Prepare to Die! (16 page)

By then I’d repeatedly kicked at the floor, scuffing my foot along the ground four or five times, kicking up a sandstorm that obscured the entire arena. Then I went for him, and I should say that at the time I could have told you, from memory, the names of every kid who had died in the molten metal of the collapsing bus. I can’t do that anymore. But I could then. You can guess my state of mind.

I grabbed him by the arm before he knew where I was, hefted him onto my shoulders in the manner of the rat I’d worn before. He was already burning me. It was already agony, but I put that aside and then I jumped up as hard and fast as I could.

There were two possibilities, the way I saw it. Either the force field was keyed to let things down through it, but not up through it, which would mean I was about to crush Firehook between an immovable object (meaning the force field) and an angry and nearly unstoppable force, meaning me. The second possibility was that the force field was keyed for Firehook himself… giving him a free pass, and in that case I wanted to go along for the ride.

As it turned out, the force field let Firehook pass, but then tried to grab onto me. Fortunately, I’d gained enough of a wedge, enough momentum before it could collapse around me, and I made it through. I stumbled a bit on the landing, but stayed upright. I was standing in the balcony seating. I was among them. I was one of the beautiful people.

All of the seats were plush. There was no lack of legroom. Each of the chairs had monitors keyed in on the arena… suitable for close-ups on the action. The chairs were divided into blocks of four, and each block was complete with a table, and each table was laden with wines (whites and reds) and champagnes and other liquors, and with a buffet of fancy dishes in far larger portions than any profitable restaurant could allow. The people in the chairs (aside from shocked/horrified/lurid expressions) were dripping with money, or else they were whores or boy-toys. Rich women always dress their toys in the finest suits. Rich men clothe their women to look like cheap whores.

Waitresses traipsed among the elite, dressed in ways that made it clear they were there to serve every need. There were no waiters. Just the women.

The waitresses were the first to run when I landed amongst the crowd with Firehook on my shoulders. I was glad of that. They were potentially innocent, and I was in a bad mood.

I tossed Firehook at Octagon and screamed something, not even a word, and began plucking men from the seats, upsetting their drinks, upsetting their women, listening to chastisements of “Here, now! No need for this!” and exclamations of “Fuck!” and a few people screamed as I tossed them down into the arena below, and a few screamed when I punched them (holding back on the strength, but taking a year, here and there, nonetheless) and of course a few of them screamed when I did both.

I didn’t want to punch any of the women. I was too much of a gentleman for that. More on that in a bit.

“Reaver!” Octagon yelled, trying to scramble up from beneath Firehook, whose head was gathering flames, creating a mass around him, a whirling vortex that was a visual manifestation of his anger. It didn’t seem to be affecting Octagon in the least. I wrote that down in a mental notebook. I wondered why he was yelling my name, and was thinking about asking him when I took a shot from Laser Beast (who I’d all but forgotten) that went right through my jaw, barely missing my brain. The closest weapon at hand was a chair, so I tossed that at Laser Beast, barely noticing that a man was in the chair. It wouldn’t have mattered much anyway. I was none too pleased with anyone who’d bought tickets to the fights.

“Fuck!” Laser Beast cursed as the chair (and the rather fat man) collided with him, and the two of them (and the chair) went toppling over the side of the arena, falling below amidst the moans and broken bones. I turned back to Firehook in time to see the flames coming.

He had cut loose.

Gone close to atomic, I think.

A ball of flame the size of an Indian elephant washed over me. And it washed over, also, those behind me.

I could hear Octagon yelling, “Dammit! Dammit! God damn it!” I could hear the roar of the flames around me. I could hear the horrified cries of those who had been on the fringes of the flames. The ones who had been within the ball of flame were gone. Just… gone. Not even shadows, like at Hiroshima.

Of those who had been struck by the flames, I was the only one left. My costume was gone. I was hairless. My fingers were nubs. My eyelids had been burnt away. My nose was gone. My face was nearly a flat plane.

I was glowing green.

I toppled forward. Hit the graduated seating floor. Normally, I would probably have bounced down a couple of the steps, but I didn’t. I stuck in place. Like goo.

Octagon’s voice was garbled. He was saying things about…? About
assholes
? About
paying customers
? About
orders
? About
punishment
? The words were muted, I realized, because I didn’t have ears. Only holes. Each time Octagon said something, Firehook would cut in, saying the same thing, over and over again.

“
Fuck off. I killed him
.”

“
That wasn’t the purpose of this day
.”

“
Fuck off. I killed him
.”

“
You killed my friends. My customers.
”

“
Fuck off. I killed him
.”

“
I can’t let this stand
.”

“
You can fuck off. I killed him
.”

And so on, and so on, and with each sentence the words were becoming more clear, more audible, and I suddenly took a breath through my nose (it was nice to have a nose again) and my fingers (welcome back) were grasping at the front of a chair, making sure I didn’t fall down a step and attract too much attention, and there was a woman by my side (I couldn’t look at her without giving myself away) who was saying that I was getting better, was reforming, was getting handsome (why did she put THAT in?) but nobody was paying attention to her… everybody was arguing, or screaming, or trying to help people, or had run away, or was dead. Only minutes before, I’d been the center of attraction, but now I was forgotten. Except for one woman who I wished would shut up and let me glow green for a while.

Octagon, unseen, said, “I am in charge.”

Firehook, unseen, though I could feel his location from his radiating heat, said, “Maybe you being in charge, maybe that’s bullshit.”

Then I heard Firehook scream. Why? How? I wanted to look. It would have been dumb to look, dumb to stand up and see what was happening, foolish to give myself away before I was completely returned to normal.

I stood up.

I’m called
Reaver
. Not
Genius
.

“You kids arguing?” I asked. Octagon’s head snapped up. His face, behind the void of his mask, registered shock and confusion. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it in just the same way that I’d sensed Firehook’s heat.

Octagon was holding what seemed to be a ball bearing to Firehook’s chest, maybe the same type of metal marble that he’d thrown at me during our rooftop chase. Firehook was unconscious, slumped over, fallen over backwards, supported only by Octagon’s hand in the middle of his back. It looked like a Virgin Mary painting. Or a romance novel cover.

The man destined to be my arch-nemesis was staring at me.

“You… lived?” Octagon said.

“I did. I always will.” I tried to sound menacing. It worked. My throat was still raw from almost being melted away. But… I was back. I was whole again. I was exhausted, though… not having ever before known that healing took so much out of me. Too much healing could kill me. That was the first time I ever understood how that was true, and I was only a few minutes away from a refresher course.

For then, though, for that moment, I was whole. Even my hair was pushing back out, returning to how it had been before Firehook’s attack. I felt a hand going through my hair and turned to find a woman there… the one who’d been talking by my side, and she was beautiful, some French-African mix, with full lips and small breasts and hair the color of my own, which she proved by holding handfuls of our hair together, comparing them, merging them.

“God. You’re so beautiful,” she said. Her eyes traveled up and down the length of me, stopping here and there, always pleased. By then I was almost completely restored, with only a few spotted patches of the green glow remaining. Of course I was naked. My costume had been largely burnt away, and what hadn’t been incinerated had fallen away. I didn’t feel shy. I wasn’t in the mood for being shy. The woman’s voice had been nice. It had some music in it. Some primal melody from Africa, mixed with the sensuality of France. She even had some of her groin in her voice. I’m sure the meaning of that is clear.

I pushed her over the arena’s edge and heard her scream for thirty feet of rapidly declining travel, then the scream was gone, abruptly cut off. Replaced by angry moans. Pained curses.

I turned back to Octagon and he let Firehook fall to the steps. Firehook’s flames had been extinguished. He looked like any other normal douche that was about to have his head stomped on like a grape. I took a step forward.

I suppose you note that I’d made a moral decision. It’s true. I had. There are people who I consider too dangerous to live, and I’ve always been a bit simplistic in my problem solving.

“This night has not gone as I had planned?” Octagon said, making a question out of it from sheer disbelief. This changed my focus from Firehook (whose head was then only six feet away from a terminal date with the bottom of my boot) to him. This change of focus, this loss of concentration on the most important facets around me, wasn’t the smartest thing I’ve ever done, and I should’ve learned my lesson when I’d been distracted earlier. But… I’d been burned before, and was about to get burned again.

I told Octagon, “Your night is only going to get worse. But don’t worry… you’re about to get some time off.” It was the first time I’d ever uttered what is now my catchphrase, and it was only a fetal version of it. Octagon did nothing to acknowledge the perfection of my quip.

He just said, “Stellar. Clean up this mess.”

And then she had me from behind, her arms under mine, holding me, embracing me, flying upwards, crashing up through the arena, up through the subterranean passageways, up through the building, through a series of ceilings, again and again, then up above the city, high above the city, high above the clouds, high above the Earth, and finally into the fringes of space.

***

Stellar’s first appearance took place on a rainy Saturday in March. She is a tall woman. Nordic in appearance. Short blonde hair. She has large enough breasts that they have their own fan club. I don’t mean that she has a fan club centered around her breasts; I mean that her breasts have an online fan club. The fact that this is true, this churning devotion combined with the type of criminal that Stellar is, says a lot about men. Mistress Mary once said as much to me in a superior way, as if it makes women better than men. I pointed out the multitude of websites devoted to Laser Beast. The wealth of Octagon-related erotic fan fiction. Macabre’s dalliances with movie star actresses. The amount of fan mail that serial killers receive in prison. Mary shut up.

Stellar’s costume involves a cape and some of what most people would consider lingerie worn over a skintight black body suit. She has stars on a field of black. Her arms often glow with energy and I’m not sure I’ve even seen her on the ground. From certain angles it might seem like she was standing, but if you look close, there’s always an inch or two of separation.

She came to us, as far as anyone knows, from the stars. Most scientists believe she’s from Earth, though. It’s just too much of a coincidence that she looks so human. Linguists have done endless studies on her vocal patterns, trying to find a dialect, but the electrical hum of her voice (it’s not robotic, just… charged with energy) and the fact that whenever she speaks, anywhere, at any time, everyone hears her voice in their own native tongue, makes assigning an origin impossible.

She leaves no fingerprints, skin flakes, or secretions of any kind. There are theories that she is a tangible ghost. Those are up in the air. There are theories that she has no physical form. Those are false. I can well attest to her physical form.

Stellar has never spoken of any incident, any memory, previous to her appearance on that rainy day in March when she landed in the streets of Creely, a small town in Australia, and demanded to be taken to Earth’s leader.

An incident had ensued, building up from her being laughed at (“
Take me to your leader
” will get you that) and she soon lost her temper and tossed a car through a building. The laughter had stopped. By then I was already en route, notified by SRD, held in Warp’s arms as he raced across the Pacific, taking us to the scene.

In the footage of Stellar’s first appearance, a man begins to shoot at her and, after some seconds (she didn’t seem to notice at first) she turns to him and tells him, “Jacob, do not shoot at me.” He must have wondered how she knew his name. This was, of course, before it was clear that she knows everyone’s name. Everyone.

There was little more to the Creely incident. She fired a beam of energy from her eyes, obliterating a house (it had been abandoned anyway, as Creely was on the decline) and then asked each and everyone who had assembled (there were less than fifty) to let “the leader” know that she needed to talk. She called all of the witnesses by name.

By the time Warp and I arrived there was nothing of Stellar left except a contrail, of sorts, from when she had gone back into the air, soared up past Earth’s atmosphere, peered in through a porthole of the space station for some moments (sending one astronaut into permanent counseling) and soon after landed on the moon. She stayed on the moon for several weeks, standing almost motionless, brought to focus in some of SRD’s most dramatic photography.