Chapter 11: Lehros
The email arrived in the dead of night.
Lehros had composed it carefully, each word a calculated blade aimed at the man who had built Anthroportica from nothing. The anti-Samuel faction had grown in the weeks since Willson's death—engineers who had seen the fabricated video, technicians who had received Pohu's mass email, staff who could no longer stomach the lies.
"Hey, you wanted to defame Samuel. Well here we are! There are two factions in the group. One is against him and one is with. Currently me and my group. Shall we conduct any plans for him and his demise?"
Lehros hit send before doubt could settle in.
The response came not from Pohu, but from an account none of them recognized. The name on the screen was simple: Shums19.
The email that followed was a revelation.
It laid out everything. How Samuel had orchestrated Shometsu's death years ago. How the cryo-experiment of 2016 was not a scientific accident but a calculated move in a larger game. How Willson had been murdered not by a random sniper but by Samuel's direct order. The evidence was meticulous—photographs, timestamps, call logs connecting Ben, the cryo-scientist, to the killer who had pulled the trigger on Willson.
The deductive reasoning was terrifying. Someone had pieced together Samuel's entire web of manipulation and laid it bare in a single email.
The room fell silent. Fatah was among them, his face unreadable as he scanned the words. How could this nobody find so much valuable information about him? he thought, the question burning in his chest.
He reported the email to Samuel immediately.
Samuel read it in silence. His expression did not change, but something flickered behind his eyes—recognition, perhaps, or calculation. When he spoke, his voice was soft, almost thoughtful.
"Shums19. Hmm. Someone whose name starts with S loves humming."
Fatah's blood ran cold.
The previous night, he had passed Samuel's quarters and heard it—a low, rhythmic humming from within. He had thought nothing of it at the time. Now the memory crystallized into something terrible.
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Pohu's reply arrived the following day. The message was brief, clinical: some of their people would be inside the lab, others outside. A location was given. They were to remain silent until November 17.
The date was set.
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16 November 2023
The sky had turned purple by the time Lehros reached the ranges. Six in the evening, the sun bleeding into the horizon, the mountain silhouettes sharp against the fading light. A rare beauty, he thought, for a day that would end in blood.
He had booked a cab without checking the driver's face. A mistake. When the vehicle arrived and the window rolled down, Lehros felt his heart stop.
The face was familiar. Too familiar.
The sniper from Willson's killing. The man from the cryo-lab—older now, but unmistakable. Ben.
Lehros forced himself to breathe. To smile. To climb into the passenger seat as if nothing was wrong.
Ben's eyes met his in the rearview mirror. There was no surprise there. He knew who Lehros was. Samuel's calls had seen to that.
The car pulled away from the curb. Five kilometers. Seven. The silence between them was a living thing, coiled and waiting.
Then Ben clicked his waist.
The explosion tore through the vehicle with a sound like the world ending. Fire. Glass. Metal screaming against metal. The car rolled once, twice, three times before coming to rest on its side.
Ben was dead instantly.
Lehros crawled from the wreckage on hands and knees, his body a map of pain, his vision swimming in and out of focus. He dialed Vineese before he could think, before the shock could claim him.
She found him three minutes later, blood pooling beneath him, his breath coming in shallow gasps. She pulled him into the back seat, her hands trembling as she reached for the ignition.
"Hospital," she said. "I'm taking you to the hospital."
"No." His voice was barely a whisper. "Take me to the ranges."
"Are you mad? You're dying—"
"I know." He reached for her hand, his fingers cold against her skin. "I want to see the fight. The final confrontation. I don't want to die in a hospital bed, Vineese. I want to see the end. Also many religions tell that the person attains heaven if they complete their last wish"
She wanted to argue. She wanted to scream. But she saw something in his eyes—a quiet certainty, a peace she could not name—and she turned the car toward the mountains.
---
They reached the ranges as the last light drained from the sky.
Vineese carried him up the slope, his weight lighter than it should have been, his breathing shallower with each step. At a hundred meters above the valley, she laid him against a rock where he could see the horizon.
"I appreciate your efforts," he said, his voice barely audible. "May you all win the battle."
He pulled her into a hug, his arms weak but determined.
"Samuel helped me once," he said. "My grandmother died during the pandemic. I was unemployed, starving. He gave me a job. He gave me purpose." A pause. "I should have died that day instead of joining his company. Vineese, you were always like a sister to me."
She held him as his breathing slowed, as his eyes fixed on something she could not see.
When he was gone, she sat with him for a long time, the wind cold against her face, the stars emerging one by one above the purple sky.
Then she walked back to the car alone.
---
"Mission accomplished," Samuel said, his voice flat through the phone. "We just killed another person."
"It was not a big deal," Fatah replied, though his stomach turned. "But our asset—Ben—is dead."
"Ben was never valuable. And Lehros will add pressure on the survivors. He was a man of truth."
Fatah ended the call and stood in the darkness, wondering which of them was the real monster.
As November 17 approached, the communications between Pohu and the faction intensified. Plans were laid. Moves were made.
And somewhere in the ranges, a dead man sat against a rock, watching the horizon for a dawn that would not come for him.
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Chapter 11 End
To Be Continued