Doom World: Ans, the Green Monarch

Chapter 2: Monarch

I am nameless, but she has given me a name, a curious name, a funny name. I take the name because the name has a meaning to me, it makes me something more than just subject #1, more than just a heartless thing, more than just a puppet or a tool. It makes me free.

Ans, that's my name.

The system in my head and my electronic half of the brain seem to be working as a secondary control of my body. It is there to help me be a more precise machine. It has a backup to my memories, huge storage for additional information related to my missions, and all that I would need to accomplish them. I'm astonished by the incredible thing that this body is. A miracle of biotechnology and cybernetics.

I want to learn more about this body, about myself, but my system is damaged. Is better for me that way. I don't want to be under their control again.

The headache is there again.

Danna hurt me.

She hit my head to release me from their control, she broke my electronic brain, the control chips in it, so I'm bleeding, in pain, blind of one eye shooting at guards, failing and shooting again. She told me that we have to find and kill Leon, the man who we suspect is the leader of this place. After all the things he made me do, I don't question her reasoning. We are going to kill Leon.

The left side of my visual field, the side which should be in complete darkness, is interrupted from time to time by numbers and notifications of the damage. I ignore them, I can't understand them. It seems Danna damaged something more than just the chips. It is a miracle I still can understand her, but from time to time a word from Earth reaches my mouth and I have to keep it in.

"What is that?" she is confused, she has never heard the word I just pronounced. The pain and my frustration overwhelmed me. "What is a god?"

We are hidden, undercover, more guards are approaching, and we don't shoot because she set a trap on their way. We are waiting at the end of the corridor, next to the remains of the doors she opened before.

"It is just an expression," I answer. She is not satisfied, but she doesn't insist.

The pain becomes unbearable. The guards arrive. She activates the trap.

The lights are gone. They have come with tools to see in the dark and she knew it. The trap is a light grenade. Twenty guards are in the door, twenty guards scream in pain, blinded and we kill them using our physical strength instead of weapons. They came with bulletproof clothes.

I sit down against the wall when the battle ends, to recover my breath while Danna gets dressed. The bleeding on my head has finally stopped, but the pain remains. It feels like it is going to explode with each one of my heartbeats.

"I've accessed the general system of cameras," she declares, satisfied. I conclude that she is like me, she probably has an electronic brain too. "We are in the-"

"On the Northside of the fortress, I know that. It is a huge area destined for genetics and biotechnology. Wait, I thought you were already in control of all the systems of the fortress since the very beginning of this… of this," I tell her pointing at the corpses of men and women on the floor.

"Oh, not exactly. I was there, with them, but I was just observing, not in control at all. But right now I am, at least of the cameras and doors in this area. It seems each one of the six areas has their network completely independent of the others," she says and that makes sense. Otherwise, they would have seen me coming. "But don't worry, right now they see what I want them to see, they hear what I want them to hear," she says and I believe her.

"Have you found Leon?" I ask her.

"Yes and many other things, scary things that even demons would fear," she says.

"Are those things that terrible?" I say, trying not to fall asleep while I remember that I am not supposed to fall asleep ever. My thoughts are a storm, one thing leads to another, and for the first time I miss my subsystem for it made the storm a bit less… less attractive. I'm tempted to fade into that storm.

"Are you okay, Ans?" somehow she is slapping my face, not so gently, I barely notice it. I have lost the notion of reality for an instant.

"I am," I answer, I lie. She seems worried.

"Unexpected answer, unexpected behavior. You are not a human, Ans. Don't try to act like one," she says, I nod, I accept her words. I'm too tired.

"I found him!" Danna declares, helping me to stand up.

Why do you help me? I want to ask, but I don't, I don't want her to leave me behind, I don't want to die, not now that I've tasted freedom, not after I've tasted heaven. I was a damned man in the worst Hell imaginable, a prisoner in my own body, doing despicable things to innocent people and she just came and gave me a taste of heaven. Nothing is the same after you taste heaven.

I stand up on my own, with my weapon.

"Where now?" I ask.

"Well… Leon has already left this area. He entered the seventh area of the fortress," she says.

"The seventh? You said there were only six," I tell her while I doubt myself, she said six, right? Am I that bad?

"Yes, I said six, yes but this place is not an area. They call it 'forest' and whatever that thing is only the agriculture personnel has permission to go there. It must be something really important." she says.

"A forest, here?" I let out.

"What? You know what's a forest?" she asks and I have to tell her.

"Leon took that route to reach the command section in the south of the fortress," I start; "and a forest is a place where a diverse group of plants, and animals, live."

"Animals? Plants?" she replied confused.

"Animals, like ourselves, like humans, but less intelligent and plants like… like living beings which feed from the soil nutrients and the sun to grow and from which the more intelligent ones feed," I try to explain to her, but she ends up more confused. I sigh, "you will understand when you will see it."

"Oh, we have to go ahead during, twenty minutes, and then turn right and walk straight," she says.

"Perfect," I tell her and I lead the way. The lights aren't back, but it does matter, my eyes can see in the darkness… at least one can.

Our footsteps on the floor are the only sound we hear for fifteen minutes.

"I've been thinking," she starts. "How do you know about a forest or animals if you haven't been in the seventh area before?"

I don't have an answer to that question, not one that she could believe.

"If I tell you, you won't believe me," I answer.

"Try me," she insists. I smile.

Why not? Why not tell her everything? I'm ready to tell her everything.

"Wait. More guards are coming," she says and I get ready.

Light grenades reach us in a blink. These men are better than the ones who came before, but not enough.

She takes care of them with her eyes closed, something that even I wouldn't have accomplished with my full capabilities. I take note that she is probably stronger than me.

We reach the seventh area forty minutes later. This is a huge place, with thousands of corridors, this building is like a city.

There are trees, experimental trees on experimental soil. This is the center of the Hexagonal fortress, a hexagon inside a hexagon. Here is where food is produced, food and all the materials to create things like paper, clothes, and many other necessary things to human life. I see no animals, not a single insect. They are vegetarian, I conclude.

"There are eleven levels more like this one, and each level is destined to produce the food for an entire month. We are now in level seven," Danna informs me, she is delighted, she is smiling, she looks precious with the green and the artificial light around.

"You were right," she says.

"What?" I look at her, I'm smiling because she is happy. Like a lightning, the pain hits me again and my smile turns into something different.

"I understand now, as you said I would," she says and I feel my heart warming up. "But I don't see any animals. Where are they?"

"I don't know," I'm concerned too. I didn't have any idea that area seven existed.

She is walking over the soil, on the path between the plants and the trees, enjoying and listening to the song of the leaves and the breeze, but I notice that she is, still, going towards the door on the opposite side of the field. I don't follow her. I'm delighted by their genius, by the fabric of food they have here.

"Is their food enough?" I ask Danna. She stops and looks at me with amusement.

"You are impressed with this, aren't you?" she says.

"I just remembered that the outside is not supposed to be like this. The outside is dead, with acid rains and no life at all," I tell her. Her expression turns dark.

"How do you know that?" she asks, and I feel I'm freezing under those golden eyes.

"It was part of the information they gave me, in all the data they transferred to me," I explain, holding her glare.

"Why would they give you that information?" she adds, doubtful, perhaps. I can't read her.

"I don't know." It is true. I have no idea why they gave me such information if I was just a puppet.

"You don't know?" she replies, amused.

"Do you know something that I should?" I ask.

"Yes," she says.

"What is it?"

"That we have to keep moving," she states.

"Ha," I let out.

She continues: "we will return here after we have killed Leon and repaired that brain of yours; then you will be able to study all these flowers and vegetation while telling me more of the outside and the other three intelligent species," she says and starts walking.

"Other three species?" I'm smiling again despite the pain, it seems to ease the pain… a bit. I smile for I know she is not talking about animals.

"Yes. The demons, angels, and dragons," she adds and I laugh, but my laughter dies when I notice her expression. She isn't joking. "The other three species can use something called magic which is something that helps them to manipulate reality."

She isn't joking, but it sounds like a joke in front of all this science.

"I don't know anything about that subject, I just know a bit of the situation on the outside. Demons, dragons and angels, you say? I need proofs" I'm smiling, I can't accept her words, I won't accept anything without proof.

"You have accepted this thing!" she points to the gigantic field of food, to this gigantic forest created inside of this enormous building. "And there are eleven more like this!"

"Anything is possible if you have the resources and the technology," I answer. "Even death can be unmade."

"Oh really?" she says. "How?" she is joking now, but I keep going on with my explanation.

"First you need to know everything about the dead individual when they weren't dead, then you need to restore their body. Like a puzzle you have to rebuild all the pieces that got broken when the death happened." my explanation doesn't convince her.

"I see," she says and I wonder if she understood me. "What about the memories?"

It was a joke, but she understood and I'm pleased.

"Well, if they are gone then you are completely dead for there is no way to restore memories, no one that I could imagine… well, maybe time traveling would work…"

"What? Time-traveling?" she is confused. I can notice that she is a bit annoyed and I know why. She doesn't like what she can't understand. We aren't that different.

"Time is the flow of everything, and we are traveling with everything, time-traveling is our movement in space and time, controlled with the possibility to go to 'before' or 'after' a determined event," I tell her. She remains silent. "Like going 'before' to the moment where we were still prisoners in that room, to help us escape."

"I think I can understand," she says.

"You do?" I say amused.

"Yeah," she confirms.

"I mean, it is not an easy thing to understand, scientists took decades to discover it, and when it was discovered it took more decades to be understood, and even now it remains a mystery to most humans," I tell her. She is quiet, she's studying me, analyzing me, every single word, every single detail, every single movement I make.

"You aren't lying, but you have been here in this capsule for just ten years, I know that from when I hacked into the main computer in the capsule's room. You aren't lying, but what you are saying can't be true," she says. "Perhaps I've damaged your weak human side too… and I don't know how to fix biology."

I sigh.

"I'm not just this body," I confess because why not? I want to stay with her, I want to give her a reason not to leave me behind. Perhaps that's the reason why I'm telling her this. "I have memories from another life, another place, a place named Earth in which fields like this one cover continents, water rains from the sky like sweet diamonds that melt in your face, your hands, your mouth. There are animals, creatures who live on those fields, covered in fur, immensely beautiful. The sky is beautiful, it is blue and there are clouds, white clouds, and the sun, our star, it's the queen and the mother of all life."

"That is… that- I-" her cheeks are red, a bit. Her eyes are shining, tears fighting to be free. Diamonds, stars, wanting to bless me. "I don't know from where you came up with those words, but I won't believe you until I can see it."

"Well, I won't believe in dragons and magic either," I reply. Her eyes narrow in disgust.

Then she proceeds to explain to me that she heard about the other species after she hacked on the computers and microphones in the laboratory where we were designed. She says that she's been awakened for two months by now. I believe her and I ask about how she hacked into their system. Her answer is simple.

"Because I can," she says. "I was able to attach some of my nanobots to Dr. Tesla and he did the rest."

"Nanobots?" I'm surprised.

"Yes. They are robots, tiny electronic machines, invisible to the eye," she starts. "They do all that I command."

"I know what is a nanobot, Danna, but seriously? Nanobots? I should have expected that I'm half machine after all," I say the last to myself.

"What?" Danna gets confused.

"Forget it," I tell her, trying to not confuse her more.

"You are beyond my comprehension, Ans, you are the most annoying!" she points and I smile, satisfied. "Oh! Now you are satisfied?"

"So sorry!" I tell her.

"No, you don't!" she replies, she's right.

"I'm beyond your comprehension, you are reading bad," I add, laughing. She doesn't like it at all.

"You are a broken tool!" she says, trying to annoy me too, but I don't care.

After one minute I stopped laughing. It is the first time I laugh.

"Well, now that you are back we can discuss something important, we can share with the other all the information we have so that we both understand this situation," she says and I know she is right.

"Fair enough," I agree. I start. "They spoke about an individual called Monarch when I still was under their control. They said this Monarch was the reason why they were fighting, the reason for their efforts, the reason why they made us, but I don't know anything about this Monarch."

"I've heard the same," she says. "I've heard that they speak about this Monarch with respect and awe, and my conclusion is that the monarch is the most prominent scientist in this building."

"I agree, but they also said that there are many others," I add.

"Two in this fortress, and seven more in the other five city-fortresses where humans live, two in each fortress," she says.

"How do you know that and not about the terrible situation on the outside?" I ask her.

"I didn't have free access to all the information I wanted, I was hacking, remember?" She defends herself. I laugh.