by Alan Janney
He asks, “What’d you say?”
“Nothing. Pass the word. No one attacks. Not tonight.”
Mason obeys and the orders travel up the line of watchers. Maybe I spoke too loudly. Maybe he did. But for whatever reason, one of the far tents shudders. The canvas walls rise and fall. It’s him. The Outlaw. I know it is. All of us do. As one body, we begin an involuntary retreat.
The tent flaps part. A figure emerges. He shines like the sun to my eyes.
We don’t stay. We don’t watch. Like scared children, we flee. And Katie laughs.
- Six -
The next morning, over a thousand people wait for me. They crowd the tower lobby. Throng the courtyard. Line the sidewalks. Skyscrapers block the morning sun, but even so the air is bright with hope and pride. Civilians cheer. Law Keepers hold them back. Guardians perch on wall protrusions and salute.
This is our chance. We’ll tell Walter he can’t win. We’ll send a message to the President and to Blue-Eyes that we will survive. We’ll cry our independence to the world. I raise my fist and the tumult increases an octave.
Kayla waits in the rear of the Land Cruiser. She is pristine and manicured. Our driver tries not to gawk at her. Dalton gets into the passenger seat, shifting until his shoulder holster is comfortable. He is furious at the commotion. I slide in back, beside Kayla, and the door closes.
“My Queen. You look…formidable.”
“Walter’s in place?”
“Yes. He must be positively sick of Mason’s mouth by now.”
“General Brown is with him?”
“Yes ma’am.”
I tap the driver. He speaks into his radio and our caravan rolls.
* * *
Walter was raised in east LA. He alternated living between his mother and his aunt, depending on who was sober. He dropped out of school at age thirteen, and spent a total of fifteen months at Los Padrinos for various offenses. During his final stay he was introduced to Al Arrington, a social worker for the after school program.
Teresa Triplett met Al’s wife while doing research for her article on Walter. According to her, Walter and Al got along because they both liked baseball. Al talked Walter into returning to school and kicking the drug habit. Soon after he turned eighteen, Walter’s debilitating headaches began. The Virus, dormant since birth, arrived and demanded sacrifice. Walter couldn’t attend school and failed all his classes, one semester before graduation. His coach kicked him off the baseball team. Al assumed Walter had returned to gang activity. His sickness grew worse and eventually snapped his sanity, triggering uncontrollable aggression. Walter never graduated high school, and he killed Al Arrington one night during a dispute, Al’s widow reported.
Walter would certainly have formed his own gang and dominated the territory wars, Teresa Triplett assumes in her article, but the Chemist found him first. Walter was put in charge of the Chemist’s security team, though the two men never got along. The Chemist was refined and educated, and Walter is instinct and aggression. Eventually the Chemist was killed and Walter took much of the Variant army for himself. He left to terrorize and seize control of the northwest, away from the Resistance.
And now he’s here. Returned to Los Angeles, his home. And I have to face him. I read Teresa Triplett’s article last night, and consulted with her. She thinks I’m going to die.
* * *
The Los Angeles Convention Center is impressive, even for Los Angeles. Over a million square feet of glass and angular architecture filled with pop culture relics from past conventions. It gleams brilliantly with reflected sunlight. Two years ago, tens of thousands gathered for the big Auto Show, or E3, or the Anime Expo, or the Primetime Emmy Awards, or the Governors Ball, and so forth.
Now we store dry goods in the basement.
But as soon as we’re more secure in our electricity consumption we might show movies in the theater.
Walter waits outside, sitting at a table across from General Brown in the Gilbert Lindsay Plaza, a broad courtyard scrubbed white for the occasion. He is surrounded by a ring of armed Law Keepers standing fifty yards distant. Mason and the nine other Falcons wait on motorcycles by the palm trees, ready for action.
Kayla enters the ring of Law Keepers, serenely approaches the table and sits without speaking.
I land between Kayla and General Brown, falling from the sky and deliberately busting the concrete slab on which they sit. Walter doesn’t react other than a slight smirk.
Walter is a solidly built man. Long, muscled limbs. His brown skin is crisscrossed with scarified designs. His short hair is cornrowed. He wears sunglasses, jeans and a vest. He has a presence, like an evil radiation. A spreading stain on the atmosphere, so thick I can smell it. He is significantly stronger than I am.
Most noticeable, however, are the short knives bolted into the bones of his finger tips. He’s given himself surgically attached claws. How gruesome.
I’m wearing boots, cargo pants, black shirt, and a jacket. My joints are compressed with red silk. My short hair is a mess. I’m a worker. A survivor. A fighter. Not here to be pleasant.
“Nice manicure,” I say. “I came by my nails naturally.”
“I wouldn’t call it natural, sweetheart,” he drawls, almost a southern accent. “Remember me? You and me, we go back.”
“What are you doing here, Walter?”
“That night on the beach. You remember?” He grins, revealing teeth full of gold and silver. “Heard you lost your memory. You remember the beach? Me comin’ to fetch you?”
“I imagine abducting teenagers makes you feel powerful.”
“You didn’t go by Carmine back then. I found Katie Lopez on a beach. At night. Hiding from me, but not hiding good enough. I took you. Threw you in a car. Took you to the Chemist. To the surgery. You remember?”
I feel like I’m being shocked, small frissons, pinpricks in my mind. Memories flash on my consciousness. A beach. At night. With…? With someone I remember. Katie lurches inside of me. No. No no no, she says with such strength I actually hear her. I’m going insane.
“I’m not helpless anymore, Walter. What do you want?”
“Nice place you built.” He leans back and spreads his arms like he’s stretching. “Impressive colony for such a little girl.”
“Wasn’t just me.”
“How long you think you can survive here?”
“We have a surplus of water. Four aqueducts to choose from, and we only require one. We have gasification generators, gasoline generators, solar panels, and turbines. Plenty of food. And the most dangerous army on earth. We can survive indefinitely.”
“Bravo, Ms. Carmine. You a scary lady.”
“Why are you here?”
“Doing you a favor.”
“What favor?”
“Keeping you alive.”
“I don’t need your help. We’re doing fine on our own.”
“Cause the heat ain’t been turned on yet. S’only a matter of time. You got enemies you ain’t heard of.” He smiles and pops some gum into his mouth. Crinkles the wrapper and flicks it onto the table between us.
“This is a waste of my time. Anything else?”
“You sittin’ on too much power. The Chemist, see, he spent billions. Billions. Building an army of freaks. And then you come along and think they yours? Well, pretty girl, they ain’t. You can’t keep’em.”
My blood is warming, listening to him talk about the Guardians like possessions. Like manufactured tools to be owned. “They could have gone north. They could have located you. They chose otherwise. They don’t belong to you.”
“Let’s you and I make a deal. Me and you. Fact is, I got a couple deals for you. You can pick which you want.” He leans back and props his feet up. “This is me helping you. Helping you stay alive.”
“You have nothing to bargain with. You have nothing I want.”
“You wrong. I can tell your President to let you live.”
Kayla speaks up. “We don’t have
a president. We declared Greater Los Angeles officially annexed on the fourth of July.”
Walter lazily shifts his attention to Kayla. Gazes at her a long moment, face unreadable. Her legs are crossed and she’s been pumping her ankle until now. She doesn’t fidget. She returns his stare, but I know it takes every bit of her self-control to remain calm. Walter is a frightening man, and Kayla is an outrageously desirable woman. Finally he says, “Irrelevant. I can officially declare myself the Pope. But that’s got no bearing on reality. You on American soil.”
“No. You’re on our Kingdom’s soil. My soil.”
“Your soil?”
I snap, “The President cut off Los Angeles’s electricity from the power plants. And cut the phone lines. And medical supplies. And shipping. And trucking. He deliberately tried to starve his citizens. If anything has no meaning, it’s the President’s claim on New Los Angeles. He lost that right months ago.”
He shrugs and laces fingers across his flat stomach. “Don’t matter much, I guess. He’ll kill you either way. So will the others.”
“He’s tried. Hasn’t work so far.”
“The rightful and the legal owners of this fine city gonna get more creative. They want their property back. They got stuff here. You sittin’ on a hundred billion in real estate alone.”
“Ownership will be returned after certain conditions are met.”
He sniffs. “Just so happens a powerful syndicate of owners contacted me. Want to know how they can get you out. You’re pissing on billionaires. Walt Disney, he wants Disney Land back. Lakers want the Staple Center returned. Musk, Sterling, Buss, Resnick, Murdock, Spielburg, Redstone…names mean anything to you? You got their stuff. Powerful men and women, money coming out they ears. So mad they could hire mercenaries. Violent mercenaries.”
“Tell your grumpy old men they can return. We’ve made it clear the Kingdom welcomes refugees. But for the moment, I’m in charge.”
He turns to General Brown and says, “General. You a respected military leader. Former CO of Los Alamitos. Decorated war veteran. You can’t talk sense into these little girls?”
General Brown defected from the American government when the military split in February. Unlike most military officials, he didn’t join the Resistance. He and ten thousand soldiers drove trucks laden with munitions and ordnance to our border and pledged allegiance to our cause. He’s a fifty-five-year-old, stern, hidebound black man with a buzzed haircut, and his men love him. So do I.
He returns Walter’s stare and smiles sadly. “I don’t envy you, young man. You’re a captive. A hostage of Blue-Eyes, but you don’t know it. And you’re in over your head with these…girls, as you call them.”
“You follow her leadership?” Walter sneers. His metal claws are tapping and scratching the table.
“I’d follow Carmine into hell, boy.”
“Let’s be clear about one thing. I don’t answer to the Blue-Eyed Bitch. I ain’t here for her.”
I say, “She bankrolls your terrorist operation. You’re a simple errand boy.”
That gets him. For the first time he shows emotion. His face darkens and his hands clench. He is a viper itching to uncoil, to strike. “Ain’t a terrorist,” he growls in a low rumble. “Ain’t a errand boy. I’m a businessman, like you. ‘Cept you ain’t even a man.”
Then he stops. Angles his face upwards, like he’s testing the air. Twists in his chair and glares over his shoulder, towards the glass Convention Center. “She’s here.”
At first I think he’s talking about the Blue-Eyed Witch, but that’s impossible. We’d know if she was. He’s not talking about her. “You mean the Cheerleader? She’s around. Why, scared of her?”
“The Cheerleader,” he chuckles. “Hell yeah I’m scared of the Cheerleader. You should be too. She’s a fun one, though. She crazy.” He sinks back into his chair, clearly shaken. He twitches his shoulders and shifts uncomfortably. “You got allies. I’ll grant you that. But she can’t keep you alive.”
I keep my mouth shut. The Cheerleader is not our ally. We simply have no idea how to get rid of her.
He says, “Okay, let’s get this over with. I want the Inheritors.”
There it is. The bomb I knew he’d drop. Very few things would be worth risking his life for, but the Inheritors are one of them. He travelled alone, hundreds of miles for a chance. I shake my head. “There are no Inheritors, Walter. They’re gone.”
“You really expect me to believe the rumors? That you really the Red Butcher? That you killed those kids? Give me the Inheritors and you live and you keep your Variant army.”
A headache is building, a gathering storm behind my eyes. It takes me a full thirty seconds to find my voice, and it comes out hoarse. “Look all you want. The Inheritors are gone, bodies washed out to sea.”
He regards me suspiciously. “Ain’t fooling nobody.”
I shrug and wipe my eyes. I hate talking about the Inheritors. Something inside me shivers, an involuntary response. He’s the devil. I hate him.
He grunts, “Okay then. Second and final offer. You leave Los Angeles. Leave the Variants. And I won’t come hunt your ass down.”
“No deal.”
“Maybe you oughta consult with your friends. Isn’t your…colony ruled by a three person council? Maybe they be willing to sacrifice you so they can live.”
I say, “I’m a third of our triumvirate. I handle all Guardian affairs. And you’re a mutant. Therefore you deal with me.”
“Give me the Variants, little girl. Or I will slaughter you.”
A threat. And we capture it on video, insurance against a day we need to prove our goodwill to the public. I stand and lean towards him, resting my splayed fingers on the table. “Now I’ll make you a deal. You’re going into our jail. We can throw you in quietly. Or we can use violence and then throw you in. You pick.”
He arches a brow and smiles. “This an, ah…abduction?”
“You’re in my Kingdom. And I’m incarcerating you. You will stand trial before our Courts for your crimes.”
Walter shakes his head and makes soft tsk noises. “And to think, pretty girl. I came on a peaceful diplomatic errand.”
“Get up. We have your cell prepared.”
General Brown and Kayla are tense. They disapprove of this plan. Said we aren’t prepared. Said we can’t control Walter, that he was a warrior beyond our reckoning. But I’m not letting this monster walk free.
“You even know how the disease works?” Walter asks.
“I know you slip into and out of ebonics, depending on your mood at the moment. Everything about you is an act. You’re a fake.”
“The disease evolves us,” Walter says. “We get harder as we age. And faster. Your creator, the Chemist, was damn near indestructible. Had to be dropped off a sky scraper onto his head. What I’m saying, Red Butcher, is that there ain’t anyone here to contend with me. You’re still alive cause I’m trying to be polite.”
The table between us is thick and heavy, made from a single cut of walnut. Scavengers found it in a luxury condo. I punch my fist clean through and pull the wood apart. It breaks in half, an eruption of splinters.
The Falcons are off their bikes and approaching. The Law Keepers have been instructed to fire only as a last resort; too many people in a small area.
“On the ground,” I order. “Or this is about to get messy.” I’m jumpy, like a kid at the doctor’s office bracing for a shot. This will probably hurt.
Hit me. Hit me. Go on, Walter. We’re recording everything; I want him to be the aggressor. We can’t kill him unprovoked, or we’d lose everything we’ve worked so hard to attain. Not sure we can kill him at all, but I want to try.
He almost goes for it. I detect the rising tide of hate, the minor muscle twitches, the pall of his disease thickening. Can General Brown feel that? He doesn’t have the Hyper Virus, but can he tell how powerful Walter is?
Walter makes a show of straightening his vest. Presses the Ray-Bans firm
ly onto his nose with his pointer finger. Then looks at Kayla. “Mamá, you shouldn’t’na come here showing so much skin. Imma return for you. And you gonna be a hard working girl, cause I got them big appetites.”
No! I strike like lightning, darting forward and plunging razor nails at his neck. He Catches my fingers with his clawed hand. “Told you,” he breaths into my face. “You ain’t ready yet to play with big kids.”
Walter Hits me in the chest. I’m lifted up and over Brown and Kayla. Like being smashed by a car and hurled into pavement.
“Come on,” he laughs as the Falcons circle him, their fists bristling with knives. “Little warriors, see if you can hit me.”
He’s enjoying this. My blood runs cold. He’s a titan from another dimension compared to us. We’re not on his level. The Falcons launch themselves and fall apart. They bounce off or he throws them down. Walter is calloused and skilled from countless fights, some against the Outlaw himself. This was a mistake. Brown’s pistol is in his hands but he can’t get a shot; Walter is everywhere.
I attack again, and connect with a snap kick that shatters his sunglasses. He’s off-balance but he parries the next blow. I slash him across the chest but he Moves like a viper. Grabs me by the throat and lifts me. My entire body hangs in his hand, and I kick at his knees and waist but it’s like flailing at reinforced steel. His wrist turns to bloody ribbons as I claw but he doesn’t budge. He raises his hand, about to remove my face with his knives.
“No!” Kayla screams. Her voice goes straight into my brain. Straight into Walter’s too, and her power is obvious. He releases me and recoils, as though she threw scalding water in his eyes and ears. The Falcons reel too, her influence over our bodies passing like a shockwave.
Brown and Kayla were right. We should have let him leave. This could end in disaster. He hits Mason so hard I’m surprised his back didn’t break.
