Night Legions

by Jeremy Flagg

  These two men she’d worked with the closest over the last few years: Mark, a young man determined to prevent another Culling, and Ivan, a scientist obsessed with her abilities. Something changed between them after Goddard attacked. She couldn’t fathom what type of bond a situation like that created. Mark hardened. The compassion driving him seemed to be replaced a purely scientific curiosity.

  “I don’t answer to—”

  “You’re in my Goddamned house.” Mark had a tenacity about him. Beneath the surface, a fire fueled the man. Most of the time, he channeled it into his work, but more and more, she noticed his explosive outbursts.

  “Do you—”

  “Do you want me to inform my scientists we will no longer be outfitting your troops with replacement limbs? Or perhaps our synthetics will escort you out of the building?”

  Ivan. The president assigned him to the Facility. In the four years he trained her, he never once let slip a personal detail. The only information she obtained was what she found on Mark’s computer. Before defecting from Russia, the man had once been the premiere scientist of paranormal research. The files never mentioned what happened, but once he offered to come to the United States, he had been placed in charge of the research at the Facility.

  “Gentlemen,” said the voice of reason. Jonah Reilly. The man—more of a boy, really—assigned to keep her safe or further develop her abilities, she still wasn’t entirely sure.

  “Keep quiet,” she whispered.

  “We’re here for the same outcome, even if we have different ways of getting there. Ariel’s abilities are astounding, to say the least. She’s quite remarkable.”

  Ariel touched her cheeks as they turned red. Other than Arturo, Jonah might be the only person at the Facility within ten years her age. She thought she was pretty, but she didn’t know what a boy might think of her. It didn’t hurt that Jonah could be considered handsome himself.

  “She’s unpredictable. We can’t rely on her.”

  Ariel disliked the General grew. He came into her home and bossed them around, forcing her to train with his men. She let out a steadying breath, calming herself. She wouldn’t let the man get the better of her.

  “Even a Marine has boot camp before they’re part of the Corps. She’s young and still training. There’s potential. She could singlehandedly be the best asset the military has ever seen.” Score for Jonah.

  She imagined the General’s furrowed brow, or the delighted look on Ivan’s face that made it seem as if he might break out in condescending laughter at any moment. She knew Mark would be the voice of reason, complementing Jonah.

  “Maybe we should ask her?” asked Mark.

  The room fell silent. Caught. She pushed the door open and stepped inside. The four she’d heard were at the end of the table, and the rest held elite soldiers. On Mark’s side she recognized her doctor, the woman in charge of analyzing the tests performed after every training session. On the military side she recognized two soldiers she trained with, neither of whom she particularly cared for.

  “She’s seventeen, what could she posse—”

  As the General started to stand growling, he fell back into his chair. Ariel had already heard enough out of his annoying mouth. “General, I appreciate your silence.”

  Mark shot her a look, mouthing her name. She’d be scolded later for taunting the General. Ariel would apologize, and they’d exchange hugs. Since the military moved into the Facility, her scoldings tripled.

  “General,” she said calmly, “I can do something none of your men will ever be able to accomplish. No matter how much technology you infuse them with, they cannot do what I do. This alliance between us and your military is not at our request either. You can loathe my existence, but so far I have passed all of your field tests.”

  “You can pass a test, but you’re still not a soldier.”

  Twenty feet away, Jonah held his firearm, muzzle pointed at her. The bullet sped forward, slowing as it approached her face. The bang of the weapon sounded a fraction of a second later. She flicked the piece of lead, sending it to the side of the room.

  She recognized the look on each of their faces. The scientist marveled at the physics-defying gifts she utilized without effort. The military members gawked, jealous she had something that gave her such an edge. Jonah’s face had an emotion she couldn’t read. He could have killed her, shooting her though the head. Trust. The man who handled her trusted in her capabilities.

  “Now, General,” Ariel said with a smile, pulling out a chair. “Let’s discuss the next stage of my training. Jonah tells me there may be field work in my future.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  2033

  Jacob let out a guttural scream. His fists pounded the table, shaking the television projections. He snaked the phone from his pocket and called his head of security.

  “I want this traced.”

  “Sir, we’re…”

  Jacob pulled the phone from his ear and yelled directly into the receiver. “Trace it or I’ll slit your throat.”

  He stood and hurled the phone across the study. Struggling for breath, he found himself staggering, leaning on the table for support. The muscles in his face ached and his throat hurt from wailing. The video on his screen looped, playing again, and the rage returned, bile pressing against the back of his mouth.

  “We have obtained unedited video of the events leading to the assassination of President Cecilia Joyce. The Children are not to blame. The media is lying to you.”

  He recognized the scene. While the Children of Nostradamus didn’t have her best interests in mind, it was clear they were attempting to rescue her from Jacob. The video slowed as the woman’s head exploded, enough to see the bullet piercing her skull. The expressions on the Children’s faces revealed their shock and disgust. His, captured by the camera, showed only opportunity. The evidence wasn’t entirely accurate, but it did a good job of damning him.

  “The interim president, Jacob Griffin, not only—”

  The feed cut out, leaving a black screen. Jacob couldn’t understand what took the networks so long to terminate the pirate broadcast. They had a reputation for bending to the will of the government, and thanks to corporate acquisitions, Genesis Divisions owned most of the major players.

  “Even now, the media attempts to silence the voice of the people.”

  The black screen faded to a single man staring directly into the camera. The man’s eyes held firm, unafraid of the thousand computers analyzing his every feature, searching databases for every recorded instance of him in existence. He leaned forward, getting awkwardly close.

  “Resist. We were not pawns in Joyce’s war. We will not be victims to the greed of our corrupt leaders.”

  “I’ll kill them all. I’ll hunt them down and fucking kill each one with my bare hands.”

  The thumping of blood in his ears boomed as loud as his threats. Jacob’s pulse raced at the man’s opposition. Millions of people were seeing this aired across the world, a direct call to usurp his power. Clutching his chest, he feared a heart attack wrecked his body. His chest thumped and tingling started in his extremities. And he feared what might happen if the world pushed back against his newly acquired position. A war waged in the west and a growing unrest in New York could create two fronts. The Children's jabs at his authority barely hurt his position, but if they became beacons to the people…

  You should not worry. They cannot imagine the power you wield.

  “Silence. I do not need your platitudes.”

  Searing pain started at the back of his neck, slowly pulsing its way into his brain until it rested just behind his eyes. Jacob buckled over, holding on to the table to keep from falling. The room blurred until there were only bright spots of light with no discernible shapes. He tried to focus, gather that innate part of him where his abilities hid. He tried to push back against the anger drowning him. He could not.

  Every wall he erected shattered. The shadow resting in his skull pushed its
way through his body. The tips of his fingers lost sensation and he found himself collapsing onto the Oriental rug. Blackness pierced every pore of his skin, tearing its way into his body. To a human onlooker, the president was having a seizure. To a telepath, a one-sided war played out.

  “You cannot resist.”

  Jacob heard his voice, but the words were not his own. He attempted to speak, but his body refused to cooperate. He flailed, scratching away at the imaginary darkness along his forearms. The room grew dim. The world fell away, as if he were floating in a void.

  You motherfucker.

  “Jacob.” His voice. Jacob tried to scream, to push back, but he found himself unable to digest the manner in which this happened. “You had potential, my boy. But let’s be honest, this is no longer work for a petulant child.”

  His desperation started to subside as the helplessness set in. Jacob had always suspected the dangers of collaborating with the demon. At the promise of expanding his powers, he had welcomed the voice, gambling on his superiority. Now, as he watched through distant windows, the man stood adjusting the cuffs on his, his, wrists. He started to understand. In a moment, barely a minute, the thing dominated his mind, pushed him aside and stole his body.

  We have business to attend to.

  “We have business to attend to.”

  Jacob was about to resume screaming until a single word slipped into his mind. Fear consumed him, pushing away his need to fight against the parasite. It started to come full circle, a reality he had never predicted. Cecilia’s puppet found a puppet of his own.

  Warden.

  * * * * *

  “Are you well?”

  Alyssa’s expression held a rigid concentration as she knelt in front of him, her hands resting on either side of his face. Shaking his head, he tried to remember what had caught his attention and caused him to space out.

  “Conthan?”

  A board with a sheet of paper covered in black dust and dark lines rested in his lap. A black line crossed through the center of the sketch, a slip of his hand. The static, stiff representation of his model’s clothes had been his last thought. Now, Alyssa knelt in front of his makeshift studio. She snapped her fingers, bringing him back to reality.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I think. I had a weird feeling I couldn’t shake, that’s all.”

  “Weird feeling?” she asked.

  Her hijab remained firmly locked in place, framing the soft features of her near flawless skin. Despite the fabric covering the majority of her head, there remained a subtle sensuality about her face. Stealing a glance at his charcoal drawing, he found himself annoyed that he hadn’t captured that element, something mirrored in the woman herself.

  “Yeah.” Conthan shrugged, tore the sheet of paper from the board, and tossed it on the floor. The next blank page in his sketchbook left him feeling rejuvenated. “What do you think about all of this? I mean…”

  Alyssa walked back to her prayer rug and rolled it up slowly. Her brow remained furrowed and her lips puckered, as if she might speak at any moment. In the last year, when they weren’t fighting for their lives, he had discovered her quiet demeanor wasn’t from a lack of depth.

  The living room had finished floors, but superheroes didn’t concern themselves with furnishings. A mattress sat against one wall, his backup sleeping space when Dwayne’s abilities made it impossible to share a bed. Other than a few chairs, the massive room remained empty. The kitchen, however, always seemed to be crowded with dishes, cookware, and somebody preparing food. Meals were the one thing they treated with some amount of normalcy.

  Alyssa treated the sparse space as her own. In another life, Conthan had spent his time doodling Sarah, his best friend in high school, a girl with bone growing through her skin. In what others might call disturbing or even ugly, Conthan found a curiosity and that held beauty. Even as an atheist, Conthan marveled at Alyssa’s dedication to her faith, sparking that curiosity once more. Dozens of drawings littered the floor, each of them showing Alyssa in a different pose while she performed the Salah.

  “I have made peace with this life. I am not saying I don’t want something different, but I am content with what my life has become.” At the end of the Salah, she started to perform a beautiful dance of martial arts.

  “What would you rather be doing?”

  Gracefully, each movement she performed flowed into the next. Conthan started sketching on the page, broad strokes laying down a coat of charcoal. He imagined her muscles were strained from the slow pace. He recognized her Tai Chi, but found her perfection of the form to be uncanny.

  “I would be doing the ballet right now. I would be performing internationally. My interpretation of Swan Lake would have been stunning.”

  “A dancer?” Smiling at the thought, he agreed with her. “You would put on a spectacular show.”

  “I would have done it for a while. Then I would retire from dancing and open my own studio. There was a man I once watched as he taught karate to young children. I found it quite admirable, his need to improve the lives of these young kids who had nothing.”

  She paused between snapping her arm forward and pivoting her left leg. Having watched her perform the routine a hundred times, he suspected he could predict each of her moves if necessary.

  With her heels nearly touching, she slowly bent at the knees, raising her arms in an equally graceful manner. His jaw went slack as she stood and raised her leg to a point where her heel nearly touched the back of her head. The transition from martial arts to dance struck him as a beautiful summary of Alyssa.

  A week ago, Alyssa used the momentum of a charging synthetic to hurl it into a wall. Now, those same powerful limbs hung delicately in front of her as she spun in circles. Each spin gave him the opportunity to expand on the developing drawing in his lap.

  Only as she bowed down at the waist, appearing to power down, did he realize she hadn’t needed a video for reference. “You were a dancer?”

  “Don’t sound surprised. You were an artist.”

  “Were?” He eyed his board. The swift strokes of the charcoal left sweeping gestures. Blowing off the excess dust, he spun it around to show her. “Present tense there, little miss perfect.”

  “Not bad,” she said. “Want me to show you how it’s done?”

  Arm circled around the board, hugging the portable platform, he pulled his face away. “Thirty seconds and you’d be mastering the use of light from reflected surfaces like you were Rembrandt.”

  Though her leggings and tunic hid her form, he knew without a doubt she had more muscle than he could imagine. With little effort, she lifted herself onto the tips of her toes. Conthan’s eyes went wide. “How did you just do that?”

  “The dancing?”

  He nodded. “And the T’ai Chi? You did them both without watching something.”

  “I received a full scholarship to Juilliard. I practiced every day. Despite being nearly perfect in every way, I always pushed myself. Unlike wielding swords or shooting a gun, my muscles never forget this.”

  “I got a scholarship too. I wasn’t that good, but apparently somebody with authority thought I had potential. My foster mom used to say that to me. I had so much potential.”

  In the year they had been together, fighting side by side, she never once referred to life before the Outlands. Each of them held pain from a life they left behind. The unsaid rule had always been never to ask questions about what they left behind. Conthan found it difficult to start hearing about it now, but he bit his tongue, instead letting Alyssa speak as she felt comfortable.

  “My father was a proud man who believed in the old ways. He had an internal struggle. He wanted the world for me, but he clung to traditions that didn’t translate in the new world.” Alyssa plopped down in a camp chair, putting her feet up on a milk crate. “One night I woke up and went for a glass of water. I passed his office and caught him watching my submission video for Juilliard. He was crying.”

  “He was proud
?”

  She nodded. “I believe so, or at least I choose to believe. My mother, on the other hand, she was a fierce woman. Where Father was tempered, she was the fire. They were the perfect couple. They fought about ethics, about this world we were creating, but at the end of it, they held hands.”

  “Did they suspect you were a Child?”

  Dwayne left his home, and Gretchen was forced to hide her abilities. Being a Child came at a price. While he wished he and his foster mom had been closer, there was a bit of relief in knowing they wouldn’t need to have this awkward conversation.

  “They knew. They discovered it the first time a piano instructor visited our home. It only took minutes before I mastered the instrument. My parents waited till I went to sleep to talk about my abilities, but I snuck into the hallway to listen. Never did they shun me. Their discussion was about protecting me from the outside world. They wanted a normal life for their only daughter.”

  She raised her eyebrows at the last statement. Conthan chuckled at her ability to lighten the mood. “I think we should call ourselves the Orphans of Nostradamus,” she said with a laugh.

  Conthan raised his hands in the air. “Preach.”

  The floor littered with paper held mirror like sketches of the young woman. Inspecting the lines, Conthan realized the violent strokes of his charcoal betrayed Alyssa’s softer side. Somewhere in the chaos of those scratches on the paper, he realized an anger dominated the drawings. At some point, he believed that anger would come bubbling to the surface somewhere other than in his art.

  * * * * *

  “You are not real. You’re a ghost. Dead.”

  The tattered stools surrounding the high-top bar remained untouched, covered in a thick layer of dust. Their coffee mugs left half filled with coffee and a layer of mold along the surface, the chipped ceramic having seen better days. Somewhere hidden amongst the many emptied bottles, a decanter of whiskey hid, only brought out for special occasions. For Vanessa, the isolation brought a sense of safety. Deep in the back of her mind, echoes of long-gone laughter vanished the moment the door crept open.