Beside me, Felicity groans. “Oh, you have to be kidding me.”
Everything we fought for. Everything we strived to prevent. And we just handed it to Friedrich on a silver platter. We bloody crafted the Uhrwerkgerät for him in front of all the people we were meant to save.
And I let it happen. I knew we were rushing this. I knew Clyde and Tabitha were dysfunctional. And I let events ride over me. I let fear rule me. My goddamn fear of death. And it’s that fear that’s brought the future echo’s promise closer.
I am such a fucking jackass some days.
“This!” Friedrich bellows. “This is the power inside of us. This is the power of becoming. Volk has embraced it. One of the best among us. The one you trusted. He saw this truth and ran toward it with open arms. Do not betray him. Do not betray yourselves. We were promised more than decay and dysfunction. And we can embrace that promise. Come with me. Redefine this world. Reclaim yourselves. Your birthright. Be all you can be.”
A solution. Lang was writing about a solution. But Lang’s concept of a solution is a fucking reality-destroying bomb. And we didn’t take the time to get the context, to get the level of understanding we needed. We just plunged in. Because we’re desperate.
Hell, there might not even be another solution to the Uhrwerkmänner’s problems. We only have their word that there was one. And if we’re desperate, what are they? They stare at Friedrich now. A broken people. This last scrap of hope ripped away from them.
And they’ll go to him. Volk’s betrayal, real or not, has broken Hermann. There is no voice of resistance. There is no path to take other than the one Friedrich offers. Transform themselves into this bomb, to the vague hope it promises, or just lie down and die. God, in their place that’s probably the straw I’d grasp at.
Unfortunately, in the place that I’m actually in, that all leaves me rather fubarred.
Friedrich lays Volk’s limbless body down on the operating table, slowly, almost reverentially.
He’s going to keep talking. He’s going to keep going until he convinces them. And we’re just standing here watching him.
Why is the right thing to do also always the really dumb thing to do?
I step forward, out of the huddled ranks, pushing between the legs of Friedrich’s loyal Uhrwerkmänner. Felicity tries to pull me back, but I twist away from her.
It takes a moment for Friedrich to register my presence. I am very aware that I am surrounded by twenty or more robots all of whom could kill me with almost no effort whatsoever.
But something has to be said.
I clear my throat. It’s hard to read Friedrich’s expression, but there’s a chance it’s more amused than murderous.
“You realize this is all bullshit, right?” I say. My voice sounds pathetically small in the wake of Friedrich’s colossal boom. But I keep going. Because I don’t know what else to do. Because even in the face of death, we keep on thrashing. Some idiot response built into the lizard brain and reinforced by too much Hollywood bullshit.
“I know you lot have been buried down here for a long time,” I say, “but up on the surface we have this thing called an infomercial. It’s where a slimy fucker does his best to sell you something you don’t want. And he’ll go on and on for hours, and he’ll say anything he can, tell any lie he thinks is feasible, just to sell it to you.” I point straight at Friedrich. At his knee caps, actually. “That’s this bastard.”
I take a breath, hold it for a moment, expecting some great foot to come down like it’s the end of the Monty Python credits, to be reduced to the simplest of slapstick humor.
But it doesn’t come. I don’t know why the hell he’s doing it, but Friedrich’s giving me the floor.
“This Uhrwerkgerät he’s so excited about. It’s just a bomb. That’s all. A big one, yeah. I’ll give it that. But that’s all it is. It goes boom. Things die. And you know the thing about bombs? There’s not much left of them at the end. They don’t ever get a chance for an encore. Friedrich says he’s got your best interests at heart but—”
And that’s as far as I get.
It’s not a violent end, not a savage one. It’s laughter. Friedrich’s laughter simply drowns me out.
“Look at him!” Friedrich booms. “Look at how small he is. How pathetic. Look at your oppressor. You live down here in squalor. Because of him.”
Which seems a little unfair.
“He says he has your best interests at heart. But since they first bombed us, shot us, hounded us, killed us, when has humanity ever had our best interests at heart?”
Ah, now I know why I’m still alive. I’m the straw man. The argument to be torn down.
Friedrich stares at the assembled Uhrwerkmänner. “He is scared now. Because he knows this is his end. The age of man is done. It is our time. Our time to rise. To become.”
“I’m fucking scared,” I shout back, “because I know where this ends. Sure, yes, with my death. But I’m not alone. We all die. You blow up reality itself. You pull the thread on the whole goddamn tapestry, you self-righteous jackass. You end everything. Me. Them.” I point at the assembled Uhrwerkmänner. “You.” I point at Friedrich. “We all die. Because you know what you’re doing about as much as I do.”
That was the future echo’s promise to me. This ends badly. For everyone. I just got the heads up first. Lucky me. I am the guy with the sign reading “The World’s Ending” standing on the street corner preaching to the uncaring crowds.
Except maybe, just maybe, this time they’re desperate enough to listen. And sometimes people just need something to cling to as their reality fractures.
Friedrich is laughing again. “He is pathetic,” he booms. “He is desperate. His time is over.”
And he raises one massive hand.
Oh shit.
Because I am not the straw man. It’s simpler than that. I’m the fly, and he’s the swatter.