Different Paths

by Nat Kozinn

  <<
  >>>You have a unique ability to strike an emotional cord, Gavin. If you could tune it to the right note, it would be an attractive quality for leadership. As it is, you simply manage to get under my skin.

  <<
  >>>To threaten you.

  <<
  >>>I want you to join me, but if you do not, I will not let you stop me. Simply put, Gavin, stay out of my way. Do not interfere with my plans or I will kill you.

  <<
  Kill me? She’s going to kill me? No one can kill me. I am too strong, I am too fast. I will kill her. I can imagine it now, my hand reaching around her throat. She’s only thirteen; I could crush her neck with two fingers—

  Okay, I need to calm down. My blood pressure is through the roof, and my muscles are all flexed. Where did that come from? Whatever it was, my outburst of rage seems to have ended the call.

  “…his appearance may have changed, but his commitment to this Metro Area remains resolute. But The Beast Slayer did not work alone to expose the corruption in our Metro Area. I’d like to introduce Officer Maria Vazquez, now Captain Vazquez, the police officer responsible for making the case against our former criminal Governor,” Governor Royce says and gestures for Maria to join him on stage.

  Captain. That’s quite the promotion.

  #

  “If you’ll please follow me, Mr. Stillman, there’s someone who wants to meet you,” the security officer says as he ushers me off the stage and through a back door into City Hall.

  I can still hear the crowd cheering me outside. I make sure to soak it in. It’s better than any drug on earth. I’ve also got the Key to the City as a token of the Metro Area’s appreciation. It’s lighter than I thought, gold-plated nothing, but I suppose symbolism and all that.

  I hope the Governor wants to tell me all his plans for what his new Different labor force can do, and just how I can help. I wish I had a chance to talk to Maria and congratulate her, but we were whisked in opposite directions as we were leaving the stage. She just got one hell of a promotion. I don’t know if she’s ready to be a Captain, but I wasn’t ready for anything that happened to me. She’s smart enough to handle the job. I’ll give this for the new Governor, he’s bold. I think I should be excited to meet him.

  I’m led down a staircase into a basement and to an isolated room. I’m beginning to get a little worried, but my security escorts have steady heart rates, so if I’m walking into a trap, its one no one here has planned.

  The door opens, and I’m invited in by an athletically-built woman with shoulder-length brown hair, a cheap suit, and dark sunglasses. A government employee for sure, but not the new Governor.

  “Gavin, I’m Deputy Attorney General Karen Grant. It is a pleasure to meet you,” she says and shakes my hand.

  “What’s this about, Deputy… Attorney General… How is it proper to address you?” I ask.

  “Ms. Grant,” she clarifies. “And I am here for a very special reason at the request of the President of the United States of America,” she says and pauses to let the weight of that sink in. “The President would like you to serve your country. Will you answer the call?”

  “What do you mean serve my country?”

  “He’d like you to join the fight, Gavin. And he would like it to be on our side,” she says and pauses. She’s a serious woman.

  “There’s a fight? I thought it was a labor dispute with several Ultracorps employees over working conditions.”

  “You are absolutely correct, Gavin. I can assure you that every member of this administration hopes that continues to be the case. We know about your relationship with Nita, and we are hoping you can leverage that to negotiate an end to the hostilities.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I say, thankful once again for my lying prowess. There’s no reason anyone else needs to know that Nita just personally threatened to kill me if I get involved.

  “Does that mean I can tell the President yes?”

  “How do you know you can trust me?” I ask.

  “We have seen what you have done for the Los Angeles Metro Area. We trust that you’re willing to do the same for the rest of the nation,” she says. “And because we have a way for you to make a show of good faith.”

  #

  “You’re joining the army?” Linda asks in shock.

  “No… maybe... I don’t know the official details. But when the President of the United States asks you to do something, you say yes,” I tell her.

  “Oh, you saw him, did you? Did he walk from the D.C. Metro Area, or did he take the limo?” Ben asks sarcastically.

  “You know, snarky people might not get to hear about my other interesting conversations. Like the one with a certain arch-nemesis,” I say and pick at my finger nails nonchalantly.

  “Nita? You talked to Nita!? What did she say? Tell me!” Ben demands.

  He’s got more life in him than I’ve seen in months. He just needed a booster shot of Nita. I could do the kind thing and tell him what he wants to know. But he’s been a real pain in the ass lately, and besides, we’ve developed this brotherly torture-each-other-thing, and I guess I’ve grown used to it.

  “I don’t know, Ben. Aren’t you supposed to be a Big Brain? Surely you can think of a more effective tactic than making demands like a baby who wants his bottle,” I say.

  “Please, please, please, please tell me. Tell me,” Ben begs. “I’m going to level with you. Going against Nita is all I have. It’s all I live for. You have to tell me,” Ben pivots, taking on an even more pitiful strategy. “I didn’t want to say this, but you owe me. The Beast would have killed you if it wasn’t for my Maceo Steel knife. And you never would have linked Khan and Billy the Kid without me. Time to repay the debt,” Ben says sternly. At my silence, his face reddens, and he takes a step closer to me, which is funny because his head is at my chest. “Tell me now or so help me…”

  “Enough!” Linda yells. “This is serious. Can you two act like adults?”

  She’s right, and so was he. These two have been risking their freedom and lives to help me. And now I’m toying with them because it’s fun.

  “Okay, I’m sorry. There isn’t that much to tell. It happened when I was on stage; a Telepath crept into my mind. When I let him in, he connected me to Nita. She told me they left a barebones think.Net network in place. Anyway, she had only one thing to say, and that was she’s going to kill me if I get in her way,” I say.

  “Jesus!” Linda exclaims.

  “She’s one stone cold teen,” I reply.

  “And you’re still going after her? That doesn’t seem like a very good idea, Gavin. I know you’ve got those muscles, but she has an army of Differents,” Linda says, shaking her head.

  “The Deputy Attorney General said they don’t want a fight, and she was not lying. A civil war between humans and Differents leaves everyone dead. You don’t have to be Nita or Ben to see that.”

  “Yeah, the best way to avoid something is to plan for it to happen. That’s how both the U.S. and Russia ended up with enough nukes to wipe out the planet a million times over. And we probably would have if it wasn’t for the Plagues. What do you think, suddenly-silent Ben?” Linda says skeptically.

  “I think that I cannot possibly conceive of a way to say ‘I told you so’ as pointedly as this situation calls for. Do you remember when you said I was obsessed, when you said I just wanted revenge for having my job stolen? Well, in your face. You wanted proof that Nita is a psychopath willing to do whatever it takes: there you go. And I can that tell deep down you still think she wouldn’t really kill you, Gavin. And you’re wrong. And if you go after her, you’ll be dead wrong,” Ben says.

  “I thought killing Nita was the best thing I could do for the country. I thought the numbers were clear.”

  “Th
e equation changed. If Nita is goading you, then she has a plan for how to handle you. If you think you can escape from her spider’s web, you’re a fool. But you’ve made up your mind. And you are nothing if not stubborn.”

  There’s another pot and kettle situation. Must be a Big Brain thing.

  #

  “Ahoy, Captain,” I say to Maria as she walks through the door to our rooftop meeting spot.

  “You couldn’t even wait till I made it through the door,” Maria says and shakes her head in disapproval.

  “When you have a gem like that, it needs to be shared with the world. Congratulations, Maria, you deserve it,” I say with a smile.

  “No, I don’t, and you know that.”

  “Maybe you would if you could have done better than improper use of campaign funds,” I say and smile to soften the truth of the joke.

  “You’re kidding, right?” Maria says shaking her head. “Without being able to call him as a witness, Billy the Kid’s diary is completely inadmissible in court. There’s no way to prove it’s real, let alone that the ‘Money Man,’ is actually the Governor. His lawyers would argue that we just found the strangest unpublished novel in history. I had to threaten to go to the press to get a judge to accept the diary as enough probable cause for the warrant to find out about the necklace your friend Ben pointed out.”

  “Two year in jail for blowing up the Metro Area? Hardly justice.”

  “And he’ll probably get that reduced to parole. At least he had to resign, and without him blocking further investigations, maybe we will be able to find enough evidence to take him down. This is how the justice system works; it’s not what you know, it’s what you can prove. Al Capone went down for tax evasion.”

  “Justice sure is a complicated business,” I say with a sigh.

  “You don’t know the half of it. I just got introduced to the lovely world of budgets and future staffing projections,” Maria says with her own sigh.

  “Rough first day on the job?”

  “To say the least. I’m in over my head.”

  “You skipped all the usual steps needed to learn how to be a Captain in the L.A.P.D., but as far as I’m concerned, that’s a good thing. The skills it takes to politic your way to the top, pleasing everyone, giving false assurances, always finding a way to spin things positively, are not the skills it takes to lead. In fact, they are quite the opposite. A leader needs to do what they think is best even if it is unpopular. A leader needs to know how to accomplish what they set their mind to, and a leader needs to tell the truth, even if no one wants to hear it. That is a description of you to a T, at least in my humble opinion.”

  “Oh, so on this, your opinions are finally humble,” Maria says with a smile. “Thank you, Gavin. And maybe it isn’t so bad. They gave me the old Captain’s secretary, and it seems like she was doing half the job already.”

  “Yeah, and you’re smart enough to figure out the rest.”

  “What about you? I saw them take you down to the basement. Word on the street was you met with a Federale.”

  “That’s right. I earned my own promotion… or a transfer… or I’m not really sure, but the point is I’m back working for the Government.”

  “To fight Nita?”

  “To try to stop Nita, hopefully without fighting. That’s after I make a ‘show of good faith,’ which means helping the army take out a gang of Differents who took control of an arms depot.”

  “Are you sure you want to do that?”

  “Fight the gang? The army says they need the equipment and I don’t see why some gang should get—”

  “No,” she interrupts, “Are you sure you want to stop her?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, all you talk about is Nita and how she has all these plans and you have to foil them. But I’ve never heard you say why you have to stop her. I’ve never heard you say that you think she’s wrong. So do you?” Maria’s gaze is fixed like it is trying to stare into my soul.

  “Yeah, she said it’s about the safety of Ultracorps employees, but she knew more about the bombs than anyone.”

  “I’m not talking about her excuses; I’m talking about what she’s really doing. Do you think that we treat Differents fairly in this country?”

  “Of course not. Do you?”

  “No,” Maria answers quickly.

  “Who does? Cost of Living Obligations, Genetic Incongruity Scans, Section 26, none of it is fair. Differents didn’t ask for any of this. But you know what? Right now people in this Metro Area are going hungry, and they didn’t ask for that either. How’s that fair?”

  “So Differents should be slaves because they were born that way? If I was a Different, I wouldn’t accept that,” she says, pointing at her own chest for emphasis.

  “I don’t want anyone to starve, and I don’t want anyone to be a slave.”

  “I don’t think you get both. You’re going to have to choose, or someone will,” Maria says, shaking her head.

  “Maybe, but I don’t have to choose right now.”

  6

  This destruction was necessary. For it is in the rubble that my new race can find each other, it is in the rubble they can join together. It is from the rubble that they will be given a chance to create a world more spectacular and wonderful than any world my Forgotten Sons could have built.

  Chosen Sons: 32

  The Beast scratches his stump, just underneath where the Maceo Steel blade connects to the bone. He has to be careful while he satisfies his itch. His 5-inch razor sharp claw is not built for gentle acts.

  The Beast turns his attention to a sight in the distance, squinting to see as far as he can. His predator like vision is far superior to any pathetic human’s eyes, but still all he sees is the vague glow of a hundred Wormlights. They look like the sun rising out of the sea. His task does not lay in that direction, but he still feels compelled to go there.

  That is where his brothers are, that is where his fellow Chosen Sons are starting the new world. They are building a city unlike any the earth has ever seen. The Metro Areas will all pale by comparison. Those metropolises are tainted by the bones of the human cities they were built upon. Trapped by the designs of simple creatures and simple minds. The cities only function because the flaws and cracks were filled through the labor of a superior race. The Beast cannot conceive of what this new city will look like, but he knows it will be glorious. And it is just the first of many. As the Chosen Sons grow in number, the world will fill with golden towers.

  The Beast does not deserve to revel in that magnificence. Not yet at least. His list of sins is too long and too grave. He has not earned a place amongst his brothers. But if he proves his worth, if he shows his willingness to serve, he will be redeemed. That is what the Lord told him and that is why he is out here in the desert, miles away from his brothers.

  As has always been the case, The Beast’s redemption will be found through the taking of lives. The Lord’s thirst for blood seems as insatiable as The Beast’s. The Lord will get His satisfaction; The Beast will not. The soldiers The Beast hunts do not deserve the final salvation he could provide.

  Despite Cabot’s warnings, despite the miracles they have witnessed, despite the fact that the Chosen Sons simply want to live in peace, the Forgotten Sons will not let them. The human leaders have sent teams out to spy on the Chosen Sons, to watch and report, and prepare for an attack that is inevitable. The Forgotten Sons are full of fear, and fear leads to lashing out.

  He can smell a group of them. They are on the move, no doubt to deliver the intelligence they’ve gathered. The Beast will not allow them to report back to their masters. He breathes deep and gets a strong whiff of their sent. They must be soldiers; he can smell the gunpowder.

  He makes it to the top of a ridge and looks down. Six soldiers are sitting below, their pathetic human bodies huffing and puffing under the weight of their equipment.

  “The radio still can’t get anything,” an especially equipme
nt-laden soldier says.

  “We must still be in range of whatever freak is blocking the signal. Let’s keep hustling; we’re almost at the Humvee anyway.”

  “They were building some huts in the desert, not missile silos. What’s the hurry?” the radio man asks.

  “The hurry, Kowalski, is that reporting their location and activities are our orders. Now let’s move out. Keep your eyes peeled,” Sarge orders.

  “For what, cactuses?”

  “A Speedster could ride up on us in a blink, and who knows what some of those other freaks can do. Could be somebody invisible following us right now. Why don’t you shut your yap and stay frosty? That goes for everyone. Keep it spread, move out!” the sergeant yells.

  The soldiers all rise in unison and break into a light jog. They spread into a V spanning several yards with Sarge at the point.

  The Beast drops down behind them, dragging his hand along the side of the hill to slow his descent, allowing him to land all but silently.

  He is orders of magnitude faster and quieter than the soldiers with their weak human legs and cumbersome weapons. The Beast has his own weapon, a knife as light as a feather. He sidles up behind the man at the far end of the V and swipes with the knife, cutting through the man’s skull with the same ease as cutting through the air. The soldier’s life snuffed out in a flash.

  The Beast pivots, twirling towards the soldier to his right and reaching out with his massive hand, grabbing the man like he’s palming a basketball. He squeezes, crushing the man’s skull. He delivers this second round of righteous justice more slowly, and before death, the soldier manages to squeeze the trigger on his rifle, shooting straight into the ground and alerting his compatriots.

  The soldiers swing around, their weapons turning as quickly as they do, a trained response. The Beast has no training; he relies on instinct, and his instinct is to dive at the soldiers. But the soldiers scatter away from The Beast while simultaneously opening fire. Their bullets tear into his flesh, deep into the muscles, but they stop short of his organs. The Beast knows he can take dozens of these wounds, but the soldiers might be able to deliver injury in that number.