Outcasts (34 page)

Oh crud. That really sucks.

The Chemist beamed in triumph. The Outlaw didn’t react.

Isaac was in my ear and he asked, “Ready for activation?”

“Light’em up, baby. Let’s kill that bastard.”

Three hundred miles away, Isaac Anderson and his faithful team turned on the HIMAR system and fed power to the rockets. My screen instantly populated with controls and diagnostics and information. Propelled death at my fingertips.

“Activated.”

“Bingo!” I shouted. “I’ve got clearance.”

I heard new noises through my headset. A strident blare and urgent voices. He said, “We’re retreating, Puck. Alarms going off. You’ve got…five minutes? Before Colonel Brown kills your launch.”

“I only need two.”

There’s only so many ways to kill an angry Infected. The simplest are fire, water, and electricity.

I’d been expecting electricity. I was wrong.

Baby Face pulled the sheets off, like revealing a statue. But it wasn’t a statue. It was a tall submersion tank filled with water. The device reminded me of a magician’s act I’d seen; the magician went into the chamber and we watched through transparent walls as he undid handcuffs before running out of oxygen.

I should have guessed. The Chemist craved drama. Craved an audience. Slowly drowning me for three minutes was perfect. The tank had a hydraulic cap that would seal me in.

“Turn, Outlaw. And look upon thy death.”

He was quoting Shakespeare. Because he knew Katie and I did. I could hardly hear him over the rush in my ears.

Don’t watch this, Dad. Someone take his phone away.

My plan, so far, wasn’t working. He was shaken. I could tell in a thousand ways. But still he proceeded.

“For the crimes aforementioned, Outlaw, I sentence you to immediate death by drowning. You will enter the water and stay until dead.”

My voice operated on its own. “Very well.”

“Have you any last words?”

“Yes.” I approached him. He flexed, prepared for the expectant trap. But there was none. I stood close. He wanted great television, he got it. “I forgive you.”

No response, other than a spark of disbelief far down the well of his irises.

I continued, “I forgive you for capturing Katie. For destroying my home. For destroying Los Angeles. For destroying me. We weren’t meant to live this long. And it’s hurt you. You’re weary and exhausted and lonely and scared and angry, and I know, and I forgive you.”

“You…
forgive
me?” he spat the words and flecks of his spittle landed on my face. He laughed, a forced choking sound. “You don’t GET to forgive me!” He struck. He swung the staff so fast it broke the sound barrier like a whip.

I caught it in my one working hand, a sound like iron bars colliding. The other still didn’t flex well. The impact rang both our bones near the point of shatter. He winced in pain. In horror. In fury.

“I’m done fighting with you,” I hissed. “I’m done dancing on your strings. You don’t get to take my life. I
give
it to you.”

I shoved the staff back at him and went to the tank.

“You don’t forgive
me
! You are not the judge!” he screamed. Behind the tank, I saw chains and medical equipment. He’d anticipated fighting me, hurting me, subduing me, and knocking me unconscious with his drugs. I ascended the ladder. The tank was thick and heavy and the cold water sloshed over. “You don’t willing go to your death! I SEND you to it! I send you into the tank!”

His plans were spiraling. His motions frantic. I sat on the tank’s ridge, eight feet off the ground, and lowered my boots into the water. I transferred the phone from my pants pocket to a watertight compartment in my vest. I said, “Not to sound corny, Martin. But I wish I had more lives to sacrifice for the people I love. You can’t take from me that which I willingly give away.”

“Oh! OH! You believe you’re a martyr??” he howled, tears streaming down the wrinkles of his face. “You think your death will provide…some sort of catalyst? You amuse me, boy. This death is too good for you. Come down and fight, if you’re a man.”

“You’re in no position to name-call, Martin. The whole world is watching and realizing you’re just a bully. And a sad one.”

“You. Will. Die!” He slammed a button on the tank’s control panel. The heavy metal lid rotated upwards with an electric whine.

I still believed in my plan. Still held out hope for success. But I was afraid. The kind of fear which shocks your mind into awareness and perspective. I felt the weight of a world watching. I keenly recognized my existence. I tasted the air and enjoyed the inflation of my lungs, the thump of my heart beat, the crystal stars and the wind stinging my eyes.

I took one deep breath, two, three, and plunged into the tank. The lid closed and sealed itself automatically.

How long can Infected hold their breath? Probably longer than normal.

It was like sitting in a fish tank. The lid and water blocked out much of the light. The world beyond appeared as warped penumbra. He screamed. Or laughed. The sound came from miles away and reached my eardrums wholly muted and distorted. I saw him as a malformed shadow, flickering back and forth. Whump! Whump! He beat his hand flat against the outside wall.

The fear vanished, left outside in the oxygen. I was already dead. So many people had died already. I was no better a man than them. And perhaps mine would be meaningful. There was freedom in giving your complete self to a righteous cause, in sacrificing for others.

Still. I hoped he changed his mind. Quickly.

The tank’s large dimensions allowed me to sit criss-cross on the floor. The rod in my vest counteracted the air in my lungs and kept me pinned to the bottom. I pressed my face to the wall and peered out. Whump! Whump!

Tables had turned. It was no longer the Outlaw on trial and facing judgement; it was the Chemist. He fumed and stalked back and forth, aware billions were witnessing him slowly execute an innocent man. He’d desired combat, not sacrifice. But what could he do? He was stuck. Martin knew this constituted catastrophe. The world had been scared of him. This would change everything. Now they’d hate him.

Sixty seconds passed. My blood flowed freely without any strain yet. He’d fallen silent and motionless, all his bluster and pride exhausted. As my death neared, his shoulders slumped further.

He collapsed onto the pool floor and pressed his forehead to the tank wall, exactly mirroring me. He spoke. I couldn’t hear him. Must be whispering. But I could read his lips.

Why?

Why do you do this?

I don’t understand.

I wept loudly. Painful sobs tightening my whole body in iterations. My driver heard the noise and pulled over. I told him to leave me alone.

PuckDaddy cries alone!

I couldn’t stop staring at the screen. Chase sat in that awful chamber, his head angled down, arms across his midsection, eyes half-closed. He’d been in there two minutes! Was he already dead? The Chemist sat across from Chase. Taunting him? Maybe. The camera mics picked up indecipherable whispers. This didn’t look good for him. This was a PR nightmare.

Can’t do it. I can’t launch the rockets.

I tried. I tried sixty seconds after Chase jumped in. Tried after ninety seconds. It wasn’t an electrical or mechanical malfunction. My heart couldn’t bear the responsibility. My fingers became defiant. And my brain couldn’t overcome their rebellion.

I refused to turn off the monitor. Chase wouldn’t die alone. PuckDaddy would be with the Outlaw until the end. As best he could.

On an adjacent screen, a warning light switched on. I almost didn’t notice. The HIMAR system. It was being operated.

Go ahead, Colonel Brown. Shut it off. I don’t have the fortitude to commit treason and kill my best friend. Not today.

But no. This wasn’t Colonel Brown. Who in the world…?

On the television monitor, the Chemist stood up. We could see his face for the first time. His jaw was set. His eyes glistened.

Back to the computer screen. The HIMAR system wasn’t being deactivated. Coordinates entered from a third party, a remote log-in. Like me. That could only be… A firing code entered! My eyes widened in surprise.

Three hundred miles away, at Los Alamitos, the night would be shattering with light and fire. The heavy truck recoiling against solid fuel ignitions as its payload, guided projectiles, screamed off into the Los Angeles night.

A dozen Successful Launch messages appeared on my screen. Rockets inflight.

I verified their target; Wilshire Tower.

Chase.

At the foundation of my awareness , some subconscious clock informed me that two minutes had passed. My lungs hurt now. Instead of too little air, I felt like I had too much. My lungs threatened to burst. Increasingly hard to fight instincts to breathe, to surface and inhale.

My vision swam. The Chemist became harder to hold in focus. He’d been whispering forever. For my whole life. The man across was crushed. Utterly defeated. He’d aged twenty years.

Stop, he whispered.

Stop this.

Please come out of there.

Please.

…

No more.

Okay.

Okay. I get it.

You win.

You win.

I struggled to make sense of this. My eyes had been partially closed, zeroed on his lips. I glanced upwards to his eyes. He nodded and smiled grimly. A man who’d made a decision. A flood of information passed in that instant. He couldn’t win. Couldn’t let me die. He knew it. He would surrender. And he appeared relieved to admit defeat.

He stood. Readjusted his grip on the staff. He was going to shatter the tank!

I pushed away from the slippery wall with limbs barely responsive. All clarity from the outside world washed away. He melted into a watery blur.

My back against the far wall, I waited for the crash. Lungs aflame.

Beyond the arc of my aquarium, now twenty-four inches distant, something happened. Blurs flashed. Faint noise. No crash.

Realization dawned; a scenario worse than any I’d dreamed up was occurring. A precise and perfect disaster.

“Nooooooooo!” I roared, a rush of bubbles, using the remnant of my oxygen.

It was not the Outlaw who drowned. It was me.

He’d been in there for almost two minutes. The second hand of my watch moved with lazy torture. I hadn’t drawn a breath since he went under. Close to collapse. Stars winked in my vision.

Voluntarily. The Outlaw
voluntarily
went in. I trembled with confusion. With despair.

Our only hope suffocated. On purpose. I was in pain from desperation. No one else could stop the Father. It had to be the Outlaw.

The Father kept whispering. I couldn’t hear it all. “Okay.” I heard that one. “Okay.”

The Father stood.

I released my air with a blast and sucked in life. A luxury the Outlaw couldn’t afford. With the fresh oxygen, my memories bore me back to the yacht again. I’d visited that memory so many times.

I had lain in the back of the yacht holding my broken shoulder while the lady drank wine and giggled. “Call me Minnie,” she’d told me. The chaos, the broken plans, the unforeseen turn of events made her drunk. She laughed for an hour after Tank Ware and Katie Lopez escaped in my own raft. She was barely coherent. “You have the disease but you’re not strong,” she chirped. “Not mentally, at least. No wonder he picks on you. He bullies you. My Martin. You’ll have to kill him, you know.” I couldn’t respond. Too much pain. Climbing back onto her boat had nearly finished me. So I laid in the sun and dried and throbbed and listened. “But you can’t. Not unless you crack his skull. By dropping a mountain on his head. Good luck with that!” she cackled.

He bullies you.

You’ll have to kill him.

By cracking his skull.

Good luck with that.

I never commanded my body to move. Way too terrified for that. My muscles moved on their own, perhaps furious with my cowardice.

The Outlaw couldn’t just
die
.

Before I knew it, I had the Father in my arms. He never saw me coming. Too surprised to resist. He was grotesquely thin, winnowed by centuries. A rebar skeleton.

He screamed and scrabbled at my hands, breaking the bones inside, but we were too close to the missing wall, to the precipice. The one side of the pool exposed to the night. I hefted the Father, Martin, the Chemist, the Scourge of the Planet, and leaped.

He fought me during the descent’s entirety. Screaming I was an idiot. That I’d made a mistake. But I didn’t care. I wasn’t Kid any longer. I’d stood up to the bully. If I died (and I probably would) I would die as something other than a coward.

Drop a mountain on his skull, she had told me. I couldn’t do that. But as it happened, he landed skull first on Figueroa Street.

Blurs wrestling.

The blurs vanished.

I knew the details without seeing them clearly.

Over the edge. Gone. In a fit of violence, which he assumed would aid me, Baby Face betrayed and murdered the Chemist. And himself. Just as the Chemist had surrendered. Just as the sacrifice won. All the evil could have been undone. All the divisions could have begun reconciliation. Now…who knew?

I felt no relief at the Chemist’s demise. Just a profound sense of loss. Of missed opportunity.

Of lightheadedness. I was near asphyxiation. Time to go.

A new face at the tank. A woman’s. I pressed near. Teresa Triplett. The reporter. An angel with a brilliant liquid nimbus. I was too numb to be shocked. She shouted something. I heard the noise and read her lips.

The button is broken! He broke the button! It won’t open!

The tank’s cap wouldn’t unlatch. The Chemist had punched it too hard. Maybe I could pop the top off. I braced my feet on the tube’s bottom and
Jumped
. No use. Not even close. I possessed zero strength. And jumping through water allowed no applied force.