Anti-Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  “Again,” Clyde starts, “anatomically speaking—”

  “Metaphor!” Both Kayla and I cut him off at the same moment. We exchange a glance. I don’t think either of us are entirely used to synchronicity.

  “Wasn’t this entire conversation, at some point,” Clyde asks, “and I understand I may be mistaken here, but at some point, wasn’t it meant to be about us feeling shitty about being dumped by women?”

  I actually smile then. Despite it all I smile. Because something about this feels familiar. Something about… camaraderie. And it really does feel like sitting with Clyde in a way. With my old friend.

  Kayla ignores both of us. “If you don’t want these CIA pricks to melt Version 2.0, then stop them.”

  “I tried that.” I shrug. “They have an army.”

  “That’s an unfair size advantage,” Clyde says. “If this was a boxing match they wouldn’t allow that sort of match-up. Not that it is a boxing match. But if it were. Which it’s not. Sorry, I don’t think I’m contributing much.”

  “Big feckin’ change that is.” Kayla rolls her eyes at Clyde. Then she seems to decide that a new policy of ignoring Clyde would suit her best and she turns to me. “Look,” she says, “let me put this in sword-fighting terms. You can’t stab a man in the face, what do you do?”

  I shrug.

  “You stab him in the feckin’ back.” And there is the savage expression on Kayla’s face we at MI37 all know and love, and also secretly crap ourselves about. “You can’t change the CIA’s minds about this up front, you just smile, say yes, go to the feckin’ Arctic with them, and do this your own feckin’ way. Simple enough.”

  I exchange a look with Clyde. He shrugs. “They still have an army,” he points out.

  Kayla hasn’t finished grinning. “Yeah,” she says, “but you’ve got feckin’ me.”

  67

  LATER, IN AN AIR HANGAR SCULPTED INTO THE BACK OF TEDDY ROOSEVELT’S HEAD

  “You’re not goddamn coming.”

  Kayla looks murderous.

  The General considers this look. Apparently, it measures up. It’s probably the look his mother gave him while he breastfed or something similar. “Look,” he says, “if I could take you over numb-nuts here,” he nods at me, “then I would. But you’ve got a hole in your gut and he’s not. If stabbing him would make a difference I’d happily do it.”

  Around us soldiers bustle into DC-10s, propellers buzzing hungrily. Shouts of “ooh-rah” and “hup, hup” occasionally break through the din. The General, Gran, and the MI37 crowd stand negotiating at the back doors of one of the massive transport planes.

  Felicity, standing next to the General, gives a small cough. She won’t look at me. But she does at least cough when someone suggests perforating me.

  I want to go to her. It is killing me to not start imploring her. To beg her to see the mistake this is; to see how little difference this will make to my performance in combat; to just hold her; to shout that breaking up because you care too much is the stupidest damn thing I’ve ever heard.

  But I don’t. Now is not the time. Kayla was right. The world’s problems are bigger than mine. I need to keep my shit together.

  The General, oblivious to my inner conflicts, looks at Kayla and shakes his head.

  “You’re goddamn grounded. The rest of these limeys have bought themselves a ride.” He looks at Tabitha. “Though you better live up to these grandiose fucking intel promises you’re making.” He turns to Gran. “Agent Monk, you’re holding the goddamn leash, understand?”

  Gran nods.

  Kayla looks at Felicity, appealing.

  “No,” Felicity shakes her head. “Absolutely not. You’re recuperating.”

  Kayla’s knuckles go white. But then she nods, and stalks away.

  The General nods at Felicity. “Firm hand,” she says. She doesn’t acknowledge the compliment. And she still doesn’t look at me.

  Our plan needs Kayla. I lean over to Clyde. “This could be a problem.”

  “Really?” Clyde sounds surprised. “This is Kayla we’re talking about.”

  “She is recuperating.”

  “Yes,” Clyde nods, “that’s a point. We should probably assume that, running the whole way, she’ll probably be a few minutes behind us.”

  THREE HOURS LATER. ABOVE THE ARCTIC

  I am generally unenthusiastic about airplanes. Freezing winds that shake the plane like a toddler in a temper tantrum do nothing to consolidate my enthusiasm. Still, making my discomfort apparent in front of thirty-five marines armed with assault rifles and military-grade testosterone seems like a mistake. At one point I go to squeeze Felicity’s hand for comfort then remember that along with the rest of the world, my personal life has gone to shit. The gesture becomes a clumsy stretch and yawn that almost leads to me punching her in the nose. The hand grab might have been less awkward.

  What makes it worse are the googly eyes Gran is making at Tabitha. She, though, is largely ignoring him in favor of a small black box covered with a variety of blinking LEDs.

  Gran grins at her. “You like your new toy.”

  It is, we’ve been told, one of the wireless jamming devices they’ve been using to take down the networks around the US. The general assumption is that Version 2.0 probably did not turn off his own router despite the kindly urgings of the US government. As none of us want to end up with our brains going on a permanent holiday, this is DARPA’s slightly-more-upscale version of Tabitha’s tinfoil-lined hats.

  “Going to backwards engineer the shit out of it,” Tabitha tells Gran. She blows a kiss at him.

  God, their relationship survives all this shit, and mine doesn’t. Ugh.

  I have a few hours to contemplate that before the largest of the marines—who I assume gained command by clubbing all challengers to death with his enormous ball sack—stands up at the front of the plane. “Approaching drop zone,” he barks. “Ready!”

  “Hoo-hah!” is the popular response. It’s a little bit like being at a convention of Al Pacino impersonators. Albeit extremely militant Al Pacino impersonators. Though, at this point, odder things have happened in my life.

  Gran looks over at the MI37 crowd. “You dudes all cool?”

  While I am untrusting of aircraft, once I am in them I am predisposed to stay in until we once more reach terra firma. My hopes of that detonated on the appearance of the term “drop zone,” much like a body impacting on an ice field.

  “Not really,” I confide.

  “Sort of banking on the durability of flash memory a little more than I’d like,” Clyde adds.

  Felicity doesn’t say a word. Just stares stony-faced into the distance.

  Then the back bay of the plane is opening and men are lining up. I hesitate.

  “Dude!” Gran claps me on the back. “You’re going to dig this. It is, like, a total rush. I mean,” he points at the distant ground rushing past a mile below the plane’s open maw, “we are literally high right now.”

  “Well,” I say, “it’ll be nice to have a parachute this time.”

  Gran looks briefly concerned. “Oh yeah,” he says. “Sensitivity and shit. Sorry, man.” Then he gives me a thumbs-up and grabs a massive looking assault rifle off the wall.

  “Going in hot!” yells the huge marine, I assume because knowing this is going to involve being shot at is totally the motivation we all need.

  I close my eyes, concentrate. I have a plan. I am going to take control. We are going to prevail. We are going to save the world. From Version 2.0. From the military’s desire to use brute force. We are turning back the clock on the zombies. We are going to fix this. All of this.

  I stand up. My legs shake but I master it. I take one step, then another. I walk to the back of the plane. I stare into the freezing, howling night. And I do not look back. Instead, I leap out into everything that is to come.

  And I plummet like a stone.

  68

  The wind roars. It has teeth that rip. I shut my eyes
and feel the tears freeze. The thick thermal fatigues I’m wearing become a rather pathetic joke. God, I’m going to lose a limb to frostbite before I even land.

  If the plane ride was Gran’s high, then this must be the crash. Not that I’ve ever taken a narcotic associated with a significant crash, but if it involves plummeting screaming toward the promise of certain death, then this is exactly like that.

  Something starts beeping on my chest, a shrill scream that slices through everything, and for a moment my heart stops. It is the sound of things going wrong.

  Then I realize it’s the altimeter that they strapped to my chest, and I yank the parachute cord before I get turned into a pancake.

  After that things are significantly more peaceful.

  We land in a surprisingly tight circle. The snow crunches beneath our feet, packed hard and frozen. No one sinks in or starts to make snow angels. That, I suppose, is a good sign for the professionalism of the mission so far.

  Similar groups of marines land around us, describing a loose circle about a mile in diameter. We surround our target. Pale moonlight bounces in sharp jagged edges off the endless reaches of snow. In that light, I finally see it—the home Version 2.0 has built for himself.

  Tabitha’s eyebrows rise. She shakes her head. “Egomaniac bullshit,” she says with a look of mild disgust.

  “Well, that is a little embarrassing, one does have to admit.” Clyde nods.

  They rise out of the ice like pyramids. Blunt triangles of steel, and glass, and stone. Mist boils up around their base, obscuring the seam they form with the ice.

  “Well, that’s just silly,” Gran says. “I mean, that requires, like, resources. Labor. I mean, how the hell does a dude get himself a workforce in the Arctic Circle to build a Fortress of Solitude?”

  Personally, I think it looks more like the structure from the end of Watchmen, but I also get the feeling that no one would care for that observation right now.

  “He might not need an imported workforce,” Felicity muses. “Maybe he can just grow one. Or build one. Or whatever the hell he’s doing now.”

  There was a time when I loved it when Felicity talked. When I knew what would follow would be smart and clear-headed and cut through all the bullshit. And now, in some ways, is no different. She’s right. It’s just she’s also right in a way that feels like someone is kicking me directly in the chest.

  “Come on,” I say to the marine leader. “Let’s go and blow them up already.”

  He looks back at me. “Intel,” he snaps. “On-site assessment. Defenses?”

  And I thought Tabitha had a gift for brevity. I resist the George Orwell nuspeak reference and instead try to be helpful.

  “Erm…” is probably not an auspicious start. The marine’s expression certainly suggests so. “Well, so far,” I rally, “he’s relied mostly on golems. Though there’s really nothing here that he could use to…”

  “Snow,” Clyde interrupts me.

  “What?” The marine leader and I are twinned in our confusion.

  “Oh.” Clyde’s posture suggests he’d look sheepish if he had a face. “I mean, well, basically you can make a golem out of any solid substance provided it can articulate.” He waves his arms around to demonstrate. “Well, actually, technically, it doesn’t have to articulate, but it would be pretty pointless to do that. Unless you’re the sort of sick, twisted bastard who likes to be surrounded by animating forces trapped in inanimate matter. But I can’t really see even a perverse pleasure in that. Though, who knows. I didn’t know I could turn into a world-destroying psychotic, and that hasn’t stopped it from happening.”

  Quietly, and quite deliberately, the marine cocks his gun.

  “Oh.” Clyde goes quiet for a moment. “Snow golems. That’s all I was saying really. That could be it.”

  The marine leader narrows his eyes. “You telling me,” he says, “in all seriousness, that I’ve got to look out for killer snowmen?”

  Clyde looks away. I study my gloved hands.

  “I suppose so,” Clyde finally concedes.

  The marine closes his eyes. He keeps them that way for a long time. Then he touches his throat mike. “Intel suggests to be on the lookout for…” He hesitates and then glares at Clyde and me in turn. “For animated snow creatures,” he says finally.

  There is radio silence. Then, eventually, inevitably, “Repeat that, snow leader one. Please confirm, animated snow creatures.”

  The marine leader looks so murderous I am suddenly sad that Kayla isn’t here yet. I think the two of them would probably get along.

  “I confirm: animated snow monsters.” Another baleful look.

  But the only response is, “Copy.”

  Killer snowmen. Sometimes I hate my job.

  The lead marine points his rifle at the pyramids and checks his scope. “Five hundred yards to target,” he says. “Advance two hundred. Move out.”

  As one, the marines stand. They move with incredible synchronicity, as if operating at the behest of some great military hive mind. For my part, I do what I can to stay low and out of sight. And to not be too painfully aware of where Felicity is at all times.

  Two hundred yards later, we come to a halt. Around us other groups of marines do the same, drawing the net tighter. The marine leader looks at me, back over the clean ground we’ve covered, and then back at me. “Snow golems,” he says with disgust. “If you think fucking with me is a fun game then—”

  “Dude.” Gran holds up a hand, cutting him off. “These dudes are the experts. They say snow golems are a threat, they are like a threat times nine.” He looks at me. “Right, dude?”

  “Right.” I can’t help but smile. Times nine. Really.

  The marine leader shakes his head. “All right. Two hundred more yards. Move out.”

  We sneak forward another five paces. And then, from behind, comes a rather desperate sounding, “Sir!”

  We freeze and glance back. A lone marine is back where we were just sitting. He has one leg bunched beneath him. The other… the foot has sunk into the snow. The ice crust has given way and his boot is stuck. He tugs on the limb to no avail.

  “Get it together, Jenkins,” snaps the marine leader. “I said move out.”

  “Trying, sir,” says the poor chap, Jenkins, who I think might be getting spill-over ire that’s really intended for me. I take a step toward him.

  “Leave him,” snaps the marine leader.

  “I got it,” says Jenkins waving at me. “Just seems—”

  To our right gunfire suddenly breaks out. Sharp and harsh against the silence of the Arctic night. Our heads snap up. We stare, trying to work out what is going on. And then—from the other side of the pyramids—another eruption of sound.

  “What’s going on?” I hear a man breathe.

  With violent suddenness, Jenkins sinks up to his hip. I hear a sharp crack, a noise that sounds profoundly wrong out here in the snow and the peace. The marine, Jenkins, howls. It was the snap of bone.

  “Holy—”

  And oh shit. This is it. The marines whirl their guns about, but they haven’t realized what is happening yet. They’re well-trained operatives to be sure, but weird-ass shit is not their job description.

  It’s mine.

  I start sprinting toward Jenkins.

  “Sir!” Jenkins yells.

  Then comes another brutal crack. Another. Another. Jenkins’s body folds like a rag doll’s. His leg smashes up into his nose, bloodying it. His pelvis and spine defy anatomy. Jenkins is ripped down, a bloody bag of breaking bones torn into the snow.

  “They’re in the snow!” I yell. “The golems are in the snow!”

  The response is stunning in both its immediacy and violence. Bullets tear into the snow at our feet. The ice crust becomes a broken mirror, plumes of white erupting up into the air.

  Five seconds later everything is still.

  The marine leader stares at me. “They still below us?”

  It takes me a moment
to realize it’s a genuine question. “I…” I’m panting, still picturing Jenkins’s body as it folded up and was dragged below.

  “I don’t…” I turn and look at Felicity, then realize I don’t want to and look at Gran instead. “The fruit golems didn’t go down from one bullet,” I say. “We had to chop them up. Snow is…”

  “I don’t think bullets are going to do it.” Clyde is shaking his head and shrugging in unison.

  “Golems.” Tabitha has her laptop open. “Death requires physical disruption.”

  “I do not have time for a fucking anatomy lesson!” the marine snaps. “Enemy forces still at large!” he barks at his men. “We are still hot!”

  Then it comes at us. A hundred feet away, the ground ripples, swells, rises. It rises until it occludes the night sky, until it encompasses the world. A vast tidal wave of snow and ice. Soldiers open fire, but it does as much good as shooting any wave. The golem comes on unheeding and uncaring. It towers above us. Massive. Undeniable.

  And then it crashes down.

  All about me, bright glittering white becomes cold frozen dark.

  69

  Snow fills my mouth, my nose, my ears, my eyes. I choke on it. It bears down, a force greater than the simple weight of the snow. A bone-crushing, spine-cracking, teeth-grinding pressure. A giant’s hand squashing the flies that have disturbed its slumber.

  This golem—it is nothing so pedestrian as the trash squid. Nothing so terrestrial. Version 2.0 has transcended the limits of form. This creature is just a ball of will and spite, sent here to keep us away. It is malleable, angry destruction and nothing else.

  I try to find purchase in the snow. Try to heave upwards, to arch my back against this pressure.

  Nothing.

  I grit my teeth at the effort, at the cold taking root in me. I feel a trembling in my limbs.

  And nothing else.

  I gain no lift, no purchase. I try to suck in breath, but there is nothing. Just blackness, frozen pressure, and the creak of my sternum.