Forever After - By David Jester Page 0,38
stick it--”
Michael stopped abruptly. He wasn’t in the processing room anymore. His grating throat caught a spittle of dried phlegm which he had a hard time trying to force back down as he looked around in horror.
The room was dark, but of a different intensity. Nothing could penetrate the blackness. Michael couldn’t see his own hand as he lifted it, trembling slightly, in front of his face. He could see an enormous desk in front of him though, eclipsing him. The solid structure looked like a fortress and he was an enemy at the meagre gates.
Azrael sat behind the desk, his size and his stature fitting perfectly behind it. His eyes bore down on Michael, glittering like fiery orbs in the blackness.
He was in the Angel of Death’s office. He had never been there before, but he knew it. He felt it.
“Shit,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean it.”
Azrael ignored the apology. “The weapons and the technology, including the clones, come from a former employee,” he explained. “We have been studying him for some time, but he has ways of remaining under our radar. He knows how we operate.”
It was hard to feel at ease in such a room but Michael softened under the realisation that he wasn’t going to lose his job or his immortality. “Was he a reaper?” he asked.
“No,” Azrael said brusquely.
Michael decided not to pursue that line of enquiry; he doubted it would get him anything other than brisk negatives.
“I thought there was no way out of here, how did he just stop working?” he asked.
“He found a way.”
“Can’t you drag him back?”
“He is a very powerful man.”
Michael forgot his station again, “You’re the fucking Angel of Death,” he reminded him. “How powerful can he possibly be?”
Azrael drummed his fingers on the desk, the heavy thuds like shrapnel embedding into wood. “Above ground he is more powerful than I,” he admitted with great reluctance. “He, like you and I, is also immortal.”
Michael looked perplexed. “I don’t get it,” he admitted.
“And I can’t explain it.”
Michael sighed “Back to square one then.”
Azrael grinned; he opened his palms in an expressive manner. “I sense you’re happier with this conclusion though?”
“For some reason, yes.” Michael agreed. “And to be honest with you, I don’t give a shit what you do with this guy. I did my part and that’s that.”
Azrael looked impressed and respectful of Michael’s honesty.
“Now,” Michael said, looking around unsurely. “How do I get out of here?”
****
There was a storm of blackness inside a room that bore One, Two and the prospect of many more equally combative, submissive and apathetic vessels. The vats were taken apart by unseen, uncaring hands; stripped with great rapidity before any watching eyes could complain.
The machines and the wires followed. A wind of destruction tore through the room, stripping it of its priceless equipment like a superhuman team of removal men.
The man that had programmed the machine, the closest thing that One and Two had to a father, watched the room from his office: peering through the large glass window with little emotion showing on his weather-beaten face.
The room was black and empty in moments. Changed from a cacophony of electronics, noises and awe-inspiring expense, to nothing. Just a blank space.
Dressed in overalls, a pair of spectacles hooked over his ears and tipped up to rest on the top of his head, a placid man casually chewed gum and recited from a clipboard he held in his hands, ticking off as he went.
“Cloning vats destroyed. Souls diverted. Suspicious equipment noted or collected. Money transferred. Privileges revoked--”
The older man watched this indifferent display with a rueful scorn. He didn’t say a word; he didn’t object. When the checklist was completed and the man disappeared, he slumped down behind his desk and glanced around the empty office. Even the electricity had been temporally cut, the fading light of the day was now the only thing keeping the emptied area that had held life, and promise of more, from descending into complete blackness.
He slumped his head into his hands and sighed into his palms, breathing in his own despair. The door to his office opened, someone entered.
“The file you requested sir,” the incomer spoke and then slowly and silently departed, closing the door gently behind them, guiding the lock into place with the faintest of clicks.
He lifted his head and looked down at the file on his desk. A thick manila folder which concealed an assortment of pictures and papers, all neatly stacked in one thick