Apocalypse's Prelude

by Carl Damen

  Allen lowered his eyes, let his arms drop to his sides. "Have you ever actually seen the movie, The Mouse That Roared? Why do you think I chose a metaphor from an obscure comedy film rather than from any other possible source?"

  "Many characters are played by one actor?"

  Allen snorted and patted his belly. "Well, this is more of a reverse case of that, but no. In that film, before the Q-bomb enables the Mouse to gain control of the world and enforce world peace, a small group of soldiers come in and bring America to its knees by stealing the Q-bomb. With the cold-war superpower brought down, all it takes is an empty threat for the little guy to rule the world."

  Jack stared at him, not comprehending. Didn't matter, though; keep him talking. Couldn't be more than a minute until the cut...

  "You're the soldiers, Jack. And while you were waiting for me to start the revolution, you did whatever you were told to do. And when the General told you to go in and hijack the Israeli arsenal, you did it. And Melana, she took the Iranian arsenal. Merd? He took our own. One by one, you went in to the superpower, and you took the bombs. The whole world's in our hands now, Jack. World peace, just the push of a button away."

  Jack swallowed. "You never believed we could do it on our own. You never intended the Defenders to be the Q-bomb."

  Allen sadly shook his head. "Right now there are too few of us. Right now, the world is too afraid of us, too willing to risk all to destroy us. Hell, right now you can be taken out by a mobile vibrator glued to a speaker. Insinuated in the current power structure, you're a god. Outside, you're a threat. But take away the power structure—"

  Jack lunged, ripped the rifle from Naomi's frozen grip, leveled it at Allen.

  "Ah-ah, not so fast." Allen held his hands up, a smile slowly creeping across his face. "You've still got about forty-five seconds until the cut. Until then, let me show you what I've got in store, huh? I've got a lot of nukes, yes, but I've also got you, and her," he gestured to Naomi, "and all of them down there. And most importantly, I've got your tower."

  Jack readjusted his grip, held the rifle close, wanted so badly to squeeze. "What do you mean, show me?"

  The smile was fully formed now. Suddenly the room was gone, exploding away in a shower of super-heated hydrogen, swirling around, reforming into a thin needle piercing the sky, a triple-helix of dodecahedrons wrapping around it, sprays of bridges rising up and falling in parabolas to connect to smaller towers that rose from an immense pit, the walls honeycombed with homes and shops and parks and—

  And people. Millions of people moving in and around the tower, all with skin like honey, hair cascading in braids of wooly brown hair, their facial features an unrecognizable blend of all the races of earth. And as they moved, as they did work, as they lived and loved and even died, Jack saw that within each of them was the spark that resided in him, the innate power that suffused his DNA. All were Defenders.

  Jack gasped, surprised to find himself in the moonlit penthouse, surprised to find the solid weight of the rifle pressed into his shoulder.

  "Thirty seconds, Jack."

  Jack was breathing heavily, barely aware of anything except the vision Allen had shown him.

  "You have a choice now: live life in a state of normalcy, try to reform the world with your twelve Defenders, try find the rest, try to bring peace. Or you can believe what I've shown you, believe the impossible things you now know, and miss the cut. Leave me in charge of this body, let me do what I must do, and be assured that your death really will be meaningful."

  Jack's gaze flicked down to the rifle, back up to Allen, who was slowly spreading his arms, inviting Jack to make a choice.

  The ever-present buzz of the scramblers stopped and Jack tensed his inner-self, ready to make the jump, to push everything that was him into Mistaren, into Allen. But as he waited, as the seconds ticked by, he found himself unwilling to. Allen had spoken to them of defending the world, of standing up to be the final line against war. But from the moment they had appeared, they had done nothing but bring strife, encourage others to fight for them, to die for them. By existing in this world, they negated their own purpose.

  It was nearly enough for Jack to shoot Allen right then and there, to kill Naomi while she remained frozen, to go back downstairs and finish the others. But history had shown that their disappearance would not leave the world any better. As Jack thought about it, he realized things would only be worse: now that the world had seen a Defender, an E.H.U.D., what would stop any nation from making their own?

  No, the only solution was to let Allen have his way, to let him unleash his hellfire on the world to cleanse it from wickedness. Then from the nuclear glass the E.H.U.D.s would emerge: stronger, more numerous. They would protect the humanity from what was worst in itself and the future... would be glorious.

  A shudder passed through Jack as the scramblers returned. He lowered the rifle.

  Allen lowered his arms and bowed his head. "I was right, all those years ago. You were the one who knew best what I wanted. And, as my no man, I fully trust your agreement on this. You did good, Jack. That's why I picked you."

  Jack forced the rifle back into Naomi's hand. "I don't know how much of my plan we have to stick with..." There was still a trace of hope in his voice.

  Allen shook his head and groaned as he settled himself back into his seat. "I'm the great martyred prophet; they've heard me say everything they've wanted to hear. You're their leader now; I'm sorry."

  Jack nodded, gestured to Naomi. "She came in and knocked you unconscious.

  "Ah, yes." Allen's forehead rippled, then split, blood oozing down from a shallow gash just above hie eye.

  Jack stepped away from the sitting area, approached the wall of glass. He looked out at the dead skyline of the city he had grown up in, had struggled to get back to. It had suffered so much in the previous weeks, so much of it because of him. And now it would burn, would be wiped away because of him.

  He turned back to face Allen, his mentor, his friend. "Tell Grant... tell him thanks for everything he's done and... and I'm sorry I couldn't do more for him. And tell Amanda that I know she'll do great things. And tell Lauren... Tell her I've always loved her."

  Allen nodded, then slumped back in his seat. Naomi blinked, looked around, saw the shivering from of Jack in front of the window, saw Mistaren—Jack—blinking and slowly leaning forward.

  "I made it," he croaked, his voice slurred and raspy. "He's in my old body. I made it..."

  Naomi turned, raised the rifle, and calmly fired once, twice, three times.

  As the bullets ripped through Jack's body he couldn't help but inwardly smile. Three bullets to kill him on his third death, three bullets to finally end his third life. And as he fell to his knees, his body numb and unresponsive, he though he saw Suzanne standing in the shadows.

  I did it, he thought. I made another choice, just as terrible as the one I made for you. And this time, I am cut free. This time I escape what is to come. And now I am with you, forever...

  7

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 30

  Alice...

  The single word was enough to wake her, to send energy coursing through her body. She sat up, her heart beating, her cot creaking. Around her she could hear the fitful sounds of a dozen sleeping strangers. Beyond that, the sounds of a refugee camp at night. Hushed conversations, muffled vehicles driving about, raucous laughter from somewhere farther off.

  She shivered; it all sounded too much like the riot nights she had spent in Cohen & Associates, listening to the voices outside drift in. The sounds of looting, fighting, killing—

  No. Can't think of that. That was behind her, she was in a better place now. She was directly defending the Defenders, after all.

  We did it... But something more important has happened... We need you in the tower...

  The voice seemed familiar, a presence she knew well, but there was something odd about it, something she couldn't quite square with her initial reac
tion. Something foreign...

  Jack. It had to be Jack. He had never spoken into her mind like this before, connected on this personal a level. That's why she couldn't recognize this voice as one of the other E.H.U.D.s. But his innate self, his Jack-ness that she knew so well, that had come across. It was just as Cyd had explained: the non-verbal persona of the individual was communicated directly into her mind...

  She slipped on her boots—she hadn't dared undress any further—and slipped out of the tent. The tent and its surrounding were in shadow. Lights bobbed here and there in the distance, but most of what could be seen was Sky Crest and the mall. They both glowed with inward light, as well as by spots pointing at them. Making them easier to see for aircraft? What aircraft?

  The lights at least made it easier for her to find her way to the building. As she walked into the lobby she quietly wondered, What floor?

  Penthouse... The door will be open...

  She could get used to this.

  The elevator opened, she rose, the elevator opened, she got out. As she stepped into the small foyer on the penthouse floor, the double-doors opposite her opened on a thin man in his sixties, ruffled white hair topping a ruffled white sweat suit.

  "Hey, Alice. Glad you could make it."

  It was unnerving. The inflection, the cadence, it was all Jack. But the timbre, the slight raspyness, it was so wrong. She stared into the face of Loblen Mistaren, the man she had seen so often on television and the web, and tried to look past the eyes to her friend within. She couldn't see him.

  "Catch me up."

  "Right." He strode back into Mistaren's apartment, his body moving not as if he owned this place, but as if there were urgent business to attend to. That was comforting. She followed him.

  "A couple years ago we took over the world's nuclear arsenal. Never really thought about it; it was just a mission and we were a little... preoccupied."

  As he said the last word, a sudden image of Cyd flashed through her mind. That explained some things...

  "Turns out he's been planning on wiping out our technological civilization. We'd be left to pick up the pieces."

  "Shit. It's a good thing you got him when you did."

  Jack stopped and rounded on her. "We didn't. He's—we've—implanted subconscious instructions in high-level political targets, plus code in the actual launch computers. He's set everything to launch in just over three hours."

  "Oh, fuck." This was not the news she wanted after just waking up. Jack's words kept replaying in her head, and one particular phrase stood out: our technological civilization. She had lived in the ruins of that technological civilization for three days; it had been bad. She could barely imagine what living through a nuclear wipe-out of that civilization would be like. Scratch that—she could imagine it all to well. She had seen movies, played video games. She didn't want to imagine it.

  But in the back of her mind a little voice said, You know you could survive it. You've already proven you can survive it...

  "What are we going to do?"

  Jack didn't answer; his eyes were unfocused. He must be having a very important conversation. She took this chance too look around the much-vaunted General's home. She knew the floor-plan well enough, had even put in some work on a remodel a few years back, but being here in person was different. For one thing, here there was furniture. And other people. Scattered across the main living area and up onto the loft were several armored Defenders, moving so little they resembled decorative flourishes more than actually people. Some were staring out the great curving windows that made up the outer walls, some were looking down at the ground, some were focused on a small glowing tablet...

  "I'm sorry, did you say something?"

  "Yeah, what are we going to do?"

  Jack gestured to the group clustered around the tablet. "Vince is trying to cut through the General's firewalls, but the security is unlike anything he's ever seen. Even if he got though, he wouldn't be able to shut down anyone's launch mechanisms; footballs rarely connect to remote networks. Our best current bet is to warn everybody, then try to create a barrier to protect the tower, maybe the mall."

  Alice was already shaking her head. "You and I both know this isn't build to withstand atomic bombing. And besides that, there's no way we could make something that would in, what, six hours? Maybe the mall—"

  "I don't mean a physical barrier."

  "Oh?"

  A wicker rocking chair in her peripheral vision slowly rose from the floor.

  "We create an energy field around the buildings, angle it to deflect the blast. Some of us are already working through it. Maybe you could help them with the shaping."

  "I'd need to know where the the explosion's coming from, magnitude—"

  Jack was nodding. "He knew we were coming, probably expected us to do this. He left a very detailed map of thousands of targets, along with details of which missiles where going where."

  "Shit..." Alice was having a hard time standing, the situation was so surreal. Hearing the voice of Loblen Mistaren referring to himself as a separate entity, hearing the voice of her most down-to-earth colleague discussing the creation of a psychic energy shield to deflect a nuclear blast... Was this how Jack felt when Merd had first made himself known?

  Then, guilt. "He knew you were coming. He had too many details of the plan, he must have read my mind, or—"

  The leathery hand on her shoulder quieted her. "He couldn't have known you were coming... Hell, for all we know, he could have programmed this plan into us before he ever released us..."

  "Why would he do that?"

  Jack shrugged. "Who knows? But we don't have time to think about that right now. Right now, we have to survive." He gestured up to the loft. "Talk to Vince. He'll give you the details you need to get started. Right now, I have to make sure the people of Philadelphia survive this shit-storm."

  He squeezed her shoulder, then walked off in the direction of the private rooms. Alice had no idea why.

  Hey, you coming up, or you want to talk from there?

  She looked up to see Vince putting the tablet down on a desk, bending forward to get a closer look. He didn't acknowledge her in any way, but she was able to recognize his presence.

  Yeah, I'm coming up, she thought.

  Heavy knocks on the the door pulled her from sleep. She blinked, levered herself up so she could see the clock over Than's shoulder, took in the time: 3 AM. Amanda sighed and closed her eyes, trying to decide whether it was worth getting up just to tell whoever was pounding on her door to go away. Then she reminded herself who she was staying with, and realized that if Mistaren or one of his subordinates was waking her in the middle of the night, he had a good reason.

  Grumbling, she rolled out of bed, put on a robe, and opened the door a crack. "Yes?"

  Lights were on beyond the door, leaving the knocker in shadow, but the silhouette looked like Lob. "Mrs. Latterndale?"

  Sounded like Lob, but he knew who she was. "Yes?" She glanced back to where Than was sleeping, tried to think of what she could do if this person turned out to be a threat.

  "Ma'am, I'm sorry to wake you, but we have a very serious problem."

  Dark forms were moving beyond Lob. They were clearly soldiers in E.H.U.D.s with helmets off, but their faces looked strange, skeletal... Another person walked by, a weathered looking woman in baggy clothes with bright-red hair. Amanda gasped as she recognized Cyd.

  She slammed the door, rushed back to Than, shook him, hissed, "Get, up, we have to go, get up!" She knew this was a useless gesture; there was no where she could go with her son. There was only one way out of the room...

  The door creaked open, and Mistaren stepped inside. "We don't have time for this. The world's about to end, and we need to get everyone inside."

  Amanda froze. From anyone else, those words be hyperbole. But from a respected general, the National Security Adviser? She had to believe him.

  "Mom, what's going on?"

  All she could see w
here Than's eyes, afraid, staring up into hers. What could she say? The truth? "I don't know honey... But the Defenders are here."

  Than's eyes widened, and his throat jerked as he tried to swallow. "Dad said they were on our side, right? He was going to talk to Jack?"

  There were shuffling footsteps behind her. "Why doesn't the boy go with nurse Dolad here?" The door creaked again, and when Amanda looked back she saw the familiar face of Grant Dolad, the grieving brother. Why was he here?

  "We need to talk. Privately," Lob stressed.