Shelanon’s pallor seemed to take on a unhealthier tint.
“What would Carolina say if she saw what you’ve become?” Persephone continued. “What would she say if she knew the kind of life you sentenced your own child and other people’s children to?”
“She would understand it.” Shelanon gave a curt nod as if settling the question in his mind. “How do you think I met her?” He turned bold, accusing eyes on his inquisitors.
“Her parents sold her into prostitution so they could support the kids they really wanted. She knew, just like I did that life was hard and that hardships didn’t care about age. If you were out there on your own, you had to find a way to survive. The island gave kids a way to do that-gave them a purpose that played to their strengths, intelligence, beauty.” He looked to the Acquisitions, blinked away when the armed group took a collective step forward.
“And the kids provided a steady stream of wealth and power to a bunch of fat, perverted monsters.” Hill declared.
Shelanon lifted his chin. “One hand washes the other for a greater good. I believe my wife would’ve seen it as a kind of poetic justice that their wealth enabled me to continue my research that’s saved-”
“Yeah, yeah we know you’ve saved millions,” Caiphus interrupted. “Wonder how those millions would feel if they knew how many people you had to enslave to do it.”
“They’d feel fine,” Shelanon countered, bracing against his restraints then. “They’d feel alive, healthy, grateful. All for the greater good, when the ‘greater good’ is them.”
“Hmph,” Brogue smiled icily. “The upstanding doctor.”
“That’s right! My findings have been published in the most respected journals.”
“And is that how you sold Saffron on giving her life to this?” Persephone asked.
“And Lamont,” Bill added.
“Saffron was on the island to report to me. To send back reports I wouldn’t have gotten from the good Captain. She hated the place that took her mother and made the first several years of her life a living hell. Then, she hooked up with Evangela and...well...as for my fine son- he went astray almost from the moment he met your father,” he glanced at Hill. “I’m so glad I never trusted him enough to bring him here…”
“Went astray? By joining up with the folks trying to shut down your madness?” Bashir queried.
Shelanon merely shrugged, sulking pathetic and naked on the chair.
“It was Lamont who helped lead us to you,” Bill enjoyed the surprise swell on the man’s sickly face. “He spent years collecting info on this place-we still have no idea how he gathered so much detail, but he shared it.”
“Guess he was motivated when he learned his own dad was out to have him killed.” Caiphus added.
“What was it you said about poetic justice?” Dena spoke from her spot near the wall where she still squatted in the event of more sickness. “You ended something-someone you created. Now your creations will end you.”
Shelanon watched a small child of around eight, move forward. In one hand, she carried a sheaf of staples pages which she thrust at his stomach.
“Those are the names of the three hundred and twenty six kids you violated,” Bill explained. “Some are real names-some were taken when they got here.”
“Plus two hundred and seventy four more who have either died or...been shipped off to serve their...purpose. Of course there are many more unaccounted for.” Marci added, her voice strong, eyes cold.
“Read them, you filth.” Dena hissed. “Read them while you get just a taste of what they suffered.”
When Dena finished, the small child raised the syringe she carried in her other hand and brought it down hard into Shelanon’s thigh. He howled, not because of the needle going in but in terror over what the syringe held. Panicked, he searched the room as if searching for an explanation of the sudden shift in events.
No explanations were forthcoming, only more syringes. They stabbed at Shelanon’s upper body. With unsettling silence, the children carried out their mission. When they were done, bloody pricks dotted the man’s skin and the pages he was somehow still clutching.
“Read it,” Hill said. “Remember, there’re still over three hundred kids here ready for a needle and there’re still so many interesting vials to choose from.”
One of the children left the group and disappeared into the command center. It was a wide, cubby hole from which Shelanon could survey and communicate with every area of his property. There was an agonizing wail as though a blow horn was being activated.
The surface speakers, Shelanon thought. He’d installed the things in the event that his enemies ever converged and the need ever arise to verbally lacerate them for assuming they had a right to stand in his presence.
Jacob Shelanon began to read. The faintest sniffling could be heard as he read over names that sparked sorrow and memory among the children who had survived the horror.
Brogue looked over to Marcella. She stood close to her brother, but not touching. There was a oneness to her stance-a strength that gripped her and he was captivated.
Shelanon finished the first page. He was a quarter of the way through the second when he began to shift as though he were seeking more comfortable positioning for his bottom against the hard chair.
He continued reading, paused halfway through the page that time as a belch roared up through his gullet. This was followed by a loud, malodorous fart that soured the air within half a minute of its release. The children giggled. The adults shared amused, knowing smiles. The end was near.
Shelanon continued to read. As he did, the delivery lost its staccato coldness and developed a more resonant flow as if the names were then sparking memory (and remorse?) for him as well.
Belches and other foulness seeped faster. He still had over 500 names to go. With 470 names left, the pages tumbled from a hand that was too weak to even clench a fist. Shelanon was losing control over his motor functions. Blood streamed from the eyes, nose, ears and mouth. Feces and other bodily fluids oozed from the rectum and filled the room with a stench that elicited no smiles or giggles from the onlookers.
No one left. No one wanted to leave. Dena, sickened by Shelanon’s reminiscing before, then triumphed over her brief illness. She stood, one hand against the wall, the other covering her nose and mouth as she watched the man convulsing. Her eyes glittered with satisfaction and relief.
It was the same for everyone then. The execution they’d witnessed would have been deemed inhumane by anyone’s standards. Not just anyone however, could understand what Jacob Shelanon and those like him were truly capable of- the lengths they’d go to see that their debasing agendas were carried out.
It took those who had been on the receiving end of such agendas to stomach such an inhumane end and to cherish the view.
Jacob Shelanon sat in a pool of his own waste. Still strapped to the chair, he was slumped there like a deflated balloon. The children; their faces expressionless; but for the calm in their eyes, turned and led the party from the room.
Hill was last to leave. He crossed to Shelanon and dutifully checked for a pulse. There was nothing.
“Burn in hell,” he murmured.
Turning for the door, he found Persephone, Dena, Bill and Marci. Dena and Bill moved forward. Hill moved aside when he saw the women raise their weapons, aim and fire two rounds each into Shelanon’s head and chest. Silently, they turned and left the room. Marcella observed the carnage impassively and then followed Dena’s and Bill’s departures.
