“It’s a good thing we’re flying over the water low, right?” Leaf forced a smile. Fire began to leap from his Adam’s apple, choking his speech. His nostrils churned locomotive billows of smoke. People wailed in terror, sobbing, covering their eyes with their hands like children.
They shrieked in unison as they were sucked out of the plane and into the ocean. Kendra snatched up a camera and pulled it away from its tripod. She might have to do this home video camcorder-style to the last instant, but she wanted the world to witness its history unfolding.
“What you have seen is the consequence of crossing the lines between scientific innovation and human conservation.” She jabbed the camera up to show the bottom half of Air Force One as it exploded midair. She shouted over the roar of the exploding engines. Fighter jets spiraled out the sky. Pilots were ejecting themselves and dropping like seed pips, their planes exploding before they hit the water.
Kendra’s body plunged into the surf. The camera shocked her hands and flickered dead. Now only the New Orleans area could wait in breath bated silence to see which way the fight for humanity would turn.
*****
Chapter 18
The chaos on land and sea was lost on him. Dexter Owens scrambled over the sand. He pushed like a Marine at boot camp on his elbows and belly. Jane’s double lay near the water a hand cast up over her face, groaning.
“I dialed him with my mind…It’s like a punch. I need to save my strength…” She was talking out of her head. It was lost on Dexter how she could even exist beyond her original body. That didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she was alive in some sense of the word and needed his help.
“Jane? Hey, it’s me!” Dexter shook her arms. Her silver-blue eyes leaked open.
“Where is Joseph? The serum…He has it safe, right?”
“Yeah, Jane. It’s okay.” Dexter held his breath. She reached a hand to his cheek.
“You’re safe. You and the girls?”
“Yeah. The girls are in protective custody, remember?” He clung to her palm, kissing her knuckles. How strangely warm she was! She put off a faint electrical surge.
“Hiya, kiddos. If we wanna make it back from this, we’d better get a move on!” Joseph reappeared, clawing through the dust. He’d slipped the syringe full of the remixed serum/antidote into a keyring he’d had in his pocket and slipped that around a shoelace, tying it around his throat. Jane’s hand shot out, fingering it. Only then was she calm, smiling exhaustedly.
“I can’t hold this body for long.” Jane took a shaky breath. Her nostrils began to glow and she thrashed. The beach was flooding with the choppers, kicking up the sand, covering them in the fallen walls of sandcastles.
“Don’t talk like that, fireball. That’s not you. Get her up, Dexter.” Joseph touched Jane’s face. The girl smiled and traced her fingers over his own.
“My blood isn’t pure enough. This body’s blood. It’s a copy. I’ll die of some kind of nuclear sepsis pretty soon.” She looked to the sky, admiring the shades it took on as the superhuman struggle spread across it.
“Not if I can help it. You still have all your medical equipment in the tent, right, Joseph?” Dexter looked at the older man who nodded, eyes crossed.
“Take her. Make back for the City as quick as you can. We have the same blood type, Jane! If I give you infusions, maybe then…” He twisted back on himself, desperate. As if he was handling an infant, he eased Jane into Joseph’s arms.
“Going back that way is suicide!” Joseph tried to grab at his hands.
“Dex, no!” Jane yelped, too weak to fight.
“You saved my life. Now I’m going to save whatever’s left of yours.” Dexter bolted for the mobile lab just as the pirates set it on fire.
*****
Chapter 19
“Easy, little missy. Your Uncle Taylor’s got you well looked after. Never mindin’ his stench.” Croc lit up a Camacho and blew the smoke in great puffs through what remained of his putrid nostrils.
Reilly sat up. Her hair was standing on all kinds of crazy ends, feeling the chill of their lingering death. Many eyes trained on her. Hollow eyes, yellowing from the natural decay that was only slowed by whatever early effort She-Hitler had made to suspend corruption that had failed so utterly. One of them was playing a rusted harmonica that slowly, surely fell silent.
“Okay, so I’m awake. Now it’s a party. You gonna pour some of that Scotch for me, skippy?” Reilly tossed her hair out of her face and barred her teeth at them. Taylor bowed over his flattop, cackling until his breathing machine began to skip. He had to pull it out to pick the flies from it and he dropped the guitar.
“Yo, Lord Vader! What you laughin’ at, huh?” Reilly hauled herself to her knees. The undead men slapped their knees, laughing, spilling liquor down their withered skin and leather jackets.
“I’m laughin’ at you, lil’ darlin’. Mm, you might be Leona’s daughter, but you’ve got my guts and Kiara’s mouth.” Taylor forced his breathing apparatus back to the base of his throat and smiled, showing a mouthful of brass-capped teeth.
“Okay, so you’re another psycho saying that I’m related to the She Hitler, yeah? Where’d that load of baloney come from anyway? You’ve been on the internet, huh? Look, don’t believe half that crap you read. Stupid frats type it up for course credit.” Reilly spat. Taylor nodded.
“Ah, so that’s how it is? I’ve been in the sandbox since long before the internet was as microwaveable as you say it is, kiddo.” Taylor tossed his long dark hair out of his eyes. His bright blue eyes glittered as he studied her. His death, darkened lips curled in a ghost of a smile and he nodded.
“I wouldn’t wish this rotting bootie crack of a family off on the Devil’s own child, alright? You’re my blood, though, kid. I can prove it to you.”
“Right? Okay, so prove it to me.” Reilly beat her fist against her open palm.
Taylor brandished a birth certificate.
“Reilly Riveaulx, born May 9th, 2006. Centralia, Pennsylvania. To Caroline Riveaulx and Alistair Buchanan. Now Caroline Riveaulx grew up to be Leona Kelley. I have photo ID of that too. Hell, I’ve got your dental records! I can show you anything you need to see, little miss. Go ahead, ask me how I did it after I’ve been chillin’ in the boneyard all these freaking years. Need you to register that we’re blood soon though, ‘cause we’ve got work to do.”
“Yeah?” Reilly bit her lip. All her life, she’d been dying to know who her family was. Now that she knew, she wanted to run in the opposite direction. But that wasn’t Reilly Linden (or Reilly Riveaulx as it turned out). Even at only eleven years old, the girl knew her core values. If there was to be a fight for her City, she was going to be a part of it.
“Alright, I’ll buy it. Consider yourself lucky I wasn’t that hard of a bill to sell. I’ve only got one question and then I’m in, all cards on the table. Where the heck did you stow Harrison?”
They all threw their heads back and cackled, calling up crows from out of the swamp. Croc stomped his boot and Harrison rolled down from the rafters, suspended to an ancient rusted chandelier.
“Alright! It was funny the first seventeen times, but now, for God’s sakes, let me off this thing!” Harrison kicked himself into a spiraling circle. Taylor and his gang continued to laugh and pass a bottle of Scotch around.
“Let him off that thing and I might talk with you. You’re going to use me as She-Hitler bait, right?” Reilly shrugged. Taylor stood up looked down at her, jaw twisted to the side.
“Croc…Let the worm down. We’ve got some business to tend to. Gentlemen, bring up a chair for Mr. Harrison and Lil’ Miss Reilly. Bring Mr. Harrison a beer too, please. A soda for the kid.” Taylor reached behind a barrel on his split-log porch and pulled up the Droplock. He eased himself back into the oaken rocker and laid it across his knees. His guys moved to do as he’d said.
“First off, Mr. Riveaulx, assuming that’s your name, I don’t want Reilly getting tied up in the he
avy crap. My ex-wife has caused enough heartache and sorrow for Louisiana!” Harrison slapped his knees. He insisted on having a key role in the re-conquest of this city. It was the only way to truly make amends for enabling the She-Hitler, even if he hadn’t allowed it on purpose.
“Mmm, you’re selling me a little short aren’t you, Harrison? Think I’d really put my own niece in the line of heavy fire? Nah. I might be dead but I’m not soulless.” Taylor looked to his boys and nodded.
“No, see, Harrison, it’s like this. Once upon a time, when we were just kids, me and these boys here used to tear up the highways twixt here and Shreveport. We were the guardians of the fair state of Louisiana. Somebody had to yank the choke chain for Caroline, didn’t they, right? That was our civil duty, sacred honor. Now eventually, she did us all in. Her own creative spin to fratricide, eh? She did black magic to my little sister and made her like she is…” Taylor paused as the rage flickered in his eyes.
“Her mischief has woken us up again. Somehow nature balances itself out like that. This time, whatever she did to us, whatever she did you and that girl that can speak through the Geryon and those soldier boys. Whatever she’s done to herself now might have given us the loophole we need to bring her house of cards and poker chips down.” Taylor smiled and jabbed a finger at Harrison.
“Here’s how we’re going to do this thing. We’ll need you to open up the books to your major corporation and show us on the spreadsheets what she’s been up to. You can get me any of the passkeys I need because you own the joint. Then we’re going to need to get those soldiers back. They were eyes for the street and have enough dirt in the back of their proverbial dump truck to bury her. Next, we need both the Doctor Kinsley’s to work on the fancy new dope my sister done cooked up for us. You can play that game both ways, am I right, boys?”
“You’re so right, Reeves.” Croc clapped his hands together, splashing his Scotch. The pet fox he kept close to him on a wallet chain crawled forward and sniffed at it, taking a couple of licks.
“Then we’re gonna need the creature and that girl to work together on translating all the strung out dead man lingo that’s moving through the airways. Yeah, you wondered how we got to be the way we are, you guessed right. We’re being kept alive by some kind of collective consciousness. Radio waves keeping our brain stimulus moving without our consent. Call it ‘the precursor of optogenetics’ or whatever they’re calling monkeying with lasers and brains nowadays.”
“Right. Sure thing, Uncle Taylor. First, fix me and Harrison up with a piece each. Then, you need to know that it looks like Mama’s company has come to town for a convention. Whatever back up you guys can scratch up, you’d best do it.” Reilly nodded, grinning darkly.
Taylor reached in the back of his pants and pulled out an old Model 29.
“Might wanna clean it, little one.” Taylor winked and nodded to his guys.
“Alright, haul your boney behinds to standing. We’ve got work, gentlemen. We can sleep when we’re dead. Wait a minute…” Cackling, the gang filed into the house.
“I like them.” Harrison smiled at Reilly and then his face contorted.
“What?”
“Where’s my piece?”
*****
Chapter 20
Dexter could kick himself for being so stupid. Love had made him act irrationally. He’d just charged into the flames without even bothering to attempt to clear a path for himself to emerge from it again.
He hit his knees, choking on the blazes. His hands swung out scrambling for the phlebotomy tubes. Embers erupted like rising serpents as he snatched the system up. He pushed it inside of his shirt, fretfully beating sparks out of it. It was blackened but not damaged enough that he couldn’t still use it. Assuming that he lived.
He rolled over on his back and kicked debris away, thrashing like a dying horse. This was not the way that he was going to die. He couldn’t just give up that easily. Even if he emerged from here, fires licking into his bones, he would get his blood to her. He would save her. Then come whatever after, Hell or worse below it, he would be glad.
Terror gripped him when he saw the silhouette come sailing through the walls. The arms ripped the blazing white tent frame away, exposing the rolling fire to the sky. Now he could see his face. His eyes that never stopped burning. In this one most desperate moment of his life, this had been the last person Dexter Owens had expected to see.
“Hiya, kiddo? Remember me?” Leaf dropped to his knees in front of Dexter, the kindest smile literally igniting his face like fireworks. He threw Dexter over his shoulder and hauled him out to the free air and the soaked sand.
There stood Derek Matheson, the sand spinning in a razor cyclone from the tremors that echoed through his heels. He had the President of the United States thrown over his shoulder.
“You got the kid and I got the Chief. The thing’s got itself. Let’s split. I saw the elder Dr. Kingsley heading straight for the action. Guess that old man’s playing for Pinks tonight, yeah, bro?” Derek winked at Dexter who looked from one man to the other with Chinese goldish eyes.
“Oh my God. I thought you guys were dead!”
“We are kinda…” Leaf swallowed to keep from saying anything else. Derek shrugged, shifting the agitated President, who was in a subconscious daze at this point.
“Hey, Dexter. Long time no see. No worries, you’re in good hands or err…quakes and flames. Come on, let’s make tracks before the Psych Squad comes in for a landing.” Derek shook his head and motioned them on with his quaking hands.
Dexter looked beyond Derek. He could see the Boeing’s crew swimming to shore. The soldiers had hauled in some of them. Leaf had melted the ends of their firearms and roasted their cuffs so that they couldn’t try and restrain them. As the pirates descended on the shoreline, they were clearly distracted too much by the soldiers and the President to have any further interest in the President’s attendants. The Boeing’s crew would be safe now until help came.
“You do realize that taking him with us makes us fugitives of the Law, right?” Dexter smiled as he scrambled to pluck the phlebotomy equipment free from his shirt.
“Son, I think that’s the least of our problems now.” Joseph’s voice called out above a rattling engine. Derek’s brows raised and he flashed an elated smile. Joseph’s lip was busted and they could tell he’d had to fistfight his way into getting the Chrysler New Yorker he was driving.
“Everybody get in, sit down, shut up and hold on for the ride. Dex! You’re gonna have to try to give Janey her blood transfusions on the way!” Joseph nodded toward Jane’s double that sprawled in the front seat, mouth hanging open in confusion.
“Right!” Dexter dove head first and rolled to Jane’s side. Jane looked at him listlessly and laid a hand against his cheek.
“That took guts. It was incredibly stupid, too.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You meant us too, right, Doctor?” Derek gritted his teeth and shrugged, making the President howl in annoyance as he was jostled on his shoulder. Derek pointed his thumb at Leaf and the Geryon.
Joseph revved the engine.
“You’ve got your pick of running with all the pretty little horses or trying to tango with the angels of death overhead. Quickly, boys, the cavalry is a hot mess wearing fishnet tights! You can smell more Chanel than you can race gas!” Joseph looked anxiously over his shoulder.
“One problem.” Leaf held up his flaming hands.
“There’s this new thing for killing a fever. It’s called Tylenol. Now get in. Or pass me the hot potato anyway!” Joseph jabbed a finger at the President, who tried to twist around and look at him.
Derek pushed Leaf forward with his free hand. They piled into the New Yorker’s backseat all of them sprawling. The soldiers tried to give the President space. He was clearly ready to throw some punches and probably accusations of treason.
“Wait!” Kendra Reagan slammed against the car’s side.
“Good Lord
, lady! Way to give an old man a heart attack!” Joseph stomped the break as the reporter rolled inside.
“Does anybody got like a smartphone or something that isn’t soaked? I need to get live shots back to headquarters. This news. The people need to know it firsthand.” Kendra’s gaze zeroed in on Jane and the bile rose quickly to her lips. She dabbed it away with her shirt, making a muffled cry.
“Hello, Kendra.” Jane and Dexter spoke in unison, trying to smile. Dexter reached into the back of his sneaker and pulled out his iPhone.
“This is gonna be a big bump, kids.” Joseph hit the gas.
“Oh my God! What in the name of—” President Matthews looked around at Jane, Derek, and Leaf with wide, wondering eyes.
Dexter quickly swabbed Jane’s vein with some Germ-X and a tissue. He then lanced a needle into her vein and hooked the tube’s other end to his own vein.
“I know, not like they showed us in medical school. It’s gonna be okay now, Jane. I promise you’re gonna be okay.” Dexter was almost crying he was laughing so hard now.
“Just make sure you leave some for yourself, hotshot.” Jane shook her head with a fluorescent smile, coughing with broken wheezes.
“Sir, since we have no control of the vehicle and we’re totally at the mercy of Doctor Kingsley the Elder’s stunt man skills, I think now would be a good time to debrief you.” Captain Matheson turned placidly toward the President and clutched his knee caps, completely ignoring the semi-automatic fire that was peppering the walls as the bikes began to close in on them in wide V-formations.
“Yeah, you do that, son.” Matthews sagged against the seat, eyes rolling toward the ceiling. This crazy was in real time.
*****
Chapter 21
“Welcome to the Classroom, Louie.” Jessop walked into the center of the room, arms spread in the shape of the crucifix. The black lights rolled up from LED strips they’d lined the floor with. There in the center of the room was a granite counter they’d affixed and lashed in place with many steel drums to be the remnant of the hospital’s former laboratory. Running to and fro from there were long plastic folding tables that were lined with an endless supply of firearms and other makeshift weaponry.
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