New Olympus Saga (Book 2): Doomsday Duet (39 page)

“Okay.” That made things a bit less scary. Thinking back, she realized she’d shot down Jerry’s idea so quickly because down deep she didn’t trust him. He never laid a nonconsensual finger on her, but he still managed to abuse her in his own so-very-clever way, the d-bag. No way she was going to let him have all the control in a situation like that. That didn’t mean she wanted anybody to tie her up, but knowing she would be the one in control made it feel less rapey.

“But then there are the unhealthy relationships,” Mark went on. “The ones where the doms treat the subs like shit for real, not just during play, where they get into their heads and make them feel like they
are
shit, like they deserve every bit of abuse they get. And the unhealthy subs take it because there’s something missing or broken inside them, and they think the abuse fills that hole somehow. The bad doms are also fucked in the head, of course, although my sympathy for them ain’t all that great.”

“You don’t need whips and chains for all that to happen, either,” Christine said.

“Nope, although the whips and chains can make it worse. You can excuse a lot of bruises that happen during play even when they really are just another version of getting slapped around by your dearly beloved. But anyway, Kestrel is definitely on the unhealthy side, both as a top and a bottom. I saw it the few times I went along with her games. So, for her to be as happy as she is now, means that she’s either gotten a lot healthier about her kinks, or she’s found someone who’s as broken as she is. And from the look you’re giving me, it’s Option Number Two all the way.”

Christine looked down. “I think it happened to him during his kidnapping. It changed him.”

“Okay. Makes sense.” He shook his head. “He always seemed like he had his shit together. Fuck. Does anybody have his shit together?”

“He’s still a good guy, Mark. Look at all the good things he’s done. Sure, he has issues, but let’s face it, anybody who wears a skintight costume and runs around fighting crime has got to have some screws loose.”

She felt a grin coming from him. “Yeah, that’s a good point. But it all boils down to one thing; he’s too messed up for you to reach him.”

“Yes. He is.”

“Worse than me?”

She took his hand and squeezed it. “Nothing like you, okay? You’re angry because something horrible happened to you. It’s… it’s a lot worse with him. And more complicated.”

“I still get off hurting assholes. I believe you wanted to discuss that with me.”

“At some point, yes. But this is probably not a good time, again.” She wondered if there ever would be a good time.

“Yep. Second-guessing yourself when you have to make split-second decisions is a great way to get killed. Although it’s a bit less of an issue now that you’ve boosted me.”

“You saw John almost get killed in a couple of seconds. And I don’t think that you are tougher than him, even after I power-leveled you.”

Mark shrugged. “No, I guess I’m not. Wouldn’t mind finding out at some point.”

“Men!” Christine grumbled. “Do you guys really need to out-epeen each other all the effing time?”

Well, if Mark really needs to know his and John’s relative non-e peen sizes, you could tell him
, her brain threw in.
After all, you’ve seen both of them
.

Yeah, that little tidbit was going on the Things Best Left Unsaid file.

“Sorry,” Mark said. “I don’t care for the guy. No good reason why. Plain envy, mostly.”

She started to say something in John’s defense but thought better of it. Let’s face it; she had been more than a bit smitten by the big guy, and she thought the big guy might have returned the sentiment.  But that was all moot; she was with Mark. Besides, John’s age pushed just too many eww buttons for her. She’d made her choice.

“Anyhoo,” she said nonchalantly. “Guess we have to start getting ready for our trip. And I need to go shopping again, if you think it’s safe.” Today she was wearing a borrowed skirt and top from Melanie, and even though Melanie liked her skirts very tight and very short, she still was like five inches taller than Christine, so both skirt and top were way too big even after the judicious application of several safety pins.

“We should be okay, as long as we’re careful. I figure we can head back to New York tomorrow. Condor’s letting me borrow one of the cars in the garage. I was thinking of taking the Ferrari, but we probably should settle for something a little less conspicuous.”

“Considering we’re in the FBI’s Most Wanted list, among many others, yeah, conspicuous sounds bad.”

“Fine. I’ll settle for his Tucker Luxor. It’s nice, but it’ll blend in just fine with the other traffic.”

“Cool.”

“We’ll meet with Father Alex, set up our travel plans, and maybe we can catch a show. You ever seen
Cats
?”

“You have
Cats
here?”

“Yeah, it’s been on Broadway since forever: the immortal tale of a Neo girl who can talk to cats and the vanilla boy who loves her. What’s so funny?”

Face-Off

Sheremetyevo International Airport, Russia; March 20, 2013

I looked out the window as the plane made its final approach, and got to see lots of trees. The airport was some distance from the city proper, with a big chunk of forest on one side, and a town or suburbs elsewhere. Christine was napping on the aisle seat; she’d said she’d seen enough high flying to last her a lifetime, and she was going to enjoy “flying inside something for a change.” For much of the flight, she’d been reading one of the three dozen or so books she had downloaded into her wrist-comp. She’d gone through Martin’s
Aces and Eights
fairly quickly, and had been working on the sequel,
Trump Card
, last time I checked. She’d probably finished it before taking her nap; Christine was a fast reader, faster than me, and I usually could devour a book in a few hours.

When not reading, she’d spent the rest of her awake time watching the in-flight movies: an inane family comedy starring John Belushi, who was getting far too old for that shit, followed by a ridiculously over-the-top action flick about the 2009 giant monster attack on New York City. I’d been there, mostly pretty far from the action, but I knew the giant monster had been nowhere near as big as the one in the movie, and it certainly hadn’t toppled half of the skyscrapers around Midtown, either. In fact, the Legion and the Guardians had largely kept it at bay, although it and its smaller spawn had inflicted a good deal of damage. I guessed it made for a better movie if the monster destroyed most of Manhattan before its final-reel demise. ‘Inspired by real events’ my ass.

The movies had helped distract me for a bit, but I still wasn’t enjoying the trip. I’d never been on a passenger plane before. In fact, I hadn’t flown at all before getting a ride on the Condor Jet a few days ago. We were flying business class, which was a relief, because after one glance at the coach section I’d known I couldn’t have spent sixteen hours there without killing someone. Even with the bigger seats in business class, it had been no picnic, and I was feeling a bit claustrophobic. I don’t like being somewhere I can’t exit quickly if need be. To distract myself in between the movies, I read a pretty good horror-historical novel by Stephen King. When I was done enjoying the tale of the living dead tormenting a turn of the century Maine town (
Sometimes they come back
was the novel’s catch phrase), I napped or simply laid back and savored the memories from the day before.

We’d enjoyed an entire twenty-four hour period without a single crisis, physical or emotional. She’d gone shopping, replacing the clothes that she’d left at the Condor Lair, and I’d watched her shop; we’d eaten at some decent restaurants and walked around town and enjoyed
Cats
, even if apparently it was nothing like the musical from her universe. After dinner, we had met with Father Alex at a private residence in Queens, courtesy of a friend of his. We’d drank some vodka and gone over our travel plans. Afterwards, Christine and I had retired to a guest bedroom in the house, made love and fallen asleep in each other’s arms.

It’d been a very good day. Nothing had spoiled it, not even the knowledge we were heading into unknown territory the next morning.

I glanced at her sleeping form. She was snoring softly, looking cute as a button even with her disguise on. I wanted to wake her up with a kiss, but it would have looked funny, since our current identities had us down as father and daughter. I settled for a gentle hand on her shoulder. The smile she gave me when she opened her eyes got me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside. Good thing I was incognito, so I could smile back without feeling like a complete idiot.

The plane landed and we joined a throng of jet-lagged passengers on their way to the terminal. Sheremetyevo Airport was big but worn down. It made a good stand-in for Russia itself – decaying and threadbare, its glory days long behind. The customs agents were sullen and unfriendly, and half of them looked like they were in the throes of a hangover, even though it was three-thirty in the afternoon, local time; the other half looked and smelled like they were working on the next day’s hangover. There were packs of armed soldiers with attack dogs everywhere, and both humans and dogs looked like they’d rather be somewhere, anywhere else. I saw plenty of tourists milling around the airport, though, so maybe the rest of the country wasn’t so unwelcoming. I guessed we’d find out, although we weren’t going to get much chance to play tourist.

We met Father Alex after we’d cleared customs. He’d been in the same flight but had insisted on flying coach, both for security reasons and because he didn’t like spending money on luxuries, even other people’s money. I thought that spending sixteen hours back in the coach section was enough torment to qualify for sainthood, but I hadn’t argued with him. He looked pretty rumpled, and somewhat uncomfortable in his civilian clothes. His suit, shoes and indeed every bit of clothing he was wearing was Russian-made, courtesy of some of his parishioners. His passport identified him as Boris Gavrikov of Lipetsk, a city pretty close to the Dominion border.

Christine was uncomfortable with the cheek implants that changed her facial features enough to fool even face recognition programs and made her look, in her words, ‘puffy-faced;’ she didn’t care for the brown wig and brown eye contacts she was wearing, either. Her clothes were ‘Earth Alpha Goth Chic’ whatever that meant: the outfit was mostly black and included tights, a leather jacket and heavy military-style boots. She looked very different from her usual self, and she’d even changed her body language, which was the kind of good tradecraft I could appreciate. She must have taken drama classes at some point.

I looked like a middle-aged businessman, complete with an off-the-rack suit and tie. Not my usual attire, but I was used to playing different roles, and ‘guy in suit’ is one of them. My body language was also different, slower and more ponderous, befitting a guy who didn’t exercise as much as he should. Our passports were Canadian and claimed we were Herb McDonnell, age 54, and his daughter Kimberly, 17.  The father-daughter bit had been Condor’s idea of a joke. Funny guy. I had to confess we looked nothing like Face-Off and Armageddon Girl, though. Christine was doing a good job of behaving like a jaded teenager, currently listening to music and disinterestedly peering at the world through her Tru-View Enhanced Reality sunglasses. I looked mildly annoyed but remained polite even to the surly customs agents, as any good Canadian would.

Father Alex shook hands with me. “Welcome to Moscow,” he said, exaggerating his accent so he sounded like someone who’d learned English in school but rarely used it. “If you me follow…” He led us to a taxi stand, where we had to wait a good thirty minutes before getting into a cramped Chinese car. Father Alex and the squinty-eyed cabbie exchanged some rapid-fire words in Russian. The cabbie started arguing but eventually relented when Father Alex flashed a hundred-dollar bill at him. Benjamin Franklin’s picture seemed to get a lot of traction in Russia. The cabbie grabbed the bill like a trout snapping after a fly, cursed under his breath and got going.

“Are we there yet?” Christine said ten minutes after we’d left Sheremetyevo behind, in a whiny tone completely unlike her normal voice. I’d have to tell her that if the whole physics thing didn’t pan out, she should try her hand at acting. She was a natural.

“Soon, Kimmie,” I said soothingly and patted her on a shoulder; she shrugged off the touch with an exasperated “Dad!” Father Alex smiled.

Moscow lay ahead of us. The cab drove through roads that had been imperfectly cleared of snow. It might be mid-March, but winter was still alive and well here. The city’s skyline wasn’t very impressive at first sight. A couple of skyscrapers stood out but most of the buildings were blocky, impersonal things. The cab didn’t take us past any of the tourist spots, so we missed seeing the Kremlin and the big palaces and cathedrals. Instead, we headed to the outskirts, which were shabby and decidedly un-picturesque. The cabbie looked none too happy about it, either.

Traffic was bad, worse than anything I’d seen in New York. The local drivers liked to play rough, and the cabbie had to do some fancy driving, accompanied by loud cursing and honking. A couple of times I had to resist the urge to get out, grab some asshole’s car and flip it upside down. The not-so-occasional patches of ice added a little spice to the whole thing. It was a mildly exciting leg of the trip.

Things got even more interesting as we reached Solntsevo, the neighborhood Father Alex had told the cabbie to go to. The buildings were pretty run down even by local standards, there were more potholes, which was saying a lot, and graffiti and bullet holes were depressingly abundant on the walls. Traffic was much sparser; it was clear that people didn’t venture there if they didn’t have to. The cabbie’s apprehension grew as he drove past three uniformed men with assault rifles slung over their shoulders. The cops or militia or whatever were smoking cigarettes and making small talk with some hard-faced hookers who were showing a lot of skin despite the below-freezing temperatures. The cops glanced curiously at the cab but didn’t bother us. The cabbie muttered something that sounded like a prayer of thanks.