Kane didn’t respond. In anticipation of the baron’s next words, his limbs began to tremble. Baron Cobalt noticed, because his smile widened.
“You face an interesting problem. Much of that superior genetic human material derives from your father. If you kill me, you’ll be committing fratricide, after a fashion. A sin that, I recall from old religious teachings, immediately consigned souls to eternal damnation. Do you want to be damned?”
Kane gritted his teeth, battling the soul-destroying sickness threatening to overwhelm him.
“Why are you here, Kane?”
“To find the truth about you, about humanity. I had to find out if you and your kind actually existed or if you were some strain of mutant.”
“I am human, Kane. The new human.”
Kane studied Baron Cobalt’s face, the golden eyes bright with intelligence, the too smooth skin, the high forehead, the small ears set too low on the head.
“No,” he said. “You’re outside of humanity.”
“The humanity you know is dead. The new humanity is taking its place. All a matter of natural selection. Nature taking its course.”
“Nature didn’t create you.”
“Sometimes nature must be prodded. Believe me, Kane,” Baron Cobalt continued, his musical voice sounding notes of kindness, of compassion, “I sympathize with your shock, your disorientation. You would have been indoctrinated eventually into these secrets. Not even Salvo has been to this part of the installation. Return with me to the ville, and you will take his place in the Trust. You will occupy an exalted position. You will not be serving me or the Archon Directorate, but the new humanity . We are a highly evolved breed, and our numbers are growing. We find rewards in life that our forbears were incapable of appreciating. This is our world now, and nothing can be done to arrest the tide. Stop opposing us. It will do you no good. Accept our kind as we have accepted your kind.”
A strange heat made Kane’s voice thick, his tongue feeling clumsy. “My father and all those others did not volunteer to serve or to help create a new humanity. You enslaved them, stole their lives and their identities. No matter how highly evolved you claim your breed is, you still need lowly humans to survive. You need lousy humans like Reeth to supply you with fresh meat. So, explain to me, Lord Baron, how does all that scheming and stealing and double-crossing make you superior to us apelings? You’re no different than the lowliest Pit boss in the worst slaghole of Tartarus.”
Baron Cobalt’s hands came up, his long fingers clutching at Kane’s wrist, trying to tear his hand away from his throat. In a rage, he barked, “You’ll die, I’ll have you dismembered while you’re still alive”
Kane chuckled. “Look at you. You’re puny, your body is fragile. You have to be sustained by artificial means. You and the Archons are so terrified of us, you trick us into living down to our basest impulses, then condition us to be ashamed of the very positions you forced us into. No, you’re not superior. What you are is a race of jealous, dickless cowards.”
The fury in the golden eyes burned hot and molten. The baron struggled wildly, kicking at Kane’s legs, long fingers flailing at his face. He fought like a trapped animal, crushing his knuckles on Kane’s armored chest, mashing toes into his shin guards. Kane held him easily and laughed.
“I rest my case, Lord Baron. You can’t beat us. You may have won a battle, may have won a lot of battles throughout history, but this is a war that’s been waged for thousands of years. But humanity always manages to get back up one more time after the Archons have knocked us down. No matter how blasphemous it sounds to you, we’ll get up again and we’ll kick your genetically superior asses out of our lives, our futures, once and for all.”
To emphasize his words, Kane slowly squeezed the baron’s throat. Baron Cobalt’s face grew dark with congested blood. His pale tongue protruded past his thin lips. Kane maintained the pressure until the baron’s slim frame shuddered and sagged.
Kane opened his hand, and the baron dropped limply to the floor, on his right side, splashing into the standing puddle of blood and chemicals. Kane gazed down at him, not sure if he’d choked the life out of him or not, and at the moment, not giving much of a damn.