20 “I’ll Be the Architect of My Own Destruction”
Oasis Online.
A fast-moving car was on fire. Releasing volumes of smoke as it zipped through the streets outside the city of Crescent moon.
This about-to-be-totaled vehicle was getting chased by a bunch of high-tech black cars. These cars weren’t normal. In the absence of Tory’s suicidal attacks, they would have caught up to the car they had been chasing by now.
Right now they were keeping a distance. They knew full well that the car they were chasing was either going to stop working or go kaboom entirely along with its passengers sooner or later.
Yet, they kept on firing at the car and at the people boarding it. They did it while using the mana bullets that weren’t supposed to be used in Oasis meant for non-Metas.
Amid the high-speed chase, the sound of bullets, and spectators’ noises as they watched and recorded the event, a burst of laughter resounded in the car that was the center of the highlight.
“Hahaha… Aaaaargh fuck!”
Tory’s laughter caused him even more pain than he was feeling at the time when he listened to Vik saying sorry to him. He took a long breath and stabilized himself.
As he looked down, Tory saw that the middle part of his chest that had been shot by those weird bullets was disintegrated. There was no flesh wound. His chest now had a clear hole in it.
Tory was dying faster than Vik. But he wasn’t upset. He was also not angry over his partner in crime. He decided to use his final moments to calm his brother’s anger, so he adjusted himself in his position before speaking up.
“Vik, stop acting like a wuss. If we are going to die, we die. There’s dignity to be found in death. And we have discovered ours by pulling a stunt like this. Wish I could see the bitch’s face when she finds out about what we did. Hahaha!”
Tory’s speech seemed to have expedited his disintegration process. Yet he didn’t care. He coughed up blood and continued.
“Don’t worry. I don’t blame you. Sometimes in life, shit happens, my brother. So don’t be harsh on yourself.
And stop being so arrogant to think that you could control everything around you with just that big brain of yours. Who the fuck do you think you are? A god among men?”
Tory’s speech seemed to have lowered the burden Vik felt on his consciousness. He looked at his two bullet wounds that were destroying his flesh and skin. He knew that he would be joining Tory soon if things progressed in the same way.
Yet, Tory was trying to put a smile on his friend’s face by saying his next words.
“Who knows, Vik? Maybe, in our next life, we’ll be surrounded by hot Mamacitas around us. What do you say, brother? We’ll screw around like rabbits in heat in our next life. Deal?”
Tory raised his hand to receive a fist bump from Vik only to find out that his arm was going to disintegrate soon. By now, Vik had come to terms with their eventuality.
He chuckled after listening to his brother’s odd way of giving deathbed talk and fist-bumped him.
“Hahaha. Alright.”
Vik assured his brother before deciding to finally do something he had been putting off for a while.
“Axela, can you still hear me?”
Vik used his MCP chip to access the Oasis’s interface before asking the only entity that could help him and his brother at the time. Fortunately, someone answered back.
‘Yeah. Your privilege can still be used so I can listen to you in case you wish to give me any compatible commands. What do you need?”
Vik looked at his brother who was soon about to disintegrate into multiple fragments and made up his mind.
“Alright. Axela, please launch the Lazarus sequence for my friend Fernando Torres right now. Also, keep my sequence on standby.”
Vik had stress lines on his forehead as he said that. He hoped things would proceed smoothly. He didn’t want to face any error of admin rights at this point.
Tory didn’t know what Vik was talking about. Axela had only made things clear for Vik because he was the only one between the two who had asked her about them.
So even though Tory had the right to know, he was unaware of the matter related to Lazarus pods. Vik was busy planning too many things at once so he didn’t get the chance to tell him about these things either.
Tory was about to ask what Vik was talking about as he started feeling like death was near him. But suddenly that feeling was replaced with extreme agony as he felt like his entire body was on fire.
“Lazarus sequence has been initiated for Fernando Torres.
ETA for the process to be completed: 3.3 seconds.”
Both Vik and Tory listened to Axela’s voice that was directly sent to their neural network. Vik understood what was happening. But Tory couldn’t. Neither did he care. He was too busy dealing with the overwhelming pain that pushed him beyond his normal ability to feel pain.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. Vik…. Wh… aaaaargh. What did you … aargh?”
Tory’s disintegrating body stopped disintegrating. Instead, it was consumed by white fire. The white flames looked ethereal as they burned his body without a sound, smell, or smoke.
Vik wiped the corner of his eyes as he watched his brother’s condition and said.
“I’m sorry for putting you through this pain, my brother. If it is meant to be, we will see each other again. In this life. Or the next. Or somewhere in between.
For now… rest. I’ll handle things from here.”
Vick said to Tory, not sure if he had understood what he had just said. His eyes seemingly shined bright as he remembered the words his father used to tell him when he was small.
‘A Vladimir is never scared of war. No matter who or how many stand against him.’
Vik suddenly turned the car that he was driving 180 degrees and accelerated it to its maximum. As a result of such a sudden maneuver, a lot of the car’s parts were dislocated in the process and traveled in the pre-turn direction. The car’s roof was among those parts.
Tory’s body disappeared quickly after the white flames took hold of him. It insta-combusted his remains, leaving nothing behind.
It was just Vik in the driver’s seat. Out in the open. Driving a roofless car that was about to blow away. Accelerating toward his enemies who were coming at him to take his life.
“Let’s fokin wreck this shit up.
I’ll be the architect of my own destruction.”