He’d left the Madre out in the asteroid belt, hidden behind some nifty stealth systems, and headed back in an ordinary shuttle that had attracted little attention; space traffic was heavier than ever, between the rebuilding and the new construction following the Genocide War. The Wannabe Genocide War, that is, Daedalus thought sourly. The big alien threat had turned out to be a fizzle. His fucking precogs had fumbled the ball. All because of the girl, of course. She was the eternal wild card. Well, she was welcome to this planet.
For the last few weeks, he’d been making quiet purchases of assorted consumables in the international black market. This buy would be the last. Daedalus had sent the Dreamer ahead to start off negotiations, and now it was his turn to show up, arrange a quick transfer of funds, load up the shuttle, and blow this Popsicle stand once and for all. He’d thought about taking the time to shut down a couple of contingency plans that were no longer necessary, but he’d spent too much time on Earth already. It was time to get while the getting was good.
He was meeting the Dreamer and the sellers in a nondescript warehouse in one of the iffy parts of Johannesburg. The building was a three-story structure that had seen better days and thus could be rented out and loaded with cargo without anybody asking too many questions. Daedalus let himself in and took the stairs to the second floor.
He opened the door to the office. The smell of death hit him at the same time he saw a pair of unmoving legs protruding from behind the reception desk. That had to be Dietrich, which meant Dietrich was dead, which meant…
Something thin and sharp wrapped itself around his neck, past his amulet’s shields, held by somebody who’d seemingly materialized out of thin air behind him. “Move and you’re dead,” Chastity Baal hissed in his ear.
“Chaz?”
“I told you not to call me Chaz.”
“Are you here to arrest me?” From the wire garrote around his neck, he knew the answer to that question already, but it didn’t hurt to ask.
“You’d get the death penalty, but you’re too slippery and you’ve got too many friends in high places, know about too many skeletons in other people’s closets,” she said. “You might just get away and start trouble all over again. Better that you disappear without a trace. You really should have tried to be the person I knew you could have been, Daedalus. I’m sorry.”
“Listen…” He had to make her understand. Everything he’d done, he’d done for the world. Hell, he’d even helped save it by derailing the Humanity Foundation’s bomb plot. He was one of the good guys! The world needed him!
The pressure around his neck turned into a brutal pull before he could say any of it. He had time to feel the thin wire cutting through flesh and bone.
The world needs –
Face-Off
Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, March 3, 2014
She knocked on the door of my new place, pointedly not using our mental connection to say hi, even though I could feel her presence with my mind. I was pretty sure that wasn’t a good sign.
“Come in.”
Christine came into the apartment the dickheads at Legion Housing had assigned me, really more like a glorified walk-in closet converted into a studio apartment. I didn’t care. There was only room for a bed and a desk. I was sitting by the desk. I didn’t get up, didn’t walk up to her, didn’t hold her in my arms.
“Mark..?”
“I know. I can feel it. You’ve made your choice, and now you’re here to let me down easy, right?”
The look on her face and the wrenching pain in her soul confirmed my fears. “Mark…”
“It’s okay. I understand. There’s this old movie, starring Humphrey Bogart. Not sure if you had it in your world,” I started to say.
Christine cut me off. “Casablanca? You’re going to quote Casablanca to me?”
I nodded. “’You’re the thing that keeps him going,’” I quoted, pushing that Bogart accent hard. “He needs you, swcheetheart.” I took a deep breath and put my cards on the table. “That’s what it boils down to, isn’t it? You can help keep the old guy sane, and the world needs Ultimate more than it needs Face-Off.”
“It’s more than that,” she said. She was tired and wrung out. I felt bad for her, although I felt worse for me.
“Yeah. You like him.”
“I feel for him. I love him, okay? If I turn my back on him, I don’t know what will happen to him,” she said.
“Well, there you go.”
Her eyes were bright with anger now. Maybe she expected me to fight harder for her. “Well,” she said. “There I go.”
She went.
I stared at the walls for a while. It was going to be okay. I’d get over her. You can get over anything. And if I kept telling myself that, I might even believe it one day.
I was so busy wallowing I didn’t hear the door open again, didn’t notice she’d come back until I saw her standing over me, tears running down her face.
“You know what?” she said. “I fucking hated Casablanca.”
And now she was holding me, kissing me. I made a face and kissed her back. I couldn’t send her away a second time. Fuck what the world needed. Fuck Ultimate.
“Can’t do it,” she said between kisses. “I’ll talk to John. I can’t lose you again, Mark.”
I didn’t say anything, just held her and kissed her. Tasting her tears felt like coming home.
Happy endings are bullshit.
But this was a damn good start.
Christine Dark
Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, March 4, 2014
John had been understanding. Maybe too understanding.
She couldn’t tell what he was feeling after she awkwardly told him she’d changed her mind. Apparently Uncle Adam had made him a ring that made him impervious to empathy, even more so than normal, so even her Christine-senses couldn’t see what he was feeling. It kinda made sense, she guessed, that he would want something like that, to help deal with her. It was a bit like shutting a door on her face, but she couldn’t blame him. She’d used him as a rebound guy after Mark was presumed dead, had told him she’d chosen him when she came back from her magical mystery tour, and then she’d gone and chosen Mark over him at the last moment. And she was sure he’d overheard their conversation in Mark’s apartment; the way he hadn’t looked surprised at all when she went to tell him the news had been pretty suspicious. With his super-hearing, he could well have eavesdropped on them. Not very ethical, and that worried her a bit, but again, could she blame him?
Their goodbyes had been cool, almost cold. She had a feeling they weren’t going to stay friends after this.
Christine left Freedom Hall and decided to fly around for a bit to clear her head. Once she was a thousand feet in the air, she hovered leisurely over the island, being careful to stay out of other people’s flight paths.
She still didn’t remember anything that happened to her while she played Sleeping Beauty. All she could recall was coming up behind her evil twin in Dreamland and blasting her into oblivion. How had Dark Christine ended up there, and almost stolen her body? What had she been doing during those weeks? No clue. Hopefully she’d regain those memories eventually.
Which left her with wondering what to do next.
It was going to be a year since her disappearance from Earth Prime. Her mom must think she was dead by now. One way or another, she had to figure out how to get home, if only so she could tell her mother she was okay.
Then there was the whole mess with the Source. Neos were beginning to pop up again, which meant she was going to have to try and fix that situation, again. Except it seemed that she’d burned out her connection to the Source, also again, maybe permanently this time. She’d known there’d be a price to pay for all the stuff she’d done. Also, she was pretty sure the Outsiders would try something insidious sooner or later. And of course she was still a Legion member, with all the duties that came with the job. Uncle Adam was insistent they met soon. So was Janus, and something told her
that meeting had to go to the top of her to-do list.
She should be feeling worried and anxious about all of that, she wasn’t. Christine was happy. There was a lot of stuff to do, but now that she’d handled fighting gods and monsters like some badass version of Lana DelRey, she figured she could handle anything. Christine smiled and headed back to the ground, thinking of Mark.
There was plenty left to do, but right now she just wanted to be with him, and be happy for a bit.
Epilogue
The Invincible Man watched her fly, and brooded.
THE END
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New Olympus Saga (Book 3): Apocalypse Dance Page 37