PCS to Eden – To the Victor go the Spoils

Gerry stumbled up the three steps to the top of the concrete porch in front of the small house’s front door. He gripped the chipped iron railing for support and had a few flashes of memory. He felt like he’d touched this railing a hundred times. He knew where all the abrasions were, and he was pretty sure he’d leaned more than one girl up against it.

Unlike before, these visions were dull, grainy, and seemed to be fading, but that didn’t stop him from knowing he shouldn’t be having them at all. What had happened with the boy – taking the diminishing ball of light from his body and instinctually ingesting it – was a mystery. He felt like he’d taken one step forward and three steps back since this all started. He felt like he was constantly on the edge of understanding what the armored, winged soldiers were, who Gaius was, and what the magnetism of this golden chair meant.

<Throne.> He mentally corrected himself as he looked at the cheap wooden door in front of him. <And it’s right through there.>

“You want me to go first?” Vicky asked as she stepped up beside him. “You don’t look so hot.”

“I’m fine,” he grunted back as he straightened his spine. The memories of the railing vanished when he broke contact.

He reached forward and tried the knob. It didn’t budge.

“Allow me.” Vicky smiled as she picked up her foot before lashing forward.

The door exploded off its unoiled hinges and flew into the room. It ricocheted off a table in the foyer which broke it in half, shattered the bowl sitting on it, and tossed its contents everywhere. Vicky just took a step back and gave a small flourish.

“Ta Da.”

Gerry couldn’t help but roll his eyes as he stepped over the threshold. Aside from the battered table, splintered door, and broken bowl, the rest of the house was still in poor condition. The furniture he could spot in the room at the end of the narrow hallway was low end. The walls looked like someone had done some damage to them and then failed to apply spackle properly. Somewhere in the back a baby was crying, which explained the funky smell that seemed to permeate the place.

Gerry advanced confidently down the hallway. As he reached the end, he saw the moon’s light streaming through the hole in the roof from the boy’s memory. Sitting on the ground, still on its side, was the golden throne. Gerry’s eyes were immediately glued to it. The geometric patterns he’d seen from a distance before were highlighted now that he was up close.

“Holy shit.” Vicky gawked at the giant chair made of precious metal.

<You have no idea.> Just being in its vicinity, Gerry could feel his mind begin to stir.

He was at the precipice. He could feel it. Everything he wanted to know. Everything he’d forgotten. It was all a few feet away, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Something else was humming through the room. It wasn’t the promise of something lost, it was something much more: power.

The golden throne radiated it, and that power pulled Gerry forward. It consumed his every thought and sense, which was why he didn’t see the girl with the gun.

“You killed Tony you cocksucker!” she shrieked before opening fire.

The gun was a stubby revolver. It didn’t look like much. It was dirty and in need of a good cleaning, but it still worked. The first round blew through the wall a full foot to Gerry’s right. Vicky was moving for cover before the cylinder rotated to chamber the second round, but Gerry hadn’t even moved. The throne was pulling him toward it. Nothing else mattered…until the second shot hit him right in the gut.

A sharp stinging pain ripped through him and yanked his attention away from the throne. <NO!> The geometric designs faded for a second time.

He stumbled back, his eyes burning with fury even as the third round smacked into his left shoulder. Rage that had been kindling in his gut since the hospital exploded outward. He raised his arm, willing it to reach across the feet separating him and the angry woman. He felt his sense of the world widen and something inside him extend forward.

The woman was screaming bloody murder now. The fourth round whizzed past his head close enough the Gerry felt the breeze stir his hair, but he ignored it. He focused on forcing his will forward until…

<Gotcha.> He felt something make contact with her and squeezed.

The woman’s eyes bulged, and an invisible force clamped down around her throat. Panic automatically took over. Round number five went into the ground between them as the woman brought up her hands to claw away whatever was choking her. Her hands beat against something untenable and unyielding. The gun slipped from her hand and clattered uselessly to the ground.

Gerry just stood there, arm outstretched, and felt the connection between him, the power at his disposal, and the satisfying feel of the life being squeeze from this woman’s body. The woman’s resistance grew weaker and weaker until she could barely hold her arms up. Her eyes were still bulging, her lips started to turn blue, and a sick gurgling sound was all that escaped her throat.

Gerry flexed the force connecting them just because he could. The woman slowly lifted into the air. Her tiptoes barely touched the ground, but she wasn’t strong enough to support her own weight. He held her there in the air as her eyes rolled into the back of her head and it lolled to the side.

A baby’s cry cut through the tension in the room. Gerry’s head snapped in the annoying sound’s direction. He looked back and forth between the sound and the barely conscious woman before making his final decision. With a surge of effort, he released the woman and pushed. A wave of force caught the woman as she dropped toward the ground and threw her backward. The poorly maintained wall didn’t stand a chance and the woman ended up half in this room and half in the next.

Gerry could sense she was alive, and something inside him pushed him to finish the job, but he stopped himself. <The throne is what matters.> He could sense another power heading in his direction. Something that was stronger than him. <But not for long.>

“Stay there.” Gerry motioned for Vicky to stay back. First, because he didn’t know what was going to happen, and second because he didn’t trust her.

“Yeah, no problem.” Vicky was still looking between Gerry and the woman he’d thrown through a wall. “I’m good here.”

He kept her in his peripheral vision as he approached the throne. It was turned on its side, so the first thing he did was right it. An electric shock pulsed through him the moment his fingers touched the metal.

<Endless fields of grain…warriors training for battle…great cities rising and falling…> Powerful visions rocked him more than anything he’d experienced with the boy.

He inhaled sharply and broke contact. The metal was warm to the touch and the humming was intensifying. Something was building up from within the throne. Something meant for him.

“Do you think that’s a good idea?” Vicky asked as she poked her head around the corner. It looked like she thought something was going to explode and was taking cover.

Gerry just shot her a look.

“Ok, I’ll shut up and be over here.” She pointed behind her and vanished.

He doubted a feeble wall would do anything to save her based on the power he’d felt in the throne, but that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She didn’t matter. The incessant weeping of the baby in the other room didn’t matter. The approaching unknown power didn’t matter. Gerry didn’t even matter. Only the throne mattered.

He dragged his hand along the arm rest as he moved to the front of the throne. More visions rocked his mind. He saw justice made flesh. He saw great battles in a foreign place. He saw a fighting retreat to save the Rebellion. He saw the face of God.

He stood in front of the throne facing away from it. Stillness permeated everything as reality itself seemed to hold its breath. This was something great, something momentous. Gerry felt like crowds of adoring worshipers should be kneeling before him and bathing him with lavished gifts. The throne made him feel invincible. It made him feel like a King.

The other power was approaching quickly. It could sense something tremendous was about to happen. Gerry was sure whatever it was didn’t want him to do what he was about to do. <Too bad.>

He lowered himself slowly until his butt touched the warm seat and everything changed.

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