Steel Fire
There is more

What is worse than dreams that can’t come true, pain that isn’t worth suffering, and efforts that turn out meaningless? When I was young, I was asked this question and could answer only with ‘nothing’. In all the years since I have only grown more sincere in that answer. All the suffering I have witnessed meant nothing compared to any good that it may have bought. It was the only thing I could hope for, I concluded just like I was meant to. I was to cause the least amount of suffering that was possible. In the grand scheme of things, that was still better than I could hope for.

Rejoice, for you are saved. Suffering has cleansed you and made you great. Now you are ready to serve the greater good of the Republic, or have your presence removed in a sacrifice that will serve the greater good of humanity. The world is better prepared for what is to come because of your existence, which is not something many can boast about. When we succeed, your contribution will be honored and your sacrifice will have been rewarded. Thank you, martyrs, for on your bodies a better world is built.

Arakiel stared at the body on the slab. Methodically, he established that she wasn’t breathing. Her pupils did not react to light. The heart no longer produced any sounds of activity. Her skin showed blotches that told him she had been dead for a while now, if the cold he felt when touching her had not already convinced him of that. Her face was unmistakable, one white eye and another that now also looked out into nothing. Olivia Terzi was dead. The Overwatch knight closed her eyes with a gloved hand and covered her with the sheet. He stared at it, lost in thought.

“Even in our dreams we can betray ourselves,” he whispered to the corpse. He looked around, even though he knew he was alone in the morgue, and started to unfasten his mask. His face felt naked when he removed the thick ceramic. The cold air prickled his skin.

“So, I wish upon you a dreamless sleep,” he said. “That it may bring you peace. I know you would replace none if you were still conscious. I am sorry that you were so human.”

Even though his facial expressions had been hidden behind the mask for long, no emotion touched his expression now. His eyes remained dry, staring at the face hidden beneath the sheet. Somehow, he still felt her eye on him.

“Our work continues. We have also paid the price, I assure you,” he said with a dry throat. “Your services, when they were for the Republic, were appreciated.”

“No credible resources can tell me what happens after death, so I can’t presume there even is anything. I am speaking these words only for my own comfort.”

He hesitated, staring at the mask in his hands.

“This was for the betterment of humankind,” he said, as he raised it to his face once again. “I hope you realized that before the end. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t.”

Arakiel had read the forbidden histories, stolen from the devout historians of the Order of the Library, and knew of the struggle of his ancestors. He knew that nothing of value was ever kept if you did not protect it. The ancient philosophers who’s ideas birthed the Republic had known as well. When they finished their strategy for securing perpetual peace, stability and progress, they had designed a mechanism so miserable and cruel that it could not produce anything but the perfectly inhuman protector of what they valued. It drove them insane and every single one of them took their own life. Luckily, their writings were found, and those who found them had put the procedures into practice without hesitation, convinced that the result would be worth the price.

Arakiel knew all of this and it meant everything and nothing to him. He didn’t dream. He didn’t believe. The process was perfect, thought up by long dead geniuses who had eventually realized the evil their ideas would lead to, and he knew that it would result in the world that every human being dreamed of deep inside the secret places of their mind. There would be no place for him in that world if it was accomplished in his lifetime, which he doubted, but he was essential to its existence nonetheless. Nobody else would save humanity. Nobody else could.

A zealot would have drawn passion from this revelation, but Arakiel felt no such thing. His actions were logical conclusions of the plan that had once been drawn up by minds greater than his own. Someone else might’ve felt powerless, but he knew that this was more power than he could have ever hoped for when he still could hope. Fools like the Locust thought themselves free to determine their own fate, but in the face of the things they were up against a single individual meant nothing. Humanity had to united, by fire and steel and blood.

There was no conflict in him, because there was nothing left of the boy that had once been shipped to the island on the West Sea. He was gone, and nothing had taken his place.

I do these things because I must. This world will move on with or without us. The only choice we have, is whether we want to have a part in making the world what it will be or not.

I feel nothing. I am the Republic.