“Given that we are taking over a body that doesn’t belong to us, unpleasantness is the least we deserve.”
The Lurker shrugged. “Are you ready?”
Kenneth nodded. A moment later, the false panorama vanished, and the darkness returned.
Unpleasantness aplenty awaited them.
Chapter Nine
Janus
Olympus Mons Summit, Planet Mars, March 16h, 2013
Cassius Jones emerged from the gate and fell to his knees. He took a perfunctory breath; the thin and frigid Martian air filled his lungs, providing nothing of value. Neither the unbreathable atmosphere nor the freezing temperatures – a mere hundred degrees above absolute zero – bothered him. The wounds he had sustained during the brief but intense battle in Nevada did, however. Blood still flowed from half a dozen injuries; the fluid froze solid as soon as it seeped past his skin-tight protective aura. He would heal soon enough, though.
John had fallen. Dead or captured, Cassius did not know.
Kenneth Slaughter was dead.
Cassius had never been close to Kenneth; Doc Slaughter had been too cool and aloof, too wrapped up in his own thoughts. The fact that Cassius found the blonde genius incredibly attractive had also cast a pall on their relationship. He’d never made his attraction an issue, but Doc had noticed it nonetheless. Kenneth was open-minded, but in many ways he remained a man of his times, and he’d never quite gotten over his prejudices, although he’d always been unfailingly polite. For all their differences, they had respected each other. Cassius mourned his loss.
Daedalus Smith was the traitor.
Cassius had always detested the man’s politics and attitude. Daedalus’ tireless campaigning for Ronald Reagan had helped defeat Cassius’ try for the White House, although he had to admit his campaign had probably been doomed for the start. The Democratic Party had always been highly ambivalent towards Neolympians even before the fall of the Kennedy administration, let alone in the ensuing decades. Cassius’ credentials in the struggle for civil rights and a myriad other progressive causes had not been enough to compensate for that. Daedalus had not helped matters one bit, however: he’d made a point of reminding everyone that Cassius had spent most of his life working for an international institution and implying he was unlikely to have the US’ best interests at heart. The unfair accusations, on top of simple racism and anti-Neo bigotry, had all managed to deny him his dream of leading the country of his birth into a better future. He’d never forgiven Daedalus for that.
To find the man was a traitor was still a shock. The inventor had been laughing at them all along, hiding his treachery behind his irreverent attitude. Cassius had thought he was beyond caring, but he’d been wrong. He wanted, he needed to confront the smirking billionaire and make him pay for his crimes. The smug bastard had been wealthy and privileged all his life, and then become part of an even greater elite. He was one of the richest and most influential men in the world, not to mention immortal and above the frailties of humanity, and none of that had been enough. Whatever Daedalus wanted, Cassius would find a way to deny it to him.
He looked down at the twinkling lights of Mars Base Three, nestled at the bottom of the massive mountain range. By now they must have picked up his transponder signal and called for help. Cassius wasn’t worried: it would take several minutes for the alarm to reach Earth, and none of the Neos in any of the Mars bases posed any threat to him. In any case, the Legion wouldn’t bother trying to reach him here, since he could travel elsewhere with a thought. His power set was a tactical nightmare for his enemies.
Once upon a time, Cassius had thought he was truly invincible, his only threat the growing sense of ennui that had led him to the stars. That had ended during his encounter with the mad god of SS-9183 and his enforced years of captivity. He’d experienced plenty of rage, helplessness and despair, feelings that had brought him back to his life before the ascent to near-godhood.
Star System 9183, Milky Way Galaxy, Year Seventeen (Personal Frame of Reference)
“Boy.”
Such a simple word: boy. Outwardly, it was nowhere near as nasty as nigger. Boy. It could even be used as a term of endearment. Except when it was used by a white to address an adult black man. Then it encapsulated centuries of endless contempt.
“You stop right there, boy, y’hear?”
He kept walking, following the script of the dream, dancing to the music of the dread memory. They would catch him, those buckra boys would; they would catch him and beat him to a pulp and dump his seemingly-lifeless body down a dry well. He would wake up the next day, transformed into something else, but that didn’t matter to his dream self. What mattered was the fear and humiliation, the knowledge of what was to come, and his utter inability to do anything about it.
Cassius never knew why the four men had marked him for death. He eventually learned their names and kept track of them, but otherwise ignored them, and they never knew that the man they’d nearly killed had become the renowned hero of the century. Years later, in a fit of drunken rage, he had finally gone after them. He’d never bothered to ask them any questions before he killed them one by one, plucking them from their beds and living rooms, from moving cars or while walking down the street. He’d carried them off and released them miles high in the air, letting them fall to their deaths onto the empty expanses of the Pacific Ocean. The executions had been quick and wordless. He’d felt no need to know their reasons, not then.
Maybe it had been his schoolteacher clothes that spurred them on, or maybe they’d just been mean with drink and looking for something to hurt. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the fear and the pain they had inflicted. Maybe if he’d just laid there and endured the beating they might have let him go after they tired of their sport. In any case, he had fought back, flailing his fists, even though he’d known he would pay dearly for the privilege of breaking a buckra’s nose. Soon enough, their blows had laid him low, and he’d collapsed at their feet as they kicked him over and over again.
The pain had been bad, but the helplessness had been worse.
YOU KEEP RELIVING THAT UNPLEASANT MEMORY. IS IT BECAUSE IT REMINDS YOU OF YOUR CURRENT STATUS?
The Genocide’s mental voice was painfully strident. It either hadn’t figured how to moderate its volume, despite months of practice, or, more likely, it didn’t care to. The thunderous telepathic intrusion brought Cassius back to the here-and-now. He was suspended in a jelly-like substance like a fly caught in amber. That’s where he had spent some untold amount of time while his captor had its fun with him.
A QUESTION HAS BEEN ASKED, the alien said after Cassius didn’t reply fast enough.
Yes, he sent forth. Once again, I’m in the hands of irrational tormentors. I look forward to resolving this situation the same way I resolved the previous one.
YOU CANNOT RESOLVE THIS SITUATION. YOU CANNOT OVERCOME ME. SHALL WE TRY AGAIN, TO CONFIRM WHAT SHOULD BE OBVIOUS BY NOW?
It happened every few… Days? Weeks? He wasn’t sure. The alien would challenge Cassius to fight. When he accepted the challenge – he did so about half the time – they would fight, and he would lose. Losing was an extremely painful outcome.
Not today, thank you.
The last fight had been the worst. After shrugging off Cassius’ attacks and beating him into submission, the Genocide had decided some vivisection was in order. He still hadn’t recovered from the rather unique experience of being partially disassembled and put back together, all done without any form of anesthesia and with the alien’s telepathic shouting ensuring Cassius remained conscious and aware the entire time. No, today wasn’t a good day to fight.
He would fight again, however. It wasn’t just a matter of defiance, although that was part of it. Each duel was a chance, however slim, that he would be able to disable the alien long enough for him to escape. He’d also learned a lot about the Genocide’s powers along the way. The pain and degradation were a price he was willing to pay if he could find a weakne
ss he might exploit.
ONCE YOU HAD POWER, YOU AVENGED YOURSELF, the Genocide went on; its mental voice was smug. THAT IS GOOD. I TOO SETTLED ALL MY SCORES WHEN I WAS GRANTED POWER. YOU WILL NEVER BE IN THAT POSITION AGAIN, HOWEVER. ENJOY THE MEMORIES OF REVENGE. THEY WILL PROVIDE YOU WITH ALL THE ENJOYMENT YOU WILL HAVE.
What happened to you? Cassius asked for the umpteenth time, ignoring the taunts. Why did you kill everyone else?
He didn’t expect a direct answer. Every time he’d asked those two questions, the Genocide had either flown into a violent rage or answered with coy generalities that revealed next to nothing. Either response suited him: an outburst would give him a chance to learn more about his captor’s power, however painfully, and each vague answer had revealed a little more than the previous one.
WE ALL FOUGHT, THOSE OF US WITH THE POWER. I PREVAILED. That useless answer was par for the course, but the alien went further this time: WE WERE ONCE FRIENDS, MY RIVALS AND I, BUT THE WHISPERER IN SHADOW TURNED US AGAINST EACH OTHER. EVEN THOUGH I SLEW THE WHISPERER, IT WAS TOO LATE. EVERYONE ELSE WAS CONTAMINATED WITH ITS DARKNESS. TO CLEANSE I HAD TO DESTROY.
Regret and sorrow. The emotions carried through the mental communication, and if Cassius hadn’t suffered so much at the alien’s hands, he might have felt some sympathy for the insane creature. Instead, he focused all of his will on his senses, studying the multitude of energies surrounding the alien in overlapping layers. Mixed in with the forces Cassius was familiar with – electro-magnetism, gravity, photons swirling in colorful waves, even the infinite potentiality of unformed quantum foam – there was something he didn’t recognize: a purple-black energy that behaved somewhat like photons, sharing the properties of both particles and waves; unlike the other energies in the alien’s aura, it was bottled up in a complex cage of electrons. It did not belong with the others. It…
I ANSWERED A QUESTION. IT IS MY TURN TO GAIN AN ANSWER. WHERE DO YOU COME FROM? HOW MANY MORE LIKE YOU ARE THERE? IS THE TAINT THERE AS WELL?
Before leaving Earth, Cassius had prepared for the eventuality that a hostile civilization might attempt to pry his home world’s location from him. The finest telepaths of the Legion had locked that knowledge behind an impenetrable maze of psychic barriers. In effect, Cassius no longer knew where the Earth was. Bringing those memories back would require weeks of meditation, unhampered by any stress, fear or strong emotions. The alien’s probing had failed to break those locks; great as its power was, the Genocide had come to its telepathic abilities late in life, and it lacked the finesse of an experienced psionicist.
I have nothing to tell you.
SUFFER THEN. SUFFER AND BLEED FOR YOUR STUBBORNESS.
Everything ceased to exist, except the pain and the all-too-familiar helplessness.
Sunwatch Observatory Satellite, L2 point, March 16th, 2013
The unmanned satellite traveled space in a stable orbit far beyond the Moon, its artificial sensors focused on the sun, studying the mother star for the benefit of science. Cassius sat in a compartment meant for the occasional Neolympian repairman. He’d left Mars behind; a change of scenery was in order. Unfortunately, it was harder to escape his memories. When John had spoken of the Outsiders, Janus had realized the Genocide had not been merely insane. Daedalus Smith and his accomplices must be infected with the same darkness that had led to the destruction of all life on System 9183, and so many others.
TO CLEANSE I HAD TO DESTROY.
Cassius refused to make that choice. The Genocide had thought it was saving its world, but in the end it had only served the Outsiders’ purposes. There had to be an alternative.
There was the girl John had spoken of. Cassius had been dubious about that part of the story. At this point, however, even a faint hope was better than nothing. He must find Christine Dark. Unfortunately, John hadn’t told Cassius how to reach the girl. He would have to keep jumping around the world, monitoring every possible news and police channel he could, hoping the girl would do something to reveal herself.
Cassius gritted his teeth and gated back to Earth. He had work to do.
Face-Off
New York City, New York, March 17, 2013
We went shopping.
Well, Kestrel and Christine went shopping, and I tagged along and carried their bags like a good native porter. I should have been bored out of my mind: my idea of shopping is to go into one store, buy whatever I need as quickly as possible, and go home. The voyage-of-exploration style of shopping had never appealed to me. This time, however, I found that if I stopped grumbling and approached things with a sense of humor, watching a couple of Great White Female Hunters going at it could be pretty entertaining.
Back at the Lair, Condor was working on some new toys in case we ran into serious opposition, and he’d made it clear he would work better without us around. We were going to make our move at night, which left us with a morning and afternoon to kill. Christine had politely pointed out that she could use a few more garments and accessories. Kestrel had agreed and volunteered her services as a guide and, more importantly, her platinum credit cards. Christine’s face had lit up at the mention of platinum credit cards. I wasn’t going to let Christine out of my sight, so I braced myself for a long day of girl stuff.
As it turned out, I was having fun.
For one, watching Kestrel playing at being normal was pretty amusing. She was wearing a short red dress and matching heels, without a single hint of fetishism anywhere on her. Christine had at first looked pretty plain by comparison, but a couple of quick stops at Fashion Avenue changed all that. Before leaving she had dyed her hair black, which made for an interesting contrast with her pale skin and hopefully rendered her harder to spot by the goons that might still be out looking for her. Her happiness at playing dress up was contagious, and I found myself smiling so much I started worrying I’d pull a muscle. And she was happy to have me around so she could ask me my opinion about the dozens of outfits she tried on. Since my knowledge of fashion was microscopic, I mostly smiled and nodded and made vague comments that seemed to satisfy her.
Christine was really growing on me.
She’d caught glimpses of my inner monster and she hadn’t run away screaming. Last night had been as good as our first night, better in some ways. We’d taken some time to find the things we liked and the things we didn’t. The first time had been driven by instinct and need, and it had turned out well, but certain things do improve with practice and communication. As Christine went back to the changing booth, I remembered looking up at her last night as she bounced on top of me, her face glowing with passion, and I smiled at the memory. I caught my reflection on one of the mirrors on the changing area at the store, and the look on my face sobered me up. Hope, that pernicious poisonous emotion, had taken root inside of me. I was beginning to believe there could be an end game that didn’t involve me watching her walk away. I didn’t trust that hope. I couldn’t let myself trust it.
Happy endings are bullshit.
“Hey.”
I looked around. Christine had changed into a pair of navy pants and a pink shirt. She looked concerned. That was the problem about dating an empath: you couldn’t get anything past her.
“Just having an episode of the glooms,” I admitted. Just telling her about it improved my mood and I didn’t have to fake it when I formed a smile on my face. She was like a bottle of antidepressants on sexy legs. She picked up on my emotional upswing and grinned back. I resolved to give my self-pity the rest of the day off.
“Okay. Come on, let’s break for lunch after I pay for all this, or rather, after Melanie puts it on her card. And stop with the gloomy crapola, dude. We might end up dead tonight, and then you’ll be kicking yourself for not enjoying yourself today.”
“Good point.” Damn good point.
“Looking good, Chris,” Kestrel – I had to start getting used to calling her Melanie, especially when we were out in public – said, emerging from her changing booth wearing a freaking floral pattern
dress. I’d never seen Melanie wearing anything so mundane before. It looked good on her and made her look like a nice girl, instead of somebody who thought cutting her partner with knives – or vice versa – made for fun and exciting foreplay.
“Thank you,” Christine replied before ducking back into a stall to put her clothes back on.
Melanie caught the look I was giving her and quirked a smile at me. “A change of pace can be refreshing, Marky.” We’d managed to be fuck-buddies for months without her learning my name, but thanks to Christine’s blabbermouth ways she now knew more about me than she ever had before – and I didn’t mind half as much as I should. “You should try mixing it up sometime,” she continued.
“I tried it your way a couple of times,” I replied. “Didn’t care for it.”
“You kept trying to be the top, and you’re too sensitive for it,” she said, and the old Kestrel was back, with the disturbing grin and crazy eyes I remembered only too well. “If you’d let me take charge, though…”
“Guess we’ll never know.”
“Never say never.”
“We. Will. Never. Know.”
She smirked at me. “Your loss, killer.”
Christine emerged from the booth wearing the purple-and-white print dress (what she called a ‘maxi’) that she had designated as the outfit of the day. I’d never imagined I’d be involved with someone who wore a ‘maxi.’ All of my women had been fond of showing off as much skin as humanly (or in Kestrel’s case, inhumanly) possible.
Except for Fay, I suddenly remembered. Fay had liked to cover herself up.
The thought brought me up short. The memories it triggered sent a shot of ice through my chest, and Christine’s expression wavered when she felt my emotions. “It’s nothing,” I told her before she could ask. “It’s something from my past. Nothing important. I’ll tell you later, okay?”
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