Fever (14 page)

            There’s another figure beside him. John. John’s leaning against the wall breathlessly, but that isn’t the strangest part. He isn’t a boy anymore. Not a boy, but not a grown man either. An acne featured teenager with oily hair stands in front of me, skinny, almost malnourished looking.

            “John, Grayson? Are we back?”

            Grayson smiles widely, heading over to a cabinet, which he opens, revealing equipment that we all stowed before heading back.

            “It seems everything is where it should be. Welcome back, Madam President.”

            Back. We’re back. What does that mean? What has happened while we’ve been away? How long have we even been away? The Fading machine could have returned us a second after we left, or twenty years. We won’t know until we look. Talking of looking…

            “How old am I?” I ask.

            Grayson steps forward, touching my face. “You’re you. You’re exactly as you were. Apparently the machine doesn’t do as much to change people’s ages coming this way.”

            “John’s different, though. How are you, John?”

            John looks down at the body he has now. “It’s not too bad. Given the shape I was in when I left, I’m lucky that the machine was able to bring me back together at all. There are worse fates than being a teenager.”

            Grayson’s hands go to my shoulders, rubbing away knots of tension I didn’t know I had. “How are you?” he asks. “Disoriented? Okay?”

            “I’m fine,” I assure him, though honestly I don’t know whether I am or not. How much can I remember? “Jack…”

            John looks concerned, staring at the Fading machine as Grayson helps me out of it. “Where is Jack? Was he right behind you?”

            “I don’t know,” I admit. “He was fighting Hammond, trying to buy me time. I don’t know if he succeeded, or if he’ll even be coming back.”

            That thought makes me choke back a sob, and despite all the rivalry Grayson must feel for Jack, he holds me close.

            “It’s going to be okay,” Grayson promises. “Jack has pulled through impossible situations before. If anyone can get back here, it’s him.”

            There’s the whine of the Fading machine behind me then, and I turn, hope lighting up in my heart in that moment as a male body starts to be constructed on it. It’s like watching a sculptor work, the body coming through roughly in the first few seconds, then in more and more detail.

            “Jack?” I start forward. Grayson tries to stop me, but he’s too slow. Hes tign’s not going to keep me back from Jack. I want to be there when he opens his…

            It isn’t Jack. As the machine fills in the last details, it’s obvious who it is. Wilson Hammond. A little younger maybe, but still definitely him as his eyes snap open and he looks up at me with obvious hatred. I start to pull back, but he’s at least as fast as I am. He surges to his feet, grabbing my arm and twisting it behind my back almost to the point of breaking it. I cry out in pain as he does it, and Hammond makes a sound almost of pleasure at that. He’s enjoying me being hurt.

            “Let her go!” Grayson orders.

            “No,” Hammond says. “I don’t think so. Celes here is coming back with me, so that we can make everything the way it needs to be. She can do that. She’s
good
at that. I certainly can’t allow her to be here.”

            “Let her go,” John says, and for a moment he sounds like little Johnny again. “Dad, you’ve already caused the world enough suffering.”

            I can’t see Hammond looking across to John, but I can hear his small sound of disappointment. “And you’re here too, Johnny. You could have done so much with me back there, you know. You could have helped me come up with diseases even more beautiful than the Fever. You are, after all, brilliant.”

            “You’re mad,” John says. “Haven’t you hurt people enough?”

            “No,” Hammond replies. “Not nearly enough. You see, thanks to Celes here, humanity survived the first apocalypse,
and
the second. My Fever. My beautiful Fever. It took such a lot of work to design, and she undid that work in less than a day.”

            “You need to let her go,” John insists. “It’s over. You have no issues with Celes.”

            “Aside from her ruining my plan?” Hammond asks. “She can’t be president here anymore. If she is, well, humanity might just keep on surviving, and I am
sick
of humanity. So very sick of it.”

            “We’ve stopped the Fever?” Even with Hammond holding me so painfully, that’s good to hear. The idea that my people might be safe is the best news I’ve heard, not just for a while, but in either of the lives I’ve lived. “Wait, how do you know that? You just arrived. And what you’re saying…”

            “I know a lot,” Hammond replies, and his voice is like oil pouring over me. “I know things that humans cannot comprehend. You know who I am, Celestra. I’ve told you before. I’ve
shown
you before.”

            As he says that, I can feel it. The evil rising up villignfrom him; pouring off him in waves. It is like the foul stench of rotting meat, but it isn’t just a scent. This runs soul deep. The hairs on my arms are standing on end just being this close to him.

            I thought I knew about the evil in Hammond. I thought I’d seen it in the apocalypse. I thought that he was the Antichrist, but standing here, I’m starting to think that even that might not be enough to describe him. I thought he was a man who had been taken by something else, but I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

            Hammond spins me to face him, and his face glows almost beautifully, while at the same time looking at him is the most terrifying experience of my life. He holds me by the hair, making me look into eyes that saw the birth of the world.

            “Do you know who I am yet?” he asks. “Do you know
what
I am?”

            I know.

            “The Devil. You’re the Devil.”

            Heat rises from Hammond then. The heat of the sun? The heat of Hell? No wonder he was able to call down fire storms. The thought of everything he’s done so far makes me shiver, despite the heat running over me.

            “I am indeed, human girl.” Hammond’s smile is like diamonds. Cold and unyielding. “I am he whom God tried to make bow down to his newest creations, and who was cast down because he would not. Do you know how long I have worked to destroy you, never working directly? Never working in my full form? Do you know how long I had to think and plan before I came up with the idea of coming down as one of you? Though obviously, I stole that one from Him.”

            I stare at Hammond with increasing horror. I thought before that there might be some way to reason with him. I thought afterwards that we’d managed to stop his plans, and that he couldn’t affect us in the future, but this…

            “Beautiful, wasn’t it?” Hammond asks. “Working as a human, in human ways, without even resorting to my supernatural form.”

            “Because you aren’t allowed to. Not without permission.”

            At the sound of Jack’s voice, I try to turn, and Hammond pulls me back against him tightly. Jack is there, jumping off the Fading machine.

            “Jack!” I yell. “You made it!”

            I surge towards him again, but Hammond pulls me back. “I’m going to enjoy tormenting you when this is done,” he says. “But first, you are going to come back and help me end this.”

            I try to ignore him, speaking to Jack instead. “How did you get back?”

            “It wasn’t easy,” Jack says. “Hammond had a lot of men with him.”

            “Yes,” Hammond says, “I did.”

            “And there were a lot of casualties,” Jack adds, ignoring Hammond. He obviously understands what I’m trying to do.

            “Yes,” Hammond says. “How did that feel, Jack?”

            Jack keeps ignoring him. “Including Dr. Florence and my father.”

            I swallow. That’s hard to bear. I can only imagine how much it must hurt Jack right now to know that Sebastian Cook, the man who brought him up, is gone.

            “That’s hard, Jack,” I say. “I’m so sorry. I only wish…”

            “Stop ignoring me!” Hammond yells, almost exactly like a petulant child, and that’s the moment when I stamp down with all the power I can muster on his foot. I think I can hear bone breaking. I can certainly feel his grip loosen. I snap my head back, slamming it into his and ignoring the pain that comes from it. I drop, letting my weight go limp, then drive forward away from Hammond as I slip from his now barely there grip. I imagine that I can feel his hands snatching for the space where I was standing just a moment before as I throw myself forward way from him. John and Grayson catch me and I spin around, facing Hammond.

            “You think that’s enough?” Hammond demands. “I am
taking
you back, Celes. I am taking you back, and you are going to help me destroy this mistake of a future.”

            I shake my head. “Never.”

            “I wasn’t planning on giving you a choice. Though if you don’t want to do it, perhaps you’d like to see me in my real form? Perhaps you’d like me to destroy this place
that
way?”

            I swallow, but Jack is already moving. His fist slams sweetly into the point of Hammond’s jaw with all the force of Jack’s more than human speed. With anyone else, it would have knocked them out, maybe even killed them. With Hammond, it just knocks him down.

            “Quick,” Jack yells. “We need to stop him.”

            I find myself thinking of the apocalypse. Of how we tried to stop him, and then, with the shadow of his sha“I amtrue self around him, we weren’t able to do it. Bullets didn’t stop him then. How can we stop him now?

            “We need to stop him before he can take his true form, all of you,” Jack says, aiming a kick at Hammond that keeps him from getting up. “Trust me!”

            And that’s enough. Because I do trust Jack. I trust him with my life. With all our lives. With the lives of every human being on the planet. I am not going to stand by and let Hammond destroy us. I am not going to believe that I can’t stop him, because that is the biggest lie of all those he has ever told.

            “Come on,” I say to the others, and charge forward.

NINETEEN

I
lunge forward, aiming a punch at Hammond. He sways out of the way, but that just sets him up for Grayson to slam into him from the side. Hammond turns, throwing Grayson off, straight at the Fading machine. Grayson hits it with a thud, breaking off part of one of its panels. That doesn’t matter now. We’re back.

            John doesn’t join the fight straight away. Instead, he hangs back as Hammond throws a flurry of punches at Jack, almost too quickly to follow, then catches me with a backhanded slap as I try to move in from the side. I stagger, my ears ringing, and I taste blood.

            “John, this isn’t your father!” I shout. “Come on. You know you were born
here
. And you know what this is!”

            Hammond starts to try to change, his skin shifting around him, a glow of power coming up through him. I slam into him, distracting him long enough that he seems to snap back into human form like elastic. If he transforms completely, everyone in our time is dead. He grabs me, his grip crushingly strong.

            Finally, John joins the fight, knocking away Hammond’s grip. I kick him back and both Jack and Grayson follow it up, backing him into a corner to pummel him with hard strikes. Hammond covers up, protecting himself and blasting through the space between them. I can see him starting to change forms again, so I grab the nearest object, the part Grayson knocked off the Fading machine, and throw it at his head. He bellows furiously as it connects.

            “Grab him,” Jack yells. “He isn’t strong enough to stop all of us.”

            I nod and rush in. Grayson tackles hsha/font>

            Suddenly, I’m flying through the air as Hammond throws us off in a burst of strength. I hit something, a wall I think, and slide down, while Hammond gets to his feet. I know that if we don’t stop him, he’ll transform, but right now, it’s hard to even get back to my feet.

            Figures burst into the room, dressed in dark body armor and carrying stun guns. I recognize the woman at their head as Rosie Fowler, Jack’s second in command when it comes to security. Her pretty features are set in a look of concentration, while her dark hair is cut short and her deep brown eyes are locked onto the scene, trying to take it in. She looks so much older now. No, I realize, she looks the same age she did before. It’s me who’s younger, leaving her older than all of us. Even Jack.   

            Rosie gestures, and a couple of the soldiers grab me, pulling me from the room despite my protests. Jack, Grayson and John follow.

            “I’m glad to see you’re back,” Rosie says. “Madam President… um, you look very different.”

            “It’s a long story,” I say, managing to focus for a moment or two. “One there isn’t enough time for.”

            “We have to deal with the situation in there, Rosie,” Jack explains.

            “We’ve got it, Jack,” Rosie insists. She doesn’t understand yet. “I mean, we’ve handled things the last couple of years okay. We knew that we had to hold on while you went back to deal with the Fever. What happened back there, anyway?”

            “That’s another long story,” Grayson supplies.

            Jack shakes his head. “Rosie, you don’t understand the seriousness of this situation.”

            Behind us, in the room with the Fading machine, I can hear the sounds of violence. Thuds, the buzz of stun guns, the crack of real ones. Screams.

            “The team members don’t know how to deal with him,” Jack continues. “He isn’t human. They don’t know what they’re getting into.”