New Olympus Saga (Book 1): Armageddon Girl (21 page)

Christine normally didn’t talk to
near-strangers for hours on end, but next thing she knew, it was well past
midnight. Time flies when you’re having trans-dimensional comparative pop culture
discussions.

The Freedom Legion

Atlantic Headquarters, March 14, 2013

Chastity Baal looked at her debriefer
with thinly-concealed contempt.

“Can you tell me again how you managed to
take down a Celestial?” Swift asked. To have him of all people in charge of her
after-mission report made for the perfect topper for this caper. She, the
Mandarin and Celsius – whose prognosis remained rather poor – had been flown to
the Atlantic Headquarters with undue haste. Going to the Pacific Headquarters
would have made far more sense, but politics had overruled common sense, as was
the case all too often.

Swift met her stare with his own glare
and waited for an answer. Chastity was generally rather discriminating about
who she allowed into her life and her bed. Her brief affair with Larry Graham
had been a monumental mistake that had haunted her for years. Larry had found
her at one of the lowest points in her life – still mourning Tommy, feeling
truly alone in the world – and had, if not taken advantage, certainly seized
the opportunity she had foolishly offered. He then had had the gall to blame
her for his philandering, and had remained a chilly, hostile presence in her
life. Fortunately, their work in the Legion very rarely put together. Tonight
was a vexing exception.

She waited a few more heartbeats before
answering. “I used the special munitions Doctor Slaughter provided,” she said,
lying by omission. She wasn’t ready to discuss the dagger, not until she had a
chance to speak with its creator. “Celsius had also engaged the Celestial and
possibly weakened him before I finished him off.”

“Okay, fine,” Swift conceded, speaking
loudly to make himself heard over the noise in the background. Heavy machinery
was hard at work not very far away from Freedom Hall, where the debriefing was
being conducted. The Hall itself had been largely undamaged, but even its
normally pristine marble walls and columns were pock-marked with shrapnel.
Chastity had gotten a good look at the devastation on the flight in. Freedom
Island had been attacked before, but it never had suffered so much damage.

Swift waited for the noise to abate
somewhat before continuing. “I’ll give Celsius an assist for putting down the
Celestial. That might cheer him up if he ever wakes up. Artemis is debriefing
Bao right now,” Swift added, declining to use his wife’s real name in
Chastity’s presence. Then again, Chastity was depersonalizing Larry by thinking
of him in his costumed guise, so perhaps she shouldn’t cast stones. “We’ll find
out what he knows. We're hoping he can tell us if there is any connection
between the Empire and the attack.”

“The timing of the defection is
suspicious,” Chastity commented. ”We were contacted by Bao six days ago. The
attack’s preparations would have been on their final stages then. If someone is
trying to frame the Empire, the defector would make a perfect tool.”

“We’re not just going to take Bao’s word
for it,” Swift said dismissively. “We have enough mind-snoops in the Legion to
make sure he’s telling the whole truth and nothing but. This ain’t our first
rodeo, you know.”

“If the attack came from the Empire,
wouldn’t it have been more sensible to take Bao to the Pacific Headquarters?
That’s going to be our forward base of operations if the worst happens.”
Chastity thought she knew the answer but wanted to see if Swift would admit to
it.

He shrugged. “Two of the Pacific
Councilors – I think you can figure out who – have a vested interest in not
pissing off the Empire. Some of us on this side of the world thought we’d be
better off presenting them with solid data. That way they don’t have to resist
the temptation to massage the info before presenting it to us. The younger crew
is a little too willing to do whatever it takes to find a peaceful resolution
even when there’s none to be found.”

Chastity didn’t say anything. She hadn’t
been working with the Legion for very long as Neos measured such things, but
even so had become keenly aware of the rift between the ‘original’ Legionnaires
– the founding heroes of World War Two and a select few from the First Asian
War – and the younger generations, especially the younger generations from
countries other than the US or Great Britain. That rift could turn into
something dangerous down the line. She shrugged mentally, unwilling to let
Swift see anything she was feeling. She was a covert operator, not a mover and
shaker.

“Are we done here?” she asked.

“Yeah. That about covers it.” He glanced
at the computer. “You’re off the clock until 1300 hours tomorrow. Doc will be
handing out assignments at Freedom Hall then. Don’t let the door hit your ass
on your way out.”

Chastity rose from her chair and left
without saying a word. Dealing with Swift’s juvenile behavior could wait. She
had someone important to see.

* * *

“Chastity! What a delightful surprise.”

Daedalus Smith looked anything but
delighted, but he stepped aside and let Chastity enter his personal quarters at
Freedom Hall. The Hall’s neoclassic exterior hid a high-tech warren of gleaming
corridors, cylindrical elevators and computer terminals every few dozen feet,
with sensors and cameras monitoring everything and everyone. The living
quarters for the senior members of the Legion were several levels underground
and resembled a luxury hotel, featuring hallways covered with thick lavender
carpets and decorated with expensive replicas of renowned paintings. Daedalus’
room was at the end of one such corridor.

Chastity’s former lover was wearing a
bathrobe, but he did not look as if he had been sleeping when she came calling.
His handsome features were marred by his customary smirk, but his eyes showed
no amusement, just cold calculation. She glanced past the richly furnished
living room and caught a glimpse of a naked young woman just before she shut
the bedroom door.

Daedalus shrugged. “She’s a bit shy. Her
name’s Lydia; she’s an emergency medicine specialist. Vanilla, but very
athletic. You’d like her.” His eyes gleamed with amusement for a second. “Maybe
the three of us could have a little party.”

“I didn’t come here for that,” Chastity
said as she walked past Daedalus.

“Yeah, I figured as much. So what brings
you here unannounced? In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in the midst of a
crisis here. You are dropping by during my allotted four hours of R&R,
probably the last I’ll get for the rest of the week. So what gives, Chaz?”

“The dagger. I used it in Kazakhstan.”

“Oh, yeah? How did it work out for you?”

Chastity lunged at Daedalus and slammed
him against a wall, one hand tight around his throat. “What the hell is that
thing, Daedalus?”

He pushed against her, to no avail. “My,
you seem to have gotten a tad stronger,” he said. “Why don’t you tell me what
happened, Chastity? Then I’ll explain as much as I can. And would you mind
letting me go? I’m not in the mood to play bottom tonight.”

Chastity released him and stepped back.
Daedalus absently rubbed his throat and waited for her to speak. “A Celestial
attacked us. He took down Celsius. I used the dagger.”

“Saved your life, didn’t it? Any
Celestial would have torn you apart otherwise. They run at 2.5 or higher,
mostly higher. Why so mad, then?”

“The dagger did something to the
Celestial. It did something to me.” Chastity said and showed him her scarred
palm. The burn had healed but the symbols seared into her skin remained. “What
is that thing?”

“It's a prototype,” he said. “It took me
ten years, working on and off, to build the damn thing. My own little vorpal
blade, snicker-snack. But it didn’t work very well for me, so I thought it’d
make a great gift for the girl who had everything.”

“Stop talking nonsense. You made a
magical dagger? I thought your devices were all technological.”

“My best toys have nothing to do with any
technology humanity can understand,” Daedalus said. “Might as well call it
magic. My Myrmidon armor cannot be reproduced: the best combat suits Smith
Industries builds for the US military have six percent of its firepower and
maybe two percent of its defensive capabilities. It’s all magic, Chaz.”

His infuriating use of a diminutive for
her name had been one reason she had left him. His tendency to pontificate for
any reason or none was another. “So what does your vorpal blade do? What did it
do me?”

“Tell me what happened, and I’ll try to
explain it to you.”

Chastity described the events in
Kazakhstan. Daedalus nodded. The calculation in his eyes had been replaced with
measured excitement. “Okay. First of all, I picked the right person for the
blade. Few people have the strength of will to use the device. I’d probably
have ended up dead if I had used it on a Neolympian. The couple of times I
tested it proved that rather definitely.” Seeing Chastity’s glare grow in
intensity, he rushed on. “Short form: the dagger absorbed the Chimp’s energy
matrix. Found the link between him and the Source, severed it and drained all
the energy in his body. It tried to do the same to you, but you resisted it,
and instead it forged a connection with you. And dumped at least some of the
Celestial’s power right into your sexy bod, by the way. I’d be careful on my
next sparring session if I were you. My guess is you’ll find you’ve gone up
several points in the Parahuman Ability Scale. Maybe a full integer.”

“What is the Source?”

“It’s my pet term for whatever fuels our
powers. Einstein’s Spooky Energy, or Oppenheimer’s Gifts of Shiva, if you will.
The dagger was an attempt to manipulate our access to the Source. It was
partially successful.”

“You knew that if I used the dagger it
could kill me.”

“I told you to use it only if the
alternative was death,” Daedalus said without a trace of remorse. “Like I said,
it was a prototype. If I perfect the design, there won’t be any side effects.
I’m still working out the kinks, in between saving the world and building
better mousetraps for the edification of the masses.”

“So what happens now?”

“That’s up to you, my dear. I’m guessing
you didn’t mention the dagger or what it did to the Celestial in your report,
did you?”

“I wanted to talk to you first, and Swift
didn’t give me a chance to do it before the debriefing. So, no, I didn’t say
anything.”

“Good ol’ Swifty. Why the hell did you sleep
with him? Larry’s a complete fuck-up when it comes to women. One of these days
Olivia is going to wake up and snap his neck. At least I’m an honest
philanderer who’s never going to get married.”

Chastity shrugged. “What’s done is done.”

“So do you forgive me?”

“I don’t think you are telling me
everything.”

“I’m probably telling you too much. If
you blab to Doc Slaughter about this, I’ll never hear the end of it. His own
attempts to find the Source went spectacularly wrong, and now he thinks it’s
too dangerous to even try to do it. He can be such an old woman about this stuff.”

“He’s probably right,” Chastity said,
opening and closing the fingers of her marked hand. She seemed to have full
mobility there, but she could feel every contour of the mark on her palm, along
with an echo of the pain that had preceded its creation. “What happened with
the Celestial… It was wrong, Daedalus. I have killed many times, but what that
dagger did to him was much worse than death. I think a part of him is trapped
inside the dagger.”
Or inside me
, she thought but did not say out loud.

“You’re still alive, aren’t you? Would
you rather have let him kill you, probably after a little rape as an appetizer?
Why are you giving your gift horse a full dental checkup, Chaz? Let it go. If
you don’t want the dagger, I’ll be happy to take it off your hands.”

“I’d rather hold on to it,” she replied,
surprising herself. She had gone to Daedalus’ apartment resolved to throw the
dagger at his feet. Now that she knew he wanted it back, she felt reluctant to
part with it.

“No problem. You survived using it once,
it’ll probably be easier to use it again. We’ll be calling you Chastity the
God-Slayer in no time.”

“Sounds rather pretentious to me.”

Daedalus chuckled. “You are one of a
kind, Chaz. Why did we ever break up?”

“You wanted more than I wanted to give
and far more than you were prepared to give in return. You were a patronizing
bastard. And you wouldn’t stop calling me Chaz.”

“And you were a bit of a bitch, now that
I think about it.”

She smiled at him. “Always.”

“If we are done, I’ll get back to
schtupping Linda, if you don’t mind. The invitation to join us still stands.”

“The rejection of the invitation still
stands, too. And you said her name was Lydia.”

“Close enough.”

* * *

Daedalus Smith closed the door after
Chastity left and considered things for a few seconds. He probably should have
insisted on getting the dagger back from her, but the damage was done. She was
Marked and irrevocably linked to the weapon. He shrugged.  Giving her that
little present had been stupid, but he was somewhat fond of her. He’d given her
the dagger in the off-chance she might be one of the few people able to survive
its use, and also as an experiment of sorts. The fact that the weapon had
worked and hadn’t killed her outright was valuable information. As long as she
didn’t figure things out, everything would be well.