The Justiceers - Part Two: Chapter Five
the next chapter in my forthcoming novel
The Justiceers
by Daphne Garrido
Part Two: Wave of Mutilation
2.5
Ash Ūnderlìk was in their private quarters.
Becoming a Ravager had its advantages within Carrigan’s horde. The problem was nothing resembling a human being had been left inside to enjoy the newfound freedom of their private room. In truth, they were less independent than ever, dozens of cameras about, sensors monitoring everything from their vital signs to brain waves.
The devil Carrigan had become was inside them and they’d become an extension of his will. Ash loved it.
They’d spend their time within a form-fitting mold which stood mostly upright at the center of the camber, allowing them to lean back into it. A second piece then sealing the front and beginning a process they’d go through twice a day. It prevented them from falling to pieces.
Being enclosed within this personal chamber of oddest warmth and sickest transformation had become their home, they looked forward to these sessions more than anything else, imagining their dark cocoon as the touch of Carrigan himself.
The notion of that man’s hands upon Ash was unendingly appealing, containing such violence within them, a wanting he’d intentionally breed into his subjects by giving them a taste then withholding. Every one of his pawns had some private moment early in their relationship, where he’d give them something precious to hold, sensations of pleasure he knew they sought deeply inside, to chase after hopelessly.
Carrigan had done this throughout his adult life, even before he’d even known he was. Having eventually recognized it happening, sensing the command it gave him over others, he’d begun leaning into it consciously. Deciding the tactic would become a tool. Unknowingly wielding it to construct such reflections of that corrupted vision he had of people and the world around him.
He manifested hopeful longing for himself in others because it made him feel strong, reminding Carrigan of what he’d always seen as the source of his power — the very ruthlessness he’d wielded against that stupid woman who’d loved him so long ago.
Ash was just another in a long line of buffoons he’d see buried chasing his approval and affection.
It filled Carrigan up. This had become his fuel.
Ash had always been a lost soul. Born to Crimiron — itself host to a hottest sun of The Periphery — its citizens living in cities burrowed within the planet’s crust, birthing attitudes which would be found most unpleasing to its neighbors, forcing harshest negotiations in all things.
The Justiceers spent much time in Crimiron trying to improve things.
It was one of the cruelest societies The Periphery allowed to exist within its borders; beneath its banner. Though The Conclave did make itself a constant presence there, and even now was applying its most consistent and gentle pressures to urge positive transformation. The people of Crimiron were exploitive and expected its people to bite and scratch their way to acceptance against most grueling realities.
Like many others, Ash found themselves very out of place.
Even with its horrors, the planet had come far from where it began. When The Periphery reconnected with its ancient brethren so long stranded, thinking themselves alone, ties to the stars lost by time and the willful burning of history by those within their own society who wished to keep others in servitude, they’d found a most repelling patriarchy developed.
The truth of soul and its right to exist in freedom was immolated for the comforts of disaffected men so broken by the evil they’d wrought on their own people.
Ash had been born into a female body. Throughout The Periphery this meant absolutely nothing towards what one was capable of becoming.
On Crimiron, as with so many dreadful places beyond the grace of their civilization, this distinction thrust great amounts of expectation onto people. Most rigid and ignorant ideas of what made a person who they were had been prescribed to the entire populace without consent; a great history of oppression carried ever forward.
Once free of their homeworld, unchained from its regressive projections, Ash would find themselves transcending the notion of gender entirely. Inside this transformation is where they’d cement their future place in Carrigan’s hoard.
Embedded with bitterness from their life of trauma upon Crimiron and determined to be who they wanted, they’d turned into all they hated, losing empathy for others.
It was in this place they’d find Carrigan wielding such darkness. His callousness spoke to the cruelty they wish to see inflicted upon the masses of people so blind. He’d made them feel seen in the hatred they held within.
This is why Ash loved Carrigan Marks.
The Cryptoid Queen was dead and she’d taken three of Carrigan’s scientist with her; an explosive revealing of some internal mechanism built for self-destruction upon separation from her legion. Luckily, they’d extracted most useful bits before she’d dissolved herself into acidic slime which then melted through every layer of the station into Grammaton’s crust.
If they’d not been so industrious, her suicide would have been most disappointing to Carrigan. With those precious discoveries in hand, he’d just been impressed.
What fascinatingly intelligent creatures these were. He wondered if he’d add a similar mechanism to himself. The thought of his mysteries becoming discovered was a fiercely worrying concept to this man. Carrigan valued his anonymity and would retain it into death. His legacy would be shrouded by darkness, it’s how he wanted it, being unseen by the masses made him feel safe to do his very worst.
Her amigdila had been a most interesting specimen. Not only did it operate the queen’s limbic system as one would expect, but it also appeared to be a transistor of some kind. This was how she’d communicated to the masses of her hoard. At least, that’s what his former top scientist had gathered before they were splashed in the throat and chest by an eruption of its corrosive death-secretions.
The pineal gland was also unique — his scientists believe she’d never slept.
Everything in nature of this scale and complexity needed rest, a rule that no one really understood. Elsewhere in the known galaxy it was only baby mammals, insects, small reptiles, and sea creatures of strangest simplicity which could exist without sleep.
For something of this magnitude, casting such will upon others, owning that most energetically draining role of leader — to never sleep — filled Carrigan with a jealous rage he’d not known in a lifetime, and he would make this gift his own.
Carrigan was back in his bed-chamber pouring over data at its desk. These two fucks were still alive and they weren’t going anywhere.
He’d been trying to engineer the death of two Justiceers sent to investigate the murders in Oliath. After the cities destruction and his attempts to implicate OGA, itself having recently become an extension of his force upon the planet, Carrigan hoped they’d leave.
Never had he been faced with such possibility of discovery.
These ‘cunt monks’, as he tended to refer to them, were not to be trifled with. He’d known that always, no fool this man, historically taking great effort to avoid being simultaneously present in the same system as their kind.
They’d sent their best too. At least the was the reputation of this particular pair, that of excellence in their craft, one which he’d count on using to exploit their overconfidence. He would show these Justiceers what pain and horror really was. They would suffer — he’d see to that.
Ash found themself walking the length of Persephone Station mindlessly.
There’d not been a single thought in their head. They’d just got out of their warming-tank, proceeding straight out the door, and felt themself heading directly to some unknown location.
Their body knew where it was going.
Before long they’d recognize the heading. They were on the way to Carrigan’s bed-chamber. This realization had run a shiver up their spine, so excited for what may be to come.
As they’d entered the darkened space, Carrigan at his desk and watching, they’d found themselves proceeding towards his mattress and removing their clothes. The moment they laid down was the last they’d remember of this evening.
Carrigan watched them go blank.
This was intoxicating, having such control over a person, seeing them lose themselves to him. There was a sickest joy he found in spreading the pain he’d wrought on himself through all these years of destroying his own heart.
Still, he was a man of needs. He’d felt the need to use someone tonight but knew Ash would enjoy it too much, as would any of his conscripts, and that would not do for Carrigan Marks.
Pleasure was to be his alone.
