Final Empire (35 page)

“What if…” Brynja trailed off momentarily, lost in thought, as if she was considering how to craft her question. “What is the next level? I mean, can he level up from here? Get even
more
powerful?”

“In theory?” I said, knowing I was at least partially talking out of my ass. “If he reaches the next level after Omega, he’d go cosmic. With that much power he could start to bend reality: open portals, destroy matter, travel through time, create a singularity…if this was a comic. In reality, who knows, but with the way he’s evolving, it isn’t much of a stretch.”

“Jesus,” Brynja whispered.

Peyton reached inside her spandex workout top and pulled out a tiny gold crucifix; it dangled from a delicate chain and she rubbed it with her thumb. It was almost a reflex; I wasn’t even sure she knew she was doing it.

“Again,” I clarified, “I don’t know
what
the next step is, or how powerful he’ll become, but something tells me there
will
be a next level. And if we wait until he gets there, it’s going to be too late.”

“So what’s our play?” Brynja asked. “If you kill him I’m dead, but the alternative…”

Peyton swallowed hard. “You
have
to kill Kenneth though – that’s the only way to stop him.” Brynja’s eyes met hers but weren’t filled with contempt. They were resigned. “I’m sorry,” Peyton continued, “but how can any jail cell hold him?”

“The princess is right,” Brynja agreed, her voice drowned in defeat. “Kill him.”

I stood and pressed my palm into the table’s glass surface, sparking it to life. A series of files opened when it read my handprint. “I have a plan. I’m going to keep him alive, but where he’s going he’ll be harmless.” I brought a blueprint of my cryogenic chamber into view. “I’m jamming the genie back into the bottle.”

Brynja’s momentary elation quickly faded when she’d realized what I’d be sacrificing. “But…what happens to you, then? This is it: it’s your only chance.”

I shook my head. “It’s
your
only chance, Brynja. If I can keep him biologically alive and simultaneously dampened by CDUs, your host body will remain intact. You’ll live.”

“It’s a prototype,” Peyton said. She was standing now too. “There’s only
one,
and if you can’t use it, then your tumor—”

“Is still here,” I interrupted. “And Brynja is alive, and Kenneth is in stasis, and we figure shit out from there. It’s what we always do.”

“I can’t lose you,” Peyton whispered hoarsely.

I smiled. “Someone once told me that I needed to have faith.”

Her eyes widened. She stared at me as if I’d just asked to be baptized.

“Don’t get too excited,” I clarified, “I’m not joining your team just yet. I’m just saying…”

“You don’t need to do this,” Brynja put in. She was still in her chair, curled into an upright fetal position.

“I do, and I am. I’m going to beat this tumor, beat Kenneth and rid the world of his crazy cult once and for all.” I was suddenly standing a little straighter, infused with confidence.

“I don’t know what they put in that IV,” Brynja chuckled, “but hook me up with some of whatever you’re high on. And if you’re dead set on jamming Kenneth in a freezer, there’s one little flaw in your plan.”

“How are you going to get him in there?” Peyton added.

I had to admit that there was the glaring omission in my otherwise flawless strategy. How do you get the most powerful superhuman on the planet into a tiny metal box?

“I haven’t worked out every single detail. Only woke up five minutes ago. Let me have a coffee before I fix the world.”

And it was true. I didn’t have all the answers yet.

But I knew someone who might.

Generally speaking, we don’t trust superhumans. And I don’t mean the royal ‘we’, as in the Moxon Corporation, or even myself personally – I’d grown to trust Karin over time, Steve McGarrity was trustworthy to a fault, and I’d trusted Brynja with my life. I’m speaking of the average, everyday folks who have never even met a superhuman in real life. Sure, the ‘muggles’ had seen them on simulcasts, read about them in graphic novels, or possibly even dressed up as one and paraded around a fan convention sporting a bedazzled utility belt and a tin foil mask. To each their own. Even so,
none
of those experiences can approximate being in their presence, and the cold spike of fear that lances straight to your core when you’re in their orbit.

And when it came to building the public trust, Darkmaki’s unsanctioned Arena Mode tournament didn’t help. Watching superhuman killing machines pound each other into submission was one thing, but when it was outside the context of a sporting event, and you could hear the wails of children and see the terrified faces of civilians running for their lives in the backdrop, it was something else entirely. The glossy, comic book finish was suddenly wiped away. Left behind was a de-saturated portrait of human misery painted by these demigods, and some viewers (even those who revere them) were surely wondering, ‘Could I be next?’

What most folks don’t realize is that the distrust cuts both ways. Superhumans, increasingly, were becoming more wary of their less-gifted counterparts, and Teach Weaving was no different.

I needed to meet her. I needed some face time with The Nightmare.

I had met her only once. It was at Fortress 23, and Valeriya Taktarov had promised her untold riches to kill me. And she would have. The problem was that she isn’t a killer, at least not in the traditional sense; she detects someone’s fear, turns it against them, and lets it consume them. That’s the funny thing about fear: if you let it, the emotion will swallow you whole. She had the ability to turn someone’s fears into a weapon, and it had been a flawless killing tool – that is, until she met yours truly. I’d just discovered that my brain tumor was back for the long haul, and that my days were numbered…so as one might imagine, there was nothing left for me to fear. When you know your days are numbered and the curtain is about to close, there isn’t much left that makes you weak in the knees. She was powerless against me, and her mission had failed. I never saw her or heard from her again, and that was the bulk of my knowledge about her.

As far as information goes, that’s not a lot to go on when you want to track someone down. It was practically nothing to go on, in fact. But what I did know about her, outside of her impressive body count, is that she was
connected
. Not just connected in the social butterfly sense (which she was), but that she was connected to other superhumans. She could feel the ebb and flow of their abilities, tap into their brainwaves. If anyone knew what Kenneth feared, it was her. I needed his Achilles heel, the chink in his armor – I would’ve settled for knowing if he had a fucking food allergy.
Anything
I could use to get him in that box, I needed to know. I need an edge.

The problem with contacting The Nightmare was that you don’t contact her, she contacts you. Through a series of backchannels on the Darknet you relay her a message, and hope she replies. Within an hour I’d received a text from an anonymous account, telling me to arrive at a seaside Costa Rican café, alone, unarmed, and with a shit-ton of money. I agreed. We set the time and I had Karin spool up the teleportation drive: I was about to visit South America.

The café was not what I’d envisioned. It was open-air with a smattering of wicker chairs and teetering plastic tables, spread out over a generous expanse of sand. It was sea-side only in name; the crystalline water could be seen lapping up on the shore, bringing strands of seaweed and shells along with it, but was obscured by a ragged line of wind-battered palms that acted as a barrier between the coffee shop and the ocean.

The patrons were a healthy mixture of locals and tourists. Some sipped from small porcelain cups, while others checked their coms or snapped photos of multicolored birds that were bounding excitedly underfoot, pecking at errant crumbs. A few of the more fortunate patrons were beneath an umbrella fashioned from straw. I’d arrived during the morning rush, apparently, because the only available two-seat table was at the center of the café, far from any shade (since the entire establishment was basically comprised of loose furniture on a beach, I’d wondered why they didn’t just pick everything up and move it beneath the nearby palm trees to avoid melting the tourists).

An hour after our agreed meeting time, a slender, serpentine goddess in black lace weaved her way through the sweaty locals and much sweatier tourists. Her dress was so ornately designed it would’ve been an understatement to simply call it a dress – it looked more like a wedding gown without the train and veil. She was painted with inky black lips and matching eyeliner, delicately clutching a Victorian parasol that was as intricate as her gown. My eyes were glued to her, but eventually I tore them away long enough to register the utter lack of reaction from everyone else. It was bizarre. Not a single person, tourist or local even shot her a glance – this picturesque, gothic beauty that could have been plucked from 18th century England and dropped on a rustic South American coast, three centuries and half a world away.

With an elegant stroke she brushed her dress beneath her and sat, keeping her parasol angled deftly overhead. The light was in no danger of touching that make-up.

“So we meet again,” she offered, along with a friendly smile and a firm handshake. Her voice was velvety, but lacked the otherworldly menace it was laced with during our previous meeting.

I managed a quasi-genial smile, not overly concerned whether or not it came off as authentic. “Nice to chat when death isn’t on the line.”

A chunky bearded man in tropical whites breezed over to our table, carrying an oversized water jug that clinked when the rapidly-melting ice cubes bumped up against the glass. He placed a cup in front of her and filled mine for the fourth time before continuing to the other tables.

“Apologies for the location,” she offered, taking a quick sip from her cup. “I can’t be too careful these days considering the political climate.”

“No problem at all.” I shifted in my seat, tugging at my collar. “Look, not to be impertinent, but I don’t have a ton of time right now…could we speed past this part of the conversation and get the good stuff?”

She nodded, and was more than happy to skip the pleasantries and the small-talk and pretending-to-give-a-shit-about-each-other’s-personal-lives. This wasn’t a job interview or a business lunch – we didn’t have to put on this social charade.

“After the incident at your fortress,” she began, “I needed to get as far away from Canada as possible. My butt was on the line. Laugh at their Mounties and maple syrup and donuts all you want, but when it comes to a military presence they’re definitely no joke. Contrary to popular belief they
do
have guns, and they’re not afraid to use them. Anyone associated with Valeriya’s Red Army was being tracked down and questioned, and who knows what else. I had no stake in her endgame and I wasn’t going down for her cause. I was there because she offered me an eight-figure paycheck, nothing more.” She hesitated, before adding, “And speaking of which…”

I reached into my breast pocket and placed a flat copper key on the flimsy table-top, sliding it towards her. “Twenty-two million in gold, just like you asked. It’s in a safety deposit box at—”

“I know,” She interrupted. The Nightmare scooped up the key and like a street magician concealing a card, with a subtle flick of her wrist, it disappeared. It could have been sleight of hand, or she could have clouded my mind so I couldn’t see where she’d hidden it. It didn’t matter and I didn’t bother asking.

“You know where the bank is, too?” I asked. “And how do you know all the gold is there that I promised you?”

She rapped a black painted fingernail against her temple. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a loud thinker?”

I snorted. “Yeah I’ve heard that once or twice.”

She hesitated again, as if momentarily lost in thought. “I thought you were in a hurry?”

“No, yeah, please continue. No more interruptions, I promise.”

She glanced around conspiratorially before continuing, as if someone in this sparsely-trafficked café was secretly tracking her. After a cursory examination of the patrons she leaned in on her elbows, angling her umbrella so it shaded my head as well (which provided some much-needed relief from the punishing sunlight – I didn’t care how ridiculous I looked huddled beneath it).

“So there I was,” she continued, in a slightly hushed tone, “In Casablanca, holed up in this quaint little hotel that hadn’t been renovated since the early 1930s. I love Morocco. Saying this place was old-world would be an understatement: all white marble, mixed with some art deco touches and gold columns, more staff than guests, and best of all:
no
surveillance. Not a CDU or video camera in sight. My room had a freaking
rotary
phone, for crissakes.

“Anyway, this place was the perfect hideout: I was going to be safe from the Canadians, the Americans, and anyone from the Red Army who might have blamed me for your eventual escape; those guys were pretty hardcore when it came to the whole retribution thing.

“Once I got settled in I took a minute to check the news on my com. I half expected to see a smoldering crater where Fortress 23 used to be. Like everyone else in the know, I figured they were going to bomb the entire place back to the Stone Age just to dot their I’s and cross their T’s. But that wasn’t what was dominating the headlines. It was the scene in Thunder Bay. I saw Sergei Taktarov’s ‘resurrection’ outside of that little hospital and almost everyone was buying it, saying he’d ‘reached across the ethereal plane’ and all sorts of new-age nonsense. Of course I knew it was bullshit. It was a glamour; a parlor trick used by Wiccans and mages and a handful of supers to mask their identity.”

“Wait,” I interrupted, forgetting that just a moment ago I’d promised no further interruptions. “Magic is real?”

She sighed. “Not in this dimension, no, but in alternate timelines, yes. You can use a sigil to...wait, do you wanna hear the rest of this story or not?”

“Sorry, sorry…” I twirled my fingers in the universal symbol of ‘please go on’ before zipping my mouth shut.

She took a quick sip of water before continuing. “I could tell Kenneth had pulled off a glamour because I do it all the time. I’m doing it right now: everyone in this café except for you thinks I’m a four-hundred pound Columbian businessman with a comb-over and a bad sunburn.“

“Huh.”

“So anyways, there I was, spending a month getting oil exfoliations and rhassoul wraps in paradise, just basically pampering myself into a coma. Then
he
shows up.”

“Kenneth Livitski.”

She pointed at me with a finger gun, cocking her thumb as she pantomimed the hammer ratcheting into place. “Bingo. So Ken is decked out in his new super-suit, cape, the whole deal, and at his side is Valeriya Taktarov. I’ve racked my brains and to this day I have no idea how they found me: I was using a fake name, fake ID, concealing my face behind a dozen different glamours whenever I went out in public – but they found me. I guess it doesn’t matter how, but I’d still like to know.

“So Valeriya tells me that INTERPOL had frozen her accounts and locked down her assets, leaving me several million dollars short, but Ken tells me he has something even better for me: glory. The chance to ‘rule’ at his side and become some sort of a world leader, ushering in this brave new era of blah blah blah…to be honest I completely tuned him out after five minutes. Needless to say I wasn’t buying what he was selling. I’ve heard the whole ‘super villain taking over the world’ speech more than once in the last decade, and it’s never worked out for the villain. He promised that this time it was going to be different, and Valeriya says that they’re going to build a following. Not like the Red Army, fueled by hatred and frustration; those emotions run hot, but they burn out over time. This new coalition they were forming – The Order of the Eye – was going to be built on faith: a foundation so powerful that nothing could break it. It sounded like some Scientology-level nonsense to me, so of course I was skeptical, but now…”

“Now
you’re
afraid,” I added. She didn’t need to confirm or deny – it was written across her face. Her fear was cleverly masked and concealed and hidden beneath layers of subterfuge, but not cleverly enough.

“Powers all across the world are being sliced and diced,” she said flatly, “and we
all
know who’s responsible. At first he wanted allies, but now? He just wants to rub us out one at a time. The only supers he has at his side are B-list lapdogs who don’t pose any real threat to his throne. Before long Kenneth will be the last player left on the board, and there won’t be anyone left to topple him. At least no Omega-levels.”

“Wait,” I asked, raising a finger, “did you just use the term—”

“It was for lack of a better term,” she cut in. “I only said it because that’s what you were thinking.”

“Oh. Okay. So back to Morocco: he just let you walk?”