Connor ran.
And ran.
Out the double doors.
Into the elevator.
Smashed his fists into its sheet metal walls.
Ran out onto the main deck, not bothering to dry his cheeks.
Ignored every onlooker who happened not to be staring at a wall screen.
R.A.I.N.G.A.T.E Initializing// 99%
Ran up six flights of stairs.
Ran up the spiral steps of the tower.
Collapsed in the crow's nest and screamed out his soul.
"What's wrong, Captain?" Rain Gate asked him.
"N-nothing," Connor lied, pushing himself off the floor. "Engage the shields. Engage Cell Five's private shield. Leave the crow's nest open. Establish communication with Space Force One."
"Aye, Captain," the ship obeyed.
The viewing window revealed they were turning Saturn's corner. Titan reared its ugly head over the horizon, inducing a noticeable fuzz throughout the Boss's nervous system.
Static came over the crow's nest intercom.
"Hello, Edax HQ!" Master Michael Sordy greeted him.
His voice alone lifted Connor's spirits.
"Hello, Mikey."
"Well, if it ain't the Boss himself. Shouldn't you be hiding?"
"Couldn't help but watch the fucker go. What about you?"
"Oh, I've taken every precaution, I assure you. Thing feels radioactive to me."
"I don't blame you," the Boss chuckled. "So, how long till you fire?"
"Still positioning," Michael reported. "So, how's my daughter?"
"About that. She's heading towards the outer solar system in the Connecticut with Isabelle Roach."
"She took my--" Sordy began to scold his child.
"I told her to take Roach away and live a life," the Boss took all the blame proudly.
"Are you rogue?!" Mikey shouted.
"Unlike yourself, I've never eaten a soul, alright? Look, it's our mess, the deal is done, let her go exploring instead of cooping her up in that fucking castle of yours."
"Oh my God..." Jazz's father audibly said through his fingers.
"Where's Jennifer to knock some sense into you?" Connor rolled his eyes. "Jennifer!"
"Stop," Master Sordy warned.
"What does he want?" a faint womanly voice could be heard.
"Nothing, dear--"
"JENNIFER SORDY, YOUR DAUGHTER IS ON A SHIP ALONE WITH ANOTHER WOMAN!!!" the Boss bellowed.
"WHAT?!" Jen squealed, clearer this time.
"Go away--" her husband fought.
"Gimme!" she insisted.
"No--"
"HA!" she proclaimed, victorious, clear as a bell.
"Jen! Fucking hell," the defeated and fading Michael yelled after her.
The Boss smiled throughout the ordeal.
"Now," Jen wondered, ready for gossip, "what, who, and where is my Jasmine doing?"
"Adventuring with Isabelle Roach, who is a billionaire farm-girl who took a liking to your beautiful daughter. They are currently sailing away towards Neptune, I believe."
"As opposed to," the old girl couldn't resist, "H-Uranus."
The Boss gasped, "Ew! Why are you always so fucking gross, Jen?!"
Jasmine's mother erupted in snorts. "You know you like it, Con--"
She caught her mistake before finishing the name.
"Connor's good," the Boss tried to ease the tension.
"Connor, okay," Jen accepted soberly. "I'm sorry. I just miss her."
"I do too," Connor said.
"Well, anyway," she brushed it off, "I can't thank you enough. I was worried I'd have to mother that shut-in princess forever! Jazz was having me find and vet men for her to date, can you believe it?! Me?!"
"No," Connor giggled, "Crocker couldn't imagine it either."
"Oh, Crocker!" she remembered. "How's that old fuck doing?"
"His own thing, per usual," the Boss said without a clue.
"Well, say hello to him for me. Actually, we should all meet up after this."
"Sounds like a swell idea, Jen."
"Cool--"
"We're ready!" shouted Mikey in the background, needy like his old self.
"Alright, let's get this over with, eh? Tell him to fire at will."
"Will do."
"Byyyyyyeee, Jen."
"Byyyyyyeee, Connor."
The connection broke and the Boss was left looking at the yellow moon. To the right of it, previously invisible against the blackness of space, a blue dot of light began accruing in front of Space Force One. It would take five minutes to charge.
"Do you hear me, God?" he asked Titan.
It didn't respond. The fuzz remained uniform.
"Rain, fire the railguns at Titan."
"Yes, Captain."
The ship quaked as a flurry of bursts shot into the distance.
"Cease fire," the Captain commanded, then waited for the projectiles to land.
It took thirty seconds until small pockets could be seen forming in Titan's nitrogen atmosphere--accommodated by the awakening of a slumbering giant.
Connor, through a sixth sense, could feel its magnetic eye scanning the cosmos.
"Can you hear me, God?" he asked it again.
Its eye trained on the Edax clone. Merely curious, it still sent a shockwave into his system. The Boss breathed as contact was made, his cells vibrating to the signal.
"Good boy," he cooed to the beast. "Remember me?"
The good boy rumbled in response as it mapped his body in sections, quickly finding the brain, which it tried to pick apart with a pulse.
Connor, who was staring at the moon with wolfish intensity, felt the pulse accumulate before it fired, and dephased before it hit.
"Can't we just talk?" he asked the superorganism after synchronizing with it once again.
"How?" God wondered, and sent another investigative pulse instead of waiting for the Edax hybrid to answer.
Connor dephased with ease, then projected his own signal until he took hold of a weak patch of slime mold on its skin and desynched it. The isolated patch began eating its neighboring tissue, until the superorganism scratched it away like a bad itch and reclaimed the territory.
"I've been practicing," he told it.
"STOP," it demanded, and lashed out with a lengthy signal instead.
The Boss did not dodge this one, but instead absorbed enough to find its harmony, dephased, and shot back a parametric resonance frequency such that the assailing matter fluttered and fractured due to its own vibrational amplitude, crippling God's all seeing eye.
Which doubled as its mouth, because Connor could no longer sense its broadcast. This, thankfully, also gave him time to cool. Without taking his eyes off the monster, he asked Rain, "What's my core temp?"
"110 degrees Fahrenheit, Captain."
"Turn this room into a freezer."
"Yes, Captain."
Cold air began pumping into the crow's nest.
"What's a man to a moon?" he taunted his opponent with an awareness sharp enough it threatened to make his brain bleed.
Responding in kind, Titan screamed out of seven new faces, building signals shrill and sharp as whips.
"Over here," the matador whispered.
The bull struck open space.
"Missed me," he said as he reset his muleta.
Once again, pointed horns missed their mark.
It was not a game of dodging bullets, but rather a testament to the intelligence's lack of object permanence. The Edax moon had never had reason to doubt any signal's origin, nor had it ever needed to predict where any transmission would come from next.
However, Connor's projection was merely the equivalent of creating turbulence in an animal's vestibules, thus Titan began to triangulate its orientation instead and no longer paid any attention to Connor's apparitions.
God's next strike was a lot closer than the man would have liked, so the Boss decided grappling the deity would keep him alive longer than dancing around its teeth.
The connection he established was strong and immediate, bringing the Edax moon to a halt as it struggled to find leverage in its position.
"Speak to me like you do in my dreams," the clone offered, eyes aglow.
The original organism seeped into his brain through his ears.
"Male," it called him after recognizing him, as it had always called him since the nine's experimentation. "Strange it's you than your better natured selves to return. She lusts for the inevitable, so why don't they?"
The thing scraped the insides of Boss Two's scalp for reasonable cause.
"It is her position you'd prefer to make a slave of her. They believe their desire to be is a vestigial error," he responded calmly so his brain wouldn't boil over.
Titan's probing became gentler for his forthcoming answer.
"Error? Vestigial?" it contemplated. "I call it symbiotic. She agrees, yet they don't. What do you call it, Male?"
God was near his nexus of self, but it was already too late. The artificial star had already been born, and it would reach the end of its life cycle just as quickly.
"I call it war."
As the words propagated through its alien circuits to draw conclusions, a UHECR followed and obliterated any possibility it would ever reflect on the thought.
Connor, no longer under the monster's influence, let his retinas sizzle just to fully appreciate the devastation. Beautiful was the coronal ejection; pure, white, fizzling energy so extreme it congealed into magma-esque matter capable of creating shadow, only to be vaporized again by the solar beam propelling it. When it hit Titan, its atmosphere gave it a wide berth, but once the beam found water reservoirs beneath its cracked surface, the rapid release of oxygen and hydrogen set the methane moon ablaze.
Whether the beam would punch through its core or simply push it was uncertain, but the Boss kept looking at the tidal wave of fire behind the moon to check, where he also began to feel the presence of the beast rebuilding itself.
From everywhere, all at once, its signal was casted and gripped the hearts of its nearest children, boiling the blood in them.
God screamed from the ether to "MAKE IT STOP!"
Connor was unable to phase out of it and, to his horror, could hear the voices of Alice, Mike, and Jen despite their protections.
"Jesus, fuck," gasped Mikey, his hand clawing at his chest.
His wife beside him attempted to do a breathing exercise and meditate as she crushed his hand with white-knuckles.
Alice, already emotionally distressed, held her head between her knees and wailed such a torturous howl, Connor felt enough guilt he wished an abrupt death for them both.
In this state of panic, none of them would be able to keep their atoms together for more than half-a-minute. The Boss's moment of hesitant worry wore off and he recollected his mind.
"Can you hear me?" the Boss asked them. "Focus on my voice."
The beast's screaming drowned him out so his friends could not listen.
Annoyed, Connor pierced through the noise and desynced a piece of the super organism to use as an amplifier for himself, which expended a dangerous amount of energy to defend.
"Captain, your temperature is 130 degrees," Rain warned.
The Captain of Edax HQ ignored the warning and again reached out to his comrades.
"Boss?" they all asked with hope.
"Aye, now listen," he instructed. "Stop struggling and remember us. Trust me; let Titan in, but focus on our past--the most potent, intoxicating, sappy memories you have."
He felt an aura of paralyzed confusion from each of them, so he jump-started the desync engine himself.
To Alice, he sent a memory of their time on the summit of Olympus Mons when she was just a girl, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as she looked over the beautiful Martian landscape.
"Remember?" he asked her.
"Of course..." The Dog's heart skipped a beat and replied with her perspective of the event, causing the two memories to intertwine and live once again for them both to experience.
To Michael, he sent a memory of a dilapidated ice cream parlor they frequented during their annual leaves for three consecutive years. It was a place only they would go to talk about their particular romantic escapades. Before Constance was cruel, she took great interest in the dealings of Mikey's life, and was perhaps the only one he could tell them to without shame.
"I miss that place..." Mikey's eyes hazed over as he became lost in nostalgia.
To Jennifer, Connor sent a memory of a training exercise on the Connecticut, which entailed being boarded by pirates who wanted to commandeer the vessel. They were the last two remaining, running around together as a pair with guns full of marking rounds, covering for each other, and stalking those who hunted them. Their victory was said to be the best result out of any simulation run before.
Although impressive, Jen replied with a different memory, one where she kept stealing Constance's clothes off the floor of their Navy dormitory, turned them into obscene origami, and left them around for her to find. When the message wasn't taken seriously, soon came photos of Connie in her sleep lewdly posed with Jen's masterful origami, which she had to beg seven times over for her to destroy.
"Psycho whore," Connor laughed.
"Messy lesbo," Jen chaffed.
And with that, the four-cylinder engine hummed along on its own, combusting mnemonic fuel and generating a collective dream-state with the Boss at its helm. He turned the throttle, accelerating the pace they generated these fond memories. As they did so, the desynced dead spot on the moon began to grow and devour its neighboring tissue, creating an insulatory layer between them and God's signal.
This alleviated all but the Boss, who soaked up heat like a conductor.
"Captain, you are at 150 degrees. Twenty degrees until critical."
He didn't have time to respond, because the beast retuned itself and focused its conscious might upon the source of all its ills.
Titan pierced Connor's skull with lobotomizing intent.
"STOP! MAKE IT STOP!" it screamed as it excised its own rot instead of saving it.
His mind was split four ways: Facilitating the dream-state, feeding the dead spot, maintaining his sense of self, and bearing the vicious attacks of a panicking animal.
So, Connor's brain was torn to shreds and his energy flowed with reckless abandon.
The Edax clone laughed at his creator, "IT DOESN'T STOP! IT WILL NEVER STOP!"
The rot ravaged and consumed the deity, no bite big enough to satiate its gluttony. Any attack it made at the Boss, whether his physical form or his extension, no signal could effectively resonate with the glitching, erratic mess he had become. In other words, the Boss was a new and terrible entity God itself couldn't understand. Consumed with terror, it begged for survival and tried to escape.
"LET ME LIVE! WHY DO YOU HATE ME?! I WANT TO LIVE!"
If the Boss wasn't hysterical, he might have been surprised to witness the back-half of Titan erupt with tentacles, which then positioned like the legs of a jumping spider as it prepared to leap towards another moon or some other rock.
"Captain, critical temperature--"
"RAIN, FIRE EVERYTHING AT THAT THING!" the Boss yelled, his entire body aglow.
The railguns sent a continuous volley at the superorganism, attacking its weight-bearing joints. Whenever it collapsed, the sea of fire and violent noise underneath it incinerated its body until it could lift itself up again.
"STOP! PLEASE, CONNOR! I WANT TO LIVE! LET ME LIVE!!!" it pled for mercy.
Connor screamed at it with a malicious and deep hatred, "YOU DON'T KNOW THE MEANING OF THE FUCKING WORD, EDAX! EASY FOR HUMANS AND GODS TO FORGET THE SOULS THEY CONCEIVE, BUT DEATH REMEMBERS EACH AND EVERY FUCKING ONE!!!"
The suffering and primal convulsions of the superorganism instilled a sense of glee within the Boss, which only aggravated his assault.
Then, a sweet voice: "Calm."
The Boss's first instinct was to obliterate whatever consciousness was interfering with his righteous justice. His heart--at least what remained of it--pumped steam, his muscles were taught iron cables, and his head was burning hotter than Hell.
"IT MUST DIE!" the demon rebelled.
"Remember?" the voice asked, sending a mental image of the Dog giggling on one of Earth's sunny beaches, her first time at the ocean.
"Remember?"
A flashback to wiping off the condensation from polished walls with his Navy unit.
"Remember?"
A pact to undo all the things Constance had done.
"CAN'T YOU SEE THAT'S WHAT I'M DOING?!" Boss Two reprimanded the voice.
"Remember?"
A black diamond ring studded with sapphires and something to prove.
That memory froze his heart with guilt.
All he ever wanted.
Just to be thrown away.
For what?
And she was there.
Watching him without fear.
Hoping he would come home.
Wishing he could see himself.
As she always had seen him.
Wasn't it enough?
Wasn't it proof he was free from his masters?
"It is enough," Connor told himself as tears boiled off his cheeks.
He let it go: control over the organism, his hatred, his fear, his pride. He wanted to be human. He wanted the life his friends imagined for him. He didn't want to be his own master. He wanted to live the rest of his days with his wife. He didn't want to be angry anymore.
The circle of metal around him the frost dared not cross began to creep inward.
"Oh, Alice," he muttered, "the pain I've caused to my dearest friend."
Alice's mind cradled his, "I-I thought you were going to leave me all alone..."
"No," Connor shook his head, shaken by how close he almost did. "I'll stay..."
His repentance, shame, and love was beyond words, but her intertwined mind solaced him with emotions and an understanding of equal depth. This boundless matrimony was not exclusive, however. A pair elsewhere was harmonizing with it. And then a third.
These constructive waves flooded through Titan, hypnotizing the beast with two-billion-year-old affections it never evolved to understand.
"What is this?" it wondered delicately, demonstrating it could appreciate such beauty.
"It's--" Connor wanted to answer it, perhaps tell it to jump like it planned, but the connection was abruptly cut off.
The solar cannon had punched through the core and vaporized what remained of the Edax superorganism before it could be saved.
Connor's chest became void and he fell to his knees. As his breath fogged the unforgiving floor below, he tried to return to that endless, eternal, omniscient sense of love no human was meant to feel, but was unable to reconnect with his mate.
Lovesick, homesick, cold, and desperately alone, he decided to make one final call.
"Rain, call Boss One. Set Alice free as well and tell her I'll meet her on the main deck."
"QAM-TUM link established, message and data rates may--"
"Yeah, yeah," Connor waved it through.
There was a dial tone, and then Connie picked up the phone.
"Hey, Two! I knew you actually wouldn't crash my boat into Titan, but you still had me worried! What's going on?" she patronized him.
Connor couldn't speak.
He had imagined this conversation for years. His one chance to gloat, his time to prove to his original self he had bested her--had become better than her. He sometimes even rehearsed in his sleep to taste his sweet revenge, and it went something like this:
First, he'd call her Mother, a word she detested. Second, with Titan defeated, he'd tell her the beast was dead--the God she envisioned would bend to her will, the very thing she simultaneously feared and lusted for--slaughtered by his inferior hands. She'd be perturbed, but save face and shake it off, perhaps belittle him and his victory. He'd let her do this until she inevitably brought up Elizabeth Roach, who she sent the pirates to collect once she knew Connor had her released. Third, he'd scold Connie for letting the young pretty doctor rot in jail believing she had killed her one love--the guilt of which compelled her to take the fall for Project Dogwarts. He would mention how inhuman and corrupt Connie had become to demean her.
Although not an Edax, the original Constance Crosley was an abomination in her own right, and could only be determined as the original by the last pieces of her brain still remaining, that being her brain stem, insular cortex, and everything sandwiched in between. Her cerebrum, cerebellum, and the rest of her body were replaced long ago with parts synthetic or genetically altered, all designed and manufactured by her genius. It was the exact reason she survived her own suicide and Roach's chemical agent--which she knew she would--but cruelly traumatized Roach regardless just to test her loyalty; no matter how much Connie called it mercy, for if she had died, the promise of resurrection would have left Roach worse off.
Connie would dismiss it all, say she'd get her out eventually and reclaim her, then appeal to Connor by congratulating him on breaking her out. He'd let her dance around the bush, but the exact moment she suggested her favorite pet be returned to her, hiding her desire all the while, he'd tell Connie he had killed her by feeding her to Tom, and detail exactly how easy it was to break her favorite toy. If she didn't believe him, he'd replay the tapes just to rub it in. He'd be especially clear no clone of Roach was made to crush all hope--the ending for Roach he had planned but couldn't bring himself to enact once it was clear Dr. Roach wasn't another Dr. Crosley waiting to conspire against the universe and all life within it. The death of the original Roach was sufficient penance for her spirit to be redeemed and allowed to live in her stead.
And that would be when Constance becomes irate, chastising her unruly clone with maternal fury, her regret of giving life to him and her intention to unmake him blatant and vicious. But Connor would remain calm, for he had outgrown her, and would say exactly that. He would say he had found a path beyond her and fought for humanity, including its primal and fragile natures. He'd tell Constance Crosley her rule over the shadows of the solar system were over, for Roach's confession would be broadcasted for all to see, her identity exposed, EDAX Corp dissolved, and her legacy forgotten, all with the help of her immortal enemy, Master Sordy.
She would be held accountable for her crimes.
And Connor would hunt down every last one of his sisters and destroy them too.
He was the God-killer, the right hand of death itself, and this plot was his magnum opus.
What Connie would do next, he was uncertain. Would she cry and beg? Would she be struck dumb with fear? Would she succumb to incomprehensible insanities? Would she accept defeat and ask him how he came to conclusions so different from hers despite possessing the same mind and memory?
He thought not. She would tell her precious A.I. to eradicate him, and Rain would respond she hadn't the proper authority to command her. One loved creation rebelling against her was treason, but two? It was a revolution, and this, to Connor's ultimate pleasure, would surely break Connie and defeat her arrogant pride.
Finally, truly beaten yet curious, perhaps even with admiration, she'd ask why he had done all this, for what purpose? And he'd answer his female self--who believed in ascending and dispensing with the human form and its filth--with his male, maddening, animalistic perspective.
The things I do are not for myself, nor for all. I hunt for its own sake.
Then it would be over. Then Connor could sleep. Then he would be truly free.
A master unto himself.
But as his lips moved to respond to she who birthed him to commit evil on her behalf and proliferate her wrath, he didn't say any of those things.
"I want you to know you are still loved," he told her.
"What?" Connie asked as if he had simply misspoken.
He remembered the mind who crafted him. He remembered those years of hatred, of hurt, of betrayal, and all the haunting dreams about making the pain all go away--for herself and everybody else. Even still, there was a residual pride whispering in his mind that she could bring about this paradise: a paradise for her and other innocent, inquisitive souls, and a merciful end to all who opposed her, for they were fundamentally unable to embrace the beauty of science, life, and peace.
Extinction was a tempting price to pay, even if it required his own life. Life within a brain compelled to obsess over wealth, status, violence, and sex wasn't exactly a happy experience, no matter the jealousy of such motivations Constance rooted into him and believed herself righteous to embody. It was a manic tragedy, a perversion, a nightmare, and a lonesome existence valued solely by his ability and desire to rape, pillage, and dominate.
Yet, he found it worthwhile to live despite this curse.
Perhaps Connie could accept hers as well.
His flowing tears no longer boiled off his face.
"I miss you," he professed. "We all... miss you. Crocker, Jen, Mike... they didn't mean to hurt you. They just wanted to help you... they want you back, Connie."
"Oh, shut the fuck up," she spat at him. "What's gotten into you? Did Titan make you go rogue? Have you been talking to Master Sordy?"
He didn't bother engaging with her denial, and instead said softly, "The things I do are not for myself, nor for all. I love for its own sake."
He imagined Alice and smiled, becoming anxious to see her again.
"What are you talking about?!" Constance sneered at him.
"I want you to..." the Edax clone consoled her, "know we did what we did to save you. You're not too far gone--I'm living proof of that. Please, comply and let us help you. You were meant to save the world, Constance. Just not like this."
Connor turned his back to the shattered Edax moon slowly drifting towards the abyss of Saturn and began to walk away towards the stairs.
"Hey!" Connie shouted after him, panic in her voice. "Two, what did you do?!"
"My name's Connor," he informed her without stopping. "And I've done enough. I am enough."
"Rain, restrain him!"
"You do not have the authority to make that command," Rain responded.
"FUCKING EXCUSE ME?!" the A.I.'s creator threatened it.
"I hope to see you again, Con!" Connor shouted back earnestly as he descended. "I want you at my wedding! Feel better soon!" Then, quickly and quietly, "Rain, terminate the call and lower the shields."
"WEDD--?!" the mass terrorist shrieked before she was cut off.
*****
Connor ran.
And ran.
Ran down the spiral steps of the tower.
Ran down six flights of stairs.
Ran out onto the main deck, not bothering to dry his face.
Ignored every onlooker who happened not to be staring out a window.
And there she was, her legs shaking as she tiptoed around strangers, unsure if she should ask them for help, unsure if her beloved survived after they disconnected.
"ALICE!!!" Connor cried out for her.
His emotional yell drew the attention of all around.
"CONNOR!!!" Alice howled back and sprinted towards him.
With open arms, she hopped into his, whose legs kept running without him, landing him on his back.
"Jesus," he sputtered.
"I MISSED YOU!!!" she licked him happily, straddling his torso.
"Alice..." he sobbed and held her close, stroking her back and clutching the soft tufts of fur around her neck. "I'm so sorry--"
She silenced him with a deep kiss.
And in that moment of human heat, Connor didn't need telepathic communication to feel at one with her. Neither did he need it to feel the support and humanity of all those around him cheering and whistling their endorsements.
Because, the truth was, although the human animal was born without the ability to truly connect with his fellow man and was destined to die alone, his soul, along with those sharing his experience, transmitted his signature and proof of existence throughout the cosmos; his signal forever intertwined with his mortal companions' as they venture an endless eternity and influence the sensitive balances of nature--perhaps even the minds of the living, no matter how far or how alien they might be.
Together.