Hero

by Robert J. Crane

  “‘Gulp,’ I believe is the word for this situation,” Hades said, and with a ululating battle cry, he leapt the sandbags and scrambled for the nearest gun.

  “Nailed it,” I said, and was after him, head feeling wobbly and my cheeks still wet.

  Two of the FBI task force members were about ten feet from us, scrambling for their guns. When Aleksy had stripped their weapons, he hadn’t left them at point blank range, he’d put some distance between them. That was the only thing saving us from being riddled with bullets right now, because the FBI Task force was racing just as hard as we were for their guns.

  I noted nine of them still standing as I scrambled for their weapons, Hades leading me by a foot or two. Apparently he wasn’t the sort to just sit back and let shit go down, which was good. Because we were desperately outnumbered, thanks to that unforced error of getting our asses blinded by the enemy.

  I picked my opponent, a super-pale white lady with dark dreadlocks, like the hippie, granola-eating version of me. Her hair was hanging around her shoulders and chest, looking like it hadn’t been properly washed in a decade. It lacked any shine at all, and I started to call this fact out when her hair snaked out to intercept me en route to her gun.

  “Shit, Medusa!” I shouted, baseball-sliding in under the attack of the queen of split ends.

  “I knew Medusa,” Hades said, not slowing his roll and reaching out a hand. “She was much prettier than this one.”

  The Medusa froze, her hair retracting instantly as Hades took hold of her very soul in the manner that had once scared Friday into being mute for two weeks. She froze mid-step as though she were being choked, and it gave me just enough clearance to get in under her defenses—

  I snatched up her gun as I slid on my back. I gave her a kick as I came in under her abdomen, and she went flying across the room a good thirty feet.

  And I had a pistol. A Sig Sauer P226 government issue model. Yay for old familiar friends.

  I wasted a round shooting into the ceiling, and shouted, “Nobody move!”

  Yeah, that didn’t work.

  “I would suggest not wasting your ammunition on any more warning shots,” Hades said, moving on past a perfectly good M4 carbine, apparently not down with the gun thing. “You should use that thing for real.” He waved vaguely at the weapon in my hand, then brought his hand up against the next FBI meta.

  “Kid gloves, Grandpa,” I reminded him.

  “Great-grandfather.” He made an annoyed sort of grunting noise and slipped in on the next FBI agent as they went for their own gun, blindsiding them as he stooped. He struck with a knee raise so vicious that it sent the agent tumbling across the room. I cringed, because I heard ribs break from ten feet away on that one, and when he landed, I knew he was going to be down for a while.

  “Get Nealon!” someone shouted from behind me with a serious Latin accent, and I spun. There was a super-serious dude standing there, fumbling for his weapon as he yanked up on the shoulder strap, which was the only part of it he had a grip on. His weapon spun as he tried to pull it off the ground and up to him.

  “Don’t get Nealon,” I said, raising my Sig at him. “It would be a bad idea. Hazardous to the health.”

  Someone slammed into me with no more warning than a brief flash of motion out of the corner of my eye, and I felt the impact run along my side as I hit the ground, a thin, wiry body riding atop me like I was a magic carpet. We hit hard, their legs locked around my waist so as not to let me go. I took the impact along my flank and my ass. All on the meat, which hurt, bruised.

  She took it on the kneecap, which broke. And I knew it was a she by the scream that followed.

  I drove the butt of the Sig into her nose and flipped her off me, a wash of her blood running down onto my hand from the nose I’d just broken. Another pistol whip and she was unconscious, face gone slack. “See?” I asked her insensate form, not expecting an answer, “Bad idea.”

  I turned to face my original threat, Mr. Latin Meta. He had almost gotten a full grip on his M4 now, and was raising it up to align with me—

  Damn.

  This was an FBI agent, not some criminal about to dust me. I could snapshot faster than he could, and I knew I’d drill him right between the eyes with a 9mm round before he could he even line up the sights.

  But I wasn’t a murderer.

  Just a killer. When threatened by those I deemed evil, I could respond with overwhelming force.

  When under the gun of an FBI agent come to apprehend me for my evil misdeeds …

  I lowered my pistol and let him draw a bead.

  Somewhere in my heart of hearts, maybe I felt like … I really did deserve this for all the shady stuff I’d done.

  I had no illusions about what was coming. It was going to be a bullet, and it was going to be right to the heart or damned near enough to it so as to end my flight.

  Still didn’t raise my gun.

  He didn’t smile, didn’t laugh, didn’t quip. Didn’t do anything but raise his weapon, get it on target. It took less than a second, all things considered, and he was aiming—

  The shot came, but went wide, because someone had slammed into him from the side—

  Lethe had had hit him like a charging train, barreling into him with enough strength that she lifted him off the ground, sending his shot ricocheting off the pavement and far off to my right. She had him up in the air like a pro wrestler, carrying him off in her charge. Then she stopped abruptly, her face charged with intense concentration, and she whipped him down with all her strength—

  He smashed into the ground and his neck snapped back on the impact. His head collided with the concrete and it was like a cantaloupe landing after a ten-story fall. Gore exploded out the top of his melon, splattering in a ten-foot burst pattern out of the top of his skull. His limp body rolled once, and stopped.

  I stared at my grandmother, open-mouthed.

  “What?” she asked. “You think you’re fighting some noble FBI team? These are hardened criminals, given experimental serum treatments and pushed into government service. Act accordingly.” And she was off after the next of them.

  I didn’t know if I quite believed that glib explanation, but they certainly weren’t acting like typical agents trying to make an arrest. I noticed, for the first time, that they seemed to be wearing collars. Collars that didn’t look unlike the sort of ankle bracelet one might wear on house arrest.

  “Huh,” I muttered. Had the FBI really put together their metahuman task force by experimenting on criminals and giving them powers? Because, if so … wow, that was playing with fire. My mind raced, thinking that if that were true, you’d need some sort of control mechanism like said collar, which you would fill with … what?

  I snapped my attention to another task force member, who was stooping to pick up a gun. He was bloody across the top of his head, and I figured he’d gotten into a scrape with someone—probably Krall, since I could see her battling with two of the other FBI bastards not far from where this guy was recovering his gun. He was bent over, picking up a pistol, and I drew a bead on that collar on the side of his neck. My aim was perfect, and I slowly squeezed—

  BOOM! The collar exploded, taking the meta's head with it and confirming in my mind that what Lethe had said was true.

  I picked myself up from the ground, the explosion having knocked me flat on my ass. “Well, that changes things,” I said, and promptly shot the three nearest task force members in the head. They did not survive the hollow-points.

  “So glad to see you have decided to fight for your own life,” General Krall said, wrestling with her last opponent, who I couldn’t shoot because she was tangled up with him, a wrist around his neck, choking the life out of him.

  “So glad to see you know what ‘kid gloves’ means,” I said.

  “I have no gloves for children,” she said, smiling over the shoulder of the man whose windpipe she’d just crushed. He was still alive, fighting with the oxygen left in his lungs and b
loodstream, flopping wildly in her grasp like a fish that had been ripped out of the water. “For I am an adult, you see.” He looked comically pathetic next to the five-foot Krall, his overlong frame bucking impossibly against hers, legs dragging against the much shorter woman.

  “Well, you’re not built like one, shorty,” I said, turning from her to find the next threat. “Maybe someday you’ll get that last growth spurt that’ll put you up to five-one. Maybe give you some boobs, too, if you’re lucky.”

  I heard the crack of the man’s spine, and knew that Krall had either grown impatient with him flopping around, or decided to execute him to prove a point. I turned enough to watch her warily as she circled away from me, keeping at least one eye on me as well. “Once again, you show that you have no fight,” she said.

  “But I’ve got plenty of ‘kill,’” I said, brandishing the Sig. “So don’t push me, Justin Timberlake.”

  There wasn’t much to wrap up. Lethe was crushing one guy, and Hades had another in his grip. Well, about five feet away, actually, but he held his hand out like he was force choking him, going full Vader and the guy was straining against invisible bonds.

  “And so your invasion ends,” Hades said. Lethe had finished her fight, tossing the limp body away with no more care than if she were chucking a chewing gum wrapper into the trash. Hades, though, seemed determined to send a message to his own foe. I wondered what the hell he was doing, and then I realized—

  All these guys had body cameras. And he was speaking English for a reason.

  “You have picked the wrong fight,” Hades said, holding his hand out as the man clawed at his own throat, trying to free himself from the grip of death. “You send your criminals into my home, trying to take from me my own blood.” He was totally posing for the camera. “You do not know me … so let me introduce myself.

  His voice got dark, and heavy, and deep, and I had to force myself not to take a step back.

  “I am Hades, God of Death. I have at my disposal some twelve intercontinental ballistic missiles topped with multiple independent reentry vehicle warheads.” That sent a chill through me, through the room. “I have the entire army of Russia behind me.” It got chillier. “I do not care for your wounded egos,” he said, glaring into the body camera. “Do not care for your international politics. I am … Death. And if you come for Sienna Nealon again …” His eyes just burned.

  The man in his thrall screamed, and fell to his knees, toppling over. Hades stooped, flipping him so as to look in the camera. “Come after her again,” he said, putting every ounce of the King of the Underworld into his performance, “And Death … will come for you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  My eyes were still burning, maybe for more than one reason, when we made it back to my quarters. I was surprised we didn’t head for the Situation Room, but Hades and Lethe had argued that General Krall had it under control and would call if they needed anything, so off we went, Lethe at my side the whole way. Which was fortunate, because without her lead I was going to walk into something by accident.

  “I made it through the fight,” I said, detecting a blur in my right eye. “I don’t understand why just now I’m starting to get double vision or whatever.”

  “Your retina took damage,” Lethe said. “From the sustained assault by the Apollo. Close your eyes more quickly next time.”

  “Is that what you did?” I asked. I could see her face, but it was blurry, because my eyes were leaking again, tear ducts pumping out warm salty liquid that ran down my cheeks. It wasn’t from emotion, I can promise you that, because the moment I’d realized that the FBI had recruited criminals that they’d had to strap with explosives, I’d known for a fact that the people they sent after us were hardcore trouble. No remorse from me for defending my life against the Inglourious Basterds.

  “Yes,” Hades said. “I was looking at you, and the moment I caught the flash—well. I spent enough time in the company of Apollo to know to look away when you see a blinding light. That was his favorite trick. Then he would run around while we were blinded and steal our purses and slap us on the ass. Or worse.”

  “Sounds like a real party guy,” I said, and Lethe steered me away from a wall that I was about to bump into. She had me by the sleeve, helping me through the door into my room, which Hades held open for us.

  “Indeed,” Hades said. “It was an uproarious and often horrific experience, partying with my brother Zeus.”

  Part of me wanted to ask about the horror. Part of me didn’t. “Don’t,” Lethe whispered. “You really don’t want to know.”

  I accepted her grandmotherly wisdom and moved right along. “If the FBI sent a bunch of wired-up rogue metas after us,” I asked, trying to get back to focusing on the crucial things, “what’s their next move, d’ya think?”

  “I expect they will not let it rest,” Hades said. “The president, Gondry, he prides himself on being a level-headed man. An academician.”

  “I think that’s the Russian way of saying it,” I said, still blinking away tears. Hades looked blurry, but I could see his smile. “He was a college professor. Smooth talker. Not unlike Harmon in that regard.”

  “But unlike Harmon, his aspirations of brilliance are, tragically, inaccurate,” Hades said. “Our spy agency has thoroughly analyzed Gondry. The cool, measured approach he takes to everything is mere show. He is easily rattled by displays of violence because he has exercised no command for it in his life. Like most wilting pacifists, which he professed to be for most of his career, he thinks fighting unwise and yet has employed force consistently since becoming president. He can be backed into a corner almost immediately.” Hades’s smile disappeared. “And in this case, I think pride has already led him there.”

  “Sounds like you’re calling him a wuss,” I said. Lethe dabbed at my eyes with her sleeve. “But you also think he’s going to keep fighting?”

  “You must consider the position he finds himself in,” Hades said. “For the last two years, nearly, the public has been stirred into believing you are the greatest evil that walks this planet. Greater, indeed, than any that has existed since the days of … I don’t know … Hitler, perhaps?”

  “Yeah, let’s just ignore Stalin and Pol Pot.” I blinked the tears away, hoping they’d stop soon. Lucky my eyes hadn’t started really leaking until after the fight.

  “Hitler is an easier focus,” Hades said, “and if you’ll forgive me for saying so, your country is desperately illiterate, historically speaking. Whatever the case, for two years, concerns within your nation have built you into the greatest boogeyman, or boogeywoman, I suppose—”

  “Which is funny cuz I seldom boogie.”

  Hades smiled, I saw it again through the tears. “They have made you into a monster. Like me. Perhaps the greatest monster of your time. Now that they have done that, created in you the most urgent and terrible threat, how could Gondry, considering himself a being of conscience and morality, simply let you walk away?”

  “Uh,” I said. “Wait. You think he’s going to press this? After your nuclear threat? After we wiped out their criminal task force?”

  “I am certain of it,” Hades said, turning away, his back a dark, blurry shadow to me. “The level of cognitive dissonance required for Gondry to let you go would require he reconcile and justify to himself that he is a coward, something he does not consider part of his personality. He sees himself as brave.” Hades turned. “All men do, until they are proven otherwise. And some of them, even then, must find the ways to justify to themselves how they are, truly, brave, though the facts would suggest otherwise.”

  “Starting a nuclear war with you over me doesn’t seem particularly brave,” I said. “More … stupid.”

  “It won’t start nuclear,” Lethe said. “Your great-grandfather just made sure of that.”

  I tipped my head back, and watery tears ran down the sides of my face. “That’s why you told him how many nukes you had, and what they were on. ICBMs, MIRVs …”r />
  “Deterrence, yes,” Hades said. “If he did not believe I would use them, he would begin in a position of asymmetrical power, as your troops call it. With that threat upon the table, however, he will be forced to use craftier means. Then, potentially, escalate, as his pride calls for satisfaction.”

  “So you’ve been planning for this for a while?” I asked. My eyes were finally starting to dry, but I couldn’t see him very well. His back was to me again, and he’d taken up Lethe’s old place by the window while she was by my side.

  “Yes,” Hades said. “Without nuclear means at our disposal, there would be no way to protect you against the US response.”

  I blinked at that. More wetness slid down my cheeks. “You … empowered the people for Revelen for that reason, too? Used the press to move them to my side—”

  “That was a good reason, but not the only one,” Lethe said. “In a world of people with powers … doesn’t everyone deserve a chance to defend themselves?”

  “But not everyone gets powers,” I said. “Sometimes the serum doesn’t work. What happens to those people?”

  “They are protected by the force of law and civilization,” Hades said. “That is our job, you see.”

  I closed my eyes. It seemed to help against the burning still tearing up my vision. “Okay. So … my head hurts, and I’m not sure if that’s because of the eye injury—”

  “It is,” Lethe said.

  “—Or because I don’t know what the hell is coming next,” I said. “The fact that you’re laying out a reasonable scenario that leads to nuclear war with the US is … uhm …”

  “Terrifying?” Hades asked.

  “Yeah,” I said, opening my eyes. He had turned to face me, but I couldn’t see his expression. He sounded somber. “‘Terrifying’ about covers it. The US could bomb this country into a parking lot. Fifty times over.”

  “This is true, but I do not believe they will,” Hades said. “It was never my intention to let your president turn this into a nuclear war. I merely wished to remove that option from the table, for fear that he would … shall we say … escalate things in a certain direction.”