Shame in Shades: Chapter 2 – All Amounting to Less than Nothing

Chapter 2 – All Amounting to Less than Nothing

A child runs up to me asking for help. He says that his father is holding his mother at gunpoint, and some other things, and all I can think about while he’s talking is whether this is a task for the authorities or me. Not wanting to be contradictory to the real truth I’ve embraced, I follow the child to where the father is and shoot him. Everyone suddenly gets upset and starts telling me that he wasn’t himself and that they didn’t want this. The mother gets so upset that she gets the gun from the father’s body and points it at me, prompting me to instinctively shoot her as well.

With things having gone from bad to worse, I simply say to the crying child, “At least you don’t have inept parents anymore.”

I walk away from the child to cry with the dead bodies of his parents, something that I’ve done before, but at least this time, I’m not having any assistants take away the child to be experimented on and fill the ranks of the Coronamento Corp. In my pursuit to destroy everything I’ve built, I’ve been hitting lesser offices, research facilities, and singular people. For example, the town I’m in houses many of the people I’ve worked with, influenced, and taught. Many of them don’t expect me to be sitting with their family, eating dinner, or patiently waiting on their couch while their security system is still on. If they didn’t expect a threat to be waiting for them at home and a plan to deal with it, then they deserve the deaths they got.

I leave many homes fatherless, motherless, and without parents in general, sometimes killing the entire family if everyone fights back against me. Don’t ask me why I chose to defend myself after my objective is complete. Perhaps it’s my instinct again, or me being offended by being assaulted by their pathetic attacks. It could also be that I feel pity for my attackers and allow them to join their family members in death. Few of them fight back, and even fewer do so effectively against me. In a way, they disappoint me with how ill-prepared they are for an ambush when they should’ve been expecting one.

It almost makes me wish for a challenge, and as I’m expecting one, Evangeline finally decides to show up. I hear her approaching from a far distance and react fast enough to catch her fist with a single hand.

“It’s about time you showed up. I expected better from you,” I say as I use my other hand to punch her and send her flying backward.

Evangeline lands on her feet and comes right back at me with a flurry of punches and kicks, all of which I block with a single hand, while keeping my other hand behind my back.

“I thought you’d go after bigger targets like production facilities! That’s what you taught me to do! To cut off the enemy’s main strength so they’d be easier to kill!” Evangeline says.

Using my free arm, I grab her face and slam it into the ground.

“That’s what I’ve been doing. Destroying all these lesser facilities and eliminating all my targets deprives you of what you need to mass-produce my greatest mistake.”

Evangeline bites at my hand and punches and kicks at me like a child throwing a tantrum.

“It wasn’t your greatest mistake. It is your greatest accomplishment! Our research and plan to make everyone in the world superhuman could solve world hunger, make sure no one goes thirsty again, and give people the same regenerative abilities we have!”

“It’s all dirty research based upon the torture and slaughter of innocents.”

“Who cares if it means we solve a majority of the world’s problems and extend the lives of people tenfold?!”

“That’s the exact issue right there.” Picking up, Evangeline, I slap her around until I punch her into one of the now abandoned houses. I go through the house, sending her flying back repeatedly as she keeps getting up and coming at me. Now, in the backyard of the house, I keep punching her over and over again as she struggles to get up. “Many innocent lives have died so few can live longer, and many thousands, if not millions, will die if we had finalized my plans.”

Evangeline doesn’t try to get up again, as she struggles to catch her breath and regenerates the crippling damage I’ve done.

“Again, I ask, who cares? For the sake of a better future, there’s no such thing as too big a sacrifice. Because of the magnitude of your successes, I believed in you. I thought that was the greatest lesson you taught me, that our successes define our worth.”

“That lesson was incorrect. A mistake.”

“You said that all mistakes are avoidable.”

“A fool who thinks too highly of himself says that. Failure isn’t an obstacle that can be avoided, but an inevitability to be dealt with, and the true worth of a man is found in his ability to succeed after failure, not by how much he has succeeded. Everyone fails. Everyone makes mistakes, whether they like to admit it or make excuses for how their shortcomings are the fault of others or outside their control.”

“You must be pretty worthless in your view if you’re trying to erase everything you’ve created.”

“I am. As far as I know, I’m the most worthless man in the history of the world. All my works have been a witness to my corrupted character and will be nothing more than dust in the wind by the time I’ve destroyed them all.”

“What about me? Are you going to kill me like everyone else to ensure the destruction of your legacy?”

“It was my first thought, but then I remembered how mercy was granted to me. I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t give you chance after chance to repent.”

“What about those others whom you killed? Did you give them a chance to change?”

“No, because I don’t know their personality like I know yours, and since yours is like mine, there’s a chance; however, slight that you’d change. Oh, and is your assassin going to take their shot yet after all this stalling?”

I look at where I hear the slight sounds of footsteps coming from just in time for the assassin’s shot to hit me, tear me in two, and make me fall to the ground.

Evangeline stands up and says, “I knew you liked talking about your ideas and actions, but why did you do it when you knew about my plan?”

“I wanted to see the results of your own research. I have to say that I’m a little impressed. I hardly heard them approaching; the pull of the trigger was near instant, and the speed of the bullet was faster than a half-breath. Still, it wasn’t enough to kill me. How disappointing,” I say as I steadily regenerate and my body puts itself back together.

“Do you still not see the good in our research and experiments? Your body was cut in two, and yet, it easily puts itself back together, and you act like you are slightly inconvenienced.”

“Yet again. It was worth the price, and many will die whose bodies will not work with the formula that has given us this temporary immortality.”

“Then I’ll force you to see how good it is. As you have taught me, I am one step ahead of you. Everything I need to spread our formula across the world is complete, and even though it may not be spread in a single day as we planned, the world will be completely changed within three days.”

“That won’t happen.”

“You’ll see. For now, please test out these other experiments that I’ve independently created.”

Evangeline uses her super speed to run away as a group of superhumans dressed in head-to-toe black body armor surrounds me. My body has now completely regenerated, so I try to push back the experiments, but they react fast enough to push me back.

Taking my glasses off, I sigh and say, “What a waste of time.”

Looks like I’ll have to take this a little seriously. I quickly throw my glasses at one of the experiments and use my other hand to draw my pistol and take a few shots at another. The experiment, who was shot, is nearly crippled, so I finish them off by ripping off their head and heart as the others start to dog pile me. I block and counter their attacks with punches, kicks, and a shot or two from my pistol. A lot of fighting within seconds, and after a minute, it’s all over. Evangeline’s experiments are in pieces, each with its head either broken or torn off, and their hearts are crushed. To be sure, I gather some gas from the nearby house, use it on the bodies, light a match, and burn the remains.

As I watch it burn, I feel disappointed. Not so much about the results of Evangeline’s experiments, since they were meant to stall me, but because the assassin’s shot didn’t kill me. I know what a man like me deserves, and yet, I still live. Either that is mercy or punishment; either way, I can do what needs to be done, and I thank God. I take a new pair of sunglasses from my jacket, put them on, and cross myself before walking away to finish what could be the final act of my penance.