New Olympus Saga (Book 1): Armageddon Girl (13 page)

“Not quite that bad. Every Neo is
supposed to register into the Parahuman National Database, get tested for
powers and mental defects, get a background check and all his shots like a good
doggie, and if he or she is deemed fit to be out in the wild, he’s free to go.”

“Oh, okay. That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“You have to provide them with your
fingerprints, blood type, DNA samples and a Kirlian Aura impression. If the
government ever wants to find you, the database makes it easier than a Google
search.”

“Okay, I can see why people might
object,” Christine said. She felt unreasonably happy to hear Earth Alpha had
Google.

“Yeah, a lot of us object. They still
haven’t made it a crime to avoid registration, but somebody is always
introducing a bill in Congress to make it illegal. For now, it just means unregistered
people using their powers can be prosecuted even if they don’t harm anybody.”

“Yikes.” Christine wasn’t thrilled to
find out her rescuer was in effect a criminal.

Face-Off stopped walking, and she bumped
into him. “Hey, I know this isn’t fair to you, tagging along with an illegal
like me,” he said. “If you want to turn yourself over to the authorities,
they’ll hook you up with a parahuman counselor and social worker, and you’ll
probably end up having the Empire State Guardians or even the Freedom Legion
looking over your case. I would have put you in touch with them after I rescued
you, but Cassandra told me it would be a bad idea. I trust her judgment, but
it’s up to you.”

“That's cool. I mean, thank you, but I’ll
stick around for now. I know I can trust you not to intentionally hurt me; I
also know you will stop anybody who tries to hurt me; you might hurt them more
than you need to, but I guess I can handle that. The killing stuff still
bothers me, though. To quote a wise guy: ‘Do not be too eager to deal out death
in the name of justice.’”

“’Even the wise cannot see all ends,’”
Face-Off finished the quote, surprising her. “So they have
Lord of the Rings
in your universe, too,” he added, and she could somehow sense a nice smile
behind his no-face.

“Yes! Speaking of
Lord of the Rings
,
are we going to be wandering around this pretty good simulation of the Mines of
Moria for too much longer? I’m starting to get dark- and creepy-phobic. My last
name may be Dark, but I’m not a fan of it, not really.”

“Almost there. But sometimes my pal likes
to play tricks on his guests, so be on the lookout for anything,” Face-Off
said. “As a matter of fact…” He whirled around and shone his flashlight back
the way they’d come. Christine turned around and caught something moving away
from the light, bigger than any rat could be.

“Getting sloppy, Face,” a voice said from
the darkness. A female voice. “I could have tagged you and your girlfriend half
a dozen times.”

“Fucking hell. Is that you, Kestrel?”

“Aw, you still remember me after all this
time. I’m Condor’s new official sidekick. Congratulate me.”

“Congrats,” Face-Off replied. He didn’t
sound very enthused at all.

“Friend of yours?” Christine whispered.

“Sort of,” he said. He spoke towards
Kestrel’s voice, searching for her with the flashlight. “So are you the welcoming
committee?”

“I just wanted to say hi personally.”

A figure came hurtling out of the
darkness and attacked Face-Off with a flurry of punches and kicks, knocking the
flashlight out of his hand. In the brief flashes of illumination the spinning
flashlight provided, Christine caught a glimpse of a woman in a black latex
catsuit, thigh-high boots and a stylized bird mask, also black. She was getting
positively medieval on Face-Off, who was on the defensive, blocking and dodging
blows like a stunt-man in a
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
sequel, minus
the flying leaps. A few seconds into the fight, the flashlight hit something
and broke, plunging everybody into darkness.

Christine could still hear the sounds of
a fight, but now she couldn’t see anything. Not only was she a non-fan of being
in the dark, but now she was in total darkness while bad things were happening
pretty close by. She didn’t like it one bit. She wanted, no,
needed
to
see what was going on.

And just like that, she did.

It wasn’t like normal sight at all. The
Kung-Fu Fighting duo in front of her looked like two figures made of
multicolored swirling lights, mostly reds and yellows in a multitude of hues.
The tunnel outlines were rendered in a flat and dead grayscale tone, with
little splashes of color here and there which she instantly knew were rats and
some of the larger roaches and spiders in the area. She also knew that the
woman attacking Face-Off was enjoying the violence with an almost – or maybe
not so almost – sexual passion. Face-Off, on the other hand, was mildly amused
and resigned to go along with the fight. This was Kestrel’s idea of a friendly
greeting, but underlying that was also a test of strength, the kind of macho
posturing that Christine thought was mostly a guy thing.

Now that she could see (or sense, or
whatever) the fight, it wasn’t that scary at all. The dynamic dumbos were
trading punches that could break bones on a normal person, but they weren’t
getting hurt; she knew that just the same way she knew what they were feeling.
That is, she didn’t have a clue how she knew those things, just that she knew
them. Christine set the mystery aside, figuring she would go insane if she
thought about it too much. Instead, she watched the fight and waited for it to
stop.

“Hey, lovebirds!” said somebody behind
Christine. “Cut it out or I’m going to turn a hose on you!” Light – the real
deal, not the weird stuff she was seeing with something other than her eyes –
shone out, also behind her. Her normal vision returned as soon as there was
enough light to see by, and the multicolor sensory input went away.
Interesting.

A door had opened off one of the tunnel
sides, and a man stood by it. He was tall and athletic, and was wearing a
black, gray and silver outfit that seemed to be equal parts rubber, chain mail
and metal plates. A silver helmet with a different bird design covered most of
his face. He had a big flashlight he was using to illuminate them.

Kestrel stopped her attack on Face-Off as
suddenly as she had started it. “Good workout, killer,” she said in a sultry
voice. Christine had never been able to pull a sultry voice in her life: the
few times she’d tried people thought she was having a stroke. Unfairly or not,
she started hating Kestrel just a little bit.

“Yeah, was it good for you, baby?”
Face-Off said sarcastically. Those two had history together, Christine
realized, the kind of history that involves bumping uglies followed by throwing
plates and other stuff at each other. She felt a slight pang of jealousy,
followed by a not-so-slight burst of annoyance. Yeah, let’s be the cliché
damsel in distress getting all clingy Klingon on her knight in shining no-face.
Not cool at all, Dark.

“Face. Good to see you, bud,” Condor
said, walking up. The two shook hands and Condor clapped Face-Off lightly on
the shoulder. Christine figured Face-Off didn’t hug it out with most people,
even friends like Condor.

“I see you’ve met my new partner,” Condor
said. Kestrel moved to Condor’s side and draped herself around him in a way
that indicated their relationship involved a lot more than kicking criminal ass
together.
Kestrel the Super-Slut
, Christine thought.
Just great.

“Condor, this is my friend Christine,”
Face-Off said. Condor offered his hand, and Christine shook it politely. She
sensed that Condor wasn’t a bad man, not exactly, but he had a healthy – or
perhaps slightly unhealthy – ego, and even with Kestrel all over him, he still
managed to check Christine out; she got the feeling the guy had gleaned her
dress and cup size with one quick glance. Even without her new
over-sensitiveness power, she could tell the guy gave off God’s Gift to Women
vibes. Under that there was a darker undercurrent, but Christine didn’t try to
study it too closely; she felt like she was snooping way too much already.

“And you’ve already met Kestrel,”
Face-Off continued. Kestrel looked Christine over but didn’t offer to shake her
hand. It took her one look to pass judgment on Christine, who didn’t need
super-empathy to know what the judgment had been: plain awkward girl, not a
threat, someone to be mocked or otherwise ignored. Some things didn’t change
across universes. There was a lot more about Kestrel than that, of course. Even
a cursory peek with her new Christine-sense picked up a toxic emotional stew
that left her reeling and without any desire to look any further.

“Any friend of Face is a friend of mine,”
Condor said.

“Too bad all of Face’s friends can fit in
the back of a rickshaw,” Kestrel added.

“Yeah, I love you too, K,” Face-Off
replied. He turned back to Condor. “Now that we’re done with all the
pleasantries, can we get to work? Christine could use some help.”

“I told you I would help, Face,” Condor
replied. “If we all step into my lair, I’ll set up my equipment and we can do a
full scan and all the basic power tests.”

Hopefully they would be grading the tests
on a curve.

Chapter Seven

The Freedom Legion

Atlantic Headquarters, March 13, 2013

Buried alive.

Olivia O’Brien regained consciousness in
total darkness. Concrete and metal pressed down on her, hundreds of tons of it.
She tried to draw a breath and inhaled a mouthful of dirt instead. For a
second, panic overwhelmed her, and she trashed against her prison. Something
shifted above, and the pressure above her increased. Olivia stopped moving, and
forced herself to think.

She wasn’t in any immediate danger.
Neolympians could not be suffocated, a fact that had baffled and infuriated
biologists for decades. Lack of oxygen could cause temporary unconsciousness in
parahumans, but sooner or later the same mysterious force behind their powers
took over and restarted their metabolism, releasing oxygen by breaking down
carbon dioxide in their system.

Olivia had been in similar situations
before. Wars and battles against parahumans often led to collapsing structures.
Usually she was strong enough to dig herself out. She wouldn’t be doing so this
time, not with much of a skyscraper piled up on top of her. She could lift a
tank over her head, but she couldn’t move hundreds of tons of metal and stone,
and even if she could, she would risk accidentally crushing any human
survivors. She would have to wait for rescue teams to reach her.

That gave her time to think, and to
grieve. Cecilia was gone, and so were hundreds of people she had known, worked
with, befriended. It had been twenty years since the Second Asian War, the last
time she had lost so many people in so brief a time. Without wishing to do so,
she found herself remembering the bad old times.

1991. China. The Middle Kingdom had been
a battleground for five decades, the site of two major wars and countless
lesser skirmishes. This was no lesser skirmish. The Emperor and fifty armored
divisions had burst out from the Dragon Wall and lunged toward Beijing. The
Freedom Legion had assembled to defend the sovereign capital from the invaders.

Olivia flew over the battlefield, her
flaming bolts shattering T-95 tanks; Brass Man, Myrmidon and the dozen other
flying heroes that made up Second Squad followed her lead. They had already
scoured the skies clean of all Imperial Air Force aircraft. Down below, her
husband Swift darted through the enemy forces, sending armored vehicles flying
like discarded toys. The Patriot, hastily recalled into service, followed in
Larry’s wake, leading Third through Fifth Squads, dozens of ground combat
specialists, each of them able to fight a tank platoon single-handedly. Above
her First Squad – the most powerful Legionnaires, including Ultimate, Janus and
Hyperia – battled the Emperor himself and his Celestial Warriors; their
struggle generated energy discharges capable of leveling entire city blocks.
Behind her, the Seventh and Eight Squads of the Freedom Legion waited in
reserve, ready to counter any breakthrough into the hastily assembled Chinese
and UN defensive forces that stood between the Imperial horde and a city of
eighteen million people.

An intense flash of light above her was
swiftly followed by a wave of overpressure that almost knocked her off the sky.
Later she found out the massive explosion had scattered First Squad miles in
every direction, temporarily removing its members from the fight. The explosion
had also obliterated the Emperor's remaining Celestial Warriors. Olivia looked
up and saw the Dragon Emperor, a tall man in a green-and-gold robe, surrounded
by a coruscating flux of elemental energies. Held high in his hands was a
miniature star, too bright to look at directly.

“No,” Olivia whispered, a prayer more
than anything else. Like so many prayers, it had gone unanswered.

The Dragon Emperor flung the energy
sphere down towards the rear of the defensive lines. It struck Seventh Squad’s
positions.

“No!” Her scream was lost in an
apocalyptic explosion.

The blast was later determined to have an
explosive force equivalent to ten kilotons of TNT. Only one member of Seventh
Squad survived. The other fourteen men and women, all friends and comrades,
were lost, along with six thousand ROC and UN troops killed and three times as
many wounded.

Olivia screamed in wordless rage as she
flew towards the Emperor. His elemental aura had faded somewhat, his power
drained by the massive release of energy. Her flaming spears struck him again
and again, sending him spinning in the air. Her rage fueled her powers to
levels she had never reached before or since.

Maybe she managed to hurt him in his
weakened state. Maybe he sensed First Squad rallying and coming back. For
whatever reason, the Emperor fled, leaving behind over half a million Imperial
soldiers to be killed or captured in the ensuing days. After the mopping up
operations, the Legion held funerals for its fallen members: Olivia endured a
heartbreaking parade of family members, friends and other loved ones paying
their final respects to the dead.

It would happen again. More neatly lined
coffins, some draped in the national flags of the deceased’s countries of
origin, others in the blazon of the Legion. More grieving men, women and
children in black or the funereal colors of a dozen other cultures, some
sobbing quietly, others in mute agony. Some looking at her with hatred for
daring to survive what had killed so many others.

“Artemis. This is Daedalus. Can you read
me?”

Her cochlear implant had survived the
explosions and the ensuing building collapse. She subvocalized a response. “I
read you, Daedalus. I’m safe for the time being. Please concentrate on other
survivors first.”

“Way ahead of you, Olivia,” Daedalus
said. “You’re the last one. Larry is clearing a path towards your position.
Stand by.”

Now that she had been dragged back to the
here and now, Olivia could hear and feel the sounds of Larry using his
abilities to liquefy stone and metal, opening a tunnel into the debris. Sweet
Larry, who still loved her even if he couldn’t help straying with other women.
None of that mattered, of course. She had dead friends to bury – and to avenge.

Olivia waited for her husband while
nursing thoughts of retribution.