Outcasts

by Alan Janney

  “Then I slowly kill the girl until he discards them. Honestly, Kid. When I contemplate your deep stupidity, I’m forced to miss Carla. Her treachery may be more desirous than your idiocy.”

  “What if he doesn’t show?”

  Another sigh. “Then he is humiliated. Exposed as a coward. And we televise her slow death, forcing his appearance. But he will show. Now hush.”

  “What if the military drops a big bomb on us?”

  For a moment I thought he would hit me. He thought about it. But the moment passed. “That depends. If the Outlaw is present when the bomb drops then perhaps…perhaps I will die with him. Of my own volition.”

  “Why??” I gasped.

  “I’m not sure. It strikes me as poetic. Now, Kid, if you speak again, I’m going to slit your throat.”

  I did not speak again.

  Please don’t die, Outlaw. Please don’t die.

  Someone has to kill the Father. Someone brave.

  The seconds ticked by, ticking ticking ticking. The world was shrinking to the size of a snow globe, nonexistent outside our circle of artificial light. I felt like we were quickly using up the universe’s remaining oxygen and I gulped mouthfuls to stave off lightheadedness.

  At 11:00 pm, the Father snorted air from his noise like a bull, left his place outside the light and moved towards the pool. As per my orders, I followed him into the glare. He moved down the concrete steps, now in full view of the active cameras.

  The Outlaw got there first. He fell from the sky, pulled by something beyond gravity, like a comet descending out of orbit. He landed and the tower shook. Which was impossible. But it did. The Father rocked back in surprise. The upper crust of the pool’s cement cracked with the impact. Of our dozen Twice Chosen, exactly half turned and fled. So powerful was his entrance, his presence, that they simply couldn’t withstand it.

  He towered over us, body fully engorged as it often became in times of stress. He took up space in ways that made no sense. His skin was striated with muscles and rivers of dried blood. He was immense. He was magnificent.

  He wore no mask and the full collision of his gaze shattered me. I staggered. Put your mask on, I almost begged. Too intense. The mask shields us from you! He looked at the Twice Chosen and three more retreated shamelessly. Turned and ran, abandoning steel weapons. What would it be like to experience the Outlaw if I didn’t have the disease? I felt like I was being mildly electrocuted, like he created a constant thunderstorm. Surely not everyone felt that.

  The Father was holding his breath. His hands tightened on the staff. Today, for the first time I could remember, he wore gloves. Expecting fierce combat. Now he laughed, “He plunges from the heavens like a god! Such an entrance!”

  The Outlaw glared at the cameras, at the lights, at me, and at the Father. “Let her go.”

  The Father nodded to me. I nearly fainted. On unsteady legs I left his side and approached the Outlaw. He watched me with no interest. Not unkindly. He’d never been unkind to me. In fact, at every opportunity he’d tried to rescue me. He allowed me to pat his legs and boots and vest.

  “You may leave him his weapon,” the Father called, indicating the rod shoved into the back of the Outlaw’s vest.

  Other than two phones in his pocket, I found only one thing of interest. Tubes were shoved into small vest compartments. I removed one tube and examined it.

  “Pepper spray,” the Father laughed when I presented it to him. “I can smell it. This is how you arm yourself?” He shook the small canister and tossed it from the tower. It wouldn’t land for a long time.

  “I’m here to die, Martin,” the Outlaw responded. His voice was strong and frank, as opposed to the Father’s fluted, overly formal tones. “Prove to me Katie is alive and free.”

  The Father indicated the cameras. “First, dear boy, a few preliminaries. For the sake of our viewing audience. For the sake of your jury. You are here to pay penance for your sins. You are found guilty of disturbing the peace, of crimes against humanity, against me, of defiance, of insubordination, of murder, lying, deceiving the good people of America. Of the earth. Shall I go on?”

  The Outlaw stood as a rock. No reply. No expression.

  “By surrendering tonight, you admit your guilt. You place yourself into my custody. Under my authority. Under my discipline. Under my judgement.” The Father paused to allow the Outlaw a chance to speak. Silence. “Have you nothing to say, Outlaw?”

  “I’m not here as the Outlaw. I’m here as Chase Jackson, a boy who loves a girl you kidnapped. Release her. And take me in her place.”

  The Father blanched. For a brief moment, he floundered. This wasn’t going according to plan. He wanted the Outlaw enraged. Out of control. Wild. Disrespectful. Combative.

  He continued, “Release her. I’ll confirm her safety. And then…do what you need to do.”

  The Father chuckled. “You will not run.”

  “I will not. I’m getting the better end of our bargain.”

  “Very well.” The Father raised a radio, with fingers clearly shaking. He spoke into it. “Katie Lopez is to be released immediately.”

  The Outlaw asked, “Where?”

  “She shall be driven north on Grand, out of my Sanctuary, and delivered to a place of your choosing.”

  Below us, far far below, an ambulance began to wail. The Outlaw searched us for meaning, for clues. “She’s in an ambulance?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why? Why an ambulance?”

  “It’s perfectly safe.”

  The Outlaw made a phone call and put it on speaker. Ringing. Someone answered. “Outlaw! Holy…you’re calling me now?! If the Chemist doesn’t kill you, I will!”

  “Samantha,” he said calmly. “I need you to drive to the northern barricade.”

  “I’m already here, waiting on a helicopter.”

  “Stay there. An ambulance is driving Katie out. Please intercept it and confirm Katie’s safety.”

  “No! Not if it means you’re going to die!” the voice roared.

  The Father cackled but it was fake. False bravado.

  “Thank you, Samantha. Call me when you have her, please.” He hung up.

  Then began the longest eight minutes of my life. And possibly of the Outlaw’s. Of Chase Jackson’s. The siren faded into the distance, lost in high swirling vicissitudes. He remained stoic but his eyes leaked in desperation. I’d never seen a man my age care so much about someone else. He couldn’t be older than nineteen. How could this girl mean so much? The Father tried baiting him into conversation but was rebuffed with wintery silence. Somehow, someway, the Father had lost control of this engagement.

  “I should tell you,” he said as time drew near, “that Katie Lopez is not alone. I released a physician to accompany her. Doctor Whitmer, one of the world’s foremost neurobiologists and surgeons, is in the ambulance also.”

  This new piece of information was almost too much. Chase came closer to panicking. “Why? Why does she need a doctor?”

  “Just to be safe.”

  His phone rang. He answered it on speaker. “Samantha,” he said. His voice thickened with emotion. “Give me good news.”

  The voice which answered was panting and rattled. “I checked the vehicle. There’s no explosives. Katie is here. She’s unconscious. She’s being attended by a physician.”

  “Why is she-”

  The voice continued, “She’s safe. She’s alive. But Chase…ugh, I’m sorry. It…it looks like the Chemist performed the same surgery on her that he did on Andy Babington.”

  The phone exploded in the Outlaw’s fist. Veins throbbed in his neck and arms. His body trembled and purpled. “That wasn’t part of the deal,” he thundered in quiet, awful agony. “Why did…why…why??”

  “She has not suffered,” the Father responded pleasantly. “Not in the least. And your friend Samantha is wrong. It is not the same surgery. This one is far, far more advanced. Doctor Whitmer will keep her asleep for months, and she will awak
en as a new being. A god. A goddess who will live for hundreds of years. Not that you’ll be around to see it.” His smile widened in wicked antagonism.

  For a moment, we stood on the edge of a knife. The Outlaw raged inwardly. He fumed and cried. The Father tensed for glorious battle. This had been the final straw. The last torment necessary to tip the Outlaw into blind wrath. Chase shook his head back and forth, like a dog killing the prey within his jaws. In addition to all his other battles, the Outlaw also wrestled with insanity. “You. Should not. Have done that. She’d done nothing wrong. Nothing…nothing…”

  The Father moved his staff off the ground, balanced in both fists, ready to defend.

  Then, slowly, the moment of crisis passed. The Outlaw crossed through every violent, painful human emotion and emerged on the other side in tact. He took deep breaths and wiped away tears. “Okay,” he said. “Okay.”

  “Okay what, Outlaw? Ready to spring your trap?”

  “A deal is a deal. I surrender.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Sunday, February 11. 2019

  PuckDaddy

  I called Captain FBI. “Anderson, you watching this?”

  “Affirmative. Streaming live on my phone. Like seven billion other people.”

  My heart was overheating. Brain running too fast, verging on overload. “Chase isn’t going to fight! The Chemist is going to kill him.”

  On screen, one of the Chemist’s henchmen approached that weird, tall thing in the empty pool. I recognized that henchman. He was Infected. Chase called him Baby Face. The henchman grabbed a fistful of red sheets and tugged. The covers slid off to reveal the contraption.

  Oh crud. That really sucks.

  The Chemist beamed in triumph. The Outlaw didn’t react.

  Isaac was in my ear and he asked, “Ready for activation?”

  “Light’em up, baby. Let’s kill that bastard.”

  Three hundred miles away, Isaac Anderson and his faithful team turned on the HIMAR system and fed power to the rockets. My screen instantly populated with controls and diagnostics and information. Propelled death at my fingertips.

  “Activated.”

  “Bingo!” I shouted. “I’ve got clearance.”

  I heard new noises through my headset. A strident blare and urgent voices. He said, “We’re retreating, Puck. Alarms going off. You’ve got…five minutes? Before Colonel Brown kills your launch.”

  “I only need two.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Sunday, February 11. 2019

  There’s only so many ways to kill an angry Infected. The simplest are fire, water, and electricity.

  I’d been expecting electricity. I was wrong.

  Baby Face pulled the sheets off, like revealing a statue. But it wasn’t a statue. It was a tall submersion tank filled with water. The device reminded me of a magician’s act I’d seen; the magician went into the chamber and we watched through transparent walls as he undid handcuffs before running out of oxygen.

  I should have guessed. The Chemist craved drama. Craved an audience. Slowly drowning me for three minutes was perfect. The tank had a hydraulic cap that would seal me in.

  “Turn, Outlaw. And look upon thy death.”

  He was quoting Shakespeare. Because he knew Katie and I did. I could hardly hear him over the rush in my ears.

  Don’t watch this, Dad. Someone take his phone away.

  My plan, so far, wasn’t working. He was shaken. I could tell in a thousand ways. But still he proceeded.

  “For the crimes aforementioned, Outlaw, I sentence you to immediate death by drowning. You will enter the water and stay until dead.”

  My voice operated on its own. “Very well.”

  “Have you any last words?”

  “Yes.” I approached him. He flexed, prepared for the expectant trap. But there was none. I stood close. He wanted great television, he got it. “I forgive you.”

  No response, other than a spark of disbelief far down the well of his irises.

  I continued, “I forgive you for capturing Katie. For destroying my home. For destroying Los Angeles. For destroying me. We weren’t meant to live this long. And it’s hurt you. You’re weary and exhausted and lonely and scared and angry, and I know, and I forgive you.”

  “You…forgive me?” he spat the words and flecks of his spittle landed on my face. He laughed, a forced choking sound. “You don’t GET to forgive me!” He struck. He swung the staff so fast it broke the sound barrier like a whip.

  I caught it in my one working hand, a sound like iron bars colliding. The other still didn’t flex well. The impact rang both our bones near the point of shatter. He winced in pain. In horror. In fury.

  “I’m done fighting with you,” I hissed. “I’m done dancing on your strings. You don’t get to take my life. I give it to you.”

  I shoved the staff back at him and went to the tank.

  “You don’t forgive me! You are not the judge!” he screamed. Behind the tank, I saw chains and medical equipment. He’d anticipated fighting me, hurting me, subduing me, and knocking me unconscious with his drugs. I ascended the ladder. The tank was thick and heavy and the cold water sloshed over. “You don’t willing go to your death! I SEND you to it! I send you into the tank!”

  His plans were spiraling. His motions frantic. I sat on the tank’s ridge, eight feet off the ground, and lowered my boots into the water. I transferred the phone from my pants pocket to a watertight compartment in my vest. I said, “Not to sound corny, Martin. But I wish I had more lives to sacrifice for the people I love. You can’t take from me that which I willingly give away.”

  “Oh! OH! You believe you’re a martyr??” he howled, tears streaming down the wrinkles of his face. “You think your death will provide…some sort of catalyst? You amuse me, boy. This death is too good for you. Come down and fight, if you’re a man.”

  “You’re in no position to name-call, Martin. The whole world is watching and realizing you’re just a bully. And a sad one.”

  “You. Will. Die!” He slammed a button on the tank’s control panel. The heavy metal lid rotated upwards with an electric whine.

  I still believed in my plan. Still held out hope for success. But I was afraid. The kind of fear which shocks your mind into awareness and perspective. I felt the weight of a world watching. I keenly recognized my existence. I tasted the air and enjoyed the inflation of my lungs, the thump of my heart beat, the crystal stars and the wind stinging my eyes.

  I took one deep breath, two, three, and plunged into the tank. The lid closed and sealed itself automatically.

  How long can Infected hold their breath? Probably longer than normal.

  It was like sitting in a fish tank. The lid and water blocked out much of the light. The world beyond appeared as warped penumbra. He screamed. Or laughed. The sound came from miles away and reached my eardrums wholly muted and distorted. I saw him as a malformed shadow, flickering back and forth. Whump! Whump! He beat his hand flat against the outside wall.

  The fear vanished, left outside in the oxygen. I was already dead. So many people had died already. I was no better a man than them. And perhaps mine would be meaningful. There was freedom in giving your complete self to a righteous cause, in sacrificing for others.

  Still. I hoped he changed his mind. Quickly.

  The tank’s large dimensions allowed me to sit criss-cross on the floor. The rod in my vest counteracted the air in my lungs and kept me pinned to the bottom. I pressed my face to the wall and peered out. Whump! Whump!

  Tables had turned. It was no longer the Outlaw on trial and facing judgement; it was the Chemist. He fumed and stalked back and forth, aware billions were witnessing him slowly execute an innocent man. He’d desired combat, not sacrifice. But what could he do? He was stuck. Martin knew this constituted catastrophe. The world had been scared of him. This would change everything. Now they’d hate him.

  Sixty seconds passed. My blood flowed freely without any strain yet. He’d fal
len silent and motionless, all his bluster and pride exhausted. As my death neared, his shoulders slumped further.

  He collapsed onto the pool floor and pressed his forehead to the tank wall, exactly mirroring me. He spoke. I couldn’t hear him. Must be whispering. But I could read his lips.

  Why?

  Why do you do this?

  I don’t understand.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Saturday, February 11. 2019

  PuckDaddy

  I wept loudly. Painful sobs tightening my whole body in iterations. My driver heard the noise and pulled over. I told him to leave me alone.

  PuckDaddy cries alone!

  I couldn’t stop staring at the screen. Chase sat in that awful chamber, his head angled down, arms across his midsection, eyes half-closed. He’d been in there two minutes! Was he already dead? The Chemist sat across from Chase. Taunting him? Maybe. The camera mics picked up indecipherable whispers. This didn’t look good for him. This was a PR nightmare.

  Can’t do it. I can’t launch the rockets.

  I tried. I tried sixty seconds after Chase jumped in. Tried after ninety seconds. It wasn’t an electrical or mechanical malfunction. My heart couldn’t bear the responsibility. My fingers became defiant. And my brain couldn’t overcome their rebellion.

  I refused to turn off the monitor. Chase wouldn’t die alone. PuckDaddy would be with the Outlaw until the end. As best he could.

  On an adjacent screen, a warning light switched on. I almost didn’t notice. The HIMAR system. It was being operated.

  Go ahead, Colonel Brown. Shut it off. I don’t have the fortitude to commit treason and kill my best friend. Not today.

  But no. This wasn’t Colonel Brown. Who in the world…?

  On the television monitor, the Chemist stood up. We could see his face for the first time. His jaw was set. His eyes glistened.

  Back to the computer screen. The HIMAR system wasn’t being deactivated. Coordinates entered from a third party, a remote log-in. Like me. That could only be… A firing code entered! My eyes widened in surprise.