Nichevo. He was as good as dead in any case. Maybe in a month, a year at most, his former associates would get him, or the cops, or the fucking Neos. In any case, he had a feeling that if he turned around he wouldn’t make it back to the entrance. He could feel unseen watchers following him, hidden in the shadows. He kept going.
A section of tunnel had been turned into a campsite of sorts, with more lights hung above it, more than enough to show the spectacle awaiting him.
Tables and chairs were arranged in a rough circle in the chamber, surrounding a taller seat that loomed like a throne over the gathering. There were strange symbols painted on the walls and ceilings, bizarre sigils that hurt Grisha’s eyes if he looked at them for more than a few seconds. Ten, maybe fifteen people were sitting around the tables, a few of them standing or capering on top of them. Half a dozen of them weren’t people, though. Like the guardian at the door, they were freaks. Worse than freaks: monsters. In the weak light, the scene reminded him of the work of a Dutch painter, Hieronymus Bosch. Bosch had been fond of depicting scenes from Hell.
There was a man with the head of a wolf and oversized limbs; another made to resemble the Frankenstein monster from the old black-and-white movies. A tall man, his face hidden by a bloody hockey mask, stood grimly to one side of the gathering, a long machete protruding from the stump at the end of his right arm. A grotesquely obese woman smiled at Grisha as he approached, displaying multiple rows of shark-like teeth.
The normal human beings in the chamber had the look of men who’d done hard things to survive. He recognized a few of them: a former button-man from an Italian crime family, a member of one of the nastier Southie gangs, and an Irish thug with a bad reputation even among his fellow criminals.
All those killers looked like scared children in the company of the bogeymen in the gathering. They glanced at him briefly, but most of their attention was on the corpse of one of their own. The dead body had been decapitated. Did he try to run, or say the wrong thing? Whatever he’d done, he’d paid for it.
Sitting on her throne, a woman presided over the carnival of the damned. She was wearing a black latex bodysuit, and half of her face was hidden behind a silver mask shaped into a wide-eyed, grinning expression. The uncovered half was pale, her single blue-gray eye sparkling with mad humor, her grin a match for the half-mask’s.
“A new contestant has arrived,” the woman said. “Are you here to join us? To check your humanity at the door? To be all that you can be, and a little bit more?”
“Yes,” Grisha said without hesitation. He strongly suspected that the nearby corpse had been less enthusiastic in his response.
A… thing covered in rubbery skin crawled out from beneath the throne. It opened its mouth, and a set of sharp mandibles attached to a tongue-like limb sprang out and snapped at Grisha, spraying him with spittle that burned like battery acid. He forced himself to remain still, ignoring the chemical burns, his eyes fixed on the woman.
“This is Godfrey,” she said, casually petting the monster. “I kinda knocked out his teeth the first time we met, so I made him a new set. He helped me set things up, so he got to be my first experiment as his reward. Didn’t turn out as well as I hoped, but he’s good for a laugh. I promise you I’ve gotten much better at improving my minions. You still in, Russkie?”
He tried to speak, found his throat was too dry, and nodded instead.
“Good. There will be a round of questions, followed by a duel to the death, followed by cake. If you’re alive by the time cake is served, you get to be one of my minions, and will be granted some kewl powerz and other valuable prizes. Sound good?”
“Yes,” he managed to say.
The word sounded like a death sentence.
“Awesome. Welcome to the new and improved Army of Darkness.
“Hail to the Queen, baby!”
Chapter Ten
Face-Off
Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, July 30, 2014
Adam personally broke the bad news to us. I didn’t take it well.
“This is fucking bullshit.”
I should have known better. Coming back from the dead didn’t happen all that often in real life, but I’d seen it happen myself. The Lurker had been blown to bits, but he was still around, as one half of the clone combo standing in front of us. Mister Night had pulled off a similar trick not once but twice, the last time using my body as his new ride. So what had made me think crushing the skull of the evil bitch meant it’d been over and done with? Maybe I’d have to keep doing it every other year, like in the comics, where dead characters were resurrected as soon as writers ran out of ideas.
Christine’s reaction was worse than mine. She seemed to shrink into her armchair, and I felt a wave of despair coming from her.
“I’m sorry,” Adam said. “I would like to reiterate that this is only a possibility. We haven’t found any indication that either Daedalus Smith or your corrupted counterpart are alive.”
“Sure,” I said. “Because if I had a way to come back from the dead, I’d only use it the one time. Otherwise I’d be cheating, and nobody ever got anywhere by cheating.”
“Maybe they didn’t have time to raise another clone body,” Adam suggested. “Maybe they only had one device, so only one of them will be able to return. The Resurrection Engine is an incredibly complicated Artifact; even Daedalus could not have found it easy to replicate. The point is, we don’t know. At least we have some warning, and we will be looking for any sign either of them is back. We had just cancelled the ongoing manhunt for Smith; it’s being reinstated even as we speak.”
“And that manhunt was such a resounding success we only found the asshole when he decided to traipse around our fucking headquarters.”
“Mark, you’re not helping.”
I turned to Christine. She was scared and upset, and my bitching was only making things worse.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I am sorry as well,” Adam said. “My devise was never meant to bring back the dead.”
“I know. Hiram Hades took your idea and ran with it. And I can’t even blame the bastard because without it you wouldn’t have been around to save our asses.”
Adam got up from his seat. “Again, I am sorry to be the bringer of bad news. I will keep you both posted on any further developments.”
He left. I thought I might have hurt his feelings. Christine glared at me after he left.
“You didn’t have to take it out on him, you know.”
“You’re right. I was an asshole.”
“I’m upset too. I thought it was over. I thought I could concentrate on the important stuff. Connecting back to the Source, for example. I did it on Earth FUBAR, but I still can’t do it here.”
“You’ll get it done. And we’ll make sure it’s over next time those assholes show up.”
“How?”
“We kill them, we find their little miracle machine, and we bust it up. The end.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“The way I figure it, all we need to do is use you as a bloodhound to track down the machine by following the soul of either or both those fuckers after we kill them.”
“That’s not bad, actually.”
“I’m not a complete moron. I even finished my GED after Condor took me under his wing.”
“If I thought you were dumb, I wouldn’t be with you, Mark. Which sounds terribly prejudiced of me, come to think of it.”
“So you don’t like to date morons. Who does?”
“Not many people, I guess.”
“Anyway, now we have a plan of action. We’ll find those shitheads and put them down for good.”
“Works for me,” she said.
I knew things could end up the other way around, of course.
Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, August 2, 2014
There’s nothing like being woken up from a deep sleep by a mental scream. Pure anguish hit me like a hammer, bad enough it
almost knocked me out. As I tried to find my bearings, my comm implants chimed in: I was getting a priority call from Legion Central. I ignored it and turned to Christine, who was sitting up.
“What is it?”
“She’s dead. She killed her, Mark,” she said.
I knew who the killer was. And I had a nasty suspicion about the victim.
Hunters and Hunted
Upstate New York, New York, August 2, 2014
It smelled like a trap.
The Guardians and a gaggle of local and federal cops, all loaded for bear, had their target completely surrounded. The alleged Humanity Foundation paramilitary base was located out in the boonies, far from the beaten path. Its only visible defenses were a barbed wire fence and a locked gate barring the dirt road leading into the compound, along with several ‘Private Property: Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted’ signs.
That bothered Condor. There were no guards, no patrols, nothing. You’d think the new Humanity Foundation would be more security conscious. Yes, they were a good ten miles away from the nearest town, but the lack of defenses didn’t jive with the endemic paranoia in those kinds of organizations.
“This doesn’t feel right,” Condor muttered.
“Agreed,” Chastity Baal said. The Legionnaire observer watched the facility from their position on a ridge overlooking a shallow valley. Trees partially obscured their line of sight, but they could still see the outlines of several buildings inside the fence’s perimeter. Up above, recon drones transmitted a clearer picture. Condor watched the overhead visuals, clearly showing two large building, half a dozen smaller ones, and heat signatures outlining nineteen human beings inside. No Neolympians – their metabolisms had distinct IR signatures – just as expected from a gathering of Humanity Foundation terrorists.
Almost a hundred human cops, six Empire State Guardians, and one Legionnaire had quietly taken up positions around the camp. On paper, it seemed like overkill. The cops alone should have sufficed – assuming nobody inside was packing some sort of superweapon, which wasn’t a safe assumption. Better to be cautious.
“The way those heat signatures are arranged suggests they are waiting for an attack,” Chastity said. “See how most of them are lined up along the outside walls?”
“Firing positions. They’ve pulled everybody in. Which means they saw us coming, somehow and are waiting to welcome us.”
“This is a trap, then.”
“Nothing else makes any sense. Let me go speak to Agent Gordon.”
The commander of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team was a scarred veteran with a distinguished military and police record and as much experience fighting Neos as any human being still alive. He was in command of the vanilla complement of the task force.
Condor explained the situation. “I suggest the Guardians take point, to determine what kind of firepower we’re facing. If this is a trap, my people can handle the heat.”
Gordon nodded. “I have six sniper teams in position. They will engage targets on your say-so.”
“Perfect.” FBI snipers were armed with .50 caliber rifles that would deal with any human not wearing power armor; each fire team was also lugging around a much larger 20mm anti-Neo gun, just in case, and those rounds would take out anything smaller than a military fighting vehicle. That kind of firepower would come in handy if the perps had something up their sleeve.
“Let’s get these idiots and go home,” Gordon said.
Condor nodded and went down the hill, where the rest of the Guardians were waiting. Chastity stayed on the ridge, where she would join the sniper teams.
Hope nobody cops an attitude, Condor thought to himself as he walked towards his people. Things had been bad enough when he’d joined the super-team, but his recent appointment as leader of the Guardians had ruffled even more feathers. This would be the first major operation he’d commanded. He’d done his best to shape the overpaid media personalities under him into actual crime-fighters. Hopefully the lessons had sunk in.
He looked at each team member as he approached them. Cat Lady, whose shapeshifting abilities allowed her to become anything from a kitten to a sabretooth tiger, as long as the shape was feline. Hercules-8, big, tough and able to bench press fifty tons without breaking a sweat. Justice Princess, kinetic energy projector and force field mistress. Star Eagle, who could unleash a variety of deadly energy blasts. Vance Voltage, electro-kinetic extraordinaire. The Yankee, stronger than Hercules-8, tougher than anybody else, and armed with a variety of baseball-themed weapons. Those six men and women had enough raw power to level a city or take on a conventional army. If they would only obey his orders, this op should be a cinch. Vance and Cat had warmed up to him over the past several months, but the rest of the team still didn’t care much for him.
“I’m sending you the latest overheads of the target,” he announced. Their implanted communication devices projected the take from the recon drones straight into their eyeballs. “Hercules, Yankee, take down the gate and head straight for the main building. Draw their fire; if it gets too bad, find cover and wait for the rest of us. Cat Lady, circle around the tree line on the East side, and wait in concealment as a tactical reserve. Justice Princess and Star Eagle, take positions in the air as soon as the gate is down, and suppress any return fire.
“Vance and I will break in from the West and take the second largest building. Any questions?”
There were none. Hercules-8 grunted by way of response; everyone else subvocalized a ‘roger’ through their comm system.
“Remember, we’re facing humans, so keep it non-lethal unless absolutely necessary.”
No disagreements there, either, although he expected there would be a few unfortunate fatalities among the Human Foundation goons. Anti-Neo fanatics didn’t get a lot of mercy from their preferred targets.
“Let’s go get ‘em.”
The Guardians moved into position.
The operation had come together at an almost indecent speed. Chastity and Condor had learned of the facility through their underworld contacts. As it turned out, the new Humanity Foundation was recruiting members from the criminal underclass, people whose grudges against Neohumanity were personal rather than ideological. Unfortunately for the terrorists, there was no honor among thugs, and ratting each other out was something of a tradition. It hadn’t taken much before a couple of skells had given up the training camp. The hardest part had been organizing the takedown and determining who’d get credit for it.
Condor didn’t care about credit. He just wanted the assholes who’d tried to bomb Club X-Tremo dead or behind bars. In addition to the bombing, the group was suspected in the deaths and disappearances of several law enforcement agents, as well as three civilian Neos whose only sin had been to be easy prey. They had to end this, and taking down the training camp would be a major step, especially if they could extract actionable intelligence from the survivors.
He and Vance Voltage moved through the woods surrounding the property, skirting the cleared areas, including a well-used firing range. Vance was trying his best to be quiet, but they weren’t exactly sneaking around. If they got much closer, they’d be overheard even if the terrorists were asleep in their barracks.
“Wait here,” he told the electric hero. Vance nodded and hunkered down behind a tree, letting Condor made a closer approach on his own. His combat suit was in stealth mode, rendering him undetectable by everything from radar and sonar to the old Mark I Eyeball. He made his way all the way to the fence without incident.
“It’s a go,” he sent over the comm system, and the Guardians went on the attack. He leaped over the fence and moved towards the second largest cabin.
Hercules-8 crashed through the gate like a bull at a china shop, bringing the whole structure down. The Yankee followed, bat slung over his shoulder, one of his patented depleted uranium ‘baseballs’ in his other hand, searching for targets.
Shots rang out a few seconds after the two Guardians made their entrance. The gunfire was
coming from the second building, Condor’s target. Rifle bullets sparkled harmlessly off Hercules and the Yankee’s tough hides.
Condor crashed through a wall after his IR sensors told him nobody was close enough to get crushed by the collapsing structure. There were five men and two women there, all wearing paramilitary fatigues, all armed with M5 rifles. A terrorist spun around and put a three-round burst into Condor’s chest. The quick reaction was pointless, as his chest-plate was designed to stop anything lighter than an anti-tank round.
He swung both arms apart, releasing three spinning claw-darts from each hand. He got five of the terrorists, the Taser charges on the darts sending them into convulsions followed by unconsciousness. The last two got a few more shots off before a second volley took care of them.
“Jeez, save me some next time,” Vance Voltage said behind him. The Guardian had gone through the hole in the wall just in time to see the last terrorist hit the floor.
“Let’s…” Condor started to say before screams overrode every comm frequency in the network.
Before he could process that, a dark figure materialized inside the cabin in a cloud of purple-black energies Condor had learned to hate and fear.
“Disruptors!” he shouted through the command channel, stepping on all other signals. That was all he had time to say before a stream of shadowy energy darted liquidly in his direction, something that resembled a tentacle made of some dark fluid more than a normal energy blast. He leaped away, engaging the electro-magnetic force field built into his suit. The defensive system was rated for five minutes of constant use; he hoped the fight would be over before then. The Outsider energy beam followed his motion but dissipated a couple of inches away from his armor.
Even that was too close for comfort; his skin tingled painfully at the point of impact, not enough to slow him down, but plenty enough to hammer home the fact he was in a fight for his life.
Vance Voltage wasn’t quite fast enough. Like all Guardians, he had been issued an anti-disruptor field, but he never got a chance to activate it. A stream of darkness hit him dead-on. His electric aura vanished in a flash as the alien energies speared him right through his chest. Vance didn’t have a chance to scream before he burst apart in a shower of blood and torn pieces of flesh of bone.
New Olympus Saga (Book 4): The Ragnarok Alternative Page 21