Assault or Attrition (6 page)

She stared at
me for what felt like an eternity, carefully studying every detail
of my face. It was as if she was trying to figure out if
I
was real – if she was somehow dreaming, or hallucinating this
entire experience. Or possibly even still trapped inside The Arena,
under the influence of a powerful psychic.

And that’s when
the door flew open.

Standing in the
threshold was a squat, gravel-voiced orderly with a pile of muddy
brown hair pulled into a bun. “I’m sorry, sir,” she grumbled, “but
your escort isn’t permitted in here. She’ll have to wait downstairs
in the lobby.”

Brynja cocked
her head and raised an eyebrow, suddenly snapped out of her daze by
the old woman’s accusation. “Wait – did you just call me an
escort?”

“Yes I did,
ma’am. It’s a classier word for ‘hooker’.”

Brynja actually
gasped.
“Hooker?”

The orderly
nodded once again. “That’s correct, ma’am. A prostitute. A call
girl. A wh—”

“I know what an
escort is!” Brynja interrupted. “I’m not an idiot! But why would
you think I’m a...” She trailed off momentarily, glancing down at
her conspicuous lack of clothing. “Oh, okay – I get it. No, you’re
confused. See, I
arrived
like this. I appeared here, from
New York City where I was fully, totally dressed. And now, my
clothes are gone. They were...” She paused for a beat, shrugging
her shoulders. “Vaporized?”

The stoic
orderly didn’t blink. “Of course they were, ma’am. Either way
you’ll have to wait downstairs. It’s hospital policy: no nudity in
the visiting rooms. And no fornication in, on, or around the coma
patients. Again, hospital policy.”

“Fornication?”
I repeated, not sure I heard the word correctly.

“It’s a
classier word for ‘sex’, sir. Intercourse. Copulation. Fu—”

“Yeah,” I said,
holding up a hand. “We got it.”

The orderly
yanked a sleeve away from her swollen wrist, revealing a battered
watch that looked older than she was. “You got five minutes to get
cleaned up, and then I want you
both
out of here. Not a
second more or I call security.”

“Wait,” I said
as the woman reached for the door handle. “People bring escorts
into the hospital so often that you have a policy against it?”

She nodded once
more. “You’d be surprised, sir.”

I exchanged
glances with Brynja and the orderly tapped the face of her watch
with her fingernail. “Four minutes, thirty seconds,” she warned
before slamming the door shut behind her.

“I guess that’s
our cue,” Brynja said. “Maybe when we get out of here you can
explain...you know, everything.”

Hands clasped
tightly around the thin hospital linens, Brynja glanced around the
room, apparently unsure of what to do next. She couldn’t walk onto
a freezing rooftop wrapped in a sheet, so I searched through
Kenneth’s clothing. His family was continually brining jeans,
jackets and shirts to his room, hoping he’d wake to find all of his
favorite outfits at his disposal. Judging by the overfilled closet
and overstuffed drawers, it looked like they’d spent the last three
months migrating his entire wardrobe to his bedside.

Brynja slipped
on a black Buffy the Vampire Slayer t-shirt and a pair of oversized
jeans, using a belt to cinch the sagging pants around her narrow
waist. While slipping on some thermal socks she finally noticed who
was lying in the bed. “Holy shit, is that Kenneth?” She raced
across the room and embraced him. “I can’t believe he made it out
of The Arena! This is amazing – and it explains why I’m here.”

I stared at her
for a moment, creasing my eyebrows together. I wasn’t sure what was
just explained, or how any of this suddenly made sense.

“His
powers
,” she replied, in a condescendingly slow cadence,
“you know, that thing where he can create anything he wants?”

My memory had
been on the fritz lately, but I don’t recall one of Kenneth’s
powers being the ability to resurrect people from the dead. “All
right,” I said with a heavy dose of skepticism, “so even if he
somehow manifested you out of thin air, despite being in a coma,
you’d be a recreation – like a physical representation of who you
were
– not
you
you...right?”

“
No
idea,” she replied casually, squeezing him once more. “You’re the
brains of this team.” She pressed her ear to his heart and closed
her eyes, smiling broadly as his chest rose and fell.

Kenneth
Livitski had suffered trauma to his brain, but technically speaking
it was still functioning. Not at a hundred percent, I was told –
although evidently it was working well enough to trigger his
abilities. Recent studies have concluded that coma patients do have
control over their senses to varying degrees, with hearing being
the most prominent. It’s possible he knew I was here, and that he
manifested Brynja for some reason or another – though only one
reason made any sense. “Brynja, you can still do that mind reading
thing, right?”

“Sure, I can
give it a try. Who do you want me to read?”

I glanced down
at Kenneth.

“Oh, right. You
think he’s readable?”

“Well he’s not
brain dead,” I replied. “It’s worth a try.”

She moved in
closer and brushed the chestnut-colored bangs from his forehead,
placing a palm flat against his cheek. A moment ticked by and
Brynja’s eyes widened, pupils dilating until the inky blackness
nearly eclipsed the whites. She leaped from the bed and stepped
back, clasping a hand over her mouth.

“What?” I
shouted.

The color
drained from Brynja’s face. She stared blankly at Kenneth’s body,
dazed and unfocused. I offered her a seat but she refused to take
it, waving it off absently with one hand.

“What did he
say?” I asked again, lowering my voice. “Is he all right?”

“He’s just
repeating the same words over and over,” she said softly. “He wants
us to pull the plug.”

I made my
way to the rooftop with Brynja in tow
, who was buried beneath
one of Kenneth’s brightly colored ski jackets. Not the most
fashionable choice of attire, but it was a better alternative than
catching frostbite. My jet wasn’t permitted to remain on the
hoverpad since incoming emergency aircraft could arrive at any
moment, so Mac circled overhead until I sent him a signal that I
required a pick-up. A moment later the jet landed, and the entrance
ramp lowered to invite us aboard.

“Moxon!” Mac
greeted me with a wide smile and a pat on the back, peering over my
shoulder at the blue-haired girl who accompanied me. “The man
wanders into a hospital and comes out with some arm candy. I guess
this trip wasn’t a total waste of time after all.” He offered to
take Brynja’s jacket as he flashed her a grin. “I’m Captain
MacBride, but most people call me ‘Mac’. What do I call you,
sweetheart?”

Valentina, who
was resting comfortably in the cabin, glanced over the top of her
book – just long enough to roll her eyes at Mac’s abrasive first
impression.

Brynja shook
her head and refused to respond.

“So Mox, is she
DTF?” Mac asked, making no attempt to lower his voice. “You gonna
introduce her to the mile high club once we take off?”

Brynja’s lips
curled into a seductive smile and she stepped towards him.

Fearing for
what might happen next I stepped in the opposite direction.

She leaned in
and placed both hands on his chest. “There
is
a club I’d
like
you
to join: it’s called the mile down club.”

“Sounds hot,”
he replied without missing a beat, “Tell me about it, Blue.”

“Once we get a
mile in the air,” Brynja breathed, slow and smoky, “you set this
bad boy on auto-pilot. Then you and I sneak downstairs...and once
we’re alone, I smash you in the face and throw you out the cargo
door.”

Brynja shoved
Mac hard against the cabin wall, turned, and stomped towards the
seating area, heading directly for the bar. She helped herself to
the spiced rum, twisting off the cap and gulping straight from the
bottle.

Valentina
glanced at me and smiled wider than I’d ever seen. “I like
her.”

***

It was less
than an hour into the flight and we’d all settled in.
Valentina
had retired to a private room for a nap, and Brynja, who had
borrowed some of her clothes, looked measurably more comfortable.
Business casual wasn’t her style, but at least the white dress
shirt and pleated pants seemed to fit.

I assumed that
Brynja would want an opportunity to rest, or at least lie down, but
she was unnaturally energized. Sitting at one of the cabin’s
interactive tables she incessantly opened holo-screens, scanning
and scrolling through four windows at once. She read articles,
activated video clips, and searched every newsworthy simulcast from
the last three months. It was as if she was trying to fill her
brain with every bit of data that she’d missed out on, and couldn’t
consume it fast enough.

My wrist-com
blipped to life as I was pouring myself a drink, signalling an
incoming call. The name ‘Jacob Fitzsimmons’ blinked into view and I
accepted the transmission. Appearing on the holo-screen was a
narrow, thin-haired man with a boldly aquiline face, clad in a
meticulously tailored charcoal suit – the only color I’d ever seen
him wear. Fitzsimmons was always direct, never one to waste a
moment of time; so as per usual, there was very little small talk.
My lawyer pointedly asked if I’d ‘heard the news’, to which I
replied ‘what news?’ So many outlets were covering my every move
that I couldn’t keep track of them all. I assumed that if something
truly significant surfaced, one of my lawyers would call and fill
me in on the details.

He notified me
that an incoming video was about to play. I darkened the cabin
lights and projected a full-size screen into the air, where an
image of a beautiful woman appeared. Dressed in a stylish black
coat, with her shoulder-length hair tucked behind her ears, the
woman stood in front of Moscow’s Kremlin; the multicolored
onion-dome roofs were clearly visible in the distance. Her
expression was hard, colder than the weather surrounding her.

“Playback,” I
instructed, and the video came to life.

“As I stand
here before you,” the woman began in a proper English accent, “the
world bleeds. Billions of our brothers and sisters toil each day,
living well below the poverty line, lacking the basic necessities
that should be afforded to us all. Ravaged by war and disease, this
wound continues to fester.” Her voice was calm and reassuring. She
sounded British, though her angular cheekbones and naturally blond
hair were distinctly Scandinavian.

“There
was
a man who had the power to heal it,” she continued. “A
noble man. A beacon of hope in these dark times who brought with
him the promise of better days to come...and he lies martyred,
murdered, in the building behind me.

“I am here as
an emissary. I have spoken extensively with religious leaders, and
met with the most prominent spiritual figures from every continent.
And while they have differences of opinion when it comes to their
faith, one belief they share is undeniable: they agree that Sergei
Taktarov – Russia’s Son – was brought here for a singular purpose.
That purpose was renewal.

“He died at the
hands of Matthew Moxon, The God Slayer; an apostate who remains
silent, in hiding, remorseless for his actions. This is
unacceptable.

“This is not
about hatred or revenge. This is about the long-suffering citizens
of the world who are owed their recompense. They deserve answers.
They deserve the truth. And above all else, they deserve
justice.

“Please donate,
and give what you can: whether it’s one dollar or a thousand –
whatever the Lord has blessed you with. These funds will be used to
strengthen our movement. Whatever you pledge will be returned to
you tenfold once Matthew Moxon has been found, because when the God
Slayer has paid for his transgressions, a new age of prosperity
will be upon us. It has been foretold, and it shall come to
pass.

“The crusade is
upon us: we will avenge our loss, destroy the broken system that
plagues us, and rebuild in the ashes. May peace and love be with
you, my brothers and sisters.”

When the video
concluded my lawyer’s conference call window winked on.

“Where is this
from?” Brynja asked. “I’ve been scanning the news sites and I
haven’t seen this woman before.”

Fitzsimmons
paused for a moment and glanced off-camera, riffling through the
hand-written notes on his desk. “It’s one of those crowd-funding
websites...Kashstarter, I believe it’s called.”

It was
beginning to make sense. Crowd-funding websites have been popular
since before I was born, but most of them required that the project
creator actually offer something in return – a book, a comic, an
invention, or some other tangible item.

Kashstarter.com, on the other hand, had no such prerequisite. Sign
up for a free account, and five minutes later you can ask people to
donate money for virtually anything. I brought up the site and
expanded the browser window, revealing some of the other projects
that occupied the main page – including a Japanese man who wanted
to raise a million dollars so he could have experimental wings
surgically attached to his back; and a young woman from Brazil was
offering her virginity in exchange for a cherry-red Lamborghini
X-900. Amidst this nonsense was the video we’d just seen, entitled
‘Justice for The God Slayer’. It was perched in the top slot, with
over thirty million dollars having already been raised.

“How long has
this thing been live?” I asked. “And how did we not find it
before?”

“It’s been two
hours,” Fitzsimmons replied.