Covenant

by James Maxey

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Sarah, what’s happening?” said App over the coms. “Where do you want me to send Sister Amy?”

  “She’s dead,” said Sarah. “So’s my mother if she doesn’t get immediate medical attention. Cut and paste her to the medical unit, now.”

  “Can do,” said App.

  Her mother’s body vanished. Sarah flew to where the local App had fallen. He hadn’t moved an inch and she wondered if she’d killed him too. To her relief, as she landed she could see his chest rise and fall. “We have a second target for the medical unit. It’s, uh, you.”

  “Me? Oh, wait, you mean the double I created with that new clone app?”

  “Yeah, he’s here. He fell under Sister’s Amy control. Maybe. Anyway, I had to take him out.”

  “Hmm,” said App. “My clones should vanish when I reboot, but I can’t reboot with the servers down.”

  “How do you know he’s the clone and you’re the original?” she asked.

  App didn’t answer. After a few seconds of silence, the App before her vanished and the App on the coms said, “He’s in the medical ward.”

  “Excellent,” said Sarah, raising her hand to shield her eyes as she turned toward the glowing sun dangling between the two pillars. “Now let’s cut and paste Servant out of that energy siphon.”

  “No!” the sun said, in a voice that sounded like Clint, only full of static.

  “Hold off on the cut and paste,” said Sarah, floating toward the ball of energy. With the faceplate of her helmet set to maximum darkness, she could just barely make out the human outline at the center of the light.

  “Clint?” she asked. “You okay?”

  “No,” he answered.

  “Then let’s get you out of this.”

  “No!” the outburst was followed by heavy, ragged breathing. Then, in a barely audible whisper, “Texas.”

  “Texas?”

  “The space machine is locked onto his position,” said App.

  “Wait,” she said. “If we free him, New Jerusalem stays in old Jerusalem. He’s the only power source that can move the city back into place.”

  “I’m reading his vitals,” said App. “That machine is killing him. He won’t survive if we try to move the whole city back.”

  “Move… the city,” said Clint, his voice trembling. “Or… it’s… war.”

  “He’s right,” said Sarah. “We can’t leave the city here. Sister Amy didn’t need to control any nuclear weapons to trigger a global firestorm. You think the players over here are going to stand by passively and let a city built by Americans sit on sacred ground? We know there are nations in the mix that have nukes. We also know they have a history of spreading the pain around. This city has to go back. Every last nail.”

  “I’m telling you, we’ll kill Clint,” said App.

  “Do… it,” Clint begged.

  “Do it,” said Sarah, clenching her fists.

  “I’m not going to—“

  “Do it! That’s a fucking order!”

  App said nothing.

  “Acknowledge!” said Sarah.

  “Acknowledged,” said App. “The specs are still programed into the space machine, but its thirty petabytes of data. It’s going to take a minute for the command to process.”

  “Then let’s hope there are no nukes already in the air.” She turned to Clint. “We’re doing it. We’re moving the city back.”

  “I’m… sorry,” said Clint. “All… my fault.”

  “Save your strength,” said Sarah. “Don’t try to talk. No one blames you. A terrible person did a terrible thing today. A good person is going to do a good thing. You have nothing to apologize for.”

  Clint didn’t respond. As the silence lingered, she wondered if he was even still conscious. Suddenly, she went blind. The humming of the machinery all around her fell silent.

  “It’s done,” said App. “You’re back in Texas.”

  Sarah pulled off her helmet, blinking as her eyesight came back. Clint was no longer a glowing sun but a man, or something like a man. His body was human in shape, but distorted into cartoonish proportions by his massive musculature. His face was similarly distorted into a monstrous mask of oversized features. This was Clint’s true form, the shape of the man who’d been known as Ogre.

  Clint’s eyes were open. He fell to his knees, staring at his misshapen hands. He whispered, in a deep, gravelly voice, “It’s gone.”

  “You’re alive!” she cried, flying forward to wrap her arms around him. “Oh my god, I’ve never been so happy to hear someone speak.”

  “It’s gone,” he said again.

  “What’s gone,” she asked, pulling back to look into his face.

  He met her gaze. “My force field. I can… I can feel your touch. I’ve never really been touched before.”

  He dropped backward to sit, looking dazed.

  “We need to get you to the med unit,” said Sarah.

  “I’m… I’m okay,” he said.

  “I think that’s for the doctor’s to decide,” she said.

  “I’m okay,” he said, looking up at her. “It’s gone. My power… the machine tore it free. I… I could feel it come loose, like a thing that had been living inside my body, like a demon. It’s gone. I’m… I’m free.”

  “Yeah, let’s get a second opinion on that,” said Sarah. “App, med unit for both of us, please.”

  The dark basement that smelled of blood and ozone gave way to a brightly lit medical ward smelling faintly of bleach. App ran up to her. “I thought you were in the jump room?”

  “That’s my clone,” said App. “I’m the original App, the one you slammed into a wall. Once I woke up I shifted to ghost mode then back again to fix myself. That was fast thinking on your part. You were right. Sister Amy had taken control of me.”

  “How’s my mother?” Sarah asked.

  App’s face went slack. He took a deep breath.

  Sarah already knew what he would say.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Good-Bye

  The funeral was over. The last guest had gone back into the house, leaving Sarah alone beside her mother’s grave in the family plot that held the body of her father and brother. She waited a long time, watching her shadow creep across the grave. At long last, with the sun nearly gone, a second shadow joined hers. Sarah turned around to find Amelia standing behind her, dressed in a simple black suit with a long skirt and black leggings, an outfit similar to Sarah’s own funeral attire, if you overlooked the fact that it wasn’t made of fabric, but of coal-black iron. On the lawn in the distance was a rather retro looking rocket ship gleaming red in the sunset, resting on three swooping tail fins.

  “I knew you’d come,” said Sarah.

  “Why were you so certain?” Amelia asked. “I didn’t come to father’s funeral. Why should today be any different?”

  “Well, dad did try to kill you,” said Sarah. “I imagine that creates some conflicted feelings. Mother never did anything to earn our contempt.”

  “That’s not precisely true,” said Amelia, crossing her arms. “As we grew older and more powerful, all I ever saw in her eyes was fear. The only thing I heard in her voice was despair. One can only feel pity so long before it changes to contempt.”

  “Mother didn’t ask to be married to a telepath,” said Sarah. “She certainly never expected to give birth to children who weren’t bound by the ordinary laws of physics. I think she bore her lot with dignity. While you’ve been gone, I think she rose to being great in her own right.”

  “I try to avoid the news from Earth,” said Amelia. “But Richard has told me about the Covenant. It sounds like Mother tried to carry on our father’s legacy, even knowing how much damage he’d done.”

  “Dad wasn’t God,” said Sarah. “He was just a man with strange powers. You can’t be bitter that he had flaws. He really did want to make the world a better place. He did some damage along the way. I get how that happens now. I�
�� I’m the one who killed Mother. I was trying to save her from people who would have killed her anyway and I subjected her to multiple sonic booms in a confined space.”

  “You did what you had to do,” said Amelia. “Mother had to know she’d make enemies carrying on our father’s legacy. Tragedy is the inevitable outcome of trying to make the world a better place.”

  “After Jerusalem, I would have agreed. But I see things differently now. What would you have wanted Mother to do? Make it a worse place? Turn her back on the world’s problems, even though she had the power to at least try to make a difference?”

  “I’ve come to appreciate the Hippocratic Oath. First do no harm.”

  “If that was the only rule that doctors followed there’d never be surgery or chemotherapy. Sometimes you have to inflict harm for the chance to save someone from a greater harm. Dad tried. Mother tried. I finally see the necessity of their choices. If they sometimes messed up, well, they were only human.”

  “I don’t agree that father was only human,” said Amelia. “He was something more. Like you are. Like I am. We’re…” she paused, looking for a word, “apart from humanity.”

  “You started to say above,” said Sarah.

  “Perhaps,” said Amelia. “Is this inaccurate?”

  “Yes,” said Sarah. “So we were born different. Guess what? Everyone is born different. Some people are smarter, some are taller, some can jump high, and some have the kind of courage that lets them run into burning buildings. You think we’re something special because we could fly or toss tanks around? I’ve known people who were braver than us. I’ve known people who were kinder. We’re part of the great spectrum of mankind. Thinking we’re either cursed or blessed is pure vanity.”

  “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,” said Amelia with a smirk.

  “Is that… the Bible?” asked Sarah, pretty certain it was. “Since when did you start quoting the Bible?”

  Amelia shrugged. “After I moved to Mars I had a lot of time to kill. I decided to read the book that had caused so much grief. Ecclesiastes stuck with me. The rest, meh. I don’t get what the fuss is about. The book is so big and vague that a person can find anything they want to find inside it.”

  “You should have a little chat with Servant,” said Sarah. “He seemed to find something useful in it.”

  “Useful enough to throw himself into prison for the rest of his life,” said Amelia.

  “Another thing he has in common with you,” said Sarah.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Isn’t that what Mars is? Your prison?”

  “No,” she said. “Mars is… work. It’s the one place where I can make full use of my powers and not worry about hurting anyone.”

  “I’d like to offer you another place,” said Sarah. “I want you to come back to earth. I want you to be part of the Covenant.”

  “No.”

  “Hear me out. What you did in Jerusalem… there are so many myths and conspiracies surrounding that day, no one really knows what’s true anymore. There are a thousand cover stories we could come out with that would let you operate in the open as a hero again. You loved being a superhero in a way I never did. It was in your blood. The world still needs you, Amelia.”

  “It doesn’t,” she said. “Fanatics sent a ninja chimp all the way to Mars to kill me. You think I’d ever get any peace here on Earth?”

  “So there are lunatics who’d try to kill you a couple of times a week. It would be just like old times!”

  “No,” said Amelia. “I’ll be returning to Mars after paying my respects. I also… I wanted to say good-bye to you. I know I left without… without…” She took a deep breath. “I wanted to tell you personally that my leaving had nothing at all to do with you. I know we fought all the time. But, I love you, Sarah. The hardest part of life on Mars is not having you near.”

  “I could stop in and visit,” said Sarah.

  “I don’t think that would be wise,” said Amelia. “My children have been ill ever since your teammates visited my home. When I let them inside, I neglected to consider that they’d be carrying microbes my children had never been exposed to. I’m confident they haven’t picked up anything fatal, but still hope to spare them further misery.”

  “If you don’t toughen up their immune systems, they’ll never be able to come to Earth.”

  “They couldn’t come to Earth even if I wished it. Having been born on Mars, they’d be too weak to stand on Earth, or even to crawl. Their internal organs would fail from the strain even if I provided them with exoskeletons. Richard, too, has adapted to Martian gravity, and can never return.”

  “You seem pretty healthy,” said Sarah.

  “I work out every day,” said Amelia. “Even so, I’d be flat on my back if my limbs weren’t supported by iron.”

  “So, that’s it?” said Sarah. “You show up, say good-bye, and fly off never to be seen again?”

  “It’s best this way,” said Amelia, walking to her mother’s grave. She knelt and placed her hand upon the sod. “Good-bye,” she whispered.

  She rose, opening her arms as she turned to Sarah. “One last hug?”

  “Did we ever hug?” asked Sarah. “I don’t remember us being big huggers.”

  “One first hug?”

  Sarah smiled and walked forward, spreading her arms. The two sisters embraced. Amelia whispered in Sarah’s ear, “The world is in good hands.”

  Sarah whispered back, “It feels like it’s on my shoulders.”

  Amelia pulled away. “I should go.”

  “You only just got here.”

  “I’ve done all I came to do,” she said. “Take care.” She stepped into the air onto a rail that formed from nothing. The black rail arced and grew into a solid path to the hatch of the rocket. Amelia’s black boots sprouted wheels and she kicked off, gliding back toward her ship.

  “Take care,” Sarah called after her.

  Amelia entered the ship, looked back from the door and gave one final wave. Sarah crossed her arms, feeling like she didn’t want to acknowledge her sister’s efforts to never see her again.

  The hatch to the rocket closed, the rail disintegrated into dust, which swirled as the rocket rose, slowly at first, then vanished as it streaked over the horizon, leaving thunder in its wake.

  “Ten minutes,” said the guard, as he motioned for Clint to take a seat in the cubicle in front of the glass.

  “Thanks,” said Clint.

  On the other side of the glass in the visiting room sat App. Two Apps, in fact. Though, since they were in civilian clothes, he guessed they were actually two Johnnies.

  “Hey,” said the left Johnny.

  “Good to see you,” said the right Johnny. The right Johnny looked like he hadn’t shaved in weeks. His beard was thin and spotty, downright ugly, actually, which didn’t bother Clint but he was surprised since Johnny was normally more groomed.

  “I, uh, heard about your, um, problem,” said Clint.

  “It’s not a problem,” said the bearded Johnny.

  “We’ve given up on trying to figure out which one of us is the original,” said the beardless Johnny.

  “With the server that housed our original data destroyed, we’ll never know the truth,” said bearded Johnny. “A lot of that hardware was Rex Monday’s own design. Some of the code was hardwired into the system.”

  “Does that mean…”

  “The next time I die, I die for good,” said bearded Johnny.

  “That’s not the Lord’s plan for you,” said Clint.

  “Nailed it,” said beardless Johnny. “Forty-five seconds. You’re buying dinner.”

  Bearded Johnny rolled his eyes. Then he said, “You know, man, I’ve been thinking a lot about souls.”

  “You talking to me, or him?” asked Clint.

  Bearded Johnny shrugged. “It’s just, what was my backup if not a soul? A digital soul, the real part of me, the thing that turned the meat and bones and guts of me into a man.�
��

  “If so, it’s gone now,” said beardless Johnny. “Meat and bones and guts is all we have left. And brains. Which means we’re just like everyone else.”

  “Everyone else doesn’t get to talk to themselves and have to listen as they talk back,” said bearded Johnny. Then, he grinned. “And I’m okay with that. I mean, for my day job, I dress in a red jumpsuit and fight crime. This isn’t the career choice of someone who wants to be like everyone else.”

  “So you’re sticking with it?” said Clint. “Even though you might get killed for real now?”

  “Sarah could be killed just as easily and she’s sticking with it.”

  “She is? I thought she’d go back to her other life.”

  “We’ve talked about that,” said Beardless Johnny. “Apparently she and her husband have split up. And, hey, she told me her real name.”

  “I was there. Sarah Knowbokov.”

  “No, I mean her married name. Get this. It’s Sarah Lee.”

  Bearded Johnny sighed. “I don’t know why he still thinks that’s funny. Just how many snack cake jokes does the world need?”

  “I hope she can work things out with her husband,” said Clint.

  “She’s pretty busy running the Knowbokov Foundation. She’s got a plan to relaunch the Covenant. She was wondering if—”

  “No,” said Clint.

  “She says she could have you a full pardon inside a day if you give the word,” said bearded Johnny. “You were just a kid when you had your crime spree as Ogre. The public likes a good redemption story. You could come back and be a hero.”

  “Or I could stay here and do what I was meant to do,” said Clint.

  “Rotting in a cell is a waste of your talents,” said bearded Johnny. “Even without your powers, you’re still a big tough guy who can handle himself in a fight.”

  “I’m not rotting in a cell,” said Clint. “I’m serving my time. I’m talking every day to men who need to hear what I have to say. Servant was an example of how to escape justice, proof that a lie could bring rewards and fame that truth could never purchase. But truth has a value of its own. Repentance means something. By owning up to who I was, I’m finally free to show the world who I am. Maybe, in the long term, I’ll do more good for the world behind bars than I ever could as a free man.”