Ibumi glared at him. "I'm giving you a chance to stay alive, Knight."
Aubry grinned at them, and his lips pulled back from his teeth in a rictus of pure, unalloyed evil delight. "You don't understand. You can't pull that trigger. Everything that you are, and everything that you've built in yourself, won't let you. And that's the difference between you and me. That's the weakness in Gorgon, Ibumi. You don't really believe that you're a man. And so you go on proving it over and over and over, and in every way that you can."
"I see. And you are sure?"
"I don't care anymore." Aubry screamed the next words. "I see what the hell it has cost me all my life to hold on to something I'm going to lose in the end, and I'm sick of it. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of you. And if you walk out of here, more people are going to die. So you're not walking out. There's only one winner in this game."
"And who is that?" Quint's face was stretched tautly.
"Death," Aubry said. "That's where we are. That's what this is all about. I don't care about holding onto my life anymore. Not now. Not while an evil like you lives in the world."
Aubry took another step, and now he was within personal range, and all three knew it. From the fire in their eyes they knew it.
"You've been looking for death for years, Ibumi. Everything you do is a denial of life. Well, if you've been looking for death, here I am."
Ibumi's rifle dropped first. He stepped back and shut the door behind him, and then deactivated the weapon. Quint, without taking his eyes from Aubry, deactivated his with a snick.
Aubry touched a button on his weapon, and the magazine dropped out.
"It could have been so good," Ibumi said quietly.
"It's going to be," Aubry said.
He laid his weapon down.
The child.
The man.
The streets.
Ibumi and Quint separated, flanking Aubry smoothly, as if this was something that they had done a hundred times.
Each of them was larger than Aubry, and they moved like rhinos on roller skates. But Aubry already knew that he would die here, here where, in a very real way, it all began.
It was appropriate. And what was truly important was that neither of these men left the room alive. Aubry Knight wasn't important. Had never been important.
Quint moved first, and his movement was faster than Aubry had prepared for. But still, he spun out of the way, remembering Durga.
There was no Yang response to this energy. There was no Yin response. But there was nothingness. Nothingness might be a response. But that would only be true if Aubry Knight was no more. And Aubry Knight was already dead.
Quint's punch cleaved the air like a whipstroke. His recovery made the punch a feint: with the business technique was the low, crossing kick that came in behind it.
Aubry moved back, creating distance, using the room, using the space as his friend.
Ibumi circled to the side, moving so quickly and smoothly that it was difficult for Aubry to believe his senses. Aubry couldn't afford to allow them to bracket him, and that was exactly what they were going to try to do. He had to run, and keep running for the next few seconds, while keeping his concentration.
Quint and Ibumi were two human bodies with a single mind. When Aubry stopped his backward race and sprang forward at Ibumi, Quint was there in an instant.
Aubry's speed caught the two NewMen by surprise. Aubry was within grappling range, and he smothered Ibumi's striking techniques and maintained the momentum, hurling Ibumi through the air over him, and catching the body in the air with a leaping side kick an instant later.
Ibumi's breakfall was beautiful, but the timing had been thrown off by the impact of the kick. Quint was there an instant after the kick, hurling himself at Aubry's back. With the first moment of pressure, Aubry dropped to his knees and Quint virtually flew over his shoulder as Aubry's body offered no resistance.
Ibumi and Quint regained their feet. Both of them smiled at him, and then at each other, nodding as if confirming a private suspicion.
And then it began.
The next minute was a hell of retreat. Aubry circled constantly to avoid the walls, and interrupted his own patterns to avoid being bracketed by the NewMen. At running speed. Sprinting speed. Never engaged, or initiated strikes until he had already broken the balance, working on the periphery of his own endurance.
Time and again they scored on him, tore flesh and bruised bone. But he rode their techniques as if he were a top, twisted and turned, and went over, under, between, utilizing his astonishing acrobatic skill, pushing himself further and further.
What was the end of endurance? He had discovered that during the Run. There was no end. There was only death, and Death wanted the three of them. Why settle for just Aubry Knight?
And as his heart thundered in his chest, as the blood rose in his mouth, Aubry renewed his deal with Death. Take us all. Let me live long enough to take us all.
And Death smiled.
The moment came when the two of them trapped Aubry against the wall, and now he exploded. They expected Aubry to attempt to float away, and he didn't.
Instead, for the first time, he turned all of his energies to one of them for just a moment. He head-butted forward, and Quint's face snapped back. The two Gorgons sank their hands into Aubry's flesh, and their fingers were like grapnels.
He was too near the limit, but this was his time, this was his moment.
He might have become boneless, so limp was he, sagging in their grip, so that Ibumi's lethal throat strike tore open the skin on his forehead instead. He tore free from Ibumi's grip, went under Quint's arm, and as Quint spun around, Aubry went close. Skill and speed and everything but bare animal ferocity were forgotten, and he bit Quint's throat out.
The man gargled a death cry, hands clasped to the gaping hole. Aubry sensed rather than saw Ibumi's kick. His leg collapsed, but guided by feel alone, his right foot flashed out, the point spearing into Ibumi's solar plexus.
Iron muscle and lightning reflex allowed Ibumi to ride and deflect that lethal strike, but he gasped in shock and pain.
Aubry backed up against the wall. He tried to rise, and couldn't—die leg was broken.
He kicked out with the other leg as Ibumi moved in, sweeping his feeble kick aside, and wrenched him over onto his back, and stomped Aubry's femur.
Pain flared hideously as Aubry's hip dislocated, and he reached out with the last strength in his body, fingers spearing into Ibumi's leg, reaching for the Achilles tendon, pulling and wrenching, damaging the ankle as Ibumi twisted his arm and struck with the edge of his hand, shattering Aubry's arm at the elbow.
Ibumi limped back, surveying his work.
Quint had stopped moving.
Ibumi knelt by his lover, lifted his limp head, and kissed him tenderly. When he looked up, there was nothing but hatred in his eyes.
"Whatever else happens here, Knight, you die slowly.
Nothing fast for you." He stepped closer, limping badly. If only Aubry had been able to move, he could have finished Ibumi off in a dozen ways, with strength, or technique, or sheer speed. But there was nothing to be done now.
Ibumi pulled back a booted foot, and drove it into Aubry's ribs. He felt the thud, felt the ribs beginning to go, and stifled the scream of pain that rose to his lips.
Death. Death was not the ultimate indignity. He had to die, as so many good men had died, had gone into the muck so that Aubry Knight might live. It was merely what was right, what was appropriate. And it felt good to be dying now, in this place, in this way. And if Ibumi took enough time, he would be trapped, so that Aubry's death might mean something, as his life had come to .. .
Ibumi buckled backward, pivoting, swinging one great bladed hand like a scythe.
It should have cut his assailant in half, so swift was the response. But the assailant was too short.
Aubry's breath hissed in his throat, and the pain and the grief broke through to the surface.
; "Leslie—"
The child was there, stark naked, scratched from his crawl through the air conduits, his eyes hot as the core of the sun. His body was starvation thin, and bleeding, and there was barely anything human in the face.
"Get out of here!" Aubry screamed, or thought that he screamed, but couldn't be sure, because the world of dream and the world of reality had drifted entirely too close together.
With the fastest human movement that Aubry had ever witnessed, Leslie's foot lanced out and into Ibumi's groin cleanly, and then Leslie danced backward as the giant staggered in pain and confusion, his arms thrashing like a gorilla's. Leslie arced into a picture-perfect side kick, but Ibumi slid out of range. Leslie moved again, as agile as a lizard, gone and gone and gone, and never there, able to make a hundred and eighty degree turn as if turning inside out, as if flowing through himself, and Aubry's heart sang.
My child!
But Ibumi was enraged, and still strong enough to kill Leslie with a single blow, and even Leslie's direct attack on Ibumi's groin had brought nothing but pain.
In Ephesus Aubry had been hampered by near-blindness. Ibumi had no such handicap. Where Aubry had been hampered by ignorance of his adversary, Ibumi knew Leslie better than Leslie knew himself.
And Leslie could not hurt the enormous Ibumi.
And the big man stalked him. Leslie hurled himself, striking into Ibumi's kneecap, with every ounce of stretch, a perfectly executed movement, ripping the patella up so that Ibumi's leg buckled. The blow landed only partially, and Ibumi swatted. Leslie scrambled backward, trying to ride the blow, and was hurled back across the room, smashing into the wall.
Ibumi took a step—
And Aubry had him by the ankles, broken arm and hip trailing. Ibumi raised a leg to stomp, and Aubry punched into the exposed groin, felt the plastic groin protector buckle and splinter, felt the shards of plastic drive into the testicles. Ibumi toppled to his knees atop Aubry, and Aubry felt his ribs go, felt them drive into his lungs.
But Leslie was moving, and in the air, and the side of his foot, bladed, angled with incredible precision, drove into Ibumi's throat.
The giant fell, last breath caught forever in his throat, but not yet dead.
He crawled to Leslie, and the single arm that Aubry locked around Ibumi's legs seemed not to slow him.
It was impossible. The man couldn't breathe. Couldn't walk. His system had to be seething with shock, but still he lived. Still he—
Leslie was backed into the corner, his broken arm dangling at his side, his eyes wide with fear as Ibumi's terrible hand closed on his leg. He opened his mouth and screamed—
And Ibumi's giant hand relaxed. The body relaxed.
Aubry and Leslie lay silent for a moment. Then Leslie pulled his leg free from Ibumi's grip, and he crawled to Aubry.
Aubry's face hurt as he strove to smile, to nod. Everything was numb. Nothing hurt. His own blood was everywhere. He had never seen so much of it. . . .
Leslie stood back from him, eyes wide, trembling now, and the pouting mouth finally opened, but said nothing.
"So . . . proud of you ..." Aubry whispered.
Leslie came to him, squeezing him with the desperate strength of a child, crying over and over again, "Father . . . Father . . . please don't die . . ."
And Aubry smiled as darkness opened its arms for him.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
A Beginning
Consciousness returned slowly, just a few lines of light in the darkness, a few scrambled memories, and at last a voice or two piercing the veil of fog.
Aubry tried to move his left arm, and couldn't. He tried to move his hips, and couldn't.
I'm paralyzed. I'll never walk again. . . .
"1 think he's awake," someone said. Who was it? Where was he? What had happened . . . ?
At last he remembered what death was like. That was what it was like to put everything you had, everything you were, on the line. It had never happened before, and it was enough to last a lifetime.
What was left of a lifetime.
The bed beneath him sagged slightly, and he felt warm lips touch his.
Promise . . . ?
He reached out, felt the short hair, and knew he was wrong. "Marina." He tried to turn his lips up, into a smile, and didn't entirely succeed.
"Yes, Aubry."
"Where . . . where am I? My eyes ..."
"Your corneas were scratched. Your right arm is sheared at the elbow, and your left leg is broken in two places. You were unconscious for five days." There was a catch in her voice. "What did you do, wrestle a truck?"
Aubry was floating on a cloud of medication, and somehow the idea seemed hilarious.
"Not exactly, but close enough. Where am I?"
"The NewMan Nation."
"Help me up."
He felt an arm under his shoulders, and then another arm from the other side, and he was sitting upright. His left arm felt fat and sausagy, but he moved it around, and peeled off his patch.
Marina seemed beautiful, and tired. "Aubry." She shook her head. "You're a celebrity, did you know that?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Everything about you—from your role in foiling the assassination to the leadership of the Scavengers, and your escape from Death Valley—all of it came out. There's an extradition battle going on for you right now."
"If they want me, why don't they just come and get me?" He was too damned tired to care.
"Three things," she said. "One, President Harris has commissioned a special investigation of the entire affair, and has given very specific orders that you be allowed to heal. Second, the NewMan Nation has special jurisdiction. Bloodeagle is in Washington now as liaison with Harris. It's a mess. And there's a third, but someone else wants to tell you that. I have to go."
He squinted through the bandages. "Go? You sure you don't want to stick around awhile? I might still manage to die."
She smiled sadly. "Oh, Aubry. I don't know what I am any more than you do. But I'm willing to live in the question. You have a family now. Whoever it was who raped me, he isn't here anymore. And whoever it was who was raped . . . she's not here anymore. I'm not sure who is, but I think I like her. A lot."
"Where does that leave you?"
"With the greatest news story in history, and some damned good lessons. Aubry ... if hate, or love, was all that mattered ..."
"But it isn't," he whispered. "It never is."
Marina bent over the bed and kissed his forehead, then stood. "See you around, mister."
She walked to the door and opened it, and Promise was standing there. The two women looked at each other for a long moment, and then Marina leaned forward and hugged her. Promise hugged back, fiercely. "You take care of him," Marina said, the words at the bare edge of Aubry's perception. "That is a very special man."
Promise kissed Marina, and then the newswoman left the room.
Promise entered, her fingertips guiding Jenna's motorized wheelchair.
Without framing the question, Aubry's good eye darted back and forth until the small, slender figure appeared in the doorway.
Leslie walked slowly into the room, uncertainly balancing a plastic-sheathed arm. He came to the edge of Aubry's bed, taking his hand.
The small, dark heart-shaped face was streaked with tears, and Leslie buried his face against Aubry's arm. Aubry felt that he'd never be able to get the words out. "Hello . . ." His throat hurt.
Promise could barely look at him. "The doctors said . . . that you should hie dead, but you're not. They said that the Cryo clinics have been closed down, but some of the neural material was scavenged. ..."
"Scavenged?"
She shrugged. "You never know what will turn up on the black market."
"I see. So I get to walk again, because someone's baby was killed. Died for my sins."
Leslie looked up at him. "Father. Project Medusa is dead. It died for nothing. Nothing can bring them back. Let a few of them, just a fe
w, live on through you. Don't hate yourself for needing. Please, Father."
"If you hate yourself for what you've been, what can I think of myself?"
Aubry's mouth opened, and then closed. He blinked. "How old did you say you were?"
Leslie buried his head against Aubry's arm again.
Jenna watched them, and shook her head. "Aubry, Aubry. Haven't we all been through enough? Let it go, huh? Let's start over again?"
"That's easy for you to say," Aubry said. "Even if I heal. I'm an escaped convict, Jenna."
Jenna looked at Promise. "Give it to him."
Promise handed him a small box. "According to the note, four copies of this went out. One to the President, one to the Attorney General of the United States, one to Marina, and this one to us."
"What is it?"
"We brought in a projector." Promise's hands were trembling as she slid the cartridge into the holo projector, and the lights dimmed.
Eight years before. Aubry Knight, on a deserted beach, with Maxine Black. Laughing, holding hands. Kissing. And then Walker, with his chain-knife humming. And Walker attacked them. And Aubry killed him—
Aubry's fingers gripped at the sheets. "Holy mother of God. It's Luis's tape! It's the tape from the beach. They said it was destroyed with the rest of his records."
He looked up at them, the first touch of hope filtering into his voice. "Where did it come from?"
"There's no name on the package. But there is a note. It reads, 'Silence is golden.' It's signed 'W.' "
"Wu?"
"He seems to have left the country. I believe this is a peace offering, in exchange for leaving his name out of any discussions we have on this matter."
Jenna smiled and backed her wheelchair up. "We'll have time to talk. I just wanted to tell you that you didn't let me down, Aubry. I knew it was in there." She grinned, although the effort was obviously painful. "Welcome to the family."
She hummed out of the door.
Aubry watched her as the door closed. "Everyone seems so damned sure."
"If you don't want us, Dad, just say so . . ."
Leslie looked up at him, a touch, just a hint of defiance entering those eyes. For a moment, Aubry saw himself, kneeling in his father's blood, and saw the life that yawned to receive him. Leslie's fine-boned features implored him without asking. There was so much strength, so much intelligence.
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