Superego (37 page)

Without looking at him, I pulled the trigger on the gun I had pointed at Gredler. There were gasps, but no one could do anything while the shield was up. “Was that spectacular enough? It felt anti-climactic to me. But that is just the beginning of our fun day. With Gredler gone, I believe Nystrom plans to now show their strength and bully one of their own stooges into power. I don't follow politics very closely, but it's probably Senator Logston.” Through the shield, I pointed my gun at a balding human now shrinking under my gaze. He was out of my reach. For the moment. “I don't think that plan is going to work, though. I don't think there will be any puppets left to dance.”

The alarm system activated, and thanks to Dip's hacking, I could hear clicks and thuds throughout the room as the thick, secure doors locked, sealing all the entrances and exits of the auditorium, locking everyone inside. Now they started to panic. Now I could see the fear in them.

It wasn't enough to sate me.

“Listen to me!” I shouted over the yells of the trapped rats. “For too long you criminals have stolen and murdered with no fear of repercussions except from each other. You feel you are so powerful that you are above justice—you can do as you please, and nothing can rise against you. But I am here to tell you that your power is just an illusion. I am going to remind you all what small, weak, craven little things you are. No matter how many planets or how much fortune you hold, death still comes for you. That's who I am. I am death.”

Though some of the thugs were working to open the doors, most were looking at me. I could hear a few of the experienced killers scoff, though. They knew that soon someone would get around the shield, and then I, a single man, would be dead.

“It's here,” Dip said.

I smiled. “Prepare for the fires of hell.”

And then it was as if the world ended. A tremendous crash caused the whole building to shake, and the ceiling above the auditorium caved in. A giant transport had crashed through the building, the front of it now inside and the rest sticking up out of the roof. As the dust settled, I could see the Calabrai terrorists spilling out of it, shouting and firing their weapons at everyone. And weren't they surprised when they found themselves in a large room full of criminal thugs quite prepared to fire back! Everyone had assumed the Calabrai were no longer an immediate threat, having been cowed enough for now. Still, when I'd sent them access codes (through Dip) so they could get a ship into the conference's air space, they'd obviously been able to throw together a bunch of guys with automatic rifles for an attack.

Within seconds, chaos erupted, with everyone shooting at everyone. All trapped inside, firing on each other in panic, and any alliances between syndicates ended in the chaos. I just hoped the cameras were still catching this so the universe could admire the symphony of violence I had made.

I crossed my pistols in front of me, waiting. And then there was a buzzing and popping as the energy shield gave out, no longer protecting them from me.

CHAPTER 41

What happened next was all a bit of a blur, like a half-remembered dream. With the combination of pain and euphoria, it was almost like I wasn't even there. I floated above it all, feeling no fear and no threat from syndicate thugs and terrorists fighting all around me. Logically, I knew that at any moment one stray shot could rip through me and end my life, but somehow I felt invincible. It wasn't just the drugs and pain messing with my brain, but something else. This room was filled with some of the universe's most powerful killers—people who thought themselves untouchable—and now they were spending their last few moments as weak and scared and panicked as any of their victims. All the misery they'd spread was now directed back at them. I was the instrument of this…justice. What I felt, this feeling of power…was righteousness.

With each trigger pull, someone evil and deserving of wrath fell dead. Most were too busy fighting each other to notice me, but the few who saw me coming for them had eyes filled with terror. Their last moments must have been spent realizing the truth of the matter: I
was
the angel of death, and there was nothing that could stop me.

It seemed to be over so soon, the auditorium just filled with the dead. I could hear the whimpers of a few survivors, but there were no more threats. I was the only man standing in the room. It was over. I had won. But how could it have ended any other way?

“Police are gathering outside and will breach the room soon,” Dip warned me. “You should probably make your escape.”

“What was that again?” I guess I hadn't paid much attention to the final part of the plan; I hadn't really thought I'd make it that far.

“Rear of the cruiser. Escape pod 287.”

I noticed a TV camera pointed at me. I smiled into it and then headed into the crashed cruiser. Inside I found a few Calabrai cowering behind seats. I headed farther up the slanted floor of the destroyed craft. I can't remember if I shot the Calabrai I saw. I may have done so without even consciously thinking about it; my mind and body had almost been operating separately ever since the Fazium had taken effect. Eventually I was so far up into the craft that I knew I must be in the area sticking out of the roof. I found the escape pod Dip had indicated and entered it.

“Prepare yourself.”

The escape pod launched, and out its viewport I could see the rest of the pods launch in different directions. With all the police force's resources currently in use trying to get into the conference hall, they wouldn't be able to spare the manpower to check all of the pods. After a few minutes, my pod was well outside the city and over the forest. The sky had darkened a bit with rain clouds, giving me further cover. The pod began to descend and eventually came to a sudden halt in a clearing.

“I'm on my way,” Dip told me. “We'll need to be quick. We have some confusion to use as cover, but they're preparing further blocks on outgoing traffic that my authorization may not be able to circumvent. As you instructed, I passed all the information we had on syndicate connections within the Galactic Alliance to every media organization I could. I'll have to be radio silent for a few minutes, but I'll contact you again when I arrive.”

I opened the pod. It had started to drizzle, and I could actually feel water drops on my skin instead of just pain. The Fazium was tapering off, and I was beginning to feel tired, both mentally and physically. But I smiled. I set my feet on the ground. My legs ached, but I could stand. And I felt good—better than I could ever remember. I was a new man; I had found purpose. The syndicates were vast, but I would continue to hunt them down and hit them where it hurt. I had just exposed to the public how entrenched the criminals were in their government. And not only that, I'd shown them as cockroaches to be crushed, not giants to be feared. Maybe it would rouse people to action as Diane had hoped. But whether it did or not, the criminals who thought they ran the universe would not rest easy. Not while I was after them.

I let myself enjoy the moment. The rain picked up, but the water felt good. It washed over me, cleaning off the old self, leaving the new. But the drug faded more, and as the pain throbbing throughout my body faded, for some reason I felt the aches more. The water was no longer pleasant but more like little rocks pelting bruised, raw skin. As the euphoria faded, a thought came to me: I wasn't some new being with purpose. I was just a pathetic, deluded, broken murderer alone in a dark forest getting soaked in the rain.

I tried to grab that feeling of purpose again—that faith—but it was gone, and reality was back. The Fazium and injuries must have messed up my mind to make me more susceptible to irrational thought, but my logical facilities had returned to remind me how pointless everything was. It didn't matter how much of the syndicates I hunted and murdered, I'd still be an empty, pointless being.

The only thing that didn't make any rational sense was that I was still alive, that I'd improbably survived it all. My real plan all along had been to die in that fight, and if that had succeeded I might have actually ended my life feeling I'd had a purpose in the universe. But I lived, and the torture of a useless existence continued on.

I looked up at the sky and the dark gray clouds dropping rain on me. “So do you exist?” I shouted to the darkness above. “And am I just some joke to you? I'm evil! Why don't you smite me? Why am I still here?” I knew I was probably talking to nothing. I looked down at the ground. “I just want to know what to do. Please, if you exist, I just need you to tell me what to do.”

There was no answer from above. Only silence. Until Dip spoke in my ear. “I'm almost there.”

Here came my escape, but what was I escaping to? Why was I trying to save my life at all? There was nothing left for me that was worth anything at all.

Diane. Caught up in my own drama and thinking I'd found purpose, I'd completely forgotten about her…natural for me, I guess. It's why I knew I could never be with her—I could never be about anything other than myself. But I saw my own life as worthless. The best I could do was use it to help someone more worthy of existence, who perhaps wouldn't have an empty and pointless life.

“Dip, do you have any updates on Diane?”

“I thought you intended to cease all involvement with her.”

“Just tell me what's happening with her. Nystrom and the other syndicates are probably too preoccupied to go after her now, but I don't know how long that will last.” I dreaded seeing her again after what I had done to her. And after she'd probably seen exactly what a monster I was in my huge, bloody spectacle before the cameras. But what she thought of me was unimportant. I just needed to make sure she was safe. And I had this silly little hope that if I accomplished this one thing of use, God would finally let me have my ending.

I could see my ship breaking through the clouds and descending to land in the clearing I was in. “I see that Diane is—”

The ship halted its descent, hovering a few yards above me.

“Why did you stop?” I asked after a moment's silence.

“I'm sorry, Rico.”

“Sorry about wh—”

The ship exploded, and I quickly shielded my face from the fire and debris. Then there was another bang, a much smaller explosion. Like a gunpowder-based firearm being fired. And something hit me in the back.

My pain was gone again. And so was the feeling. I fell to the ground, and all I could feel was the rain on my face and the warmth of the burning pieces of my ship scattered next to me.

CHAPTER 42

It was no mystery who'd shot me. There was always one man who I'd assumed could take me down easily whenever he wanted to: my father. I just had begun to think he wasn't going to show up.

I didn't know what he'd shot me with, but I seemed to be paralyzed from the neck down. I could hear footsteps on dead leaves over the sound of the rain. I was rolling over, though I couldn't feel what pushed me. And then I was staring up at Anthony Burke, dressed in a dripping wet, long coat and hat, with an old fashioned-looking revolver in his hand, his dark, oddly sad eyes lit by the fires of my ship that weren't yet extinguished by the rain.

He knelt down next to me, returning the gun to a holster under his coat. He seemed quite certain I was disabled. “I knew in a fair fight, you'd outshoot me. I figured having your ship self-destruct in front of you would distract you enough to give me an edge.”

My mouth still worked. “You made Dip destroy himself?”

“Soon after you installed that program, I took control of it. He's been reporting to me constantly since then. I didn't have sinister intentions; I just always liked knowing what you were up to.”

“But then you knew my plans here.”

He smiled. “Yes. Yes, I did. I even helped when I could. How do you think Dip got so good at hacking our communications? I was using him to feed you information. Since he was just a computer program, you never did think to suspect him.”

True. I'd thought he was simple and logical like me—always with clear motives. Quite unlike Anthony. “So you ordered that I die on this job but then made sure I knew Nystrom was plotting to kill me?”

He nodded. “Yes…it's complicated. Rico, do you know you were never meant to be a killer?”

I was startled by the notion, though my paralyzed body didn't outwardly show it, I assumed. “What do you mean?”

“You weren't originally intended to be a hitman—or to do any fighting at all. You were made to be highly intelligent and free from the emotional shackles that restrict most people's thinking. You were part of a long-term plan. The universe has been so chaotic, and it's long since been time that someone should seize control and bring order to it. But people have tried that forever, so we thought we'd make new people—better people—to lead a new order. You were meant to be a ruler, Rico. You were to be my son—made from my DNA—who would go on to inherit the universe. But it didn't work out.”

Anthony's face was growing darker. I think my vision was fading just slightly. I couldn't tell if I was poisoned or bleeding out. “I never cared about being in charge.”

He chuckled. “That was the miscalculation. We tried to take away your irrationality, and as a result you don't care about anything other than the present moment. You weren't the only one of you that we made, by the way. There were others made from the DNA of other Nystrom executives. But they were all menaces—constant dangers to anyone they were around and, despite their intelligence, there was no reasoning with them. They ended up being put down like dogs. Only you seemed to care about your own survival enough to adapt your behavior to get along with others. Nystrom still wanted to do away with you and forget the whole mess, but I fought for you. I saw potential in you. I figured in the least, with your intelligence and the modifications to increase your brain's speed, you could be a skilled killer, and you quickly took interest in that training. I hoped one day you would be something more, but no. You never seemed to care.”