“Because you have all the answers?” Cole coughs. He attempts to stand, using the tree at his back for support, but a wave of agony washes over him.
“No,” The General replies bluntly, staring down at Cole’s blood-soaked body. “Because I have the balls to bring a gun to a fist fight. And whoever is willing to go the furthest always wins.”
Chapter Thirty-Two – Athanasy
New Orleans, Louisiana | January 28, 2012 | 1:51 pm, Central Standard Time
“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Dia sings as she continues to search the surrounding area, systematically peering down one row of crypts after another. “You know that it’s just a matter of time before I find you. Since I’m in a cheerful mood I’ll make you a deal: come out right now, surrender peacefully, and I’ll let you live. I’ll take you into the future with me and prosecute you as a traitor in front of The Nine, and ensure that you receive life in prison instead of a death sentence. You’ll spend the rest of your life breaking rocks on Phobos, but at least you’ll have a life. How does that sound, sis?”
Dia turns a corner and spots a streak of blood dripping from the side of a headstone. She cracks a malicious smile. “You’re going to bleed to death,” she shouts, “so why don’t you just—”
And before she can finish Paige slams a rusted shovel into her spine. She was aiming for the back of Dia’s head, but her injured shoulder prevents her from swinging the shovel with enough accuracy. Dia falls to the ground and shields her head with her forearms. Paige continues to attack. She brings the shovel down again and again, never connecting with her target.
Dia suddenly bursts from the ground and wraps her arms around Paige’s waist, flying ten feet in the air. She comes down hard, with her shoulder jamming into Paige’s solar plexus and they splash into the soaking grass.
Paige gasps for air and Dia continues her assault. She sits forward on Paige’s chest and pins her to the ground, raining down a series of stinging punches to her face.
Flailing her arms in defence, Paige tries to calm herself; tries to focus. Battered and fading into unconsciousness, she knows this is her final burst of energy, and she has to make it count. She hooks Dia’s leg, grabs her sleeve and pivots to the side, executing a near-perfect sweep. She rolls and lands on top of her sister, pinning her to the ground, with her forearm pressing sharply onto Dia’s cheekbone.
“What are you going to do now?” Dia coughs out while she struggles to free herself. “You can’t erase my memories in a few seconds.”
“You’re right. But I can give you one back.” Paige taps the security code into the touch screen on the back of her gauntlet, and the serum injects into her veins. She manifests with more intensity than the storm that surrounds them.
Paige touches the side of Dia’s head, and in a split-second she transfers a memory. A single, agonizing memory – one that Paige will live with for the rest of her life. It’s the blood-curdling screams of a billion living creatures as they boil to death from the heat of a high-powered laser; the laser that Dia ordered to destroy an entire planet. The terrified faces of children, disfigured and melting. Parents clutching each other as the gelatinous skin falls from their bones. And the pain...the searing pain etched into their voices. It all floods her mind in a wave of emotion, like water crashing through a dam.
Dia’s eyes glaze over. She stops fighting back and falls limp, gazing skyward. “It was my fault,” she whispers, the words catching in her throat. “I killed them all. I ordered the strike on that planet, and they felt everything. They died in so much...there was so much suffering.”
“I know,” Paige replies, rolling off of her sister. She lies next to her in the grass, reaching over to hold her hand. “I’ve been carrying that memory with me for years. I felt their pain. In that moment it felt like my insides were being scraped out.”
“That’s how I feel now.” Dia says, her eyes flooding with tears. “Like I’m hollow. Like I’m nothing inside. How did I ever become this person?”
Paige shakes her head slowly. “I don’t know. Corrupted by the power, maybe. I just think you got too much, too fast.”
“Don’t make excuses for me. I’m a terrible person.”
“You’re not—”
“Stop it,” Dia shouts, rolling to her side. She sits up and wipes the hair from her face; the soaking blond tresses that are slowly darkening to their natural color. Her electric blue eyes dissipate and become a deep chestnut brown. “I don’t know who I am. But whoever this is...Danica, Dia...she’s too dangerous. She has to die.”
Chapter Thirty-Three – Saturnism
New Orleans, Louisiana | January 28, 2012 | 1:48 pm, Central Standard Time
The bullet that hits Jens feels more like a cannonball. It enters his chest, bursting out the back of his ribcage in a plume of crimson. The Kevlar vest he’s wearing is useless; whatever type of ammunition the Federation soldiers are using, the projectile blasts through the military-grade armor plating with the same ease as the faded grey hoodie zipped over it.
Jens’ heroic intervention buys Allison a second.
It’s all she needs.
With a fluid motion that she’s been practicing since she was a toddler, Allison extracts a green tennis ball from her satchel, tosses it and slams it with the cross-strings of her racket. Before the solider has time to wonder what the hell it is that’s flying towards him, the ball bursts through his helmet, causing a sticky wet explosion, spattering a nearby mausoleum with chunks of cranium and brain matter.
“Jens!” Allison shouts, dropping to her knees. She peels off his hoodie and yanks back the armor plating, wincing at the gruesome wound beneath.
He cracks his eyelids and tries to force a smile. “Hey...” he says weakly, “it looks like you’re not so bad at playing on grass.”
Chapter Thirty-Four – Satanophany
New Orleans, Louisiana | January 28, 2012 | 1:55 pm, Central Standard Time
The skies continue to darken as the battle intensifies around them.
The undead amble towards the soldiers at the cemetery perimeter, unfazed by the punishment they’re sustaining. They’re continuously blasted with ice, fire, and even tombstones, torn from the ground and hurdled through the air at impossible speeds. Having superhuman abilities at their disposal is doing little to aid the soldiers. The horde continues to sustain trauma to their decomposing torsos, but they continue their onslaught.
The General’s men begin to retreat.
The sight of fellow soldiers having the armor torn from their bodies while being eaten alive is too much to stomach. They fear the wrath of General Davenport, as everyone does who remains under his command, but nothing incites a mutiny like the possibility of being eviscerated.
Eyes ablaze, Brodie continues to use his power to levitate caskets, and blast the doors off of mausoleums. Every freshly opened gravesite is another soldier that can be reanimated for their purposes.
Trent, now in an almost trance-like state, stands atop a crypt; arms extended, pupils dilated until the whites have disappeared. His army of the undead continues to swell, crawling from their graves at his behest. Like a mad conductor he controls them with an exaggerated wave of his hand, commanding dozens at a time with a single gesture. “Can you believe this shit?” he screams down at Brodie, who’s standing on the soaking grass below. “It’s everything Paige promised it would be. This is better than a war: this is fucking Armageddon!”
It isn’t just a childlike enthusiasm that’s driving Trent through this battle, or even an insatiable bloodlust. Brodie can sense it’s much more than that: it’s the feeling of control. Trent relished the opportunity to force everyone – and everything – around him to obey his commands.
They need Trent in order to complete this mission, and thanks to the combination of his and Brodie’s abilities, they might just pull it off. But the cost remains to be seen. In the wake of this battle, one of the most dangerous and mentally unstable humans on the planet will be on the loose
, and if this display of power is any indication, it might be impossible to stop him.
Chapter Thirty-Five – Polylemma
New Orleans, Louisiana | January 28, 2012 | 1:56 pm, Central Standard Time
“What the hell are you talking about?” Paige clutches her sister’s shoulders, shaking her frantically. “You can’t just kill yourself!”
Dia wipes the tears from her bleary eyes. “So what now...I just go on like this? Pretending that I didn’t destroy an entire planet, along with every living thing on it? I can’t do it. I’d rather die than live another second like this.”
Fighting back tears of her own, Paige steels herself and yanks Dia to her feet. “I won’t let you,” she says through gritted teeth, her voice bound with determination. “I haven’t come this far to let you die on me.”
Dia stares back at her sister, slumped and defeated. She reaches down and grabs Paige’s hands, squeezing them gently. “Do it.”
“N-no,” Paige stammers. “This whole thing was my fault. I tried to make you someone you’re not, and it drove you insane.”
“I won’t fight it,” Dia replies weakly. “I’ll let you in, a hundred percent. Dive in and remove every trace of Danica. Erase my memories of 3016, my powers, Akashic...take it all. Just let me be a better person. Someone worth saving, this time.”
“You know what you’re asking of me, right?”
Dia nods her head, and wipes away a final tear.
There is no other way. Paige is certain of it this time. Standing in the pouring rain as the skies darken and the winds intensify, staring into the broken eyes of the sister she used to know, she’s never been so certain of anything in her entire life. She can’t erase the past, or change the future. If she had the power to do it, she would. But taking away Dia’s pain – making her forget the horrors she’s responsible for – is the one ability that Paige does possess.
“What I’m about to do,” Paige explains, “it might not be a solution that lasts forever.”
Dia smiles weakly. “Nothing ever is.”
Paige exhales and readies her hands on either side of her sister’s head. “All right...I’ll see you on the other side.” She presses her fingertips into Dia’s temples, and her eyes begin to illuminate.
Chapter Thirty-Six – Thanatophobia
New Orleans, Louisiana | January 28, 2012 | 2:01 pm, Central Standard Time
“We did it,” Trent shouts, hopping off the mausoleum and onto the ground with a splash. His black shirt and pants are soaked through, clinging to his skeletal frame, and a mess of dark hair sticks to his face.
“It looks like they’re in retreat,” Brodie says, trying to remain enthusiastic. “But I just got word from Cole, and he needs help. Time for the final phase – activate the gauntlet.”
“Let’s do it!” Trent shouts, clapping his hands twice with anticipation. He taps the code into the back of his gauntlet and injects himself with Brodie’s custom made serum. A moment passes and he wobbles, leaning against a crypt for support. “This...this stuff is hitting me pretty hard, man.” A spider web of blue veins rises to the surface, visible on his face and arms.
“I’m sorry,” Brodie replies softly, turning his back. “You don’t deserve this.”
Trent crumbles to the ground; his joints rapidly stiffen, as if rigor mortis is setting in. “What the fuck, man!” He screams and thrashes while he falls, but every movement causes his muscles to tighten further.
The paralyzing agent apparently does work on dead tissue, as Brodie had predicted.
In the distance, the reanimated corpses tumble to the ground as well, collapsing into piles of brittle bone and rotting tissue. Amber is the last to drop; she topples at Trent’s side like a discarded doll, her eyes rolling to whites.
“Come on,” Trent shouts as Brodie walks away. “Don’t leave me like this! Why? Why are you doing this?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do,” Brodie mumbles, not even sure he believes the words as they escape his lips. In truth, he betrayed Trent because he was instructed to – and because, he was told, it was a necessary evil of securing the future. He reluctantly accepted the task, wishing now that he hadn’t.
Brodie can be idealistic, but he’s not naive: impossible decisions have to be made in order to win wars, and the notion of fairness rarely plays into the equation. He knew that walking into this mission. But walking away, hearing the screams of a man he sentenced to death, he can’t help but feel that he no longer wants that responsibility.
Chapter Thirty-Seven – Absolutory
New Orleans, Louisiana | January 28, 2012 | 1:55 pm, Central Standard Time
“You’re wrong. The most homicidal maniac doesn’t always win.” Cole rises to his feet and presses forward, allowing his attacker to fire one blast after another into his torso. “I know how this goes down.”
The General backpedals across the wet grass, firing as he retreats. “Why? Because a swami in an orange bathrobe told you so? Bullshit.”
“No. Because I saw it.”
The General continues to fire at will, blasting chunks of flesh from Cole’s shoulders, chest and stomach – but somehow, the wounds are closing faster than the shots can open them. “That’s not possible,” The General screams. “You can’t see the future!”
With a sudden burst of speed and a well-placed palm thrust, Cole sends his attacker flying backwards, colliding into the already-battered grill of the Hummer. The General slumps to rain-soaked pavement. He tries to move but screams out in pain; his ribs are badly broken, and three of his vertebrae are shattered.
“The future already happened,” Cole says, kneeling at his side. “This is a cycle, and we’re all just running on a treadmill...we live, we fight, we die. And after we’re gone the next generation repeats the same mistakes.” As the General reaches out to grab his weapon, Cole snatches it away and crumples it between his hands, discarding it like a tin foil wrapper. “People don’t need someone like you to lead them. They need to figure it out on their own.”
“Kill me,” The General groans, staring at his immobilized legs. “I’m not going to have my legacy destroyed in some court battle, or spend my final days rotting in a cage. You can snap my neck like a twig,” he pleads, grasping at Cole’s shirt. “Just be a man and do it!”
Staring down at The General’s broken, twisted body, Cole’s mind reels. You tried to take everything from me, you son of a bitch. I could end you with a satisfying stomp right here, right now. It would be easier than crushing an insect.
“You’re such a waste,” The General hisses, writhing in pain. “The power you possess...what you could do with it if you’d just channel it. Look at you...you can’t even destroy your worst enemy.”
Cole smiles. In this moment – deciding to forgive someone who would die before reciprocating the same gesture – is the most powerful thing he’s ever done. And the cycle is about to come to an end.
“What you deserve,” Cole says, “is to be exposed for the piece of shit that you are. But that wouldn’t accomplish anything. The world needs heroes more than it needs enemies to rally behind.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Cole reaches into The General’s jacket and extracts his phone. “I’m going to give you a gift.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight – Transvolation
New Orleans, Louisiana | January 28, 2012 | 2:09 pm, Central Standard Time
Cole sprints towards a clearing where the Aithon has touched down. The entrance ramp has been lowered, and Goto stands guard at the opening.
“The General?” Goto asks, shouting into the wind.
Cole steps beneath the wing of the jet and out of the downpour. “Taken care of,” he replies, “...but we only have a few minutes to escape the blast zone.”
Goto yanks the sleeve of his jacket away from his watch, activating his wrist com with a small twist. “I’ll call everyone in.”
A moment later Paige emerges from between the curtains of falling rain, cr
adling Dia like a small child. Her head is tilted back, her eyes are closed, and her dark hair blows violently in the wind.
Cole rushes back into the storm, scooping Dia’s body from her arms. “Is she—?”
“She’s fine,” Paige says with a reassuring nod. “She’ll be out for a while, but she’s going to make it.”
They escort her to the medical bay and return to the ramp, awaiting the rest of their team.
Allison and Jens are the last to arrive. Jens has one arm draped around her narrow shoulders for support, and one hand clasped over his blood-soaked shirt.
“Holy shit,” Cole shouts, “what happened?”
“It’s just a scrape,” Allison scoffs. “But you should have seen me out there! I was blowing up helicopters, sending fiery tennis balls into the sky...”
“You can tell me about it on the jet,” Cole assures her, helping Jens up the ramp.
After everyone is aboard Allison peers around curiously. “Not that I really care, but where’s Brodie?”
“I gave him the keys to The General’s Hummer,” Cole explains. “I don’t think we’ll see him for a while.”
The Aithon’s entrance ramp retracts and the door seals shut. Before everyone can find a seat the jet is already airborne, rocketing towards the clouds.
Goto walks to the intercom on the wall and slaps his hand into the sole red button. “It’s time,” he announces. “Drop everything we have. I want five square miles beneath us turned to dust.”
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