New Olympus Saga (Book 4): The Ragnarok Alternative (3 page)

Across the Universe(s), February 7, 2014

Falling, falling through the world, and hasn’t she done this before? Why couldn’t she just stay put? Why couldn’t she be normal and get off this crazy rollercoaster of an existence?

Darkness. It was pitch black, but she wasn’t unconscious, and she could tell there were things out in the shadows. Something wicked going bump in a night that was dark and full of terrors.

I’m in the place between places, where teleports go when moving around
. That bit of knowledge helped a little, but not enough. She still had to deal with the fact that she had no body. She was astral-traveling, and she didn’t like it one bit.

You have to die
.

Seriously?
Him
again?

You saved the world. Your work is finished. All you can do now is become a new threat
.

She should have known that the little creep known as the First would be hanging around, ready to pounce on her. The monstrous man-child saw himself as the guardian of the Source, the alien artifact that gave Neos their powers, and had decided that she was too dangerous to be allowed to live.

You almost helped destroy the planet, you d-bag! If you’d killed me, the Genocide would have shredded the Earth! And now you’re trying again?

That was a mistake
, the creepy child-thing admitted.
But that threat is gone. You still remain, a mortal danger to the world
.

She could feel his presence in the darkness. He was trying to sever her soul from her body, taking advantage of her weakened state.

I don’t want to do this
. But she had to. She gathered her will, feeling power coursing through her disembodied persona, and struck before the First could complete his own attack.

No! I have to…

Christine felt the First die. His whole life flashed before her eyes, a century of fear and loneliness, of knowledge without wisdom, of power without purpose. All he did was sit in his little hidey-hole in the Pripet Marshes, formulating plans that went nowhere. He never helped anybody, except when his sister, the young woman who would become Baba Yaga, came to him and forced him to teach her how to control and master her powers. She went forth to use her gifts as the Witch of Pinsk, the terror of the marshes. He stayed in the wilderness, waiting for orders from the Source, orders that never came. He watched and did nothing, and when his chance to act came, he lashed out in fear and tried to kill Christine. Not once, not twice, but three times. He would never stop trying. She had no choice.

She snuffed him out, for good this time.

She’d killed before, but this felt worse somehow. More cold-blooded, deliberate.

No time to mourn. She had to go back to her body, assuming it was still alive. She had felt something
break
inside her before she fell into this dark place. She wasn’t sure she could find her way back.

But the First had left a psychic trail behind when he came after her. Maybe she could follow it home.

It took a big effort, but after some time concentrating she found the First’s mental footprints. Christine rushed after them, feeling they were fading away. It was like swimming upstream, but she kept pushing through it. Light in many colors emerged from the darkness, forming a gateway of sorts, and she darted through it. She was home!

She wasn’t home.

Her disembodied self was floating over Freedom Island. She recognized the outline, having flown over it many times in the last few months. Except something terrible had happened to it. All the buildings had been completely destroyed; only piles of rubble remained. Where Freedom Hall should stand, there was nothing but a charred crater, filled with water. The city had been consumed by fire. Every statue had been deliberately ground to dust. Someone with enormous power and equal levels of sheer malevolence had been at work, making sure nothing remained standing.

And the damage was old, years old at least. Patches of vegetation had overgrown many of the ruins.

Worst of all, the island and the surrounding ocean were lifeless; the overgrown foliage was brown and dead. Nothing was alive down there, down to the bacterial and viral levels. The whole area had been sterilized.

Something moved within the dead waters around the island, however. Masses of purple-black darkness pulsed back and forth like misshapen beating hearts, busily transforming the world into a place fitting for their creators.

She wasn’t home.

Dreamland, July 5, 2014

“You were…” Mark said.

She nodded. “The First screwed me again. I have to give it to him, he’d prepared for everything. Just in case he couldn’t kill me himself, he took a side trip to my least-favorite alternate universe, the Darkest Timeline, so to speak. The world where I went evil and destroyed everything. So when I followed his trail I ended up there. As a ghost.”

“That fucking asshole. We should have risked a trip to the Pripet Marshes to take him out long before this.”

“Well, he’s dead now. I don’t even feel as bad about it as I should. If he’d tried to help me instead of murder me, all of this could have been avoided.”

“And killing him isn’t the only thing that’s bothering you.”

She lowered her head. Showing him what happened after she arrived to Earth Shitty – or Earth FUBAR, Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition, as Mark liked to call it – was going to be hard. But he deserved to know. Deserved to know what depths she’d sunk into, the things she’d done.

Even if that meant he stopped loving her.

“Things got a lot worse.”

Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea, July 5, 2014

“Twenty-nine dead and seventeen wounded,” Adam said, concluding the briefing. “It’s a miracle the death toll wasn’t worse, considering we were dealing with a possible Type Four Neolympian on a rampage.”

Ali Fiori, a.k.a. Hyperia, nodded in agreement. She’d barely survived the fight with that nut. It’d been almost as bad as fighting the Genocide. If the Legion hadn’t been right there, New York would have gotten pasted.

She frowned. No, that wasn’t really true, was it?

“The miracle’s name is Dark Justice,” she said. “If she hadn’t taken him out, no way we could have stopped that crazy bastard from turning Brooklyn and maybe the other boroughs into a disaster zone.’

It was Adam’s turn to nod. “You are correct.”

“She took out a possible Type Four with one shot,” the Faerie Godfather said. “That’s more than a little badass. That’s scary badass.”

Everybody in the Legion Council reflected on that. As usual, the four members of the Pacific Headquarters were present in spirit, via holographic avatars. The Atlantic slate – Adam, Ali, the Faerie Godfather and Artemis – looked slightly gloomier than the holograms of General Xu, Tigresa, Fox Ghost and Musashi. Probably because they’d had front-row seats to the battle in question. But everyone was worried about Christine’s awe-inspiring display of raw power.

“How is she?” Fox Ghost asked.

“Still unconscious. Face-Off is watching her and will let us know when she wakes up.”

Adam’s words didn’t improve the Council’s mood.

“She’s extremely dangerous,” Musashi said, ignoring the sidelong look from Fox Ghost. It was kind of funny, but the Japanese-American and the Japanese Councilors cordially detested one another. That was probably because Musashi considered Fox Ghost to be only slightly better than a
gaijin
and treated him accordingly. The politics resulting in electing a Japanese Legionnaire to the Council had been downright byzantine: Japan remained a semi-pariah in international relations, an economic satellite of the Republic of China that was regarded with little love by the rest of Asia. People didn’t let their grudges go easily in those cultures, and Japan’s behavior during World War Two hadn’t been forgotten. Still, Musashi had managed to win over enough Legionnaires to get elected to the Council in the aftermath of the Genocide War. Since then, he’d tried to position himself as the conscience of the Legion, a role previously held by the Peruvian hero Chasca.

Chasca was a self-righteous pain in the ass, but I kind of miss her
, Ali thought. And unlike Musashi, Chasca hadn’t postured to score points off people.

“The Council needs to ensure such power isn’t misused,” Musashi went on.

“We just heard that without her, New York would have been destroyed,” Hiroshi ‘Fox Ghost’ Tanaka replied, not missing a chance to correct the Japanese Councilor. “She’s fine, Mush. She’s saved our collective bacon multiple times in under a year. I think she’s earned our trust.”

“Trust, but verify,” Tigresa said, her big purple eyes looking languidly through her long lashes. The Argentinean heroine looked like the supermodel and telenovela star she’d been before she gained superpowers, but her brains were her biggest asset, being a Genius-Type Neo with a few hundred patents under her belt. “I’m sure Doctor Slaughter-Trent has things under control, however.”

Adam dipped his head in acknowledgement. “We are being careful. As a member of Squad One, Christine is surrounded by the most powerful Legion members of the Atlantic contingent. We are always close at hand, and keeping a close eye on her.”

“Yes,” General Xu said, sounding anything but agreeable. “But Squad One includes a close relative, her current lover, and her former lover. Not exactly a recipe for impartiality, without meaning any offense towards you, Doctor.”

“No offense taken,” Adam said. “I understand all of your concerns, and I assure you, if any of us thought we wouldn’t do whatever was necessary, we would recuse ourselves.”

Neither Xu nor Musashi looked convinced, but they kept their misgivings to themselves.

For now
.

Being a Councilor was a royal pain in the ass, Ali thought for the umpteenth time. She’d been in the Legion for decades without ever feeling the least bit tempted to campaign for the job. Then Doc Slaughter – before he’d gotten himself killed and then recombined into the new and improved Doc Slaughter-Trent – had all but shanghaied her for the job, the bastard, and she’d managed to turn her temporary slot into an official one in the last election. Ali hated politics, but she had quickly realized that the Council needed a few members who hated politics, just to keep it honest.

“Moving on,” she said pointedly, and nobody argued with her. “This rampage is further proof the Source is creating new parahumans once again. The rate at which it’s doing so remains slower than it was before Christine interfaced with it, so we have some time to come to grips with the problem, fortunately.”

“Especially since over a thousand Neos died in the Genocide War,” Olivia O’Brien, a.k.a. Artemis, said in a somber voice. Her husband had been one of those casualties, and she wasn’t done grieving.

None of them were. They had taken unprecedented losses during that terrible day in Jupiter’s orbit. The Legion had lost over thirty percent of their members, unsurprisingly, since they’d been in the front lines of two brutal battles, one against the Genocide, the other against hordes of Outsider entities, hostile aliens who had been behind much of the mayhem of the past twelve months.

“Yes,” Ali went on. “Still, we need to increase our efforts to identify and reach out to those new Neos. We could use the new blood, not to mention keep them out of trouble.”

“As long as they don’t go ‘batshit crazy’ right off the bat, as Christine would say,” Hiroshi replied. “Hell, a Neo has to be crazy to turn to crime.”

“Pretty much,” Ali agreed. Even a weak Neolympian could write his own ticket nowadays, without breaking a single law. Unfortunately, there were some who couldn’t handle the sudden infusion of power, like the still-unidentified bastard Christine put down the day before.

“I’d suggest tasking two additional squads to step up recruitment efforts with civilian support,” Adam said. “And a commensurate increase in the budget.” He went on to tally the actual dollar amounts, and Ali saw a few members frown at the numbers. The Legion’s budget was still recovering from a double whammy. The Genocide War had been incredibly costly in resources as well as lives, for one. Worse still, Daedalus Smith’s treachery had cost the Legion billions in lost revenues and massive legal fees. Fixing that mess would take years, if not decades. All of which meant the Legion was strapped for cash. But reaching out to new Neos was worth the expense.

“A motion is on the floor.” It was quickly seconded and voted on. And unanimously approved, for a change.

“Anybody have anything not on the agenda?” Nobody did. “Well, then, meeting adjourned. Go smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”

She needed a break.

She needed to see John.

* * *

Ali found the Invincible Man wearing civvies and plopped down in front of the boob tube, looking like a buffed and rugged version of a ‘50s sitcom father figure. She glanced at the TV screen.
Casablanca
was playing. He’d been watching that black-and-white flick at least once a week, which was driving her crazy. It was a good film, but it wasn’t
that
good.

He’s still sore about it
, she thought bitterly.
Still sore about losing little Miss Christine
. And, unlike Bogie, he hadn’t given her up; she’d outright dumped him.

Ali didn’t really dislike Christine Dark, although her chattiness got on her nerves after a while. She had grown to resent the little redhead, however. She could see why John had been attracted to her – her resemblance to Linda Lamar, John’s dearly departed beloved, was explanation enough – but she still didn’t understand why he’d fallen so hard for her.

John looked up as she walked through the door and got to his feet to give her a brief hug and a peck on the cheek. They’d been together for a good three months and change, but theirs wasn’t exactly a love story for the ages. More like, what did the kids call it nowadays? Friends with benefits. Fuck-buddies. Maybe a bit more than that, but not much.

Rebound. You knew that’s what this was from the get-go
, Ali told herself as they sat down on the couch.

“Anything important happen at the meeting?” John asked her lightly, switching
Casablanca
off, to Ali’s relief. He’d been in the Council for decades, but hadn’t even bothered to run for the job this time around. Probably for the best, all things considered. He might have actually lost.

“Nothing much. We’re shifting more money into recruitment; that’s about it.”

He didn’t bring Christine up, and neither did she.

“Want to go grab some dinner? Or I can microwave something,” Ali went on. Neither of them could cook worth a damn.

John thought about it for a moment. “Sure, why not? Let me grab a jacket.” John wouldn’t be caught dead outdoors in shirtsleeves, despite the fact that no earthly weather pattern, including tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, could affect him in any way. Not to mention the fact that most people didn’t wear jackets for a casual dinner, not for a few decades.

You knew he was old-fashioned. Downright old, as a matter of fact. Then again, you’re pushing sixty yourself, woman!

It was different, somehow. Her formative years had happened during the seventies and eighties, with color TV, computer terminals, and wrist-comms. He’d grown up with pre-Golden Age technology, in an era where horses were still in wide use for work and transportation, and home radio sets had been a major innovation. His had been a completely different world. That still came out in surprising ways, every once in a while.

And none of that would matter if we were a real couple, instead of two people using each other
.

They made their way to La Casa Del Rey, a five-star Spanish restaurant on one of the terraces in Freedom Hall. The cuisine and ambiance were excellent, but her mood didn’t let her enjoy either.

It was too funny. The comics had put her and John together dozens of times. It was a natural coupling, the Invincible Man and the World’s Strongest Girl. Never mind that John had been married to a normal woman for a good seventy years and had never even considered being with anybody else, or that Ali had spent much of her adult life with Jason Merrill, a.k.a. Mesmer. If it made for a good feature, the comics threw it out there, with a small-print disclaimer that the story was fictional and not meant to describe actual people or events.

And now, the fictional mating had become real. Somewhat. And really unsatisfying.

“You’re upset,” John said while they waited for the main course.

“Did you get with me to get back at Christine?” There. Cards on the table.

“Do you really think I could be that petty?”

“Normally, no.”

His expression turned sullen, mulish. “I’ve got a clean bill of health, Ali. No tainted implants, no tele-empathic manipulation, no demonic possession. This is me. Nobody else. Me.”

“Then why does it feel like you’re not here half of the time? I caught the glare you were giving Christine during the Independence Day ceremony. You still haven’t gotten over her.”

For a moment it looked like he was about to lose his temper, just like he had during those bad years when they’d all feared he was going insane. But then he exhaled and slumped in his chair.

“All right, Ali,” he said. “Yes, I resent being thrown by the wayside and passed over for some vigilante who kills people without a second thought. It’s a terribly bad choice for anybody, let alone someone like Christine, who has more power than you or I have ever possessed. If she picks up his bad habits, she’ll become as great a threat as the Genocide. We know for a fact that in an alternate timeline she did just that, and Face-Off played a big role in it. So, yeah, I’m hurt and jealous, but my concerns go beyond my bruised ego.”

“But the bruised ego is there.”

“I won’t deny it. I let her get close, Ali. Closer than anybody since Linda, and in some ways closer than Linda and I ever were.” He looked embarrassed as he spoke. “This is ridiculous. I’m over a hundred years old, not some hormonal adolescent.”

“We’re old, John, but a lot of what passes for the wisdom of age is merely fear and diminished capacity. We Neos are eternally young, so we get to be eternal teenagers.”

John grinned bitterly. “Eternal emotionally-stunted, immature, overgrown children.”

“And Christine is really young, John. You two were never going to be a good match, not right now anyway. Maybe when she’s a hundred and twenty and you’re two hundred, you’ll have more in common.”

“And meanwhile…”

“Meanwhile you got me. As long as you don’t treat me like some twinkie you picked up at a convention.”

“Ali… You deserve better than what I can give you.”

“You forget I’ve been around the block a few times, buddy. I won’t say I don’t believe in love, but I know you can’t hold your breath waiting for it. Right now, dating you suits me. And the sex is great.”