“Ultimate’s gone bloody barking mad,” Meteor said, with more than a hint of schadenfreude in his tone. “And you don’t look very much surprised, Doc,” he added, glaring accusingly at Kenneth.
Feeling like he was betraying John’s confidence, Kenneth spoke. “Some of us have noticed that John seemed to be suffering from some emotional problems. Nobody had any inkling things were so bad, let alone that he could become a danger to others. I still find it hard to believe.”
“He seems to be dangerous enough. He stomped on the Chicago Sentinels pretty good,” Daedalus said. “Of course, none of them is rated higher than 2.8. They never had a chance against him.”
“Do we have a chance of stopping him, if it comes to that?” Hyperia asked. In many ways she was Ultimate’s female counterpart, immensely strong and nearly impervious to injury. However, she had always come a distant second to John in terms of raw power. Kenneth found the PAS system deeply flawed, a facile and largely inaccurate attempt to quantify parahuman powers, but the numbers provided an easy point of reference. Ultimate’s number was 3.6. Hyperia was a 3.2. Four ‘points’ did not seem like a lot until one understood that each point represented a large increase in power. John was three times more powerful than Hyperia by most measures. “Can we take down Ultimate?”
“That’s the sixty-four thousand quid question, isn’t it?” Meteor said sourly. His one fight with Ultimate had not gone well. “We could bury him in bodies, if it comes to that, but we’ll lose more people than we did on yesterday’s attacks. Many more.”
“I’ve been making some tweaks to my Myrmidon Armor,” Daedalus said. “I think I might surprise dear old Johnny if he’s really flipped out. And we can reactivate Janus and get him here PDQ; he can probably take down Ultimate all by his lonesome. Even then, it’s not going to be a walk in the park.”
“We’ll have to find Ultimate first,” Kenneth said. “His communication implant went dead a few minutes ago, somewhere in the Chicago metro area. He had flown all the way to the Pennsylvania-New York border before reappearing in Chicago an instant later.”
“I didn’t know Ultimate could teleport,” Daedalus commented. He was listening to something via his comm implant even as he spoke.
“As far as I know, he cannot. We do not have enough information. In any case, if we must confront him, we need to do it as far from populated areas as possible, or we risk a humanitarian crisis of unprecedented proportions.”
“Speaking of humanitarian crisis,” Daedalus broke in. “I just got news from the Pacific branch. Plenty of news and it’s all bad.”
Kenneth’s expression remained impassive, belying the turmoil within. Too many things were going wrong at the same time. Suspiciously so. He listened to the initial reports coming from Hong Kong. Chasca, a Councilor and one of the most respected leaders of the Legion, was dead, killed by weapon that could apparently neutralize parahuman powers. Artemis had been severely injured as well. The investigation had revealed more evidence that the Dragon Empire had been responsible or at least complicit in the attack on the Legion. War with the Empire was becoming more likely by the moment.
“We need to prepare for the worst,” Kenneth said. He was the current team leader, a rotating position that would have gone to Ultimate the following month, ironically enough. “Daedalus, please take Hyperia and Meteor and any other active members you need and prepare a plan to subdue Ultimate should it become necessary. I want to emphasize we must attempt to communicate with Ultimate before taking any hostile actions. This could still be a misunderstanding or some form of deception.”
“Sure thing, Fearless Leader,” Daedalus replied. “Trust me, the last thing I want to do is to go mano a mano with ol’ Shiva Incarnate. By the way, when are you going to call the President? I hope he didn’t have any plans for the weekend, ‘cause he’s gonna be busy.”
“Why should we contact the US President directly? We’re not a US appendage, much as the newspapers like to pretend we are,” Meteor broke in.
“Sure, matey,” Daedalus said mockingly. “But who else are we going to call? The UN doesn’t exactly have a hot line. Someone’s got to call an emergency meeting of the Security Council. It’s probably a good idea if it’s not the Legion doing it. Do you want the media accusing us of instigating the Third Asian War? And our most famous Legionnaire just wiped the floor with a licensed super-team on American soil. We have to get in touch with the White House, pronto.”
“Daedalus is right,” Kenneth said, forestalling Meteor’s angry response. “I will contact the White House and offer to brief the President or anybody he chooses to speak to me.”
“Better you than me, Doc.” Daedalus said; he and US President Colletta did not get along. Daedalus’ unwavering support of the Republican Party and his efforts to strangle the Reform Party in its cradle had a lot to do with their mutual dislike. Unlike his fellow inventor, Kenneth had made a point of remaining thoroughly apolitical throughout his career, which was very helpful whenever he had to deal with the US government. The choice of messenger would not make these particular news any more palatable, of course.
Everybody went off to play their roles. Kenneth could not help feeling those roles had been scripted in advance by someone else, and that whoever was doing so was no friend of the Legion, or the world.
Hunters and Hunted
New York City, New York, March 14, 2013
The fateful moment was near.
Mr. Night could sense something momentous was nearly at hand, an event so powerful it was creating echoes through the fabric of time itself. His ability to peer into the future was limited at the best of times, but he could feel the appointed time’s presence like a sudden variation of pressure announcing the imminent arrival of a powerful storm. Every precognitive Neolympian in the planet must be convulsing and foaming at the mouth, overcome by visions forecasting the end of everything they held dear.
That normally pleasant image did little to amuse Mr. Night. The girl was too close to becoming the ruination of all his plans. Her capture would make the foreordained end of humanity a certainty. Her death would make for an acceptable alternative outcome, delaying the inevitable but only for a relatively short time. But if she escaped, if she was allowed to roam free and learn, everything he had worked for could be ruined.
Mr. Night looked at his henchmen with a critical eye. Medved was sitting on a couch that visibly sagged under his weight, with the Lady Shi curled in his arms like a kitten and whispering sweet nothings into his ear. Archangel was behind his desk, lost in thought. They were ready for action, relaxing as experienced warriors do, turning their minds away from the possibility of death and getting what rest they could. They were a formidable trio, but Mr. Night was not sure they were up to the task.
The girl had somehow gathered several champions along the way, including Ultimate himself. The murderous misfits at Mr. Night’s disposal were powerful and capable, but he didn’t think they were up to the task. Mr. Night expected to have his own hands full with his old friend Damon Trent, better known as the Lurker; Damon, the treacherous meat bag who had learned of Mr. Night’s grandiose vision and devised his own scheme to thwart it. He needed his three little puppets to take care of everyone else and capture or kill the girl.
He needed to stack the deck a little, even if it meant making a few changes here and there.
Archangel was the most powerful of the lot, but he was also the most unreliable, a man dedicated only to his own survival at the expense of all else. Trying to improve him was likely to be counterproductive, not to mention difficult: the Russian’s mind and will were well protected by an artifact of some sort. Mr. Night was surprised that little Cassandra had managed to snare Archangel, even at the cost of her own life. The woman had shown unsuspected depths. He really should have killed her when their paths crossed all those many years ago. In any case, it would be left to leave the cherubim the way he was. He would do well enough on his own.
Mr. Night considered L
ady Shi. He could see the brutalized little girl she once had been quite clearly, and the years of trauma that had broken her mind over and over. What had emerged from that cauldron of degradation and torment was a beautiful killing machine, but there were a few too many twists and turns inside that pretty little head. You couldn’t tell which of her mental building blocks could be altered safely. He decided to spare her as well.
Medved, on the other hand, was a simple man. He was happy when things went his way, and angry when they didn’t. He cared nothing for most people, but when he made a friend or a lover he was fanatically loyal. He wasn’t an imbecile – few Neolympians were – but he was not a man given to thought or introspection. That made him an ideal subject for Mr. Night’s purposes.
“Mister Bear,” Mr. Night said. “Front and center, if you please.”
Medved rose ponderously from the couch. “What do you want, little man?” he growled.
“In a very short while, we are going to face Ultimate the Invincible Man. How would you like to be known as the man who killed him?”
The massive Slav considered this. His frown became a smile. “That would be good. Everybody loves him, the pretty man in his fancy costume. I would enjoy tearing him to shreds.”
“What are you going to do to Medved?” Lady Shi asked. She wasn’t smiling. The Japanese killer knew enough about Mr. Night not to trust him when he came bearing gifts. Smart girl.
“Nothing he won’t like,” Mr. Night said in what he considered to be a reassuring tone. Nobody seemed reassured. Well, he was lying, so he couldn’t blame them for not believing him. “I’m going to give him power, woman. Far more power than he’s ever known. And you are going to follow orders like a good schoolgirl and not interfere, wakarimasuka?”
Lady Shi tensed. One never knew when the pretty woman with the sharp smile was going to lose control and start severing limbs with the fiery throwing stars she conjured with her mind. Mr. Night had been on the receiving end of one such tantrum some years ago, and it had been a stressful experience for all concerned. Lady Shi remembered how things had turned out then; she had not enjoyed the results. She stayed her hand and silently acquiesced to Mr. Night’s little experiment.
Mr. Night considered the problem. Power given was power lost, so he was forced to be parsimonious. He examined Medved’s massive hands and especially his fingers, the blunt digits that could produce two-inch long black talons capable of shredding steel. Against Ultimate, they might draw a little blood, inflict some shallow scratches, and no more. Medved’s strength was but a fraction of the Invincible Man’s. And yet, with a little infusion of the darkness inside Mr. Night’s soul, things would be different.
He held the brute’s hands with his own. Medved grunted as coldness rushed up from his hands and arms into his body. The darkness found the man’s inner rage and intermingled with it. Mr. Night nodded in satisfaction. The Outside had found an agreeable place to nest and grow.
Medved took a step back and pulled his hands away, but it was too late. If he survived the night, the giant’s body and soul would undergo a number of changes. He was strong, and he might even live through the process for longer than a fortnight, but he was unlikely to last much longer than that. The Source and the Outside were opposing forces, and their interactions could best be described as corrosive. Only Damon Trent had managed to survive for long under those conditions. It was a pity such a historical figure had to be sacrificed, but needs must when Mr. Night drives.
The time to act was getting close.
Face-Off
Somewhere in Lake Michigan, March 14, 2013
The island was a wind-swept rocky wasteland, consisting of two hill surrounded by a beach barely large enough to fit the Condor Jet. A handful of scrawny trees on the hills were the only sign of life; other than that the island was a misshapen mound of dirt protruding from the lake like an infected pimple. It fit my mood perfectly.
The Lurker led the way. He took us down a natural path between the hills into a cave that did not look natural at all. It was a round tunnel carved into the rock, with walls so smooth they reflected the moonlight at the entrance almost as well as mirrored glass. As we went underground, the Lurker’s mask started glowing with a bluish light that provided enough illumination for us to find our way. We went down the spiraling tunnel for quite a ways, certainly well below the lake’s surface. Nobody spoke as we walked down. I guessed everyone had stuff to think about.
I didn’t want to do any thinking. If I let myself think, I would have to face the fact that Cassandra was gone. She would never again let me know when I screwed up, or laugh at my jokes. I’d been halfway through reading The Wide Sargasso Sea to her. She didn’t need me to read for her, but she liked hearing me do it. Now I would have to finish the book by myself. Alone. I tried to spend the walk down checking the tunnel walls, admiring how smooth they were, wondering if the Lurker had built it or had found it the way it was.
We arrived to a large chamber below the earth. The ceiling was fairly high, about twenty feet, but the place still felt claustrophobic to me. Maybe it felt that way because almost every square inch of the walls and ceiling were covered with glowing signs that waxed and waned in a steady pattern. The signs were larger versions of the ones on the Lurker’s mask. I couldn’t look at them for very long before my head started to hurt. I ended up keeping my gaze mostly on the nice, ordinary dirt floor. No wonder the Lurker had gone batshit crazy. If I had to look at that kind of wallpaper for very long, I’d be bashing my brains out against a rock faster than you could say Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
The walls were making an impression on everyone else, too. Kestrel was staring at them while swaying her head back and forth, looking hypnotized. Condor was pointedly looking at her rather than the walls. Ultimate was trying hard to look unimpressed. A little too hard, I thought, but I wasn’t feeling particularly charitable towards the All-American Hero.
Christine was shaking.
I rushed towards her as soon as I noticed her reaction. I had to get past Ultimate, and I shouldered him out of the way – he might be a thousand times stronger than me and a good five inches taller, but unless he willed himself not to be moved, I could move him. He didn’t react, not that I was paying attention to him. I tentatively put an arm around Christine. She did not seem to notice. Her attention was fixed on those symbols.
“It helps if you don’t look at them for very long,” I said.
“They are words,” she whispered. I wasn’t sure if she knew she had spoken out loud. “And the words can change reality. I can almost read them.” The shaking grew stronger, as if she was having an epileptic attack.
I turned to the Lurker, who was just standing there, looking at us as if we were so many lab rats. “Hey!” I said in a tone that usually preceded violence and bloodshed. He did not seem to hear me. “Hey, asshole!” That got his attention. “Turn those fucking things off or take us somewhere we don’t have to look at them. Or I’m leaving and taking her with me.” If he tried stopping me, we were going to find out exactly how much of a badass he really was.
The Lurker shrugged. A second later, a sheet of darkness spread through the walls and ceiling, obscuring the constellation of mind-fuck doodles from sight. The illumination level did not change somehow. ‘Somehow’ is a very useful word when dealing with Neo powers. Christine staggered a little when the signs were hidden away. I held on to her until she felt steady on her feet. “That was the weirdest thing I’ve seen,” she said. “And after the last couple of days, that’s saying a frak of a lot.” She smiled at me. “Thank you.”
“It’s just a bunch of shiny chicken scratches,” Kestrel said. “Just some sort of hoodoo your daddy’s conjured up, that’s all. He sees the darkness in all men’s souls.” She laughed. The laughter sounded less amused than hysterical, spoiling the attempt at nonchalance.
“What are those things?” Christine asked her father.
The Lurker had taken his mask off. Without it, he looked like
a skinny man with a mop of reddish hair and incongruous freckles on a face lined with either years or a stressful life. The family resemblance to Christine was there, if you took away the wrinkles and insanity. “I do not truly know,” he said, sounding a little more normal than usual. “I suspect many things. They make up a language, but much more than that. I suspect they may be access codes to reality itself.”
Whatever the hell that meant. It sounded impressive enough, though.
“I also believe they come from the same source as our powers.”
“Aliens! I knew it!” Condor said triumphantly. That was one of those perennial arguments people with time to kill loved to get into. Where did Neo powers come from? Schools of thought included Aliens Did It (we had so far met no aliens who could deny or confirm it; no aliens at all for that matter), Divine (or Infernal) Origins, Natural Evolution (highly discredited since the Human Genome project came to fruition and found no Neo Gene), Cosmic Rays, They Were Always Here But Hid Themselves, and Someone Put Some Weird Shit in the Water. I usually argued in favor of Nobody Knows and I Don’t Give a Fuck; Let’s Order some Pizza. Condor was an Aliens Did It man.
“I have a question,” Ultimate said. “How did you come to gain this knowledge? I know people who have been studying Neolympian powers for nearly a century. Nobody I know of has made any meaningful discoveries.”
“I was shown,” the Lurker replied; he was reverting back to the muttering, batshit crazy guy we all knew and hated. “I had eyes, but did not see. I could only understand the simplest words. I needed fresh eyes.” He was looking at Christine when he said that. “That’s why I made you what you are, to see and to help me understand. You will be my eyes, Christine.”
“Oh, God,” she said. “Is that all I am, Dad? Your interpreter? Living prescription glasses so you could read the writing on the wall?”
New Olympus Saga (Book 1): Armageddon Girl Page 36