“So the assholes have framed Ultimate for murder,” I said. It would be nice if we knew who the assholes were, of course.
“We need to tell John,” Christine added. Ultimate had gone outside to have a little sulk after waking up. Maybe he was still sore after one of the assholes ripped him to shreds back at the Lurker’s cave. The asshole in question had managed to escape, which worried me quite a bit. “I’ll be right back.” She got up and went out after Ultimate.
I almost said something, but stopped myself when I realized how stupid that would be. What was I going to say? That I didn’t want her to go comfort big bad Ultimate? That I didn’t like the way she looked at him? That I wanted her to look at me that way? Fucking hell. Even worse, even though I didn’t say anything she gave a look on the way out that pretty much said she’d gotten the message anyway. Just great. I set aside the romance novel crap. We had work to do.
I turned to Condor, who was raptly watching the news. “We should start thinking about what to do next,” I told him. We’d hoped to get a good night’s sleep before planning our next step, but things were happening too fast. Neos need sleep, but we can do without for a good while before we start getting ornery and insane. Maybe this was a good time to skip sleep and keep on moving.
“Yep,” he replied, muting the sound on the screens. “Your girlfriend’s a wanted woman now, and so is Ultimate. Federal agencies are going to be on the lookout for them, all over the US.”
“Not my girlfriend,” I quibbled.
“Too bad; you two’d make a cute couple. Moving on. We’re dealing with some major players here. They were running an op designed to take over Ultimate’s mind, and have infiltrated the Freedom Legion. They have enough influence to put a frame on Ultimate, too. Are you with me so far?”
“I’m all ears, Gramps,” I said.
“Thanks, kid,” Condor replied with a grin. “The same players were after the Lurker, who seems to have discovered the origin of Neo powers. Christine was groomed by the Lurker to do something about the Source. That’s what I got from his crazy ramblings, at least. My guess is, our adversaries want her for the same purpose. In conclusion, we’re facing a massive conspiracy that includes the Iron Tsar and one or more traitors within the Freedom Legion, and probably a lot more. Am I missing anything?”
“Sounds about right. Christine told me some of what she saw when her father made her look in that cube he had made. She couldn’t remember all of it, but there is some sort of cosmic war. From the looks of it, we got our powers from one of the gangs in that turf war, and the other one’s bankrolling the assholes.”
“And the assholes include one guy who took down Ultimate,” Condor added musingly. “Took him down hard. I’m beginning to feel like we’re way in over our heads here.”
“Yeah, we’re probably not the right people for this kind of job,” I agreed. “But we’re what’s on tap. I’m not planning on running.”
“I never said I was going to run,” Condor said, sounding a bit miffed. “Just thinking out loud.”
“Okay, sorry. I know you’re not a runner, man. Look at it this way. If these guys can take Ultimate down, nobody’s qualified to deal with them. Which means we’re just as qualified as anyone else.”
“Point. Not sure if it’s a good point, mind you, but point.”
“Since nobody’s followed us here, I think we’re still protected from Neo snoops. Christine has some ability that spoofs those powers, or someone would have tracked her down long before now. Cassandra said as much,” I added, wincing inwardly. That had been our last face to face conversation. “Which is one reason she’s not going to use that cube, at least for now; it must have made neutralized that power, and allowed the assholes to track her down.”
“Makes sense. If the opposition shows up again, we won’t have the Lurker to provide a suicidal rear guard while we run away.”
“Right now we need more information. You’re the crime-fighting masked detective, bird-head. Where can we get more information?”
“Well, unless the Lurker killed every Russian mobster in Chicago, there must be somebody left in charge. We could interrogate assorted Mafyia soldiers and move up the ladder until we bump into somebody important. Or,” he added reluctantly, “we could hit the Russians in New York instead. That’s where Christine showed up in the first place. I don’t think she appeared there by accident.”
“Yeah. New York is where crazy Neo shit happens most often. Why should this be any different?”
Condor nodded. “I think Christine was able to escape from their base somehow, but she didn’t get very far. I’d expect them to be somewhere in the city or at least near it.”
“Sounds like a place to start. Tracking down Russian mobsters and beating them to a pulp is right up my alley.”
“Mine, too,” Condor admitted. “I don’t like the idea of stirring up trouble in my town, but I guess trouble is already there. We might as well try to do something about it. Why don’t you call Lester and see how much he can tell us about the Russians in Chicago? I’ll work on the New York angle and we can line up a list of possible targets. Figure we can stay here for a day or two while we prep for our next move.”
It felt like old times, getting ready to kick ass and take names. I grabbed my comm and called Lester Harris, one of the Lurker’s sidekicks, who had bailed on us earlier in the night. Smart of him; he was a vanilla human and way in over his head. He probably wouldn’t be happy to hear from me, but he would help out.
I even managed not to think about Christine and Ultimate for a while.
Chapter Three
The Freedom Legion
Atlantic Headquarters, March 15, 2013
Kenneth Slaughter worked on his armor and fought a rising tide of despair.
The workshop was empty except for him. He always did his best work by himself, unencumbered by the need to interact with people. Relating to the rest of humanity had long felt like a chore. He would much rather be alone with his thoughts, free to let his mind consider possibilities, alternatives, and new developments in a hundred different fields. Having others around all too often led to their looking uncomprehendingly at him, or worse, requesting or even demanding explanations their brains were seldom able to grasp. It annoyed him to have to muster the effort to simplify and translate his ideas so lesser minds could begin to understand them.
Face it, Doc. You’re a snob. An intellectual elitist who is nowhere near as smart as he thinks.
It was a fair assessment. Daedalus Smith had flung those words in his face at an informal gathering back in 1941, mere weeks before Pearl Harbor had dragged the Freedom Legion into a war that Kenneth had worked hard – and failed miserably – to prevent. For all his genius, he had accomplished precious little in the things that mattered. Most of his energy had been spent playing policeman or social worker, dealing with emergencies while letting the world’s larger problems fester. He had cured innumerable diseases, helped end world hunger and provide cheap energy for billions of people, but solutions to the fundamental problems of humanity eluded him. Many of his friends and colleagues chided him for even considering solving those problems. Given his failure to come up with any cure that wasn’t worse than the disease, they were likely right.
Kenneth ran a multi-spectrum sensor wand over the surface of the latest iteration of the Brass Man battlesuit. He’d been working on the new armor for almost a year, on and off, whenever he could spare the time. The project had served as a welcome break from his regular duties; since he had a mandatory eight hours off, he’d chosen to spend them at his workshop. It wasn’t something urgent: although his regular suit had been destroyed in the nuclear explosion that had nearly killed him, he had spare ready. Doing something with his hands helped him think.
Painful, unwanted memories resurfaced – his flesh burning, the brutal impact of the shockwave swatting him out of the sky, waking up in utter agony when his nearly carbonized body had been plucked from the ocean. He’d been over a m
ile away from ground zero, but he had barely survived.
We are not immortal. He’d said as much several times to his more powerful comrades, lest their power corrupted their judgment. As the years passed, a sort of complacency set in, however. Reminders such as this were necessary. Kenneth shrugged off the memories and kept on working.
The sensor’s readings were satisfactory. The shiny surface of the suit was flawless, down to the atomic level. Underneath lay a complex sandwich of metallic, crystalline and fluid structures designed to dissipate and reflect energy. The new alloy and its integral force field would likely allow the suit to remain functional even in the face of a nuclear explosion like the one that had brought down the previous model. The suit’s weapon systems wielded five times the firepower of the previous model, perhaps more if one took into account the new x-ray laser’s penetrating characteristics. The Brass Man Mark IX was almost ready for action.
Almost, but not quite. He would have to take the field in another Mark VIII like the one he’d nearly died in. And if he faced his best friend in battle, only luck would keep him alive.
Kenneth tried to set that thought aside as he continued making adjustments. Some of the systems he’d been tinkering with had not been completed, and he’d been forced to replace them with spare parts left over from the Mark VIII. The armor would be functional sooner that way, though, and that was all that mattered. The best was the enemy of the good enough, as George Patton had been fond of saying. Kenneth’s mouth twisted slightly as he remembered the irascible general, a brilliant tactician whose drive to Berlin during World War Two had been as magnificent as it had been unnecessary, as Berlin had fallen while the Allied forces were still miles away. Patton had never forgiven the Legion for stealing his moment of glory; the general’s failed Presidential bid in 1952 (when he lost the GOP nomination to fellow veteran Eisenhower) had been rich in virulently anti-Neolympian rhetoric. He’d been yet another talented human who had grown to hate and resent Kenneth and his kind.
He sighed and placed the sensor wand back in its charging slot. His work wasn’t done, but he was done for the night, and he didn’t feel any better. The Legion had been decimated and remained divided, with its most famous and revered member on the run and suspected of assorted crimes, even as the prospect of war in China loomed larger by the hour. Once again, circumstances had caught him by surprise and reduced him to merely reacting to events, rather than making things happen.
The gleaming Brass Man suit seemed to mock him from its cradle. His greatest creation, good only to destroy. Kenneth lashed out without thought, surprising himself by his own outburst of rage. His fist struck the featureless bronzed helmet, shattering several knuckles. The pain only enraged him more. A few seconds later, Kenneth stood amidst the wreckage of his laboratory, bleeding from several self-inflicted wounds. The Brass Man suit was unharmed, of course. He might be stronger than any human, but he was too weak to damage the armor that defined him as much as all his other achievements combined.
“Kenneth?”
He whirled toward the sound of the voice. His rage vanished, replaced by deep, nearly overwhelming waves of embarrassment and shame.
Alessandra ‘Ali’ Fiori, code name Hyperia, looked as embarrassed as Kenneth felt. The Legionnaire had let herself in while Kenneth was in the middle of his rampage. He had no idea how long she had stood there and watched the current leader of the Legion behave like a child throwing a tantrum.
“Hyperia,” he said, trying to think of something appropriate to say. Nothing came to mind.
“Hey, Kenneth. Guess you needed to let off some steam,” she said, and smiled. The grin made her look like a teenage girl in a too-revealing bodysuit rather than the formidable fifty-year old woman she was. “Next time, give me a call and we can go a few rounds on the ring. You can break knuckles on my face and spare the expensive equipment.”
“Hyperia… Alessandra. I…”
“I know you love to pretend you don’t have any feelings, Ken. It’s okay. We’re all under a lot of stress at the moment. You had to let it out, and you didn’t break anything that can’t be replaced. So relax, I’m not going to judge you, or tell anybody, okay?”
Kenneth nodded and forced himself to breathe. He knew dozens of meditation techniques: one of the simpler methods sufficed to bring balance back into his body and mind. “I’m sorry,” he said in a low voice.
“Sorry for what? We all lose our cool at some point. As long as we don’t lose our shit…” Her grin vanished. “I came in with more bad news.”
“I expected as much. Don’t worry, Alessandra. I won’t lose my shit, or even my cool. Is this about John?”
She nodded. “They found the remains of Doctor Cohen in Chicago. He’s been murdered by someone with superhuman strength. Chi-Town’s Police Commissioner is going to name John as a suspect first thing in the morning.”
Kenneth looked down. He’d known Martin Cohen for decades. The two men hadn’t been friends – Kenneth had precious few of those – but he respected the therapist’s insights, had read his publications with great interest, and had consulted with him several times over the years. If John had been truly responsible for the murder, Kenneth had signed Cohen’s death warrant when he’d asked the physician to look into his friend’s case.
Hyperia knew him well enough to read his seemingly impassive expression. “Are you done blaming yourself, Kenneth? You aren’t omniscient, even if you try to be. There’s no way you could know any of this would happen. And I still don’t believe John is responsible for any of this. I think he’s being set up. I think it’s no coincidence our most powerful member got sidelined just after we got hit by the worst attack on Freedom Island since the Giant Robot Swarm of ’87, and with a possible war with the Empire on our hands. That kind of cluster-fuck feels like something planned, not just happenstance. The whole thing stinks, and if you weren’t busy blaming yourself you’d see it too.”
He nodded. “I have my suspicions as well, Alessandra. If they are correct, our enemies have infiltrated the Legion itself. Which means someone in the Legion, someone we trust implicitly, has betrayed us.”
“So you have thought it through. It shouldn’t surprise me, coming from the guy described as ‘as brilliant as Sherlock Holmes, as strong as Hercules, and as charitable as Abraham Lincoln.’”
Kenneth smiled wryly upon hearing the old quote. “Words nobody can live up to, unfortunately, or I’d have solved this particular conundrum already.”
“So, my wise old friend, what do we do?”
“We carry on. We prepare to face Ultimate, should he in fact be out of his mind or otherwise impaired. And we watch everybody, and trust no one.”
“Including each other?”
“I’m certain you aren’t the traitor,” Kenneth said, meaning every word. He’d gone carefully over Ali’s schedule over the last few years; she was simply too busy living her life to be part of a clandestine plot. “Keep your eyes open and watch your back. The traitor is someone seemingly above reproach; it could be anybody.”
Hyperia grimaced. “Cheerful thought, Kenneth. Do you have any suspects?”
“Three people come to mind. Meteor: he has been very unhappy about the Legion’s policies for quite some time. Daedalus Smith: he certainly has had the means and opportunity, although I can’t fathom what he would be hoping to accomplish. And General Xu: he’s always felt he was denied the power and privilege he deserves, in China and the world at large.”
“Jesus. I hope you’re wrong.”
“So do I. If anything happens to me, you’re going to have to take over and find out the truth. With John gone, you will sit on the Council until the next election. I have also designated you as the second in command on the Atlantic theater of operations. I was going to tell you tomorrow, but since you are here...”
“So you do trust me. Is it because you think I’m too much of a dumb blonde to be the traitor?”
Kenneth grinned wryly. “I guess us dumb blondes n
eed to stick together. Then again, I believe your original hair color is brown.”
“You say the nicest things,” Ali said. Her smile was replaced with a solemn expression. “Please be careful, Kenneth.” Left unsaid was the simple fact that, unlike her, he was a weakling among Neos, and easy to kill.
Many had thought he would be easy to kill over the years, and they had all been wrong. He would have to prove the traitor wrong as well.
The Lurker’s Tale
New York City, New York, December 12, 1919
Mr. Night’s laugh was unnerving and devoid of mirth or any human emotion. Damon Trent had never thought laughter could be used as a tool of intimidation, not until this moment.
“My friends,” the strange man with the dark glasses said. His voice was thin but carried surprisingly well. “My dear, dear friends. Damon Trent and Daedalus Smith from New York. Konstantin Cushko, formerly from Kiev. Cassandra Camlo, from many places and from nowhere in particular. And the inscrutable Mr. Qiao, from Ikh Khüree in far-off Mongolia, and of late a fixture in some of the shadier sections of the City of London.”
The Chinaman’s face remained impassive, except for a slight narrowing of his eyes, which Damon took as a sign of surprise. The Russian looked angry at the mention of his name. Neither reaction seemed to make any impact on Mr. Night’s dark cheerfulness. “Never fear, my friends. Your secret peccadilloes are safe within these walls. Your activities with the Ukrainian Galician Army are of no concern to this company, Mr. Cushko. Neither are your commercial enterprises in England and elsewhere, Mr. Qiao. Nor Mr. Smith’s hedonistic pursuits, Miss Camlo’s checkered history, or Mr. Trent’s somewhat questionable conduct during the Great War. Your past is of little concern to me.”
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