The thought wouldn’t go away. He ignored it as he carefully lifted a hundred tons of collapsed masonry off a parking lot attendant’s kiosk. The trapped man crawled from the small space where he’d been trapped for several hours. He croaked his thanks in Spanish. Holding the weight up with one hand, Cassius handed the survivor a water bottle. “Salga por alla,” he told him, pointing to the exit of the tunnel he had carved. The man gulped down the water as he scrambled towards the light. Cassius could have teleported him away, but each jump drained him of some power, and he’d already made over three hundred jumps in the last three hours. Even his enormous energy reserves had limits, and he was beginning to approach them.
“Any others?” Cassius said through his comm implants.
“The rest of the building is clear,” replied the Faerie Godfather; his telepathic abilities allowed him to scan entire blocks for life signs. His ‘all clear’ meant only the dead were left in the area.
Cassius lowered the parking lot section back into place and teleported to the next square in the grid. So far he’d personally rescued over a hundred people and assisted in saving twice as many others. It still felt like a drop in the bucket. The futility of it all filled him with impotent rage.
“Cassius?”
He’d daydreamed through a call. “Janus here,” he said lamely.
“Sending you new coordinates. A school bus this time, partially buried under a collapsed building. They aren’t in immediate danger, but the children could use medical attention. Can you teleport the entire thing to the nearest aid station?”
A bus and its passengers would be a major strain after so many jumps. “I will,” he said, sounding a lot surer than he felt. Another burst of anger followed, this time at his own weakness. He jumped to the inside of the bus, and was greeted by the sobs and moans of the trapped children. The driver had been crushed to death, but he appeared to be the only fatality. Nobody else seemed to be badly injured.
“Tranquilos, mis ninos,” he said. “Los voy a sacar de aqui.”
“Janus! Es Janus, el superheroe negro!”
The black superhero. After all these years, that still was what many people knew him as. A wave of bitterness mixed with his growing anger, and for an instant he thought of leaving the bus stranded in the darkness between spaces, where the little brats would get all the blackness they could wish for.
Cassius shook his head. What’s wrong with me? No time to worry about it. He pushed past the exhaustion, took hold of the bus and its contents with his mind, and created a Doorway large enough to hold them all. A moment later, he was in the dark, along with his precious cargo. The children felt the bus lurch, but they’d been buried underground for so long they couldn’t tell they were somewhere else. He started taking the bus to the other side – and felt himself stumble.
Suddenly, they were falling into the void. The children bounced inside the bus like so many dice in a cup, and their cries became stark screams of terror. A sudden burst of panic gripped Cassius’ heart. They were drifting in the darkness, and there were Things in there that would seek them out if they lingered for too long. He desperately tried to create a foothold in reality, and failed yet again.
I’m spent, he realized. He should have rested before making the attempt. His pride had doomed them all.
Try again, an inner voice he didn’t recognize whispered in his mind. He grappled for more power, and found a reservoir of energy that hadn’t been there a moment before. Like a drowning man reaching for a piece of flotsam, he tapped the power and made a Doorway.
Daylight welcomed him. The children were still crying weakly as he carefully set the bus down and let the paramedics rush in, but they would be all right now.
He wouldn’t.
The energy that had saved them had been tainted: the power of the Outsiders. It must have lingered inside of him since his fight with Mr. Night, biding its time, feeding his anger and fear until they made him make one mistake too many.
A war for the lives and souls of humanity was at hand, and he’d already lost his own personal battle.
Hunters and Hunted
Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia Commonwealth, December 3, 2013
“It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine,” Daedalus Smith sang. It was a catchy tune from another universe, and although most of the pop culture references in its lyrics eluded him, it was amusingly fitting for the occasion. He’d found it in a portable device the girl’d had on her when he’d brought her into this world. I moved Heaven and Earth to bring her here and all got was this lousy I-Phone, he thought. The device itself was both backward and advanced, a product of parallel electronic evolution that would have inspired half a dozen patents here in his universe, if only he was still in the business of filing patents instead of being an international fugitive.
He was safe enough here, though. His identity as a Canadian expatriate and investor in South Rhodesia had been established over a period of decades. Under the name Gordon Carruthers, his holdings were worth over fifty million British pounds, not a hell of a lot compared to his previous fortune, but enough to afford a great deal of respect and security. His business connections in the former British colony had allowed him to quietly bring over dozens of his associates; with their help he might be able to complete his special project.
“And I feel fine,” he sang to himself as he walked into his office. The Dreamer was there, no longer wearing the face of one Doctor Martin Cohen. Dietrich Muller/Martin Cohen had been transformed into a non-descript brown-haired man with pudgy cheeks that reminded Daedalus of a youthful version of Winston Churchill. Good old W.C. had been a real son of a bitch, so the face fit the Dreamer to a T.
The Neo had been sitting; he jumped to his feet when Daedalus walked in. “I’m here as you ordered, sir,” the Kraut said diffidently. He still hadn’t fully recovered from the mutilations he’d suffered at the hands of Mr. Night, mentally at least. The empath had been an arrogant prick in the past; now he looked perennially crestfallen, a shadow of his former self. Daedalus considered the change an improvement.
“Good. Sit down, take a load off.” Daedalus followed his own advice and plopped himself on the comfy chair behind his desk. His office was on the twelfth floor in a building right smack in downtown Salisbury – there was a movement underway by the local parliament to change the name of the capital to Harare, but it had failed three votes already – and it afforded him a nice view of the prosperous city below. Salisbury had potential, a city of three million, a major trading point for the entire continent. Not a bad place to start over – assuming the planet survived the next few weeks, of course. He’d miss the place if he had to take a powder. “I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you here.”
“I do as I’m told,” Dietrich replied. “The Delphi Team is performing well, even without my direct supervision. The predicted outcome remains the same, unfortunately.”
The Delphi Team had seen Death coming this way, long before anybody else, and that would prove to be invaluable in the long term, even if the most likely possible outcome they’d seen – planetary extinction – came to pass. They’d allowed him to get a head start on his contingency planning.
Of course, it would have been nice if his tame seers had predicted the utter failure of his primary plans, or warned him about the clobbering he’d gotten from a spent uranium penetrator, or the nasty exchange with Mr. Night in Caracas. Unfortunately, anything involving Christine Dark or Mr. Night was beyond the scope of seers. Neither of those pains in his ass operated entirely within the rules. Which meant either of them might change the visions of the future, for good or ill.
Speaking of the devil... “Guess who made I contact with through the usual suspects,” he said glibly.
Dietrich just sat there, unwilling to play Socratic second-fiddle. You just couldn’t get good help these days. “Mr. Night wishes to hold a tete a tete,” he said, and that got a reaction from the Kraut empath.
“You mustn’
t!” Dietrich blurted out. “He tried to kill you, almost killed me… It must be a trap!”
“Which is why I’m taking you along,” Daedalus said. “As well as a small mercenary army for security, and an arsenal of gadgets designed to deal with our favorite servant of unspeakable entities from beyond reality. You’re coming because you have a chance to tell if he’s trying to bamboozle me.” A small chance, but better than nothing.
“I’ve rarely been able to get more than the most superficial empathic readings off him,” Dietrich protested. He was scared shitless of coming anywhere near Mr. Night. Daedalus sympathized; any dealings with the little creep – well, not so little since he’d taken over Medved’s body – endangered not just his life but his immortal soul, assuming such a thing existed. Given that a couple of people he’d thought dead were running around, he was prepared to believe in souls.
“Superficial is better than nothing, Freund,” Daedalus countered. “Don’t worry, he’ll have to go through me to get to you. You’re a valuable part of this organization.” That was mostly true; he wasn’t about to throw away a valuable piece at this stage of the game. Of course, if saving his skin meant throwing Dietrich under the proverbial bus, then the Kraut would be hypovehiculated tout suite. You protected the king till the bitter end, and damn the pawns or even the knights and queen.
The Dreamer lowered his head, mutely acquiescing to his role in Daedalus’ game. “As you say, sir. Where are we to meet Herr Night?”
“Nowhere near here, of course.” Never shit where you sleep, and meeting with that walking abortion was tantamount to taking a dump in the face of all that was good and decent. “Pack a bag, Dietrich. We’re going to see the Pyramids.”
Giza, Egypt, December 5, 2013
The Great Pyramid never ceased to impress Daedalus. The cyclopean structure – the tallest building for most of recorded history – had always left him in awe of human ingenuity and creativity. It just made him loathe Mr. Night and all his works all the more, since the monstrous bastard wanted nothing less than the eradication of the entire species.
On the off-chance of a confrontation, Daedalus had deployed all the forces at his disposal. They weren’t much, unfortunately. He’d seeded the area with anti-teleport wards, so the smirking bastard wouldn’t be able to jump away. A team of snipers armed with some very special weapons were hovering invisibly around the area, led by Bert Tuttle, a Neo with no major powers but a very keen sense of strategy and tactics. Finally, he and Dietrich were wearing about five pounds of assorted gadgets and Artifacts designed specifically with Mr. Night in mind. If things went south, it was going to get very loud, very quickly, all over Giza.
Daedalus and his not-so-stout German companion stood by the Robbers’ Entrance to the Great Pyramid, letting the usual throng of tourists walk by them. “It was a lot quieter around here when I first came to visit,” he told Dietrich while they waited. “Back in ’35, the place was largely deserted. I did my grand tour before the Spanish Civil War got rolling and I decided to volunteer for it.”
“Ja, ja,” Dietrich said agreeably. “Very interesting, indeed.”
He might as well be talking to a parrot. Daedalus sighed and spent the next few minutes in silence.
“I’m glad you chose to meet me,” Mr. Night said, startling them both. Dietrich actually cringed at the sound of the bastard’s voice. Daedalus didn’t, but he was shocked nonetheless. Mr. Night was much shorter than they’d expected – Medved had been a veritable giant, well over seven feet tall and nearly as wide – and he’d been wearing an entirely different face moments before.
Both the size and the shapeshifting were new, and they could only mean one thing. “I see you turned Face-Off into your newest meat puppet,” Daedalus said.
Mr. Night’s lopsided grin didn’t change, but he inclined his head slightly to one side by way of acknowledgement. “Sharp as always, Mr. Smith. I think it’s fitting that Ms. Dark will meet her demise at the hands of her former lover. She will be so very upset.”
“Sounds swell. Couldn’t happen to a nicer girl. Not that I give a shit at this stage,” Daedalus lied. At this stage, Christine Dark might be the only thing standing between humanity and extinction. “So what can I do for you, Nighty-Night? I thought we’d said everything we needed to, back in Caracas.”
“Things are changing, as you well know. The Genocide is coming, and he bears the mark of my Masters. I could sense it underneath his words, like deliciously dark echoes in a catacomb.”
“Well, I’d like to say I wish you the best, but I’d be lying if I did. What makes you think I’d do anything to help you?”
“I can offer certain guarantees, in return for your assistance.”
“What sort of guarantees?”
“I’m aware of Operation Bug Out,” Mr. Night said, and Daedalus felt his heart go cold. He’d tried so hard to keep the operation a secret, and now… “Very ambitious, your plan,” the creep went on. “Should everything fail, you and your intrepid crew of Neolympians and humans will board the interstellar vessel you’ve been quietly putting together and will set off in search of a new home. That reminds me of that funny little show from the Sixties, I disremember the name…”
“Star Trips,” Daedalus replied. “These are the voyages of the Intrepid and all that good shit. I always wanted to be Captain Pike, even though I was pushing eighty when the show went on the air. I even did some technical consulting for it, until I realized that Rodenberry was an anti-Neo bigot of the first order. All right, Night. What do you propose?”
“If you cooperate with me, I will make sure your little ship remains intact. My Masters won’t care if a handful of immortals and their servants make it out alive. The prize is humanity at large. You and yours won’t be able to accomplish much before the greater War is resolved, so you’re of no real concern to us. All I need in return is just a bit of help, to ensure the Genocide’s ultimate victory. There are plenty of recently-depopulated worlds that would make nice new homes for you and yours, not that Neolympians need a terrestrial environment to survive.”
“It’d be a lot more comfortable for us if we didn’t have to instinctively gasp for breath every couple of seconds,” Daedalus said. “So an Earth-like environment would be ideal.” He’d already quietly obtained the report Janus had finally coughed up, detailing all the Goldilocks worlds he’d found during his little star trip. The one with a primitive native population struck Daedalus as his best bet. It’d be nice to have a labor force that could be put to good use and had no means of saying no, not to mention any knowledge of such poisonous fruits as unions or civil rights.
He turned to the Dreamer. “What say you?”
The empath shivered before answering. “I think he’s being truthful,” he finally said. “He will let us go if we do as he asks.”
“See? I’m just a plain and honest mediator,” Mr. Night said. “You have no use for this world, Smith. Here you will only be a fugitive and will spend your endless days pretending to be something less than you truly are. Out in the stars you can be a King of Men, and build your own pyramids. I believe your crew includes a hundred fertile females and a fair amount of frozen sperm and fertilized eggs, more than enough to start the human race anew. Like I said, you represent no threat to our interests. My Masters and the Civilized Peoples – as they so arrogantly like to call themselves – will settle their differences long before your new kingdom becomes a factor.”
And, if you win, you’ll simply track us down and wipe us out at your leisure, Daedalus thought. Even if Mr. Night could be trusted, he doubted the Genocide would be so generous. On the other hand, a deal now would give him time. Given enough time, Mr. Night might die, the Genocide might die, or the fucking horse might learn how to sing. “You got yourself a deal,” he said, feeling like he was signing over the last piece of his soul. “Don’t ask me to shake on it, though.”
“Your word will suffice, Mr. Smith. As always, it was a pleasure doing business with you. I will c
ontact you through the usual intermediaries, asking for specific bits of information, which you will provide without question, and free of any further charges. Have a nice day.” Mr. Night’s face changed, became plain and ordinary, and the nondescript man joined the tourist line.
Daedalus sighed. “Let’s go home, Dietrich. We’ve got work to do.”
Chapter Seventeen
Face-Off
The Darkling Plains, Time Undetermined
I find out you need friends in Hell.
The day after I wake up, I take out a second asshole – a pimp whose retirement plan for his girls consisted of a shallow grave out in Jersey – and decide to go hunting for more. The hook I took from the pedo disappears in the body of the pimp, but I find a piece of rebar as a replacement weapon. I’ve heard screams in the distance before, while I was still in a daze, and I figure there’s more people like me out there, sleepwalking in between torture bouts. Nobody deserves to end up like that. If I could wake up, maybe the others can, too.
Sure enough, after I wander around the endless ruined city for a bit, I hear screams. I find a woman who’s been cornered by one of the ghosts, a skinny fuck with a large switchblade. He’s cutting her. I can see bloody wounds on her arms and hands; she’s trying to defend herself, which surprises me; she must have woken up already. Not that it’s helping her any; she’s unskilled and unarmed, and the punk is slashing her with impunity. Soon enough she’ll be too weak to fight back, and that’s when he’ll have his fun.
Not this time, motherfucker.
I creep up behind him while he laughs and slashes at her. He barks playfully in her direction, or makes kissing noises, just to add a little extra to the torture-murder routine. He’s having so much fun he doesn’t notice me until I ram the piece of rebar I’ve liberated right into the side of his neck. He stops laughing then; his dying gurgle is the most wonderful sound I’ve heard in a while. I pull the rebar out and he goes down, kicks a few times and goes still. A moment later, he’s nothing but a shadow on the gray soil, and a moment after that the shadow’s gone.
New Olympus Saga (Book 3): Apocalypse Dance Page 24
