by John Jr. Yeo
The pain made me lose my concentration, and I fell. I hit the top of the train hard and nearly rolled off, but I clung to the edge of the speeding vehicle with such force that I felt my fingers were going to break. If I could just take a moment to catch my breath and concentrate, I could force myself to fly away from the train rather than fall down and risk getting eviscerated by the steel wheels beneath my feet.
The problem was Slither was using my unfortunate predicament to finish me off. He raised his claws and swung towards me, but he never connected. His head suddenly exploded right in front of my eyes, and what remained of his body fell off the train. His corpse vanished into a thick patch of weeds, and the train kept moving.
DeathTek was standing behind where Slither once stood, furiously aiming the rest of his wrist rockets at Zahr. “I dare you to reach for that toy again, dickless. I totally dare you.”
Zahr lifted his hands up in surrender, offering a smug smile. “Our scientists promised me that the next model could shut you down for more than just a few minutes. Possibly permanently, and from a remote location.”
Necromancer offered me his hand, and he pulled me back up from the edge of the roof. I still was having problems flying, but I didn’t know why. Worse yet, my leg was hurting worse than I thought it should. Slither must have hurt me worse than I thought.
“Young lady, you’ll probably want to get some antibiotics on that wound,” Zahr suggested politely. “There are some frightfully unpleasant toxins contained on Slither’s claws that you’re not going to want running through your system.”
“We’ll take care of her,” Necromancer promised him. “Right after we escort you to a few nice gentlemen from the Bureau. As soon as Ambassador is done with your last henchman, he’ll give you a first class flight.”
“I’ve made alternate travel plans, I’m afraid.”
This tedious hero and villain banter was really starting to get on my nerves. I just wanted to pin him down to the ground and repeatedly punch him in the mouth until all he saw were bright colored lights. It was the least he deserved for killing so many soldiers today.
But then the situation changed again, and it nearly killed us all. I’d been so concerned about my immediate safety that I hadn’t been paying attention to the fight between Ambassador and Adrenaline. In the last few moments, the situation had escalated.
Adrenaline, the last I saw, had squeezed between the engine and the second car, where she was avoiding gunfire from the surviving soldiers. The train had started to pick up speed, and it wasn’t safe for anyone who couldn’t fly to make a move on her. But right about the time I was thinking about smacking this terrorist around like a red headed stepchild, things went nuclear in the worst way.
The Ambassador landed on the roof of the second car, politely but sternly recommending that Adrenaline come out with her hands over her heads. She came out, fast as a bullet, and rushed past him with her steel blades. I could hear the metallic sound as her weapons banged harmlessly off of his alien skin, but we all quickly saw that it was just a feint. As she rushed past, she had attached something to his torso. It was small, but it was beeping. When it detonated, the Ambassador was blown clear from the train and across the landscape.
I only caught a glimpse of him, but what I saw wasn’t pretty. The explosive device that had been attached to him had clearly blown his arm off his body, and his face was a mess of blood and blackened skin. I didn’t think anything could have hurt the Ambassador, but whatever weapon she was carrying was obviously sufficient enough to do the job. He landed in the distance and rolled to a quiet, motionless slump.
Then, things got worse.
The engine exploded like the centerpiece of a Michael Bay film, and it didn’t take a genius to realize that Adrenaline had left a bomb there as well. The lead engine, and everyone that had been in it, jumped off the rails and rolled towards the highway that the tracks had come close to. Thank God that the engine didn’t have the inertia to actually roll into the nearby highway, but is still caused a few minor accidents as cars and trucks came to a screeching halt.
The violent loss of the lead car derailed the rest of the train, flipping the first several cars on their sides and off of the tracks. Necromancer and DeathTek were sent flying to the north, while Zahr and I were thrown to the south.
I could have just let him hit the ground. If the world was lucky, he would have split his skull open and we’d have one less terrorist to deal with. But if this lunatic was here in the United States, there must have been a reason. If at all possible, Colonel Bridge would want to know why.
And while I might be many things, I’m not a cold-blooded killer. So even though it hurt like hell to fly with Slither’s poison coursing through my system, I reached out and grabbed his arm while we flew through mid-air. I caught him, and I managed to turn what could have been a fatal fall into a graceless and painful but otherwise non-fatal descent.
When we hit the ground safely away from the wreckage of the train, the pain in my legs had gotten worse. I couldn’t hold him up any more, and my strength finally gave out and we both tumbled into a grassy field. There was no sign of the others, and I was too exhausted to move. Thanks to my misplaced sense of morals, I had saved Zahr from a horrible death. If he wanted to finish me off, I wouldn’t have been able to stop him.
A hole in the air appeared next to him, and his teleporting friend stepped out with his hand clutching a gun. He began to point it at my head, but Zahr stopped him.
“No, she’s already beaten,” he said to Wormhole. “Besides, she just saved my life. And I need her to relay a message to the men who hold her leash.”
“Suck my dick.”
“With those poisons coursing through your flesh? Probably not the best of suggestions. Not until you get yourself some antibiotics.”
“Adrenaline is banged up, but she’ll live,” Wormhole reported to his employer. “Annie is going to need to see the doctor, but she’ll be fine too. There’s not much we can do about Slither.”
“Sorry about your lizard friend,” I told him with a smirk. “He seemed like a really swell guy.”
“He was a psychopathic killer, a thug from São Paulo who was the unfortunate product of genetic tampering and megalomaniac ambitions. He was useful as an enforcer, but he failed miserably as a spy. Couldn’t blend in. I think it was the tail.”
Funny guy.
“Would you be so kind to relay a message to the DSA director?” he asked quietly.
“They don’t have e-mail in Habindaque?” I asked. “Why don’t you come back with us to our base, you can tell him yourself.”
“That won’t be necessary, my sweet,” he replied with all the charm of a poisonous flower. “I have too much to do, and no time to waste on leisurely visits to your den of cowards and bullies. You can tell Colonel
Bridge that America’s superiority of powered people is about to come to an end. We have stolen your assembly line, and we will steal your power source next. By this time next month, I’ll be in charge of Habindaque. When that happens, your government can kiss my ass.”
“I’m sorry, I’m still looking for a pen,” I replied slowly, patting my pockets as sarcastically as I could. “Would you mind repeating all that again?”
He snorted angrily, but resisted the urge to kick me while I was down. By the time I saw Necromancer finally approaching me from the distance, the villains had already vanished into the portal.
17
Immortality in a Bottle
Saturday, June 1 – 9:00 p.m.
After returning to the Dome, I spent two hours on one of Dr. Progeriat’s torture couches with a steady drip of blue and green fluids pouring into me from a pair of IV bags.
“You’re lucky you got back when you did,” the old doctor was telling me. “Slither has a layer of microbial toxins on his claws.”
“Yeah, thought that’s what it felt like,” I said, trying to joke past the pain in my legs. “What was that monster?”
&nb
sp; “Before DeathTek blew his head off? Who knows. First it was the suicide bombers, then the volunteers for animal-human hybrid experimentation. Someone has been corrupting the work of genetic pioneers like Sheldon Fifton and Greg Blood, and now we have Komodo Dragon Men committing train robberies. And to think the government is actually thinking of cutting off the funding for heroes like us.”
I thought it was interesting that Dr. Progeriat seemed to include himself in the generalization of super-heroes, but I was too exhausted to start an argument of semantics. Fortunately, the medicine was definitely starting to chase away the pain. Now that my own discomfort was being attended to, my mind started racing to other matters. First and foremost, I was worried about the rest of the team. I was starting to think that out of all of us, I got off easy.
When Colonel Bridge walked into the medical wing, I quickly sat up and shot him an expectant look.
“How’s our patient?” he asked the doctor.
“The patient is right here, and I’m doing fine,” I replied with a more caustic tone than I had planned on using. “I saw him, Colonel Bridge. I saw that terrorist everyone is talking about.”
“Ubaidullah Zahr,” he nodded. “Yes, that’s what Necromancer told me. I can’t believe he’s actually on American soil…and engaging in common train robbery?”
“We saw what we saw,” I shrugged. “He was saying something about American’s firepower superiority is going end. Were there nuclear weapons on that train?”
“He wasn’t talking about nuclear arms,” Colonel Bridge explained. “He was talking about Sparks. But we haven’t figured out what his game is yet.”
“How is Ambassador? Can you save his arm?”
“I think that poison might have given you some nasty hallucinations,” laughed Colonel Bridge. “The Ambassador is fine, thanks to your help. He’s right out there, as you can see.”
I sat up a little higher on the bed, and peeked out into the hallway where I saw something that made my eyes bulge open. Standing right outside the door, nodding and quietly talking to a few of the techs, was the big guy himself. Not a scratch on him, not a limb missing. Not even a bruise on those perfect cheeks. He caught my eye and gave me a cheerful wave, and continued moving down the hall in conference with the support staff. It was like it had never happened.
I yanked the IV’s out of my arm, clutched my robe around my waist, and hopped off the bed.
“What the hell are you doing?” the Colonel asked angrily, grabbing my arm as I attempted to move past the door. “Get back in bed!”
“Hey, I know your precious Andromeda is dead because of me, but I am fed up with this bullshit lying!”
Dr. Progeriat actually had the nerve to look hurt. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, young lady. You’ve been given the opportunity to make the world a—“
“Two hours ago, that man was a burning meat bag with one arm missing,” I insisted angrily, pointing towards Ambassador. “Don’t tell me I was hallucinating, I wasn’t that hurt, so I’m not buying that shit anymore. Tell me what’s going on, or I’m flying my blonde ass out of here.”
“That would not be an advisable course of action,” the doctor said menacingly. “Please return to the bed so we can finish administering your treatment. Slither’s toxins are nothing to joke about.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Colonel Bridge added, but he looked resigned and defeated. “Get back on the bed, and I’ll tell you what you need to know.”
Doctor Progeriat faced the Colonel suddenly, as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I believe I still make the decisions about my team, Colonel.”
“I’m going to a congressional hearing tomorrow afternoon, doctor,” he shot back. “If I can’t convince the senators that the Infinite League remains a worthwhile team to support, than you lose all of this. You’ll lose the base, the support staff, the equipment and the machines. Unless you can find private funding, the League falls apart. It’s not going to matter what she does or doesn’t know, and I think she’s proven herself to know the big secrets.”
There was a glaring match between the two of them for a moment, but Dr. Progeriat eventually relented. Then he said something I wasn’t expecting.
“He’s dead.” It was a sudden, unexpected statement, and he didn’t bother to follow up the bombshell with an immediate explanation. But neither man left the room, so there seemed to be more to tell. I slowly got back up on the bed and allowed Progeriat to re-insert the IV’s into my veins. Once the medicine started flowing back into my body, the old doctor finally continued.
“The Ambassador died fighting an old enemy of his from his home planet seven years ago,” he continued, looking sadder and older than I’d ever seen him. “We’ve been cloning him continuously since then, but the clones are growing increasingly unstable. The more they exert themselves, the shorter their lifespans. Why, we’ve actually gone through three of the clones just in the time since you joined us.”
“I’m not a scientist, but I thought cloning didn’t work like that,” I said in disbelief. “If you cloned him, wouldn’t he be a baby? How does the replacement guy still have all his memories?”
“Well, the Ambassador was a scientist,” Dr. Progeriat explained. “When he came to Earth, he brought technology that could be used for building advancing cloning tubes, aging accelerants and engram implantations.”
“Which makes zero sense to me.”
“Cloning him is the easy part,” Colonel Bridge explained. “We’ve been doing that on Earth for years now. But he possessed a machine that can quickly age an infant clone into adulthood, and we can implant the memories from the previous clone into the new one. It’s all alien technology, but the end result is that the Ambassador lives on to fight another day.”
“The aging accelerants, and engram implantations,” I said, finally starting to understand. And I really didn’t like what I was hearing.
“Do you understand now?” asked the colonel.
“Immortality in a bottle,” I nodded. I could barely believe it. “An infinite immortal…for an Infinite League. That’s beyond sick, you guys.”
“This entire planet is sick,” Dr. Progeriat responded angrily. “This planet would have died a dozen times over if not for the Ambassador and the rest of this team. You’re barely worthy to be standing in the same room as him.”
With that, the old doctor turned on his heels and stormed out of the room. For a few seconds, I stood in silence with Colonel Bridge as I considered everything I had just heard.
“Does the government know about this? Do you guys have a contingency plan for every team member?”
“The appropriate people know what happens here,” he told me. “Obviously, the general public does not. We’d rather have your average criminal, super-powered psychopath and terrorist with nuclear ambitions just go on thinking this team can’t be killed.”
“I’ve got to get out of here. I can’t take much more of this.”
“Do me a favor and don’t go out doing something stupid,” he urged me. He wasn’t using the threatening tone that he once used so expertly, but this was more of a personal plea.
“I’m not going to the media, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I replied. “I can’t even comprehend the ramifications of all this yet. It’s just too big.”
“Well, just try to sit on this for a little while longer. I have to leave for Washington this afternoon, and I promise we can talk a bit more when I get back.”
“What’s going on?”
“You heard what I said. The congressional committee that oversees the DSA are giving serious consideration to halting the funding for this team. A lot of money goes into this project to keep the Ambassador alive, and we spent a bit more arranging for you to take Andromeda’s place. It’s getting expensive, and the League’s recent record of errors—especially that fiasco with the train robbery—is making it more and more difficult to justify the expense.”
“We saved the gold
,” I said defensively.
“It was never about the gold, Emily,” he snorted impatiently, looking around the room to see if the doctor had returned. When he seemed certain that we were still alone, he continued talking in a softer voice. “You were a cop, think about it. Didn’t that whole heist seem strange to you?”
“Like a diversion?”
“Perhaps,” he agreed. “In their prime, the League would have spotted it early. But now…I don’t know. I just don’t know where their heads are at.”
“They had a teleporter,” I reminded him. “There were unmarked crates. Was there something else on that train they could have stolen?”
“More valuable than gold? I wouldn’t know about that,” he admitted. “Just like I don’t know if the blackout we experienced was an intentional sabotage designed to prevent us from stopping that robbery.”
Well, I felt stuck. Plus, I was starting to feel a fresh wave of nausea overtake me. It seems that I hadn’t flushed all of Slither’s poison out of my system as I’d hoped, and I started to lose my balance. The colonel caught me before I took a humiliating fall on my ass.
“Just lie down before you hurt yourself,” he urged me, helping me back on the bed. “I really don’t want to bury another agent anytime soon.”
“Okay, maybe for just a few more minutes,” I said with a stubborn pout. “But I gotta tell you, I really need to get out of this place more often or I’m gonna scream. I want to go on patrol tomorrow.”
He nodded carefully, considering my request. “If the good doctor thinks you’re up to snuff, we’ll put you on assignment with Submission or Necromancer.”
“I could have flown off any time in the last two months, and I haven’t. I don’t need a babysitter anymore. People are accepting me as Andromeda. I want you to start treating me like her, too.”