Microstory 1145: Makarion Dimitrios

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In an earlier reality, Makarion Dimitrios was chosen as one of the last Saviors of Earth. His career was different than those of his predecessors. He was less involved with choosing ones and other salmon, and more linked to the powers that be. To be sure, he never met them in person, but he did meet with The Emissary more often than one might expect. His tenure did not last long, however. In an attempt to free himself from cruel torment, Mateo Matic tried to kill his torturer, who was a man named The Rogue. But the Rogue had a secret, that he could subvert death, by transferring his consciousness to the body of anyone else with temporal powers. In this case, the Rogue didn’t have time to hunt for a suitable host, nor did he have any control over which body he possessed, so the nature of his attempted murder changed his powers permanently. He found himself in possession Makarion’s body, but unlike with his previous hosts, he was unable to leave. This was his last body; he would be stuck with it until the day of his death. Masquerading as Makarion, the Rogue continued to force Mateo and his friends into challenges, one of which involved them both traveling back in time, and killing Adolf Hitler before he would have died on his own. This act elicited a new reality. Mateo no longer existed, and since Mateo was instrumental in his creation, nor did the Rogue. So now there were two people running around the timeline with Makarion’s face. This seemed okay, because it allowed a version of Makarion to fulfill his duty as Savior, having no idea that he died in a different timeline. But there were consequences. The Rogue had made a deal with an even more powerful man named The Cleanser, and the Cleanser felt this deal had been broken, so he finally ended the Rogue’s life. It turned out, maybe the Rogue wasn’t so bad after all, but his death was not the worst of it. The Cleanser’s sister was known as The Conservator, except when she wasn’t; she was instead The Extractor. Their entire family was born with some ability to perceive alterations to the timeline, and they used these powers to manage certain outcomes. Sometimes, a time traveling act did, or undid, a particular event in history, even if only accidentally. It was their job to manipulate the timeline again; to correct what they believed to be a mistake. This family was egotistical, narcissistic, and uncaring, so the Extractor decided no Makarion would live past the moment the Rogue died. At the exact same time the Cleanser was killing him, she was killing the new Makarion herself, even though there was no real justification for this—and, in fact, no link to it at all. Even though the Rogue looked like Makarion, they had nothing to do with each other, so this was completely pointless. Makarion wasn’t the shortest-lived Savior in the long history of the program, but he certainly didn’t live the longest. His untimely death had a major impact on the future of the program, totally changing who was chosen next, and perhaps more importantly, who was chosen to be The Last. Had Makarion survived the Extractor’s morbid logic, neither Xearea Voss, nor Étude Einarsson would have become Saviors themselves, and maybe their lives would have been that much less dangerous. Then again, maybe those two were exactly what the Extractor had in mind when she murdered him.