Minister Faust (45 page)

I
deselected my OM Meter link into Wally’s mind and checked the honeycomb for a visual scan of what was happening, but I could see nothing except darkness interrupted by flashes. And if a night-vision setting existed, I didn’t know how to activate it.

I dialed up an audio link. “Anyone, anyone, can you hear me?”

“Miss Brain! This is the Flying Squirrel! Get the hell off this mission channel!”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, Festus, and I’m sure you’re busy, but Wally’s been incapacited somehow—he may be drowning—”

“I was OM Metering the whole affair! He’s been hit by an A-bomb!”

“An atomic bomb? Are you sure?”

“Argonium, you nitwit! Probably laced with Edgerton’s shadow-synthetic version. And I seriously doubt Wally’ll drown…his brain can survive without oxygen for decades—hadn’t you noticed? Now get the hell off this line and stay off!”

I hung up and spoke to the computer directly. “Where is Philip Kareem Edgerton, HKA the X-Man?”

The honeycomb flitted through thousands of camera-sights on Los Ditkos—the mainland, the Bird Island borough, and Sunhawk Island—sorting and filtering until dozens of urban angles lit up on the same image: a black car streaking at what must have been more than 140 miles an hour, racing from Ellison Heights over the Rubicon Bridge and the Mantlo River, bypassing the clogged traffic of Bustle Avenue and ripping along River Drive beside the elite Bechtburton district, burning straight toward the northern plateau of the island—

But why was X-Man headed there? And why had the rest of his confederates thrown away their lives elsewhere? What had they been protecting? Or had it all been nothing but a diversion?

Flying Squirrel: “White Squad and all remaining units, this is Mission Command. Converge on Tachyon Tower! Repeat: Converge on Tachyon Tower!”

When We Lose Our Delusions, We Must Not Lose the Lesson

Z
ooming every available city security camera I could, I tracked the shadow car as it rocketed up the hills to the plateau and then—astonishingly—
straight up the side
of the Tachyon Tower.

The black blot further silhouetted itself against the scoreboard-style full-color advertisements coursing the tapering heights of Tachyon Tower. Decelerating rapidly, slowing to a crawl just before it reached the tower’s apex, the car braved an upside-down ascent from the bottom of the giant faux-plasma globe, then inched up along the curvature until finally at the globe’s equator…

Switching angles to an interior camera, I gazed upon a vast window, on the other side of which the X-Racer stuck to the glass like the world’s largest refrigerator magnet.

Something extended from the underbelly of the vehicle, and then a neat circle etched itself in the glass, popping out a hole through which slid the cloaked L*A*Bster the Dark Fantastic, Chip Monk (in an altered version of his original costume—black tights instead of scaly green briefs), and the ever white-shirted, black-tied, and black-suited X-Man.

Kareem glanced back to the window. The X-Racer disappeared. Through the crisp circle in the window, wind instantly whipped their costumes and scattered brochures across the Sunday evening desertion of the observation deck. The Dark Fantastic raised his arm—

—and every hexagon scanning that gallery of the Tachyon Tower deck blinked not to null blue but total black.

I flicked at the controls to bring up another image, but the invading trio was completely blacked out.

I
nstantly another hexagon seized my attention: One floor upward, a wall shattered inward, and then a woman in shining armor landed on the debris of steel and reinforced concrete—Iron Lass, her black wings transmuting back into her cloak, her twin swords bared for battle. Scanning her surroundings, she dashed toward the vault door, on top of which a sign declared:

CONTAINMENT UNIT X FULLY AUTOMATED FACILITY EXTREME DANGER

ACCESS RESTRICTED TO SECURITY LEVEL INFRARED AND ABOVE

Shoving her swords into the massive metal mechanism, she was showered by sparks and instantly lit up by flashing bullet fire from a dozen angles and splashed by jets of a liquid spray that coated her and everything around her in icicles. Throbbing lights plunged the room into red and purple.

With her armor protecting her from whatever she didn’t deflect with the nearly invisible speed of her swords, Iron Lass leveled both blades at the firing zones, emitting blasts of her own frost and fire until the entire room was a chaos of steaming and flaming destruction.

Vanishing her swords, she pried her way through what was left of the vault door, and I lost visual contact with her—apparently certain wings of the Tachyon Tower had no cameras in them, or required some further pass-code or override for me to access them.

By the time I patched into Iron Lass’s cognistream—

W
hat
is
this contraption? Like planetarium projectors—seven of them? They almost look like psionic inhibition siphons…but they’d be the largest ones ever built, all clustered and pointed at…is that a
person
inside that cube? Like a man sitting inside a washing machine! Is he asleep?

~~Ymir’s blood—can it really be?

“Destroyer?”

~~Withered, depleted, a human apple core left in the sun—eyes shuttering open, twin blue suns—

“
Menton!
But…but I
kilt
you!”

~~His mouth slowly working, chewing and swallowing, dryly forcing itself to work, as if the man’s emerging from a coma—

“Ah…Professor…
Icegaard
? Killed me, you say? Your delusions…of grandeur…are as cloying as ever…”

~~
Grendelsmuter, Darkalfheimsdottir,
to me!

“Surely…Professor…you have no need…of your weapons…against a desiccated corpse of a man…strapped into this…Torquemadan technology?”

~~Caution, Valkyrie—don’t gaze into his eyes for too long at a time—he murdered ten thousand mortals in a single night, feeding upon their
minds
—

~~
Grendelsmuter
’s silver light upon the butcher’s face makes him look even paler—

“How in Niflheim didt you get here, villain?”

“I believe, Professor Icegaard…I heard someone call it…Project…
Paperclip
? Transferred me on the CSV
Odessa,
if memory serves, from the Asteroid…I don’t know how long ago…You’ll forgive me…My mind’s not what it used to be—”

“Haff you been behindt all ziss? Destroying ze Asteroidt? Murtering Hawk Kink?”

“Me? Hnnnh…hnnnh…excuse my, my wheezing, Professor…it’s the only laugh I have left. I’m flattered, truly, but no…my glory days are long expired…Time to lift me on the pyre. These days…I’m nothing but a humble document…in the archives of power. To be filed, refiled,
defiled
at the whim of a higher power—”

“Zen be filedt in ze grafe by
my
power, monster, for now at last you vill die!”

~~Ach,
sheisen
! My sword—I’ve smashed one of the psionic inhibitors—his
eyes
—

“YOU WILL LET ME OUT OF THIS ABOMINATION, HNOSSI.”

~~Must…fight him…but I can’t…stop…myself…

“EXCELLENT WORK, WIELDING THOSE BLADES OF YOURS LIKE SCALPELS. THANK YOU FOR FREEING ME. AH…FORGIVE ME IF I DON’T STAND UP…AFTER SUCH A LENGTHY CONVALESCENCE, MY LEGS…YOU UNDERSTAND? AH, I CONFESS, THIS INTIMATE TIME WE’VE SPENT TOGETHER HERE HAS GIVEN ME NOTIONS. WOULD YOU BE A DEAR AND
SHARE WITH ME YOUR HEART
?”

~~No…my
Grendelsmuter
—away! Why won’t you away? Ah—no, not through my armor—NOT INTO MY—

H
nossi’s agony momentarily blinded me, shocking me right out of her cognistream. I dialed through every camera I could, then through every OM Meter feed I could locate, until I clicked on to Syndi’s.

“—How ya like me
now?
”

~~That’s it…sing it with me, asshole!

“How’s it feel being the one controlled, Menton? Oh, what’s wrong, legs weak? That’s okay, you dirty old bastard—dance! Dance anyway! You know this one?
Hey! MEN-ton! LEAVE my MOM aLONE!
”

~~That’s it, that’s it—right on her goddamn sword, you old fuck!…Look at that…hardly even bleeding. Like a mummified mental Hitler…

“Muzzer! Can you hear me?”

~~She’s so heavy, all this armor…Odin, please don’t let her be dead—

“Can you hear me?”

“Ah…my daughter…you’f…safedt me…?”

“Yes, Muzzer!”

“Such…a gut…girl—”

“Muzzer?
MUZZER?
”

“She’ll be all right, Syndi!”

~~Who the hell? Chip Monk, Dark Fantastic, and—

“
Kareem!
Oh, Kareem—why? Why’d you do all this? Why, Kareem?
WHY?
”

“What’re you talking about?”

“All those, those, those
peo
ple, Kareem, all those F*O*O*Jsters at the fuh-Fortress—we
worked
with them! How could you just, just, just
kill
em all like that?”

“I didn’kill anybody, Syndi. Just hit em with the F*O*O*J’s own knockout gas, that’s all—they’ll be fine!”

“Thank God, Kareem! I told them, I told them, I said you’d never—but
why
—”

“I had to put em outta commission until I could get here—the stakes are too high to risk them trying to stop us—”

“But what were you trying to do? Take out Menton? Because I just did that!”

“
That’s
who that is? For real? Shit, couldn’t tell when you got him all
you
ed up like that. Kot-tam, I knew it! I knew it! Yo, ’Tastic, didn’I say?”

“Word.”

“Syndi! Is Menton gonna die?”

“No, I don’t think so—not if we get him to a doctor…”

“How do you know he’s not dying?”

“I’d know—if I want to, I can feel what they feel when they’re HEATed—but he’s out cold…I should
let
him die—”

“No, keep him alive! We need him to testify! We need the whole truth out on this!”

“Kareem, does that mean it’s all over? I mean, I captured him, right? So now he can stand trial for Hawk King’s murder, Asteroid Zed—”

“No, Syndi—Menton wasn’t behind any of this—well, maybe Zenith, but—”

“What the fuck are you talking about, Kareem? You’re still fixated on Eva? Eva’s not Menton!
This
is Menton! And she’s not Sarah Bellum, either! Kareem, listen to me: You’ve been under a lot of stress! You’re not seeing things as they really are. You need help! You need therapy!”

“Shut up, Syndi! I know Doctor Brain’s clean!”

“Whu-what? But what about everything you told me at the theater?”

“Yeah, I had my suspicions at one point, but—”

~~Chip Monk’s grabbing Kareem by the arm…

“X-Man, dam
na
tion, we’ve got
to move
—”

~~Can’t let Kareem leave!

“But Kareem, you told me yourself, this elaborate conspiracy theory about how Eva had—”

“I just told you all that cuz I knew you’d sell me out to those freaks the second you got back to the Squirrel Tree!”

“What? You…you
used
me? Why? For revenge?”

“For a diversion!”

“So when exactly did you figure out this massive conspiracy, hm? And when were you planning to let me in on it?”

“It all clicked when you said who your mother was—everything fell together: Festus, Asteroid Zed, Menton—”

“That doesn’t make any sense—”

“Who’s the detective here? And besides, the proof is in the kot-tam pudding-pops! I’m tryin to save the planet here!”

“Always gotta be the one saving the planet, Kareem! How could you—just
use
me like that?”

“Even-Steven!”

“Oh
that’s
mature!”

~~Dark Fantastic stomps his boot…

“Brother
X
!”

“Look, I’m not gonna argue with you, Syndi! How long can you keep Menton
you
ed up?”

“I don’know—hours?”

“Good! Get him and your mom outta here, and evacuate the building—”

“Why, what’re you gonna do?”

“We’re gonna blow this entire dome if we have to! Chip, ’Tastic—split up—stay off the comms except for emergency! Find a way to get up to that dimensional research lab!”

~~And now they’re all gone, and I’m alone…

~~
Muzzer…

I
switched cameras, clicking through until I could find one of the three invaders.

I spotted Kareem, covered in an Xoskeleton, smashing through a window and crawling out onto the exterior of the building.

I clicked again, finding a dozen camera angles on the outside of the dome from which to choose. And on Dome Camera Ext. 11, I spotted Kareem.