Blackjack Messiah

by Ben Bequer

  “It’s okay,” I said, laying hands on her shoulders, but she pushed me away.

  “Fuck that. You’re not getting killed on this one. No way. What were you thinking, Dale? You should be on the plane heading down there with the rest of the people we’re saving.”

  I wiped a tear from her face, “I’m going to be alright because my friends are here, but more importantly, because of you, Madelyne. I love you.”

  “You’re doing this to be the fucking hero, you know how much I hate that?” she said, now lost in tears. “I love you too, goddammit. Why can’t we have that? Why can’t we just be us, and let someone else save the rest of the fucking world? Haven’t we done enough?”

  “Baby, that’s not what we do. We don’t leave it to others. How we got here or why we do it doesn’t matter.”

  “That’s the bullshit you tell yourself before letting some idiot murder you, Dale. And don’t tell me it’s not the truth.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “But I have a plan. It only works if you trust me. Do you have my back?”

  She smiled, then chuckled.

  “What? I’m being serious?”

  Apogee shook her head, “I’m sorry.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just that you...when you said that, I had an image of your butt. I think you’re becoming a bad influence on me.”

  I grabbed her and kissed her, long and hard, knowing that it might be the last time. Haha restarted the elevators without a word. I was afraid to ask if he recorded that. Apogee wrapped her arms around me, and as we separated from the kiss, she hugged me hard. I grunted as a rib popped and she let me go.

  “Wimp,” she said, wiping tears from her face.

  I laughed, “That’s the first time we’ve said it.”

  “I love you?”

  “Yeah.”

  Apogee cocked her head, “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  The elevator stopped, but the door didn’t open. I looked from Apogee to the door. There were a lot of things to say, though the biggest one was out of the way. I wouldn’t insult her intelligence by pretending I was not about to die. That would make the moment insincere, and if there was one thing I wanted to convey at that moment, it was sincerity.

  “There is an amphitheater a hundred feet ahead of us up a small flight of stairs,” Haha said. “I have linked to their media suite and am recording for purposes of evidence and historical documentation. If the human race were to perish today, the next sentient species I made contact with would have full knowledge of what transpired.”

  “Well that’s very reassuring,” I said.

  “What’s your plan?” Apogee said.

  “I’m going to do my thing.”

  “And what do I do?”

  “Wait for your moment. You’ll know it when you see it.”

  I lingered in the elevator until the silence became cloying. There were a lot of things we could say to each other, but nothing helpful. Sometimes there was nothing for a thing but to do it. The doors slid open and I silently applauded the growth of Haha’s emotional spectrum. I thought she would follow me out of the elevator, but it was smarter for her to hang back and wait for me to set up. Not that there was much setting up to be done. For what I had planned, subtle wouldn’t get the job done. I walked toward the amphitheater without looking back.

  I regretted going out there as soon as I stepped onto the cathedral floor. I heard cheers and the clapping of adulation, but even that didn’t prepare me for the fervor that accompanied Father Mike’s presence on the dais. “How many people are here?” I said.

  “My count puts it as 105, counting the Chosen and Mike,” Haha said.

  And all of them frothing at the mouth. The chamber was built to hold three times that many and the tall hewn rock ceiling amplified their support into a roar that was deafening. The only people not lost in the moment were the Chosen. They stood in rigid formation at the front of an altar that was indistinguishable from what you’d find in most Catholic churches.

  The Chosen were in two rows, all wearing white tunics over their Superdynamic suits, with leaves stitched in golden thread along the fringe, along with the logo for Father Mike’s Church of Light. All except one, who stood at the end of the first line. He was as tall as the rest but lacked their enhanced musculature. He wore the suit without the robe.

  Father Mike stood in the altar, framed by a large oak podium inlaid with gold and adorned with red tassels. The Church of Light logo was carved into the front, and a huge, heavy-looking text was open in front of him. Two Chosen served as altar boys, and another acted as deacon, carefully arranging items on a small table just left of the podium. Above and behind them were three screens, each about twelve feet across, displaying Father Mike in closeup.

  Mike shone with the same glow I had, and he was beautiful. It was a lie, the product of perverted science and murder. I suddenly wondered how the stuff was consumed. Did they smoke it? Or was it by injection?

  "These men have offered to give of themselves to us," he said, waving his arms wide across the rows of Chosen. "They are the anointed, our revered protectors, and thanks to their toil, we shall never fear from the rest of the world. Today their number grows by one.”

  From the archway that opened into the chapel, I watched the screens as the deacon led the newest recruit to the small table where Father Mike waited. The recruit knelt before the table and Father Mike laid a gentle hand on the man’s bowed head. The world shifted before my eyes and I was in the desert, gunfire, and explosions a cacophony around me.

  The change was so jarring I almost started swinging, but my rational mind took over, and I realized that Father Mike was using his powers to show us a memory. I saw the world through the recruit’s eyes, experienced his pain as the soldiers to his right and left were cut down by gunfire. The perspective moved like a handheld camera, darting from point to point with dizzying speed, and the recruit’s panic was so sharp I felt it in my guts.

  The world started to slow down a little and I saw men with rifles approaching. I was lost in the memory, it was me, there, at that moment. I felt the fear and the frustration clawing at my innards, begging, pleading for help. I knew I could either surrender or open fire, but either way, I was dead. A captive could be rescued. I unclipped the rifle from my rig, held it high above my head, and prayed they wouldn’t just shoot me.

  But something changed, a light appeared from overhead, not the sun, it was cleaner, brighter, less intent on searing flesh from bone or drowning me in my own sweat. It was a warm glow that cooled me to the bone. I felt power surge through me like the time I snorted cocaine in college. Oh god, that hadn’t been me, that was the Chosen to be, but I could clearly remember the feeling.

  And then a voice spoke, Mike’s voice, “I can give you the gift of power. The question is, what will you do with it. Your brothers-in-arms can still be saved, but only if you have the strength to defend them. Do you?”

  “I do,” said a voice that was mine and not at the same time. In the recesses of my brain, the parts too damaged to be overwhelmed by Mike’s power, I understood that the entire congregation, myself included had echoed the new Chosen’s answer in unison. I felt chills, goosebumps dimpling my arms from wrist to shoulder. I tried to avert my eyes as the new Chosen killed his would-be captors, but the image was burned into my mind, fading as he tended his wounded comrades.

  The chapel fell back into view with enough force to stagger me. I put a hand out against the cool stone wall and took slow deep breaths. Father Mike broke the silence permeating the chapel. “Brothers, sisters, we welcome another Chosen to the ranks. His sacrifice is our sacrifice, his gifts are our gifts. Let all who would threaten us tremble. And if they do come, they will live just long enough to regret it!"

  The walls shook with the crowd’s elation. Even I was swept up in the gestalt of emotion and memory. My eyes grew wider as anima banners, beams of energy and fire and plasma mingled into a combined brightness that drowned out even Father Mike
’s glow, but he reveled in it. Arms extended, he soaked in the adulation, his smile was infectious.

  I started to feel apprehensive. Maybe Apogee was right. Maybe let the big boys take care of business and sit this one out. But I'd have to live with knowing I could have prevented a massacre and did nothing. Besides, I was only here for one reason – I had an audience of one.

  "In time, they will fear us, look to us as an example of virtue and goodness, the unattainable. They will continue to eat each other alive for another dollar, for possessions they covet. They will clutter their minds as they clutter their homes, searching for meaning, but we will turn a blind-"

  "Excuse me!" I said, stepping into the chapel. I could only imagine what I looked like from the gasps and wide expressions of shock I got. I was still bleeding from a slice on the bridge on my nose. My left eye was all but swollen shut, and though Haha helped keep me erect, bracing me within his armored protection, it didn’t stop me from limping down the center aisle. "Sorry to interrupt, Father Mike. That's a real nice speech you're giving there, but I'm going to call bullshit."

  The newest Chosen made a move to attack me, but Mike waved him off. Just like a holy man to accept a battle of logic with a crazy person. And I had to be crazy to think this was going to work. "Let him speak. Our truth can withstand any challenge."

  "Thank you there, Father Mike, or is it Archbishop now? Those robes have a lot of flair on them."

  He regarded me as one would dog shit on the bottom of one's shoe, but only for a split second. His face softened into a placid, non-threatening smile – the default expression of the evangelical. "You don't understand what you're doing here."

  I shrugged and stepped forward, giving the nearest Chosen a friendly slap on the shoulder. "I was listening, but it sounded a lot like a standard Catholic homily – hypocritical virtue and empty promises. Kind of like the priest we would get at early morning mass when I was a kid. Father Thomas would come in hungover, angry at the world, spewing fire and brimstone and whatnot. You remind me of him."

  "Perhaps if you had listened to Father Thomas, you might not be the most wanted man on the planet," he said, gliding down the stairs in my direction. "Perhaps you would be free of sin."

  As he spoke, his power enveloped me once more, and I was transported back to that night in Los Angeles, high atop the US Bank Tower. I was in my old gear, mask, and hood, with my gliding cape and the English yew bow I made by hand. Across from me was Rising Sun, attacking, but everyone from Captain Miraculous and his partner Black Karma, to my own team, were shadows, faceless memories dancing in the background.

  But Pulsewave stood near the edge of the building, clear as day.

  "You're a murderer, Blackjack," Mike said, and as he did, I fired the C-4 arrow. The choice was similar to the one I had made with Whisper at the fair. I could have hit Pulsewave with that arrow, I could have put it through his eye, but I was only trying to distract him. I tried to suppress that, but it was useless. The resulting explosion was devastating, the concussion blowing Pulsewave off his feet and over the edge of the building as if he were weightless. An image fought through the vision, something more instant and immediate.

  It was Apogee, standing across the way from me, in the far archway. She was seeing this as well. The image shifted, fast forwarding to Pulsewave's last moments, falling and screaming, then still. It was a gruesome end. He didn't die immediately. His body bounced off a manicured lawn and landed again against the glass sides of the building, smashing a ten-foot window that rained shards of glass on him. He landed in the middle of the street, an oncoming car swerving to avoid him, but not stopping to see what had happened.

  Pulsewave's first reaction, once he was still, was to cough, a bubble of blood growing around his lips before popping all over his face and chest. He was still conscious, but quickly succumbing to shock. From the outside, his body didn't look all that bad, but from the blood seeping out of his nose, you could tell the internal injuries were devastating.

  A moment later Atmosphero landed beside him, ripping off his cowl and falling to his knees. One of Pulsewave’s eyes bulged out of the socket, and I could see the burst sclera of the other in queasy detail. He took Atmosphero's shaking hands and for a second, the fallen hero looked over, seemed to smile – then was still.

  "Murderer," Mike said. "And worse, isn't that right?"

  As he pulled me out of the memory, I realized I was on my knees, hands outstretched, trying to stop Pulsewave from falling. I was screaming, helpless, and there was nothing I could do compose myself.

  "Why have you been free of consequence from your ill deeds?"

  I felt a tear roll down my cheeks. "I haven't," I said.

  "You mean a guilty conscience?" Mike said, his voice a swill of fake empathy.

  I wanted to react to his insincerity, but my voice caught in my throat. Other things came back to me. Cool Hand Luke’s dead body cooling not two hundred yards from where we stood. Retcon overcome by insanity. My brother in jail. All my fault.

  "It takes more than that free yourself of this burden, Blackjack."

  "My name is Dale," I said. "And I know what it takes. I’ve been making up for that night for years.”

  "And have you?"

  I had. At least to the people who were willing to forgive, but that wasn’t what this moment was about. I had Father Mike hooked, but I couldn’t overplay my hand. The others had to believe I was his plaything. I glanced up to the top row and saw Primal, staring back at me with concern. It was all for him. The rest of this was just a poorly scripted show. "Not yet," I said, in a harsh whisper.

  I don't know why, but at that moment what hit me the hardest was how silent the whole room was. Everyone was staring at me and Mike, who moved in closer, arms wide, as if he were trying to swallow me in his regalia.

  "But I'm not done trying," I said. "You realize that, right? And according to what I believe in, 'He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.'"

  "Hebrews chapter nine, verse twelve," he said with condescending admiration. "You know the good book.”

  I nodded and he went on, “Then you’ll know Ezekiel 18:4. ‘Behold, all souls are mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine: the soul who sins shall die.’"

  "I do,” I said. “I also know Romans 10:9-10. ‘If you confess that Jesus is Lord and believe that God raised him from death, you will be saved. For it is by our faith that we are put right with God; it is by our confession that we are saved.’ And Romans 10:13 ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ What about Matthew 24:11-13? ‘And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.’ If you believe, it’s through him we are saved. Not through false prophets like you.”

  Mike laughed, "You came here to give me a lesson in the Bible, Blackjack? Perhaps you didn't know that we are of many denominations here. There is no one religion that guides us, but all and none, to each as they would choose it.

  "Well, that's part of what I came to call bullshit on."

  He was losing his patience, his fists gripping tightly under the tunic. "You cannot make us waver."

  "You've got some balls lecturing me, old man," I said, forcing myself to my feet. "You’ve been gifted with this power, and look what you've done with it. Filled them with hatred for everyone else." There was an impatient rustle from the crowd. My time was running short. Time to reel him in.

  "You're no better than I ever was," I said, glancing over to Apogee. "With one difference, see...when I hit rock bottom, I turned towards the light. I found people who believed in me, who sacrificed for me. Now I work every day to repay that kindness. But you? You've given up, haven't you? You've surrendered to your basest instincts. Trussing it up in white doesn’t make your heart any less black.


  "What do you know about loss?” Father Mike roared and hit me. My cheek crumbled under the force, which drove me back into the altar. I stumbled into the podium which fell into the altar, the whole thing folding in on itself as it fell.

  "That's not virtuous behavior, Father," I said, spitting out a molar.

  He was on me in an instant, fingers clawing into the armor plates as he pulled me into the air. His emission overdose made him much stronger than me. There was no way I was going to win a punching match. But I still could defeat him.

  "I lost everything," he said, hitting me again. His glow flared bright enough to hurt, and our surroundings changed again. We were in a plane – a twin prop cargo transport, just as an explosion bathed the plane in green light. The Brutal bomb. One of his sons was flying and his son-in-law was in the co-pilot's seat when the wave hit the plane, tearing off a wing and sending the small aircraft tumbling from the sky.

  "I lost my family." Another punch across the face and I felt my jaw snap as I crashed into the altar, splintering the frame. He moved in, standing over me. "You took them from me!"

  The cargo plane spun in a nosedive toward the blue-black churning sea. Around Mike, everyone was screaming. Everyone except his daughter-in-law. She was in her thirties, pretty – and looking at him with accusing eyes. She held back a screaming child, maybe ten, a boy who would never see his next birthday.

  This time Father Mike stomped on my face with his boot. I rolled with it best as I could, but my whole face was numb. Bloody drool dribbled from lips that were too swollen and split to properly close. A tooth dangled from a viscous web, casually dipping towards the ground.

  I felt my cheekbone snap and jaw break, helpless against his assault. He knelt into me and started punching me over and over. Haha tried to protect me, but Father Mike tore through the metal that grew over my head and face, each blow worse than the previous. As if really seeing the armor for the first time, Father Mike grabbed the top lip of the chest piece and slammed my whole torso into the ground. I felt my spine pop from skull to pelvis, my brain turning to jelly inside my skull.