No Master Plan Here (Madness Runs in the Family) (18 page)

              Lucas took a deep breath as he stood in front of the doors of the oval office. He wore a black suit tailored to allow for his wings. It was expensive for the modifications, but it was more appropriate than his normal outfits for the occasion. Lucas knocked on the door, steeling himself.

             
“Enter” came the voice from inside. Lucas pushed the door open and came into the office. The president sat behind his desk, typing away at a computer. It was funny to think that a bit over a year ago this was a man he had just met and dismissed as nobody important.

             
The president looked up and nodded. “Lucas, good to see you, please sit down.” Lucas took a seat at one of the couches and tried smoothing the wrinkles in his pants legs. The suit had spent entirely too much time on a hangar since he had last had it pressed.

             
“Do you know why I asked you here today?” President Andrews said, his tone like that of a school teacher. Lucas wasn't sure how to take the tone, but decided that professional indifference was the best option.

             
“You want to know about our assessment on Anansi,” Lucas replied. The president nodded, gesturing for Lucas to continue. Lucas took the folder he had brought with him, walking to the president's desk and setting it down. The president picked it up and began sifting through the contents.

             
Lucas cleared his throat. “While Anansi is only rated as a Class three Maker type, he has shown ingenuity and technological abilities that may mean his rating should actually be higher. He makes his home on a retrofitted cargo ship named Sanctuary, the contents and capabilities of which are unknown. Last month a Chinese warship launched a long range stealth missile at the Sanctuary.

             
“The Sanctuary shot down the missile and the Chinese ship was destroyed.” Lucas paused, allowing that to sink in as he prepared for his next statement.

             
“As Anansi has seemed to shift his focus from America, our expert on his behavior has suggested that it may be best to allow him to be, as an attack to kill him may not only be costly in both lives and equipment, but may also cause members of his family to turn against us.”

             
“So you're saying that because his family is dangerous, and he isn't bothering us, we should leave him be?” The question felt like a dagger digging into Lucas' back, and he did not like it, but he nodded anyways. The president smiled, suddenly amiable. “I agree with your assessment, then. Have you read his mantra?”

             
Lucas frowned. “Sir?”

             
“Anansi's mantra. It's rather fascinating, really, if basic.” The president turned his computer to face Lucas. A website was on it, the background a black spider, text filling a portion of the body in white. Lucas started to look away, finding it boring, when a few phrases caught his eye. “You cannot win without risking everything” and “if not you, then who?”

             
Lucas felt a headache coming on. He had been having more of them since President Andrews had come into office, but had amounted it to stress. The president had made a task force in the FBI called Superhuman Handling and Incident Prevention and placed him in charge of it, and it was difficult getting different personalities to work together. That must be it.

             
“Fascinating, sir,” Lucas said as he rubbed his temples. He wasn't being sarcastic. It was fascinating. Anansi was right about so much, about the system being corrupt, about people needing someone to be seen doing something. An idea sprung into his head. Maybe he could be that someone. It would take some time to figure out just how, but maybe he could make the world a better place. It was something he tried to do by being a man that worked for the government, but maybe more desperate measures were needed.

             
Now if only he could shake this headache.

Chapter 19

             
June 15, 2017

              “Breaking news,” said the news anchor, a middle aged blond woman with a practiced smile. “Anansi has returned to America, and has once again attacked the United States. He is reported to have attacked three chemical research facilities in the past three weeks and stolen two parts of a volatile and dangerous substance which has been deemed incredibly deadly if released into population centers. Fortunately, the substance is inert without all four parts, and while Anansi escaped apprehension by the authorities, the stolen chemicals were recovered. All four are now being kept under military guard in separate secure facilities.

             
“The White House has issued the following statement.”

             
The feed changed to that of a young man in a blue suit standing at a podium bearing the seal of the White House press office. He smiled at the assembled members of the press. Behind him stood Archangel, flanked by Stone and Spark, all of them in their natural forms and in uniform.

             
“The day before yesterday in the early hours of the morning, members of the Superhuman Handling and Incident Prevention team successfully thwarted an attempt by the villain Anansi to gather a series of dangerous compounds that, when mixed, could spell disaster for the entire world. Although Anansi managed to escape, the chemicals were recovered and have been relocated to separate facilities for storage until they can be destroyed. Without the swift actions of these fine agents behind me, we could very well be facing a madman's apocalypse right now, and I, for one, am thankful to them. Let's hear it for the members of SHIP.”

             
Applause rose from the audience as the man turned back to shake the hands of Archangel, Stone, and Spark.

             
The feed changed back to the anchorwoman and her co-anchor, a man in a black suit with a blue tie. “The president is scheduled to conduct an awards ceremony commending the members of SHIP later today. SHIP lost one agent during the assault. Agent Denise Sanders, twenty-eight, originally of Washington, died of a gunshot wound to the head. Funeral services will be closed to the public, but President Andrews is expected to attend to pay his respects.

             
“It has been three years since Anansi was last sighted on Am-”

             
The feed cut out as Anansi turned off the news. He resisted the urge to throw things at the television. It wasn't the television's fault that the news channels spewed lies. It was his fault for not seeing all the pieces in play from the start, and now Denise had paid for his mistake.

             
“You have to do something,” Kay said, appearing behind his chair.

             
“Like what, Kay? He killed Denise. He has the power to hurt my siblings. All of them! And Mom!” Anansi slumped into his chair, hand wrapping around a glass of whiskey on the rocks, the perspiration causing his fingers to slip as he grasped the sides. “What am I supposed to do?”

             
“Tell them. Get them involved.”

             
“No.”

             
“This is their fight as well. It became so when Daniel Andrews brought them into it.”

             
“I can't do that.”

             
“Why not?” She was exasperated, and she had a direct link to his brain so he knew she knew what he was thinking, especially when he was too drunk to filter what went through the neural link.

             
Anansi drank from his glass, emptying it and filling it again. The alcohol burned through him like a brand, but it helped keep him steady when all he wanted to do was scream and rave at the world. It pushed the problems away, somewhere under the proverbial rug where he wouldn't have to deal with them for another day.

             
“I can't ask them for help. I made this mess, I have to take care of it, which means staying away,” he said, slumping in his chair, ignoring the disapproving feelings he caught over the neural link from Kay.

             
“Ah, pride. Fantastic,” she said, sarcasm dripping in her voice. She rolled her eyes. “When you want to take your head out of your rear and stop feeling sorry for yourself, come find me and we can come up with a plan. In the mean time, enjoy your poison.” Kay disappeared, shutting off his glasses display as she shut off the neural link, leaving Anansi disconnected and discouraged. He knew she was right, but asking for help was something he didn't do. Couldn't do. Even if it involved them.

             
Anansi emptied his glass again, refilled it, and stared into the depths of the bottle. It would be easy enough to end it all, he mused to himself. Just keep drinking until he succumbed to the alcohol. He had enough of the stuff. He lifted the bottle to his lips and started to drink down the rest of it.

             
“I did not expect to find this.”

             
Anansi spat whiskey, choking, turning to find Denise behind him, leaning against the doorway, dressed in a red button up shirt and black cargo pants, a black coat hanging over her shoulder. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. Kay smiled from behind her, the hologram sticking her tongue out at Anansi before disappearing. Anansi stood, trying to compose himself, setting the bottle down on the side table and nearly toppling it. He steadied it and looked again at Denise. He was a mess, and he knew it, and suddenly felt self-conscious about the fact that he had been drinking for the better part of the time that he had been back on the Sanctuary.

             
“Denise...but. They killed you. I saw your brains get blown out of your head!” The image passed through his mind again and it brought bile to the back of his throat. Anansi placed a hand over his mouth and forced himself to swallow back the urge to vomit.

             
“Really? They killed me? I think they would have to try a bit harder to actually manage that.” Denise walked into the room and picked up the bottle of whiskey. She sniffed at Anansi and wrinkled her nose disapprovingly. “You need a bath...” she said as she looked at the bottle. “But at least you still have a good taste in booze.” She took a swig straight from the bottle and set it down on the table, a shiver running through her. “That's the stuff.”

             
“But...how? I saw-”

             
“Yes, yes, you thought you saw my brains on the wall and blood on the floor. It was all rather painful and dramatic, right?” Anansi nodded dumbly at Denise, still trying to wrap his mind around the whole situation. She smiled and placed a hand on his cheek, stroking the day old stubble on his cheek. “I'm a shapeshifter, dear. I faked dying. You didn't think I would let that bastard get the better of me, did you? If so, you're dumber than you look right now.”

             
“I...Hey!”

             
“Shh,” she said, putting her finger on his lips, a smirk on hers. Anansi had the mental image of kissing her run through, along with the image of shaking her for worrying him. “I'm joking, but seriously, I needed you to react correctly. Andrews is a Minder of some sort. I felt him pushing in my mind when he was talking to him, like he was probably doing to you. So when Stone pulled a gun on me, I used my power to harden my skull and make it look like the bullet had penetrated.” She released her finger from his lip and patted Anansi on the rear. “Now stop being an angsty little girl, take a shower, and lets go get him for trying to kill me. If I wanted to date a whiny little girl, I'd go find that Nightshade character who is always complaining on his blog about not getting media attention.”

             
Anansi sputtered, mouth stumbling over words until he finally paused, ordering his thoughts. “You could have...t-told me “Hey, I can, ah, make my skin bulletproof!” o-or “By the by, I can bleed on command.””

             
“A girl needs her secrets, doesn't she? Besides, if you remember correctly, when we were dating I was spying on you and needed a way out in case you were the insane anarchist the FBI thought you were.” She pushed Anansi towards the showers. “I can explain more later, first, sober up. We've got an evil political despot to expose and unseat.”

-~-~-

              Denise watched Anansi go into the showers with a smile. She briefly considered joining him, but decided against it. He needed time to decompress. She could tell by the way he had started stuttering. A shift in the light in the room let her know Kay had manifested behind her.

             
“Thanks for letting me in,” Denise said, crossing her arms under her chest, still looking at the showers. For the first time she considered the implications of her position. Technically, she was dead, and therefore wasn't bound by anything, including duty. Right now, she wanted revenge for the attempt on her life, but beyond that, she had to decide if she would reemerge from the ashes once this ordeal was over.

             
“I had it from someone who knows far more than he ever should that you were not mind controlled,” Kay said, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice. She walked forward to stand beside Denise, clutching the holographic datapad in her arms as she watched Denise. She sniffed and adjusted her glasses. “You do not show any symptoms that I can tell, so I am willing to extend you a modicum of trust, but know that if you so much as twitch, I will end you.”