Max Quick: The Bane of the Bondsman (Max Quick Series Book 3)

by Mark Jeffrey

  “Well. Enough of that, I think,” Fell Simon said to applause. “Let’s bring him out, shall we?”

  Everyone went crazy.

  A gush of synthesizer soaked the air with a lush, icy soundscape.

  The crowd roared in approval.

  Although the synthesizer was set to a techno beat, the melody was structured like a hymn or anthem. Voices rose to meet and join with the song, singing along with it in smiling adulation. Oceans of ridiculously happy people swayed and rippled to the beat.

  Despite himself, Max found the effect of the crowd hypnotic, intoxicating.

  Then, there was a break in the music. Twin beams of pure halogen stabbed into the sky from the stage, knives of light shooting into infinity above. The crowd roared again.

  Lasers mounted on the colosseum walls swept the arena. Subzero beams danced and split and fanned and whirled in a frenzy of light.

  A lemon half-moon hung in the sky like a grin.

  The techno beat started up again. The synths skittered away, repeating the anthem these people seemed to know so well.

  Then, from the east, three Sky Chambers floated down into the arena. They drifted slowly, lazily. One approached a tier of ‘nosebleed’ seats high up and far away from the stage. The crowd up there surged; fifty people or so scrambled onto the hull of the Sky Chamber. It quickly departed, carrying them out over the audience, lit by powerful spotlights. The passengers pumped their fists and yelled, delighted to be the center of attention for a brief instant.

  The Sky Chamber ferried these people down to the floor seating. Then, it tipped up slightly. The passengers – laughing the whole time – rolled down into the crowd below, which eagerly caught these new arrivals. All fifty of them body-surfed for several moments before being swallowed up by the floor crowd, their seating greatly improved.

  This went on for several minutes: Sky Chambers brought people from this place to that place in the arena, mixing everything and everyone up, for no other reason than the pure fun of it. Then, abruptly, the Sky Chambers were seemingly done with this. They lifted into the night sky, heading west.

  All the lights went out with a crack.

  Utter darkness.

  The people screamed at the top of their lungs.

  “Prepare to greet your Bondsman!” a disembodied voice yelled over the PA. “Show him you’re out there! Show him you love him!”

  In almost perfect unison, everyone in the audience snapped a yellow glowstick. Hundreds of thousands of hands held them up now, making a sea of lights.

  Between the two massive columns of light, a figure appeared on the stage. He stood at a podium, motionless. Above him, the giant screen suddenly clicked on.

  A face appeared. A golden face, with a frown. Twin pools of black space where eyes should have been.

  There was a tremendous, thunder-rattling, ground-pounding howl of adulation from the crowd.

  He was here!

  In the flesh.

  The Bondsman!

  He spoke.

  “Greetings, my people.” It was that indistinct, vaguely electronic voice again. Max found that his senses were blunted by it. He could not hear between the octaves, as he should have been able to it. Rather, the space between vibrations was concealed, masked, as everything about the Bondsman was.

  The airspace above the colosseum was suddenly crowded with Sky Chambers buzzing around, as if to emphasize that the Bondsman was not here alone. He was heavily guarded.

  Max got out a pair of binoculars and stared at the Bondsman. After a few moments, he swept his magnified gaze over the crowds — and got a shock at what he saw just a bit up and to the right.

  It was Casey. A stab of ice mapped his veins. What was Casey doing at the Bondsman’s rally?

  Sasha stood next to her, eyes dancing along the crowds. Ian. Enki.

  What was going on here?

  “Thank you … thank you, Simon. As always, your service is impeccable. Please everyone, give Simon a round of applause.”

  The crowd gave a huge round of applause in equal parts love and terror.

  “Well. Tonight is a very special night for us, for you of the Closure.” That seemed to be a word that signified the Elite: Max noticed a murmur arise from the crowd when the Bondsman spoke it.

  Max strained his eyes and ears to discern what he could of the Bondsman, but there were no clues as to his true identity. Androgynous, average, nothing that stood out — or didn’t stand out. The Bondsman was a cypher as always. Max sagged: proximity hadn’t helped him cut through the mystery at all.

  “We have come far, you and I!” the Bondsman said. “The world had been shaped to our liking, and we are pleased. But there is a lot more to be done! We still have rebellion, which we relish, but which must never be allowed to succeed. There have been … small successes. Yet we are still not meeting the quotas I have set. There is still much room for improvement.” The crowd grew silent, fearing what came next. “But let us take today and celebrate our accomplishments!”

  The crowd went crazy in equal parts relief and terror.

  FAR ABOVE THE STAGE, Casey Cyranus watched all this with horror.

  She was glad that Enki had removed his hand from her arm. Enki would certainly not approve of the thoughts going through her head right now.

  Down there on the stage was the source of the world’s rancor: the Bondsman himself! Oh sure, it was the Archons who were truly to blame, but the Bondsman was their stand-in, their man on the street. The Archons could not act in the physical world — they needed arms and legs and mouths to do this for them — hence the Bondsman.

  Casey looked at Enki, who watched the golden man disdainfully. But Enki wasn’t going to do anything. Some part of her simply could not understand that. What would Logan do, if he were sitting where she was? Would Logan White-Cloud have taken down the Bondsman if he could have?

  Casey could not help but realize that her, now, right now, she had a clean shot at the Bondsman — and nobody could really stop her if she decided to draw the Red Roses and fire upon him.

  She might never get this shot again. Nobody might.

  Would Logan do it?

  Didn’t she have the right to it?

  Even better: didn’t she have the responsibility? To the world?

  Enki wouldn’t think so. He’d think it was a rash move. He’d wonder whether there wouldn’t be some future repercussions that Casey hadn’t thought through.

  And certainly, Max wouldn’t approve; Casey already knew that. Max would see her attack as a mirror image of his own mistaken attack on the Machine back in 1912. He would strive to prevent her from repeating his error.

  Casey figured the same went for Ian and Sasha — because of Max’s ordeal in 1912, they would see her choice through Max’s eyes: small-minded, rash, not well thought out.

  Still. Still. There he was. His golden jaw, yapping away, just right there! She couldn’t see his face, but she knew it was oh-so-smug beneath that exterior.

  And Enki. Looking around the crowd. Acting weird, as usual for him now. She realized right there and then that she didn’t trust him. Not anymore. Not really, no. Certainly not with her life.

  So it was up to her.

  If she wanted to do anything about it.

  She considered one more moment. The goddamn Bondsman was within shooting distance. And she had a gun. No, more than that. She had one of the most magnificent weapons that had ever been made.

  MEANWHILE, MAX slogged through the crowd up to the front. Within moments, he was close to the plexiglas that separated him from the terrified latecomers in the first and second rows. And the barrier was not that high; he could easily leap it, he thought — especially if he whooshed.

  Now the Bondsman was just two rows away. And still, no revelation came. No enlightenment flooded his mind. He sagged. Somehow, he had been so sure that he would glean some insight from proximity …

  But it was just the same androgynous, electronic voice, pouring out of that gold mouth.
He could not even tell whether the Bondsman was either male or female.

  It was then that he realized that he could probably jump the Bondsman without too much trouble. He could take him out — right here, right now. He had surprise on his side.

  Max would have to light up his star power, of course. And he would probably be killed shortly afterwards. But he could do it. He could make up for his terrible mistake with the Machine. It would be easy, simple. And fast. He might even be able to kill the Bondsman in an eye-blink and whoosh out of here before anyone realized what had happened …

  Max thought about it, he really thought about it seriously.

  He felt negligent if he didn’t make the attempt.

  But …

  Yes, and the but. But because of what had happened with the Machine in 1912. That, too, had seemed like an open and shut case. And that had resulted in this, a world perverted. Unintended consequences, always that possibility. Or the Bondsman may have unknown defenses, he considered. This is why he refused the Resistance, this was the core of his argument. And also because of Enki’s argument: you must know the true name of a thing — or a person — before you can hope to overcome it. Understand the core nature of anyone or anything was the only way to win against it. In the name, lay the power.

  He did not know the name of the Bondsman.

  Or it might not even be the real Bondsman up there. It might be a hologram of some kind. Or an android. Or a stand-in, wearing a Bondsman costume, while the read Bondman spoke into a microphone from miles away.

  Max sighed as he ticked off possibilities. There was no way to know the absolute right and wrong answer. He would have to guess.

  He hated guessing. But that was all he had left.

  BUT CASEY was done with guessing.

  Calmly, deliberately, she drew one of the Red Roses. She aimed her magnificent gun at the Bondsman. Amazingly, no one noticed, not even Enki. And the crowd around her was utterly oblivious, lost in the trance of the golden man on the stage. Their adoring eyes watched their Bondsman: him, and him alone.

  But Max happened to look up at her at just this instant.

  Call it coincidence. Call it precognition.

  In a thunderclap of realization, Max understood: Casey had decided to make an attempt on the Bondsman’s life. She was going to do what he was unwilling to do. He called his restraint wisdom; she called it fatal hesitation after his defeat in 1912, at best. At worst, he would become the Bondsman, and he was just protecting his future self.

  As Max watched, Sasha saw what Casey was doing — and seemingly backed her move. She drew the White Roses and looked around. In an eyeblink, Sasha decided she would protect Casey’s back. Sasha poked Ian — who looked at her in stark horror, then at Casey, then back to Sasha who only nodded grimly — gaping for just a second — and then immediately covered himself head to toe in black iron armor.

  And just like that, the three of them were in on an attempt on the Bondsman’s life.

  But Enki was oblivious to all this, studying the Bondsman intently, trying to scry some clue as to his identity.

  No!

  No!

  Max could not allow this.

  But he could not stop Casey. She was too far away, even for him. In seeming slow-motion, she depressed the trigger of her eldritch weapon. He would not reach her in time. Even if he whooshed at Casey from here, he would could not close the distance before she finished pulling the trigger.

  Instead, Max leapt forward into the air, stars of his white-flamed power spangling his arms, his legs. He jumped across the two front rows and onto the stage.

  He rolled to a halt, and found himself looking up at the golden mask of the Bondsman himself.

  “Well,” the Bondsman said to Max, holding the microphone away so that only Max heard him. He tilted his head like a puppy hearing an odd sound. “Max Quick. You are a bit shorter than I had imagined.”

  Max had no such pleasantries to return. Instead, he quickly rose to his full height and pushed the Bondsman back and away. The Bondsman didn’t resist. He fell willingly, laughing.

  Two shots were fired.

  Max spun with preternatural whoosh-speed and strained his eyes. He found himself looking up at Casey Cyranus, the author of the shots. His body jerked this way, and then that, as the two bullets penetrated his ribcage. Blood drizzled from the sides of his mouth. He sank to his knees, perforated and deflated.

  Horror filled Casey’s eyes as she realized that she had done nothing more than shoot Max Quick, who stood between her and the Bondsman. The crowd roared with rage and confusion, realizing slowly that an assassination attempt was underway.

  “Thank you,” the Bondsman whispered in Max’s ear, leaning down. “You have served your lord and Bondsman well.” And then several guards whisked the Bondsman away off the stage in a Secret Service sort of formation.

  Max looked down, dumb with amazement. Red poured from his chest in pulsing spurts.

  That’s my blood, he thought. It was warmer — and there was a lot more of it — then he would have guessed.

  He had been stabbed, cut, sliced, and hurt in every possible way — but this was the first time he had been shot, he realized.

  He struggled to breathe. His arms were starting to go numb. His punctured lungs filled with fluids. Drawing a breath through the gauze of coagulating blood forming in his throat was agony. He coughed violently. But there was no respite. There was no mercy.

  Max looked up into the stands. There he saw Enki, agape with horror, at what had just happened. And there, Casey Cyranus stood, hyperventilating, eyes empty of belief. Sasha Fwa held Casey up; that was all that kept Casey from collapsing. Only Ian had maintained the wherewithal to remain battle-ready. His metal-shelled head swiveled this way and that, looking for challengers.

  He didn’t have to look for long.

  A ravenous horde of both guards and audience members swarmed their position from all directions. A sea of bodies descended from above, from below and from the sides. Some even dove at them from the rafters above, falling several stories to topple them — and died instantly, smacking the pavement. Their rage was beserkergang, with no regard for personal safety. Such was their love and fear of the Bondsman, and such was his mastery over them.

  Though momentarily startled by the depth and extremity of the crowd’s rage, Ian quickly recovered and went to work, slugging people away as they attacked. He was trying to spare them the full weight of his blows, but there were just too many — he was forced to hurt them, forced to throw them mercilessly this way and that. And even still, Ian was having difficulty keeping the crowds from overwhelming him, from pushing him to the ground despite the demon-metal power of his suit.

  It was like fighting off a nation of zombies, he realized.

  While this happened, Sasha recovered her wits and started shooting. But she too was having difficulty. Enemies dropped before her — and the only effect was that a dozen more to surge forward. The crowd was a Hydra: she couldn’t shoot quickly enough.

  Then, the unthinkable happened. Enki, stunned and surprised by Casey’s sudden assassination attempt, came to his senses slowly and was just beginning to muster some form of theurgy — when a club hit him squarely in the forehead. He gaped, stunned for a moment — and then the club met his skull and rattled his frontal lobes again.

  Enki fell like his bones had turned to gelatin. Then his body vanished, whisked suddenly into a mob-pile of kicking and punching. The crowd roared with approval — a deafening, cavernous roar that only a stadium crowd at a rock concert or football game could make — but far louder, and drenched with far more viciousness.

  “Enki! No!” Ian cried. But he could do nothing — Ian could not beat the crowds away fast enough.

  Oh my God. They might actually be pulling him apart in there right now, literally limb by limb, Ian thought with a gush of fear in his stomach.

  Tasting violence now, the crowd tore at the remaining three even more viciously. Sasha and Casey
were driven away from Ian; he couldn’t see even them now. And Ian was having trouble keeping up himself. He bashed and flailed in every direction and still more people piled onto him.

  “Get them!” Fell Simon appeared on the stage, screaming into a microphone now. “Everyone! Get them! It is your sworn duty to your lord and Bondsman!”

  The next few moments were a blur of melee for Ian. The bloodmetal was feeding off the blood of his enemies as they fell, but even that wasn’t enough. The armor was not powerful enough to fight off an entire stadium.

  Casey appeared suddenly in a rafter above his, howling and shooting. She slung bullets in every direction, and managed to keep a radius around herself somewhat clear. But she was quickly tiring as well. No mortal flesh and blood, however skilled or well-armed, could endure a continuous onslaught of this magnitude for long.

  Another howl of satisfaction.

  With hideous slowness, Ian saw one of the White Roses go flying, spinning through the air. Then, the other.

  In that instant, he realized that Sasha was defenseless and in the middle of that mob now. They might be pulling her apart …

  Ian howled like a banshee and started battering his way towards where it looked like Sasha had fallen. But when he got there, he saw both her limp body and Enki’s — intact, thank God for that! — beaten, but still apparently alive. Her form and Enki’s receded over the top of the crowd at a blindingly fast speed: the crowd was body-surfing them down to the stage with a wicked efficiency. Sasha and Enki slid with the speed of hockey pucks over a sea of hands.

  They were deposited at the feet of Fell Simon, who had them quickly hauled away by guards.

  Enki and Sasha vanished backstage. Gone!

  And there was no sign of Max. But Ian hadn’t expected there to be.

  He’d seen the bullets mow Max down. He’d seen the blood spurt from his ribcage.

  The Bondsman must have taken him also, Ian thought.

  His heart screamed, Sasha! But already, Ian knew he was outmatched by this mob. And Casey was losing, panicking, still too stunned by her failure to kill the Bondsman. Soon she, too, would fall and be swept away — and he knew that he would eventually succumb to exhaustion as well.