The Tower (26 page)

Moreover, for all the conflicting emotions, the Ultras
had
saved me. I owed them…and I owed it to myself. This little “yes-or-no” moral tug-of-war went on for less than three seconds and I knew I had to go back. A choice to be made, a price to be paid; I was ready to pay the ultimate price if necessary and that entailed returning to the Tower.

How could it be done? There was no radio, no way to contact them. Searching my front pockets, I found my wallet, the disc to my room, and…in the other pocket, a long, slim, cigarette-lighter type of device. What the hell was this?

And who'd…? Avenger; he must've slipped it into my pocket in the Containment Room! I looked at it more closely, figured it out, pressed a couple of buttons…it started beeping…Yes! It had to be some kind of homing device…I kept hoping and waiting…

…and then about forty minutes later the roar of a jet's engines filled the sky, and a few seconds after that, the image of a Dart came into view. The most beautiful image I'd ever seen. The Dart landed in the park area shortly after and I got on board. Time back to the Tower—forty-five minutes or less, if I pushed it to the limit. The automatic guidance was working, so after I fired up the engines I just sat back for the ride. While it was a thrill to think of myself as a starship pilot, I just prayed that I'd be in time.

* * *

Back at the Tower, the Hangar Bay was quiet, not a soul around. Wildcard wouldn't be watching this area, there was no monitor in the Containment area and he was probably having too much fun torturing the faux-Association to care. That would work in my favor.

Making my way quickly down to the lower decks, I got to where my girlfriend and the rest of my friends, yes, damn it, lies or not they were still my friends, were being held and slowly peeked around the corner. The muzzle of a pistol greeted me. So much for being a sleuth, I'd walked right into it. Crap.

“Out where I can see you,” Wildcard said amicably. “You never cease to surprise me, Lamp-kin; you are truly one for the books,” he said conversationally. “I actually didn't think you'd come back. And why? For them?” His voice held no anger, just curiosity.

There he was, mispronouncing my name again. “Yeah, I came back for them. It doesn't matter what they are or where they came from. They've proven themselves decent; you, you're just a psycho with a Mommy/Daddy disorder who gets his jollies by torturing people and can't look at himself in a mirror without throwing up. It must suck being you.”

While I was hoping he'd get so pissed off by my rather childish little taunts that he'd forget the gun and try to take me on bare-handed, I was in for some disappointment. He just shook his head and smiled. “Too true,” he answered. “My father was a fiend and my mother,” he paused for a second, “not very virtuous. But they did make me the man I am today!”

“Yeah, you're an impotent nut who hasn't had a woman in the last few years—that is just pathetic.” That little remark earned me a hard slap to the side of the head with his hand. It jolted me. The look on his face told me to get ready as worse than that was coming.

He gestured with the pistol and this time, his face held no merriment; it was a mask and did not look like a friendly one. “This way.”

He led me over where Oriana was being held, thank God she wasn't in any worse shape than the others. “What did you think you were going to do, anyway?” he asked. “Did you think you were actually going to rescue them? Is that how your mind works?”

“Something along those lines, whack-job.”

“News flash, buddy,” he sneered and his voice rose, took on its familiar psychotic edge, the edge I'd witnessed in his lair. “You are no cop and you're not brave. None of the people I killed ever was. They just stood there and took it, just like you will. This isn't some flick where you play the hero.” He whipped me again, this time with the pistol and blood flowed.

“Do you think you can beat me?!” he screamed, his vocal cords vibrating. “Beat
ME
?!! Nobody ever has and no one ever will!” He was actually frothing at the mouth now, full nutball mode coming out. “This is
not
a TV show! And if you think you're a hero, think again! You're just another extra in this sad little drama called ‘Life.'” He calmed down again, wiped his mouth, took a quick look at his prisoners and then back at me again.

“You forget, Billy, for all your emotions ruling you, for all your sentimentality, I'm still in control and you,” his voice took on its savage tone again, “you've got a ringside seat, so settle back and watch your girlfriend become part of the weenie roast!” Motioning me back with the handgun he ordered, “Hands behind you.” I did so, and then he hit me for the third time, sending more blood streaming into my eyes.

Falling to my knees, and brushing my right hand against my wallet pocket, I felt something there. Mr. W's stun-cookie. In my haste I'd forgotten all about it…and so had he. The blood was running into my eyes but if there was ever a time for luck….

Spinning myself down to the ground, I took it out, thumbed it twice and hurled it in his direction, hoping it would distract him long enough. It did. The bomb exploded with a deafening “BANG” and his pistol fired, the bullet whizzing past my left ear, the concussion knocking him against the slab where Ori was pinned and….

“Uuurk!” Her tree-limbs shot out, one of them wrapping itself around his gun hand, the other choking him around his neck. It must have been agonizing for her just to move, but she wasn't a quitter. Wildcard dropped his pistol, partially stunned by the nerve-jamming impulses of the bomb but mainly from Oriana's clutches. She had a hold on his throat and wouldn't let go. His face rapidly turned from its tomato-red to a deep purple, his hands frantically clawing at her branches until he sagged down, semi-conscious.

Quickly, I snatched up the pistol, dragged him out and got her untied. Then I heaved him into the corner where he lay gasping for air. I ran to the console, killed the power to the lights, and finally, the screaming stopped.

“Get the water!” she yelled. I found the hose, turned it on and started spraying her first, then cell after cell where the Ultras lay. Oriana got her feet moving, found some buckets and hurriedly filled them with water, delivering a bucket to each cell where the Ultras dipped their tendrils into the life-giving fluid.

Deanna was the first to revert to human form, and she took off towards Sickbay, soon returning with bags of saline solutions and other medicines. She went first to Avenger and immediately stuck an IV tube in his arm, the bag was sucked dry in less than thirty seconds and another was provided. He lay back on the slab, healing faster than I thought possible, in spite of his grievous burns. Then she ran to help out the others.

My head still throbbed but I did my best to ignore it; there were more important things to do. Deanna came over after tending to her friends and patched me up quickly, gave me a shot for the pain. “Not that bad, you'll live.”

“Will they be okay?” I asked, after she'd finished her patch-job.

“I think so. We weren't trapped for that long.” I kept the gun trained on Wildcard. He'd done nothing except sit up, his hand to his damaged throat, watching everything happen with a sense of wonder on his face. And he was also waiting for the right moment and I didn't dare turn my back on him for a second. And then I remembered his knife.

“Give me the shiv,” I said.

He just stared at me. Pulling back the trigger, I aimed a shot that just missed his left knee. “The knife,” I repeated. “Now!” He pulled “Little Shirley” out from his pocket and tossed it to me. He was totally weaponless but I kept the gun trained on him anyway as I glanced at the Ultras.

Slowly, they all started to change back. PowerGuy was first, then Skree, Blue Lancer, and all the rest. They must have had tremendous regenerative powers to put up with all that damage. Witnessing this “time-lapse” healing was indeed a wonder. Avenger finally sat up, moving his limbs and swinging himself off the slab. He nodded at his wife, then at me.

“Thanks,” he said. “I always knew you were smart enough to figure things out.”

“Don't thank me,” I answered. “Oriana did it all. I was just here at the right time.” Avenger then looked at Oriana, said something to her in their language, she nodded and stayed silent.

Avenger and I looked over at the corner. Wildcard was standing now, still massaging his throat. “Just my luck,” he said bitterly, giving me an accusatory look. “I had to run into a Druid. And I
hate
trees.”

Avenger moved faster than I thought possible, moving over to where the maniac was and letting loose a punch to his face that knocked him into the wall and bounced him off it. Just one was all it took. He then hauled his prisoner over to the same slab he'd been on and tied him securely. “Stay there.”

“I'll get out,” Wildcard said thickly. His lips were already starting to swell. “I'll get out, and when I do, all the water in the world won't save you!” That threat, even though he was tied up and helpless for the moment, sent a shiver down my spine. He was just the person to do it.

“If you get out,” I said.

He just looked at me, eyes curiously sane. “I underestimated you, Mr. Lampkin.” This time he said my name correctly. “I won't make that mistake again.”

He lay back, face and body quiet, but even so, there was some kind of evil just oozing out of his form, something unhealthy and unholy at the same time. People like this weren't people; they were “things.” I was disgusted with him as a person, and even more disgusted that I'd almost sunk to his level.

The rest of the Ultras were now able to stand and slowly filed out, each of them taking a long look at the thing on the slab. Skree was last, she went over to him and smacked his face once, just once, very hard, slicing open his cheek with a tendril she'd sprouted.

“I hate you, too!” he called after her.

Avenger looked at me. “What should we do with him?” he asked. “Return him to Earth or….”

“I vote we ice his sorry ass,” Oriana said angrily, her old patterns of speech coming back. “After what he did….”

“We don't work that way,” he replied, cutting her off. “Not even for people like him.” He walked out.

“Just like the old Avenger,” Wildcard yelled. “He'd be
so
proud!” He lay on the slab, watching us and then turned his gaze on me. “I'll do my time in prison, Billy, I'll just do my time. I won't even mention who these root-suckers are. It'll be my little secret. And then it begins again. Wait and see, wait and see…” His voice trailed off, but the grin remained.

Ori and I were the only ones left in the room. When I mentioned that it was time to go, she nodded but paused in front of his cell, regarding him. I pressed a button; the bars slid into place. Wildcard simply stared at us and it wasn't hard to figure out what he was thinking. Things like him were beyond reform, and A was still A. Over here, all the people we'd run up against until now were just punks and robbers, but none of them was in his class.

No, he wasn't just a monster in a comic book like he was in my universe. Here, he was infinitely worse and had always loosed his evil on society and always would. He couldn't be allowed to get away with it again and when I looked at Oriana we both knew what had to be done. As much as the idea repelled me, there was really no other way.

“He is a bit pale,” I opined. Considering how red and bloated his face was, that had to be the stupidest line of all time, but Oriana knew what I meant.

She looked at me carefully, and then shrugged. “Nothing a little sun wouldn't cure,” she said.

Wildcard regarded us, eyes widening slightly as he realized what we were about to do to him. “Can you live with it, Billy?” he asked mockingly. “Can you live with the knowledge that you're doing exactly what I was doing to those ‘“hings' you call ‘friends'?” And will you live long enough to understand that they're just using you as a guinea pig?
Can
you?!” That last part was said desperately.

“However long I've got, I'll deal with it,” I answered him. “And, yeah, they are my friends and always have been, always will be.” Of that I was sure. “Oriana is my girlfriend and the woman I love.” I paused for a second, and then said, “Don't forget your sun block.” With that, I flipped on the switch to full power, the equivalent of being in the Sahara desert at noon without any protection whatsoever. Hotter, much hotter; a person would cook inside of an hour.

Wildcard started laughing as the first rays touched his face. That laugh soon morphed into a high-pitched cackle and then a wail of agony coupled with his laughter. In the comics, the way the character was drawn when laughing it was sort of amusing; now, it was just the insane rant of a madman, and the sound chilled me to the bone. We walked out, Wildcard was still laughing and screaming as the doors closed and locked themselves into place. We walked over to the lifts, away from the madness.

“It had to be done,” Ori told me; I'd actually started shaking a bit once I realized that I'd taken a life, even one as loathsome as Wildcard's. Even if he was a mass murderer, what I'd done, had that made me any different?

“It made you the person who saved my ass in there,” my lady reminded me. “That's the second time.” She looked at me with an expression of pure love and gratitude on her face, it was beautiful to see. “You came back for us; you came back for me.”

“The things we do for love,” I said with a smile.

“The things we do for love,” she echoed, and kissed me hard. “Go and free everyone else, I'll see what's going on topside.” She took the first elevator, and I took the next, soon made my way up to the eighth deck. There, in a storage room, was the human staff, alive and well except for a couple of pistol whippings the madman and his now-gone henchman had dealt out. What to say in this situation? Alien incursion, mind-control, they believed me. After what I'd seen, any alien invasion would've been nothing to get excited about and the mind-control stuff wasn't that far off the mark.