by Jason Luthor
“Except that a person’s ability to survive the procedure has less to do with genetics. David Marshall believed that a person’s genes held the secret to the bond, particularly genes that granted psychic ability. The ability to mentally link with the Creep does help, but it takes more than that to succeed. It takes a reason to live. It takes a focus so strong that, even when the experiment is over, once the cells have taken hold inside of you, you can maintain your identity. Because you have a reason to.”
“You. He did it because of you.”
“And I survived the same procedure because of him.”
“Then . . . then what happened after that?” It’s hurting to breathe after all this talking, but I have to find out, even if I’m struggling to get air. “Johnny got bonded. So did you. But I saw you, Anna. We fought. You and I fought. I killed you.” Saying it hurts more than all the physical pain I’m struggling through. It hurts so bad that I can feel my eyes stinging. “I killed you, Anna.”
“All things live on in the Creep. All minds live on in this purgatory. Every person ever absorbed into it has their memories and a shadow of their mind trapped within it. In almost every case, they’re just instincts and fragments. They reach out because they recognize the living, not knowing the pain they cause.”
“The shadow men. The Demons.”
“Only memories reacting out of instinct. Johnny and I, though, are different. Our minds do more than exist on in fragments. They’re caught whole, swimming in oceans of thoughts and memories. Johnny’s body had been destroyed before, but never mine. I only completely understood what happened to us in death after you killed me.”
“I’m just . . .” Seeing her, standing there like the girl she was, knowing she saw her own dad die in front of her . . . Feeling like that was my dad . . . It’s almost too much to take. “I’m just really sorry. I wouldn’t have . . . I didn’t know what you’d gone through. I just . . . I thought you were a . . . a monster.”
“No.” She shakes her head at me, even if it looks like the memory’s painful for her. “Don’t apologize. It needed to be done. My mind was decaying in my own body after centuries of being alive. When I awoke in this sea of thought, I realized I could reach out into the physical world. I could call out to it.”
“And that’s why I started seeing visions of you.”
“Exactly.”
I almost want to scream. “But why? What was the point? To torture me? Do you know how much . . .” My chest is pumping so hard and my breath is so thin that I feel like I’m about to pass out. “Do you know how much it hurt me to see you? After what I did? To keep having the memory of killing you going over and over in my head?”
“You reminded me of myself, Jackie, and I needed somebody to anchor to. I needed someone I could focus on until I’d pieced my mind together. Johnny learned a long time ago how to leave his body behind and take another. Not even I’ve learned how to do that. To be quite honest, I don’t want to. My time is coming to an end.”
“But how did you even get onto the upper floors, Anna? The stories say that you got infected by the Creep and started attacking Authority. The day we met was the day you were attacking the Tower. If you were born down here . . .”
“Jackie, for five hundred years, I was the one defending the Tower against Johnny. For five hundred years, your people waited to be rescued from this place. By the Builders. Instead, we were sealed away from the world, behind the metal walls. This Tower was supposed to be an ark to save a part of humanity, but trapped in here, with the Creep, it became a tomb. Once Johnny realized the power he had, nothing could stop him. Nothing, except for me. He wiped out nearly a third of the lower floors before I battled him to a stop. He couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t join him, but I wasn’t willing to kill him, either. We were at a stalemate, so I ceded the lower floors to him. It was a compromise, of sorts. Still, time and again, almost once a century, we fought. He was never willing to kill me, and I was never willing to kill him. I didn’t turn against the Tower because I wanted to. I turned against the Tower because I lost my reason to fight. In the final battle between us, when I’d already fought Johnny until he was exhausted, Tower Authority used a powerful weapon I’ve never seen before or since. It completely destroyed his body. To be quite honest, I thought he was truly dead.
And if he was dead? If I wasn’t fighting to save my brother, then why was I fighting? Once my despair set in, I lost myself. By then, Johnny had spent centuries taking most of the Tower, each time wiping out your history and your memories, creating mass hallucinations and erasing your past, destroying your electronic records each time he cut the Tower off from its engine. Each time, I was responsible for guiding a generation of people who had no past and no understanding of the future. But, after Johnny was destroyed, I simply lost my will to keep going. When the Creep finally, completely took me, the newest version of Tower Authority sealed me away in a remote part of the Tower. Johnny and I had both been dealt with simultaneously. It may have been what they’d truly wanted since the day the two of us awoke to our powers. But, in the history of the Tower, there has been nothing like the wrath of a Judge. Something in me always resented what they had done to me and Johnny, and I became the monster you saw. Feral, insane, and only barely able to recognize the world around me. All I knew was my hate. Just like Johnny. That’s the version of me that you fought.”
“Then how is it that Johnny’s been able to keep his mind together even when you were gone?”
“Because he never lost something to focus on, something that would help him keep his identity. Even after all this, after all he’s become and after all our battles, he’s still fighting for me. All he wants now is to take his revenge for my sake, to destroy the Tower and the people who created it.”
“Anna. Then fight.”
That makes her smile, and for a second, there’s a shade of the monster I killed a long time ago. It’s not that she looks evil. It’s just the toughness in her soul coming through. “Jackie. Don’t you get it yet? I’m not alive. Everything you’ve seen, all the memories, even me, they’re all in your head. They’re projections. There’s nothing I can do to Johnny anymore.”
“If there’s no way to stop him, he’s going to eat the whole Tower alive. Do you get that? Do you understand? Anna, I saw your parents. Dammit, I celebrated a birthday with them. I know you know what it feels like.” My voice starts to go thin because whatever’s left of my breath is going. “I know you know what it feels like to lose the people you love. Your mom. Your dad. I have to save mine, Anna. Please.”
“I can’t do anything, Jackie. You’re still breathing though. You’re still alive, and it’s like I said, there’s something inside of you. Something different. You’re not like me and Johnny, but you’re alive because something’s changed in you.”
“Something’s changed in me. Everyone keeps saying that. What the hell?” Every second that passes by, the more I’m leaning over, until my hands are planted on my knees just to keep me upright. “Doctor Geller. He said it. He said there was something in my blood.”
“There’s no doubt there’s Creep in your blood, but it’s not trying to consume you, despite the fact that you lack the psychic ability to control it. When I look inside you, all I truly see is an energy in your cells, masking me from understanding the truth. Neither I nor Johnny share it. It is very unique, just like you. I do know your cells have undergone a change both similar and different from our own, but you must fuel them with the desire to push on. If there’s anyone that can challenge Johnny, it’s you. Think about what’s at stake.”
That’s just the thing though. I know what’s at stake. Who’s at stake. All I’ve been doing for the last few weeks is thinking about it. Dodger, a girl I just met a few months ago but who has one hell of a brain and is probably even more curious than me. Mike, a guy who wants to do the right thing but is scared out of his mind that he’s going to mess up and hurt people. Tommy, someone I used to hate, but who’s probably become
one of the best friends I’ve ever had. But, even more than all of that, there are two people I’ll never let go of. I can’t let go of them. They told me to always fight for what was right, to look out for people who couldn’t look out for themselves. I . . . I just forgot about those lessons for a long time. At least, until I realized I had to keep going strong, for them and my friends.
“Valerie Grace Coleman. My mom. And Andrew Benjamin Coleman. My dad.”
“The people you care about most. I once fought for much the same reason.”
“Yeah. There’s no better reason to fight, right? You fight for the people you care about. You fight for what you believe in. Well, if there’s anyone I believe in, it’s them.” I say it even as I’m feeling something surging inside of me. Whatever energy I have, whatever my body’s got left to give me, I can feel it. I look over to my side, at the satchel I’ve been hauling around since I left home. It’s the one dad gave me, with the injection needles full of Creep killing chemicals. It’s the same stuff I used on Sally, when she was a monster. The same drugs I put David Marshall down with. She looks at me, then at the bag, and something inside of her recognizes it.
“That won’t work against Judge. He’ll have immunized himself to it by now, from your injection of his current host, David Marshall. He’s evolved beyond it.”
“I kind of figured that, but I’ve got to try something. I think I have an idea.”
She nods and pauses for a second while she looks into the darkness. “There may be something I can do as well. This Tower was once full of amazing technology. I know of a progenitor weapon still buried here, one lost during the last days of fighting, that may be able to help you.”
Tommy’s Recording 24
I feel like I’m being pulled along for forever, until the world around me explodes and I’m left dangling from the ceiling of a room so big, it’s bigger than the baseball stadium back on my home floor. I’m a little relieved to see Dodger and Mike not far away, but just a little. They’re both stuck in the same situation as me. We’re all being squeezed so tight by tendrils that I’m struggling to come up with ideas about how to escape. So, I’m there, fumbling for my knife, when I notice there’s someone sitting beneath us. It’s a long drop to the ground, so I have to squint and really focus at first, but it doesn’t take me long to see who it is. She’s there, by herself, breathing heavy and looking straight ahead, like she can’t move.
Jackie.
My first instinct’s to scream out and get her attention, but I stop myself when I hear a shuddering behind us. I twist my head around and stare down this massive, black corridor. Even as dark as it is, something looks alive in there, like the shadows are moving. They’re actually writhing, like a bunch of dying animals, and eventually I make out dozens of Creep tendrils swarming around and spilling out on the ground. They’re flooding into the room, and riding along at the center of it all, being carried along like he’s riding some sort of wave, is Judge. He comes sliding to the ground in one pass, and when he does, his scythe cuts along the floor and lets us all know he’s arrived with this screeching ringing. Then he just stands there, this black silhouette against the Creep. I might not be able to make him out very well, but I can hear him loud and clear.
“Down, down, to London Town. So happy you could make it. Jackie.”
The minute he says her name, I watch Jackie take one big breath before pushing up onto her feet. She might’ve looked completely wiped out a second ago, but now she looks like she just woke up from a nap, like she was just waiting to come alive. “Judge.”
“How impressive for you to make it here, to the wellspring of all this misery. I must admit, your resolve is almost as strong as my own. Quite impressive.”
“I guess you’re still trying to get a rise out of me? Like Doctor Geller, trying to find my breaking point?”
“Oh, I’ve finished my measure of you, dark angel. At first, I believed it was a lack of power you feared. I assumed you wanted more. After all, humanity craves power. As a species, they are driven to it. It is a bottomless well of greed that has sprung afresh for people throughout all of history. You, though, don’t need power. You embrace your limits, acknowledge them, and adapt. You revel in your capacity to overcome the impossible. It is your ability to adapt that has brought you this far, and which makes you powerful in your own way. My second mistake was believing you feared the violence you were capable of. Again, I was wrong. Twice. I must admit, it’s been centuries since I was surprised so often, but it feels invigorating to know the universe still holds surprises. No, you embrace what you’re capable of, if the motive is just in your own eyes. You wield violence, not like a hammer, but like an artist with his paintbrush. Thoughtful. Precise.”
“So, I guess now that you’ve eliminated all the other choices, you’re going to tell me you know what I’m scared of. Am I on the right track here? After all that, now you know how to get to me. What frightens me.”
“Indeed. I know precisely what it is you fear, Jackie Coleman. What you fear is your loss of purpose.”
“My loss of purpose?”
I feel the tendril wrapped around me dropping into the room so fast I think it’s going to slam me into the ground. Mike and Dodger come along for the ride as we streak into the light, and Judge just looks at all of us from over those yellow white teeth of his, staring at us from the sockets in his skull. “Can you be nearly as effective without people such as these to drive you? What would happen to your killer instinct when there was no one left to fight for? When everyone you loved in the world was gone? Would you continue to fight then?”
It’s the first time since this started that I see her hesitate. Jackie looks at us, her eyes shooting between Mike, Dodger, and me. Still, when she sees us, something comes over her. She looks back at Judge and just shakes her head. “You know, it’s funny you mention that. Tommy once told me, if he died, he’d still want me to keep going. That it’d be a waste if I gave up. Well, he was right. No matter what happens to any of us, our memories live on. People live on through those. Even if everyone I knew died, they’d only really be dead if I stopped fighting for them. They’ll only die when I forget them, and that’s not going to happen. So, you should know what I’m going to say by now. Even if they were gone . . . I’d keep fighting. If nothing else, I’d do it to make everything they sacrificed worth something.”
“So much spoken to say so little. What wasted effort. When I’m done with these three, I’ll take my war to the heights of the Tower itself. You’ve given me all I need to finally break this place. I’ll have my vengeance. For two centuries, I’ve been held at bay, resisted by a change in the very Creep itself. I sensed it changed you, too. With the knowledge gleaned from the geneticist’s death, I can finally overcome it, this strange mutation. Who knows, perhaps once I’ve finished with Mike, I’ll have come to an even greater understanding of how to control those aberrant cells. I’ll finally assert full control over every inch of the Creep, despite this unique pathogen circulating through it. A very curious change, I must admit. Still, I am capable. I will adapt. I will evolve. All I need . . . is time.”
“I guess that’s all it’s about for you, huh? Just petty revenge? You’re still holding onto things that happened to you centuries ago, like a little kid who never grew up. What do you think that’ll accomplish?” She stops for a second, the two of them looking at each other right in the eye, and then she says, “Do you think destroying the Tower’s going to bring Anna back?”
“What did you say?” That name has to mean something to him, because he growls so deep that I can feel the whole room starting to shake. While pieces of the room start falling to the ground, I can feel the Creep squeezing around me, until I feel like the air in my chest’s going to get sucked out of me. “I will plunder this place of every living being and consume the flesh from the bones of your parents. I’ll keep you alive and let you watch as your home burns around you. What use will your precious memories serve then? What nobility will you
r humanity hold, Jackie Coleman? What great purpose will your species serve when it is flayed apart by its own creation? Will you still fight when your friends and family are broken bones on the corpse of history?”
She flips the bat in her hand once. “What do you think?”
He screams and plants a foot on the ground, and faster than I can blink, he cracks her so hard that Jackie goes flying across the floor. “I’ll finish this with my own hands. I will break you and let you watch your friends scream their final moments as they are ripped into pieces.” He’s flying at her again, but somehow Jackie ducks under him and jumps back, barely avoiding a tendril that rips up through the floor. That’s when I realize she’s carrying something else at her hip, and I see this blazing arc of fire cut through the air. That tendril whipping at her practically evaporates into pieces, and then Jackie’s standing there, with a burning sword that looks almost like the one Commander Abbott used to have. Judge’s screaming sends the floor breaking apart, and then it’s just Jackie jumping away, over and over again, avoiding every arm of Creep that goes grabbing for her. She lands on her back heel for a second before throwing herself at him, that sword of hers raised high. He manages to circle away from the edge of it, but she keeps turning and brings up her bat. It clicks in my head that it’s covered in metal, something I realize right before it hammers him hard across the face.
Judge twists to the side, still screaming, and reaches out with that clawed hand of his. I see him slice right through the front of Jackie’s vest, cutting it apart. Blood hits the ground, and she screams as she falls onto her back, but then Judge is on top of her, pounding at the ground as she brings her arms up for protection. He’s hitting her with so much force that I can’t understand how her arms don’t just snap, but she keeps taking the hits, one after the other. Finally, Judge raises both fists high, ready to break right through her bones if he has to. That’s when she gets one open second, and I see her flame knife slide into her gloved hand and swipe upward, cutting right through Judge’s stomach and tearing up into his chest. The guy doesn’t bleed, but he does scream as he leans away from her. Jackie takes her opening and swings upward, grabbing Judge around the neck and dragging herself out from under him. There’s a second when she’s practically dangling from his collar before he throws her to the side.