Justice League_The Gauntlet

by Simonson, Louise

  Diana looked around for a hiding place. The only possibility was a garbage transport that was trundling past the back end of the alley.

  Not the preferred conveyance for a Princess of Themyscira, she thought wryly. But she dashed for the transport and, as it passed, grabbed hold of the back and climbed up into the open container.

  The smell assaulted her. Taking shallow breaths, she squelched through reeking refuse toward the back and crouched low, pulling a large, half-collapsed box up over her.

  Just in time, she thought, as a wing of Parademons flew overhead. The only good thing about her present predicament was that the transport’s very vileness would make it seem an unlikely escape vehicle.

  But minutes later, to her horror, the transport lurched to a stop.

  “Where’re you headed?” Diana heard Blood Red’s voice ask.

  Just my luck, Diana thought. Bernadeth assigned Red to help hunt me down.

  The hoarse voice of the driver answered, “Where I always head—out of Long-Shadow, through Armagetto, to the refuse dump in Night-Time. Why? What’s up?”

  “Escaped prisoner,” Red said. “I’ll have to search your transport.”

  The driver snorted. “Be my guest!”

  Diana sank deeper beneath the mounds of nauseating refuse, thinking enviously of Martian Manhunter’s ability to become insubstantial. She could use that power right now.

  Red clambered onto the truck and poked the garbage randomly with her sword. Then she jumped down, muttering, “It will take me a week to disinfect my weapon!”

  Serves you right! Diana thought.

  She heard Red shout, “You’re free to go!” And the transport lumbered on.

  Diana thought wistfully of the aerodiscs hidden in a nearby alley, but with half of Apokolips actively searching for her, she didn’t dare jump down to retrieve them.

  She sighed. Every move she made to escape Desaad also took her farther from her armor.

  Absently she pulled a fruit core from her hair. She wished she had thought to pull up her hood before diving into that muck.

  She wondered if her hair would ever come clean.

  She wished . . .

  THE CHALLENGE

  Diana treads water in a peaceful, spring-fed pool shaded by willows.

  The coolness soothes her cuts, which she knows are superficial and will heal without scarring. Despite her own willfulness, Xanthe had been careful not to really hurt her. But the quiet does little to calm her rebellious soul.

  “What torments me is my own mother’s cruelty!” Diana says aloud. “How could she have humiliated me like that?”

  “I am also your queen,” her mother says. “You know I could not let a public challenge to my authority go unanswered. Even from my own daughter.”

  Diana squelches that part of herself that knows Hippolyta is right. She faces her mother, says reproachfully, “I thought you loved me!”

  Hippolyta sits on the bank. “You know I do. You are my moon and stars,” she says. “Only your pride is truly hurt, Diana.”

  “But Xanthe is no match for me,” Diana says. “And that was no true test. It was a performance, like a play with a ritual ending! It wasn’t . . . real!”

  “What is real is that you honor Athena and obey my orders. And that our people see your battle-prowess, and feel confident we can protect our home.”

  “From what? Nothing threatens us!” Diana argues. “My battle skills make me more dangerous than any imaginary invader!” Her voice sinks to a whisper. “Look what I might have done to you!”

  Hippolyta says, “My darling, had you meant it to, that sword would have pierced my heart. Despite your anger, you put it where you chose—because your training gave you the skill to do so!”

  “But—” Diana begins to argue.

  Hippolyta sighs. “Enough arguing, child. You meant to defy me, not kill me. You will now return with me to the arena, where you will publicly beg my pardon—and the pardon of Athena—for your insolence! And, in the future, you will exercise greater self-control.”

  Diana believes she herself was right. But she also knows her own behavior was inexcusable. The older she gets, the more tangled right and wrong seem to become!

  She climbs sulkily from the pond. Though she hates being compelled to do anything, she will apologize for her behavior—she will even try to do so with good grace—though she would rather fight a hundred warriors. . . .

  The jostling of the transport jerked Diana back to consciousness. She realized she had been dreaming. Great Hera, she felt tired enough to sleep, even wedged into a cesspit.

  But it wasn’t an ordinary dream, she realized. She had been mired in that memory. The flashbacks were getting more vivid. More real.

  What was wrong with her?

  Her eyes drifted shut. And this time, she slept undisturbed.

  Diana was jolted awake by an explosive roar that rattled the transport like dice in a gambler’s fist.

  A flickering light shone fire-bright on the refuse, and the sulfur fumes had grown so strong they masked even the stench of the garbage.

  Diana pushed the sheltering box aside, squelched to the back of the transport, and peered over the edge.

  The transport was lumbering through a run-down industrial area riddled with scabrous-looking slums. Along one wall, in lettering five stories high, was the word ARMAGETTO. The dancing, dangerous light threw heat, sound, and eerie moving shadows over every surface.

  The streets were so grim and all-pervasively hopeless that Hades itself was doubtless a cheerier place. The ragged inhabitants were covered in grime. Diana saw few guards or soldiers.

  Now’s my chance! she realized. Dressed in a slashed tunic and covered in filth, I’ll still seem well-dressed among those wretches.

  She glanced around, then climbed stiffly out of the transport and lowered herself onto the street.

  She turned then and beheld the source of the appalling brightness—one of the vast and terrible planetary Fire Pits of Apokolips.

  From a massive crater many miles across, an incandescent geyser gushed and churned, then rose high into the sky until it towered above the buildings of Armagetto. Then the blaze fell, fountain-like, into a pool of magma, only to rise again in flame and fury.

  The Pit was rimmed by mines and power plants that converted the geothermal forces into energy to power Apokolips.

  Beyond the buildings, Diana noticed small figures laboring on a spar that jutted into that terrible conflagration. And, when the surface of the lava bubbled and burst in volatile gouts of vapor, she saw those people engulfed in flame and heard their high-pitched screams.

  Diana raced forward, determined to help the casualties. But when she reached the edge of the Fire Pit, she saw that where people had stood, nothing—not even ashes—remained.

  She had never imagined flames so all-consuming.

  Then, from the shadow of one of the buildings, a foreman cracked a whip. To her consternation, more ragged workers—men, women, and yes! children—shuffled forward, zombie-like, to take the places of the slain.

  Carrying sheets of metal, they filed onto a broad, horizontal pipe that jutted, pierlike, into that lake of fire. Steam was hissing from a long crack in the pipe, and apparently, the workers were enduring that unbearable heat and risking their lives to patch the hole.

  Lava hissed and spattered, blistering their legs, but the workers moved forward, oblivious to the pain. One by one each worker laid his sheet of metal over the tear in the pipe, while another hammered it into place. Then each worker filed back to shore, retrieved another sheet of metal, and repeated the process.

  Until the next explosion comes, Diana thought. And all of them will also be destroyed.

  Then a child, maybe six or seven, stepped onto the pipe with his metal patch. He stumbled, then swayed. No one put out an arm to steady him or paid him any heed.

  Diana could see the boy slipping, knew he was going to fall.

  Diana leapt onto the pipe, glad of h
er thick-soled aerotrooper boots, and snatched the boy up before he toppled into the lava. She carried him to shore with a sinking feeling that she had just proclaimed her presence in Armagetto.

  The foreman bellowed, “Hey, you! Stop!” Then he howled to his workers, “It’s the escapee! Stop her, you Brain Bound Lowlies! Now!”

  The Lowlies swept toward Diana like a wave.

  She looked into their eyes and saw—nothing. Their faces were blank, expressionless, masklike. But their bodies reacted to the foreman’s orders with blind obedience.

  Still clutching the child to her, Diana turned and ran.

  THE RESCUE

  Diana shades her eyes and runs her square-sailed boat closer toward the fearsome whirlpools and eddies that mark the mystical barrier between Themyscira and the forbidden World of Men.

  She has slipped away from the endless practicing for yet another Feast Day test. This time it was archery and javelins. Easy. Boring. Pointless.

  Diana squints as sunlight strikes diamond glints from undulating waves. Again she spots that flash of white.

  What is it? she wonders. A sounding dolphin? A piece of debris?

  No, Diana realizes. Those are arms clinging to a broken spar. And silver hair. A human of Man’s World—being swept ever closer to the maelstrom barrier.

  Then a swirling wave sweeps over the man and he disappears.

  Amazon law tells Diana that Man is not allowed here. He must keep to his side of the barrier as she must stay on hers. There can be no contact between them.

  But her heart says she cannot let him die.

  Diana steers her boat toward the barrier. There is a slight resistance. Then she is through it, her boat plunging into the maelstrom after him.

  When the silver head bobs to the surface, Diana is ready. Her preadolescent body dives through the water like a dolphin. And as the man sinks, she grabs his hair, hauling him back toward her boat.

  What now? she wonders. I can’t take him to Themyscira. No man can set foot there.

  She drags him, gasping, into the bottom of her boat.

  “Fishing boat sank,” he croaks. “Drifted. Knew I was going to die. Thank you . . . young mermaid . . . for saving me. When you came . . . never saw anyone so beautiful . . . didn’t think . . . you were real.” The man’s eyes close and he rests.

  Diana studies his sagging belly, his stringy limbs with their knobby knees and wrists. Around his neck is a golden chain with an ancient coin pendant. His face is creased, like a wadded chiton left to dry in the sun.

  He is old, Diana realizes with amazement. She has been taught that, unlike the Amazons of Themyscira, who live for centuries and never age, the lives of humans pass in the blink of an eye. Now she sees what that means and her heart is gripped by a terrible understanding.

  Soon death will take this man, she thinks, but not today. Today, because of me, he is alive.

  Defying the prohibitions of her people, Diana carries the man away from the barrier and toward the fishing lanes of the humans, where he will find others of his kind.

  Soon they spot a boat and the old man stands and waves and shouts.

  “My son,” he tells Diana proudly. “He must’ve been out looking for me.”

  The old man sees that as the fishing boat tacks toward them, Diana is becoming worried. He takes the gold chain from around his neck and hands it to her. “A small treasure, young mermaid, for you to remember me by. Go now. I can make my own way from here!”

  He dives into the sea and swims toward the fishing vessel.

  And Diana sails back toward Themyscira, pondering the gulf between the law of her people and the ruling of her heart.

  The chain with its ancient coin she leaves as a special offering for Athena. Her adventure she keeps hidden, though it gives her much to think about.

  She has taken a secret step into Man’s World and found it unlike anything she had been told. And she has used her superior strength and skill to save a helpless man who was unable to save himself.

  For a while, at least, it makes her feel lucky and filled with important purpose. And her endless round of lessons becomes almost bearable.

  The Fire Pit roared again its terrible roar. The child struggled in her arms, focusing her attention back to the present. While she had stood mesmerized, the Brain Bound had almost reached them.

  Diana dashed past the power plants and into the slum beyond. Feet pounded behind her.

  As she ducked into an alley, out of sight of her pursuers, the boy struggling in her arms cried out, “She’s over here!”

  “Hush,” she tried to tell him. “You’re safe with me!” But the boy looked at her with vacant eyes and kept on shouting.

  The Brain Bound roiled down the alley, a flash flood of inhumanity. Diana sprinted into a courtyard, through another alley, and onto a narrow street beyond.

  And all the while, the boy shouted, giving away her location.

  Then, to her horror, she saw more Brain Bound up ahead. She turned. Others were behind her. She was trapped between them.

  The Brain Bound howled their fury. And a screeching clamor answered from above.

  Parademons dove from the sky, their weapons crackling with energy. A blast struck Diana’s arm. Another ripped her side. She tried to shelter the boy with her body.

  Then a blast struck her in the back and the boy broke free as she collapsed beneath a jumble of bodies and weapons, claws, and fists.

  I could use Hawkgirl now, Diana thought. To fly in and lift me into the air . . .

  But the hand that gripped her arm dragged her, instead, beneath the earth.

  Diana sank past concrete and rock and through a ceiling. A white-haired man was looking up as he pulled her into a dimly lit corridor.

  He caught her body as it fell and laid her gently on a ledge. The pain in her back and shoulder and leg was receding now. She could no longer feel her arms or legs. Couldn’t breathe . . .

  DROWNING

  . . . her lungs are burning, but she knows she cannot take a breath. She will need to swim farther down, to where the water begins to cool, in order to reach the giant oyster and claim her prize. From the shape of its shell, Diana knows that within it lies a pearl as large as a hen’s egg. Two more strokes and it will be hers.

  Diana clutches the oyster, starts to lift it, to drag it to the surface, and is dismayed by its weight. She’ll have to remove the pearl down here.

  She draws her knife from the sheath at her waist, forces open the shell, and takes the glowing pearl. She kicks toward the surface. But she has taken too long, and she is too far under.

  Her lungs are screaming— Breathe! Darkness begins to envelop her. And in the end, she sucks in water.

  Then a wave of water buffets Diana, a strong hand grabs her chiton, dragging her upward. Her head breaks the water. Air strikes her face but can’t inflate her flooded lungs. She is choking, dying.

  She feels herself thrown onto the shore. Feels her back pressed. Hears her mother’s voice command, “Breathe, Diana! Breathe!”

  Water gushes out of her mouth. She coughs and sputters, and finally, she obeys. . . .

  Diana breathed. Mother, she thought. I’m all right.

  Only she wasn’t. She was aware of pain from scores of wounds. She groaned and opened her eyes.

  The man with the startling white hair was holding a silver fist-sized box above her body. The box made a pinging sound. And her many pains began to ease.

  “Welcome back,” he said. “I was afraid we’d lost you.”

  “Who . . . ?” she croaked.

  “My name is Himon,” he told her. “That blast ripped a hole in your lungs and nearly severed your spinal cord!” He saw her look of alarm.

  “Don’t worry,” he continued. “Mother Box has patched up the worst of your wounds. But time’s running short. They’ll figure out what I’ve done and come into the tunnels after us. Can you walk now?”

  Diana sat. Then stood. She hurt all over, and her legs wobbled, but they
seemed to work.

  Himon lifted his lantern. “Come! We’re going into the deep tunnels where I have a safe area. Once we’re there, Mother Box will finish healing you!”

  On stiff and trembling legs, Diana followed him down an incline. “Himon, did you really pull me through the ceiling? How—?”

  “Mother Box was tracking you for me,” Himon told her. “When you collapsed, I phased up through the ground and grabbed you. You can thank Mother Box you’re still alive.”

  Sounds came from the tunnel behind them. “The Brain Bound are in the tunnels. We must hurry.”

  Diana felt her mind whirling with new terms and concepts. Mother Box. Phasing. Brain Bound. Lowlies. It was hard to know what question to ask first.

  “Brain Bound Lowlies— That’s what their foreman called them! I thought Brain Bound was a kind of curse.”

  “In a way it is—but the curse is real,” Himon said. “The ordinary citizens of Armagetto are called Lowlies. But your attackers weren’t ordinary. Normal Lowlies couldn’t withstand the heat of the Fire Pits. But the Brain Bound will work at whatever task they’re given until their skin blisters off—until they die.”

  “And other Brain Bound take their places,” Diana murmured.

  Brain Bound, she thought. Wasn’t that what Desaad had had in store for her?

  LOST

  Diana, soaked and gasping, struggles to sit up. “It’s okay, Mother,” she croaks. “I’m . . . okay!”

  Hippolyta, dripping wet, her face white with shock, shakes Diana roughly. “You know you are never to dive alone, Diana! What can you have been thinking? Dearest Hera, if I had not realized you were missing . . . gone looking for you . . . I could have lost you!”

  “Getting . . . offering . . . Athena’s feast,” Diana gasps.

  But when she opens her hands, the pearl is gone. When she blacked out, it must have slipped through her fingers.

  Himon shook Diana roughly.