End One: S1L0

By Boris D. Schleinkofer

There are no secrets. Everything leaks.
And in the end, there’s no place you can hide from what you’ve done.
General Maquino wanted to end civilization and rebuild it in his image. His plan required recruiting the best and brightest and promising them a place in the new world.
The smartest of them were too smart for that.
In a secret silo in a hidden location far from the General’s devastation, they thought they’d be safe.
They were wrong.
From the Author: It's a pretty grim story, about terrible people doing horrible things to each other. Yes, there are secrets revealed. No, there is no redemption here, only Armageddon. And then some more Armageddon.
These are the ends of the world; we are at them, they are at our throats.
Whether or not we choose to shout ourselves awake from these nightmares is up to us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Boris D. Schleinkofer
• Release date: Sep 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463505304

Boris D. Schleinkofer

He is a fictional character in the Horror-Play “The Greatest Practical Joke Ever”, by Shaytan Komp’ü’tor. He has never made love to a beautiful woman, never wallowed in fresh kill, never found a briefcase full of hundred-dollar bills. In fact, he doesn't even exist at all. So there...And another:Boris D. Schleinkofer is a slave, just like you and everybody else. He lives near the monolith of Baal. His number is 5x2-00x1-11. He is a good citizen.

Book preview

End One: S1L0

(Series: @TheEndsOfTheWorld)

2018 Boris D. Schleinkofer

Cover image by Boris D. Schleinkofer, with assistance from https://deepdreamgenerator.com

Smashwords Edition

ISBN 9780463505304

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Thank you for downloading this ebook. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only; you might very well end up sharing it with your friends. If you would like to share this book with another person, please consider purchasing an additional copy for each recipient. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support, and for respecting the hard work of this author.

To see more of this author's work, please visit the following website:

https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/BorisDS

NOTE:

This book was based upon an earlier draft, since discontinued by the original Publisher.

Please accept these humble revisions.

SPECIAL THANKS

are due to the following people:

Hugh Howey, for obvious reasons

David R. Larson, for introducing me to HH & Kindle Worlds

&

Mary, whose contributions are too many to mention

Table of Contents

Chapter 00001: Pull

Chapter 00010: Push

Chapter 00011: Orient

Chapter 00100: Isolate

Chapter 00101: Amplify

Chapter 00110: Compare

Chapter 00111: Compile

Chapter 01000: Induct

Chapter 01001: Orbit

I may tap you on the shoulder

And whisper Go! in red

Strip your feet of lead, my friend

Strip your feet of lead

—Bauhaus, from 'Spirit'

Chapter 00001: Pull

His eyes hurt, and he couldn't open them. Something felt like powdered glass under the lids; it hurt to track the movements of the voices he heard surrounding him. There was an excited conversation he couldn't keep up with, some emergency or other that demanded immediate attention. Someone needed to do something about that. He was thankful he wasn't a part of it.

Pneumatic machinery hissed, gurgling fluids drained out of his pod, and then the chill assault of open air hit his exposed skin. He vomited out a bundle of twisted cabling and drew a gasping breath, his stomach muscles contracting painfully and doubling him over, wracked with spasms and coughing his lungs clear of jelly. He rolled over and groaned. Lying flat on his back, he prayed for the dreams to return, for the black release of sleep, and knew that it would not come. That it had been taken from him.

He still couldn't see anything, but now that he could hear them clearly without the thick pane of glass separating them, the unfamiliar voices no longer argued or pleaded or even said anything at all. The silence tasted of rubbing alcohol and amni-fluid. He wanted to choke on its stale, oxygenated sweetness, the invasion of his gross physical parts in the cryo-tank; he wanted to cough it out, but the tank had yet to release his paralyzed limbs. Now he knew for certain that they'd perfected the cryogenic hibernation technologies. That was....reassuring? The irony was a bittersweet lump rusting in his stomach.

Someone was dampening his eyes with a wet rag, washing them open to expose the brightness and the pain and the fuzzy shapes of faces, all the faces, everywhere he looked, staring at him expectantly.

Ask him! These people weren't going to leave him alone, not at all.

Don't be daft—there's no way he's recovered yet. You've got to give him time to get to his senses.

We don't have time! Kenneth, what channel are they on?

"Leave him alone, he won't be able to answer any of your questions! Aghh....Mister Galbraith, do you remember anything? Do you know how to shut it down?"

Shut what? Who are you? Where am I? What's going on? Where's Frank? This, evidently, was not the answer the crowd was looking for. The room broke out into chaos.

What made you two think burying us would save—

How many fingers am I holding—

"Why did you do this to us?—"

I told you he wouldn't remember—

To hell with this! Hey, how do we shut it down? What's the frequency, Kenneth?

It was too much. He didn't care to remember; some time ago, he'd made a decision to leave this world and he'd done so, and he didn't feel like going back on that decision any time soon. The blackness was a welcome return.

It didn't last. Someone was rousing him with a hypodermic prompting that he wouldn't be allowed to resist.

He screamed once, coughed, and then screamed again for good measure.

Stop it, you're killing him! This would be that bastard Serge. He wished he could remember why he hated the man so much. He knew the reason was a good one.

Let me go... I want to go home to my wife and my family...

"Oh, the poor bastard. You really don't... How long has he been under?"

He only barely heard the response someone gave, so casually like it didn't mean the collapse of his entire world, offhand like the announcement of a stranger's funeral or a hangman discharging his duty, only barely heard the three words that started him down the path of remembrance. They hardly registered on his eardrums, but they rang through his brain like the pealing bells of judgment, those three words:

Since the beginning...

They said something more; he didn't hear it, he didn't want to hear it, but then someone else cut in:

Show him the video-feed. Maybe that'll refresh his memory. What a weird thing to say....what could it mean?

Someone slapped him. Hard.

Now he was able to get his eyes to focus, and he saw that he was faced with a very, very