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To the Victor…
Back in the
base, HAAL had returned with Beau. “Okay, we’re
here, now tell me what the hell is going on! Is Angela
okay?” Epim
approached him from the side and spoke in her most soothing tone.
“Just a moment longer, we can’t talk here. HAAL, thank you
for your assistance. One more thing. Can you go peek
in on Danforth? Make sure she’s not after
him?” The little
robot returned to his duties as Epim led Beau to one of the interrogation
rooms. “Why are you
taking me in here?” he asked. “Because it
will be easier to talk without interruption.” She pulled
out a chair for him and they both sat down. “Tell me what
happened at the building.” Beau,
sighed. “Okay. We were at the memorial.
Angela was outside with the dogs. We heard the attack start
and she came running in. There was an announcement that all they
wanted was her, and that whoever it was was prepared to blow up the building to
get her. “We confirmed
that there was a gas leak and tried to get out the back. There
were two more big bots out there. She told me to get the people
out through the side doors while she kept the bots busy in the street.
It wasn’t a good plan, but it was about all we could
do. “She took off
to meet them, and we went out the back. I used a fire hose to try
and keep the big ones at bay, and it sort of worked. Once everyone
was on the way to the Atlas gate, I took off. She had given me the
dogs, but I passed them on to another hero that was there. I
didn’t want them around if I wasn’t able to make a difference with the hose.
“We all got
to the gate okay, but a few people had slipped or tripped. One hit
his head pretty hard. It was the guy that had the dogs.
He may have got tangled up in the leashes. He fell and hit
his head on the curb and the dogs bolted to Angela. She was
looking bad, but I knew that it was more important to her that I get everyone to
Atlas, so I went. As soon as we got to the hospital, I tried to
get in touch. What happened? Why won’t you tell me
what happened to her?” “We don’t
know. What we can put together is that the dogs rushed in to help
her, Lista had escaped and arrived about then as well.” “Lista
escaped? Is she okay?” “She’s
fine. Somehow, in the midst of the fight, all three dogs were
killed with a rifle.” “What?
NO!” Beau had leapt to his feet. “Sadly,
yes. As you can imagine, Angela took it very hard.
She barely acknowledged Lista’s return, then took off to Atlas.
We think she may be after you.” “What do you
mean by ‘after’?” “The guard
sent to kill Lista said that you were in on the plot to grab Angela.
Angela may see it that way as well. She’s really been on
edge lately, and the death of her dogs may have pushed her over it.
She may blame you for their deaths. It was your job to keep
them safe.” “That’s why I
put them in the group headed to the gate.” “I understand
that. I don’t think you were involved at all. But
Angela might. It would be best if you stayed here for now.
If she were to come after you while you were at home, you wouldn’t even
be able to scream.” Beau
collapsed back into his chair and stared at Epim. She could see
his eyelids starting to quiver. “I’ll let you be alone for a
bit. If you need anything, ask Athena.” She hadn’t
made it to the door when she heard him start sobbing. ~~~~~ After nearly
an hour of waiting, there was no sign of Mourning at the courthouse.
The Judge gave no indication that he’d been contacted in any way.
The whole thing seemed like a bust. “Okay.
Ent and Kym. I’d like you to search the rooftops in
Boomtown. The ledges on the walls too. I know she
goes there sometimes but I don’t know exactly where. Same
rules. No contact. If possible, don’t even let her
see you.” The pair
leapt into the sky and all was quiet for nearly another hour.
Ent’s voice
sounded even more unnatural over the small radio, but she had
news. “Found
her. Top of building. Back corner.
Near wall.” “On my
way. Nice going Ent. Keep an eye on her, but don’t
get too close. Kym, come back to the courthouse and keep an eye on
the two that are keeping an eye on the Judge. I’m sending Sliss
home when you get here.” The big man
pushed off of the ground and climbed to a couple hundred feet before his speed
was stopped by gravity. The boots had taken some getting used to,
but they were able to propel him great heights and allowed him to cover a lot of
ground quickly. In just about a minute he was on the war wall
beside Ent, and they were watching Mourning. “She’s just
sitting there?” “Has moved,
but not much.” “Okay, be
ready, I’m going in.” Tog made one
last jump and landed on the far side of the building from Angela.
She didn’t look up. “Hi,
Tog. May as well have Ent come on down too. No sense
in havin’ her hang out like that.” “You okay,
hon?” “No.
Not by a long shot. It’s out of my system though.
I’m not on a rampage anymore.” Her voice was
distant and held no emotion. It was like she was blandly reading
from a script to which she could not relate. Doug’s voice
was calm. He was speaking softly and with the same tenderness he
recalled from when his mother would tuck him in. “Well that’s
good. You want to talk about things?” “With Epim,
yes. Was Lista really there?” “Yes.
She escaped and came there to save you. I’m not clear on
the details.” “Was she
really naked?” “Yeah.” “Okay.
I guess that makes sense then. I was thinkin’ I imagined
it.” She turned to
face him, tears streaming down her face. He walked over to her and
held out a hand. “So this is
your spot huh?” “Yeah.
Since I could first get in here. You have
one?” “Yup.
I’ll take you there someday. If you
like.” “Yeah.
But not today.” “Yeah.
Not today. Let’s go home.” ~~~~~ Epim appeared
in Lista’s doorway and quietly checked to see if she was
sleeping. “You’re not
that quiet. What’s the news?” “They found
her and she’s on the way back. Everything’s gonna be okay with
her, in time. I’d like to talk about you for a
while.” “Really? Oh.
I get it. No I’m good.” “Lis’, you
went through a lot. You can’t keep it all bottled up
inside.” “I
didn’t. I let it out on “You sound
like textbook denial.” “Well
yeah. I’m denying anything is messed up with me. It
just happens to be true in this case. Look. I can’t explain
it. They had me in this chair, right? I was trussed
up to where I couldn’t move a bit. They had electricity and stuff
all over me. They had this shotgun-like thing that would hit me in
the stomach and back with what I’m guessing were little cloth balls dipped in
rubbing alcohol. They’d hit hard enough to break the skin, then
the alcohol would squish into the wound. The thing is, the whole
time I was in that thing, I never once lost hope. I never felt
like it was the end. “It wasn’t
until they took me out of it that I started to really feel bad.
And it wasn’t even the being alone that bothered me all that much.
It was the realization that being alone bothered me that really bothered
me.” “I don’t
follow.” “I thought I
was pretty normal. Well, once we take out the ice bolts and fire
and flying and stuff. Do you know I don’t feel pain?
I didn’t ‘til I was in that chair. I don’t feel pleasure
either.” “You mean you
tune it out?” “No.
I mean I feel the intensity of a sensation, but it’s not good or
bad. It’s not pain or pleasure. There’s no hot or
cold the way I think you know them. If there is something that’s
really cold, I can tell it’s cold, but I could hold onto it for days.
If it’s so cold that it’s dangerous, I will feel that as a sensation that
is too intense to keep touching. It’s the same thing with
pain. It might be possible that a sensation is so intense I can’t
stand it, but given the intensity of some of the pleasure inducing things I’ve
tried, that chair could be good to keep around on a slow
weekend. “As long as
they were working me over, I still had human contact. When they
tossed me in the cell, that contact was gone. It was dark, and
pretty quiet most of the time. Basically, a lot of time to be
alone with my thoughts. It turns out that my thoughts and I really
don’t get along all that well. By the end of the second week, I
realized that the lack of contact, even if that contact was torture, was
worse than anything they did to me in the chair. After two months,
I didn’t care if they killed me or not. I’d have welcomed
it.” “Lis’…” “I’m
serious! If they told me they were just going to flood that room I
was in, I wouldn’t have even tried to stop them. I have to
be around people. When it hit me that I would rather be dead than
alone, I realized just how pathetic I must be. I started to wonder
if I make a fool out of myself to strangers just to get that attention.
Maybe that’s why I sleep with so many people. A night alone
would be too much to bear.” “Lis’!
Stop. Just for a second. You may be onto
something there. I’ll be happy to work through it with you, but
right now, there is some stuff I need to tell you. About
you.” Lista quietly
listened as Epim explained the issues with her “So I’m some
sort of lizard, like Sliss?” “No.
From Zach’s tests, everything about you is part of your species.
The flying, the ice, the fire, all of it. That’s who you
really are. This human form that we all see is not really you, but
a you that you want us to see.” “Why?” “No
clue. You might be trying to fit in and observe. You
might be a scout from a new set of aliens bent on wiping out mankind.
You might be some lost dimensional traveler. There are a
lot of possibilities. And based on what you told me a bit ago, I
may have an idea. “You fear
being alone. Maybe that’s part of what you really are.
Maybe you are the last of your kind. As some sort of coping
mechanism, your body changed to fit in with a new species, then your mind just
deleted the parts that would let you remember. That’s an angle I’d
like to visit with you in the future. “For right
now though, I need to get ready for Angela. I’m sure she’ll want
to see you. In the mean time, I’ll see if I can get a volunteer or
two to come down and sit with you until you’re well enough to move
around.” “Hey,
Doc. Thanks. Not just for this, but for
everything.” “Don’t
mention it. I’ll be back to see you soon.” ~~~~~ Days bled
into weeks, and weeks to months. By Christmas, things had returned
to a balance of sorts. Mourning was
becoming more proficient with her new imps. She never was really
happy. Then again, she never really had been. Those
who knew her well never mentioned the dogs. She was still
reluctant to talk about them. Beau was
still coming around, but not as often, and the two were never alone
together. Lista had
spent much of her recovery talking with Kym. They were getting
along quite well, much to the dismay of most of the rest of the base. And Kym
and Twitch had come to terms with their vastly different outlooks on
life. After the
attack in ~~~~~ Reginald
Danforth slid up to the large desk. On the other side was the man
behind it all. His boss. “I trust
you’ve fully recovered from your little face to face with the
Angel?” “Yes.
Not one of my better moments, but I’m past it now.” “Good.
I thought I’d fill you in on the upcoming stages. If
you’re up for it, that is.” “Certainly. I’m more
committed to this cause now than ever before. The world needs to
see that the heroes are not the answer to their problems. The
heroes need to see that the world can get along without them. I’m
all for anything that can make that happen.” “Excellent. Things went
better than I expected at the memorial rally. This meeting is to
bring you up to speed on what you need to know, and what to expect.
I trust your trip went well?” “Well
enough. But that can wait. You say things went
better than you expected? I thought we didn’t meet any of
the goals.” “I’ve found
that people tend to desire to please me out of fear or respect. If
they think they know what I want, they try very hard to do it.
This often leads them to take foolish risks or perform certain tasks in
an excessive way. For that reason, I never tell any one what my
true goal might be. Instead I give them a false goal set up in
such a way that if it succeeds, it advances the cause. If it
fails, it still advances the cause, though in a different way Only
complete inaction would ever prove to be a hindrance. “Mourning was
a powerful member of her team. They knew what she could do, and
respected her for it. The whole point of the kidnap attempt was to
show her that despite her best efforts, the innocent can still be harmed.
If we had taken her alive, it would have been a nice touch.
Not as a prisoner, but as a psychological victory. She’d
have never made it back to the interrogation center. We would have
allowed her to be rescued before then. The failure to make a
difference is what we wanted to achieve. We wanted her to
snap.” “Why?
Why not just take her out?” “To eliminate
her would make her a martyr. She would be a rally-cry for the rest
of them. To get her, the most level headed and rational among them
from what we can see, to snap and go on a rampage will do far more damage to
them then her death could have. “They won’t
fully trust her anymore. They will be more protective of her, to
be sure she’s not overwhelmed by anything. She will be offended by
this smothering and that will drive a wedge into them. “Her acting
out against you of all people, in a way that involved a dozen witnesses, can’t
be swept away. Those seconds your life was subject to her whim did
more to advance our goals than all of the news reports we’ve been feeding the
wires these last two years. “And that
brings me to your actions on that rooftop. I’d like to know what
you were thinking when you gave up the names you did. “Well.
I wasn’t really thinking when she had me on the roof. She
told me that she knew I was involved, even if Flaherty named someone
else. That was when I told her that Martin Flaherty was my
boss. That he told her it was me to get them to back off of
him. She stopped to think about that for a second and I realized
that if I could get her to kill him, it would eliminate him for us, and still
work in our favor by having a person die at the hand of a hero, while in hero
custody. “When the
others found me on the roof, I couldn’t send them anywhere they might be able to
stop her, so I told them about Judge Evers. That one I did think
out. I can just see his reaction when a group of heroes tells him
his life is in danger because of some rogue hero out to get him.
The press alone would have been incredible. “Yes.
Pity they didn’t go after the Judge. Very bold on your
part. A bit reckless, but I think we could have made it work very
well for us.” “Is there any
way to know just how much they really know?” “Yes.
Lista was captured at the warehouse in “While we
still do not know who actually tapped the phone, nor did we know who was
ultimately behind it at the time. It was irrelevant once we knew
what they had heard. We know that they heard the plans to use Mrs.
Forsythe’s magazines, and Mr. Gauthier’s Hotel. At that point, we
included two more people and a fixed time in the hope that the person listening
in would feel compelled to act. He was, and he revealed himself to
be Brian Dover. The additional people we mentioned were chosen
specifically to get an assassination team in place. It’s almost a
certainty that Mourning Angel has figured this out as
well.” “Doesn’t that
put Mrs. Wilson in a position to pass on what she knows?” “It does, but
she is contained. We’ve been watching her since the incident at
the lake house. Her position is too valuable to eliminate at this
time.” “So, why did
we let Lista escape?” “As a source
of information, she was useless. I knew that by the second day in
the chair. I decided to keep her alive, and continue the torture,
because I wanted her to escape and pass along every moment of her time there to
the rest of her group. There is something very odd about
her. Something far from human. We would have never
broken her. But to show her just how far we were willing to go
will give us an edge. By the time she relates her experiences with
us, the majority of her group will be very reluctant to risk capture.
The length of time she was here will show them that we are quite
desperate to learn what they know. This will make us seem fearful
and in over our heads. That, in turn, could give them that little
bit of overconfidence we need to slip past them with the next
phase.” “I guess that brings me
back to asking where we stand. Are we on track? Is
there a chance they could stop us?” “Yes.
We are very much on track. In fact, despite a few of the
setbacks of late, we’re still ahead of schedule. As for them
stopping us. Yes. It’s very possible.
But I planned for that. The events that take place in the
next three months will settle it. In that time I’ll need you to
lay some groundwork for a fallback point.” “Certainly. What do you
need me to do?” “We’re at a
critical point right now. There are a few television shows that
I’d rather not see make it on the air the season before the elections come
around. I need for you to arrange to get more reality programming
on the air. Mindless stuff. The last thing we need
going into 2008 is people thinking for themselves. I also need for
you to get a few documentaries in the works. I need a few that
show exactly how involved the government is in all the shady dealings going on,
and a few that debunk everything in the first. Make both sides
rabid, and make it clear that each side is absolutely correct.
Keep the kooks out of the way, and polarize the rest of the
nation. I don’t really care what they believe, but they need to
accept it blindly. Remember. The goal here is to
strike a blow against independent thought. We need them receptive
for next year.” “Would you
like me to keep pressure on the news agencies?” “Absolutely. It’s
critical that they stick to the glossy overview. We don’t want to
give people any tools to help dig out the reason things are happening.
Pull all advertising for any station that does not fully
comply.” “And I can
assume that whether I succeed or fail in this, it will work in our
favor?” “Naturally. The
destination is known. The only thing left to chance is the path we
take to arrive. I’d like the road ahead to be straight and smooth,
but if we must travel on back roads and goat paths, we shall still
arrive. Just as planned. “Good
enough. So. Any plans for the new
year?” “I’ll be attending a funeral in a few weeks. If all goes well.” |