McGarrity scanned the perimeter of the protective bubble, eyes darting from side to side. “I’d get ready to fire, boys and girls…kinda now-ish.”
We pressed the stocks of our machineguns into our shoulders, leveling our barrels. The tip of Peyton’s gun was an inch too close to the barrier and it sizzled when it grazed the surface, causing her to gasp. She swallowed hard and reset her weapon.
Everyone seemed ready. I gave McGarrity a thumbs up and he nodded back, his eyes glistening with a maniacal energy that sent a chill up my spine.
“Wait,” I shouted. “Steve, remember that we need him alive, right? Stay composed out there. I need you to be a surgeon, not a butcher.”
The smile that twisted across his face gave me little comfort. “Precision strikes, Mox. I got it.”
And then the dome disappeared.
We fired into the crowd of Darmaki’s followers. Like the mob that had rushed our transport, they were armed with old Soviet-era machine guns, firing them wildly. But they were protected by nothing more than white robes which were punched through with plumes of red as they fell. We aimed for their extremities, hoping for as few fatalities as possible, but it was too chaotic for true accuracy.
Our suits held up against their fire and McGarrity swung his sword so quickly that it created a blur; a solid block of light that deflected bullets as they whizzed towards him. His attack was a buzzsaw that sliced through our attackers with anything but scalpel-like precision. Limbs sailed off and streams of crimson painted the walls.
It didn’t take long for the mob to realize that our suits couldn’t be penetrated with bullets. Those who had functioning legs turned and ran, and those who were injured were dragged off by the able-bodied. They passed us by, hurrying out the corridor at our backs.
Once the wave of terrified soldiers had fled, we were able to see what lay ahead: at the end of the warehouse-sized armory, with its high ceilings and seamless alabaster walls stood Sultan Darmaki. Tall and confident, with a small gathering of super humans ready at his side. Dozer pitched forward like he was prepared to charge, his bronze musculature shimmering in the torch light. Botha (not yet in her giant-sized state) punched a gloved fist into her open palm; the knuckle-cracking pops echoed down the chamber like tiny firecrackers. Trey McLamore’s hands glowed with a hazy green energy, fingers curled into claws. Thankfully Jonathan Ma and his army of clones were absent thanks to a well-placed sniper shot from Peyton (had she been practicing her aim in secret?) and the rest of the superhumans I’d spotted during his party were absent – although Darmaki’s remaining brute squad provided more than enough resistance.
“Mister Moxon, my friend,” Darmaki shouted from across the long corridor. His voice carried effortlessly along the exposed walls. “I am impressed that you made it this far. And I am a very difficult man to impress.”
“No one needs to die, here,” I called out. “Give yourself up and everyone can walk.”
He let out a hearty laugh, head back, hands covering his stomach. “Oh, I love Americans. Your sense of humor remains intact, regardless of the circumstances. It is a virtue that has not yet spread to the East, I am afraid.”
“This is over, fucker,” Brynja seethed. “Mox wants you alive, but that doesn’t mean I can’t snap your arms off and drag you back to America kicking and screaming.”
His smile vanished at Brynja’s threat.
“You should control your woman,” he instructed me, harsh and forceful.
Peyton cocked her gun and redoubled her hand around the grip. “Oh, screw this guy.”
Before I could call out to her she’d broken into a sprint, racing across the wide-open space between us and Darmaki.
Dozer, Botha and Trey charged to meet her.
I sprinted into the fray, gun blazing with Brynja, Gavin, and McGarrity following close behind.
I emptied my clip into Dozer’s head and chest, but without even managing a distraction, much less any harm. I might as well have been lobbing pebbles at the side of a tank. Tossing my gun aside I pulled the cannon from my back, struggling to latch it onto my arm as I charged.
The collision happened before I could intervene. Dozer’s fist collided with Peyton’s helmet, knocking her off her feet. She slid backwards across the floor. McGarrity retaliated with a series of wild sword swings, chopping at the bronze giant like a towering redwood. The light show was spectacular, but his blade was still unable to penetrate the monster’s hide.
“This is useless,” Brynja shouted. “We need to detain him!” She pulled a long flexible cord from her utility belt that glowed when she extended it. She rushed in as McGarrity continued his assault.
“You’re going down, you son of a bitch,” he howled as he continued to hack away.
Brynja kept trying to approach Dozer and McGarrity, but the flailing sword was keeping her at bay. “Out of the way, you idiot! I’ve got him.” She shielded her eyes with an outstretched hand, the sparks bouncing off her gauntlet.
When the swinging sword relented for a moment she lunged, coiling the wire around Dozer’s wrist. He shrugged her off as McGarrity slashed once again, accidentally catching Brynja across her forearm. The blade sliced though her gauntlet and opened a wide laceration, sending a stream of liquid that dotted the stone floor. The fluid that poured from her veins had the same consistency of blood, but there was a single bizarre difference: it was blue. A bright molten cobalt that glistened in the torch light.
She grimaced, latching her hand around her forearm.
In the fray I couldn’t tell whether or not McGarrity had noticed the color that she’d bled, but he was clearly horrified by what he’d done. His attention shifted from Dozer to Brynja for a heartbeat too long, allowing a bronze hand to coil around his neck. And then another.
Glendinning squeezed until McGarrity’s face reddened, then purpled, eyes bulging from their sockets. His feet dangled inches off the ground.
I steadied the cannon and fired. Not at Dozer – his reflective surface would have deflected the beam – but at the space directly beneath his feet. I’d released just enough energy to destabilize the stone floor, forcing it to melt into quicksand. As he sank waist-deep I cut off the power, allowing the floor and his bronze exterior to meld together, coalescing into a singular piece of fused matter.
He bellowed and flailed his arms, trying to pound himself free, but his struggle was futile. His own impenetrable skin had combined with a portion of the floor; he could slam his fists into it for a century and it would never buckle.
McGarrity had rolled to safety, gasping for air. He was barking out painful coughs, dotting the stone floor with crimson. Deep welts circled his neck.
Gavin and I stood shoulder-to-shoulder, squaring off with Botha and Lamore.
“Are you ready to negotiate now, my friend?” Darmaki called out. His hands burst with flame, casting a sinister glare across his face. “I am impressed by your valor. I did not expect you to even make it up the staircase, but you have defeated my clones and bested my strong man. Impressive, though you are a betting man, are you not? I do not like your odds against my giant…and also what comes next.”
Gavin looked back over his shoulder; Peyton, his sister, battered into unconsciousness; McGarrity, lying half-dead on the floor; and Brynja, gripping her forearm, drops of bright blue liquid pooling beneath her.
He unlatched the strap from his shoulder and let his gun clack to the floor.
I ripped off my helmet.
“Gav, what the f—”
“I can’t,” he confessed weakly. “I’m sorry, I…I want to get out of here. With you and Peyton and everyone, all in one piece.”
“You don’t know this guy,” I pleaded. “He’s not gonna let us walk just because you surrender.”
“Let him beg,” Darmaki laughed. “Perhaps he can persuade me.”
I raised the cannon strapped to my arm, grunting from exertion, barely able to hoist it to waist-level.
Botha and Trey took a backwards
step, but Darmaki advanced. His eyes blazed, a raging inferno crackling in each palm.
“Ah, we are playing yet another game, Mister Moxon. We both hold power in our hands. Me, with real power – the power divined to me from on high. And you,” he sneered, “with your technology; metal and silicone, cobbled together.”
“One flick of my finger and this technology turns you into a steaming meat waffle.” I flicked my thumb into the safety latch, spooling up the power with a low hum.
Darmaki’s smile was bright beneath his dark beard. “So you have enough power to unleash another blast? And before I can unleash this?” Pillars of flame rose from his palms, swirling towards the ceiling. “Or are you bluffing, my friend?”
“Let’s find out,” I said with false confidence, tilting the barrel of the cannon up as far as I could manage. Beads of sweat formed on my hairline, rolling down my temples.
“If I die you will have nothing, Mister Moxon. No evidence to clear your name. No company, no resources. And your friends…do you think they will all escape here alive?”
He extended his palms towards Brynja, flames pulsing, poised to burst.
“Mox,” Gavin said, his voice panicked. “Stop this right now, man. Do something...”
“Last chance,” Darmaki taunted me.
Inside the concealed grip of my cannon I was already squeezing the trigger. My anti-matter gun vibrated with power…but was unable to fire.
He shook his head, as if in embarrassment for me. “Botha, Lamore, take Mister Moxon. We are going to dispose of the rest.”
A blast exploded from overhead, pouring a shaft of daylight into the armory. Chunks of ceiling rained down as an electric blue streak burst into the room, as sudden and violent as a lighting strike. The streak trailed across my field of vision and the flames from Darmaki’s hands disappeared, snuffed out in a single puff like tiny candles on a birthday cake.
Darmaki dropped to his knees, hyperventilating. His eyes were transfixed on the cauterized stumps at the end of his forearms where his hands used to be. A horrified scream lodged in his throat. It would remain there for nearly a minute until the shock wore off.
Peyton regained consciousness and lurched to her feet. She started towards us and removed her helmet, examining it for a moment, goggling at the deep indent that was shaped like Dozer’s fist.
“Wow, these things can really take a beating,” she said.
“Peyton…” I called out, not turning around.
“Oh, I’m fine. Don’t bother with me. Once again, I get knocked on my butt, and no one even bothers to check if I’m okay. I’s not like I’m a—”
“PEYTON,” I shouted.
She tilted her head up and saw what the rest of us were staring at. Not Darmaki’s handless body, or Dozer lodged in the floor, or Botha and Lamore sprinting out the open doors like they’d just seen a ghost. Our focus was locked on the powerful, imposing figure who was familiar, and at the same time almost completely alien – nearly unrecognizable. His blue body suit, dark matching boots and gloves, the cowl and flowing cape; it had all changed since last we’d seen him. Even the emblem on his chest – the piercing, all-seeing eye – had taken on a more menacing design.
He stared at us with a vague sense of recognition, but nothing more. His gaze was a rush of cold wind that stung my skin. Judging by the expressions of everyone around me, they’d experienced the same chilling sensation.
It was Kenneth Livitski.
The Living Eye.
And I had no idea how he’d found us.
PART TWO: THE NEW AGE
“When He tore back the curtains and exposed the truths of this world, my transformation was instantaneous. I was renewed; born again with virgin eyes. I shuffled loose my broken past like rusted shackles, clanging to the floor. I have never seen so clearly.”
- Herald of The Order (Darknet Holoforum)
Chapter Seventeen
My real life has been difficult to separate from my dreams over the last two years. My once razor-sharp memory had dulled considerably: recent events drifted out of my mind, day bled into night while I struggled to keep track of time, and, most disturbing, voices echoed inside my head. The pills kept some of the symptoms at bay, but medication could only do so much. But the vivid dreams – the really trippy, Sandman-meets-Adventure Time journeys through my subconscious mind like the one I was currently experiencing – were clearly labeled. There was no way I’d mistake this trip down the rabbit hole for an actual, physical experience.
I was falling, as I tended to do in my dreams. Spinning, spiraling through the darkness. The Liwa Desert opened beneath me, the sand swallowing me into an ever-deepening cavern. Objects cascaded all around me: books, chairs, shattered pieces of the palace above…and people. Screaming, panicked people clawing at the sand around them, as though they could climb their way out of a rushing waterfall if they just struggled hard enough. Their cries were drowned out by my own. The floor was rapidly approaching, with long fingers of flame reaching out towards us, lighting the tunnel as we dropped.
A blue lightning bolt streaked my vision. Kenneth had flown to my aid, or so I’d thought. He hovered at eye level, locking his eyes onto mine, never reaching out to me. I begged him to help me, tears streaking my face as the heat overwhelmed me, my skin charring, hair disintegrating. He just watched. It was a look of indifference, as if my body turning to cinder was of no great concern; he’d just as soon let me turn to ash as reach out for my arm, pulling me to safety. I was suddenly unconcerned with the fall, the heat, the muscle and sinew falling from my bones. I needed to know why. Why was he here? Why now? And why wouldn’t he just say something? I would embrace my fiery condemnation then and there if I could just get a goddamned answer…
My eyes snapped open before my remains could tumble into the abyss, just as I’d heard Peyton’s voice.
“Are you going to get out of bed today?” she called out as she emerged from the bathroom. A towel was wrapped around her chest and another twisted around her head, drying her wave of pink locks. She poked her thumb into the wall panel by the bathroom door, triggering the blinds to elevate. The flood of bright yellow sunlight might as well have been an atomic bomb going off in my retinas.
“Argh, what’s wrong with you! It’s only…” I squinted and cupped a hand over my wrist com. “Oh. Damn.”
Peyton padded over and sat on the edge of the bed, pulling a bottle of moisturizer from the end table. “Would you care to join me for lunch?” She squirted a glob of peppermint green goo into her hand, rubbing it up and down her arm. “I just need a few minutes here and I’m heading down to the common room. I heard the chefs are making pizza.”
I rolled over and yawned, burying my face in a pillow. “When did you get up?”
“Several hours ago,” she giggled. “You know, like around breakfast time? When humans typically wake up? I went to the gym, had a conference call with the board of directors, got your pardon approved by the DOJ, and then I helped out one of the maintenance workers with her golden retriever. The poor little guy had been throwing up all night.”
I bolted upright, eyes wide. “Wait – what? Why didn’t you come get me?”
“I didn’t know you’d be so interested in puppy barf.”
I continued to stare at her, eyebrows creased together.
“Ohh, the pardon,” she said, absently applying a fresh handful of lotion to her thigh with a long stroke. “Right. Well after we dropped Darmaki at the Department of Justice yesterday, they went right to work on him.”
“Work?” I asked, suspicious. “What does that mean, exactly?”
She shrugged. “I asked that exact same question.”
“And?”
“They told me not to ask. However they managed it, they were able to get a written confession out of Darmaki in like, twenty minutes.”
“How did he write it?” I asked. When Peyton looked confused I lifted my hand and made a chopping motion at my wrist.
“Oh…huh. G
ood question. They didn’t say…with his mouth, maybe? Or his toes?”
“But either way we’re in the clear?” I asked.
“Paperwork is going through right now,” she said brightly. “The President of the UAE gave his blessing and the feds raided his palace. With whatever they found, coupled with his confession, it was enough evidence for them to drop all charges against you. You’re not terribly popular after your escape in Manhattan and they have some follow up questions, from what they tell me it’s a done deal. No more running, and we can head back to America whenever we want.”
“All good news,” I said, rolling out of bed. I stood, stretched, and reached for my red hoodie and jeans, which were rumpled up on the floor.
“Planning on taking a shower at some point this week?” Peyton asked, glancing down at my clothes. “Or running those through a washing machine…or the incinerator?”
“Hey,” I chuckled. “I happen to like my clothes.”
“Uh huh,” she grumbled. “That was my other project this morning. I took the liberty of using the 3D printer to make you a new wardrobe.” Peyton crossed the bedroom and reached for the sliding glass doors across from our bed, pressing her finger into the reflective surface. They hissed open to reveal a closet filled top-to-bottom with freshly minted clothes: forty pairs of blue jeans, neatly folded and stacked, with a dozen identical red hoodies on hangers – along with an assortment of a hundred different comic book shirts. “I know you’re not big on the housekeeping, so I made you these. Just toss them in the garbage when you’re done with them.”
“Wow, this is impressive,” I said with a nod. “And incredibly wasteful.”
“So I was thinking, now that superhumans aren’t destroying the world and Sultan Darmaki is out of the picture: how about Paris?”
I riffled through the clothes on the rack until I located a character from ‘Watchmen’ splashed across a black t-shirt. “Sweet, Dr. Manhattan by Adam Hughes.” I pulled it over my head and gazed at the reflection in the mirror. I pulled a pair of jeans from the stack and stepped into one of the legs.
Final Empire Page 18