Divine Truth
Rebirth
Two years had passed. People had moved on, forgotten about the trials of the past. Forgot about the sacrifices that others had made to protect the denizens of Sirius. They never even knew that one man paid the ultimate price to save humanity from the threat of an AI that now licked her wounds in the deepest part of space.
No one remembered Leonardo Keller. He was a lost artifact. A mistake. A creation of a group who wanted to take over Sirius...a creation long forgotten...or was he?
Leonardo was one of a kind, a genetic mistake. His mother, during her pregnancy, was infected with a Nomad host...but the fetus had survived the infection, and when he was born...he was...different. Not different in the fact of being a freak...he was just...different. His body easily adapted to new implants that were grafted to his body, they built upon themselves, advanced, changed...as he grew, this group of Nomad worshipers grafted more implants to him, turning him into part machine, part man. As he grew, so did his implants. He obeyed his teachers, until he realized what he was being groomed to become : The Assassin of Humanity.
Naturally, his human half rebelled against the very thought of harming another human being. He overthrew his captors and ran for Manhattan. However, in the process lost his memory and crash landed just outside of one of the major districts.
Leonardo began a long and arduous journey to recover his memories and protect Humanity from the threat that they now faced. In his journey, he discovered the truth of the harbinger "Nemesis" and the threat she posed to the human race. He assembled a team named the Children of Conviction. Posing as a Merc faction, they built up a large team of men and women from various parts of Sirius, gathered credits, and created a weapon to destroy the monster. However, things went wrong during the battle with the AI Battleship, and in his final moments, he sacrificed himself to destroy the AI vessel; creating an EMP burst from his implants, seriously damaging the massive vessel, but destroying himself.
With the threat temporally held at bay, and Humanity safe, Leonardo died knowing that he had protected the people he cared about...but others who knew of his existence did not want the knowledge of him known. They wiped out all knowledge of his existence so that no one would be able to know of his noble sacrifice.
Now, here, two years later...one being knew of his existence from the very day he was born...and he had a plan for him...the first step, was bringing him back from the grave...
To where the human soul travels in death? Heaven? Hell? the Netherworld? or is it merely an illusion that winks out of existiance?
Where do non-humans go? What is life if it is so feeble and infinitesimal amongst the endless cosmos?
Ultimately, such questions are the realm of philosophers and theologians, rhetorical and unanswerable.
...except, they are not.
It was in the darkness of this place called death... by humans atleast... Heaven, Hell, Beyond, Oblivion, in truth it was all of them. An active, interconnected, sub-dimensional spirit world. Manifesting in many different forms. A plane of reality unlike that which humans knew, though it could take familiar forms based on belief.
And it was far from the end.
The souls of passed mortals were a valuable commodity to those whom resided here. Call them Gods, Demons, Angels, Spirits. In truth; all of the above.
Beyond them there were other things, outsiders to the realm. Things... alien even to gods.
One such thing was waiting. As it had been for a long time. Standing within a green grassy field, brightly lit by a slick, black, obsidian sky, within which eddies of phantasm and desire, love and hate, flowed and churned like a tempest ocean. Poetics aside, it was concept and emotion made physical. Things reside out there that can do this.
But that was the job of the Judges of the Dead, Angels, and Keepers of the Hells; mere drones stuck in their celestial place. He sought someone... in particular. Checking his pocket watch, standing watch over the spotlit place where he would appear. What seemed a cyclopean metal sentinel, wrapped in a sheath-black cloak.
I remembered something bright and dense. Something that was...not right. Something that didn't belong. I knew I was dead...I remembered dying. I remembered the feeling of my implants ripping me apart. The Electromagnetic Pulse collapsing my mind, tearing the implants free from the anchors in my bones and flesh that had existed for so long. I remembered the cold embrace of death as Nemesis screamed in agony, as she too, began to die. Then...nothing. Darkness...until I appeared here after what felt like an eternity falling through darkness.
Now, I stood in a grassy field. A gentle breeze coming from some direction that I neither understood nor cared about. I was gone from the world of Sirius...and this was my afterlife? To stand in a field of grass for all of time? I looked down to my arms and chest. My implants were gone. Nonexistant. I was standing here as I would have had I not been grafted with multiple implants. I could never be fully human, I understood this...but here I could. I could be anything that I wanted to be. As I looked at my implant free arms, I didn't like it. I closed my eyes and envisioned the slick black metal that always covered my forearms and hands. The implants that allowed me to control all the others. I opened my eyes and looked to my arms. There, were two mirror reflective black pieces of metal covering both my arms. Each of them giving me digital readouts on my implants...my vision returned to the blue hue that was always pulled over my vision.
I looked up and saw a man...or...a shimmer of a shadow...something...standing in front of me looking down and what appeared to be a pocket watch. I looked around and realized that I was standing in a strange pool of light. No, not light, shadow. I was standing in shadow?
"Who are you?" I asked. "Am I in some level of hell?"
I must have sounded stupid...a mortal creature asking what I believed was a god if I were in hell...if I were, I would find out soon enough.
"You could call it that, Leonardo." The figure spoke, closing his watch and stepping forward. "But this is not your final resting place, we should hope."
The dark figure stepped forward, his shape back-lit by the mindlessly floating sun goddess who plied the non-coporeal 'sky' of the place, far in the distance. It was clearly a humanoid form, but could easily be mistaken for a machine, a suit of armor, something not what it seemed. Beyond him, trees had appeared. Not there when one last looked away. The field was a forest, somehow, some way.
"Before you ask I am neither God nor Devil, nor anything in between. Though you may call me a man of wealth and taste, should you desire."
I squinted my eyes and thought to myself. Maybe I didn't actually die and I just hit my head really hard? Interesting way to rationalize what's going on right now.
"A man of wealth h-uh? Interesting way to explain it I suppose." I said. "If this isn't my final resting place...where is it? My time in Sirius is over. I died...I'm pretty sure my body, if it still exists, was ripped apart in the battle with Nemesis in Omicron Kappa...not that I wouldn't mind moving somewhere else, this place is a little...freaky."
I looked around the area I was standing in and back to my guest. I couldn't make heads or tails of what he actually looked like...but something told me he knew all there was to know about who and what I was. He wasn't here on a social call. I knew that much. He wanted something from me, expected something from me. He wants me to do something, but what in the devil does he want me to do?
"So, Mr. Wealthy, what's the reason for visiting me in my deathbed? I'm sure you're not just here for idle conversation if your appearance and discussion means anything. If this isn't my final resting place, I assume you have a plan for me?"
"Your assumptions are correct, Leonardo." The 'thing' spoke, it had a human sounding, if mechanistic voice.
"I have many names, in many different tongues. Some people mistakenly think I am what I am not. Some people want me to be what I am not. Most hate me for what I am. In that, we are similar." He spoke, pacing back and forth with his arms behind his back.
He looked at Leonardo, seeing his complexion. Clearly he remembered everything. That could be a problem...
"And to answer your first question, yes. You are dead. This place... if it can be called that, is merely an intermediary. Normally, you would have stood before whatever god you happened to worship, or been assigned a random one should you turn atheist. Standard procedure here is not to fight over the dead." He spoke, turning and facing Leo.
"You meanwhile, would be difficult to place. Based on your... unique... progeny. That which makes you rejected and hated as I am. It also means... that you won't be missed in the afterlife. Which meets the second question... I do have a proposition for you."
Something was off here. Something was very off, not right, different. This "man" if you could call him that was reading me. Gauging my reactions to what he was telling me. After each thing he said he would look to me. I couldn't see his face or any of his reactions but if someone expects you do do something, they look to see how you're taking the news. Either he was looking for something or he was just trying to watch my reactions. I would have to change it up to not give anything away. This was a game of chess I realized. I would keep my hand close to my chest...even if I was being over cautious, if this was a supernatural being, there was nothing I could do here to protect my "immortal soul".
"Well, not being missed in the afterlife would be something I would ideally like to have on my side." I said looking up and thinking. I began to pace. "In that regard that means that I could potentially be rejected by a "god" or "afterlife" and tossed aside, forever meant to live in limbo forever. That would actually explain why I felt like I was falling through darkness for so long. Perhaps I was just placed there so that they could ignore my existence."
I turned to face the being.
"I'm interested to hear your proposal 'Mr. Wealthy'. However, you should know that I harbor no love for mankind. Their apparent dislike for my kind is obvious. I died to save them and then they decided to not recognize what I did for them. Apparently I'm not worthy of their love."
"Human beings are fools, you know. They see the unknown as a threat, despise and reject it, and often anyone who has anything to do with it. Though they can change themselves and their environment to suit them; as they revise history, forget about the efforts of those 'different' than them...
In this place, the problem is that the Supernatural world desires to remain static, clockwork-like, and fears change. It cannot bring itself to accept anything that would disturb the status quo."
He turned to face leonardo. The 'ground' behind him had now turned to literally rolling hills, much like an ocean. The sky had "brightened", now purple, with many large eyes staring down at the pair.
"I've pulled a few favors to get you sent back to where you came from. And I shall explain why; I once visited Sirius in the recent past, on a particular mission the specifics of which are no longer relevent. In my goals, I succeeded. As much as people desired me not to.
So I created my own people. Fools, Slaves, Madmen, Soldiers. On my departure to greener pastures I left them to their own freedom. Withdrew my remaining hand, and they sadly were unable to cope with freedom. They went into stasis... those that lived anyway.
Now, however, someone has awoken them. Normally this would not be of my concern considering I no longer care for Sirius and places like it. But I have many enemies who would take advantage of what I would leave behind. Perhaps... it was an oversight to leave them..."
He began pacing again, walking back and forth as the eyes in the sky seemed to track him.
"I give you an offer, Leonardo; I need an agent in Sirius. A right man in the Wrong place for when the time comes to act. You will not remember what happened during your death but the reminders will appear when the time is right. Events will be made so you end up where needed...
...and who knows? Perhaps you can get some just and well deserved revenge on Humanity?" The being chuckled.
The creatures laugh was...mildly disturbing. A mix of a robotic laugh and a human.
"If you know about my past, which I'm sure you do...you seem to be very well informed, then you know that I do not appreciate losing any form of memories. Getting mine back from before was difficult enough. However, I have no real choice in the matter, so if you take the memories of what happened here away, I cannot argue after the fact."
I looked up at the sky to where the eyes were looking down. The ground moving at the pace it was, was making me nauseous.
"Friends of yours I'm guessing?" I shook my head. "Back to the subject at hand. These people of yours, I'm assuming they know my location in Kappa and are on their way to rescue me or am I going to wake up floating in a container in space or on the ground? Would be nice to know where I'm going to be and actually remember how I wound up there so I can prepare when I wake up from my dirtnap.
"If you can get me the answer to that and tell me what all needs to be done, I accept. However, I cannot go into this blind. I'm certain that I will remember what needs to be done at the right time...but I must know that I won't be stabbed in the back as I have been so many other times. I must be certain that going into a 'contract' with you won't wind up being the end of my bright but brief flicker of light in Sirius. You know what I am, Mr. Wealthy. You know what I've been through...revenge on mankind won't be enough of a treat for me if there's a chance I'm about to be betrayed."
"You have my word, you shall not be betrayed. I have seen enough of that for myself..." he spoke, before bringing his hand down to Leo's, handing him something; a heavily stylized pocket watch, made from a shimmering silvery-obsidian, looking almost like a talisman, with a robotic-trefoil styled skull... distinctly non-human.
Above, the eyes continued to stare down, a dome of them, as if shielding the two from something... beyond. If not being the beyond themselves.
"I cannot be sure where or when you will arrive, or when you will be resurrected. The Process is not... entirely under my control. This... will be your key." He spoke, gesturing to the watch.