by Alan Janney
Three hundred miles away, at Los Alamitos, the night would be shattering with light and fire. The heavy truck recoiling against solid fuel ignitions as its payload, guided projectiles, screamed off into the Los Angeles night.
A dozen Successful Launch messages appeared on my screen. Rockets inflight.
I verified their target; Wilshire Tower.
Chase.
Chapter Thirty-Four
February 11, 2019.
At the foundation of my awareness , some subconscious clock informed me that two minutes had passed. My lungs hurt now. Instead of too little air, I felt like I had too much. My lungs threatened to burst. Increasingly hard to fight instincts to breathe, to surface and inhale.
My vision swam. The Chemist became harder to hold in focus. He’d been whispering forever. For my whole life. The man across was crushed. Utterly defeated. He’d aged twenty years.
Stop, he whispered.
Stop this.
Please come out of there.
Please.
…
No more.
Okay.
Okay. I get it.
You win.
You win.
I struggled to make sense of this. My eyes had been partially closed, zeroed on his lips. I glanced upwards to his eyes. He nodded and smiled grimly. A man who’d made a decision. A flood of information passed in that instant. He couldn’t win. Couldn’t let me die. He knew it. He would surrender. And he appeared relieved to admit defeat.
He stood. Readjusted his grip on the staff. He was going to shatter the tank!
I pushed away from the slippery wall with limbs barely responsive. All clarity from the outside world washed away. He melted into a watery blur.
My back against the far wall, I waited for the crash. Lungs aflame.
Beyond the arc of my aquarium, now twenty-four inches distant, something happened. Blurs flashed. Faint noise. No crash.
Realization dawned; a scenario worse than any I’d dreamed up was occurring. A precise and perfect disaster.
“Nooooooooo!” I roared, a rush of bubbles, using the remnant of my oxygen.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Saturday, February 11. 2019
Kid
It was not the Outlaw who drowned. It was me.
He’d been in there for almost two minutes. The second hand of my watch moved with lazy torture. I hadn’t drawn a breath since he went under. Close to collapse. Stars winked in my vision.
Voluntarily. The Outlaw voluntarily went in. I trembled with confusion. With despair.
Our only hope suffocated. On purpose. I was in pain from desperation. No one else could stop the Father. It had to be the Outlaw.
The Father kept whispering. I couldn’t hear it all. “Okay.” I heard that one. “Okay.”
The Father stood.
I released my air with a blast and sucked in life. A luxury the Outlaw couldn’t afford. With the fresh oxygen, my memories bore me back to the yacht again. I’d visited that memory so many times.
I had lain in the back of the yacht holding my broken shoulder while the lady drank wine and giggled. “Call me Minnie,” she’d told me. The chaos, the broken plans, the unforeseen turn of events made her drunk. She laughed for an hour after Tank Ware and Katie Lopez escaped in my own raft. She was barely coherent. “You have the disease but you’re not strong,” she chirped. “Not mentally, at least. No wonder he picks on you. He bullies you. My Martin. You’ll have to kill him, you know.” I couldn’t respond. Too much pain. Climbing back onto her boat had nearly finished me. So I laid in the sun and dried and throbbed and listened. “But you can’t. Not unless you crack his skull. By dropping a mountain on his head. Good luck with that!” she cackled.
He bullies you.
You’ll have to kill him.
By cracking his skull.
Good luck with that.
I never commanded my body to move. Way too terrified for that. My muscles moved on their own, perhaps furious with my cowardice.
The Outlaw couldn’t just die.
Before I knew it, I had the Father in my arms. He never saw me coming. Too surprised to resist. He was grotesquely thin, winnowed by centuries. A rebar skeleton.
He screamed and scrabbled at my hands, breaking the bones inside, but we were too close to the missing wall, to the precipice. The one side of the pool exposed to the night. I hefted the Father, Martin, the Chemist, the Scourge of the Planet, and leaped.
He fought me during the descent’s entirety. Screaming I was an idiot. That I’d made a mistake. But I didn’t care. I wasn’t Kid any longer. I’d stood up to the bully. If I died (and I probably would) I would die as something other than a coward.
Drop a mountain on his skull, she had told me. I couldn’t do that. But as it happened, he landed skull first on Figueroa Street.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Saturday, February 11. 2019
Blurs wrestling.
The blurs vanished.
I knew the details without seeing them clearly.
Over the edge. Gone. In a fit of violence, which he assumed would aid me, Baby Face betrayed and murdered the Chemist. And himself. Just as the Chemist had surrendered. Just as the sacrifice won. All the evil could have been undone. All the divisions could have begun reconciliation. Now…who knew?
I felt no relief at the Chemist’s demise. Just a profound sense of loss. Of missed opportunity.
Of lightheadedness. I was near asphyxiation. Time to go.
A new face at the tank. A woman’s. I pressed near. Teresa Triplett. The reporter. An angel with a brilliant liquid nimbus. I was too numb to be shocked. She shouted something. I heard the noise and read her lips.
The button is broken! He broke the button! It won’t open!
The tank’s cap wouldn’t unlatch. The Chemist had punched it too hard. Maybe I could pop the top off. I braced my feet on the tube’s bottom and Jumped. No use. Not even close. I possessed zero strength. And jumping through water allowed no applied force.
The world saw the Chemist fall. Help would arrive soon. Could I wait? No. Again, not even close. I had seconds.
I punched the glass. But it was curved and slippery and my hand simply squeaked across. I punched again to no effect. Teresa Triplett whacked the glass ineffectually with something. Whang! Whang! All it did was hurt my ears. I fumbled desperately for the Boom Stick but couldn’t grasp it. No energy in any finger.
Then, from some other universe in which people existed, my pocket buzzed. I felt the vibration. Inside its water-tight compartment my cell had received a text message. Curiosity for that instant made me forget I was dying. I dug at the pocket with numb digits, pressed apart the plastic zipper and removed the phone. Pressed the home key and the screen turned on for a tenth of a second. Just a tenth of a second for seeping water to short-circuit the phone’s motherboard. One brief burst of power. But that was enough. I saw the message from PuckDaddy.
>> INCOMING ROCKETS!!!!!
Incoming rockets. That jerk. I told him no rockets. My irritation registered like it was someone else’s emotion. Distant. Unattached. I was dead anyway. Oh well.
Whang! Whang!
Except Teresa Triplett was up here. She would die. I had no way to convey her plight. And she’d never escape in time. That was sad. But I had no options.
No options. And no oxygen.
No oxygen.
Oxygen…
Oxygen! I had a canister of the stuff in my vest.
I patted my chest. Lee’s tube was still there. The Chemist had taken the OC spray but left the oxygen. Don’t confuse them, Lee joked. I groped and fished in the thin pockets. Pulled something out. A flashlight. Dropped it. Went groping again with unsympathetic fingers.
Got it! Carefully I removed a small blue can of pressurized air. Popped the top. The nozzle went into my mouth and I depressed the trigger with my tongue. Sweet, sweet, beautiful, delicious oxygen flooded my lungs. Filled them to the point of pain. My heavy mind cleared.
Headache receded. It was probably imagination but the oxygen felt palpable as it circulated throughout my body. Another breath. Another explosion of life. Energy. Strength. Hope. One more deep inhalation and the canister gave out.
It was enough. Full power. I brought my knees to my face. My back against the rear wall. Boots flat on the front curvature of the tank. I pressed. Essentially doing a sideways squat. The glass didn’t even resist. Starbursts appeared. The structure buckled. Great cracks opened at the upper and lower seams. The tube remained structurally intact but shattered into a mesh of slivers and chunks. Water gushed out like a dam breaking.
I easily pulled the Thunder Stick free. The water had emptied to my waist. I shoved the stick upwards and blasted open the hatch. I Jumped out and landed wetly beside Teresa Triplett. “Incoming missiles,” I gasped, and we fled.
The rockets made a sizzling noise as they approached from the west. We reached the crest of the pool as the first struck. It released its payload like a punch, vaporizing a path through the upper levels of the Wilshire and coating everything with fire. The Wilshire Grand rang from peak to foundation.
We jumped into infinity as the second and third rocket detonated. And the fourth and fifth. The tower shuddered and swayed and was engulfed, rapid oxidation melting metal.
My parachute opened with a snap. The wall of heat thrust us up and away into the stars. Into clean air. The chute wasn’t meant for two people. The impact would be significant. But we’d survive. We sliced in a wide arc over downtown Los Angeles, curving gently northwards. Towards the barricade. Towards everyone I loved.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
February - May. 2019
Katie’s ambulance took us both to the UCLA Medical Center, just north of Santa Monica. Dr. Whitmer, an abducted surgeon living in captivity for the past eighteen months, clearly struggled with the tsunami of emotions experienced by all released hostages. Except he still had a job to do, a patient to preserve; he had assisted the Chemist with Katie’s surgery and he felt responsible.
An hour later, at one in the morning, Dr. Whitmer, Dad, Katie’s mom, Samantha and I gathered in the hospital room around Katie’s bed. Her beautiful brown hair had been shaved off to allow for multiple surgeries. The sight of so many incisions nearly overcame Ms. Lopez. I knew the feeling. I bordered on nausea and violence. Katie could have been a corpse by appearances.
“Katie Lopez received a more thorough procedure than any previous patient,” Dr. Whitmer explained. He was clearly exhausted and running on fumes. Four other physicians stood in the room with us taking notes. “She was given a full blood transfer yesterday. In other words, every drop of blood in her body was produced initially by the Father.”
“By the Chemist,” I said.
“Correct. He never allowed me a chance to examine his illness. But whatever it is, she now has. The Father…err, the Chemist is a truly gifted physician and neurosurgeon. Was. Was gifted. He grafted stem cell transplants into the muscle tissue and bone marrow of each appendage. Multiple spinal cord neural transplants. And, as you can see, the brain. Stem cells were taken from the Chemist himself over the past eighteen months. I performed many of the extractions myself.”
Ms. Lopez spoke out of her heartbreak. “Why? What does this do?”
“As I said, he was a genius. And he didn’t allow me access to his methodologies. His understanding of medicine and cell engineering is ten years past anything I’ve studied, ten years past anything in clinical trials. His transplanted cells will begin to repair and replace Katie’s own cells. His goal is structural amelioration. Her body isn’t as strong as it should be because her illness was only recently introduced. For comparison, the Outlaw’s body had eighteen years of preparation. Not Katie’s. So he’s assisting her body with the coming transformations. We did this to a lesser extent with all his Twice Chosen.”
She rubbed her eyes and shuddered. “I do not understand.”
“Think of it as rebuilding a car. The Chemist gave Katie his illness, which is like dropping a race car engine into a Honda Civic. The Civic will tear apart under the power of the new engine. So he rebuilt the Civic too. Making it stronger.”
I was holding Katie’s hand. So cold. So lifeless. I asked, “What about the brain surgeries?”
“He inserted his own brain cells. His own DNA. He wanted to grow new circuitry inside her mind. The brain surgery took twelve hours and he performed it all himself. I can’t stress this enough…his mind functioned on another level. I’m under-qualified to fully understand or explain. We all are.”
Dad asked, “Now what?”
“Now we keep her unconscious to protect brain tissue. Protect her psyche, for lack of better phrasing. Full body reconstruction is difficult for the patient. She’ll need two hundred precent of her usual nutrition intake. I’ve performed this surgery hundreds of times, and monitored the results. Patients will wake when they’re ready. If we force them to wake up…it’s never a positive outcome.”
One of the faceless physicians behind me asked, “Time frame?”
“Ninety days. Give or take a few weeks. Maybe longer for her. The surgery was traumatic. The longer the better. Preserves sanity. Mostly.”
Samantha asked, “What do you mean he wanted to grow new circuitry inside her mind?”
Dr. Whitmer shrugged, eyes bloodshot. “I’m afraid to speculate.”
“Do it anyway.”
“Judging by these two incisions here, it appears he operated on the medial temporal lobe. The limbic system.”
“Which means?”
“Memory processing,” he said. I’d been afraid of that. We all had. He continued, “Maybe. Again, he understood this in ways no one else does. These small incisions here, the frontal cortex, could be any number of cognitive functions. Behavior. Personality. I’d like to run a battery of neural scans to find out what he did. We could fill books with conclusions based on her condition when she wakes. But…” He didn’t finish. He was on the verge of collapse.
I said, “Doctor, one more question from us. The Chemist and I spoke on the roof. About Katie. He said this surgery wasn’t like the others. Katie’s was far more advanced, and she’d wake as a goddess. Was he lying?”
“About the goddess? Well, the Father was prone to dramatic hyperbole. But this surgery was unique in two ways. One, she received a full blood transfer instead of an injection. This was only performed one time previously, with Hannah Walker. The cheerleader. The Chemist was very pleased with those results. And two, the other unique aspect…He wanted Katie to wake up stronger than his previous patients. More powerful. We hadn’t attempted it before, and we are both unsure of its success.”
“Attempted what?”
“The muscle and bone marrow transplants? I inserted stem cells from two different individuals. From the Chemist himself, and from an individual named Tank Ware.”
Samantha swore. My head swam. My stomach heaved. Dad caught me before I fell. Katie had Tank’s genetic code growing in her bones.
Dr. Whitmer continued, “The Chemist claimed Tank Ware possessed the strongest muscle and bone tissue on the planet. And somehow he got his hands on Tank Ware’s DNA. A significant amount of blood and muscle tissue. This type of gene therapy is Star Trek type stuff. Light years away from us. Simple immunorejection could crash the whole project.”
I heard no more. I sank onto the sleeper couch beside Ms. Lopez and we existed in a shared stupor until morning.
* * *
Martin Patterson, the Chemist, was dead. His body was recovered off the street below the Wilshire Grand. His skull and his body had cracked open upon impact. The body of Baby Face could not be found.
News of the Chemist’s death did not provide the result for which we all prayed and hoped. Walter did not throw down his weapons. Blue-Eyes did not release her control over most of Washington DC. And the Chosen went berserk, like their hive queen died. Any party hoping for an easy reclamation of Los Angeles was quickly disillusioned. The Chosen had p
reviously been unruly and dangerous soldiers in a poorly organized army. However, now leaderless, they formed lawless bands of vengeful freaks.
I watched the world lurch from inside the hospital. I’d left Katie once and she paid the price; never again. Far off conversations with the Chemist and with Carter ran through my mind. Unconditional love protects us. On Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs love was foundational, only slightly less crucial than food, shelter and safety. Katie needed unconditional love. Her body and mind would undergo hell, but I’d be present the entire time. Vividly I recalled how soothing Katie’s physical touch was, how the headaches fled before her affection, how she kept me sane, kept me alive.
I didn’t leave her room for days at a time, not even when Ms. Lopez relieved me. I massaged her hands, her arms, her feet and legs. Her incisions healed and I rubbed lotions on the wounds to prevent hard scar tissue. I bent her knees and elbows to keep the joints from freezing. I dripped water into her mouth hourly. Moistened her dry lips with vaseline. I talked to her incessantly. Or sang. Or read books out loud. Dr. Whitmer demonstrated how to apply splints to obstruct contractures, and how to administer low doses of neuromuscular electrical stimulation to prevent atrophy. But, he told me, the disease caused so much muscle growth that she’d need very little physical therapy when she woke.
I could do this. For ninety days, for Katie, I could do this.
Samantha remained furious about my surrender to the Chemist, but she stayed to keep rabid paparazzi out. Katie’s capture and release and my skyscraper shenanigans revamped the absurd fanatical frenzy. After a week, however, she grew sick of this lifestyle and left to join Isaac Anderson and his crew of resistance fighters. They operated independently of the Federal government, though with growing underground support from its members and resources. America appeared on a crash course with civil war, breaking neatly between those loyal to Washington and the President, and those recognizing the federal government had been usurped by a mad woman. Isaac and Samantha grew in notoriety and within a month were the figureheads of the resistance. Thanks to Puck’s help, the world learned the White House had indeed ordered the launch of rockets against American civilians, against the Outlaw, on American soil (Blue-Eyes herself issued the order, but that was impossible to prove).