Chapter Five
Matt greeted Samantha and Louis by the stream. Samantha kissed Matt and put her forehead on his. She complained, “Oh! It’s just not the same over here, is it?”
“Telia said after the baby’s born you can visit any time. There’s some withdrawal symptoms she’s dealing with.”
Samantha said, “Mint tea and chili extract.”
“Mixed together?” Matt asked.
She nodded. “Yes. That’s the stuff.”
He said, “So, what’s the plan of attack?”
She groaned and looked at Louis. “Oh drat. Louis, it’s just such a let down being back here again, and now, going back to work. I feel like I should be punching my time card!”
Louis shrugged and said, “It was nice to be real again. We used to do it more, and for much longer stretches. Frankly, we got carried away sometimes, it’s a little like a drug.”
Samantha smiled dreamily, “We’ll have to start again. But, like Telia’s experiencing pain, we do too, it’s just not as messy. Anyway, let’s do this job, at least it will be very exciting, plus it’s me and you, Matt. That is very fitting.”
Matt smiled and brushed her hair away from her face. “Samantha, have I known you for a long time, I mean me.”
“No. It’s more complicated than that. You’re unique, but this very situation has happened several times, and my loves, they’re all really similar. Pardon this comparison, but it’s sort of like a human and his pet dogs. They’re all different, but all composed of the same essential dogness.”
Matt laughed at the comparison. He asked, “Are you ready to go fight the Beast?”
“Yes, let’s kick some snake ass.” She laughed at her own joke.
Louis chuckled, too, “Now that’s a good one.”
Matt felt her reach through him and in an instant they were in another barren, windswept landscape that corresponded to Washington DC. Shadows shimmered and moved across the desolate mindscape. The dark gray leaden sky roiled like cream poured in coffee in a black and white movie.
“I’ll signal them when we’re ready, then I’ll be connected to the Sun.”
They heard the Beast’s now familiar hissing wailing call and the form swarmed through the air over their heads. Samantha kissed Matt’s cheek and whispered, “Do it now.”
He managed to tap his finger in the real world, but maintained his focus. While the reflector shifted positioned he marvelled at Owen’s skill. “It’s amazing he can talk when he’s over heee…..”
Matt made the connection to the Sun. The dark roiling sky started to turn blue. Matt’s mind disappeared and Samantha saw his body turn white and incandescent. Samantha then became enveloped in white light and it poured from her eyes. The vibration of the sun began to overwhelm the hissing mindless screech of the Beast.
It reacted and turned at her. She saw it had thousands of pairs of light blue eyes all blinking and squinting at the light. She could see the outline of the reflector, the Occitan Cross glowing. She shouted primal syllables that roughly translated to, “Die Foul Serpent.” The light arced across to the Beast and some of the black shapes that formed its body crackled and sparked like a transformer on a telephone pole exploding.
Grass began to appear on the ground. Evergreen trees erupted into the air and the Sun’s song grew deafening, an all consuming titanic roar. The Beast fled, then Matt vanished from the field and Samantha crumpled over. She was exhausted and pained at his absence. She sobbed and tears rolled down her cheeks onto the grass.
In the control room, Francis called up the ladder to him, “Matt! Matt!” he clambered up. Matt had been connected to the Sun for five minutes. His heart rate was returning to normal and he was breathing, but he was unconscious and slumped over in the chair. Francis shook him gently. Matt’s hair was soaked, like he’d been swimming. His clothing was all soaked with sweat.
Francis called down to Telia and Owen and said, “He’s still breathing. I think he’s OK. He’s out like a light. I’ll just stay up here with him.”
Telia climbed up, and joined Francis on the platform. She ran her fingers through Matt’s hair. Owen climbed up and looked at him. “Samantha said she attacked the Beast and it fled. She thinks they hurt it. She’s in a lot of pain, herself.”
A few minutes later Matt stirred. “Oh man…. Water…”
Telia handed him a bottle and threw a towel over his shoulders. He was shivering.
He said, “Dehydrated.” He shivered convulsively and drank the water. He sipped it at first, then gulped the entire bottle down. “More! Add salt, too.” he said in a hoarse voice.
Owen handed another two bottles up. Matt guzzled them down, then leaned back in the chair. Matt said, “I wish I could tell you what happened, but I don’t remember anything.” He stood up and started down the ladder. Francis helped him down, then they helped him to the couch.
Telia draped a blanket over him and sat on the floor next to him. Francis was riveted to his laptop screen flipping through social media feeds and news feeds to see if there was any real world consequence to their actions.
Francis played a couple of videos in his news feed. He chuckled and said, “It could be a coincidence, but people on the National Mall just started singing and dancing spontaneously.” His eyes got big. “People just started walking out of offices all over DC.” He laughed. “No fucking way!” He brought up a video on the big screen.
“This is from ten minutes ago. This is a group of people who in Washington who were disgusted with JJ Gorman. They’re cutting up credit cards and ripping up credit card bills.” He played the video.
Owen cheered. “We’re hitting them hard from two sides!”
Matt sat up. He laughed and hooted. “Now this is good stuff. More of this, that’s what we need!”
Francis said, “I don’t know if you can take more of it!”
Matt said, “This time kicked my ass, but it’s just like I went running on a hot day, maybe a marathon, yeah, but still I’m OK. I’ll recover quickly.”
Telia stroked his hair and asked, “Well, how many marathons could you do back to back?”
He shrugged, “Let’s see how I feel tomorrow.”
Francis started laughing he started jumping up and down with excitement. “Oh this one is too good!” He showed the stream from the Capitol on the flat screen. It was a live feed of the floor of the Senate. The camera was just pointing at a fixed location, apparently nobody was there to man the camera. A small group of Senators were rending their shirts and howling, weeping and wailing. One of the Senators, an older woman from California was babbling in rhyme and rocking back and forth. She was saying, “Cronies need to get them monies. If cronies don’t get many monies, neither will I.”
Francis flipped through the news channels. N-Cubed couldn’t make contact with any of their reporters in Washington. The story was similar on the other networks.
“Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” Francis shouted out. He showed an image on the flat screen. “Does that face look familiar?” An artist had painted an enormous mural on the sidewalk near the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. A group of people gathered around the artist’s rendition of Samantha with her eyes glowing white and bolts of energy slashing the side of the snake.
Matt said, “Holy shit!”
Telia started crying. “Oh! That’s amazing.”
Matt put his arm around her shoulder. “Oh, by the way, she said to drink mint tea with chili extract.”
Telia put his head on Matt’s shoulder. “That sounds totally gross, but I’ll go give that a shot.”
The Chardon Chronicles: Season Two --- The Winter Page 31