The sun was marching steadily towards his rest on the horizon, but he had a couple of more hours of journey to get there. About a dozen men and women in black light-body armor, wearing helmets, stood scattered among an old ruined GDI research facility. Elegantly designed exteriors, massive glass windows with shattered panes, wall paints that are refusing to give with the aging concrete it's laying on, all stood overgrown with moss, vines and bushes starting to slowly take this once a glorious landmark in the world of academia, down to earth.
'That's nothing,' one soldier, who had his helmet tucked under his arm, added to the conversation he was having with his colleagues. 'Should have seen Larry on New Year's.'
'Oh my god, yes,' one of the female soldiers in the group added as a couple of others joined her laughing. 'That was so... if you think your thing with Suzi was embarrassing, oh my god... poor Larry.'
'What happened with Larry?' another soldier inquired. Laughing at this absolute chaos of a conversation, the soldier who had his helmet off noted his new pal sitting nearby, not joining in on any of the conversations going around.
The chrome android had taken a seat on a rock near the rest of the soldiers in black. He had his elbows resting on his thighs supporting his back, looking blankly at the grass that's taking over this once well-maintained lawn.
'Hey,' the soldier greeted the android. 'You ok?'
'Yeah,' the android replied.
'How did the meetup with the doctor go?'
'Uh, it went well, he gave me some medication'
'Medication?' the soldier inquired noticing that the android had no mouth or a penetrable skin for any medication he would have needed.
'Meditation, I mean... he uh... he recommended some breathing exercises, nothing too complicated,' the android replied.
'Oh? is it working?'
'Not yet.'
The android didn't need to have facial expressions for the soldier to read that his pal was lying through his teeth which he didn't even have, but the truth would remain between the chrome android and the doctor with whom he spoke last evening.
The doctor stood surprised at the sight that greeted him after he opened the door to let the next patient in. In front of him stood a chrome android. His skin seemed to be a little rusty. Bandages held together some weak elbow and wrist joints until a permanent repair. No pupils, so it was impossible to see where he was looking.
'Come in,' the doctor invited his patient in.
The patient and the doctor took seats on sofas that laid on the opposite sides of a table.
'Jill gave me a heads up about my four 'O clock,' the doctor continued. 'But this still was a pleasant surprise.'
'So doc, how's the business going?' the patient asked.
'Unfortunate to say, it's going pretty well,' the doctor replied in a tone. 'Lots of busy days with people adjusting to everything they've lost. So... uh, how may I help you today?'
'I haven't slept in weeks doc. I don't why, I don't necessarily need it, but it's starting to get to me,' the android replied walking to his part of the room passing the doctor.
'Well, Mr. Baxter,' the doctor said with a blank face. 'You do need sleep... your body might be robotic, but your brain is still human. It's never healthy to stay awake that long. Not for just physical health... but also for your mental health.'
'I can't figure out why, doc,' Baxter replied, sitting down on the sofa. 'There doesn't seem to be any reason.'
'There's always a reason,' the doc replied, silently sniffing in derision before doing so, as if he already knew the answer. He slowly took seat, a little concerned if the android heard his subtle expression of disdain, but noticing no reaction from the other end, he continued. 'Most of the time if you can't see one, usually it's because it's not just one major issue, it's a compilation of a lot of small ones. Why don't you lie down?'
Baxter laid down on the sofa he was sitting on.
'Since when can't you sleep?' The doctor picked up a notepad before continuing his questions. He brought his right hand to the notepad to take notes of whatever useful thing Baxter would mention, but he had no pen in hand, nor did he have the intention to go get one.
'It wasn't sudden, doc, it slowly grew to the point where I can't sleep anymore; but I guess it's after the shatter,' was Baxter's reply.
'What happened after the shatter?' The doctor asked.
'Nothing too serious, I kind of started to feel imprisoned again,' Baxter replied. 'It's not like I used to go everywhere, but I guess I liked to have an option.'
'Imprisoned again?' the doctor asked.
Baxter waited a few seconds to decide on the reply, since it was a long story.
'Do you know how I became a... whatever I am?'
'No'
Baxter settled in comfortably to start his story.
'About twenty years ago I volunteered to a... military... sorta' project. They wanted to make the world's first super soldiers. The agreement was sketchy at best, but I wanted the money to help out my sister with a medical condition she had. It was a whole nother thing, I... I don't want to get into it... So anyway, two years in, I was a brain living in a jar. I was basically stuck in my own mind for so long, how I didn't go insane, I'll never understand. It's basically like being stuck in a nightmare that you can't wake out of... but about another year later, I found out that I could communicate with the computer network the way I was plugged in. So, by learning to do that, I found out that this project was canceled a year ago and... I was no longer in Rockdale. These Trismian spies had found out about the progress Maliens had made with the project and had stolen all the lab equipment, including me. A lot happened, but in the end, I helped them to complete the project and help me get out. I gave them research and they gave me this in return,' Baxter inspected his right hand as he finished his story.
'It was my research that they used to make the Juggernaut,' Baxter continued without a second invitation, after a moment of silence. 'So, I basically brought down my own country.'
'But that can't be the reason, can it? I mean I had guilt about it, but I made my peace with it,' Baxter continued. 'There was nothing I could have done and what I gave them... it wasn't something that groundbreaking either.'
The doctor rested his notepad on the table inattentively, got up and headed to a cupboard that was directly over Baxter's while as Baxter was still laying on the sofa. 'What happened after that?'
Baxter was hesitant to reply, since the question didn't quite agree with him. He expected more inquiry on what happened while he was a brain in a jar, but after a small pause, he decided to continue on for the sake of the session.
'Well, I... after I was no longer a brain in a jar, I wanted to visit my sister,' Baxter continued. The doctor opened a drawer out of the cupboard and picked up something from it. With what he picked up in hand, he walked back to Baxter.
'When I came back to meet my sister... Well, I was a dead man. They've had a funeral for me and everything... so I decided not to meet her. She was healthy, she was in a committed relationship; when I came back, her life was perfect, and I didn't want to ruin it. And I uh... I thought maybe it's time to start my own-'
BANG.
Nothing made a sound for a long time after that one loud jolt of a noise. The surrounding was too silent. The birds made no sound. No wind blew through the amber skies, no leaves dared to rustle and break the silence. There was only the setting sun lighting the room through the dusty window.
A drop of tear dripped out of the doctor's left eye. A smoking pistol stood still over Baxter's head and a few inches in front of it was Baxter's hand, holding the shattered bullet by his index finger and thumb.
The pieces of the bullet, dropped onto the floor, made the first noise breaking the silence.
'This bullet's not from a gun of a murderer, doc,' Baxter spoke. 'So, I want to know why.'
'You know why,' The doctor replied with a slow breaking voice.
There was another silence before the doctor spoke again.
'My daughter was fifteen when Trisma won the war against Malio,' the doctor replied. 'She was in college when you brought back the war.... and she was on a field trip when your 'men' bombed the Trisma memorial.'
'You don't have to continue your story; the whole world knows about Prybax. The Juggernaut killed your sister during the war, and you killed thousands of innocents for it. And you know my story too, you are just here for a chance of redemption. It's the one thing you need to find your way out of this shithole and it's one thing you are never gonna get here.'
Prybax slowly stood up from the sofa and after one look at the doctor, he started to slowly head out.
'I heard Juggernaut is in the shatter,' the doctor announced in a cold tone, with eyes full of tears. 'I hope he makes you suffer the same way he did your sister.'
With a huge gust of wind following him, within an instant, Prybax had the doctor against a bookshelf behind him. In his hand was a pair of scissors against the doctor's neck.
'I died the day I lost my daughter,' the doctor replied with a breaking voice. 'So, I dare you, do it.'
Both stood still for a few moments until Prybax chose to let go of the doctor. The doctor was breathing heavily to catch the breath he almost lost. He checked the back of his head, where it hit the bookshelf; he was bleeding.
Prybax headed out of the office.
'I don't know how you see me doc,' Prybax stopped walking. 'I don't seek your forgiveness; I just need my own. I'm only a soldier, doc, a soldier who has more power and responsibility than he was supposed to have.'
Prybax walked out of the office and vanished in an instant. The doctor sat back on his chair and stared out the window for a long time before he returned to the present, deciding to wipe off his tears following a heavy inhale.
'Guys, it's happening,' a soldier announced, silencing the chatter. The green grass started to turn into a shade of gray. All the soldiers stepped away from the ground that's losing its colors. Radios that the soldiers had started to turn on and off randomly broadcasting white noise.
'Ok people, stay sharp, we don't know what'd happen,' Dr. Tyson yelled out from afar looking into some kind of measuring instrument.
It wasn't like before, it was bigger, it was more powerful; everyone felt it. The sky slowly started to look like a rippling ocean with thousand small lenses refracting the view of the clouds at the ground. Soon that view of the clouds became shattered, clouds looked as if they were a part of a large jigsaw puzzle solved incorrectly, incoherent and incohesive.
Prybax's eyes locked into a bush of grass lilies that was full of flowers a minute ago, but not anymore. Few seconds later, it was covered with flowers once more, only for them to vanish once again. A large stone lying nearby suddenly lost a large portion of it, and a few seconds later got restored. The visual kept alternating back and forth, becoming confusing and difficult to keep up with, until finally it settled.
The grass lily bush was drowned in flowers, the shattered stone was no more and appearing on the other side was a woman with one metallic arm, holding a rifle. For a second Prybax was confused, but the woman appeared not. She drew her rifle so fast that the barrel of it almost bent in half, aimed directly at Prybax's head.
BANG.