Interlude: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity
Achlys spat blood, then bared red teeth in a laugh.
Typhon kicked him, but the disgraced Drakensis only laughed harder.
“Look at you!” He chortled. “You actually think you’ve won!”
His former creche-mate replied by bringing down the butt of his rifle again, this time on Achlys’ ribs instead of his face.
“You delusional little worm!” He was losing his temper now, and that was not the way that this was supposed to go. Not the way at all. He had been looking forward to this, eager for the chance to force his worthless “brother” to realize that the Empire he had betrayed had broken the handicappers Achlys chose to side with. But now he was here, with a dozen others of the Master Race looking on, and the, the, the
creature at his feet refused to be broken.
“Coward! Traitor! Weakling! You never had the strength to be Drakensis! You ran from us!”
“’m not the one who’s weak.” The words were choked out, but the smile with them refused to go away.
“Cocksucker! Queer! Inferior piece of shit!” Typhon punctuated each word with a hit or a kick. “You aren’t worthy to lick my boots!”
“Then why are you so afraid of me?”
This time one of the other Drakensis caught Typhon’s arm.
“He’s trying to bait you into killing him.” Lucan hissed. “And he’s
succeeding.”
“Get the fuck off me!” Typhon rounded- the defector monetarily forgotten. If there was one thing he had learned in the creche it was to never give an inch. Never compromise, never admit failure, never concede to a mistake, never apologize, fight for ever scrap of authority you could muster and never yield an iota.
“Did you just lay hands on a superior officer, sergeant?” He was yelling now, but that was just how you showed you had power. He didn’t even realize he’d hit Lucan until after his backhand connected with the other Drakensis’ face.
Typhon comprehended belatedly the trap that he had fallen into. Not that he had hit Lucan- no one would care about that- but that Lucan had known that he couldn’t possibly take advice from a subordinate, and so now the captain (lieutenant until recently) had no choice
but to kill the traitor. To do otherwise would be to lose face, to seem to take direction from someone junior to him, to admit that he had been about to make an error.
And this no Drakensis ever did.
But killing Achlys… that he would get in trouble for. What was left of the Imperial High Command wanted to make an example out of the first member of the Master Race to ever defect to the handicappers, the minor celebrity who had brought disgrace to himself and to the Country of the Dragon for the public statements he had made, lies he’d uttered about the Agoge and the Master Race (Typhon might, when he was alone in the silence of the night, admit to himself that most of what his erstwhile creche-mate had said was true-
but that wasn’t the point, was it? The point was that he had betrayed them, that he had
left), and the broadcasts he’d recorded urging others to defect (a couple had). Important people would angry with Typhon, and Lucan had witnesses that he’d tried to convince him not to do it and been struck for his trouble.
The twenty-three-year-old captain briefly contemplated killing the twenty-two-year-old sergeant- just out of spite- but settled for shoving him back and snarling;
“Remember your place!”
The noise was equal parts mirth and sobbing and it took Typhon a few seconds to recognize it for more laughter.
“You’re so afraid!” Tears ran down Achlys’ cheeks but that
fucking smile was back. “So afraid of looking weak that you’ll kill me out of fear! Even if you destroy yourself doing it! Even if it means they replace you with Lucan, fear will make you do it!”
His brother was right, and the knowledge of how trapped he was awakened something dark and hateful inside of Typhon. He was Homo Drakensis, the Master Race, the next step in Human Evolution, destined to rule the world! How dare they? How dare they trap him, manipulate him,
laugh at him?!
The captain crouched down.
“Is there someone you care about?” He asked. “Someone among these handicappers that means something to you? I want you to know that I’m going to find that person, I’m going to make them beg me to spare their life, and then I’m going to tell them ‘
no’.”
He unbuttoned the flap over his sidearm.
“I’ve had more people to care about than you can imagine.” The defector held his gaze, unflinching. “I’ve been loved and cared for in ways you will never experience. I have an army of loved ones, and you will
never find them.”
Achlys did not mention an informal wedding in a bunker whose walls shook from distant impacts, a moment seized when it had seemed to him and her that they could die at any time. He didn’t mention the positive pregnancy test, or the tearful good-bye, a decision made with the knowledge that the Empire would come for him- but not someone it never knew existed.
He did not mention these things, and Typhon remained unaware of them.
“Oh, I’ll find them.” The captain vowed, though he was unsure how he might even begin to go about doing so. “Now you can die knowing that your side has been defeated, your ideology has been disproved, you personally failed to protect your loved ones, and the Final Society will rule forever.” He drew his sidearm and looked for
something, some sense of fear or shame or even uncertainty, but the gaze before him was as blank and pitiless as the sun.
“I may have lived to see the Empire victorious,” Achlys Veturia Caesar uttered his last words in this world “but you will live to see the Empire beaten.”
