Diary Of A Man-Child 29/9/2013

     After church and after dinner, it was time to head to Wal*Mart for some late-night shopping.  Right away he saw something he just had to have.  "It's a wind-up walking zombie!  Clearance for $3!"
     "No," mother said.  "Absolutely no."
     He frowned, but held on to it, just in case she changed her mind.  They walked on through the store--looking at toys, at shelving, at video games.  Eventually he gave up on the walking zombie and tossed it up onto a display chair as mother was busy looking at irons.
     They were almost done, and decided to look at backpacks; sister's had broken.  While the girls were wrapped up in school supplies, he was looking at bins of sundry when he found it: a small, shark-shaped hat for dogs.  It suddenly appeared on his head.  His giggling eventually drew a beleaguered look from mother.
     She tried to hold it in, to ignore him, but eventually had to vaguely smile along.  "That looks pretty funny."
     "I have to buy it.  I have to."  He began to dance around, jumping and twirling in the middle of the store.  Other shoppers pointedly ignored him.
     Mother continued on, winding her way slowly towards the checkout.  He danced in front of her--tapping, leaping, high-stepping, and River Dancing until they finally got into line.
     "Fine, you can buy it."
     "Eeee!"
     Even though it was late, the cashier seemed amused.  She scanned the hat, passed it back, and said, "Okay, you can put it back on."
     "Eeee!"
     The old man in line behind them was less impressed.
     As they transferred bags from the carousel into the cart, he and sister discussed Halloween ideas.  "I'm going as Skyler White for Halloween," she said.
     "You should go as something more interesting.  Hitler maybe."
     She thought about it.  "Yeah, that could work."
     "Ooo, Sexy Hitler!  Khaki mini-skirt, low-cut SS jacket..."
     "What are you going as?"  Sexy Hitler seemed to be outside her comfort-zone.
     "Hodor.  I'll wear my cloak, powder my face...  Ooo, Sexy Hodor!  Shave my legs, powder them--"
     "We're leaving," mother said.  And so they did.
     Once they were in the car, mother retracted the sun roof, and he decided it would be a good idea to stand, shark-hat flapping in the breeze, waving at people as they drove past.  Those who saw were amused.  Most waved, some honked.  Then they were home, and their adventure ended.

Diary Of A Man-Child 27/9/13

     The day started off slow.  He was supposed to be meeting with a writer who was looking for a filmmaker, and had been texting back and forth to establish a meeting.

Ever been to starship its close to the circle theater

No, but I can probably find it.  Do you know the address?

1241 s louis

Its between 11th n 15th

     It had been a long day, and he was bored.  He was looking forward to the meeting; he wanted to work on some kind of film production.  Still though, he was bored, and ready to have some fun with this total stranger.

At 6:40, order a beverage, then get a table facing away from the door.  I will be wearing a blue shirt.  At 6:45 I will sit down behind you and pass you the briefcase   DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT.  Finish your beverage, then leave.  You will be contacted within 48 hours.

     There, that should be good.  Time to pick up sister.

     On the way home from her school, he told her about the last message.

     "What are you going to do if he responds?"she asked.

     He shrugged.  "Three options.  'Oops, wrong number.'  'Sorry, someone stole my phone.'  Or: 'Those are the conditions.  Don't contact the police.'"

     "You should go with option two."

     "Nah; I'll go with number 3.  Freak him out."

     Back at home he was upstairs, fixing sister's computer.  Every few minutes he would catch movement out the window.  He began deleting a program, then waited... waited... waited.  God, the computer was slow.  He looked out the window again, saw movement.  Construction workers on the strip-mall across the street.  Hmmm...  Outside the window, the balcony.  He had an idea.

     He turned to sister.  "Grab a blanket, hang it over the railing; I'll be right back."  He ran to his room, grabbed a puppet, and returned to her room, flopping to the ground.  He crawled out onto the porch, slowly raised the puppet, and began yelling, "Hey!  Hey everybody!  Hi, hello!  How are you?  What's up?"

     Sister was laughing.  "They see you!  Oh, my gosh, they're just staring at you!"

     "As soon as I get out off the porch, close the curtain."  He backed out, she closed it.  They laughed.

     Then his phone beeped.

What is someone sees the exchange?  Do we silence them?  Bribe them?  Flee?

     He smiled; this could work.
     So, he went to the meeting.  It went well.  They stood in the middle of a record store, discussing writing, music, drugs and... that was about it really.  An hour later, it was time to leave.
     On the way out, the owner yelled, "Hey!  We rent space here!  That'll be $20."  Yes, definitely time to leave.
     On the way home, he got a text.

Hey its dylan

     He didn't know a Dylan...  Time for a bit of fun.

Hello

Whats up

Is this my future gf

Nope, this is Hez.

who is hez

I'm a novelist/filmmaker.  Who are you trying to reach?

You gave .me your number on fb

So

What is the name of the person you're trying to reach?

Nothing bye

     Good, he seemed to finally get the hint.  He stopped off at a store, went inside to pick up snacks for his sister's sleepover.  He had gotten almost everything when his phone beeped.

Do you rememver me

I'm pretty sure I'm not who you think I am.

     And that's the last he heard from Dylan that night.

E.H.U.D.: Part II: Entropy

A compendium of the chapter comprising the second part of E.H.U.D.: Prelude to Apocalypse.
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23

Diary Of A Man-Child 16/9/13

     There were big plans for today.  He was going to wake up, take his sister to the bus, then walk on to the gym.  Work out, come home, get things done, work out.  It didn't work out.
     He woke up at ten, used the bathroom, and was finally ready at 11:30.  "Lunch time," he thought.  Lunch, an episode of Doctor Who, 12:30.  Still time for the gym.
     A mile into the two mile walk and he was ready to go home.  He had made some effort towards working out; the gym could come tomorrow.  Besides, mother had chores for him; he needed to get them done before picking up sister.
     Back at home he gathered the bed-liner for his truck, dragged it out of the garage, and was just about ready to drive to the carwash when he made a shocking discovery: there was a recliner in the back of his car.  At that moment, he realized he wouldn't be getting anything done today.
     The bed-liner went back into the garage, he went into the truck, and then on to Wal*Mart.  Two weeks now, he had been struggling; two weeks the cookie dough had called his name.
     Back at home; watching TV, eating the entire tube of sweet, sweet salmonela risk...
     3:45.  Time to pick up sister.  He went to the school, all three hundred pounds of beard and sleep pants, and tried his hardest not to look creepy.  At 4:00, he called mother.  "Yeah, is there a bail-time?  Can I just go home and she can make it back on her own?"
     "You're not supposed to pick her up today; she has piano.  We told you last night."
     Back at home, watching TV, regretting the cookie dough...

E.H.U.D.: Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Rachel sat in a cold grey conference room in the cold grey airport.  At least, she assumed the airport was grey.  She hadn't seen much beyond the terminal, hadn't been outside at all.  It was cold.  And now it was getting late, and nothing at all had been decided.

She looked at her allies: a group of six other passengers, each from a different flight, that had been selected to represent all the stranded passengers.  At least three of them were lawyers, but she couldn't remember which ones: everyone looked frumpy and unwashed.  They had been in here for over five hours, arguing.

They argued with the people from the airline: One vice president, two customer care specialists, two lawyers.  The lawyers she could identify from the suits they wore.  The rest...  she didn't even care who they were anymore.

One of the lawyers was talking, exhaustion evident in her voice.  “Again, we are in no way liable for this situation.  This was a government mandated grounding.  We sympathize with you, and will of course help to arrange lodging or other forms of transport, but we cannot and will not provide financial recompense for costs incurred during this layover.”

One of Rachel's allies answered; probably a lawyer.  “As this is a federally mandated grounding, then I am sure the federal government will reimburse you for any costs incurred while assisting us.”

God, were politics always this boring?  The news made it seem so simple, Mom's rallies made it seem so exciting.  Negotiating was just...  She didn't know how much more she could take.

Someone else had the same idea she did.  “Look, let's just table this tonight, figure it out—”

“We can't!  If we stop here, everyone's going to have to find hotels, with no idea of who's going to pay!”

The mobile in Rachel's pocket buzzed, and she straightened in her chair.

An enemy lawyer noticed the movement.  “Yes, Ms. Donalson, do you have any ideas you'd wish to contribute?”

“Little compromise on the last point raised.  Fifteen minute break?”

There was a moment of silence, then a babble of assent.  They all stood, chairs scraping, and walked stiff-legged out of the room.

Rachel remained seated and dug out her mobile.

There was a message from Tisha:  Rach - - check the news!

Rachel rubbed her forehead.  She didn't need any more on her mind right now.  Still, if Tisha thought it was important enough to message so late...  She opened a browser, began flicking through the news feed.  Almost at once she saw the name: John Donalson.  Click, open story.  An old photo, John looking younger, with hair.  The story...

Cyd was right.  After months of yelling it on the street corners, it seemed the homeless woman had correctly identified a Defender.  After displaying his powers, Donalson was invited to join President Latterndale for a summit on international/Defender relations.  Then, a force of U.S. soldiers ambushed and killed the erstwhile Defender.  The battle, short and brutal, had claimed the lives of at least ten soldiers, as well as over a hundred civilians who were caught in a building set alight by a downed chopper.

Rachel gasped and slumped back into her seat.  It had to be a joke, it couldn't be real—she clicked a link at the bottom, found a response video, listened as Senator Terstein's voice sprang into life.

“The time for action is now!  Even as protection and goodwill were offered to this young man, our military has struck him down!  So far, every Defender to pop up has been struck down, and I am forced to ask our president, 'Why, Edgar?

“What aren't you telling us, Mr. President?  I am beyond the point of giving you the benefit of the doubt, and so too, I hope, is America.  Where are you?  Step forward and set the record straight!”

Another link, another.  Riots in major cities, raids on army bases, more members of the LCR springing up all over southern California.

More links, international responses.  Iranian Ambassador Ahmad Mokri, denouncing America as a rogue state, advising all nuclear states to prepare themselves for possible hostilities. 

More links, NORAD readying anti-missile countermeasures, more links—

It was all Rachel could do to keep from crying.  John was gone... 

As the door to the conference room opened, as people returned, Rachel felt tears begin to streak her face.

Darkness engulfed Philadelphia.  Beyond the light of Sky Crest, blackness extended into infinity.  There were occasional sparks of gunfire, brief flares of stars exploding into existence, then fading away into nothingness.

Indistinct movement passed over the gunfire, and Amanda Latterndale shifted her focus, took in her own reflection in the glass wall that curved overhead.  She could see the penthouse behind her, open wood floor for twenty feet, then continuing under the steel loft of the floor above.  Ethan sat in the small living area in one corner, playing with his one legged Gigawatt toy.

Movement again.  An aid, up a flight of stairs to where Mistlethwakey stood in conference with several soldiers.  The aid pushed in close, said something to the General, waited for a response, then returned the way he had come.  Minutes passed, the General dismissed his entourage, then descended the stairs and came to a stop next to Amanda.

“It's kind of beautiful, don't you think?” he asked in a somber tone.

“In a rather perverse way, yes.  Did the messenger bear bad news?”

Mistlethwakey ran his hand through his hair, shaking his head.  “Just an update on Norgent.  It looks like he's going to be okay.”  He dropped his hands, then fell silent.

Amanda glanced at him.  “Something on your mind?”

“Just...” he gestured back at the few soldiers who continued to mill around upstairs.  “They're so damn concerned with what's happening outside, they're not seeing the bigger picture.”

“Which is?”

“We're on the edge of nuclear war.”

Amanda let that sink in, ground her teeth.  “They're really that afraid of what the Defenders will do?”

“The Defenders?”  Mistlethwakey shook his head.  “For once, this isn't all about them.  We're a nuclear power, with an absentee president, terrorist groups in control of our biggest airport, rioting in all our major cities, and politicians very publicly calling for armed revolt.  Most in the last four hours, I might add.  We're the very definition of an unstable state.”

Amanda sighed.  “And Ed assured me we'd be safe here...”

The General turned and appraised her.  “He was absolutely right; this is the safest place on the goddamn planet.  It'd survive the end of the world.”

She smiled.  “You know something I don't?”

He nodded.  “Damn right.”  He returned to staring out the window.

She returned her attention to the reflections.  Behind her, Ethan was gripping the Gigawatt, swinging it at a small stand of army men.  The innocent play seemed so wrong in light of what was happening just outside their window.  The bigger figure would hit, the little men would fall.  How many civilians were dying out there, gunned down as they tried to break into police stations, or take over train lines? 

“Have you been speaking with Ed?”

Mistlethwakey looked up.  “Hm?  Not as such.  He's not exactly on speaking terms with me at the moment.”

“Seems a bit odd for him to name you NSA.”

He shrugged.  “I think he was trying to get me out of the way.”

“Has Ed been speaking with anyone else?”

“Ashby said he's been a little withdrawn lately...”

“Right.”  Amanda stood a little straighter, let the room blur as she focused on the eternal night outside.  “Then as far as anyone's concerned, you're speaking for him, as security adviser.  You'll get a SEAL team, infiltrate LAX, take the damn thing back.  If they fly out any planes, you shoot them down as soon as they're clear of the city.  This country's been on lockdown long enough.”

He quirked an eyebrow.  She turned for a moment to look at him, saw that he was offering no resistance, returned to her vigil.

“Once the skies are clear, you're going to get as much FEMA support flying as is humanly possible.  I know it's not your purview, but you see it gets done.  You land food and medicine in all the major cities, the ones with the worst fighting: Chicago, LA, San Antonio, New York.  You get the idea.  Pick a spot, somewhere large but defensible.  Lock it down.  Then, you start letting in anyone who wants to get away.  Make sure they don't have weapons.

“Here, you do it in Sky Crest.  I know you've got some barricades already.  Now, everything outside Kensington's a dead zone.  Hell, even Kensington.  You now have the tower, the mall, and the immediate surroundings.  Pull back the troops.  Anyone who wants can come in, but absolutely no one gets out.”

He nodded, then ran his hands through his hair again.  “You're suggesting concentration camps.”

She returned the nod.  “Hostages.  It'll mostly be women and children who come.  Safety, food, and medicine.  You said yourself we're a destabilized state.  People out there are fighting for ideals, for the future.  If you take their families, their futures, they'll have nothing to fight for.  If you take the families hostage, the men have no choice but to give up and go home.”

They stood in silence for a minute, the last few soldiers descending the stairs and making their way to the elevator.

“You realize he's not coming for you, right?”

Amanda clenched her jaw.  “How long ago did he choose the world over me?”

Mistlethwakey shook his head, shrugged.  “I don't have an exact date; it's ancient history to me.”

“Just make sure you get it done.  Then we can get back to worrying about those fucking EHUDs.”  Amanda turned from the window and stormed away.  She approached Ethan, got his attention, gathered him in an embrace.

Mistlethwakey watched in the reflection, then looked beyond the shadow world into the darkness beyond... and smiled.

Clarity...

Fisher Price presents: My First Music Video!  Yes folks, I've done a lot of filmy things, and now I've done a music video.  A friend of a friend from film school was looking for someone to tackle their cover of 'Clarity,' and I thought, why not?  Filmed in scenic (?) Riverside, California.  Best of all of this, though, I'm now a tag on someone's blog: http://trevordmerrill.tumblr.com/tagged/hezekiah-bennetts

E.H.U.D.: Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Dusk was fading into darkness when John turned a corner and saw Sky Crest rising above the skyline.  A few cars drove by, desperate to get to ground before curfew hit.  John stood for a moment, trying to focus, to feel minds around him, to distract their attention from him.  He remembered the procedure, the tried and true methods of misdirection, but there was a blockage of some kind, a disconnect that prevented him from putting action to thought.  His past life still felt... unreal.  It was as if two Johns inhabited the same body, both diverging from the car wreck.  One, awakening in a hospital, surrounded by friends and family, brought back out into the real world; the other, awakening in hell.

Gritting his teeth, John stepped out into the street, crossing behind a Humvee packed with soldiers.  As he walked he scouted out paths of escape, alternate routes into the building, into his apartment.  Worst case scenario: infiltrate the Central Maintenance Core, and take a utility elevator to his floor.

He stepped out of the street and onto the front walkway, taking in the warm brown stone underfoot, realizing with a pang of regret that this would be the last time he saw it.  Through the front doors, into the foyer, following the curving surfaces of the room to the focal point where a man stood, dark skinned in a dark suit, contrasting with the silvery steel of the inner wall.

John stopped, tried to feel the man's intentions, only read a confused hubbub from the thousands of souls overhead.

The man smiled, raised one hand in greeting.  “Mr. Donalson, hello!  Frank Norgent, State Department.” 

Take a step back, make it outside, around the east side of the building, freedom— “What can I do for you?”

Norgent dipped his head in acknowledgement.  “I'm here on behalf of President Latterndale, meeting you as a representative of an independent people group.”

“Has that gone through yet?”

“We're still working on it.”  Norgent lowered his arm.

John could finally make out a bit of this man's signal from the noise of the tower.  Not enough to find meaning in the message, only to identify the man as a distinct entity.

“And what are you going to do to me, as a representative of an independent people group?”

Norgent shrugged.  “Don't see as there's anything I can do.  You're not out beyond curfew, you're brother's car is insured, and I doubt he'd press charges, given the circumstances.  Not even trespassing on the way here.”

John felt stupid.  He wasn't thinking, wasn't acting up to his abilities even with mundane skills if they were able to track his so easily.  “So then, what do you want?”

“President Latterndale is interested in seeing peaceful international relations established with you Defenders, and as you're the first we've met who's in a...” he moved his jaw, then gestured to the air, “...reasonable state of mind, he would very much like to meet with you, see what you would like to see come out of all this.  He wants to work with the Defenders, but up until now, he hasn't had any to work with.”

There was a way out, a last little shred of the world the resurrected John held onto.  “I'm not really in the best position to be a consultant; I don't remember too much.”

Norgent nodded, relief evident on his face.  “This is a completely voluntary request.  If you don't feel the need to meet with the President, he won't force the issue, though he may try to fly out and meet with you on your own terms.”

“Where is he now?”

And just like that, Norgent was back on edge.  “I'm afraid that's privileged information.”

Now John was getting something... fear, disappointment and... hope?  Behind Norgent's walls of professional concern, of his mistrust of this Defender standing before him, was hope that John's intervention on Edgar's behalf would cause the whole world to step down.  Still, hope wasn't enough.

“How do I know you won't just kill me as soon as we're in the air?”

“Because the world has already seen you, Mr. Donalson.  Your little outburst at the car is now an internet sensation.  If you disappear now...”  He shrugged.  “Could destroy the world.”

Memories flitted by, only showing themselves for the barest of moments.  John already could destroy the world.  “I'll need to get a few things from my apartment.”

Norgent nodded, his attention shifting from the present and to the future.  “Take as much time as you need.”

John continued his march to the elevator, aware again that this would be his last time seeing this place...

Out of the elevator, down the hall, and into his sanctuary.  His tower stood in one corner.  It seemed to burn brightly in the darkness, previously unknown significance pushing to the forefront of his mind.  For the resurrected John, it had been a hobby, a private passion.  For the old John, the dead John, the tower served as his one link to sanity, the tenuous thread tying his mind together, keeping him sane until he got back to Lucy.

And now he was back, and now he wondered: why had he forgotten her?  Who had taken her?  There was still an unknown, a mist of forgetfulness around her heart-shaped face. 

Bypass the tower; its purpose had been served.  Circle the apartment, gather a bag of essentials: three shirts, two pants, a week's worth of socks and underwear, toothbrush.

And now he was back at the door, staring around at his life, the one he had fought through hell and back to get to.  The realization that it had all ended months—years—ago, that it had been nothing more than an illusion, brought the final dissolution of resurrected John's walls of normalcy.  The new memories were still there, but the old ones were forcing their way to the surface.  The dead John turned his back on the apartment, his second life becoming nothing more than a brief diversion from the one life he had always lived. 

A brief sojourn in the lobby, then Donalson and Norgent were back in the elevator.  They exited on the fourth floor, wound their way through a huge laundry room, and towards a door in the outer wall.  They pushed through, and John found himself in the freezing night air, standing on a mesh-work balcony.  It narrowed into a catwalk extending over the roof of the adjoining mall, ending in the bloated insect form of a passenger helicopter perched on the building's helipad.

John spent a moment looking around, seeing the illumination that spilled from Sky Crest, contrasting it with the utter darkness of the city beyond.  It could almost be a metaphor for his life right now, he thought, then rejected the notion.  Sky Crest had proven to be nothing but a fantasy.  He nodded to Norgent, and the they stepped out over the mall's roof, drifts of snow creating stormy whitecaps on the sea of glass.

The helicopter, rotors spinning up, was surrounded by a cadre of EHUD clad soldiers.  Seeing them jogged something in John's memory, and he turned to Norgent.  “I assume it's okay if I keep in contact with my family?”

“So long as you don't call during takeoffs and landings.”

“And my friend, Alice, who was in the car, what happened to her?”

Norgent chewed his lip for a moment, then shrugged.  “The reports mentioned a woman, aside from Cyd, but honestly, she was kind of forgotten.”

“What about Cyd?”

“We obviously wish to speak to her, but as soon as you left, she disappeared.  Seems she wasn't so crazy after all.”

John nodded in confirmation.  “She was always pretty level-headed.  I'm assuming it was all just an act.  Or... maybe something went wrong when they scrubbed her.”  John shuddered at the thought.  What mental ramifications were there to erasing a decade of someone's personal experience?  And who's to say all the Defender were released as found, as John was...  Can't think of that, not yet.

The rotors were overhead now, and they were walking between the EHUDs.  Norgent stepped up onto a small boarding ladder, then gestured to John and the soldiers.  “All aboard, folk.”

John stepped forward, but the soldiers remained motionless.  John's hand reached out to grab onto the stair rail for balance, and one of the soldiers moved, an arm swinging up to bring an assault rifle to bear.  A crack of gunfire, and Norgent was laying inside the helicopter, gasping.

Old reflexes acted, and John tried to throw himself to the catwalk, but found himself unable to move. 

The soldier dropped his rifle and stepped towards John.  The other soldiers remained motionless.  The soldier raised his hands, brought them down holding his helmet, and there stood Shaun, his face split in a wide grin.

“Goddamn, Donalson, didn't think I'd get the chance to see you off.  So glad you called.”

The mist of forgetfulness dissipated, and there stood Lucy, bright and present in John's mind.  Another mind intruded onto the memory, the hope of the future.

“You're never going to get back to her, you know that.”

John lay, gasping and naked, on the rough floor.

“I'm not too happy with what you did last week.  Fucked up a lot of well-laid plans.”

John swished saliva in his mouth, then spit blood onto the floor.  Shaun crouched down in front of him, his uniform baggy on his thin frame. 

“You listening?  I want you to think about her now, remember her as much as you can.  Cause after this... she's gone.  I told you I'd do it, too.  You fuck around with me, I'll fuck around with you.”  He paused, smiled.  “Then I'll fuck around with her.”

John began to breath heavily, anger boiling inside him, his starved body unable to do anything about it.  He tried to hold Lucy in his mind, to remember her, to know he could get back to her—

Get back to who?  There was someone John was supposed to remember, someone he needed to remember... but now there was just a void.

“Itches, doesn't it, knowing you know she's there but not... quite... able... to put your finger on it.”  He prodded John in the head.

Her.  A woman...  His mother?  No.  Suzanne?  As much as he wanted it to be otherwise, she was dead.  Alice? 

“Her name's Lucy.”

John jerked away from the finger, the woman reappearing in his mind, forgotten memories resurfacing—and vanishing.

“Nope, can't have you remembering her.  Hell, can't even let you know she's missing...” 

Darkness enveloped the form of Lucy, cut off her smiling face...  And now she's gone, buddy...

 And now she was back.  Now Shaun was back, smiling out of the carapace of an EHUD in the cold November wind.

Nothing for it, then; the President would just have to reschedule.  John pulled his focus inward, built, released.  Shaun twisted backwards, his armor shifting and hardening to hold him semi-upright.  John dropped his travel bag, gripped the railing of the catwalk, and jumped backwards, falling to the roof below.

He hit the roof, rolled, began to run.  Behind him the rotors whined faster, booted feet clumped over mesh, Norgent grunted and cursed as he thudded down onto the helipad.

Over the other noise, Shaun could be heard whooping in excitement.

Blue light filtered up through the glass, pulling John's attention downwards.  The mall was deserted, its arterial chasms undulating beneath him.  He had to fight off the feeling that he was suspended over a pit, about to fall.  Focus, think of those old cartoons—as long as he kept moving, he wouldn't fall.  Well, that and the inch thick acrylic glass. 

Several thudding vibrations passed through the roof, and John felt an unsettling ripple that threatened to knock him off balance.  He looked back and saw a trio of armored troops running across the glass towards him.

He picked up his pace, hoping to get to street level, to a hiding place, before the soldiers got him.  In theory, they weren't a threat on their own.  Get them far enough away from Shaun, and they were just a bunch of confused kids with no idea of where they were or how they had gotten there.  Still, better safe than sorry: they had arms and armor.  John had almost no control of his powers.

There was a groan of metal, and then the helicopter's deafening whine shifted in pitch, began to move closer.  Shaun wasn't going for subtlety. 

Why, John thought, why didn't Shaun just give him another push, another scrub?  Then John would have been out of his life forever, none the wiser about Lucy's existence.  The last four months must have been far more real for Shaun than they had become to John.

The helicopter whined closer.

Time to run.  The edge of the roof seemed to jump forward as his speed increased.  His pants tangled with his legs as they pumped harder and farther than seemed physically possible.  They were starting to cramp...

Ripples propagated through the glass, diminishing in intensity, telling John his pursuers were falling behind.  That gave him what, a matter of seconds to decide how to get down from here?

Can't think of that; can't think.  Old training was making its way back into his mind, unknown possibilities returning to their rightful place as second nature.  Let them return, float away on them...  conscious thought sank away until John was nothing more than a blank sensory receptor, left bobbing on the surface of the world, trailing a bundle of combat reflexes.  Now, up on the edge ledge, seeing the ground, guesstimating the distance, feeling the wind shift as the chopper ascended.

Down, tucked into a ball, one level, two, three.  Balls of the feet, forward, left shoulder, jacket catching on the cement, rolling out of it, left shoulder again, shirt ripping, skin coming away, back to the feet, up, running, every joint sore.

The plaza on this side of the mall was bright, the harsh blue halogen lamps illuminating a small band of National Guard soldiers.  Some must have seen John's leap of faith; they were starting to stream towards where he had landed.  A moment later they were pointing, open mouthed, and John knew his pursuers were still following.

Likely, they didn't tuck and roll.  Likely, they came down hard, like children jumping a flight of stairs, standing still for a moment as the armor dealt with their kinetic force, then starting forward, continuing their pursuit.

Beyond the ring of light now.  Here, the city was dead. 

A wavering cluster of lights appeared in the distance, and John veered towards the subliminal warmth and safety it represented. 

Blood was now beginning to dry on his shoulders, tearing his skin even more as the remains of his shirt, now a massive scab, shifted with his movements.  He shucked it off over his head, held back a pained yell, and ran on, too stunned to register the cold.

When the cold finally worked its way into his awareness, when he felt it stab into his bare arms, he found himself lying on the ground, steam pouring from his blueish lips as he twisted around, trying not to freeze to the metal floor.

 “Got to be ready for any conditions.”  Shaun stood above him, dressed in a thick parka and rugged-looking boots.  God, those boots.  What John wouldn't give for a pair of good boots...

“Never know where we'll send you...”  He was probably insinuating St. Petersburg, Murmansk, Helsinki, somewhere truly cold, not running Philly in khakis and an undershirt...

Sudden blinding light pulled John from the memory.  A spotlight turned on overhead, bobbing and moving with him, definitely from a helicopter...  The pitch of the engines was wrong, though.  He listened for a moment, matched the sound with the engine of a small troop-transport, designed for combat-zone drops.

John fell to his left, rolling under a truck just as machine gun fire buzzed down from overhead, ripping the street apart, cutting into the truck, slicing it in half.  He continued to roll, through a snow bank, onto the sidewalk next to an alleyway.  A small jump and he was inside, in the darkness, gasping in lungfuls of chill air, his body shuddering as it dealt with the demands of actions long forgotten. 

The whine of the first helicopter joined the whir of the second, and underneath that was the stomp of boots as the pursuing soldiers stomped into view.  They made a bee line for John's hiding place. 

He was about to bolt when he heard another sound, saw another light come down the street from the direction he had been running.  A small Humvee, spotlight wielding soldier poking out of the top, careened into view, sliding on the damp asphalt as it braked.  That must have been the light John had seen earlier. 

A door swung open and a soldier leapt out, yelling and gesticulating.  He pointed to the lead EHUD soldier, then to the divided truck, then yelled something that was lost under the sound of the helicopters.  John could make out intention now, could almost pick up discreet meanings from the man's mind, felt sudden pain and betrayal as the helicopter opened fire again, reducing the soldier to a twisted pile of meat.  The light cut off as the Humvee crumpled, clearing the street of any further distractions.

Time to run.

The buildings on either side sloped together, narrowing the alley until John could sense his pursuers were in single file.  Now was as good a time as any for action.  Ideally, John would just loose the soldiers, or push inside them to kill them, but he was too out of practice, and Shaun was too strong for him now.

John halted, felt the soldiers close in behind him, leapt up, back, landed on the first soldier, the armor's broad shoulders and protective frill making a passable seat.  He hooked his foot under the soldier's rifle, kicked up, grabbed, inverted, drove the barrel down between frill and helmet, wiggled it until he felt the end pass between a confluence of plates at the top of the spine.  Normally, this place was unreachable.  From within the frill—

John stood and fired, felt the bullet rip through bone and into the chest cavity, through the torso and—  The armor did its job; the bullet did not pass.  John flipped from the still-running body, slipped in the snow, let his momentum drop him to one knee, swing around, bring the rifle to bear on the second charging soldier.  He braced the rifle, emptied the magazine, dodged just in time as the soldier passed over him, kept running, tripped over the body of its fallen comrade.  No time, deal with it later—on to number three. 

Just enough time to fall to his back, kick out and take the behemoth's momentum in his leg, roll backwards, pivot the third soldier up and over, letting him fly and fall onto his compatriots.

John continued with the roll, curled, came up on his feet, stumbled back.  He turned, ran up onto the writhing pile of EHUDs, leapt over them, came to the end of the alley.

A spotlight burst into being, and John came back to himself to realize that another drop-zone transport hovered before him.  He fell and rolled just as the spray of bullets ripped into the street.

He had just a moment to think, to focus, as the helicopter rounded on him.  As long as he was on the ground, he was vulnerable.  Against normals, he could run and hide.  Against a Defender, against one of the two men who had trained him, there was no choice but to engage.  That meant getting to the first helicopter.  That meant getting to this one.

Now... now was when he really needed some of his powers.  Falling into the empty sense, dancing with the world around him, that wasn't enough; he needed a direct effect.

Bullets exploded around him, and he jumped, dodged, and rolled until he was below his enemy.  He dropped into a crouch, focused everything down into himself until there was nothing in the world but his hips, thighs, calves.  His muscles began to pull tighter and tighter, bringing the crouch deeper, twisting the meat and sinew into something dense, solid.  And then—release.

John shot into the air, his legs streaming limp beneath him, ten feet, twenty—metal.  His torso hit the underside of the helicopter, his legs swung around the side, gave him enough momentum to flip up and sprawl out on the deck.  Bullets continued to churn out of the machine gun for another few seconds before the armored soldier manning the gun noticed his erstwhile passenger.

By then, John was up, swinging an elbow at the soldier, feeling his humerus shatter as it took the force of the impact with the helmet.  The blow wasn't enough to hurt the soldier, but it caused him to step back, walking into open air.   The soldier fell from the side of the helicopter, landing in a churned pile of asphalt and molten lead.

John lunged for the machine gun, grunted as his right arm swung limp at his side, pulled the trigger.  Compared to the pain of hitting the EHUD helmet, the gun's recoil didn't seem to have that much force.  The soldier below twitched and tried to stand as round after round after round after round rained down on him, but the heavy 50mm darts had their way.  Blue gel exploded from the dark suit visible in places beneath the armor, and the soldier died.

Two minds at the edge of John's awareness saw the blue spray in the harsh halogen light, felt a sense of invincibility draining away.  A third mind, farther out, pounced on the first two, silenced their screams of sanity, pushed them forward.

The two remaining soldiers charged out from the alleyway, only to succumb to John's endless barrage.

The third mind seethed, recalculated.  John was doing better than he expected.  Only one thing left to do...

The helicopter jerked as the pilot began to wildly swing controls.  John lurched forward, grabbed the barrel of the gun for support, screamed as the metal seared into his flesh.  He gritted his teeth and hung on, even as tears blurred his miraculously whole glasses.

A moment passed, and then the other helicopters swung into view.  The other drop-zone transport opened fire, and John hurled himself from the deck even as the helicopter began to disintegrate under a hail of bullets.

He found himself falling towards a flat, snowy roof-top, turned himself so he would come down on his right arm.  One more injury might cripple it, he was willing to risk it if his left arm was still usable for the next few minutes.

He hit.  The air was knocked out of his lungs, and he lay gasping in a snow bank, the cold wetness digging into his burned palm feeling so good.

From the street below there was a tremendous rending of metal as his helicopter, rotors still spinning, impacted parked cars and the fronts of buildings.

John tried to focus, to survive, but this had all... been... too...

He blinked, woke up, found he was still alive, still cold.  Now, he could hear fire crackling under the sound of two helicopters passing by overhead. 

Inventory, now: Legs, stretched and sore, still functioning; left arm, burned, bruised, good enough; right arm... best not to think about that.  Head?  Possibly concussed.  For the rest?  Friction burns, contusions, tears...  the looseness of his skin spoke to the sudden weight loss he had experienced over the past... five minutes?  So much fat consumed, so few calories left; he couldn't keep this up.

The remaining drop-zone transport had its machine gun readied, reloaded, aimed down at him.  John saw the gunner, felt the gunner, felt the mind riding piggy back on his nervous system, felt its attachments.  Shaun was looking through the gunner's eyes, feeling his heart race in anticipation of the kill, was about to jerk the trigger finger... but his mind lay lightly over the gunner's.  The gunner felt he had orders, was willing to fulfill them, didn't need constant hand-holding.

So John took the open hand and jerked.

Just before Shaun pulled the gunner's trigger finger, the gunner swung around, aimed at the passenger helicopter floating some hundred feet away.  And before Shaun had a chance to realize what was happening, he ordered his own death.

The gunner opened up, ripped through the other helicopter, brought it crashing down towards the roof John was on.  The tar-paper construct wasn't made to take the helicopter's weight and the great machine broke through, crashing down into hopefully abandoned apartments. 

The roof beneath him twisted and sloped down to where the helicopter was sinking out of sight, and John found himself sliding towards the still-whining fantail.  He grabbed at a pipe sticking trough the tar-paper and managed to catch himself under the armpit.

Above, the gunner stopped firing, and the still-flying helicopter waited.  Below, deep inside the building, something caught fire, and the entirety of the downed helicopter, its tail still visible, burst into flame.

As the edges of the hole in the roof caught fire, John scrambled upwards, desperate to climb out of the pit the roof had become.  He made it a few feet, managed to slide down behind an air-conditioning unit, the metal holding him away from the hell below.

Above, the gunner remained detached.

John stood, letting the canted roof support his weight, wincing as his body demanded he sit back down.  He looked over the edge of the AC unit, saw the tail of the helicopter sink into the fire...  saw an armored hand reach out of the pit, dig into the tar-paper, drag a mangled and oozing EHUD out of the hell-fire. 

Shaun dug his other hand in, the armor letting him pull his destroyed body up and to safety.

John took a moment to reach out, to take inventory of Shaun: crushed pelvis, one leg completely useless, the other almost so, back broken, one lung punctured by the long shard of metal sticking out of the armor.  So there were some things the suit couldn't survive...

Something deep inside the building shifted, and the rest of the helicopter disappeared amidst a thunderous noise.  Shaun held on, even as the roof rebounded, then returned to its slow melt.  John didn't fare as well; the sudden shift caused the AC unit to tear loose from the roof and slide down into the pit, sending John pinwheeling after it.  He managed to push against the roof, to direct his fall until he was right on top of Shaun, draped over the frill, inches from the edge.

Shaun noticed him, didn't care; the survival instinct was too strong.  He reached up, ripped through the roof, pulled, got higher.

It was too slow.  John could feel his skin hardening, splitting, burning in the intense heat.  He knew, beyond any doubt, that he would die here. 

Shaun pulled himself up another few inches.

It wasn't fair.  John had suffered for years, had fixated on Lucy as his one salvation, had finally made it back to the land of the living, only to see Shaun come out ahead after all.  It wasn't fair...  And he wasn't going to let it happen.

Shaun was too terrified, to preoccupied to notice as John's awareness pushed into his mind, spread out, began searching through memories.  Suddenly, amidst the flames, Shaun was five years old, was in his backyard, mud splattered on his overalls, his conical hat askew as a puppy leapt up and knocked him to the ground, licking him.  Behind him, he could hear his parents laughing.  Then the moist tongue was gone, the dog was pulled away, the next eight years of happy memories faded away until... he was alone, friendless.

John smiled.  On to the next one.

Shaun reached up, flames wrapping around his glove, grabbed onto the breast of the teenage girl straddling him.  She rocked forward and back, shaking him, shaking the whole bed.  Fourteen year-old Shaun grunted, convulsed, shivered in the sudden coldness of his empty room, the girl forever gone, the next three years of their romance disappearing in rapid succession.  

Now Shaun was beginning to notice, to sense the alien mind, to see what it had taken.  He tried for a moment to push back, felt the tar-paper beneath his fingers sag under his weight, pulled himself further up.

John continued to pour through Shaun's mind, to take moments of happiness, of victory, and pull them away.  Soon, Shaun's life was nothing more than a continuing string of disappointments, an empty childhood followed by a lonely adolescence followed by a lackluster military career followed by a dull retirement.

Still, there was promise in the future.  Shaun pulled again, felt himself rise higher.  The flames still lapped around him, still burned the thing that lay slung over his back, but there was black sky overhead, a chance at survival, at redemption.

John began to sift through his own memories, to push them onto Shaun, to imbue him with sudden imprisonment, with years of dehumanizing torture, with pain, with choices that should never be made... with Suzanne...

And as Shaun continued to climb, as John continued to push, he found his actions moving in time with Shaun's—a memory for another handhold, a remembered defeat for another inch towards freedom above.  And then John found all his pain, all his hatred, all his years as a Defender, inside Shaun. 

John raised his gloved, hand, pulled, gripped again.  Yet he still felt the burning, the pain of the shattered right arm...

He expanded his consciousness, found Shaun clinging to a few small memories, to the happiness of the last year, to Lucy.  Shaun was weak, tired, almost completely gone.  Another little push, and he'd be dead.  But his body...

John reeled at his discovery.  He had somehow managed to take his... his essence, his soul, and push it out of his own body and into Shaun's.  It wasn't something the Defenders had been taught, wasn't even something Allen had speculated on in his theoretical musings.  Already, the pain from the other body, the burning vestige of the John that was, had lessened.  All it would take was another small push, and John would be in a new body.  An injured body, yes, but a body in an EHUD, a body with a chance of survival.  All he needed to do was make the final push—

The building trembled, and John lost focus.  For a moment he swept out of Shaun's body, felt the enormity of the cosmos around him, glimpsed into the void of death—and then returned to his own body.  He gasped at the pain that had been building while he was gone, ignored it, focused back on Shaun. 

In the instant since John had left his body, Shaun was reasserting himself, gathering what memories he could, returning to his struggle to make it to the top.

No.  It would not end this way.

John pushed again, felt himself slip into Shaun's resistant mind—

The building trembled again.  The roof creaked, thundered, collapsed.  The whole construct of tar-paper, metal and plywood sunk inwards, towards the flames.  Amidst it all were two barely human forms, silently screaming as they plummeted into hell... 

E.H.U.D.: Chapter 20

Chapter 20

General Robert Mistlethwakey stood before a barricade of concrete lane dividers and sandbags.  “This is of course merely a stop-gap measure,” he was saying.  “At this point, we're not fighting; we're trying to keep the fighting contained.  So far, this is still a police action, bolstered by deputized troops.  I, along with other ranking officers deployed with the National Guard, will be shifting our attention to the California crisis as soon as we can get the airways clear enough for us to fly.”

He smiled, then receded back into a small box floating behind the anchor's shoulder.  The anchor continued the story, but John didn't listen.  He waved the television into silence, then sat upright on the sofa and looked around the living area of his apartment.  His tower stood in the corner, the central support of a reality that had ended less than a week before.  He wanted to be at work, to continue to fine-tune his designs, to do something, but the city was still on virtual lock-down.  He and Reggie had barely made it back from the airport before the second round of rioting had commenced.

He stood and walked to the tower, felt its cold, smooth surface, then walked to the other end of the room, then back.  He felt trapped in here. 

What was Rachel doing now?  Last he had heard, she was trapped at Tulsa International Airport.  Where was Reggie doing now?  Last he had heard, he was going to the hospital; that was twelve hours ago.  Likely, he was sleeping there, getting ready for his next shift.  Likely, everyone was okay.  That didn't help John.  As much as he didn't want to admit it, he was scared. 

He returned to the couch, gestured at the television until he came to a browser, searched until he found something interesting.

Compressed footage, date-stamped from sometime early that morning.  A group of rioters, harried and half-mad from a day and two nights of guerilla combat, had ganged up on a patrol of national guards. 

The footage started down low, close to the ground, moving closer to an empty intersection.  The unseen camera operator dipped behind a newspaper dispenser, then poked the camera over the top to get a view of the side of an old brick building. 

For a few seconds there was nothing, then a group of four soldiers—three men and a woman—rounded the corner, weapons drawn but relaxed.  Most of the fighting in this neighborhood had burned out late Monday evening, so they were just patrolling, expecting no serious threat. 

As soon as the soldiers passed by the traffic signal, the camera rotated to a line of cars that had been destroyed in the riot.  Their doors were flung open and at least twenty young men and women, all dressed in "Defend the Defenders" shirts tumbled out, brandishing clubs of all varieties.  The rushed at the soldiers in a ragged line, swinging their weapons and yelling.  The soldiers held their ground, tried to speak, to reason with their attackers.

In the end, it didn't matter what the soldiers did; this group of rioters was out for blood.  They closed in and the image broke down into a swirl of arms and legs.  Moments later the combatants separated, the soldiers standing in a circle, rifles raised, one rioter on the ground, blood spreading across his shirt.  The rioters rushed again, and this time there were more shots, more people down—

John waved the video off.  It was becoming too real.  He didn't want this to become real... 

A harsh ringing from the television jerked him from his darkness, and he waved.  A click, a series of short gasps, and then a woman's voice, quiet, scared: “John?”

He leaned forward, alert.  “Alice?”

A sharp sob of relief grated through the speakers.  “Oh, God, I never thought I'd get through.   Oh, my God, I thought I'd die in here...”

“Alice what's going on?  Where are you?”

“I, uh, I—”  Her breathing was heavy, frantic.  “I've been trapped here since... since Sunday.  There was no power—the phone lines were all jammed...”

“Where are you?” John repeated.

“Cohen & Associates.  I was stuck in the riot, and—and lost my phone, and—”  She swallowed.  “I came here, and they cut the power, and the hard-lines were too busy to get through until just a while ago and—”

“Slow down, yeah?”  John rushed to his bedroom, slipped into a pair of jeans, scrabbled around for as much cash as he could find.  “Are you okay?  Hurt, need food, anything?”

“My ankle's pretty fucked up...  I've had food, though.”

“I'm going to come and get you, okay?”

“Can you?”  She sounded disbelieving, as if the thought were too much to hope for.  “I mean, can you even get through?  I have no idea what's been going on...”

John stopped short.  He didn't even know what was going on, not really.  He hadn't left his home since yesterday's second round of riots, and he had no idea if C & A's part of the city was one of the interdicted zones.

“I'm going to try, alright?  Have you called the police?”

A wild laugh.  “Yeah, that's not happening any time soon.  I got through once, after hours of calling, and all I got was a recording telling the lines were fucking busy...”

“Okay, I'll come and get you.  You have any way to tell time?  You don't hear from me in an hour, you call again, okay?”

“Yeah, okay...”

John waited for the click of disconnect, but instead all he heard was Alice's labored breathing.  “Alice?”

“Yeah?”

“I need you to hang up, Alice.”

The breathing became more intense.

“Alice...”

“Please,” she hissed.  “Please don't go.  You don't know what's been happening, what happened here...”

John swallowed.  If he was having trouble coping with reality while in the safety of his still-functioning home, what must she be going through, out there beyond any hope of reality?

“Alice, I'm coming for you.  Please, please trust me.”

The breathing continued for another minute, then ended with a click.  John breathed a sigh of relief, then left the safety of his tower's shadow.

The barricade cut across the street, a line of dusty green that killed all forward movement and left John trapped for two hours.  A small chain-link gate wrapped in razor wire swung open, a truck trundled through, and John pulled up to the edge of his world.  A soldier stepped forward, tapped on the window with his tablet.  When the window was down, he leaned forward, took a quick glance around the beige interior of the car.

“License and registration, please?”

John passed his ID out of the window.  “This is my brother's vehicle.”

The soldier nodded as he tapped at the tablet.  “He know you're borrowing it?”

“We have an agreement, yes.”

“Hmm...”  The officer returned John's license, then glanced over the car.  “Where you going?”

John tightened his grip on the steering wheel; the sudden interrogation was unnerving.  “Private matter.”

“Sorry, sir, but the city's under lock-down; you better have a damn good reason to be out and about.”

John felt reluctant to tell the soldier anything.  He had grown rather more suspicious of the military in the last few months, of their gifts, of their implied oaths of silence.  “I'm picking up a friend; she's been trapped downtown for a couple days.”

The soldier nodded, rubbing his chin.  “We'll need to search the car.  You come up clean, you're free to go.  Just make sure you get back before curfew.”  The soldier gestured at two others who stood by the gate.

“When's that?”  John bounced as the car rocked, heard the sounds of people groping around the undercarriage.

“Eight o'clock.  Be on time.”

“Got it.”

The inspection ended and John was waved through the opening gate.

Beyond the barricade, all was still.  Cars lined the road, looking pristine and untouched.  Buildings loomed overhead, the fresh corpse of a dead city.  As John drove the death became more pronounced, the rot set in.  Now, the cars were twisted at odd angles, their windows smashed, some showing signs of having been on fire.  Shops stood gutted, ragged glass standing as the only hindrance to the goods that were once inside. 

This wasn't real, couldn't be real, couldn't be the world he lived in.

And then there was Coen & Associates.  John parked in the middle of the street and stood from the car, his resolve draining away as he saw what had become of the once beautiful facade.

The first two floors were gone, nothing but steel girders and twists of wire leading into a lobby piled high with iridescent drifts of shattered glass.  Above that the glass stood erratically, jutting from a pole here, a girder there, up and up, becoming more whole as the top approached.  The sparkling, cetacean forms that had leapt from the ledges at each floor now stood stunted, sheared off, what remained stained with smoke.

John approached the building, stepping over glass floes and office equipment and human filth until he found a door leading to an emergency stairwell.  He pushed on it; it gave, but wouldn't open completely.  He dialed Alice's office number, waited, waited...

“Hello?”

“I'm at the stairs; I can't get the door open.”

“I barricaded it.  I'll be down soon.”

Minutes dragged by, then John heard something, many somethings, shifting and falling, Alice's voice cursing and crying.  More minutes dragged by, and then the door swung open. 

Alice stood in the darkness, her clothes rumpled and dirty, her right ankle swollen.  “Office chairs,” she said, her voice hoarse and barely audible.  “I threw them down the stairwell after the first group got up.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in.  “How many?”

“Three...  I... I don't know what they thought they would find here, but...  No one else got up.”

John swallowed, stepped forward, led Alice outside and into the car.  She hobbled along, gasping with every step.

“Oh, God, I can't wait to get out of here.  I assume there's somewhere better to go?”

“Yeah.”  John opened the passenger door and lowered Alice inside.  “Still have power in Sky Crest.”

She chuckled.  “You always did love Sky Crest, huh?  It's gotten you through a lot...”

Something she said clicked inside John, and he aborted his circling to the driver's side.  He opened Alice's door, leaned inside.  “I'm really sorry, but there's something I have to do.”

“What?”  Her eyes dilated in fright, and she began to shake a little.  “John, what are you doing?  Where are you going?”

“I've got to do some looting of my own.”

“John?  John—”  She continued yelling his name, her voice muffled as he closed the door and walked back to the shattered building.  It bothered him to leave her here, but there was something he needed, something that had gotten him through so much, the tower holding up what little was left of his reality. 

In through the door, up over the shifting mass of broken office furniture that littered the bottom of the stairwell.  Up seven flights of stairs, through a fire door—

The smell of human refuse and rotten meat rolled over John as soon as the door was opened.  He gagged, coughed, and looked out over the loft that had been his home away from home.  This high, the windows were still intact, but streaked with smoke.  In the light that filtered through, John saw collapsed cubicles, small barricades of desks and computers.  In a pile under the half-floor of offices hanging overhead were three bodies, each crushed under a small piece of furniture. 

Alice was right; he didn't know what had happened here.

He sidestepped the bodies, made his way to the narrow hallway at the far end of the loft, and pushed open a door that led into darkness.  A moment later his mobile illuminated a small room filled with wires and short, rounded plastic towers.  Each was labeled, Work Group A through D, with a series of names below the initial designation.  He found his name, Work Group C, and disconnected the wires that held the tower in place.

As he left the loft, left the remains of Alice's brush with madness, he smiled, secure in the knowledge that the tower, his tower was now firmly in his hands.  All his plans, every detail of construction and material, was his for the taking.  Now all he needed was an underwriter.

Downstairs, Alice sat hunched in the car, glaring murder at John.  He deposited his bundle in the back seat, then slid into the driver's seat and started the car.

“That's what was so fucking important?”

Her tone cut at him, made him regret what he had done.  She had been through so much in the past two days, and all she wanted was to be home...

But what about me, what about John?  He had been through worse, had lost ten years of his life, had been dead.  All he had to show for his life, for his second chance, was stored in the foot-and-a-half of plastic in the back seat.  The ten minutes it took to retrieve his legacy hadn't hurt Alice.

“What happened up there?”

Alice looked down at her lap.  “They just... came up and were just going to wait it out, like me, just set up camp in the middle while I was up above.  Then I heard them talking, heard what they were planning to do on Monday, when things had died down a bit and... and I...”  she fell silent, chewed at her nails.  “After that I barricaded the stairs.  Did you know the water fountain doesn't work with no power?”    

John shook his head and turned the car around, avoiding the piles of glass.  “Power's out in most of the town.  Kensington's pretty much the hub of civilization here in the south.  We've got power in Sky Crest; you can stay there a few days if you want.”

Alice nodded, then sniffled.  She was already relaxing, slumping down in the seat, putting her ordeal behind her. 

A car turned onto the road ahead of them, and John followed it for a mile before two other cars joined them.  Another two miles, and seven cars were lined up at the barricade. 

John put the car in park and adjusted the heater. 

Alice was tensing, grinding her teeth.

“National Guard barricade; they set it up yesterday.  There's one here, and another couple around Penn Square.  They're trying to keep most of the rioters contained southeast.”

Alice nodded, but she didn't seem happy about this development.

The driver at the head of the line was offering up his ID to the soldier who stepped through the gate as a small truck pulled out into no man's land.

The car rocked violently, and Alice screamed, struck out at the window.  John stared in wide-eyed confusion, saw a shape hunched on the hood in front of him.  The shape extended an arm, rapped on the windshield, and shifted to reveal the gaunt face of a small, dirty woman.  Spilling out of the layers of coats she wore was a spray of bright-red hair.

“Hiya, John!” she called through the windshield.  “Piece of fuckin' luck finding you here!”

John swallowed back a curse; he had hoped all this was behind him.

“Is that Cyd?” Alice asked.

“You know her?”

“I watch all her videos.  I just... never brought it up with you.”

Cyd knocked again.  “You're a celebrity, Johnny!”

John wrenched open the door, slid for a moment on a patch of black ice, and stood glaring at the woman on his hood.  “Cyd, this isn't funny.  I told you last time, I'm not who you think I am.”

She stood, and the stink of smoke and stale urine waved over John.  If anything, it smelled worse than Cohen's building...  “Sure you are, sure you are!  You can't leave me hanging here, John, you see what I've become!”

The soldier at the head of the line had become aware of the commotion, and had waved at two others to join him.

John clenched his fists.  “Just what the hell do you want from me, huh?”

“Lead us, John!  Allen picked you, knew you were the only one who'd get the Q-bomb!”  

“The fuck are you talking about?”

Cyd began to bounce, rocking the car.  Inside, Alice gasped, looked nauseous, nervous, ready to scream.

“Cyd, get off the car.”

“Nuh-uh!

The soldiers were approaching now.

“Cyd, off.”

“Not 'till you agree to help!  Maria fucked up something awesome, huh?”

“Cyd.”

“Nope.”

“Cyd.”

Cyd laughed, continued to bounce.  The soldiers were only two cars away now.  John didn't want this.  He just wanted to be back in the tower, his tower, the place he was safe, where Alice could be safe, where he could pretend his life was the same as it had been a year—a decade—ago.

“Cyd.”

“Not until you say please!”

“CYD!”

The soldiers stopped short, too socked to ready their weapons.  Alice, on the verge of a panic attack, stared blankly at the dashboard.  Cyd's face peered up from the far side of the car, shattered windshield sparkling in her hair.

There was a moment of total silence as John stood, staring at the gently rocking car, its shattered windows tinkling out onto the icy streets, the shards of glass adding their iridescence to the thin snow.

Cyd's low, throaty chuckle echoed off the empty buildings lining the streets, and the world collapsed back into sharp focus for John.  He saw Cyd, not as she was, but how she once had been, tall and naked and glowing with a fierce pride.  Saw her as she joined with him, with Allen, in overrunning the guards, making a break for the door, for escape—

The lead soldier yelled, raised his carbine, fired.  Alice screamed, kicked open her door, fell into the street.  John grunted, clutched his left arm, looked down to see a small white beanbag stark against the blacktop.

He knew it wouldn't hurt him, knew his jacket had padded him enough that there likely wouldn't even be a bruise.  He knew too how many rounds the soldiers had left, what their standard protocol would be from here on out, what the likelihood of them panicking and ignoring protocol was.

He blinked, fought down the torrent of memories that was flooding into him, the half-remembered reflexes that were urging him to action.  One reflex, an instinct even deeper than his training, finally brought him to action: he ran.

Around the car, past Alice, stumbling towards an abandoned truck, out of range of the soldiers.  He was two blocks away now, coming across another barricade, this one with no gate.  He continued on, his body demanding more and more breath until he collapsed, gasping, into a drift of snow in an abandoned alley.  His legs twitched, cramped, finally lay still.

He sat up and pushed himself into the wind shadow of a dumpster, tried to bring his memories under control.  He was upside-down, surrounded by a galaxy of glass, saw the road coming at him—awake now, in the dark, naked, cold.  Someone was beside him, he saw her, held her—she was gone now, but he wasn't alone, was surrounded by others like himself, the children of Allen.

And there she was, his strength, the woman he had vowed to get back to, the woman he loved and needed to survive here: Lucy.

He fumbled in his jacket, surprised he had it, found his mobile, scrolled through until he found her name.

Three rings, click.

“Lucy!”

“Who is this?” a man's voice answered.

John cursed; Shaun had answered.  “I need to talk to Lucy.”

“Who is this?  Is this John?”

“Let me talk to her!”

A moment of indecision then, “Lu.  It's for you.”

“Hello?”  She sounded tired.

“Lucy!”  He felt elated, relieved beyond measure.  “Oh, God, Lucy, it wasn't the wreck, I didn't forget you, I always remembered—”

“John?  What the hell are you—”

“It wasn't brain damage!  I didn't forget you; someone took you from me!  I remember everything, Lucy, or most of it or—I'm a goddamned Defender, Lucy, and someone took you out of my mind, made me forget you, and my decade, and made me think I was in a coma, and, and...”  He was pating, drifting in and out of reality; there were no walls now.  Was he talking with Lucy?  Was she really there this time?  Or was it Suzanne, was he telling her about Lucy, or—No, Suzanne was dead, he couldn't forget that, could never forget that.  But he had forgotten Lucy, hadn't he?  How could he have forgotten her for all these years—

“John.”

He was sitting behind a dumpster, his left biceps throbbing, his jeans soaked in snow.  Lucy was talking.

“John, I don't know if this is some kind of sick joke, but I don't need you dredging up the past.  I'm happy with Shaun now, I don't need you.”

“Shaun?  Wha—no one was talking about Shaun!  Lucy, this is about us, about a second chance.  I remember us now—”

“I'm happy with Shaun.”  Her voice was strained, distant.  “Goodbye.  Don't call again.”

Click, and the call was over.  John sat in the snow, felt the cold creeping in on his limbs, felt the fire raging in his lungs, in his heart, dying down.  He struggled to his feet, got his bearing, and trudged off in the snow, towards Sky Crest.  He was only peripherally aware of his destination, only vaguely felt the pull of his tower.  As he walked his mind swirled, a decade of forgotten memories fighting for their moment in the sun, fighting to be remembered...

   The human leg was a many splendored thing.  Edgar rested on a colossal metal beam, looking out at the endless bridge of crystalline bone stretching off into the red-black void.  He drifted from his perch, found a place where the brown crystal had sheared apart, opening a crevasse that stretched down to the marrow.  He stroked the end of the crystal, reached out and caught a globule of plasma, ripped the sugars from it, pressed it to the crystal, willed it to grow—

A high-pitched whine shivered through the superstructure, reverberated up the small metal pin, brought a slight ache to Edgar's shattered knee, and caused Edgar to shift in his wheelchair and look around.

He was in a large bedroom, decorated to look like the official bedroom he now doubted he would ever sleep in.  His leg was propped up before him, white cast wrapped in a blue support.  It wasn't going anywhere soon.

The whining continued, and Edgar realized it was the intercom hailing him.  He pushed a button on his wheelchair, and the whine stopped.  “Fuck off!” he shouted.

He waited a moment, heard no response, and grunted in satisfaction.  It had taken him twenty minutes to get his mind down and into the minutia of his damaged leg; he didn't need any further distractions. 

Back to it... Breathe out, relax, settle back into the seat... disconnect, feel the room around him, his body as a separate entity... feel the heat, the inflammation of the torn tissue around the surgical pins, the patella sewn together with wire, the bone straining out to reform itself in its intended shape.  Scattered about the smooth plate were small protuberances, shafts of bone that had grown too quickly, too poorly, experiments by an untrained god in the arts of healing.  It was a good thing Frease knew the secret; the bizarre spurs would worry any other doctor.

Edgar finally found the site of his last awkward fumble, found the crystal that had begun to swell in his moments of distraction, pulling sugars and minerals haphazardly from the surrounding fluids.  Edgar touched the spot, found the life growing in it, killed it, watched as the new growth crumbled away.  Without his constant attention, growth that fast could become cancerous. 

He had just gathered the scattered minerals, had just begun to sculpt them back into new growth when movement pulled at his attention.

Focus returned to his eyes just in time to see the double doors leading into the room burst open, and the small form of Joan Ashby storming in.

She stopped just inside the room, looked over the shriveled, robe wrapped form slouched in the chair.  “Well, at least you're wearing clothes.”

Edgar straightened, tried to look presentable.  “Leave me alone!”

“Hey!”  Ashby clapped her hands and stalked forward.  “I don't give a damn about your personal life, or your injuries, and I know for a fact you're not on any pain medication right now, so don't try to act wasted!  You are the president sir, and the country is going to hell out there!  Focus.  You have a job to do.  Everything else, I've been more than happy to delegate, but you need to listen to this.”

Edgar looked away from her, slumped sideways, tried to focus all his attention on the carpet.  He didn't want to be president anymore, had more important things on his mind.

“We've found a Defender sir.”

He trembled, and glanced sidelong at Ashby.

“In Philadelphia, a Defender just used his powers in front of a National Guard blockade.  As far as we can tell, he didn't injure anyone.  More importantly, he's alive, he's been identified, and we know where he's going.”

Edgar lifted his eyes to Ashby, the rest of him following as he straightened.  “Who?  Where?”

“John Donalson.  He's heading toward his home; Sky Crest apartments.”

Edgar swallowed, then ground his teeth.  Donalson: Allen's hand-picked successor, the one he had entrusted with carrying on the Q-Bomb, just before he was executed.  The thought of Donalson out on the streets, rogue and with full powerful, was terrifying.  But if he could get to Donalson, strike a deal with him...  Then all the Defenders would be on his side, or at least enough to sway the balance of power.  Then Mistlethwakey's entire mad scheme would be fulfilled, all the pointless plotting and second-guessing would be over—

Mistlethwakey.

“He lives at Sky Crest?”

Ashby nodded.

Of course he'd live at Sky Crest.  Where else would the General put such an important piece of his plan?  Edgar felt a brief stab of regret for sending Amanda and Ethan into the lion's den, then remembered that Donalson and he were on the same side.  In fact, the only possible threat towards alliance was the General himself, unless he had edited himself from the Defender's memory.  If that wasn't the case, Edgar would lose no sleep in throwing Mistlethwakey in as a bargaining chip.

“How long ago did this happen?”

“Twenty minutes.  Police and National Guard are tracking him on foot, and we have a satellite lock on his mobile.  Everyone has standing orders to hang back and observe.”

“Perfect.”  Edgar rose to stand, gasped as his leg caught on the wheelchair's supporting arm, slumped back down.  “I want someone waiting for him when he gets home, an agent we can trust, someone personable.”

“The NSA is still on site in Phil—”

“No!”

Ashby snapped her jaw shut with an audible click.

“Not... not Mistlethwakey.  I want someone a little lower-rank, a little less intimidating.  I want a helicopter standing by.  I want whoever we have there to talk to Don—to whoever the Defender is, cordially invite him to a conference with me, to advise me on the Defender situation, and to help improve relations.  This is strictly voluntary.  Hell, I'll go to him, if he wants that.” 

Ashby looked uneasy.  “Neither of those options sounds good.  This is the most dead-end hole we have, and I don't want any security breaches, especially not after what happened at Eglon.  And I definitely don't want you out and about.”

“Well, that's not really your call to make, is it, Chief of Staff?”  His smile was designed to annoy.

Ashby frowned, then nodded.  “I'll get everything ready.”  She turned on her heel and strode from the room, pulling the doors to behind her.

Edgar chuckled, then leaned back and put his hands behind his head.  He glanced down at his leg, then decided to ignore it for the time being.  If everything went well, by this time Thursday he'd have someone who could show him exactly how to fix the useless thing...