“Wow!” Vincent exclaimed. It was exciting! Much louder than he’d expected. He had two layers of voices in his head now, the silent ones urging him on, and his own schizophrenic hallucinations surprisingly urging a cautious retreat.
Well, he knew better than to trust those voices.
“I am Abaddon the Destroyer!” he cried in his thin voice.
At which a second round was fired, and this one hit one of his legs, exploded, and showered him with bloody bits of shredded starfish. He wiped the goo from his face.
The starfish would regenerate. No problem, he told himself, and believed it for as long as it took the second tank in line to peel left, swing its turret toward him, and fire.
The explosion was smaller, and Vincent taunted. “You cannot defeat Abaddon!”
But something was wrong. This round did not blow up and shower him with his own viscera, it just burned. It sat lodged in the thickest part of one of his limbs, all too near to the human part of him, and burned and burned, a furious fire, like a living thing, like some rabid beast.
The fire hurt, but in a distant sort of way. Yet there was no denying that it was consuming him. The moist starfish flesh bubbled and melted and oozed away from the fire. Furious white smoke rose and swirled around him, stinging his eyes.
“Wait!” Vincent yelled. “That’s not fair, I can’t see!”
He couldn’t see, but now yes, yes, he was definitely feeling not the mind-shattering agony he’d have felt if he was fully human, but pain nevertheless; pain as the unquenchable fire burned his starfish flesh, eating its way up to where he was a shirtless kid who . . .
. . . who now, suddenly, felt the heat much more directly on his remaining human flesh. Unbearable heat. Unbearable pain.
My God! Oh, my God!
He tried to scream, only to gag on the billows of smoke.
Help me! Someone help me! I am Abaddon! he cried inwardly.
The Dark Watchers seemed rapt. Fascinated. Indifferent to his agony as the fire curled and ashed his waist whips. His starfish body was half melted, a bubbling cauldron of magma, and he was sinking into it, sinking down helplessly.
He screamed soundlessly, his flesh melting, his mind a wild merry-go-round swirl of panic and self-righteous anger and now-intolerable pain.
“No!” he tried to cry, but his last word was a choking sound.
Vincent Vu, Abaddon the Destroyer, was reduced to a mound of flaming goo, like someone had dropped a marshmallow in a campfire.
Abaddon would destroy no more.
The tanks swerved around the fire and clanked on. They had lost just five minutes in destroying Vincent. A consequential five minutes.
CHAPTER 24
We Are the Chimpions
DRAKE MERWIN WAS now most of a face—he had a mouth, one eye, and one ear. He could see and he could hear. And because he was smashed against a boulder in a fairly upright position, he could watch the reassembly of his body.
This was not his first comeback from destruction. Brianna had used her machete and her super-speed to chop him to bits and scatter the bits far and wide in the FAYZ. It had taken him a while to come back from that.
He had been almost complete when he’d faced Sam the final time. In the breakdown of the FAYZ system, he had been weakened, and that weakening had resulted in his being burned to ashes.
For a long time there was no Drake Merwin.
And when he started to regrow, it was not from the ashes, but from one of Brianna’s chunks. She had taken the time to bury some parts of him, and other parts she had hurled into the ocean. Ninety-plus percent of those bits and pieces had slithered together to create the Drake that Sam had destroyed, but one piece had not been part of that doomed Drake iteration precisely because Brianna had tossed it into the ocean.
That chunk of Drake had been eaten by a swordfish, who then swam out to sea. The resulting swordfish turd had been all that was left of Drake, so his regrowth had not had the benefit of being able to use existing bits and pieces; no, the turd had had to grow a whole new Drake. And that Drake, the Drake who’d been splattered everywhere by the missile, had only acquired eyes very late in the process, when he was already a mangled mass of pink flesh crawling blindly up onto the beach.
Months, that’s how long it had taken him to regrow. In fact, it had been a full year before he was entirely, 100 percent himself. Well, himself plus Brittany.
But now he watched himself regrow much more quickly. The bits of him, the human shrapnel of him, crawled out of the rocks like shell-less snails and fitted themselves in place like so many puzzle pieces.
Some bits were completely unsalvageable—the right side of his face, his right eye—but to his great pleasure, his whip hand was already half regrown. He’d even managed to move it.
He was annoyed at Peaks for running off, annoyed even more that he’d somehow managed either to attract, or deliberately cause, the missile attack. And eventually that annoyance would result in Peaks being nailed to the wall of Drake’s cave. He would extend Peaks’s suffering, he would make Peaks pay, but it was more out of a sense of duty than the prospect of pleasure. Drake couldn’t let Peaks get away with it, and he would absolutely reduce the man to a shattered, mutilated creature who would beg for death, but Drake knew he wouldn’t enjoy it. Torturing Peaks wouldn’t be fun. Not really.
Drake knew what would be fun. He knew who would be fun.
“Old hate is the best hate,” Drake’s mouth whispered.
And no hate was older than his hatred of Astrid. Astrid Ellison. Astrid the Genius. It was funny to Drake that so many in the FAYZ had disliked her, because he had to admit, she had been a formidable enemy. The kids had all—well, almost all—loved Sammy. Surfin’ Sam, the reluctant hero. But if Sam was the Captain Kirk of the FAYZ, Astrid had been his Spock and Edilio his Riker and Albert his Scotty the engineer.
“Don’t forget Dekka,” Drake muttered to a passing horned toad. “His Sulu. His Worf.”
Drake hated Dekka and Edilio and Albert and . . . well, pretty much everyone. But his dreams were of Astrid. She would be fun. She would try to engage him intellectually. She would play word games with him, desperately trying to trick him. He would let her beg and plead. And then he would whip the skin from her. But Astrid was tough, and oh, she would put up an excellent fight.
The joy would be knowing that she would be so aware of her own slow disintegration. Stupid people, weak people, they collapsed quickly and ended up just screaming and begging. Astrid would end up there, too, in the end, and she would hate him, but she would hate herself even more for being weak.
The only thing better would be to have Sam nailed to the opposite wall, forced to watch it all. To see Astrid degraded as Sam watched? He could not imagine anything better.
Why had he not gone after her already? Because she was in a major city and watched/guarded by cops. That was not a situation that lent itself to long, lazy days and nights of torture. He could easily get past whatever security was around her, but he would only be able to kill her before all hell came crashing down on him. The next time he was destroyed, someone might do a thorough job of it, and it might take him years to reassemble and regrow. Astrid might be an old woman by the time he was able to go after her.
“You don’t want to rush your pleasures,” he informed the toad, who cocked one bulbous eye at him and rudely snapped up and ate a small slithering chunk of Drake. He moved his stunted whip hand and the toad ran off.
Yes, it had not been possible to realize his fondest dream—not with cops and FBI and a whole metro area in his way. But Peaks had given him new hope. Peaks seemed to think the whole world was coming down around their ears. And if that was true . . .
Drake glanced down and saw a steel wire protruding from his chest. Ah, good old Brittany Pig, as immortal as he was. They would soon be back together. His body would complete itself. His whip would return.
And in a world that was falling apart, who could stop him from finding and taking As
trid?
“Not winning!” Dillon said with angry emphasis. “Not losing, but not winning, either.”
One of his Cheerios had driven him back to the Triunfo in a shot-up Nissan Altima with two flat tires.
Not exactly a snow-white charger, he thought. And then, Why is it always a snow-white charger? Is that racist? Can there be horse racism?
He pulled out his notebook and scribbled, horse racism?
Dillon’s surviving army of voice slaves had been sent running down Flamingo Road, then turned north on Frank Sinatra Drive, which fed into Sammy Davis Jr Drive.
Only in Vegas would directions include Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. That could be a bit.
In the heat of the day, his instruction to run the whole way would probably have left 10 percent of his mob passed out or dead from heart attacks, but the night was cooling rapidly.
The enemy would of course translate the running mob as panic. They would follow, but they wouldn’t want to stop them running . . . until they realized they were all going the same place.
I’m not winning, but I’m really pretty good at this.
“I think I’m getting good at this general thing,” he said aloud.
To which Kate said, “Yes,” and glared fear and hatred at him.
This next bit would be sketchy, hard to manage, Dillon knew. As the Cheerio had driven him to the Triunfo, he’d put his mind to assembling a list of demands. He would voluntarily leave the city and the whole country, for that matter, if they gave him what he wanted. Taking over the world had become much less of a priority since the army had rolled into town; it was starting to look as if survival was the main goal.
Taking over the world to mere survival in what, a day?
He would need a helicopter, of course. Then a jet, a big one that could go a long way, fueled up and ready at the airport. And a hundred million dollars. That shouldn’t be a problem in a place like Vegas, which was awash with cash.
Destination?
That was complicated. His power rested on being heard and understood, so ideally he wanted an English-speaking country. But Canada was well tied in to the US media, and they’d be more than ready by the time he reached . . . what was a Canadian city? Was Seattle in Canada? And England was such a long flight, they’d be even more ready. Might even shoot him down over the Atlantic.
Dillon had an image of himself in an inflatable raft yelling orders to passing whales. It was not reassuring or funny. Not really.
His mind passed wistfully over the idea of some remote Pacific island, but islands were traps.
Mexico. He would fly to Mexico. There he would make contact with a drug gang, take it over, and build a real army, an army of millions. Hah! Assuming enough people there spoke English.
He reached the Triunfo seconds ahead of the first runners, sauntered in projecting all the arrogant control he could manage, spotted a Triunfo cocktail waitress, and yelled, “Get me a margarita. Extra salt!”
It would be his fourth drink, but stress and excitement—he would not allow the word “fear”—had kept him feeling all too sober. He opened a map app, typed in “Mexico,” and tried to decide the best place to go. Wasn’t Machu Picchu in Mexico? He Googled it: no. After some more Googling he came up with Culiacán, in Sinaloa, where the most notorious gang hung out.
Yeah, that’ll work.
He pictured himself landing in his jet. Local dignitaries might meet him. Or Mexican cops. But even if they had ear coverings on, he’d be able to show them millions of dollars, and wasn’t Mexico super corrupt? Eventually he’d be able to speak, and he would order them to take him to the drug gang’s headquarters.
As more and more of his minions arrived, gasping and wheezing to form up in front of Triunfo, he got to work thumbing in an email.
Dear Former Powers That Be:
I am the Charmer. You’ve seen a small part of what I can do.
He paused to Google a scene from the movie Tropic Thunder, in which Tom Cruise screams threats into a phone.
So, if I were you, I’d take a big step back and literally f-ck your own face!
He wondered if he should include attribution. It was fatal to any comedy career to be called out for stealing a joke. Dillon had few morals—fewer with each passing hour—but he did not want to be accused of joke stealing. So he retyped:
If I may paraphrase the brilliant Tropic Thunder . . . if I were you, I’d take a big step back and literally f-ck your own face!
That should do it.
But I weary of conflict. I am not a bad person, but I will not be disrespected. So if you want me out of Las Vegas, I’m ready to go. All I ask for is sun, a beach, and plenty of margaritas. If you leave me alone, I’ll leave you alone.
So here’s the deal:
A helicopter on the roof of the Triunfo. The pilot will not wear ear covering.
A fully gassed-up jet minimum size like an A-320. Pilot and flight attendants without ear covering.
One hundred million dollars in cash.
A guaranteed spot on Fallon, Colbert, or Kimmel. I’ll do a tight five, maybe seven minutes. And I’ll pretape it so you can check to make sure I don’t, you know . . . say anything I shouldn’t.
A one-hour Netflix special.
Give me all that, and I will happily live my life and not bother you anymore.
Respectfully,
The Charmer (Dillon Poe)
He emailed this to the three news networks. His control over the Triunfo staff was not absolute; there were still staff who had not heard his voice, but most of the employees were safely under control, and his Cheerios had orders to shoot anyone they thought was even slightly a threat.
His people, his army, his voice slaves were clustering in ever greater numbers in the circular driveway of the Triunfo. The Fashion Show Mall was across the street, Nordstrom a stone’s throw away.
He nodded approvingly. Good. The street was much narrower here, and the hotel’s entrance was relatively modest, which would make it harder for tanks to maneuver around.
Kate, the head Cheerio, arrived with the Chevron truck. It was too tall to fit beneath the hotel’s overhang, so she parked it on the street, blocking the driveway entrance.
More and more gasping, staggering zombies . . . No, wait, Dillon thought, that’s a generic term. He had his Cheerios, he needed a name for his army. Dillon’s Danger Squad? That was funny. Kind of. Dillbots? That sounded a bit too trivial. Besides, he wasn’t just Dillon Poe, he was the Charmer.
The Charmer’s Champions? That could work. Wasn’t at all funny, though. The Charmer’s Chimps? The Charmer’s Cholaborators?
“Wait . . . Chimpions! Hah! That’s good.” Using his bullhorn, he said, “You are all now honored, respected members of the Charmer’s Chimpions. With an ‘i’ instead of an ‘a.’”
The swelling mass of people did not know how to react. So they mostly just stared in a dazed way.
“Hey, come on, that was worth a laugh. Laugh!”
He had privately sworn never to use his power to get laughs, but this was different . . . in some way he couldn’t quantify. And the sound of what was now more than a thousand people trying to laugh despite panting and wheezing with exhaustion was hysterically funny.
“Okay, that’s enough. Stop laughing. Kate. Kate!” He yelled to be heard over the fading laughter. “Kate! Start . . . wait, you’ll need help. You and you.” He pointed at what he guessed were working guys, guys with muscles, anyway. “Go help Kate. Kate? Time to hose down my brave and loyal Chimpions.”
He retreated inside as Kate and the two men labored to unlimber the fuel truck’s hose.
ASO-6
AFTER MORE THAN twenty-four hours of battering and dragging, the Nebraska’s crew had been reduced by sixty-four deaths. The bodies could not be moved; they could only be tied down. Tied to pipes, to equipment that was no longer relevant. Bodies hung like effigies, like gruesome warnings.
It was very cold aboard the Nebraska. Very cold. Oxygen was not
yet a problem, in part because so many fewer people were breathing it. Crewmen did not walk, they crawled, with cushions and life jackets tied to their heads like makeshift helmets. Survivors did their best to move food and water up and down the length of the boat, tapping on pressure hatches to signal that they had bread or a piece of sausage to share.
The emergency lights were fading.
A few crewmen still clung to hope. Most had given up. And many had lost their minds entirely under the assault. One of those was a petty officer named Debbie Forte, who had been locked up in the missile bay since the start. She was the only living person in the missile bay. She had tried to tie down the six men and woman beaten to death by the shaking, but it had been impossible, so bodies would tumble past when the chimera shook the boat. Her friends. Her people. People she had trained.
Forte was sure that the chimera was dragging them deeper and deeper. The boat would never float again, it no longer had even the theoretical ability to float again. Which meant they were all dead. It was just a matter of time.
But Forte knew what to do. It wouldn’t even be a real act of self-sacrifice, not really, because she was a dead woman walking.
And she’d be damned if she let some monster do this to her boat, her people, and her. She knew what would kill the chimera.
She had access to weapons that would kill anything.
CHAPTER 25
Random Chance
“WHY DO YOU just play solitaire?”
Malik looked up slowly. A girl. Did he know her? Sure. Sure, Shade or someone had introduced her.
“It’s a very . . . philosophical game,” Malik said.
“It is?” Francis asked.
Malik nodded. “Yes. Each game reflects the reality of human life. I bring the intelligence DNA gave me. I use my experience. I apply my free will. And the cards are sorted by random chance. In fact, the odds of any hand of solitaire ever having been played are trillions to one. Each hand is a completely new set of possibilities. DNA, environment, free will, and . . . chance.”
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