The Choice Part 3

Continuation from part 2.

Over the next couple years, Jim learned a lot of things about the Society, which was what the people who decided not to enhance called themselves. First of all, when ever a chapter was discovered by the government, the members were either executed or captured and taken away to who knows where. Second, each chapter was largely independent of the others, that way if one was destroyed the damage would be kept to a minimum. Third, the one mission of the Society was to survive by any means necessary. Fourth, almost all of their technology was from the late 20^th century to they early 21^st century, everything was so obsolete that it allowed them to “fly under the radar”, radar has been obsolete for almost fifty years. Fifth, there were four basic jobs that people were assigned to, recruitment, organization, soldier, and procurement. Recruiters monitored the schools and brought any kids that didn’t enhance back to their chapters base; organizers made sure everyone was communicating and had everything that they needed; soldiers kept their chapter hidden by bribing the right officials, assassinating any who were getting to close and couldn’t be bribed, making sure no one got to close to their chapter’s base and keeping the peace inside the base; procurement people were in charge of getting food, medicine, weapons, intelligence and any other thing that the chapter needed. Jim was designated as a soldier.

Soldiers spent a year training to learn the basic military commands, strategy, a little psychology and familiarity with every gun, melee weapon, and martial art technique that the chapter could get its hands on. After the training was completed he was put out in the field to learn from experience. His excellent cognitive and physical abilities helped him when people underestimated him, which was almost all the time once they learned that he was unenhanced. He was particularly skilled at telling when someone could be bribed or when they had to be taken care of. Eventually Jim rose to the top of the soldiers in his chapter and then the people decided that he should lead them after the previous leader died of cancer.

On that night Jim dreamed that he was in the room where he had met the other Jim. Everything was the same except that the other Jim was sitting directly across the table from him in full view of the hanging lamp and that the table was now blood red instead of a yin-yang design.

“Nice to see that you redecorated” Jim calmly commented after taking in his surroundings.

“Let’s skip the pleasantries a cut right to the chase. What is you decision?” the other Jim asked forcefully.

“Hm, what decision was that again?” Jim asked innocently.

“DON’T PLAY GAMES WITH ME!” The other Jim roared, “YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!”

“Oh, right, right, my big choice between light, darkness and chaos, I believe it was? You know, I’ve been so busy these last couple years that I completely forgot about it” Jim stated dismissively after a little pause. “If I remember correctly after I made my choice you were going to take control of our body, right?”

“Only if you chose wrong…” the other Jim started.

“Oh come now, you can drop the act. We both know that no matter what I choose you will still try to take control. If I choose light or darkness you will say that I chose wrong try to take control and if I choose chaos, you will say that I can not be an agent of chaos because I had to choose it and it didn’t choose me.” Jim interrupted with a slightly irritated tone. The other Jim was so shocked that his plan was discovered that his mouth was hanging open. “The only reason that you are trying to force me to tell you my decision is because you realized that you are running out of time.”

“What do you mean I’m running out of time?” the other Jim replied confused.

“You’re running out of strength. As more time passes, the more we fuse. The reason for your existence is gone and you don’t want to be absorbed. Your only chance to take control was on the night when you first called me here. You let me go thinking that you would toy with me for a little bit and then imprison me in here. As time passed you started to slowly fade. Once you realized that, you called me here to try trick me.” Jim coldly explained.

The other Jim recovered from his shock and played his last card, his trump card. “You can’t ever leave this room again! I control everything about it! I will leave you here and I will take the drivers seat!” The other Jim cried out triumphantly.

When Jim heard this he burst out laughing. “You might control this room but I control the rest of the house, so to speak” Jim said in between fits of laughter. The other Jim feel into another state of shock when he heard this. Jim stood up from the table and, still laughing, strode over to the wall where a door had just appeared. “Goodbye, I was hoping that I would at least make a decent adversary for me but, if that’s all you’ve got, the only thing left for me to do is to start toying with the world.” Jim said as he opened and walked through the door, closing it behind him.

After Jim awoke, he started to build connections all over the world, in the other chapters of the Society, the world governments, the hospitals, the schools, the weapon manufactures, the media, even in the local charities. Once he had connections in every aspect of both society and the Society he created an all out free for all war. Government against government, enhanced against unenhanced, physical enhancement against mental enhancement, chapter against chapter. Jim made it so that people were trying to kill anyone who was not themselves. He controlled both sides in every conflict, it didn’t matter what the sides stood for. The name Jim Smith became the rallying cry for all of humanity as is tore down everything that it had accomplished. As he laughed maniacally while the world burned, Jim reflected on the fact that he was the four horsemen of the apocalypse all rolled into one. When the flames died down, and when Jim couldn’t contact anyone, he thought about how fun chaos was while he wondered the ruins of humanity. Eventually he came upon a cryogenics lab and a wicked idea popped into his head.

After several weeks of tinkering, and a few inventions that would leave Nikola Tesla speechless, Jim looked at his handy work. Before him was a cryogenic stasis chamber with a limitless energy supply that would wake him in a thousand years. He got in and activated the automated defense systems and the stasis systems. Right before he passed out he thought about how he long he could continue this cycle of chaos.