Hero

by Robert J. Crane

  “How about I just stay out of your way instead?” she asked, shooting me a faint smirk as she disappeared out the door.

  “Same difference,” I said, turning my attention to Yvonne. “And you … ‘Owens.’ Same thing.”

  “Yeah, I’ll just give up my life of lucrative crime because you threaten me,” she said. “I have definitely learned the error of my ways and will see about carving out an honest living. Maybe minimum wage cashier at McDonald’s? I’m all over it.”

  “But on the benefits side,” I said, “you get to live a lot longer than if I catch you doing shit you shouldn’t be.”

  Yvonne seemed to weigh this, head bobbing back and forth as she walked toward the door. “That’s true. But on the downside … no money to speak of. Money. Life. You see the conflict here?”

  I looked around and found a piece of rock that had apparently been blown in from the tank shell hole I’d in the side of the castle. Snatching it up, I threw it at her, overhand, and she ducked with a grin.

  “I’ll try and stay out of your way, too, Nealon. Assuming you’re even out in the world after this.” She winked at me, and then she, too, was gone.

  “I’m just letting people walk away left and right today,” I said, sighing.

  Lethe nodded, standing next to me. “It’s like you’re developing the concept of mercy. I discovered that one myself a little later in life than you.”

  I started to collapse, the adrenaline giving out and my legs going with it. I wasn’t bleeding anymore, but I’d lost a lot of blood. A great deal of which was still on my clothing and skin.

  Lethe caught me and steered me down to a step. I sat down heavily and leaned the small of my back against the step above. “Just … leave me here,” I said.

  She made a face, a kind of tight, pinched face. “You sure?”

  I listened in the distance. “Hear that?”

  She listened. “… No?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “No gunfire outside.” I pointed at the hall in the far wall. “That means the battle is over, and the US troops are storming the castle. You need to get out of here if you don’t want to get tangled up with them.” I sighed again, and it felt like it was the first step before I passed out. “And trust me … you do not want to get caught in their dragnet.”

  “What about you?” she asked, rising to her feet.

  “Just leave me,” I said, waving her off.

  “All right,” she said with a nod, and headed for the door. She paused beside it, turned and said, “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Huh?” I asked.

  But she was already gone.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-ONE

  Reed

  “Just let them go,” Cassidy’s voice came, soothing, over the howling wind. “They’re disarmed, and there’s already a flight of military planes on its way to you to retrieve the plutonium. Let them go.”

  I let them go. I was so sick of pushing them this far … my fingers were frozen to the bone …

  “Where … where am I …?” I asked, teeth chattering as I came around in a cloud bank. The chill was endless … endless … the glare off the cloud tops blinding. I felt like my eyeballs were burning in my skull, and my skin was burning from the cold.

  Cassidy’s voice was like a whisper in the distance. “I’d tell you to chill out, but it seems kinda counterproductive. Just … hang in place for a second, will you?”

  “For what?” I asked. I could almost feel the ice crawling up my skin. The vortex holding me aloft was starting to stutter and die.

  I was freezing to death.

  My breath was like a block of ice in my chest.

  I—

  —couldn’t—

  —breathe—

  I started to fall, fall back, infinitely back, out of the sky—

  Strong arms caught me as I fell. Warmth surrounded me.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Veronika Acheron said, a little frost on the tips of her hair, a light plasma fire alight on her fingers. “Hang on and I’ll warm you up.”

  “Please don’t set the plane on fire.” Greg Vansen’s precise, clipped voice was receding. He’d grabbed me somehow—

  I lifted my head.

  We were on the Concorde.

  “Did Cassidy tell you where to find me?” I asked, looking around. I saw them all—even June Randall, though she’d apparently shed her bonds in favor of just chilling in a first-class seat, flipping through a magazine and giving me barely a cocked eyebrow as I spoke.

  “Yeah,” J.J. piped up from the second row. “She guided us right in, man. Just in time, too, judging by the … uh … ice. I mean, seriously, bro, you look like Old Man Winter gave you a big, sloppy kiss all over.”

  “Yuck,” I said, looking around. Someone was missing, and it only took me a second to figure it out. “Where’s Scott?”

  “Had to drop him off the coast of Revelen to deal with some stuff,” Augustus said. “Per Cassidy.”

  “So we’re taking orders from Cassidy now?” I asked, propping up on my elbows as Veronika turned down the plasma heat a notch. I eyed her, then the plane, and she shrugged. Having flaming plasma aboard a plane probably wasn’t the safest thing. She doused the flames without comment.

  “Seemed like the thing to do, letting her quarterback,” Jamal said, popping his head up from the second row. “She was working with Sienna the whole time, after all. Helped you get those missiles under control.” He was staring at me, and my face must have taken a turn. “What?”

  That was the question I’d forgotten in the cold. The most important one of all, and I took a breath of the warm, cabin air to ask:

  “Where’s Sienna?”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-TWO

  Passerini

  “Closing in, sir,” General Marks said, as Passerini sat in his chair, watching the screen. They had a live feed of some of the SEAL headsets, and the castle corridors were passing at a pretty good clip. Not much in the way of resistance now. “We’ll be to her soon.”

  “Good,” Passerini said, and then looked at the phone on the table. “Mr. President … are you following along?”

  “I’m following,” Gondry’s voice came over the line, surprisingly clear and strong, given the day they’d just had. “That … was some damned fine work, SecDef. I’m not too proud to admit … I was wrong. And you—you steered us through that one. I should have listened to you earlier.”

  Passerini tried to keep his eyebrows under control. He looked around to see if anyone had heard that; Graves was only one close at hand, and he smiled and nodded, as if to say, Yep. Heard it, too.

  “Thank you, Mr. President,” Passerini said. He took a long, slow breath. “But if it’s all the same to you … I’ll have my resignation letter on your desk tomorrow morning.”

  “Now?” Gondry asked. “You want to leave … now? After all that? Good God, man, the press is going to eat me alive for letting you go after—”

  “I’ll … tell them that we had agreed to it in advance, sir,” Passerini said, putting his hands behind his head. He turned, looked at Graves, and made the shoo! sign with his hand. “I’ll make sure to take it to the press in a way that doesn’t reflect badly on you, Mr. President. I appreciate your recommendation, but I just don’t think our goals are going to be compatible going forward. They weren’t before, I don’t think they’re going to change just because of this, and I don’t think it’s fair to hamstring you with a SecDef who doesn’t share your vision.”

  Graves caught Passerini’s eye. He sketched a rough salute. “So long, Admiral,” Graves whispered.

  Passerini just waved at him as the younger man disappeared. The impersonating an officer thing still rankled him, but he couldn’t deny Graves had probably just helped avert a nuclear war. Passerini was a hardass, but he wasn’t hardass enough to stick a man in Leavenworth after something like that.

  “That’s very fair of you, Bruno,” President Gondry said at last. “I’m sorry we haven’t seen eye to eye. That�
�s probably my fault more than yours. Harmon left me a hell of a mess, and I—I suppose I can get a little … ornery sometimes trying to figure out how to make this presidency my own. I missed some pretty big moves that you tried to point out to me, and … well … maybe you can recommend a replacement who’s a middle ground between myself and you. Someone who could help me see things … a little closer to your way.”

  “I’d be honored to, sir,” Passerini said. “You’ll have my recommendation along with my letter.”

  “You’re a good man, Passerini. I’m sorry to lose you.” Gondry paused. “But … there is one more thing I need from you before you go. One last duty, I guess you could say, in this whole mess clean-up.”

  Passerini listened. “Yes sir?”

  There was a long, long pause before Gondry spoke again. “It’s about Sienna Nealon. We can’t just let her go.” Passerini could almost hear him leaning closer to the phone, all the light-hearted tone gone from his words. “She has to be brought back.”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE

  Sienna

  I collapsed against the step, unable to hold myself upright any longer. My muscles hurt, my skin hurt, my nerves hurt, and my head—

  Yeah, my head was still ringing like one of those giant bells that somebody had gone crazy on with a gong.

  “Nealon?” someone asked, kicking in the door. A tall, heavily built black man in military garb hauled himself in, limping along, a good-sized submachine gun clenched in his fists.

  “Hey, Quincy,” I said. “Or should I say, ‘Hey, Terminator.’ If you’ve come to kill me … do it quickly. I don’t even think I can fight back right now.” I slumped a little further, because I was totally spent.

  More footsteps. Bootsteps. Whatever.

  Quincy was standing over me a second later, extending a hand. “Can you walk?”

  “Jury’s out,” I said. “Unlike my trial. Bah dum bum! I’m here all week, folks. Mostly because no, I don’t think I can walk.”

  Quincy let out a low chuckle. “Let’s get her some help over here.” And some SEALs entered the edges of my vision, one of whom was carrying a portable stretcher and put it together right before my very eyes while another gave me a quick once-over.

  “How many fingers am I holding up?” the corpsman asked me.

  “More than me,” I said, extending my middle one right in his face.

  Quincy flat-out laughed. “She’ll be fine.”

  The corpsman didn’t seem so sure. “Looks like a concussion and gallons of blood loss, based just on the scabbing I can see through the holes in her clothes. If she was normal person, she’d be dead.”

  “Let’s get you out of here,” Quincy said and took one end of the stretcher up all on his own. I felt my weight shift, and lay back. I really couldn’t do much of anything at this point.

  I’d actually fought myself to the point of collapse.

  That was new. Sort of.

  “Where am I going?” I asked as they made it to the door, dragging me along into the corridor. Everybody was being way, way too quiet. Like they were carrying my casket out or something.

  “We’ll start with Ramstein Air Base to get you looked at by the docs,” the corpsman said. “After that …”

  I saw looks traded. Not good ones.

  “Yeah,” I said, settling back. Might as well enjoy the ride, since it was likely to be my last for a while.

  Home. They were taking me home to the US. And then …

  Prison.

  Again.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FOUR

  Dave Kory

  The party was over in the office, it had moved into one of the local bars here in Williamsburg. Dave had cajoled a few articles and listicles out of people before they departed, but his heart wasn’t much in it.

  Traffic was down because people were celebrating all over the country right now. Hell, all over the world.

  But that was fine. Good, even. It gave him a chance to sharpen the scoop he was going to go live with shortly. He blinked, trying to get some of the tiredness out of his eyes as he re-read the same passage for the dozenth time.

  Sources in the Gondry administration have confirmed that while rumors had been circulating about a security camera video proving Nealon’s innocence, no one within the government had seen the video until it broke into widespread circulation online during the height of the Revelen crisis.

  Dave took a breath, blotting at his eyes. Not his finest writing, but he was tired, and he’d just watched this drama play out on a global scale. But he needed to get this up, and fast. And into the hands of certain people of influence, who could spread the message across social media, and in front of enough eyeballs to make an impact.

  He went back to editing.

  And while there is little to recommend Nealon’s guilt in the now-surfaced video, it is hardly a total exoneration of her for other crimes, a source in the Department of Justice pointed out. Other investigations are ongoing, linking Nealon to a variety of charges up to and including murder …

  That was the money shot. Give a little with one hand, take with the other.

  This would have to do. It was just the vanguard of their plan, after all. It’d get good clicks, get circulated. If the story ever blew big because of some future break in Nealon’s story, he’d repost it to the home page, make sure it got some more eyeballs. That was the nice thing about writing a Cover Your Ass piece like this. If someone came along in a year and said something like, “Man, you guys really didn’t cover Sienna Nealon’s exoneration very well,” he could just shoot them the link to this. Boom. Answered.

  And if they pointed out that he’d run ten thousand pieces talking about what a garbage person she was to the one, little one that exonerated her?

  Well, to hell with them. Dave hit publish and logged off. No one was even clicking tonight anyway.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-FIVE

  The Watcher

  He sat in the darkness, staring at the flickering screen. It had been suspenseful, watching it all unfold, the cool air around him unbroken save for the occasional rumble in the distance.

  And now … the click of a door.

  “I have some bad news for you, my friend,” came a voice from a silhouette in the doorway. It was him—and he dragged himself in quite haggardly, slumped of shoulder and with a limp. “You are going to have to move on now, I am afraid.”

  The Watcher rose. “You cannot compel me to leave. We have an arrangement.”

  Hades stepped in front of the television. His face was bloody. Beaten. Bruises dotted his cheeks and he looked to be missing at least one tooth. “If you do not leave now, via the tunnels,” he pointed past the Watcher, “the United States government will likely be kicking down your door in minutes.

  The Watcher stared at him coldly. “He is not ready yet.” His gaze slid around to the cylinder wherein the Sleeper rested. “You are a fool. You have let your own blood vanquish you. Well, I am not so easily dissuaded. I will show her—”

  Hades snapped a hand around his wrist. “You will do nothing of the sort. You will leave her be and gather your … cargo …” he looked at the cylinder, “and get the hell out of here before you cause yourself and me further problems. You will not fight her this day.”

  The Watcher pushed back. “You are weak, Hades. Too weak to stop me if I go up there. And you know I will not fail with her. I have never failed.”

  “So you mean to kill her?” Hades lifted a hand. “Test me, if you care to. See if I can’t rip your withered soul out of your body before you step one more foot.”

  The Watcher stared at him. Wavered.

  “Have it your way, then,” the Watcher said. “We will go—for now. But when the Sleeper wakes—”

  “Yes, yes,” Hades said, waving a hand at him as he went past, bound for the tunnels that lay beyond, in the darkness. “You have regaled me with this particular tale over and over again. When you leave the dark, she will die, blah blah blah. You
should really stop being so tiresome, my friend. Learn to live in the now.” And he disappeared into the dark. “And don’t try and go after her today. I will know, and I will rip your soul asunder.”

  “I will not,” the Watcher said to the fading shadow of the God of Death. “Not today.” And he turned to look back at the cylinder where the Sleeper waited. “For I must gather things together … and go.” He took a step forward and put his hand on the cool side of the cylinder. “For now. But soon the wait will be over. And Sienna Nealon—”

  “Will die, yes, yes,” Hades’s voice echoed back through the tunnels. “You are such a drama queen.”

  The Watcher narrowed his eyes and said no more. But she would die.

  He would see to it.

  Just a little longer.

  Without another word, he set about his task, preparing the cylinder for transport, to take it somewhere that would be safe, would not be disturbed … until the awakening.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SIX

  Sienna

  “Where are we?” I asked as I stirred to consciousness, the skies a bright orange shining through a nearby porthole window. I was on a military transport plane, lying on the deck, surrounded by military guys in jump seats, and to my right was Warren Quincy, watching over me with a careful eye. As one should, for a dangerous prisoner.

  “Over Germany now,” the corpsman asked, checking the IV that he’d strapped into my arm.

  “Great,” I said, and pulled the IV.

  “Hey, you shouldn’t—”

  “I’m fine,” I said, sitting upright. I felt a little lightheaded, but most of the pain was already fading. I had a pretty thick layer of blood over the whole of me, most of which (I thought) was mine, but none of which was going anywhere without a shower and some intense scrubbing.

  I just hoped that whatever prison they tossed me in, they at least went easy on the firehose. Or my skin healed first. Whichever. Beggars can’t be choosers and all that.