Chapter Twelve:
Karma Chameleon
Cody Martin and Mercedes Lackey
Payback was hell.
John Murdock had spent the last five years of his life thinking about no one and nothing but himself. Now it seemed that every responsibility he had shrugged off in those years was coming back on him.
Once upon a time, before the Program, he’d have pitched in here without a second thought. That person, that Johnny Murdock, seemed like a stranger to him now. Someone out of a book or a movie, someone he couldn’t possibly be.
Hell, maybe it was just karma catching up to him.
He was living better than he had in years, though that wouldn’t normally have been saying much. That was just the material side of it, though. The people here, beyond all reason and expectation, had welcomed him. Trusted him. Maybe that was what had gotten to him—the trust. It wasn’t something he had given or received for far too long, and he ached for it somewhere deep inside of himself. But at the same time, he hated the broken-record feeling of playing through the paranoia over and over again.
So instead he tried to think about what needed doing. Right now what needed to get done were the community gardens. Not pretty ones, but working ones. Grocery deliveries were still sporadic, and half the people here that had once had jobs were either unable to get to them, or else the job was under a pile of rubble. People were going to need to eat. Gardens would provide some of that. And besides what Hog Farm brought in, John had managed to find seeds in some of the most unlikely places: the wreck of a hardware store here, an abandoned grocery there, even an old five-and-dime that had been nearly moribund by the look of it before the invasion.
On the plus side, no landlords had shown up looking for the monthly rent checks, and the city seemed to have forgotten—maybe fearing riots—that utilities were supposed to be paid for.
This neighborhood was old enough that the houses had yards, even if some were the size of postage stamps. But a tiny yard could still support a garden, and could even provide food enough for two households, with skill and a little good luck, and there were the bigger, community gardens Hog Farm helped put in. People without yards helped out those people who planted, if for no other reason than they hoped to get some of the bounty. There was a more subtle effect from the planting, though. Planting a garden is a way of acknowledging that, yes, there will be a future. People who have given up don’t garden. People with a will to survive get their hands dirty, and nurture.
An old Southern tradition returned, too. There was a time, long before satellite TV and cable, when evenings would be spent on porches or stoops, with rocking chairs and sun-brewed tea, and everyone in a neighborhood would walk along and visit with each other. Now this was resumed, at first, as a way of making sure gardens wouldn’t be disturbed, but each night the “patrols” got more relaxed, and the vigilance let down. The gang members split off in ones and twos and stayed to talk with their elders. Before long, even a couple of the street toughs might be spotted kicking some debris out of the way for an old couple strolling from home to home.
John was busy hammering together a set of scavenged two-by-fours for a mulch bed when one of the neighborhood kids came running up to him. He set down the power drill he was working with, wiping his hands on an already dirty T-shirt. “What’s the rush, kid? Y’wanna try your hand at this?”
“Nuh-uh, Mister John.” The youth gulped for breath, hands on his knees. “I came over here to tell you…there was a guy at your place. He’s asking around for you. Some dude in a suit.”
“Suit?” John’s heart felt like it froze in place. The Program. They’re here! After a few moments of sheer panic, John started breathing again, relaxing his hands so that they weren’t balled up into white-knuckled fists. Then his reason came back. Time to think, to work an out for this. “Did he ask for me by name? Does he know I’m here right now?”
“Nuh-uh. He just said that he was looking for the ‘meta’ that was looking after our ’hood. What do you think he wants?”
John shook his head. “Dunno, kid. But I aim to find out. Stay here; Jonas looks like he needs a hand with those bags of soil. Why don’t ya give him a hand?” He patted the kid on the shoulder, doing his very best to walk calmly; he didn’t want to spook any of the people at the garden, some of whom had overheard his conversation with the boy and had clearly taken an interest. Once he was a block away, edging against one of the destruction corridors, he started running. His mind was racing with strategies, possibilities, escape plans; how he would get out of the city, out of the country—off of the planet if it were only possible—this wasn’t just for him. If it was the Program, everyone here was in danger.
Who was it? Why did they want him? Should he just abandon everything and start running now? It would’ve been smarter to go in the exact opposite direction than the one he was heading. But John couldn’t shake the thought that whoever was looking for him might lean on the residents of the neighborhood to try to find him. If he could have just had the trouble all for himself, he would have taken it readily; he wasn’t prepared to set up folks that were depending on him for more pain than they had already gone through.
He had the distinct impression when the kid said “suit” he wasn’t talking about a three-piece and tie. Armor maybe. Or the whole package, like that Silent Knight Echo OpThree. Had Echo sent someone else after him now? In less than five minutes he had arrived; edging to the corner of a building and peeking out around it, John was somewhat surprised at what he saw.
It wasn’t armor. In fact, the guy looked like a used-car salesman. What John’s old man used to call “the Sears Sucker Suit.” Polyester, the kind of thing that you couldn’t destroy with a nuke. Blue, because that was supposed to be somehow less intimidating than black. He was middle-aged, and it showed on his form; a spare tire was definitely growing around his midsection. He stood there, hands clasped behind his back, staring up at John’s old industrial building as if waiting for him to appear in one of the windows. Well, this is…different. What the hell does this guy want? Waiting a few heartbeats to collect himself, John finally strode out from around the corner, making a beeline for the suit. His training still kept him on his toes; he was careful to approach the stranger from his right side, which would probably be the hand he used to go for a weapon since most people were right-handed; coming at him in that way would mean that the muzzle or whatever dangerous bit this guy could pull would have to travel in a longer arc in order to get a bead on John.
The stranger looked over to John as if pleasantly surprised. John came to a stop about fifteen feet away, taking the chance to be the first to speak. “So, you’re lookin’ for me. Who are ya, an’ whaddya want? I’ve got stuff to do.”
“The name’s Chuck Smith,” the man said, with a professional snake-oil smile. He looked down, kicking a piece of concrete rubble absentmindedly. He took a couple of steps past the debris towards John. “I think you might be interested in a proposition from my firm.”
John eyed him sourly. “What firm, an’ what’re ya offering? If you were able to find me, you probably already know that I’m fairly set as it is, an’ I don’t like much in the way of annoyances.”
The man rubbed the back of his head, and shifted his weight towards John. “Ah. You had a visit from Echo, I gather.” The man chuckled, and rocked forward a little on his toes. He took another step forward, close enough now for John to notice that he was wearing some sort of light body armor under his hideous suit. Superaramid maybe, the next gen from the old flak jackets. “Tesla’s Nanny Squad. Well, they have their hands full these days, and they’re pretty short of personnel. You can rest assured that unlike them, we don’t bite off more than we can chew.”
“You still haven’t told me who this ‘we’ is.” The stranger fished in his jacket as John tensed, watching him through narrowed eyes. But all that came out was a card. The man handed it to him.
It was a much more polished piece of presentation than the rep was. Not just a business card, this was a tiny CD. Slip it in a computer and it would probably give you a slick PowerPoint pitch. Blacksnake Security Services, it said in flowing script. Professional Protection Guaranteed.
“Blacksnake. That PMC that got famous over in the Sandbox. You’re mercs.” John had never had too much of a taste for merc work; there were some reputable companies, but for the most part they were like Blacksnake. Most private military companies concerned themselves with private security, through personal bodyguard work and protecting key sites for their employers. Others focused on fulfilling roles that underequipped and corrupt militaries in third-world countries couldn’t provide, and some rarely filled humanitarian roles.
However, Blacksnake, and the companies like them, went deeper than that; assassination—never directly traced back to them, naturally—and assisting in coups weren’t out of their scope. John lowered the card, looking at Chuck. “So, whaddya want with me?”
“We’re recruiting. We heard about some of your work here, and we figured you could do better than this—with us.” Smith glanced up at the abandoned building, with a little smile playing on his lips. “We’ve even got a dental plan. I know what you’re thinking. We couldn’t possibly want you. Well, under most circumstances, that would be true. We don’t know anything about you, except that your actions tend to indicate you’ve got some training in…how to put this?…our area of interest. And without references, that would normally not be enough to get you a look-over, much less a pitch. But”—Smith raised a finger—“you’re a meta. And we’re prepared to waive a lot of things to recruit a meta.”
Why, ’cause there seem to be fewer of us lately?
John hesitated a moment before replying. “No, thanks. I’ll figure out something on my own. If you’ll kindly get outta my neighborhood, we’ll call it a day. An’ don’t be stopping by with any more offers; I’m not interested.”
The man looked ostentatiously hurt. “You haven’t heard the offer yet. That’s a bit of an unfriendly attitude, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“Don’t much care what your offer is. I don’t need whatever you can offer.” John crossed his arms in front of his chest with finality, settling the discussion.
Smith made a sour face. “I was really hoping that you wouldn’t take that tone with me. You know, Echo is limited by how much they can push you. We aren’t. And since you invited Echo out of this neighborhood, that could technically mean we could take it under our jurisdiction. It’s a fact, ever since the invasion, people get rather nervous about having loose metas around, answering to no one, operating on their own. I wouldn’t doubt that somewhere there’s a file on you, and a bounty with that file. Maybe even at Echo. And among other things, we collect bounties.” He sighed heavily. “Don’t make me do something we’ll both regret.”
John arched an eyebrow, uncrossing his arms. He straightened up to his full height, easily half a foot over Smith’s. He ignited a jet of flame in his right hand, letting it sit there idly at his side. “I’m already regrettin’ you coming here. Don’t make it any worse for yourself. Now, get.”
John had expected him to try to negotiate, or even to try to come off as a hard-ass with some sort of “We’ll get you!” line. But he didn’t. Instead, he moved in on John, and moved far quicker than his frumpy appearance had led John to believe he possibly could move.
It was only after Chuck had gut-punched John—hard—that he realized that he had allowed the Blacksnake representative to get within arm’s reach. John staggered, stumbling backwards on the uneven ground. His flame extinguished, he wrapped his arms around his aching midsection as he widened his stance to catch himself. Looking up as he sucked in breath, John saw Chuck unbuttoning the front of his jacket, revealing a pulsating device on his belt. Iridescent armor gleamed dully under his shirt; even though John had glimpsed it earlier on, he hadn’t recognized it for what it was: some sort of mecha-armor, not superaramid.
His mistake. This was going to be a fight.
Not wasting a moment, John snapped into action. His enhancements made him faster than any normal man. Chuck was caught off-guard by the unexpected movement, and John had a clean shot at disabling his attacker. He clamped his left hand around his opponent’s shoulder—why was he so damned slippery?—and prepared to step into Chuck to plant an elbow through his throat; it was a killing move, and would have crushed the man’s trachea and maybe even his spine, with John’s enhanced strength. Then there was more pain, as John’s elbow smashed into the air less than a centimeter from Smith’s throat.
In another snap-moment, John was being kneed and hit simultaneously; he reacted, blocking the blows, but was still driven back.
What the hell was that?
His elbow throbbed; he had no doubt it would have snapped from the force of his blow, if it had been only bone. “That” had to be some sort of force-field armor.
“Not friendly, John. Yes, we know your name, your first name anyway. Not friendly at—” John was already on top of Chuck again, lashing out with fists, elbows, feet and knees. He tried to grapple with the other man, but couldn’t find purchase; he couldn’t grab onto his clothing, hair, or even his limbs without receiving a flurry of return blows. John’s body was rocked by the strikes and his vision blurred. As he knew all too well, getting hit wasn’t like it was in the movies; getting punched and kicked hurt, knocked the air out of him, dizzied him, and made it hurt to block or return those blows.
Ducking under a swing and redirecting a vicious kick by twisting out of the way and slapping it with the flat of his right hand, John dropped to the ground. He arced his leg hard into Chuck’s rear foot, where all of his opponent’s weight was resting. Smith’s legs went out from under him; whatever sort of force field he had on, it didn’t make him completely invulnerable. As soon as Chuck was flat on his back, John was on top of him, trying to put the other man into a hold so that he could get at the device on his belt.
More blows came from Chuck, aimed at John’s face and midsection. His ribs creaked, and he had several cuts opening on his brow, cheek, chin, and lips. John knew that he couldn’t take too much more of this sort of punishment. He needed to end this fight, and fast. Smith managed to snake an arm out from under John’s hold, and used it to grapple John closely. There was a sharp whump accompanied by a flash of light, and John was skidding across the ground, his skin tearing open on gravel and broken glass. His back slammed against a curb, stopping him instantly. Stars were swimming in front of his eyes, but he jumped to his feet out of reflex. Chuck was still climbing up from the ground; he was fast, but he wasn’t the most nimble person. John relaxed, letting his control wane for a moment. Twin lances of blindingly-white flame sprang from his outstretched hands, flying towards Chuck. Both jets of fire rebounded off of the force field at obtuse angles, cutting jagged swaths through whatever they impacted with. Chuck, finally back on his feet, looked worried, but continued to move towards John. John responded with more fire; surrounded his attacker in it completely, firing arm-thick bolts of plasma, igniting the asphalt beneath his feet. None of it got through, and Chuck kept advancing.
John continued blasting and moving, never allowing himself to get cornered; if he got within arm’s reach of Smith again, he might not be able to recover in time. His shin was bruising terribly from where he had kicked the force field with it, and he was starting to limp. His ribs told him that they didn’t want him to breathe anymore, and the blood trickling into his eyes made it hard to see.
Sick an’ tired of this shit.
John feinted to his left, then back to his right before charging at Chuck head-on. He fired a wide burst of flame at his opponent’s face, obscuring his vision; Chuck threw his hands up in front of his face and stumbled backwards, instinctually flinching away from the attack. John closed in with his opponent, and scrambled for the techy-looking belt, which he could only assume and hope controlled the force fields; if he could disable it, he was sure that he could make quick work of this bastard.
His fingers scratched at the invisible wall just a centimeter above the device, unable to penetrate; John’s control on his fires lapsed, and Chuck was able to see again. He grabbed John by the back of his neck and his jeans; John could see some sort of hydraulic joints ripping through the elbows, shoulders, and knees of Chuck’s suit as he hefted John above his head, and then threw. John hit the brick wall beside the entrance of his home fifteen feet above the ground, crushing several of its bricks and knocking a good many others loose before falling back to earth with a sickening thump.
Everything went black for what seemed like an eternity, give or take a few millennia. When he came to, he knew that he was still alive, at least somewhat; Smith was talking again.
“—sure is nifty, isn’t it? See, these are the advantages of working with Blacksnake; you get all of the best toys. This servomotor exoskeleton gives me the strength of twenty men; slow and somewhat ungainly, but very fine for power work, don’t you think?” John didn’t want to move; he could hardly breathe, and his vision was dark around the edges if you didn’t count the stars swarming in front of his eyes. He was done, and done for. He couldn’t defend himself effectively anymore, and this smarmy and smug middle-management flunky was going to be the end of him. “The real shame is that it didn’t have to be like this.” Chuck paced slowly towards where John was lying, not in a great hurry to finish off his opponent. “I would offer you a second chance, but I have an appointment downtown. I’ve got to pick up a new suit before then, so I’ll make this quick. Open or closed casket, John?”
“Fer me or you?” John croaked out, blood seeping from his mouth. It clicked for him right as he finished delivering what he thought were going to be his last words, again. He knew what to do. Smith smiled, raising a foot to crush the life out of John—
—and then the air inside of his protective force field ignited into plasma, which in turn ignited his clothing, skin, and what little hair he had in the first place. Chuck couldn’t scream, because all of the air in his lungs was on fire, and the lungs themselves were seared in an instant. John lay there watching as Chuck Smith did an odd sort of dance, cooked alive silently in his own force field. For one moment, the memory of the kid in New York, ramping up until he was nothing but a man-shaped thing too white-hot to look at, flashed across his memory. After a few seconds the Blacksnake recruiter fell backwards, and not even smoke came from his body; there was only a wispy veil of combustion, inside which polyester, skin and exoskeleton crisped. Then, whatever device that had been powering his force field malfunctioned and died. There was an instant of charred corpse against the ground, its mouth wide open, and then with a whumpf, it flashed over from its own intense heat and burned openly.
John didn’t have the strength or the willpower to stand. He crawled over the rubble and grit, crawled up the stairs to his flat, and then crawled into bed. After that, the world stopped for John Murdock as unconsciousness took over.
* * *
Seraphym watched the man below her crawling towards the entrance of his building. It would be a long crawl up, with no working elevators. Solemnly, she sensed the terrible pain he was in, how he had been reduced to mere animal instincts. Only once had there been any kind of moment of feeling in this fight, and it had not been for the man who had called himself “Chuck Smith,” and who was, in fact, actually Roger McSkye, a senior recruiting agent for Blacksnake, operating under the code name “Hardbody.”
No, John Murdock had felt nothing for this man, even at the moment that John was killing him. When someone became an opponent for John, an attacker, a threat, they ceased to be human. The brief rush of emotion had come with the memory of that poor child in New York: guilt, anger, bewilderment and anguish that John had been unable to help him. And that had been over in a moment.
John Murdock was a brutal and dispassionate fighter, divorced emotionally from the killing and the need to kill. He had begun the fight with what should have been a murderous blow. He had ended it with another.
But she sensed a terrible void in him, and mourning, far past conscious thought, that this was what he had become. He recognized what he was, and hated it. This, perhaps, was the root of his self-hatred. Somehow…somehow he had to come out of this. Somehow he had to heal, or be healed, if he was to grow, to become…whatever it was that was on the other side of that blank spot in the futures.
There were other futures where, presumably, he did not change. Sera could only see them now as they turned up from the man’s maddening blind spot, because now they could not happen. One suddenly appeared and ended here; Blacksnake would send another operative, and John would die. One, already aborted and withering, and seen like a glimpsed reflection in glass—he had accepted the offer and gone on to join the mercenaries. That one ended when he was sent to kill her and she showed him the inside of his own mind. Where that would have led, she could not see, for already that future was crumbling, back to the origin points of passing moments. There were those where he ran, those where he joined Echo and was then forcibly reclaimed by his Program, others where he became a kind of half recluse in this building, emerging only at night, to scour the neighborhood for things to kill.
But most of those were withering too. He was already changing. He could not stop the change. That was just as well; those futures all ended in apocalypse, the thing she had been sent to prevent.
He had managed to get the door to his apartment open now, and crawl inside. She considered this. Considered helping him. Animals, wounded near to death, would crawl off alone to heal or die. Which would he do now?
She opened her mind a little and let other thoughts brush against hers. The child. The grocer. The old woman who was knitting John socks from yarn saved from ruined sweaters, who fed him soup and thought about him as a kind of surrogate grandchild. Those would do.
Gently she suggested that something was wrong. John had not been seen for hours. Someone should look in on him.
Satisfied that the suggestion had settled into their minds, she sighed and turned her thoughts further outward.
There. Another one to save.
She was away in a flash of fire.
* * *
John was angry. He was actually waking up, which wasn’t precisely what he had expected to happen. And waking up carried with it all of the burdens of being conscious and alive after the fight with Chuck Smith. Namely, various types and degrees of pain. It took him a long time to be able to pry his swollen eyes open, widening them until the thin slivers of light leaking through became smeared and over-bright shapes. His head pounded as if Smith was still hammering on it, his mouth was as dry as sandpaper, and his entire body felt as if it had been passed underneath a steamroller.
He’d felt worse. But not much worse. And not often.
Eventually, his vision focused again after much effort. He made out the ceiling of the room that he usually slept in, with peeling paint and water stains from leaks in the roof. With Herculean effort he was able to turn his head to the right, seeing Jonas the shopkeeper snoozing quietly in a battered lawn chair. The TV was playing silently, and there were a few bags of groceries littered around the room. Looking down at himself, and immediately regretting doing so, John saw that his midsection was completely bandaged, as well as most of his arms and what he could see of his legs. Straining to reach up with his hand, he felt his own face; more bandages, sticky and itchy against his pulped and ruined skin.
With a start, Jonas woke up, blinking several times as he looked about the dirty and dim room. Spying John and seeing that he was awake, he smiled kindly, his yellowed teeth gleaming in the single lightbulb’s glare. “I was wondering when you would wake up. I was starting to get tired of feeding you and changing your bandages, kid. Figured I’d let the cockroaches and rats take over for me, in a bit. I don’t need to ask, but how’re ya feeling?”
“Like hammered shit. You?” John managed to prop himself up on an elbow, a feat in and of itself considering how badly damaged his arms were.
“I’m dandy. Couple folks are looking after the store while I’ve been up here babysitting your sorry rear. Some of the younger fellas that you were working with took over keeping the ’hood in check. They’re not bad kids, once they have something to put their minds to.” Jonas passed his hand over his mostly-gray salt-and-pepper hair. “Kind of funny; I used to watch a lot of nature shows, and I always figured they were like those young bucks butting heads over girls and territory. Turns out I was right. Now that they can do just that, and get praised for it, they’ve just settled right down.”
John nodded. He wasn’t terribly sure as to what to say next. “Thanks,” he mumbled, “for keepin’ me breathin’. I’ll actually start buyin’ some of the junk ya have at the store now, maybe.”
It wasn’t much, but Jonas recognized it for the compliment and sincere thanks that it was. “Anytime, fella. I figure that you’ll live, for now. Who was that guy that you had it out with? There wasn’t much left of him when Toby came to fetch me. To be honest, there wasn’t much left of you, either.” John was silent, looking off into a corner instead of meeting Jonas’s gaze. After a few long moments, Jonas spoke again. “Fair enough. Talkers are usually only talk when it comes to that sort of thing, anyways.” He sighed, standing up with an effort. “Now that it looks like you’ll at least live for a little while longer, I’ve gotta get back to the store. I’ll have one of the kids come up here tomorrow to check on you.” Jonas rubbed his apparently-arthritic hands and looked down at John. “We moved the remains of that guy you fought. Didn’t seem like the body oughta stay near where you live. We put it in an old fridge and it kinda got lost somewhere.” Jonas looked troubled by that, but then stepped to the door. “You heal pretty quick, so it shouldn’t be all that long before you start pitching people out of windows. ‘Defenestration,’ that’s called. There’s a word for you. Make you a Scrabble champ.” Still quiet, John nodded, and the conversation ended. Jonas left the building, and left John with his thoughts.
And, the same as every night when “it” happened or that he bothered to think about it, the shakes came again.
It was all about what he had become. Conditioned to fight effectively, to kill reflexively when his mind and all of the things that should have made him a man, made him human, told him not to, John was a dispassionate predator. Distance helped; targets at the end of a rifle scope were just empty uniforms that needed to be filled with neat holes. Once you got closer, it got harder. You could see human expression, how old the “target” was, if he had looked like someone you had known in the “real world” back home. Most of the time, working with a unit of like-minded asskickers, the responsibility was diffused. You didn’t precisely know, truly know, who had fired the fatal shot. In the latter part of John’s career, that had changed; all of the killing was up close and extremely personal; you knew where the rounds went when you sent them downrange, and there was a high level of aggression there. Knife kills, with a long blade or bayonet slipped into someone’s kidney from behind—since slitting throats was a terrible idea; John had known too many that had cut their own hands doing it, instead of “getting it right”—were the worst. You could feel exactly what you were doing to the person. You could feel the heat from their body, their sweat evaporating into the air, the breath leave them as they slumped to the ground. The paradox was that the easier it got, the worse it felt.
“Back home” became more and more remote, something that had little relevance to who and what you were now, and what you might find yourself becoming. Back home, they didn’t understand. They lived shallow, easy lives where no one ever had to think about killing, and dying was only something that happened by accident, or at the end of an illness or long life. Death was something easily meted out by Hollywood, racked up on console games by thumb actions, or it happened off-screen in slaughterhouses. After a while John realized that it was only the men he’d worked and trained with, his buddies, who understood. But even that only helped so much. There was still the guilt, the horrible realization that you’ve done the worst thing possible to another being of your species. And then when you had quiet moments to think, you looked at your buddies and you saw one of two things back from them: either equal guilt that made you flinch away and avert your eyes—or utter lack of guilt, which meant they were no longer human. “Two-percenters,” those last sort were called—guys that liked to torture small animals in their spare time because it was cheap and easy practice. Two-percenters were few and far between, and John honestly, earnestly hoped he wasn’t drifting in that direction. Despite his stern exterior and professional cool, they scared John. It nagged at him that he had shared beers with them, and often. They wore the same uniform, ate the same MREs, and stood watch while he slept. He shook to wonder how far down their road he had already gone, and to realize he could not take that measure. He took it as a bad sign that he simply couldn’t tell.
It always took a few hours for him to get himself under control. Alcohol didn’t help much, but it was something to steady him once he was done sweating and convulsing uncontrollably. Gingerly changing into a fresh shirt and grabbing a beer out of a case that Jonas had generously left for him, aching with every move, John headed out to the roof to think. The case of beer made him frown, because a post-disaster area was automatically a destabilized economy. Things were done by sweat, barter or violence now, and that case of beer was a genuine treasure. Yet, it’d been left for him after he’d mercilessly murdered someone. Was it a thank you from the neighborhood, or was it, in fact, a backhanded peace offering to appease his wrath? John found himself hoping the community wouldn’t turn on him.
It was a decent Southern night: sticky-hot and clear, with the stars doing their best to shine against the city lights. The air was practically alive with green smells again, thick and pungent. All of the fires since the invasion had gone out, and much of the haze had dispersed, so you could actually see the stars and moon at night. John, no matter all of his public posturing, liked to think of himself as a romantic at heart, despite his failings. Leaning with his forearms against a railing and a precious beer cradled in his hands, John lived in the moment. He wasn’t particularly thankful, but he was there, and he was alive, and that’s what mattered. For what it was worth.
There was a sound behind him that he couldn’t identify. A sighing sound, as if something parted the air gently, and slipped down from the stars. Turning as fast as he could, which was terribly slow in his current condition, John looked to see what had surprised him.
She was just alighting, weightlessly, one foot outstretched with infinite grace and poise, to touch the rooftop, fire wings extending upwards. Not hammering or fluttering down like a bird. Whatever those “wings” were for, they had nothing to do with how she managed her flight.
The Seraphym.
“Hello, John Murdock.” Her voice was a low alto, throaty, with five or six under- and overtones, as if a chorus spoke with her voice.
“You, again. The meta with delusions of divinity. Care for a drink? Friend of mine was kind enough to gimme a few cold ones for recuperation purposes.” John gestured casually with his beer bottle, despite the pain it caused him to move at all. One must keep up appearances, after all.
Her eyes were the yellow-gold of the heart of a fire, and they had no pupils. The seemingly blind gaze settled on the bottle in his hand. “But it is not cold,” she replied. The bottle abruptly chilled in his hand, acquiring a sudden bloom of condensation.
“Is now,” John said matter-of-factly, taking a long pull from the bottle. “Thanks, by the way. You’re full of surprises.”
“Am I?” She tilted her head to the side, looking oddly birdlike. But not a pretty little songbird, no matter how beautiful she was. This was a falcon gaze, the look of eagles, sizing up a lesser animal. “And yet you strive so hard to seem unsurprised by anything.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a jerk. What’s new?”
“Perhaps you can tell me. It is all old to me. The same cycle, endlessly repeating.”
John chuckled mirthlessly. “Sister, it’s all always been the same play. Don’t mean it hurts any less with each iteration.” John took another long drink from his bottle. “Men proving that they’re men, society humming right along, the best and the brightest runnin’ with the flow, an’ the rest of us stuck with the bill.”
“The sun striking warm on a winter afternoon. The pure scent of the first honeysuckle in spring. A child’s laugh. A lover’s kiss. Joy, John Murdock.”
“Sorry, but I’m feeling morbid. Trifles, to those of us that’ve taken everythin’ an’ lost it all in the same act. Poetry…folks, the boy wants to be a poet.” John laughed again, mostly amused with himself.
“So be a poet.”
“There’s no money in it.”
“But much joy. Food for the soul.”
John sighed. “Even in Atlanta, soul food ain’t enough. Joy doesn’t pay the bills. Blood an’ sweat, however, do.”
“You can do both.” She waved a hand dismissively. “One does not negate having the other. Millennia of artists have proved that. And millennia of dreamers, philosophers, mystics. You think they did not toil and sweat? Your self-imposed limitations are crutches, John Murdock. You think they support you. You can walk with them. But you cannot run, nor fly, with crutches.”
John paused for a moment, leaning back against the railing on his elbows. “Y’know,” he said, mock-seriously, “If you keep callin’ me John Murdock, you’re just my middle name away from soundin’ like my mother. ’Sides. Killin’ is different. Spendin’ the blood of others is different. An’ there ain’t no good to come of it.”
Again, that eagle look. “Your soul is sick. Surfeited and sick with death.” Where anyone else he knew would have looked away at that moment, somehow those fierce eyes bored into his. “Death is what it is. Not an ending. Only a changing. The question becomes whether you have the right to be the instrument of that change.”
“Forgive me if I’m skeptical. I’ve been too busy workin’ at my profession to be ponderin’ the philosophical implications.” John grimaced, chugging the rest of his beer. He looked at his empty bottle in confusion, then turned to the supposed angel in his presence. “Can y’do anything about this?” he said, holding up his bottle. “Gettin’ sloshed is a lot harder with runs to the fridge.” She blinked once, and the bottle in his hand chilled again, growing heavy. He nodded, drinking from the now-full bottle again. “Much obliged.”
“You…intrigue me.” A ripple passed through the fire of her wings. “The depth of your despair is a challenge.” Another ripple. “It was Pride that created the Fallen, but it is Despair that keeps them in hell. I should not like to see you in a hell of your own making, John Murdock.”
John looked at her soberly, still leaning against the railing. “An’ why precisely do you give a damn, miss?”
She hesitated. It was not the sort of hesitation that usually came in a conversation. It felt for a moment as if everything around him was holding its breath, waiting to hear her answer. It felt…portentous.
“Because…everything depends on it.” Her wings shuddered open wide, and her entire body took on a look of aliveness, of anticipation, and perhaps, of fear.
“Well, gee.”
He got no chance to say anything more.
“I speak too much,” she cried, and in a burst of flame, arrowed up into the sky like a shooting star in reverse.
Watching her fading into a speck against the night sky, and then vanishing, John was left alone with his thoughts. “That was strange,” he said to no one but himself. He was too tired to care terribly much, to be honest. He’d somehow accepted that meta’s presence, despite the fact that she preached to him as much as any church’s soup-kitchen Bible-thumper, and despite her having violated one of the few places where he felt a modicum of safety. She was nuts, that much he was certain of. But he had never seen anything like her, at all, ever. Too damned weird.
Not wanting to think anymore, John took one last look at the sky, wondering if she’d be back again. Before he went inside, he desperately hoped for her sake, and his own, that she wouldn’t.