I was running. I ran down corridors as doors opened before me. The things showing me where to go were the flashing lights or the constantly opening and closing doors. Jose was showing me where to go with these signs. My mutant body was fast and mighty. No matter how much Jose tried not to put mutants in my path, the ones that did show up weren't a problem. I charged at them, tore their bodies apart with my fists, and continued on my way.
With this armor on me, the pistol at my waist, and my physical strength, I could finally use the training I had received in the mind tunnel. I finally felt strong enough to fight... So, there was no doubt in my every step.
I passed another corridor. I entered a space with a glass ceiling. When all the doors closed, I knew the only thing I could do was smash the glass ceiling. On the other side of the glass ceiling, creatures that looked like manta rays but had octopus arms, carrying baby mutants in their arms, floated in a green liquid. I knew I didn't have much time. So, I drew my weapon and fired at the ceiling. As the whole ceiling collapsed and the creatures in the water hit the floor, I shielded my head with my hands. While the glass shards fell around me, the creatures writhed on the floor, starved of water. I didn't care about their suffering. Every single creature living here was made with the pain born of one man's arrogance. And for all these mistakes to be atoned for, there could be nothing more right than that man's death. I wouldn't stop until I killed that man.
I looked up and noticed that there were metal walkways around the edges of that water-filled glass. Thanks to my new mutant legs, I could jump to great heights. I jumped and continued on the path where the manta ray-like creatures had gone. After a while, I came out into another room. When I broke the glass and fell into the room, it was clear that this was an IT department room. Computers, gigantic server cases, and of course, the words "IT Manager" covered in green moss on the glass office.
Jose was taking me to Arthur Vale, but the path I was taking was so confusing that it was not out of the question to think that Jose's mind might have been scrambled.
The door in front of me opened. As I went towards the door, I realized it was an elevator shaft. I was supposed to climb up the elevator shaft. I grabbed onto the elevator rail and began to pull myself up, bracing my legs against the wall. I was just climbing up the elevator shaft when I heard a sound. The sound of a metal chain snapping. I looked up and saw the elevator grinding against the metal wall, coming down at great speed. The elevator was going to crush me and slam me into the ground... I was either going to be crushed or die from the impact, but at that moment, a door opened a few meters above me. My quick climb and passage through the door was simultaneous with the elevator grazing my back and crashing to the floor. I was out of breath. Adrenaline surged through my entire body. I had escaped death by just a few seconds and a few millimeters. "Jose!" I yelled, knowing he couldn't hear me. "Be a little more careful, you son of a b*tch!"
So where was I? After looking around for a while, I understood very clearly that I was in a cleaning room. The room was covered in cobwebs. Brooms, buckets covered in moss from the water inside them, a room full of mutant cockroaches... How could a room like this be of any use to me?
Then the door to this room opened. I walked out of the door with heavy steps and looked around. The door opened to a room with a convex glass floor. Before stepping on the glass, I stopped, thinking about the sound it might make, and looked down through the glass. Yes... This was it... I had finally made it. I couldn't remember how many floors I had climbed or how many corridors I had crossed, but maybe I had finally reached one of the top floors. What I saw looking down through the glass was a room with walls painted in burgundy colors; banners with aristocratic symbols but no flags on them. A huge desk stood at the side of the room, and behind the desk, a chair resembling a throne...
In front of the desk, eight mutants were kneeling in a circle. Each of these mutants' ears was as big as a megaphone. They had tilted their heads to the side to keep their large ears up. Standing in the middle of these eight mutants was Arthur Vale. That fat, long-haired man was constantly shouting and giving orders toward those ears. The creatures with the ears groaned as if in pain with every shout, and with every shout, they transmitted the shouts through pipes from their throats to the pipes under their legs.
I sighed deeply. I tried to be as cautious as possible as I walked across the glass. I reached into my pocket and took out my pistol. With heavy steps, I walked across the glass and came to a stop directly above Arthur Vale. Diana's face before she died, Rose's image in the cell, Flora's image, and Kohn's last state... Each one came to my mind. It pained me that this man named Arthur Vale could escape this just by dying, but it was the best way. I could get rid of him with great precision and a single bullet.
When I was right above Arthur Vale, I stopped. As I aimed my gun at his head, I could imagine the bullet passing through the top of his head and out the bottom of his jaw. It was seconds away from everything ending. Yes, I would fall with the glass, but I didn't care much. The only thing I cared about was an Arthur Vale with his head blown open.
As I moved my finger to the trigger, I was cautious. I still had a shiver inside me that a sound would be heard and Vale would notice me. But I knew all these doubts were for nothing. I knew that everything would end the moment I pulled the gun.
"Die..." I whispered and pulled the trigger. I heard the sound of the bullet coming from the gun, but Vale couldn't react. The bullet hit the glass, but... But it was stuck there.
When Vale lifted his head and looked up at the ceiling, our eyes met. At least I was grateful that he couldn't see my face, full of fear and anxiety, since my helmet was on. As Vale flinched in fear and moved to the side, I kept firing one after another. The glass must have been bulletproof. That's why every bullet was getting stuck in the glass. While I was firing one bullet after another, Vale lifted his jacket and put his hand on his laser gun.
"Goddammit!" I shouted and threw myself to the side as the laser from the laser gun not only shattered the entire glass floor but also opened a large hole in the ceiling. The glass ceiling and the metal ceiling collapsed, and I found myself on the floor. As I lifted the rubble pieces on top of me, most of the mutants on the floor were trapped under the rubble and died. As the dust settled, what I saw was Vale. He had a mutant by the neck and was shouting into its gigantic ear.
"Mehmet is here! I'm done with the others! Kill them all!"
As the mutant's mouth moved, the pipes coming out of its throat also moved. I knew that as the pipes vibrated, Vale's orders were reaching the other mutants. I held onto the wreckage and got up. Vale looked at the indicator on his laser gun. It must have needed to charge its energy to fire one more time.
"Vale!"
"The suit suits you well, my friend! I was wondering where this guy disappeared to. I guess you're not such a stupid clone after all!"
My gun must have fallen somewhere around the rubble, but I didn't need it as long as I had my mutant strength. I walked with heavy steps and punched with a great tension. With the might of my punch, the entire floor shook, but nothing happened to the indifferent Vale. Then I noticed that the thing that stopped me was a hand. A third hand coming out of Arthur Vale's belly...
"What the hell is this?"
"You still don't understand, do you?" My wrist was being bent with great force. Then Vale pulled me towards him and kicked me in the stomach. I hit the wall with the kick to my stomach. "I! I am the king of these mutants, Mehmet! I am the protector of this place!" As I opened and closed my eyes, I noticed that Vale was running towards me. With Vale's shoulder check, we had broken through the wall on my back.
The place we fell was a few meters below. When I fell to the ground, Vale was still on top of me. "Do you know how hard it is to earn John Crowrift's trust?" he said and got off me. His third arm extended and grabbed me by my helmet. The arm coming out of his belly held me in the air and dragged me after him. The place he dragged me to was a balcony. When we looked down from the balcony, we saw a factory. The hands working millimeter by millimeter worked so coordinately that it was impossible not to be impressed. Humans, integrated with mechanical parts; despite the pain and hell on their faces, they were doing a job with the perfection of heaven. I reached my hands towards the third hand grabbing my helmet and struggled to free myself, but it was no use... Vale was a stronger mutant than me.
"I've been working for perfection for years, Mehmet. I have only one goal, and that is to make flawless ships. For this, I am forbidden to use the ease of standard science! For this, I am forbidden to use conventional methods! For this, I am forbidden to have a conscience or emotions! John forbade me all of these! And despite all these prohibitions, I succeeded! What I have created here is a miracle! The same as the miracles performed by the prophets of old!" At that moment, a flying mutant flew past us carrying a cardboard box. "Why would you want to destroy such a miracle? Just because a few tears were shed and a few heads flew? Because your beloved mind-weaving friend died? I understand... I was mistaken from the beginning by considering you a clone like us. You are one of the cursed, the infidels, the outcasts..."
"Why are you telling me all this?"
"Why is a sermon given to an infidel? Why is a psychopath put in prison? Why does a mother give advice to her naughty son?"
"Do you believe you're putting me on the right path?"
"Look, Mehmet! I have the power to easily destroy you... All I ask of you is to lend an ear to these miracles. A power that can stand against the Republic is an impossible power, but John is very close to it! If a force against the Republic is not created now, it will never be created later! No one, no institution, no entity should be that powerful. These dogs of the Republic are even taking on God!"
"I wish him success in his war with the Republic." I said and reached for my waist. I still had a bag full of the tubes that were used to turn me into a mutant. I took one more of those tubes and plunged it into my heart with its needle. "But I have a habit of not pledging allegiance to anyone!"
"Idiot! You'll kill yourself!"
I could feel the blood filling my throat and the acid filling my eye sockets. As my body swelled, Vale reached for his laser gun. Its energy was still not full. I grabbed the hand that was holding me by my helmet and pulled it down. My fall to the ground and pulling that hand towards me were one and the same. Vale came with the hand, but I kicked Vale hard. Vale flew backward and hit the wall. A hole opened in the wall as he writhed in pain, he shouted:
"Idiot! Despicable! Arrogant! Useless man! Do you think you can defeat me, the god of mutants, as a mutant?"
One step and one punch to Vale were one and the same. Vale blocked the punch with his arms and threw a punch back. I could finally enjoy the benefits of my training in the mind tunnel. My avoiding the punch and throwing another punch were one and the same. Vale moved to the side. He punched me in the stomach. I swallowed the acid coming to my throat and kicked him in the stomach. Vale flew backward and hit the wall. As a hole opened in the wall, I jumped on Vale without waiting. Vale dodged, but my hand broke through the wall. I didn't know when the super-mutant strength that the last needles had grown in my body would subside, but I felt as strong as I could be right now. Vale must have understood that he had little chance in a fistfight because he threw himself backward from the balcony. The flying mutants caught the falling Vale and began to carry him away. I had to catch him before Vale flew away.
I threw myself down from the balcony. Mutants were getting in front of me, but I was flattening them with my fists. I was crushing everything in my path. Then armed mutants came, and I walked toward them, using a metal door I had torn from one of the machines as a barrier. I placed the metal door on top of one of the mutants and used it like a skateboard. I was going at full speed with my mutant skateboard when I saw a nasty smile on Vale's face. When Vale aimed his gun at me, I was trying to throw myself off the skateboard, but I was too late. The laser that exploded from the gun pierced my shoulder. The laser even went inside one of the machines behind me and caused a huge explosion.
As dust and smoke covered everything, a burned mutant, having lost its purpose and with the only thing it felt being the pain of its burned skin, was wandering around with screams of pain. I dragged myself out of the black smoke. With a huge hole in my arm, I had to hold on to it so it wouldn't fall off as I tried to get up. I had become very weak from both the mutant drugs and the blood I had lost.
"Oh... Who do I see?" said a figure approaching me from the smoke.
"John... You again?"
John Crowrift, with his helmet, his coat, and his skull-headed staff, appeared before me like a nightmare once again. "Look at you... As if a truck ran over you..."
I turned my head and looked far away. As far as I could see through the smoke, Arthur Vale, after the winged mutants dropped him, had fallen onto a giant mutant. He was holding onto the metal bars on the giant mutant and coming towards me.
"This is not the time..."
"Oh, really? I thought you would ask for advice from your idol John when you are in such a helpless situation."
"Would you stop with these stupid mind games and get lost?"
"You want me to leave you alone with your failure, is that it?"
"Yes!" I shouted with one of my last breaths. "Just leave me alone with my failure, okay?"
"Okay..." John said as he disappeared into the black smoke once again: "...but let this be a gift from me to you." He said and kicked something with his foot. What he kicked was a metal ball. These balls must have fallen from my pocket. Then I reached for the pocket on my belt. I knew these metal balls. They were those metal balls that turned into spiders. Yes... The armor on me was another model of John's armor. This meant that most of the features in his armor were also in this armor. I... I had to use this.
I threw the metal balls I took out of my pocket onto the ground. When the metal balls opened, metal spiders emerged. The metal spiders looked at me as if they were waiting for an order.
"Fix my arm!" I said to one of them. It nodded its head as if to say, "Yes, sir," and the metal spider ran and climbed onto my arm. I could feel the spider welding my arm with a laser beam, and the pain was almost enough to drive me mad. I couldn't move my arm, but the bleeding had stopped. This was enough for now...
I put my hand on the ground and straightened myself up. As I walked through the smoke, I took off my helmet and threw it aside because Vale's mutant hand had crushed it, and I felt as if it was squeezing my head. As the helmet fell to the ground, I came out of the smoke. I was walking towards Vale, who was holding on to the metal bars on the back of the giant mutant, hugging my scarred, immovable arm with my other hand.
As the giant mutant roared, hitting the ground with its arms as long as a gorilla's, Vale, holding on to the metal bars on its back, laughed. "Look at you, Mehmet! You have no chance! You should give up!"
"Now!" I shouted. The spider robots that shot out of the mist jumped onto the mutant's face, which was bent down to roar. Each of them shocked the mutant with a great jolt of electricity, making it fall to the ground, and Vale also fell to the ground from the mutant's back.
"Damn it!" he said and reached for his laser gun. The laser gun's energy was still not full. At that moment, the flying mutants were surrounding me with their weapons. As each of them aimed their guns at me, he said: "You really are a pain in the ass, aren't you?"
I raised my right hand in the air and said: "I'm not the troublemaker! We are!" As I pressed a button on my hand with my head, an energy shield formed around me. As the bullets hit the energy shield and fell one after another, Vale watched what was happening with surprise. I had seen John use this energy shield, and I vaguely remembered how to use it.
"Do you think your energy will never run out, smart boy? You're stuck here!"
"This shield is not to protect me from you."
"What do you mean?"
At that moment, I looked up at the ceiling. I had sent one of the spiders to the ceiling. The spider on the ceiling raised its hand to its head, giving a military salute. The spider on the ceiling cut one of the pipes on the ceiling with its claws, and a gas began to spread around from the pipe.
"No!" Vale shouted, and the winged mutants began to fly towards Vale. With the spider aiming the laser gun at the gas, a huge explosion occurred. As I was surrounded by red and black colors, I stood inside the energy shield. It only took a few seconds for the smoke to dissipate and the explosions to subside.
When I lowered my shield, I saw a mound of corpses in front of me. The person who came out by opening the mound of corpses was Arthur Vale. All the mutants had covered him with their bodies. As he came out of the mound of flesh with burned flesh pieces on him, he was vomiting blood onto the ground.
"You... You can't defeat me, Mehmet! This body is invincible..."
"Yes... Because you are too much of a mutant!" I extended my hand towards Vale. An energy shield had surrounded him. Vale was trying to escape from the shield by punching, but it was no use... That shield had carried the wreckage of an entire spaceship. It could easily withstand a few punches from a half-mutant.
"So what? Are you going to keep me trapped here until my other mutant friends come and rip your head off?"
"No... It seems there's only one way to destroy you, and I'm trying it."
"What is that..."
"You'll see!" I said and reached behind me. I still had a handful of mutantization tubes. I threw the metal balls I took out of my pocket onto the ground. I gave each of the spiders those tubes. The spiders entered the energy shield with the tubes in their hands and blew up the tubes with their laser guns. The liquids gushing from the exploding tubes vaporized and circulated as a green gas inside the energy shield.
As Vale breathed in the green gas, he started to cough. "You crazy man!" he said. "What are you doing?" I gave more tubes to the spiders. As the tubes entered the shield and exploded one after another, Vale was being thrown around in pain. He was punching the energy shield and cursing.
"What happened? Does it look like your body can't handle it?"
At that moment, I saw something moving a few meters away. The gigantic mutant, partially freed when the spiders stopped giving it electricity, seemed to have survived the explosion as well. This giant looked even stronger and bigger than the giants I had seen before. This giant must have been Vale's special giant mutant. How else could it have survived such an explosion? First, the giant's fingers moved, and it looked at me out of the corner of its eye. Then it suddenly punched the ground and got up, lunging to punch me. I had to lift the energy shield off Vale and hold it up to the mutant. The energy shield stopped the mutant's punch, but cracks had formed on it.
I closed and reopened the energy shield so it wouldn't break, and this time, with another punch, cracks formed on the energy shield once again. This mutant had punches that were even more powerful than a huge explosion. I closed the energy shield once more. The mutant pulled its hand back and threw another punch. I was just about to close the energy shield when the mutant threw a punch with its other hand. I turned my disabled arm to block the punch. With the blow from the mutant, I flew into one of the machines and went inside the machine. My body was covered in scratches and fractures.
Vale, on his knees, supporting himself with his hands, was also vomiting onto the ground. Between coughs, he could neither breathe nor say any words. The giant mutant took Vale under its arm and punched a wall. A huge hole had formed in the wall. As they jumped down from the hole in the wall, I got up with the pain of my broken bones and looked through the hole. This was the shipyard where spaceships were produced. The chains hanging from the ceiling, the constantly rising stairs from around, the maintenance pit, and many other things were in their proper places.
As the mutants looked at me like wolves eyeing their prey, clinging to the chains, climbing the stairs, or on the metal platforms they were on, I dropped myself onto the spaceship. A small dent had formed where I landed. I had a hard time even getting out of that small dent. I didn't think any of my bones or muscles were healthy.
The mutants began to climb onto the ship. The mutants seated on the chains on the ceiling were screaming and pointing at me with their hands. Every mutant knew that I was there and that I was prey. I was taking steps with my last strength and had no idea what to do. When I looked out of the corner of my eye, I could see the giant mutant and Vale going up with an elevator. That colossal platform elevator was probably taking them to the spaceship on the top floor. "Damn it..." I said. At that moment, I felt a pain in my leg again. One of the mutants climbing onto the spaceship had lunged forward from where it was holding on and bit my leg. I kicked the mutant's head one after another and got rid of the mutant. Even though the mutant's body fell down due to its severed neck, its head remained, still biting my leg.
"Damn it!" I was just about to shout when I heard a voice inside my mind.
"Do you need help?"
I looked out of the corner of my eye in the direction I thought the sound came from. There was a woman lying on the observation tower. She was buried deep in the scope of her gigantic rifle, and she had aimed her gun at Vale.
"Rose!" My shout and Rose's firing the bullet were one and the same. Even though the giant mutant had taken the bullet in its mouth when Rose fired the bullet, it didn't seem to care much. That mutant didn't seem like it would fall no matter what. I heard another bullet sound. This time the bullet Rose fired was for the elevator's control unit. The giant mutant, realizing the elevator had started to fall, once again took Vale under its arm and tried to jump to the top floor, but something stopped it. A Dermovox was standing in the elevator shaft in the ceiling. As the mutant tried to jump up, it grabbed its neck and slammed it to the ground. Vale had escaped from under the mutant's arm and flew a few meters away, while the giant mutant tried to get up. The Dermovox made a fist with both hands behind the mutant's head and was pounding one blow after another like a hammer. It was impossible not to be impressed by the Dermovox's strength. Because it had flattened the giant's skull almost like paper in seconds.
Vale, with his wounds and bruises, crawled and threw himself inside the spaceship's hatch. Mutants were surrounding me as I walked with heavy steps, but Rose was firing with her rifle, not letting any mutant get close to me. As the mutants fell to the ground around me with the bullets Rose fired, a giant mutant came out in front of me.
"Epra!" I shouted. The Dermovox ran quickly and the giant mutant turned to face the Dermovox. Epra jumped and shouldered it on its jaw. As the Dermovox and the giant mutant fell down, there was nothing in front of me. As I went down the stairs, clinging to them from the open hatch of the spaceship, I could see Vale's bloodstains leading all the way to the ship's cockpit.
Vale had turned the pilot's seat towards him and had his arm thrown over it. He was trying to climb onto it, but it seemed he had no strength left. That arrogant face of his was shattered by the mutant gas he had taken. His face had turned green, and the veins on his face were so swollen they almost looked like they were going to burst out of his body. He was looking at me with fear in his eyes. I was walking with heavy steps, while blood continued to drip from my arm.
"You... You ruined everything!"
"I ruined everything?"
"You're a monster!"
"Am I a monster?" I can say that the smile on my face was full of pain. "When you said I was a monster, I thought a denial would grow inside me. But as I look at you with your fearful eyes, like prey, I can only tell you that you're right. I'm a monster... I did everything in my power to deny this monster. To deny John Crowrift, Arthur Vale, and many other names... To deny myself... I tried to deceive myself with the role of an innocent child who didn't understand the things you did, the evil that was happening."
I reached for the wall and pulled the lever down. As I pulled the lever down, the door to the pilot's cabin closed behind me. Then I broke the lever and took it in my hand. I was holding the sharp end up, like a sword. And then I continued to speak.
"All of you, you were born with a purpose; with a leadership, but I opened my eyes to this dead galaxy as a hollow bowl. Since I opened my eyes, the only thing I've seen has been failure and death. A child who killed his mother, his father's biggest failure, the Republic's enemy... Hulk's death, Diana's death, Dante's death... Deaths upon deaths, failures upon failures... With so much death and failure, why was I denying it?"
Vale suddenly put his hand inside his jacket and took out a laser gun, aiming it at me. Before he could pull the trigger, I threw the lever in my hand at Vale. As the metal lever plunged into Vale's shoulder, Vale threw the gun from his hand. As Vale writhed in pain, vomiting blood, the gun rolled and fell at my feet. I bent down and took the gun in my hand.
"Wherever I go, I see him, Vale. That man called John Crowrift..." I could really see John Crowrift sitting in the chair behind Vale at that moment. My brain was playing such games now that for a second I couldn't distinguish between reality and falseness. "But it's okay..." I said, aiming the gun at Arthur Vale. "...I'm not afraid of him anymore. Because now I can understand him. I wander through his memories, I share his sorrow, I feel his pain. But... But he can't understand me, Arthur... But he can't share my pain, Arthur! Just as you can't either..."
"Killing me won't change anything!"
"It will change me!"
"Even if you kill me, the others will come after you! Your enemies will never end!"
"It's okay. I'll kill them too..." At that moment, Arthur Vale took the metal arm that was plunged into his shoulder and threw it at me. I stopped it with the energy shield I had made. "...I will be their nightmare too, just as John was my nightmare. Wherever they go, they will see me... Whatever I show them, they will see... They will know that as long as I live, they can never be at peace!"
Vale leaned his head back and smiled. "You talk just like him... Good luck in hell, Mehmet!"
I pulled the trigger, and a huge hole opened in Vale's brain. "See you in hell, Vale!"
At that moment, I heard a laugh in a corner of my mind. And the sound of the man who laughed clapping. "You're wonderful..." John Crowrift said. "You're wonderful, Mehmet..." "You're very entertaining."