Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

feet hit the ground in a single great crash, and their faces were set in a frozen masklike expression. There was something subtly inhuman in the way they all moved and looked, and a cold breeze caressed the back of Owen’s neck as his hackles rose. His hand went to his sword belt. He’d just realized that every pair of eyes tracked with every other pair. As though there was only a single thought, a single intent, behind them.
    “It’s a group mind breakout,” said Dominic. He sounded almost sick, disgusted. “This is the closest we have to an obscenity, Owen. The death of individuality in a gestalt of increasing power, where everyone involved surrenders to the mass-mind. No more personality, no more needs or passions, just instinct and appetite and flocking behavior. And the bigger the mass-mind gets, the more powerful it becomes, sucking in weaker minds against their will.”
    “What causes these group minds?” said Owen, keeping a watchful eye on the group as it advanced towards them.
    “No one knows,” said Glory. “It appears to be spontaneous, something to do with overcrowding and peer pressure. Maybe it’s the ultimate escape from the pressures of being human. All we know is, it’s happening more and more often.”
    “So what do we do?” said Owen. “Knock them all out, and then ship them off to your House of Correction to be fixed?”
    “No,” said Glory. “There is no cure for what they’ve become.”
    Owen suddenly felt the pressure of the mass-mind, reaching out to touch his thoughts. It felt like a psychic hole, into which anything or anyone could fall forever. There was nothing human about it anymore. Owen roused the power within him, but was honestly lost for what to do. Like so many other things in this brave old world, the mass-mind was beyond his understanding.
    The sound of approaching running feet brought him back to himself, and a small army of people in brilliant jade armor crashed suddenly out of a side street. They all had energy guns in their hands, and harsh focused expressions. They opened fire on the group mind without any warning, not even bothering to pick targets. Bodies exploded into bloody mists, and scorched body parts flew up into the air. The street was suddenly full of the stench of spilled blood and burnt meat. The mass-mind tried to scatter, like frightened birds, but it couldn’t break out of its pattern. The jade-armored newcomers pressed forward, firing their powerful guns again and again without cease or mercy, until all the bodies that made up the group mind were dead, just burnt and bloody pieces in the street.
    “They never had a chance,” said Owen.
    Something in his voice alerted Dominic, who quickly put a restraining hand on Owen’s sword hand. “Don’t even think of interfering, or expressing an opinion. That’s the Emperor’s Praetorian Guard. Everything they do is the Emperor’s will. And they did the only thing they could. The group mind was a threat that would only have become more powerful. There are times . . . when an inhuman response is the only answer we have to an inhuman threat.”
    “Kill the thing, before it spreads,” said Glory. “Everyone sucked into the mass-mind was already dead, in every way that matters.”
    “What about the ones sucked in against their will?” said Owen. “What was their crime?”
    “Not being human,” said Dominic. “Don’t judge us too harshly, Owen. We have tried everything else we could think of, and this is the only action that works.”
    They walked on, giving the Praetorian Guards plenty of room as they gathered up the scattered remains for easier disposal. Owen wasn’t sure how he felt about what he’d just seen. He had to wonder just how hard the powers that be had looked for another answer. The three of them headed deeper into the city, and the chattering crowds quickly returned, as though nothing had happened. Dominic and Glory tried to distract Owen by talking of many things: of memes—thoughts and ideas that spread like a virus, infecting people with the latest fashions and fads until those affected built up an immunity; of ideas running loose from the minds that created them, imposing themselves on weaker minds and warping their bodies into new shapes and capabilities. Politics and religions had become memes, endlessly mutating and multiplying.
    And up and down the many streets, news channels and adverts and ideological hard sells assaulted Owen from every side. The loud and