The Phoenix Mandate by David Webb

Author:David Webb [Webb, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781734351125
Publisher: Lux Publishing
Published: 2020-02-02T16:00:00+00:00

37

Kendall fumed as he passed the Refuge tower and kept walking through the massive cavern.

No good deed goes unpunished, right?

If Tamisra hadn’t been so curious, if they had never found out about the necessary evil he had to commit in order to bring about change, they would be praising him now. He had destroyed the Hub and ended the Chancellor’s reign, saving the entire Web.

His were the accomplishments of a hero who asked for nothing in return, someone who would do anything to see the Web move on and heal after generations of oppression.

But the cost was great.

He had kidnapped and tortured children to bait a warlord.

He had convinced a girl to sacrifice herself.

He had asked a boy to temporarily kill the girl he loves in order to save her.

It sounded insane, he realized, knowing they would never understand.

It was Kendall’s curse, it seemed, to do everything he could to save people and change the world, only to be forced to stand idly by while others ruin his progress and make him a pariah.

He sighed as he left the Refuge cavern and began walking down a tunnel.

Maybe the Director was right. Maybe he was the wrong man for the job. Everything he did seemed to backfire, and every move he made to improve the Web only dug a deeper hole for himself that these well-meaning fools would bury him inside.

Then again, maybe it wasn’t Kendall. Maybe it was just this Web. Almost every other level lived in peace, without needing an emissary of the Director to influence things for the better. And it wasn’t Kendall’s fault that the Chancellor was a sanctimonious, power-hungry man who didn’t understand his role.

But Kendall had believed he could make a difference here. Of course, if he had known that this was the inevitable outcome when he was first asked to take on the role of Level XVIII’s adviser, he never would have agreed to the mission. The stakes were too great to fail.

And fail he had.

There was no coming back from this. The rebels would give him the exact same treatment as they had the Chancellor, determined to either kill him or exile him, ruining his chance to turn this Web into what it was always supposed to be.

There was no winning scenario.

If Kendall fought back and forced them into submission, he would become the dictator they already thought he was, taking the place of their old nemesis. But Kendall came to save the Web, not simply change the regime.

If he went along with their wishes and left Refuge, the Web could still be saved, but there would be an entire society in Refuge left without a home in the sectors, still living in awful conditions while the rest of the Web healed in the wake of the Chancellor. And there was no guarantee that the rebels would let him fulfill his mission in peace. They might follow him to the sectors and make his life incredibly difficult.

And if he were to plead his

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