New Olympus Saga (Book 1): Armageddon Girl (5 page)

John suddenly realized he had missed
another question, this one directed at him. “Can you say that again, Peter?” he
said with an apologetic look.
Ultimate: Going Senile?
He could just
picture the headline in one of the more lurid periodicals.

Peter Fowler was one of a new generation
of independent Hypernet newsies. John admired some of them; their drive
reminded him of times past, when he’d been a cub reporter for
The World’s
Journal
during his all-too-brief attempt at having a normal life. But a few
of them had the morals of a vulture and instincts to match. This particular journalist
was one of them.

“I asked you how you planned to meet the
demands for sensitivity training and closer supervision for senior members of
the Legion?”

“Uh, I’m not sure what you mean,” John
said.

“I’m sure you are aware of accusations of
racism, sexism and general cultural insensitivity leveled towards Legion
members,” Fowler said, apparently forgetting he was supposed to ask questions,
not make statements. “There are some, shall we say ‘old fashioned’ attitudes
among your members, and a lack of understanding that we live in a
multicultural, more diverse society. The Legion seems to be dominated by white
straight males with outdated views on women and minorities.”

“I am hearing a lot of comments, many of
which I don’t agree with, and some which are utter falsehoods, and no
questions,” John said in a flat tone that people who knew him would take as a
sign to ease up, and quickly. He almost blurted out that one of the founding
members of the Legion might have been male but also black and gay, and then remembered
Janus had never made his sexuality a matter of public record. Wouldn’t that be
great, outing his friend by accident?

“Here is my question. Don’t you think you
and other members of the Legion need to do more work to acclimate yourselves to
the mores of the 21
^st
century?”

“No, I don’t. Next question. Paula?” John
gestured to the GNN correspondent, but Fowler kept talking.

“What do you say about claims that your
wife left you because she was afraid of you?”

Dead silence.

In a tiny fraction of a second, he could
turn Fowler into a thin red mist. So many ways to kill a human. Easier than
snuffing a candle. He could kill all of them in the time it took to draw a
breath. It would be so easy…

“Ultimate is not going to dignify that
kind of question with an answer,” Artemis said forcefully, breaking the tense
silence. John had no idea how long he had stood there, fantasizing about
murdering Fowler and everyone else in the conference room. “Mr. Fowler, this
press conference is not a forum for baseless slander,” Olivia continued. “Is
that understood?”

Everyone was looking at Fowler like
something nasty they had accidentally stepped on. “Understood,” Fowler said
sullenly, blissfully unaware of how close he had come to dying. That was not an
exaggeration. John had nearly snapped. He had never been so close to losing
control over so small a provocation.

What is happening to me?

Chapter Three

Face-Off

New York City, New York, March 13, 2013

I mostly prefer to be the man without a
face. Whenever I’m relaxing by myself or with the handful (okay, three) friends
I have, that’s how I look. Nobody has figured out how I can breathe, see or
talk with a smooth layer of skin, flesh and bone where most people have a pie
hole and assorted other orifices. I have no mouth, but people can hear my voice
just fine. It’s a Neo thing. You wouldn’t understand.

On the plus side, I never have to worry
about getting my nose broken or someone poking an eye out. On the down side,
most people aren’t comfortable talking to me when I go blank. It’s pretty
antisocial. When the damsel in distress woke up, I would definitely put a face
on to greet her. Something soothing and friendly, with a full head of hair.

I used to have a regular face, but my
stepfather beat it out of me. Sad, isn’t it?

At the moment, the girl was sleeping in
the basement of the Church of Saint Theodosius, a Ukrainian Orthodox church
presided over by one of my few friends. Father Aleksander was a Type One Neo
with some minor healing and empathic abilities, abilities he had put to good
use ministering to the local Ukrainian community. We had struck a fast
friendship during an altercation with some Russian mob stooges that had ended
with said stooges in prison after some time in the hospital. Hanging out with
the good father always led to interesting conversations and the consumption of
some very smooth vodka. Aleksander ran a discreet underground railroad for
assorted people in need of a place to hide – refugees from the Dominion and
Russia, mostly – and I trusted him to watch over Jane Doe and keep his mouth
shut. The man took the concept of sanctuary very seriously.

After leaving her in Father Alex’s care,
just as the sun was coming out, I went to a diner and enjoyed a tall stack of
pancakes, courtesy of the nice wad of cash I’d collected from the mobsters I’d
killed that night. I wore one of my regular faces – Tony the wannabe wise guy –
in honor of all the Italians I’d recently sent off to their greater reward.
After breakfast, I headed to the Bronx to see another friend.

Aleksander had eventually gotten used to
talking to me face to no-face, although it had taken quite a bit of vodka to
thaw him out. Cassandra, on the other hand, had never had any problems with me.
It helped that she was blind as a bat, of course.

I know, a blind seer going by the name of
Cassandra. The clichés trip all over themselves. I always poke fun at her about
it, and she claims that her name was Cassandra before her parahuman powers
manifested themselves. It might even be true.

Of course, she is blind only in a
technical sense. Among her many abilities, my spiritual adviser is aware of
everything within a three block radius around her. Aware as in she can read a
letter inside a sealed envelope, or know how many rats are in the vicinity, and
how many fleas are on each of those rats. It’s fairly impressive; you learn
quickly to never play cards with the woman. And don’t ever try to sneak up on
her. I tried a couple of times just for shits and giggles, and discovered she
is quite fond of practical jokes and homemade traps. One such incident involved
several bowling balls and a minor concussion. After that, I just walked up to
her front door and knocked politely, at least until I ended up getting my own
keys and a room at her place.

Cassandra lives in a boarded-up
three-story building in a bad area of the Bronx. From the outside, it looks
like the kind of shithole self-respecting junkies would avoid. The inside is a
lot cozier, though. Since I don’t really have a fixed address, I sleep there
more often than not. The front door doesn’t look like much but is solid steel
and has some unusual characteristics. It was open wide this morning,
Cassandra’s cute way of letting me know she was expecting me. I walked in and ignored
the loud clang as it slammed shut by itself. The first time it had done that
had been pretty startling, but I was used to it.

The first floor looks like a condemned
building should, complete with dust, peeling paint, cracks along the walls, and
an atmosphere of disuse and abandonment that makes most people feel not just
that nobody lives there, but that nobody should live there. No junkie has ever
tried to set up shop in the building, and teenagers looking for a place to
party always give Cassandra’s building a wide berth. I’m pretty sure it’s a
psychic thing my friend does, but she likes her little mysteries, so she’s
never confirmed or denied it.

Originally there were twelve apartments
in the building, but that’s down to nine. Cassandra makes her home in the
second floor; all the original apartments on that level have had some walls
knocked down to turn the whole thing into one big dwelling, a huge apartment
covered in rugs and tapestries and flickering in the light of a bunch of
candles. Even though the place has electrical power, she uses candles for
illumination and doesn’t have a TV or computer. My part-time crib is on the
third floor, an apartment I’ve furnished over the years with a combination of
Salvation Army furniture, lots of books, mostly second hand (I like to read a
lot) and a few choice electronics I’ve ‘liberated’ from assorted assholes who
had the misfortune to cross my path.

It’s a safe house, but it’s not my home.
I don’t really have one of those. When I’m there I’m Cassandra’s guest. Same as
when I crash at Father Alex’s or (far more rarely) at Condor’s underground
base. When I want to be on my own or am entertaining a lady friend I usually
sleep at cheap motels that charge by the hour, or the lady friend’s place if
we’ve gotten chummy enough. I only keep stuff I need at Cassandra’s, without
much in the way of decorations or personal touches.

Cassandra’s dwelling, on the other hand,
is full of personal touches, a candlelit museum of eclectic tastes. Carpets and
tapestries cover the floors and walls, mostly Middle Eastern designs that must
have cost a fortune. In between the tapestries there is a lot of artwork, from
a few paintings that are either very good replicas of old masterworks or have
been liberated from someone or other, to a black velvet Elvis portrait whose
eyes seem to follow you everywhere. One large room which I’ve dubbed the Hall
of Knick-Knacks is filled with shelves stacked with little porcelain figurines
and display cases with antique jewelry and objects that probably should be in a
museum. And like I said, lit candles all over the place, in all shapes and
colors. It’s a miracle she hasn’t burned down the place, but miracles are
Cassandra’s stock in trade.

That morning, Cassandra was waiting for
me in the room with the Elvis portrait in it, relaxing on an ancient-looking
armchair and playing something Gypsy-sounding on her violin. My psychic pal is
very short and strikingly beautiful, with smooth mahogany skin, high cheekbones
and sharp features. She appears to be in her thirties, which doesn’t mean
anything when you’re dealing with Neos, since we either don’t age or age very
slowly, most likely the former. Most people thought she was black or Hispanic,
but I suspected she was something more exotic, some multinational blend I've
never been able to identify. I don’t ask about that kind of thing, though. It’s
enough that I know she loves music and laughter, and that she has never turned
down anybody who needed her help. Her eyes are covered with a milky pale film,
and to avoid making people uncomfortable she usually hides them behind
sunglasses. Not when it’s just us, though; we are very tolerant of each other’s
deformities.

I figure she was blind before her powers
manifested themselves, since most Neos can recover from crippling injuries.
That’s another thing I’ve never asked.

“Hello, Marco,” she said as I entered the
living room. Cassandra is the only person who knows my legal name is Marco
Martinez. Father Aleksander calls me ‘my friend,’ or ‘my young friend’ when
he’s trying to pull rank on me. Condor, a friendly costumed Neo I often work
with, just calls me Face. When I’m interacting with most everyone else I’m
wearing a fake face and a fake name; when I’m wearing my real no-face people
call me Face-Off or profanity-laced versions thereof.

I don’t mind that she calls me Marco,
although I would like Mark better. It’s not my name anymore, but it used to be,
and Cassandra lives in the past at least as much as she does in the future, so
it’s fitting somehow.

I sat down on an overstuffed armchair
facing her. “Hey, Cassie.” She nodded at me. “I found the girl.”

“I know,” she said. “I was able to see
some of the rescue. The outcome was never in doubt.”

“That's nice. It got pretty hairy for a
while. The Neo you warned me about turned out to be pretty tough.”

“I saw you dealing with him. He was
powerful but overconfident. He never had a chance,” she concluded.

Working with Cassandra is equal parts
helpful and maddening. Much of the time, she lets me know places to be or
people to find. Thanks to her, I know where to go to stop trouble or find
people who need killing, or at least need a good beating followed by some time
behind bars. That works great for me, since it gives me something to do and
people I can fuck up and rob with a clean conscience. But she often doesn’t tell
me the whole story beforehand, and things sometimes end up being more
complicated than they first appeared to be. She claims it’s the way her visions
work and that giving me too much information can actually change the future
events she has seen. The paranoid part of me thinks she just likes to make me
sweat.

This last escapade made for a good
example. “Why didn’t you send me to her directly instead of having me beat the
location out of Giamatti? Not that I minded doing that. The fucker needed to be
put down.”

“I wish I could have,” she replied. “The
problem is simple; it’s very difficult for me to sense her location. It’s very
difficult for me to perceive her at all, as a matter of fact.”

The job had been weird from the get go,
even by our standards. Early last evening Cassandra had contacted me
telepathically, which was unusual in itself. She only does that during
emergencies, since she claims it takes a lot out of her. She told me about a
girl being abducted from a hospital, how many perps had been involved and the
name of the ringleader. I’d had to find the ringleader and get the girl’s
location from him. Normally Cassie would have just sent me to the address where
the girl was.

“What do you mean? You saw her get
kidnapped, right?”

“I wish I could show you how I see
things,” Cassandra said. She looked distracted, which happened when something
in the future caught her fancy. In the flickering candle light, her face looked
older than normal. She was clearly exhausted, which was rare enough to worry me
a little. “The future is fluid, and the very act of observing it often changes
it. I sensed this woman’s arrival, and how momentous it would be. Even then, I
could not see her directly. I’m seeing the effect she has on the world. She
leaves a… I guess you could call it a footprint, or an impression, on the very
fabric of reality.”

“Great, that clears up everything. I
didn’t see any scuff marks on the fabric of reality when I saved her. Just an
unconscious Neo girl. I would have brought her here, but you told me not to.
Didn’t tell me why, either.”

“I wish it were otherwise, but I cannot
have her near me. Her presence would completely overwhelm my senses. From the
moment of her arrival, my abilities have been affected.”

“Her arrival? What do you mean?”

“Whoever this girl is, she was not in
this world twenty-four hours ago.”

“Nice. So she’s an alien?” That would be
a first. Some Neos claimed to be from other planets, but so far every single
one of them had turned out to be full of shit, batshit crazy, or both.

“I only know she’s not from this world.”

“So, like an alien. Or not,” I said.
“She’s a Neo, so she’s as human as I am. Unless aliens took her away and just
dropped her off. What else could she be? Time traveler? Visitor from a parallel
dimension?” You did get some of those every once in a while, and things usually
got very messy when they showed up.

Cassandra shook her head. “I’m not sure.”

“Now that’s something I don’t hear every
day.”

“I know that her presence here is causing
the future to warp in ways I can only vaguely glimpse. Things are going to
change, perhaps radically, because of her. Things all around the world.”

This was getting better and better.
“Sounds like a job for Ultimate and his super-pals. In case you’ve forgotten,
Cassie, I’m just a Type Two vigilante. Since when do I handle threats to the
world? I can do Brooklyn, Queens, parts of Jersey if I’m pushing it, Manhattan
by special request. Acting locally, y’know?”

“We do what is required of us. Or live
with the consequences of our inaction.”

“I’m getting the warms and fuzzies here.
If you’re going to share some fortune cookie wisdom with me, do you at least
have some leftover Lo Mein I can eat?”

Cassandra smiled. “You shouldn’t
underestimate yourself, Marco. You are capable of much more than you expect.”

I shrugged. I was a freak with some
superhuman abilities. I wasn’t going to run around saving the planet. If I
hadn’t joined forces with Cassandra, I’d be jumping over rooftops at night
looking for crimes to stop – and believe me, that’s one of the most useless
things a wannabe hero can do. You could spend a year ‘patrolling’ and never see
anything – the chances of you being at the right place and right time are not
quite in the winning-the-lottery range, but they’re still pretty small.
Supposedly Neos seem to find trouble more often than they should, statistically
speaking, but even so it never happens as often as it does in movies or TV. My
buddy Condor had a billion bucks worth of police scanners, surveillance cameras
illegally installed all over town, and he had tapped into the security system
networks of a dozen security companies. He still mostly spent his nights
playing
World of Warcraft
while waiting for something to happen. Thanks
to Cassandra, I'd been able to do some good, a lot more good than I would have
by myself, but I knew my limitations. I wasn’t going to save the world. I
wasn’t even going to save the city.