The Good Death Box Set: A Hard SciFi Science Fiction Series

by Doug McGovern

  Taylor nodded.

  “Oh, yeah, ‘specially Dante. I only hope that kid—Reilly I mean—managed to get the antidote she needed. There’s no getting out of it. The Medusa’s DNA/cognitive enhancement will make her able to draw in the consciousness of anybody with a link to her DNA, which means enhanced humans who have had anything to do with the serum that’s now also coursing through her or immediate relatives, like children…” Taylor nodded, making his mind about something he’d been debating and not telling Kendra.

  “The bike’s fried. You and I will have to walk into Hell. Sorry, my fault again. If at any time you can’t bear the road, I’ll carry you. Deal?” Taylor held out a hand.

  “Right, well, you still haven’t told me your plan?” Kendra swallowed.

  “It’s boring. Overly simple, ma’am. My boys will be joining us sooner than later, giving credit where it’s due. We’re dead men. Dead men walk between the worlds however they like to. That’s why she practically embalmed us rather than performing a full on resurrection like the others got. To make us puppets and pawns. It’s time to turn the tables on her rodeo show, huh? The plan is to go in there swinging. I’m a gladiator, miss. Gladiators always go down in arenas. That’s just the way we roll.”

  *****

  Chapter 6

  What is this? I thought you said we were going to a party! This looks like an acid trip to me, you freak! Reilly felt her hands. They were hollow and shaking like leaves. She felt like she was made of gelatin, all of her cells playing pinball against each other enough to drive her off the deep.

  Well, to my best estimations this is better than what could have happened to us. We can all hear each other. We can still see Washington and still see our bodies so I assume we are alive…

  Harrison waded through the smoke and bubbling aftermath of their antidote experiment in the Pentagon. Joseph stood gaping. He jabbed a finger at the floor.

  You mean those bodies? He shook his finger in frustration. Matthews turned the color of Greek yogurt and sunk to his knees.

  Calmly, Lindsey walked to her own prostrate form that lay on the lab’s floor. She rolled it over and put her fingers to her jugular veins.

  There’s a pulse. All the vitals are there, almost absent but there. What do you make of that? Lindsey turned to look at Harrison who scrutinized the sleeping forms with folded arms.

  Are we having like the mother of OBE’s or something?! Ivy fanned herself with her hands, dancing in hyper circles around her own body.

  Relax, dolly. You’ve got to keep your wits about you. We don’t know what kind of heavy artillery one can use when diminished to Casper the Friendly Ghost status. Reilly knelt next to her own body, slapping both her cheeks.

  Wake up, stupid! Reilly leaned back with a huff when the form did not respond.

  Relax, this was part of the plan. Timlin pushed his way back through the smoke and plasma debris. He brushed his pants legs off and nudged his own body.

  Stone cold suspended in animation. Come on, you guys are the super pharmaceutical tech and neuroscience nerds. Don’t you see what this means?

  Timlin looked up at Harrison and Joseph. It clicked in Harrison’s eyes first. You wanted us to be able to float between the earth and wherever our enemies are trying to drag us off to. The last time I was suspended in animation I could see into another dimension. Maybe I was there in part.

  Harrison nodded. Now it made sense.

  It’s better to be able to communicate face to face with whatever we’re fighting against, yeah? Timlin rifled through the debris. He picked up small coins and other objects that hadn’t been in the room before the experiment. Already the windows between the world were wide open.

  Better start talking to us, Agent. See, by my best calculations, our antidote is a self-corrective absorptive drug. Which means that if we reverse engineered Harrison’s euthanasia to create a cure for Andromeda serum our side-effects-the animation limbo exhibits A-F here- will wear off eventually. Joseph wrapped a hand over trembling lips. He was just amazed that this had actually worked.

  That’s not too big of a worry, Doctor. I’ve been into this programmed afterlife before. This collective consciousness as you might call it. Time along with animation is suspended. We can play with it. Roll it back and forth like dice. Timlin tossed Joseph a golden pair of deuces he’d found on the floor.

  Easy, hot shot. That sounds like a gamble to me. Joseph raised a brow. Where was this kid going with this?

  Exactly. If you’re going to win Lucia’s game, then you have to play. I know it’s a long shot, asking you to trust me. Leona Kelley perfected the good death for her teachers and became their ultimate prodigy. If we reverse engineer her psychotic genius, we might be able to trip the whole system. We could find the road to resurrection through it. What if natural selection is only our DNA and our trace consciousness learning to overcome everything that is death by paradox? Timlin crossed his fingers. He smiled. He needed the lot of them to trust him.

  This was your plan? Whoa, you must be crazy. You wanted to play the lottery to save the free world? Ivy laid a hand over her brow.

  It can work. It worked with me… Harrison looked at Joseph for affirmation.

  I protest this. I did what I was required to do. Besides, there’s a country to get in order after the likes of you all screwed it up. Matthews turned back to look at Washington D.C. but it was gone from their sight now. Joseph collared him.

  You are unfit. You have no one to blame but your own sorry self. Now, if you want to atone for it instead of me making sure you don’t ever wake up from your little astral nap I suggest you fall in line behind Agent Timlin! Joseph dropped Matthews on his heels, essentially putting Timlin in charge.

  Reilly paused to lean over the Geryon’s roasted, officially dead form.

  Did your country a great service, pardner. Hope if you get an afterlife it’ll be a good one. Maybe a makeover in your great beyond, huh? Reilly fanned her nose. She turned to look at her form and ghosted her hand over the belt.

  Crap. I can’t grab any of my weapons. Reilly looked at Timlin for reassurance.

  Believe me, kid. Where we’re going has more weapons than you can say grace over. Timlin pointed his hand. They gasped collectively.

  The Poseidon Gates loomed in the distance.

  *****

  Chapter 7

  Jane paused in the middle of her stride. Water made her combat pants cling to her shins, mud made her sink on her steady bird-like perch. Dexter watched the faint flicker of emotions across her face as she pricked up to decipher what she’d heard.

  Everyone stopped, looking at her and waiting for an explanation.

  “Nothing, it’s just…I’ve been here before.” Jane’s eyes were wide, gray as an early storm. Vincent nodded.

  “This place all belongs to the System Geryon, Jane. Found me and the others here when they slipped you the collective consciousness serum, remember?” Vincent drew closer to his daughter’s side. He gripped her shoulder in a steady hand, wilting with guilt. He’d let Lucia get away.

  Kingsley’s teeth gnashed from side to side. Kiara had bristled, a petrified cactus in the midst of this place of so much water that was undrinkable. Dexter watched them all. It occurred to him that they were all dynamite. The air was sparking with infernal eagerness. Something was soon to burst from the darkness. He didn’t know how it would only that it would. Dexter braced himself, ready to die for his Jane all over again if it came to that.

  They tried to walk a few paces onward, but Jane stopped again. She twisted in a corkscrew arch, the strange half-lights dividing her into segments with the stripes of a white tiger. Her scars from the beating that ended her life were made luminous now. She balled her hands into fists and tilted her chin to face that strange aura.

  “I knew it was you! Stop slinking around like Chief Cat-Stalks-Canary. Better face to face, if I’m going to have to face off with you for eternity.” Jane splashed. Her hands shook in frantic salutations. They
didn’t have to ask themselves who she addressed. They knew.

  “Parley?” Out of the shadows, Leona swam like a serpent. Her tongue lisped against the roof of her lips to push aside weeds and sample the blood that contaminated the rivers.

  “Back! Step away from them! My obligations to you are fulfilled. I won’t be used in your wars anymore.” Kiara kicked a tree root, peeling it up from the bedrock with the top of her foot. She caught it in one hand and snapped it with her teeth, swinging it around to use as a makeshift dagger.

  “Relax, sister. The Athena’s Rings are where we can contend if we feel like hashing out our emotional differences of our latter earthly years. We now have a common enemy to attend to.” Leona glared at Jane. Her eyes were pleading. Jane shifted, shaking her head.

  “No matter how good of an appeal you make, the truth is you can’t be trusted.” Jane folded her arms, eyeing Dexter carefully. Dexter swallowed. She was sizing him up, trying to gauge the best way to protect him, to save him from her nemesis. His whole soul moved at that like the San Andreas rolling over in his sleep. She would never stop playing the martyr on his behalf. Not even in death.

  Kingsley stepped forward, squaring his shoulders. They all stared at him in sudden terror. His eyes were shining the color of twilight behind London fog. He hadn’t forgotten the disfiguration she’d exact upon his body while he lived. Now he was standing raw in his spirit, beyond her deception, armed with his passion.

  “You, Leona Kelley, are ridiculous. A lion hunting for prey. Which is exactly why we are going to play the game according to your viewpoint.” Kingsley tossed his head. If she was a lion, then he was the tamer.

  Kiara took a step back from Kingsley, horrified to the point of physical distress. Her eyes said that she trusted him but her body said she wanted to run.

  “I’d think you’d be the last person to agree to my proposition…I didn’t even enjoy what I did to you. That’s how sickening it was.” Leona rolled her neck on her shoulders with a sadistic purr. Kingsley bristled. God only knew what kind of heinous verbal imagery Leona was about to call up about the night of Kingsley’s rape.

  Jane took three swaggering steps forward. To the shock of everyone, she cleaned Leona’s clock, taking several teeth in her wake.

  Leona bowed over, bawling into her palm. Blood streamed through her fingers. Jane stood back. Some broken pieces of tooth had stuck in her knuckles. The blood had gotten on her face, streaming under her eyes like cheetah’s tears.

  “Just so we’re square on a few things. You no longer have a body that’s hopped up on weird serums and super drugs. That means that physically we’re all even, got it, sister? That also means that Kingsley now has a body you’ve never touched. If you ever mention the filthy things you did to him again, I’ll stuff your intestines so far up your spine you’ll crap in your throat. Understood?” Jane tossed her head to the side. She grabbed Leona up by the scalp and tilted her face where they were looking eye to eye.

  Leona grimaced.

  “I never thought I’d see the day when you and I were equals.” Leona’s eyes flashed pure confusion. How could she be sure if this was a failure on her part or a great victory?

  “We’ve always been two sides of the same coin. It kinda surprises me that I figured that out first.” Jane knelt closer, letting Leona’s hair go. She narrowed her eyes, studying her with murderous intent. For the first time that Dexter could remember, he was petrified of Jane. Yet even in this fear, there was comfort. For this fear was born out of awe for the raw power of her spirit stripped away from its mutilated body. Her spirit was the wild and this was the Cimarron the plain where her untamable being could run free. Ferocity masked by silent vigilance fell over their entire group. Leona’s gums stopped bleeding after a moment. Dexter found himself absently wondering how they could bleed at all in a world where they were only spirits when Jane spoke again.

  “You said you wanted to come to some kind of mutual armistice for our common enemy. You mean you’re going to help us go after Lucia?” Jane shook her head. Leona never ceased to boggle the mind.

  “Not just Lucia, dear. The whole Order. I will confess, I had investors when I built my glorious empire of illicit trade and murder tirades. Buchanan, Fulton, Manson and other such great names that made up the congressional body of my royal court, they all had masters too. I couldn’t just rally them through promising them a share of the profits. They already owned the world, darling, or as large a share of it as they could conceive at that moment.” Leona broke off into bouts of clownish laughter. She shook her head, flinging water everywhere. Jane nodded and leaned closer.

  “Alright, so you want to help us dismantle all the oppressors you instated over us in return for what? So that you can rise again to take over unchallenged this time?” Jane cleared her throat. Leona sniffed and looked up, tilting her head in deep thought.

  “That would be a predictable motive, yes? Never made forecasts for the criminally insane, dear girl. It makes an ass of both of us.” Leona leaned back and took both of Jane’s hands. She smiled, as fondly as a mother does at her daughter. Dexter felt sick.

  “What do you want in return?” Jane looked over at Kingsley. They exchanged silent conversation, weighing the odds of this gamble. Here in this Underworld, they might be experiencing a temporary peace. Out there in the world they’d left behind, the aftermath of their warfare would be ripping the world to pieces. The Mafia that Leona had built up had been swept out to dry land from the belly of their bloody seas. Chaos would reign as leaders were proved unworthy. Where was the justice in all of this? Where did it end?

  “This would seem like bad judgment and I’d think I was having an electrocution side-effect hallucination if I didn’t know you. I know this system too…” Vincent knelt beside Jane and Leona weighing his odds.

  “If I know you, then you don’t want anything. Whatever you could possibly want you’ll just get for yourself. As for resurrection, you have a whole team of specialists working tirelessly to that end underneath the Poseidon Gates.” Vincent licked his lips. Atomic silence filled the space between his words and their reaction. Leona sighed.

  “Vincent, dear! That was supposed to be a surprise. My gift to the world!” Leona clicked her tongue and pointed a finger at Jane’s nose.

  “What? You don’t remember your last time here do you, poppet? Yes, I have a team there and a team here. Loads of teams. My web reaches out across the Cosmos to galaxies even Lucia doesn’t know. He thinks that he’s the one pulling my strings? He might be the teacher, but I’ve always been a leech. A leech can bleed whichever host it wants to get what it feeds off, be it the headmaster or your sidewalk snitch. I had other teachers. I had other worlds sprayed across the stars. No, I’m a goddess, you dimwits. I don’t need or want anything from you. Except Lucia has overstepped his bounds and now I’d like a showy revenge.” Leona stood in thoughtful silence, hands folded in front of her like a choir director. They studied her, surprised that this was the same woman that had brought the world as they had known it to its knees.

  “You haven’t learned a thing!” Jane stood up taller. They were amazed by her resonating tone. Jane had become someone else. Stripped of all the carefulness of living in her bones and looking out for her loved ones, she now spoke her full mind.

  “Your desires are what you to an end in the first place. I hate to think how it ends for you a second time around. You will destroy yourself, and everything in this place the same as you destroyed the world you left behind.” Jane spat on the rocks and folded her arms.

  “I am the destroyer of worlds, dear. There are conquerors and kings, artists and philosophers. I am the sum of all their fears. This is the thrill I get from existing, so if it ends, then let it end.” Leona straightened up, taking on an indignant stance.

  Jane nodded, chewing the inside of her lip. She then turned, focusing on Dexter.

  “We’ve blown it. In all these battles we’ve fought with you, we’ve consulted each other, war
riors, people as narrow-minded as the knife blade in our hands. We’ve never thought to look to the peace-keepers and healers of our choice selected society to help make choices. Which is why Dexter should have the final say about whether we work with you or not. Dexter is the only totally unbiased opinion in all of this. He came because he wanted to help me and that was all.” Jane reached out and took Dexter’s hand. His eyes grew wide. Then they narrowed as for the first time he was allowed to be decisive in his inescapable circumstances.

  “I don’t think it would be very wise for me to just assume that because you’re dead you’re done hurting people I cared about out there in the world. Still, I can’t do anything about what goes on back there now, because I have died myself. If the only way to steer our freedom campaign to ultimate justice is to use your criminal genius as the wheel, then I guess we’ll have to let you in on the ride.” Dexter was pale. His own words surprised him more than they did anyone else.

  “Golden. Oh, and what a mad ride this will be. If I’m the one at the wheel, dears, then you can be certain red carpets will roll out before me, dyed thus by streams of blood!” Leona purred, rising at last from the water. Kiara stepped protectively in front of Kingsley, hand going to a katana she kept in her belt.

  Leona rolled her eyes.

  “No worries, I’m done with him. He’s all yours now.” She winked. Kingsley met Jane’s gaze. Cold fury was forming there like frost. They were only certain of one thing. This would be their ultimate test.

  *****

  Chapter 8

  “Wait, you hear that?” Leaf stopped in the path, stumbling in a puddle. He scanned the roof, looking for the source of the howling spirits whose voices made up a cacophony of familiar people. Some of those tones were the sounds of their own voices reverberating to them from the mockingbird tongues of their twisted doubles.