Hero

by Robert J. Crane

  “Next time, you get to fight an entire army while I sit back in an air-conditioned café half a world away and boss you around through a headset,” I said, throwing open the door and cutting the pie with my rifle to get out. Two soldiers. They saw me, I shot them. That probably wasn’t good. Gunshots echoing in the halls and all that. Now they’d know trouble was coming.

  “Oh, I’m not in a café,” Cassidy said. “I’m down in Bredoccia. I Airbnb’d an apartment with broadband just for this.”

  “What?”

  “I am speaking to you live from my little fish tank setup, right here in the city. I told you I needed to get close for this,” she said. “And now … I’m close.”

  “You’re crazy,” I said. “You could have done this from anywhere in the world—”

  “No, I couldn’t have,” she said. “You know how I’ve managed to keep the world’s best hacker at bay all day? It’s because I jacked into her actual telecom network hardline. And the only reason she hasn’t found me is because I’ve been whipping her ass with an external botnet attack all this time that’s got her so damned flustered she hasn’t bothered to look on the inside yet. I calculate she’ll figure it out, though, in the next twelve minutes or less, so you might want to hurry and get me in position for the shutdown in case she’s brighter than I think.”

  “Okay, okay,” I said, trying to figure out where in the castle I was. I started to turn right—

  “Other way,” Cassidy said.

  No point arguing. I went left.

  “Faster, pussycat,” Cassidy said as I broke into a shambling run. My shins were screaming murderously at me and I was oozing blood from more of my body surface than was clean.

  “Oh, I’m gonna kill, kill, when I get there,” I said.

  “Excellent,” Cassidy said. “Finally. This has been taking all day. Second door on your left. Guard just inside.”

  I stopped outside the door and jiggled the handle, flinging it wide. Once that was done, I thrust my rifle in and blind-fired, letting the AK rip off a few rounds as I stayed around the stone jamb. It clicked and I pulled it back to me, fishing for another mag.

  “You’re out of ammo, but you got him already,” Cassidy said. “The rest of the soldiers in there are unarmed. Console jockeys.”

  “But they’re metas,” I said, throwing forward the bolt on the AK so it at least looked like it was loaded. I glanced at my pistol; hell if I was going to win this thing on bullets alone. Not against a room full of metahuman Revelen army officers and their superpowers.

  “What are you going to do, then?” Cassidy asked. “Less than four minutes.”

  I took a deep breath, and threw the door open. “Dunno. Something, though.” And in I went.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SIXTEEN

  Reed

  The arctic winds—

  Slipping—

  I was so cold.

  So.

  Very.

  Cold.

  “Just keep going,” Cassidy’s voice piped out of my phone, tinny and hard. “Sienna’s on it.”

  “Don’t know … how much longer I can …” I was putting everything I had into driving the missiles in a circle around the Arctic. Usually I could have brought warmer winds to sap some of the chill out of the air, but here …

  I was freezing.

  To death.

  And it wasn’t quick, either.

  “Just hang on,” Cassidy said.

  “Okay,” I said, and I hung on, propelling the missiles forward, pushing them slightly to the side again, running the wide circle around the Arctic once again.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEEN

  Sienna

  “Oh, good, you made it back,” Hades said mildly, his hands tucked behind his back as I strolled in with my rifle raised. “I was beginning to worry.”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be on a bridge somewhere, granting boons to the Peverell brothers for having outwitted you?” I asked, sweeping the AK from right to left, illustrating very clearly to a room filled with Revelen army officers manning consoles that I was in no mood for heroic bullshit from any of them.

  They got the message.

  “Well, I am the true master of Death, I suppose,” Hades said, “though I don’t have any hallows to unite. I should work on that.”

  “Try and go up against my Elder Wand here,” I said, nodding at the AK. “I think you’ll find it beats your impotent little soul grab power in a duel.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “I wouldn’t try to kill you like that—and it wouldn’t work on you in any case.”

  “Glad we’re clear on that,” I said, and turned my attention to Lethe, who was handcuffed to a steel chair a little ways from where Hades stood. “How are you doing, Grandma?”

  “Just sitting here,” she said, sounding almost bored, “waiting to see what happens.”

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” I said, easing into the room. “Your team is going to get lost,” I jerked my head toward the door, “or I’m going to make a mess in here. A big damned mess, akin to the one I made in the army regimental HQ, except I’m not going to need a grenade launcher and you’ll all wish I had one, by the end, to make the agony end. Now move, you mass murdering shits, before I single-handedly claw through every one of you for committing war crimes.”

  That got them moving. Chairborne rangers, most of them; they weren’t grunts, and they didn’t want to fight. They went for the door in defeated clusters of twos and threes, streaming out until the last.

  I kicked the door shut behind them.

  “Three minutes,” Cassidy said, a little softer this time, like she didn’t want to break the spell of the moment.

  “I don’t think you’re going to make it,” Hades said, still standing there, hands behind his back.

  “You don’t think so?” I glanced over the room; Arche and Owens/Yvonne were in the corner to my right, apparently undeterred by my suggestion to leave. Lethe was, of course, still chained to the chair. Hades was smirking.

  And Krall was standing next to the map table, offering a little smile of her own. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I heard the click of your AK bolt outside the door. You’re empty.”

  “Bold gamble,” I said, looking down the sight picture at her. After a moment in which her smile never wavered, I tossed the AK aside. “Or good hearing.”

  “One of those, for certain,” she said, cracking her neck, rolling around like she was loosening herself up for a fight. She looked to be in peak Krall condition, not a spot on her uniform, and she started to set her feet in a fighting stance, smiling at me the whole time, just knowing in her heart she was about to tear me limb from limb.

  I cocked my head at her. I was bleeding approximately everywhere, my entire body hurt, my knees and shins were killing me from that landing trying to get into the castle. Krall had already kicked the hell out of my ass once, and she looked to be in perfect form.

  Me? I’d been through a damned war.

  “Fuck you, Krall,” I said, and drew my pistol. I fired and fired and fired and fired—

  I don’t know how many rounds I put through her, but it was all of them that were left in the Grach. When I was done, she took a staggering step back, then another—

  And pitched, over, dead, her eyes rolling back in her head.

  “Sorry-not-sorry about your girlfriend,” I said, tossing down the pistol. I was out of ammo for it, too.

  “Easy come, easy go,” Hades said with a shrug, taking a step down from where he stood to my level.

  “Your concern for the people close to you is breathtaking,” I said, taking a limping step forward.

  “Your worry for trifling insects is … sad,” Hades stepped forward again, finally unclasping his hands and bringing them forward. It looked like he was about to adopt a fighting stance. “This is why you are unworthy of the mantle. You have refused the call, abdicated the responsibility. You have turned down power because you do not understand its worth.”

>   “Let me tell you what you don’t understand,” I said, taking another limping step forward, blood just dripping off me, most of it my own.

  “A lecture from a millennial who has lived millennia less than me,” Hades said, cracking his knuckles. “This should be informative.”

  “I am Death,” I said, looking him square in the eye. “Not like you; I’m Death to those who earn it, who deserve it, who call it down on their own heads because of their acts.”

  “You speak of it as though this is some meritocracy,” Hades said, still smiling, “when but a week ago they threw you in jail for crimes you did not even commit. They hate you, the world does.”

  “Well, I don’t hate them back,” I said, looking at the screen behind him. The missile was still on target, crossing the Canadian border. “I love this world. And the people … well, I’m mostly okay with them. Some suck. Some are good. But I give the benefit of the doubt to the ones I don’t know, and on I go. I will protect these people with my life. That’s how I’m Death—because I’m going to bring it to you for threatening them.”

  “You can barely stand,” Hades said, taking a step closer to me.

  “And you had to sleep with a four-foot-tall member of a boy band to get laid,” I said, prompting him to frown. “Oh, sorry, I thought we were just slinging favorite flaws at each other.”

  “You have chosen the world over your own family,” Hades said.

  “This from the guy who’s been trying all day to kill me,” I said, taking a matching step forward. There was less than ten feet between us now. “Who has his daughter chained to a chair. How important is family to you, exactly?”

  Hades took another step, and now he loomed over me. “There can be only one Death, my dear. And I—”

  I leapt for him, leading with a hard right cross that caught him on the chin and sent his eyes spinning like slot machine reels. I greeted his belly with a knee and got a well-earned “OOF!” as I drove the air from him, hooked his legs and took him down to his back, driving any residual breath from him as I landed on his chest—

  And beat the living piss out of the God of Death with punch after punch.

  I stopped after I heard Lethe say, “I think you got him,” a little dryly, and the red I’d been seeing sort of cleared out of my eyes. “You might want to work on that nuke,” Lethe said when I locked eyes with her, and she tilted her head toward the screen.

  “Oh,” I said, wiping a smear of blood off my cheek. “Cassidy’s been on that since before I even shot Krall. Say hi, Cassidy.”

  “Hi, Cassidy,” came a voice from my belt. “Two minutes … and … never mind.”

  I was hoping for something really dramatic to indicate we’d done it, but all I got was a little white blip on the screen that … blipped out.

  “Done and done,” Cassidy said. “Disarming Reed’s now so he can stop whining about how cold it is.”

  Hades let out a long, pained wheeze. “You know … all things considered … I think you’ll do … just fine as Death. You’re better known these days … anyway.”

  “Damned right,” I said, cracking my bloody knuckles. His face looked like hamburger straight off a store shelf. “I’m going to do you this courtesy, maybe. But listen up, Pops … if I ever see you again, if you stick that pointy nose or widow’s peak of yours into one speck of trouble … I’m going to do my job on you, bitchnuts. You get me?”

  “Yes, of course,” he said. He flopped over onto his belly, throwing one hand forward and dragging himself along, crawling away. “Sounds eminently … fair. Retirement will suit me … just fine … I think I will go to the Villages … in Florida. Lots of death there. And other amenities. Golf carts to ride around in. Buses to Orlando … regular outings …”

  “Yeah, well, get lost on that,” I said, “some of us still have work to do.” I paused. “If this is … amenable to you, Cassidy?”

  “I might be able to work something out,” she said over the speaker. “To compensate me for my … rage at your little broken toy crashing into my life. I’ll be in touch, Hades.”

  “I … so look forward to it,” Hades said. He’d made it to the door and was struggling to open it.

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Lethe said and snapped her handcuffs. She walked right over and opened it for him. She even gave him a little kick to push him out. “Do I even need to tell you that I don’t want to see you again, either?”

  “I think the message is loud and clear,” Hades said, and she shut the door on his rump.

  “You could have escaped any time?” I asked, blinking at her.

  She shrugged. “Another minute … then I might have busted out to give you a hand. As it was …” She smiled, and it really reminded me of Mom, maybe even more for how rarely my mother had smiled. “You had it under control.” The smile went a little wider, showing …

  Pride?

  “Just like you always do,” she said, and she put a hand on my shoulder. “Just like you always do.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEEN

  Passerini

  “Yes!” Passerini pumped his fist as the missile tracker showed the ICBM go down somewhere in northern Minnesota with no detonation. His cheer was matched then drowned out by the sound of every seasoned military man in the room losing their collective shit in a very undisciplined display that, had it been under any other circumstance save for a near-miss with a nuke on the continental US, might have made the SecDef extremely unhappy with his fellow officers.

  As it was … to hell with it.

  “Sir,” General Floyd Marks said, “our SEALs are being reinforced, and the Revelen soldiers are starting to lay down arms. Our people are beginning to enter the facility.”

  “Excellent,” Passerini said, turning to retake his seat. “Get them in there and give her some backup. Let’s mop this thing up.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED NINETEEN

  Dave Kory

  “WOOOOOOHOOOOOO!”

  The shout rang across the bullpen. There was a festive, party atmosphere in the office. Someone had brought in beer, someone else had brought out aged whiskey. Probably that bastard Mike. Or one of the hipsters on staff. They had so many.

  TIME TO PLAY

  Dave looked around. No one was going to notice him on his phone during this fracas, so he tapped in his code and the app sprang open.

  CHAPMAN: It’s officially going viral. Search traffic is picking up now. People are getting bored now that the nuke is gone, and guess what’s coming up first when they search for 'Sienna Nealon'?

  CHALKE: Suppress it, you idiot. You run the damned search engine.

  CHAPMAN: We’re way past that now. It’s over.

  BILSON: This wasn’t the plan.

  CHALKE: This was so far beyond the plan. The military is en route to her as we speak to collect her. What the hell are we supposed to do now? For years we’ve spun up everyone against her, rallied the troops. The truth is going to bust out. Fingers are going to get pointed, and they’re going to get pointed at us.

  Dave just stared at the phone. It was like watching a slow-motion disaster, some monster leaping out of the screen and coming right for him.

  And then … the answer came.

  KORY: We leak it ourselves … in the gentlest possible way. Provide our own explanations in the sourcing that explain every decision, every move. We get ahead of it before it has a chance to come out on his own.

  A long pause. One that made him wonder if maybe, just maybe, Dave Kory had just cut his own head off in this little circle. Then:

  BILSON: I think he’s right. This is the only way to take the wind out of the story. Tell it our way first, before everyone else has a chance to deliver a steaming hot take and start pointing fingers that will lead back to us.

  Agreement came quickly; there was no other way, after all. Dave just stared at the screen, already thinking … this was an exclusive … and he was going to write it …

  How many clicks would this get?

  CHAPTE
R ONE HUNDRED TWENTY

  Sienna

  “You know … I really didn’t have any idea that coming to Revelen was going to turn out like this,” I said, staring at the blank screen frizzing in front of me. Cassidy’s feed had gone dead; presumably she’d hit the end of her broadcast after the nukes had gone down, and so here I was, my grandmother next to me, looking at electronic snow as I stood in the empty war room of the Revelen castle. “First I was gonna be a princess. Then I was going to die getting chased by an army. And finally, I bust back into the castle and kick the shit out of Vlad. Hades. Whatever.” I looked sideways at my grandmother. “You think I’m going to end up regretting not killing him?”

  She was back to be her inscrutable, Sigourney Weaver self. “Maybe. Maybe not. I think you made an impression on him. With your fist, I mean.”

  “That’s the only kind of impression I make on people,” I said, and cocked my head, looking back. “Arche. Yvonne. Get the hell out of here.”

  “Gimme a sec,” Yvonne said, nudging Arche who was in some kind of machine coma, attached to a computer in the corner. She started to stir. “Hey, we gotta go,” Yvonne said.

  Arche blinked a few times, looking around the war room. “What happened here?”

  “I happened,” I said.

  She looked at me, cocked her head, shrugged and said, “Well, that figures.” She stood and adjusted her trenchcoat. “Did Hades survive?”

  “Barely,” I said. “But I wouldn’t go taking any future work from him if you value your health.”

  She showed an almost imperceptible scowl at the corners of her mouth. “He owes me.”

  “Well, he’s crawling around here somewhere,” I said, “why don’t you go collect? Take it out of his hide for all I care.”

  “I have no use for human leather,” she said, adjusting her coat sleeve, the one she kept that retractable, telescoping metal arm up. “I want what he promised me.”

  “Yeah, well, I wanted him to be the stable father figure I always lacked growing up, but wishes aren’t exactly turning to horses around here if you know what I mean,” I said. “Stay out of trouble, Arche.”