The noisy ambiance wasn’t my cup of tea, but after a few glasses of vodka it didn’t bother me. I didn’t recognize a lot of the patrons – they were Neos who didn’t have the flashy powers or identities the media loved – but there were a few notables I did.
There was jazz living god Hepcat Slim his own dammed self; he was a regular, and often took a few turns on the stage. At the moment he was having what appeared to be a serious talk with fellow regular Sparkles Schwartz, the Canadian pop star. Maybe they were planning a collaboration single, or even an album. A few tables over in the VIP section, I also spotted a few off-duty Legionnaires: Sharku-Man, Peter Panda, Electric Chairman and Witchy Woman. They studiously ignored me, the assholes. Also pretending not to notice Condor and me were three Empire State Guardians: Hercules-8, Cat Lady and the Yankee. No biggie, as Christine would say.
“How come they made you team leader?” I asked Condor after the fifth or sixth round. The quintuple shots of vodka were finally making an impression. Neos can get drunk; it just takes a lot of booze and the buzz doesn’t last long. Tonight was going to put a dent on my savings; luckily my girlfriend paid most of our bills.
“The Mayor and the Chief of Police insisted,” he said. “Turns out that having someone who can actually solve crimes instead of busting heads or look good for the cameras actually makes an impact. I’m doing more good there than I was at the old Condor Lair. We just finished wiping out the Italian and Russian mobs.”
I nodded. The two outfits had been at war after an attempt to kidnap Christine had gone very wrong, courtesy of yours truly and my psychic pal Cassandra, may she rest in peace. I’d vaguely followed the aftermath in the news, but hadn’t caught most of the details.
“Over a hundred prosecutions are underway, city, state and federal,” Condor went on. “A lot of rackets got shut down hard. Lots of neighborhoods are doing much better now, and any thugs still out on the streets are either looking for honest work or running scared. It’s the kind of thing that makes putting up with all the bullshit worth the trouble.”
“That’s pretty good,” I said. “Nice to hear something good came from the shit storm we had to wade through.”
“A lot of good stuff, Face. Saving the world, preventing the Third Asian War, that kind of stuff. And of course, you’re happier than I’ve ever seen you, at least when the messy stuff is at a low ebb.”
“I know. I just pretend not to notice, just in case whoever is in charge of fucking up my life notices and decides to dump a new bucket of shit on me.”
“Always a positive attitude.”
“Speaking of positive, I’m thinking of following your lead. Might even beat you to the punch.”
“What are you… Ah. Do you want me to introduce you to my Diamond District guy? His prices are pretty reasonable.”
“That’d be great,” I said, mostly meaning it. The idea of actually buying an engagement ring made the whole thing alarmingly real. But also alarmingly good. Maybe it would help Christine get past her guilt. Maybe.
“If Melanie and I can get our shit together in time, we could have a double wedding. Rent an island, invite three hundred of our closest friends. Could be nice.”
Now that was an alarming thought. Melanie/Kestrel and Christine didn’t exactly love each other, although they’d sort of buried the hatchet. I just nodded, made a mouth, and gulped down another mega-shot.
“Just a thought,” Condor said, noticing I wasn’t jumping up and down in glee at the idea.
“I’m leaving the whole wedding planning to Christine, assuming she says yes.”
“Makes sense. Probably should do the same.”
Kestrel’s ideal wedding would probably be the kind of thing that would send Caligula running for the vomitorium. I was already dreading being one of the grooms for the event. And I could picture what the bridesmaids would wear to that shindig.
“When it happens – if it happens – I want you to be best man, Face.”
“Seriously?”
“After what we went through? Absolutely.”
I’d never admit it, but I got a little choked up at that. “I’d be honored, bud.” And I would be, even if the wedding turned out to be something out of the Marquis De Sade’s nastier nightmares.
I was about to get downright sentimental when the terrorist decided to make his entrance.
Somebody shouted: “Look out!” Precog, maybe, or someone with super-senses that realized the overweight waiter wasn’t overweight; he was wearing a suicide vest.
“Humanity forever!” the asshole shouted before he went boom.
Unfortunately for him, Club X-Tremo’s security force fields had gone through a recent upgrade. They could generate containment bubbles around troublesome patrons. Or people with bombs. In the time it took the wannabe murderer to shout his slogan, someone or some automated system flipped a switch and encased him in an energy shield rated to stop an anti-tank round.
The boom was still pretty loud, but all the damage was contained to the inside of the bubble, which went from transparent to solid red when the terrorist’s remains evenly coated its interior. It wasn’t an appetizing sight, but it beat picking shrapnel from your face.
“Christ,” Condor said. A few of the patrons were screaming in alarm, but the rest just watched as the force shield collapsed and the terrorist splashed on the dance floor like a couple gallons of Bloody Mary mix.
“What an asshole,” I said and finished my drink, about the only epitaph the asshole deserved.
Security swarmed the area. The wait staff was probably going to get put through the wringer. And we were all going to have to give statements when the cops showed oup. What a shitty ending to what had been a pretty good night.
“I though the Humanity Foundation was gone and done for,” Condor said, trying to flag down a waiter and get a refill. No luck.
“Me too. Lost their leaders, their funding, and their lives, most of them. You’d think the rest would have learned their lesson. I guess as long as there are assholes out there, someone will pick up their flag and wave it.”
“This must have been a big project for them, infiltrating someone in here, with a hidden device powerful enough to kill a few Neos. And it was a bust. They can’t win. Hopefully that’ll sink in.”
“Hopefully the cops, the feds and you Guardians will find them quickly. That will sink them, which is even better.”
Condor nodded.
Chapter Nine
Hunters and Hunted
New York, New York, July 24, 2014
“Goddammit. Goddammit to Hell.”
Godfrey Lappage didn’t shout the curses. He muttered them softly as he watched the news report. No sense disturbing the neighbors; he’d made it a habit, keeping a low profile. But he was seething on the inside. Over a year of planning and execution, wasted. His cell had spent a small fortune to build a device that could be smuggled past Club X-Tremo’s security systems, and their chosen martyr had blown himself up without achieving a damn thing. The press didn’t even mention the Cause, or even the name of the fallen soldier, who was dismissed as an anonymous ‘terrorist.’ Bastards.
Neos always won. That was why Godfrey Lappage hated them so much. They always won.
He’d tried to join the Humanity Foundation for years. Just finding the elusive organization had been an ordeal, and when he finally made contact he was told he wasn’t up to snuff. Stupid bastards. Maybe if they’d let him help out they might not have been wiped out after their plots were uncovered. Well, if the Humanity Foundation wouldn’t let him in, he’d make his own version. The new Humanity Foundation would rise from the ashes of the old, stronger, smarter, and successful.
Finding members wasn’t hard. There were many like him, people who’d lost friends and family to senseless Neo rampages, or who just couldn’t stand the sight of the costumed freaks that ruled the world. The trick was to find the smart ones, the ones who knew how to keep their mouths shut, the ones who didn’t take stupid risks, an
d the ones who weren’t undercover cops or feds. Godfrey had managed to survive by being careful and cunning. His first big score – the murder of a Neo bitch whose body lay undiscovered in a landfill in New Jersey – had been a success. The videos of the execution had made the rounds among other true believers, and earned him the cred and the backing he needed for the next op – the bomb attack on Club X-Tremo.
That had turned out to be a total failure, unfortunately. Some of his recruits would desert him. Some might even turn informant. He’d been careful in making sure his activities couldn’t be traced back to him, but you couldn’t be too careful in this business. Creating fake Hypernet accounts was almost impossible, and all it would take to be discovered was having a few Neos with the right powers following his trail. He had to…
Someone knocked on his door.
“Goddammit to Hell,” he whispered again.
Cops? No. Cops would have kicked down his door, filled his basement apartment with tear gas, and shot or tasered him into submission. It wasn’t cops. He had no idea who it could be. None of his associates knew of this address. He’d made sure of that.
“Who is it?” he said. Just in case, he grabbed a silenced pistol from his desk drawer. Its solid weight gave him a small measure of comfort.
“A friend,” a voice on the other side of the door replied. A female voice. Highly unusual.
One thing he’d quickly found out was that anti-Neo activism wasn’t exactly popular with the ladies. There were a few, sure, but most of them were either crazier than weasels on laughing gas, butt-ugly, or both. Any fantasies he’d harbored about having freedom fighter sex with pretty grad students had been quickly dashed. No matter. He wasn’t doing this for the chicks, or the glory, and sure as hell not for the money, either. Come to think about, he wasn’t sure why he was doing this at all, just that he couldn’t stop now.
“I don’t have any friends,” he growled back.
“Just open the door, Godfrey. Unless you want me to start recounting your many sins out in the hall.”
Dammit. To Hell.
He opened the door, holding his gun behind his back. Worst case, he would take the bitch out once she was inside. He still had enough materials for a kill kit in the apartment. And it might be fun.
The girl at the door was short, like five three or four, and there was something wrong with her face, like she’d had a stroke or something. The left half of her mouth was sagging down; her left eye also drooped in an unseemly fashion. Too bad; she would have been pretty otherwise. Her red hair was short, done in a pixie cut. Her skin was unhealthily pale and blotchy, and there was crazy glint in her eyes, even the drooping one. Even partially deformed as she was, she looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her offhand.
“Can I come in?”
He stepped out of her way. She walked in as if she owned the place. He noticed a slight limp in her step, too. Whatever had messed up her face had done a number on the rest of her. That at least proved one thing: she wasn’t a Neo. Neos didn’t have disabilities. They were perfect. The bastards.
“Nice place,” she said, looking over the chipped paint on the walls, the crappy secondhand furniture, the dirt and trash on the corner of the kitchen. All the money he earned – and the much larger amounts he stole – went straight to the Cause. He didn’t care about high living. He was committed. A nice place was for the losers who went along to get along.
“Who are you? What do you want?” he said.
She turned around and saw the gun pointed right at her face.
“Scary,” she said evenly. “Before you shoot me, shouldn’t you lay down some plastic sheets first? Otherwise the blood’s going to ruin the carpet.”
“Screw the carpet. I asked you a question.”
“Two questions, actually. My name is Ms. Night. And I’m here to help you.”
“Yeah, right.”
Now that he thought about it, there had been a Mister Night involved in the old Foundation, hadn’t there? A shadowy name whispered among pro-human circles. Except he’d turned out to be a Neo after all, powerful enough to fight a bunch of heroes over New York before getting blown up to hell.
“Are you a Neo?”
“With a face like this? What do you think?”
“I’ve heard of Mister Night. He turned out to be a Neo.”
She shook her head. “No. He wasn’t a Neo. He was something much, much worse than a Neo. Just like me.”
“Only pureblood humans can join the Cause.”
“I’m not joining your little gang, Godfrey. I’m taking it over.”
He tried to pull the trigger, but his hand wouldn’t obey him. The bitch was doing something to him. That realization helped him recognize her face, even with her damaged features. That face had been on magazine covers and vid-screens everywhere in the last year or so.
“Dark Justice! You are a Neo.”
She took the gun away from him and pistol-whipped him with it in one fluid movement. Godfrey ended up on his knees, hands trying to staunch the flow of blood from a scalp wound, tears of pain and terror mixing with the gore dripping onto the carpet.
“Lesson number one, Godfrey: don’t call me a liar.”
She grabbed him by the hair, pulling his head back, and jammed the gun in his mouth, breaking three or four teeth in the process. The pain was overwhelming, the cold reality of the weapon pressing down his throat even more so.
“Lesson number two: don’t argue with me.”
“Please,” he tried to say. All that came out was an unintelligible gibbering sound, along with drool and blood.
“Just nod if you can hear me. Is there anyone home?” she said – no, she sang to him, although he couldn’t recognize the tune.
He nodded.
“Just a little ballad my momster used to sing to me, but I find it apropos for this little chat. Nod if you agree.”
He did. He very much did not want to die kneeling on his shitty carpet with a gun jammed in his mouth like a dick. Nothing else mattered. Not the Cause, not his dignity. Nothing.
“Goody. What you’re going to do, after we put your mouth to good use – me so horny, you see – is open up your home terminal and give me your membership list. And your bank accounts. And then you’re going to do anything else I tell you to. Can you give us a little nod?”
He did.
“Good.”
She grinned. Her half-smile chilled him to the bone.
Christine Dark
Sanctuary, North Pole, July 25, 2014
She snorted and cut the connection. They’d agreed not to keep it on all the time, or they’d end up losing what little individuality they still retained and become two alien pod people or something. They still could tell each other’s general emotional state. Right now Mark was mildly annoyed, probably at the cops. Before the explosion, he’d been pretty content, even excited about something. Of course, his next feelz had been shock and a bit of fear when the d-bag suicide bombe
r had detonated. What a world this was.
You know it could be a lot worse, she reminded herself.
And she was going to make sure that never happened here. Which meant she should try to get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a busy day.
It took her several minutes of tossing and turning in the unfamiliar bed before she managed to sleep. She was… what? Sad and depressed, yes, but also, weirdly enough happy, and in love. A seven-layer burrito of wildly incongruent emotions was wrapped over her heart.
He still loves me.
She’d cheated on him and killed someone just like him, and committed all kinds of murders, retail and wholesale, and he hadn’t run away screaming. Maybe hooking up with a stone-cold killer had finally paid off. He definitely wasn’t going to be overly judgmental.
She couldn’t be so understanding, unfortunately.
Ever since she’d regained her memories, they kept haunting her. Flashbacks kept popping up: every single person she’d killed; Mark’s death; sending out the call to the Cosmic Nerds.
Those pesky Cosmic Nerds. Their name for themselves was something like the Civilization, or the Civilized People’s Consortium, with lots of extra meanings added. The actual word she’d found in the Codex enumerated its entire membership, which made it the longest word ever written, a word massive enough to choke a German linguist. If written out in the Latin alphabet, it would be about four million characters long, a bit more than the entire Bible. And that was just the title that went on their letterhead. Once she’d said that trying to understand them was like a Mayan priest trying to understand a nuclear reactor. She was beginning to suspect it was more like a not particularly smart dog trying to understand said nuclear reactor. Human minds just didn’t have the ability to grasp their basic concepts.
A few things about the Nerds were understandable enough, though. If a world was corrupted by the Outsiders, they cleansed it. By the time they were done, nothing was left. Her forays into the Codex to find out what happened hadn’t been very successful, but the end of the process involved collapsing all of the matter and energy of the local star system into a smallish black hole. There was more to it than that, though, stuff that sounded more like a religious tract than a Wiki article, and she hadn’t been able to wrap her head around it.
New Olympus Saga (Book 4): The Ragnarok Alternative Page 19
