A Fistful of Strontium

by Jaspre Bark

  "Nod now, I'm doo bufy."

  "There's something going on outside that you really should see, sir," said Jenkins, politely but firmly. "I assure you it demands your immediate attention."

  Rising exhaled sharply in annoyance, but he trusted his aide enough not to question him further. He joined Jenkins and walked to the balcony at the front of the palace. From their lofty position they could see that an enormous crowd was gathering in the large plaza at the front of the palace.

  "Whad if de meaning of dif?" the general demanded. The sight of such a disorderly rabble disrupting a public place without permission brought bile to his throat. He was nearly blind with fury.

  "I'm afraid I don't know anything about it, sir," said Jenkins, apologetically. "There were no public meetings scheduled to take place here, and our agents have told us nothing about a demonstration."

  "Id'f dofe confounded Falvadionifd!" Rising said, the veins up the side of his head throbbing with rage.

  "Who, sir?"

  "The Salvajsionifz, you idiod. De terrorifz we've been fighding."

  "Of course, sir. I'm sorry."

  "Fummon de guard," ordered Rising. "I want dif rabble crusfhed. Crusfhed, do you hear?"

  "Right away, sir," said Jenkins, and he left to carry out the general's order.

  Rising turned his attention to the gathering crowd below. Their numbers seemed to be growing all the time as more and more norms and quite a few mutants joined them. Some of them were quite obviously drilled and were standing in formation. The others who were milling around without any apparent aim were probably just bystanders who had come along either out of curiosity or because they were caught up in the mood of defiance. He intended to put a stop to this right away. To make certain they were all cowed into submission. He was not going to stand for this sort of insubordination right on his doorstep.

  As he watched, he saw that at three strategic places in the crowd the protesters were assembling odd constructs from planks of wood. As the constructs took shape, Rising realised that they were catapults; the type of catapult that would have been used in some ancient siege in humanity's early days on Earth. They didn't seriously intend to attack the palace with those, did they? Were they out of their minds?

  As this was going on, two troops of the civilian guard in full riot gear formed a human shield between the protesters and the palace. At the same time, a small contingent of the palace guard, armed with blaster weapons, poured from the gates to take up formation behind them.

  "CLEAR THIS AREA IMMEDIATELY!" the captain of the palace troops shouted through a voice amplifier. "THIS IS YOUR ONLY WARNING! CLEAR THIS AREA OR MY MEN WILL BE FORCED TO TAKE ACTION! YOU HAVE FIVE MINUTES TO BEGIN TO DISPERSE!"

  A few people on the outskirts of the crowd made themselves scarce at this, but the majority of the protesters stayed where they were.

  When the five minute period had elapsed, the captain ordered his men to ready their blasters for a warning shot. Before he could give the order, however, a voice from the crowd shouted out: "Slingshots, engage!"

  At this signal, the nearest Salvationists took out makeshift slingshots and fired small rocks over the heads of the civilian guardsmen to bombard the palace guard. Fortunately, most of the missiles missed their targets, landing at the guardsmen's feet or behind them. In response to this attack, the civilian guard pushed forward with their shields and batons, and the rock throwers retreated as fast as they could.

  For the first time in weeks, General Rising actually laughed out loud. He was beginning to enjoy this. The Salvationists' attempts at an uprising were laughable. They were trying to take on a well-drilled and well-equipped army with slingshots and catapults. Their leaders were idiots. To think he had been prepared to launch a major offensive against them, equipping himself with state of the art weaponry and combing the mountain terrain to find their hideout. Instead, they had come to him like brainless lambs to the slaughter.

  This was the insidious threat that was eating away at the heart of Miltonian society; that was infiltrating the government and threatening his position. They were nothing more than a bunch of undisciplined amateurs. Rising would crush them mercilessly, once and for all. Let his political opponents try to manoeuvre him out of the palace, then!

  The palace guard raised their weapons again. The captain gave the order to fire.

  Nothing happened.

  The captain shouted the order again. Still nothing. He began to berate his men who were looking puzzled and checking their weapons. Something wasn't right. Rising had never seen so many guns malfunction at once. Not one of them seemed to be in working order. He would have someone's head for this.

  With the palace guard in a confused state, a second contingent of Salvationists stepped up to replace the stone-throwers. Seemingly out of nowhere they produced blasters of their own, and Rising was astounded to see that these were the very same weapons he had ordered from offworld. The weapons that were missing from the downed air carrier!

  The Salvationists fired an opening salvo. Their shots sailed through the civilian guardsmen without harming them, but mowed down at least half of the defenceless palace guard. The remainder of these men beat a hasty retreat, but the Salvationists unleashed another torrent of blaster fire and many more guards fell at the palace gates.

  The civilian guard, armed with nothing more dangerous than their batons, were left in a vulnerable position. Rising heard Johnny Alpha call out to them: "Drop your weapons and leave this area! We don't wish to kill any more people than is necessary."

  The soldiers didn't know how to respond to that. Miltonia had enjoyed years of peace and none of them had faced a situation like this before. They were outnumbered by more than twenty to one, and Rising could see now that fully two-thirds of the Salvationists were carrying controlled detonation blasters. He was angry, but not surprised, when most of the civilian guard threw down their shields and ran.

  Jenkins appeared on the balcony again. "Permission to call a general alert, sir," he requested.

  "Granted," growled Rising between clenched teeth. Jenkins gave the order over the intercom and an alarm sounded all over the palace. Rising knew that every guard would be taking to his or her posts. He cursed the fact that he had sent so many of them out into the mountains.

  At that moment, the whole building shook and the alarm stopped dead. Rising whirled around in alarm and saw what had happened. The Salvationists were using their catapults. As he stared open-mouthed, two more boulders crashed into the wall below him, and all the lights suddenly went out. Rising tried the intercom, to order that long-distance guns be trained on the catapults, but this was dead, too.

  "Sir," wailed Jenkins. "I don't understand. What is happening?"

  "Magnedinium," the general hissed. "Dey're hidding us wid magnedinium!"

  It was suddenly obvious. The Salvationists had been sitting on a secret weapon for years. They had shipped it down from the mountains and they were putting it to use. Every bit of technology in the building was at risk. They could disable all of it and disarm his men with nothing more than a handful of thrown pebbles. And, thanks to Rising himself, their own weapons would not be affected.

  A moment earlier, General Rising had been in good spirits believing he had nothing to fear. He was gripped by the sudden terror of inevitable defeat.

  Johnny led the troops up the final set of stairs and directed them to spread out.

  The tactic had been the same on every floor: attack the command posts, take out the guards, then move to the floor above, leaving behind a contingent on each floor to maintain their territory.

  Most of the firefights had been quick and one-sided. After an opening exchange of blaster fire, the Salvationists had pelted their foes with magnetinium ore and disarmed them. Then they moved in to mop up the opposition. The casualties on the Salvationists' side had been minimal.

  Conversely, the palace guard had suffered huge losses. With their comms down, they weren't receiving any orders and had no i
dea what was going on. They were unprepared for the attack and did not know how to react. Almost every floor had fallen to the Salvationists, but two more remained, including the one that housed the president's quarters.

  Johnny had spent a long time studying the palace's schematics and had directed the catapult fire quite specifically. He needed to take out most of the palace's electronics without putting President Ooze's life-support machines at risk. Johnny had also given strict instructions to his volunteers that the president's sanctum was off-limits to them. He intended to secure that area for himself. He also wanted to retrieve the weapons he and Middenface had left at the palace.

  To do that he needed General Rising, and his office was on the floor they had just reached. Leaving Elephant Head to take over the general offensive, Johnny and Middenface made for the office and found it at the end of a long corridor. Johnny kicked open the door and a plasma bolt shot past his ear.

  The general's aide was standing in front of the desk, holding a pistol. Before he could fire again, Middenface heaved a large chunk of magnetinium at him. The ore hit the man right in the face, flattening his nose and nullifying his weapon. He dropped the gun and put one hand in the air. The other went to his nose which was streaming with blood.

  Rising was cowering underneath the desk. "I furrender, I furrender," he said as Middenface hauled him out.

  "Whit is yon scunner sayin'?" Middenface asked the aide.

  The man looked blank and turned to Johnny. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm afraid I can't understand your friend's accent."

  "He wants to know what the general just said," Johnny told him.

  "Oh, right. The general wants to know your terms of surrender."

  "Jenkinf," cried the general. "Ged him off me, dadf an order."

  "Sir, you just surrendered," replied Jenkins. "We're at their mercy."

  "Tell 'im tae gi' us back oor weapons," demanded Middenface.

  Jenkins turned to Johnny again.

  "You're holding some specialist weaponry that belongs to my partner and me," said Johnny. "We'd like it returned."

  Jenkins turned back to the general. "Sir, they-"

  "I heard dem!" snapped Rising. "Dey're in de fafe in de nexd room."

  Jenkins took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the blood on his face before opening the door to the adjoining room. "They're through here," he said.

  Johnny kicked the chunk of magnetinium out into the hallway so it was safely out of range and then followed Jenkins into the room.

  "Och, but it's braw tae have the auld Westinghouse back," said Middenface. He was strapping on his much-missed weaponry as they climbed up a back staircase to the presidential floor.

  At first, Rising had blanched at Johnny's order to take the bounty hunters to the Ooze's sanctum. He had plainly not believed their hurried assurances that they meant their former comrade no harm. Still, what choice did he have?

  Fortunately, no Salvationists had been this way, so their newly recovered weapons were safe from any stray chunks of magnetinium. Johnny knew, however, that that was the least of their problems.

  Jenkins punched a code into a keypad on the wall at the top of the stairs and a security door swung open. Johnny stopped him before he could step through.

  "The general goes first," he said. The barrel of his Westinghouse was stuck in Rising's back. The general harrumphed in protest but Johnny pushed him forward.

  Twelve heavily armed members of the presidential guard blocked their way to the president's inner sanctum. "Tell these men to lay down their weapons and step aside," Johnny told Rising.

  "You heard de man," said Rising. "Drop your weaponf!"

  The men didn't move. "I'm afraid we only take orders from the president," the head guard said stiffly, "and our orders are to let no one pass."

  "Are you mad?" spluttered Rising. "Dey've captured de whole palafe and he hazh a gun on me!"

  "Are you orders straight from the president," queried Johnny, "or from Nose Job Johnson?"

  For a second, he could see the guards wavering as they weighed up the situation. Their stand was ultimately hopeless - even suicidal. Then a look passed, almost imperceptibly, across their eyes that betrayed their true mettle. Johnny knew exactly what that look meant.

  "Move!" he shouted. He dived for cover and pushed Rising down with him. Middenface dived too, but Jenkins reacted too slowly. A volley of plasma bolts tore through him, lifting him off his feet. His smoking corpse was thrown backwards into the wall.

  "They've got us pinned doon," cried Middenface.

  Johnny unclipped a time bomb from his belt, activated it, and tossed the small metallic disc at the guards. There was a blinding flash of light followed by total silence. When he and Middenface looked up, there was just a large hole in the floor where the guards had been standing.

  The bomb had blown them two days into the future. In two days, they would reappear in the selfsame spot, still standing on the missing part of the palace floor. By then, Miltonia would have moved on in its orbit. The guards would continue to fire plasma bolts into the cold, empty wastes of space until they realised what had happened. Then, the vacuum would kill them.

  Johnny stepped around the hole and moved cautiously into the president's sanctum. Middenface followed, his gun raised ready to provide covering fire. There was no need, however. Johnny swept the room and found nothing - nothing but the upturned bowl of the Ooze's nutrient tank and his life-support equipment.

  He walked up to the tank and was relieved to see that its occupant was unharmed. "President Leadbetter," he announced formally. "We have deposed the impostor Kit Jones. This palace is now under the temporary control of the Salvationist Army." The Ooze's two large eyes gazed up from the tank with what Johnny could have sworn was gratitude.

  "It's over!" sighed Middenface.

  "Not while Kit is still at large," said Johnny with a grim set to his jaw.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  FACE OFF

  Johnny took the steps down three at a time with Middenface's heavy footsteps clattering behind him.

  "Whit's the hurry, Johnny? We won the war, didn't we? We've taken the palace and got the exits covered. There's no way Identi Kit's gettin' oot o' here."

  "Not past you or me, maybe," said Johnny grimly, "but we got a lot of inexperienced volunteers out there. Can we really trust every one of them not to fall for Kit's tricks even after we warned them about him?"

  "Ah guess not, but whit can we dae aboot it doon here?"

  Johnny said nothing. He trusted that the answer to his partner's question would become clear soon enough.

  They burst through a door onto the second sublevel where Johnny asked Middenface to lead him to the Consoler's cell. He watched as comprehension dawned in the big guy's eyes.

  The cell door had been electronically locked, but magnetinium emissions had fried the mechanism so that it swung open to Johnny's tentative touch. The Consoler, however, was still inside, slumped in a corner. He raised his head to greet the S/D agents, blinking in the dim light.

  "Is it over?" he asked. There was no hint of triumph in his voice, just a deep weariness.

  "Not quite," said Johnny. "We need your help."

  The Consoler looked a mess. Several of his eyes were blackened, and several of his noses bloodied. Even in the insane jumble of body parts that made up his body, Johnny thought he could see limbs that were bent out of shape or pulled out of their sockets. He had to have been in great pain but he made no complaint. Instead, he nodded in resignation and struggled to his feet. To Johnny's mild surprise, Middenface hurried to help him.

  "You want me to find my brother, I assume."

  "I hoped this psychic connection of yours might lead us to him."

  "It doesn't quite work that way," said the Consoler, "but combined with my ability to sense other mutants in the vicinity..."

  "And is he?" asked Johnny. "In the vicinity, I mean?"

  "Oh yes," said the Consoler. "He's above us, in this
building. He's worried but not afraid. He's lost his protection but trusts his own abilities. If he can get out of the palace, he knows he can disappear. He's disguised himself as a volunteer who died in battle; Kit stole his form and hid the corpse. He's watching, waiting for his chance. It will be difficult to pinpoint his exact position."

  "Get us close," said Johnny. "I'll do the rest. He can't hide from me!"

  They rode up to the ground floor in the service lift and found a crowd of Salvationists guarding the nearby side entrance. They reacted jubilantly to the sight of their leader, but their whoops of delight were muted as they took in the extent of his injuries. The Consoler smiled bravely and congratulated them on their great victory, raising their spirits again.

  Down in the basement, his gait had been laborious and pained, and Johnny had half-expected him to collapse. He walked taller and more assuredly, buoyed by what? Pride at seeing what he had achieved? Or grim resolution at the thought of what he still had to do?

  They heard gunfire. Johnny and Middenface sprinted to the main antechamber, which was filled with Salvationists, but the fighting was over by the time they got there. Elephant Head came running up to them, her grey face flushed. She explained that two palace guards had got the drop on a volunteer and stolen his blaster. Their surprise attack had taken down four men before they were overpowered. Elephant Head was all for killing them, but Johnny reminded her that their enemies thought they were fighting for their government.

  "They were happy enough to support Kit's fascist policies," she grumbled. "That makes them as bad as he is." But she did as she was told.

  The Consoler came huffing up to them, practically having to fight his way through his overjoyed followers. "He's in here," he reported urgently. "My brother is in this room somewhere."

  Dismayed, Johnny surveyed the crowd. Of course this was where Kit would be. He could be easily lost amongst the horde of people who were gathered there. And there were too many exits. Any of the faces here could be his, and he'd be able to slip away or change his identity again before Johnny could even begin to interrogate even one of them.