Final Empire

by Blake Northcott

  “So wait, you’re saying that when I bleed this glowing blue ectoplasm that it actually sent out a signal? It’s like a GPS that tells Kenneth where I am?” She looked down at her arm, sneering, as if a troupe of angry insects were crawling through her veins.

  “Occam’s razor.”

  She lifted her eyes. “Is that Klingon?”

  “No,” I laughed. “It means the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”

  “My magical blood is the simplest answer? I think you and I have very different definitions of that word, Mox.”

  “It was the only anomaly during that entire fight,” I explained. “No one contacted Kenneth and tipped him off, and there were no sensors, cameras, or any other way to know we were there. When he came he was expecting you to be in trouble – he didn’t take off like a blue lightning bolt until he saw me there.”

  “Whoa.” She brought her hands to her forehead, dazed after the bombshell I’d just dropped. “So...what does that mean?”

  “It means that you’re connected to him – tethered, somehow. I don’t know exactly how but I’m going to find out, Brynja, I promise.”

  She let her arms fall at her side and her eyes cleared. It was as if she’d felt a blissful release – like a crushing weight had been lifted from her, allowing her to breathe again. “Let it go,” she said plainly.

  “What?”

  “Let. It. Go,” she repeated.

  I didn’t understand. “But this is what you wanted, Brynja. To figure out why you can’t change your appearance, why you can’t phase through things anymore, and now, with the blood—?”

  “I can’t spend the rest of my life wondering what I am…I need to start becoming who I am. Look around here, Mox – this is insane!” she threw her hands up, waving around at nothing in particular. “I’m here with you again, in one of your hermetically sealed domes, hiding from reality. The reason I left in the first place was so I could venture out into the real world and find my place in it.”

  “So you want to leave?” I asked.

  She fell back onto her mattress, staring up at the ceiling as I’d just done in my own room. “I don’t know what I want,” she said, her voice thin and exhausted.

  “Welcome to the club,” I said with a sigh. I fell back, landing at her side.

  “But I know what I don’t want,” she added. “I don’t want to be a burden to you anymore. And I don’t want to spend any more time focusing on Kenneth. He’s moved on as well, and if he wants privacy then he deserves it. Whatever I am, whoever I am, I’ll figure out on my own. It’s just scary.”

  “Scary?”

  “Scary because…” she trailed off, biting down on her lip. “What if I never figure it out?”

  “That’s probably another one of those ‘being human’ things. We’re never complete. But we keep trying to finish a puzzle that never runs out of pieces, and then get frustrated if we don’t see a clear picture.”

  “Humans are weird,” she grumbled.

  “We definitely are.”

  We continued to stare up at the ceiling, side by side. It was a blank canvas, untouched, and like the rest of the room it was in desperate need of some color. With a next-gen 3D printer and an entire staff at my disposal, I could have easily redecorated the room…I could’ve re-done all of the rooms throughout the entire fortress if I’d wanted. But day after day had drifted by, and I’d grown accustomed to the blandness. I’d convinced myself that it no longer bothered me, and that the effort of changing the design wouldn’t be worth the hassle. Anytime I’d mustered enough energy to take some initiative, I’d let something else distract me – something that I pretended required my immediate, undivided attention.

  I couldn’t help but think she was right: searching for answers you’ll never receive is no way to exist. The only way to push past the apathy is to focus on what really matters and chase your passions. And there’s never a better time than the present.

  Brynja finally rolled over, propping herself up on her elbow. “Wanna get some pizza?”

  I bolted upright, smiling wide. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  I’d gathered with Brynja and a few of the staff in one of the common rooms, happy to have a snack before my cooking show marathon with Peyton. Watching those shows are torturous enough – they’re positively agonizing to consume with an empty stomach.

  The circular white room had a sunken sitting area, where couches and lounge chairs surrounded a new floating holo-screen – a state-of-the-art projection that was like a massive eight-sided die that rotated slowly on an invisible axis. You could watch a simulcast while viewing from any angle. Much to the delight of the employees, I’d finally enabled outside communication, which meant Frost’s reign of tyranny had finally come to an end (only sixteen short months after his death).

  We sat on a leather couch, plates stacked with steaming pepperoni pizza resting in our laps. A soccer game blared from the holo-screen, and the growing number of spectators began to pack the room. A Scottish computer scientist laughed when she heard me use the word ‘soccer’ to describe what was clearly ‘football’, eliciting a giggle-fit from Brynja. When South Korea scored the first goal against Australia, half the room belted out a roar of approval, while the other half booed, tossing chips and popcorn at their friendly rivals.

  While the players on-screen were still celebrating their goal, the broadcast blipped off. It was replaced with a satellite image of a rocky shoreline.

  “This is a breaking story out of the United States,” the newscaster announced in her cultivated Australian accent. “The Department of Justice has a lead on some missing persons who have disappeared from American soil almost three months ago. According to facial recognition software, nineteen-year-old Boston native Janice West is believed to be the individual seen here. If you’re a sensitive viewer, you may want to look away.”

  The camera zoomed to an ash-white body, face-up, lying in a shallow inlet. Her auburn hair floated around her face, the clear water shot through with crimson. A more magnified close-up showed a wound. Her head, cracked like an egg; ragged skin split over shattered skull. And a wooden club floating at her side, bobbing into her shoulder with every roll of the tide, like a boat in a marina slip that someone had neglected to tie off.

  The room buzzed with conversation and shocked gasps, but the white noise silenced when I read the words that rolled by on the screen.

  ‘The Kerguelen Islands’.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “What is this shit?!” I shouted into my com, even before Detective Dzobiak’s image had materialized over my wrist. I was trying to steady my trembling arm as I hurried through the hallways, weaving my way back towards my room.

  “Whoa, hold up, man,” he said defensively. “this had nothing to do with me.”

  “How did the media get a hold of this footage?”

  “We made a breakthrough with a satellite,” Dzobiak explained. “Right after we finished talking. I got a shot of the outer edges of the island. A couple minutes of scanning and we IDed the floater.”

  “So why is it on the simulcasts already?” I shot back.

  Dzobiak sprang from his creaky office chair and moved towards his door, clicking it shut before continuing in a hushed voice. “Look, I told them to hold off on going public until we could figure out what was what, but did you see the victim’s name? I couldn’t stop them. This went way over my head and several million dollars over my pay grade.”

  The surname and the hometown of the victim seemed innocuous enough, but coupled with the urgency that this was broadcast to the world it suddenly snapped into focus: Janice West, from Boston. “West…” I said cautiously, “as in, Republican Senator Madelyn West, from Massachusetts?”

  “That’s the one,” he confirmed with a small nod, eyes darting away. “Single mom, too. And Janice was her only daughter.”

  It was all making sense. “Holy shit,” I whispered. I’d stopped rushing down the hallway. My feet, seeming
ly of their own volition, refused to keep carrying me, and I’d fallen back against the wall.

  “No shit,” he said, eyebrows raised. “‘Holy shit’ is right. The senator’s baby girl washed up on the shore of the island – your boy Kenneth’s island. I’m out of the loop on this one, but word around the water cooler is that she’s already talking to the president of France. She wants boots on the ground, pretty much yesterday.”

  “I don’t know what the reaction from the natives will be,” I said.

  “I thought you said it was Woodstock down there?”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty much a love-in, but Kenneth…you didn’t see what he did to Darmaki. If he feels threatened, and America escalates things…”

  The detective’s voice deepened and his gaze intensified; I suddenly felt as if I were back in New York being questioned in a tiny windowless room. “Hey, if he popped Senator West’s girl, he’s the one who escalated shit, man. He’s gonna end up with the world’s most powerful military firing rockets up his costumed ass.”

  “A lot of people could die if that happens,” I warned him.

  “Look around. People are dying already, Mox.”

  “Let me go back and talk to him,” I pleaded. “I know something weird is going on but this doesn’t seem like Kenneth’s style. I can’t believe he was responsible for a murder. It could’ve been one of his followers killing another one.”

  “The ‘blissed out’ followers?” he asked, his words dripping with sarcasm.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted weakly. And I didn’t. I was reaching, grasping for straws. I had no idea who would dump a body on the shore of Kenneth’s island – but I couldn’t believe it was him, or that he had anything to do with it.

  Dzobiak opened his palms, pitching back in his chair. “Like I said, Mox, it’s out of my hands. The wheels are in motion and there isn’t much time to work with. Whatever you’re going to do, you’d better do it fast…and get out of there before America arrives on his front porch. They’re not big on knocking, in case you haven’t heard.”

  My mind blistered with a million scenarios – ways to diffuse the situation without any need for further bloodshed. Whatever happens on that island could be resolved diplomatically, and there had to be a more rational way to bring the killer to justice. “What if you had proof that it wasn’t Kenneth?” I snapped. “What if you came with me to a neutral location – got confirmation right from him? Would that help calm things down?”

  He shook his head, unconvinced. “Yeah, I mean, if he cooperated – if he helped turn in the person responsible and we secured a confession, then I might be able to stop a full-on assault on the island. But like I said, this would have to happen now.” He glanced down at his watch. “I’m talking now. And unless I show up back here with some rock-solid, concrete evidence, and someone in cuffs…”

  “We’ll figure it out,” I assured him, now breaking into a sprint towards my room. “We always do.”

  I was on my way back to the common room when Brynja rounded the corner in a full sprint herself, colliding with me in mid-stride. Our chests slammed together and it knocked the wind out of both of us. She stumbled a step, regaining her footing.

  “Whoa!” I shouted. “Are you okay? I was just coming to get you, there’s an emerg—”

  “I know,” she cut in, breathless, clutching her chest. “I heard you.”

  “From the common room?” I asked. Damn, the acoustics in this fortress were even better than I thought.

  She pointed towards her forehead with both fingers. “Still with the mind reading,” she huffed. “Remember?”

  I let out a frustrated groan, balling my fists. “I told you to stop that shit, Brynja!” I actually stomped my foot a little when I said her name, like a toddler demanding a juice box.

  “And I told you to stop thinking so fucking loud – but this argument can probably wait, no?”

  I took a deep breath, steadying my voice, trying to behave more like an adult. “I know this sounds crazy, but we need—”

  “I know what you need,” she interrupted again. “I know we need to get to Kenneth, and I know we need to talk to him…and I know why you want me there.”

  “Damn, you read all of that?”

  She shrugged. “Like I said, you’re a loud thinker. When you’re stressed it’s like I’m wearing a pair of headphones, and I’m listening to a playlist of all the anxieties running through your mind. Believe me, it’s not a lot of fun being inside your screwed up brain.”

  “Okay, okay,” I replied, my patience wearing thin. “So you’re okay with the plan?”

  She nodded firmly, her lips pressing into a thin line – though her eyes overflowed with consternation. I wasn’t sure whether she was apprehensive about confronting Kenneth, or if she was afraid he might have been responsible for what we’d seen on the news. She’s had the utmost confidence in him from the moment they first met, and she’d never been given a reason to doubt him until now.

  “Look, there might be another way,” I assured her.

  “There isn’t,” she said plainly. “Don’t bullshit me, Mox. You know there’s only one way to do this. And we both know we can’t go to his island. It’s too dangerous.”

  “We’re not.” I started back down the hall and she followed close behind. “There’s only one safe place to meet Kenneth…I just don’t know how much he’s going to trust us once he arrives there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Brynja, Detective Dzobiak and I stood shivering, knee deep in snow on the frigid platform. Within a minute our cheeks had been stung red from the wind, lips chapped, eyelashes tipped with frost.

  The entire journey had taken only a couple of minutes. It was jarring, to put it mildly. Using the TT-100, Karin teleported us from the sweltering temperatures that choked the South China Sea to the wind-chilled rooftop of Dzobiak’s office building in Manhattan, and then over to central Europe in the blink of an eye. Two jumps in such a short time frame left my stomach in knots, head spinning, knees like jelly. My travel companions weren’t faring much better.

  I moved to the edge of the platform, where a string of red lights blinked relentlessly through the snow indicating the outer edge (there wasn’t a railing). I peered down at Lake Lucerne, which looked like a sparkling amethyst several thousand feet below. It was one of the country’s most breathtaking sights. If the wind hadn’t been slicing through my jacket, and if I’d been smart enough to wear a hat and gloves, I might’ve taken the time to appreciate the view. Now, all I could focus on was the irritating fact that Fortress 13 – possibly the most critical of all Cameron Frost’s technological hubs – was built into a perpetually frozen chunk of rock that overlooked Switzerland.

  “Are you sure this voodoo is gonna work?” Dzobiak asked, teeth chattering. He was squinting against the glare of the unobstructed midday sun, hand cupped over his eyes. He wore an overcoat on top of his black suit, but it was designed more for fashion than practicality.

  “We’re gonna find out,” I replied.

  Brynja tugged the sleeve of her puffy winter jacket away from her wrist, revealing the skin below. She pulled a small knife from her coat pocket and pressed the tip into her flesh. Biting down on her lip, she dragged the blade until a drop of sparkling blue liquid surfaced, trickling down towards her palm and rolling along her finger tip.

  “Wait,” I shouted, reaching out to her. “That’s your radial artery – you don’t want pull the blade up your arm. That’s how people commit suicide.”

  She crinkled her nose. “I though there had to be a lot of blood?”

  “Yeah, we need enough to send out the signal, but I don’t want you drained. Pull across, from side to side.”

  With a deep breath she repositioned the blade and forced her eyes shut. She pulled. It opened a gash that poured like a broken faucet. The alien blue substance that had the same consistency of blood flowed from her vein, down her hand, and melted into the fresh powder at her feet. The warm plasma his
sed as it disappeared into the snow, producing tiny plumes of steam.

  I pulled a length of sterilized cotton from my jacket, wrapping it several times around her wound. I held firm, sensing the heat rising from beneath the bandage. I could feel energy pulsing from her, as if the wound was already mending.

  “You think that was enough?” Brynja asked, peering skyward.

  Dzobiak pointed a gloved finger out over the horizon. “Unless that’s the world’s fastest blue jay, then yeah, I’d say it worked.”

  From the south he’d spotted a glistening blue light that was cutting through the sky, blistering towards us. A flash followed, like the lightning strike that had blinded us in the desert. Then the platform quaked with an aftershock, and a burst of snow rose around us in a thin cloud. By the time I’d blinked the streaks from my eyes and rubbed away the sting, Kenneth had arrived. Valeriya stood at one shoulder, Jonathan Ma at his other – the same person who had nearly killed us at Darmaki’s palace, until Peyton sent a bullet into his shoulder. Apparently Kenneth was now in the business of recruiting superhumans in addition to his groupies.

  They were a few hundred feet down the tarmac, marching towards us. As they approached Ma vibrated. He moved like a blur, and then seemed to split in two. It was so sudden I couldn’t tell which was him and which was his copy. Then he did it again, and again, and again after that, each time faster than the time before, until it seemed as if copies were simply materializing from thin air. In a heartbeat there were ten of him, walking lockstep with Kenneth and Valeriya.

  Dzobiak threw open his overcoat and reached for his hip where his sidearm was holstered. I lunged out and snatched his wrist, shaking my head.

  He froze. We made eye contact and a tense moment ticked by. He inhaled and nodded tentatively, pulling his hand away as I lightened my grip.

  I lifted my wrist to chin-level, jerking my sleeve away from my com. “Activate,” I commanded. The red lights that surrounded the vast metallic platform blinked off, replaced by a sparkling green. A siren wailed, warning that the device had been activated.