James Axler – Stoneface

“As a subject for your genetics experiments?”

“Perhaps.”

“Or as an organ donor?”

“Again, perhaps.”

“Or someone you can turn into a cyborg? Another one of your tools?”

“What else is man but a tool?” the Commander asked. “He has no other value. Humanity is self-destructive, suffering from an anarchy of mind and spirit. Free of the moral deterioration that paves the road to decadence, can you imagine the marvels humanity could accomplish?”

“I’ve seen some of your marvels,” Ryan said grimly. “Shiny toys and freak shows.”

The Commander affected not to have heard him. “In another century, maybe less, this world will cease to be a planet of strife and disorder, wallowing in bloodshed. It will be secure.”

“The security of the grave,” Ryan replied with bitterness. “A century ago you and your kind screwed humanity and left us to pick up the pieces.” As he spoke, his right hand tugged at the hanging end of his scarf.

“The nuclear holocaust was actually a blessing,” the Commander continued. “You have no idea of what it was like a century ago. The world before the holocaust was totally out of control, populations of useless people were expanding, chaos overwhelmed all the old political systems.”

Ryan slowly wound the slack of the scarf around his hand. “So you don’t care about all the suffering, the horrors, the destruction. It was best for the world to be destroyed, especially since you survived it.”

“Visionaries are needed. And there are things far beyond your understanding. The seeds planted a long time before are getting ready to take hold of the earth, getting ready for a new future.”

“Hellstrom says that Charlie Manson’s vision of the future was very much like this one. Like your own. How can you feel superior when you share your philosophy with a criminal maniac?”

The Commander’s eyes were devoid of any emotional reaction to Ryan’s question. He said, “The old world was ending anyway. It couldn’t have continued.”

Ryan slid the scarf across the back of his neck. The weighted end nestled just below his collarbone. He was ready, and he waited for his chance.

“Now, every action that affects the course of humanity will be dictated by us. Now, in a hundred years or less all the rules of the world will be my rules.”

The Commander lifted his face and his eyes bored into Ryan’s own. “A world,” he continued smoothly, “you will never see. I am done being your host.”

He reached across the desk toward a row of inset buttons. Ryan gave the scarf a jerk and whiplashed it across the intervening yards between him and the Commander. He had accurately gauged the length he would need. The weighted end of the scarf struck against the man’s right temple with a loud cracking of bone, spinning him away from the buttons and hurling him heavily to the floor.

Ryan was around the desk before the body had settled, rewinding the scarf around his hand. The Commander lay on his left side on the carpet, one arm beneath him. An ugly, blood-oozing indentation interrupted the unlined smoothness of his forehead. He lay as Ryan had seen many corpses lieboneless, mouth partly open, eyes wide and glazing over, an expression of shock frozen on his face.

Surveying the office in a sweeping, searching glance, Ryan saw his blasters, his grens and ammo clips stacked in a corner behind the desk. He snorted and muttered, “Stupes.”

The arrogance of power never failed to astonish him. Those who wielded control always seemed to lose their objectivity, rigidly believing that their authority could never be challenged. They grew blind to other possibilities, to random factors, to wild cards. The Commander and Lars Hellstrom were so alike it was nearly comical. Or sickening.

Stepping over the body, he grabbed the Walther MPL, jammed a new clip into the SIG-Sauer and attached the grens to the combat harness he still wore beneath his coat. Jacking a round into the pistol, he decided to put a bullet into the Commander’s ear just to make certain. Though the man had said they couldn’t transplant the brain, it was remotely possible they could resuscitate him and repair a fractured skull.