Hours' worth of grasslands pass in a blur as the self-driving black car drifts quietly, like an animal taught to obey.
Inside, the vehicle's interior is chrome bone under matte blue leathery skin. No music plays as the two men stare at the dirt-carved pavement the wheels breeze through effortlessly.
A subtle hum of acceleration stirs as the gas presses itself. Pale orange-green glows illuminate the car, casting light on Lisan's sunglasses and Mercury's nearly white hair.
Bushes, small trees, insects, colorful birds, and weeds, nature's wonderland frolics here.
Lisan holds a small leathery-brown booklet. No title, only his thumbs flicking through its pages, a golden string hanging from it.
"You're quiet," he says.
Mercury keeps a serious expression. "I'm not here to entertain. You wanted to come."
He lays his head on the window, watching the fading grasslands.
Lisan doesn't smile. "You used to speak more."
"I used to have a name," Mercury replies.
Ambience, except the turning of wheels on perfectly-carved pavement.
The priest closes the book and looks over.
"I understand your resentment, Mercury. Do you think there is a kind manner in telling a daughter that her father's gone, forever?"
Mercury frowns, inhales, but doesn't respond.
Lisan continues, gentler, "Lullabies, faith, decay, poetry. Sometimes silence may be the best answer. But . . ."
He taps the side of his head. "It always returns by trials, dreams, the truth. It can never veil itself from grief."
Mercury stares forward.
The car then takes a bend downwards a gray hill. The grass looks duller, smells of clean metal linger, as rust and shady reconstruction emit from the environment. Memories of rot and decay return in a blink.
"Why me . . . all this?" Mercury mumbles.
"Who else could've done it? That implant . . . I was unsure it would work, but it did. You, Mercury, are the miracle."
"Why should I be the one to tell my comrade's family about his death?"
"You might be the last one she'll believe."
"I've met her before. Such a nice woman. But she'll break."
"She's already broken. You're just confirming the pieces," Lisan continues. "Would you rather they live in false hope . . . that he will return and knock on that door as their only drive?"
A heavier silence falls this time.
"Tell me, Lisan. Do you think I enjoy all this?" Mercury says in a low tone.
"No," he replies, "but you're the only one who can do it without lying."
Mercury cracks his knuckles and tenses his wire-like muscles.
"I'm sick of being chosen for things because I feel less than what they call 'human.'"
Lisan looks out the front window. Decaying bushy trees fill the corners, forming a tunnel with cracks of sunlight seeping through the spaces of each leaf. A gray bridge is up ahead. It looks unmaintained; if one screw fell loose, it would collapse.
"Not exactly. You feel all of it. You just . . . don't scream with your voice."
Mercury stares silently at him.
A touchpad on the car has a phoning system.
Mercury dials in a set of numbers.
It rings. . . slowly.
It picks up.
"Mashia . . . how's it been?"
"Hello . . ." He pauses.
"Cyrus."
"I'm glad you're still out there. You didn't go on that mission, did you? You should've joined my crew. Better to die at the hands of the ocean than the hands of governments."
His voice speaks in static; the bridge's connection slows.
Mercury stays silent.
"Mashia. You always hated how quiet I was. You took it from me now, eh?"
"I didn't call for nostalgia," Mercury mutters, his jaw clenched. "You have a son of Mala now. Mind your own business."
"Mashia . . . you sound distraught. What happened, man?"
"Firstly, my name is Mercury now. I am a Replicant. And . . . I did go on that mission." He spoke robotically, with a voice unlike his own.
"What is up with you? A Replicant? And what do you mean you . . . went?" The old man mutters.
"That mission . . . all my men died. I died, and I became anew." Mercury speaks oddly.
"What do you mean they all died?!" Cyrus shouts in grain. "Mashia, I tried to tell you. That mission was suicide. And you're not a Replicant. You are a man."
"You were right, Cyrus. But you're wrong about one thing, Mashia is dead. I am all that's left, Mercury. The true Mo'jiza."
Mo'jiza meant 'Miracle' in Mala's tongue.
Mercury pauses, then speaks, "I want to be part of the miracle of bringing beauty into the world again."
"Mashia-"
"That boy died in the sand."
Mercury hangs up.
Lisan looks over but stays silent.
He breaks it, "You acted strange on the phone." Lisan blurts. "You're lost."
"I'm tired of this. I met Cyrus two years ago, now a soft old man who speaks only of oceans that will kill him. Nonetheless, I built a bad habit of calling him whenever I was stressed. Now, that changes."
They finally pass the bridge that holds great deals of dull-blue water, mixing with clear cerulean lakes.
"Here we are, Zi Jin Cheng," Mercury says. "My old home. Moved here, then moved out."
Pollution filled the air with a lack of biodiversity.
The air smelled toxic, almost pungent.
Steam clouds shrouded the air as a cover, no light from the sun was able to enter from this.
Only a shadow of black sun was barely discernible through thick layers of toxicity frolicking in the aroma.
Light and air toxicity made the place nearly uninhabitable.
Yet millions call it 'home.'
Huge, dull, tall buildings tower over the car, cyan lights across grey buildings with pipes, smoke leaking out, and billboards of shady advertisements with false promises.
They glare in light, blinding the car's view if anyone were to properly drive.
Barely any cars were outside, it was only the lonely black car drifting across the four-laned road.
The advertisements speak of money-hungry false guides on how to unlock "paths," lustful boards of shameless people feeding on the male gaze, and storefronts of cybernetic implants on their best scamming deals.
The road is layered in chrome, shiny but without life. Watchful cameras stand on poles, glimmering cyan, inspecting each vehicle that passes. A Bearer stands at an intersection, holding ready a rifle, showing no hesitation to shoot.
The Bearers are Zi Jin Cheng's rendition of the Messengers, only more industrial, and very secretive of their ranks hiding in smoke, only the bearers are public.
Not one person walks outside. Mercury looks up at the windows and sees every light in each apartment lit in different colors, a spectacle for modernism.
"Can't believe I used to live here. They live in a shell now," the Replicant says.
"Their gateway to escapism is living in digital worlds, to forget the air outside," the priest says.
"I lived in both Mala and . . . this, yet I'd pass through here to travel through realms. It gets worse every time." He pauses. "They worship screens, but like all things, screens break too. Everything does."
He continues, "Unfortunately, nobody will do anything anytime soon, a funeral for humanity."
Mercury glances at Lisan. "A single mother who lost her husband . . . lives among these, and a young daughter who lives in these conditions," he says.
Lisan doesn't speak. He presses his elbow against the window with a worried expression; his hand palms his forehead.
Across four lanes in the intersection, they are the only car. The officer standing may as well be an artisanal piece.
The vehicle glows cyan as it passes the observant camera, which traces it like an eyeball.
"Ghost, a ghost town," Mercury murmurs.
The GPS signal on the car states the building is two hundred feet north.
Staring, the men feel pressured. No amount of suffering could cleanse this country and its duties.
Suddenly, they've arrived.
Parking, the GPS speaks: "You have reached your destination. Fifth floor, Room '144'."
Even on land, Mercury feels sinking. His heart sinks; he has to do it but knows he doesn't have the humanity.
Abruptly, a microphone from the machine says: "In emotional cases, its best to wear a 'Heartsnap'."
Slowly, the glove compartment on Lisan's side slides open, revealing a modified Volvern with a silencer and a wristwatch with a long screen they call a 'Heartsnap'."
Mercury gulps in memory, slips it on, flips the watch open, and refuses to look at the Volvern made . . . for painless precision.
Opening, the door predicts Mercury's motion of twisting the handle.
"Wish me a miracle." Mercury waves to Lisan as he exits the vehicle.
Entering the opening of the building leading to glowing-blue stairs pointing upward on the rails, he walks upward to distraught.
Closing automatically, the door locks shut. Lisan sits there; his gaze knows. Looking down, he puts two hands together and inhales as he begins mumbling prayer.
Meanwhile, Mercury walks up, following the rail's arrows.
Does everyone need handholding nowadays?And these stairs look too clean, like they're brand new.
He looks at the watch on his wrist like a caveman to fire. Holding the button-
It turns on, showing a gear logo with a company title: "Innovate."
Lines of code pile on top of each other, glowing blue on a black background. As it shifts to a monitor, it shows Mercury's heart monitor: stress levels, blood sugar, solythe, stamina, and mind status.
Scrolling down, he finds a button that says: "Detect Personnel."
The description below in blue letters states: "Records bodily monitors of separate individuals, scanning quickly and accurately; however, it only records it for a split moment, not constantly like said user."
Mercury closes the watch. He's reached the fifth floor.
A broken blue exit sign blinks as he walks past the corridor.
The hall is layered in wires and trash, but the doors on each room seem untouched.
He glances around, hearing foggy noises, seeing wires hanging from the ceiling, short-circuiting fluorescent blue lights on the ceiling, and pipes with crawling noises inside passing by.
The room numbers stick out.
I'm getting close.
140 . . . there's screaming inside filling the hallway.
141 . . . crying through pillows of muffled agony, barely legible.
142 . . . cackling of a murderer, blood seeps through under the door.
143 . . . clown horns, bells clinking together in wonder.
And, the dreaded room . . . 144.
It has no sound; a quiet requiem drowning in its own solace.
Standing straight, Mercury inhales and knocks.
Knock, knock.
No answer.
Mercury attempts to knock again but-
The door creaks, slowly.
"Hello?" A tired woman answers, poking half her head through while holding the door firmly.
Her eyes brown, her hair brown, with blue light shining over it.
She sees him fully as she extends the door; her pale skin that hasnt grazed sunlight in eons is most contrasted by dark circles under her eyes.
"M-Mashia?"
Mercury looks down.
Not to her.
"Yes," he answers softly.
"You look different," she says weakly.
"I know, Amira, but there's something important I have to tell you."
"What is it—"
Scurrying from behind, a little girl comes behind her, a healthier spitting image of joy. The little girl speaks behind her mother.
"Mommy! Did daddy come home?" the little girl asks with large fruitful eyes.
"No, sweetie, please . . . go back to playing."
The little girl skips away, back into her room.
Mercury glances up.
I want to cry. If my eyes could tear, they'd flow rivers by now.
He snaps back.
"Is it okay if I come in?"
"Yeah, will it be long?"
"It's not good news," he says softly.
Amira sniffs, waves for him to come in. Mercury takes off his boots near the front next to three pairs of shoes.
Another pair of shoes his size, women's sneakers, and children's slippers.
He walks the narrow hallway. A shrouding, wilting painting of the family hangs crooked on the wall.
Their eyes follow those who cheated death.
She sits down on a sofa. There's another sofa opposite. Two TVs on both sides of the room.
"My husband wanted to watch 'Tagline' the realm's most patriotic sport., while I wanted to watch my dramas. So we found a solution," she says, frail.
Mercury sits on the sofa opposite her.
He clenches his fist, noticing a table in the middle with two teacups; one empty on his side, and one recently filled on her side.
He flips open the Heartsnap.
Stress levels increase; his mind begins to fog.
He breathes out.
"Also . . . is that blood on your shirt?"
Mercury doesn't answer.
"Why did you come here? You went in the same squad as my husband, so shouldn't he be here?" Amira blurts.
Mercury stares at the tired woman and scans her, she's calm.
"There was an attack, and . . . I left the expedition."
". . . What do you mean you left?" she inquires instantly.
"I left . . . because I was the only one left."
. . .
"You mean . . ."
"An inhumane attack, a toxin in the air. It got our entire platoon; it even got me."
"B-but you're okay, so what happened to the others . . . and my husband?"
"I died."
Amira's eyes enlarge; she starts twitching.
Mercury stands up.
He envisions the moment where he saw Kadir lying on the car seat, decaying.
He passed out on the car seat.
He removes his blood-stained military shirt, exposing his back. Amira gasps, tenses, shaking.
"This is what revived me. We injected everyone in our unit."
A cyan-blinking light core in the shape of a circle, across blue wire-like veins across a gray-navy-blue skin texture on his body from below the middle of his neck.
"Oh God . . ." she mumbles, her heart rate rises.
He puts on his shirt and sits back down. "I narrowly escaped, and they gave us a cure for the toxin. The environment rendered it useless."
"You're not telling me something; something I don't want to believe."
A vein on Mercury's forehead pops out. He clenches his jaw tightly, looking down.
"I was the last to get the toxin, and I was saved at the last possible moment."
"Don't tell me . . ."
"I was the only one that could be saved; everybody else wasn't lucky."
"So is he in the hospital? When can I see him?!" She begins worrying.
"My friend . . . Kadir. He didn't make it out; he fell asleep."
. . .
She understands now what he meant.
"You . . . you killed my husband. You saved yourself and let everyone die," she says calmly, yet eerily.
"You let my husband . . . perish," she mumbles.
"I'm sorry. We were attacked and—"
"What kind of General are you? I know you. Did you have family at home to go home to? Why did you save only yourself?"
"I didn't have a choice. I was found."
"And how were you, of all people, last? You let your men die . . ."
"We injected each other with the antidote, and he went out peacefully. There was nothing we could do."
"Yet how was it only you?"
"God saved me."
"God would've saved everyone else, and my husband."
"Our country . . . didn't care if we died. I was saved by a miracle of a priest bystander."
"So you were blessed . . . why not Kadir? Why not the man with something to live for? You're a sad man who thinks only of work. Nothing is fair."
"Please, Amira-"
"Mashia. Please, I need a moment to think. Please . . . leave," she utters firmly.
Mercury stares at the calm eyes. He quickly scans her with the watch. Her monitor says she's perfectly stable.
She stares at him with cold-piercing eyes; her dark circles shrink at the sight of him and . . .
Beams an ear-to-ear grin, clearly cynical.
Mercury frowns and gets up. He can feel Amira staring through him, watching every circuit operating the flow in his mechanical bloodstream.
He leaves to an open room to the left. It is the little girl playing with mechanical stacking blocks and figures that move with remote controls as she has music playing on a device, lying on her bed.
She turns around, spots Mercury. "Mister! Do you know where my daddy is?" she asks endearingly.
"Leave the man alone, Nora." The mother exhales.
Mercury looks, simpered, then walks out the door with a lour, putting his boots on.
He closes it slowly; immediately hears someone on the inside lock it.
Looking up, pondering.
I would've cried, but I can't. Why? No, I can't cry. I did this after all. No, our government did this, but I'm part of it, so I'm at fault.
Walking, he clenches his fist, looking at a wall spaced between two doors: "138, and 137."
"F**K!" He punches the wall with full force, cracking open the wired walls. Beneath the layers hides red wires, broken at the force of his strike.
His knuckle is unscathed.
Following the doors, he finds the exit and goes rapidly down the stairs, down to the bottom.
Looking to his left, he spots the car with Lisan mumbling prayer inside.
Walking towards it, the door opens itself for him. Lisan looks left and sees a worried Mercury enter.
"Tell me." Lisan insisted.
"Put her on suicide watch."
Mercury gets Kadir's folder on the front seat, writes: "Unstable, put on watch."
He commands the vehicle, "Start."
Immediately, it makes a sharp U-turn and speeds down the intersection again, passing blurring buildings of digital gratification.
"They only believe in what's on their blue screens," Lisan states.
Mercury remains silent. He gazes at Lisan, then speaks. "Lisan, I never asked, how did your implant repair me?" He pauses.
"How did I live?"
"I'm a doctor, a biomedical engineer to be exact. That core was an adapting prototype. It adapts with itself. A construction based on elements of evolution and other factors."
"And you heard something screaming inside me, and you were nearby."
"Correct. And to be honest, the core had slim chances of working. For a moment, I doubted you would survive, but fate wanted you to live."
"All this talk about fate . . . Kadir should've lived. You didn't hear him?"
"No. I was blind in the desert, only following cries of awakening."
Mercury stays silent.
"We're going back to the base. I need to get my belongings and get us a room in a building nearby in case anything happens to her."
"Mercury . . . who are you doing all this for?" he asks.
He blinks. "I . . . I'm doing this for what I'm indebted to. Me and others. I shouldn't have lived, but I'll make it so fate won't regret it, even though I wish I were the one who bit the dust instead of my men."
"I see."
Zooming, the car makes every blade of grass, shred of leaf, glimmer of light look like a sped-up movie.
Driving past the city, they enter the path again to Mala.
Precisely carved dirt pavement shows careful consideration for nature around.
"I much prefer Mala than this," Lisan says.
"They're all the same, just under a different coat of paint," Mercury states. "This car is going too slow. Is there another way I can—"
He accidentally presses an unknown maroon button with a white 'X' across it under the steering wheel.
Suddenly, the wheels rise and widen. The front of the car steepens sharp as a knife; the back of the car extends blades for more aerodynamic flow.
Turbines as well as boosters blow blue blazing embers as the racecar accelerates past the original speedometer's limit.
"Oh damn!" Mercury holds onto his seat.
Lisan smiles. "How innovative." He embraces the technology.
Everything outside the window looks like a blue speed tunnel.
The car soars faster and faster through trees, branches, grass, boulders, and dust. The drone of wind hums through the air, making the car feel more like a rocket than a vehicle.
Everything outside the window looks like a wormhole, flashes of different rainbow colors exude, like a psychedelic trip.
The G-force of the vehicle pushes Mercury to slouch in his seat. Lisan stays unbothered, and-
It returns to normal. The GPS speaks, "Your destination has arrived."
We're back to the base already? I thought these were only on TV.
Mercury nervously opens the door, facing the base once again.
Lisan exits, bowing to passing soldiers saluting him in reverence.
The priest and the Replicant enter the base again.
"Supervisor Selune!" Mercury calls. He leaves Kadir's file on the table, reconsiders, and only writes a small note to put a watch on the woman.
Huddles of soldiers sit at the long black table, but Selune is nowhere to be seen.
Weird.
Across the wire-driven, chrome-metal corridor, every soldier in the building is stunned to see Mercury.
Quickly, a soldier comes up to him, notices the four gold spiked gear emblems on his shoulder, and says, "Are you . . . 'Mercury, the Mo'jiza'?"
"What?" he asks.
Suddenly, a woman rushes behind him. Linea pats Mercury's shoulder. "Alright . . . first lieutenant, get back to your duty." She points at the table as he walks away.
"Sorry about that," Selune smiles.
"Are they starting rumors about me?" he asks.
"You know how they get." She sneers. "C'mon, I'll show you the change room, so you can get a fresh look again."
"Before that . . ."
"Hm?"
"Put Amira on suicide watch, please." He hands the file to her. "And please . . . don't throw this away. You let a soldier throw the files of my men away like garbage."
"I'm sorry, please . . . don't be mad at me." She looks down.
What a condescendingly manipulative woman . . .
She leads Mercury and Lisan to the men's room.
"Here you go, General Mercury, and Father . . ."
"Lisan," the priest says.
"Father Lisan!" She stares at the tall, long tiger-haired man with wonder.
He smiles at her, takes off his pitch-black sunglasses, and stares deeply at her.
Continuing to smile, she is lost in the layers of gold, but feels fear, shaking, trembling at the sight of a condemner.
She feels as if he sees right through her, blind and naked. Then bows down, "I'm sorry, please forgive me."
Lisan stares at her with disdain and walks into the men's room, his white robe brushing the floor.
"What did you apologize for?" Mercury asks.
"I felt penance. I-I don't know, I felt like I saw judgement before me . . ."
Mercury gives out a faint smile, pats her shoulder, and goes into the room.
Inside, the interior is clean, stainless steel chrome, without a blemish on the tiles of the floor.
Showers with gray and light blue curtains lie on the left side of the room, and a changing room with a bathroom on the right. A locker room is in the middle.
Lisan enters the right.
I need to clean myself.
Mercury enters the shower as the fog fills the curtains.
The water is warm like a hug from a mother; the smell of the room is like fresh detergent. Every water droplet feels refreshing, like an energy drink.
Later, Mercury gets out, wearing a white compression shirt with gray jeans that have black stripes on both legs.
He packs his dirty, blood-stained, sandy clothes in a bag and gets his stuff from his locker.
Lisan comes out of the changing room. He wears a pumpkin-orange robe with gold-black cyber sigils across it, and a white scarf rests around his neck.
"Let's go, Lisan." Mercury dries his gray-white hair with a towel. His wire-like braid falls like a dreadlock when he drops it.
"Very well." He assents.
As they walk out, Lisan coldly stares at Selune again. She notices, and he mouths words to her without sound: "Pain is purity, I know what you are, pretender."
Stone-faced, she stays stone-cold like a statue as Lisan waves an angelic wave to her.
Mercury smiles. "We're borrowing that car, by the way. You'll get it back soon."
"Wait wha—" she says, confused.
They walk away, get in the vehicle, and speed off before she can get any answers.
"I guess that's only fair." She frowns with a spiteful tone. "They're suspecting more and more each day."
But who is that priest? I had never felt such fear in my life.
I feared . . . for my life.
I feared God in his eyes.
Does God have an affinity for pain?