Chapter 480
Chapter 480
The Commander then began telling them about Owen. Unlike Mad Mick, who had always been an outsider, Owen had once been one of the Spartans. And not just any Spartan, but the Commander’s right-hand man, practically his second-in-command.
In the beginning, Owen had supported every decision the Commander made. But things changed after they took Mad Mick prisoner and forced him to work for them.
Owen strongly disagreed with the Commander’s approach. He didn’t think Mick should be wasting time building random inventions, especially when most of them turned out to be useless. In his view, Mick should have been allowed to focus entirely on finishing the teleporter, something that could be much more beneficial to all of them.
The Commander, however, saw things differently. He wanted to squeeze every possible advantage out of Mad Mick’s genius and have him create as many various devices as possible. More importantly, he believed their main goal should be finding a way to free Dead City from the Ravage. Rather than running away from the problem, they should focus on solving it.
He also argued that even if Mick completed the teleporter, there was no guarantee they would successfully find a safe new home or that another city they found wouldn’t already be swallowed by the Ravage like theirs.
The disagreement between the Commander and his second-in-command worsened with every passing day. Much to the Commander’s displeasure, some of his people sided with Owen, and Owen managed to get more and more Spartans on his side, gathering a following of his own.
Sure enough, the Commander didn’t like it. He was afraid that if Owen managed to win over the majority of the Spartans, they might try to remove him from power. And in a situation as desperate as theirs, internal division was the last thing they needed.
After Owen gained support from some of the Spartans, he became openly aggressive toward the Commander and even started to claim that the only reason the Commander didn’t want to let Mick finish the teleporter was that he enjoyed being in charge a little too much.
After all, the Commander had formed the Spartans only after the Ravage overtook the city. He had been a nobody before, but now he was a leader of the only surviving group in Dead City. According to Owen, if they escaped Dead City and found somewhere safe to live, the Spartans would no longer need to stay united under the Commander’s rule. There would be no reason to keep accepting him as their leader. So Owen believed the reason the Commander didn’t really want Mad Mick to finish the teleporter was that he’d grown too attached to power to give it up and become just another survivor again.
At least, that was what Owen thought would happen if they managed to escape Dead City, but the Commander, of course, told Jake and Catalina that he didn’t care about losing power at all and that the only thing he truly cared about was getting his people to safety, giving them the life they had before the Ravage appeared. So, that was when the Commander realized that to prevent Owen from causing infighting within their group, he had to take the most decisive action.
He decided to punish Owen by banning him from the base for a month, forcing him to survive outside on his own. Everyone knew that being cast out like that was practically a death sentence. And Owen’s supporters were still a minority, so no one rose up against the Commander.
What happened next, nobody could have predicted.
About a month later, Owen returned. Only he was no longer human. He had turned into a morphus. He was now much more powerful, with plenty of great abilities. He seemed to have forgotten about his past hostilities with the Commander and was now willing to work with him again, hoping his new form would eventually help the Commander deal with the Ravage and give the Spartans a normal life again, no longer having to hide in the subway.
For a time, the Commander said, things almost felt normal again.
During that period, Mad Mick worked closely with Owen, studying him and trying to make the most of his condition. He needed to make Owen’s transformation as useful to the Spartans as possible. Sure enough, it was Mick who developed the chip later implanted in Owen’s head. That chip allowed the Spartans to receive a live feed from Owen on the monitor in the tech lab, essentially letting them see through his eyes. And no matter what form Owen shifted into, the chip always remained inside his body.
Since Mad Mick was studying Owen, the two of them spent a great deal of time together, and the Commander assumed they must have grown close. He claimed he didn’t know exactly what happened next, but he believed Mad Mick somehow convinced Owen to help him escape. Maybe Owen had been easier to manipulate by then. As he evolved, he was rapidly losing what remained of his humanity, becoming more monster than man, and with that, perhaps, his judgment as well.
So, as a result, Owen wreaked havoc in the tech lab at some point. He not only destroyed everything down there, but he also let the weaponized mutants that were kept in the tech lab loose. While the Spartans struggled to contain the chaos, Owen took advantage of the confusion, helping Mad Mick escape. The Spartans managed to kill some of the mutants, but the rest fled into Dead City, where they had been roaming ever since.
“So that’s the whole story,” the Commander said at last. “Now you know everything.”
When he finished, Jake simply stared at him for a moment.
What the leader of the Spartans had just told them didn’t make much sense to him.
Sure, parts of the story were probably true, especially the beginning. But somewhere along the way, the Commander had started twisting the facts. Why would Owen, after becoming a morphus, return to the Spartans at all? According to the Commander, he had already grown openly hostile before being exiled. So why would he suddenly come back willing to cooperate? And after working with them for a while, why would he abruptly switch sides again, help Mad Mick wreck the tech lab, and then escape with him? The story didn’t hold together.
There was also the matter of the chip. Jake found it hard to believe Owen would willingly let the Commander implant something like that in his head so the Spartans could spy on him at all times. And there was another contradiction: earlier, the Commander had claimed Owen hated the Spartans deeply, yet this version of events gave no clear reason why. If Owen had really let go of his old hostility after becoming a morphus, why would that hatred suddenly come back later?
It didn’t add up.
So Jake said, “Tell us the truth.”
The Commander looked offended. “What are you talking about? I just told you everything.”
“No,” Jake said. “You’re lying again. Either you’re leaving things out, or you’re twisting what really happened.”
The Commander turned to Silvia. “Silvia, you know as much as I do. Tell him I’m not lying. He obviously trusts you more than he trusts me.”
But Silvia said nothing. Her silence said more than words could have.
“Goddammit, Silvia.”
Jake turned to Catalina. “Look, if you want, I can take you back to New Hope.”
The Commander blinked. “Wait, what? Why would you leave? What about our agreement? You’re not backing out of helping us, are you? If you don’t help the Spartans get rid of the Ravage, you won’t get the blueprint for the energy weapons that can destroy it in your city.”
“I’ll still help the Spartans get rid of the Ravage, just like we agreed,” Jake said. “But Catalina doesn’t have to stay here. She’s obviously not safe with you.”
“What are you talking about?” the Commander snapped. “She’s perfectly safe, and…”
“Shut up. Because of the weaponized mutants that got loose thanks to you, she lost some of her people. You hid that from us. Then you tried to get Owen to kill her. And even now, you’re still hiding something, even after I told you to stop lying. So don’t stand there and tell me she’s safe here. Your word means nothing. You can’t be trusted.”
The Commander opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it.
Catalina looked at Jake. “And how exactly are you planning to get me back to New Hope? We already know your living portals don’t work for humans.”
“You saw those winged creatures I created, right?” he asked. “The ones that were deploying my combat units during the fight with Owen?”
“Yeah. What about them?”
“I can use one of them to carry you all the way to New Hope.”
Catalina stared at him in horror. “What? No way. What if it attacks me, like that living portal thing that tried to bite me?”
“You’re not getting it,” he said. “I can merge with my wyrmcallers, that’s what those winged creatures are called, by the way. You saw me separate from one earlier, right?”
“Yeah, though I still don’t really understand how that works exactly.”
“When I merge with a wyrmcaller, I take complete control of its body. It doesn’t act on its own anymore. I control everything it does.”
Catalina still looked deeply unconvinced. “So let me get this straight. You want to turn into that giant monster, grip me with its terrifying talons, and carry me all the way to New Hope?”
When Catalina put it that way, Jake realized just how awful that sounded. Such a journey didn’t seem very appealing, nor would it be comfortable for her.
“Pretty much,” he replied.
“And how long would it take for us to reach New Hope?” she asked.
“A couple of hours.”
Her face tightened immediately. The idea clearly disgusted her. Being hauled through the air in a wyrmcaller’s grip, high above the ground like captured prey, was not something she wanted to experience. Jake had told her she’d be safe, but after what had happened with the transfer maw, she had every reason to be wary of his creatures. Even Jake himself hadn’t expected that portal creature to try biting her, so how could he guarantee one of his newer creations wouldn’t do something just as dangerous?
Watching her expression, Jake could tell she was torn. Like him, she clearly didn’t trust the Commander and knew staying in the base might not be safe. But Jake’s solution wasn’t exactly comforting either. Even if the wyrmcaller didn’t attack her, spending hours suspended in its grip, flying high above the ground, sounded terrifying and miserable.
Jake didn’t like using force against humans without a good reason. But in this case, considering everything the Commander had already done and his continued refusal to be honest, Jake couldn’t shake the feeling that he might still try something against him or Catalina. And because of that, Jake believed the step he was about to take was justified.
It was the only real option left.
He extended one arm toward the Commander. Before anybody could realize what was going on, Jake launched several rotary saw blades at the leader of the Spartans. To his credit, the man reacted with surprising speed and actually managed to dodge the first deadly projectile. The second one pinged off his chest armor.
But the final one clipped his neck. After he collapsed to the ground, for a moment, everything went very still. The only sound breaking the silence was the Commander choking on his own blood. Then, in the next instant, the whole cavern exploded into action.