Eidolon Atomic
Chapter Seven: System Error

We sit in silence for what seems like eons, the darkness between us, thick like mortar as we wait in anticipation for the other to make the first move in a waiting game. Like two cats caught in a pre-fight staredown we tensely sit, still and silent, and staring at one another as the both of us are unsure of what the moment is to hold. Our eyes do all our talking as they are locked within a tense gaze of an intricate weave of intrigue, and anger, breaking only to search out details or take not of a quick flinch of action. The questions that would be asked, go miss-composed in the lack of communication known as silence can only explain so much.

We both hold our ground in a mental guard, a position established when the first insult was so callously thrown in my direction like the bearing of teeth, relinquished presence now makes the space between us thick with an awkward intention as one tries to make sense of the other person sitting only a few thoughts away, an unknown enemy perhaps; but only as circumstances are enigmatic.

I can’t help but notice the features of the woman that sits before me. Her expression is one molded in a face of immense and constant annoyance that is unrelenting in its persecution, an argument and accusation of body language that seems focused directly on me. Her black hair is curly and wild, all over the place like a rope of unkempt tangled wires. Her hair does little to hide the subtle and feminine curves of her face. A notice of immense beauty that strikes the notes of my mind as the familiar shape of an actor from an old film, one that I saw once long ago, in memory’s that escape me as I try to fully grasp it.

Our silence persists in an ocean of contempt, as the horizon is yet to show any signs of a safe harbor. The two of us wondering if the other is about to speak or simply attack in all out audacity. It is only after so many unbearable tensions that it is I, who breaks the fragile divide. “Why are you looking at me like that? Stop it.” I say, not pleased with the prying eyes that seem so intent to burn a hole through my head.

“Well, how else would you look at someone who is so unbelievably ignorant. You’re a real idiot you know that?” She says her voice sounding as though she is speaking through a series of metallic tubes. A type of artificial mechanical volume in resignation.

“How dare you call me such things? You’re the one who shows up unannounced, and starts making insults with no basis.”

“Oh, and you think you; know everything? Ha, your stupidity knows no bounds does it? How did you die? Did you eat a big bowl of idiot soup and choke on the water?

Her insult hits me deeply, being that I do not take insults to my intelligence very lightly. Though her quip is incredibly creative, I hold my questions in as my reflex of defensive arguing takes hold, but still I can’t help but wonder who this person is? “Your one to talk. You spout insults like a moronic volcano, I should call you Pompeii because your stupidity makes the air around it so toxic, people don’t die from intelligence suffocation, just forget how to breathe.” The best thing I could think of.

“Good one, you must have thought of that while taking an idiot shower, and hit your head while slipping on a bar of your own concentrated stupidity.”

“You’re a bitch,” I say, intently.

“And you’re naked,” she says, pointing out my lack of attire. This is the first thing anyone has said about my appearance, and it stuns me like a hit to the face. “Did you die swimming, and drown in too much air.”

I look at Lisa about to say something about the tattered white coat that she wears. But then look down at my own body. An immense sense of embarrassment takes me, and I then use my hands to cover myself; putting one over my chest and the other over my other more sensitive area.

The embarrassment puts me in my place like it always has in life. However, I get a chance to calm down, and turn the conversation I to something more productive than just mindless insults and hateful deliberations, as they have been getting us nowhere for a while now. “What is it that you are accusing me of doing, that demands that you insult me so much?” I say the most insightful statement either of us has spoken.

“Don’t play dumb,” she says, emotions now taking a hold of her voice. “You sent that message; you weren’t supposed to send, that message. I almost had his attention and you messed that all up.”

“What? Who are you talking about? What message?” I say now phased by the shock of my own visual realization.

Lisa gets more aggravated,” I told you not to play the ignorance card.” She says “The one that sent an echo through the dead, it got his attention and pulled m back here.”

I remember the moment now as she mentions it, but only as I become more comfortable with my current state as a naked spirit. “Right, I remember the message, but who is this, “He”, you’re talking about.”

“What are you blind too? He was on your stupid little movie screen before it blanked out. Did you not see him?”

“I didn’t see anyone, only dust flying.”

“You mean; you couldn’t see him?” She says as her personality becomes crushed. I can sense the panic in her tone now, a type of deep hurt that that sends waves through the dark, an immense wall of power crashes against me” Oh my god, it’s worse than I thought.” She says becoming hysterical. “What did you do to him you bastard,” she says now crying,” You turned him, into a monster.... god damn you!”

She cries; her wails sound out in the endless darkness like the corrosion of steel and like rust falling from old alloys as they are caught in the drift of a salted ocean and forgotten. She weeps, soulfully tormented by the fate of a nameless soul, that is now lost to circumstance. She goes off in an almost incoherent rant as tears fall from her eyes. “We finally had our piece, we finally found each other in the dark and then he took him away from me, took him and deformed him into that thing. What did you do? God, what did I do; to deserve this?” She says out loud, as her tears fall into the dark and become stars in the distance.

Her tears are beautiful lights as I watch them float away, but, as the light mixes with the dark, the silhouette of something large becomes visible in the distance and consumes the star. I remember the moment that the darkness was broken and remember that light was never meant to touch this place for good reason it seems.

I move towards her with my thoughts, a feat I have come to oddly master in a panic of realization of the horrors that may lurk in this realm. Taking a hold of this crying ghost I place a hand on each of her shoulders, I give her a good quick shake, and then slap her across the face, hard, the star’s scatter and loose there light as I do. “Get a hold of yourself, now! Your tears are going to attract something bad.”

She doesn’t seem convinced at my concern until she too sees the creature following her trail of tears. Then does her best to get control of herself. She stops crying, and we both sit in the dark, now aware of something else lurks about in the gloom of darkness. Something, massive.

After this spirit stops her emotional outpour, I can’t help but ask, what I do in light of the monstrosity that we have both just witnessed. “What monster were you talking about, was it that one?”

Lisa calms down then looks at me “No, it wasn’t that one.” She does her best to keep more tears from falling as she talks, “You couldn’t see him so you don’t know, but, it took him; it took him right from my arms.” She says looking at her hands.

“Who, is he?” I ask as I look this woman in the face, but soon noticing for the first time something off about how Lisa looks. Her skin holds metal tracks embedded within its cells in a very darkly drawn and intricate fashion. These details of her skin are, what at first, was thought to be loose hairs clinging to her face, tracing them with my site, I see they are connections between circuits, but this isn’t the only detail I notice.

Looking into Lisa’s eyes, a great secret of her origins is given away as well as created. Shining silver, irises tinted in purple, sit like gems at the center of polished chrome, this discovery invokes a question I feel compelled to announce. “Your, not human; are you?” I ask, watching tears of light form in her ducts, but then recede as she answers.

Lisa is still trying to gain control of her sobbing, as she talks “No, I’m not, I haven’t been human for a very long time.”

“You were human? Where you human when you died?”

“No! If you want to be so rude about it!” She says getting back some of her spirits. “You want to play twenty questions, because I don’t, so I’m just goanna jump to the end and tell you, I’m an android; okay. Now either leave me to my sorrow or go try to replace a different shade of black in this place.”

“You’re; an android?”

“Are you deaf? Yes!”

The answer comes as a shock to me in the form realization, like Lisa’s very tears, it sheds light onto an insight in what this afterlife is meant to contain. Things more comparable to monsters than humans.

For some time, I’ve heard rumors and myths about androids. Ancient machines that live among the small population of an increasingly hostile earth. A vague memory comes to me as the point reaches into my perception, a memory of hoping to come across an android in my travels, to solve a long time mystery that had caught my interests during my time alive. I had once found a half destroyed document, recording their existence, however, I have never been able to prove the document false or otherwise.

A real human android, or, at least, the ghost of one. More shocking to this discovery that they did exist, is the fact that I would meet one hear. In a place, that would be a shared afterlife.

She cries, has human emotions, human thoughts, and is more insulting than anything able to put together a sentence. Her story is tragic in its unveiling, and I could never imagine anything more heartbreaking than to replace peace in the afterlife, only to have it torn away in a moment’s notice.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I say, not knowing how else to console her.

“Don’t patronize me,” she says, her attitude making her aggressively upset. “You have no idea what it’s like to try so hard to replace piece, and then have it torn from your hands the moment it’s so close. Then, watch as it is turned into something so evil and vile. Taken from a piece in rest, to become another killing machine.” She looks off into the distance to see her last tear consumed by the dark. “There is no end to the madness.”

The talk of a killing machine now has my attention, “This other one that you speak of, the one taken from you, Is his fate really that of such a destructive designation?”

Lisa just looks at me, her eyes tear up, and she fights crying once again.

“Lisa, you have got to pull yourself together, I need to know what is going on.”

“Why, just so you can mess up more than you already have.”

“You’re not the only one hurting in this place. We all have obstacles to overcome, but sitting around and crying is going help either of our situations.”

“Right, and you know what will? Tell me Doctor Froude, how do we deal with these problems when we are both dead?”

“You said you could communicate with your partner somehow, how did you do this?”

Lisa looks away, “I’m not telling you.”

I start to become aggravated. “Why!?”

“Because I barely know you, I don’t know who you are or what your intentions might be. You could be some type of evil weirdo for all I know. Or someone trying to give their ex-boyfriend a hard time. You’re not even wearing any clothes, so I can’t even tell what you did for a living, all you have is a beautiful face and that color changing hair of yours and your perfect white skin, and I don’t even know the story is to that, I don’t even know your name.”

Lisa’s point is a keen one, I have been incredibly selfish with information, but I have very little information to share as most of my knowledge is still scattered from my memory. “Your right, I’m sorry. I’ve been so demanding without giving you anything in return. How can I help you to trust me?”

“Well, since it seems we have both gotten into a situation we can’t untangle from, I just want to know about you. Who you are, and why I should help you.”

“I don’t know if I can tell you that, I forgot mostly everything I’ve known about myself when I died,” I say, dismayed as to my own position of helplessness.

“Just try; okay, start with your name; and it will come to you,” Lisa says as she knows what I mean to lose one’s mind to death. A wisdom that replaces my respect.

I can sense something large massive lurking near us, searching out the source of the stars that it was eating, but it doesn’t see us in its near vicinity, it makes it difficult to relax. Knowing that some terrible thing is so close, worse, is not knowing what its true purpose is.

Lisa seems to know something about it, however and assures me with a look that the monster is relatively harmless. I can’t tell if she is lying, but her convincing words set me at ease for an instant.

I face Lisa, as I set myself to drift within my own knowledge, relaxing in the moment. Clarity reaches me, and soon I am able to I do as Lisa requested. Tell her off myself, and the world I come from.

I think hard on what I should be remembered, and like water being poured into a cup, everything begins to take shape.

“My name is Vits; Vits Foxin Phollinvantom, a member of the Phollinvantom family unit. I was once a detective for the Skull and Bones Republic. But, that was so long ago. It seems like more than a lifetime. The details to that are unclear to me.”

Lisa interrupts “A detective? You’re, a pig?”

“Excuse me,” I say, confused as to what a pig is. The thoughts in my head becoming scramble with the notion of confusion.

“I’m sorry,” Lisa interjects,” I don’t often think before reacting, but, it’s just that you don’t come off as a cop.” She says looking at me and examining the bareness of my soul. “Not in the least.”

“Then what do I come off’ as?” I ask curiously as to what the perception of soul says about me.

“I don’t think you want me to answer that,” Lisa replies.

“Just tell me, I can I take it,” I say, prying into Lisa’s closed crate of an opinion.

“Well, the way you look, how beautiful your face and your body are, the fact that your soul has no clothes. You seem more like someone who should be saving lives rather than condemning them. Like a doctor, or a nurse, or a nun in a church, or... a stripper.”

“A… a stripper?” I say not knowing what such a profession is, or what it entails.

“Yeah, you know, someone who dances naked on stage, for money.”

“What!?” I say confused, as such a profession no longer exists in my world. “How does that…”

Lisa interrupts. “Because some of those women have hard lives, but they remain positive and untouched as they try to bring some type of comfort to those who don’t have the same advantages of others. They are often looked down upon as they try to live, and make a living, when the only thing most of them want is to just, let others know that so e one cares, even if it is only for a brief moment.

I think about what she says, however, as I do not understand what the word “Church” means, I am however able to capture the brunt of her statement. I have nothing to say to this, other than a response that seems to have been developed over lifetimes. “I don’t care what you see in me, I am who I made myself be, and that’s all that matters.” As I say this, I begin to understand a small piece of my past, and why it was the way it was.

“That’s impressive,” Lisa says, making clear that she intends to know more about me. “You do indeed have a powerful spirit. I know that I’m not human, and I know that neither are you or else you wouldn’t be here. But in your response of self-designation, what exactly, are you?”

I reply the only way I know how as the question is posed so uncomfortable, I cover myself again, no self-conscious of what I say. “I’m, an Undertaker.”

“And an Undertaker is?” Lisa says, motioning with her hand like she is turning a wheel from the side with the tips of her fingers.

“That is not exactly easy to explain. It is, a complex state of existence.”

“Are you a machine, an animal, some type of ameba? Life is all complex, just give and answer that is coherent.”

“We, the Undertakers that is, are, well, not natural. We are infused with something, that gives us very powerful abilities. Abilities that are frightening in the perceptions of most. Our abilities have much to do with radiation energy, and the ability to use it to a destructive end. There are many names for what we are able to do, but generally, the power itself is known as an Epitaph.”

“An Epitaph? You, write things on headstones?” Lisa says, familiar with another use of the term, on that isn’t too far off from the reason why this term is used. “Doesn’t seem that frightening, to be honest. In fact, its sounds kind of stupid.”

“No it doesn’t until you actually see them in action, the description sounds quite tame, however being able to obliterate anything in your path on a sub-atomic level, demands a subtle approach if not anything else.”

“Superpowers? You’re, talking about superpowers.”

“Super, powers?” I ask having never heard such a term.

“Like flying around, or shooting ray beams out of your eyes, and super strength, and stuff.”

" And Stuff?“I say giving Lisa a look vague derailment. “I guess you could compare those terms,” I say, making not of Lisa’s off description of what a Filibuster is. It’s almost as if she has seen some of what Undertakers can do already, prior to our talking.

“What was your super power, or, Epitaph as you called it?”

I am almost hesitant to answer, memories of a rapture delivered by my hands make me self-conscious in the hindsight of the course of my life, being that they are indeed,monstrous acts. But if I cannot be honest with myself in death, then who am I to judge anyone?

“Many Undertakers” I continue. “Have similar abilities, ranging from super strength, and agility. To our more advanced ability to heal or resist damage, but these factors often differ greatly between any two people.”

“Is that all?” Lisa asks.

“Then there is our Epitaph,” I answer more completely “The energy we can control.”

“Let me guess, your ability is to control magnetism, or shoot fire out of your hands, no wait, you can make earthquakes happen. Right?” Lisa says, somewhat excited. Acting like some sort of, geek.

I have to think about what Lisa is saying, the powers she describes seem almost childish in comparison to what I’ve seen, basic and seemingly based on some type of, stereotype. “Why is it that you seem so excited by this?” I ask, making not of Lisa’s ecstatic expression.

She looks at me; her eyes are bright with wonder. “In my day and age, super powered humans where things that you only found in stories, fictions of a scientific nature. The concept was proven to be impossible in time, so fiction is all that was known. I never thought anyone, like you, could even exist. A real Superhero.”

“I’m not a hero,” I say plainly

“But, you said you were a detective, you fight criminals, right? Bad guys and stuff.”

“No, I don’t. things don’t work like that, not where I from.”

“What?” Lisa says, confused and frightened. “Are you, a super villain?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then, what are you what side are you on”

“The one in which I have no choice of,” I respond, my tone is sad.

“But, I thought you said you, make your own choices. That your, your own person, and not what people make of you?”

“That was before I got my powers. After that moment in my life, everything changed.”

“What is your power then? What exactly is it that you do that makes you so powerless.” Lisa says, I can feel her disappointment.

“There aren’t many ways I can explain what I do, but I will try my best. Tell me, do you know what kinetic radiation is?”

“Uh, no not really,” Lisa says as she replaces out almost instantly that she is over her head.

“To explain it, Kinetic radiation is simple, it is the energy created an object or particle as it moves through space and gains momentum. Everything that moves through our universe has it, and when it collides with something else or is stopped it is transferred into the next object or released in the area around it as a wave. It has much to do with Newton laws, only, it’s not as simple as just a falling apple.

All energy exists as a type of radiation, be it light, sound, electricity or heat. Kinetic energy is said to be the energy that binds subatomic particles into a solid form. It is what allows the most matter to exist in a solid state. This is what my ability is, in a sense. I can take, inertia; steel it from anything to contain it, and with the radiation I absorb, I transform it into a state of a type of solid, of almost pure kinetic energy.

To see it, it takes on a few colors as most Undertakers powers do, but in its purest form becomes orange. It is solid, and liquid and energy at the same time, and shapes itself like a jagged crystal of radical formation when left unchecked by my thought, but is otherwise formless. My power is an inertia sponge and grows with the more energy it consumes, bent to my will, this substance can take on almost any simple shape I need it to, but does have its limits.”

“What, limits,” Lisa asks astounded.

“Limits like size, shape in complexity, and reach. It has to be bound to already solid matter, but after that, the matter can be bent to my will, so only if I am touching it, if I let it go, all the kinetic energy is released in a super-kinetic explosion.”

“Super Kinetic, explosion?

“An area becomes so full of kinetic radiation, that the energy pushes directly into the electrons, a neutron and positions of atoms, causes them to get knocked off into open space. Everything heats up, some things burst into flames or melt, and the air becomes electrically charged as matter is reduced to energy, then forced back into matter. Some atoms turn into new forms of matter, that emit deadly radiation, bot most are simply utterly destroyed in an instant, mad an Epitaph of their former existence.”

Lisa becomes speechless for a moment, then speaks as if imagining a moment of absolute destruction. “You use this power, in combat? It seems, like overkill.”

“Not when you’ve seen what I’m using it to kill. Other Undertakers are only a part of my problem. But when dealing with things like Gorgons, Titans, Eidolons, and Vampire War Machines.” I look Lisa in her fearful eyes as she looks at me back. I can see that she too is beginning to see me as, some type of monster. “Tell me, do you know what happens when two neutron stars collide?” I ask in all seriousness.

“A little, something like when they pull together, they smashing as hard as they can, and make new metals and elements.”

“That is what my power is capable of in combat, being able to hit something so hard, it can effect an atomic change in matter and energy so not even a soul is left. At full force, I am able to decimate the area of a large town of solid steel and concrete including fifty story buildings, to a smoldering pile of rubble, in a single punch. However, it’s barely enough to deal with what now walks the earth.”

Lisa sounds confused, and frightened, something I was hoping to avoid, hoping that someone would understand ,but; even she now fears me it seems. “What? How is that even possible. That’s so complex, so deadly. How could is something live manage to control that?

“I don’t hold those answers.”

“But; You were a living thing, a creature of flesh and blood and bone, not magnetic strips and proton circuits, you’re not made of the things that would make power like that possible. Your form is so natural; I can tell that just by looking at your soul. These Undertakers, how is it that you are even alive, why so much power.”

“The world is a very dangerous place now, it needs us and it knows it.”

“The world is always a dangerous place. It doesn’t demand a living creature who holds the force of an atomic bomb.”

“You have no idea how bad things are, what you think gives you the right to even judge what the world demands of our destructive capability, is not within your knowledge,” I say, looking her cold and dead in the eye’s, it seems a good part of me has joined my soul in this place.

Lisa points at a name tag sewn I to her clothes, her name holds the title of doctor “I was a scientist once, I’ve done terrible things in the name of my profession, but never would I allow so much power to anything living.”

“Trust me, they wouldn’t let us exist if they haven’t figured out to stop us already.”

“How do you stop something as powerful as you? It seems impossible”

“There are ways. Almost too many to total .”

“If that is so, then what do they make you do with your power. Visit children’s hospitals, and feed the poor. Build a new playground, or (gasp).” Lisa stops as she comes to a realization.

“We fight, and kill anything we can. But more often than not, our powers are turned on one another.”

“What?”

“It’s one of the ways they keep control, only so many of us can be actively alive at a time, so the problem was simple.”

“You mean you’re forced to kill each other. “Lisa gasps again.” I see the world hasn’t changed.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was much the same in my time, but; I see no one has learned from histories mistakes.”

“History is destined to repeat, that is the fate of the ignorant, and of tyrants who manipulate them.”

“So I take it you died in one of these events.”

“I don’t know how I died, it is a mystery to me that has yet to be uncovered,” I say as It is hard to search for memories, of what happened. “But it was sudden.”

“But you fight to the death, with people of your own kind, you have lives and feeling and emotions, how could something like that even be legal.”

“The governments of the world all hate each other, it is the one thing they all agree on. The people do whatever their government tells them. They don’t want important people to die in combat, so they came up with us. We are expendable and reusable like recycled shoes. But we have no say in our fate.”

Lisa has a saddened look on her face, as she thinks about something. “Tell me about one of these events, tell me about the others you know. I want to know what the world is like now, what exactly sits outside the unknowing of the dead?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes please.”

“Why?”

“Knowledge is power for the dead, the more I know, the better I will be able to help you. ”

“That seems so odd, how do you know that.”

“The same way I know not to fear the creature who eats light, I have been here for a long time, many odd things replace you in the darkness eventually.”

Lisa knew about the creature who swims about the dark, what it is and what it was doing, but most importantly how dangerous it was. ‘Why didn’t she tell me?’ Is a question I think to myself as I can still sense it so close to us.

Is it true, the more you know the more powerful you are, and if so, what does it mean as to the nature of false knowledge? What is this place really? I wonder, but only shortly as Lisa waits for my answer.

“Please, help me understand, why he was taken from me. My partner, why he was turned into that thing. If you tell me this, then I will help you in turn.”

I think for a moment. If Lisa truly does know how to communicate with the living without attracting attention then it would be a large advantage to my position, but do I really want to give Lisa a boost in an ability that might be too dangerous to understand. Until Rem returns, there is a very little option I have. But time still burns trails, and everything to follow them has a fate to be decided. “Ok, I will tell you, I will tell you of the place you wish to know of, of a battleground called, OZ.”