Epilogue

Something would have to be done about the mess. The laboratory was dangerously cluttered with arcane machinery, useful bits distinguishable from discarded junk only by their various beepings and whirrings and blinking lights. Honestly, Pope Innocent suspected a number of the “working” devices were doing little more than draining power, if not being used for altogether incorrect applications.

He sighed, cautiously stepping over another snake-like coil of wiring, using his cane like a blind man to feel for secure footing in the trash covering the floor. An ominous burning smell emanated from the teetering pile of paper charts and diagrams the wire’s far end laid buried under.

Once again he was glad that he had taken off his voluminous robes in favor of the plain scrubs he had been offered in the laboratory antechamber. As always when he came down here he wanted to avoid touching anything, and to leave as quickly as possible.

“Septimus, you old fool,” he muttered, “why do I suffer you and your experiments?”

He side-stepped another wheezing, chugging pile, and found himself face to face with the mad doctor’s newest experiment.

Space had been cleared in the center of the cavernous room for a metal operating table, over which several bright surgical lights were hung. Beside the table, arranged almost neatly, was enough state of the art medical equipment to furnish a small private hospital.

A wrinkled prune of an old man was bent over a bank of diagnostic computer screens. Across them flowed an uninterrupted torrent of arcane symbols and data that Innocent couldn’t begin to decipher. When the old man noticed his visitor and stood erect, he was surprisingly tall.

“Greetings Colonel!” He snapped a military salute, “I didn’t realize my summons had reached you already.”

Innocent winced. Some of his oldest companions still occasionally forgot he was Pope now. It was just one more reason in a long list of reasons why he would rid himself of Septimus if he could. Fortunately for the doctor, and unfortunately for the man now called Pope Innocent, the doctor really was a mad genius, capable of extraordinary achievements, like the three post humans who had until recently served as the tribunal of the Inquisition, that is until a rogue inquisitor manifesting very distressing and surprising abilities had killed them. Yes, Septimus still had value alive, if he was properly controlled.

Innocent tapped the operating table with his cane. Restrained atop it was the doctor’s newest such achievement, in the form of a naked man. He might have been young. The man’s body was so covered in various electrodes, whose wires were plugged into the computers Septimus had just been bent over, that it was hard to tell.

The subject’s pale body was layered in scars, some from recent surgical incisions, and many more from past violent traumas. Even so, there was nothing to indicate infirmity or weakness as his chest rose and fell smoothly and deeply with his sleeping breaths.

“The procedure was a success then?” Innocent knew the answer even before he asked the question. Not even mad Septimus would have dared send for him if all he had to report was failure. He knew how busy Innocent was in dealing with the surprisingly well-equipped and effective rebellion occurring along the dissatisfied fringe of their new society.

“Oh absolutely sir, the individual has regained full use of the body, and has tested consistently well above average for physical and cognitive functions. Those manuscripts we found about the ancient’s stem cell research proved invaluable, his damaged tissues have regrown perfectly. Physically he is as good as new.”

Innocent prodded a puffy new scar on the subject’s shaved head. “And mentally?”

Septimus smiled proudly across the operating table. “He’s better than new. The brain mass responded beautifully to the serum, and with the electronic implants he is ours to control. I must warn you however that when we revived him there were, uh, minor complications.”

Pope Innocent stared at his old friend. “What kind of complications?”

Septimus turned back to his computers, tapping a few buttons on the center keyboard.

“It’s easier just to show you. I’m waking him up.”

Innocent indicated the heavy restraints holding the young man to the operating table. “Is that safe?”

“Of course it’s safe,” the doctor sniffed, “like I said, he is completely docile; in fact he’s incapable of disobeying my orders. We’ve created the perfect soldier.”

All around the metal table, machines began huffing and wheezing and beeping in a clangorous din. Pumps hissed and a golden fluid flowed into the needle piercing the young man’s left arm. He reacted visibly, straining against his bonds for a moment before relaxing back onto the table again with a quiet moan. Turning his head toward the pope he opened his eyes.

Innocent took an involuntary step back. The young man’s dark eyes were completely black, and glittered with intelligence, but they were not human eyes. There was something important, some key ingredient missing.

“Septimus, what is this? What am I looking at? What have we done?”

The mad doctor hustled over to stand beside his friend.

“Well, you know that when the Order found his body he had already been dead for several minutes. The sisters in the infirmary are good, but there is only so much they can do. With my technologies we were able to bring him back but, I’m afraid, something was left behind.”

“So he is brain-damaged?” Innocent grumbled, “But you just said that his mind was perfectly fine. What use is a vegetable to us?”

“No, no,” Septimus responded, “he’s not brain-damaged. Like I said, his cognition levels are testing off of the charts. He’s just a little different now. What you are looking at sir, is a man with no soul.”

“What…what do you mean? He has no soul?”

“Well, I don’t really know how to test it with anything approaching the scientific method, but yes, it appears that way sir. Of course if you are correct about such things, since he is, or I guess I should say, was, a suicide, we both know exactly where his soul is at the moment.”

Innocent took another step back from the table in horror. “Good heavens…”

Septimus grinned again. “No Colonel, I think it’s the other one. Check this out,” he turned and spoke to the young man on the table, “Soldier, tell the Pope what you told me earlier. Who are you?”

The young man turned his face back up toward the surgical lights hanging above him. When he spoke his voice was a nearly inaudible whisper.

“Death.”

Pope Innocent coughed, grabbing Septimus’s lab coat and pulling him away from the operating table.

“Septimus, this is unforgiveable. We’ve created a monster.”

The mad doctor patted his old companion on the back. Pulling his coat tails up above his waist he sat precariously atop a pile of type-written documents.

“Relax, you are over-reacting. Don’t forget the most important part. We don’t create anything. The Lord does. The Lord provides for his flock when they are in need, and now He has provided us with our perfect soldier. That soldier may be a monster, but he’s our monster. Isn’t he beautiful?”

Pope Innocent glanced back at the operating table, where the young man with the disturbing dark eyes still lay motionless, awaiting his next order. Innocent could think of several uses for their new secret weapon, not the least being to crush this annoying rebellion once and for all. He grinned, appreciating the irony.

“Yeah. I guess he is kind of beautiful.”

***

Persequendum est