Countdown (25 page)

A crazy, near-suicidal idea occurred to him. It was a desperate move, but it seemed the only alternative to a painfully protracted life of ceaseless abuse and servitude.
TJiave to go for it now,
he resolved,
before I lose my nerve.

Darting from his place in the plodding procession, he sprinted back toward the gaping Fire Pit. The heat from the flames felt like a blast furnace, but Jimmy squeezed his eyes shut and kept on running. “Halt, Earthman!” the startled overslaver shouted. He sounded panicked at the ghastly prospect of his charge dying in defiance of Dark-seid’s orders. His heavy footsteps pounded after Jimmy. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”

Maybe,
Jimmy conceded,
but what other choice do I have?
The intense red glare of the Fire Pit penetrated his closed eyelids. The blistering heat tried to drive him back, but Jimmy gritted his teeth and hurled himself forward.
One way or another, I’m toast. . ..

He flung himself into the burning pit

18 AND COUNTING.

. NEPAL.

CMtwaa National Park was once the exclusive hunting grounds of the country’s ruling class. But now the sprawling forests and grasslands, nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, were a nature preserve encompassing nearly a thousand square kilometers. Monkeys chattered in the leafy branches of evergreen sal trees while Bengal tigers stalked through shoulder-high elephant grass. Birdsong competed with the shrill laughter of the monkeys.

Chitwan was also home to one of the world’s last remaining populations of the endangered one-horned Indian rhinoceros. Flying through the air alongside Eclipso, Mary spied a small family of rhinos grazing peacefully in a grassy meadow near a muddy watering hole. The ungainly beasts looked vaguely prehistoric. Their wrinkled hides hung in folds upon their massive frames. The curved horns of the adults pointed upward at the clear blue sky.

Unfortunately, the tigers weren’t the only predators prowling the brush. Armed poachers, equipped with automatic rifles, crept stealthily toward the unsuspecting rhinos, whose horns were valued on the black market due to their allegedly curative properties. The greedy poachers no doubt hoped to make a killing, in more ways than one.

Not if I have anything to say about it,
Mary thought angrily. She and Eclipso kept the sun behind them, so that the fierce glare masked their approach from the gun-wielding hunters below. “Talk about slimeballs,” Mary muttered. Didn’t these creeps know that there were less than three thousand Indian rhinos left in the world?

“Go ahead, dear,” Eclipso encouraged her. Jean raised her feathered cloak to shield her face from the sun; the daylight seemed to disagree with her. “Show these mortal swine the error of their ways.”

With pleasure,
Mary thought. She swooped down toward the poachers even as the men were drawing aim on their defenseless prey. Intent on their targets, they didn’t even notice Mary flying above them—until bolts of mystic lightning shot from her fingertips.

The sizzling blasts did not incinerate the men; Mary was more creative than that. Instead she instantly shrank the poachers to the size of squirrels. Lost in the folds of their own oversized clothing, the miniaturized poachers had to scramble to avoid being crushed beneath their own rifles. Their squeaky cries were barely audible.

Serves you right,
Mary gloated.
Not so tough without your big scary guns, are you?

The freak lightning also startled the wildlife below. Flocks of frightened woodpeckers and hombills launched themselves into the air, while agitated monkeys jabbered noisily. The alarmed rhinos, unaware of their close brush with death, fled in panic, stampeding straight toward the transformed hunters. Mary grinned at the hilarious sight of the tiny naked figures running like mad to avoid being trampled by the pounding hooves of their onetime prey. The discarded rifles were smashed to pieces by the rhinos, who proved that they could run surprisingly fast when motivated to do so. Faster than the little poachers’ doll-sized legs?

Maybe.

Mary briefly considered rescuing the shrunken hunters from the rhinos’ path. She didn’t actually want them to get crashed to death. Did she?

“Brilliantly done, Mary,” Eclipso congratulated her, “You’re developing a flair for poetic justice. You turned the tables on those cowardly vermin quite effectively.”

“Thanks!” Mary basked in her new friend’s praise, forgetting all about the micro-poachers’ plight. At least
somebody
appreciated what she was doing these days. Just this morning, in fact, Mary had defended thousands of acres of virgin rain forest from shortsighted loggers and developers. There were over a hundred new trees along the Amazon now, all with anguished human faces. “It feels so good, Jean. So liberating to cut loose with my powers like this.”

They soared away from the park, leaving the shrunken poachers to their fate. “That’s how it should always feel,” Eclipso assured her. “A few more lessons from me, and you’ll be ready.”

“Ready for what?” Mary asked. This wasn’t the first time Eclipso had alluded to some special destiny awaiting Mary.

Eclipso smiled coyly. “All in good time, dear.” PH1A0ISE ISLAND.

Paradise
Island was hardly living up to its name.

If the Athenian Women’s Shelter had been like a luxury hotel, Themyscira was turning out to be more like boot camp. Or so Holly thought as she busted her butt to complete yet another agonizing obstacle course. Flames erupted along the edges of the track, adding to the sweltering heat of the noonday sun. Holly’s chiton was soaked with sweat. Her bare feet pounded against the rough gravel track.

“Keep moving, all of you!” an Amazon drill sergeant berated them from atop a wooden guard tower. The looming towers and barbed wire fences enclosing the training grounds made their new home feel more like a prison than a refuge. Ugly steel barracks and mess halls contrasted sharply with the lovely palaces and temples Holly had glimpsed from offshore. She and the other new recruits had been on the isle for at least a week now, and she had yet to set foot in anything resembling Paradise. “Is that the best you can do, you useless sows? You’re pathetic!”

“That’s
Ms.
Pathetic to you,” Holly muttered as she dropped to the ground and wriggled beneath rolls of coiled razor wire. The jagged gravel scraped her knees and elbows. The back of her tunic snagged on a metal barb, which dug into the skin underneath. Holly winced, but kept on crawling forward on her belly. She was starting to wish that she had never heard of Athena....

“C’mon, red,” Harley Quinn called back to her. Ahead of the pack, the pixieish blonde sprang back onto her feet oft the other side of the razor wire. Typically, Harley was treating the hellish ordeal like a lark. Glancing back over her shoulder, she grinned encouragingly at Holly. “Compared to prowling around Gotham with Catwoman, this should be a sleepwalk!”

“Your lips to my feet,” Holly replied, panting in exertion. At this point, she no longer flinched whenever Hailey alluded to Holly’s colorful past. Gotham City and the rest of what the Amazons referred to as “Man’s World” seemed thousands of miles away. Her fugitive status wasn’t even an issue anymore. As far as she knew, Themyscira had no extradition treaty with the United States....

So how come it feels like I’m doing time anyway?

Just beyond the razor wire, a mountainous sand dune awaited them. Harley charged up the forty-five-degree slope with Holly right behind her, struggling to keep up. Rumor had it that Harley’s former BFF, Poison Ivy, had enhanced Harley’s athletic abilities with some sort of herbal concoction of her own devising. Watching Harley blithely scale the dune, Holly was inclined to believe it. Running uphill through the shifting sand proved incredibly exhausting; Holly’s own legs felt like lead. She heard the rest of the girls gasping and wheezing behind her. “Oh man, this is murder!” a breathless voice exclaimed. “It’s too much!”

Holly looked back to see Tricia feebly battling the hill. The young black woman was a distant third behind Holly and Harley. The remainder of the initiates hadn’t even cleared the razor wire yet, let alone made it to the dune. Stalled halfway up the slope, her whole body sagging, Tricia looked like she was on the verge of giving up.

Not a good idea,
Holly thought. Their Amazon hosts frowned on failure; Tricia would be lucky to get fed tonight if she didn’t complete the course. “You can do it, Trish!” Holly shouted. “Use your momentum!”

“Easier said than done!” Tricia grunted. Still, she took a deep breath, reached down deep, and came up with a fresh burst of speed that carried her another few yards up

* the slope. For a moment. Holly thought that Tricia might catch up with her, but then the other woman’s feet slid out from under her and she went tumbling down the hill, churning up a huge cloud of sand as she lost all the ground she had made before finally coming to rest at the very base of the hill, where she collided with Marta, a refugee from Bludhaven’s gang scene, who had just made it past the razor wire. The two women collapsed into a tangle of sweaty limbs. “Dammit!” Holly cursed in sympathy.

“On your feet!” A female warrior, in full armor, showed the fallen women no mercy. She prodded them with the blunt end of her lance, “An Amazon never surrenders!”

Holly paused at the crest of the hill, tempted to lend Tricia and Marta a hand. Her hesitation did not go over well with the drill sergeant in the tower. “Keep moving!” the Amazon barked. “What are you waiting for, an engraved invitation from Olympus?”

“But...” Holly gestured at the floundering women below. What about teamwork and sisterhood?

“Every woman for herself!” the sergeant bellowed. She pointed to the dense woods beyond the sand dune. Holly saw Harley waiting for her at the bottom of the hill. “Into the brush, you two! Go! Go! GO!”

Holly got the message. Reluctantly abandoning Tricia and Marta, she scrambled down the opposite side of the dune to join Harley at the edge of the forest. Together they plunged into the thick underbrush. Inhospitable branches and leaves scratched against Holly, adding to the numerous small nicks and abrasions stinging her sun-baked hide. Gnarled roots threatened to trip her. Sunlight filtered down through the leafy canopy overhead. Drenched in sweat, she pined for the comfy hot tubs and saunas back at the women’s shelter. At her new digs in the initiates’ spartan barracks, ice-cold showers were the only amenities. “For this, I kicked ass in the arena?” she griped aloud. “Remind me to flunk next time.”

Harley merrily led the way. She whistled a Disney tune aS'she plowed through the verdant foliage; if there was actually a trail through the brush, Holly couldn’t see it. Tall pines and laurel trees blocked her view. Thorny bushes grabbed at her tunic. Small animals scurried through the brush. “C’mon, admit it,” Harley teased her. “This is exhilarating!”

“You think?” Holly said dubiously. A displaced tree branch came whipping back toward her face and she ducked beneath it just in time. She tried to remember what sort of venomous reptiles had infested ancient Greece. Wasn’t Orpheus’s bride killed by a nasty snake?

“Sure!” Harley chirped. Annoyingly, she wasn’t even breathing hard. “This is us, Holly ... doing what we want, instead of being defined by someone else.”

Holly wasn't so sure. Sometimes she suspected that Harley had merely transferred her blind devotion to the Joker to Athena instead. She sure seemed to have bought into the Amazon party line.
Once a follower, always a follower.

But am I really all that different?

“Ooh! Check this out!” Harley enthused as they reached the perimeter of the training grounds, as marked by a chain-link fence topped by coiled razor wire. A narrow path ran along the base of the fence. Holly guessed that it circled back to the beginning of the obstacle course. She expected Harley to turn onto the path, but the blonde surprised her by running full-bore toward the fence.

“Harley?” Holly slowed to a trot, completely bewildered as to what her nutty new acquaintance was up to now. “Where ...?”■

“Adventure beckons!” Springing into the air, Harley caught hold of an overhanging laurel branch and used it to flip herself over the top of the fence, clearing the razor wire by a matter of inches. She touched down lightly onto the ground on the other side of the fence. “Hah! They call that a wall? Back at Arkham, that wouldn’t even stop Tweedledum and Tweedledee!”

Holly stared at Harley through the chain-link fence.

' “You’re going AWOL?” ' "

“I’m living life on my terms!” Harley exulted. She beckoned for Holly to follow her. “For the first time ever!”
I’m not sure this is such a good idea,
Holly thought. Athena and her lieutenants had declared the rest of the island off-limits to the newcomers. Then again, maybe it was worth the risk to find out just what, if anything, Athena might be hiding beyond the fence?
And far be it from me to discourage Harley from showing a little independent thought....

Sighing in resignation, Holly launched herself at the same branch Harley had employed only moments before. Hours of gymnastics practice back in Gotham paid off as she successfully duplicated her cohort’s acrobatic feat, nailing the landing just like a cat. Harley applauded loudly, obviously delighted that Holly had chosen to accompany her, and took off into terra incognita. Holly tagged along after her, hoping that she hadn’t made a dreadful mistake. She wondered how long it would take the Amazons to figure out that she and Harley had strayed from the path, and what exactly the penalty was for desertion.

What’s the Amazon equivalent of a firing squad?

Past the fence, the terrain rose steeply toward a range of rocky hills. The uphill climb was a challenge after the arduous obstacle course, but Holly took comfort in the fact that they would be heading downhill on the way back. Perhaps the altitude would afford them a good view of the rest of the island? The prospect kept Holly trudging upward, even though her throat was parched and she would have killed for a bottle of cold water. She kept her eyes peeled for any fresh streams or springs. Her stomach grumbled.