The Felix Chronicles: Tides of Winter

by R. T. Lowe

  “Thanks,” Allison said and fell quiet. Finally, her voice tired with sleep, she whispered, “You know how I feel about you, don’t you Felix?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do… do you…?”

  The words were on his lips, but he was afraid to speak them so he took the easier path. “I feel the same, Allie. You know that.”

  “You think we’ll get through this?” she asked after a brief pause.

  “I don’t know. But at least we have each other.”

  “We have each other,” Allison repeated, her voice soft and dreamy, giving in to her exhaustion. “I can live with that.”

  Felix listened to her steady breaths for a time, his thoughts and emotions turning dark and troubled, as though a shadow had settled over him. They had made an important decision, so why then did he feel as if something even more important had just slipped away, something that would be lost to him forever? Finally, his mind grew foggy, but before he let himself drift down in a heavy sleep, he spoke to the darkness. “I can live with that too.”

  Chapter 30

  CONNECTIONS

  Chaos. On the radio in Carter’s stolen Ford Focus, someone from the Emergency Broadcast System was instructing all non-emergency personnel to stay out of the city, and for those already in the city—millions, since it was ten o’clock on a Monday morning in Philadelphia—to stay indoors. The military needed unobstructed access to the streets so a temporary ban on civilian vehicles was now in effect. The reality of the situation, Carter noted, was very different.

  When the first sightings of the Deathhead were reported, anyone with access to a vehicle immediately tried to flee, bottlenecking every street in the city. Those without cars also ignored the “stay indoors” mandate, setting off on foot and bicycle in an exodus that flowed from the city like a tsunami, clogging sidewalks and roads. Carter had spent the night just north of Philadelphia in his customarily dumpy take-cash-ask-no-questions motel. The fleeting clips he’d seen on the TV of a massive winged creature circling the skyscrapers triggered a rush of adrenaline like nothing he’d experienced since the night he’d waded through the carnage of the dead and dying in the banquet hall at his old job.

  Cars rolled slowly toward him, blocking both lanes—though he wasn’t familiar with Philadelphia, he hadn’t seen any signs indicating this was a one-way street—and with no room to maneuver around them without crushing hundreds of fleeing pedestrians, he ditched the car, leaving the engine on and the key in the ignition. Horns and sirens shrieked endlessly as he pushed his way through the crowds, slamming into one person after another, their eyes turned to the sky as if they expected it to fall at any moment. A cop trying futilely to direct traffic a block from Logan Circle saw him and shouted that he was going the wrong way, blowing his whistle when Carter ignored him and darted across the street, sliding across the hood of a taxi and finding room to run on 18th Street. The military had set up a blockade at Arch where a long line of armored vehicles idled, waiting for soldiers to clear the road.

  A shadow passed overhead. Carter looked up, bumping into a man in a suit who yelled at him to get out of the way. The military vehicles started up and clouds of thick black smoke belched from their exhausts, the smell of diesel burning his nostrils. Carter had a mind to follow behind when a soldier spied him and motioned with his rifle to get moving in the opposite direction. Spotting a delivery alley, Carter bolted for it without heeding the angry cries of the soldier, sprinting through gouts of foul smelling vapor wafting up from the manholes and grates, jumping over the trash spilling out of the dumpsters, and then another street and an alley and then he was on 16th Street. He looked both ways, his breath burning in his chest, stopping to get his wind back. Stragglers were hurrying past him, making their way up the road, following the instructions of several dozen soldiers at the intersection who had arrived in a convoy of armored personnel carriers. To his left—north?—the main body of the evacuation was still in sight, though it had moved off, several blocks from where he stood.

  The rat tat tat of automatic gunfire erupted around him, sporadic bursts alternating with long continuous explosions. What were they shooting at? He stared around, then up, searching the tops of the towering buildings and thin strips of dull blue sky visible above. Where was it? he wondered, nearly trembling with anticipation.

  A scream rang out, freezing him in place. He looked toward the convoy. The soldiers were yelling at him, gesturing frenetically. What did they want him to do? Take cover? Where? He looked around, feeling stupid for letting them catch him out in the open. The street was deserted, the nearest civilians a block away. There was nowhere to hide. Which meant they wanted him to join the exodus. But he wasn’t going anywhere. He had to see this.

  A cold wind suddenly rushed over him and the sounds of warfare rolled down the street. Soldiers scattered, diving for cover. A military truck came crashing into the intersection, bouncing and skidding on the asphalt, flipping over and landing on top of one of the armored vehicles, crushing it. The soldiers pivoted in the same direction, raising their weapons in unison, and then they disappeared under black pillars that dropped from the sky without warning. A thundering roar silenced the gunfire and a soldier was snatched up in the air, taken in the jaws of a creature that looked both prehistoric and otherworldly. It shook its head violently and dropped the man at its feet, then raised a leg and brought it down like a piston, grinding him into the pavement, leaving a smeary red blotch. It wheeled around, its long neck moving like a snake in the water, its jaws snapping down on the fleeing soldiers, swallowing some and letting others go, the bodies quivering as they lay on the ground, broken and lifeless.

  Carter gawked at the Deathhead, in awe of its size and power. It scampered on top of a wide, cannon mounted truck and slowly unfurled its wings, the black tips brushing the buildings on either side of the street. With a single downward movement, the air shuddered and the monster ascended. The truck rose off the pavement, carried aloft in legs that curled around roll bars and axles, rising higher, and higher, and then it let go. The men on the ground screamed and the truck fell, flattening a smaller vehicle and the soldiers hiding under it. The Deathhead turned, and with a flap of its wings, propelled itself to the building across from Carter. It clung to the facade, scurrying up the side, its forked tail shifting to one side or the other as it climbed, its long serpentine neck sweeping back and forth on a horizontal plane. It was immense, Carter could see, from its head to the tip of its tail it covered almost seven floors. But what was it doing? Soldiers were gathering on the street beneath it, but not firing. Why not? Why aren’t they shooting? Its head slowly receded from the building then suddenly its snout was smashing through the glass, a long length of its neck slithering inside. Its head reemerged in a flash of color. Something fell. A sickening popping sound reached Carter’s ears and he realized it was a woman. She was facing away from him, blood pooling around her head.

  “Fire!” one of the soldiers ordered.

  Bullets ripped across the building, exploding glass, thumping into the Deathhead’s back, sending up gouts of black liquid.

  It dropped down the face of the building like a spider tethered to a silken thread and landed among the soldiers, shaking the street with its terrible roar. One man dropped his weapon, fell to his knees and cried into his hands. Carter backed away as the Deathhead crushed the panicked men with its feet and scooped them up in its jaws two and three at a time. Its legs were a blur, each of the eight acting independently, some stomping, some shielding and probing, while the others moved its body. The gunfire stopped. It spun in a slow deliberate circle, wings half spread, its eyes roaming over the dead soldiers strewn across the street.

  A single gunshot ripped through the city.

  The Deathead turned its gaze toward the intersection and went completely still. A lone vehicle remained. It was armored and a muddy green color, a pimply faced kid who looked younger than Carter standing behind the mounted machine gun. He fired the gun again, a
nd even from where Carter was watching, he could tell it hadn’t come close to hitting the monster.

  What’s he thinking? Carter wondered. He should be calling in reinforcements—and getting the hell out of here.

  The Deathhead jumped over the bodies and bounded for the truck, flying down the street, flattening lampposts and leveling parking meters and fire hydrants, the water geysering behind it. The soldier let go of his gun and his hands fell to his sides, face white, mouth gaping, his body petrified with fear. The Deathhead stopped before the truck, raised its head to its full towering height, and slowly, majestically, spread its wings and thrust out its chest as if it was trying to suck all the air out of the city. Then it stood there, and waited.

  The kid blinked dazedly, staring up at the enormous beast. As Carter wondered what he was waiting for, the kid recovered his nerves, found the trigger, and the rounds began to pour from the weapon, ripping into the creature’s chest at point blank range. The sound was deafening. Carter pressed his forearms to his ears. Smoke rose from the barrel, the bullets streaming from it seemingly without end, cutting the creature to ribbons. Finally, its wings folded in on itself and it toppled over, its body crushing the remains of some of its victims. The soldier stopped firing, and as the echoes slowly faded, he cautiously peered over the hood of the truck, shock and relief scrawled across his youthful face.

  Carter’s eyes wandered over the scene, counting the bodies on the street, taking note of the military vehicles the Deathhead had abused like unwanted toys. So why then, he wondered, did it not kill the kid like it had everyone else? Why had it just stood there like it was target practice? It was almost as if it had wanted to die. Like a suicide mission. Trucks and personnel carriers were arriving at the intersection, soldiers climbing out, running to the fallen Deathhead and the brave soldier who had slayed it. It had wanted to die, Carter concluded. There was no other explanation. Just like the Numbered Ones he’d seen on TV that had walked right up to the National Guardsman, practically inviting them to blow their brains out. What the hell was going on? Whatever it was, it was connected. The Deathheads. The Numbered Ones. The poisoning of his town. His powers. All of it was connected. He knew it. Deep down in his bones, he knew it.

  Chapter 31

  THE PITCH

  Professor Malone’s office was in the Stamford Building just down the hall from Bill’s. Like Bill’s, a table sat under a window overlooking The Yard. Felix watched the rain pattering against it, thinking about all those times he’d sat at Bill’s table discussing the Journal, the Source and Lofton. Malone’s office was larger than Bill’s, and so was his table.

  “I’m glad you came,” Malone said to Felix.

  “No problem,” Felix replied. After deciding yesterday that they weren’t going to be complicit in murdering a PC professor, Felix thought he was ready to listen to Malone’s pitch—he was sure that’s what it would be, a recruiting pitch to join the Order, despite Allison’s assertions to the contrary.

  “Kayla told me what you did at that fair,” Malone said. “You saved a lot of lives. I don’t think anyone else could have done what you did.” He rubbed his hands together slowly, resting his elbows on the table. “Your powers are a gift. You can do tremendous things, if you choose.”

  Felix sighed inwardly, thinking the recruiting spiel—the hard sell—was about to commence.

  “I don’t believe Lofton’s evil,” Malone said.

  Felix turned away from the window. That wasn’t the kickoff he’d expected.

  “He’s perpetrated evil,” Malone clarified, “though it’s not out of malice, and I think we have to acknowledge that his crimes—and they are crimes—are borne from his desire to cure humanity of a disease we commonly refer to as human nature. With my own eyes, I watched a hundred thousand souls perish. Lofton, I imagine, woke up that day, had breakfast and a cup of coffee and ordered the deaths of a half million people. Sounds evil, doesn’t it? But those people—the Rejectionists—were militantly opposed to Lofton’s government, and in time, if they’d been allowed to live, would have rallied others to their cause, fomenting further acts of disobedience which may have led to civil war and perhaps even anarchy. In the long run, eradicating the Rejectionists saved millions of lives and that was Lofton’s purpose. So is he evil or is he simply pragmatic? Does he revel in the loss of life or does it sadden him?”

  “He says it bothers him,” Felix answered, thinking about their past conversations. “He told me he has to do it, that it’s an obligation, and that he doesn’t want any more blood on his hands.”

  “I believe him,” Malone said, nodding thoughtfully. “Humankind has nearly destroyed itself and Lofton is trying to save it—and the Source—the only way he knows how. Human nature can be a vile, murderous beast and Lofton’s going to correct it by controlling it. The worst among us have already been eradicated. Much of the country’s prison population has been relocated to the bottom of the ocean, and there’s reason to believe Lofton has launched a campaign to exterminate anyone who has demonstrated violent criminal tendencies. Guns are off the streets and the homicide rates have plummeted. Anyone dumb enough to commit a serious crime is finding that the judicial system is no sanctuary. The administrative judges are efficient and have zero tolerance for mitigating circumstances. If we look at the totality of what Lofton has done so far, we have to acknowledge the country is safer, healthier and more prosperous than before the New Government took control. The same can be said for most countries around the world. America’s New Government, as you’re aware, isn’t the only new government. Lofton’s aspirations, after all, are global.”

  None of this surprised Felix. Out of habit, he nodded to show the professor he was paying attention.

  “As long as they’re getting results they can justify anything,” Allison said bitterly.

  “It’s not an argument we can dismiss out of hand,” Malone replied. “Lofton and his New Government are making the world safer. They are. It’s a simple, irrefutable fact.”

  “Everyone’s still scared,” Felix said. “He promised freedom from fear, but people are still scared of the Numbered Ones—and the Deathheads are freaking everyone out.”

  Malone smiled. “That’s one promise he has no intention of keeping. When he no longer needs to rely on fear to control the public we’ll know he’s won the battle. And if it’s victories the public’s looking for, he can always trumpet his triumphs against gun violence and food safety and the like. So with everything Lofton has accomplished, I can see where there could be a temptation to join him, even for the most conscientious among us.” He eyed them for a moment, making it clear who he was speaking of. “The Order, by comparison, doesn’t offer much, and I’ll be the first to admit that our greatest strength is also our greatest weakness.”

  Felix considered that for a moment and looked to Allison but she only gave him a shrug.

  “Our faith in humanity,” Malone explained. “What Lofton seeks to control, we seek to set free, and if we should somehow prevail against Lofton and his government, we are entrusting humankind to heal itself—and the Source.”

  Felix watched the professor, and kept a straight face. The concept of the Source and The Warning seemed foolish to Felix now, like science fiction, something you’d catch on the Syfy channel. The whole thing was completely bogus. Malone believed in it, however, as did the rest of the Order, and Felix was curious how he rationalized his philosophy.

  “But Lofton’s the Chosen One,” Felix stated. “He’s the Drestian and the Drestian’s the Chosen One. Isn’t that what the prophecy says?” He waited for a response.

  Malone glanced out the window. “True.”

  “So if the universe selected Lofton to cure the Source,” Felix reasoned, “shouldn’t we let him do his job? Maybe just get out of his way? Seems like the universe should know what it’s doing.”

  Malone smiled and raised a finger in a gesture of wait a minute. “That’s a bit of an oversimplification, Felix. The Warning does s
ay the Drestian will restore the Source, but it also says that in the process he’ll reduce humanity to slavish automatons.”

  “‘Nations will burn, armies will fall at his feet, and all who refuse to succumb to his rule will be slaughtered like sheep.’” Felix spoke the words without any clear purpose. “I can’t get that out of my head for some reason.”

  “It is on point,” Malone remarked.

  “The Warning also provides for another option,” Allison added. “The Belus can defeat the Drestian, and if he does, humanity will have an opportunity to save the Source by curing its own problems.” She looked at Felix. “It isn’t like the Order is disregarding the will of the universe or anything like that. That would be hubris and madness. If letting the Chosen One do his thing was the only option, I’d be the first to jump on Lofton’s bandwagon.”

  Felix stared at Allison and tried not to make eyes at her. What was she doing? She knew the prophecy was bullshit and now she was ganging up on him, hitting him from both sides.

  “Precisely,” Malone said, nodding at Allison. “Certainty of restoring the Source at the cost of despotism and enslavement or the possibility of restoring the Source at the cost of failure which would result in the end of the world.” He chuckled. “One would almost think the universe has a sense of humor.”

  “Screwed either way,” Felix muttered.

  “Not necessarily,” Malone said kindly. “Once we engage the New Government, I truly believe the public will come to understand the ERA only represents tyranny and oppression—that it deceived them and stole their freedoms. Defeating that government will empower the people to do better for themselves and each other. People can improve and evolve. I believe that in my heart.”

  “So let’s say,” Allison said tentatively, shooting a glance at Felix, “that you were going to—what did you call it?—engage the New Government, what would you do?”