True Dark

by Niall Teasdale

  Cygnus and Svetilo were out trying to keep roads open for the emergency services. Svetilo was grumbling a little because she also had a new costume to show off, but she did not have Jacob’s tolerance to the cold. She was wearing her new jumpsuit, but she was wearing a thick coat over it, along with a woolly hat and a thick scarf. Zoe had, apparently, insisted. Mostly, what Cygnus and Svetilo were doing involved moving vehicles which had become stuck or been abandoned, but Cygnus was also flying snowploughs between locations in the city which needed immediate attention.

  ‘Gah! Can’t they see I’m working here?’ June sounded exasperated, even over the radio.

  ‘Camera crews?’ Cygnus asked. She was two hundred feet above north-west Uptown, flying a snowplough toward Deale Harbour.

  ‘Yeah. I mean, okay, I’m a blonde in a swimsuit…’

  ‘A transparent swimsuit.’

  ‘… flying supplies about, but what the Hell? And it’s only transparent in places.’

  ‘I think it looks great,’ Zoe said. She had been given a radio in much the same way June and Heather had been given one initially: it let her listen in and make sure Svetilo was okay. She found it fascinating and was sometimes glued to the thing even when Svetilo was at home with her.

  ‘I think it’s just deserts,’ Cygnus said. ‘You put me in a stripper outfit and I got all those loving photographs of my ass in the news. Now it’s your turn.’

  ‘You are used to attention, Astraea,’ Svetilo said. ‘This should not bother you. Give them a few minutes for an interview and they will leave you alone.’

  ‘Yeah,’ June allowed, grudgingly. ‘I guess I could talk to some of them after this round of supplies. I could use a coffee anyway.’

  ‘Coffee?’ Cygnus almost squeaked. ‘I’ll drop this truck off and I’ll be over.’

  ~~~

  About the only warm place in the warehouse June and Jacob were using as a distribution centre was the break room. That meant that Jacob was standing outside it with a mug of coffee in his hands when Cygnus arrived, and he was being interviewed by a camera crew from ACPN.

  ‘I do an irregular patrol around the Friendship Park area,’ Jacob was saying as Cygnus slipped past, ‘and I’m on call for emergencies like this one. Mostly, I stick to my job which is handling private cases with my partner in Fortuna Investigations. We specialise in cases with an Ultrahuman involvement.’

  ‘I thought you were supposed to be getting interviewed,’ Cygnus said to June as June handed over a mug of coffee. ‘Also, you are a blessed angel.’

  ‘I think angels wear white,’ June replied. ‘I told them that I’d give them a few minutes if they let me grab a coffee first. And Jacob gets to plug Fortuna this way. I mean, he’s not really much better known than I am.’

  ‘True. How are you managing? You’re not as strong as me and you’re toting around some pretty heavy weights.’

  June gave a shrug. ‘I’m resting up between runs. The weight is fine but carrying it over distance is tiring.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Cygnus agreed. ‘I came up with a new load-hauling configuration for this. I lost a bit of speed, but that’s really not a problem, and I can shift heavier loads.’

  ‘How heavy?’ Jacob called out from outside the door.

  Cygnus cringed a little: she hated making Jacob sound like a wimp in comparison. ‘A bit over a million tons,’ she called back.

  Jacob had obviously turned back to the camera crew. ‘And that is why we let Cygnus handle the heavy lifting.’

  ‘You seem to know Cygnus well,’ the reporter said.

  ‘I registered her back when she started and I was in the UID.’

  ‘And you have a connection to Twilight as well, I believe. Is there any news on what happened to her?’

  ‘Uh, no,’ Jacob said. ‘We have no additional information on her.’

  June drained her mug. ‘Time for a rescue, I think.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Cygnus replied, ‘he’s lapsing into “police spokesman.”’

  Giving a grin which had a bit of a bleak edge to it, June set off out of the room, putting on her best Astraea look as she went.

  24th January.

  ‘You seem very comfortable in the cold, Astraea.’

  June watched herself up on the wall screen where her interview was showing on the morning news. ‘It is weird seeing myself on TV,’ she said.

  ‘Well,’ Astraea said from the screen, ‘I’m one of the few Ultras who can operate in space. I don’t really feel the cold.’

  ‘And it’s weirder hearing my own voice.’

  ‘That’s always weird,’ Penny replied.

  ‘I guess. The next question was weird, whoever asked it.’

  ‘You can fly in space,’ the reporter said, ‘but you aren’t from there?’

  On screen, Astraea developed a quizzical smile. ‘Odd question, but no, I was born in Flushing.’

  ‘I think aliens have become a thing to worry over,’ Penny said. ‘Captain Freedom mentioning them didn’t help, even if that was months ago. You mentioned space. The reporter jumped to a conclusion.’

  ‘Yeah…’

  The report had shifted over to the main studio, with a backdrop of weather maps. ‘… snowfall will continue today. We can expect breaks in the weather as the heaviest of the snow moves north this evening. Travel bans are still in place throughout most of the North West.’

  June gave a sigh. ‘More heavy lifting, I guess.’

  Penny smiled. ‘A hero’s work is never done, love.’

  ‘Yeah, but when you get truth and justice powers, you do not expect to spend your time shovelling snow.’

  ‘Well, the worst should be out of the way by Monday, so that means some idiots are going to be out trying to loot what they can in Churchton. You can punch some looters. That should be cathartic.’

  Beijing, China, 31st January.

  There were looters on the streets of Beijing. They were hardy people since the sun was just starting to lift above the horizon and the temperature was well below freezing. There was a biting wind coming down from the north, but it was not threatening snow: it did not rain much outside the summer months.

  The cold did not bother Andrea, of course. She stood on the roof of a hotel about a mile east of what was left of the palace. Naryan Tan had dropped his missile right on top of Tiananmen Square. Some of the Forbidden City had survived, especially on the north side, but much of it was flattened or burned, or both. Mao’s mausoleum, the Great Hall of the People, and the National Museum were no more. The Monument to the People’s Heroes was just part of the crater. Andrea doubted she would have ever got the chance to see sights like that – the Forbidden City had been around for six hundred years and now it was best suited to conversion to a car park – but she would have liked to have had the option.

  The looters did not bother Andrea either. The city had been essentially abandoned following the nuclear explosion and a later event which had caused more destruction. There were still people living in the northern divisions, but they were struggling. Some of them braved the dangers of the southern city to get tinned food and other supplies. If they were lucky, they wouldn’t have their finds stolen by other citizens on the way home. Andrea was going to be looting a few stores herself shortly, though most of her ill-gotten gains would be given to the family she was living with in Nándúlèhé. They had been nice to her, and she was getting them what they needed in return. Well, what they needed and a toy or two for their daughter.

  Shifting her gaze, Andrea looked south and west where the initial trail of devastation from the emergence of Guàiwù could be seen. It was an unimaginative name, meaning ‘Monster.’ It had come, or so people said, from the crater of the explosion. Estimates of its size ranged from fifty feet to two hundred! It was reptilian – everyone seemed to agree on that – with a head like a crocodile, or maybe a T Rex, or a horned demon. It destroyed buildings with a sweep of an arm and breathed out some form of energy beam which burned men to dust. Even those who s
omehow survived the beam’s initial touch died days later in horrible pain. The monster had demolished huge swathes of the city, killed tens of thousands, and then wandered off toward the west. It was more of a legend than a fact, but there were all those flattened buildings to prove it.

  Guàiwù had gone west. Andrea had been moving north, but now Mongolia and Russia loomed ahead of her and she was reviewing her plans. She would follow the path of the monster, generally anyway. To the west was Tibet; maybe if she headed that way, she could find a guru on a mountain to give her advice.

  ‘That is a crazy idea,’ Twilight said.

  ‘Who asked you?’ Andrea replied without looking around.

  ‘She’s right,’ Midnight noted. ‘You’re nuts.’

  ‘That is not what I said!’ Twilight squeaked.

  ‘She’s not going to find anything in Tibet. She’s not going to prove she’s nice by trailing that monster.’

  ‘She might! Wait, I was the one that said it was crazy.’

  ‘Shut up, the both of you,’ Andrea said, though there was no real bite in it. ‘That’s where we’re going.’ She turned, looking around for buildings which might have been department stores. ‘Now, where are we going to find a My Little Ultra doll in this place…’

  San Francisco, CA, 16th February.

  Diamond looked discreetly around the interior of the bank before glancing across the room at Rex and giving a small nod. Around the room, four men drew silenced pistols and shot out four cameras. Rex drew his own weapon as the guard began to react, putting a bullet in the man’s forehead.

  ‘Listen up,’ Rex called out into the stunned silence which followed. ‘Everyone on the floor. If anyone lifts their head, everyone dies. We want the bank’s money, not heroes. Stay still and quiet and you won’t be hurt.’ Diamond settled onto the tiled floor, knowing that the little speech was largely a lie. Many of the people here were going to die, whatever anyone did about it.

  In the rear of the bank, Cherry Blossom walked into the manager’s office, escorted by Jack. The manager was overweight, not too tall, and scared out of his mind. Cherry Blossom smiled at him and the fear seemed to just evaporate from his mind. He smiled back, a little tentatively. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘we want to get into some of your deposit boxes. We know that you have a master key to open them.’

  ‘That’s only for use when ordered by a court,’ the manager said, but he sounded a little hesitant. Was it really that important when he used the key?

  ‘I know, but it will make things so much easier for me if you give me that key. And Jack won’t need to hurt you, which I’m sure you’d prefer. It’s not your money we’re after. Why should you risk your health over someone else’s possessions?’

  It just seemed so obvious… Turning, the manager walked over to a safe on the office wall, punched in the code to open it, and took out the key. Still smiling, he turned it over to the pretty Chinese woman.

  ‘Thank you,’ Cherry Blossom said, and then she turned and walked out of the room. Jack stayed right where he was, staring at the manager with what seemed like malign intent.

  Detonatrix was waiting in the vault with three of Diamond’s suit. ‘Come on, come on,’ she muttered as Cherry Blossom handed over the key to a man in a pristine suit who immediately set to work opening deposit boxes.

  ‘You’re impatient,’ Cherry Blossom commented.

  ‘The fun doesn’t start until we’ve cleared this place of everything we want,’ Detonatrix replied.

  Cherry Blossom gave a shrug. ‘It’s all going according to plan. I’m a little surprised. Robbing a bank is not something I ever thought I would do.’

  ‘I’ve knocked over a couple. I’m generally a little more violent about it.’

  ‘You’ll get to be violent before we leave.’

  Detonatrix smiled. There was something of a manic light in her eyes. ‘I know.’

  It took ten minutes for the boxes they were interested in to be cleared and the contents put into bags for transport. By then the staff were probably wondering why the silent alarm had not summoned a horde of police vehicles. Cherry Blossom checked the vault and the men and then pressed a finger to her ear. ‘We’re clear,’ she said.

  Back in the manager’s office, Wraith stepped in behind Jack and carried on to where the manager was continuing to look nervous. He managed to pull his mouth into a smile on the arrival of the new, strange woman. She said nothing, but she did give him a smile in return. Then she pulled a small knife from a sheath on her left wrist and the manager flinched back.

  ‘You don’t need to worry about this,’ Wraith said, holding up the blade. It was barely three inches in length, but it could still do damage. It did do damage: Wraith lifted her left hand and drew the blade across her palm. Both she and the manager winced, but then she put her hand on his chest and his expression changed. His eyes widened and his mouth opened and he screamed. The screaming continued for a second or two before his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed onto the floor of his office. Wraith glanced at her healed palm and then bent to check the manager’s pulse. Then she straightened up and marched out of the room, followed by Jack.

  The explosion which followed a second later had all of the people in the front of the bank screaming, but Rex’s voice bellowed over them. ‘That is simply to eliminate evidence in the vault. Stay right where you are until we have left the building. Anyone who follows before we are away from here will be shot.’ Then he started for the door.

  At that point, Diamond got to her feet and went with them. For once, she was not too worried about people identifying her. She almost wanted them to. The entire group walked out to board a van which had just pulled up on the street, but Diamond paused at the door and looked at Detonatrix. ‘Go ahead, sugar. I know you want to.’

  Detonatrix grinned and raised a hand toward the glass doors of the bank. A burst of energy lanced out from her palm, blasting easily through the reinforced glass. Then the entire front of the building exploded outward. ‘That is what I live for!’ the tall woman shrieked. Then she put a second blast in through the shattered frontage before leaping into the van.

  ‘Well done, everyone,’ Diamond said as they pulled away. ‘That went just perfectly. When we’ve liquidated those bonds and other items, we’ll have the capital for the next phase, as well as a nice little bonus for personal use. And, of course, we’ll have given the San Francisco Stars and Mink something to think about. Not a bad day of work, if I do say so myself.’

  Ordos City, China, 6th March.

  Ordos City was not a bad place. The locals did not seem to be especially used to foreigners there. Of course, the city was a municipality in Inner Mongolia and it was largely rural. It had taken Andrea a while to figure out where she could go to stay a while, but she had found a family with a spare room in the house. There was no happy reason for that: the room had been their son’s until he had died recently, but they seemed happy to have someone to look after under their roof and she was helping.

  Plus, her Mandarin was getting better. ‘I have fruit,’ she said as she carried a crate in through the front door. ‘There are some vegetables. And I managed to get some fresh fish.’ She put the crate down on one of the small counters in the kitchen. ‘I think things are getting better. More supplies coming in.’

  ‘Thank you for going,’ Mrs Pan said, smiling warmly. She started to lift the crate before Andrea could warn her, and immediately stopped. She was a small woman, on the elderly side of middle age and not that strong. ‘That is too heavy for me.’ She began unpacking the contents rather than moving the entire thing. ‘You are stronger even than you look.’

  ‘Yeah.’ They had never asked about her eyes, or anything else. She had arrived and asked if she could pay for room and board with work. There was plenty of work and Mister Pan no longer had his son to help take care of things. Not since Guàiwù had paid the city a visit.

  The monster had spent some time ploughing through the city of Shuozhou after lea
ving Beijing. Army units had tried to stop it, even bringing out experimental energy weapons. The reports Andrea had heard suggested that the beast had seemed stronger, more energised, after being hit with a laser. Soldiers and civilians alike had died in droves; there were still people dying of what Andrea thought was radiation poisoning weeks later. The thing was unstoppable.

  Its path had shifted northward when it got out of Shuozhou’s suburbs, and it had found its way to Ordos as though drawn to the concentration of people. As far as anyone could tell, it did not eat or drink. It slept for about four hours whenever it got tired, but when it was awake, it was looking for something to destroy. It had come to Ordos and ripped a long gash of destruction through the southern part of the city, into the core where many of the newer buildings were, and then out toward the west. Mister and Mrs Pan’s son had been in the city, working in an office, when Guàiwù had torn through. Someone came to tell the Pans that their child had died bravely, helping to get others out of the building, but he was still dead. They were, unfortunately, far from the only family in that situation.

  ‘I’ll go help Mister Pan with that fence,’ Andrea said, heading for the kitchen door. The Pans had a small amount of land behind their house which they used to grow vegetables, when there was rain to water the soil anyway. The fence at the back of their land had needed some work for most of the last year. Mister Pan had laughed when he said how his son was always ‘just about to come help’ with that.

  Mrs Pan gave Andrea a smile. ‘You are a good girl.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Andrea conceded as she stepped outside. She spotted her shadow out of the corner of her eye but waited until the kitchen door was closed before saying, ‘And whatever you have to say, you can just shut up.’

  ‘You’re going to have to take care of those bandits sooner or later,’ Midnight replied.

  ‘She’s right, you know,’ Twilight added.

  The bandits in question had a base in the ruins of the southern part of the city and they were responsible for the relative paucity of supplies. Andrea knew she was going to have to deal with them since the remains of the local police force had either joined them or had no idea what to do about them. Still… ‘I know that. I’m going to handle it. But you can still shut up.’