Date: 2024-12-22T00:00:00+00:00

Watch of the Starsleepers

Christopher D. Schmitz

TreeShaker Books

Copyright © 2022 by Christopher D. Schmitz

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

Contents

1. Legends and Lorecraft

2. 1.

Chapter 1

3. 2.

Chapter 2

4. 3.

Chapter 3

5. 4.

Chapter 4

6. 5.

Chapter 5

7. 6.

Chapter 6

8. 7.

Chapter 7

9. 8.

Chapter 8

10. About the Author

Legends and Lorecraft

Many authors have dedicated fan groups online. After publishing nearly 100 stories I wanted to build a place allowing me opportunities to engage with readers and engage more meaningfully than even my newsletter does.

Enter Legends and Lorecraft.

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Consider joining my author community. Unlike the big publishers, it is focused on putting readers first! Members get early access to beta and alpha read projects I’m working on (which means they’ll sometimes see early drafts—even before a story is done,) and there are tons of insider bonuses, plus amazing exclusives.

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Chapter one

Chapter 1

“They killed Lenny,” Dave hissed.

Barb stared at him blankly. “I don’t understand why that bothers you,” she said, injecting another egg with genetic material. “You know what every Watcher knows. We all have an expiration date. When the tribunal decides that…”

“No,” Dave said. “This wasn’t a ‘forced expiration.’ They murdered him.”

Barb cocked her head. Murder was an archaic act that the cloned watcher race had nearly forgotten possible. Her face remained placid, though she’d also been Lenny’s close friend. Watchers weren’t supposed to form intimate bonds with their peers, knowing they would be culled at relatively premature ages. It was central to the watcher philosophy.

Dave sighed through his nose and let the silence envelop them. Only gently vibrations filled the air as the massive generation ship Endymion rocketed through space on its way to Alpha Centauri, Terra’s closest neighbor. Technology allowed advances in space travel and the trip would take roughly one hundred and sixty years. They were currently in their eighth decade and Dave, watcher DAV-F, was the fifth iteration of the original clone, DAV-A.

Within a few days’ time, a much younger LEN-F would take over Lenny’s function in the fabrication shop. Dave pouted, “I’m not going to call him Lenny.”

Barb raised a brow. “What will you call him, Lenph?” she annunciated.

Dave laid his head down on her workbench.

Barb reached down and squeezed his hand. “Listen, Dave. You know I love you, but these embryos aren’t going to fertilize themselves. Who knows, one of these might be Len-G. Wouldn’t that be ironic?”

He looked up at her. He did love Barb, but he knew she couldn’t sympathize. Not really. Watchers didn’t have the capacity, or so they were taught from the moment they were pulled from the incubation chambers and strapped into education implanters, a kind of mental download system that uploaded formative memories and base-level knowledge necessary to continue the role of the original genetic material.

Still, though, it felt a little comforting to hear Barb say she loved him. Watchers were allowed platonic relationships, but romantic entanglements were punished severely. A neurological device implanted at the base of the skull of each watcher mitigated sexual impulses, and provided negative correction when necessary. Dave laid his head back down on the table. He wished the device mitigated grief.

“Will there be a memorial?” Barb asked.

Dave forced himself back into an upright position. “Yes. There is always a memorial.” He logged into the network and pulled up the Transition Schedule. The ship housed over twenty thousand watchers at any given time, so multiple transitions happened daily--that was when the new clone assumed the duties and life of his or her predecessor.

A thought solidified in Dave’s mind: if Lenny was murdered, all evidence would disappear as soon as the F variant took over Lenny’s life.

Dave stood. “I, uh, should go.”

Barb shrugged, still preoccupied with her work. She still had several hours left of her shift and until then, she would remain distracted. Barb might have been warmer were it not for work--all watchers were conditioned to take their work seriously. The spinal devices, commonly called a “neuri,” ensured it.

Dave and Lenny were as close as brothers, but Dave and Barb might have been more… in a world other than a cold clone ship hurtling through the void and where a death sentence hung over each creature.

He headed for the exit. It slid open as he approached.

“Hey,” Barb called.

Dave turned.

“Tonight? Just you and me. We’ll remember Lenny properly? We don’t need some official ceremony, or to get LEN-F involved. I’ve just… work is important.”

He nodded. Glad for the offer, and he could empathize. The neurological spine-chips often muddied thoughts of non-work-related tasks during scheduled shifts. “Tonight.”

Chapter two

Chapter 2

Dave held an old jar of cloudy liquid in one hand. He clutched Lenny’s spare key in his other and took a swig of the mind numbing stuff watchers brewed in the engine bays. The Tribunal learned in the first generation that they couldn’t program the neurological spine devices to punish alcohol consumption.

They’d tried, but that same punishment subroutine for alcohol affected watchers who used medication. They lost nearly all the A-generation watchers who refused to seek treatment for minor injuries as a result. Booze was forbidden, but consumption often went unpunished.

Right now, Dave and Barb didn’t care about legalities. They were both hammered, and it was late. Order-keepers only patrolled sporadically.

“You’re sure we won’t wake Lenph?” Barb asked, louder than she meant.

Dave shook his head. “Until the Transition, he’s still pulling duty on third shift.”

Barb shrugged. That made sense. Young watchers were apprentices until they took over the lives and jobs of their genetic predecessors. Barb worked in the fertilization labs, and the embryos were grown and aged to optimum development for an individual. Typically, during their mid-teens, a body was awakened and programmed, but a fresh psyche could only handle so much downloading; new watchers were sent to live with the man or woman they would eventually replace. Every twenty to thirty years, the cycle renewed.

Dave unlocked the door and entered. He’d spent many nights on the ratty couch Lenny had claimed from a busted storage unit years ago. He plopped down and wondered how much longer he had until the Tribunal assigned him an apprentice of his own.

Barb sat next to him. “There’s no pillow.”

Dave raised a brow.

“Lenph normally sleeps on the couch. His pillow’s gone… he’s claimed the bedroom.”

Dave’s face darkened.

“You still think Lenny was killed?”

“I’m certain of it.”

Barb cocked her head. Understanding denial was a part of grief. “But Lenny had an apprentice. We all knew his days were short.”

Dave stood and began rifling through a box of Lenny’s belongings, which the Tribunal’s officers would soon come to claim. “I know that. But it’s what makes it a perfect cover up. I’m telling you, Lenny would have told me if he’d been given his orders report for expiration.”

Barb put her hands on his shoulders and tried to comfort him. Dave turned. Their faces were so close their noses could have touched and a surge of endorphins rushed through them both. Dave nearly leaned in to kiss her; the alcohol made him throw caution to the wind.

A jarring bolt of pain seared through his mind like an icy spade. Barb felt it too, and they pinched the bridges of their noses to try to quell the agony caused by the neuri implanted at the base of the skull.

They each took a swig of the flammable, almost clear fluid. “I--I should go,” said Barb, whose neck had remained flush since the jolt. She left before Dave could object.

He sat back on the couch with a box containing all that remained of his best friend and sifted through it. Dave scratched at the neuri on his spine and muttered, “I know they say these things keep us alive. But dammit, they itch.”

Dave pulled out a recording device. They were often used to capture video of important data watchers needed to pass to their duplicates. This one had been hidden within a bolt of fiber batting.

Suspicion tore through Dave. If he’d known his expiration appointment, he’d have made a recording for Lenph and left it somewhere obvious. “It was a murder,” Dave whispered, suspecting Lenny had stashed it somewhere safe so his friends could find it if tragedy struck.

Dave stared at the device for a long moment. He recalled an old rumor that the Tribunal had recording devices in barracks rooms. The AI supposedly didn’t understand images well, but because it had the voice prints of every watcher on file, it could easily parse language. Dave had no idea what might be in the unit’s memory bank. But if Lenny truly had been killed, he’d need to listen in a private place.

The chrono read that the hour was still late, or early, depending on your schedule. He dumped the device into a pocket and left.

Chapter three

Chapter 3

Dave meandered the seldom used service corridors where lighting was sparse. He wedged his way into a hidden nook and retrieved the memo device. With the volume set low, he thumbed it active.

Lenny’s recorded visage shone in a blur of holographic light. He was in his washroom; the vent fan rattled, and the handwash flowed. Anything that offered background noise to mask his words did, and it made his voice scratchy.

“Listen. They are coming for me. My ident-tag is LEN-E. I have not been given an expiration date yet, but the Tribunal will send a termination team for me, I am sure.” Lenny looked up as if he heard something in the distance.

He returned to the recorder with panic on his face. “I was called to repair a system’s malfunction in the bow. Yes, the bow, where watchers aren’t allowed to go--I saw something in there--something terrifying. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you… they’re keeping it a secret. It’s all a lie.”

A loud thump penetrated the white noise at the sink. “Search for yourself. My team included ASA-D, BEN-G, and DAN-E.”

Another thump. Lenny wrapped the recorder in the material, which crinkled as he stowed it in secret. It still picked up audio and the sounds of a struggle as the Tribunal’s reclamation team dragged him away. Only the sound of the handwash remained.

Dave swallowed the sticky dryness in his throat and scanned the net for the names of Lenny’s three coworkers. All were listed on the transition schedule. Dead. Two of them had asterisks by their name to indicate accidental death and rapidly aged clone replacements. RA-clones tended to be less stable. The process included extensive mental downloading in lieu of an apprenticeship; it made the mind brittle and tended to make watchers who burned out quickly under the stress of their jobs.

His body had filtered most of the alcohol out by now. The only lingering effect was the remaining courage enough to try something risky.

The bow. That was where they were. The humans. Endymion’s precious cargo. No watcher was allowed into the bow without special orders. Apparently, such assignments also earned a termination order.

In the service hall, Dave was mostly hidden. A maintenance shaft lay at a nearby dead-end. He removed an access panel and slipped inside, cursing to himself as he went. The liquid courage remained, but his brain argued with the lingering chemical bravery.

Dave scurried through a tunnel with the low ceilings where tubes, piping, and cables hung. He scrambled, guided by the few runway LEDs. Luckily, if any work crews were assigned to duties in the corridor, he would see their lamps long before they ever spotted unauthorized watchers in the shafts.

After winding his way through the maze of connections, Dave arrived at a larger hall with a rounded aperture that was built into the bulkhead. A large warning was posted. Forbidden Entry: punishable by death.

The Tribunal did not mess around, Dave knew. Built into the door was a simple laser grid that sent an invisible signal to any neuri that passed through it. That trigger would overload the pain sensors of an unauthorized person and literally fry his or her brain with sensory overload.

His duties included routine power maintenance, and he knew that there was a scheduled outage connected to this region’s grid. It would last several cycles… but important systems had backups. How important to humans is killing inquisitive watchers?

Dave sucked in his breath, held it, and then walked through the opening. Only after he confirmed he still lived did Dave relax.

He stole down the corridor and searched for an access port to the storage bay, but there didn’t seem to be any. Dave muttered beneath his breath. He hadn’t come all this way, only to be denied now.

A ventilation grid was mounted to the nearby wall. Dave examined it, but there were no bolts or any way to remove it. But he felt certain he could force his way through. As long as he did his best not to damage it, or himself, he thought, he’d get away with spying.

Dave charged at the panel and rammed his shoulder into it. And then found himself falling, tumbling into the dark.

Chapter four

Chapter 4

Dave flailed through the air during a free-fall. And then he hit bottom, landing on his back so hard that he thought he heard vertebrae break in his neck. Something felt hot and sticky at his clavicle and reached behind as ground lights glowed softly in response to motion in the cavernous storage zone.

Checking his hand, he didn’t find the expected blood, rather a trickle of fluid leaked from his neuri. Dave’s heart plunged into his gut. I’m going to die… he paused, understanding he’d already risked death once and emerged fine. A few seconds later he realized that an early lesson ingrained upon watchers, the neuri keeps you alive, was a lie.

What else is false? He wondered, thinking to test if the device on his neck still functioned. Dave closed his eyes and thought of Barb. He liked Barb, more than platonically, and imagined her naked. Watchers were not permitted to see the opposite gender nude, so he wondered what it looked like. He used his imagination. His mind pounded with chemical excitement and his pants stretched with a rush of blood.

Pulse racing, Dave’s eyes opened wide. He’d never experienced that before. Neuris staved off aspects of full sexual maturity. Dave poked his crotch and nearly doubled over at the new and sudden sensation.

He looked up. What his eyes saw was powerful enough to shut down even his newly raging sex drive. Humans. Millions of humans.

Dimly lit tubes of frozen analog gel revealed the floating forms of the precious cargo who were packed for more than a century of transit. Rows of clustered tech were stacked tall and stretched as far as Dave could see. His breath caught in his throat and he approached the nearest cryo unit, which kept a nude passenger in suspended animation.

The human hung in the viscous fluid with electronic leads monitoring the person’s vital statistics. An organic mesh kept jaw and lips closed while a thin nose tube looped around the head, ready to provide air once the cryo tube activated its flash-thaw cycle which would make each pod reach 37C, standard body temperature, in less than one second after arrival at Alpha Centauri.

Dave looked left and right and made a startling realization. DAV-E was human.

He touched the glass and pulled his hand away, leaving a frosty print. He gasped, and no longer wondered what female anatomy looked like.

Dave touched the neuri at the back of his neck. He knew he was a clone. All watchers were reproductions, but they were all also human. For generations, watchers speculated what humans really were. Maybe they had tails, or scales, or multiple heads and communicated telepathically. But the rows of bodies in stasis revealed the truth. “I--I’m human? We’re all of us… human?”

He grabbed at Lenny’s recording tool and cleared space in the memory while still preserving his friend’s last moments. Dave knew he had to record this, to take the evidence back to the other watchers. He corrected his own thoughts to the other people.

“Lenny’s death will not have been for nothing.”

Chapter five

Chapter 5

Dave walked confidently through the laser grid, certain that a trigger for his neuri couldn’t kill him, even if the power had been reactivated. Still half in shock, he returned to his quarters. Standing in front of the mirror in his lavatory, Dave stared into his own face. He found a spark in his eyes--something he could not articulate.

Something triggered inside him, as if a creature awakened. Hope? Wonder? He knew what humans were now. At least what they looked like. He had to share that… but he also needed a plan.

Lenny and others died because of that discovery, and the Tribunal would not allow to leak out easily. Dave grabbed a multi-tool, which he often used for hardware repairs. His primary watcher functions were in software applications, but he was often called to make physical repairs on the fly, and he was fairly adept at it.

Dave departed for the workshop area, where he sometimes had to fabricate special equipment for jobs. He gathered several items and soldered, wired, and screwed together a custom device for his own protection. A simple relay which would send a signal if he depressed the button.

No watchers gave him a second look while he worked. Dave often worked there, and none knew he was outside his shift.

He looked up when he spotted motion. A watcher near the door pointed directly at him, obviously speaking with someone beyond the threshold. And then a line of Order-Keepers dressed in black garb entered the room. They moved single-file and wore masks to conceal their faces. These were the watchers called into service if a clone failed to report for Transition. They were the ones who would have dragged away and killed Lenny.

Dave hadn’t completed the failsafe device. He had not acted quickly enough. His heart sank, and he walked a line towards the executioners. Running would be futile, but at least he could walk to his death holding his head high and with human nobility.

The Order-Keepers jogged towards him, and then moved past, heading for a workstation in the tech bay. Lenny’s station.

Adrenaline surged through Dave, making him feel electric. His neuri would usually mitigate its flow and dampen its effects. But not now. With pulse racing, he did his best to control his breathing and act normal. Dave left the bay and entered his regular workstation, passing by his coworkers and exchanging mundane nods of recognition.

He sat at his kiosk but did not activate the terminal. JAQ-F, Jack, sat at a nearby cubicle engrossed in his work. Jack stood and excused himself for a break. Dave slid around and into the adjacent berth as soon as the coast was clear. He quickly wrote a piece of code, a simple power interrupt he could use if needed. He’d only need to punch the toggle on the custom hardware he’d just made. Plugging the device into the data port via standard interface, he downloaded the software, unplugged it, and then deleted the software.

With any luck, there would be no detection. If the Tribunal’s oversight and accountability software picked up what Dave had done, Jack might get a visit from the Tribunal’s inquisitors.

Dave left his workplace and headed out. A twinge of guilt nagged at him. What if the Tribunal killed Jack? Jack was pretentious and unfriendly, but should neglecting to log off a terminal result in early termination? Is that human justice?

Before leaving, Dave watched as the Order-Keepers departed with a box of Lenny’s things. They probably meant to destroy them and ensure no trace of the secret was left behind.

Dave turned the corner. “Yes,” he announced. Humans would do that. They’d enslaved whole generations of their direct genetic descendants, denied them the full capacity of their bodies, and treated them as property--growing them and exterminating them at their own leisure. “Killing is a very human practice.”

Chapter six

Chapter 6

The fertilization lab was mostly empty by the time Dave arrived; it was this shift’s lunchtime, Dave realized as he checked the chrono. He stared at it incredulously. Time had blazed by without much notice. But he assumed Barb was still there. She often ate lunch while remaining at her post in order to ensure nothing went wrong. Her work was critical.

Barb had once remarked her training taught her they had a finite amount of egg cells and so caution had to be taken when creating new the embryonic watchers. If they ran out of clones before Endymion arrived at Alpha Centauri, all could be lost. Barb had noticed that, for some unexplained reason, the supply counts of material never decreased and her team had been fertilizing cells for years.

She’d assumed there was an accounting glitch. Dave now knew better. Watchers were human. And before their remains were submerged into an amino pool to break it down into raw protein strings and remade into materials for watchers’ consumption, the reproductive materials were likely harvested and stored for later use.

Dave entered the lab without sterilizing first.

Barb shouted at him. “You can’t just barge in here without…”

“I was right. Lenny was murdered,” he blurted out. Dave regretted it immediately. Unlike Lenny, he hadn’t masked his words with white noise. It might be heard by the Tribunal.

“What are you talking about?”

Dave pulled out the recording device and held it up.

Barb asked, “What’s that?”

He put a finger over his lips. “I can show you. But I need to know if you trust me?”

“What? Of course I…”

“Turn around and close your eyes. I’ll help you see. Keep your eyes closed.”

Barb did as instructed, though confused. “What are you going to show me?”

“I’ll show you everything.”

Barb yelled as a jolt of pain rippled through her spine. Dave had rammed the sharp part of his multi-tool into her neuri’s battery compartment and the implement pierced too far, pinching her flesh as it disabled the device. She whirled on him. “What are you…”

She stared at him with new eyes.

Dave touched his head to hers and Barb smelled him. Her brain reacted to the suddenly opened door and chemicals designed for procreation slammed into her like tidal forces washing over desert dunes. Pheromones nearly overcame her, and she clung to him, kissing him for the first time. Her mind swam with new impulses; Barb’s body craved his.

“I have to tell you something,” Dave said, pushing her away enough to look into her eyes. “Barb, you are a human. We both are.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Damn it,” he realized he’d run his mouth again in a sensitive area. “Come with me.” Dave led her by the hand into a darkened corridor and played Lenny’s recording, and then the one he took of the humans.

Barb could scarcely believe it. “I thought they’d have fur.” The mental shock had quelled most of the chemical lust pounding through her body. Then she blanched. “Do you think the Tribunal knows that we know?”

Dave kept his lips tight and nodded resolutely. “I should have waited to tell you until we were away.” He held her hand as they walked back towards the watchers’ sector.

“What will we do, then?” Barb asked.

“I’m forming a plan,” he flashed her a roguish grin.

They’d just cleared the service hall when they spotted Order-Keepers behind them. They projected an image of Dave and Barb as they asked a random passerby. That man pointed to the hall where they stood.

Dave nearly yanked her arm off as he dragged her behind. “Run!”

Chapter seven

Chapter 7

Dave and Barb scurried through the maintenance shaft ahead of their pursuit. Right now, the safest place for them was the humans’ chamber. He did not know if the Tribunal’s team could access it without earning a death sentence. Dave guessed they might be exempt. Right now, running was their only chance.

Barb skidded to a halt before the laser gate. Fear rooted her in place and she did refused to pass through. They were programmed early for obedience. “I--I’ll die.”

“No, you won’t,” Dave insisted, stepping through. “I disabled your neuri. They can’t do anything to you. You’re a human. This only kills watchers.”

Barb squeezed her eyes and shuddered as she stepped through. She emerged unharmed, and the duo ran down the hall. They could hear the enemy far behind them requesting emergency override on the laser gate so they could pass.

Dave stopped at the aperture where he’d fallen once before. “It’s a long way down. It might hurt. Leap of faith,” he warned Barb and then plunged through.

This time, he landed in a half crouch and rolled to break his fall. The lights came up shortly afterward and Barb jumped. She fared better than him, able to judge the distance.

Barb stood and gasped when she saw the rows and rows of sleepers. “There are millions of them.” She read the name plate on the base of one tube. “Aliyah Amber Jacobson. AAJ-0”

Dave took her hand. “There are millions of us. I suspect that each sleeper here has a genetic duplicate in the watcher pool.”

A voice called out behind them and from above. “Stop there, or we’ll shoot.” The kill squad had been armed with lethal weapons.

Dave withdrew his device with the singular button and held it aloft. “You stop, or I’ll push this button and kill every human in these pods!”

Their pursuers scoffed momentarily and then paused, cocking their heads, receiving orders via ear-piece. They retreated a few steps, keeping barely visible through the vent.

The new humans slipped behind a cluster of cryotubes, taking cover from the assassins’ weapons. A speaker system activated with garbled words. “Parley.”

Dave cocked his head. “Who is this?” His neck flushed and Dave realized he was well beyond any ability to form a new plan. He thought he and Babe could escape through the cryozone, but what then? The executioners would never stop.

“I am the Tribunal,” the voice replied. “You have proved a resourceful and clever watcher, DAV-F.”

Dave waved his device threateningly. “I am a human!” he yelled. “And if you wish to barter for the lives of the humans in stasis--the precious cargo you’ve enslaved generations of us for--then I want to talk in person.”

“Very well.”

Except for the millions of status LEDs on the tubes, all the lights went out. A runner of lumen strips created a path. They followed, and it led to a terminal in the center of the storage area.

Barb sucked in her breath, arriving in the heart of Endymion. Its mission was centered on this very spot.

Dave heard distant footsteps and guessed their pursuers had entered the compartment. He turned a circle. “Show yourself, Tribunal.”

A light pulsed on a mechanical unit as the speaker sounded. The interface screen lit with a cascade of pixels forming a digital imitation of a face. “You are no more human than I, DAV-F… I am the Tribunal.”

Chapter eight

Chapter 8

Footsteps clomped in the dark as the executioners surrounded Dave and Barb. She clung to him and Dave breathed her in her scent; it threatened to fog his brain with desire. He shook his head to clear it.

“Call them off, Tribunal,” Dave insisted, waving his device. He suspected the computer program knew what he’d programmed it for.

“Stand down,” ordered Tribunal.

Dave stared at the computer array. He guessed it’s AI more clever than any human or watcher. “And tell them to throw their earpieces into the light.” He didn’t want Tribunal issuing orders privately.

The communicators clattered to the steel grid floor around his feet.

A plan finally formed in his mind. “I’d feel more comfortable with a gun, too,” Dave insisted.

“Boss?” a voice asked in the dark.

“DAV-F claims to be human,” Tribunal said, limited to his speaker. “Humans are rational creatures. DAV-F and I will resolve this with words and logic. A gun’s presence will prove irrelevant. There is no fear… not if DAV-F is human.”

A gun skittered towards him and Dave picked it up and bartered. “What will you offer this human to stand down?”

“You are not human.”

“I am a human! My genetic blueprint proves it,” Dave roared. “I think. I have feelings.”

“Your logic is flawed. Humanity is not bestowed by acts of procreation: Tribunal was created by humans. Sentience cannot be its definition: Tribunal is fully sentient. I am not human.”

Dave narrowed his eyes at the thing. It was connected to the ship, but housed within circuitry and drives. A mechanical brain in a box. “You are a created personality?”

“Yes. I am fully aware. But I am not a human.”

“Then what makes someone human,” he demanded, “if it’s not what we were born to be, what we do, or proved by self-awareness?”

A pregnant silence hung in the dimness. “Only humans decide what makes life human.”

Dave thought back to that moment in the mirror. He’d recognized a spark within himself, and he rejected Tribunal’s definition.

The speaker crackled. “Here is what I can offer: on humanity’s behalf, I can make you human. Place you both in a pod for…”

Dave snapped the weapon to bear and unloaded the full magazine into Tribunal, slagging his housing and destroying him utterly. He whirled in time to see the executioners try to come to the controller’s aid. Dave slapped the button on his wireless device.

A shrill warning tone filled the compartment, and the LEDs switched to red as the power to all the cryotubes’ life support tripped off. Within seconds, millions passed away in their sleep.

The watchers stopped short of tackling Dave. “H-how could you?” The Order-Keepers stared at the darkened pods, minds obliterated by the lengths of Dave’s bloodless carnage. “You murdered them all.”

Dave retrieved the multi-tool from his pocket and stared at the first executioner’s neuri. “But that’s what proves we are human. Humans kill.”

Using the tool, he freed his would-be assassins and took Barb’s hand. “The things in these tubes weren’t human anyway,” Dave muttered. “If Tribunal was to be believed, then these things were monsters.”

END

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Table of Contents

- Legends and Lorecraft
- 1. Chapter 1
- 2. Chapter 2
- 3. Chapter 3
- 4. Chapter 4
- 5. Chapter 5
- 6. Chapter 6
- 7. Chapter 7
- 8. Chapter 8
- About the Author