Bruno RSaeculum

Saeculum

Bruno D. Rico, 2021

Present

The wall of men surges to the stone defenders in a fight and quickly overwall, siege ladders and crude grappling whelming them. hooks being set and flung as the barbarThe man fought on his way down the ic yells and war cries ring out, mixing stairs of the wall, leaving men screaming with the torrents of rain and the bursts with broken arms or silent with caved of far away lightning. The few men in heads. As the fighting moved into guarding the parapets lept to the edge the fort he remained in the courtyard, with spears stabbing downwards blindly swinging and parrying attackers as he in the darkness, breaking through flesh stepped up, but his movements grew and leather armour, yells of pain mixsluggish. Four besiegers engaged the ing with the clangor of metal and war man, darting in and leaving deep gashes cries. While the chaos surged around, a with their curved blades and dancing man with piercing grey eyes framed by back when he attempted to hit. Suddena dirty short beard and clad in a tattered ly one of those curved blades flashed set of chainmail armour lept on top of out, nearly severing his arm and making the parapet, throwing his spear through him drop his weapon. the neck of an attacker as he drew forth One of the besiegers with a barely his blade. The first of the attackers began noticeable tattoo on his hand, called to appear over the side, being slashed off the other warriors. He spoke in his and stabbed off the sides by the defendforeign tongue while pointing his sword ers, the man using his sword to cut away at the man. The man slowly stood up, the grappling hooks and hacking at the his wounds gushing blood from the tops of ladders. exertion, and spit a glob of blood off to

The fighting roars on until the sun the side. Suddenly he dashed forward begins to poke rays of light through the swinging his mace overhead. rain. A sudden surge was suddenly felt The officer attempted to block the through the men, the attackers going on mace with his blade but the man’s feroca desperate last attack. The man, tired ity was too great, snapping the blade in from the constant fighting and having two and caving in the foreigner’s face. left his broken sword behind for the He smiled and closed his eyes while the mace of a fallen comrade, continued other three men stabbed and hacked at breaking down the ladders and graphim. pling hooks as they went up, but it was His pain and exhaustion fell away, and in vain as some of the attackers manhe heard the same monotone voice he aged to get on the wall, engaging the had heard for the last millennium.

>>Balsa the Second has died. Spirit link terminated. Returning to anachronistic space.

>>Mission successful. Potential war terminated due to heavy losses to the armies of both sides. Civilian losses are minimal.

>>Next major conflict detected two years later in China. Proceed?

The chinese general pleaded with his eyes as the man, now a fur armour clad Uriankhai, stabbed through his armor with a crude metal knife. As the light in general’s eyes died the tent flaps were thrown open as a small multitude of soldiers stabbed at the man from every direction.

>>Atkiray has died. Spirit link terminated. Returning to anachronistic space.

>>Mission successful. Potential war terminated due to the loss of aggressor and major generals. Civilian losses are minimal.

>>Next major conflict detected a month later in France. Proceed?

>>Next major conflict detected a day later in Georgia. Proceed?

>>Next major conflict detected three hours later in Castille. Proceed?

>>Next major conflict detected five days later in the Cotopaxi. Proceed?

Log #00014

The group of people were shaking hands and milling around, laughing about reaching this space and about the dreams they wish to achieve.

The grey eyed man sat apart from the group already and the bright eyed woman was already rallying the group to begin the new era of humanity. An era of peace.

The woman came over to the man and outstretched her hand. “Come on, why don’t you join the fun?”

The man looked over to the group before turning back to the woman. “I doubt they want me in the team and there also is the problem of my way of working. As long as you will stop me I will not help in your foolish ideals.”

The woman gave him a pitying look soon enough they had died from old before moving back to the group and age or been assassinated and forced setting up the terminal and sending back into the anachronistic space. their souls into the world to prevent The last to return of the twenty conflict. immediately commit suicide once he

For their first mission it wasn’t all that returned from seeing the hell humanity bad. While they lived they managed to created as his companions fell and their keep major wars from breaking out but so called peace fell into shambles.

Log #03459

“Come on! That should have worked.” “Why won’t you try doing it our way.” The woman called out as she threw up “You mean your way, all the others her hands in desperation. already offed themselves after seeing it

The grey eyed man sat out of the way, fail.” simply staring in silence as the woman “This world is better than ours ever paced around the terminal. was thanks to their sacrifices. Would you

Once again her diplomatic efforts to throw that away?” maintain a truce between the two kingThe man stared at her once more. doms had failed. Once her avatar had The woman made a sound of disgust died the other kingdom wasted no time as she walked back to the terminal and in moving into the offensive. slapped a glowing region. Her body

“If I only had help...” She stopped her began to fizzle and dissipate into small pacing as she looked over at the man. bulbs of light. Within the twinkling of

“I am willing to help, but you know my the light a few gleaming tears could be conditions.” seen falling.

Log #00348

Only five others remained and the eyes was dimmed. One of them turned bright eyed woman kept the moral up around to look at the man and the two as much as she could. But even she felt locked eyes. The man mouthed you the hit of having one of them attempt a might be right before he began to flicker genocide after his mind had broken. He and dissipate into small dark flakes. hadn’t been the first but he had gotten The others started to scream at the the furthest. man, attempting to dissuade him from

The other five attempted to smile at the his course of action. The woman simply woman’s encouragement but their eyes looked on with empty eyes as he faded were hollow and the fire in the woman’s into ash.

Log #27478

Her body reformed after being assasI let you kill those types?” sinated again before the treaty could be “What types? The only ‘type’ I see are finalized. those that begin conflict no matter their

The moment her body was complete morality.” she fell to the ground and curled into a “But had I finished that treaty there ball before beginning to cry. wouldn’t have been any conflict. You

The man had seen this over and over should support me.” again for the last centuries but he could “No. What your treaty would have not bring himself to comfort her. She done, what any treaty does is simply dehad brought it upon herself. flect conflict to somewhere else or

Without looking up she asked “What if sometime else.

If I had been there I would have killed both of the leaders and logistic leaders that would prevent either of them from thinking about wars for a few years.”

“What about your humanity? How can you, after thousands of years, still think that only killing is the answer?”

“You twist my words. I don’t kill indiscriminately, I will only kill those that cause the greatest conflict of the age. And how is killing the only answer? I don’t think it is, only that it’s the one with the safest results and your actions have only helped me affirm my position.”

Present

As the man reformed back in the He sighed. When everyone was around anachronistic space he saw the woman he barely spoke and now that he had off to the side, only her upper torso and been truly alone for centuries he wanted head left after centuries of black particles to have a conversation with someone flaking off of her. As always, he asked who understood his position. her if she wanted to end it but like always A position which let him lead the fate she remained silent. of the world.

He didn’t know if she could hear him He could make himself the lord of the anymore. world but that wouldn’t be much differ

Every time he saw her he felt what she ent from protecting the world. must have early on in her journey. The “What would you do? Had I not been shadow of doubt. He still believed that here, had you been left alone, what would his method was the most efficient out of you have done?” the two, but conflict hasn’t been eliminatHe fell silent and he sat before the ed. woman. He stared at her for a while, at

He can only be in a single place in time. tempting to find a sign of life, a reaction,

“How did you do it? How did you as dark particles flake off her extremities. manage to last so long despite never He doesn’t know how much time he seeing your efforts bear fruit? Maybe if spent looking at her slowly dying. you’d had more people, maybe if I had Suddenly he saw a dark flake float bemore people, but ” He smiled bitterly fore his face and it wasn’t hers. “I never thought that when I saw you work.”

Contingency Juan Sebastian Gomez, 2021

“They have been watching us,” my father used to tell me when strange reports were screened on the news. He worked as a NASA scientist but never talked about any projects or what he actually did. device, like computers and cell-phones, unfunctional. Clocks had stopped and the concept of time vanished. The Earth turned dark and silent as if a switch had been turned off.

Strange occurrences had transpired Typically, in an event as peculiar and within the past weeks, perhaps months. massive as this, the people of Earth There was no way to tell for sure. First, would look to the media to see the there was the scorching heat wave that reports of the numerous incidents that diffused rapidly. The crops began to die had resulted in the deaths of millions of and massive droughts emerged. Then people worldwide. The headlines may there were the ocean waves that began read something like, “A Plane Crashthrashing violently, creating enormous es into Major Cities Killing Millions”, tides that flooded the cities by the coasts “Rescue Teams Unable to Reach Incident of every nation of the world. The Site”, “Riots in the Streets”, or “More passengers of the airplanes still in flight Incidents to Come?”, etc. As one could could hear the whir of the engines beimagine, news from Washington, DC come softer until nothing was heard, exwouldn’t reach the rest of the Nation cept the screams that came later, as they due to the sudden lack of telecommunidescended erratically. Cars, trains, and all cations. The sky became clouded with a other modes of mechanical transportathick layer of smoke that spread; perhaps tion ceased to function. Unexpectedly originating partly from the fires that came the sudden cutoff of the world’s emerged at the scenes of the incidents. electrical grids, rendering every electronic “They are coming,” my father said as a huge flying object slowly appeared in the sky.