New Olympus Saga (Book 3): Apocalypse Dance (11 page)

Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, March 29, 2013

“All done,” Doctor Rashid said. “Your cochlear implants have been removed. Now if you would care to explain...?”

“I can’t,” Ali Fiori said. Not yet, not while the physician still had cochlear implants of his own, not while all two hundred active members of the Legion were so many walking bombs. For all she knew, Daedalus had booby-trapped everyone’s implants; the treacherous bastard might be able to wipe out the entire Legion with the push of a button, just like he’d done to Doc Slaughter. You couldn’t be paranoid enough when dealing with a Neo genius who had enjoyed the full trust of the Legion since its foundation.

She looked at the tiny metal disks that until a few moments before had been residing behind her earlobes. Ali thought about having them analyzed, to confirm if they were indeed booby-trapped, but quickly dismissed the idea; what if scanning the devices alerted Daedalus? The bastard was a master chess player, always seeing a dozen moves ahead. She needed to think like him, or she was going to be checkmated before she could accomplish anything.

Doc should be doing this, not her. Except Doc had been outmaneuvered and checkmated right out of the gate, and damn the mixed metaphors. She was a checkers kind of gal, she was the Legion’s unofficial dumb blonde, and she had no hope of winning a battle of wits with Daedalus Smith.

Cut it out, you coward
, she chided herself. Plenty of people had underestimated her before, and most of them were dead or in prison. Dumb blonde? Screw that. She’d better stop making excuses for herself and start getting things done.

Daedalus was in Hungary, and would likely stay there for another four to six hours, according to his last report. That gave her a window of opportunity. She thought about Jason Merrill’s ghost. Jason, acting through Kiera Henderson, had tried to contact John telepathically, and had encountered a set of psychic wards blocking all access to the prisoner. He’d been able to confirm that John’s unconsciousness was being artificially induced. Doing something about it might alert Daedalus, of course. Doing anything could get a lot of people killed, and doing nothing would mean the traitor’s plans would be carried out, which likely would get even more people killed.

She had to do something, and something decisive.

She made a call on her wrist-comp. “Nebiru? We need to talk.”

* * *

“This is troubling,” Ibrahim al-Said, code name Nebiru, said after Ali finished her story. He glanced at the cochlear implants laying on the coffee table between them as if expecting the tiny devices to come to life and attack.

Nebiru was a handsome middle-eastern man who bore more than a passing resemblance to his more famous nephew, Ghazi the Second, the current King of Iraq. Born of Heshemite royalty, the family that ruled most of the Arab world, Ibrahim’s powers had developed during his early twenties while attending Oxford University. He’d served in the Legion for fifty years, and the only reason he hadn’t been elected to the Council was his steadfast refusal to serve in any sort of political capacity. He’d eschewed politics shortly after the disastrous Weekend War of 1963 between the Arab League and Israel, concentrating solely on the development of his Neolympian abilities and their application in the service of humanity.

Ibrahim looked sharply at Ali, as if trying to divine her thoughts. Nebiru had some low-level telepathic abilities, but they could not pierce her inborn psychic defenses. “This better not be some sort of power-play within the Council,” he warned her.

“Come on, Ibrahim,” she replied. “Since when have I been interested in Legion politics? I don’t want to be in the Council, even as a temp. I don’t care who sits there, as long as they have the best interests of humanity at heart. Do you think bombing Freedom Island and dragging us into a war with the Empire is mere politics?”

Nebiru shook his head. “No. This madness is something else. Very well. First things first.” He closed his eyes in concentration, and a second later winced slightly when his own cochlear implants tore free from their bone housing and floated away from his head. He gently levitated the blood-covered devices until they lay next to Ali’s. “Now I will examine the implants, and yes, I will take precautions to prevent alerting our alleged enemy.” He turned his piercing eyes onto the implants, and a reddish haze appeared over his eyes; that power, jokingly called his ‘rose-colored glasses,’ would perform a passive scan down to the molecular level.

Ali felt a surge of relief. Nebiru was the most powerful Legionnaire currently on the island, and having him on her side meant the battle was half-won already. At least, he would be on her side if it turned out there was something wrong with the implants. If not, he’d probably be more than a bit pissed off at her.

Ibrahim frowned. “Something isn’t right.”

“I could have told you that.”

“No, there is more to this than even you thought. Although, yes, you were right, there is an explosive device in both sets of implants, a matter-antimater nano-device with a yield of about fifty pounds of TNT in a shaped-charge configuration designed to inflict maximum damage on living tissue. But there is something else, a form of energy I’ve never encountered before, suspended in a miniaturized electro-magnetic field. It’s… poisonous; no, more than that, it is hostile to life, to reality itself! It’s an abomination in the eyes of God and Man!”

“I thought you were a confirmed atheist, Ibrahim,” Ali said.

Nebiru shrugged. “I am. I only believe in the Powers we’ve been granted by more advanced intelligences, even if I use the metaphors of magic and sorcery to describe them. But I’ve never before encountered energy imbued with
motivation
, with intentionality. The energy hidden inside those implants hates us, and it seems to react as a corrosive substance when in contact with Neo powers. Combined with the explosive devices, I think it might have been able to kill even Type Threes like ourselves.”

“Do you believe me now?”

“Of course, yes! This is terrible, Alessandra! If the entirety of the Legion has been implanted with these tainted devices…”

“Welcome to my world, Ibrahim. I figured if anybody could help, it would be you. You’ve got a 3.5 PAS score. You’re the biggest gun I could find.”

“My score is grossly exaggerated by the breadth of my abilities, you know that,” he countered modestly. “When it comes to raw power, you have me at a disadvantage. So did Janus,” he said, wincing at the memory of the drubbing he’d recently gotten at the hands of the alleged renegade. He considered the situation. “Having said that, I think I can concoct a ritual that will allow me to extract all the devices from every Legionnaire in a single stroke.”

“Seriously? You can reach into the skulls of two hundred and seventeen active members scattered around the world?”

“It’s a simple application of the laws of sympathy and contagion, although applied on a very large scale. The process will only affect the sabotaged implants. And the ritual will take me several hours of complete concentration inside my sanctum, during which I will be unreachable and unaware of the outside world.”

“That’s still damn impressive, Ibrahim.”

“The physically weaker Legionnaires will suffer some serious injuries in the process, I’m afraid. Nothing lethal, but debilitating for some.”

“It’ll hurt them a lot less than having a few sticks of dynamite go off inside their heads,” Ali replied. “Go get started. I’ll keep a lid on things until you’re done, and then I’m going to find Daedalus and beat him to a pulp.”

“A pleasant prospect,” Ibrahim said. Daedalus’ casual racism had been a constant annoyance to every non-white Legion member. Unmasking him as a traitor was going to make a lot of people very happy. “I will contact you when the ritual is completed. Wish me luck, Alessandra.” He left.

One problem solved, or on its way to being solved. Removing that multi-pronged Sword of Damocles would allow Ali to breathe freely once again. She’d free John from his artificial coma, end that charade of a trial, and save the day.

Assuming Daedalus didn’t get a whiff of what was going on and push the kill switch.

Well, no sense worrying about it. Ali stepped out of her quarters at Freedom Hall and headed to the Situation Room. She was on the elevator heading up when the general alarm went off.

Now what?

Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, March 29, 2013

Lady Shi lowered the unconscious form of the security guard to the floor, looking around in case someone else decided to show up. This operation was an exercise in frustration, beginning with the strict admonishment not to kill anyone: rendering a human unconscious without inflicting serious damage was not easy. The lack of pre-planning was another, far more important problem. Even with two former Legionnaires providing information, it was too easy to miss patterns they could have noticed after a few days of studying their target. The guard she was hiding behind a computer desk was a case in point: he’d shown up early, while Lady Shi was still seeing to the man he was supposed to relieve, and if she hadn’t moved fast – and non-lethally – he would have sounded the alarm.

She disliked working with do-gooders; their scruples and optimism were vexing at best, and downright dangerous at worst.

Not all of her current partners were sticklers to rules and morals, though. As she secured the guard, Lady Shi reminisced about her time with Condor and Kestrel. They had been rather amusing, even if they were mere dilettantes when it came to the ways of pain. They had limits, and were afraid of crossing them. Even better, now that he’d had her, Condor felt some measure of obligation towards her, which might make him hesitate at a crucial moment down the line. That suited her just fine. She’d used her body as a lure, bribe and trap before, and the two vigilantes had kept her entertained, especially Kestrel. Of course, the real fun would begin the day Lady Shi had that little bird in her power and she showed her victim that limits were for the weak.

Lady Shi knew that she might never get the chance to indulge in such things, unfortunately. They were all likely to die in the next hour, or be captured, which under the circumstances meant death as well.

Nichevo
, as her dead lover used to say. It didn’t matter. Satisfied that nobody else was about to enter the cubicle, she sat down by a computer terminal and punched the access codes she’d been given. A biometric scanner came to life, and she dutifully positioned herself so her retinas could be read. A few hours ago, her identity had been entered into the Legion’s databases; the scanner accepted her as a high-ranking functionary, and let her access the Legion’s security systems.

A few keystrokes later, her main task was completed. Security sensors along several sectors started transmitting a doctored video loop showing empty corridors and rooms. It was a pity all the security protocols she’d breached would be changed as soon as this escapade was over, but even so, the information she’d collected about the Legion would be worth a fortune in the black market. She’d easily quadruple the fee she was getting from Condor. After completing her primary objective, she began disabling other systems, to ease their escape. A few minutes later, she leaned back on her chair with a satisfied smile. The vaunted Legion’s defenses were down. Now she could…

“Step away from the computer.”

Someone had managed to sneak up on her, which rarely happened. She should be dead, but of course her opponents were do-gooders as well, and their kind wouldn’t attack without announcing themselves. It would be rude to do otherwise.

Lady Shi rose to her feet and turned to face the newcomer. He was a large man, almost as large as her Bear, with neatly-trimmed light-brown hair and beard, and strong Nordic features. He was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but she recognized him nonetheless: Berserker, a Legionnaire of some renown.

“You’d better not have killed Sergeant Ivarsson,” he said. “The man owes me money.”

“Both guards are alive,” she replied.

“Good. I will do you the same courtesy, then.”

He moved, and he was fast as well as quiet.

* * *

The alarms were shrill and piercing, not at all the kind of sound you want to hear while setting up a fairly delicate piece of pseudo-technology. Neo Artifacts might be just expressions of the will and desires of their creators, but you still had to deploy them properly or the damn things would refuse to work. Kyle Carmichael gritted his teeth and continued putting together the device, the first collaborative effort of Hiram Hades and Doc Slaughter (with an assist by good ole Kyle himself) in history.

“Somebody fucked up,” Melanie said, standing guard over him. They were in a service tunnel under Freedom Hall. Gaining entry had required a combination of computer hacking and a daring raid into a security communications node. “I bet it was Lady Shi,” she continued; Lady Shi had been sent on her own to break the final layers of Legion security; the camera systems couldn’t be hacked from the outside.

“She got us here; without her, the alarm would have gone off at least five minutes ago, and you’d already be fighting off the Legion while I finished setting up,” Kyle countered as he inserted a final component into place. The Hades-Slaughter Anti-Spacetime-Anchoring Device looked a bit like a modern art sculpture made with discarded electronic components. “It’s finished! Now all we have to do is wait until…”

The sound of multiple sets of rapid footsteps silenced him. Security was on the move. Fifty feet from their position, a helmeted head risked a quick peek around the corner. Kestrel nearly took the soldier’s head off with a flick of her whip. “No killing,” Kyle hissed warningly at her.

“It was just a warning lash,” she said. “Those soldiers are supposed to be very well trained. Just wanted to see how fast their reflexes are.”

“No killing.”

“I know, darling. I’ll work off my frustrations during our next session with Lady Shi.”

Kyle doubted they’d be enjoying another threesome with the Japanese assassin. She’d only agreed to go along as a fairly obvious ploy to gain their trust. Now that things had come to a head, she probably wouldn’t play with them again, unless she wanted something, or was trying to kill them. It wouldn’t be a good idea to repeat that experience. On the other hand, playing BDSM games with someone willing to kill and die added a great deal of spice to their evening…

Three people stepped into view, interrupting his lascivious train of thought. Kestrel’s whip lashed out – and was vaporized in a burst of fire. Uh-oh.

Meteor, the Faerie Godfather, and Sun Knight had arrived. Any one of those three could have overpowered him and Melanie, even with all the extra gadgets they’d brought for this mission. This was going to get interesting.

“You have till the count of five to lay down your weapons and surrender,” Meteor said; his eyes were glowing like the heart of a blast furnace. “THREE!”

“Shit,” Kyle said, standing side by side with Melanie.

“FOUR!”

The Hades-Slaughter thingamajig needed fifteen seconds to go online. It had about six seconds to go.

“FIVE!”

Kyle struck just as Meteor finished the count. His gauntlets fired off bursts of electrons and projected an electro-magnetic force field at the same time. He’d taken the blueprints and prototypes from a former Legionnaire by the name of Cyber-Nought and put them to good use.

He needn’t have bothered. The Faerie Godfather deflected the electric blasts with his own energy shield, and Meteor overloaded the defensive force field with a single plasma blast. Elapsed time: three seconds.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Meteor said.

“Stand aside, Meteor,” Janus said as he appeared in a burst of golden light. Sometimes the cavalry did arrive on time.

“You fucking traitor,” Meteor growled. “I’ll…” He froze when another figure teleported in. “Who the hell are you supposed to be?” the British Legionnaire asked the newcomer, who was wearing a full black-and-bronze bodysuit that covered him from head to toe.

“Call me Adam. Adam Slaughter-Trent,” the masked man said. “Stand aside, Andrew,” he told Meteor. “You too, Jake. Are you going to fight your old training instructor, Harry?” he said to the Faerie Godfather. “Do you remember when you got caught going AWOL and I let you go with an unofficial verbal reprimand?”

“Doc?” the Godfather said. “I saw you die!”

“I have Doc Slaughter’s memories inside my head, among other things,” Adam said. “I’m here to set Ultimate free, and to tell you that you’ve all been duped by a traitor inside the Legion. The entire incident in Nevada was staged by Daedalus Smith to further his secret agenda.”

“You’re all under arrest,” Meteor said. “I don’t care who you think you are. You can tell us all about your secret agendas from inside a cell.”

“Is that your final answer?”

“No. This is.” The British Legionnaire sent a ball of hyper-dense plasma soaring in their direction. So perfect was his control of flame that the fire missile would turn all of them into piles of ash without releasing enough residual heat to singe the paint on the walls.

Janus’ shield flared into life, but Adam stepped in front of everyone and intercepted the plasma blast with an outstretched hand. A shapeless blob of shadow emerged from the hand and
ate
the fireball. Adam laughed, a mirthless, sinister laugh that was eerily familiar.

“Take them down!” Meteor roared.

A fight between heavy hitters in an enclosed space was simply not survivable by small fry. Kyle and Melanie ducked around a corner and he set up another force field behind them as they ran. All the walls in Freedom Hall were grossly over-engineered, made of materials far stronger than normal, heavily reinforced, and with integral force fields of their own, which was the main reason the building had survived largely unscathed during the attack on the island.

The fight tore through those walls as if they were Japanese paper partitions. Kyle and Melanie survived only because the battle didn’t last long. His energy shield failed when something came crashing through two sets of walls and collapsed at their feet. It was Meteor, still moving feebly. Melanie grinned at the sight and shot the British hero in the head with a pistol-size version of her big game gun. Kyle shrugged and joined in, and soon Meteor was officially down for the count.

After that, things got very quiet. Kyle decided to chance it and headed back to where the fight had started. The other two Legionnaires were also down. The Faerie Godfather looked as if someone had thrown him feet first into a wood chipper. Sun Knight was in one piece but wasn’t even twitching. Janus and Adam looked a bit worn around the edges, but there was no doubt as to who had won that fight.

It was the kind of thing Face-Off would have appreciated.

I hope your girlfriend won’t get you killed, Face
, Kyle thought. It would be nice to see his fellow vigilante again, now that they’d been drafted into the big leagues. If nothing else, Face’s undisguised contempt for high-profile heroes would be a welcome change from all the ponderous posturing Kyle had been exposed to in the last few days. Both Hades and Slaughter had turned out to be major bores when talking about anything not involving grandiose schemes or new inventions. Janus had been cold and distant as well.

At one point, he’d tried to get the Slaughter-Trent hybrid to talk about his adventures, but between Doc Slaughter’s reluctance to say much about himself, and the Lurker’s reluctance to talk about anything, it’d been a pretty crappy conversation. Hades had been just as bad; the original villain had loved to go on tirades about how the world had wronged him, but the clone despised that kind of histrionics and was just as modest as Slaughter. Even with a few drinks in them, none of those guys were the life of any party.

Oh, well, he thought as they made a beeline for Ultimate’s holding area. They weren’t here for fun, they were here to save the world.

He spared one last thought for his friend, and got back to work.