Final Empire (26 page)

“I came to your rescue twice,” he stated impassively. “I saved you once the desert, and came here because I
thought
you were in danger. And this is the thanks I get? How you repay my kindness?”

“Kindness?” she blurted out. “You’re stalking me across the globe and you want a fucking thank you card?”

“Your blood was designed to help me keep track of you – to keep you safe
.
And I’m doing a much better job of it than
Matthew Moxon
.” He said my name without so much as glancing in my direction; he was speaking as if I wasn’t in earshot, standing just a few feet away.

“What
is
my blood?” Brynja thundered, lunging towards Kenneth. She hammered his chest with her fists, but he stood fast, never even reacting. “Why the fuck did you bring me back like this?! Why do I feel so, so…”

“Empty?” he asked, snatching her wrists with both hands. “Why are you morose, directionless? It might be the company you keep. I can give you more than he can…I can give you purpose.”

“Her?” Valeriya barked. “She’s a killer!” Her crystal blue eyes welled with tears.

“We’ve all made mistakes,” Kenneth said, keeping his gaze locked on Brynja. “Haven’t we? Let’s move on together. Come to the island with us right now and start over. I’ll give you the answers you seek and more. I’ll give you power…more power than you’d ever thought possible. Together we can do what no politician, no businessman, no supposed genius has ever been able to accomplish. We can change the world. We can
fix
it.”

Brynja stepped away and he released his grip. She opened her mouth to answer but stopped – a pregnant pause that lasted only a heartbeat but felt like an hour. “I-I can’t,” she stammered. “Kenneth, I want answers and I want to help people…to
do
something with this second chance you gave me. But I need to discover what that is on my own.”

“You disappoint me,” he said coldly. “But I have a feeling you’ll see things my way. In time, everyone will.”

“And if not?” I asked.

Kenneth didn’t reply. He remained focused on Brynja, his lips twisting gently at the corners in a knowing smile. His expression turned my insides to liquid. By the look on Brynja and the detective’s faces, they’d experienced a similar sensation.

“Now if you don’t mind,” he said casually, glancing down at my wrist, “we’ll be on our way.”

With a tap of my com the green lights were replaced with red, and the hum that vibrated from inside the mountain top ceased.

Kenneth offered me a quick nod.

“Detective,” he added. “Best of luck with that investigation. I hope you get your man.”

“I always do,” he sneered.

Kenneth reached out and wrapped one arm around Jonathan Ma’s waist, and another around Valeriya’s. He flashed Brynja one final glace, as if to say, ‘I’ll see you soon,’ before exploding into the sky, disappearing into the distance.

“I cannot see you, my brothers and sisters, and I do not know who you are – but I know exactly
what
you are. You are slaves. On bended knee, begging the system for approval, for acceptance, for the most meager of sustenance. In return, you receive nothing more than scraps. And you are thankful for even this, because you know nothing else. This is not your fault. You did not ask to be born into this position, and in truth you may have no knowledge that this system even exists. But it is there, with its forceful hand, guiding your every action like a master training its dog. And you are resigned to comply, or face the consequences of your disobedience.”

- Herald of The Order
(Darknet Holoforum)

Karin picked us up in the TT-100, and with a jarring flash of purple we were back in Manhattan.
A light drizzle streaked from the gray November sky, pattering the cockpit window while we made our descent through the ashen clouds. We touched down on the NYPD’s rooftop hoverpad, the landing gear making contact with the steel platform so gradually we could hardly tell we’d landed. The ramp lowered from its underbelly.

Brynja, the detective and I stepped out into the wind. Dzobiak hiked the lapel of his overcoat up around his head, shielding himself from the rainfall.

“So you’re the human lie detector,” the detective asked. “Was he bullshitting me?”

I shrugged. “You mean about the girl? I think Kenneth knew she was dead, or at least had a suspicion. I don’t think he was responsible for it, though. At least not directly.”

He threw one hand towards the rooftop access door. “What am I supposed to take to the powers that be, man? Help me out here, Mox – help me stop a war. If we put boots on that island and your boy takes a shot at America, it’ll be the biggest international incident since 2001.”

I couldn’t disagree. At least when superhumans were flattening populated cities it was considered a
worldwide
crisis – there was no flag assigned to any of the destruction, and no one had taken responsibility. The attackers all originated from different nations, none subscribing to any particular religion or group or government. It was bipartisan, non-denominational destruction. There was nothing to rally against, except for general peacekeeping, and the desire to end the violence.

Kenneth allowing the daughter of a well-known American to die on the shore of his island – a particularly brutal death, by the looks of it – would be a cut-and-dry, textbook case of evil that
everyone
in this country would get behind. At the moment, the media was just presenting the death as an unsolved murder, but information within the walls of a government building gets passed around like water in a leaky bucket. It’s transferred back and forth and, little by little, it tends to spill. A single reporter catches wind of this story and everything would explode – not just in America, but on a global scale. Military action for the United States wouldn’t just be on the table, it would be imminent. Hell, it would be virtually mandatory.

The storm grew fiercer on the eightieth storey. Taking a cue from the detective I grabbed the hood on my sweater, pulling it overhead to block the wind and increasing rain. “I don’t know how he’s going to react and I don’t know if he’ll back down…I don’t even know what he
wants
.”

“I’ve seen this type of thing before,” Dzobiak said gravely. “My former partner used to work vice; he did ten months undercover infiltrating a cult in west Texas. The cape, the attitude, the way he spoke…your buddy Ken has a messiah complex, man.”

“You don’t know him,” Brynja put in, flipping her fur-lined hood over her head. “He’s not a bad person. He’s just being manipulated by Valeriya – she’s using him. Didn’t you see that?”

The detective shot her a derisive glance. “I don’t care who’s pulling the strings. He’s a big boy, and he’s making his own decisions. The problem is that his power is off the charts, and that’s messing with his mind. He wants what every superhuman wants: more power. This isn’t an isolated incident, you know...The Living Eye, Sultan Darmaki…there are guys like them around the world, gathering armies. And the sheep are flocking to them by the truckload.” He shook his head, staring out across the hazy downtown skyline, before adding, “Fucking superhumans, man…they’re going to be the end of us all. First it was Russia’s Son, now this son of a bitch. We should lock them all in cages and watch them rot. Every single one of them.”

Brynja’s forehead creased, lips parting. Her surprise quickly turned to anger, and the next thought tumbling through my mind wasn’t my own – it was hers, being sent telepathically.

Let’s get back into the goddamned jet, right goddamned now, before I throw your friend off the goddamned roof.

She didn’t need to send me the message. Her facial expression did a better job of relaying her feelings about the detective’s last comment than her words ever could have.

“Well,” I said sharply, clapping my hands together, “I think we should be getting back to the goddam…er, back to the
fortress
. We could all use some rest. This has been a lot to process and we need to figure out our next move.”

Dzobiak shrugged his coat back onto his shoulders, buttoning it up. “Yeah, you do that. And if you can get your boy to talk some reason, send up a flare. And we’ll hope it’s not too late.”

“Will do.” I extended an open hand and the detective shook it firmly.

He turned and made his way to the rooftop access door without giving Brynja a second glance.

The sun was cresting over the horizon when we arrived back in the skies above the South China Sea
. A shimmering orange sliver was all that remained. As we made our descent it disappeared into the west, casting Fortress 18 into darkness.

We landed on the glowing green hoverpad that topped the remote mountain range. The moment the passenger bay door slid open Brynja raced down the ramp. She was clearly simmering over the detective’s comments and needed some time to decompress. I didn’t bother trying to stop her.

I made my way across the tarmac, into the main lobby and towards the common area. The soccer game had long ended, leaving the pristine white room littered with beer bottles, plates and discarded wrappers. Steve McGarrity sat alone on the circular leather couch wearing nothing more than a pair of black boxer shorts and a wide-open housecoat, with a holo-screen stretched out before him.

When I caught a glimpse of him I winced, taking a backwards step. Then the metallic floor creaked beneath my boot.

“Hey man!” he called out, bolting upright in his seat. “Come on in…I’m watching this new reality show about people who are locked in coffins and get buried for a week.” He shuffled around on the couch, brushing aside empty bottles and cans. He located a pair of unopened beers, holding them up for my inspection with a ridiculous grin. “Drinks are on me!”

“There’s nothing I’d rather do than stay up and drink beer with you,” I said flatly, “but I’m just passing through. I need to get some sleep.”

His shoulders sagged, mouth turning into a small frown. “Oh, that’s okay. We’ll catch up tomorrow I guess.”

I was exhausted and wet and tired of dealing with crazy people. I didn’t
want
to stay. There was nothing I wanted less. Although I’d been accused of being a borderline sociopath for the better part of my life, the fact remained that I was also paranoid about what people thought of me; just because I don’t always consider others feelings, doesn’t mean I want them to hate me.

As soon as I’d walked into the common room and McGarrity had spotted me, I’d engaged in a social contract: he was my guest, extending me a courtesy. A simple invitation. And since he’d put his life on the line for me in the Liwa Desert, the very least I could do was take him up on an offer to sit with him, sip a beer, and watch idiots lock themselves in wooden boxes.

“You know what,” I said with a heavy sigh, glancing down at my wrist, “it’s not
that
late. I can stay for a little while.”

“Yeah?” His enthusiasm returned and he rapidly wiped garbage from the couch, his arms like giant windshield washers, sending bottles and cans clanging to the floor. I was once again reminded that whatever I was paying the cleaning staff around here, it wasn’t nearly enough.

I flung off my hoodie and dropped into the soft leather cushion, twisting the cap from the beer bottle.

“Looks like I missed a good party,” I said, glancing around the trashed room.

He let out a boisterous laugh. “Dude, I don’t know where you found those scientists but they know how to throw a bash. You haven’t partied until you’ve had a topless Dutch chemist mix you a Purple Zebra, heat it with a Bunsen burner, and then pour it down your throat.”

I tried to contain my shock and envy. “Aletta was topless?”

“Don’t blame her…once the Zebra kicks in you can’t be responsible for your actions over the next hour.
None
of us were dressed.”

“Why don’t I ever get invited to these types of parties?”

McGarrity shrugged. “I don’t know, man…leave the house once in a while and you see all kinds of crazy shit.”

It was sound advice, though not something I pictured myself doing anytime soon. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

“So I hear you went and saw Kenneth again,” McGarrity said in between generous gulps from his bottle. “I wouldn’t trust that guy. If I were you, I would’ve busted his ass, right then and there. Just sayin’.”

I blurted out an unexpected laugh in mid-sip, coughing the contents of my beer back into the neck of the bottle. “You’re
kidding
me, right? He’s probably the most powerful superhuman in the world and you think
you’d
take him out?”

McGarrity grinned, wide and idiotic and sparkling with hubris. “Powerful? He’s got a shitty island with two hundred brain-dead hippies who smell like weed and regret. I’ve
got
this…” he turned over his wrist and opened a holo-session from his com. It was a Kashstarter.com campaign, where a clearly delusional fan was gathering pledges to construct a bronze statue of Steve McGarrity in his hometown. “See this? It’s been up for only an hour and it’s already at twenty million bucks. The only campaign that made money faster than this was the one to have you killed.”

“Thanks for the reminder.” I took a long swig from my bottle.

“Before you know it, yours truly will be a statue in beautiful downtown Boise, Idaho. And that’s not all…I’ve got eighteen million Hyve followers, a deal to have my own custom oculars designed in Japan, and of course my new career as an author.
That
is what
power looks like, my friend.”

McGarrity swiped to his Hyve Mind account, which had just re-launched yet another retro service called ‘Buzz’. It was based on a decades-old messaging system where users had only a hundred and forty characters to post a status update. The trend had long since died once holoforums came into existence, but that didn’t stop Hyve from dusting off the concept and making it fashionable again. They’d already resurrected physical texting, and now they wanted the entire world to be ‘Buzzing’. And before long, they were. Based on the stats I saw, McGarrity’s eighteen million followers had swollen to nearly nineteen million in just the last two days, with no sign of slowing down. The outpouring of affection for him was nauseating: everything from general well-wishes to marriage proposals were flooding in by the second. His timeline was scrolling by with new messages faster than my eyes could keep track.

@MeredithTheConquerer2023
offered to have his baby, and provided a helpful photo proving she was anatomically equipped to do so.

@Nuclear_Ostrich
had built him a custom replica of the DeLorean from Back to the Future and was offering to ship it from Oslo to wherever he was at the moment.

And
@Official*TanashiZen
claimed she was almost finished developing a new 3D fighting simulator, where you could play as McGarrity himself, complete with a holographic light sword.

Some of these people weren’t just fans – they’d become obsessed. Devoting their lives to following someone they’d never met, and who had never really accomplished anything of value. When I was younger, the unwashed masses worshipped at the altar of musicians who were famous for anything
but
their music, and women who took photos of their surgically-enhanced asses and posted them online. Idiotic, sure, but completely innocuous. Now, it seems like the fashionable trend was to worship superhumans; these ticking time-bombs with more destructive power at their fingertips than an entire army. What I thought would turn into a backlash following Darmaki’s impromptu Arena Mode tournament had yielded the exact opposite effect. Many people were scared, of course, but more than that they were
impressed
. They were in awe of these gifted individuals, and wanted to connect with them on any level possible.

I reached the bottom of my bottle with a final gulp. “You’ve got quite a following, Steve. And hey, if the whole writing thing doesn’t work out and everything falls apart, I’m sure Meredith will give you a place to stay.”