Vs Reality (18 page)

Cole balls his fists and bellows out a volcanic scream. His body regains its impossible size and mass; muscles expanding, tattoos re-appearing. His bruises and cuts disappear as fast as Govinda had created them.

Govinda takes a backwards step, hand outstretched. “T-this is impossible,” he stammers, the boldness slipping from his booming voice.

“A few days ago I thought a
lot
of shit was impossible. But you know what else I just realized?” Cole presses his shoe into the car behind him and vaults forward, slamming the point of his elbow into Govinda’s nose. With a pulverizing crack it turns sideways, streaking his face with crimson. “Life
is
pain, and there’s
always
going to be fear. There isn’t a pill on Earth that can stop it.”

Govinda claps his hands over his shattered bridge. Blood flows freely from his nostrils, draining through his palms.

Cole is relentless; he continues his assault with a whipping leg kick, a knee to the stomach and three more stinging punches to the face, the third snapping the hinge of Govinda’s jaw. “You can bully people, you can threaten them, but you can’t break someone unless they’re willing to be broken. And that’s something that people like
you
will never understand.”

Govinda teeters, pitching back on his heels, but Cole reaches out and snatches his tie. He holds the noose firm, keeping him upright. Paige’s heart-wrenching words blister through his mind: the children locked in the Basement, screaming, hysterical, and then wiped from existence…all on Govinda’s watch.

“Without your suit, your Basement, and an army standing behind you,
you’re
the one who’s fucking spineless!” Cole reaches back with a balled fist and drives it into Govinda’s chest, shattering his sternum, crashing through his ribcage. He coils his fingers around several vertebrae and rips backwards, extracting Govinda’s spinal column with a single violent tear.

His black eyes roll to whites. His knees hit the pavement first, then his face.

Cole wipes the blood and viscera off on his shorts, glancing from side to side. The streets are vacant. “Damn,” he says with a disappointed sigh. “It would have been
so
cool if someone was around to hear me say that.”

Sirens wail in the distance, and the faint noise of helicopters resonate in the distance. Reinforcements are incoming. But there’s another noise coming from the building behind him: the faint sound of cracking glass. He carefully examines the windows, unable to locate the source, and then he connects the dots.

Dia.             

The portal.

The entire building has flooded, and is about to burst like an overfilled water balloon.

The edges of the ground-level windows are already starting to leak; one of them cracks at the seam, pouring water into the street like a broken faucet. The entire structure begins to sway, metal buckling from the pressure with loud moaning creaks.

A white van navigates between overturned cars and pieces of smoking metal, screeching to a stop behind Cole. He spins, fists raised. The side door slides open. “What are you waiting for?” Dia shouts, “Get in!”

Minutes later, the tower is being filmed by every tourist and resident in the downtown area. A skyscraper, spilling water from every one of its windows like a lawn sprinkler sitting on its axis, has the entire city transfixed. The streams intensify as if someone is increasing the water pressure from an unseen valve.

And then it bursts.

The sound is like mountain being dropped from orbit, and it’s audible through all five boroughs. Anyone not witnessing the disaster assumed they’d felt a mild earthquake, but those watching could see the source of the tremor: millions of gallons of water and fifty thousand tons of brick falling from the sky, crumbling to the foundation. Tidal waves ravage the streets for blocks in every direction; cars tumble through storefronts, trees are torn from their roots, and people cling helplessly to anything bolted down before they’re washed away, helpless against the force of the current. 

While citizens and news crews alike focus on the carnage unfolding at ground level, few bother to film something even more incredible: fifty stories above street level, water pours from an opening. It’s an open faucet; a waterfall without a river to feed it. ‘Like a gash torn in the fabric of reality,’ a New York Times editorial would later describe it, though the journalist’s photographic evidence would be dismissed as a hoax before his eventual dismissal.

As the gash narrows of its own accord the flow subsides, reducing the waterfall to a drip. The portal twists away with a spark, vanishing.

Paris, France (7ème arrondissement)
August 27, 2011
8:58 pm, Central European Time

Brodie finishes off a bottle of wine, gripping it with one hand, chugging it like a beer. After a resounding belch he tosses the bottle on the hardwood floor. It rattles and rolls beneath the table.

“Hey jackass!” Paige shouts, clipping Brodie’s shoulder with sharp backhand, causing him to wince and lean away. “This isn’t New York and we don’t have maid service seven days a week. You can’t just throw your crap everywhere because
I’m
the one who ends up cleaning up after you.”

The apartment’s narrow living room is charming; exposed brick walls, threadbare pillows piled onto Bridgewater sofas, and a window that offers a stunning view of the city’s skyline. And within minutes, thanks to Brodie and Jens, the quaint sitting area had been reduced to a neglected frat house.

“Well we
are
in France…” Brodie stretches out, kicking his feet onto the coffee table. “If I make a big enough mess will you put on one of those French maid outfits before you tidy up?”

“Nice,” Jens says with a chuckle, bumping fists with Brodie.

Paige lowers her glasses and glares at her new roommate. “So is this going to be a thing now? You and Cole are just going to follow us everywhere like a couple of stray cats?”

“Pretty much,” Jens replies with a shrug.

Paige lets out an audible groan before taking a final swig from her own bottle. “Brodie, you should have let me hit the pavement.” She reaches for the television remote and turns up the volume. “Now shut the hell up for a few minutes, it’s about to start.”

A glittering blue graphic of a globe bisected by a bold number ‘1’ rotates onto the screen, signaling the onset of a newscast. “Good afternoon on this
beautiful
day in New York City. I’m April Andrews, and thank you for watching WorldOne, the premiere twenty-four hour, interactive news network.” April assumes a slightly more somber tone than usual, lowering her voice, and resisting the urge to smile like she’s parading across the stage of a beauty pageant. “As we reported yesterday, a building collapsed in Manhattan. Luckily, peacekeepers arrived in time, and were able to evacuate all of the tenants. But the cause of this collapse, which was first thought to be the result of a broken water main combined with an architectural flaw in the building, turned out to be false. The Mayor of New York City is live at the scene to make a public statement about the cause of this disaster. James J. Kerrigan is about to take the podium.”

Always one to make a dramatic entrance, Mayor Kerrigan takes his place at a large wooden dais in front of a dozen microphones, strategically placed with the rubble of the disaster site in plain view. A legion of reporters and photographers snap pictures and scream questions from the press area as Kerrigan straightens his bright blue tie and carefully adjusts the American flag pin on the lapel of his jacket.

“Settle down, folks,” Kerrigan says in his unmistakable southern drawl. “There will be plenty of time for questions later.” He takes a lingering sip of water from a plastic bottle.

As if under hypnotic suggestion, the rabble of reporters silence themselves and take their seats, patiently awaiting Kerrigan’s next words.

“Thank you. First of all, I want to address the rumors that have been all over the internet. This building behind me did not fall because of a plumbing accident, a building code violation, or anything else of that nature. The truth is that it was destroyed by an international terrorist group.”

Kerrigan takes another sip of water and clears his throat, giving the reporters a moment to gasp and whisper among themselves.

“This was a clear message sent from a group of people who call themselves the ‘Global Liberty Initiative’. And their message was this: Americans are not safe, not even in the comfort of their own homes. They want us to know that they can strike anywhere, at any time. Thankfully I have a number of well-placed informants who tipped me off to their heinous plot. I was able to deploy peacekeepers and a SWAT team who descended on the building, successfully evacuating every tenant before the explosion.

“We were able to capture the leader of this terror group – a man known only as Govinda. And as much as I’d like to tell you that this is the end, and that folks can sleep peacefully at night, I’m not able to offer any such assurances. An attack on New York City is an attack on the entire nation, and if they have their way, it won’t be the last.

“The good news,” Kerrigan continues, “is that we were able to interrogate Govinda, and he gave us some
very
valuable information. He revealed that two of his American contacts are sisters – a sleeper cell, if you will – living right here in New York City. Their names are Dia and Paige Davenport.” As he continues to speak, outdated pictures appear on the screen side-by-side. Dia’s hair is shorter and Paige is missing the purple streak in her bangs, but there they are. And now the world has seen them.

Paige’s wine bottle clatters on the hardwood floor and she bolts upright, fumbling for the remote. She jams her thumb into the remote until the volume bar hits ‘max’.

“If you see
either
of these criminals,” Kerrigan continues, wagging a patronizing finger, “do not approach them. We have to assume that they’re armed and extremely dangerous. Report any sightings to your local authorities immediately so they can be dealt with by our highly-trained peacekeepers. These terrorists appear to have fled the country, and we have several international agencies looking for them at the moment. But that leads us to another problem, and it’s something the American folks need to know. The New World Council is making it nearly impossible to prevent these types of attacks. Open borders allow people to travel too freely. Strict gun laws prevent folks from defending their homes. And by disallowing military strikes in some countries, we aren’t able to send the clear, powerful messages that we ought to be sending. Countries that give aid and comfort to terror groups need to be put in their place, and unfortunately, many of them are
part
of the New World Council. So after careful consideration, I ask the President of the United States to make this critical decision: end America’s involvement with the New World Council, and do it today. For all our sakes, let us return to the values that our founding fathers intended. As Americans we need to protect ourselves, our borders, and our way of life; this can’t be done while we’re being strangled by the strict laws and regulations of this single world government. It was a noble experiment…” he steps away from the podium, motioning to the pile of rubble behind him, flashbulbs popping like fireworks. “…but as you can see, it was an experiment that failed.”

Paige sags into the couch, gazing blankly at the screen. “This is only the beginning,” she whispers, shaking her head in disbelief. “This is just the first thread being pulled, but it’s not going to stop. Kerrigan is going to keep yanking until everything unravels.” She turns off the television and shuffles to the window, places her palms on the frame and stares out into the distance. The final rays of light are receding into the sky and darkness is shrouding the city.

A long minute ticks by, one painful second at a time.

“Paige,” Jens finally says, trying to fill the deafening gulf of silence. “What are you going to tell Dia?”

“The truth,” she says flatly. “First the bad news, and then the
really
bad news.”

Brodie’s face is etched with concern. “Okay…but if the United States branding us all terrorists is the bad news, then what’s the
really
bad news?”

Paris, France
August 27, 2011
9:07 pm, Central European Time

As the sun retreats from The City of Lights the Eiffel Tower begins to glitter in the distance; flashes of brilliance travel across the iconic iron latticework like hyperkinetic fireflies – a routine sight for the locals, no doubt, but a dazzling display for the tourists. Cole is hypnotized. If he lived in Paris for a year he’d want to sit here every night at dusk, experiencing the same show.

He hears footsteps at his back, clacking across the rooftop patio.

Dia takes a seat next to him on the wide stone ledge. She lets one leg dangle over the edge, the other hugged to her chest. “So this is where heroes come to celebrate after they save the day.” She smiles to one side, dimpling her cheek.

“I don’t know who your real estate agent is, but they’re doing a bang-up job.” The summer air is thick, like lukewarm bathwater. Cole unzips his hoodie and peels it from his sweat-slicked arms, revealing a black tank top underneath.

“What can I say? I love a view.” Her raven hair is piled on top of her head in a messy bun, stabbed through with chopsticks. She reaches out and trails a finger along Cole’s intricate tattoo; starting at his bicep, outlining the coiling snake down his forearm. Muse or not, the body art now appears to be a permanent fixture, as well as his significantly brawnier physique.

The night is silent except for the sound of a couple chatting at a sidewalk café across the street, eight stories down. Their voices are muffled and distant.

Cole wipes sweat-drenched palms against his shorts; partly because of the humidity, partly because of nerves. “So…uh, what’s going on with you?” His muscular form comes with an incredible array of benefits – charm, wit and humor not being among them, apparently. If Jens were here he’d tell him to ‘stop spitting bad game’, whatever the hell that means.

She rolls her shoulders, straightening her posture. “I made a decision and I wanted you to be the first to know.” Her voice rings through with a quiet confidence.

He lets out a short sigh, relieved she’s chosen a topic of conversation.

“Now that Govinda is gone I want to stop running,” she announces. “I know we need to make sure The Basement is closed for good; I’m
totally
on board with that and I know we still have a ton of work to do – but we have contacts all over the world who can help us. We don’t need to do it alone.”

“All right,” he says, nodding. “Sounds like a good start.”

“And that means no more cutting myself…” she pauses and draws in a shaky breath. “And no more Muse.”

“Wow, I’m impressed. Going cold turkey is a bold move. And what about Plan B?” He mimes a tiny stabbing motion, as if jabbing his cephalic vein with a syringe. 

She shakes her head. “I thought I’d make my
own
plan. No superpower-inducing stimulants required: I’m calling it ‘Plan C’.”

“You have me intrigued, Miss Davenport,” he says, suppressing a smile. “Can you give me some details about this elaborate plan you’ve devised?”

She shrugs, lazily dragging a finger across her collarbone. A rill of sweat rolls down her low-cut top. “It’s not all that elaborate, really. I thought I’d just try being a regular person for a while.”

“Regular, huh? That sounds pretty boring. Are you sure you can handle it?”

“After the last couple days I could
use
a little boredom,” she admits. “Tearing apart the fabric of the universe definitely feels good, but I think I’ll do something a little more low-key this evening.”

Donovan lets out a laugh. “What’s considered ‘low-key’ for Dia: a sword fight in a burning building?”

“I was kind of thinking ‘dinner and a movie’.” She moistens her lips with a tiny flick of her tongue, cheeks flushed.

He turns back to the light show on the horizon. “Well I know a couple of marginally reliable dating sites, so if you’re looking to hook up—”

She seizes his face with warm hands, cupping his chin, twisting his face to meet hers. Their lips meet. Suddenly they’re standing, eyes closed, her arms draped loosely around his neck, his locked around her waist.

A blissful, timeless wave washes over them. They’re swept away with the tide, breathless and consumed and intoxicated like no one else in the universe matters; like that very moment in time is all that exists. He can almost feel the energy swelling from inside her, burning like a Roman candle, penetrating to his core.

Their lids drift open in unison. Her chestnut eyes are now sparkling sapphires; her hair glittering platinum, billowing in a sudden flap of wind. She brushes some flyaway strands from her face and her eyes widen at the pigment. She’d manifested without realizing it.

They stare at each other for a long minute – bodies entwined, minds reeling – before they finally realize where they are: floating twenty feet above the rooftop terrace.

“Whoa,” Dia lets out a wide-grinned chuckle, gazing down at the building below. Her eyes flick back to meet Cole’s. “Now
this
is totally watershed.”