Apocalypse's Prelude
Page 42
He was so distracted he didn't notice the person standing in the middle of the hallway until his knees collided with something and his chair stopped moving. He looked up into the face of Dr. Forre.
"Now isn't the time, doc. You can check on me after I've called my dead wife."
Forre snatched the mobile and tossed it aside.
"Hey!"
"I watched your little speech." The doctor knelt so he was face to face with the president. "And you know what I kept thinking about the whole time I was listening to you talk about the end of the world?"
Edarus tried to motor in reverse; he had to say goodby to Amanda. She might survive, but he wasn't trusting Mistaren's magic with that. Forre grabbed the wheels, holding the chair in place.
"I kept going over a conversation I had with Mistaren, back when he was busy pulling favors to get me set up as your uncle's doctor. Funny thing was, I had no memory of the conversation until just know."
The joystick snapped back upright, the motor died. Edarus was paying attention now.
"He was telling me all about this place, about all the little goodies he had stuffed in the basement. And somehow you came up in that conversation... how if anything catastrophic should happen, I should show you what's in the basement..." As he spoke, his voice rose in pitch, until it was almost a whine at the end. "You won't believe what's down, there... But you really need to see it." He looked frightened.
Edarus ran through possibilities, couldn't think of anything that seemed any more frightening than what was going to happen in just a few minutes. Forre seemed like a relatively sane man, aside from his guilt over the Defenders. If whatever was in the basement was worse than what was going on around him, it had to be important...
But so was his family. Every time Edarus thought of the imminent apocalypse, he remembered his family: Mandy's striking smile, her indomitable will, Than's half-toothed grin, his naïve loyalty...
The basement could wait.
"My wife and son are about to die, Trent, and I need to say goodbye. I was the one who told them to go to Philadelphia, I was the one who didn't force them to come here with me. I'm the one who killed them, Trent. For once in my life, I'm putting off work to talk to them, to tell them I love them, alright?"
Forre shook his head, stood, stumbled away.
Edarus motored over to his dropped mobile, glanced around, made sure no one was watching. The mobile twitched, jumped up onto his foot-rest, jumped again up into his lap. He dialed her number, waited, heard the disinterested female voice, "We're sorry, but service is unavailable in your area."
And in that moment he realized it was too late. He had had them for so many years, took them for granted, ignored them for the promise of power. He couldn't just pick them up now that he saw all his ambition disappear in a wave of fire. All he could do was pray that he had made the right choice in sending them with Mistaren, hope that the preternatural General would keep them safe. It was little solace, but it was solace all the same.
The mobile slipped back down to the floor. Edarus turned and glared up at Forre, who had appeared silently behind him. "Alright. Show me what Lob left in the basement."
Forre chuckled, the sound belying the panic in his eyes, the terrors exuding in waves from his mind. "This way..."
He turned, and Edarus followed.
"So, uh..." Forre cleared his throat. "You remember all those blood samples I took after your episode?"
10
Chapter 31
Chapter 31
Dozens of tents rattled in the cold November wind that blew through the compound around Sky Crest. Scraps of paper, clothes, a thousand abandoned objects lay out in the rising sun, the only remaining occupants of the compound. At the far edges, the gates of the barricades were left wide open, letting in all those who were desperate enough to brave the cold for a desperate shot at survival.
The sad truth was that very few people would be coming.
Closer in to the central buildings trucks lay abandoned, stripped of any useful supplies. Inside the great slab of the mall the canyon was filled with tens of thousands of people, all gathered at the edges of the walls, all looking up into the brightening sky, desperate to see a flash of light, to face the fiery end, to finally have the tension burned away and find out weather or not they would survive to see another sunrise.
From some angles, the blazing-red tower of Sky Crest could be seen, rising through the morning mists and into the approaching daylight. From the windows of Sky Crest, frightened residents could look down at the frightened faces under the sea of glass, could glimpse for just a moment the enormity of what was happening, of the lives burned away.
Alice watched the faces, tried to pick out individual features, could not differentiate individuals from the mass; she was too high up. She stood by the window of the penthouse, absently fingering a small hole in the window. It looked like a bullet had passed through here...
It's time, if you'd like to join us...
There it was, the not-quite familiar voice of Jack, the strange-feeling essence of her friend. She turned from the window, walked up the stairs to the loft where the Defenders sat, lightly clothed, in a circle. Their eyes were unfocused, their bodies rigid as they tonelessly hummed together. At the end of the circle closest to the window sat Jack, looking utterly alien in his new body. She tried to look, to see her friend, the man who had risked his life coming out into the city to save her; the man who had in turn sent her into his home to arrange a coup.
All she could see was the wizened form of Loblen Mistaren. In that moment she realized her friend was dead—again—was gone just as surely as he had been on the day she had gotten the job offer from Cohen. Sure, her friend might come back some day, might stare out at her from those eyes, but it was seeming increasingly unlikely. Now, he was one of them.
The humming increased in intensity, and now all of the Defenders stiffened, their muscles pulling taut. A shadow seemed to pass over the room, and for a moment Alice imagined she had seen a shimmer out over the city. They were forming the force-field...
She turned away from the ring of Defenders, looked at the others gathered here to watch. In the corner where the loft's railing met the core was a futon, holding the form of Agent Frank Norgent, heavily bandaged, trying to lift himself up enough to see out over the city. Sitting on the edge of the futon was Grant, looking tired, his clothes disheveled and hair tangled in a wild mess. He too was staring at Jack, was silently judging whether or not this old man was really his brother... or so Alice imagined.
Next to them, both wedged into an arm chair, were Amanda and Than Latterndale. Alice still couldn't believe the first lady was here, wanted desperately to know what course of events could have split up the first couple.
Amanda gasped, and Alice spun to see a bright speck flying through the sky, glinting in the morning light. This was it...
For months, she had been wrapped up in the cause, had tried to defend the Defenders in whatever meager way she could. Now, she needed them to defend her. She could only hope they did a better job than she did.
It was time to reevaluate Edarus. True, he had always been distant. True, he had always been more interested in his career than in her, than in Than. But as Amanda watched Mistaren gather the Defenders, watched him lead them in melding their minds and forming their shield, she began to realize what pressure must have been exerted on Edarus through the past months, possibly past years.
Based solely on the way he had motivated her that morning, had convinced her to gather a refugee camp of forty thousand into an empty mall, all without any concrete evidence of a threat, he was a capable manipulator. What lies had he told Edarus, what promises had he made him? And now more was clear for Amanda to see: Mistaren was a Defender. Of course he could manipulate Edarus...
The thought tickled at the back of her mind: who's to say he manipulated Ed at all? Who's to say that wasn't just Ed acting on his own to fulfill his ambition?
Likely it was a
bit of both: Mistaren using his powers to play on Edarus's natural ambition to convince him to do... what? The two had certainly been working together on something. Probably securing the Defenders' power for themselves...
She noticed the other woman coming up the stairs, the civilian the Defenders had taken with them. She searched for a name—Alice.
So, Lob was a Defender... Ed was a Defender... What other secrets were being kept from her?
"Mom..." Than stumbled over from where he had been sitting in the corner. "What's going on?" He yawned.
"Nothing yet, sweetie." She patted the side of the chair, and Than climbed up next to her.
"Can we call dad again?"
Amanda swallowed; she wasn't ready to force Than to come to terms with the death of his father. He couldn't even say goodbye... "I'm sorry... I tried calling just a minute ago; there's no signal."
Than sighed, then stared off at the ring of Defenders. "But he's going to be okay, isn't he? I mean, he's a Defender, too."
She stiffened. She hadn't realized he knew. Maybe Edarus was right; maybe it was better to be in the dark...
Alice was walking around now, passing by Norgent and Dolad, glancing her way. Amanda caught her eye, nodded fractionally, then looked past her to the sky...
She gasped. A flicker of red and yellow, something moving quickly through the sky. She had only a moment to grab onto Than, to hold him close, to feel absolutely powerless before the point of movement disappeared.
As she was moving, she knocked her elbow against the mug of tea sitting on the chair's arm. As it fell, the tea spread out in a parabola that seemed to freeze in the moment that the world dissolved into utter whiteness...