New Olympus Saga (Book 4): The Ragnarok Alternative (11 page)

Freedom Island, Caribbean Sea/New York City, New York, July 17, 2014

“I want to see you again.”

“I’d like that,” John said, surprising himself. He’d meant to tell her that that it’d been nice, but sneaking around wasn’t right.

But it
had
been nice. Hard to believe she’d given him her number only a couple of days ago. They’d had three long, heartfelt conversations in that time, including a chat that lasted all night long. Christine turned out to be surprisingly good about keeping secrets, too. Whenever they saw each other on official Legion business, she hardly gave any signs they were getting close. The secrecy was actually adding some spice to the affair, somewhat to his dismay. He’d never condoned any sort of illicit or skulking behavior. His old friend Larry Graham had turned out to be a cheater and womanizer, and John hadn’t forgiven him for it, even posthumously. And now…

It’s not the same. Ali and I aren’t married. And Christine and I haven’t done anything. Just talked on the phone like a couple of teenage girls
.

Exactly. A hundred-year old man acting like a teenage girl. What do you think you’re doing?

The self-chiding didn’t work.

“… tonight?”

“What was that?”

“Going deaf now, John?”

“Probably just senile,” he said, grinning.

“I said, how about dinner tonight? My place? I’ve got some free time, and could use the company. You know I can’t cook but I can get us some nice takeout. Anything you want. It’s New York, after all.”

“Surprise me. I’ll be there at seven.” Ali would be busy all night at some PR event or another.

“Awesomesauce.” She hung up.

“Awesomesauce indeed,” he said to himself. “What the hell am I doing?”

Trying to be happy. Don’t I deserve another shot?

Not like this
.

He ignored his conscience. He was getting used to it.

* * *

She was wearing something flimsy and translucent when he came through the window, and it aroused his suspicions immediately.

“You don’t look happy to see me,” Christine said. She glanced at his crotch. “Not happy at all.”

“This isn’t like you,” he said, waving a hand at her, at the negligee and high heels she was wearing. “This isn’t like you at all.”

She hung her head. “I’m sorry.” Next thing John knew, she’d collapsed onto the nearest armchair and started to cry. “I’m so sorry!”

He rushed to her, took one of her hands in both of his. “What’s going on, Christine? Why all of this?”

She wants you. She wants you but doesn’t know how to go about it. You were in her shoes not that long ago, remember?

“I… I wanted to try something different, okay? Something a bit more, you know, feminine. I’m tired of being one of the guys. Mark treats me like I’m one of his buddies. No romance. We’re like roommates who fuck. Sorry about the swearing, but that’s how it is. Since I went back to him, he takes me for granted, and… I don’t know, he doesn’t make me feel like a woman. So I figured maybe I’d try something different, wear this stupid outfit like I’m the comic book slut my publicist wants me to be, and maybe you’d…”

“I’d what?”

“Want me again. After all I did to you.”

“Christine, I…”
I want you. Of course I want you
. But if he said that, he’d be taking advantage of her. Not to mention betraying Ali.

“I suck at this. Let’s just have dinner. Or if you want to take off, I tots understand.”

“Christine…”

She steamrolled over his words. “It’s that mini-coma that got me thinking. I almost died, again, and although I made it, I started to think, is this the kind of life I want? Stuck with a guy who barely notices me unless he wants to get his dick wet? And then I almost get killed a week later, and Mark’s mostly pissed about not getting some licks in during the fight with the Big Bad. I should have known better. I had the real thing, and I threw it away. And now it’s too late. I’m sorry, John.” She hugged him tightly. “Forgive me?”

Her body pressed up against his, brought back memories of the few times he’d felt happy since Linda’s death. He hugged her back. “Of course I forgive you.”

The hug became something else. Their eyes met.

“You don’t have to forgive me right away, you know.”

Her expression was a mix of false innocence and mischievousness he’d never seen before.

“You can punish me. Teach me a lesson. I heal fast. You can be as rough as you want.”

That’s not me. I don’t do that
.

The words went on unuttered, replaced by something like growl. He was angry at her. He wanted to make her suffer for what she’d done to him. Not a lot. A little would suffice. All his life, he’d been terrified of hurting people even during the tenderest moments. But Christine was a Neo, one powerful enough to survive almost anything. The memory of him pulling her head back by the hair burned through him. Aroused him. He did it again, and heard her sigh.

A rough kiss sealed the deal, his fingers digging into the back of her neck. He crossed the line.

Willingly, and of his own free will.

* * *

She called him when he was flying back to Freedom Island.

“Just wanted to say thank you, John. You were… That was…”

“It was great for me too,” he said with a smile. They’d destroyed the bed and much of the apartment, and he didn’t care. He felt younger, more alive than he had since, well, since the last time he’d been with her. Since before damned Mark Martinez came back from the dead and ruined John’s life.

Well, the shoe’s in the other foot now, bucko
.

“It’s like I’ve woken up from a nightmare,” Christine said. “And I don’t want to go back to sleep.”

“Me either. Listen, I’m going to talk to Ali. This can’t go on, and I should be honest with her.”

“Wait! I need more time.”

“What for? You told me things with Mark are as good as over. Might as well make it official.”

“It’s not that easy. You don’t know how he is. If I don’t prepare him for this, I worry about how he’ll react.”

“What, is he going to throw a tantrum? Become violent? If so, I can handle him.” He had, several times, during assorted sparring sessions. Face-Off was almost in John’s weight class, but ‘almost’ was just another word for ‘not.’

“So macho-nacho. I’d rather he thought the whole thing was his idea, okay? That way he’ll continue to be a defender of humanity rather than another super-thug you’ll have to put down. That doesn’t benefit anyone, does it?”

She had a point. “So what do you propose we do? Stay out of each other’s way until you manipulate him into a breakup?”

“Just for a little while. We would have to pretend we’re just distant friends while we’re in public. But we can meet at my place and…”

She didn’t finish the sentence. She didn’t have to. John almost turned around to go back for more ‘and.’

“It won’t be long, John, okay? Maybe a few days. And after it’s over, we can be together, all official-like. I can move in with you. Or, if you want more, like, you know, do the whole down on one knee and ring thingy… you’ll like my answer, I promise you that. Not that I expect you to do anything like that right away. Unless you want to. And if you do want to, I’m in. Tots.”

He felt downright giddy.

“Okay, Christine. I’ll hold off. For a while.”

“You mean it?”

“Tots. Did I say that right?”

“You tots did.”

New York City, New York, July 17, 2014

She hung up the phone just as Daedalus Smith walked through the door.

“Great timing, douchebag,” she said. “What if he comes back, all spur of the moment, and finds you here?”

“Not going to happen, my darling mistress. John Clarke is a creature of habit. Once he’s set on a course of action, he doesn’t change it. And he’s got appointments in the morning, according to his schedule. He won’t risk being late just to play footsie.”

“Says you. I have him cheating on his girlfriend and lying to everyone. Sounds like I’m breaking him out of a lot of habits.”

“Ali Fiori isn’t much of a girlfriend. Promiscuous slut. They probably have a so-called open relationship.”

“Look at Mister Judgey. I bet you made a pass at her and she told you to go fuck yourself.”

Daedalus changed the subject.

“Just wanted to let you know I recovered a couple of numbered accounts I’d left lying around. It’s not much, about six million bucks all told. Everything else is gone. Either the feds or Euros seized it, or I liquidated it and put it into my starship project. Which is gone. Bastards stole it.”

“That’s fine. Six mill is plenty, and now I don’t have to worry about spending all the cash I found when I arrived. We don’t need a lot of money anyway; this is mostly going to be a game of old-fashioned bitchery.”

“I think trying to corrupt Johnny Clarke is a mistake. It took me years of hard work and a talented empath projector to get him close to the edge. And it didn’t take.”

“Oh, I think there’s still plenty of damage left over from your little mind games, not to mention my little sister’s cock-tease act. All he needs is a little push, and all the little Outsider seeds I’ve already left in him will take root.”

“That’s one hell of an STD.”

“True dat. By the way, aren’t you supposed to be more subservient? Haven’t I turned you into a proper darkling henchman? Heh, darkling. I like that.”

“You can have a henchman who can think for himself and retain some of his old personality, or a mindless zombie,” Daedalus said. “You need someone to tell you when you’re about to fuck up. And you are playing a stupidly dangerous game, pretending to be Christine.”

“I am Christine.”

“You know what I mean. What happens if – no, when – good ole Johnny is on the comm with you and your twin drops by his office at the same time? One second’s bad luck and the whole thing will collapse like the house of cards it is.”

“Don’t try to out-evil genius me, Dee. I’m keeping a close eye on little Chrissy. All the Legion’s systems have biometric security passcodes. So I’ve gotten into all her accounts. I have access to her appointment schedule, her Facebook, everything. I know where she is at all times, and I’ve timed all my calls and dates so she’s nowhere near John, or out in public. I usually set it up so she’s alone with Mark while I’m getting it on with her ex.”

“Sooner or later, someone is going to figure out she’s been in two places at once.”

“As long as it isn’t too soon, it won’t matter. All I need is a couple days to set things up. You’ll be a huge help, of course. Between my biometrics and your knowledge of the Legion’s systems, we’ll be just about running the place in no time.”

“What for? What’s the end game, oh mistress mine?”

“By the time I’m done, Chrissy will be dead, Markie-Mark will be dead, and I and my boy-toy Ultimate will rule the world, whatever is left of it. This time I’ll keep a lot more peeps alive. I was getting bored before Chrissy showed up and messed things up. And I really missed the Hypernet. So I want enough people to keep the Hypernet running, and to breed up enough replacements I can kill a few hundred thousand a year without worrying I’m going to run out.”

Daedalus grinned. “Now that sounds like fun.”

“Oh, you have no idea.”

San Diego, California, July 18, 2014

Finally made it to the San Diego Comic-Con, as a Guest of Honor no less, and I still feel like crap
.

She should be in geek nirvana. Earth Alpha’s version of the genre media fest was just as big and boisterous as the one in her world, and with real superheroes thrown into the mix. The old Christine would love all of it. The current version had been exposed to too much real-life superhero stuff. Now she found the whole pageant mostly annoying and embarrassing. Being the center of attention didn’t help. She couldn’t wander around without drawing a crowd. And now she was going to give a speech in front of an auditorium filled well past its listed capacity of fifteen hundred people, followed by a Q&A session.

On top of her usual public speaking jitters, she had other things weighing on her. Cassius, for one. She was going to try something new to help him; if it worked, it would be the first good thing to come out of her recovered memories, but if it didn’t, she’d only make things worse. There was always Saturday’s confessional to look forward to, of course. And as if that wasn’t enough, John Clarke had been acting weird as frakk.

Just before she left for the con, during Freedom Squad One’s morning briefing, he’d grinned and
winked
at her when Mark hadn’t been looking. She hadn’t known what to do, so she’d just smiled and nodded, which seemed to satisfy him. What had prompted that little display? She had no idea. John looked chipper than he’d been for a while, though. Maybe he’d finally managed to forgive and forget. Christine wished she could know for sure, but John was still wearing his anti-empathy ring. He was a closed book to her. Which was fair and all, but also frustrating.

Of all those things, the Saturday tell-all session was the one that worried her the most.
I wish I’d never remembered any of it
.

“You’re up,” a harried-looking con coordinator told her.

She walked past the other guests and faced the crowd, the cheering, admiring crowd.

No
.

Suddenly, she wasn’t in a nice air-conditioned auditorium. She was standing in the center of a dirt circle, and the cries of the crowd were harsh, savage, calling for blood.

“KILL! KILL! KILL!”

Earth FUBAR, Day Four

Christine woke up in pain, which was better than the alternative. She hadn’t expected to wake up at all.

A middle-aged woman was standing by her bed, her graying hair bound in a tight bun behind her head, wearing a nurse’s uniform. They were in a hospital or clinic; the impersonal whitewashed walls, the smell of disinfectant and the cabinet full of medicinal stuff on one corner made that clear.

“Good, you’re up,” the woman said. “I was about to tend to your wounds, and that would have woken you up anyway. Be warned: this is going to feel unpleasant.”

It already hurts
, she thought, and tried to say so, but her throat was drier than the Mohave Desert, and all she managed to do was croak like a dying frog. She had an IV on her arm, but she was still dehydrated. She was burning up and in agony on top of that. Being human sucked.

“Hush,” the nurse said, lifting the bedsheet and the hospital gown so she could look at Christine’s stomach, the source of the throbbing pain, right around the spot where Charlie the Emo had planted a knife in her. The woman’s hand felt cold against her fever-warm skin. “All right, let’s see.”

A tingling, itching sensation spread from where the nurse was touching her and sank down under her skin, surrounding the throbbing spot in her stomach. For a second, the itching became nearly unbearable, and Christine almost screamed and pulled away. Before she could react, however, it vanished – and so did the pain in her stomach.

Healer. She’s not a nurse, she’s an effing healer
.

“There,” the healer said, sounding satisfied. “That should do it, thank Goddess. It was touch and go for a while; that was a nasty wound, and peritonitis had set in before they brought you to me. They were going to let you die, the bastards. You were lucky someone brought word to us.”

“What happened?” Christine managed to croak out.

“Oh, dear. Here,” the healer said, reaching for a sippy cup on a nearby tray table and handing it to her. Christine greedily drank the flat-tasting water, irrigating her parched throat.

“Thank you. What happened to me?”

“Your local Sheriff thought the Goddess wouldn’t be pleased about the way he had treated a potential entertainer, so he decided to wait and see if you’d recover or die on your own. Luckily for you, a friend of yours walked all the way to the Summer Palace and told us about you. By then, you were nearly dead. It took all I had to stabilize you.”

Thank you, Robb
.

“How long?”

“Two days since we brought you in. The Party Planner herself got involved in your case. You should consider yourself honored.”

I consider myself screwed
.

Out loud: “Thank you. What happens to me now?”

“Well, we’ll feed you, clean you up, and get you ready for tonight’s performance. We’ve spent a great deal of time and effort on you, so we expect a good show. There’s been too many disappointments already, and the Goddess is growing displeased.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

The healer’s expression hardened. “The Party Planner will explain everything. Do exactly as you’re told, or you will end up back here. If you’re lucky.”

* * *

No effing way
.

“You look lovely, now that we’ve groomed you properly,” the Party Planner said from behind Christine. “I know razors are scarce, but a lady should always make sure her legs are nice and smooth, and the rest of her as well.”

The Planner and her minions had bathed and shaved Christine, which had been humiliating enough, and they’d forced her to model a variety of outfits, each more misogynistic than the last. The current model was an honest-to-God chainmail bikini, a skimpy one at that. Christine could tell at a glance the thing would chafe horribly, provide zero protection, and would be prone to constant wardrobe malfunctions. But they’d made her wear it anyway.

The Planner had the look of a former supermodel: she was pushing sixty but looked pretty good, in a malnourished, dry sort of way, her cheekbones looking oversized now that the rest of her face had shrunk in, except for the bits that were stretched tightly over her skull after a few facelifts too many. The blonde in her hair came straight from a bottle, her boobs were about twenty years younger than the rest of her body, and her eyes had a crazy glint Christine didn’t like one bit.

“Yes, this will do,” the Planner decided.

Christine wanted to tell her to go eff herself. She still couldn’t believe her evil self enjoyed watching half naked women degrading themselves. It was the total opposite of everything she’d stood for.

Maybe that’s what the Outsider Taint does. Reverses your moral polarity, so to speak. Or maybe it just turns you evil, whether you’d been good or evil or Chaotic Neutral before the stuff got into your soul.

And maybe none of that matters and you should concentrate on staying alive.

Sure
.

She’d been taken back to the sporting arena where the ill-fated Q-game had been held, a place that could easily hold some tens of thousands of people. Christine didn’t know if the structure had been there before the Goddess had taken over, or something purpose-built by her evil twin. Either way, the place was huge and fairly empty when she got there, but towards the end of her forced dress rehearsal, she started hearing the distant cheering of a good-sized crowd. It looked as if the show was already underway.

“That’s just the opening act,” the Party Planner explained, noticing the way Christine reacted to the noise. “One of our scavenging parties found a mountain lion somewhere and brought it back. Now it’s snacking on a few heretics.”

Christine had been afraid of something like that. They’d turned the coliseum into an old-fashioned arena. As in Roman games old-fashioned. The Goddess hadn’t been kidding when she said it was American Gladiators time. The chainmail bikini felt even more inadequate.

“Oh, almost forgot!” the Planner said. She rushed to one of the many armoires that lined the walls of the changing room, and came back with a helmet, a shiny silver metal cap with huge wings on the sides. It didn’t look like it would do much to protect her from a mace to the face or an axe to the skull, or even pennies from heaven, and the wings would only make her a bigger target. But it matched the chainmail bikini.

Awesome. I’ll be nicely color-coordinated when I die
.

It probably wouldn’t even come to someone getting medieval on her. She figured that as soon as Dark Christine got a look at her aura, it’d be Game Over time. Each person’s tele-empathic signature was as distinctive as DNA or fingerprints. She’d be identified immediately.

Maybe. Maybe she doesn’t bother scanning people anymore. Maybe all the psychic noise from the crowd will dull her senses. Maybe, baby
.

Which, if that was the case, still left the aforesaid getting medieval bit. Christine had already found out the hard way that playing with edged weapons was no fun. Something that she, a long-time gamer, should have known by heart.

“Time to get ready for your appearance, my dear,” the Party Planner said, gently steering Christine towards the door. Two big guys nearby were ready to move her rather less gently, so Christine let herself be guided towards her doom.

There was a patina of unreality around everything, a feeling none of this could possibly be happening. After all the things she’d survived, she couldn’t believe this was it.

Well, nobody said you have to roll over and die, you know. They want you to be a gladiator? Be a gladiator. Katniss the crap out of them
.

Thanks, brain. I’ll just pit my mid-level Kung Fu skills against people who know how to use pointy sharp thingies. It’s not like I’m Snipe or someone who knows how to fight like that.

Well, you’ve been Snipe before.

Oh
.

While she inner-dialoged as she was wont to do, she walked on autopilot for a bit. By the time she had the beginning of a possible epiphany, Christine found herself in a chamber with a metal-grate door that led out into the arena. She could see the ground had been covered with dirt; guys in janitor uniforms were using rakes to move said dirt around to cover some unseemly-looking pools of blood. Neat.

“You might want to shake your booty when you go out there,” the Planner told her. “If you look cute and sexy enough, the crowd may vote for mercy and we’ll fix you up for another show. If your performance isn’t good, you’ll earn a very bad end. Trust me, you don’t want the crowd to turn on you.”

“It’d be nice to know what the rules are,” Christine said.

“Simple: you and two other girls will be facing one of the current champions. If you’re still breathing when he wins, the crowd gets to vote: the choices are Life, Death and To the Pain. To the Pain means…”

“Got it, thanks.”
Thanks for ruining
The Princess Bride
for me, ‘Goddess.’

“That’s it. There are no other rules. You can grab any weapons from the racks lined against the walls. You can do anything you want. You can even fall on your knees and beg for mercy. That works sometimes, just not very often.”

Christine nodded.

“When your time comes, they’ll raise the door for you. If you don’t go out, the guards will come in, prod you with stun batons, and drag you out. I wouldn’t recommend doing that.”

Another nod.

“Good. And I’m glad that you’re not crying. It’s undignified, and the crowd doesn’t like it. Well, I’m off to see after the other two contestants. They’ve both survived one show already, so getting them ready will be a cinch. Ta, ta!”

And she was gone, leaving Christine alone in the antechamber.

She watched the next show through the door – the portcullis, to be precise, a metal grate set on grooves that could be lowered or raised. Two men went in, dressed like characters from
Final Fantasy.
Their fight was brief and violent. When it was over, one managed to make it out under his own power, although he looked like he’d need a team of healers to put him back together. The other ended up in pieces, and the janitors had to work extra hard to cover up the blood. The whole thing took about five minutes, with most of the time spent on introducing the combatants and having them parade for the crowd. The event had about as much charm as a back alley murder.

You’ll be out there soon enough. Maybe you should try to figure out how you’re going to live through it
.

Once upon a time, when Christine was a mere mortal living in a mere mortal world, she’d found an escape from her boring mundane life by playing a variety of games, chief among them World of Warcraft. Her main character, a daring Elven rogue by the name Snipe, had been one of the constants of her life. More recently, she’d discovered than when she was trapped in a psychic virtual reality she called Dreamland, she could become Snipe and use all of her level 90 skills and abilities. Could she do the same here, with her mind trapped inside a stranger’s body?