Blackjack Messiah

by Ben Bequer

  He sighed and looked out on the horizon. "There's no point, Blackjack," he said. "Why continue when it's always going to be the same thing?"

  "Call me Dale," I said. "My name...if we're about to...Oh, God, this hurts."

  "You're brave," he said. "And stupid. Very stupid."

  I chuckled and cried in agony. "You have no idea."

  "I have nothing left," he said. "No one left. I don't know how I got my powers, or how it came to be, but...I haven't aged. I was already in my sixties when this happened to me." He turned and leaned on the railing. "All my people are gone. Everyone I ever loved. All my friends. All I have left are these abilities and a vision of what I could do with them. I never wanted to hurt people, or to...to be a villain. But people have always been scared of what I can do."

  "I-I know what you mean," I said, feeling the ground suck me in. I slid to the floor.

  He smiled, "I suppose you do. How they treated you? That's how they've always reacted to me. What choice do I have?"

  "You always have a choice," I said. "Like...like right now..." I felt my head hanging low, I couldn't lift my hands. If not for the railing I would have melted into the floor like ice cream on a hot day.

  "Why should I bother? What's left for me, anyway? I have nothing."

  Blood spilled from my mouth as I coughed, "Start with me, then."

  He looked down, surprised.

  "I'll be your...f-friend."

  He said nothing.

  "It's never over...until you quit," I said. "Don't."

  Primal knelt beside me. I looked into those gray thundercloud eyes and saw the kind of dark loneliness that threatened to swallow us all, superpowered or not. The man was no saint, he was a bad guy, but he was no monster. "You're crazy, you know that?"

  I nodded. "I am. A little bit...but I'm not done yet." I reached up, putting a bloody hand on his chest. "I'm not done." He looked up and I felt shadows falling over me. It was Powermaster, Templar, and Ricochet, who also knelt beside me.

  "He's dying," Primal said as they approached.

  Powermaster took my arm, checking my wrist, "I barely feel a pulse. Then he went on, I assume talking to his comms. "Dixie, where are you?"

  "It didn't work before," Templar said.

  I focused on Ricochet’s face, broken with anguish, unchecked tears leaking under his mask. I tried smiling, but I could only imagine what I looked like. "Don't...quit," I said, grabbing hard at Primal's shirt, my eyes still on my friends. "Don't give up...on them."

  Primal stared at me for the longest time, and I knew what was going through his mind. It's what I had tried to verbalize but couldn't; If I can come back from the abyss, so can you. He reached down, placing his hand on my stomach. I felt a sharp pain and heard myself scream. The blackness hounding me faded to the edges as the pain gave me renewed clarity.

  "What's he doing?" Templar said, grabbing at Primal, but Powermaster took his arm.

  "He's closing the wound."

  "With rocks?"

  It was as painful as getting stabbed in the first place, but I didn't let go of him. "I'll be your friend," I said, fighting the urge to pass out. "You're not alone."

  Primal picked me up, "Do you have a healer? If not, I do." I knew he was referring to Olympia, though I wasn't sure if she'd want to heal me after all my threats.

  Templar opened a portal, and we were back inside the cathedral. The air was thick with dust and smoke, debris was strewn everywhere and small fires burned. A long ice slide dominated the back rows of the cathedral, and while the fighting persisted, the heroes had a good handle on things.

  Primal set me on the floor as Dixie rushed to me. I kept an eye on him as he walked calmly to the altar. Epic stopped what he was doing and returned to the main floor, ready to take on the new threat. The villain shook his head and picked up the microphone from the remains of the altar.

  "Everyone stand down!" he said, speaking too loud for the small microphone. His command echoed throughout the hall and only the craziest berzerkers ignored it.

  And with that, the fight was over.

  Moe helped a limping Apogee hobble to me. She knelt next to me and took my left hand. I don't know why but I wanted her to take the other one, the hand that I had smashed into bits the last time we'd been to Hashima. But I had no strength to complain or to reach over and swap hands.

  Dixie’s eyes flared a deep viridian as she worked on me, complaining under her breath, and before I knew it, a crowd formed. Moe was crying, as was Ricochet. Templar had a smile that told me volumes. Epic whispered words of encouragement to me, never taking his eyes off Primal. Olympia shoved through the throng, helping Dixie with the healing task. Her ability worked on the micro-cellular level, stitching together what had once been broken, and it seemed to make a difference. Between her and Dixie I started to feel better almost immediately.

  Focus and Nina comforted Apogee. Invictus chatted with Red Quiver, full of nervous energy. His eyes flitted to me and then away. Red Quiver leaned on his bow, and laid a calming hand on the big man’s shoulder, speaking to him in hushed tones. Battlestar tromped across the scene a few times, dragging unconscious villains behind him, while Vector and Coach, of all people, closed in the small huddle around me.

  These were my friends.

  I looked through them in the direction of the altar. Primal stood there, watching things unfold, a curious smile on his face.

  I smiled back and said, "See?"

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Epilogue One

  As is usual for these things, I ended up missing the after party mending in a healing pod. I was able to enjoy some of the thrill of victory because of Dixie and Olympia. Their combined skills healed most of the internal damage and sealed up the wound in my gut. I still suffered from blood loss and shock, but I could breathe without pain and hold myself in a sitting position.

  No, the bad guys didn’t surrender instantly - in fact, few surrendered at all. But the fight was over. Despite Primal’s call to stand down, about half of the villains remaining on their feet ran. A bunch got away, but most didn’t make it far, especially the non-fliers. The good guys spent the better part of a week checking every nook and cranny of the island, dragging bad guys kicking and screaming to jail. Baron Blitzkrieg was also long gone. His blimp had left Hashima shortly after delivering me and he had yet to resurface.

  The big guys surrendered, though. Olympia and her squad alone accounted for twelve villains, and along with Harcore, and Doctor Destroy made up most of the remaining big guns. It wasn’t Primal’s message that spurred them to action. It was seeing the Chosen flip script and turn on Father Mike. According to the witness reports, they moved as one and tore him into screaming pieces. All that was left was a smear of blood on the fine carpet.

  Of the Chosen, some were never found. Maybe this group had a private ship that made it through our blockade. No one knows. Of the twenty in the chapel, we only accounted for ten or twelve bodies and parts. We estimated at least six out there in the wind. It was too much to hope they would bunker down somewhere and keep to themselves.

  A lot of the villains didn’t make it. The final tally was too numerous to list, but suffice it to say I went through it all and felt a small burst of satisfaction when Flamestrike’s name appeared. I wanted another crack at that piece of shit, but at least he wouldn’t be hurting anybody else. The funniest part was the little wink Moe gave me as I went over the list.

  Flamestrike had been beaten to a sad pulp.

  The civilians and Armada had been safely evacuated to Kansas City. She ended up in a healing pod on Epic’s ship, the Mantis. The civilians were being processed by federal authorities, and though they faced some serious charges, I made sure the information about the bombs and the blackmail was uploaded onto a server that the feds would get access to. The scary thing is Snyder disappeared. Nobody knew where he was. The guy was a ghost. I wanted to look for him, but Epic convinced me to let the feds handle it.

  Apogee and Moe
half carried me to the Cockroach, and only my sternest glare kept it from being a full carry. The jet could have fit more people, but they gave us our space. Even Moe, the friend with zero boundaries, waved goodbye and ran down the ramp. Apogee was still limping, but she insisted on laying me in the Cockroach’s healing pod. She was preoccupied, but when as I started to speak, she shook her head. “We’ll talk later,” she said, closing the pod door.

  I wanted to be there for her, but there followed a little hiss of gas. The pod had administered a sedative. I wasn’t much good to anyone at that moment. I breathed deep, unconsciously counting down from a hundred. I woke up in our room at the Tower, and the smell of cooking bacon drew me out of bed.

  I could tell by the mussed hair and leotard that Apogee had just come from a Yoga workout. I moved in behind her, lacing my arms around her stomach and laid my head on her shoulder. “I love you,” I said, the words sounding so good and natural, I repeated them.

  She dug her hand into my hair, still long and white despite fire and trauma and suits of armor. Kissing my unshaven cheek, she said, “I love you, too. Now get some plates, breakfast will be ready in a few.”

  I sensed the tension in her voice but did as instructed. Plates, utensils, orange juice, and coffee were the staples at our table. We sat down to eat, and for the first couple of minutes, it was all clinking plates and utensils until she said, “How are you feeling?”

  I bit down on the rote answer, which was fine when taking into account my various injuries. A quick internal check found that most of my nagging injuries were mute. The stab wound in my gut was an ugly scar but nothing more. Even the leg was feeling better. “I feel good,” I said, and it wasn’t a lie for the first time in a while.

  “I kind of figured,” she replied poking at her food more than eating it. “Jeff, Ruby, and her people were paying a lot of attention to you for the past few days.”

  “How long was I out?”

  “Three days.”

  “No wonder I feel good. That is a lot of sleep.”

  “You weren’t really asleep. They kept you sedated inside the pod.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Jeff tracked your emissions to Hashima, not that we needed to after Primal parked it over the midwest. But he had all the equipment available and he wanted to be sure.”

  “Sure of what?”

  She swiped a tear from the bottom of her eye, a strained smile touching her lips. “You’re cured.”

  “Well, yeah, the pod got me back to normal. I feel really good.”

  “No you lunkhead, your emissions are within normal ranges. You’re cured.”

  I stopped mid-chew, the mixed eggs and bacon sitting flat and tasteless on my tongue as I processed. Apogee looked at me across the table, keeping it together by pure will. The albatross that had been hounding me, gone. “Snyder’s machine. When it drained me…”

  Apogee nodded and took my hand. “They wanted to make sure you weren’t going to flare up again. You actually did that first day, but it never spiked into dangerous levels.”

  “Well, this is great! I mean, one great big giant hurdle, gone.”

  “We’ll have to reassess your power levels. Any idea where you’re at?”

  “No clue. Got anything heavy for me to lift? I’ll find out when Jeff runs his tests. I’m surprised he’s not beating down the door to get to me. Shit, I half want to find him and get started. I’m as curious as you are”

  I realized I was staring off into space, rambling. When my eyes refocused, Apogee was pinching the bridge of her nose, deep worry lines around her closed eyes. I cringed internally. Here I was gushing about my good luck while she was still suffering. She had let go of my hand, so I reached out and brushed her forearm, startling her. “Hey, I’m here,” I said, hating how douchey it sounded, but she smiled and took my hand.

  “Thanks,” she said, looking everywhere but at me. “I think I’m done, Dale.”

  I said nothing. Apogee wasn’t interested in my opinion half the time. She was a big girl, she knew what she wanted, and right now, all she needed was an ear to listen, and maybe a shoulder to cry on. “I can’t use my power without...I don’t know,” she said. “I lose control and it seems like I’m disappearing from this world.”

  “How so?”

  “It’s at the edges of my vision. At first, there’s nothing, but a second later, it’s like the world is caving in. I can’t really do it justice, you’d have to see it, but one thing I know is that it starts to…” she paused, using her hands to pantomime everything collapsing around her. “When I saw that piece of shit about to kill you, I did it. I had to. But it took me somewhere else. It was like everything was pulling me there, wanting to keep me there. I saw a pinprick of light in the distance and ran to it, and that’s how I got out.”

  She cried in silence and I held her hand, unable to do more.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Epilogue Two

  I went looking for Superdynamic only to find him walking down the hall towards my room. Two techs huffed behind him, unable to keep up with his manic pace. He wore a lab coat that trailed behind him as he greeted me with a wave. I expected him to be breathless, forgetting that he spent as much time in the gym as in the lab.

  He moved into my personal space, stopping short of an embrace, settling for laying hands on my biceps. “It’s good to see you up and moving.”

  “I have all of you guys to thank. Dixie, Ruby, and Olympia, I guess?”

  “Her powers are very interesting. Too bad they’re about to tack a couple more life sentences onto her multiple life sentences.”

  “She earned them, trust me. So, I was just coming to find you. Apogee told me about the emissions. Can we run more tests?”

  Apogee came out of the room, freshly showered and dressed for business. She brushed my arm with a light touch and kissed Jeff on the cheek as she walked away. We shared a knowing look as I tried to reconcile with the idea that my girlfriend’s best friend was the most capable man I had ever met. There was nothing romantic about their relationship, but the big things would never just be between us.

  He watched Apogee walk away, “I don’t know.”

  We walked in silence for the minute or so it took us to get to the elevators. “Primal’s cooperating,” he said.

  “About him…”

  “Oh, God…”

  We looked at each other for a moment, then both laughed. “Go on. Say it,” he said.

  “I’m going to stand up for him,” I said.

  He shrugged, “Might do him more harm than good. You know what’s happened since you were taken?”

  “What do Jason or Apogee have to do with that?”

  He scratched his head, and I could tell he was wrestling with something. We stepped off the elevator on the lab level and the halls were cluttered with stacked boxes. There were also about a dozen people packed up and loaded as if they were leaving. “Jeff, what’s going on?”

  “The U.N. pulled my funding.”

  “Because of me? That’s fucking bullshit! How many times do I have to…”

  Superdynamic held up his hands, staving off a rant he’d heard too many times already. “Not because of you, Dale. It’s not all about you. But yeah, there’s something in the winds...something...I don’t know what it is. Anyway, this place is going to take a rough hit. I spent all morning with the accounting guys. We can’t do it without all the funds we’re losing.”

  “What about Chase?”

  “He’s still in, but he can’t do it alone. Nobody could.”

  I fumed in silence. All the good they were doing here snuffed out because Superdynamic took a chance on me. Every dime I had wouldn’t keep the place running for a day. Every dime I had. But I had access to more dimes. I put my arm around him, “Yeah, about that. I have an idea.”

  The look he gave me was kind of like the one he had on his face when we first met, at Apogee’s mom’s house, where he approached me like one would a pack of lions. It was ra
re to have his full attention for this long. He was usually neck deep in people wanting a piece of him or work that had to be done. It was almost an honor. Let’s not waste it. “I have all this tech,” I said. “And until now, I don’t think you’ve been reading my emails.”

  He lowered his head. The guy was busy. He didn’t have time to read my ponderous, mile-long messages. I knew this, but I couldn’t control how much I wrote. I also knew that he hadn’t looked into my tech past what I had shown him. Now was the time to leverage everything I had learned, everything I had gone through - and put it to work for everyone. “I’ve got a buddy of mine that’ll run all of this,” I said. “So you don’t have to do anything more than give him some office space and an outlet.”

  “I’m already starting to regret this,” he said, but I could tell he was saying it tongue-in-cheek.

  “It’s a crazy idea, I know. But first, we build a big place back. Something that was recently destroyed. We go in there, pro-bono of course, and rebuild everything, make a name for ourselves. Then we bring all that goodwill down here, to Mali, to the Tower - and we turn this place into the city of tomorrow, dude.”

  “You’ve watched too much Disney.”

  “Yeah, but what’s so wrong with that? These people need our help, don’t they? We make this the place everyone will want to come. Instead of just a Tower, it’ll be a haven for all comers. What do you think?”

  He shook his head. It was going to take a lot of convincing to get him on board, but the plan was sound. I could build anything, anywhere with my tech. So why not build homes, and business, and places for people to gather and eat - then provide it for everyone, everywhere. Come to Mali and make something of yourself.

  “I think you’ve been listening to Primal too much,” he said, chuckling to himself. “So what’s this place you have in mind? Where do you plan to start?”

  “Amsterdam.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Epilogue Three

  We dropped out of the sky without warning, without asking for clearance to land, without much care. I landed the Cockroach in front of the New Scotland Yard building, hovering above panicked cars until they cleared the way.