Monsters of the Apocalypse (15 page)

October
stared across the desk at his Sage Carnegie. The pizza between the men
was getting cold, but October resisted its appeal, the smell making his brain
fuzzy.

“How the
hell is this possible? How can they be turning into mutants who eat
people, October?! I mean in the vast array of possibilities of what could
go wrong, this is not one that I considered!”

“It seems
the man who explained it to Nestor got it pretty right. Something about
the acceleration of the body.”

“This is a
nightmare, Nephew. And now, because you didn't turn off Nestor's feed,
everybody is seeing it! Why can't we stop it?!"

"In
order to encrypt at this level it takes time. We had to lump our
feeds. Now if we lose Nestor, we lose the drones.

"Which is another thing, how is it possible that this Nevers guy hacked
it? And why is it that we can't re-encrypt it?! Do you realize that
our soldiers and potent women are watching this?! Oh and then, you go and
kill one of the most powerful men on The Island! I've had to call in
favors just to keep you alive for a few more days! This is a
disaster! The Founders were looking for a reason to take your head off
and this is it. This is your decapitation!”

October slumped
down at his desk and grabbed a slice of pizza and devoured it.

"Stop
yelling at me, Uncle," October said with a full mouth.

"Someone
needs to! You're failing, October! Failing! Carnegie's don't
fail!"

"Stop
yelling at me or I'll beat you to death," October said with a quiet calm.

Sage
Carnegie pulled back, his eyes wide. October grabbed another piece of
pizza and glanced over at Miho who was, as always typing away on her tablet
oblivious to all that went on around her. Flores kept his eyes unfocused
and above the men who sat at the table.

"What
did you say to me? Don't forget who got you where you are?!"

"Nestor
Bravo and Jacob Rothschild got me here. "The Night of a Hundred
Bullets" got me the recognition and respect that my father and you had
only dreamed of. They were the ones who made me. And now they are
the ones who are unmaking me. You mean nothing to me, Uncle. My
father is dead, you are not. Outside of that fact, you've done nothing to
achieve your status. You were born rich. You were born
connected. The only reason you are here is because you share my last
name. That is all. And trust me, that is not enough to save your
life at this moment."

"Have
you lost your mind, October?!" Sage stood up to full height, his eyes red
with rage. His fists balled up at his sides.

"Get
out, Sage, and remember, I'm the one who stands between the mainland cannibals
and you. I'm the one that stands between Nestor Bravo and you. I'm
the one who stands between Jacob Rothschild and his Shadow Army and you.
I'm the one who stands between the Founders and you. You keep me alive,
because if I die, you might be worth killing to somebody. Now get
out."

Sage
sputtered with rage, but no words came out. October, somewhere in the
back of his mind enjoyed the sight, but there was a truth to what he said that
kept him from feeling much other than sickness. Flores walked heavily
over to the old man and with a suggestive arm on his shoulder led him from the
room. When Sage Carnegie had been removed October took another slice of
pizza and turned to look at Miho.

"In
case you missed it, we just lost our last ally in the world. We are alone
officially. It would be a good time for you and Agent Flores to find
another alliance. My reign looks to be a short one."

"Why do
you say that, sir?"

"Well,
let's see, when I ran for President I never actually promised to
not
create a race of mutant cannibals, but I sense that the Islanders, who already
feel betrayed by me since I tried to kill all of their friends and family, look
at the feed, see that the world is in fact, now, populated by mutant cannibals
and are worried."

“But, it’s
not necessarily a bad thing.”

“How’s
that?”

“A leader
needs an enemy. A leader needs a threat to protect his people from.
What you just said to your uncle, that's true. Leadership is often just
standing between the people and a terrifying threat. This army of
mutants, they’re a good enemy.”

“What
army? They've formed an army?!”

“They will.”

“When?”

“When we
tell them to and then, imagine this: mutants kill Nestor Bravo, mankind's
greatest warrior. Who couldn’t they kill, if they could kill him?
Plus, now Nestor's feed is dead. We control the information. All
your problems are fixed. Then, you come out and say, you’ve found a new belief,
that you were wrong, that you and Nestor hated each other, but as men, and you
fought him as a man. And, if there’s one thing that you both were it was
men. A man’s only as great as his enemy. You made each other
great. His death hurts you, but also, it unites you to your people.
It unites all humankind."

“That’s
great, Miho. The only problem is there is no leader of the mutant army
because there is no army of mutants.”

“That's why
we're going to create him.”

October
nodded his head in excitement, another slice of pizza being eaten
unconsciously.

“Like...
with science?”

Miho glanced
at the President with confusion.

“I’m sorry,
Mr. President, but what does that mean?”

“I don’t
know. I mean, I know what I... what were you going to say, Miho?”

“We
need to let it be known that the head of the mutants - the "King of the
Mutants", has said in exchange for Nestor’s head, he’ll offer a truce with
humankind.”

“But why, why would this
"King of the Mutants" want Nestor Bravo’s head?”

Miho smiled.

There had been little talking
after they ate the Syndicate. There was nothing to be said. That
night Arian had used the device that Dimitrikov had given them and together
they had all watched Nestor's feed. They huddled around the glow of the
screen like the embers of a fire on a cold night. What they saw was
horrific, but it was a horror that they shared. The horror was a reality
that all of them knew and so in it, they found comfort.

The next morning Arian instructed
Dr. Thomas, who was the most newly injected and so still had the faculties of
his hands, on how to piggy-back onto Nestor's feed and use it as a
communication line. Once the difficulties of that had been taken care of
it was a simple matter of coming up with a code to use, which for Jacob took
little time.

Every three hours an image of the
coding would interrupt Nestor's feed for one minute. After a day they
received their first response from the most distant, and perhaps most
important, member of the Shadow Army. Jacob had been sleeping at the
time, so Arian brought Jacob the message. Jacob sat up in bed and read
the message before getting up and walking to his bathroom mirror. Arian
followed, leaning on the bathroom doorframe.

"What does it say?"

"It says," Jacob said
while inspecting his bed-messed hair, "that we have some planning to
do."

"I thought we had a
plan."

"Oh we did, but a good plan
always has some holes that you fill along the way and then you change it
accordingly to match what comes along."

Arian watched as Jacob opened a
drawer filled with scavenged hair product.

"And if someone hadn't
hacked this? What then? Would we have just sat here and waited for
a… a what… a miracle? What if the Syndicate had been in another
town? What if all of these things that just happened… hadn't?"

"But, they did, Arian.
They did happen."

"But, what if they
hadn't?!"

Jacob turned from his own
reflection at the sound of Arian's shout. He smiled thoughtfully for a
moment before he started chuckling in a growing crescendo until his laughter
was closer to an animalistic roar than anything human.

"Why, Arian," Jacob
finally managed, "we all would have died!"

Arian fidgeted nervously and
looked away as Jacob continued his roaring laughter.

Nestor woke
up somewhere different. He went to sit up and couldn't. It took him
a moment to realize that he was tied to a table. He tried to calm himself
by focusing on his breathing and not the feel of the rope that crossed his
chest and held down his arms. It was then that he realized that he was
not alone. In the corner of his vision he saw that someone was standing
in the shadows.

“What’s
going on?” he grunted.

“I’m sorry,
Nestor, there was a development while you slept,” the man walked over to Nestor
as he spoke. He had bad teeth and his hair and beard were wild and
unruly. His pale white skin was covered with scars and scratches.

“What?
Who are you? Where's Aamir?”

“I’m the man
who killed the mutant who was watching over you.”

“He was a
man!”

“It couldn’t
last. He’d been inoculated. There’s no point waiting around with
your hand on the burner, just waiting for it to burn you. It’s for the
best.”

“Why am I
tied up?”

“Again, it’s
for the best. The mutants, they’ve offered us a truce, in exchange for
you. So you see, I don’t have any choice. Your head saves many
heads. You’ll die a hero.”

“What are
you talking about? Who wants me?”

“The King of
the Mutants.”

“Who is he?”

“There are
only rumors, Nestor, no one knows for sure. He has an army of mutants that
he leads, eating every human in their path. Only a week ago, he left a
survivor, with a message. The message was: that in exchange for the head
of Nestor Bravo, there will be peace between man and mutant.”

"Why
would they want my head? Where's this King of the Mutants? Or this
army?! How do you know he even exists?"

“I
don't know why he wants it, or where he is, Mr. Bravo. I do know that he
is watching your feed, so I know that he will be coming here, to Eerie,
Pennsylvania, now that he knows that his trophy awaits. Of course, he
only wants your head. If you are in pain, or are afraid, I could kill you
now, myself. Would that be for the best?”

Nestor
stared at the man, who smiled back.

“No, I need
some time to figure out something clever to say when you're dead.”

“Nestor, I
want you to understand, I respect you. We all do. You will be
remembered for the hero you are.”

The man forced a gag into
Nestor's mouth before he walked out the door and turned off the light.

"Mix
it up, Mary. Don't fall into patterns like that. Never use the same
order with the… NO! You have to remember, you're not just offense, you're
defense. Everyday one team of Islanders is trying to re-encrypt, but
they're not the danger. There's another team that's trying to hack us. They're
the danger - don't forget them. This bunker has one server with satellite
hookup capacity, if they get in there and melt it down - that's it! Come
on… why do you think I had you memorize those algorithms, enter them in!
Use the codes that I taught you!"

Mary just nodded her head, her
eyes staying locked on her screen. They sat at a table with their
computers connected in a closed circuit that Caleb had designed for her
training. Mary quickly reached over and switched off-board drives in the
fire-wire port. Caleb squinted his eyes as his own computer went black.

"I win!" she squealed.

Caleb smiled and went to give
more notes when the door burst open. Tyler and his entourage stumbled in
drunkenly. Tyler staggered next to Mary who stared at him with disgust.

"Why the mean look,
beautiful," Tyler slurred. "I'm here to support you. I'm
your biggest fan. Don't you know that?"

"Leave her alone,
Tyler," Caleb growled.

"Why? What are you
going to do? Your Indian friend isn't here. I wonder if he's
feeling sick? It can't be long now before he has to leave, or we have to
remove him, don't you think?"

Caleb nodded with a smile as the
drunken men laughed and stumbled around the room.

"Mary, cover your ears for
me, please," Caleb waited until she had pressed fingers into her ears and
then he stood up and faced Tyler. "Tyler, you and the idiots leave
now, or I'm going to tell you all about the weird things your girlfriend was
willing to try with me since the world was about to end."

The room grew stony silent.
Tyler pulled himself up to full height, his friends gathered to his sides.

"What did you say to me,
nerd?"

"First, she kneeled on a
barstool and then bent at the waist over the bar so that I could…"

"Shut up! Out!
Everyone out now!" Tyler shouted. Once his entourage had left the room
Tyler stared Caleb down. "You're a dead man, Caleb."

"When she talks about me
does she smile?" Caleb sneered. Tyler moved close to Caleb, but
Caleb held his ground. "Tyler, you leave now, or I'll cut off the
whole cities access to Nestor's feed until they agree to banish you."

"That would never
work."

"I don't think so
either. But, are willing to risk it?"

Tyler waivered in the air drunkenly
for a long time before he left the room, slamming the door as Caleb laughed at
him. Caleb sighed with relief and then sat back down at the table, his
hands shaking.

"Can I unplug my ears?"

Caleb nodded.

"I hate them," she
hissed.

"Don't, they aren't bad guys
actually. Just drunk and angry and hurt. The truth is, he just
loves a girl and that makes him like that, weak, mean and stupid.
One day you'll understand. Sex or love or lust or whatever, it
changes people. It makes them the worst version of themselves."

"That's not what anyone else
says about love."

"Yeah, well everyone else is
just lying in order to get laid," Caleb shrugged.

Mary stared at him, a twist of
disapproval at the corner of her mouth.

"Sometimes I think you
aren't the best at talking to kids, Caleb."