by Jeff Kirvin
“I’m going to try a strength test,” he said to the techs. They nodded and made notes. Daniel reached down and sank his armored fingers into the metal of the exposed frame. Bending at the knees and lifting with his legs, Daniel lifted the two ton vehicle and held it over his head. It was heavy, but not dangerously so. Daniel figured the suit was roughly one hundred times stronger than a human, maybe ten times stronger than an angel. He relayed his findings and tossed the truck aside.
He’d been keeping an eye on the speedometer inside his helmet. Now was the time to put it to the test. “I’m going for a run,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”
Picking a street relatively free of debris, Daniel took off at a run. It was rough going for the first few steps, then the wings folded back again on themselves to reduce the wind resistance. Daniel picked up speed rapidly, and soon found himself exceeding 50 miles per hour through the streets of San Diego, covering more than a dozen yards with each bounding stride. He doubled back and returned to the bunker, nearly running over the technicians as he tried to stop.
The next step was to try to fly. “If I’m going to fly,” Daniel said, “I need a destination.” He turned to Jack. “What were the coordinates for the Care Center east of L.A.?”
Jack shook his head. “Daniel, don’t—”
“Come on, Jack, you were the one that said I needed to trust my instincts, remember?”
“You haven’t tested a single weapon!”
Daniel turned and raised his arm to point at the van he’d tossed aside. A rocket flew out of Daniel’s arm-mounted launcher and blew the van to pieces.
Daniel turned back to Jack. “The coordinates?”
Jack stared at what was left of the truck, mouth open. “How did you—”
“Targeting is automatic. Firing is voice controlled. I’m just glad it’s programmed in English. Probably a holdover from the days when the immortals weren’t allowed to speak their own language.
“The coordinates?”
Jack nodded and told Daniel what he needed to know. Daniel then motioned for everyone to stand back.
“I obviously won’t be able to transport anyone to safety,” Daniel said as he spread his wings, “but with everything else the angels have to worry about right now, I doubt they have the time or resources to track down the people I release. I’ll keep my radio on, and I’ll let you know how it works out.”
Daniel ignited his engines. “I’ll be back soon.” Without another word, Daniel rose into the sky and flew north over the horizon.
Daniel had to admit he was starting to understand what the angels saw in all of this.
Cruising three hundred feet above the desert floor at over four hundred miles per hour, Daniel did a barrel roll and let out a little whoop of joy. He’d grown up reading comic books about superheroes that could fly, and had often daydreamed about what that might be like, but even his wildest dreams hadn’t prepared him for this. The sparse cactus and tumbleweed of arid southern California sped past and underneath him in a blur, as did the occasional very confused jackrabbit. Daniel did another barrel roll.
The in-flight guidance of the armor was remarkably simple. The throttle was voice controlled, and the maneuvering handled by reacting to his body movements. Raise the right shoulder while dipping the left, bank to the left. It was a lot like swimming through the air.
Once Daniel got the hang of the “controls”, he poured on the speed and zeroed in on the coordinates Jack had given him. According to the readouts on his HUD, he should be coming up on the Care Center any minute now…
There!
The low-slung, stark white and very medical-looking buildings were practically identical to the Care Center south of L.A. Daniel had attacked not so long ago. Daniel saw no movement as he flew overhead, so he quickly throttled down, banked hard left and came back in for a closer look. His landing was a little rough, but passable.
At first Daniel thought the Care Center may have been abandoned. There was no sign of movement or any evidence that anyone still walked its dusty streets. On closer examination, many of the buildings bore powder burns and a few even had chunks of stone torn out of them. There had been quite a fight here. The only sign of life left in the entire complex was a thin plume of white smoke crawling out of a nearby chimney and dissipating quickly in the desert wind.
Of course, Daniel thought. The reports from the newly established Los Angeles Underground had been sketchy at best, but it seemed likely that the fledgling division of the Underground would strike here on the First Offensive rather than at Heaven itself. Chances were good that Daniel was a day late if he planned to liberate the patients here.
“About time someone else showed up,” said a voice behind him.
Daniel turned to see an angel in a grimy gold uniform step out of the doorway to one of the larger buildings. The angel approached Daniel and wiped his hands on a dirty rag.
“Are you the only clean up crew we’re going to get?”
Daniel nodded.
“Wonderful,” the angel continued. “I guess these upstart rebels have Michael more worried than I thought. Oh, well. We’ve been loading bodies into the incinerator all morning. We lost our only suit in the battle yesterday, so it’s been pretty hard work. We’ve still got…” The angel trailed off. “Nah, it’s easier to just show you. Follow me.”
Daniel fell into step behind the angel and followed him into the building. When his eyes readjusted to the dim lighting after the solar glare outside, Daniel struggled to repress a gag.
There were bodies everywhere. They were stacked like firewood along the walls of the giant room, and laid out in neat rows on the floor. Some of them obviously died in battle, but more than three quarters of them wore the white coveralls of Care Center inmates. Hundreds of lifeless eyes stared at Daniel as he followed the angel to the furnace at the far end of the room. Three more angels stood near the furnace and threw body after body into its fires.
The angel looked over his shoulder at Daniel. “Ever worked a Care Center before?”
Daniel shook his head.
“This is the final destination for most of the humans that come here. When they’re no longer useful for experimental purposes, they’re brought here, put to sleep, and disposed of. We don’t have the time or resources to give them a mass burial, so we just burn them. We four are the only survivors of yesterday’s attack, and Michael can’t spare the manpower to restaff this place and make keeping it open cost efficient, so after we dispose of the bodies I guess we’re just going have to return to Heaven until this rebellion garbage blows over. Thanks for helping us out, by the way. Without armored strength, this would have taken us all day…”
The angel stopped talking when he turned to glance at Daniel and found the armor’s weapons trained on him and his compatriots.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Allow me to introduce myself,” Daniel said. “I’m Daniel Cho, leader of this ‘rebellion garbage’ and operator of a captured suit of angelic armor.”
The angels said nothing.
“Outside,” Daniel said, motioning to the door. Daniel never lowered his weapons as he followed them out.
“So what now, Cho?” asked the angel that had spoken to Daniel. “You going to kill us in cold blood?”
“You mean like you did the prisoners here?”
“Hey, man,” the angel replied, “we were just following orders. Personally, I like humans.”
Just for a moment, Daniel started to lower his weapons. Then he heard it. The distant and very distinctive roar of angelic armor in flight. The instant Daniel glanced up to be sure, his captives scattered.
Damn!, he thought to himself. Those bastards were just stalling. He should have realized that the armor the first angel mistook him for would show up eventually.
Daniel ran to the south end of the camp, catching up with one of the four angels he’d lost and smearing him against a building. As he ran, he called up the radar display in his helmet,
which he’d turned off earlier because he found it distracting. Dumb move, he noted.
The angels were still over two miles away, and flying at high altitude. There were five of them, according to his radar, and Daniel wasn’t stupid enough to take them on. Flying as low and fast as he could, he took off to the south and hoped his own radar signature would be lost in the ground clutter.
He wasn’t followed.
Daniel arrived at the San Diego bunker early that afternoon and told his story. He then took the armor into a back room and shut the door.
Two hours later, he called for someone to help him suit up. When he emerged from the bunker, everyone stopped whatever he or she was doing to look.
The armor was painted a deep, flat black that seemed to swallow up any light that hit it. Daniel stepped out onto the lawn, an avenging dark angel, and addressed his troops.
“The tests have been successful. I will wear this armor as I lead you into combat. I’ve changed its color, not only to differentiate it from the enemy, but as a symbol of those we have already lost. Too many of us have perished already for Michael’s dream of Order, and as I stand before you today I vow that this insanity will end!”
Daniel Cho raised an ebony gauntlet over his head, and led the battle cry in San Diego.
Freedom of Speech
As the setting sun cast long shadows across Heaven, Michael paced. The cleanup crew he’d sent to shut down the east L.A. Care Center had just reported in. Cho had a suit of armor! The situation had quickly gone from annoying to intolerable. At first he hadn’t believed Cho’s little resistance movement to be a serious threat, but the previous day’s events and this new information had forced him to reevaluate that assessment.
Damn!
As he had done so many times in the past twenty-four hours that he’d lost count, Michael wished Gabriel was there to advise him. His friend didn’t have Michael’s gift for strategy or organization, but he was a cunning warrior and often saw things Michael did not. Now that Cho had forced Michael to view this situation as a legitimate military engagement, he direly needed a warrior’s point of view. But Cho had taken that away from him too.
Michael nearly put his fist through the wall, badly denting the golden metal. Damn!
More politician than warrior, Michael had spent most of the day assessing his losses and trying to come up with a way to put a positive spin on them. The Underground’s victories of the previous day were no secret, and public opinion was rapidly turning against him. The time when he could dismiss the Underground as bumbling malcontents had passed. If he didn’t treat them as a respected and dangerous enemy now, he’d seem the fool in comparison. But he couldn’t speak to the humans directly. His image was still too hot for such obvious spin doctoring. He still had one ace in the hole.
“Susan!”
Moments later, Susan Richardson entered Michael’s throne room, notepad in hand. “You summoned me, my Lord?”
“Yes,” he said, walking to the window and trying to look as regal as possible. “We need to make a statement about yesterday’s rebel insurrection. I want you to tell the people that the angelic losses were nowhere near the rumored levels, and that most of the rebels were destroyed and/or humiliated. Assure them that I am still in complete control, and that while the rebels were stronger than we originally anticipated, they are on the verge of destruction and we are very near to capturing Daniel Cho.”
“Are you, my Lord?” Susan asked.
“Am I what?” he answered, turning to face Susan.
“Are you close to capturing Cho?”
Michael stroked his chin. “I believe so. We know he’s in San Diego, or was there yesterday. Azrael is assembling a strike force that should be ready to wipe out his petty rebellion in a matter of days. More than that you don’t need to know. Go. Relay my message.”
Susan bowed and left the room, leaving Michael alone with his plans.
Susan took a deep breath as she entered the “broadcast studio”, a small room in Heaven with automated cameras and her newsdesk.
This was it. She had taken steps a few weeks before to ensure that when the time was right no one could cut into or block her newscast. Her tampering had gone undetected, but she knew she could only use it once. Now was the time.
She locked the door and seated herself at the desk, turning to the control console mounted just out of sight of the cameras. She flipped a few switches, toggled over to her secure satellite feed, and looked into the dark eye of the camera.
Showtime.
“This is Susan Richardson with a Heavenly News Bulletin.
“As many of you know, the resistance movement known as the Underground attacked the angels in a worldwide strike just over twenty-four hours ago. I’ve been instructed to tell you that while the angels suffered very few losses, the damage done to the Underground was devastating, and that their leader, Daniel Cho, will soon be in angelic custody.
“I’m supposed to tell you all that, but I can’t. It isn’t true, and I’m not going to lie for them anymore.”
Michael stared at the monitor, mouth agape. “What does she think she’s doing?” he breathed.
Only Azrael had the nerve to speak up. “I warned you leaving public relations in the hands of a human could be disastrous. It would appear your ‘mouthpiece’ has grown a mouth of her own.”
Michael lifted Azrael off his feet and threw him across the gigantic throne room. “Communications!” Michael screamed.
“Yes, my Lord?” came a harried voice over the intercom.
“Why is she still on the air?”
“We don’t know, my Lord. We’ve tried to cut her off, but the controls aren’t responding. I believe she has us blocked at the source. We can’t stop this broadcast.”
Michael bellowed as he stormed out of the room.
“I’ve learned things over the past year and a half that no human was ever supposed to know,” Susan said on the screens of televisions around the world. “Until now, I’ve never had the opportunity to tell you what I’ve learned, never when it would have done some good. I’m sorry it’s taken so long, and I’ll get right to the point.
“Michael is the greatest threat to the human race that we’ve ever encountered. He’s Stalin, Hitler, Genghis Khan and every other evil dictator in human history all rolled into one. The only difference is that if we don’t stop him now, while we still can, his reign will never end.
“Many of you have seen friends and loved ones with genetic illnesses or congenital defects shipped off to Care Centers. It’s time you knew these Care Centers are actually Nazi-style death camps, where those that don’t measure up to Michael’s standards are ruthlessly exterminated.
“Michael is engaged in a program to ensure the genetic purity of the human race. While Satan strove to improve us through a chaotic survival of the fittest, Michael wants to improve us by imposing an orderly and merciless plan of weeding out those he deems unfit to survive, regardless of the contributions they could make. Under Michael’s reign, Beethoven would never have existed. Neither would Steven Hawking, or anyone born less than physically perfect.
“Michael’s plan is to kill anyone that doesn’t meet his genetic standards of purity. He’ll kill your babies just after they’re born if they don’t measure up. He’ll kill you too, if you can’t produce perfect offspring in three tries, no matter how perfect you may be yourself.
“We can’t allow this to continue. The world unity the angels have brought isn’t worth an eternity of slavery and death.
“The Underground is our only hope. Far from the hapless renegades Michael has painted them as, the Underground is a well-organized, top-notch military organization. Their leader, Daniel Cho, is a great hero and a good friend, and if any human can bring Michael down, Daniel’s the one. I’m sorry, Daniel, that I didn’t believe you when you told me these things yourself. I was blinded by Michael’s accomplishments, and now I’m paying the price.”
A loud thundering noise began off cam
era, like someone pounding on a door. Susan glanced away, then faced the camera again.
“I’m running out of time.
“The angels can be beaten. In yesterday’s attack, countless brave men and women lost their lives, but nearly half the angels were destroyed. Another good fight like that and we can destroy them forever. But the Underground needs people. I urge you to seek them out and help mankind destroy these inhuman monsters!”
The pounding ceased and a door flew through the air in front of the camera. Michael strode into the room, looking furious.
“Shut up!” he roared.
“They can be beaten!” Susan continued, standing up and leaning into the camera. “Michael is scared! Daniel has him on the ropes! Gabriel died in yesterday’s attack, fighting Daniel’s personal troops! The Underground knows how to win, but you’ve only got a few days until Azrael’s strike force is ready to attack! Please! For your children, don’t let this go on!”
“Shut up!” Michael screamed again, putting his hands on either side of Susan’s head.
A tear ran down Susan’s cheek. “Daniel,” she said, “I’m sorry…”
With a primal scream, Michael twisted and ripped Susan Richardson’s head away from her shoulders and threw it across the room. Crimson blood fountained up from her neck and drenched his face and golden shirt before her body collapsed across the newsdesk. Michael sneered into the camera and wiped the blood away from his face with his sleeve. He turned at last to the control panel next to Susan’s chair.
“Stupid bitch,” he muttered as he flipped a switch, and television sets around the world went black.
Liberty or Death
Daniel walked around the bunker in a mild state of shock. Susan’s final broadcast had a huge effect on people. Michael was finally revealed for what he truly was, and the people of Earth had decided not to tolerate him any longer. As he walked, Daniel nodded to so many faces he didn’t know. Overnight, the membership of the San Diego Underground had nearly doubled, and he’d received word from other commanders reporting similar or better situations.
