Then There Was New York

by Kristina Garlick

  Mac: “I am not sure what to believe.”

  Arcadia: “Mac. Seriously?”

  Riley: “He’s thinking about a note that was shoved under his door eight years ago and how it got him through your wedding. You married the wrong man, Arcadia.”

  Arcadia: “I … I … I mean, this world doesn’t seem so bad.”

  Riley: “How can you say that? You know, deep down, that Broderick is responsible for the dead politicians and for the destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge. Or what about the robots in Kansas City or the explosion in—”

  Arcadia: “Shut up. Shut up! I don’t believe you. Broderick is kind and gentle.”

  I yank a folded-up picture out of my bra.

  Riley: “This is a picture of us. We are friends in the real timeline. You’re always trying to recruit me to do the right thing, so the irony isn’t lost here.”

  Mac: “Tell me about this picture.”

  Riley: “It was an event to raise awareness on the ever-growing drug addiction crisis, which I know firsthand about as my brother, Callan, is an addict. He became one after he lost his wife and daughter during the attack on New York City. A lot of people became like Callan, all thanks to your dear husband.”

  Arcadia: “Sounds like this world is a better one.”

  Riley: “That is where you are wrong. New York was in the process of rebuilding. You and Mac were recruiting new heroes and training them. The future seemed full of possibilities and that was all because, together, you defeated Boundary.”

  Arcadia: “How exactly did we do that?”

  Riley: “Pious gave you his abilities, Arcadia. Add Mac’s ghost ability to the equation and the two of you were unstoppable.”

  Arcadia: “That doesn’t say how.”

  Riley: “The ghost of Broderick’s dead parents distracted him just enough for you to drain his powers away. Broderick was sent to prison and he should have stayed there, but he blackmailed a teleporter into doing his bidding. I am ashamed to say this mess is all my fault, but I want to clean it up. No, I need to correct the timeline.”

  Arcadia: “You’re a fucking liar.”

  Riley: “Release me and I will prove that I am not.”

  Arcadia: “No, I can’t betray my husband.”

  Riley: “He had no problem betraying you with the countless women he slept with and—”

  Arcadia punched me in the face; from the force of the hit, I stumbled back and for the briefest of seconds, my skin flickered blue. It was a good thing that Arcadia hadn’t drained Pious’ powers in this reality, otherwise, a hit from her, while I was wearing these damn shackles, would probably have been a bad week for me. Regardless of ability or not, it was a strong enough hit for me to spit blood.

  Mac: “Did you see that? She turned blue.”

  Arcadia: “You’re seeing shit, Mac. No one ability is that strong.”

  Riley: “That is where you are wrong. I am stronger than Broderick and the only one capable of taking him down and fixing time. But if you’d rather attempt to kill me and take the chance that the very fabric of time won’t split in two, then be my guest. Then again, he might have found a way to murder me and keep this timeline, and if that’s the case, there would be no point in keeping either of you around. Perhaps a good old-fashioned hanging?”

  Arcadia pounded on the cell door and I quickly tucked the picture back in my bra. I was hoping that Arcadia wouldn’t mention the photo as I had kind of grown kind of attached to it since my time in lockup. However, as I watched her shout for the guards, it occurred to me that I’d really touched a nerve and she just wanted out.

  Mac: “Arcadia ...”

  Arcadia: “Don’t start, Mac. We took an oath.”

  Mac: “But—”

  Arcadia: “I want out, now!”

  Riley: “Arcadia, think about what you are doing. You know, deep down, that what Broderick has done is wrong. And despite what you say, you are a hero.”

  Arcadia: “I don’t know what you are talking about, but as queen, I am just a servant to my king.”

  To my dismay, the guard opened the door.

  Guard: “Queen Arcadia and Mr. Moss, you both have perfect timing. The king wishes your presence in the theater.”

  Arcadia: “Perfect. Let’s go, Mac.”

  Mac: “Arcadia, you know what theater is code for. We can’t.”

  Arcadia: “It is not our place to defy our king.”

  Mac: “This is the fucking United States. We don’t have kings.”

  Arcadia: “You need to stop talking like that or you will have to deal with the consequences.”

  Mac rolled his eyes.

  Mac: “You mean your jackass husband? What happened to you, Arcadia?”

  Arcadia: “Don’t you dare speak—”

  It was at that moment that the cell doors slammed shut and I couldn’t make out much more of their conversation. From what I gathered, if I didn’t get out of here within the hour then I would meet my attempted executioner. In other words, Arcadia and Mackson would not be my accomplices in a jailbreak, so it would appear that I had to do this on my own.

  Grimacing, I knew my best show of survival was to get the bracelet shackles off my wrists. Even if I could break one of them, it would restore some of my power. Shit, this was going to hurt, but not as much as Broderick punching me yesterday and he hadn’t even used his full force. Maybe I shouldn’t have goateed him as I had, but that’s neither here nor there. I really just needed to stop delaying the inevitable and shock the living shit out of myself.

  Without further ado, I let out a shaky breath, dug out the blade from my boot, and slammed it into the mechanism of the bracelet. The blunt force of the blade caused the power-inhibiting device to break, but by unlinking the bracelets, it initiated the one on the opposite wrist to send a surge of electricity throughout my entire body. Even as I briefly shifted into my blue time form, it still felt like I was getting struck by lightning.

  Once I reverted back to human, I began to dry heave and clutch my chest; whatever pain I felt was worth it if I could disable the other shackle. Just as I was about to begin on the second shackle, I heard the door unlocking and quickly put the blade away. Two men roughly grabbed me and, with little choice, I let them guide me to the location where I was possibly to die, or it would be a scene of something far worse; yes, there are things that are worse than death.

  To my surprise, I was brought to a stadium, nay, a coliseum, by the two rough men and had it been under better circumstances, I might have been in awe of such ingenuity. It was a shame that the Washington Monument had been taken down for Broderick’s sport. If it was like the coliseums of the past, this venue was meant for fighting, most likely to one’s death; but hey, if this was how Broderick wanted to play, I would give him a battle to remember.

  Broderick: “Do you know why you were brought here?”

  Riley: “Because I am the only one who can stop your plan for world domination.”

  Broderick: “Darling, I already own the world.”

  Riley: “Remove my shackles and say that again.”

  Broderick: “Insolence. Guard!”

  A female guard hit me in the back with the butt of her gun. I let out a grunt as the guard used enough force to surely leave a mark. The woman was lucky that I didn’t have the shackle off my other remaining wrist.

  Arcadia: “Broderick. Must you be so—”

  Broderick: “Charming? Handsome?”

  Vomit worthy.

  Arcadia: “I was thinking cruel. The girl is set to die. Must you torture her as well?”

  Broderick: “She has a chance to save herself.”

  Riley: “So it’s a fight to the death, Broderick?”

  Broderick: “Did you expect anything else?”

  Riley: “Fine, I accept. Take off my shackles.”

  Broderick: “No powers.”

  Riley: “For me or for all parties involved?”

  Broderick: “Shut up and choose your weapon. Oh, and a word of ad
vice, I would avoid their blades if I were you. Could be a bit deadly to your genetic makeup.”

  Great, so either Broderick was screwing with me or whatever was smeared on his minions’ blades could be lethal. With an army of the brightest scientists forced to do his bidding, I could see someone discovering a way to end my life; after all, no one is immortal. A person can live a long time, but immunity to death, that was a different story. As for discovering a way to sustain this reality, that I highly doubted, so I could take comfort in the fact that if I was slaughtered, Broderick would die with me.

  Not sure what would become of the original time if I died, as I had been screwing around with it quite heavily recently. I could see time imploding and then nothing would exist. Or maybe I was thinking more highly of myself than I should and the regular timeline would go on as always.

  Broderick: “Well, are you going to choose your weapon?”

  I began to walk around the table of weapons, which there were an assortment of, acting like I had never seen half of them before. I thought it was best to appear that I knew nothing of weapons and I think I did a good job at pretending. First, I picked up a weapon that I knew carried a great wallop but was easily broken and, “by accident,” I dropped it so that that the firing mechanism for the arrow broke. Next, I grabbed a top-notch sword and called it pretty, which gave Broderick and the two idiots who’d dragged me into the coliseum a good laugh.

  The idiots were obviously distracted and I used it to my advantage by taking the opportunity to swipe a dagger and put it in my boot; I was pretty sure Mac saw what I did, but he said nothing. The dagger was by far the sharpest blade on the table and my only hope for either damaging or removing the power restricting shackle.

  Broderick: “Any last words?”

  Riley: “Can you give me a gun? It’s so much less crass than a sword.”

  Mac smirked before I got led to the center of the coliseum. A few seconds later, my opponent was led out to the dusty dirt field. The muscular man had a good sixty pounds on me and was a good few inches taller as well. Most people would be worried to go up against such an adversary but for the last three plus years, I had trained with the best fighters that money could buy. I probably should have focused a bit more with strategists, but that was hindsight.

  Broderick: “Riley, meet Fragle. Fragle, meet Riley.”

  Rolling my eyes, I watched as Fragle began to approach me. The man was heavy on his feet and clearly thought he would win because of size and muscle. Unless he had powers other than being ugly, I was confident that he would not win, especially since I dodged several slow swings of his battle axe.

  Broderick: “What are you waiting for, Fragle? Kill her!”

  Fragle let out a snarl and charged me. I stepped out of the way, swung around, and stabbed him in the back with the sword. As Fragle fought to pull the sword out of his back, I slammed it in deeper so it came out the other side. I was pretty sure that Fragle was dead, but not wanting to take any chances, using my foot I applied pressure to his back so I could pull out the sword out. Then I chopped Fragle’s head off with one clean blow, before defiantly looking up at Broderick, who didn’t seem impressed.

  Mac: “Guards, release here!”

  Broderick: “No.”

  Mac: “You know the rules.”

  Broderick: “I make the rules.”

  Broderick waved his hands so a portal opened up by me. Similar to Jordan, Broderick could teleport, but he didn’t need horns only to open a door. At first, I thought Broderick would come through the portal, but instead out stepped four of his goons. The arrogant jerk probably didn’t seem to think I was at his level, hence why he was sending some low-level baddies to “finish” me off and why he had more or less left me alone these last few days.

  Broderick: “It’s a pity you don’t have your full powers back.”

  Arcadia: “Broderick, this is going to be a bloodbath.”

  Broderick: “Perfect.”

  Like a child, Arcadia threw her arms around Broderick.

  Arcadia: “Please … if you love me, show some mercy.”

  Those words angered Broderick and he shoved his wife off of him, which was not at all a surprise. Broderick would much rather have Arcadia dead, but he’d learned from history that it was best to have her miserable and by his side. While I had some of my power back, I needed my full abilities to get the fuck out of there, so without hesitation, I pulled the dagger out of my boot and jammed it into my one remaining shackle, which fell to the ground.

  Broderick: “Kill her!”

  The four murderous minions surrounded me and began to slowly close in.

  Mac: “Enough!”

  Mac’s shout caught Broderick off guard.

  Broderick: “How dare you?”

  Mac: “Shut up, Broderick. I am done taking orders.”

  Mac jumped over the wall and was ready to fight beside me. To my surprise, Mac began to conjure up the ghost of Civil War soldiers, who I assumed had once fought and died at the Battle of Fort Stevens. These phantom soldiers began to charge Broderick’s halfwits, who, surprisingly, held their ground. I also discovered that the tall one could grow an extra set of arms and the green-haired guy could multiply himself three times. The other two remaining scoundrels didn’t appear to have any abilities but were definitely good fighters.

  As Mac’s soldiers marched towards my opponents, I fired low-energy time balls at the four so they would have no choice but to retreat. I was trying desperately to build up enough power to time jump. It aggravated me how slowly my abilities were returning as Broderick could literally get off his ass at any moment and cause problems for me. If Broderick did, in fact, have something that could harm me, along with his abilities, he might be able to deliver a deadly blow that would end my life.

  Almost as if Broderick had read my mind, he got up from his “throne” and opened a door, but not by me, as he probably should have done. Instead, the portal was positioned near where Mac stood. With Broderick’s skin being nearly indestructible, I knew that there was no way that Mac would ever be able to defeat him. Arcadia must have sensed the same thing that I did as she transformed into a large hulking man before jumping over the wall and running towards all the chaos. With sword in hand, Arcadia charged a bemused Broderick, who didn’t seem to have a lick of fear in his eyes.

  Trying to help Arcadia and Mac, I threw a time ball at Broderick, which was much stronger than the ones I had been firing a few minutes earlier. The time ball hit him in the face and that caused Broderick to be fazed for a good ten seconds. While I would have loved to rapidly hit Broderick with everything I had, I needed to reserve my energy. This may sound screwed up, but even if Broderick harmed Arcadia and Mac, it wasn’t like these individuals were real. The one I truly had to worry about was me.

  Without warning, I saw Mac begin to hover in the air and just when I thought he couldn’t get more badass, I saw him form a weaponized suit of ghosts and effortless slide inside. Mac began to pound on Broderick while wearing his ghost suit, but that only lasted a few seconds. Broderick managed to pierce the suit with just a single punch and pulled Mac out. Before I could even blink, Broderick snapped Mac in two over his knee.

  Seeing Broderick toss Mac’s body on the ground made me sick but I knew better than to fight the asshole. I needed to just get out of here, so I opened a portal to the real timeline. Five, eight, or even ten years ago didn’t matter; as soon as I was gone, this horrible world would be no more. After I completely recovered, I would make sure that Broderick never had a chance to get his powers.

  Broderick: “Leaving so soon?”

  Riley: “I’ll be coming for you, fucker.”

  Then I stepped backwards through time as there was no way that I was taking my eyes off of Broderick even for a second. For the first time in days, I felt the resurgence of hope mingled with a bit of unease as my mission was far from over. I had destroyed the nasty world and the real Broderick along with it. There was no shame; only disgust
that I hadn’t stopped the psychopath sooner.

  Chapter 9

  22 Years Prior

  It took me two days to feel completely restored. During that time, I spent two full days sleeping at a shitty motel in D.C., nine years in the past to be exact. It only took a bit of artful stealing to make that possible. One would have thought that, over the course of those two days, I would have broken down and cried at least once, but in truth, I was numb.

  After two days, I had myself a shower and a really nice meal on someone else’s dime and then I traveled even further back in time. I was now twenty-two years in the past and my new mission was back on course. Jordan had told me once to do what needed to be done and that was why I would no longer hesitate to end Broderick Boucher’s life once and for all.

  So, after taking a very long train and two buses, I found myself outside the Raz & Berry Show about two hours before the doors opened. People were already starting to park and line up in front of the door. Mac had told me the show was popular back in the day but I’d never really understood as I was three years younger and was watching different shows at the time.

  As time went on, I saw a young Arcadia and Mac head inside the show, but being that they didn’t know one another at this point, they weren’t talking. There were also several others making their way into the building, which I recognized from my time at Security Safe House but also comics. While it was good to see familiar faces, I was waiting for a semi-untainted version of Broderick and his mother to arrive.

  I was planning on killing Broderick as soon as he got out of the car, but a part of me was wondering if I was making the right call. It was almost as if my future self had heard my doubt and decided to answer its call as she walked up behind me and, of course, for dramatic effect stood mostly in the shadows.