V.
“I've been watching with you for two nights,” the doctor complained, “and have yet to see what you report. When did she last walk?”
Lady Macbeth's concerned aide explained, again, to the doctor that the Lady had several times in the past weeks risen from her bed, typed a letter, saved it, encrypted it, and then returned to bed. All while still asleep. She also re-explained to the doctor that the Lady occasionally would walk through the corridors of the uppermost ring of Olympus holding an ignited flashlight. Somewhat humorously, she frequently held the light backwards, shining the light on her stomach.
The Lady walked past the two whispering nightwatchers. Immediately, they stopped their chattering. Juliee Macbeth walked awkwardly through the corridor in her nightgown carrying the obligatory flashlight backwards. Her eyes were open, but apparently not processing any stimuli. The doctor and aide watched her as she dropped the flashlight in order to relentlessly rubbed her hands, as though to wash them of some indissoluble substance. According to the aide, this was a common practice, both while awake and asleep.
The doctor recorded as Lady Macbeth ranted, all the while washing her hands of nothing, with nothing.
“Out cursed spot! Out, I say! One: two: why, then it is time to do it. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie! A soldier, and afraid? What need we fear who knows it, when none can produce evidence. Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?”
“Do you hear that?” The doctor asked, adrenaline starting to take its course.
She did. The lady continued:
Mr. Macduff had a wife. Where is she now, I wonder? What? will these hands never be clean? No more of that, my lord, no more of that! You mar all with this starting.”
The Lady continued incoherently murmuring, whilst rubbing her hands more and more vigorously. She admitted to having had a part in the murder of president Duncan, and expressed her self-consuming grief and guilt. The doctor knew not how to help her obviously disturbed woman, as psychology was out of his area of expertise. Fortunately—well, perhaps “unfortunately” would be more appropriate, then again, perhaps not—her case mattered not for long. That same night, she, instead of returning to her bed as she had always done, brought herself to the closest garbage station, and disposed of herself.
Macduff and and Malcolm prepared an army of lower-ring, poverty-stricken warriors, armed with antique swords and axes. Not one had modern weapon: the president had confiscated them all, and launched them into the abyss of space, in an attempt to prevent an uprising such as this.
Macbeth quickly received news of the impending attack, but had no fear. He continuously repeated the prophecies concerning his safety, to himself. “None of woman born shall harm Macbeth. Not until the moons bleed!”
A distressed aide came to the fearless Macbeth, standing in the third ring, with his army prepared with the confiscated modern weapons he had supposedly tossed into space.
“There are ten thousand rebels, sir!” cried the fearful servant.
“Get the hence! Coward, flee!” the president retorted, unwaveringly confident-looking. None of woman born shall harm Macbeth. Not until the moons bleed!
Macbeth organized his defenses, blocking all the corridors connected to the elevator shafts, so as to have a force prepared for the attackers as they arrived, and to prevent a mass from congregating—only so many soldiers could ascend the elevator at a time. Macbeth set himself in the large third-ring commons area, where Banquo and his son would sit and watch the stars and the double moons orbiting the nearby planet.
The attack began. More reports about the goings on of the battle flowed from various messengers to the ever more-insane president. Shortly came the notice that his men were intentionally missing shots, and relinquishing their weapons. Some sectors' platoons refused to fight: they simply waited for the enemies, and pointed the armies toward Macbeth's lair.
In the midst of the battle came the report of Lady Macbeth's suicide. People had searched for her, but then thought to scrounge through the recent security videos and discovered the recording of her, in her sleep, placing her self in a large garbage chamber, smiling, and hitting the button labeled “open” on the wall. The doors opened and the vacuum of space promptly claimed her life.
Macbeth was unaffected. He had been so hardened by his cold-hearted murders and iron-fisted rule that nothing, not even the death of his wife, phased him.
Macbeth's other rings were easily taken. But, despite Macduff's army's increasing numbers and their knowledge of Macbeth's location, only one man entered the commons on the third ring: Jamien Macduff. Macbeth's soldiers sat, on their benches and allowed Macduff to pass. Macbeth, confident as ever, knew he could not die.
Macduff walked slowly toward the tyrant, holding his still-unbloodied sword at an angle to his side. “I have no words: My voice is in my sword, thou bloody villain.”
He charged.
Macbeth, realizing it would be dishonorable to simply blast the foe, unsheathed his sword and deflected the wild swing, with his own. Their blades clashed and Macbeth's army became quiet as they watched, hoping for Macduff's victory.
“None of woman born shall harm Macbeth. Not until the moons bleed!” Macbeth repeated, trying to bring himself strength in his time of need. He paused, and glanced outside the gargantuan window at the two moons surrounding the nearby planet. The closest star, planet, and moons were aligned such that an eclipse began. The refraction of the light curving through the planet's atmosphere created a red border around the planet's shadow on the moons behind it. The red shadows struck fear into the marrow of his bone. The moons bled. While Macbeth stared at the moons' pores pouring blood, Macduff whispered into his enemy's ear, “I was torn from my mother's womb and she died while giving birth. I was never truly born.”
A single slash decapitated the tyrant.
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