His Own Hand

Tobias Lensky imparts some final words upon his son.

Tobias Lensky raised himself feebly up from the bed. He fought back a wave of sickly coughing as the machines around him beeped to protest even that faint exertion. Dismissing their mechanical concerns with an irritable waive, he fixed a sickly smile on the figure framed in the doorway.

“So, he wheezed through another cough. “You came back after all.” The relief that coursed down the old man’s body was more potent than any of the medicines already pumping through his shrunken veins.

Stray stepped over the threshold. He stripped the poncho off his shoulders and draped it over the door to reveal the armed and armored body beneath. Even now, reduced and wretched as he was, the former Spartan still coursed with a frenetic, violent energy. The weapons strapped to his battered armor seemed to tremble of their own accord. He stared across the room from behind his cold, faceless helmet.

Lensky knew what was coming. What Stray had come here to do. The smile never left his face. There would be no begging. No pleas for mercy. After all, what was the point of eking out another day in his own shriveled carcass? No. It was enough just to have his creation—no, his son—return to him one last time.

“Take that bucket off your head, boy. Let’s have a look at you. You owe me that much, don’t you?”

“I don’t owe you shit.” There was none of the usual bite in Stray’s voice. No insolent mockery or seething resentment. Just cold, hard rage.

“Don’t start with me. If you went to the coordinates I gave you, you should already know that you owe me everything.”

Stray regarded Lensky for a moment longer. Then he raised his hands up to his neck. The armor seals hissed and loosened. The helmet clattered to the floor as Stray tossed it off to the side. His eyes peered out from beneath the shadows, boring into Lensky’s shriveled skin.

“That’s it. That’s my boy.”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why not? It’s the truth, and we both know it.” Lensky sighed. “Come on then, come over here. Do what you came here to do.”

Stray’s boots clicked against the hospital floor as he crossed over to the bed. Lensky rested back against the mattress and watched the renegade’s face slip into the light. The ravages of battle and illness were apparent in Stray’s warped face. Life had taken him down a very different path and yet Lensky saw himself in that face all too well. Stray’s eyes bore that same look of calm rage he himself had worn all those years ago.

Lensky smiled up from the bed. “Well?”

“There was no cure at that facility. You lied to me.”

“Like I’ve never done that before.” Lensky waved dismissively. “Come on. You’ll find a fix yourself just fine. That’s not why I sent you there. Did you find what you were really looking for?”

“You could have just told me yourself.”

“I could have.” Lensky shrugged. “But where’s the fun in that? You already knew we were related. I just wanted to make sure you knew just how close the connection really was. So that we could talk like this, just once. Father and son.”

There was no angry condemnation. No frenzied denial. Just that same look of passive rage that told Lensky everything he wanted to know. His smile widened as he basked in the moment of truth. “Now you know who you really are. Why Tatiana loathed you, why you were such a failure of a Spartan. You never belonged to them. You were always mine. My greatest project.”

Stray’s hands balled into fists. “I never belonged to you. This was one investment you didn’t look after too well, did you?”

“But I didn’t have to. Don’t you see? You found your way without all that, just like I knew you would. Mamore, Philadelphia, the Covenant… you did things no one expected, saw things their little minds couldn’t even believe. You’ve been in this universe a fraction of the time I have and you’re just getting warmed up!” Lensky beamed up at his son, smiling even from between the jaws of death. “Just thinking of what you’ll do… there’s nothing quite like leaving this galaxy and knowing how much bigger my mark on it is going to get.”

“I’ll be dead before long thanks to you.”

“No, no. You’ll survive, just like you always do. Because you’re me. Better than me, or at least you will be.” Lensky looked up at the only person he’d ever truly loved. The only part of himself the fools hadn’t been able to contaminate. Himself, but better. His cunning mind and fighting spirit encased in a killer’s body. Rough around the edges, to be sure, but that was the secret to success no one but himself ever seemed to grasp.

Perfection was boring. Imperfection was how things evolved.

Lensky looked up at his own evolution and knew that it was good. The Syndicate had taken his dreams but never his future. “Listen to me, Simon—no, Stray, that suits you so much better. I’ve lived a long time. I had a good run, a real hell of a time. Don’t be too angry with me. I played this galaxy like a fiddle and I know you’ll do it even better. Because you’re me, no matter what you or anyone else has to say about it. You’re alive thanks to me and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

“There is one thing.” A dark gleam flashed in Stray’s eyes and Lensky knew this was the end. He welcomed it. This was how it should be. No one deserved the honor of ending Tobias Lensky more than Tobias Lensky himself.

Stray’s moved fast, armored hands fastening around the old man’s neck. There was no pain for the entrepreneur urchin.

Tobias Lensky died with no regrets, laughing at Stray and the whole galaxy.