New Olympus Saga (Book 1): Armageddon Girl (37 page)

The pursuit of the rich Chinaman was
stoking her anger in a way the attack on the Legion had not. The Legion
should
inspire hatred: privileged genetic aristocrats looking down their noses at the
rest of humanity deserved whatever they got. The fact that she was one of them
did not affect her judgment. But to find out the attack had been engineered by
yet another elite – a billionaire who had never done a day’s honest work in his
life and had enriched himself by exploiting millions of oppressed workers – was
infuriating. The attack had not been a blow for freedom, just part of a power
struggle between two oligarchies. She would make that filthy capitalist pay for
his crimes and for confirming her worst suspicions about the state of the world.

Chasca pushed her powers and unleashed a
much stronger blast of concentrated photons. Kuo thought he could take it;
let’s see how the
puerco
liked this! She struck dead on, and Kuo’s
defenses nearly broke under the onslaught. Soon he would fall.

She was too intent on finishing off the
capitalist to notice new enemies had arrived.

The newcomers were wearing some sort of
powered armor with rocket packs for propulsion. They opened fire on her just as
Artemis shouted a warning through their communication system. Belatedly, Chasca
went into evasive maneuvers. The attackers were using Imperial fire lances,
artifacts that lobbed balls of plasma at bullet speeds. She dodged all but one
of them; the single hit did not pierce her protective aura. Those attacks had
been a decoy, however. A twisting stream of purple-hued energy reached out to
her, changing its trajectory when she tried to evade it and reaching for her
like a living thing. The energy tendril broke through her defenses as if they
didn’t exist. Excruciating agony paralyzed her. No longer held aloft by her
will, her powers stripped away, she began to fall.

Isabel Quispe was no coward. She glared
hatred at the armored figures as they leveled their weapons at her.

Chasca died snarling her defiance.

* * *

This was shaping up to be a really bad
day.

The awkward silence on the flight to Hong
Kong seemed to confirm Larry Graham’s worst fears. Olivia knew. He’d been too
much of a pansy to try to talk to her about it, however. As it turned out he
would rather not know for sure: doubt was better than certainty when certainty
meant the love of your life thought – no,
knew
– that you were a
cheating, lying son of a bitch.

To make things worse, Chastity Baal was
the Legion’s point woman in the operation to discover how somebody had managed
to smuggle out a flying carrier from the planet’s most notorious rogue nation.
Did Olivia know about his fling with Chastity? Larry couldn’t tell: his wife
had been downright grim the entire night, which could mean nothing or
everything.

The operation to get information from Kuo
Wei-Fang had turned into a fiasco. Larry had tried to subdue the financier and
had gotten knocked into next week for his troubles. Luckily a telekinetic
operative of the Chinese Secret Service had caught him before he could land on
someone or something important. By the time he had woken up, the fight with Kuo
had gone aerial. Larry had hurried up to join the fray.

Running on air was a pain. His ability to
go out of phase had to be fine-tuned to let him grip air molecules and use them
as a surface to run on. He had no idea how he did it, and neither did anyone
else, although there plenty of theories that made for entertaining bull
sessions. When he ran while intangible on the ground, he only needed to hold on
to solid molecules on the ground or other solid surfaces. It took a great deal
more concentration to do so in the air, and the effort translated into overall
lower speeds and bursts of agony when the occasional errant nitrogen or oxygen
molecule passed through his semi-tangible body, inflicting painful albeit
short-lived injuries. He’d learned to grin and bear it, but it was no fun.

He had the feeling that no fun was just
what the foreseeable future had in store for him.

Larry caught up with the action somewhere
over Deep Water Bay. He arrived just in time to see Chasca torn apart by plasma
fire from the armored fliers that had joined the fight. Olivia exploded one of
the fliers with a fire spear just before being hit by a strange energy attack,
a fluid, tentacle-like stream of purple-black light that he’d never seen before.
Olivia’s flame aura disappeared and she fell limply through the air. She would
end up like Chasca if he didn’t move quickly.

Only two of the armored attackers wielded
the unusual energy weapons; he went after them first. Larry accelerated towards
the closest one, ignoring the pain, and became solid long enough to ram into
him at supersonic speeds. Larry felt the impact distantly; he knew he’d
shattered the suit of armor and the human being inside, but all he cared about
was going back out of phase to correct his course and hit the next target.

If the power armor pilots had been Neos,
they would have had the reflexes to track and hit him before he could turn back
towards them. They weren’t and they could not react in time to deal with him,
although the bastard with the strange beam weapon came close. The energy stream
twisted around as if it was alive and almost hit him.
Close but no cigar.
Better luck next time, buddy
, Larry thought coldly before he smashed into
the shooter and turned him into a mix of metal confetti and meat puree.

The surviving three fliers engaged him
with their fire lances. A direct hit burned him painfully – his intangible
state did not protect him against some forms of energy attack – but inflicted
no permanent damage. He wiped them out in a few seconds. It turned out to be a
few seconds too long: by the time he was done, Kuo was nowhere to be found. The
son of a bitch had gotten away. The other Legionnaires just arriving to the
area would have to look for him; Larry needed to look after his wife.

Olivia’s emergency beacon still worked.
He found her bobbing unconscious in the water. Alive. He could breathe again.
The thought of losing her was more than he could bear.

Why are you driving her away, then?
He had no answers.

The Invincible Man

Chicago, Illinois, March 14, 2013

John Clarke wanted to sit down, cradle
his head in his hands, and close his eyes for a few moments.

He couldn’t do that, of course. Not in
front of others, especially not in front of other Neolympians. The Invincible
Man couldn’t show weakness. He stood up straight, towering over most of the
gathering, and watched the Lurker and his daughter’s rather awkward reunion
while trying to make sense of it all.

The encounter with the Lurker had been a
shock. John had not seen the vigilante in decades; the two of them had run in
very different circles after the war. The man in the gas mask had never been a
pleasant fellow on his best day, and he clearly had not improved with age. After
his own brush with madness, John found the obvious instability of the Lurker
profoundly disturbing, especially when combined with the powers the mystery man
had demonstrated. He was certainly not the kind of ally John would have chosen.

He considered the other members of the
gathering. Condor was a talented crime fighter and he’d worked with the Legion
on several occasions, even though he was technically an ‘illegal.’ Face-Off and
Kestrel had been linked to a number of murders and disappearances around New
York City, although not enough evidence to press charges had ever been found.
The alleged victims had all been hardened criminals, and the authorities hadn't
pursued those cases very vigorously. Neos who wantonly murdered innocents were
a priority for law-enforcement; relatively discreet vigilantes like those three
were relatively safe from prosecution.

From Face-Off’s body language, he'd
expected John to start reading him his rights. Or perhaps he was still bothered
by the sight of Christine in John’s arms. The crime fighter might not have a
face, but his body language clearly showed he felt protective – and possessive
– towards the girl.

The girl… She’d made quite an impression
on John. But there was no time for that at the moment.

The Lurker hadn’t said anything after
Christine’s initial greeting. He seemed to be deep in thought. Christine turned
to Face-Off. “Okay, can
you
tell me what happened? Dad’s gone to his
happy place, apparently.”

“We got grabbed by the Russkies. The
Lurker showed up and rescued us.”

“I guess we’re doing the Cliff Notes
version,” Christine grumbled. “Me, I learned how to fly, despite not having
been given any flying lessons, thank you so very much for that, got lost in Chicago,
got mugged, sort of, and then the local superheroes tried to arrest me.”

“Yeah, I saw you on the news. You were
kicking ass and taking names,” Face-Off said and Christine smiled. “You too,”
he added, nodding towards John.

“Oh, yeah,” Christine said, looking
uncomfortable. “When that masked guy…”

“The Dreamer,” John said.

“The Dreaming Dude, when he took over
your mind, he used you to smack down the other guys.”

Condor pushed a button and a replay from
an earlier news report came on one of the screens. “We can now confirm that
Ultimate the Invincible Man has attacked the Chicago Sentinels. This is
exclusive footage from an eyewitness’ Goggle-Cam.” The viewpoint switched to a
wavering view of a street. A silver and red streak moved past. It was replayed
in slow motion: John had never seen that manic leer disfiguring his face
before, but the face itself was perfectly familiar and recognizable.

Whoever was behind this had played his
cards all too well. John was already under suspicion after his erratic behavior
in the past several months. Now he had publicly attacked a renowned hero group.
He could go back to Legion HQ and try to explain himself, but who could he
trust? None of this could have happened without the connivance of someone
inside the Legion. Kenneth Slaughter had recommended Doctor Cohen. Had he been
duped? Could he be under a similar form of mind control? Or was he a
conspirator? Going to the Legion was too much of a risk.

John had felt alone before, but he
belatedly realized how petulant and childish he had been. This was what being
alone was like. Before this madness had begun he had been one of the leaders of
an international organization, a man with dozens of friends and hundreds of
associates, all of whom would risk their lives for him, as he would for them.
And he’d dared to feel alone? Alone was not daring to contact any of his
friends out of fear they would be targeted by the traitors in the Legion – or
that they would be traitors themselves. He could trust no one.

John couldn’t even trust himself. He
forced himself to speak. “I think I’ve been under some form of mental attack
for some time now,” he told the gathering of vigilantes. “Christine helped me
break free, but I don’t know if that’s a permanent situation.”

“You’re still a puppet, man of metal,”
the Lurker said, and chuckled. “They sank their hooks into you, sank them
deep.”

“Dad!” Christine said. “Could you cut
down on the creepy and be a little more helpful? Please?”

The mystery man stood silent for a moment
before speaking again. “It’s hard holding on to things. You start slipping
away, and then all you can do is laugh.”

“I said
helpful
, Dad.”

“Help. Yes, help’s on the way.” The
Lurker walked towards John. “I can help. Who sees the darkness in all men’s
souls?”

“The Lurker does!” Kestrel shouted.
Condor covered her mouth with both hands, but the Lurker did not seem to hear.
All his attention was on John.

“One does not bring down a god in a day,”
the cloaked man muttered. “Baby steps, little traps, little tricks. Little
hooks for a big fish.” He reached up towards John’s face. John let him. The
Lurker’s gloved fingers touched the sides of his head.

There was a brief flash of pain. John
blinked. The Lurker was holding John’s cochlear implants, the communicators
everyone in the Legion was issued. The old vigilante had ripped out his
implants, somehow bypassing John’s near-impregnable protective field without
any apparent effort. The implications were disturbing.

“Do you see?” The Lurker turned to
Christine and was showed her the bloodied implants.

She squinted for a second. “Yeah, I can
see some swirling energy thingy around them. It’s like those energy streams the
Russians used on us.”

“Yes!” The Lurker’s tone was triumphant.
“You can see the truth. That’s why they want you. That’s why you’re here.” He
turned back towards John. “You are not free and clear, Invincible Man, but this
will help. These are the hooks they put into you. They could whisper things
into your ear. Make you remember things. Make you relive them. Make you dream.
Listen to you.” The Lurker made a fist and crushed the transmitters. “They can
find you through them. They know where we are.”

“We’d better get the hell out of here,
then,” Condor said.

“Yes,” the Lurker agreed. He
concentrated, and his cloak stretched and flowed out, enveloping them in
darkness yet again. When they emerged from it, they were still in the Condor
Jet, but the aircraft was listing slightly to the left. The ship was no longer
in a warehouse in Chicago. “This is my island,” the Lurker said. “Come on in,
the water’s fine. We can talk and plot.”

Talk and plot indeed. John followed his
newfound allies out of the craft.