New Olympus Saga (Book 4): The Ragnarok Alternative (7 page)

His comm rang while he was on the elevator down. His private number, the one only a handful of people knew.

It was Christine.

His first impulse was to let it go to voice mail, but he didn’t. He answered the call.

“John.”

What do you want?
“What can I do for you, Christine?”

“I… I don’t know.” She sounded tentative. Vulnerable.

“Hard to help you if you don’t know what you want.” Being harsh towards her felt good.

“I know. I’m so sorry. I want to talk to you. Alone.”

Something awakened inside him, something that was half anger, but only half.

“I don’t need any more crap from you, Christine.”

“I know. I deserve whatever you say to me, John. Whatever you do to me.”

If he’d been holding an actual receiver, rather than using his implants to take the call, he would have crushed the device in his hands.

“Fine. Let’s talk,” he heard himself say. “Where and when?”

“I got a place in New York.”

This is not a good idea
.

“Give me the address. I’ll be there in five.”

New York City, New York, July 14, 2014

“Nice place,” he said when she let him in. He’d flown in through a window she’d conveniently left open. She was wearing civvies, a loose floral dress and sandals, one of her usual outfits when she wasn’t wearing her Dark Justice costume. The apartment was decorated much like her place back on the Island, mostly tasteful furnishings, except for the annoying pop culture posters on the walls. The way she grinned at him was unusual, though; she hadn’t smiled much in his presence, not since she’d broken his heart.

“I have the money, so why not? It’s for the times when I need to be alone, you know? Sometimes it’s nice to be alone.”

“Swell.”
What do you want?
He almost snapped out the blunt question. Instead, he waited in silence and let her tell him.

“That was a nasty fight,” she said, saying nothing he didn’t know. She looked… anxious, timid, a lot more like the girl she’d been when he first met her, even though she’d been very impressive even then.

He shrugged. “You handled it just fine. In fact, the last few incidents prove beyond a doubt that you’re the most powerful member of the Legion. Even more so than Cassius.”
Who I hope is doing all right
, he thought guiltily. He didn’t think half as much about Janus and his quiet struggle against the Outsider Taint as he should.

“I guess,” Christine said. She sat down and slumped on the couch, looking forlorn. “I don’t feel all that powerful. I almost died out there.”

Because I couldn’t do all that much to protect you
. More guilt. Shame. Frustration.

“Mark and I had a fight,” she went on. “He doesn’t like it, my being more powerful than he is.”

“Figures,” John said, momentarily forgetting how little he liked that fact himself.

“Sit down and I’ll fix you a drink,” she said, getting up. He sat. She made him a Scotch on the rocks. He sipped on it, appreciating its quality. She’d spent a pretty penny on something she didn’t drink.

“What can I do for you, Christine?” he finally said.
If you’re here to tell me you want me to take you back, I’ll
… Honestly, he had no idea what he would do.

“I don’t know. I wanted to see you. Maybe think about things.”

“You made your choice. You can’t go back and forth.”

“Maybe.” She sat down next to him and put a hand on his arm. “But I miss you, John. I think I frakked up. Went for the bad boy like I was a silly teenager.”

“You are young,” he said.
Maybe when she’s a hundred and twenty and you’re two hundred
… Ali had said that. Ali. “Look, Christine…”

“Hey, don’t get the wrong idea, big guy. I’m not planning on cheating on my boyfriend. We both need to think about things, okay? Take it slow, work things out, all that happy crappy. You feel me, homey?”

“I suppose so.”

“Here.” She pressed a button on her wrist-comm. “Just sent you my private number. Maybe we can talk once in a while. Catch up. Be friends again.”

Why the hell not? He missed her. Much of the anger he felt was misdirected regret. Maybe…

“Well?”

“All right, Christine. Maybe we can talk. Think about things.”

“Awesome.”

As he stood up, she tried to kiss him, and he grabbed her by the hair, pulling her head back. She made a sound she’d never made before, something between a sigh and a moan, and the sight of her like that, head tilted back, under his control, stirred something in him.

“Sorry,” she said, offering no resistance, his hand still gripping her hair. He let her go.

“I should have never laid hands on you.” He was overcome with shame, but there was something else under it.

“I deserved it,” she said. “Maybe that’s what I needed. To be punished.”

She ran a hand over her hair, still leaning her head back, as if she was offering her throat to him, and he suddenly wanted to encircle her slender neck with his hands, and squeeze. Not a lot, not enough to really hurt her, just enough to show her who was the boss. The mixture of anger and lust was intoxicating.

“Just think about it, John, okay? And call me.”

“I will,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I should go.”

“So soon?” she said with a mischievous grin. “Maybe you’d better. Let’s not rush into things.”

“Yes. Let’s not.”

“Talk to you soon, though.”

“Yes.”

He would call her. And he wouldn’t tell Ali about any of this. Not until he’d thought things through.

After he flew out the window, it took him a while to realize he was grinning like a loon.

He didn’t see the malicious smile Christine had in her face as she turned away from him.

Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, July 16, 2014

“Do you want a sandwich? I’m making sandwiches,” Mark said when she walked in.

“A sandwich sounds good.”

“The usual?”

Her usual was turkey and Swiss on rye, with plenty of mayo and rabbit food. “I’ll have whatever you’re having,” she said instead.

“Roast beef and provolone, thousand island dressing, hold the veggies?”

“Sure, why not? Just had another frustrating day. Might as well mix things up a little.”

“Still no luck, uh?” he said as he lay down the ingredients on the kitchen counter and got to work.

“Only bad luck. Spent the whole afternoon with Uncle Adam, and it was nothing but one big ball of epic fail. Getting a lot of pressure from the Legion bosses – the Centurions or Tribunes or whatevs.”

“They prefer Councilor. Sounds more dignified than the Whatevs.”

“Then maybe they should have picked a better title for their outfit than a military term from a culture that thought watching people being eaten by lions was good clean fun.”

“Maybe you could run for the Council and propose a name change. Maybe we could become the Freedom Friends. Nice and non-violent.”

“Hey, that’s not bad.”

“Christine?”

“Mark?”

“I’d rather carve eyeholes in my head than be part of a group with the name Friends in it. Just saying.”

She chuckled.

“Okay, okay. Anyways. The Legion Councilors really want me to go back to the Source and stop new Neos from showing up and rearranging the landscape. Or old Neos getting supercharged and losing their minds, like that poor Zhang girl.”

“What was her deal anyway? Anybody know?”

“I got a few thoughts and emotions from her, via my erratic telepathy thingy. And Olivia filled in the rest. Turns out Dawn had been screwing around with Larry Graham.”

“Swift. Olivia’s husband.”

“Exactomundo. Anyway, they broke it off, but then Larry died in the big fight against the Genocide. Dawn saw it happen, and then was almost killed by one of the Outsider thingies in the next round of the big fight.”

“I’m kinda glad I missed all that shit, except for the fact I was in Hell at the time.”

“Yeah. No good choices there. But she was on the verge of death, trying desperately to tap into more power from the Source, just around the time I went into a coma and the blocks around the Source went down. She got super-juiced.”

“And went batshit crazy.”

“Yeah,” she said, her shoulders slumping.

“Not your fault. Have a sandwich.”

She had a sandwich. The roast beef and dressing were a bit too rich for her taste, but she ate it anyway.

“Where’s she been these last four months?”

Christine swallowed a big mouthful of rare beef, feeling like she should grow fangs, before answering.

“She was stranded in space. Looks like her transponder broke, so she was presumed dead, and she did her best to hide from any search parties. She might have destroyed the transponder herself; I don’t know. She spent a lot of time alone in outer space before making it back to Earth. Weeks, maybe months, which didn’t help her mental state. I don’t think she was here for very long before deciding to destroy Florida.”

“Why Florida?”

“That’s where the hurricanes are, I guess.”

“Batshit crazy.”

“I feel bad for her.”

“I feel bad for the crews of those boats her little hurricane sent to the bottom. Forty-one missing, presumed dead, just because she lost her shit.”

“Yeah, there’s that.” She looked down. “There’s always that.”

She ate the last of the sandwich. It tasted too much like blood; she almost yukked it back up. Only the fact that she totally hated puking made her keep it down.

“Christine…”

“Mark…”

He shrugged. “Never mind.”

“Eff never mind! Spit it out.”

“It’s been over a week. More like ten days.”

“I know.”

“You haven’t been yourself.”

“I know.”

“So tell me.”

“Show you. Telling is too tough.”

“So show me.”

She did.

Earth FUBAR, Day One

The town had been built around a former commercial strip off a highway exit. Two gas stations and a bunch of fast-food joints and a mini-convenience store were surrounded by recently-built homes, mostly little prefabs and an assortment of trailers. It didn’t make sense to pack people so closely together when there was all that farmland around, so it must be a mandatory arrangement. The Bitch Queen apparently wanted her slaves bunched up, maybe so she could issue orders more easily. Or just to make people miserable.

“Welcome back to the town of Haven. That’s your place,” Robb said, pointing at a bleak-looking white-with-green trimmings house on blocks on the edge of town. It wasn’t the worst-looking dwelling in the village, but far from the best. “Your Ma and Pa are in there, but they’re probably sleeping off their drunk. If you want, we can go to my place, and talk.”

She didn’t want to deal with people in the habit of sleeping off their drunk at three in the afternoon. Best to go along with Robb, who at least might be helpful.

Although he might try to do more than talk
, Christine thought.
I need his help, but I don’t need any crap from him
. She’d put up with some mild sexual harassment if she had to, but if it became more than mild, well, she’d had some very good hand to hand teachers. Mark’s lessons had been particularly pointed, not to mention brutal. “Okay, let’s go.”

He led her to another house, a bigger, older one with a barn, corral and stables, which meant Robb’s family was relatively wealthy. They went behind the barn, to a spot facing a copse of trees, away from prying eyes and watchful commissars.

After sitting down on a fallen log, they looked at each other in silence for a few seconds.
He’s trying to nerve himself to take my hand, or maybe kiss me
.

“Okay,” she said, forestalling him. “I’ve got amnesia, so I’ve got a bunch of questions. Let’s start with, when did the… the Goddess take over?”

“Uh… I was six, so almost ten years.”

Holy crap. She’d though her encounter with Dark Christine had taken place in the very near future, like maybe a couple of years ahead at the most. If this was 2023 or 2024, was she in yet another alternate timeline, or had she merely been catapulted forward in time? No idea.

“Okay,” she went on after absorbing that bit of data. “Do you know what happened? How she did it?”

“My Da, he used to talk about it when he got drunk, until the Watchers warned him to keep his mouth shut. He was a ‘GNN Correspondent.’ I don’t know what that is. The Goddess, she was a hero, but something happened in this big town called New York City. He said that’s where it started. Then there was a war. My Pa was on assignment in Topeka, another big town, but he ran away to the country when things went bad. Every big town got destroyed. Then the Queen led the survivors here, and put us in these little towns, next to the fields.”

And thus we got the six or seven million slaves in Kansas. Which is about twice as many people as used to live here, before the Bitch Goddess Era
. The point of divergence must have happened when she and Mark fought Mister Night and the Evil Lurker in New York. That’s when Mark had been infected, but in this timeline she’d been infected as well. Mark had ‘died’ and ended up being possessed by Mister Night.

That could have been me. If Mark had been a second too slow, it would have been me
.

“How about the Genocide?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Did you ever hear a mental scream? I AM BECOME DEATH?”

“Yes. We all did. Nothing came of it. The Goddess protected us.”

She handled the Genocide all by her lonesome? Oy
.

Robb frowned. “Hey, how come you remember that but nothing else?”

Crap. “Don’t know. It’s like the only thing I remember,” she lied like a rug.

“That’s weird,” Robb said, but didn’t press the issue.

“Okay, moving on. So, what’s the deal? Government, taxes, religion?”

“Uh… Well, there’s the Town Council, we elect them every two years and they decide disputes, land grants, that kind of stuff. Then there’s the Watchers, they make sure we all show proper respect for the Goddess. There no religion. Just Her.”

Imagine no religion
. Christine didn’t think this setup was what John Lennon had had in mind.

“How long have we been dressing up like this?” Christine pointed at the school uniforms.

“Only this last month. Most years we do a couple of big wars, and a lot more people get killed. Last year it was Romans versus Highlanders. We got all dressed up in kilts and got big swords and little shields, and about fifty people from Haven got killed. The guys from Sanctuary kicked our asses. The year before we got Starfleet uniforms and phasers, and the guys from Sanctuary got Martian war machines. We kicked their asses that time, only lost thirteen people.”

“How many people live in Haven?”

“About four, five thousand? Sanctuary is bigger, like eight thousand.”

Interesting. Well, interesting in the sense of being in deep crap. In a small town, people who didn’t behave normally would stand out like a sore thumb. Like someone afflicted with amnesia, say. People would start talking, and sooner or later the Watchers would drop by to say hi. She’d better have an exit strategy in place before then.

“Oh, shit,” Robb said, looking over shoulder.

Or maybe she’d already run out of time.

She turned around. Three guys were walking towards them. Two of them were still wearing the fake school uniforms; the third, a big corn-fed dude, had switched to jeans overalls and a t-shirt. Their smiles looked mean; no empathy was needed to read the expression in their faces.

“That’s the Lowell brothers and Little Jimmy,” Robb whispered.

“What’s their problem?”

“The Lowells and my family been fightin’ over a plot of land for like a year. And Little Jimmy’s sweet on you but you never give him the time of day.”

‘Little’ Jimmy must be overalls boy; he was leering at her.

“Maybe we should leave.”

“Yeah,” Robb agreed.

They got to their feet, but the three amigos caught up to them.

“Leaving so soon, Robbie?” one of the near-interchangeable Lowell brothers said. They were blonde, about the same size, with the same bowl haircuts and pug noses. The talkative one was slightly taller and had a mole on the left side of his face. Other than that, you’d be hard-pressed to tell them apart in a police lineup.

“Don’t want no trouble with you,” Robb said. Christine kept quiet and waited. Running was an option, but the school uniform was a bit tight and constrictive, and the shoes were definitely not built with athletics in mind. She wasn’t sure she could outrun them, and trying might just trigger the violent reaction she was hoping they would avoid.

“Well, then, you shouldn’t have stolen our land,” the mole-less Lowell said. “City Council ruled for your fambly while we were at the game. My Pa’s havin’ a fit over it.”

“Ain’t got nothin’ to do with me.”

“You’re wrong ‘bout that,” the bigger Lowell said. He shoved Robb. Robb shoved him back.

Back on Earth Prime, Christine would have had a panic attack just about now. This kind of macro-aggression would have been way too much for her old self. The new Christine, on the other hand, had been in more fights than your average pro boxer. Instead of panicking, she analyzed the situation with cold detachment.

Okay, pushy-pushy right now, but it’s obvious these d-bags are working themselves up into a fighting rage. Sooner or later, they’ll start throwing punches, and I don’t think they’re going to let Robb fight one of them at a time, either
.

Little Jimmy was sidling up in her direction. He might join in the fun with Robb, but his main interest was in her. As soon as the fight started, it was going to be sexual assault time. How sexual and how assaulty, she didn’t know. What was allowed in this brave new world her evil twin has created? How rapey would Jimmy get?

I’d rather not find out
.

Two more shoves along with some unimaginative cursing later, Lowell-with-a-mole threw the first punch, catching Robb by surprise. He staggered back, and the other Lowell tripped him. As soon as Robb fell on his back, it stopped being a fight. The Lowells started kicking him, ignoring his pleas to stop.

“I got her,” Jimmy said, moving in on Christine.

Her mind conjured Mark’s voice in her head. The key words were: vicious and sudden.

Little Jimmy walked right into a kick to the crotch, so completely unprepared to defend himself that she almost felt bad for him, because she’d put as much power as she could muster up in the snap kick, and her new body had plenty of muscle. Crazy. Didn’t they teach people how to fight around here?