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Veracity: Faith
Posted By: Shurmanator<dyshurman@gmail.com>
Date: 13 November 2009, 1:10 am
Read/Post Comments
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>>>>>>///ONI Orbital Research Platform
>>>>>>///Neptune, Sol System
>>>///June 26, 2568
>>>///1430 Hours
>///Delphi Station Recording Log
"Kenderson, if you don't trust me, just say so, okay?"
"It's not that I don't trust you Milavech, its just that... I don't know what the hell is going on, and I'm scared, alright?"
Milavech shook his head and rolled his eyes, scoffing. He leaned forward in his chair and looked Kenderson right in the eyes.
"You think I'm not? But you're thinking something else too, and I need to know if you can trust me," he said, keeping his voice level.
Kenderson sighed and rocked back in his chair. He paused for a while, as if contemplating the consequences of what he was about to say. In the end, however, he spoke.
"One of these... Things... its been in your head before. We don't know what that might do... you might be weaker," Kenderson trailed off.
Milavech's voice rose a few decibels, subtly, but noticeably.
"So? That Thing has been in your head too, right? What makes me weaker than you?"
Kenderson appeared to be aware of the imminent confrontation, but he pressed on anyway.
"It's different. What happened to you happened a long time ago, maybe it was a different Thing, maybe it was the same one that's in there... there's too many variables!"
"Do you trust me?" Milavech asked, cutting through the proverbial bullshit.
Kenderson looked down, murmuring out of the corner of his mouth, "Yes... I do..."
"THEN STOP POINTING THAT GODDAMN GUN AT ME!"
Kenderson flinched as Milavech shouted, the shock echoing in the cramped room. He looked down at the pistol in his hand, the barrel pointed towards Milavech's chest.
When Kenderson looked up, Milavech had rose from his chair, his fists clenched at his sides. Reflexes kicked in, and Kenderson leveled the gun at the ODST's head.
Milavech took a step back.
"Don't point that gun at me," he seethed, almost too furious for words.
Kenderson began to panic, yelling out, "A couple of hours ago you were about to kill yourself!"
"You think I want to die, then, huh?" Milavech shouted, stepping forward and grabbing the barrel of the gun. Kenderson tightened his grip, but disarming the officer was not Milavech's intent. He pulled the barrel up to his temple, crouching down low at Kenderson's eye level. He held the cold weapon in both hands, pressing it deep into his forehead.
"What do you know about what I think?" Milavech asked, whispering now. He let go of the gun and sat back down.
Kenderson let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. He lowered the pistol and leaned back in his chair.
Milavech unzipped his ONI sweater, and pulled a thin metal chain out from under his shirt. A small silver cross hung at the end of the chain. Milavech fingered the item gently, then held it up to his lips.
"Have a little faith," he whispered.
The silence was awkward, and seemingly infinite. When Belansky rose for his shift several hours later, the two had still not spoken a word. The officer and the trooper crawled into their respective sleeping areas, silent as the darkness that surrounded them, and just as dangerous.
>>>>>>///ONI Orbital Research Platform
>>>>>>///Neptune, Sol System
>>>///June 26, 2568
>>>///1139 Hours
>///Delphi Station Recording Log
Milavech twitched in his sleep.
The Inner Recesses of the Mind
The Thing burst into Milavech's mind, scared and small. It felt the pain of Belansky's advance, and knew it only had a matter of time before the professor killed it. It had to act fast.
It took a minute to thank Veracity for blessing him with an infidel who had been controlled before. The act of breaking into one's mind left scars that never fully healed, and openings that never fully closed. Milavech's mind was easy to break into, not even a feeble memory thrown forward as a defense.
Awaken, and defend Veracity.
Milavech made no attempt to resist.
>>>>>>///ONI Orbital Research Platform
>>>>>>///Neptune, Sol System
>>>///June 26, 2568
>>>///1139 Hours
>///Delphi Station Recording Log
Victor Milavech got up quickly from his sleeping mat. He rushed forward, blundering about in the darkness, knocking over chairs and tables. Finally, his groping hands found the cold steel of a pistol, purposely left there by plans beyond his understanding. He inputed the access code in the doorway, his fingers twitching as they moved, little echoes of the bodily spasms that currently racked the Thing as it writhed under Belansky's attack.
The door swished open.
A voice came from down the hallway.
"...it was the last mistake you'll ever make," Thomas Belansky whispered.
Milavech raised his weapon in time to see a dark silhouette far down the hall move towards him.
"Milavech?" the voice came, puzzled and wary.
Victor Milavech pulled the trigger with eyes wide open.
He watched as the round made contact with Thomas Belansky's chest. He watched as it bore its way into the man's body. He watched as it pushed him backwards, only gently at first, then brutally as the small piece of metal blossomed out into shrapnel and flak, tearing into his innards. He watched as Thomas Belansky hit the ground.
He watched as the man died.
His first thought was, simply, Why did I do that?
The cold shock that was slowly filling his body quickened and worsened. A dark, pulsating shape began to writhe down the hallway toward him, casting shadows on shadow, enveloping darkness with more darkness. It stopped halfway down the hall between him and the body.
Drag the body to the door.
Milavech, unsure why he was doing it, yet convinced that it was the only thing he could do, walked forward until he stood over the inert form of the Professor. He reached down and grabbed the man's boots, his last dregs of humanity desperate to not touch the cold flesh of the man he had killed.
The walk back down the hall was an eternity of regret, yet at the same time, Milavech felt that he had had no choice in the situation that had befell him.
Now you have two tasks to accomplish for Veracity.
He lay the body gently down by the doorway. As soon as his hands left the boots, a small moment of God-given perplexity came upon him. For a brief second, he glimpsed the vast inside of the mind that possessed him. He was unsure why; perhaps the Thing had been so distracted that it had opened itself to its servant, perhaps it had willingly shown Milavech its secrets, or perhaps it was just some random glitch of the psyche. Whatever the reason, the link between master and servant for, a brief moment, was reversed.
Milavech saw many things.
He saw weeks of imprisonment in the confines of Interrogation Room Omega, he saw those same weeks as a time of suspended animation, a time of the Thing letting its consciousness flow throughout the entire universe. He saw the Thing learning of human culture, of its weakened, divided tendrils of thought slipping in between life forms throughout the galaxy. Soon, it knew all of a human's wants, all of a human's fears, and all of a human's instincts.
Milavech watched as the Thing learned of its enemy.
Then he saw, still trapped in this brief moment of time, the Thing's plan. He saw a series of perfectly executed events that would insure the Thing's removal from this station. He saw the reactor being disabled, cutting power to any automatic alarm systems that could be set off. He saw the interrogation chamber opened, the Thing released. He saw what little remaining functions the station could execute re-routed to the Master Control Station above the hangar. He saw each person's talent disposed of to its full potential; including his own ability to deactivate the station's power supply.
Milavech saw as the Thing saw, the past, present, and future all blended into one perfectly timed and planned series of events. He saw the Thing leaving the station, and letting its power grow, in order to...
The moment of realization faded. The title of master was returned to the Thing, and the title of servant was returned to Victor Milavech. The Thing pulsated towards Milavech, almost in disdain, then floated away.
Remain here.
Obediently, he did so. He did so for a long time.
>>>>>>///ONI Orbital Research Platform
>>>>>>///Neptune, Sol System
>>>///June 27, 2568
>>>///1217 Hours
>///Delphi Station Recording Log
Before long, the Thing's control over him lessened. He still had no control over movement, leaving him in the same position the Thing had left him in. He sat next to the body of Thomas Belansky, and, finally, was able to feel emotion. He stared at the body of his friend and wept.
The door slid open next to him.
Milavech looked up for a moment and saw Rebecca Lin standing there, looking down at him. Her eyes glowed red. With extreme difficulty, he gestured towards the body next to him.
She stood stock still, glaring at Thomas Belansky's body with those piercing red orbs.
Then she blinked. When she opened her eyes, they were their normal dark brown.
"Get out of my head!" she screamed.
She fell to the ground, twitched once, then lay still.
Rise, you have work to do.
Not looking back once, Milavech stood and began his long trek down the hall way. Eventually, he came to the reactor room. He opened up the access panel on the side of the massive rectangular prism, and began to rearrange its inner wirings.
Soon, the dull red emergency lights around the station deactivated, leaving only light inside the reactor room and the hangar antechamber.
He closed the reactor access panel then walked over to another dark corner of the room. He began to flip some switches labeled "Coolant Control." With a few adjustments, he changed the flow of excess coolant gas to the pipes above the reactor, but cut off the valves for now.
Go to the hangar. Bring a weapon.
Milavech looked around for a weapon and spotted a small, sharpened piece of metal lying on the ground next to the coolant pipes, probably left over from some maintenance crew. He picked up the makeshift shiv and proceeded to the hangar control room.
The hallways were lined with shadows, and they seemed to mock him.
He walked on.
As soon as he had climbed the steps to the hangar control room, he saw a figure masked against the viewport at the front of the room. The figure, clearly a female, was staring down into the hangar.
Kill her.
Milavech sprang forward, and sunk his shiv into her back. She fell without a sound.
Milavech felt the coldness envelop him again. Slowly, he turned around.
The Thing floated sinisterly in front of him, radiating triumph.
Veracity
Victor Milavech felt himself nodding.
A laugh emanated from down in the hangar. Milavech was not permitted to see who had gave birth to it. It gave him pause though; who could be laughing now?
The Thing led Milavech down into the hangar antechamber.
End your life, infidel.
Milavech looked at the Thing and sat down in the corner of the room.
Somewhere deep inside him, in a part of the human mind that no scientist could ever understand, something happened to Victor Milavech. A small mantra that had been drilled into him from youth sprang forward in the darkness that was his possessed mind, and began to grow. Eventually it grew to the point that he had to speak it in order to let it expand.
"Our Father, who arten heaven, Hallowed be thy name."
The Thing gasped forward and pulsated almost curiously.
Your faith will not help you.
Milavech's voice began to rise.
"Thy Kingdom Come, thy Will be done, on Earth, as it is in Heaven."
End yourself.
"Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those, who trespass against us."
END YOURSELF
"AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION, BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL."
The Thing, angry at being disobeyed, focused all of his energy on to Milavech's mind. It had never done so before, never wanting to take away its omniscient awareness away from the world around it, but something about this mantra had enraged it to the point of irrationality.
The Inner Recesses of the Mind
The Thing suddenly felt a barrier of immense strength in front of it. Try as it might, it could not penetrate the walls of Milavech's psyche. The Thing pondered what was blocking it, then realized, in a moment of clarity, he had underestimated the man.
Faith, simple and unproven, fueled Milavech's rebellion. It was pure, and undamaged. It was something that could not be rationalized or evaluated or estimated, it was something that could not fit into any thought out plan, because it was unpredictable, and infinite. And in a man like Milavech, a man who had feared and loved God his whole life, it was unstoppable.
>>>>>>///ONI Orbital Research Platform
>>>>>>///Neptune, Sol System
>>>///June 26, 2568
>>>///1239 Hours
>///Delphi Station Recording Log
The Thing rose from Milavech's mind.
Slowly, confidently, Victor Milavech reached beneath his shirt. He pulled out a small, thin silver cross.
"May God have mercy on your soul."
The Thing felt something it had never felt before, a presence more powerful than it. For the first time in its existence, the Thing was frightened.
It drifted away from Milavech quickly, but it could not escape the chill that had taken it prisoner.
There was something working against it now. Something far greater than it could fathom.
Victor Milavech smiled and prayed.
"Have faith," he whispered.
"Have faith."
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