New Olympus Saga (Book 2): Doomsday Duet (7 page)

“None of that would have happened if he hadn’t made me look at the Red Cube of Doom. Now it’s as useful to me as a broken Palantir; if I try to use it to learn more, those wannabe Nazgul may pop in for a little visit again.”

John vaguely understood the references. Tolkien’s fantasies, he thought. He’d never read the books, and he’d only seen one of the movies back in the seventies, at Linda’s insistence; it hadn’t been bad, just not his cup of tea. He’d never found much use for fantasy and speculative fiction; reality had enough wonders and mysteries as far as he was concerned, and he saw no need to read about fictional ones. He got the gist of what Christine was saying, though.

“Yes, waiting until we know it’s safe would be a good idea,” he said, and involuntarily ran a hand over the rents in his costume.

“I still can’t believe the giant beardo took you down like that,” she said, noticing the gesture. “But I think he got a boost from the Outsiders, and they don’t play by the rules, even the rules in super-duper universe.”

“So you did learn something before we were attacked.” The long-suppressed memories about the shadow-entity in Berlin stirred at the mention of the Outsiders.

“Something. Not much. There is a war. Cosmic Nerds versus the Outsiders.  Not exactly good and evil, but close enough for us mere humans, I guess. The Nerds live in the center of galaxies and use black holes like we use triple-A batteries, don’t ask me how, I’m a physics major and I was like a Mayan priest trying to understand what a nuclear power plant does, let alone how it does it. The Outsider thingies were, duh, outside the universe when the Big Bang happened, and got dragged into it. They want to make the universe go away so they can get back home. They don’t like us. I caught glimpses of lots of dead worlds where the Outsiders managed to eradicate all life. They aren’t nice at all.”

John nodded. “I think I encountered one of their creatures once before.” He told her about the 1945 incident. For a wonder, Christine listened quietly until he was done.

“That’s gotta be one of them,” she said when he was done. “Which means they’ve been trying to get into your head for a while. Trying and failing. The Outsiders don’t do too well in places with a lot of matter and energy, so they mostly hang out in deep space and send their agents to do their dirty work, to try and twist the Cosmic Nerd’s gifts and use it against us, against all sentient beings, basically.”

“And the, ah, Cosmic Nerds gave us our powers so we could join the fight against the Outsiders?”

“I didn’t get all the details, but I think that’s their plan; the powers were meant to prep us for the conflict. A quickie upgrade so we could contribute to the war effort. Which makes us a bunch of primitive natives getting some shiny new guns so we can go fight for our new overlords. Don’t know if I like that.”

“I’m not sure I like it either, but it answers the question of the century,” John said. “People have been wracking their minds for decades trying to figure out where the Source came from.”

“The Source? That’s what you call the Spooky Energy thingy?”

“One of my colleagues came up with the name. It has a nicer ring than Einstein’s Spooky Energy or Oppenheimer’s Gifts of Shiva.” John had met Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer a few times, but the unbridled hostility both human geniuses felt towards Neolympians had cast a pall on those meetings. Daedalus Smith had coined the more neutral term.

“Yeah, it sounds better,” Christine said. “Anyways, the Source came from the Cosmic Nerds. And the super-writing, that was the next step of the process; when we were ready, we would figure out how to use it, and that would give us, our entire species, a leg up, a full uplift thingy, so we could go join the local Elder Races in their giant tree house at the center of the galaxy. That’s where they live. By the way, one thing I learned up was pretty neat: once you are in the tree house you can communicate with the other tree houses in all the galaxies, even those beyond our current particle horizon, eighty billion light years away and more. It’s like a Cosmic Internet that spans the entire universe. I have no clue how they don’t violate causality and a gazillion laws of physics along the way, but again, Mayan priest, meet nuclear power plant. Good luck making sense of it. I might manage one of these days, though.” She smiled at the thought.

Christine’s enthusiastic rant reminded John of Kenneth Slaughter when he got carried away about something or other, except Kenneth hid his excitement a little better. He smiled back at her, and quietly prayed that Kenneth was innocent of any wrongdoing.

Much like Kenneth when he was on a roll, Christine wasn’t done. “Anyway, the Outsiders don’t want us to join the Elder Races, so they are trying to mess with the process. I think people touched by the Outside end up hating reality, just like the Outsiders hate reality, and that would make them pretty evil from our perspective. They have been destroying populated worlds all over the universe, and we’re on their to-do list.”

“For over seventy years, we haven’t detected any signs of intelligent life in the universe. The Outsiders must be the reason,” John said. “One of my friends actually went on a twenty-year trip to explore the galaxy and seek other civilizations.”

“Wow. Did he find anything?”

“He wouldn’t talk about what he found, actually. That’s the thing, whatever he saw was so terrible he doesn’t want to share it with us. He’s been back for over a year, and all he’s done since then is drink himself into a stupor. We were worried about him. If it wasn’t for my own problems, I’d have tried harder to talk to him.” Kenneth Slaughter’s words came back to John.
‘Cassius… yes, he also worries us all.’
What had Cassius Jones found out there? “I really should talk to him.”

“Umm. Can’t that wait until after you clear your name and stuff?”

“I think he can help. My friend’s name is Cassius Jones; he goes by the code name Janus. Now that I know what he must have seen, I think I can get him to listen to me. More importantly, he hasn’t been an active Legion member in decades, so he can’t be the traitor. If I can convince him of my innocence, his support would be invaluable.”
If I can secure his support, he and I can take on the rest of the Legion and probably win, should it come to that
, he though. It probably wouldn’t come to that, but having Cassius at his side could give him the leverage to unmask the traitor or traitors within. The more he thought about it, the more he liked the idea. He didn’t fit in with the likes of Condor and Face-Off. Cassius would help, if he could get him to snap out of his funk.

“Janus is the guy who won the Pacific campaign in WWII pretty much by himself, isn’t he?” Christine said. “And you’ve already decided to go see him. I can tell.”

“McArthur and Halsey would have disagreed fairly strongly, but yes, Janus did win the Pacific War for us, and yes, I’m going to go see him. I think that’s my best option. It’s better than confronting the Legion by myself. With him by my side, my chances are much higher. If can convince the Legion of my innocence and ferret out the traitor, everything will be all right.”

“Big if, though.”

“Things would be out in the open, and we wouldn’t have to run from the authorities.” He looked at her intently. “Come with me. We can convince Janus together, and after we reveal the truth to the rest of my friends, we’ll be home free. You’ll be under the protection of the Legion.”

Christine considered it. “I would, but Cassandra warned us not to go to the authorities. What if the traitor has more tricks up his or her sleeve? Then I’ll be handing myself over to the Big Bads. They want to use me the same way Dad wanted to use me. Or kill me so I can’t do it for anybody else.”

“I can protect you,” John said, but the words sounded hollow to his own ears. He hadn’t been able to protect her in the cave, had he? “No, scratch that. You’re right. How about this? I’ll go speak to Janus myself. If everything goes well, once I clear my name, I’ll contact Condor and let you all know it’s safe. You should be all right here for now.”

“Okay, that sounds like a plan. Be careful, John, okay?”

“You too. I’m not happy about leaving you in the care of a pack of vigilantes and killers, but…”

“Hey, those are my friends, even if I’m not one hundred percent behind their life choices, okay? So don’t be dissing them. We’ll be all right. They’re all good people, even Kestrel, in her own perverted way.”

“If you can, stay put until I get in touch with you.”

“I wouldn’t mind chilling out at the lodge for a few days, but I don’t think we can just wait for you for long. What if things don’t go so well on your end?”

“I don’t know what you and your friends can accomplish other than risking your capture,” John said.

“We’ll work it out. We’ve done okay so far.”

“Tell the others to be careful. I’ll be in touch.”

“You’re not going to say goodbye?”

“They’d probably try to talk me out of doing this, and arguing with them would just waste time. I have to do this. We can’t afford to be on the run from the Legion and the US authorities, in addition to our shadowy enemy. I have to set things right, before they get completely out of hand.”

“Okay, okay. Go be uber-macho and stuff. Stay alive.”

“I will. Scout’s honor.”

She smiled at him. It made him feel warm as he flew away.

Chapter Four

Hunters and Hunted

New York City, New York, May 15, 2013

He is dead, dead and gone, nothing left to do.
The thought ran through her mind with every breath, with every step. She repeated those words to herself even now, as she sprang from the shadows onto the unsuspecting group of armed men gathering at a warehouse.

He is dead.

Instincts honed by two decades of wet work took over. She flung her arms out and a dozen energy stars flashed towards the startled men. Flesh burned and exploded; the stars tore through their bodies, leaving behind broken twitching meat where living beings had stood moments before.

Dead and gone.

Before all of this, she would have laughed in delight at the carnage and savored the screams of terror as the survivors of her onslaught realized what was happening. Now she went about her business with cold dispassion. Some men ran, and her energy stars struck them from behind and sent their smoldering corpses tumbling to the ground. A couple, braver than the rest or simply too stupid to know they were doomed, drew weapons and tried to fight back. Most of their shots went wide or high. One bullet struck her forehead, right above her right eye. The impact, and the flare of pain as the spent round bounced off her skull, would normally have made her snarl in anger, and she would have given special consideration to the unlucky shooter’s final demise. Now, she merely finished him off as all the others, with as much passion as a farmer slaughtering his livestock.

Dead and gone.

The screams faded away one by one. The last man, both legs severed at the knees, kept on crawling away, praying all the while in a high-pitched voice. “God, please God, please, oh, God.” She caught up to him and finished him off with a stomping kick to the back of his neck. The crunching sound cut off the prayer with sharp finality. Her assignment was complete.

“Well done, Lady Shi.”

He must have shown up at some point while she was distracted by the slaughter. She turned towards the hated voice, and saw the massive form of her lover standing a few feet away. She was intimately aware of everything about the body looming in front of her, his hardiness and relentless strength, and the surprising tenderness it was capable of, when the time was right. The mind and soul that had once dwelt within that body were gone now, however.

He is dead.

“I came to fetch you, my Lady, but saw I was a bit early and contented myself with watching your work,” Mr. Night said through her dead lover’s lips. “Always a pleasure to see a professional in action, although, I must say, you seem to be lacking your customary
joie de vivre
, my dear.”

She said nothing. The only thing she wanted was to tear that hideous smile off her lover’s face, to kill Mr. Night in the most gruesome manner she could conceive. She was a connoisseur of torture and dismemberment, and she could imagine a hundred ways to make the little monster pay for his actions. She wanted to kill him – but she was too afraid to try.

“Your restraint is wise, my sweet Lady.”

The words mocked her and reminded her of their confrontation on the lakeside beach earlier that night. Upon realizing what had happened, how her Bear had been violated and destroyed, she had attacked. Her Bear was stronger than she, but even his tough hide was not immune to her fiery blades. She should have been able to tear her lover’s body apart, crying as she did it, but knowing it was the only way to avenge him.

Before she could strike, Mr. Night had smiled, and spoken a word in some outlandish language she had never heard before. Upon hearing the word, Lady Shi had disappeared, had turned back into the nameless child in a Shanghai brothel that catered to a very special kind of customer. There is no fear like what a helpless, uncomprehending child feels in the face of utter brutality. She had fallen to her knees, broken and helpless, and Mr. Night had laughed at her.

That humiliation stayed her hand now. There was nothing she could do other than follow orders, bide her time, and wait for an opportunity. From the mocking glint in Mr. Night’s stolen eyes, he knew what she was thinking and was confident that there would never be an opportunity for revenge.

Nothing left to do.

“I must admit, the capabilities of my new host body have been unexpected,” Mr. Night commented. “Taking possession of Medved’s body was an act of desperation, you see. My poor mortal shell did not survive my encounter with the Lurker, and a mind unfettered cannot survive for very long in this vale of tears. It needs a home, a place to hang its proverbial hat, if you will. I had opened a conduit into Medved earlier in the evening, and it was a case of any port in a storm, as the saying goes. As it turns out, the range and amplitude of both my personal gifts and the Bear’s own powers seems to have grown through some wondrous synergy. I fear such boons do come at a price, however. Medved’s body is not long for this world. The brightest candle burns out fastest.”