She looked at her own companions now after they had been flying for a while and saw that Crimson was sitting looking dejected. The man’s default position was normally to be filled with piss and vinegar, a ball of barely suppressed anger bubbling under the surface, but now he sat with his shoulders slumped looking at the ground. His face was crumpled with what appeared to be a mixture of pain and defeat as he finally began to look every year of his advanced grey age.
Link’s normal light disposition was gone, now replaced with a man who appeared to have finally realised that playing at superheroes more often than not got you killed. This was no comic book adventure where the good guys were always guaranteed the victory; this was real life where apparently death cared little for the colour of your hat.
Perhaps most worrying was CJ. The alien was sitting bolt upright, leaning back against the chopper’s metallic side, his eyes distant and lost.
As long as she had known him, he had always carried himself with the confidence of an all-powerful being. Out on the battlefield, he had been serene, a cosmic visitor often made to chuckle by the meagre threat that mankind had to offer with their sharp pointy things and bullets.
We were always like ants to a god to him, she’d always thought, ants he could step on at any time, and yet here he sat, beaten like the rest of them. He had often spoken to her in the early days about what it meant to be human, to be vulnerable, to age and die, to be as permanent as a waft of scent on the wind. Now, looking at him, she thought that he was finally understanding what it felt like to be mortal.
The chopper flew on, heading into the dawn of a new day, one that she thought they might not live to see the end of.
CJ was sitting opposite her and she stared at him hard, trying to gain his attention through her sheer force of will.
Eventually, he looked up and she raised her eyebrows in question. He raised his own back, seemingly in confusion.
She flexed open her hands a couple of times to ask if he had his powers back, but he only shook his head and looked down at his now useless hands devoid of their power.
He had voiced the opinion that it had been something in the frozen research base that had been dampening him, even feeling that while they were in the basement, it was a stronger force, and that if he could put some distance between them, then he might return to his full self. But here they were, hurtling across the sky now, some hour or so from the frozen shores of the small fishing village, and his abilities still had not returned.
The thought that he could be weakened was a deeply concerning one; the thought that he could be robbed completely was devastating. Whatever had weakened him might now just have weakened the world.
Seeing Jesus gunned down by a man that he had loved and trusted had been shocking to her. She had seen death before, but she’d never watched a man’s eyes show a heart break at the same time that it stopped beating.
If Jesus had been fooled, then any of them could be, and she couldn’t help but start to reevaluate her own life and the relationships in it. Had any of it been real, and just how long had Cynthia Arrow’s influence been held over all of them, pulling the strings?
She thought about her career, her friendships, her occasional dating life, the men and women that she’d known – how could she trust any of it? Right now, all she could trust were the three people sat beside her, the three people, in all likelihood, she was about to die with.
Eventually, they started to descend and the combat-clad figures around them immediately sprang into action.
They stood in unison and all raised their weapons up to shoulder level as the chopper slowed and lowered further down until it was hovering above the ground.
There were no windows in the back and she could not see what was awaiting them. She only knew that it wouldn’t be good, but at least it would be over soon; it was the waiting that killed you.
Once the chopper was down, the rear cargo doors slowly cranked into life and started to rise. It was all pretty dramatic as the armed figures stood behind them, blocking any attempt to duck further into the chopper while the bay doors slowly lowered.
What appeared was hardly a shock to them as multiple combat-clad figures stood in a wide semicircle encasing the rear doors to the chopper as they finally touched down on tarmac.
“Where’s the emperor?” Link yelled out to their welcoming committee. “I mean, I see a whole lot of stormtroopers, but where’s the old creepy dude?”
Cynthia Arrow walked out of the gathering and stood in the centre of her soldiers.
“Ah, there he is!” Link called out as he stood up.
“Did you say something, Mr Link?” Cynthia called back in a tired voice with a bored sigh.
“Apparently not.” He smiled with a wave.
“Is that really necessary?” Jamie-Lyn asked as she stood up beside him.
“Hey, chances are it’s going to be one of the few shots we get in, so why not?” He shrugged in reply.
Crimson now stood up too, his bones creaking as he did so. There was dried blood on his face, but his wounds still looked relatively fresh and had not healed the way they would have back in the day.
“You okay?” she whispered to him.
“Nope,” he admitted. “But I only need one shot to take her. If I get it, then I’ve still got enough left to finish the job. I made Doc a promise, and I still intend to keep it. To be honest, that’s the only thing keeping me upright.”
“CJ?” she asked toward the alien who was the only one of them still seated.
“Yes?” he answered, looking up, and she could see that he wasn’t quite sure where he was or just what was happening.
“It’s time to go, big fella,” Crimson said, reaching down and pulling CJ up by the arm. “Let’s try and do this with a little dignity.”
The four of them walked slowly down through the cargo bay before standing for a moment on the top of the chopper’s ramp.
“Do they know about CJ? That he’s… you know…,” Link whispered under his breath to Jamie-Lyn.
“I would suggest that you do not try anything, demon,” Cynthia called out. “Understand that while you might be feeling a little under the weather, your friends are most certainly not bulletproof.”
“I guess so,” Jamie-Lyn replied to Link. “Is this more Gustafson? Do you think that whatever’s dampening CJ’s powers is here too? Is it mobile? Maybe it’s on the chopper? Do you think that Gustafson’s here too?”
“Maybe it’s permanent,” Link offered, somewhat depressingly.
“It doesn’t matter,” Crimson added from beside them. “Everybody dies, including us and even him. All we have is to try and do it on our own terms.”
“Well aren’t you just a little ray of sunshine?” Link said in reply, regaining a little more of his good nature despite their predicament or maybe even because of it.
“Come now, my children,” Cynthia called out. “We are waiting; judgement is waiting.”
“You heard the lady,” Crimson said as he started to walk slowly down the ramp. “Let’s not keep her waiting.”
----------
Cynthia Arrow allowed herself a rare moment of triumph as she watched her enemies walk towards their collective doom.
Of course, the road had not been easy, – nothing worthwhile ever was – but her faith was strong. Her love in the Lord and his light was total, and that had seen her through to the end. Now she stood on the brink of victory, hers and God’s, and she would slay the devil himself.
She watched on with an evaluating eye as the three men and one woman walked towards her.
Jamie-Lyn Anderson may have been a devious creature with a serpent’s tongue to spread the devil’s lies, but she had been defanged, her power stripped from her, and she was now the other side of the news, making it instead of reporting it. No one would believe her falsehoods now; her credibility had been destroyed, meaning that now she was powerless.
Quentin Link may have been a soldier, a highly capable one bef
ore transitioning into the private sector to work as a mercenary. He was an intelligent man, a dangerous man, a skilled man, but he was just a man. His experience in war should not be taken lightly, but this wasn’t a war. This was a holy war, and he stood on the side of darkness, a side that could never hope to win.
Royce Langston, the hired killer known as Crimson, had been one of – if not the world’s – most dangerous killer. An enhanced agent of evil given his black gifts by the devil himself, but even he could not hope to stand against her and her cause. Crimson now looked like a broken man. His injuries had persevered over his healing capability just as light would always persevere over darkness.
And that, of course, left the devil himself, her once all-powerful, all-conquering opponent now laid bare as a false prophet, a fallen god, a beaten black-hearted creature of the night now at her mercy.
God had brought her back from her eternal slumber to do his bidding, to clean up the filth that had stained her land for far too long.
There was a new day dawning, both figuratively and literally, as the sun rose over the horizon, a cleansing day to burn away the darkness and send the demons all back to Hell where they belonged, and maybe, just maybe, she’d follow them back there and finish the job once and for all.
While she took some pleasure in her victory, she knew that she was merely an instrument of the Lord, a weapon in his mighty hands to do his bidding and bring an end to this war.
She did a quick check through her mind as they walked slowly towards her. There was nothing that she hadn’t considered, nothing that she hadn’t taken into account, nothing that had been left to chance… that was simply not possible when all actions were overseen by God.
All that was left now was to set the stage, to arrange the pieces and show the world that God’s justice was all and his will would be served; she was just waiting now for her messenger.
----------
“Are you sure this is the right way?” Summer Sloan demanded from the back of the van and immediately regretted the question.
“Of course,” the driver called back, his tone carefully selected so as to not piss off the woman who appeared to be practically running the station now. Of course, he wasn’t wrong.
Ever since the unfortunate death of Wilson Fontaine – an unfortunate death that had, of course, already been ruled accidental without much in the way of an investigation – his widow had picked up the reigns. As far as ARK was concerned, Summer was the go-to girl when it came to the day-to-day editorial decisions at the news station.
She was the face of media coverage throughout the UK at present. Her show ‘Summer Says’ was being broadcast continually either on television or else streaming live, and with the full force of the Fontaine media empire behind it, there was no escape.
Summer was now the comforting voice of the people with the youth market seeing her, according to mass market research, as an authority figure to be trusted.
This was something that rankled a little with her personally. She had been the kid in a dying industry for a while now, but to hear that teens saw her as an authority figure made her feel old. She was 29 officially but 33 in real life, yet to a 17-year-old, she was somehow a mother figure.
Mrs Fontaine had called her late last night and told her to be ready in a matter of minutes to be picked up.
She had a Go Bag in the closet by the front door and had done as she was told. There was little in the widow Fontaine’s voice to indicate that it had been anything less than an order.
All she knew now was that she was in a news van, one with recording and broadcasting capabilities, and she was being driven to an undisclosed location via sat nav directions.
She desperately wanted to ask either of the two men in the van where they were going or what the men knew about their destination, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to admit that she was out of the loop. Not to mention the fact that both of the men didn’t look as though they knew any more than she did.
Being a star suited her, but she was born to be the star. It was like her whole life had been orchestrated to get her to exactly this point; it was preordained and she deserved it, of that there was no doubt.
The busy main roads soon gave way to an emptier landscape as people and concrete were replaced with cows and greenery as they drove more and more out into seemingly nowhere.
The horizon had become empty now as long fields stretched on for miles and the road narrowed into a lane before becoming a single rough track.
Again, she wanted to yell at the driver that he must be going the wrong way, but in doing so, she would be admitting that she didn’t know where the right way was.
Eventually, as the new day dawned, the van slowed and pulled over to the side of the lane.
Summer roused herself from the light slumber that she’d slipped into as she felt the gravel crunch beneath the van’s wheels.
“I guess this is it?” the driver said as he turned in his seat and looked into the back towards her.
She thought that his name might be Karl or Cliff or something like that, but in truth, she wasn’t interested; he was just another nameless face put here to do a job.
“That’s what this thing says,” the other man in the passenger seat agreed as he checked the sat nav. “But where the hell are we?”
“Where we are supposed to be if you’ve done your job properly,” Summer muttered with annoyance.
Passenger man said something to the driver that she couldn’t hear and they both sniggered; she made a mental note to have them both replaced after this was over.
She leaned forwards to look out of the windscreen and saw that the lane had come to an abrupt stop and there was now a large metal gate blocking their path seemingly into a field. Off in the distance, she could just about make out the silhouette of a massive building.
There was sudden movement outside and she heard an electrical lock being opened, and then the gate was hefted open by two burly men wearing black combat fatigues.
“Is this some kind of military base?” driver man asked his companion.
“Maybe, but those guys don’t look like anything official to me.”
“Why not?” Summer asked, unable to stop herself.
“No insignia, no crest, no markings on their outfits. If they’re government, then this is some kind of black ops site would be my guess,” passenger man answered.
Summer felt a stab of unease in her gut. Mrs Fontaine had sent her here without the benefit of any details or even instructions. Perhaps normally that wouldn’t be cause for concern, but Summer had killed a man, and her boss had been there and taken care of the evidence. That kind of dark secret made any unexpected behaviour a little worrisome, especially when it came to burly figures in a deserted field.
The combat-wearing men held the gate open and waved them inside.
“I guess we’re going in?” driver man asked her nervously.
“Of course,” she replied with a casualness that she most definitely did not feel.
The van drove in over a metallic cattle grid which bounced them all up and down with the vibrations.
One of the soldier figures pointed at them to follow the flattened double lines in the field which directed them towards the large building on the far side.
“Chatty fellas, weren’t they?” driver man said to his partner.
“Guys like that are always wired wrong. Governments hire mercs on a pretty regular basis, military freaks who love that shit, a lot of them a little too much. War junkies, adrenaline freaks. Guys booted out of the service always end up getting paid to fight somewhere.”
“Not all of them,” Summer said, thinking about Quentin Link and the brief but interesting time that she had spent with him. “Keep driving,” she snapped when she saw that the two men were paying her too much attention.
Once they’d crossed the field, they pulled out onto a hidden landing strip surrounded on both sides by aircraft hangars and a variety of outbuildings.
“Private military base. What did I tell you?” passenger man said with a nod.
“Then what are we doing here?” driver man asked as he followed a new set of guard’s instructions and pulled out of the field onto the tarmac and parked under a canopy.
Once the van was stopped, the two men turned to her for answers but she had none. She was as much in the dark as they were; she just didn’t want to admit it.
“Miss Sloan?” a curt young woman in matching black fatigues said as she tapped on the passenger window.
Summer threw back the door and climbed out.
“If you’d like to come with me, miss,” the woman said, or more accurately ordered, quickly turning and marching away, causing Summer to have to hurry to catch up.
“STAY HERE!” she called back over her shoulder to the two men.
She waited until they were out of earshot before she spoke again.
“Where are we going?” she asked the young woman.
“This way, miss” was all the woman said in return as she continued to march her way across the runway and towards the largest of the buildings.
Summer was led inside an outer door before going up a flight of stairs and into a small private office on the second floor.
“Wait here, miss,” the young officer said before doing a smart turn and marching out again.
“Thanks for all your help,” Summer called after her sarcastically, but she was already alone.
She stood in the office for a moment before crossing the room over to the large desk that housed several monitors. Her eyes were drawn to the screens, and what she saw caused her to skip a breath.
They showed four separate rooms, each with just the one inhabitant, and all were instantly recognisable to her.
Jamie-Lyn was sitting on a stool in a bare room. The woman she’d once wanted to emulate was a far cry from the well put together professional she’d known. In her place was a dirty and dishevelled criminal.
A man that looked like Crimson, only much older, sat on the floor of another cell. His legs were crossed and his stool was wedged in the wall, presumably having been thrown there. He did not look very good for a once hero who was supposed to have an enhanced healing factor; now he looked ancient and beaten.
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