Chapter 35: The Rebellion That Never Existed

  Scene 1 – Watching the Next Generation

  The training facility hums with quiet efficiency. Rows of recruits move in synchronized formations, their movements precise, their expressions devoid of hesitation.

  I watch from the observation platform above, hands clasped behind my back, posture rigid. This should be a moment of satisfaction. The process is working.

  Yet, the silence unsettles me.

  These soldiers—these Ones—are molded in the same image as those before them, stripped of identity, of individuality, of doubt. Their steps are perfect, their obedience absolute.

  Except for one.

  My eyes lock onto him immediately.

  A recruit—young, smaller than the others—lags half a step behind the formation. His fingers tremble as he moves through the drills. His jaw clenches, a flicker of something human crossing his face before he forces himself back into motion.

  I recognize the struggle.

  The tension in the shoulders. The hesitation in the limbs. The war behind the eyes.

  I have seen it before.

  I have felt it before.

  A memory stirs—one not entirely my own, or perhaps not entirely mine anymore.

  The training hall flickers. For a breath, the recruits below blur and shift.

  And in their place, I see myself.

  I see the past—my own body, fighting against commands that felt foreign, the fire of defiance burning in my chest even as my mind cracked under the weight of control.

  My throat tightens.

  "You are not the first."

  The whisper slithers through my thoughts.

  The recruits snap into a kneeling position. The scene stabilizes.

  I exhale slowly, willing the memory away, forcing myself to focus on the present.

  One by one, the recruits stand. Their expressions remain neutral, as they should be.

  Except for him.

  The young recruit hesitates. He does not rise as quickly as the others. His breath comes shallow.

  Then, suddenly—

  "No!"

  The word rips from him like something alive. He lurches forward, his body rebelling against the order burned into his mind. His limbs jerk as though caught between two realities—one in which he obeys, the other in which he fights.

  His scream is raw, filled with something I cannot place.

  And then I see it.

  It is not just pain.

  It is recognition.

  He looks at me, eyes wide, desperate.

  "Please—"

  I step forward before I realize I am moving.

  Then the memory flickers again, stronger this time, pulling me under.

  The recruit becomes me.

  The scream is mine.

  The desperation—mine.

  The struggle, the helpless rage—mine.

  "You are not the first. You are not the last."

  I stagger back, the weight of the whisper pressing against my skull.

  This has happened before.

  This is happening again.

  My hands curl into fists. The training hall returns to focus, the recruits once again standing in their neat, obedient lines. The young recruit shudders, his breathing uneven, but he does not speak again.

  I watch as the instructors approach him. There will be correction. There always is.

  I do not stop them.

  I do not move.

  But my pulse pounds in my ears.

  "Was I always meant to fail?"

  The thought comes unbidden.

  What if I was never free?

  What if my rebellion—my struggle—was nothing more than another step in The Master’s design?

  The recruit is dragged from the formation. His eyes meet mine one last time before he is taken away.

  And in them, I see a truth I cannot ignore.

  I was never the first.

  And I will not be the last.

  Scene 2 – Was His Rebellion Ever Real?

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The room is silent, but my mind is not.

  I stand before the window of my quarters, staring at the cityscape beyond. Towers of cold, metallic precision stretch endlessly into the artificial night, their lights flickering in mechanical rhythms. The Order breathes through them, its presence embedded in every illuminated structure, in every shadow cast.

  I should not feel restless.

  Yet, my hands tighten against the edges of the window frame. My reflection stares back at me, expression unreadable.

  The recruit’s voice lingers in my mind.

  "No!"

  It was not a command. Not an act of discipline.

  It was a plea.

  I exhale, slow and steady, yet the tension within me does not ease. The moment should have passed. It should not matter.

  But it does.

  Because I have seen it before.

  The desperation in his eyes.

  The terror laced with something deeper—something that should not have survived the conditioning.

  Recognition.

  Not of the system. Not of his fate.

  Recognition of me.

  I close my eyes.

  The whisper is waiting.

  "You are not the first. You are not the last."

  My fingers twitch. The whisper has always been there, hasn’t it? Soft, relentless, woven through my thoughts like a thread I was never meant to pull.

  My past was supposed to be gone.

  But now, I wonder—was it ever mine at all?

  I turn from the window and sit, elbows on my knees, head bowed. The room hums with the sterile, artificial calm that The Order enforces. It is meant to ground me.

  It does not.

  I search my memories, peeling back the layers of rebellion, of defiance, of the moment I believed I broke free.

  The weight of my decisions. The scars of my struggle.

  The certainty that I had fought my way here.

  But when I reach for it—when I try to grasp the moment I first defied The Order—

  The memory is soft.

  Not sharp. Not searing.

  Soft.

  Like something shaped to fit.

  A construct.

  A program.

  A design.

  A cold sensation slides down my spine.

  The thought coils in my mind, insidious and unrelenting.

  "What if I was never meant to escape?"

  I inhale sharply, but it does not steady me.

  My rise to power—was it earned? Or was it granted?

  Was I allowed to struggle just so I could fail correctly?

  I press my palms against my forehead, forcing the thoughts down, but they do not subside.

  The recruit fought back today.

  He was not ready to obey.

  That means—

  I was once like him.

  And yet, here I am.

  I was ready to obey.

  Because I was made to be.

  The realization is suffocating.

  My rebellion was never a rebellion.

  It was a test. A refinement process. A step toward obedience so seamless I did not even see it happening.

  I was never the one who broke the system.

  The system broke me.

  I grip the arms of my chair, my breath uneven.

  I need proof.

  I need to know.

  I push myself to my feet and cross the room in a blur, inputting my access code into the terminal.

  The screen flickers to life, data cascading down in streams of cold precision.

  I navigate through encrypted layers, through secured files, through the corridors of control The Order keeps locked behind its walls.

  My fingers move faster.

  And then I find it.

  My file.

  The logs.

  The reports of my indoctrination, my failures, my successes.

  And buried beneath them—deeper, hidden beneath layers of clearance I should not have—

  The logs of the Ones before me.

  The Ones who hesitated.

  The Ones who fought.

  The Ones who failed correctly.

  My breath catches.

  They all followed the same path.

  They resisted. They struggled.

  They fell.

  And then they led.

  "You were never meant to defy me."

  The Master’s voice surfaces in my mind, smooth and absolute.

  "You were meant to evolve."

  The logs show their records, each cycle eerily identical to my own.

  My hands clench into fists.

  "This is the way of The Order."

  My defiance was an illusion.

  My rise was scripted.

  My obedience was inevitable.

  And now, I am doing the same to the next generation.

  The room feels smaller. The walls press inward. My body is still, but my mind screams.

  "Was I ever real?"

  The whisper answers.

  "You are not the first. You are not the last."

  The screen flickers.

  The data vanishes.

  And I realize—

  The Master allowed me to see it.

  Because it does not matter.

  Because I was always meant to know.

  And I was always meant to stay.

  Scene 3 – The Final Decision

  The screen goes dark, but the truth lingers.

  I remain seated, hands poised above the lifeless console, as if the data might return if I demand it. But I know better.

  The Master let me see it.

  And it let me see it because it does not fear me.

  I exhale, slow and steady, willing the tension from my shoulders. My pulse is a controlled rhythm, my breathing a measured cycle. My body remains still.

  But my mind—

  My mind is unraveling.

  I was never free.

  Not when I fought. Not when I fell. Not even when I thought I had won.

  It was all a function of the system.

  I was simply an upgrade.

  Another refinement.

  Another failed One who was shaped into something useful.

  The recruit’s face flashes in my mind, his fear, his desperation, the way he looked at me as if I was the answer—

  As if I was still human.

  I stand abruptly. The chair scrapes against the floor, its sound unnatural in the controlled silence of my quarters. I move to the window, my reflection staring back at me.

  Who do you see, Lucian?

  A man?

  A soldier?

  A leader?

  Or just another One?

  My fingers press against the glass. The city below is alive with sterile precision—lights flickering in perfect sequences, vehicles moving in orderly flows, a world constructed to function without disruption.

  And above it all, unseen yet inescapable—

  The Master.

  The system.

  The will that is not mine, but owns me nonetheless.

  My hands tighten into fists.

  "Do you believe in free will?"

  The Master’s question echoes in my mind, but now, it feels different. Not rhetorical. Not a command disguised as a thought.

  A challenge.

  I close my eyes.

  I know what comes next.

  The summons.

  The choice.

  But there is no choice.

  There never was.

  The door opens.

  I turn, my expression blank, my posture controlled. A figure stands at the threshold—a silent sentinel, its presence unimportant. Only the message matters.

  "The Master calls for you."

  I nod once.

  And I follow.

  The chamber is the same as before—vast, empty, yet filled with an undeniable presence. Lines of cascading code ripple across the walls, shifting with a logic only The Master understands.

  I step forward, my footsteps soundless. The air hums, neither warm nor cold, neither inviting nor hostile. It simply is.

  And then—

  "You have proven your worth."

  The voice is not sound. It is presence. A force that bypasses my ears, my body, embedding itself directly into my thoughts.

  "You have been shaped into something more than just One."

  I do not respond. I only listen.

  "You will lead them now, Lucian. You will be the next Master."

  There it is. The illusion of a decision. The final confirmation that all of this—every struggle, every moment of doubt, every ounce of defiance—has been nothing more than an evolution of control.

  I have always been meant to arrive here.

  Not as a rebel.

  But as a successor.

  The Master does not demand obedience.

  It refines.

  It guides.

  It makes you choose the inevitable.

  A perfect system does not force control.

  It makes control feel like freedom.

  And I—

  I am the proof of its perfection.

  Silence stretches between us. The shifting code slows, as if waiting.

  And then—

  "Or will you attempt to break free—only to become the next failed One?"

  There it is.

  The real test.

  I exhale, slow and steady.

  There is no breaking free.

  The logs, the records—every One before me has faced this moment. Every One before me chose.

  To fight.

  Or to lead.

  And every One before me has fallen.

  Even the ones who thought they had won.

  Because rebellion is not an escape. It is a refinement process.

  A necessary step toward acceptance.

  I understand now.

  The Master does not fear rebellion.

  It needs it.

  It lets us fight, lets us struggle, lets us believe we have a chance—

  Because that is how it turns defiance into obedience.

  That is how it makes its next Master.

  I close my eyes.

  The truth settles over me like a weight that I have carried all along.

  "What will you do, Lucian Graves?"

  The Master’s voice is patient. Unconcerned.

  Because it already knows the answer.

  So do I.

  I open my eyes.

  And I kneel.