“No, Your Grace – I had nothing to do with this – please, have mercy!” Lorcan cried.

  “This is my mercy!”

  Two more shots rang out and Lorcan slumped forward. Tynan’s grip on the gun loosened and it fell to the floor. Instantly, several soldiers saw their opportunity and raced forward to capture their former leader.

  Finally, the Empire was no more.

  Chapter 15

  When Guilt Leads to Good

  2161, Common Era – Planet Erebus, Frontier Space, Tynan Empire

  The transition of power can be chaotic and an unpredictable process, and that was certainly true for the Empire. All eyes were on me, and everyone expected me to provide answers for every question, even if I didn’t have the answers myself. I couldn’t go five metres without being accosted by Empire loyalists and Insurgency members alike. They swamped me whenever I left my temporary accommodation, which I would go to any chance I got.

  I would steal away a few minutes in the apartment just to find Amorina and hold her. Each time I’d ask myself is there a sweeter hug than embracing someone you thought dead and gone? I didn’t want to answer my question, fearful of the circumstances that would lead to a sweeter hug. With each embrace, I was afraid to let go, foolishly believing that if I did so, she would disappear – perhaps irrevocably so. But for now, I was thankful for each embrace I shared with my wife. After all, it was only a few days ago when I’d believed I’d never feel her warmth again.

  “You can let go of me now.”

  I pulled myself out of my thoughts and let go of Amorina, stepping away and averting my gaze, my fingers absent-mindedly massaging the back of my neck.

  “Sorry. I was just … you know, thinking about –”

  “I know!” Amorina huffed. “You don’t have to explain every time – just give me shorter hugs, okay? You’re beginning to make me feel smothered.”

  “Yeah, okay. Sorry – again.”

  Amorina held up a hand and glared at me. I nodded and watched as she went and sat down in the bay window of the apartment; the sun casting her in a golden glow. Ever since the events in the throne room, I’d sensed a divide between us, but I couldn’t grasp the cause of our disconnect. As she gazed out the windows at the bleak scenery of Erebus, I knew she wasn’t there to take in the sights – it was just to avoid me.

  “Daddy! Daddy!” I turned around to grab a hold of Emma as she raced up behind me.

  “Hey there, sweetie pie! What’ve you been up to?” I asked as I picked her up and rested her on my hip.

  “Mummy and I played hide and seek, and then Ichirō joined us as well! Now you can play with us too!”

  I saw Ichirō entering the room, and I gave him a warm smile and nod. It delighted me when my son returned the nod; his demeanour had really improved since the throne room events and was getting better each day. He’d been unburdened of the weight he’d carried for the last several years, a feeling I knew all too well. He’d figured out why he remembered everything and had freed himself from Tynan’s shadow. Ichirō was now gesturing toward Amorina, and as I looked over towards my wife, I knew a family game of hide and seek would have to wait.

  “I would love to play with you, darling – but I can’t right now, okay? Daddy needs to tend to some things, but Ichirō will play with you.”

  “Okay …” Emma said, her voice heavy with disappointment.

  “Ah, come on, sis! We can have fun while we wait for Mum and Dad to join us, yeah?”

  As Emma nodded, I heard Amorina’s sharp intake of breath when Ichirō called her mum – a moment that brought warmth to my heart. I put Emma down, and she ran over to her brother, and with another nod in my direction, Ichirō led her into the other room.

  I turned and slowly walked over to Amorina, sat down beside her, and stared at the dry, dusty world outside.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “What is what?” Her tone was flat.

  “What is the issue between us?”

  “I don’t know wh –”

  “Don’t –” I said, cutting Amorina off. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know what I’m talking about. Ever since the other day, in the throne room, you’ve been … I don’t know – cagey? Distant?”

  Amorina continued to stare out the window, but her lip quivered, and her eyes moistened.

  “Was it real?”

  I had to lean forward to capture her quiet words.

  Was what real?

  I shook my head in bewilderment. “Was what real?”

  “The darkness – Tynan!” she snapped, finally turning towards me. “When he … when he emerged from you! Was that fucking real?”

  “Pfft, no – of course not,” I said dismissively. “Why would you think it was?”

  I’d assumed Amorina would know it had been an act, but as she glared at me, I knew I’d miscalculated.

  “Why would I think that?” Amorina said in her the-answer-should-be-fucking-obvious voice.

  “Why would I think that?” she repeated as she got to her feet. “Let’s go through why I might fucking think that, Raith!”

  I momentarily considered telling her to calm down, but could only see that making things worse, and so, as Amorina paced back and forth, her onslaught began.

  “When I first met you, Tynan’s fucking voice was inside your head, tormenting you day and night.” Amorina’s voice quivered with rage as she spoke. “Sometimes … sometimes he would even take control of your body, verbally and physically hurting those around you!”

  “But that –”

  “I wasn’t finished!” she snapped. “In theory, we killed that part of you, but how sure can we be that he’s really gone? Then you pull a stunt like the other day – what the hell was I supposed to think?”

  Tears were now running down Amorina’s face, and I shrugged helplessly.

  “I don’t know what to tell you … except that it wasn’t real.”

  “You say it wasn’t real, but it was so goddamn convincing!” she sobbed. “How am I supposed to tell if you’re playing pretend or if he’s really back?”

  “He’s not back, okay! Trust –”

  “Trust you?” Amorina exclaimed in an incredulous tone. “I don’t even know which ‘you’ I’d be trusting!”

  Amorina’s words were like a thousand tiny claws latching onto my soul and ripping it apart. I know I’d intended my act to be convincing, but the last thing I expected was for it to shatter the bond between us. After all, the trust between us as husband and wife was meant to be the strongest bond between any two people in the universe.

  And we don’t even have that?

  “Amorina … please!” I pleaded, my heart breaking. “It’s me, Raith!”

  “And let’s not forget the discoveries we made over the last two days,” Amorina continued, ignoring my plea. “The fact that you experimented on your own son to save your own skin.”

  “How can you say all that?” I said as I leapt to my feet. “That was before I became Raith!”

  “Or what about the halls full of artificial wombs, churning out clones? Or the mind-altering rooms that turn those clones into loyal soldiers? You did all of those things, you invented all of those technologies!”

  This exchange had transformed from a rant to air grievances into a personal attack. Amorina knew my past and understood the difference between the life I’d lived as Tynan and the life I lived as Raith. I felt a sharp stab of betrayal in my chest, and a dull throbbing pain took up residence.

  “You know damn well I personally had nothing to do with any of those – that was all Tynan’s doing!”

  “And that’s my point! Where does Tynan end and Raith begin?”

  Silence filled the room as we stood there staring at each other.

  Did she really believe that?

  “I can’t believe you just said that …” My voice came out in a harsh whisper.

  “You can’t believe that?” Amorina whispered back. “Do you have any idea how terrified you made me in that throne room?” she screamed as her body shook. “I couldn’t tell that it wasn’t real! I thought Tynan had awakened and taken you over, and that horrified me!”

  Tears streamed down her face that was twisted into a melding of anger, terror, and concern.

  “I’m sorry … I wasn’t trying to scare you – I was trying to break Tynan.”

  Amorina sniffed and wiped the tears from her face.

  “We’ve learnt that Tynan’s foresight was … obsessive. He looked forward, saw the possibility of his own demise and engineered many a failsafe to counter those futures. The Empire loyalists enacted those plans, giving rise to the new Tynan. A clone who attacked and kidnapped us, who killed thousands of people and destroyed hundreds of ships. He was content to watch humanity burn if it meant he could rebuild it in his image!” Amorina said in a hushed, venomous tone.

  Where is she going with this?

  “Then I look at you and I see the same obsessiveness … I see the fire glowing in your eyes. That terrifies me, Raith. You think you’re different from Tynan … but I’m not so sure.”

  “You think you’re different from Tynan … but I’m not so sure.”

  My world shattered.

  “You think you’re different from Tynan …”

  My fears had come true. To defeat a monster, I’d become a monster –to the point where my wife, the one person left in this universe who knew me best, couldn’t tell the difference between man and beast.

  “I see the fire glowing in your eyes.”

  Ever since discovering my clone, I’d known this was a possibility; the chance that I’d become something my family couldn’t recognise as I paid the high price of freedom.

  I nodded and turned away, heading for the apartment exit.

  “Where are you going?” Amorina called after me.

  “I need … time to think.”

  [)
  I stepped out of the apartment to a cacophony of voices and questions, the crowd eager for direction. I wished Knox could deal with all of this, but the Empire clones and loyalists wouldn’t listen to her, and the Insurgency members – well, they simply chose not to. Aside from the suite, there was one other place I could go where the mob wouldn’t tread. I answered questions as I walked, but intentionally set a fast pace, aiming for my location of solitude. As I made my way further into the depths of the facility, more and more of the surrounding pack realised where I was headed and dispersed. The final people slipped away, and the atmosphere shifted to a peaceful silence, with the only sound being faint background static and my footsteps. I came up to a bulkhead door, and its integrated security system spoke up.

  “Restricted area. Two-factor biometric authentication required to verify authorisation.”

  I stepped forward and placed my head up against a scanner, waiting while it scanned my eye. With the scan complete, I took a step back and spoke.

  “Raith.”

  After a moment, the system spoke again.

  “Tynan: successfully authenticated and authorised. Proceed.”

  A shiver ran down my spine. Amorina couldn’t tell where I ended and where Tynan began – and neither could this security machine it seemed.

  With a metallic clang, the bulkhead doors split and slid apart. Once the gap was wide enough, I stepped through into the prison. In here, the sound of someone sobbing replaced the silence. As I headed towards the only occupied cell, my steps echoed throughout the hall and its vacant cages, heralding my arrival.

  “Who – who’s there? Who’s coming?” came the prisoner's strained, exhausted question.

  I remained silent.

  “Can you let me out? Please?” the prisoner begged. “I can’t stay here – it’s driving me crazy! It’s so quiet … all I can hear are my own thoughts – do you know what that’s like?”

  I stepped into view of the cell. “Yes, yes I do.”

  “Oh,” came the disheartened response. “It’s you.”

  Tynan looked terrible. He was sitting on the ground, slumped against the wall. His face was gaunter than before, his eyes swollen and red with dark circles beneath them. He was a sorry sight with his soiled clothes, tangled hair, and leg tightly wound in bandages.

  So, this is what a broken man looks like.

  “Well, let’s be honest,” I intoned. “No one else is in a hurry to come and see you.”

  Tynan shifted his eyes away from me, focusing on the floor of his cage.

  “Question is …” he replied as he picked at a spot on the floor. “Why have you come to see me?”

  “Well, for one, I came to check on you. And for another, it’s quiet down here … and I needed some quiet.”

  Tynan looked up at me and smiled, the result creepier than usual curtesy of his sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks. “Not so easy running an empire, is it?”

  “Not so easy being locked up in isolation, is it?” I immediately fired back.

  Tynan’s momentary glee evaporated, and he returned his gaze to the floor. It felt powerful to be standing over him, in complete control of his fate. It was my prerogative to show him mercy or to make him suffer.

  “Speaking of your isolation, how is it going in here?”

  Tynan’s face twitched, and he shook his head. “I’m not talking to you.”

  “Okay.”

  The prison was silent once more, and I watched Tynan as he attempted to conceal the movement of his eyes as they flicked between me and the spot on the floor. But he remained silent, bar the growling of his stomach, so I shrugged and turned away, beginning the walk back to the prison entrance.

  “Wait!” Tynan screeched. “Don’t leave me!”

  I turned back towards the cell. “Are you going to talk to me?”

  Again, Tynan’s eyes flicked between me and the spot on the floor.

  “I’ll have an extra meal brought down to you.”

  “Okay, fine! Yes! Yes, I’ll talk. But bring the food down now, okay?”

  “Okay, I will. Hey Bitsy?”

  My faithful Arachnobot sprung to life as it transformed from its watch form to its arachnid form.

  *Hello Raith! How can I help?*

  “Can you please go to the kitchens and get them to send down a roast meal please?”

  *Of course.*

  Bitsy scurried down my body to the floor and then scuttled off down the length of the hall to place the food order.

  “Why did you send that thing? It’s going to take ages to get to the kitchen and back!”

  “Because that’s how long you’ll talk to me for. When the food gets here, I’ll leave.”

  Tynan gave a small nod, his lips pressed together in a thin line, as if he was begrudgingly accepting this.

  “So, start talking. How’s it going down here?”

  My doppelgänger remained silent, continuing to focus on his cell floor.

  “You know, I’ll happily eat the roast meal when it arrives.” I smacked my lips. “The crunch of those golden roasted potatoes and the crackling on the pork. The juicy, lightly salted carrots, peas, and soft roasted pumpkin. And let’s not forget the rich gravy and applesauce.”

  Tynan’s stomach erupted into a flurry of gurgles and grumbles. “Stop! I’ll talk!”

  “Good. Let’s hear it.”

  “You want to know what it’s like down here? It’s hell, okay? When there’s no movement, the lights go out, and it’s so fucking quiet in here.” Tynan’s voice cracked as he spoke. “I’m always hungry, and always isolated. I don’t even know how much time has passed – it feels like I’ve been here for weeks!”

  “It’s been four – almost five days.”

  “Only five days?” Tynan exclaimed, his eyes wide with disbelief. “I am literally going insane!”

  “Probably not. Anyway, continue.”

  “What do you want me to say, Raith? That I know what it’s like now, that I can understand what I put you through?”

  “What you put me through?” I asked, bewildered. “This is nothing like what you put me through. Your lunatics performed open brain surgery on me, without anaesthetic. Then post-surgery, you locked me in a pitch black, soundproof cell, with no toilet, for eight months – not five days – eight fucking months. All without proper medical care or nutrition to allow my body to heal. It’s a fucking miracle I survived, to be honest.”

  “Yeah, I get it,” Tynan said.

  “I really don’t think you do. Because you locked me in the same cell for another few months, once again surrounded by darkness and waste, my heartbeat pounding away in my ears, day in, day out. For goddamn months! And you think you’re doing it tough in here after five days, with your motion-activated lights, your toilet, and your shower?”

  Tynan looked away, avoiding my gaze “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Look at you like what?” I snarled.

  “Don’t look at me with that look of disgust on your face.”

  “Why not, Tynan? Why shouldn’t I be disgusted with you? You are breaking down after only one week in your ‘luxurious’ confinement, when you have made others suffer far worse.”

  “Because it makes me feel more pathetic than I already feel!”

  I frowned, surprised by his comment. “You feel … pathetic?”

  “Yes!” Tynan wailed. “The real Tynan showed me … what I really am – a fraud! A poor imitation of the real deal!”

  Tears streamed down my doppelgänger’s face as he continued.

  “I wasn’t him. I could never be him. Those bloody advisors and their janky technology – it took a bad copy! I was meant to be just like the original. Instead, I am this … this … fake!” He waved his hands up and down indicating himself.

  I almost felt bad watching Tynan blubber away, but whilst being hard to watch, it was also satisfying – he had finally begun to pay his dues.

  “These flaws … all of this corruption … that the scans took from you. It’s made me … it’s made me a … a coward! And … and I just feel so … so guilty! All the time! All the goddamn time!”