Celsius had started out their partnership with a barely polite come-on attempt, and followed that with thinly-veiled resentment at having to follow her orders. He was a Type Two Neo, after all – a 2.4, he had proudly told her within minutes of making their acquaintance – and Chastity was a mere 1.1, only slightly more formidable than a normal human, and female to boot. His lack of respect for her was but one of Celsius’ many failings.
Patience was a paramount virtue when conducting covert operations, a virtue Celsius simply did not have. The man was a reasonably competent Legionnaire for missions involving dash and panache while gallivanting around in colorful costumes, but a complete failure as a covert operative. He had been assigned to this mission to provide backup should something go wrong. Chastity had reluctantly and against her better judgment allowed him to join the operation. She had quickly regretted her acquiescence.
Celsius had been angry about trading his resplendent red and white costume for a set of camo fatigues much like the ones Chastity was wearing. He had adamantly refused to carry a gun, despite Chastity’s attempts to explain to him than an unarmed man in the wilds of Kazakhstan would be viewed as a target, which might lead to trouble if some enterprising bandit gang took a swipe at them. Working with someone for the first time wasn’t easy in the best of circumstances. Working with a rank amateur who refused to learn was a recipe for disaster.
She preferred to work alone. Tommy Leary, the one person she’d trusted without reservations, had died of old age in 1992, tending bar at the little Boston pub he had purchased shortly before his retirement from a colorful life of crime. Chastity missed Tommy with all her heart, but she had been alone before him and had soldiered on after his passing.
Chastity had thought she herself would have retired peacefully decades ago after a long and eventful life, starting with her experiences as a Caucasian orphan surviving in the rough and tumble streets of Macau. Said orphan grew up into a rather successful international criminal and eventually a reformed do-gooder and occasional freelance consultant for Interpol. The discovery that she was one of the vaunted Neolympians had come as a shock to her, although both her friends and enemies had nodded knowingly upon hearing the news.
Even before realizing she was not aging physically, Chastity had come to the conclusion retirement was not for the likes of her. Immortal or not, living an ordinary life just didn’t have any appeal to her, and even if it had, trouble always had a way of finding her even when she did not actively seek it out.
In the ensuing decades, Chastity became involved with the international paragons of the Freedom Legion. She would not don some garish costume and perform heroic deeds in the public eye, but she was quite capable of performing discreet if perhaps dastardly deeds in the service of the greater good. Her membership in the Legion was a secret, which allowed her to continue to use her reputation as semi-retired criminal and her connections with the international underworld for assorted ends. The current assignment, to assist in the defection of a disgruntled Imperial Mandarin, was the kind of operation she excelled at, even if she had been saddled with a partner with little understanding of the way things were done.
“They should’ve scrapped this mission,” Celsius complained after a few blessed minutes of silence. “Someone’s nuked the Legion, for fuck’s sake! We should be doing something about that, instead of sitting here at the arse end of nowhere.”
The report of the attack had come in just as they were getting ready to leave the helicopter. Chastity had filed the information away and moved on. Celsius hadn’t. “It may not have occurred to you that the Empire is a very likely suspect in the attack on the Legion, and that an important defector could have vital information on that regard,” Chastity said. “It almost certainly has occurred to our superiors.”
“Right,” Celsius said in a slightly chastened tone. “I’m not used to this, all this waiting doing nothing,” he added, the closest thing to an apology Chastity was going to get.
“Nine parts boredom to one part abject terror. That‘s how this type of operation goes,” she explained to him. “If we’re lucky, we’ll be spared that last part.”
“Too bad,” he replied. “I wouldn’t have minded having a go at one of the Celestials. That would be something, wouldn’t it?”
Celsius was a young man, not yet thirty, blessed with more raw power than common sense. He would make a perfect front-line soldier, or better still the rampaging warrior type you sent out first to soak up bullets that might otherwise hit someone useful. Here and now he was a disaster waiting to happen. “If it comes to that, Celsius, we’ll probably not face just one Celestial. And our objective is to rescue a defector, not finding out just how great and powerful you are.”
Sullen silence was his only response. “Jhew lun dou,” Chastity muttered to herself. The Cantonese curse didn’t do much to alleviate her mood. The little pig-genitals idiot behind her didn’t speak the language, so the insult went unnoticed. After the operation was over she might just have to translate it for him.
The late afternoon started slipping into dusk when she spotted movement at the wall. An opening appeared on the glowing surface and a black sedan – a Fujian Motors model imported from the Empire’s hated rival and main trade partner, the Republic of China – emerged from the opening and started down the poorly-maintained dirt road that led into Kazakhstan. “He’s coming,” she told Celsius, who had settled down for some sleep.
“About bloody time,” the Neo grumbled but headed towards their vehicle and started the engine. The defector’s car would not last long on those roads; the trip to the waiting helicopter would be made in their modified Jeep Seven. Chastity slowly backed down the slope and joined Celsius. The two vehicles met a quarter of a mile from the Dragon Wall, masked by the rising mountains in between. The sedan veered off and came to a stop as the Jeep approached. Its driver got out and greeted them.
Bao Xia Ming was an unprepossessing man of middle stature. His expensive Hong Kong suit was exquisitely tailored, and he displayed his wealth openly through gaudy rings around almost every finger and a bejeweled gold-cased wrist-comm. One of the rings had the dragon sigil of the Emperor: its wearer could open doors into the Dragon Wall at will, although they unfortunately were attuned only to the person for whom they had been designed. The man’s demeanor showed he was someone used to wielding great power and who found the experience of having to drive himself anywhere profoundly demeaning.
Bao stepped forward and shook hands with Celsius, ignoring Chastity completely. Imperial attitudes towards women were rather unenlightened. “Thank you for here being,” he said in accented English. “Got to get out, by goddamn. We go now?”
“We go now,” Celsius replied sardonically. While they spoke, Chastity had been using one of the many devices in her rather unique wrist-comp to scan the defector for tracking devices. She found three of them; his ornate wrist-comm and two rings.
“You have to leave these items behind,” Chastity said in perfect Mandarin, pointing at the jewelry. Bao couldn’t have looked more astonished if she had sprouted wings and taken flight. “They all have electronic tracers,” she continued. “You must dispose of the Dragon Ring as well; it might also be used to find your location. By now they will know you have crossed the Wall. We must hurry.”
“What’s going on?” Celsius asked. He spoke only Polish, English and a smattering of Russian, mostly swear words.
Chastity explained while Bao, muttering angrily under his breath, got rid of the expensive jewelry. Bao next demanded his luggage be transferred to the Jeep. Celsius grabbed the three heavy suitcases and carried them effortlessly to the waiting vehicle. “Come on, let’s go!” he yelled at the dignitary. The Jeep finally got underway.
They drove deeper into Kazakhstan. Ideally they would drive all the way to where their helicopter lay in wait. Flying even a stealth vehicle too close to the Dragon Wall was a risky proposition. With any luck, they would reach the landing site and be on their way in
under an hour.
Luck was not with them, unfortunately.
Hunters and Hunted
New York City, New York, March 13, 2013
Peter Fowler felt a bit wobbly and light-headed as he walked to his crappy studio apartment from the liquor store, where he had spent more than he could really afford. He needed a drink or ten after his harrowing experience at Freedom Island, though. He’d almost gotten killed twice in one day, and if that didn’t warrant getting sloshed, nothing did.
Life as a Hypernet blogger was never easy. Making a decent living at it was nearly impossible unless you were in the top one hundred or so, and the field was crowded with thousands of wannabes. Fowler had started out early, clawed his way up and attracted a small but loyal following. He’d managed to scrape by, although only because his mother would send him a check every other month or so to help cover the bills. Every check came with a handwritten warning in impeccable Palmer script that this was the last time she would help him, and sooner or later that last time would come. Fowler was looking at a future that involved waiting tables to supplement his income. That's when the GNN people had come calling.
GNN had offered to buy his domain name (xw.fowlertalks.net) for the equivalent of five times the advertisement revenue he had made on his best year; it wasn’t exactly big money, but it was real money, enough that he wouldn’t need to bother his mother for a good long while. More importantly, the network would add his blog to its opinion section and put him on salary as part of its editorial staff. His articles would be viewed by millions of people and he would make at least three times what he had before. Fowler had thought about it for about four seconds before saying yes, never bothering to look for any attached strings.
He’d been in GNN’s thrall for a couple of weeks. When the first check came, he’d celebrated by buying a brand-new computer and using it to send a nasty e-mail to his girlfriend. He’d rubbed his success in her face and broken up with her – he could do better now. He’d followed that bit of conspicuous douchebaggery with some wild partying. He had gone a little crazy and managed to blow most of the money before the strings attached to his newfound fortune made their presence known.
Fowler had a lot of pet peeves: he hated the government (any government; he wasn’t picky), he hated the mainstream press (who were all lackeys of the government, natch), and he hated Neos. Neos were above the law. They could do whatever the hell they wanted, unless other Neos deigned to step in and stop them. And, although this was something he only admitted to himself when he was well and truly drunk, he hated them because he wasn’t one of them. Like so many children of the modern world, Fowler had grown up idolizing the costumed freaks and wishing he could join their ranks. In his case the disappointing realization it wasn’t going to happen had turned into resentment.
Word from above had come quickly enough. Tone down the anti-government and anti-press stuff, and concentrate on the anti-Neo stuff. Fowler had been indignant for a whole fifteen minutes, until a look at all the crap he had bought with the domain name sale money provided him with a moment of clarity. He’d sold out, plain and simple, and now it was time to sing for his supper. All in all, he didn’t particularly mind concentrating on Neos. Those freaks deserved whatever they got.
The strings got pulled again right after he’d gotten invited to Freedom freaking Island to be part of the monthly Legion press conference. The importance of the invitation wasn’t lost on him. Few bloggers ever got to join the respectable members of the mainstream media for events of that magnitude. Peter might have sold out, but he hadn’t sold out cheaply.
The day before he was supposed to fly to the island with the rest of the press corps, a creepy little man from GNN – he’d said his name was Mr. Night – had dropped by and told Fowler what to ask Ultimate during the press conference. Fowler hadn’t been thrilled about being told what to do, but he’d gone along and done his best to make Ultimate lose his shit live on international TV and Hypernet newsfeeds.
The story about Ultimate’s wife leaving him was not completely groundless: the power couple had gone through a two year separation back in the 1970s. By then Mrs. Ultimate was getting on in years, being a normal human being. Fowler figured being afraid of Ultimate had nothing to do with it: she was probably not revving up his Ultimate-motor anymore and he’d sent her packing before the bad publicity made him take her back. You couldn’t have the Defender of Liberty dumping wifey because she was getting a bit thick in the middle, could you? In any case, the facts didn’t matter. If his new bosses wanted him to run with a ‘have you stopped beating your wife’ angle, that was fine by him.
At least in theory, that was. For a second there he’d thought Ultimate had been mad enough to actually go after him. If the Invincible Man decided to pop Fowler’s head like a pimple, who the hell could stop him? That could have been pretty bad. He’d never been in fear for his life before. Peter had survived, but his performance got him punted off the island via the next available flight that very morning; he left with the impression he was lucky he hadn’t had to swim all the way back to New York instead. No buffet lunch or island tours for him, and he guessed he would never get invited back, GNN connections or not.
On the other hand, being thrown out meant he’d dodged yet another bullet. A few hours after the press conference, somebody had bombed the crap out of Freedom Island. Fowler had followed the news, and it looked like several journalists had gotten blown up along with the freaks and their pet humans. He had been spared, but the scathing op-ed he’d spent the flight home writing was useless now. You couldn’t blast Ultimate and the Freedom Legion on the same day they had gotten bombed and then nuked. He’d have to come up with a softball piece, get in a few subtle digs while praising the selfless heroes and their human friends. Maybe focus on the human victims of the attack? After all, only a few freaks had died while hundreds of innocent people had been slaughtered right in the raid. Yeah, that could work. He’d think about it after a few drinks.
He was a few steps away from his building’s front door when somebody grabbed him and shoved him into a blind alley. Fowler slammed into a trash dumpster; the paper bag he’d been carrying was knocked out of his hands and the sound of breaking glass was quickly followed by the smell of booze.
“Hey! What the fuck…” Peter’s words froze in his throat. Three men were blocking the alleyway. They wore leather jackets over silver t-shirts with the letter ‘U’ in red.
They all had Ultimate rubber masks over their faces.
“You don’t fuck with heroes,” one of them said, his voice muffled under the rubber mask.
“Hey, man, hey,” Fowler replied feebly. He wanted to say something that would make things better. He considered himself a wordsmith. All his words deserted him when he needed them most.
“You don’t fuck with heroes,” the man repeated. The three moved in on him, brass knuckles in their hands. Fowler had time for one brief scream before one of them punched him in the pit of the stomach, paralyzing and silencing him. Fowler fell and the trio stomped and punched him until he stopped twitching. The attackers spray-painted a slogan on the alley’s wall, rushed out and drove off in a van.
A slight man wearing a black suit and sunglasses emerged from behind a dumpster in the alley. There had been nobody there a moment before. He was old and deeply unattractive, with a lopsided smile on his face, an awful thing that most people couldn’t look at for long. He sauntered over to Fowler, who was wheezing in agony. The slogan painted on the alley wall over the dying man was simple and to the point: ‘Don’t Fuck with Ultimate.’ The man in black leaned over Fowler. The blogger only had one functioning eye at the moment, but even through the shock and pain he recognized the man looming over him. It was the weird GNN guy who’d given him his marching orders for the interview. Mr. Night, the little man with the creepy smile.
“Help,” Fowler tried to say. It came out as a choked, meaningless sound.
“Sorry, little boy,” the man said in the reed
y voice that had set Fowler’s teeth on edge the first time he’d heard it. “Martyrs have to be dead.” Mr. Night examined Fowler’s injuries with a clinical eye. “You really don’t look too bad. You might even recover if given proper medical attention. Can’t have that.”
Mr. Night’s brow furrowed in concentration and Fowler stopped breathing. The blogger tried desperately to force air in his lungs, but nothing happened. “Off you go,” Mr. Night said pleasantly.
The last thing Fowler saw was Mr. Night’s smiling face. Something dark and inhuman seemed to be floating behind his sunglasses.
He’d escaped death twice that day, but the third time, as everyone knows, is the charm.
* * *
Fowler’s body was discovered seconds later. By then Mr. Night was well away from the scene. His work was never done, and even with his little gifts he had to hustle to keep up with his many duties. The little man in the black suit vanished as soon as good Mr. Fowler had breathed his last. He reappeared somewhere not quite in the physical world, wrapped in comforting darkness and pondering about the work of the day.
Great things often came from humble beginnings. The death of an unlamented blogger was of little consequence in and of itself, but it added color to the little tableau Mr. Night was carefully sketching. The paranoids on the web would spread their own pet theories. Fowler had dared to question Ultimate and had paid the ultimate price, pun definitely intended. While few would actually blame Ultimate directly, the death would plant seeds of doubt in the minds of many. It was all part of a delightful scheme to turn the beloved hero of millions into a despised villain. Mr. Night appreciated the beauty of the plan, even if he wasn’t its mastermind.
New Olympus Saga (Book 1): Armageddon Girl Page 14