Story Germs 10

Part 3

 

With Hesukristos at the head of the column, the Hesukristian rebels are marching south alongside a giant Deva-built aqueduct. Having already been on the road for a few days, their goal is only a few day’s march south, an ancient secret fortress in the ohio desert. But that night, another Deva Herald arrives at their camp, glowing merrily, saying “Warning: Sterilization procedures will recommence in five days”.

Perhaps (for streamlining’s sake) this happens at the end of the previous “chapter,” with the deva interrupting Knife and Monia’s argument. This also explains where the cyborg has been this whole time: he’s been hunting Devas.

Hesukristos furiously leaps up and fires his laser into the deva, killing it but exhausting himself in the effort. Supporting himself on a tree, exhausted, Hesukristos looks near First Knife and asks him what he thinks is going on. “What are sterilization procedures, do you think?”

Looking thoughtful, but not looking at Hesu, First Knife says “I think it means we need to get to your fortress as soon as we can. If we don’t, they’ll kill us all for sure.” Murmurs stir through the soldiers. “If you can’t kill the gods, you’ve doomed us all.” Girl Commander leaps up, shouting “I’ve had enough of you!” she kicks First knife hard in the face, throwing him over, and whips out her knife, shouting at the crowd “that goes for all you cowards too!” She leaps onto first knife, preparing to stab him, and his head smashes the ground, knocking him out.

This would fit well with a conversation where he was trying to seduce her, and she has had enough of it.

I’m not sure I like knocking him out, though. It makes him passive again. Although I do like the beginning of the next scene. Perhaps he starts shouting orders to his men, and, seeing his life is in danger, the cyborg grabs him and keeps him immobilized while the “crisis of faith” plays itself out. Perhaps Monia tells the cyborg to do that (if you want her to like Knife).

Another potential is that it is the cyborg who falls unconscious during the battle (which would make a lot of sense, given his mechanical problems) and when HE wakes up, HE is the one who asks “what happened” to which KNIFE responds “a crisis of faith.” Of course, that means that in whatever conversation Knife and Monia had at the end of chapter 2, they have become allies to the extent that Knife does not turn on the Hesukristians, but instead leads them and his loyal soldiers (loyal to him personally) to kill or drive off the other soldiers (loyal to the Hudsoni Matriarch). That gives you the chance to bring the Matriarch back into play by letting the Matriarchist soldiers go back to Hundonia and tell her what her brother’s been up to.  SHE convinces the Devas to carry her to Ohio to talk some sense into Knife (this can all happen off screen) so she is present at the denouement, as she should be because she’s an interesting character.

First knife wakes up at sunset being dragged behind Hesukristos, who seems a bit more slumped and quiet. There are only a few dozen men still marching behind them, some with bloodied weapons. First Knife asks “What happened?” Hesukristos simply says “a crisis of faith” and chuckles quietly.  They reach a big oasis around a giant, kilometre-high tower disappearing into the clouds it appears to be generating. Hesukristos slows down the deeper they get into the dense, forested oasis (in which giant, angkor-wat-like ruins are visible amongst the trees),

MLE~EH (that’s the sound of the drool escaping my mouth)

and slowly stops when they reach the center of the oasis. amongst the trees the ruins of a solid, fortress-like structure lies half-submerged at the base of the aqueduct-fed tower.

Now, this whole last section is up in the air – I’m not entirely sure how to wrap the story up without being too anticlimactic or preachy… but i like the idea of First Knife sleeping under a tree while Hesukristos goes into the old, flooded fortress, then waking up to find all the other warriors gone, aside from Girl Commander, who’ll be stoicly standing by herself, waiting for the cyborg to come out of the water… and above them all, a Deva Destroyer-bot can be seen, a little speck in the sky above them.

Meaning the soldiers have all run away? Why didn’t anyone wake Knife up? Perhaps Knife went partway into the crypts with Hesukristos, but had to turn back because…there’s radiation further on? He felt the ground shake and wants to check on everyone? Hesukristos forces him to?

There could be some sort of epic confrontation between Hesukristos and the devas – but whatever it is, it needs to end with the death of hesukristos… if hesukristos’ degradation is introduced earlier on, maybe he could try and shoot his laser at the destroyed but lose the last of his ancient, evil energy, and barely be able to stand up. Or, better yet, have him talk more and more needily about his “sleeping cyborg brothers” on his journey to the sunken fortress, then end with him emerging from the water HELLA depressed that he’s completley alone in the universe…

Cut to the hudsoni capital, where First Knife is returning with a war party to a deserted harbor (aside from a few gosherds and their flocks of giant future geese) . Surprised at the cold welcome, First Knife finds out from the gosherd that the whole town is at the matriarch’s longhouse. A herald of the devas is there!

First knife pushes his way through the crowded townsfolk into the matriarch’s longhouse. Inside, all the elders of the town are huddled around the edges of the walls, quietly talking amongst themselves, with the herald silently floating in the middle of the room above the fire pit, rain falling on it through the smoke-hole. First Knife goes to his sister, the matriarch, worried about what he’ll hear. The last time the devas spoke, it preceded the annihilation of an entire island’s population to contain an outbreak of disease. And sure enough, as the matriarch tells him, the herald’s warning is of the Hudsoni’s new holdings to the south – the devas are preparing to cleanse the detroit river valley to contain a potentially lethal threat that destroyed a Deva. The elders and the matriarch are in a panic about this for a wide variety of reasons – capturing the lands between the hudson sea and the great lakes cost the hudsoni a lot of effort and life, and to have the jewel of the region – the great middens of trans-detroit – burned by the gods would bode ill for all. Not mentioning the horror that such an occurence would hold just as an omen, the potential for it to inspire foreign invasion and insurrection amongst the conquered is terrifying enough for the hudsoni.

First knife, getting flustered by the panicked elders, shouts “surely we can do something!”

The deva, speaking for the first time the reader has seen: “What would you do?”

Startled, first knife regains his composure and haltingly speaks: “We – we would drive this threat out into the lakes, or into the river, where you could destroy it. Or, if possible, we would destroy it ourselves.”

The deva is silent.

First knife continues: ” We have paid dearly for this place you wish to destroy. If we can protect it, we will.” after a pause, he adds “my lord”

After a few moments, the deva speaks: “Yes. It is authorized. If the situation is yet unresolved within the lunar cycle, sterilization procedures will recommence at the beginning of the next.” With that, the deva disappears in a flash of light.

The matriarch walks over, glaring, and calls First Knife a fool – then hugs him tightly, and calls him a fool again.

We cut to canoes full of armed men, sailing from the hudsoni capital, with ten-fifteen men from each of the seven major clans, sailing south under First Knife’s command. After a few nights of traveling, they find a giant, still metal form lying half-in the river – a dead Deva builder, beginning a new concrete and earth extension to the river’s edge, collapsed with jagged holes and gashes melted through its metal exoskeleton. There are a few battered hesukristian corpses, too – one of them dressed in ancient ceramic armor a hudsoni warrior recognizes from the Hesukristian Holy Crypts, in Cincinatl. Both the collapsed Deva and dead men are fresh, so First Knife orders them all onward. Their enemy must be close.

Soon they smell smoke, and a burning village comes into view. Disembarking into cover further up the river, they quickly creep into the village and attack, cutting up the armored and non-armored hesukristian warriors. Suddenly, a thin beam of red light snaps out of the smoke, dismembering hudsoni and hesukristian alike. After three such beams flick over the hudsoni warriors, First Knife sounds the retreat. As he backs up, watching the carnage, the red light snaps out and touches his sword. But it only begins to heat the metal, instead of killing him outright. As the smoke clears, the source of the red light becomes clear – a sixteen year old girl, wearing ancient ceramic armor that’s too big for her, holding a dull olive-drab laser tube, riding on the shoulders of a very big man. Staring First Knife in the eyes as she moves closer and his laser-heated sword begins to smoke and burn him, the girl says “Submit, or die.

Right now, it is very, very easy for you to die.”

First Knife drops his glowing sword out of his swollen hand, and looks away – “We submit”

The laser-wielding girl commander shouts “Hesukristos has risen” – and her troops shout in response “HE HAS RISEN INDEED!”