Secrets Of Death
The Enemy Is Real
Trapped inside of a room of concrete and frightening jagged objects, little Cynthia Klarks cried tears of regret and frightened sorrow. Never would she go away with the silly man if she knew what he’d do, scaring her with blades, bringing them closer to her, threatening to cut the tips of her fingers, pressing the tipis just far enough to sting but not cause bleeding.
“Let me out! I wanna see mommy, let me see mommy!” Her voice was hoarse and filled with mucus from her running nose. Hours of torment and anguish from other more monstrously taboo forms of torture made her gag on her own sobs.
“Oh little girl, don’t you know?” smiled the bald clown as he pranced around in the dark, his crimson and black outfit visible only through a filter of light, from a single lightbulb in the ceiling.
Quieting her cries, Cynthia wanted to hear what the clown had to say, her curiosity compelled her to listen to the query. After a prolonged silence, and not hearing the clown, Cynthia tried tugging at the valve that sealed the door closed, preventing her escape. Her knuckles cracked as she tried desperately to pull loose the valve, hoping for her chance at freedom.
“Don’t you wanna know?” the sing-song voice from the darkness poised the question again. “Well, tell me, do you want to know—” then in a moment the demented harlequin leapt out from the dark, brandishing a power saw, that screeched as he charged towards Cynthia, the blade screaked with crimson, spun around as if it were a rotating peppermint. Stopping inches from the little girl’s face (who was petrified with terror, her face went pale and sullen), the clown then turned off the tool, as his crimson eyes looked into hers, his smile faded to a dumbfounded gap, then to a mock whimpering pout.
Eyes slowly drifted down, as the quiet of the cement prison echoed with droplets of moisture landed on the floor. From her dress, Cynthia in her fright had soiled herself, and a flush of embarrassment caused her face to redden and her expression to contort into a miserable expression.
“You wet yourself?!” the clown straightened himself as he mocked the child’s reaction to his terrorizing, “you are supposed to be a big girl Cynthia, and you pissed yourself, you silly little twit!” His loud name calling and vulgar language made her cry even harder as she hid her face in shame. Throwing the power tool into the darkness in a pretend fit of rage, the clown stomped about, flailing his arms around, as if he was punching invisible bats that swarmed all around him, his face stuck in a petulant, angry sneer.
“I…I’m…so—” Cynthia began to apologize but the clown loomed over her and brought his face down close to hers as he yelled violently back.
“You’re sorry!? Who cares?!” The loud and unforgiving words made her cry harder, as she slunk into the corner next to the door, and continued to cry aloud, completely devastated by the abuse. “You brat, how dare you try to weasel your way out of this? Your mother would be so disappointed, why do you think she lent you to me, to teach you—” he grabbed her on either side and made her face him, “—a lesson in manners!”
“Mom wouldn’t do that to me.” she managed to say through her turmoil, as she let out a loud cry, hoping someone, anyone would save her from this torture.
“You think so?” The clock then pointed to the dark and within it another light turned on, showing a familiar looking woman facing away.
“Mommy!” Cynthia cried, as she reached out to her, she recognized her from her pretty, long red hair, and flowery skirt and green top.
“Oh she is mad at you.” the clown teased, holding her back from getting to her mother.
“No she’s not!” she screamed in the clown’s face. “Mom! Mommy!” she pleaded, reaching out to her.
“You don’t believe me? Why don’t you think she turns around, and looks at you? It’s because she is disgusted by you, you horrendous little bitch, you are unloved and unwanted!” he violently hollered at her,
That made her so mad, she smacked the clown right in his face, who held his cheek in mock surprise, as he allowed Cyntuhian to break free and run to her mother.
“Mom!” she kept saying over and over as she ran towards her most loved person, embracing her legs in a right hug, never wanting to let go. “Mom I’m here, I’m here, please let’s go home, I promise never to run away again, please, please—”
Just as the begging started to become hysterical, Cynthia’s mother seemed to sway in her hold, and slowly rotated till the ghastly expression of a strangled woman was looking down on her child, who couldn't say a word she was so scared. Bloody drool leaked out of her mother’s mouth, and a grayish pale tone came over her sun tanned skin. Eyes rolled up into her skull, Cynthia never saw anyone look like her mother did before, she was so young, her mind couldn’t handle such wickedness.
“What did you—?” Before she could answer the question, the clown had finished his game, and wanted to put an end to it all before it got boring. Pulling out a corded chain he approached Cynthia Klarks.
***
In an undisclosed location, there was a metal door, called B-2, behind it two bodies hung from the ceiling, waiting to be removed and put on display in some staged crime scene. Leaving the room, Secret, The Clown felt the familiar dampness of blood on his sleeve, but since his outfit was either too dark, or matched the color anyway he didn’t mind too much, but he despised the feeling of wetness on his clothes.
Something about it made his mood miserable, and his gaunt face frowned as he went through his lair, to eventually resurface in the world above. Before he passed by his office, which was situated just before the exit, a familiar alarm buzzed inside there, alerting him that he was receiving a message from the Masters. Wheezing out a mooing cry of laziness, he stomped into his office and picked up the receiver of his novelty clown phone, which matched his colorful, carnival decorated office, a design choice he hated so much, he killed the decorator; of course he wanted it that way, only so he could kill the decorator.
“Hello?” His tone lacked mirth, and he was obviously annoyed. There was no answer on the other end of the line. “Hello?” his voice got angrier. Still no response, slamming down the receiver Secret was going to leave when a familiar sound of a lowering monitor from the ceiling drew his attention.
A screen as flat as a sheet of paper lowered itself, and an image appeared on the translucent screen, and a Master was there, covered mostly in shadow. Staying still, the harlequin was stunned by the menace that irradiated from the screen, making his anger fade away into fear.
“Master—” licking his lips Secret intended his usual spiel of praise and apologies for his short sighted remarks.”
“Mak’kof, do you not think that this is why you are no longer one of the Master Race?” rhetorical questions did not exist among Masters, they only did so to tease lower races. Despicable and deranged, Masters would often demote those within their ranks if their reincarnations did not meet genetic standards, and if their minds were enfeebled by non-Master emotions.
“I believe so, I—I’ll—” his words were cut off by a menacing gesture demanding silence.
“That was rhetorical.” shame crinkled Secret’s face, as he didn’t believe he had fallen that far from his previous position. “You were reborn beyond perfection, but you lack control of your passions, what you did to your recent target was self pleasuring that goes far extreme that we find tolerable.”
‘Yet you make use of it to your benefit.’ thoughts braver than his tongue, Secret’s jaw clenched.
“Next time you do the job clean, no wasting time with indulging or you’ll be permanently expunged from the Genesembly Collective.” Horrified, Secret did not realize he was in such disfavor, those Masters who have fallen from the grace of the majority are no longer truly considered one of them, but a slave to toil their way back into favor; if one were to become fall further from expectations, the memory of them in the gestation tanks that rebirth them, and when they die it’ll be permanent without their saved consciousness becoming imprinted on any new bodies.
Only a few times it has happened, the list of disgraced Masters is short but notorious, and Secret feared such shame and complete oblivion.
“I’ll do my best to regain my position, I will gain redemption.” cringing, back hunched, he knotted his hands together as if in prayer, an empty gesture that didn’t impress his former peer.
“...another target has been chosen—” an image of a military kernel appeared on the screen, overlapping the shadowy form of a Master. “Kernel Wechsler, a failed target, has been spreading ideas of reforming a human state, without our influence. We cannot kill him, he has implanted the idea in non-sanctioned media that he would be murdered for descension, the seeds of his rebellion have taken root far too soon for such a simple solution.” Secret felt a familiar sense of deja vu, as what he had done with his previous victims.
Celite DNA in his body allowed him to mutate his genetic material to emulate anyone else’s, so his bodily fluids can impersonate anyone, framing them to a scientific certainty, as far as the humans are concerned.
“So…you want me to take the wife, daughter, both? And give them a—”
“Implant the Kernel’s DNA into them, yes, and stop salivating, it's revolting, the agents will come and get those bodies, you take the details in the usual dead drop. We just need to frame him for raping and murdering his daughter, don’t get too creative, we need to play this straight. Any missteps and—”
Secret chuckled shrilly trying to end the unpleasant sentence before he heard the consequence. “I will do as I’m told, as efficiently and without any unnecessary enjoyment.” trying in vain to hide the drool at the corner of his mouth, he scampered from the room, heading to the dead drop as the monitor remained on, and the Master silently judged his former brethren. Silently the monitor went off and lifted back into the ceiling, leaving the underground complex to be haunted by the silent voices of the dead.
***
“Who’s mommy's special little girl?” Patty Wechsler doted on her daughter, kissing her, and ruffling her tied back ginger hair, as the child pouted, worried her friends on the bus to kindergarten will see and make fun of her mother’s demeaning affection.
“Mom! Stop!” she ordered, trying to retain the dignity afforded to all children when they begin to make friends at school.
“But my baby is so precious, I just wanna kiss her.” smooching her baby girl’s ear, Tracy Wechsler muffled a giggle under a frustrated growl. Hugging her cotton stuffed raven doll, she tried her best to dislodge her mother as she saw her bus turn a corner.
“Please mom, they’ll tease.” she pouted her eyes starting to shimmer with forming tears.
“Oh baby calm down, I promise I won’t embarrass you, I’ll only kiss you to death when we’re alone, okay?”
“Okay mommy.” Tracy felt both relieved and defeated, having failed to stand up to her mother’s smothering love, but forming an understanding of boundaries she was sure would be crossed at some future date. “I’m going now.”
Forcing herself to let go of her little girl, Patty gave a tiny wave as she watched Tracy wait at the sidewalk patiently for the big yellow vehicle to come to a complete stop. Doors swung open and—a stranger. Not the usual bus driver, the last one was a jolly old gal named Marge, as large as she was jolly.
“All aboard!” the bald headed driver said, his uniform covered in filth and pink smudge around the collar and sleeves, that oddly matched his abnormally pinkish skin. “We’re running late, so hurry on.” goaded the driver a little too roughly for Patty’s liking.
“Excuse me, where is Marge?” Patty asked, holding Tracey back, who was undisturbed by the change in drivers.
“Who?—Marge! Oh she is very sick.” the driver said, puffing out his lips and biting his lower lip in what seemed to be a clownish expression of grief.
“Oh no.” Tracy's genuine concern for her usual bus driver seeped to the surface like blood from a fresh cut. “Will she be alright?”
“Can’t say.” The new driver said as if he was aware of some irony that the child was ignorant of, “Come on, we’re going to be late.” The substitute driver’s harsher tone made Patty skeptical and held her daughter back tighter, unwilling to entrust her to the driver, despite her husband’s security detail shadowing the bus.
“Maybe I should drive her in today.” Tracy winced in her mother’s arms, showing how upset she was at that proposal, she wanted to sit with her friends, and was tightening up her body as she restrained her childish rage.
“Mom, I’m not a baby, I can ride a bus.” she spoke with leashed frustration through gritted teeth.
“I know sweetie but…” Patty gave a wary look at the driver, whose false looking eyes gave her the chills. “...I prefer if I drove you, no offense sir, I just trust her usual drive, I’ve known her for a while.”
Sucking his teeth in displeasure, the bus driver twisted his lips and turned his sour expression to one of calmed acceptance. “Okay, you're the boss lady. I’ll see you later Tracy.” closing shut the door to the bus, the driver moved slowly away, as Tracy’s friends waved at her as they continued their ride to school.
Tracy tried to put on a front of calm indifference, but was fuming on the inside with embarrassment and anger caused by what she believed was unreasonable denial of her freedoms.
***
“Come on sweetie, it’s just till Marge gets better, that driver didn’t look—” Patty paused, she didn’t want to teach her child to judge people just by their appearance, “—there was something about him I didn't like.”
“You just didn’t want me to go on the bus.” Tracy pouted since the bus drove off without her, she kept a scrunched up expression of focused frustration targeted squarely at her mother. “When are you gonna get that I’m not a baby!?”
“You’re my baby.” Patty defended her motherly pride, not wanting to cave to her insistence that she is suddenly all grown since she can go to the potty without help. “No matter what I have to make choices that you won’t like at times, and I know you're smart, Ms. Gladdis said, you are going to be really bright when you get older, but till then it’s my responsibility to make sure you're safe.”
Tracy was advanced for her age, despite her need for security with stuffed dolls, she could understand and operate advanced computers, and was adopted into an advanced placement program at her private school. Even the Master’s took notice by granting her the medal of achievement, a symbol of her above average genetics that will serve her well in job placement after she graduates from high school.
“If I’m so smart, why do you think I’m too dumb to ride the bus?” Tracy was being deliberately glib of her reading of the situation, she just didn’t like being taken away from her social time with friends.
“You know that’s not true Tracy, you don’t get to lie like that just because you're mad.” Patty’s voice had a bit of a harshness to it, as she restrained herself from chiding her child before school.
“You’re calling me a liar? You really don’t trust me, do you?” hearing that made Patty want to stop the car, but they already arrived at school. Keeping the doors locked, she turned in her seat to look at her daughter with a disapproving look on her face.
“Listen here young lady, you better quit acting like this, it’s not right, and you know that.” Patty stared her down, till Tracy blushed and sighed away in her seat. “Baby I’m—” the distance between them seemed to span for miles, before she could recover some ground, Tracy upset undid the lock and ran off into the school yard. “Tracy!” She unrolled the windows trying to get her daughter’s attention but she disappeared into the crowd of children on the playground, where they waited for school to start.
Driving parallel to Patty’s family van, the personal guards her husband aside stopped next to her vehicle and rolled down the windows.
“Kids.” joked the white haired military agent with a stiff mustache, and pitch black suite and white shirt assemble, typical of agents working out of combat.
“Yeah.” Patty was deflated, she might’ve been too harsh with her daughter, despite her intelligence she was sensitive, and became very insecure around confrontation. “You’re going to keep an eye on her?” she asked just to hear that comforting three letter word that allowed her to return home and relax.
“Yes.” The agent and his partner were about to drive off, but Patty asked a question that had them stumped.
“What is with that substitute bus driver?” the way he acted and talked seemed irrational, not to mention his appearance, it was as if he was a coyote in human skin.
“Substitute?” a worried look instantly came across the agent’s face. “Marge wasn’t driving the bus?” Immediately Patty ran out of her van, blocking the way for other cars trying to drop their own kids off; the two guards followed in haste, firearms prepared for the worst case scenario.
Tracy, unable to find her friends in the crowd, went to the girls washroom on the playground. Doing her personal business in the white tiled room, she felt a twinge of guilt for how she acted, fearing she had made her mother dislike her, all because she couldn’t accept being told no. Despite her advanced mind, she was a brat, and she knew it; her best efforts to correct that personality flaw still proved her mother right—“What’s wrong baby girl?” a heinous voice uttered from within a bathroom stall.
“You’re not supposed to be in here!” Tracy shouted, recognizing the voice as male, and believing it was one of the older boys playing a joke.
“I can go anywhere I please.” the voice said as it slithered out of a freshly pale throat. Removing makeup, contact lenses, and an uncomfortable uniform was a pain, as much as it was driving a bus load of kids without indulging in his usual pleasures. Cause just one being gone would alert the personal guard that followed the bus, and kept eye on the route.
Fortunately their long range cameras didn’t show who he really was, his genetics allowed him to appear as whoever he pleased in video. So to them, he looked like old Marge, poor old Marge. Tracy felt an urge to run from in her guts, as she started to edge toward the door, preparing to bolt at a moment's notice. Breathing hard, she one step at a time, as she looked at the stall where the voice was coming from, a pair of curly crimson shoes landed on the ground, and there came a stiff creaking from within.
Impeded by terror, she took tiny steps, trying to get the courage to make a full run for it, as she saw through the gaps in the stall the sickening form of some deranged, pale maniac. Teeth shaking in his jaw, his entire body contorting and stretching, slowly pressing itself at the door of the stall.
Just as Tracy placed her small hand on the door of the bathroom, the stall door burst open and a screeching demon hurled itself at her, with eyes of crimson flame, and a face as pale as a full moon rising over a cemetery.
***
The bathroom was empty, a section of wall started sliding close, fitting back into place as neatly as a puzzle. Sealing shut, hiding all evidence of another exit to the enclosed structure. Panicked, Patty stormed inside, having heard from another child that her daughter was seen going inside, “Tracy!” she cried checking every stall, inspecting every toilet bowl. Scraping at the walls, scanning the floors and corners of the compact space. Finding on the ground near the far wall her daughter's beloved raven stuffed animal.
Breaking down in complete and utter turmoil, clutching the doll in her trembling hands, she cried out loud, “Who took my baby!?” just as the playground became swarmed by military agents, looking everywhere, using the advanced sensory technology to find the Kernel’s daughter.
***
“You’re telling me we can find a Xemtian nest in the jungle but we can’t find my little girl!?” Kernel Wechsler felt every vein in his neck harden and start rising up to the base of his brain, pumping in a rush of anger, fear, and indescribable grief.
“Sir calm down.” said a Sergeant who was hiding behind a chair, fearful another piece of furniture would be flung in his direction. The living room was a command center for the search and rescue of the Kernel’s daughter, only the most trusted members of his cabinet were invited, fearing this was a ploy by the Masters.
Already they tried to assassinate him by sending mutants whose bodies were stolen from the base autopsy lab. After he openly announced plans to form a secondary government to keep the Masters in check, he has been facing a non-stop barrage of media speculation of his competency and loyalty, while dealing with sanctions from the Masters.
“No doubt they had a hand in this. Trust me when I get my girl back, I hide them where those shit eating freaks will never use them against me again!” rallying his men with his vigor, he set up a perimeter sweep, checkpoints, and put every convicted pervert on his personal ass kicking list.
Leaving her husband and the men to do their best at searching for her baby girl, Patty Wechsler got dressed for bed, took some sleeping aids, drank a tall glass of cold water, and laid down to sleep—so she could cross over to the other dimension.
The Idverse.
***
Gem Qua awoke in the bed she shared with the Exacutor, whose wings were embracing her abdomen, nestling his beaked skull in her navel.
“Clark, wake up!” she ordered, pushing the sleeping form of her lover, who straightened up bizarrely fast.
“Yes, what’s the matter?” instantly, he could sense distress in her voice, as he grabbed hold of her to steady her shaking arms.
“My daughter, they took her, the Masters took Tracy, please bring her back to me.” her lizardly eyes bedazzled with crystalline tears, as she gripped tightly his bone-hard arms in panic.
“We’ll have to go see Ob Sid, his vision could’ve seen what happened.” Rushing downstairs, they found the mansion deserted, except for themselves, and luckily Ob Sid, who sat in the library reading a large volume of depression poems. Seated in a high back chair of burgundy and gold embroidery, he had at his left a bust of a Greek philosopher which he opined with on occasion.
“Ob Sid, help me please, its Tra—” Gem Qua was silenced by a sharp, slicing snarl from the mouth of the skeletal faced ultra-ego.
“You told him your identity didn’t you?” The repressed rage was in his voice, which scared her, but not as much as losing her little girl.
“Yes, but he wouldn’t tell anyone—”
“That’s not the point!” Ob Sid’s perpetual smile masked a growing venom, as he could barely contain his anger. “I know it now! Because you were careless with you identity now I am exposed to knowing it—”
“But what difference does that—!” Before Patty could say anything Ob Sid unleashed a bombastic tirade.
“Everything! If I had to explain it, it would expose me as well and our whole rebellion! Your carelessness has cost the Kernel's position! This will lead to no counter force to rally the public against the Celites, but your flippant fling with him allowed you to let your guard down! If that little girl dies it's on your head!” the words stung at Gem Qua, her crumbling ego, left her crestfallen, weeping bitterly into her hands.
Talons clutched Ob Sid’s spinal throat, lifting him from the chair, causing the bust to fall onto the floor, the scalp of it split from the rest of the head. “Your head will be like that bust if you don’t lay off her.” the shadows of the Exacutor’s eyes swirled with predatory fervor.
“I’ll hold my tongue, however I’ll not take back my remarks.” letting Ob Sid fall back into his seat, the smiling skeleton rubbed his throat, as he spoke further on the matter of the girl. “Kernel Wechsler’s daughter is alive…for now, I can see her with my ultra-ego.'' Each follower of Zo has a supernatural part of their forms in the Idverse. Ob Sid’s abilities are astral projection and observation of time flow.
The Latter meaning he can observe anything that occurs in any time and place, and watch it like a video, rewinding, pausing, and displaying for others to watch through his large obsidian eyes. Projecting the time Tracy was abducted from the washroom onto the ceiling, Gem Qua and Exacutor watched as a man with melty pinkish skin entered the bathroom and hid in a stall.
Soon Tracy went inside, fast forwarding she was leapt at by a hideous clown, who covered her mouth, and took her into a secret passage in the bathroom wall.
“Boy, the Underplex.” stopping the projection, Ob Sid let out an agonized sigh, as he felt suddenly weary as if he hadn’t slept for three days and had to get to work in an hour. “It could take years to find this fool's lair.”
“Where did he take her? Just tell me where I can find it.” Exacutor’s was eager to slay an agent of the Masters, who sentenced him to death in his previous life, and gain father with his lover by saving her daughter.
“It's not an easy answer, the Underplex is one of many names for a vast, globe spanning labyrinth of passages and tunnels in the underground. Built by the Masons back before even the Celites came, it was used by their order to travel unseen across long distances, but in far shorter amounts of time. It is actually possible for someone using these underground routes to travel from America to China in less than an hour, but I digress, it is beyond a doubt the Master’s have gained access to the Underplex, and are using it as a way to abduct threats to their authority.”
As impossible as it sounded, Exacutor had experienced affairs far more amazingly bizarre to contradict his fellow ultra-ego. “How can I get there?” He hoped Ob Sid would have a solution, as the progress of priceless time weighed heavier on his head with each passing moment.
“You have to either be a member of the Masons, or you need to be able to read their signs.”
“How?!” Exacutor saw Gem Qua coil around herself, nearly catatonic with the verbal assault she suffered, and the growing anxiety of the loss of her daughter. Fearing the debilitating depression that would consume her if anything irreversible happened to her daughter, he pressured Ob Sid with mentally projected malice.
Calmly, the skeletal man took a deep breath, reached up to his eye sockets and as if he was unscrewing a lightbulb, pulled out his eyeballs, leaving a direct line of sight to his empty skull. Holding out his large, obsidian eyes, he handed them to Exacutor whose eyes flared with surprise as the gem-like eyes shrunk in his talons.
“Put them in your eyes, and you’ll be able to see the Mason’s etchings in the stone, with your natural tracking talents you can find her, now take flight my bird, fly and find the lost baby.'' Despite his derisive tone, he was eager for the latest scheme of his nemeses to be spoiled, as his long range machinations were finally reaching the beginning stages.
Blind, he listened as the winged extractor sped off, stampeding down the halls, and once outside soared into the black abyss, to travel the black paths that only he could travel.
Trembling from grief, Gem Qua lifted her head from laying it on her coiled up serpent body, and looked at the sightless leader of their rebellion. “Do you think he’ll find her?”
“Alive or dead?”
***
No mortal knows when the Underplex was originally built, and neither do they know its original name. Built in a time before fire, light, darkness, and existence, it was a way between all things. Creation, unreality, and nothingness was all abridged and lengthened by this primordial underneath of all things.
Those of the oldest of times, and the wisest of things beyond the world of the normal know it as the Stagnant Labyrinth, a place where cancerous eternity lingers, never ending, always constant.
With things and places far more fouler and bewitching than known by humans, the Masters, or the Xemtians.
***
Flying low, a silhouette of a grotesque humanoid bird hovered overhead, nearly as black as pitch, but in the light of the moon became almost ghostly gray, as if it were a wooden statue of some bizarre prehistory god that survived the flames. Circling around the school that a young girl was taken earlier in the day, the shadowy shape avoided sight of officers and agents still patrolling about, in hopes of finding which direction the girl was taken.
Landing with a soft sound, barely louder than a mouse's heartbeat, the winged man-creature went into the girls washroom, breaking the sealed tape that closed off the scene of the horrific abduction. Through eyes not his own, the hunter could see a world beyond what his already keen sight could observe, the slighted chances of elevation, and faint, nearly invisible etchings in the walls revealed the Mason’s gateway.
Running his fingers across the etching he undid the form fitting door, opening enough for him to find a way inside, unaware he was recorded and observed by those searching for the little girl. The Kernel’s men in their observation post watched the live video, amazed and slightly terrified by what they saw, it was nothing they have seen before, a creature of human movements, yet with the body of some creature they could only conjure in dreams and nightmares.
Alerting their commanding officer, the bathroom was soon swarming with agents, who, mimicking the creature, found a way to open the Mason’s hidden door.
***
So many chains, each one a priceless memento of memories passed. Taking one of the more recent chains in the collection, the pale faced harlequin put it to his lips, and suckled on it, and chewed on it with his jaw flexing with forceful effort. According to his dead drop he had abducted Tracy Wechsler and taken her to the complex that housed many rooms, where he left his previous victims.
However, before injecting her with genetic fluid that mimics her father, and then exterminating her, he had to wait till Nine O’ Clock News Report, a daily report of the news the Master’s curated for the populace viewing pleasure. Tonight the Master’s Plutonian Task Force, led by Lieutenant Arton will find the body of Tracy Wechsler, and pronounce her father as the prime suspect.
Evidence will be planted on his personal computer to incriminate him as being a deviant with certain tastes that will lead credence to the vile accusations. Once the Master’s scientists and dissenting military personnel conclude the same, Kernel Wechsler will be arrested and held over for trial.
Then he will commit suicide driven by guilt in his cell, where he will have written a confession, in his own blood.
Secret smiled at the idea of destroying another enemy to his former brethren’s power, and his certain ascension back into the fold. All he had to do was wait, wait till it was time to coincide with already planned out events, time of death needed to be accurate and authentic, no artificial decomposition will fool the detractors. Both sides had to come to the exact same facts, as distrust amongst the dissidents had almost reached the masses.
When your average joe is in full agreement with the rebels then it is full out war between the ruling class and everyone else; even the Master’s would have trouble conquering a people they helped reach the next stage in technological evolution.
The only danger is if Secret didn’t follow orders, cause for the past few hours he had been obsessing over his latest victim. At first she was terrified of him, dragging her into the underground darkness, locking her into room B-2, a freshly vacant room, he performed various horrendous forms of anxiety inducing emotional torment on the young child.
As soon as she calmed down from being kidnapped and being locked in the concrete room, Secret hid in the shadows beyond the radius of the lightbulb, then proceeded to turn on hissing and snarling power tools to induce panic in Tracy Wechsler; at first he could see the terror in her watering eyes, but as time went on, despite double and redoubling the frightful sounds, Tracy became more hardened to her peril.
Unafraid after nearly twenty minutes she tried to let herself out, but lacked the physical strength to do so; to punish her for her insolence, Secret turned off all the powertools and after a brief silence, suddenly charged at her screeching as if he stepped on a nail and it went completely through his foot, while his head was on fire.
Screeching, and making inane faces, he tried to intimidate her by whirling around knives and other jagged instruments to induce fear, but Tracy showed no fear, whether it was out of defiance or she didn’t understand the danger, the clown didn’t know—frustrated he took steps back, and started throwing the sharp instruments towards her, intentionally aiming it close to her, with keen marksmanship he managed to graze her without drawing blood. Holding the last knife in his hand, he grabbed her by her shirt and held it up as if he was about to pierce her chest, but he couldn’t make her flinch.
‘Why is this child so resilient? Did I make a mistake, or perhaps she has just lost her mind?’ Secret slapped her, and Tracy fell down flat onto the ground, her left hand palm became cut on one of the blades that were on the ground. Helping herself up, she looked at the puddle of dark crimson pool in her hand, unafraid she tucked it in her sleeve, and kept it there, allowing the fabric of her shirt to soak up the blood.
“Why am I here?” Tracy asked, the first time she spoke directly to the clown, aside from hysterical screaming and pleas for her life.
“You think you're brave do you? Well that won’t matter.” Secret was just counting the time till was permitted to destroy her, after implanting his genetic scum into her body. “I have more things I can do to you.”
Tracy for some odd reason didn’t feel too afraid of the clown, worried for her predicament, she felt a sort of distance with the pale face harlequin, as if she didn’t recognize as a person, with a mind and personality all his own; what she saw rather was a caricature of some pitiful fool, whose attempts to intimidate her were in vain. Much like the monsters she watched in shows and movies, the harlequin seemed just as fictional.
“So you brought me here to torture me?” Tracy read between the lines in the clown’s words, despite not answering her questions it betrayed his intent.
Secret looked at her, baring his teeth in a grimace frown, whatever terrible hold he had on other children, he didn’t seem to have it on her, she was numb to his fear inducing actions.
“You’ll see soon enough.” roughly he yanked her by the scruff of the neck, dragging her to the hanging chains near the light. Pulling down the rust and blackish sludge covered chains, he wrapped it around her neck, multiple times till her entire neck was constricted by the itch-inducing metal. Locking it tight with a padlock, he then reached up into the ceiling which was shrouded in darkness, and started on another chain, with a loud squeak, the chain lifted Tracy from the ground and she began to choke and cough. “Suffer you little cunt!” Secret was riled up by her insolence, her steadfast nature, and was beginning to lose control.
‘Damn those bastards, I’ll finish her now, they’ll just have to change it around.’ Secret tugged at his waist as he saw the little girl’s face begging to turn a purplish-blue, she was being strangled, and he wanted to put it inside her before she choked to death. “Hold on little girl.” he said watching the tears leak from her tightly shut eyes, “I got you a parting gift.”
Bang!
Something powerful struck the door, and made Secret drop the chain, he was rattled, he didn’t think anyone could follow him to his lair. A moment's confusion led to him assuming the Master’s sent someone to make sure he didn’t screw up the job.
“You’ve been spying on me you bastards!” he cried at the door.
Bang! Bang! Thud! Crack!
“Maybe I just wasn’t cut out to be with you brothers!” he screamed out into the darkness, searching for any surveillance equipment. “I should’ve known you were watching me here, how else would you know that I enjoy this?!” Grabbing Tracy by the chin he held up the flushed child, as she gasped for air, “Well keep watching cause I’m gonna make her—”
Stab! Screech! Something punctured the metal door, it was thick and durable enough to withstand an explosion, but something sliced through its dense layers with ultimate sharpness. Awestruck, Secret watched as talons dug at the metal, and tore a passage through the door, stepping through, a bizarre monster resembling an emaciated man, with the features of a prehistoric bird of prey, the menacing figure approached the clown with murderous strides.
“What do you what?” The clown didn’t hear an answer, only a silent termination that crackled in the air, Secret could feel the psychic impulses writhing in and out of the figure, “You’re coming to kill me?!” He was stunned by what was happening. “You want the girl? You can have her—'' the bird creature didn’t slow, “—you can have her dead.” pulling the girl into his hold, Secret threatened to end her life with a swift snap of her neck.
Not even a pause, the monster’s ebony eyes gleamed, as they seemed to rotate in its eye sockets. “Do you not care for this girl’s life?” the question from the clown, whose worry formed beads of sweat on his barren head drew an answer from the creature.
“I am here to kill you, whether or not you kill her is irrelevant. Her death I shall avenge or her life will be spared, I am certain if I allowed you to live that same opportunity will not be given to your next victim, you are without conscious, soul, or the redeemable materials God has made all his creation, I can only assume you were made as a antithesis either by mistake or by the arrogance of the Masters, my eyes show me what you are inside and out, and it is something I can only surmise was meant to be disposed of, you are made for functional evil, nothing more.”
Secret heard those words and his face got more tight, and his grip became tighter around the girl’s head, as the bird creature kept coming closer. It was there Secret had a grim epiphany, that he was never a Celite, that his memories, and entire being was genetically modified and grown to be a tool of the Masters; much like the genetic soldiers, perhaps Secret was a Master once, or grown from a Masters genetics, to be altered and remade to fit a variety of purposes, and to be disposed of when another iteration was finished in the laboratory.
Truth came over his mind like a tornado over a deep pit, the depths of its formation destroyed him, even if it was a lie, he could not shake the ego shattering doubt, and he was determined to kill Tracy, if not to indulge one of his (most likely implanted) sadistic fetishes before he died.
Slice.
A moment he stood there, Secret felt a cold sharpness intrude into his neck, as it glided across with little resistance, soon came a cascade of flowing ebony, lifeblood poured out of him, in shock he let go of the girl, who was soaked in his blood, in her hand he saw she held the knife that delivered the fatal stroke. Having picked it up from before, she stashed it on herself, waiting for an opportunity to defend herself; even she was surprised by how deadly he tactic was, as she watched Secret The Clown, clutch at his neck wound, fading fast.
Laying down low, he whimpered, choked, and slowly started to die, he would’ve passed away eventually, but the Exacutor with his taloned feet stomped on the clown’s head, obliterating the skull, and sending brains, skull fragments, and two eyes bouncing all over the floor. Covering the girl’s eyes with his wings as he delivered the finishing blow, he carried her out into the hallway.
Soon he heard the approach of many feet, it dawned on him that the Kernel’s men followed him, and without a word of comfort to the child he rescued he dashed away, vanishing into the darkness of the underground complex. Soon a team of the kernel’s agents arrived, finding Tracy, shaking, disturbed, and in utter shock, standing alone, covered in what looked like ink, as they quartered off the area, and began to extract the kernel’s daughter.
The senior agent pressed the device in his ear, and said with complete confidence “Kernel Wechsler we have your daughter.”
***
Tracy Wechsler didn’t speak. She didn’t speak after she was rescued, when she was reunited with her parents, or when she saw various experts in mental health. Tracy had become mute, and silent to the world as if she was cursed with a dire secret that no adult could comprehend.
Pulling her out of school, and sequestering her to some secured location, she took up drawing, all of which were variations of birds, bird-men, and bird monsters, as if she was trying to come to terms with something they witnessed that had shattered her innocence and conquered her child’s mind.
Washing for her became a religious ritual, a routine that developed a meticulous effort that became an obsession.
Apostasy of her abductor showed he was most likely a extra-terrestrial, and that it had chameleon like effect on its DNA, which brought doubt too many convictions of prominent figures who in the passed challenged the Masters, and who are now being pressured to install a new branch of government, a branch headed by Kernel Wechsler to keep the Master’s benevolent rule under observation, now that public doubt had grown amongst the average citizen.
***
Sitting at his desk, one of the Masters reviewed the video before purging it from their systems. Again and again, he saw how Secret had his throat slit, and his body recovered by the Kernel’s men. Prosecutions they brought against other political rivals are in question, and the pyramid he and his brethren built was beginning to split apart from the foundation up; what bothered him most was the creature that intervened, the odd bird-like monster that led the agents to the murder site. Breathing in deeply from his large, poisonous smelling cigar, he deleted the video, and looked over the genetic records of Secret.
Still in limbo within their systems he could easily gestate the data of the fallen clown by a simple press of a button. Momentarily he considered letting him live, but he remembered those words he spoke, denouncing them, vindictively disobeying, and his genetic structure was flawed. Purging the data of the harlequin from the systems, he quietly ruminated on the final death of Secret, and how much promise was spoiled by a sickened mind.
***
Rainbow colors flashed outside, as a technicolor array of lightning was followed by a bombastic thunder outside of the mansion in the Idverse. Ob Sid and Exacutor sat in the library, Exacutor was absorbed in the King James Bible, as Ob Sid fiddled with his eyes, finding they fit much closer in his patchwork skull than they had before.
“Did you drop these?” Ob Sid struggled to read Das Kapital, trying to find inspiration to overthrow the tyrannical aliens that are still overseeing his planet. “They fit well enough before, but now they are all loose.”
Exacutor was too absorbed in his reading to hear what was being said, he barely registered anything was said in the first place, as he sullenly tried to force away the loneliness he felt since Gem Qua decided to remain with her daughter, and hasn’t returned to her with him in so many weeks.
“Were you saying something?” Exacutor felt a bothersome gnawing sensation in his ears, as if he was ignoring a pestering pet cat demanding food.
“Yes.” Ob Sid was crossed, “my eyes, you damaged them, now they fit too loosely.”
Exacutor didn’t do anything with his eyes, but didn’t have the will to argue about his innocence, “I’m sorry, I’ll be careful next time.”
“Next time?” Ob Sid scoffed. “The way things are going the Kernel might oust the Master’s and perhaps even reveal their identity to the world. There may not be a reason for us to fight.”
Thunder outside continued as Exacutor finished a passage in the Bible he found quite profound. “Do you know why God punished Cain?”
“Cain from Cain and Abel?” Ob Sid was caught off guard by the seemingly irrelevant question. “He killed his brother, and punished him by marking him as a murderer.”
“No.” Exacutor closed the lofty book, and placed it back on its place on the shelf. “God didn’t punish him for that, he wanted Cain to apologize, to seek forgiveness, because despite what he may or may not have done, God loved him.”
Ob Sid considered it, and asked perplexed, “then why did he punish him?”
Exacutor rose from his chair to look out the window as he enlightened his comrade. “For lying. God wanted to be sure that no matter where Cain went, he couldn’t deceive others by denying his sin, it was a part of him, and showed just like my beaked face does, or your obsidian eyes, or the clown's pained face. We all carry on us what we are, but the Masters don’t. I’ve never seen them in person, and I doubt most people have, to them they are mythological spirits like Santa Clause; they have become ingrained in human culture as beings of generosity and kindness, to defeat them we must show the world what mark they carry.”
Ob Sid wasn’t sure he understood what he was told, and he didn’t wish to pry, he continued to adjust his eyes, as he struggled to read, while Exacutor looked out the window as the outer dimensional storm continued.