by Ben Mason
He had seen her take missile strikes head-on, smash into tanks until they were as flat as soda cans. He had seen her dive into rooms full of villains or overpowered aliens and thrash them within an inch of their lives. It was hard to imagine the woman in the bed was the same person.
And yet, diminished as she was, Christoph was willing to give anything if he could take her place.
Staring at her, holding her weak hand in his, Christoph finally realized the difference between attraction and love. He had been attracted to Siv before. Had been enamored with her work as a hero and what she stood for. The passion with which she followed her code. There was understanding and intimacy. But love was staring at the faults of another and willingly accepting them. It was finding a compromise on important issues. It was realizing a code was rigid and inflexible. And humans weren’t. Super or otherwise.
When she had first asked him to give up his chosen career, he hadn’t been able to let go because back then he had loved power, loved his independence and strength. He had loved his own ego. It was what drove a wedge between him and Dominic. It was what had put the Kimbles in so much danger. That was why the crystal hadn’t wrapped him up in cables of steel. Because it didn’t have to. He was more than capable of trapping himself.
“If we ever get out of this, I promise to give up whatever you ask of me,” he whispered. “Even if it’s every suit I own. Well, most of them.”
Her breathing didn’t change; the sound of her heart rate kept steady.
Less than an hour ago she had been awake and talking. Less than two she had loved him. How had Murakawa gotten Dominic hooked up so fast? Even with his technology the flight back to Montmoore was significant. Add in the time needed to extract the “cargo,” and even he was going to need time to plan it out.
That was another thing. Murakawa had never allowed his plans to deviate from the intended path. If they failed, he waited until later to either get revenge or whatever his objective was. “People who deviate from plans,” his once friend had said, “end up making mistakes.”
If Murakawa had made one, Christoph didn’t see it. And without a flaw there was no hope in fixing this mess.
He gave Siv’s hand one last squeeze. “I’m trying to save the day,” he said, his voice weary. “Turns out I’m not very good at it.” Placing the hand back down softly, he turned and left the room. He didn’t bother to hide the tears in his eyes. They’d be gone by the time he rejoined the others.
Chapter 29
He was shocked to see Robert waiting for him outside the medic bay farther down the hall. He looked like a man of action in his black fatigues. “How is she?”
“Breathing,” Christoph said.
Robert nodded. One hand was on the butt of his rifle and it was pointed at the floor. It looked a bit like John’s except more finished. The blue glow was less pronounced and the chrome less shiny. Overall, Christoph approved.
“Where are the others?”
“On the top floor. They’re gutting aircraft parts,” Robert said. “Trying to see if we can’t get a heap together, get back to D.C. or some other base. We have one in New Mexico. It’s our most robust facility. So we’re making it light and fast. I let John supervise,” he said, shrugging his shoulders. “Give him something to do.”
Christoph nodded. A wise move. The man’s daughter was somewhere in the presence of a villain, he was trapped and unable to get near his wife in all the chaos, and his one patient was stable thanks to the only treatment he could give her. He was helpless to do anything other than sit by and watch.
They moved down the hall in silence. Robert broke it.
“That phone call about all this?”
“I promise it wasn’t. But if you mean ‘did it lead up to this,’ then yes.”
“Got it.” Robert sighed. “If we live through this and the public learns about that call, you’re going to be in serious trouble.”
“Like Light Beacon and the rest of the Watcher’s you looked out for?” Christoph asked without being sure.
Robert’s face reddened. “We found out like the rest of the Watcher’s later. We thought it better to keep the brand untarnished, considering the documents they had on the U.S. and—hell—everybody else. You planning on using it for blackmail?”
Christoph considered it as they entered the stairwell. His knee forced him to go slow, tottering a little from side to side. Robert matched his pace without saying a word.
“You planning on throwing the book at me for that phone call?”
“No,” Robert said.
They walked in silence from the eleventh to the twelfth floor.
“I used to know what being a hero and a villain was, Robert.”
“Really? Doing better than me. I never had more than a passing guess. There were days I thought I was the champion of righteousness and other days where I poked at my head to see if I was sprouting horns. I finally burned out and accepted I was a bit of both. I figured you had as well.”
They reached the top step of the final floor, right before the metal doors. Robert blocked his way. “So how do you feel now?”
“Lost. Like I’m walking in a haze. I’m not sure if anything I’ve done is right and it seems as if every choice I made was for the most selfish of reasons. Plus”—Christoph smirked—“I’m not exactly in fighting shape.”
“No, you’re not. But I’ll say this. If you’ve got a who to keep you going instead of a what, you’ll be fine. Me? I’ve got my family. Whenever the road gets fuzzy and I’ve lost all semblance of a path, I think about them and they pull me through. Who have you got?”
Christoph opened his mouth to say no one and then thought of Julie with her devious smile, Siv with her sea-green eyes of ice, Dominic, who had once been honorable before he had peeked into so many minds and become jaded.
“People I love,” Christoph said.
“You willing to die for them?” Robert asked.
The answer was easy. “Yes.”
“Well then,” Robert said, opening the door, “let’s go save the day.”
Walking into the room, they saw several of the men in black fusing pieces of airships together. The whole thing looked like some clown car from the stars. John was standing by, his arms crossed, giving out pieces of advice and inspecting the work when none of the blowtorches were in use.
The men looked ready to kill him.
There was a giant hole in the left corner, allowing them to watch the carnage unfold. There were fewer supers in the sky with each passing moment. It was obvious now they hadn’t come just from Selenium, but also from the surrounding area. Some raced across the sky only to be dropped the second they made contact.
“It’s started hitting the citizens,” John said, having moved back toward Christoph and Robert. “No violence yet, but…”
But if we don’t stop it there will be. No doubt Murakawa didn’t plan for this.
“The men are telling me it’ll be done in less than ten. Then we can set out.”
“And if we run into a flyer?”
“Roadkill,” Robert said, shrugging his shoulders, giving a grim smile.
Scanning the skies, Christoph saw Vanguard completing a circular circuit and taking out any of those he ran into with extreme prejudice.
Strange.
“He’s running patrol,” John said. Both of the older men turned to face him. “Vanguard, he’s keeping others out.”
“Like what?” Robert asked.
“Don’t know but it’s big. I get the feeling it’s a thing, too. Like a building or a plane. Don’t laugh,” he added.
No one did. Every man on the team must have been a hardened veteran. Stick around the super community long enough and nothing seemed strange anymore. Still, it was odd timing.
First Julie now John. She had said something strange, too. What was it? What had it been?
It’s hot and loud up in here. Like a bunch of engines are right in my ears.
Up.
Christoph’
s eyes widened. He moved toward the opening. He summoned his powers and felt a vague fuzzy feeling. Even the fog felt like a wisp of smoke. He lightly struck his knee twice and nearly fell from the pain.
But it worked. The fog came back. But it floated above him. Right where the gaping hole was.
“He’s right in front of us,” Christoph whispered. It all made sense. The reason he had been able to change plans once the robots failed, the rescue of his jet, finding them in the Moonbeam, the primed crate, and now kick-starting his plan into motion right after obtaining Dominic.
Murakawa was in the city, right above them the entire time. All they had to do was look up.
As far as risks went, it was bold and shrewd.
Christoph sucked in a breath. This was his chance. While the others were busy battling among themselves. All it was going to cost was some pride.
“Rob?”
His handler blinked in surprise, a small half-smile gracing his face. “Yeah, Chris?”
“I need a favor.”
“Of course,” he said, chuckling. “What?”
“I need your ride.”
Chapter 30
Christoph argued. John countered. And Robert vetoed both of them.
“It’s a two-seater for a reason,” Robert said, shouldering his glowing rifle, checking its battery status for the fifteenth time in two minutes.
“Exactly, and my daughter is right there,” John said. He didn’t point or even nod his head toward the opening. None of the men in the room did. The element of surprise was their best (and only) weapon.
“I realize you care about your daughter, but in this instance you are in over your head. Stand down.”
John squared up. A few of the men working on the ship started moving one hand toward their firearms.
Christoph had seen a few heists go down this road, and they ended with more corpses than cash. Moving forward to cut them off, he felt the crystal from the fog high up start to turn toward him, start to notice.
“We don’t have time,” he growled. “We’re drawing attention.”
“Murakawa can track us?” John asked. His mouth gaped.
“That’s not possible…is it?” Robert’s brow furrowed.
“It isn’t him. There’s…” They weren’t going to believe the truth. Even in a world of magic and trans-dimensional hells the mention of a vague something was not going to cut muster. “There’s an entity behind him giving him the extra boost. It has its own intentions. Genocidal, most likely.”
“Against who?” Robert asked, his shoulders shifting. His body language said he already knew.
“The human race.”
The room went quiet. Each man tried to keep working on the ship, stripping off any add-ons they had put on, ripping it down to the equivalent of a rocket battering ram. Christoph plunged forward.
“You’re going to have to trust me, Robert, John. I’ve lied to both of you. Robert outright and John by omission. It’s my fault we are here in the first place. If I survive, I’ll face any punishment you want, pay any remuneration you require. But we have to move now.”
“Go,” John said, clenching his jaw.
Robert moved first.
“Not you,” Christoph said.
“My ride, my rules. Besides, I got the keys.”
Christoph checked the cockpit. The controls were…haphazard. He cocked an eyebrow.
“Metaphorically. The boys let me in on how it flies.”
“We have no idea of the kind of shielding Murakawa is using,” Christoph said.
“Always wanted to go out with a bang anyway,” Robert said, getting in the front seat. Christoph sat behind him.
“If we survive this you owe me one,” Robert said, as the metal hood closed and the visual screen came on.
“Done.”
“Are you sure?”
Christoph sighed. “As long as I don’t have to wear those hideous sports clothes.”
“And the hat,” Robert said grinning. Christoph fought the urge to laugh. They were a pair. About to risk life and limb and feeling young again. It would have worried him if the world wasn’t on the verge of ending.
“No hat.”
“You wear the hat or I don’t fly us into any invisible aircrafts,” Robert said, crossing his arms. God, he was having way too much fun.
“Fine.”
“Really?”
“One with the fuzzy ball on top and everything. I’ll even take a picture with it on. No smiling. That’s my final offer.”
“Deal,” Robert said, pressing a few controls. The engines ignited and they shot forward.
Gripping the sides of his seat, Christoph tried to make mental contact with the nose of the plane. Any edge he could give it before impact was going to be beneficial. He tapped into his powers and immediately a thousand smoking eyes descended on him. The fog was pulling him in, like a magnet drawing metal.
“Keep straight,” Christoph said.
“Got it.”
His powers weren’t responding and now the fog and whatever lay behind it had keyed in to them. The die had been cast. Christoph poured his will into the nose of the plane. Even if there was no response, he kept going. It gave him a task to focus on instead of thinking about all the ways this plan could go wrong.
And there were about a million of them. Murakawa could maneuver his aircraft if it was fast enough, or if he had the weapons to shoot them down. They could get torn apart by Vanguard. Or there was the old standby: pigeons. Those foul shitting machines had ruined many a uniform and killed plenty of others. Each pigeon funeral was a mixture of horror and suppressed laughter. The very thought of being given one made it easy to think about the nose of the plane, or his own mortality, or the fact that he needed to trim his nose hairs when this was all over.
The nose of the plane made impact with Murakawa’s ship as a laser blast slammed into their improvised vehicle, searing the outside and making the metal inside crunch and groan. The plane flipped, spiraling into the air. Robert made some quick adjustments, shifting the thrusters (some repurposed defense lasers), and slammed onto the top part of the hull, digging into the dirt.
The dirt?
Staring through openings in the cracked shielding screen, Christoph gaped. The doctor hadn’t taken a ship from Montmoore. The ship was Montmoore. He had taken the bulk of his lab with him. The house was half ripped away, and the surroundings were smaller, but there was no denying the faux gothic surroundings. Placing his hands on the ceiling of the scrap plane, he pushed once, twice, to no avail.
“Robert?”
“On it,” he said, raising the rifle and shooting a hole for them to both crawl out of. Rolling out (Robert rolled, Christoph limped), they saw the tombstones, the trees, and the craggy dirt. “Where is he?” Robert asked.
Power crackled from the ground, flowing through Christoph the same way it had when he walked into Avros’s nest. His injuries grew worse and his powers grew. The pain was fueling him. And making it harder to think. He moved toward the ruins of the house. Inside of him, the eyes of the fog watched, burning him from the inside out.
“He’s in there,” Christoph said, pointing to the house.
Moving past the tombstones, both men kept alert. The place was eerily quiet; the sounds of battle drifted from far off. The smell of damp earth so high up made his skin crawl with a sense of wrongness. Where once Montmoore had been tacky it now gave off a feeling of genuine dread.
“Wonder who’s buried here,” Robert said.
Us if we aren’t careful.
A blast of fire melted the headstone next to them. A blast of wind sliced into the one from behind. A trio of supers were flying toward them. Robert cracked off three shots one right after the other. Each one landed, dropping the target. More started to swarm.
“I’ll take your left,” Christoph said.
“No, you won’t. You’re going into those ruins, getting John’s girl, and saving the day. Just like a good hero,” he added.
&
nbsp; “Bite your tongue.”
“Make me,” Robert said as he fired off a few more shots. In the distance a blue dot stopped. “Looks like we’re about to get in over our head. You need to leave now. Otherwise you’ll miss our tee time.”
It irked him to leave an honorable man. Christoph struggled for the proper goodbye and found he didn’t have one.
“I’m never late,” he said, breaking into a run. The crystal’s power was pulling him now, dragging him almost against his will into the ruined mansion. As he got to the front entrance, the door swung open with a creak.
If it hadn’t been the end of the world, he would have rolled his eyes. Or the glowing, sickly green light. The fog started to cloud his mind. Thinking of Julie, Siv, and Dominic, he pushed it back and went in.
Chapter 31
Murakawa greeted him at the door, a pen in his hand. The pen was carved in runes and leaking electricity from the tip. He held Julie by the arm the pen pointing at her.
“Mr. Morgan!” Julie cried. She started crying. She kept repeating “I’m sorry” over and over again.
“It’s not your fault, Julie. It never was,” he said.
“He’s right,” Murakawa said, moving them a step back. He had a glowing blue dot attached to either temple like Julie. His hair was flat and listless and the bags under his eyes were pronounced. His eyes were red and looked to be on the verge of cracking. He had the stubble of a beard and his mustache was tangled.
“You look awful,” Christoph said.
The doctor shrugged. “Things have admittedly gotten a little out of hand.”
“A little?” Christoph said incredulously. “You call this a little?”
He stared around. Even with the weak light the warping of the house was obvious. The wood had started to rip upward, twisting into splintered cypress knees oozing some kind of black puss from their tops. The rooms were barren and a sour smell assailed them from all corners. The wallpaper had fallen to the floor and whatever had taken its place was busy shifting. Staring at it from the corner of his eye, Christoph felt a finger digging at the back of his brain. He focused on Julie and Murakawa and it went away.