Citadel (Book 1): Training in Necessity (16 page)

The stun batons looked just like the telescoping clubs that had replaced most cops' nightsticks.  The only visible difference was a little button near the base.  It sent an electrical current through the extended portion that was strong enough to put down a regular person.  There was another control that could increase the shock, enough to affect the low end Strong types and maybe kill someone without physical powers. 

The charging Hectors had their batons set to the lowest level.  It would be enough.  Achala's power let him stop impacts but it shouldn't do anything to resist the flow of electricity.  If Hector could get in a single blow, it should end the match.  It didn't matter.  Achala met the oncoming Hectors with his ropes and not a single one made it close enough to touch him.

"Incredible."  Hector was careful to keep the exclamation to a single outside self.  "I knew his pain tolerance had to be off the scale, but the man's gotta be the next thing to blind and deaf right now.  He hasn't even broken rhythm..."

Three Hectors, far enough from Achala to be momentarily safe, pulled out the devices for his last plan.

"Coach!" he shouted, "Please stop for a moment!"

He let the ropes fall idle, though he kept up the little swaying motions.  The three Hectors raised their arms.  In one hand, each held a fragmentation grenade, the pins were in the other hands.

Hector kept his voice loud, practically shouting.  "I don't know if the dome's big enough that it counts as an enclosed area for one of these, but with three, I don't think it'll matter."

"You're willing to kill me to win a training match?" asked Achala, his voice more curious than anything else.

"No, sir.  Kill radius is about fifteen feet, sir!  But the injury radius is closer to fifty."  Hector, all of him that were present, studied the man before him.  "I don't think you're anywhere near as resistant to overpressure as you are everything else, but I've got more if I need them."

Achala grew still, ceasing the constant, subtle motions.  "No, you are correct about that."  He stood straight, covered in Hectors' blood, surrounded by his bodies.  "I yield."  He stood, surrounded by Hectors' broken weapons and amidst a haze of tear gas, and he gave a little bow.  "Well done, Trainee Hive.  Thank you for the match."

Hector heard what the Coach had said.  He'd seen the difference in how he moved.  Back then, there was an incredible liquid grace to his every motion.  Now, Achala still had grace, but it was a controlled thing.  Hector had seen the little trembles, involuntary tremors in his hands.  He'd thought the difference was just age, but now he knew better.

Hector knelt, like a Royal Knight to the Monarch.  One knee bent, the other knee and his two fists touching the ground, his head as low as he could get it, it was a gesture of perfect respect and submission.  At least, according to Hollywood.  Hector hadn't ever been to England to see a knighting in person, couldn't ever go.

"Ah." said Senior Operative Juggernaut.  "He told you, then.  Probably showed you that damned video too."

Outside the dome, Hector heard Duncan's sneering voice.

"So, did you put out yourself, or just have one of your clones do it?"

The Hector he'd been speaking to turned around.  "What?"

"To get him to go easy on you.  Did you blow him yourself, or what?  Maybe a group thing?"

Hector drew and shot him, three times.

Private Residence

"I dunno if you've taken a close look at a good map or not, but on a global scale, three thousand kilometers isn't as big as it sounds." Hector told Isaac.

"You're talking about King in Winter, right?"

"Yeah.  His area of influence, the region he froze when he got his Empowerment.  Don't get me wrong, that's huge... but if it's actually centered on the North Pole, it's mostly water."

"Didn't the guy say that was part of what had people so freaked out?" Isaac asked.  "I mean, that much water changing to ice seems like it should've had some pretty bad effects on the rest of the world.  I can see that being pretty scary."

"You're right.  There was a whole bunch of speculation at the time about that, the planet's rotation, something to do with the freeze and melt cycle of the Arctic Ocean and the polar caps, all sorts of stuff.  But that's not what I meant.  The only countries that were directly affected, that actually had cities or towns destroyed, were Russia and Greenland."

"But he said that King in Winter was the reason Russia and Canada broke up.  If Canada wasn't even harmed..."

"That's what I meant, Isaac.  I mean, there were probably some scientific research posts or something in the region, but in terms of actual population loss, Canada was pretty much untouched."

"Hm…" Isaac took a moment to process, "so what about the other two?"

"Russia had a couple small towns I'd never heard of before.  Greenland took real damage, at least a dozen.  But... this was nineteen twenty eight."

"After Tyrant, you mean."

"Yeah."  Hector answered.  "Not really an issue, at that point."

"So if it wasn't panic over how much damage Winter did, what was it?"

"Ever heard of Red Thursday?"

"I'm guessing that's not anything like Black Friday?" Isaac replied.

Hector smirked.  "Not quite.  It was about a week after the freeze.  Three groups, I guess you'd call them terrorists or rebels, whatever, attacked more or less simultaneously.  They killed government leaders, blew up power stations, that sort of thing.  All over the country."

"Whoa."

"They used teleporters, phasers and Speed types to do a ridiculous level of damage.  Combine that with how scared everyone was by Winter and the Tyrant... remember, no one knew their effects wouldn't spread any further yet, and that's where the real breakdown started."

"Okay, so how come I've never heard of this?"

"Isaac, have you ever actually done any research on King in Winter?"

"No, I never really had any interest in Empowered stuff.  Not until-" he closed his eyes.

"Hey, it's cool.  I know." Hector said.  "My point is, this isn't on the net.  I had to go back to microfiche of newspapers from the twenties, at the UCLA library, before I could find any real accounts of it."

"So you think there was some kind of cover-up?"

Hector's jaw dropped. 
I, I didn't know.  I...

"Hey, relax."  Isaac said, concerned.  "We're just bullshitting, here."

"It's not that, just crossover from one of the other mes."  Hector hesitated, trying to recall the earlier thread of the conversation.  "Anyway, no, not exactly a cover-up.  I mean, I found the articles in a public library, not exactly something that requires a high level of hacking, just time and effort.  I think most people just like the other version of the story better and the Citadel, for some reason, wants us to think the same way.

"Threat perception.  The Citadel wants its operatives, and people in general, I guess, to think in terms of the big guys, instead of focusing on the damage a group of Empowered can do, like-  Wait, who did you say they were?"

"I didn't."  Hector replied.  "The biggest group was the Angels of the Lord, the other two were the Committee for Progress and Society Without Leaders.  Religious nutcases that thought Empowered were angels in human flesh, a group of Empowered with mental abilities that were sure they could run things better than the humans and a bunch of psychotic anarchists inspired by the guys that killed Franz Ferdinand and started the First War."

"That's it then!" Isaac's face transformed with excitement.  "It isn't about people in general, it's the Empowered.  How many off the scale Empowered can you think of?"

"Um, gimme a sec." Hector paused to think.  "Well, King in Winter and Tyrant, obviously.  There's the guy that set off the Bug Bomb in the late eighties, whatever his name was.  The Monarch, or do you only want the bad guys?"

"No, count her- them, too.  Anyone that's so strong there's no way to really deal with them."

"So that's four, plus William Power, Monster and Chemo." Hector added, grimacing at the last name.

"I've never heard of Chemo but I don't think Monster counts, he's been running around free for thirty years and he barely does any damage, not on this scale."

"Chemo... he was a dying cancer patient, probably triggered from the frustration, maybe bitterness.  Turned into a giant crystal thing the size of a car and just went running around Carson City.  He let out a kind of gas.  Anyone that came into contact with it collapsed in pain.  Some people went crazy, others died from heart attacks or whatever."

"Well, that's pretty bad but..."

"They sent in Intervention Prime.  William Power himself couldn't stand up to it, just started screaming before he was close enough to reach the crystal and flew off.  Worse, the gas didn't fade when he left the area.  It just kept spreading."

"This thing took down William Power and I've never heard of him?"  Isaac's eyes were wide.  "How did they...?"

"They dropped C- another Prime member, someone with a strong offense, right on top of him.  He destroyed the crystal, killed Chemo, but he didn't have any toughness.  The fall almost killed him and Chemo's gas..."  Hector had to stop, just for a moment.  "Like I said, the gas kept expanding, even when he was gone. 

“The free floating stuff died out eventually.  But the people affected, well, it turned out that the gas was actually alive, a cloud of little parasite things.  Anyone affected by the gas, everyone but William Power, they had that same level of crippling pain for the rest of their lives.  No one's ever found a drug that can kill the parasites and, since it's an ongoing thing, most Healer types can't do anything about it either."  Hector tried not to let the bitterness seep into his voice.

"How do you know so much about this one?"

"The hospital, the one Chemo was at when he changed?  My mom was in a different ward, giving birth to my little brother."

"Oh."  Isaac's voice was quiet.  "I, I didn't know you had a brother."

"I don't."

"Sorry... I didn't..."

"No."  Hector had to work to make himself cheer up, but not as hard as he used to.  "I know your tragic backstory, only fair that you get to hear mine.  Besides, I was too young to really remember."

"Then, is your mother...?"

"Yeah.  She's still alive, but she's bedridden, needs constant care."

"That must be hard, being away from her, even for something like Citadel training."

Hector smiled.  "When I first started taking care of her, she told me she didn't want me missing out on my life just for her sake.  I promised I wouldn't.  You can probably guess how that worked out."

"Oh!"  Isaac smiled back.  "Ha, I guess so."

"Damn.  I really thought that would work." Hector said, then shook his head at Isaac's confused expression.  "So yeah, Chemo and Monster, just because they each beat William Power and we're counting him.  And if you've never heard of Chemo, there's probably a bunch more neither one of us knows about."

"You're right, but I think that still supports the point I was gonna make."  Isaac said.  "It's not about controlling the public, it's about the Empowered.  They want them thinking that the only ones who're a big deal, the ones that are a threat to a city or the country, are the unstoppables.  That way, the ones with a taste for violence, the criminals, don't go on a rampage just because they can juggle cars with their mind or something."

"Instead, they stick to regular crime, small scale stuff."

"That or head off to the Battlegrounds, yeah."

"Isaac, you realize this's how that started, right?"

"What?"

"The Battlegrounds, Canada was the first part of it."

"Really?  I always thought it spread up from Mexico."

"No.  I found that, too.  Those groups, the Angels, the Committee and the Society, they basically tore Canada apart.  But they couldn't hold onto it.  Once order broke down, more and more Empowered kept showing up.  A group or a strong individual would claim a territory, sometimes they wanted to rule it, sometimes they were just protecting their home, and another would come along to knock them down."

"What about the military?" Isaac asked.

"This was just after the First War, conventional militaries didn't have any kind of answer to Empowered back then.  It just sort of spread through Canada, then down through the mid-west.  Mexico had their own break down, but that wasn't till the forties."

"So there were two Battlegrounds back then?"

"There still are, sort of.  Depends on if you count the Hive States."

"The Bugs?"  Isaac asked.

"Yeah, but they hate that name.  The Battlegrounds were sort of pushing in from below and above when the Bug Bomb went off.  After that, we got the Fractured States of America, instead of the USA."

"And now, the Citadel doesn't want new groups trying the same thing."

"Maybe.  It's just a theory."  Hector said.

"Sure."  Isaac agreed.  "But it makes sense."

"If we're right, is it wrong?  What the Citadel, the government, is doing."