New Olympus Saga (Book 3): Apocalypse Dance (2 page)

Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, March 26, 2013

Daedalus Smith was a confirmed atheist. The closest thing to God in the universe were the damnable aliens who had seen fit to hand out superpowers like Halloween treats, and they clearly were either abysmally stupid or not playing with a full deck, at least from a human perspective.

Sometimes, however, it was tempting to believe in an overarching intelligence that ruled the universe – and loved nothing more than to fuck with one Daedalus Smith, Squire, for no good reason at all.

The call had come in the middle of a morning meeting with the Freedom Legion Council. It’d been a busy meeting. The three-ring circus of Ultimate’s trial was due to start the next day, the Chimps were getting downright frisky around the Dragon Wall, Janus was still at large, and the little Legionnaires wanted to bitch and bawl about all of it. The meeting had been filled with whining, Monday-morning quarterbacking and nothing of any value whatsoever.

When Daedalus felt the cold psychic alarm go off deep inside his head, where no snoop or spook could detect it, he’d felt a nigh-overwhelming urge to loudly announce: “Sorry, boys and girls, but Uncle Daedalus has an important call from his partner in crime, the Iron Tsar his own goddamn self.” The look on their sanctimonious faces would have been so priceless, it might have been worth the hassle of having to shoot his way out of the island.

Alas, rationality had prevailed. He’d ignored the call and gone about business as usual. Sorry, Hyperia, Ultimate still hasn’t woken up, blah, blah, blah. Sorry, Artemis, nobody’s come up with a reason why the Empire has gone apeshit, blah. Two sentences’ worth of actual meaning had stretched into two hours of empty twaddle, with such luminaries as General Xu pounding on the table and demanding people notice how important he was, or Hyperia asking the same question three times in a row and expecting a different answer each time, all the while making her suspicions of Daedalus – her perfectly accurate suspicions, to be honest – pretty obvious along the way. He was surrounded by morons, and not even the knowledge that he’d soon get to kill them all was enough to lighten his mood.

Finally, the meeting had adjourned and he’d been free to retire to his suite for some mandatory down time. As soon as he was there, he activated the telepathic implants in his head, implants designed specifically to slip under the Island’s sensors unnoticed so he could hold the occasional tete a tete with the Tsar of all Russias, or at least of any Russia he felt like Tsaring over. The luxury room vanished and he found himself in a cold, dark dungeon, its only furnishings two stone chairs around a table with a chess board on it. He and the Tsar traditionally started their meetings by making a move on the board.

Daedalus examined the arrangement as he sat down. It was his move, but no matter what he did, it was going to end in mate in six. The Tsar was a better player. Sighing, Daedalus tipped over his king. “Your game. Congrats, Cushko.”

The man in the iron mask – the man with the iron head, probably; nobody was sure – grumbled wordlessly. He really liked to be addressed by his formal title, His Highness or His Honor or the Great Pumpkin or what have you. Daedalus liked to think the Tsar found his insolence a refreshing change from all the groveling he got day in and day out. If not, he could put on his big girl panties and suck it. “So, what brings us here today?” Nothing good, Daedalus imagined.

“We have the girl,” the Tsar said smugly.

Daedalus heart skipped a beat. “Are you sure?”

“She and her protector, the man with no face, along with a treacherous former Iron Guard, were caught trespassing in the Pripet Marshes. They are being held in a special facility near the capital.” He didn’t volunteer the name and location of the facility, of course, but Daedalus knew exactly which one it was, also of course. When they weren’t playing over chessmen, Daedalus was usually three or four moves ahead of the Ukrainian warlord.

Until now, that is.

What the fuck was the girl doing in the Ukraine? Had she lost her mind? Daedalus forced himself to set aside the irrelevant questions. He chose his next words very carefully. “You’ve got to be very cautious with her,
mein Zar
. Perhaps it might be best to terminate her.” Having Ms. Dark dead was better than giving Cushko a chance to take control over the Source and become the most powerful man on Earth, a position that should rightfully be Daedalus’.

The Iron Tsar shook his head. “Dead, she is of no use at all. And we subdued her easily enough. I doubt she will be much trouble now that she’s under our control.”

“So what do you plan to do with her?”

“Standard submission techniques. Psychological pressure first, to determine the best avenues of approach. After that, the usual methods of coercion until her will is broken. We are keeping her bodyguard alive, as there appears to be an emotional bond between them. My lady has taken a personal interest in the matter.”

Christ. Baba Yaga, the Tsar’s consort, was the craziest bitch Daedalus’d had the displeasure of knowing, which was saying a lot in a world full of crazy bitches. The gentler gender had gone to hell since they’d gotten the vote. On the other hand, there was a good chance Babs would kill Christine Dark before they could get anything useful out of her. It was a thin silver lining, but something to hope for.

Still, no sense in taking chances. Daedalus tried another gambit. “I’d advise you to wait until I can get there.”

The man in the iron helmet tilted his head to one side. “I fail to see what you can do that my own team of experts cannot. Of course, I will share any discoveries we make with you, just as you would have, had you managed to retain custody of the girl.” It was all bullshit, and they both knew it. They had established dozens of elaborate fail-safes designed to ensure cooperation between the two of them, and a dozen-and-a-half workarounds to ensure they would cheat each other at the first opportunity. Possession of the girl wasn’t just nine points of the law, it was the whole fucking ball of wax.

Daedalus smirked. “Come on, Cushko. You’re smart enough to figure I held a few things back.”

“Such as?”

“I learned a few more Words from the Lurker than I let on, and between them and a few tricks I got from Mr. Night, I am ninety percent sure I can give us – both of us – full access to the Source. Whatever plan you’ve got, assuming your experts aren’t lying to your face, doesn’t have more than, say, a sixty, sixty-five percent chance of success.”

“Geistesblitz is certain we have a seventy-five chance of success if we get the girl’s full compliance, seventy percent if we have to remove her brain and spinal tissue and work them into an automated device.”

“So even if your tame Kraut isn’t full of shit, there’s a better than one-in-four chance the whole thing blows up in your face. Very likely literally, which might well crack the Earth like an eggshell under a hammer, or at the very least turn your little kingdom and much of Eastern and Central Europe into a lava-filled crater. That’s worse odds than Russian roulette, pal. If we do it my way, we’ve got nine-to-one odds. Yeah, we’ll both have to learn how to share the spoils, but I figure the planet is big enough for the two of us. What do you say?”

“I say, how soon can you arrive here?”

Daedalus made some quick calculations. He’d planned for this sort of eventuality, but getting all the pieces into place would take a little time. “Seventy-two hours, give or take, not counting the seven-hour time differential.” He could be there in a day and a half, but he doubled the estimate, knowing how the Tsar’s mind worked.

“I am prepared to wait forty-eight hours before initiating direct subdual methods.”

Just as he’d expected. “All right,” he replied, sounding like he was making a painful concession. “I guess I can shoot for forty-eight hours, at the risk I’ll be found out.”

“If we succeed in this matter, that risk is irrelevant.”

“You’ve got a point, pal. See you in two days.”

“We will be eagerly waiting for you, my friend. Shall we start a new game?”

“Sure, why not.”

They set up the pieces, and the Tsar opened up with a traditional Queen’s pawn gambit. Daedalus went for an Albin counter rather than try for something special. His heart wasn’t on the game.

Chances were they’d never finish it. One way or another, the game that mattered was going to end in mate in two.

The only question was which king would fall.

Kiev, Dominion of the Ukraine, March 26, 2013

They say you can get used to hanging, if you hang long enough.

Father Alex told me that one, back in the good old days, when my only worries were such things as not getting caught with the corpse of a serial killer in the trunk of my latest stolen car. The good old days, when Father Alex and my psychic pal Cassandra were alive and well.

A lot had changed over the last couple of weeks.

At the moment, I was hanging from my wrists in a high-tech dungeon, harsh neon lights illuminating an almost medical setting, except for the high-tech restraints, the big metal grill covering the drain in the center of the sloping tile floor, and the power tools that had few medical applications, but several uses when it came to slowly but surely taking somebody apart, piece by piece.

I was in one piece so far. The Ukrainian assholes had shackled me to a wall and left me to stew by myself.  I guess they figured my imagination would do a good job of messing with my mind before they even got started on me.

They figured wrong. At the moment, the last thing I was thinking of was the upcoming torture sessions. Considering the circumstances, I was feeling rather chipper. Because of Christine.

I could still feel her presence in my head. The link we’d established hadn’t gone away. I even had some idea where she was. Two hundred, two hundred and fifty feet away, and two stories above me. Less than a football field’s length. Not very far at all, and if I had to pave every step of the way with the corpses of the assholes who’d taken her, I’d do it with a notional smile on my no-face.

So I hung out and waited for her to communicate with me, or for any sign they were hurting her, at which point I would break free even if I had to chew off my arms and legs to do so. For the time being, I didn’t feel any strong emotions coming from her, which surprised me. She should be terrified, but if she was, she was keeping a tight lid on it. I’d known plenty of tough guys who’d be streaming bodily secretions from every hole in their body just about now. My respect for her grew even more.

Time passed. I tuned out my surroundings and thought good thoughts.

Finally:

That gave us a pretty nice leg up on the assholes.

A mental shrug, but underneath it was a bit of fear and humiliation.

hurt
. Like a lot. This connection is pretty intimate, so try to keep it down, all right?>

The universe had a nasty sense of humor.

What followed was one of the weirdest experiences of my life, or that week. It was as if she got behind the wheel of my brain and drove it for me for a while, and in the process she taught me how to build a wall of sorts around my emotions, so I could only let her hear and feel what I wanted her to. I told her.

I lied, just to see if I could do it while using the emotion blocks.

was all she said, which meant I could lie to her through the mental link. It didn’t make me feel good at all, but I figured there was no point in her knowing I was hanging by my wrists, which was rather painful. I didn’t think I could pull the wool over her eyes if we were talking face to face, though.

Jesus H. Christ. I was going to have to share all my torture expertise with her. I wasn’t much of an expert, not really, since Cassandra had fed me most of the information I needed, but I’d had to do my share of forceful interrogations over the years, times when Cassandra’s visions weren’t clear enough and I’d had to do my own digging. Most people talked when offered the simple choice between talking and getting beaten to a pulp, but there’d been exceptions.

Exceptions like the pedophile from Hoboken. He hadn’t wanted to tell me where he’d stashed a six year old, and he’d held out for a good while, for reasons I hadn’t cared to delve into. I’d gotten pretty creative towards the end, and I’d found the kid, still alive. Then I’d come back and finished off the asshole. The promise of a quick death if I found the child had been the reason he’d finally given it up, after I’d shown him just how long I could make him last.

Fuck. Okay, emotion block, do your thing.

I kept a tight lid on my emotions so I wouldn’t upset her more. I didn’t know how I was going to handle being inside her head while she was being tortured, only that I was going to have to.

I replied. One blast of that twisting black energy and every nerve in my body had exploded with agony; my strength had deserted me and I’d gone down for the count.

Interesting. Very, very interesting.

Until they killed him. Father Alex had traveled a long way just for the honor of being killed in his old country.

Some of what I felt seeped through, because I caught a burst of sorrow from her.

Fucking hell. Fuck it all to hell. I’d gotten so used to having no facial features the knowledge was just background noise.

I’d lost the fight because I hadn’t thought things through. I’d thought I couldn’t feel any worse, and once again I’d been proven wrong.

Now that was an interesting question. Christine’s theory had given me hope; before hearing it I’d been pretty much convinced we were shit out of luck. I was half-tempted to start fighting the shackles right away, to let all my anger and frustration come out and play. I’d felt my power increasing even over the few frenzied seconds I’d been fighting Baba Yaga. I might just be able to bust out.

Only problem was, when I increased my strength and speed, I’d also started to burn up from the inside out. In the middle of the fight, it hadn’t seemed all that important, but I worried that my Type Two Neo body might not be able to handle the amount of energy I was pouring into it. What happens if you put a jet engine into a regular car? Nothing good, I figured. If push came to shove, though, I’d have to go for it, and hope I didn’t burn out before I did what I had to.

More importantly, when we made our move, it would be for all the marbles, and we’d only have one shot to get it right. I was pretty sure the Ukrainians weren’t going to let me survive once they figured they couldn’t keep me contained. Even worse, that might also apply to Christine. They’d been willing to kill her once already. Win or die. I was probably being chickenshit, but I wasn’t quite ready to roll the dice. I said after a few moments of thought.

She told me all about it. It was quite a story.

It helped pass the time while we waited for the torment to start.