Apocalypse's Prelude

by Carl Damen

  As these memories fought their way to the surface, they dragged another memory with them, a conversation with Allen—

  "Two months. I recognized you on TV almost a year ago. That's what brought on the memories."

  Melana continued to stare into the mirror. She knew all to well about "the memories." The one now glaring brightly in her mind was almost to terrible to think of.

  "Some of the others found me. We've been going around, each of us finding and following another, trying to bring back the memories as quietly as possible."

  "What do you mean, 'quietly'?"

  "Shara." His voice lost all trace of emotion. She took that to mean he was reeling from a deep loss.

  "She was in the Metro when she got it back suddenly."

  "The Metro explosion."

  In the mirror, she saw him nod.

  In the mirror, the other Melana nodded, caught up in the memory that was ripping the real Melana apart. She turned away, truly looked at Vince for the first time, saw more of him than a shape in the mirror.

  His body was as she remembered it: Dark skin pulled tight over jutting bone. His eyes had changed, though. All emotion, all humanity had been bleached from them. Living the memories was one thing; experiencing them again was a trial that none truly survived.

  "How many of you are there?"

  "Nine, now, but we've found at least ten more."

  "What are you going to do with this private army?"

  Teeth gleamed out of the darkness. "What Allen wanted us to do."

  In the mirror, the other Melana was laughing.

  "I don't think you really know what Allen wanted."

  Vince shrugged. "Who ever truly understands a prophet?"

  "Merd didn't."

  Vince suddenly leaned forward, his speed and intensity startling Melana. "There was something wrong with Merd. Someone else got to him first. Used him."

  "Who would—"

  "Who do you think?"

  Melana nodded. "So you're building us back up, to fight back on our own terms before someone else uses us."

  "'Fight' is a rather strong word, but... yes, essentially." The tension past, Vince leaned back and sighed. "So, you going to join us? We won't make you, of course, but chances are you're being monitored somehow. They'll eventually figure out you're not Lois Lane anymore." What'll it be? Pretend to be human a little while longer, or embrace your inner self?

  Melana cringed at his voice—his essence—in her mind, but she understood why he communicated this way. It was the way the E.H.U.D.s—the Defenders—spoke amongst themselves. Vince knew what he was.

  Melana...

  Melana knew she couldn't go with him. Knew she might not survive the night, if she listened to the memory that for now remained trapped in the mirror.

  "I need time to think about it."

  Vince frowned. What aren't you telling me?

  Tomorrow... she thought. Tomorrow I'll go with you... Tonight... tonight just let me pretend to be human a little while longer...

  Vince nodded, and then was gone.

  Melana dropped into the chair Vince had vacated. She warily eyed the mirror, but it was empty. The other Melana had already escaped.

  The memory played again in her mind, the other Melana reviewing it and laughing.

  She lay curled up on the floor, the naked bodies around her curled and sleeping as she was, hurriedly metabolizing the protein they had been rewarded with that night.

  Stepping cautiously through the field of bodies were the two minders. One cold, malicious, eager for the Defenders to suffer. The other... Allen.

  As he passed by her he stumbled slightly, his boot gently grazing her back. She was instantly awake, alert, although she dared not show it.

  She couldn't hide anything from Allen, though.

  I want to talk with you... relax... don't give anything away...

  Images drifted in: alien landscapes; images of anthropomorphic creatures acting out normal activities; pornographic fantasies swirling into ever more depraved depths.

  Block the rest... just me and you... and especially not him...

  Melana let herself relax, then focused on the dreaming minds around her and pushed them away. Now it was just her and Allen.

  Sensing their mental seclusion, Allen began to communicate, even as he continued to move through the room.

  Mistaren has a job for you...

  Fear and loathing flooded from Melana into Allen; the General had been a dark god, the motivating force in her life for nearly a decade.

  Allen was able to resist Melana's emotions; he was one of only two who weren't beholden to Mistaren's rule.

  Focus... He has a job for you... I have orders to program you for it...

  That was even more frightening than the thought of doing a job for the General. She had done jobs for him before, had loathed them but done them, and all of them had been been more or less of her own free will. Other Defenders hadn't been so lucky. In the early days of the program some—the more vocal, violent, vigorous—had found themselves brought low by the minders taking them over and programming them to obey Mistaren's will.

  Allen had made no friends for his part in the programming, but he had more than made up for it by what he had done since then.

  I won't program you to do it... But I will ask you to do it...

  Fear fought with curiosity, and curiosity finally won. What action could be so horrible that Mistaren dared not ask his thralls to perform them, but which Allen felt was important enough to ask of his supporters?

  What do you want me to do?

  There was a brief flare of disgust from Allen. I don't want you to do it... Mistaren is preparing for something... He's using us for his own game, possibly agains the government... I don't know why, but he wants you to kill the president...

  The news was somehow anti-climactic. Did the general really need to program her for this? She had killed before, was prepared to kill again. One order, and the president would be dead by her hands.

  And you want me to do this?

  It... it may be necessary... if we fail, if the Q-bomb fails, we must strike back... killing the president would be the best target...

  Why me?

  Mistaren thinks—

  No... You... You could have asked anyone to do this... why me?

  You're the only one I trust enough for this...

  What about—

  The only one I trust will do this...

  Melana thought about that. If, in some theoretical future they were free from this, were functioning as the Q-bomb, there would be no reason for her to kill, ever again. But if that mission somehow failed, if everything somehow went wrong, would she be able to sink this low, to murder the president?

  I'll do it...

  I hope you never have to...

  And then she was alone.

  No, not alone... The other Melana was there, fully dressed, healthy, staring mournfully out from the mirror.

  She seemed to be pleading with her: Things really aren't that bad. We haven't necessarily failed.

  Yes, we have, Melana answered. We have not made ourselves known as the solution, the end to war, to strife. We are war, are strife. We have been used, betrayed. There is no recourse but to strike against them.

  The Melana in the mirror continued to stare as the real Melana prepared to go to war.

  Security around the White House had been extended for several blocks around the mansion. Once busy roads had been blocked and their traffic diverted to the already over-crowded streets, which now teemed with buses taking up the slack for the out-of-commissionMetro system.

  Melana approached the cordoned-off area as part of a tour group that was now stopped and passing around binoculars to catch a glimpse of the distant White House. When she noticed that a pair of soldiers were coming their way, Melana slid inside herself and became suddenly un-interesting to her fellow tourists.

  The soldiers talked to the tour guide for a moment, made certain that she h
ad proper documentation, then continued on their patrol, unaware of the companion they picked up.

  After a few minutes, their patrol pattern reached a cross-street and met with another patrol that was making a long loop back to the White House. When the second patrol began their return, Melana was with them.

  They crossed Pennsylvania Avenue, reached the White House lawn, and then made the trek back to where Melana had joined them. Melana continued over the lawn, stopping only when she reached the main building. She quickly found a small alcove, invisible from any observer beyond the range of her control, and slipped inside.

  Her mind stretched out and passed through the confines of the presidential mansion, quickly locating the president and all of his staff. The big man himself was in the kitchens, nursing a tumbler of vodka, agonizing over the shambles of his once glorious career.

  It would be so easy to finish it all right now—just a quick push on the right part of his mind and... oblivion. She let the thought trickle out and touch the president's mind. To her surprise, he didn't reject it; he wanted to die.

  Melana spent a few moments contemplating what to do. While Latterndale had been responsible for the legislation behind the program, he was nothing more than a puppet for Mistaren. In fact, he had always been uncomfortable with the program, had tried several times to stop it. He deserved death, certainly, but a quiet, humane one.

  But if Melana did that, killed him in a way that could be mistaken for natural causes, then he would simply be gone the next cabinet member in line would slide into place and there would be no change in the status quo. It wasn't enough to kill him; Melana had to make an example of him.

  For that to happen, she would have to make herself known...

  There were no scramblers on now to protect the President from Defender assassins; the same vibrational frequencies that wreaked such havoc on the Defender's abilities also caused splitting headaches and nausea in unprotected baseline humans. If Melana made herself known now, it would take at least a minute for the scramblers to be activated. More than enough time for a death, less than enough for an escape.

  A secret service agent walked past her hiding spot, and Melana stepped up behind him, staying close as he conversed with the armored Marine guarding one of the building's entrances, then slipped in after him as he entered the White House.

  As she stood by the door, she did another mental sweep of the building. No one had noticed her; in fact, they were all feeling exceptionally confident. Since Lanlin's attack, they had been on constant alert, but nothing had happened in the last two months, and they were beginning to irrationally believe that nothing ever would.

  She left the door—her best escape route—behind and went in search of her target. With each step she became more certain that she wouldn't be leaving on her own terms. One way or another, she would be martyred with this action.

  In a few moments she was in the kitchen, staring across a marble island at the pitiful grey figure of the president. She moved in on his mind, opening him up and making him more talkative. It wasn't very hard; he had had quite a bit to drink.

  "Hey," she said.

  He looked up, squinting at a familiar member of the White House staff. "Oh, didn't see you come in."

  "How are you feeling?"

  Latterndale shrugged. "Going to hell in a hand basket; so as good as can be expected."

  "And the impeachment?"

  Latterndale sighed and looked into his nearly empty tumbler. "They're ripping me apart in there. Didn't do anything illegal, dammit, but they're just so sure that I was behind this whole clusterfuck."

  She almost laughed aloud at his self-delusion. It didn't matter to him if what he had done was right or wrong; it was legal.

  She took a step closer and leaned on the island. "Who do you think I am?"

  Latterndale blinked and looked up at her, his head tilted to one side. "What d' you—" He stopped and opened his mouth, then shoved himself up from the island and stumbled away from her. "Security!"

  She felt it as his mind slipped through the hole she had left for him, had recognized her first as the AmeriNews correspondent, then as the monster that he had created. He felt so very guilty, afraid for his life, wishing desperately that he had had the Defenders killed off—

  No remorse. No wish he had never done. Only a wish that he had covered himself better.

  She no longer had second thoughts about what she would do.

  Minds around her reacted to the president's summons; she didn't bother to stop them. Instead she reached out and felt the presidents intestines, laying like nested snakes in the bottom of his belly, and pulled at them, shoving them past his other organs and then through his diaphragm and up around his windpipe. She pulled the coil tight, and the president's eyes bulged as air and blood-flow to his brain were cut off. He fell to his knees, clawing uselessly at the protrusion in his throat.

  A moment later Melana's grip relaxed as the high-pitched scream of a scrambler began to echo off the walls. She stood, hands in the pockets of her sweater, as Secret Service agents swarmed into the kitchen. All wore protective earmuffs.

  The first agent reached the president and stopped short when he saw the unnatural bulges in the president's neck and torso. Several other agents began to stack up behind him, unsure of what to do.

  Behind them all Melana stood, hunched over, felt her head throbbing in rhythm to the beat of the scrambler, slumped to her knees, screamed.

  One of the agents entering the kitchen noticed her, her reaction to the scrambler. He pulled out his pistol and aimed it at her. "Get down!"

  On the other side of the room the president, now on his back, continued to scrabble at the ground, to kick and twitch.

  "We have a Defender!"

  The agents closest to the president knelt and tried to hold him still as he writhed. Those further back turned and leveled weapons at the woman who writhed on the floor just as the president did.

  "We have a defender!"

  Despite the pain, despite the constant assault of the scramblers on her every nerve, Melana pulled up one last thought, which she forced on everyone in the building.

  You dropped the Football... The Q-bomb has detonated...

  14

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 10

  It was around midnight when they knocked on the door. The first knock had no effect, the second knock woke Edarus, and the third knock was followed immediately by the sound of the door being thrown open.

  Edarus jolted upright, immediately on edge by the absence of the security alarm. There were footsteps on carpet, wood, stairs, carpet again.

  Voices: "Spread out!" "Secure every room!" "Mr. Latterndale! Mr. Latterndale!"

  Upstairs, in his bedroom, he heard the terrified, suddenly-awake scream of Than, Amanda's frantic shouts of protest and anger. "Get away from him, you bastards! You can't have him, you can't—"

  A flashlight, piercing blue in the darkness, switched on and swept the living room.

  "In here!"

  Edarus looked over the back of the couch and shielded his eye from the light.

  "The hell—"

  "No time, Mr. Latterndale!"

  Strong arms gripped him and pulled him to his feet.

  "Package secure, moving out."

  Disjointed images flooded around him—men in dark business suits, some wearing armored vests; the occasional E.H.U.D. standing implacably in each doorway; Mandy, pushing down the stairs, trying to keep the men away from her son.

  The intruders quickly ushered Edarus towards the front door. "Can't I at least get my fucking pants—"

  "Sorry, sir; no time, sir. Clothes are in the vehicle."

  "Edarus! What's going on?" Amanda was down the stairs, struggling against captors of her own, pushing desperately toward her husband. "What's going on?"

  He tried to break away from the men who held him, but they were too strong. "I don't know! Get back to Than and—"

  A young woman in a business su
it and armored vest approached Amanda. "Everything will be all right, ma'am."

  "Where are you taking him?"

  Edarus was almost to the door.

  "Please, ma'am, just return to your son. You'll see your husband again soon. Now, we're going to help you pack up anything you'll need for a few—"