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JT Tyler stood on his father’s darkened front porch, sipping fine Scotch with his left hand, watching the stars. They twinkled, mocking him, jeering him, like the rest. He was tired of it, tired of it all, the duplicity of those who would not follow him and the stupidity of those who could not see his vision and the lack of discipline of those who surrounded him.
His right hand toyed with the hammer of his .45, click, release, again, again. He waved the pistol around, wishing there was something more interesting than an oak tree to shoot. That’s all right; he will show up soon enough to be my target. They’re all so stupid; they will come forward like lambs, my father in the lead.
Madness often masks its own recognition.
General Tyler drove his personal jeep into his driveway, Commander Forman by his side. Its headlights washed over the figure of his son before he turned them off. He pushed the flap of his service holster to fold outside and under his web belt, out of the way of the fast-draw. How did it come down to this? He stepped out into the open, making no effort to take cover.
JT lined his .45 up on his father from thirty yards, a difficult but far from impossible shot. “Hey, Dad. Nice to see you.” He laughed, the edge of insanity leaking through. “And the Ice Queen with you. I hear you two had a little close encounter this afternoon.”
General Tyler’s voice was gravel. “I always said you needed more time on the range, son. Two inches to the left and I’d be dead instead of recovered. A little early to be an Eden, but better than the alternative.”
“Alternatives, incidents and allegations and things left unsaid, dad-o-mine. Why are you here, anyway? It’s not like you can kill me, and I’m not going to let you take me alive.” JT’s face was twisted, his eyes bright hot, seeing things of his own imagining as he pointed the gun first at his own head, then at his father, then at the crystal sky. “Is this a bullet I see before me?” His giggle tapered off.
“I was hoping you could be saved from whatever it is that you put in your veins. Listen to yourself. You’re not making any sense. It’s destroying you, son.” The General walked slowly forward, his hand resting on the butt of his weapon.
“It’s only accelerating my destruction, Dad. I gambled with some nano and I lost, but I’d do it all again. It wasn’t the tech that made me this way, you know.” JT drank off the Scotch in his glass with a gulp, tossing the highball sidewards into the desert dark.
“I know, son. It was the Eden Plague. It was the price for salvation that some must be sacrificed. It’s not your fault you’re a...” Travis trailed off, unwilling to say the word. Three more steps, halfway from the cooling jeep to the front porch shadows. Eden eyes and starlight showed enough.
JT giggled again. “A Psycho? But Dad, you’re helpless now. You’re an Eden, and you can’t for a minute convince me you’re a Psycho too. Maybe you got Needleshock in that hand cannon you’re playing with, but can you be sure you won’t kill me even if your aim is good? While all I have to do is plug you a few times with these hollowpoints and then – pow, coup de grace.”
“Your plan failed, you know. They defected to Australia, your group of misfits.”
“Yes, my group that I assembled under your nose. You always did delegate too much, Dad. But who cares. Come a little closer.” JT pointed the heavy automatic at his father.
General Tyler sighed, a sound of acceptance and grief. “All right. You’ve convinced me. Captain, disarm him.”
Darkness flickered within darkness, fractions of a second split by black-clothed figures that seized JT from behind and the side, from over the rail and beneath it, surprising him utterly. Shadow-clad men and women held General Tyler’s son immobile, mewling and spitting until his infantile rage died a whimper in his throat.
Father stared at son for a moment in bleak sorrow, wondering what would happen if he took the easy way out, threw his wayward seed into a prison cell hole, rejecting that choice even as his decision layered another callus onto his already leathery soul. He drew the .45 and pointed it at his only child’s head.
“You can’t, Dad, you’re an Eden! You can’t kill me!” Foam and spittle from JT’s disbelieving lips floated down upon Travis Tyler’s boots.
Travis laid his hand on JT’s cheek, looked into his tortured eyes. “Son, I shore am sorry. It makes me sad, but it don’t violate my conscience to put down a mad dog.”
The automatic barked in his hand.
