by John McCrae
“That’s all you’ll do from here on out? Run?“
He looked down at his hands. “And get revenge. I promised other people we would.”
“That’s the opposite of what we need to be doing, Weld. You have to know that.“
He looked up at me with inhuman eyes that were framed by fine wire eyelashes. His expression communicated so much, considering it was hard metal.
“Give me a chance to prove otherwise,” I said.
“Prove-” he stopped mid-sentence. “Prove what?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
Then I moved, hopping up onto the top of the nearest structure, a small building that had stood on the edge of the platform. My bugs stirred around me.
You took my dad from me, my hometown. You took our hope, betrayed humanity.
I don’t do well with betrayal.
As I moved along the platform, I got a view of the last of the Irregulars making their way into the water. Fallen debris was keeping them from being dragged into the narrow whirlpool beneath the structure. They swam as a group, some using pieces of wood for flotation.
They just had to get far enough away from Scion for someone to open a door.
My swarm climbed the rope, taking it apart, for multiple strands. They formed a single cord that was thin, but a quarter of a mile long.
Me, my passenger and my screwed up monster body were all in agreement.
I want to hurt him.
Want to prove this isn’t hopeless, that we can do something.
I don’t want to lose to another bully. I’m done with surrendering to forces of nature, human nature or otherwise.
My swarm extended in his direction, carrying a strand.
I hurried across the length of the platform. Who was still here?
What could I do?
Nobody of consequence on the upper level.
Down there?
Drawing out a cord of silk between me and the railing, I used my faulty flight pack to lower myself towards the water.
Silk wound itself around Scion’s eyes. He didn’t pay it any mind. His focus was on Glaistig Uaine. Her spirit was the same one she’d used before, launching ineffective attacks that left blotches of darkness across the sky.
I found the capes on the water. A Thanda, three birdcage capes. The Thanda was using his power to fix them all in space, so they stood just a short distance above the water. Two of them recoiled in fear as I lowered myself to their level. The Thanda was calm, by contrast.
The wind blew the silk, threatening to pull it from my grip. Scion was moving, and it could break at any instant.
I passed the silk to the Thanda.
He gave me a curious glance.
Then he froze it in space.
It fixed the thread’s location in space, froze Scion as well. The golden man was rendered immobile.
Glaistig Uaine, Legend and Eidolon all struck him with everything they had. Attacks too big or too slow to land otherwise.
I collected the remains of the silk before it could land in the water.
Not enough length to use the Thanda again. I moved, relying on the flight pack.
It shorted out, and I used the sole remaining panel of antigravity to land on a shattered corner of the oil platform. It was slowly sinking into the waves.
The swarm. Not many bugs, but something.
I’d thought he was perceptive enough to see through the decoys, but he was the golden fool. The Simurgh had deceived him before.
Maybe it wasn’t that he could draw the logical conclusion and know that there wasn’t a human inside. Maybe he was too ready for breakers, for capes who didn’t follow the usual rules.
I created a swarm decoy, gathering all of the bugs from the surrounding area. I couldn’t tap the resources beneath the water, but I could draw from the life that had gathered on the rig, the bugs that feasted on the algae that clustered around the legs of the structure.
The body approached, and Eidolon moved aside. He moved as if it were a comrade joining the fight, as if he, Glaistig Uaine and the swarm-decoy effectively had Scion surrounded.
Idiotic, nonsensical. Scion didn’t even react to the maneuver.
Glaistig Uaine attacked, and Scion retaliated. Her spirit teleported her away.
Eidolon created mirror images of himself, illusions, and Scion lashed out. Only one of the illusions remained.
It fizzled out.
Eidolon died?
No. Eidolon struck out from the clouds above. Scion seemed to anticipate it, sliding out of the way.
The tempo of the attacks and counterattacks continued. Scion attacked Glaistig Uaine’s spirits, and still, the destroyed ones failed to return.
A pattern?
He was an alien combatant, a stranger from another world, who saw the world in an entirely different way from how we did.
But there was a pattern.
I divided the swarm decoy in two.
Divided each of those two into two more.
He’d stopped the spirit from spreading across the sky, and had made a concerted effort to eliminate Glaistig Uaine’s spirits. He’d eliminated Eidolon’s illusions.
Whether the creations were concrete or otherwise, it was something that seemed to provoke him.
Was it something instinctive? A part of his species? Something he watched out for in enemies, in threats or competition?
Scion turned and blasted the swarm out of the sky.
The last of my bugs.
His hand turned my way, as he floated in my direction.
He knew who was controlling them.
It was a diversion, a crucial distraction.
Glaistig Uaine flew in close, creating another set of spirits. Two to either side of her, one in the lead.
I recognized the one in the lead, distorted as it was.
Clockblocker’s spirit touched Scion, and the golden man froze.
She banished the ghost in an instant, recreated the one who had created the dark blotches in the sky.
The blotches began to move, gravitating towards Scion.
Concentrated in one spot.
She plotted this, planned out the extended attack.
I felt my hair stir, drifting towards that spot.
I’d seen something similar, once upon a time. I backed away until I was able to grab something for a hold.
They all gathered into a single dot, and the effect intensified.
The effect around Scion broke, and he began drifting towards the dark point.
He resisted, and I could sense something from him. Not alarm, but a reaction nonetheless.
From Glaistig Uaine and Eidolon’s body language, they saw it too.
He reached out, one hand stretched towards the center of the effect.
And Eidolon used a power, effectively detonating the effect, reversing it.
The G-driver had sent Scion flying into the atmosphere. Eidolon had apparently taken a lesson from it, because he’d emulated the effect. Here, Scion was plunged into the water.
Another hit, another inconvenience. Something.
He was in the water. He’d come back up.
We could do it again. I just needed to form another decoy.
Except I’d used up every bug I had on this.
Not bugs, then.
I flexed the legs that Lab Rat’s serum had given me, then dove into the water. I held my breath, making my way deeper.
It was negligible, but I wanted as many as I could get.
Simple lifeforms. If there were none above the water’s surface, I’d use the ones below. A glance above me showed one of the flying heroes above the water’s surface, watching. Good. We’d be able to coordinate an attack.
We were too far from the ocean floor for me to find crabs or lobsters, but there were others.
Krill. Two inches in length, at best. But they were alive, and I could move them. I could use them. Another swarm decoy, another combination attack. Something that-
My claw twit
ched.
I closed it, then flinched. The ‘teeth’ of the claw had bitten into soft flesh. It hadn’t been soft before.
I kicked, and I could feel the lack of strength in the leg’s movement. The spasm wasn’t as strong, and a wet feeling was running along the inside of the leg. Fluids leaking.
No. I wasn’t going to stop. Not now, not like this.
He’d have to surface, he’d be angry, distracted. There could be an opening.
I kicked, paddling myself forward, and I wasn’t moving towards the surface Just the opposite.
My lungs were feeling the strain. I didn’t care. He’d come up, and we’d-
Crimson blossomed across my vision, obscuring my view. Blood. Mine.
One leg came free of the socket.
No.
Piece by piece, I started to come apart.
The decoy. If I keep it together until he comes, let them split apart naturally, maybe he’ll be fooled.
I started to try and move towards the surface, aware of my circumstance. My strength wasn’t there. My muscles had been cannibalized for parts to build this temporary body, and the reversion process wasn’t supplying them with everything they required.
My flight pack failed. I couldn’t raise myself to the surface.
Let me prove we can fight back. Don’t let people like Weld give up at this point.
My consciousness began to dim, faster than it had before. I didn’t have the benefit of adrenaline. I had desperation, but it wasn’t quite the same.
My vision gradually fogged. I felt my body going numb. My arm, my face.
Water began to fill my mouth. I didn’t have the strength to keep my lips pressed together.
Let him rise to the surface. Let this trick work again and again. Let it be the Achilles heel.
A false hope, a faltering one. I knew it wouldn’t work again.
I coughed, and it was a weak cough, barely a hiccup. Enough for water to make its way into my throat.
But I focused on the swarm, on the krill. Kept them in formation.
Alexandria died like this. Drowned.
A shadow passed over my vision.
I forced my eyes to focus.
Glaistig Uaine, smiling slightly.
She’d been the one above the water.
And here she was. Not helping. Waiting.
At least I’ll still be able to contribute, I thought.
The water moved, and I saw a look of disappointment on her face.
A glance to my right showed a portal. A door. The water was flowing into it in vast quantities, and I was being pulled along.
He’s gone. He’s nowhere close, I thought.
We won’t recover from this, I thought. Won’t pull together with this kind of strength again.
We lost.
I blacked out.
27.x (Interlude, Eidolon)
June 24th, 2013, now
“He returns,” Glaistig Uaine spoke in her chorus of voices. Were there less voices in there than there had been? She was dripping wet, having just ascended from beneath the water’s surface, but a spirit was attending to her, drawing the moisture forth, coiling it into wreaths and ribbons that trailed around the Faerie Queen and the other spirits.
Eidolon stared out at the horizon. He could sense the shift in air pressure, see the movements in clouds and water alike. Scion wasn’t any bigger than an ordinary man, but the world seemed to react to his existence.
“I know,” Eidolon answered, belatedly.
Something crumbled beneath them. The oil platform wasn’t designed to stand on two legs, and it was deteriorating under the stresses. Eidolon could feel his pulse quicken, excited despite everything.
Excited, despairing, hopeful, hopeless. He had no idea what to do.
He had a mission.
He’d never been one for drumming his fingers, for pacing or biting his nails. He had never gotten in the habit.
Eidolon closed his eyes for a moment, releasing his hold on the sensory power. Like something swelling within him, filling every available space, another ability took hold. Something defensive. An invisible bubble surrounded him, linked to another power. Teleportation.
It was a strong defense against aimed attacks, but it wouldn’t help against something indiscriminate enough. He had a matter creation ability that was perhaps worth trying, and he had a density warping ability that could perhaps deflect blasts while letting him stand on the air.
He was reluctant to give up either of them. Both were options, possibilities. Warping of time and space tended to have an effect, so the offensive power was a good one to have on hand. The density warping ability was key to his staying airborne.
Flight was too important, but it was an ability he had in shorter and shorter supply.
“Can I assist you, High Priest?”
He opened his eyes. High Priest. “I need more abilities than I have. There is a hole in my defenses. To cover it, I’d need to give up my flight, or give up my offensive power.”
“Not a concern. I’ll carry you.”
He hesitated.
“Let go of the flight,” she said. “I’ll catch you.”
He glanced down, and he couldn’t make out the individual waves. That wasn’t because of the fog that still lingered after Scion’s disintegrating glow, but because of distance. The occupants of the platform weren’t visible either. A drop from this height would be fatal.
He could survive it if he manifested the right ability. He might not have given it a second thought if it was only a question of his power’s reliability or only a question of Glaistig Uaine’s allegiance, but the two together gave him doubts.
He looked at her. Her clothing was dry now, animated by the wind around her, like the limbs of an octopus, green where the light caught it and black otherwise. Thin streams of moisture surrounded the garment, complementing her form, enhancing the unnatural appearance. A human face in the midst of an alien, abstract form, her eyes far older than the flawless, childlike face.
Her stare transfixed him. He couldn’t even guess at her motivations.
Scion, the Endbringers, they were the others who typically came up in the same breath as Eidolon. He was the only one of them that was human. He had less power than they did, but more power than most.
Glaistig Uaine was one of the others, a contender for the title, though not necessarily in the public’s perception. The PRT had controlled how much information the public had about her, to keep people from getting too scared. She was a nonfactor, a captive in the Birdcage. She’d taken down Gray Boy, had attacked the King’s Men and slain Athrwys, and then she’d turned herself in.
Easy enough for the average Joe to dismiss her as a lunatic.
Except Glaistig Uaine had been amassing power during her time in the Birdcage, and he had been losing it.
Had he been supplanted in his role as the most powerful person in the world?
“A leap of faith,” Glaistig Uaine spoke. “Give up your power and I will be able to lift you.”
He glanced at her. She was smiling a little, as though she’d said something amusing.
“Can you tell me why you call me the High Priest, before I put my life in your hands?”
“I could say it’s because you rely on a higher power for your strength,” she said.
“You could. But will you say so? Because when you talked about the others, you were speaking about their faerie, their passengers, their agents, not the individual.”
“Yes,” she said.
He remained still, inviting her to elaborate.
“Some lead by logic, by law, by order and organization. Others lead by the abstract. By faith and the imagination of the public. Yes?”
“You’re talking about leading… the passengers, the agents?”
“Naturally so. Plotting, raising the faerie up as objects for worship. They are chosen, cultivated, as the situation demands, to suit the world outside, to best manipulate it. The pantheon in the temple.”
&
nbsp; “Me. I’m this temple?”
She nodded. “Mmm.”
He frowned behind his mask. His voice was just a touch harder than it had been. “This ‘High Priest’ you speak of doesn’t sound like any priest I know.”
“I have little love for gods or the godly, High Priest. I may have to apologize for choosing such an unflattering title to describe you, but it fit as described, fit on other levels.”
“Other levels?”
“I would continue, but then we’d run out of time. A minute, perhaps less.“
“You seem to know a dangerous amount, Glaistig Uaine.”
“And you know dangerously little,” she responded. “We’re out of time.”
The statement was ominous.
New powers took time to take hold and build up to full strength. As of late, it was taking longer, one of the areas where he was growing weaker. Could he trust her to catch him? Or would she let him fall to his death, attacking him if his powers saved him, just to collect his abilities and add them to her own?
Was it maybe better to die? Perhaps she could make better use of his remaining power. Or perhaps passing his power on to another individual would fix things, reset the gradual losses. The Eidolon-clone that had been created in the Echidna attack in Brockton Bay hadn’t seemed as restricted.
He released his hold on the flight power, thinking of the broad-target attack that had eliminated Granka’s spirit, scalding everything in sight, disintegrating the spirit’s branches as they reached across the sky. He could only hope he got something suitable.
Eidolon fell, tumbling head over heels.
Perhaps High Priest is fitting.
My life, always in the hands of greater powers.
■
December 5th, 2012, six months ago
He stood from his seat, fists clenched.
His powers were adapting. He’d been holding on to them, but the anger and circumstances were apparently enough to force a shift. A perception ability, an offensive ability that would let him move objects violently along strict paths that were dancing across his field of vision, and a future-sight ability that was making the world change colors, identifying points of high future stress and danger with colored blotches.
Doctor Mother was so unthreatening that she might as well have been absent. A shadow in the midst of the lines that continued spiraling out in every direction from every inorganic object in the room, each flaring with color.