by Hodden, TE
Angel bowed her head. “Close your eyes, picture him. Remember him.”
Melisa closed her eyes. “Like… picture it in my mind?”
“Yes,” Angel said, her voice soft and breathy. “When did you first know him?”
“Three years ago, give or take, when he first moved into the Headquarters? I came home from school one evening, and there he was. This… grubby, barefoot weirdo, sitting on the floor of the dining room, and staring at the oil paintings…”
“No.” Angel whispered. “That is how you met. How did you first know him?”
“Oh. I see.” Melisa swallowed. “That’s… It’s not one memory. If I just see the moment, it doesn’t mean anything. He’s just smiling at me, and it’s shy, and awkward, and… he has blood on his teeth. But he tells me I’m okay. And when I try and talk about all the stuff that… shouldn’t be okay, I only manage the word ‘but’, and then have no idea how to finish the sentence, and…” She laughed. “And he told me it didn’t matter. Whatever I was about to say, it didn’t matter.”
“Good. This is good. Explain the moments that surround the memory. Untangle it.”
“I’m not… proud of those moment. I don’t like…”
“Please,” Angel said, quietly. “It is important.”
“I hadn’t been living at Pelham long either,” Melisa said. “It was less than a year since my parents were… taken. I had a whole lot of pain, and there were times I acted out. You know… to let the pressure out? And when this guy moved in, it was easy to convince myself he was a fair target. His aura was a cold void, which made him feel… less than human, and he was distant, to me, to everybody, and closed off. Full of questions about everything, but you could never get him to talk about himself, and… Barney was always calling him a Dweeb, and…” Angel groaned. “I was determined to get something to show through his aura. I mean, it started with jokes and puns, but then there were pranks, and there were a few times I tried to get him to step in stuff, because… you know… the feet.” She chewed her lip. “Those first couple of weeks don’t count. Okay?”
Angel’s veil shifted. “What changed?”
“A month after he moved in D.K. Terrance, the Terrormonger, escaped from prison and came to the HQ looking for revenge. Almost everybody else was out on a mission, and it was just me, Phoebe, and Charlie. He sneaked into the HQ, and he found me first, and got into my head. I guess I was an easy target. He filled it with nightmares, horrors I didn’t even know I could imagine, the kind of thing I would do anything to stop. And he told me that I could end them, by just killing the others.” She looked at her feet. “It seemed so easy to know who to start with. He was in the kitchen, cooking for the three of us. When I grabbed the knife, he didn’t even armour up…”
He grabbed her wrist before she could lunge at him, and held the knife at bay, but that just left her other hand free. The first punch should have knocked him out, but he didn’t loosen his grip.
“Melisa,” he said, in a frustratingly calm voice. Like a robot. “You have to stop this.”
She drove her fist into his nose. It flattened to a bloody mess under her knuckles. She kept going, another punch, and another. Sooner or later he would loosen his grip.
“I won’t fight you,” he said, his words pain. “You know that by now.”
Damn him! She grabbed his throat and forced him back against the wall. His grip on the knife remained firm, but now she had the leverage to twist it back, point the blade towards him, and press the tip against his throat.
She leant close, putting her weight behind it.
“Melisa,” he croaked, gasping for breath. “You won’t do this. This is the line you won’t cross.”
She hesitated. The tip of the knife touched his throat.
“No matter how scared, or hurt, or angry you are,” he said gently, “nothing could make you do this.”
The words were like a lightning bolt to her heart. She dropped the knife, and staggered back, nauseas and seasick as the world span around her.
The terrors were gone.
He cupped her cheek and smiled. It was the ugliest, stupidest, best smile she had ever seen. “It’s okay. Melisa. You’re okay now.”
Angel breathed out. “There. Open your eyes.”
Melisa opened her eyes.
Charlie was stood in the circle, flanked by a pair of women in what looked like Ren-Fair cosplay. The three were spectral and insubstantial, woven from motes of fairy light. The cuddlier, curvier of the two women radiated an amiable glow of passion and joy, from a stalwart, lionhearted core. The impish cheerleader had a just heart, poisoned by the miasma of hatred that swirled about her.
Charlie laughed, in shock. “Hello? Mel? Angel?” His eyes widened. “Mel!”
“Hey!” Melisa stepped over and put a hand to his chest, and found a frigid mist. “Are you okay? You’re in a coma, and your mind is so distant, and…”
“Oh!” The cuddly one said. “Are you her?”
Charlie gave her an apologetic look. “I know its scary. The Legion almost killed me, but the magic can heal me. It flows into me, and I flow into it… so I chose where to flow.”
Melisa nodded. “I understand, but I was… worried.”
“Oh spare me!” The cheerleader snorted. “I almost had to endure an eternity of him in the afterlife. The insufferable fool wants to save you, so he is running off into the depths of the Underworlds on a quest to find Misrule and prevent your future from dooming you to his company. If the machine stops beeping, and squeals one long tone, you will know he failed. Otherwise, be a good little trollop and download a dating app. Save yourself.”
Angel rose to her feet. “Charlie, are you… tethered to a demon?”
“No!” Charlie said. “Angel, it’s fine. She’s not…”
The lionhearted one laughed. “She’s his grandmother.”
“But…” Angel looked confused. “She makes the magic sing of all the ways she wishes to make him suffer.”
“Yes,” the cheerleader agreed. “But I have promised not to.”
Melisa chewed her lip. “Charlie, promise me you will come home safe?”
“Of course.” He looked at her. “If I can understand the warning, then maybe it can be changed. Maybe we can save your aunt.”
Melisa nodded. “We are going to have a lot to talk about.”
Charlie nodded. “I understand.”
Melisa grinned. “Maybe the dating app is not a bad idea.”
He shrugged.
The candles blew out, and the connection was lost. The three phantoms faded away.
Melisa looked at Angel. “Thank you.”
Angel stretched. “He is my friend too.” She straightened. “Coffee?”
00010
Rock Harris mingled amongst the crowd gathered in the vast, airy, foyer of the Helix Tower, waiting by the stage that had been festooned in red, white, and blue bunting, balloons and ribbons. From within glass walls of the tower seemed to be a random pattern of irregular triangles in autumn shades. It was only outside, a block or more away, for the mosaic to form the distinctive illusion of a double helix DND strand floating within the tower.
Harris was dressed in an anonymous suit, and a fashionable shirt. Something smart, but not in a way that screamed ‘Security’.
Many in the crowd were members of the army of contractors, tradesmen and labourers, who had helped build the tower, proudly wearing their Helix polo-shirts beneath their jackets or blazers, but Harris could spot the executives, the politicians, and the other VIPs clustering in small groups.
Harris tapped his earpiece. “Anything?”
“Nothing yet,” Catherine answered. She was up on one of the balcony levels, where there were going to be coffee shops and convenience stores, scanning the crowd with her Spear.
“You know, I could suit up, and¬”
“I’m sorry?” Catherine asked, teasingly. “Which of us drew the short straw? Heads up!”
Three of the glass el
evators descended together. In the middle one President Croft rode with Grace, his wife, and Erin, his daughter, along with Vanessa Hopper, his Vice President, and his security detail. Other dignitaries rode the flanking elevators.
The doors to the elevators settled on the ground floor, and the doors hissed open, greeted by loud and enthusiastic applause.
President Croft approached the podium. “Thank you! Thank you. I will admit, it is strange to hear cheers for this building. My critics, in my own party, as well as across the political aisle, would have had me believe I was coming to meet an angry mob with pitchforks, and flaming torches. Time and again, these last few years, I have heard the same cries over and again, about this project, and about many others, in cities and towns across the states. We can not afford these projects. The voters won’t stand the cost, for dollars on their tax bills. But what is the cost of doing nothing? The cost of doing nothing, is not itself nothing. The cost of doing nothing is for there to be Americans who work every day, who earn and pay tax, who not only live in need of assistance, but are shamed and belittled for that assistance. The cost of doing nothing is a family struggling to choose, between their rent, their bills, or their food. The cost of doing nothing is to have a system that lets its citizens slip through the cracks, without healthcare, without food, and without a life they can afford. Is that the America we want to be in the next Millennium? Is this the America we want our grandchildren to learn of in history books? One built on the hard work and industry of those denied the dreams we boast of so proudly to the free world? One built on the toils of those we treat with the contempt of the workhouse?”
Catherine chuckled in Harris’s ear. “Goes on a bit, doesn’t he?”
Harris didn’t answer. He was watching the First Family. Elois was staring at him.
Croft leant on the podium. “We all have this ideal of what America was, and what is should be. Every campaign advert I have ever seen, and ever made, harks back to the days when honest work gave you a good life, and a home you could afford. I’m tired of hearing excuses why we can’t afford that America now, for all of you.”
There was movement in the corner of Harris’s vision. He looked around, and saw a man taking a pocket camera out of his jacket, and snapping a photograph.
Catherine sighed. “Maybe the Secret Service were wrong about their threat? A lot of weirdos must write those letters and never intend to follow through.”
“Maybe,” Harris growled. “Maybe not.”
Croft’s tone had lowered tone, but was no less powerful. “It’s the America you deserve, it’s the America your children, and your grandchildren deserve, and it is the America we are going to build. The one hundred and twenty two towers like this, that we will build in sixteen cities across America are only a start, the new schools, the new clinics, the new libraries, parks, community centres and railways, will only be the beginning. My critics will be proud to point out how little change they make, how much more still need to be done, but… My Millennium Projects will be a promise, of the America we intend to take into the next century.”
The crowd cheered the president off the podium, and he made his way down from the stage, as music began to play.
Croft stepped through the crowd, shaking hands, greeting the crowd, and asking questions.
Harris tapped his earpiece. “I can’t see him.”
“I can,” Catherine promised. “All is good. Go try the buffet.”
Harris stepped around the crowd, and headed for the elevators. “I’m going to take a look at his exit-route. Don’t let him out of your sight.” He flashed his ID at one of the security agents, and stepped into the elevator. The doors slid closed, and he began the long ascent up the side of the building. Floor by floor flashed past. The first four floors, the balcony floors, were a shopping mall and town centre, with a gym, bars, medical centre and other facilities. Above that the floors were full of spacious, but simple, apartments, interspersed with garden spaces and communal plazas.
Outside four more towers, built to the same template, were rising up over the Portland skyline.
There was a flash of reflected light in the steel skeleton of the growing tower.
Harris tapped his earpiece. “Cathy, work was halted at the Garden Market Towers, right? Have any contractors or workers booked in?”
“No, they were locked in.”
“Okay,” Harris said. “It’s probably nothing, but I’m checking them out.”
*
Harris circled over the city, to approach the construction site through the other half-built towers. He tapped through the sensor options of his Scimitar armour’s visor, and picked out a figure lurking in the open floors of the construction site, assembling a long barrelled weapon.
Harris cycled down the power of his flight pack, and dropped down onto the bare concrete floor, in a crouch, his crossbow drawn. “Okay, drop the weapon and hands up.”
The figure was a middle aged man, in a plaid shirt and jeans, a little on the flabby side, his hair clipped short to disguise his bald spot. He was preparing a rail gun, an anti-tank weapon connected to a bulky power unit, fed from the mains.
The guy didn’t drop the weapon, he span on his heels, bringing the bulky weapon up to aim.
Harris squeezed his trigger. The stun bolt hit the would-be assassin between the eyes.
The flabby guy’s eyes rolled back into his head and his body collapsed beneath him.
Harris tapped open a Secret Service channel. “Control, this is the Scimitar. I have an immediate threat at my location. One¬”
The flabby assassin rolled over and reached for the rail gun. The veins in his neck and hand were livid and black. His jaw set, and his eyes wild. He dragged himself up, snarling like an animal.
Harris fired another two stun bolts at him.
The darts detonated against the man’s chest, but he didn’t flinch, and didn’t slow. He kept moving, lunging forwards for the railgun. Harris kicked the weapon aside, but it only skidded as far as the cable to the powerpack would let it.
The man swung for a punch too fast for Harris to dodge. It hit Harris like an artillery shell, slamming Harris against the wall, the pain stealing away his breath.
The guy smiled, and kicked the railgun up off the floor, held it out, and pulled the trigger. The weapon bucked, as it spat armour piercing flachettes at many times the speed of sound. So fast the friction of the air burned white hot against them, and left a trail of light against the shadows. He braced against the recoil as though it was nothing, the veins bulging on his neck again.
Harris kept moving, sprinting faster than the guy could aim, ahead of the flachettes ripping apart the wall, shredding the concrete and steel. There was a shriek of complaint, and the ceiling crashed down, billowing dust and smoke.
The guy stopped firing as he choked and gagged on the dust.
Harris tapped onto thermal vision, and thumbed the dial on his crossbow. A lightning bolt loaded into the breach. He crept into the cover of a pillar, and pressed himself into cover. His camouflage adapted to the charcoal grey air.
The guy fired quick bursts, blindly into the smoke, trying to draw Harris out.
Harris took aim and fired his shot.
The lightning bolt hit the railgun, and detonated in a corona of blue energy, that overloaded the gun’s electronics, and tore the weapon apart.
The guy howled in anguish, and tossed the gun aside, grabbing the thick power cable, and swinging the powerpack off the floor. He hurled the powerpack across the building, with superhuman strength. It smashed into the wall, gouging a crater from the concrete, and bending the steelwork.
Harris fired two more lightning bolts at the man. They detonated in forks of electricity that made the guy arch and flail. Harris leapt forwards and popped his flight pack, to add a split second of acceleration behind a punch, that he drove hard into the guys face.
“No!” The man roared the word, and clawed at his head. “No!”
He sprinted forwa
rds, putting all his weight, his superhuman speed, and strength, behind a leaping tackle, that crashed against Harris like a tidal wave, and carried them both over the edge of the tower and into the open air.
Harris fired his flight pack, and broke free of gravity, before he could plummet to his doom.
The assassin let go, and fell away faster than Harris could catch him.
00011
They walked through an endless desert of ash, and cinders, that drifted and swirled on the whispering, lamenting, winds, beneath a brimstone sky. They wore their Yeomen armour, to protect them from the scouring debris on the winds. Tilda lead the way, her armour shrouded in a billowing cloak. Charlie followed, beside Robin Greenwood, in her olive green plate mail, decorated with mistletoe and ivy, a pole-axe laying over her shoulder.
“She seems nice!” Robin shouted, over the wind. “Melinda.”
“Melisa!” Charlie nodded. “She is.”
Robin nudged him. “So? What’s the plan?”
“Plan?”
“For when you see her!” Robin laughed. “Personally, seeing as she’s a true friend, I would forget the poetry and flower-words. Just trust her with the simple truth.”
Charlie sighed. “The truth isn’t exactly… simple.”
“Why not?” Robin adopted a theatrical tone. “Melisa. You have been a good friend. I think I can serve you better as more. What say you?”
Tilda snorted. “Oh, be still my rampaging heart. Hardly poetry is it?”
“Poetry?” Robin shook her head. “Poetry buys you time to either trip over your own tongue, or chicken out. It’s like leaping into a lake. You have to plunge down, and face the cold.”
“Or the slap,” Tilda added.
“Well?” Robin gestured with her poleaxe. “What would you have the boy do?”
“Play in traffic, and spare her the misery.” Tilda grumbled.
Charlie paused. Something itched at the edges of his mind. “Wait. Something’s coming.”
Robin readied her axe. “I don’t see anything.”
Tilda reached under her cloak for her sickle. “Where?”
