Close to the Marx

Entry 16

Daily Log

22 Krishna

“Nice to see you again Captain,” Vinnie’s girlfriend said when I got ahold of her again and asked her for another video conference.

“Did Vinnie make it to you alright yesterday?” I asked.

“Yes sir,” Persephone said.

“How long was he off his meds?” I asked.

“I don’t think he was off his meds sir,” Persephone said.

“He was acting off his rocker yesterday,” I said.

“I know he told me after I gave him his prescription yesterday.” Persephone said.

“He said a lot of fun stuff.” I said and Persephone suddenly looked shifty. “Including that he said you were born with Sigmosis.”

“Oh that,” Persephone said she sounded relieved.

“You sound relieved,” I said c*****g my eyebrow.

“When Vincent does not take his medication, he makes the most elaborate stories about our…” Persephone said and turned extremely red and said. “s****l performances.”

“So, you were born with Sigmosis?” I asked.

“Yes sir, I was.” Persephone said.

“Krishna!” I said. “Your parents have it I guess?”

“My…dad had it specifically.” Persephone said, she had paused for a while before she had said it. I didn’t know why she had paused but my guess she was embarrassed about it.

“Do you have any idea why they called your mother the mare?” I asked she turned super red when I asked her that. So red I thought she was going to turn into a tomato right in front of my eyes.

“You know how they call George Marquis Lorillard, Greed?” Persephone said.

I froze, suddenly I had finally stumbled upon the name George Marquis Lorillard.

“Go on,” I said.

“They called my mother Lust,” Persephone said very slowly and almost seemingly like she was fighting off running through her own embarrassment of it.”

“Lust?” I asked. “Why?”

“I don’t know, my mother and I are…estranged.” Persephone said.

“Oh?” I said c*****g my eyebrow.

“If I may Captain.” Persephone said.

“Go ahead,” I said.

Persephone suddenly wrote something on a piece of paper and placed it on the screen. It was the symbol of Rho. I was about to ask what she meant by this, but she pulled it and tore it up.

“I have to get going, I have to take Vincent to get stronger medication,” Persephone said.

She hung up.

I was left there wondering about that for a moment.

“How long are you planning on standing there?” I asked.

I watched the monkey materialize again. This time he was perched on one of the tables in the room. The Gada in one of his hands and with the other he was seemingly pointing at himself as if wondering if I was talking to him.

“No, the other mother fucker who is in this room who is invisible,” I said.

“Man, the gig is up guys.” Qida said

I stepped aside and waited.

“Got you!” Qida said. “Hey, I like this one better than the one you just erased.”

Qida had spoken to thin air again and I was wondering if he was crazier or Vinnie.

“Yeah about that,” Qida said.

“About what?” I asked.

“Your friend Vic Vance or whatever his name is.” Qida said.

“You mean Vinnie?” I asked.

“Hey is he your cousin?” Qida asked.

“Mother fucker does he look like my cousin?” I asked.

“Geez you don’t need to go all Shaft on me.” Qida said.

“Go all…” I started to say but stopped myself because I realized it was not worth it.

“Have you found the snakes on the plane yet?” Qida asked.

“Also try not to say some heroic BS because you’ll get eaten by a shark.” Qida added.

“Also always remember to say please.” Qida said.

He seemed to be waiting for me to react to something.

“No?” Qida said.

I said nothing.

“Fine,” Qida said. “So, you’re finally on the right track.”

“Why did you not tell me about this Project Rho bullshit?” I asked.

“Oh, I did,” Qida shrugged.

“Mother fucker you started to say…” I said.

“Hey, you came up with the conclusion that I wanted you to, so I did my job.” Qida shrugged cutting me off. “I mean you did succeed to make that unbreakable guy show up, so I had my faith in you.”

I ignored him.

“Okay enough joking around,” Qida said. “Like I said everything is not all about you.”

“You said that last time and that lead me to find out about how the Mounted Division all seemed to have been experimented on.” I said,

“You should ask Alex about Alexis,” Qida said.

Up until he said that I had forgotten about that. I stared at him then he pointed at the door.

I looked at the door and heard a knock at the door. I looked back and saw he was gone.

I scanned myself again to make sure I had not been stricken with Sigmosis.

“Come in,” I said after I was satisfied.

The door opened and I was a bit surprised to see who it was. It was that young Captain that seemed like she was around my age.

“Captain Greene,” I started to say.

“Death before betrayal,”

Man, if I was not an expert tactician, I think I would have had my head blown off. I saw her gun and saw her intention. She had raised a gun, but I managed to throw a knife at her before she had risen it enough. I hit her shoulder and she dropped the gun but then she charged at me.

“What the f**k?” I said.

I grabbed the desk and flipped it at her. She somehow tore through the s**t as if it was f*****g paper. I managed to get out of the way and rolled. I opened my shirt revealing two straps full of knives on my chest. I grabbed two karambits from one of the sleeves on my straps. I quickly pushed the arm she used to lash at me and sliced her hand with one of the knives then in a sweep motion I pushed her towards a nearby wall and had both blades to her neck.

I was about to slice her when I noticed her eyes were rolled up. I could only see the white of her eyes. Not only that but there was this strange mound on her forehead that looked like…creatures crawling under her skin. They were moving around and forming what I thought looked like a letter M.

“Olivia!” I said trying to reason with her as she kicked and screamed.

“OLIVIA!” I said.

Nothing she just kept kicking and screaming. Trying to push me off. She was f*****g strong and hard to control. I watched her as she hissed and made all sorts of weird noises. I grabbed her head and snapped it.

I had no choice I knew Olivia was not there anymore.

I watched her body go limp and fall to the floor.

“Captain,” William said stumbling in looking like hell.

“What the hell happened?” I asked.

“She attacked us,” Vinnie said as he stumbled in behind him also looking like hell. I c****d my head at him. Persephone said they were going to the doctor, what was he doing here?

“We were on our way here to talk to you,” Eugene said also appearing.

“Wow you killed her?” Vinnie said.

“That was not Captain Greene,” I said pointing at the body. “We have to check on her, whatever this thing was could have hurt…”

Suddenly there was a beep at my desk. I walked over to it and tapped on the screen.

The real Captain Olivia Greene stared back at me. I looked at her confused then back at whatever the hell had attacked me. The thing had become some sort of weird pile of mush. I looked back at Captain Greene who looked like hell.

“Marxus!” she said. “Thank god you are okay.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Something that was impersonating Captain Blue attacked me,” Olivia said.

“Did that thing kill him?” I asked look, over at the mush.

“I don’t know I tried reaching him and the other Captains, you were the first that I was able to reach.” Olivia said. “I have no idea what the hell that was, it said something like Death before betrayal before it attacked me. It must have thought it had killed me, because it took my form before it went out of my room after it slammed me into a wall.”

“f**k piece of s**t said the same thing when it attacked me.” I said. “Where are you?”

“I am in my office,” Olivia said.

“Stay there I’ll come get you.” I said. “Try reaching the Colonel there could be other things like that impersonating the other captains.”

“I’ll see you soon,” Olivia said. “Captain Greene out.”

As soon as I said that I grabbed Vinnie and threw him against a wall and held him there with a karambit to his throat. Man, seriously this thing likes beeping just when it gets good! See you next track.