New Olympus Saga (Book 3): Apocalypse Dance (19 page)

“You do admit to being a vigilante, in violation of the Parahuman Registration Act,” she said, pressing her attack, probably hoping I’d say something stupid on live TV. Why couldn’t I get to do the Top Ten List instead of this bullshit? Come to think of it, Letterman was very likely going to be a prick during my segment on
The Late Show
, in revenge for my Regis stunt the previous month. It was going to be a long fucking day.

“Again, those activities never led to arrests or convictions, and the amnesty agreement dealt with them,” I said in my flattest, most boring tone of voice, and cocked my head slightly to one side. Ms. Hernandez wasn’t enjoying the sight of my featureless head; I could tell from the way her eyes kept sliding off it to focus on a point slightly to my left. I guessed all the makeup they’d slathered on hadn’t made me any prettier. “I think that makes such questions irrelevant, don’t you think?”

“I think the American public deserves to know if the newest Legionnaire is a criminal,” she all but barked at me.

“Definitely.”

“You agree?”

“The American public deserves to know whether or not the newest Legionnaire is a criminal,” I said sweetly. “I believe that is a better way to put it, grammatically speaking.”

“Is that supposed to be a slur against Hispanics?”

“
Absolutamente no, senora Hernandez
. As a person of Latino extraction myself, I am very sensitive to bigoted statements. Statements like a assuming a person of color like myself is a criminal, for example.”

She didn’t like that at all. Nobody had ever dared accuse Ms.
Herrnandez
of being a bigot. “You haven’t answered the question.”

“I don’t believe you asked me a question,” I replied.

“Are you a criminal?”

“No. And I find the question offensive and bigoted, to be honest. Yeah, I grew up on the streets. I believe you grew up in an upper class neighborhood and went to private school. You might want to check your privilege,
senorita
.”

Her face was flushed with anger now. I’m sure her next words would have done her a disservice, as in, made her sound like a total idiot, but she didn’t get to say them.

The lights in the studio went out. Someone shrieked, probably Ms. Hernandez herself.

The Lurker’s laugh echoed through the room.

Uh, oh. Also, what the fuck.

I was on the move even as someone – a male, probably a sound tech or cameraman – screamed horribly for a second before going silent just as suddenly. I had only one guess who the uninvited guest was, and if I was right, the roomful of humans in the studio were as exposed and helpless as so many puppies swimming in a piranha-filled pool. I rushed towards the sound and the Evil Lurker collided with me.

Only one thing to do. I’d noted where the nearest exterior wall was. Old instinct; wherever you are, always look for a couple ways out. I held onto the Lurker and flew through the wall and away from the ABC studio. They could bill the Legion for the damages.

We grappled up in the air, and I was able to see him in the afternoon sunlight. The guy looked like an oversized version of the Lurker, at least a foot taller than the crazy fuck I’d met back in March. The black suit and gas mask under a hood were pretty much the same, though. So was the insane laughter. I tried to pull his arms off, but he was strong and tough, not quite in my league but definitely someone who was going to take some work to disassemble. His hands were glowing with the purple-black energy I’d come to know and loathe; even being this close to it made me ache down to my bones, and I knew he would cut through my defensive aura and rearrange my guts it I gave him the chance. I gave him a couple of love taps with my forehead instead, and kneed him in the balls a few times, and that seemed to distract him, though.

One of the first things they teach you at Freedom Legion School is to move any super-fights away from population centers, to keep body counts and property damage down to a minimum. Even as we struggled I flew us towards water. I hoped the ferries and garbage trawlers navigating below would have the sense to veer off and head for the nearest port. Once we were there, I started working on the Lurker. I kept hold of his wrists, pulled his hands well away from me, and used my head, knees and feet to batter him. Even Ultimate would have felt the blows I was raining on the guy, but he was holding up under the punishment too damn well for my taste.

I heard him say something, a word I couldn’t understand but which echoed inside my head like a loud gong going off next to my ears. A moment later, some unseen force pulled at me from every direction. It was like being broken on the rack and being run over with a steamroller at the same time. My joints were pulled almost to the breaking point, and in a couple of cases, beyond it. Stuff popped and tore inside of me, and it hurt too much to hold on to the Lurker. It hurt too much to stay aloft.

The mad laughter echoed in my ears as I dropped to the water below.

Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea/New York, New York, May 22, 2013

“And the Number One Way to Join the Freedom Legion Is: Have pictures of Mayor Saltzman and Princess Coco playing Patty-Cake,” Christine said without bothering to look at the cue card. She didn’t get the joke, but it must be funny somehow. Maybe knowing who Princess Coco was would help; she’d have to Google her or him or whatevs. 

“We probably should do another take,” said the
Late Show
producer overseeing the taping.

“Uh, I really have to get going,” Christine said. That had been the sixth take, and as far as she knew at least four of them had been downright perfect. Having a photographic memory was really helpful when it came to not flubbing your lines.

The producer looked like she was ready to argue, but Christine didn’t give her a chance. She just took her mike off and walked out of the room. Holy crap, TV people were pushy! If you tried to be nice they walked all over you. They were going to have to live with what they had. She checked the time on her wrist-comp. Three-thirty. She’d been cooped up in the recording room for two hours. A quick look at her mailbox showed that she’d gotten three new emails. None of those would be spam; one of the cool things about the Xanaweb was that it was very easy to trace e-mails back to their senders, so spammers were SOL. So were political dissidents in repressive dictatorships, unfortunately, but hey, no spam!

The first one was a confirmation of her requested time off, starting the next day and lasting for a week, with an option to renew for a month. She’d be spending that vacation time trying to learn the secrets of the Source under the tutelage of Uncle Adam; she had mixed feelings about that. The next one was a quick note from Mark, who was off visiting with Condor; nothing major, just a brief hello and miss ya, a standard Good Boyfriend missive. She punched up a quick reply and sent it.

The last e-mail was from John Clarke, which could only mean one thing, since they hadn’t been allowed to stay in touch while the trial was going on. She grinned like a loon while she read it; the defense had moved for a dismissal and the judge had gone for it. John was a free man, exonerated on all charges. A quick wrist-comm call later, they’d agreed to meet up and celebrate.

They met at the Legion’s Lounge, a big coffee house/bar for Legionnaires only, a classy place where superheroes could hang out in peace. The décor was nicely understated, and there were plenty of booths where people could relax and eat or drink in peace. Even better, the patrons all knew to mind their own business and leave everyone else alone.

“Congrats!” she said after their server had gotten their order.

John’s relief was radiating from him in waves of joyful warmth. “I’m glad it’s over,” he said. “And thank you for all your help.”

“I just told the truth.” It hadn’t been very hard. Even the prosecutor’s cross-examination hadn’t been very rough, just long and boring, nothing like the court shows she occasionally watched on the boob tube.

“I still appreciate it,” he said with a radiant smile.

It would be so easy to get lost in the glow of that smile and the emotions underlying it….
Down, girl!
“No big. I’m just glad we don’t have to stay away from each other now that the trial is over. And I’m even gladder you’re feeling so much better.”

“Your empathy is at work, I take it. It still amazes me you can read my emotions through my defenses.”

“Well, it’s a gift. And a curse, as Mr. Monk would say.”

“Mr. Who?”

“That’d be Doctor Who, and a different character altogether,” she babbled, knowing she was making no sense, and unable to stop herself. Next she would start giggling like a smitten schoolgirl. Good going, Dark. “Sorry, I’m sort of high on life right now, between the official induction to the Legion, you getting off, and things being generally good, more or less. There are a few things I’m not looking forward to, but I’m trying hard not to think about them right now.”

“I understand. Since he wasn’t testifying at the trial, I was able to talk to Adam, and he explained much of what’s going on. It’s going to be a rough few weeks, but I’m sure things will be all right.”

He even believed what he was saying. Christine wished she could feel so confident. Well, she could at least fake it till she made it, and she should try to enjoy the good times while they lasted. When Mark came back, she’d jump his bones and she’d get over the schoolgirl giddiness she felt around John. “Yeah, things will be okay,” she said. “Like I said, you look a billion times better, now that you’ve shaken off all the Outsider poison.” That was true, but not the whole truth. His aura was still pretty frayed around the edges. It was going to take time to heal all his psychic wounds, time and happiness. She hoped he could find some.

“It’s been very nice, not to brood about the past and wallow in misery like some overwrought adolescent. For the first time in years, I’m looking forward to the future.” He was looking right into her eyes as he spoke, and his feelings came through loud and clear.

He wanted her.

Oh, he was too much of a gentleman to make a move on her, since she was already ‘spoken for;’ he was old-fashioned that way. But he wasn’t hiding his feelings, not that he could, and he knew that she knew how he was feeling. Yikes.

She loved Mark. They’d saved each other’s lives on an almost hourly basis for a good while, and now that they’d enjoyed a few weeks of peace and quiet together, she’d been happy about having him around a lot more often than not.

But he didn’t get her pulse racing the way looking into John’s eyes did, not quite, not even when they were making love and he made her explode and lose herself in the moment. There was this evil part of her who wondered how John would make her feel, if he was the one for her. She really didn’t believe in the whole ‘One’ thing, not really, but she wondered.

Christine looked away and sipped some coffee. Guilt and shame washed over her. But her feelings were still there. Mark always made her a little nervous: the anger that seethed inside him scared her, and his casual attitude towards violence would always stand between them. John was more stable, compassionate, safer, and also more attractive physically. It was weird; girls were supposed to be attracted to the bad boys, and Mark came closer to being a bad boy, except he was really sweet and loving towards her, if not towards anybody else.

Maybe you need to stop thinking of yourself as a girl, and try to look at the world as a
woman, her brain suggested. She wasn’t a girl anymore. She’d done things she’d never imagined herself capable of; she’d saved and taken lives; she’d endured terror and agony and made it through without turning into a monster or a basket case. She could make her own decisions.

Like what? Like telling Mark I need a break to see if I can make things work with John?
Talk about a dick move, as Mark would say.

She gulped down her caramel macchiato and glanced at John over her coffee cup. He was just sitting there, watching her, understanding she was thinking things over, and letting her make up her mind without pushing her one way or another. And she saw that he was confident that, given time, she would pick him over Mark. That confidence kinda pissed her off, but it also kinda made her even more interested in him.

If she actually went through with it, she’d be throwing away the best thing that had ever happened to her, in the hopes she might find something better. And if she stayed with Mark, a part of her would always feel she’d settled for less than she might have gotten. Her cold and calculating side would always be there, whispering in her ear.

And there was something else to consider: what would Mark do if she dumped him for John? He’d lost literally all but one of his friends along the way. If she turned her back on him, he’d be more alone than he’d ever been before. She might end up turning him into a villain, a monster.

Somebody’s got a real high opinion of herself
, her brain chimed in.
Mark’s a big boy. He can handle this. And if he can’t, that means he was too fucked in the head to begin with
.

Cold and calculating. Christine hated that part of herself.

“I’m sorry,” she said; the silence had stretched well into awkward territory.

“It’s my fault, isn’t it?” he said; he didn’t sound bitter or disappointed, and Christine knew that if she told him she couldn’t hang out with him anymore, he’d walk away, sad and disappointed but willing to wait, or to move on. The disappointment wouldn’t help his still frail ego one bit, but he was also a big boy, right? Turning him down wasn’t going to kill anybody, right?

“Life is just complicated,” she said lamely. Hey, if she was like Kestrel she’d just ask the guys to go into an ongoing threesome; everybody could screw everybody, all bacchanalia all the time. Her mind conjured a brief image of Mark and John –
oh, you dirty girl
.

Except she wasn’t Kestrel. She couldn’t do any of that, even if the guys agreed, which didn’t seem likely.

“Life is just too darn complicated,” she repeated.

“I know, and I have no right to complicate it even further,” he said. “I want to be your friend, Christine. I owe you a great deal. And you are under a lot of stress. I’d have to be a miserable bastard to try and take advantage of it.”

“You can’t help what you feel. And I can’t help picking it up.” She paused. “But I love Mark. And I will never do anything that hurts him.” There. Decision made.

John was hurt by it, a lot more than she’d expected. “I can’t help what I feel, but I can control what I do,” John said. He sighed. “I think for now we probably should steer away from each other.”

She found herself nodding. Both of them would keep getting hurt if they socialized; they really couldn’t be friends under the circumstances, much as they wanted to. “Yes, I suppose that’s the way to go.”

They stood up and went their separate ways.

She second-guessed herself plenty, of course.

* * *

Christine sat alone in the apartment for the first time in a while. Mark was still in New York, doing interviews, and wouldn’t get back until the next morning. Not having him around left her feeling weirdly hollow inside. She missed the warmth of his feelings towards her. Was the becoming psychically codependent or something? That didn’t sound healthy.

Nothing about this relationship is healthy
.

Yeah, I know, psycho killer,
qu'est-ce que c'est
, yadda yadda, empathy influencing my mood, yadda, I’m an immature tramp who jumped into bed with the psycho killer, and turned down the hunkiest hunk o’man in the planet, yadda. Heard it all before, brain
.

Doesn’t make it any less true.

Whatever.

She ran the dishwasher, so Mark wouldn’t have to do the dishes when he got back, and got online to do some more Hyperpedia reading in between watching the latest YouTube cat videos. A quiet night by herself might be just what she needed.

Mark’s voice, coming through their psychic link. They hadn’t been using it much lately, partly because they spent more than enough time together as it was; it hadn’t even occurred to her that they might chat that way tonight. As soon as Mark made the connection, though, she knew this wasn’t a social call. Mark was in pain. He was angry. Worst of all, he was scared.

The connection cut off. Christine could only hope it was because he was too busy to keep it up.

She had to get there, now. Two choices. She went for the obvious one first, and used her implant to make a call.

Uncle Adam picked up right away. “I need you here, now!” she shouted as soon as he answered.

A moment later, he emerged from the shadowy portal he’d created in her living room. “What’s wrong?”

“Mark’s in trouble. Take me to New York, right now!”

“We probably should alert the rest of the Legion first. Assemble a team and…”

“Now!”

He hesitated, and she completely lost it. “Listen to me! I’m not waiting! You teleport me to New York right this second or I’ll figure out another way, and I’ll never forgive you for this! Take me there this instant, or when I reach the Source the first thing I’ll do is depower your worthless ass! Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Uncle Adam wasn’t happy about it, but he finally did as he was told.

He took her hand, and a few moments later they were floating high above New York City. At that range, she could sense Mark’s location. “There!” She pointed towards the water.

Another jump, and they were at the scene of the fight. A tall figure wearing the Lurker costume was dragging Mark out of the water and using some form of psychokinetic tidal force to tear him apart.

No fucking way.

She blasted the fake Lurker, a precise beam of kinetic force that didn’t touch Mark. The cloaked figure’s dark energy shield collapsed and her beam punched clear through his chest, sending him flying off in an explosion of blackened blood. Adam rushed towards his evil twin. That was going to be rough, but at the moment all Christine cared about was that Mark was badly hurt. She scooped him out of the water with a telekinetic grab – he was sinking like a rock –and brought him to her.