by P. S. Power
The strain of it showed in his voice, but when the President asked about it, the other man had no particular problem doing so, even if that wasn't what he should have been saying. That was good to know. It wouldn't be everyone in the world that got hit like he was then, when they finally broke the hold that Braid had on them. They probably wouldn't even know it had taken place.
Brian, he knew, would.
That was fine. If he had to suffer, so that the rest of the world could survive in the long run, then so be it. He could live in agony, if that was needed, or even die. Not that it seemed all that easy. In fact, the moment he stood back up and the President spoke again, the world slipped back into place, and all the pain left.
Almost as if it had never been there. Except for his memory of it taking place.
That was fresh and real enough for him.
"This is... Well, good news of course. That the entire IPB wasn't destroyed in a single act of terrorism, is huge. I can see why they were in hiding. I would have been too. I don't know how this will play in the bible belt, but..."
Brian didn't fight it this time, letting the words just come like they were supposed to. The way the universe required him to do, thanks to Devorah and her decades long effort.
"Not that poorly. This attack should have destroyed the city here. People watched it at home, and know enough to see what was prevented here now. The important part is that we need to manage the response." Then, tensing up for what was coming, he spoke.
It came out as a gasp. Horrible pain could do that to a fellow.
"We... Have to make them understand... that... we all have to... work together, and stop the hate."
It wasn't some complex message, but he was supposed to tell the man that he'd handle it. Himself. That Proxy would go on television and fix it all.
It wouldn't really work, since he tended to scare people for some reason. President Lawrence wasn't scary though. He was, at worst, seen as being a bit ineffectual. The man was a good speaker though, and after something as dangerous as what the world had just seen that day... It might be enough to start things down a different path.
Or not.
It was so hard to know what would happen. If anything.
The clean up on the ground took hours, and when the news crews came, they were supposed to have the Director speak to everyone and explain what had happened. Then he'd do a turn himself. Except that when things got to that point, he leaned over, in pain, and managed to get Bridget to go out for him. Not that he knew she'd be the one to change things, but the girl did fine.
As tears came to his eyes, he listened to her spin a story that was very nearly the truth, without actually being too much for the public.
In her high, almost piping, voice, she went into what had happened that day, and then, even if it wasn't what he would have said, managed to spill the beans about what Braid had done to them.
"So, right now, it seems that she's won. The mad woman, Devorah Timberland has tied up the future, so that no one can change anything on purpose. We're working to change this, and one of the things we have to do, is not fall for what she wants, and expects, us to do. Don't fight with each other, or hate others for things they can't control. It won't be easy, but it may be the only thing that can save millions of lives." Then, even though it was generating agony for Brian, she managed to get off the stage without answering any questions.
For a moment, nearly ten minutes, he could feel pockets of pain across the United States. People actually managing to change reality, making the right decisions, based on what they'd just heard. Then things slowly went back to normal. Back to the way their enemy wanted them to be.
"Damn." He didn't explain, just making several trips back to the base, the new one, taking everyone with him. They were going to have to answer some questions after all. He knew that.
Funnily enough, when Kevin Moore got into the small trailer that was their new HQ, and Marcia started to defer to him, moving to Brian's little table, the man waved for her to sit down. At the big desk.
"No, you're doing a fine job, Director Turner. It's not healthy for an organization to remain under the control of one vision for too long. I'll just move over here, by Brian, and second guess everything he does for a while, shall I?" He smirked about it, but it really was fair.
The man, who was old, but seemed less stressed than he had for the entire time that Brian had known him, boldly settled into the wheeled blue cushioned office chair that was Brian's. On purpose, as if it were just a joke. His heavy and bulky middle didn't flex much, and he didn't wear a suit for once, just a button up shirt and dark slacks. His gray hair was combed, and neat enough, but something in his posture was more balanced than before.
It got Brian to smile, which he made an effort to do well.
"Fair enough. We need to get with some people anyway. I... I'm not sure what to change, and it's agonizing for me to do, but I can push things, I think. Make it so that things aren't going the way they're supposed to, a bit. I..." Well, it was clear that there was one thing he needed to do, which was to find Devorah and kill her.
Somehow. There was an attempt to do that in the future, but he'd fail if he did it her way. Neither of them would be hurt. They'd simply fight until Tesseract removed the woman from the scene.
How could he counter that though? So far the man had held out against him in every fight they'd had.
For a long time he just stood there, thinking of plans, and discarding them, over and again. His mind raced through things, as the old director of the IPB and the new both watched him closely. Finally he had to shrug.
"There's almost nothing I can do here. Worse, I'm pretty sure that when we do manage to derail all of this, I'm going to die. She's managed to tie me into her future somehow. I think that a part of my own power is actually what's making it all happen."
It was Marcia, who was suspicious of everything, that looked up at the door, noticing that Brie was there, along with Rachel Chambers. That put over half of the original IPB Alpha Squad in one place for the first time in over thirty years. At least as far as the good half went.
Needless to say, there was some hugging to go around for a bit.
Brie looked good, of course. It was her normal state of being, due to her ability to do almost everything. Healed up from the wounds she'd gotten earlier from Braid, probably by going to the closest friendly healer and smiling at them. She had a nice smile, he knew, even though it wasn't on her face at the moment.
As Braid had once told him, there were very few people in the world that could understand him really. Herself, and Brie, maybe a few others that he didn't really know about for certain. Like Christian from his old team. She at least could know what he was thinking and going through, which was a thing. A real point that he very nearly had missed, given how they didn't really like each other that much.
Trivia looked at him, and included him in the hugs she was passing out. They'd only met a few times in the last six months. Well, for him that was the truth, but for her it had only been twice. The other two times had been in the eighties, when he'd traveled in time back to then.
Probably because Braid had set things up to make that happen in ways he couldn't even understand.
That got him to look at the woman he still associated with mainly working in a book store and having a cute behind, and wince.
"How much of what's happened in my life did she influence, do you think?" The two of them meeting, almost certainly.
The woman, his oldest friend there, after a fashion, since they'd chatted off and on for years, looked at him, and winced back. That got everyone else in the space with them to pay attention. It was only the five of them though, so far.
Brie shook her head a little, and glanced at the others, including them.
"Almost everything, Brian. She was there in your life, hundreds of times, just outside of you being able to notice her. She was your math tutor when you were five, the one that put your parents onto the path of pushi
ng you to be a child prodigy. She set things in motion for you and Doug to meet up, and for him to meet Carla in a way that caused both of you to eventually become Infected. She even had a hand in making sure the specific movie that had scared Carla Morris into using her power on you two was made in the first place, just to create that one event. She sent me to distract you from meeting other women, too. She even owned the factory that you worked at and made certain you got enough work to keep you from doing anything except exactly what she wanted you to. Nothing in your world was ever free of her influence. She played us all, perfectly." Trivia looked at the others and then shook her head. "Brian is... I guess the pin that's holding her plan in place right now? She's using his power to make the universe hold to the path she's picked."
That... Brian wanted to act like he was shocked, but couldn't. It would hurt too much, and besides, once he knew more about what had taken place, it all sort of made sense. How it worked, he didn't know though. That part was escaping him. Possibly because his own ability wasn't allowing him access to that kind of information?
"Great, so my entire life I've been a pawn. Played by this woman that I don't even know. Well..." He gasped, and dropped all the way to his knees in pain, fighting what he should be doing, even as it ripped into his soul. That's what it felt like at least. "Then... You should kill me. Get with Miranda Timberland, and some of the others, and make sure that will work, then take me out." Brian gasped through the entire thing, his voice harsh and rough.
It made sense, though speaking the words were completely horrible for him. It wasn't a thing that he could do, for himself. It would be too painful for him to act through. These people could do it for him, however, if he convinced them it was the right course to take.
For some reason all of them shook their heads.
Marsh rolled her eyes, sitting behind her big desk.
"There has to be another way. If we're wrong about this, and you aren't that tied into things, then we'll have lost an asset. One that might be needed in order to take on the current problem. What if that's part of her plan?" She glanced at Kevin then.
The man hated Brian though, so he figured that he might well be willing to make sure he didn't survive the day, if it was needed. The man smiled a bit, clearly liking the thought. Except that wasn't true. He didn't hate Brian at all. He just thought of him as a pain in the ass. One that was right often enough to be worth putting up with. That had pretty much always been the case too, the entire time they'd known each other.
"I have to agree with Ms. Turner here. That kind of complicated plan within plan is exactly what Devorah would do. Knowie, you said that she fooled you the entire time? How? I wouldn't think that anyone on the planet could do that."
Brie shook her head a bit, seeming genuinely baffled.
"I don't know? It's clear to me now that she knew about me being a spy the whole time, and how she used me for her own ends, but somehow she didn't let herself know that until earlier today. I don't think it was anything she did on purpose either. Her power managed it all for her. That's just a guess however." Looking at Brian, she seemed more than a bit sad then.
"It's really clear that she needs you to stay here and play your part in this. I don't know if we can remove you from the stream of time though. We don't have enough power available to do that." She smiled then, and glanced at the older man in the room. "Less, your power won't work on him now. He's too integrated into the world. No one we have can touch him, if he doesn't allow it, and in order to let that take place, he'd have to suffer pain on a level that even he would eventually have to give in to it and start fighting."
Would he though? It made sense, being about as bad as any pain he'd ever felt, but it was, in the end, only that. Just discomfort. Agony. If he had to suffer, in order to save everyone else, then he would. If Braid thought otherwise, then she wasn't aware of what she'd created by messing with his life like she had. Even without his first mode, just as regular Brian, the guy from Vancouver Washington, he would have done that.
"I don't suppose that Jeffery Shaw was influenced by her to do what he did too? Trying to kill me all those times?"
That got Trivia to shake her head a tiny bit.
"That one was pretty much all him. He's just not a good human being and never was. Sexually abused by his mother and a babysitter when he was little. It makes it hard for him to be comfortable with other people. That's become his first mode now. His power is the ability to project people's greatest fears into their minds. It's a class two ability though. He can only do one unique image at a time." It wasn't a surprise that she knew things like that, but it was kind of useful.
"Ah. Well, in a few days I'm supposed to go, alone, and kill him. I was..." He didn't let himself react to the pain he was feeling outwardly. Hopefully Christian wasn't too close to them at the moment. The poor woman would have to feel what he did too, if she connected with him mentally. They might not be friends, but he wouldn't force that on anyone he didn't have to.
Plus, they weren't enemies either.
It was a good thing to keep in mind.
Without gasping, he nodded at the others.
"I was thinking that I'd take a team of people in, and capture him instead. Alive. Then torture him to death over the next few months, since I really hate his evil behind. I can be fluid on that last part however. The trick is that I'll want to have good people to back me up." Because he was clearly going to be crippled by the universe trying to force him to be a good boy at the time.
It was Marcia who nodded, her face actually a bit prettier, carrying a smile.
"We do have a death warrant for him. Oh, hey, Trivia... Are you behind Brian always getting all the death warrants he's asked for? The DOJ never turns him down. I've wondered for a while how that was happening. At first I figured it would be Stillness, but then he died..."
Brie looked at the woman in her tan fatigues, which were a bit torn in places, since Quartz hadn't changed yet from the battle, and shook her head.
"No. That one is because of Barbara Dorn. Her great uncle works in the Department of Justice, and has set things up so that any time Brian needs something, he gets it. Automatically, day or night."
It was clear that Rachel and Moore didn't get the meaning of that. The name just didn't register for them.
Brian did though.
"I... didn't save her. Why would he help me?"
Marcia looked away, understanding the idea then, but Brie moved over to where he stood and hugged him, not letting him go while she spoke.
"Because he understands that you couldn't have won that first time, against the Jackal and his murder buddy. No one could have, really, starting from where you were. You were the one that found him though, and when you killed him, you told the whole world that it was about that one woman. It made an impact. So, since then, he's done what he could for you. That isn't the only person like that, either. Tobias, the guy from Canada? You let him get away from the Mounties up there, but also told him that he, personally, needed to make sure he protected the rest of society. It wasn't needed at the time, the zombie-wolves not following you that closely, but it was why he started the Proxy Union. Hundreds of people have been saved because of that. Just because you let him drive away with a few thousand pounds of weed."
Everyone else looked at him then, as if he wouldn't know what that was. Clearly they'd been hiding it from him. Probably because they didn't want the idea to go to his head. That was a good idea, probably. He just nodded.
"Ah. Well, I haven't killed anyone that tried to hurt me yet, so at least I have that."
Only ones that were trying to harm other people. Arranging the world in a way that Braid wanted him to.
Locking them into place, his power making certain, for some reason, that no one would be able to escape while he lived.
That still told him what would be needed though, didn't it? After he made sure it was the right plan, and that Jeff Shaw wouldn't be allowed to harm anyone else ever again, Brian
Yi needed to die.
Trivia smiled at him.
"Or at least be gone from this world? I don't know if it will work, but if you go to a different reality scheme, that might be enough to break her hold on us. I really don't think Devorah can do this without your ability organizing everything."
"Huh?"
Everyone else in the room looked at him like he was stupid, but Marcia cleared her throat.
"Yeah. That one. Look, it's pretty clear that part of your ability involves pushing other people to do specific things. Arranges reality for some reason. That's the part of this that she's using against us now, I bet." Crossing her arms across her chest, Marcia nearly seemed scared for a moment.
For him, he understood suddenly. Not for herself, but because her pal might just have to die in order to save them all. As if that weren't the only end point of his life possible? Plus, he'd basically just told them all that he needed to die, so his power wouldn't control them all. It was just what had to happen. It probably always had been.
Well, not that he'd always been slated to die for everyone. No, he'd always figured that he'd just step the wrong way eventually, trying to save some little girl or boy from traffic. Trip and hit his head while running away from a band of rabid squirrels or something equally heroic and noble.
Though, he noticed, there didn't seem to be any transfers coming up to save anyone in the near future. If at all. There were only the things that he knew about. The ones that were there in his head, clear and linear. It wasn't that no one was going to die who needed help, but like his power thought they were done needing to do anything at all.
Not that he loved the idea of going and fighting to the death, but for that part of him to suddenly stop, without warning, well, it had been the most important thing in his life for too long, hadn't it? It was why he'd stayed alive in the first place, after what had happened to him with the police. With Jeff Shaw in particular. If he would have picked doing anything else, other than what he had, back when he'd had the chance... Then the world wouldn't be trapped just then, would it?