“Funny you should put it that way,” Jack said. “Ripping you guys out of our chests is something I’m finally ready to try. Check it out.”
Jack nodded over at his two infected friends. His eye with the Rüstov scar lit up and they both froze in place. A golden glow surrounded them, and the parasites controlling them struggled in vain against Jack’s will. Their eyes darted back and forth in confusion, which turned quickly into fear. Tiny particles rose up off the metal parts of their bodies like iron fillings being pulled by a magnet. The flakes of metal collected in the air above them, forming the shapes of the parasites’ true selves. Allegra’s body defaulted into its liquid state as her parasite was pulled from her. It looked like she was melting.
“No!” Glave cried out. “Please . . . don’t!” The scrap-iron bug above his head neared completion. He begged for mercy, but Jack ignored him. He just kept his mind locked on the singular task of exorcising the Rüstov parasites from Roka’s and Allegra’s bodies. A few seconds later, the Rüstov marks faded from their eyes and they were free. Allegra’s body reformed from the puddle she had dissolved into. She grabbed hold of Roka for support.
“What’s going on?” she asked, cold and shivering. “What happened?”
The hostless parasites scrambled around on the ground, naked and defenseless. Jack made a fist, and their bodies crumpled up like tinfoil. As Jack put an end to their wretched lives, Roka put a hand to his eye, looking for the Rüstov mark. There was nothing there.
“I don’t believe it,” he said, looking around in a state of shock. “We’re back. You did it.”
The Magus shared Roka’s sense of stunned disbelief. His hands fell to his sides, and all the anger and fury burning inside of him had drained out of his face. His mouth fell open and he looked more lost than anything else. “It can’t be. That’s not possible.”
“The man whose body you’re using right now has a different philosophy,” Jack replied.
The Magus stared at Glave’s broken body. “I don’t understand . . . how?”
“Knowledge is power,” Jack said, rubbing his wrists. “I already knew almost everything there is to know about Rüstov technology from working on your spyware virus last year. I thought that once I allowed myself to be taken over by the infection, I’d find out the one thing I didn’t know—how and where you hooked into your hosts. If I wanted to undo that connection, I needed to understand it down to the last circuit. But I still couldn’t see it well enough, even after I let the infection run its course. Khalix did manage to stop me from doing that much. Then I got a look at Revile’s heart. Once I actually saw the root of infection with my own eyes, the rest was easy. The heart of a hero never stops, remember?”
The Magus let out a very faint, almost inaudible whimper. Jack heard it just the same. The tables had turned. The Magus was just now realizing that he was in very big trouble.
“Say good-bye to your army,” Jack said. He fired a wide energy beam from his power core, blowing the rest of the roof off the throne room and taking out part of the exterior wall. The blast exposed the blue skies above and a view of the city below. Jack reached out his hands, and an amber-hued light ran through the fleet of Rüstov ships all around. A sea of iron particles floated up into the air as Jack pulled the parasites free of their victims. He used his powers to eject the pilots from their ships as soon as they were free. They flew out in jet packs and their parasites fell to their deaths as they were exorcised and cast off into the sea.
As the Magus turned his attention to his rapidly dwindling forces, the energy field around Skerren and Jazen faded away. They were free. Skerren ran to get a better look at the action outside. His eyes were the size of quarters. “Jack, this is . . . this is amazing.” He couldn’t take his eyes off the window. “We have to let the people down there know what you’re doing.”
“Don’t worry,” Jack said. “They know.” He accessed the media systems in the Magus’s ship and opened up a series of holo-screens showing every borough in Empire City. “Everyone knows.”
Jack’s friends all gasped. The pictures on the screens showed nearly every hero and villain in the Imagine Nation attacking hostless parasites and stamping them out like vermin. Empire City lit up with a golden glow as Para-Soldiers everywhere were pulled kicking and screaming from their hosts.
The Magus watched it all happen. He was dumbfounded. Broken. He stood frozen in shock as his army was eliminated all around him. “This can’t be. We saw the future. The future was ours.”
“That was yesterday’s future,” Jack said. “We changed it. Revile changed it. This is a brand-new day, Magus. You’ve only got yourself to blame.”
As the last of the hostless Rüstov were wiped out, Zhi, Trea, and Lorem Ipsum limped into the throne room. They were wounded and weary, but Jack could tell there wasn’t anywhere else in the world they would rather have been. The battle was over. There was no one left to fight except the Rüstov emperor.
“Your turn, Magus,” Jack said. His friends watched as he tried to expel him from Stendeval’s body.
Nothing happened.
The Magus tapped at his chest and studied his hands with mock surprise. His pompous arrogance returned behind a chilling snicker. “I’m sorry, I think you’ll find that I’m put together somewhat differently than the others. The fact is, I’ve grown rather attached to this body.” Now it was Jack’s turn to be confused. The Magus started glowing with power once again. “You haven’t won anything yet. You’ve only seen a fraction of what I’m capable of. This host body has more power than you can possibly imagine.”
The Magus’s confidence gave Jack pause. This wasn’t right. The Magus was finished . . . wasn’t he?
“You think you’ve beaten me?” the Magus asked. “Tell me, how do you defeat an enemy who can do anything? I can refresh this body every day, just like your leader Stendeval does. I can use him as a host forever. I can and will rebuild my army, and I will have my son back as well! I’ll have Revile! I just have to wait until that device in your chest burns out. I don’t even have to waste my energy helping it along. The future still belongs to the Rüstov, and the first step toward tomorrow will be taking over your dead body.”
Jack smiled. Now he understood the reason why the Magus was so optimistic. He just didn’t know where he stood. “Is that what you’re counting on? The nullifier?” Jack stifled a laugh. “Maybe you didn’t hear me. I figured out how Khalix was bonding with my body. I figured out all his systems. It doesn’t matter what you do now. Give him all the power you want. He’s not beating me.”
The Magus squinted at Jack. “What are you talking about? The nullifier—”
“The nullifier burned out two minutes ago, while I was wiping out your army. I don’t need it anymore. I know how Khalix works. He’s just another machine for me to control now.”
The Magus’s eyes went wide with shock. “No . . . no, that can’t be true.”
“You keep saying that. See for yourself. I won’t fight you.” Jack held out his hands. “Go on, have a look.” Jack waited as the Magus tried to communicate with his son and heard only silence in reply. “Sorry, Magus. What was it that Khalix said to me?” Jack snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah, that’s right. From this point on, he does nothing that I don’t intend.”
Shock dissolved from the Magus’s face as his expression turned to a simmering rage. “I’ll kill you for this.”
“You could try,” Jack said. “You might even have enough of Stendeval’s power left to succeed, but you’re not going to do that. Not while there’s still a chance to save Khalix.” The Magus didn’t say anything, but Jack could see he had him hooked. “One chance, Magus. Here’s the deal: You let Stendeval go, and I’ll let Khalix live. I may not be able to push you out of Stendeval’s body, but I can sure push Khalix out of mine. Surrender and I’ll spare him.”
The Magus was incredulous. “Surrender? I’d rather die.”
“You’re going to die either way,” Skerren said. “At l
east this way your death will have meaning.”
“It’s a father’s duty to care for his son, Magus,” Jack said. “You may not care about your legions of foot soldiers, but I know you care about Khalix. His whole life, you were never there for him. You can still do right by him, but this is your last chance. The clock is ticking. What’s it gonna be?”
The Magus scowled at Jack. “How can I be sure you’ll keep your word?”
“You can’t. But you can be sure that Skerren will kill your son right in front of you if you refuse.”
The Magus mulled over Jack’s offer. “And you’ll let him live on how? Inside of you? Trapped in your body without a voice? That’s no life.”
“No one ever said life was fair,” Jack replied.
“He wouldn’t want to live that way. We’d rather die. Both of us.”
“Are you sure about that? Why don’t you ask him what he thinks about my offer? No tricks this time.” Jack took a breath and let Khalix speak through him for the last time:
“Father . . . please. Save me.”
The Magus turned away. He looked all around at the utter ruination of his forces. Jack could have sworn he saw tears well up in the Magus’s eyes. That was just before they rolled back in his head. There was a pop-hiss sound, and the Magus released Stendeval. His body collapsed and was caught by Jazen. Down on the floor, the scrap-iron bug that was the Magus scurried away. It didn’t get far. Skerren limped forward and stabbed the Magus in the back. He pulled the sword out and swung it down hard, chopping the body in half. Skerren spit on the dead emperor’s body and kicked it away. The Rüstov emperor was gone.
Jazen deposited Stendeval in Jack’s arms. Jack clutched him with tears in his eyes and held him close. Stendeval returned the embrace with equal vigor. “You never cease to amaze me, Jack,” Stendeval said. He relaxed his grip and leaned back to look Jack in the eyes. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
Jack wiped away tears of happiness. “You never gave up on me. No way I was gonna give up on you.” He let go of Stendeval and reached for Allegra. “Either of you.”
Jack pulled Allegra in close and held her tight. He could see she was overwhelmed by what she’d just been through. “Jack, I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. You’re safe, that’s all that matters.”
Allegra turned to Stendeval. “Is it over? The war’s really over?”
Stendeval gave a warm smile and nodded. “We beat them, Allegra. It’s over.”
Jack breathed deep and looked up at the sky. He didn’t need any additional confirmation to know that the Rüstov threat was gone, but hearing Stendeval say so made him smile. The words felt like warm sunshine washing over his body.
“I just have one question,” Roka said. “What the heck happened to you, kid? You look terrible.”
Jack looked himself over. Roka was joking around, but he wasn’t wrong. Jack looked awful. His human body was gone. He was a patchwork assembly of machine parts now. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ll bet,” Roka said.
Allegra motioned to Jack’s metal frame. “This is going to take some getting used to,” she admitted.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Stendeval said. “I think the Magus might have left me with enough power to do something about it.”
Jack’s head whipped around toward Stendeval. “You can change me back?”
Stendeval put his hand on Jack’s chest. “Let’s find out.”
Jack spread his arms out, and his mechanical chest opened up like an iron gate. The red power core inside him lit up and slowly inched out of his body. Stendeval’s eyes glowed with energy, and a tornado of crimson lightning twisted down from the sky. The tip of the funnel lodged itself in Jack’s chest and churned about violently. Jack struggled to stand beneath its pressure. The cyclone felt strong enough to drill a hole straight through the floor of the ship. Jack’s vision blurred. The roar of the electric vortex drowned out everything around him, but nothing was happening. He was afraid it might not work, until the red glass inside his power core cracked. It was a tiny crack, deep in the center, but it was followed by another. Then another. The core shattered, and a million shards of glass shot out and froze in place. There was no explosion or sound of any kind. There was only a blinding light from the exposed core, which turned everything white, like a giant magnesium flare. Jack disappeared within the radiant glare, and when the light eventually died down, he was flesh and blood once again. Stendeval had restored his body good as new . . . for the most part.
Allegra went to Jack, delighted by his transformation, but she drew in a sharp breath when she saw his face. “Jack, your eye. It’s still . . .” Allegra put one hand on Jack’s shoulder and morphed the other into a mirror. He looked and saw that a light, muted version of the Rüstov mark he had around his eye still remained.
Jack put his hand on Allegra’s and squeezed. “It’s okay. I made a deal. I’m going to have to live with it.”
“Why is it still there?” Skerren asked.
“Because he’s still there,” Jack said. “Khalix is still with me, Skerren. He’ll always be there.”
Jack didn’t know what Skerren would think of that. It didn’t make sense to leave any Rüstov parasites alive, least of all the empire’s crown prince. The armada was defeated and the Magus was dead, but as long as Khalix remained, there was a possibility, however remote, that the Rüstov Empire could one day rise again. Jack had the power to expel Khalix from his body, but he wouldn’t do it. He’d given the Magus his word.
Stendeval rested a hand on Jack’s other shoulder. “The heart of a hero,” he said. “Like no one I’ve ever met.”
Skerren thought about that for a moment. He reached down to the cinders and ashes on the ground and got his fingers dirty. “We’re lucky for it.” Skerren stood up and drew a Rüstov mark around his eye to match Jack’s. “I’ll always be there too, brother. You can count on it.”
CHAPTER
26
Fathers and Sons
Wars never truly end for the people who have lived through them. Every man, woman, and child touched by the hand of war carries with them scars of one kind or another. In this manner, the Imagine Nation’s war with the Rüstov was just any other conflict that had ever been fought since the dawn of time. The fighting might have stopped, but the people involved would feel its effects long after the last shot was fired.
Over the next few days, people from every corner of Empire City banded together to try and undo the damage done by the Rüstov. The relief effort crossed every borough’s border and was blind to labels such as “hero” or “villain.” Everyone who fought the Rüstov was by definition a hero. Just as it had been in combat, the Imagine Nation remained united behind a single goal—saving lives. Superhuman healers went to work tending to the wounded. Superpowered rescue workers pulled survivors out of the rubble. Condemned buildings were torn down to prevent further injuries, and salvageable structures were reinforced to provide shelter for those in need. The city was in ruins, but it would be rebuilt. Unfortunately, some things were broken beyond repair.
Once Jack and the others had done everything required to care for the survivors, they turned their attention to the needs of those who weren’t so lucky. No war ends without casualties, and the physical toll of the second Rüstov invasion was considerable. It took days, but eventually the bodies of all who had fallen were laid to rest. At least, those bodies that could be found. Many people were missing, and no amount of rebuilding or repairs could fill the void they’d left behind or make Empire City whole again. The Imagine Nation needed time to heal. Time to mourn the loss of friends and family. Most of all, the people needed time to celebrate their lives and the freedom their sacrifices had delivered. The war was over, and despite the pain that accompanied the loss of every life that the Rüstov had taken, there was still much to be thankful for.
Five days after the Magus surrendered, a ceremony was held in Hero Square to honor
the fallen and rejoice in the end of the Rüstov war. That evening, Jack made his way to the center of the city to join in the festivities. He was among the heroes being honored for the role he had played in the battle. When he arrived, he saw a sea of people holding white candles and pictures of their lost loved ones. The crowd parted for him and the people thanked him as he made his way to the sphere. He was among the first heroes to arrive there. Chi and Prime greeted him as the other heroes being honored followed closely behind.
“Hail the conquering hero,” Prime said, holding his fist against his heart in the Valorian salute.
“We’re all heroes here, Prime,” said Jack, returning the gesture. “Everyone who fought the Rüstov is.”
“Some more than others,” Chi said, bowing his head. “Welcome, Jack. Your modesty is admirable, but your contribution was anything but modest. Your deeds replaced fear with hope when we needed it most. That saved us as much as anything else.”
Jack looked past Chi and Prime to Legend’s monument, which had been returned to its proper place. A far as he was concerned, a statue of Revile belonged right next to it. “I had help,” Jack said. “I didn’t do it on my own.”
“But you made the difference,” Virtua called out. Jack turned and saw the luminous Circlewoman of Machina arriving with Jazen. Blue was a few steps behind them. “Isn’t that what my special assistant always says being a hero is all about? Making a difference?” When she said “special assistant,” she and Jazen smiled at each other like it was some kind of inside joke.
“Go ahead and take the credit for once, Jack,” Jazen said. “Enjoy this.” He waved an arm out, motioning to the crowd. “You’ve earned it.”
“He knows what he’s talking about, Jack,” Virtua said. “We’re all grateful for what you’ve done.”
Jack sighed. “Okay, maybe I have earned a little . . .” Virtua didn’t seem to be listening to Jack’s reply. She had taken Jazen’s hand. The two of them looked into each other’s eyes and smiled. Their faces were so close, Jack thought they might kiss. The looks in their eyes made him want to put money on it. “Wait a minute, are you two . . .?”
The End of Infinity Page 22
