by Jay Phillips
The blonde moved the blade closer and closer to his eye. The blade seemed to grow in size with every centimeter it came nearer. He thought about shutting his eye, but it felt like a moot point. Open, closed, either way he was going to be dead.
And then, she stopped. The blade stopped moving, and her arm stiffened, leaving it motionless in the air. Her face, like her arm, seemed frozen in the moment, unflinching, stationary; she didn’t blink or breathe. Everything about her had just paused. The Detective wasn’t as much relieved as he was confused. This wasn’t anything of his doing. Suddenly, she spoke, her lips moving while the rest of her remained completely still.
“Detective,” she said in a voice that wasn’t hers, in a voice that belonged to Emily. “I broke through her defenses, but I can’t hold her for long. Get up, get out of here.”
“Not sure if I can,” he said, still confused but slowly catching on to what was going on. “I’m not exactly sure which body parts work right now, and which ones don’t. Besides, big brother up there will be on me before I turn the corner.”
“Then take out your gun and shoot her. I’ll hold her until---”
He interrupted. “If I kill her with you inside, I’ll kill you both.”
“I can get out in time.”
“No,” he said in return, “you can’t.”
And then it occurred to him, it didn’t all have to end like this. He had the chance, a small chance though it was, to make one last heroic gesture. What did he have to lose at this point? What would they do if it didn’t work out, kill him? It didn’t matter; he was dead either way. He figured it was better to go out in a blaze of glory than just sitting there like the chump he was.
It would have to be quick; he could already see the cloaked teleporter from the corner of his eye. Old big and ominous was starting to notice something was wrong; his sister hadn’t moved for at least thirty seconds. He began to move down the stairs. The Detective knew what he had to do, and it had to be a single, fast, fluid motion, no room for second chances, no time for an error. He had to be perfect.
He moved his right hand into his coat and pulled his gun free from the holster. In as smooth of a motion as he could muster, he centered the barrel against the blonde’s right shoulder and pulled the trigger. He heard two completely separate women scream out in unison as the bullet passed through the blonde’s flesh and into the wall on the other side of the room.
With his free left hand, The Detective pushed her away from him, and he moved himself up to his knees as fast as he could. He heard the pop and smelled the ozone a fraction of a second before big brother appeared, and The Detective knew exactly where he would be. He whipped the gun around as fast as he could, aiming the barrel at an angle above his own head.
The cloaked figure appeared directly where The Detective knew he would, and the barrel of the gun was already there and waiting, already in position beneath the big man’s cloaked chin. And just like The Detective thought he would, the cloaked figure turned himself intangible and placed his ghost-like hand inside of The Detective’s chest. The stalemate stood there. If the cloaked teleporter turned himself solid, it would effectively leave a giant hole in The Detective’s chest, but without a word between them, they both knew that The Detective would have a millisecond before death set in to pull the trigger and send a bullet into the big man’s then solid head.
The Detective could hear the blonde crying and writhing on the concrete floor a few feet away from them. There was only one voice now, leaving him sure that the pain of the bullet had been enough to force Emily to retreat back into her own head. That was good. If this went as wrong as The Detective figured it would, he wouldn’t want her to have to bear witness to his personal end.
“Stop this!” The Agent’s booming voice yelled from the corner of the ceiling. Without looking, without moving his line of sight from the black figure in front of him, The Detective knew instantly where the voice came from: a surveillance camera positioned in the corner of the stairwell. Apparently, The Agent’s camera came with two way speakers as well. Fancy, The Detective thought to himself.
“Light, Dark,” The Agent’s disembodied voice said from the speaker, giving these two the first names The Detective had managed to hear. “Your job here is done. The Detective is not your priority at the moment. He has an appointment he must keep. Do you understand?”
The figure in front of The Detective, the being apparently known as Dark, nodded his still intangible head up and down, signifying his acceptance of The Agent’s orders. Without a word, Dark pulled his hand from The Detective’s chest. Dark, paying absolutely zero attention to the man with the gun, bent down in front of the blonde, and lovingly stroked her hair with his dark hand, before gently lifting his bleeding sister into his arms, and with the usual pop, they disappeared, leaving only the stench of burnt ozone in their place.
The Detective, physically and emotionally exhausted, dropped the gun to the ground beside his knees, and bent over, suddenly desperate to catch his breath.
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“Are you okay?“ Emily’s voice asked from within his mind.
“Peachy,” The Detective said in return as he struggled to climb into a standing position. He returned the gun to its holster while simultaneously checking the inside of the coat for the journal he had come here for. It was still there. “You?”
“Getting shot really hurts.”
“That’s what they say.” With his left hand tightly gripping the guardrail, he stood up straight, allowing his back and legs to stretch as far as they could, noting that it didn’t seem like anything was broken. Bruised, cracked maybe, but not completely broken, everything seemed to at least work. “What did you expect it to feel like? A light tickle?”
“Jackass, I knew it would hurt. I just didn’t expect it to hurt that much just through a psychic connection. I could feel the bullet as if it was traveling through my own skin. It was awful.”
He released the rail; while still off balance and wobbly, he could at least stand up without support. “Sounds like it. Can you sense any more survivors on any of the floors?”
“No,” she replied, a solemn tone obvious within her voice. “The few who did have already made it outside; most of them are gathered in front of the building. Where did those two, Light and Dark, go?”
“No idea.” He took a step. No pain yet, but with the extraordinary amount of adrenaline pumping through his system, it would probably be a while before he felt the actual hurt. “Probably someplace to recover. Maybe back to The Agent’s tower. Did you get anything from them while you were inside her head.”
“Lots.”
“And?” he asked as he chained multiple steps together, readying himself for the fourteen flights of stairs waiting for him.
“It was horrible. They killed so many people tonight. Anyone who has or might have known about your release, anyone who has seen you, most of the people in this building. I saw each and every death, as if I was there.”
He reached the stairs and bent his left knee to step down. It was extremely stiff, only managing to bend after making a horrible snapping sound. He figured he was really going to feel that one later. “You weren’t in control of her for that long; how could you have seen that much?”
She sighed. “It wasn’t necessarily the time I spent in control of her as much as it was the time I spent trying to actually get in. I had to break through her defenses, and in the process of doing that, all of her recent memories came flooding into me.”
“Sounds complicated,” he replied after making it down the first flight. Only thirteen more to go. The smell of smoke had grown throughout the stairwell, and he knew the fire was spreading faster, taking more and more of the structure with it along the way. “Oh yeah, before I forget, thanks.”
It was as if he could hear her smile from inside of his mind. “I did good, didn’t I?” she said, the solemn tone replaced by the sound of self satisfaction.
&nb
sp; “You did.” The steps became easier and easier with every one he took. He was still stiff, still cracking and popping in strange ways, but he was moving slightly faster than he expected he should be able to. “She had me dead to rights. I owe you one.”
“Consider us even.”
“Not yet,” he said, trying to remember if he had saved her life at any point in this. “Far as I can tell, the score is you one and me zero.”
She paused for the briefest of moments. “You saved my life just by coming back.”
It was his turn to hesitate before speaking. How had him coming back saved her life? What had he done other than retrieve what may or may not be a useless journal, the last will and testament of a suicidal man who wanted The Seven dead? The Detective had no answers to any of these questions, but he always had a smart ass comment available at a moment’s notice.
“Well, ain’t I just the goddamn hero in this piece.”
The solemn tone returned to her pretty voice. “You are, Detective. You just don’t know it yet.”
“If I am,” he said, seeing the sign for the seventh floor. Halfway there. “I sure as hell don’t feel like it right now.”
She stayed silent for a few moments, allowing him the opportunity to climb down two more flights without any interruptions. His movements seemed faster, smoother, easier. Maybe he wasn’t as hurt as he thought he was. Or maybe he was just pissed off. Not only at The Agent and his assassin duo, but at himself, angry for giving up when everything seemed the darkest. It could have been her power, he tried to convince himself. Maybe, just maybe, her ability to dull the senses affected him. It was obvious that was why he couldn’t pull the trigger until Emily was in control of her body, but it wasn’t the obvious reason of why he just sat there, allowing her the opportunity to take his life. Quitting had never been something he did, and it didn’t make sense to him why he would do it then.
“I’m sure it was her power,” the female voice said from within his head. “I saw the things she could do; she could just make people lay down in front of her while she killed them. Her influence is extraordinary.”
He passed the sign for the third floor. “You sound impressed.”
“Not impressed, per se, just in awe of the way she can control her abilities. I have no such control.”
“You seemed to be doing pretty good from where I stood.”
She chuckled. It wasn’t a funny laugh as much as it was an uncomfortable one. “You didn’t see my nose bleeding while I was inside of her or how much I cried after you shot her.”
“You cried?”
“Like a baby.”
He passed the sign for the second floor, then finished off the last flight in record time. He reached the door that led to the lobby and opened it, revealing a room filled with smoke. The fire was spreading even faster than he thought it had. Instead of heading toward the front doors, he made his way through the haze to the elevator.
“Where are you going?” Emily asked from his thoughts.
“Nowhere,” he answered as he pushed the button marked with an arrow facing up. After a few seconds, the bell dinged, and the door opened. The Detective, surprised the damn thing was still working, bent down and retrieved his hat from the elevator floor. He returned it to his head and headed for the door.
“Your hat?” she asked in a tone that seemed half annoyed and half amused.
“Can’t look cool without my hat,” he said as he walked toward the front doors. He stopped just short of opening them and looked toward the corner for the surveillance camera. He found it, just above the door that led to the stairwell, the red light in its lens burning at a steady pace. The Detective looked up at it and tipped his hat. “Be seeing you soon,” he said just before turning toward the front doors, opening them, and stepping out into the still pouring rain.
_______________________________________________
Journal Entry
[Found on page 62]
Note: The following is a transcription of a video found on Rogers’ computer, recorded several years ago post-war. It shows Rogers in his study, talking to Grant, his lawyer/ personal assistant/ personal ass kisser.
The Agent: Did we receive the results.
Grant: Yes, sir.
Agent: And Fire?
Grant: She has no idea that we know.
Agent: The doctor who did the testing, how did you persuade him to share?
Grant: Bribery this time, sir. I thought I would change things up a bit. (Grant hands The Agent a file).
Agent: (opening the file and going through the contents) A level six telepath, and here Fire would have me believe her little sister to be nothing more than a simple empath.
Grant: Level six for the moment, sir. If you go through the doctor’s notes, you can see that he actually measured her power at a much higher level, a level nine to be exact, but Fire’s attempts to keep her sister’s telepathy hidden and the girl’s fear of her own power have resulted in the girl building blocks around her ability, psychically inhibiting her ability’s growth.
Agent: And if these barriers were to break?
Grant: She would be on par with the most powerful psychics in the country, maybe even comparable to Psychosis himself. Would you have me bring her in for your recruitment program?
Agent: No, Grant. Let Fire believe she has me fooled. We’ll just keep this bit of information to ourselves until the need arises to use it.
(End video)
_______________________________________________
The Detective stood in the rain and leaned up against the truck, allowing the falling water to wash the blood and failure from his face. All of the people who had gathered in front of the building were gone by the time he came out, which he deemed a pretty good idea. After all, they were the real targets here, not him. The farther they were away from this place, the better. He thought about the woman with the child, the one he managed to rescue from the burning apartment. He hoped she and her child were safe. It was nice to think that he had actually managed to save someone in all of this.
The top half of the building was engulfed in flames, yet there wasn’t a fire truck or rescue vehicle in sight. Not that he really expected there to be one. This was The Agent cleaning up a mess; he wanted these people dead and all the evidence removed. Why would he send someone to put out the fire he had his people set?
It was almost eleven at night; storm clouds and the smoke from the fire blocked out any chance of seeing a star or the moon, giving the night a much lonelier feel than it would of normally had. Everything he saw had a feeling of finality to it, as if this would be his last storm, his last rainfall, his last burning twenty story apartment building. Well, the building fire was actually a first and a last all rolled into a nice neat package.
That was probably the reason he longed to see the stars and the moon. He hated to think that the last time he would ever see either of them was while standing nude in The Ice Queen’s bedroom window, watching her roll around in the bed, her too without clothes, beckoning him to come back and join her.
“Well,” Emily said, returning to her post as an apparition standing beside him, the rain still falling through her just as strangely as it had been earlier. “That was quite the series of images.”
“I warned you about my stray thoughts,” he replied, his head bent down by the driver’s side window, rain dripping off of his hat and landing on his soaked face. Blood from his shoulder mixed with the rain that fell from his body, combining into a bloody stream at his feet. “It’s dangerous in my head. I have my demons.”
“Aren’t you just the master of the understatement.”
“I try,” he said, trying his best to find a smile. At the moment, it just wasn’t there. He turned his head and looked at her; not as he had earlier, this time he took a good hard, deep, lingering look. He realized she was probably the last pretty girl he was ever going to see, and he wanted to take in her every feature, her every detail, every little perfection, every little flaw
, her beautiful black hair, her full lips, the way the tip of her nose was ever so slight tipped up, her pale, almost flawless skin, the little patches of freckles, her large brown eyes, that, even as an overactive figment of his imagination, seemed to look through him.
He soaked her in as a thirsty man in the desert would drink from a found oasis. He wanted to take in every little drop of her, to preserve her forever in his memories, however short amount of time forever was going to be. He knew he couldn’t afford to waste anything to a simple glance; he had to take the opportunity to imbed her into his mind, into his thoughts. If she was truly the last woman he was ever going to see, he was so glad she was as beautiful as she was.
“What next,” she asked, interrupting his thoughts.
He lowered his head back towards the ground, back to the stream of blood beneath his feet. “I was trying to stare at you.”
“I noticed.” She smiled. “Remember, I see what you see.”
“I’m tired.” The rain around him splashed against the water logged road. “I’m tired of fighting, but I couldn’t live with myself if I stopped.”
“You could run.”
“Where?” he replied. “Trust me, if The Agent wanted me dead, I’d be dead already. He needs me alive. That’s why he called off his monochromatic hit squad. He needs me alive for some reason; he needs me to pay him a visit, and now, I really want to know why.”
Lightning flashed in the sky, and thunder rumbled barely a second behind the strike. The Detective took it as a sign that he should probably seek shelter from the storm raging around him. He opened the truck’s door, and he climbed inside, silently wondering what all of the water dripping from him was going to do to the truck's interior. Oh well, he thought to himself, it wasn’t like it was actually his truck. The image Emily projected into his mind was sitting on the seat beside him, just waiting his arrival.
“He’s going to kill you,” she said, her voice suddenly filled with sadness. “If you go there, he’s going to kill you.”
