Forced Betrayal (7 page)

*****

 

What I see on the stage is a real life horror show.

Hundreds of crimson tentacles thrash and slash from a pulsating red portal spanning the movie screen. The tentacles are covered with suckers and spines and twitching black cilia; they're tipped with claws and tongues and slobbering fanged maws and things I don't even recognize. Things that throb and vomit and slither and screech. Things that look like cancerous organs turned inside out or unborn babies and giant bugs stitched together in the bowels of Hell.

The sound it makes is like the screaming of a thousand maniacs being boiled alive. The stench it gives off is worse than the smell of a hundred corpses rotting and bursting in the sun.

I've been around some awful things in my life, but this one surpasses them all. Something about it cuts to my core, makes me sick to the stomach. Makes me sick in my
head
, nauseous and drugged and unhinged. All I want to do is run away.

And yet a lone figure dares to stand against it--one man clad in familiar black leather with a black cape trimmed in gleaming gold. He blasts the monstrosity with searing beams of power projected from his fists and eyes, crackling bolts that make it howl and flinch and pull back with each fresh strike.

His code name is Stalwart.

Maybe I shouldn't be surprised to see him, one of the greatest heroes of our age. After all, he triumphed over Pestis, the sentient plague, when all others had failed. He took down Big Bang and Heat Death single-handedly. Only he was hero enough to stop Mt. Slaughter from obliterating the continental shelf. And yet the fact remains.

He disappeared thirty years ago.

"Oh my God." I'm overwhelmed. Overloaded with the moment and what it brings up in me. So many feelings, so many questions. I can't process it all.

"Bonnie?" Hericane squeezes my shoulder. "Are you okay?"

I shake my head. A thousand questions well up within me, but only one finds its way out. "That thing...is Portcullis?"

"Not the thing," says Hericane. "The
place
. This
theater
. It's where the Surrogates opened the Refraxus in 1987. Now it's a
gate
to keep the end of the world they summoned from getting in."

Stalwart unleashes a flurry of beams so bright, I have to shield my eyes. "But I thought the super-heroes
stopped
the end of the world in '87."

She shakes her head. "I only said they
tried
to."

The creature's screams peak and oscillate. Sections of its gruesome tentacles burst, spraying pus everywhere. Stalwart presses the attack, pushing the mass of the monstrosity back further.

This isn't making sense. "But the world didn't end in '87."

"The
process
started," says Hericane. "The heroes could only slow it down." She gestures at the great beast writhing in the portal. "They couldn't close the Refraxus completely. That thing--the Manifestation of Armageddon--started pushing its way through into our world. If it makes it all the way, it
will
lay waste to the Earth." She gazes at the monstrosity. "What you see there is just the tip of the iceberg."

I watch the creature thrash as Stalwart pounds it with his powerful beams. "
That
--is just the
tip
?"

She nods. "Superhumans have probed beyond the Refraxus. They couldn't find the end of this thing. Some think it might span an entire
universe
."

I feel dizzy. I'm still fighting to process everything. "And Stalwart? He
disappeared
thirty years ago."

"He's been here all that time," says Hericane. "He's one of only two superhumans who've ever managed to hold the Manifestation at bay."

"The other?"

"My father, Epitome."

Suddenly, the Manifestation unleashes a deafening roar, and the theater shakes. Bombarded by Stalwart's beams, the monstrosity withdraws through the portal. Stalwart keeps up the pressure the whole time, blasting it right and left, forcing it over the threshold.

And then the Refraxus snaps shut with a great wind and a thundering crack. The movie screen looks like an ordinary movie screen again. If not for the pus and slime and twitching lumps of flesh splattered all over the stage and rows of seats, it would be like the monster had never been here.

Instantly, relief floods through me. "It closed."

"The Refraxus opens and closes on a cycle," says Hericane. "It stays open longer each time. Currently, it stays open fifteen minutes and some odd seconds and stays closed a minute more than that."

"How long did it stay closed before?" I ask. "In the beginning?"

She gives me a grim stare. "It stayed open for a minute at a time. It stayed closed for days."

Just then, a voice calls to us from the front of the theater. "Hey there!" It's Stalwart. Even after the battle he just fought, he hardly sounds winded. "Hericane, is that you?"

Hericane waves. "Hey, Stalwart. Mind if we talk to you a minute?"

Stalwart waves for us to join him. "Always happy to have company! Come on down!"

 

*****

 

We're halfway down the aisle when the doors at the back of the auditorium burst open. Looking back, I see Mogul and CEO (in his purple rage monster form) charge in, along with three other people--heroes and Protectorate members, one and all.

There's Thunder Perfect Mind with her giant blue head, mistress of all mental powers. Beside her stands The Jupitarian, the walking gas giant, a swirling mass of colorful streaks of cloud with a stormy red spot on his chest. Hovering over all of them is Widening Gyre, the falcon-headed bird-god with the power to sow chaos and destruction.

Lots of muscle there, a real hardball lineup. But they don't move on us...yet. They just wait there behind the back row and watch.

So our course is set. Nowhere to go but down front.

When we reach the stage, Stalwart hops down with cape flapping and greets us with a big smile. "You ladies are a sight for sore eyes!" He wraps Hericane in a hug, then releases her with a quick kiss on each cheek. "It's been too long, my dear."

He seems like the friendliest, handsomest sixty-something-year-old guy you could hope to meet. His features are craggy, his silver hair thick and wavy, his physique cut like a statue of a Greek god underneath the black leather. He could be your favorite uncle, the cool one who never does you wrong and always gives you the best advice.

I can't help smiling when he takes my hand. And kisses it. "Enchanté, Madame," he says.

"This is my friend, Bonnie." Hericane touches my shoulder. "She works for the Protectorate."

"Oh, does she now?" Stalwart grins.

"She's an investigator in the Internal Affairs Division," says Hericane.

Stalwart holds my hand a moment longer, gazing up into my eyes. And then he gently lets go. "So what can I do for you, ladies?"

Hericane reaches into her hip pocket and pulls out a folded piece of paper. "These names." She unfolds the paper and holds it out to him. "These 57 people. What can you tell me about them?"

It's the list, the one coded into Mardi's nail bed. Hericane's cutting right to the chase.

Stalwart takes the list, skims it for all of five seconds, and shrugs. "I don't understand.
Should
I know these people?" He tries handing the list back to her.

But she won't take it. "Actually, better make it 58. I left one off." She folds her arms over her chest and stares him in the eye. "My lover, Mardi Gras."

"Mardi Gras?" Stalwart looks confused. "I remember you brought her here once. What a sweet kid."

"Well, she's dead." Hericane's stare is unflinching. "Murdered, along with at least half the people on that list."

"But..." Stalwart's confusion grows. The list shakes in his hand. "Sweet little Mardi Gras? Dead?"

"Those people. Every last one of them is dead or missing." Hericane points at the paper. "And the trail ends here." She raises her finger to point at him. "Now tell us what you know."

Just then, CEO the hyper-muscular purple monster stomps halfway down the aisle and roars. "Don't say a woorrrrd! You don't have to tell her
anyyythinggg
!" Lashing out, he swats the end seat of a row of chairs, knocking down the whole row like dominoes.

"Didn't you
hear
what I just
said
?" Hericane whirls and fires a crackling double blast of lightning bolts out of her eyes. The bolts hit CEO square in the chest, sending him crashing to the floor in a smoking heap. "My
lover
is
dead
!" Eyes still arcing with electrical current, she spins back around to face Stalwart. "I'm not
leaving
here until I know who
killed
her and
why
!"

"But...but I..." Stalwart is losing his composure. "I don't know!" Looking at the gathered heroes in the back of the theater, he shakes the list overhead. "Who
did
this? Who killed Mardi Gras?"

For a long moment, no one moves or says a word.

With an angry cry, Hericane leaps into the air. "Tell me!" Her body's glowing with power. "I'll cripple you all and tear this place down! I swear to God!"

"Tear down the Portcullis and you'll end the world!" shouts Mogul.

"Do I
look
like I
give
a shit about the
world
?" Hericane spreads her arms wide, and the glow around her intensifies. "The one person
in
it who I
cared
about is
dead
! And I want
answers
!"

Gazing up at her, I wonder how far she'll take this.
Would
she end the world to avenge her lover? Then I think of Jimmy and the kids. I think of how I felt seven years ago, and I know.

Yes, she will take it all the way.

Another moment passes. Finally, Mogul walks forward with his hands in the air. "All right already. Sheesh." He walks down past CEO's unconscious form, then sits on the arm of a chair and shrugs. "Since you ask so
nicely
."

"
Tell me!
" howls Hericane.

"What the fuck? Why not?" Mogul pulls out a doobie and lights it. "Not like it'll
change
anything. Not like you can
do
anything about it."

 

*****

 

Mogul takes a drag on the doobie and holds the smoke in his lungs. Then slowly exhales. "What if the world was ending, and somebody gave you a machine that could save it? Only the machine required...special fuel. Like...gasoline with lots of lead in it. Or..." He takes another drag, holds it, exhales. "Or people."

Everyone in the auditorium hangs on his every word. Especially Hericane, who's still hovering overhead, glowing with power--and Stalwart, whose eyes are as big as hubcaps all of a sudden. The muscles of his jaw work under the skin as he grinds his teeth; the list of victims is crumpled in his fist.

"What would you do?" Mogul holds both hands out with palms facing up, like the trays of a scale. "Give the machine the people it needs? Or let the world end, in which case all those people and everyone else dies anyway?" He lowers his right hand, dropping it down to his knee. "Couple billion lives?" He lifts up his right and lowers his left just a little. "Or a couple dozen? Which do you choose?"

"I don't understand." Hericane looks down at Stalwart. "Are you telling me
he
uses
human lives
as fuel?"

"Not fuel, so much," says Mogul, talking through his latest lungful of smoke. "More like
fun
.
Addicted
type fun." He laughs and taps some ash off the tip of his doobie. "Is there a word for that? Like nymphomania, except with tearing people apart in cold blood and devouring their organs?"

I look at Stalwart, and he's staring into space. So much for the favorite uncle routine.

"I wasn't always like this," he says quietly. "That
thing
..." He points at the movie screen, and his voice suddenly jumps. "The
Manifestation
. It
corrupts
you. You've
felt
it, haven't you?" He shoots a wide-eyes gaze in my direction. "You
know
what I mean."

I have to admit, that monstrosity played some games with my head--and that, after just a minimal exposure. But I don't answer him.

"Every time I
fight
it, that thing burrows a little deeper
inside
me," says Stalwart. "Every day, it makes me a little...a little
sicker
." His voice fades, and he stares at the floor. He mutters something to himself that I don't hear.

Mogul rolls his eyes. "So back to the story." He gets up from the arm of the chair and moseys toward us. "You've got this machine, and it's the only way to save the world, but it needs its special fuel. So what do you do?" He puffs on the doobie and smirks. "
Think
about this. We're talking about the whole
world
here."

"So the 57 people on that list," I say to him. "They're all dead. Sacrificed to keep Stalwart happy so he'll keep fighting off the Manifestation."

"Did you say 57?" Mogul shrugs. "Not sure where you're getting your info from. I thought it was more like
2
57
."

Holy shit.

I look at Stalwart, and chills race through my body. That man, that
hero
standing there--did he really
slaughter
257 people and devour their organs?

"Our information?" Hericane's voice is cold, as in absolute zero. "It came from Mardi Gras, whom I'm guessing you murdered."

"So what if we did?" Mogul's doobie is down to a roach now. He huffs it once, holding it gingerly between his fingertips, then drops it and grinds it into the carpet. "She was taking it public. Can you imagine? There'd be
mass riots
. The end of Western civilization. Either that, or everyone would be just fine with it. End of the world versus a paltry few lives, remember?" Again, he raises his hands, palms up, like the balances of a scale, and dips one down just a little. "But we couldn't take that chance. Would you?"

"You make me sick." Hericane's voice is a hiss.

"Don't give me that shit!" Suddenly, Mogul goes from goofy stoner to outraged prick. "You self-righteous
fuck
!" He stops at the end of the aisle and glares up at her. "If you were given the same choice, only that was some
stranger
about to blow the lid off, not your
girlfriend
, you would've done the
exact same motherfuckin' thing,
and you
know
it!"

Hericane's aura glows brighter. "You don't know anything."

"Oh, okay. So
I'm
the big dumb fuckin' idiot." Mogul makes a face and flutters his hands. "The big dumb fuckin' idiot who kept the
world
from
ending
by keeping
big boy
there stocked up on human
happy meals
. What've
you
accomplished lately? Alienate your supposed girlfriend to the point where you didn't even know she was in
imminent danger
?" He waves a hand dismissively, voice dripping with disgust. "
Please.
Go
fuck
yourself, lady."

Hericane sets her jaw and drifts toward him. I think she's getting ready to fry his ass. Permanently.

I think he knows it, too. I think he's playing her. Before she can lash out, he flings up a hand and shouts at her. "
Now
." He holds that way for a moment, gaze locked with hers, frozen on the brink of potential annihilation by any of a dozen different powers she could possibly unleash at him. "You have a
decision
to make."

"A decision." Hericane stops drifting. Her glow dims the slightest bit.

"You want
him
?" Mogul points at Stalwart. "You want to make him
pay
? Go ahead. But let's be clear about this. Without
him
manning the Portcullis, the world will end
today
. The Manifestation will come through and lay waste to the planet."

Hericane is silent. She turns to stare at Stalwart.

"The Refraxus opens in--let's see." Mogul checks his watch. "Less than five minutes from now. So the end of the world, the
real
Armageddon, will finally kick into high gear in less than five minutes.
Or...
"

"Or what?" I ask him.

"
Or
, we keep the status quo," says Mogul. "We all walk away and forget this ever happened. Because we
know
what's at
stake
, and we're all
grown-ups
here."

"And how many more people will die?" I say. "How many more will you have to sacrifice to
him
to keep the Manifestation at bay?"

"It. Doesn't. Fucking.
Matter!
" Mogul claps his hands together. "If the world keeps
turning
, we're still out of the
red
. We're still coming out ahead!"

"Not Mardi Gras," says Hericane. "She's not coming out ahead."

"You and that fucking Mardi Gras!" Mogul grabs his head and spins around in frustration. "Look, I'll give you the guy who killed her, all right? Justice will be done! It's
him
, right there! Bird boy!" He points at Widening Gyre. "Happy now? Do you think you can
play ball
like a
big girl?
"

Hericane glares and doesn't answer.

"Come on, will ya?" says Mogul. "We're saving the world here! It's what super-heroes are supposed to
do
!"

Still, Hericane remains silent.

Mogul lets loose a huge sigh and points at his watch. "We're running out of time here, my friend. The Refraxus will be opening any minute now. What'll it be?"

Hericane hangs there a moment more. Everyone watches, wondering what she's going to do.

But I think I know. I think I know what I would do in her place.

"Well?" says Mogul.

That's when Hericane announces her decision. She does it with actions, not words, so there's no misunderstanding.

And her message comes through loud and clear.