Gods of Manhattan (13 page)

More sparks, more flashes. He had to remember something. Their final confrontation. The zeppelin, flying over the rich jungles of the Amazon, the struggle for the pistol...

No. That wasn't the important part. It was the part before, the part Maya had told him about. Something Lomax had said. How had it gone?

What had Maya said?

Think. Remember.

"
I always enjoy our talks..."

"I always enjoy our talks, your Royal Highness. Tell me, what will you do when all this is over and your lover is dead? Go back to your forgotten kingdom? I can't imagine what the funeral service will be like."

One thousand days previously - in the sparks and crackles of Doc Thunder's memory - Lars Lomax smiled, and his shaggy red eyebrows lifted in amusement. "I imagine it involves feeding the deceased to a giant cobra, or possibly having a death-duel with a panther. That's about your speed, isn't it? Am I close?" He idly reached out to move his bishop a single square.

"Close." Maya smiled, readjusting herself on her seat. The ropes binding her arms and legs in place, securing her to the warm leather seat in front of the chessboard, were tight, but not so tight as to cut off her circulation. Lomax was considerate of his guests, as long as it suited him to be. "Actually the funeral service involves raising an army of my finest warriors to hunt you to the end of the world and flay the flesh from your living bones for daring to plot against my chosen consort. Never mind the temerity you've shown by daring to bind a Goddess... anyway, Queen's knight to queen five. Knight takes pawn. Mate in three moves."

Lomax frowned as he made her move for her. "Well, I'm not going to leave you free, am I? I'm not stupid. You'd kill me in five seconds. Three moves, you say?" He concentrated for a moment, and then took his own knight and captured a pawn himself. Getting rid of that white rook was a priority - in addition to all the other priorities, of course. Like killing Doc Thunder once and for all. "Well, I'm concentrating on several things at once, you have to understand."

Maya sneered. "King's knight to king four, knight takes knight, mate in two moves. And believe me, I understand. After all... you're no Doc Thunder, are you?"

Lomax cursed. Now he'd lost his knight, his queen was locked in one corner of the board and his king was looking dangerously under threat. How had he missed that? He'd walked right into it. Too many variables, that was the problem. Hurriedly, he captured the original knight with a pawn. Perhaps he could outflank her somehow.

For these few seconds of consideration, the game on the board was as important as the larger one taking place in the massive dirigible floating over the Amazon, towards his destiny. He'd rebuilt his Flying Fortress for the purpose, investing in hydrogen rather than cavorite to lift the structure - less expensive, and more suited to his purposes.

Of course, it meant that he was flying in a gigantic firebomb that could go off at any moment, but what was life without a little risk?

Whenever he had Ms. Zor-Tura as his guest - vastly preferable to leaving such a dangerous opponent free to provide aid and comfort to the accursed Thunder - he made a point of getting out the chessboard. Last time, he'd beaten her conclusively in one game and forced her to a stalemate in the second. No small feat, given that she'd been playing the game almost since its inception, and he was putting the final touches to his earthquake machine at the time.

Having made his move, he snapped out of his brief trance and turned his attention back to Maya.

"No Doc Thunder... well, I take that as a compliment. Anyway, pretty soon there'll
be
no Doc Thunder, just a moldy old corpse hanging off the front of my dirigible. Do you like it, by the way? After you broke the old one, I traded up. I particularly like the new furniture." He stood, walking across the metal flooring of the dirigible cabin towards the chair - his favourite chair, the one Doctor Hamilton was sitting in. "What do you think, Doctor Hamilton? How's my taste in antiques?"

Hamilton seemed restrained, drugged almost - not his usual self. He'd been Doc Thunder's personal physician for over ten years, and in that time Maya had gotten to know him well. A man with a dry wit, a gentle grip and a fierce light in his eyes, always ready with a smile, who cried at the injustices of the world openly and without shame. A truly gentle man.

The light in his eyes seemed gone now. The chair he was strapped in looked as if it would be most at home in one of the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition. Hamilton's arms were strapped down to the arms of the chair, and there was a further studded metal strap wound around his temples and forehead, with a screw positioned at the back of the monstrous device that would tighten it as needed. Lomax had been slowly tightening the mechanism until it dug into Hamilton's flesh, and the agony must have been unendurable - the band was already visibly sunk into his forehead. Despite this, he remained still and calm, speaking through hitching breaths. "You can stop... stop asking questions. I'm never going to tell you what you want to know." The words held an edge of determination that struck Maya as almost out of character, and she felt shame at the thought. She'd misjudged him.

"But I really don't want to know very much, Doctor. Can't we compromise? Long negotiations can be such a headache." He reached to tighten the screw again, and Hamilton winced and inhaled sharply, gritting his teeth. "I really think you should reconsider. If nothing else, when your head cracks open like an eggshell it's going to make a terrible mess of my lovely Flying Fortress."

"I said no." Maya couldn't tell if that look of supernatural calm on Hamilton's face was despair, agony or something else. The words were low, almost rasping. "I'm not going to help you kill him. Good God, listen to yourself! You've tried shooting him, bombing him, stabbing him - now you want to find some ancient poison or radioactive metal that can kill him for you? You're a sick maaaagh!" His voice became a scream as Lomax tightened the band once more.

"Excuse me while I turn this a small trifle... you're right, Doctor, I am a sick man. I'm a very sick man. Sick of
him.
That pompous intellectual midget. That over-inflated stuffed shirt. I want him out of my hair for a while, Hamilton. Him and his trained ape."

"I beg your pardon?" hissed Maya, arching an eyebrow.

Lomax rounded on her, his irritation boiling into a sudden rage. "Oh, I forgot, the ape-man's your boyfriend too. Well, of course he is! The monarchy always did get their playthings, didn't they, Princess? King Thunder the first's big happy family can do what they like!
He
can do what he likes! Bend the ears of Presidents! God forbid the rest of us get the chance to make our voices heard! God forbid any
real
human beings ever go outside the stifling rules of this wretched, poisoned society, ever get to live their lives free from the taint of the status quo! Free from the
rules!
The ones
he
enforces!"

Hamilton didn't blink. "You're mad, Lomax. You're completely mad."

"Oh, I'm furious." Lomax was suddenly calm as he turned back to face the Doctor. "We have a superhuman being retarding our development. If humans had fought the Second Civil War alone, we'd have a paradise by now. My paradise. Instead, all we did was swap one flag for another. Well, I think it's about time we put the flags away with the rest of our childhood toys." He leaned in, close to the Doctor's ear.

"Listen, Doctor. You're Thunder's personal physician. You must know his weaknesses. You see, I was thinking... Poison. We're on our way to my Amazon lab, I've got a number of interesting toxins stored there. We'll experiment, see what might work. I just want a little input from you, that's all." He slowly twisted the screw, very gently now, applying only the slightest pressure. Hamilton screamed. "A little co-operation. That's all I want, and then the pain can stop. What do you say?"

"'First, do no harm.'" Hamilton gasped, his expression still unchanging as he gritted his teeth. "I took an oath. You can torture me all you want."

"Good. I'll do that, then."

"Even if I could help you -"

Lomax scowled, standing suddenly. It was all taking too long. He had to speed this up. "Fine. Fine, fine, fine, your own life isn't important to you. I get it. You're a big hero, well done, very good. How about
hers?"
He drew a revolver from his belt and pointed it directly between Maya's eyes. "Because one way or another I plan to hurt him, Doctor. I plan to hurt the big blue banana very badly indeed. And between you and me? I don't really care about methods."

Maya strained against the ropes, testing them again. Then she spoke, coolly. "Queen to queen seven, queen takes bishop. Check. And don't you dare threaten
me.
"

Without taking his gun off her, Lomax made the move. He chuckled, and called back to Hamilton. "Her Majesty speaks! And she's right, you know, Doctor, I am indeed in check. Seems a shame to end the game at this point, doesn't it? I'd look like a sore loser. It'd be sour grapes." He laughed again, eyes flashing fire, matching Maya's as his finger stroked the trigger. "Sure you won't reconsider my generous offer? I'd so hate to seem unsporting."

"Go ahead and shoot. I may be more resilient than you think." Maya smiled, daring him with her eyes.

"You are fascinatingly long-lived, I'll grant you that. A true scientific puzzle. But immune to death by gunshot? I'd be a poor scientist if I didn't test that little theory." He chuckled, spying something on the chessboard. "Oh, and..." He took one of his knights and quickly knocked the white queen over on the board before picking it off. "Knight takes queen. That's game over, I think, Maya."

Maya looked back at him, and at that moment the entire cabin lurched sideways, the pieces toppling off the board, the board toppling off the table, the torture-chair sliding across the smooth metal floor.

Maya smiled. "Game over. Yes, I rather think it is. King's knight to king six." Her eyes sparkled. "Checkmate."

A hand tore through the metal siding of the cabin, peeling it away like a can-opener, as the superhuman forced his way in. Lars Lomax only smiled, and straightened.

"I thought he'd never get here."

He raised the gun and fired twice at Doc Thunder, aiming for the eyes. They were the weak spots, where a well-placed bullet could -

wait something not right

i thought he'd never get here

why did he say that

The insight hit like a thunderbolt. They were starting again. He needed to tap out soon, give Maya the signal, but he couldn't yet. Not until he'd worked it out.

"I thought he'd never get here."

But Lomax hadn't found the answer he was after - hadn't found his poison, the death-in-a-bottle that would end the life of the man he hated most. But he'd sounded impatient-

what else had he said

out of my hair for a while

strange way to put it

Another flash. Stronger. He was on the edge of something, he knew. What had happened next?

There'd been a fight. An unequal fight, as always. He'd kept firing his pistol, even as he'd climbed into the cabin, even though he knew it wouldn't affect him. No, that wasn't quite true. He'd gone for the eyes. Always for the eyes.

The weak spot. A bullet in the eye would go straight into his brain and kill him, or at least brain-damage him. During the Second Civil War, he'd kept goggles with bullet-proof glass in them to wear during gunfights, but in the long run they'd limited his vision too badly to be worth it, especially after Silken Dragon's people had discovered inexorium -

inexorium

the metal cuts through my skin

no poison required

Doc gritted his teeth, tasting the rubber of the gag. He was almost seeing something, but not quite. The flashes were coming more quickly now. The insights. He travelled back in his memory, remembering the unequal fight, Lomax darting and ducking, aiming more bullets for his eyes, diving to the floor to escape a punch, rolling and snapping off one last shot - the one that killed him. The bullet had bounced off Doc's forehead, ripping up through the roof of the cabin and into one of the hydrogen chambers. It must have struck a spark on the metal, or at least he'd assumed later that's what must have happened, because suddenly the cabin was filled with flame and smoke. He'd heard the terrible roar and the rush of heat as the hydrogen went up -

but why hydrogen

antiquated and unsafe

why not cavorite

-
and then he'd just reacted, grabbing Maya and Doctor Hamilton, ordering Lomax onto his back. He remembered that part very clearly, that oddly triumphant look. "You don't get to save me, Thunder." A coughing laugh. And then he'd run into the flames. Later, in the wreckage of the airship, they'd found his blackened skeleton. In death, it had seem to laugh at Doc Thunder, grinning with an empty skull-smile at his inability to save his greatest foe. It was the smile of the last enemy, of death itself.