorts of things I would have easily ignored had the circumstances not been so dire. But for some reason, his words rang loudly in my head. Although a week had passed, the echoes continued to bounce around my mind. It confused me, considering how much I hated him. He was, after all, responsible for the curation of both Emanuel and Kyra's deaths. I could never forgive him or Heathen for that.
Yet curiosity gnawed at my heart.
Join Heathen.
Those words cursed me. They cursed me because although I was heavily against it, nothing in my current state or position convinced me to think in opposition to the idea. I tried to find conclusion in Emanuel and Kyra's passings. I tried to accept them as they were and move on. But how could I do that when the only person who could reassure me brushed their deaths off as if they were nothing? How could I find closure through the General who had already brought death and suffering to my previous comrades?
Even I was on his kill-list at one point.
I realized that if Kyra, Second of the Upper Four, one of the highest-ranking individuals in the military, could be passed-off as an average death, then I surely was not safe in A.X.A. That, in combination with the lack of closure in Emanuel and Kyra's deaths, led me to where I headed tonight. The only way I could find reason in my friends' unnecessary deaths, as well as have a multitude of my questions answered, would be by asking the head of Heathen himself. The only way to get that was to speak to Ian once again. So I left A.X.A.'s military base and ventured into the night, off towards the access-restricted apartment building where all hell had broken loose the week before.
I knew I wouldn't be able to find Ian himself, but I knew I could find a connection to him somehow. Back then, I was still under control by his Fractal after all the tenants had been killed and all the cameras had been destroyed. That meant that another item within that building functioned as a medium for Ian's Fractal that was not a tenant or a camera, but rather something else that we'd completely missed.
I had to find that item and reach out to him.
After walking through the city for quite some time, I finally came across the apartment. Caution tape restricted the surrounding area, indicating its off-bound limits. I passed under the tape and pushed through the front door of the building. Stepping foot into the lobby, I kept my eyes peeled above a certain horizon, making sure not to lay sight on the segmented rotting scene below my feet.
THEY RIPPED EMANUEL APART!
Cynthia's screech of horror echoed loudly in my brain. That was the moment she'd lost herself completely. I didn't want to re-encounter what was left of my comrade on the lobby's floor.
I am so sorry, Emanuel.
After looking around the room for a while, I realized it would be impossible to figure out what medium contained Ian's Fractal. The cameras were easy to deduce considering he'd made it obvious we were being watched. The tenants were deducted because he'd told me himself. But this last item, or items, had absolutely no starting point.
I put all my hope into a single call out into the unknown.
"Ian!" I shouted aloud. "I've returned to discuss the offer you made to me!"
Silence. The quietness of the night was the loudest response to my words. It was nothing but absolute silence.
"Ian? I know you can hear me!" I called out again. "I know there's at least one last medium left for your Fractal somewhere around here!"
I looked around, hoping for at least some response. But there was none. I stood alone in the center of the lobby's darkness, awaiting something that didn't exist.
What the hell am I doing?
I began to question myself and my decisions. I realized the absurdity for me to return to this place at all, even after telling countless people back at A.X.A. not to due to the dire conditions. Yet here I was, reaching out for something I thought was within my grasp.
As a last resort, I said aloud a slogan I considered taboo.
"Heathen. Order in Chaos."
As the cursed words left my mouth, there was an immediate response. The screen of a single monitor at the reception desk lit-up, projecting a rectangular light on the wall it faced. I rushed over to behind the desk and looked at the screen. It was opened to the desktop, with a basic background picture, and with minimal applications.
"Hello?" I spoke to the monitor, somehow expecting it to reply back. To my surprise, I got my response.
"Welcome back, Klyson." A deep, pronounced voice suddenly spoke. It was faint and nearly silent, yet still audible. "Good to see you survived and made it out of the building."
In shock, I stumbled backwards away from the computer. I looked around, trying to figure out where the voice had spoken from. That's when I noticed.
"Speakers…?" There were two small boxes positioned on either side of the monitor. Upon closer inspection, I realized that they had knobs turned all the way down. When I turned them the opposite way, static noise began to emit.
"How did you know?" The voice spoke again, now louder and clearer.
"I-Ian?"
"Why are you surprised? You came here with the suspicion already, didn't you?"
I did, yet I was still surprised that I was correct. "You still had me under control even after my comrades broke all the cameras and killed all the tenants. I assumed that at least one medium still remained…"
"Then you were correct," Ian assured me. "This was the final medium containing my Fractal, the speakers."
He must have had the volume turned all the way down so that we couldn't hear his voice-commands even as they were spoken.
My thought brought me to question, "Wait, your Fractal works even if we can't hear your command words?"
"As long as the victim is within the vicinity of my Fractal, the effect is guaranteed to work."
"But your speakers were all the way down here. How did you still have control of me when I was on the fourth floor?"
Ian chuckled. "This entire building is within the vicinity of my Fractal in these speakers."
My eyes widened.
"Get it now, Klyson? It never mattered if you got rid of every single tenant and every single camera. As long as at least one medium remained, such as these speakers, you all were always within my Fractal Box."
I shuddered with fear at the implication. It frightened me to understand that everything we had done, Ian had essentially permitted.
"So you could have had control of any of us, at all times, if you wanted?"
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you just do that?" I felt offended. "Were you just toying with us the whole time…?
"The collection of Fractals in your group entertained me. I decided to return the curiosity you all had for my building by entertaining a curiosity of my own in your capabilities. I curated every scenario you all encountered to the way I saw fit, and it brought forth results that even I didn't expect. That's why you're here."
"I'm here because—"
"You came to find reason in the offer I made to you," he interrupted me. "You came to find reason in joining Heathen."
I went silent, unable to respond with shame in knowing I was here doing something behind A.X.A.'s back.
"Has A.X.A. been that bad to you?"
"That's not what matters," I replied defensively. "Your words have lingered in my mind for the past week. I'm tired of being tugged in this direction, and I want to understand what purpose you and your damned organization serve. I need to know what purpose my comrades' deaths served in your bigger picture, and whether it was justified or not."
Ian scoffed. "You must think that using bigger words makes you a bigger person, don't you? You just want to justify your hatred for me. That's it."
And what about it? I admitted in my mind.
"You said you curated ever scenario you saw fit. That means Kyra and Emmanuel's deaths were intended, weren't they?"
"Kyra, Cynthia, and Sav," Ian suddenly said.
I furrowed my eyebrows. "What about them?"
"Those three were the only ones I considered to have HP Fractals."
"HP Fractals? What is that?"
"High-Potential Fractals. Individuals with the highest potential to awaken a Fractal Activation that transforms their Fractal into one that exceeds the boundaries of our reality."
"Fractal Activations? You mean…?"
"Yes, just like the one your beloved Kyra achieved."
My heart stopped for a moment. "What are you trying to say, Ian?"
"What if I told you that I knew how Fractal Activations came about? What if I told you that they weren't random as everyone claimed them to be?"
Where is he going with this?
"When the mind is placed in a cornered state, it chooses from two options. Fight, or flight. For Melysians, there is a third, unconventional option—a Fractal Activation. If the mind of a Melysian individual understands that their Fractal is the only solution fit to a current predicament, it mutates the Fractal gene instantaneously to adapt and survive."
"They aren't just random…?"
"No, Klyson. In fact, there are conditions that further weigh that one-in-one-billion chance in a candidate's favor. Take for example, Kyra. The first initial threshold that must be surpassed is to be placed in a fight-or-flight state. From that point, only luck can guide those worthy for a Fractal Activation. But that luck favors those with strong mental fortitude, and a well-developed Fractal, both of which Kyra had. That is why she was able to achieve such a feat."
As Ian placed these understandings into perspective for me, I began to realize just how many strings he was pulling without us noticing.
"Does it add up yet?" He asked me. "You were supposed to die."
I stared at the floor, shocked. "You placed me in that position to try and awaken Kyra's Fractal Activation…?"
I recalled it, the moment where I faltered mentally, surrounded by heaps of tenants awaiting a violent death. When I should have died, Kyra saved me just in time.
"You were lucky that Kyra defied all odds. That other boy, Emanuel, not so much."
"Emanuel—?!"
"I used him the same way I used you, to test Cynthia the same way I tested Kyra. But Cynthia's Fractal was not as mature, and her mentality was too fragile."
My heart suddenly burned. I quickly realized what he was insinuating. "Emanuel died because you risked his life for an event with a one-in-one-billion chance of occurring?!?"
"Settle down. I used you the exact same way, Klyson. You two were just opposite sides of the same coin. One lived, and one died. Thank Kyra for achieving her Fractal Activation, and curse Cynthia for not being able to do so. If she had, breaking past the frozen state I'd set her in, then maybe Emanuel would have still been breathing today. Who knows?"
"Fuck you—!!!" I nearly punched a hole through the monitor, but stopped myself before I could. I wouldn't be able to get the answers I sought if I cut communication with Ian that short.
"Why are you mad?" Ian asked, surprised. "I'm giving you the answers you came here looking for."
"It still doesn't answer anything!" I shouted. "Why kill people for the sake of Fractal Activations? Why kill Kyra who achieved a Fractal Activation?!"
"Because that's Heathen's exact purpose."
"What…?"
"We aim to eliminate those who can awaken Fractal Activations."
I froze. "Eliminate?"
"I come from a belief that the rules of our reality our fragile. And the rules just so happen to say that Fractal Activations are a breach of our intended capabilities. Such power is not meant to exist for us to use. So those who can aren't meant to live."
I found myself getting angrier, considering the irony in what Ian said. "And that's coming from someone who has a Fractal that can control hundreds of people all at once!?"
"But this isn't an activated Fractal," Ian said. "Now imagine the catastrophic capability if my Fractal were to be activated."
"Then according to your dogma, you'd have to kill yourself!"
"I preach the word. The saint is always exempted. As for anyone else with an HP Fractal—they must cease to exist."
"That's bullshit!" I slammed the receptionist's desk. "You're just a murderer with a twisted way of thinking!"
"It's open for interpretation. Choose what you want to believe. What I believe is that individuals with the capability to achieve a Fractal Activation are a threat to the order in Melysia. What Heathen does is balance those odds by keeping the Fractal strength range within a medium by removing outliers from the equation. 'Order in chaos,' our slogan, represents our performance as a system. We bring balance, order, through the chaos we establish by eradicating our targets."
"So Kyra was a target…?"
"Kyra, Cynthia, and Sav were all targets."
My eyes widened with horror. "But Cynthia and Sav are still alive…"
"I let them go. I let you all go. My request to have you join Heathen surely would not have been sought had I killed three of your friends, so I opted for only one."
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was absolute absurdity. "You think I'd join you after everything you just told me? You think I'd choose to join you in your tyranny?"
"I thought a Fractless like you would consider it after being a minority among Fractals for so long. Haven't you ever cursed your differences with everyone else? Haven't you ever wished to stand out among them? I can assure you that you would become as distinct as you seek if you joined Heathen."
Your true potential awaits you in Heathen, not at A.X.A.
Ian's words echoed in my mind once more. I tried hard to reject it.
"Why do you want me in Heathen so badly? I'm just a Fractless! You think I could help with something as large as eliminating people with HP Fractals?"
"Exactly." Ian laughed. "It's exactly that."
"What…?"
"An awakened Fractless like you is the perfect counter to someone with an HP Fractal."
Smash—!!!
I shattered the monitor with my fist, breaking a hole through it entirely. Out of pure instinctive rage, my hand had moved on its own.
"I am not going to kill my own friends as part of your organization…"
I removed my hand from the depths of the screen. My knuckles were bruised, and my fingers were cut-up from forcing through the layers of electronics. It was a bloody mess.
Bzzt—! Bzzt—!
Noise was breaking up from the speakers. Without a source left for the speakers to work—the computer—Ian couldn't emit his Fractal anymore.
I had severed the final communication left with him.
I sighed, taking in the dimmed silence of the night. I soon left the building and returned to my dorm, attempting to forget about everything I'd been told that night. I couldn't tell if I was confused by what I'd heard, or if I'd been left asking even more questions than I initially had. Either way, I was unsatisfied. But there was one thing I finally did understand.
Heathen had a cruel, yet intricate motive in motion.