At the End of Everything

The All-New Vindicators:

At the End of Everything

By

Jonathan Hansen

Prologue

The Luckiest Girl in the World

(Right Now)

“All right,” Olivia Bennet turned off the wipers and shut off the car. The light drizzle quickly misted the windshield, “Here we are.” She looked at Charlie Spector, sitting in the passenger seat next to her. “What are we doing here?”

Charlie Spector was old, bent, and brown, his head and face dusted with a prickly dusting of white stubble, a slouching bundle of sticks in a black suit and tie and a rumpled khaki trench coat. His cane stood between his knees, the knob clasped in his bony and wrinkled hands.

“This…” he said, groaning as he bent, picking up, and then pulling a manila folder from the battered leather attaché that had been sitting at his feet, “is Boyd Baker.” He held up a glossy 8 by 10 school photo, a head-and-shoulders shot against a blue background of a smiling tow-headed boy with dark eyes and a scattering of freckles. “He’s 16 years old. Both parents are dead. He lives with his aunt. He has tested in the top 5% on the Luthor-Richards scale, making him officially a super genius. But the two words most often used by teachers and social workers to describe him are…” Charlie tipped a look at Olivia, “difficult and truculent. Boyd is often truant, and has a lengthy juvenile record, featuring multiple counts of mischief, vandalism, theft, breaking and entering, burglary, assault, vehicle theft, destruction of property, possession of dangerous substances, production of dangerous substances, blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda,” flipping through pages in the file, “and he lives right here, in this little town,” He pointed a gnarled and knobby-knuckled finger past Olivia, outside the driver side window, “and in that very house there.” He said, “Boyd Baker is what we’re doing here.”

Olivia looked at the house through the rain-streaked window.

It was a ramshackle little one-story home set far back on a muddy and torn-up lawn. The paint was peeling, there were missing shingles, the eaves sagged, and the bushes had long ago gone wild. One window had been broken and taped over with rain-damp cardboard. A rusted van that looked to be filled with boxes had sank into the ruts and puddles of the gravel driveway. A sun-faded sign propped up in the windshield read “For Sale Best Offer” in a scraggly hand. The front walk’s concrete slabs were heaved-up and uneven, their edges choked with weeds.

“Okay,” Olivia sighed, “so… another angry little super-brain to recruit.”

“Normally, yes, but this…” Charlie held up a second photo, a black and white printout of a massive boulder sitting in the middle of an endless rocky dessert. The big hunk of rock was cleaved in two as if from a giant ax, and stuffed down between the two halves, somehow fused with the rock itself, was the mangled, twisted, and very dead body of the boy from the school photo, the visible half of his face was twisted in shock and pain. “This is also Boyd Baker, about five days ago, when his body was discovered some 3000 miles away by a group of very traumatized hikers.”

“Hmmm,” Olivia grunted, examining the photo, “well… that’s awful.”

“It is indeed,” Charlie agreed, closing the file, stuffing it back into his attaché, gathering up his cane, and reaching for the car door. “Let’s go figure out how it happened.”

“Wait,” she stopped him. “We’re not recruiting?”

Charlie Spector gave her an amused look, “Probably not.”

“We’re not fighting anything?”

“Well,” Charlie paused, “technically, we don’t know that yet, but no, probably not.”

Olivia tsked in exasperation. “Then why did you tell me to wear my outfit?” She gestured at herself. She was clad in a skintight black and white bodysuit with a pair of stylized dice, one showing three pips, the other four—lucky number seven—stenciled across her chest. There was a belt of white discs around her waist and a holstered baton was strapped to her right thigh. A black domino mask was sitting on the car’s dash.

Charlie Spector looked at her, shrugged, smirked, “I thought it’d be funny.”

She just looked at him, mouth open.

“Don’t forget to put on your mask,” he reminded her,  winking and chuckling.

Her eye narrowed.

“You look great,” he added.

“Fuck you.”

He snickered, pure satisfaction, a joke well sprung.

“Does being immortal make you an asshole, or were you always like this?” she asked.

“Yes to both questions,” the old man laughed, wheezing as he opened the car door, groaning as he stepped out.

Olivia slipped on her mask, feeling it mold to her face, and got out of the car, shutting the door hard behind her. “Take the keys,” tossing them at him. He caught them smoothly as he limped around the car, his cane tapping the wet street, “I don’t have any pockets.”

“You should add a pouch to your little belt there. Make it more… utilitarian,” Charlie Spector suggested, still chuckling.

“Oh yeah, thanks, so helpful,” she sneered at him as he passed, then squirmed, picking a quick wedgie, before following him up the muddy, uneven walk to the front door.

They paused on the stoop. From inside, a TV blared.

As old and bent as he was, Charlie Spector was still a huge man. Even stooped over his cane, he towered over her. She barely came to his shoulder. Olivia had been at this whole superhero gig for a bit now, so of course she knew who Charlie Spector was. She’d heard the stories around the campfire. But she had also been at the Bureau long enough to have seen the huge dusty room packed with rows and rows of files that were all about him, so she knew his very long history too. Or at least, the highlights. But she was also still pretty new at being his partner, so it was still intimidating standing next to him.

Sometimes she couldn’t help but stare.

Charlie Spector didn’t just look old, he felt old. He felt ancient, the long years hung off him like a smell, a vague scent of dust and stale air, of old books and older stone. She could almost feel it coming off of him like a rising heat, a feeling of illimitable implacability, like standing in the shadow of a massive redwood. A lot of it was in his eyes, the way they watched things, and the way he looked at things, deep dark depths within the man that went down forever. But also, he felt weary, as if bowed beneath a great invisible weight, as if he had walked long miles, and was resigned to the fact that he still had so many to go. But even as old as he looked now, he was still easily recognizable as the warrior, scholar, and explorer she had seen in all of those yellowing photos, or in the paintings spread throughout the ages, the faded frescos in the long-lost temples, the damaged mosaics found in the ancient cities after they were dug out from beneath centuries of dirt. Once you knew to look, and where to look, he was easy to spot. He was sometimes on the throne, but more often, he was off to the side, or maybe in the back, but always there. Charlie Spector was a ghost haunting the history of the world. Charlie Spector wasn’t even his real name. “Why are you young in all those old pictures, but you’re old now?” She had asked him once, a few weeks ago, over diner food in some flyspeck South Dakota town along I-90. “Is it fading? Your whole thing? Are you…?” She discovered that she hadn’t been able to say it then, paralyzed by a strange, overwhelming fear at the idea that the undying, after all of these long millennia, could finally be dying. A cold spill of sadness spread within her, like sudden regret and nostalgia at the end of an era, and the thought of the unknown that must lay beyond his passing suddenly terrified her. She had found that she could not even finish her question at that moment, found herself staring into the very depths of infinity, and realizing there was nothing under her feet, nothing to keep her from falling… forever… falling into darkness.

And the whole time, the old man had only stared at her, chewing, letting the silence hang between them, Boot Scootin’ Boogie playing quietly over the kitchen’s radio. “It’s a cycle,” he finally said, dipping a french fry in ketchup and eating. It was his only answer, and after he chewed and swallowed, he had simply returned to his cheeseburger and said no more.

Now, Charlie Spector, feeling her eyes upon him, paused on the doorstep of Boyd Baker’s home and looked at her, his knobby, scarred fist raised to knock. “What?”

She shook her head, “Nothing.” She squirmed then again, twisting her shoulders, adjusting her bodysuit, picking at her crevasses.

He watched her pick at her wedgie for a moment, “That’s really up there, huh?”

“I can almost taste it,” she grunted, digging deep. “It’s a new suit, and it’s just… it’s not right.” She grunted, twisted, picked. “I mean… the last thing you want in one of these things is a saggy crotch, the tabloids will just roast the shit out of you, but…” she pulled and wiggled, readjusting, “god damn, man… the trade-off is a bitch.”

He snorted, “Yeah, that’s why I never wore those things.” He watched her squirm a second longer, “All right. All right. It’s game time, kid. Keep your fingers out of your butt.”

She tsked. “My fingers aren’t in my—”

He interrupted her with four quick hard knocks that seemed to shake the house, setting off a quick series of yapping barks from inside. She grunted annoyance at him, and they both straightened professionally as a voice inside the house yelled at the dog, footsteps approaching. The deadbolt rattled. The door cracked open. The blaring TV got louder. Down by their feet, a tiny little brown snout of tiny little teeth shoved through the gap, snarling and yapping, straining at them. “Banjo! Get back!” The dog was yanked back, still yapping, never stopping, not for a moment. “Shut up! Banjo! God damn it! I said hush!” An eye peeked through the gap in the door beneath the stretch of the chain, the little dog held lower, down by the doorknob, still yapping, the TV still blaring, “Who are you?” The older woman’s voice rumbled up from a chest full of phlegm like an old truck trying to kick over.

Charlie Spector dug out his ID and badge, holding them up. “I’m Agent Spector. This is Special Agent Fearless. We’re from the B.U.E. Task Force, ma’am.”

“B.U.E.?”

“The Bureau of Unexplained Events.”

The old woman gave a tired sigh, “Oh… you here for Boyd then?”

“Yes, ma’am. This concerns Boyd.” Charlie Spector said, putting away his badge.

The eye shifted to Olivia, looking her up and down. “What are you supposed to be?”

“Oh… uh… I’m a superhero, ma’am,” Olivia explained.

A derisive laugh, “Oh yeah? Which one?”

“Uh… Fearless.”

The eye in the gap of the door seemed to consider it. “Never heard of you.”

“Sure, why not? I’ve only saved the world a couple of times,” Olivia shrugged.

“What’s your power?” The old woman pressed.

“I’m lucky.”

The old woman grunted derisively. “That’s not a power.”

Olivia exhaled a sigh, her lips pursed, instantly defensive, “Yes, it is. Luck is just an easy way of explaining my abilities. They’re actually more like a localized probability-affecting field, but most people understand the idea of luck much—”

Charlie Spector leaned in, “Uh… about Boyd, Mrs…?”

“It’s Ms.,” the woman emphasized. “I never married.”

“Ms. Baker,” Charlie Spector amended, and started again, “I was hoping—”

“June is fine,” she said. The door closed, the chain clattered against the wood, and the door opened up all the way. A cloud of cigarettes, booze, sweat, and fried food rolled out at them, along with the blare of the Maury show’s live studio audience going wild. Banjo was a scraggly ball of wiry brown fur and teeth and a long pink tongue clasped beneath the old woman’s meaty arm, and he lunged and struggled at them from within his fleshy enclosure, yapping and snarling. The woman popped the little dog once on the head, quieting its barks down to just a low trembling of lip-curling snarls.

June Baker eyed them, clasping Banjo’s growling, tremulous little head, both of them looking suspiciously at the two agents, both of them looking ready to bite.

“I’m his Aunt.” She was short, soft, round, and red with rosacea. Her hair was limp and damp, her features were bulbous, and her eyes were small, buried deep in a full moon face. She wore a stained floral housecoat, her red swollen feet stuffed into a pair of ratty purple slippers. “Boyd’s parents died in a car wreck when he was little. My sister. I took him in out of the goodness of my heart,” she emphasized, “but at this point, I wish I hadn’t. That boy…” she shook her head emphatically, “he’s just bad. Nothing I can do about that. I tried. I did. God knows I did. Sweet baby Jesus above. I’ve told the County and the Judge and that damn Social Worker of his the same thing a million times… He’s just bad. He’s weird too, always getting into stuff. Building weird shit. Breaking things. Always causing me problems, here, at his school, with the cops, with the City. The FBI visited twice! And the Power Company said, if he blows the transformer again,” she gestured down the street. Charlie Spector and Olivia both turned to look, but saw nothing, and turned back, “they ain’t coming back out here to fix it unless I pay first, like I can afford that. My energy bill’s already through the roof, some kind of… I don’t know what. Plus, I’m on disability because of my back, so anything he’s done, it’s not my responsibility. Besides, I ain’t seen him for a few days, so I don’t know nothing about whatever the hell it is he’s been up to back there. I stay out of the garage, and he stays outta here. I told him... one more time, and he’s out! That’s it!”

Charlie Spector and Olivia exchanged a look of realization, and he held up a hand, stalling June Baker, clearing his throat. “I’m sorry that I have to be the one to tell you this, Ms. Baker, but… I’m afraid that there’s been an accident. Boyd is dead.”

June Baker froze in the doorway, her small eyes confused for a moment. “Wait… Does that mean I don’t get his State checks any more?”

Charlie and Olivia exchanged a different kind of look. “That’s not our department,” Charlie Spector answered, leaning on his cane. “You mentioned something about a garage?”

“Yeah,” she nodded, her voice slow and distracted, “it’s around back. I don’t know what he does back there, because he don’t like me poking around, so I just stay out of there. It smells like burnt wires and beat-off juice anyway.” Her eyes unfocused as her gaze wandered. “There’s weird lights and noises though, sometimes… at night. Like… like thunder… but quiet. And there’s this hum, you don’t quite hear it, I mean… you do, but it’s more like… you feel it. Like, it’s on your skin, y’know?”

Charlie and Olivia exchanged a third glance, this one also different from the first two.

“You mind if we go take a look back there, ma’am?” Charlie asked.

She leveled a finger of red-swollen joints at them, “I’m his next of kin! And his legal guardian too, so anything back there of any value is mine, and I expect to be compensated for it before you go taking it off somewhere, got it?”

“Of course,” Charlie Spector nodded.

“Go on then,” she waved them away, and shut the door. Banjo gave them one last low growl, showing its teeth just before the gap closed. The chains rattled, the bolts snapped, and beneath the roar of the Maury show live studio audience celebrating wildly, they heard a sob.

Charlie Spector and Olivia stepped carefully through the muck of the yard, over to the driveway, and back behind the house. Inside the house, Banjo followed them from room to room, his little nails scribble-scratching at the wood, yapping and snarling the whole way. The curtains in each window shook as they walked around the house, marking his relentless leaping pursuit within.

The backyard was as muddy and dead as the front yard. Along the back of the house, there was a flower bed. It was a tangle of desiccated twigs and weeds that seemed to grasp at the rusty bbq grill laid on its side amongst them, as if trying to pull it down into the earth. On the far side of the yard, a two-car garage sat beneath the spread of an old oak tree. It was in the same state as the house. The roof sagged, and the sides were more chipped than paint at this point. A bondo gray VW Rabbit, a rust-red door and a sun-faded green hood, was parked in front of one of the garage doors. The other door had a basketball backboard over it, but no hoop. The windows were papered over inside. Next to the side entrance, there were a couple of ratty folding lawn chairs, and a coffee can sitting on a cinder block end table. It was overflowing with a dark gray rainwater soup of sodden cigarette butts. Posted on the side door was a hastily scrawled sign that read: Fuck off.

“This place is depressing as hell,” Olivia said, hands on her hips, looking around.

“You hear that?” Charlie Spector asked.

It was a low hum, like the rumble of distant thunder, almost felt more than heard.

“Something’s running in there,” Charlie Spector said, nodding at the garage.

“Look at that,” Olivia pointed to a hole cut in the garage near the peak of the roof, where a thick braid of black cables and orange extension cords snaked from the hole and over to the electrical pole in the alley behind the garage. They were spliced in a wild tangle into the power lines. “That must be how he’s blowing out the transformer.”

The hum got louder as they got closer. They could feel the electricity, the smell of burnt ozone in the air, a crackle along their skin, and a taste like pennies in their mouth. The side door was locked.

“Hmmm…” Charlie Spector sighed, “Kicking the door in might not be a good idea…”

Olivia turned and looked, let it wash over her, let her eyes drag her along. She stopped and then deliberately kicked over the coffee can off the cinder block, spilling the wet slop of butts into the weeds, and revealing a rusty key sitting beneath. She snatched it up and showed him. “Ha!”

“Great,” he said. “Now, hopefully the place won’t blow up when you unlock it.”

“That would be the opposite of lucky,” she said, wiggling the key into the lock. “Voila…” She opened the door onto a garage lit by flickering fluorescents. The smell of burnt wiring rolled out, mixed with the cabbagey reek of B.O. and close confinement.

It was dusty inside, and cluttered to the rafters. There was a dirty old Trans Am half-under a dirty old tarp. It had no tires and was up on blocks. The hood was off and leaning against the wall. The engine was in pieces. Battered cardboard boxes were stacked haphazardly about. Metal shelves stood along the garage doors and along the walls, full of random junk, engine parts, wires, rags, yard tools, engine oil, a dented gas can. The picnic table in the center of the room was just as cluttered with half-assembled gear, splayed wires, and circuit boards, as well as a soldering iron, a bendy-arm lamp, and an open laptop with a screen saver of big boob anime girls jiggling around. On the far wall, there was a cot beneath a pile of kicked-off blankets, along with some dirty clothes and a couple of dog-eared magazines, next to an end table covered in books, a pair of glasses, an iPhone, and a brass desk lamp. A battered old boom box sat on the floor next to a kicked-over pile of tapes, a skateboard, an acetylene torch and a couple of tanks, a few hoses, some piled metal, some spools of copper wire, and old tools. Broken things. Half built things. Things that were somehow a bit of both. The garage was a mess, a mix of workroom, storeroom, garbage heap, and a teenage boy’s flop house.

And standing against the back wall was the source of the humming.

A big metal ring, ten feet across, welded together out of scavenged metal and circuitry, wrapped with coils of copper wires. It was hooked up to the jumper cables and extension cords that snaked up to the ceiling and out the hole in the roof. It was on. Red lights flashed along its perimeter, and the air in the center of the ring seemed to shimmer, like a sheen of oil atop a puddle’s surface.

“What the fuck is that thing?” Olivia said.

“Whatever it is,” Charlie Spector muttered, cane tapping as he crossed the floor to the laptop, “it’s still active.” He poked at the keyboard and the screen flared to life.

“Yeah,” Olivia said. “I can feel it,” she stepped closer, craning about, leaning in close, squinting, careful not to touch anything, or to get too close. “What do you think it does?”

Charlie Spector tapped at the keyboard. “Well…” tap-tap-tap, “just going by the fact that it’s here, and Boyd Baker was found 3000 miles away fused with a rock, I’m gonna guess that it’s some kind of matter displacer.”

“A teleporter,” Olivia said.

“That’s a bingo…” the old man muttered, peering at the laptop’s screen.

“Built out of junk in a god damn garage,” she mused.

“Kids today,” Charlie Spector muttered.

“Well…” Olivia said, shrugging, taking a step closer, peering at the ring’s edges. There were rubber mats laid out before the big metal circle, the type found in professional kitchens, “we should probably unplug the stupid thi—” she stepped on a mat, and something clicked. She froze. “Oh shit…”

“What’d you do?” Charlie asked, hurriedly looking up.

The hum ratcheted up, suddenly louder. The ring lit up. It flickered. It flashed, and she was suddenly staring at a watery reflection of herself, of Charlie and the garage behind her. The mirror filled with a roiling cloud of smoke from the edges. There was a sound like the rumble of distant thunder, and a column of smoke lunged out from the mirror in a whoosh, enveloping her, and then rushing back. The watery mirror within the ring shivered, and then vanished.

And Olivia Bennet was gone.

Chapter One

The Corpsemaker

(A Different Right Now)

In the street far below him, the Red Hats were taking their sweet-ass time checking out the convoy. They were looking for someone to hurt, and also for something to steal, and they were clearly savoring the chance to do both too.

So the Corpsemaker took his time too.

Honest truth, he appreciated the chance to get comfortable. The concrete floors in these bombed-out buildings were hell on his knees. He laid out his field blanket, and eased himself down into a prone position with the kind of effort that wouldn’t have been needed in his younger days. “Time’s catching up to you, old man,” he sighed, laying flat and stretching out, a whole pile of old injuries and insults to his body choosing now to speak up, and complain. He seized up as his sciatica twinged. “Son of a…” clenching and hissing at the sudden squall of pain, grimacing, groaning, waiting for it to pass. When it finally did, he breathed for a few moments, and then settled in behind his rifle.

“Okay…” under his breath. He set his battered old straw cowboy hat aside, and let the wind cool his balding pate through his stubbly salt and pepper hair. He carefully folded his wire-rimmed glasses and set them next to his hat. “All righty…” He wiped his eyes, and smoothed out his long drooping mustache, and then seated the padded butt of the railgun to his shoulder, flicking the power switch on. It lit up orange. He cleared his throat a few times, big phlegmy rumbles as the big gun whined, powering up.

“Okay then…” he said to himself, putting his eye to the scope.

Five stories below him, the world leapt into view.

The street was a hot and dusty weed-choked ruin, a concrete canyon flanked by wrecked buildings and piled rubble. The convoy was idle in the center of the road, a long train of battered old vehicles, rusty and dented and piled high with the roped-down detritus of life, tarps fluttering in the hot wind, and pulled by teams of fly-blown and slat-ribbed old horses. Small knots of grimy and tattered folks milled nervously about along the convoy’s length, nervous little flocks of fluttering birds.

The Red Hat’s checkpoint was new and hastily built, but it looked strong.

Constructed out of the wreck of a city bus, a few rusty shipping containers, a battered old FEMA trailer, and surrounded by concrete barriers, it blocked most of the road. It was manned by a swaggering squad of men and women dressed in the red helmets and subtly-shifting gray uniforms of the Vaahuk Kal Commonwealth’s Indigenous Peacekeeper Force. Made up of the human volunteers who had sworn their allegiance to the shimmering red banner of the Vaahuk Kal Empire, and  under the direct command of the Governor Regents, they were officially known as the Crimson Legionnaires, but most folks just called them Red Hats.

Or traitors.

Or collaborators.

Or complicit quislings even. Turncoats maybe.

“Dead men walking,” The Corpsemaker spit. He was nestled down in a gap among some broken furniture, the railgun’s long barrel poking out past the ragged curtains billowing on the wind. He moved his scope over the Red Hats. “One. Two. Three.” Quietly and deliberately as he found each one. Twelve… nope, fifteen. “A whole squad of you fuckers…”

There were three in a crow’s nest on top of the FEMA trailer, overlooking the checkpoint’s bottleneck. Two of them were idle. One might have even been asleep. The third was leaning on the stock of a snub-nosed Vaahuk Kal heavy blaster, the gun pulsating with a lavender energy as they watched the convoy. “Remember that thing, old man…” he noted for himself. There were four more soldiers beneath the gray camo netting strung up behind the checkpoint’s container walls. They seemed at ease, off duty probably, just sitting around, not fully in uniform. It would take them a couple of seconds to get up and get into the shit, once it all hit the fan. There was a fifth one back there too, a bit off to the side, under an awning of rusty corrugated tin. They were leaning over a gas-powered grill, fiddling with the hook-ups to the gas tanks, as a skinny four-legged animal smoked and sizzled on the grill, slowly turning on a spit. Two more were on the far side of the street, sitting beneath the shady overhang of an old parking garage and sharing a smoke, only slightly interested in the convoy. Finally, four of them were lurking at the caravan’s head, prowling like circling wolves.

A stout woman with a scarred face under her red helmet, and sergeant stripes on the subtly shifting grays of her uniform sleeve, squinted at the oft-folded paperwork the visibly nervous man from the convoy had handed her. The other three Red Hats with her were busy eyeing the people, weapons up and ready, teeth bared, leaning in close and sniffing around.

The door to the FEMA trailer suddenly banged open and the Corpsemaker quickly shifted his scope up to see a large man, broad-shouldered with a square head and a square jaw beneath a crew cut of perfect right angles, squeezing out the door and tromping down the wobbling steps. His fatigue jacket was unbuttoned, open to a sweat-stained t-shirt. The pair of shiny silver Lieutenant bars on his collar winked in the sun. He spit brown chaw, and wiped at his chin, all gloating smiles and strutting arrogance. His voice was distant and tinny, but in the hot quiet of the street, it floated the long way up the five stories to the Corpsemaker. “Well, well, well, Sergeant… what do we have he—”

The Corpsemaker put a round right through the man’s forehead.

The railgun was an ugly beast, long-barreled, heavy, all scrap and scavenged parts. It was a thing of iron, wires, tubing, and battery packs, most of its big boxy back-end dedicated to kinetic energy and heat dispersal. Imani and Felix had made it for him. They had been so proud too, whipping back a tarp in their dingy little workroom to show it to him like it was his birthday. “Does it work?” he’d asked, dubious. The duo exchanged a look and then shrugged. “In theory. It’s a prototype.” It smelled like an electric fire when turned on, and it had been a bitch to lug up five flights of broken stairs, especially for an old man. Plus, it kicked like a goddamn mule back into his shoulder, right on that decades old broken bone that had never quite healed right, all thanks to that son of a bitch The Cowl, but still… the goddamn thing also threw a slug at 8200 feet per second. That was nearly Mach 7.

The Red Hat Lieutenant’s head became a red mist that hung in the air a moment, sparkling like rubies in the still heat. Chunks of concrete blasted up behind the man. The sonic boom came a heartbeat later, rumbling through the concrete canyons. The dead Lieutenant’s knees folded in the shocked silence that followed, his body crumpling to the dusty street.

The scarred Sergeant gasped, “What the fuck,” and whipped around, eyes hunting the upper stories of the surrounding buildings a second before her torso burst apart in a blast of gristly splatter.

Another boom split the air.

“Love that thunder…” the Corpsemaker said quietly behind his scope, and smiled.

“Sniper!” someone down in the street yelled. Then everyone was moving like a kicked-over anthill. The Red Hats were all startling up, snatching up their weapons, spinning around, eyes searching the surrounding ruins as the members of the convoys grabbed their screaming kids and sprinted for cover, everyone running in all directions. “Sniper! Sniper!”

The Corpsemaker’s scope was getting foggy from the heat rolling off the rifle, but he was still able to find the Red Hat ducked down by the smoking grill in their little fort, looking around in a panic. He put his next shot in the grill’s dented gas tanks.

The checkpoint went up in a belch of flame. It engulfed the checkpoint, cracking it open, shoving shipping containers and trailers apart. Their ammo cache must have been back there, The Corpsemaker mused. The sonic boom of the railgun mixed with the roar of the fire, as flaming bodies tumbled in the air, and then the energy packs for the Vaahuk Kal heavy blaster in the crow’s nest went up too. A screech of bright purple energy erupted, throwing more bodies up amongst the violet fire. Three shots, maybe ten down? The Corpsemaker nodded appreciatively to himself. “Not too bad, old man…”

Heat was radiating up from the railgun like an open fire. He squinted against it, sweat beginning to drip down his lined face, stinging his eyes, collecting in his thick eyebrows and big drooping mustache. The smell of baked ozone was worse. He leaned into the sight, finding a knot of crouched Red Hats..

But the high whine of the gun suddenly wound down, the orange light of the power button faded. “What the fuck?” He looked, and spotted the droop in the railgun’s long barrel, the metal glowing orange with heat.

“God damn it… fucking prototype…” he grunted. “fucking Imani and Felix…”

Bullets pinged off the concrete around him, air snapping as rounds whizzed past, spanging against the ceiling, cracking into the old furniture, throwing up dust and splinters, and he flung himself back from the ledge. He laid there a moment, gasping, his heart hammering with the sudden adrenaline dump. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his face, his dripping brow, and his mustache. “All right then…” he said, nodding, “we do this the old way...” He was already breathing heavily as he grunted and levered himself up to his feet, grabbing up his glasses and his crumpled straw cowboy hat.

“Up there! Up there!” voices floated up to him from the street below.

A quick glance over the edge, and he saw two Red Hats poking out from the shelter of the parking garage entrance, peeking and ducking quickly back. They saw him and sprayed bullets his way. He winced against the haze of concrete dust, flinching back from the concrete chips. Three other Red Hats had run across the street toward his building. Far below, he could hear them thudding across the ruined lobby, slamming through the stairwell door far below, their boots echoing their way up the stairs to him. “It’s the Corpsemaker!” he heard them shouting. “Fifth floor!” another yelled. “Fifth floor!”

He put on his glasses, hooking the frames behind his ears, and jammed his hat on his head. He checked his sawed-off shotgun slanted in its holster on his hip, and the 45 colt hung under his arm. Then he hefted his axe, testing the gleaming edge with his thumb.

He nodded, “Good enough.”

This axe was a good one, well-made and strong, but it was nothing special, just a wedge of sharpened steel and a stout wooden handle wrapped in straps of sweat-darkened leather. But honest truth, for this kind of work, that’s all he really needed.

“Good enough,” he repeated.

He still dearly missed Eumenides, of course, missed the feel of her in his hand, missed her weight, missed her thunder, but he had lost her a long time ago. The Alliance of Heroes had taken the Furies’ gifts from him before throwing him in a deep hole far beneath Black Maw Prison, and now, who knows where they were, lost in the Invasion probably, like everything else. The Furies never answered his prayers anymore, hadn’t for years. Wait, Paladin. That was the last thing he had heard from them, their voices in his head like a snake’s slither, a whip cracking, like the rustle of dusty feathers and the clack of sharp talons upon stone, that was it… Wait, as his cell door shut and darkness enveloped him. Wait.

And so he does, he waits, here at the end of everything. He has faith.

Still, some nights, as he lay in the Tower, he could almost feel Eumenides’ leather grip creak as he squeezed his fist. He could almost hear her call out for vengeance. He could almost feel her fire light up within him as warm blood splattered his face. Almost, but… no, nothing. They were lost to him now. Like everything. Lost. Ever since the Vaahuk Kal armada filled the sky, killed all the heroes and the villains alike, and then took the planet as their own. Lost. All lost.

So now, he just uses whatever he can get his hands on to do his holy work. Vengeance and retribution. For the innocent.

The echoes of the Red Hats’ boots pounding up the stairwell grew louder, and the Corpsemaker showed his teeth in a low growl.

Holy work. And today, he had been blessed.

“Thank you for your blessings, Furies.”

The Red Hats were on the fourth landing, heading toward the fifth floor at full speed, their eyes alight with blood lust and hate, weapons up and leading the way.

The Corspemaker slammed out the fifth floor door above them, leaping into the stairwell with a roar, his axe raised high. He slammed into the first Red Hat, reaching over the man, and burying his axe in the neck of the one behind them. A geyser of blood sprayed up as he yanked the axe loose, and they all tumbled down the steps in a tangle, knocking into the third Red Hat, all of them falling on the landing. A wild burst of sweeping gunfire spanged off the walls. The Corpsemaker winced back from the fire and the smoke and the noise, the whoosh of air, bullets ricocheting in the small space. A hand raised up from the pile, clutching a gun. The Corpsemaker grabbed it, twisted it back around, and squeezed the hand on the trigger, spraying bullets into their bodies. He heard them hit, felt them jerk and thrash, and he rose up off the pile, gasping for breath, starting to wheeze, starting to slow down already, too tired, too soon, forcing himself up, to keep moving, ignore the pain. Fight. He roared as he loomed over them, chopping with his axe, batting a gun aside, nearly severing the arm that held it. The floor was slick with blood now, a pool spreading out from the tangle, and dribbling down the steps, pouring over the edge and down the stairwell in a red rain, a pitter-patter of sound from far below. The stink of cordite filled the space with its hot smoky reek. The Corpsemaker chopped at the tangle of bodies, grunting, gasping, feeling how slow he was, how slow he was getting, his arms aching, getting heavier, but he hacked until the pile stopped squirming beneath him.

Panting, soaked with blood, past the sound of his pulse pounding in his ears, he heard more boots coming up the stairs to him. He smiled when he heard them cry out at the blood pouring down the stairwell, splattering them.

They were close.

He lunged up, great gasping breaths, and threw himself down the steps as the first Red Hat turned the corner. The heavy blade of his axr caught the lead Red Hat in the shoulder as he crashed into them, and on down the steps. As they fell together, he pulled the sawed-off shotgun off his hips, the Red Hat screeching and thrashing beneath him. Their partner ran up, hitting the landing too fast, slipping in the blood and flopping onto her back with a splat and a grunt, their weapon firing, shooting themselves in the leg. They screamed, grasping their leg, slipping and sliding in the gore.

The Corpsemaker crawled over the first one, their struggles and screeches fading with the loss of blood, and grabbed onto the one clutching their leg. The Red Hat tried to pull themselves loose, battered weakly at the blood-slick old man. The Corpsemaker jammed the sawed-off right up under their helmet, and pulled both triggers. The blast was deafening. Teeth and bone tick-tacking down the steps.

The stairwell was a haze of smoke and blood.

His ears rang with a high pitched whine.

He slowly pulled himself off the bodies and fell back against the wall, legs sprawled out before him, gasping, ears ringing, trying to hear if more were on their way, trying to catch his breath, slick with sweat and blood, shaking with the rage and adrenaline in the foul, acrid, and coppery reek of blood, shit, gunfire, and desperation. Gasping. Panting. His heart beating too hard, too fast, he couldn’t pull enough air. He was panting, his vision spotty, his body aching, his left shoulder aching. He was shaky and numb. He tried to slow his galloping heart, tried to control his breathing, slouched and soaked, panting in the hot smoky gory haze of the stairwell, gasping loudly in the quiet amongst the piles of dead, waiting to see if this was it, if he was about to join them.

But no…

Eventually, he slowly climbed to his feet, groaning and unsteady. He leaned on the banister, lightheaded, his head down, bent from a sudden storm of nausea. He found his hat and scooped it up, smacking it on his pant leg to knock off some of the blood, and jammed it back on his head as he began the slow trudge back up the stairs, still wheezing, but still alive.

”This time, old man…”

Back up on the fifth floor, he shed his jacket, stripped off his blood-sodden t-shirt, threw it aside, and stood, head back and arms wide, panting in the slight breeze. He pulled a towel and some wet wipes from his pack. He cleaned his glasses. He wiped his face, his big drooping mustache, then his hands, and scrubbed his arms and chest too. It was really more of a smearing than it was a cleaning, but it was good enough for now. He sighed at the sight of his sagging old man’s body, and again at the broken city that lay outside, the once proud skyline leaning like tombstones in a long forgotten boneyard. He peered over the edge. In the streets below, the checkpoint was a burning ruin, a column of black smoke rising up into the sky. It was a clear enough message to Governor Millions as to what will happen if he dares stretch past the borders of his territory in this city again.

“Good enough,” the Corpsemaker nodded.

Through the black smoke and the crackling fire, he could see the convoy was still there on the street. The horses were pulling at their harnesses, big heads thrashing, wide-eyed from the explosions, but they had been hobbled for the checkpoint, and had not been able to stray far. As he watched, he saw cautious heads poking out from the rubble and surrounding buildings. He tossed the blood stained towel out into the air, and it fluttered as it fell to the street below. The faces turned up toward him. “Better get a move on! Their friends might show up!” He called. He watched as the people from the convoy slowly emerged from their hiding places, urging the others to come out, urging for speed.

He pulled on a fresh shirt and started packing up his stuff, even the broken railgun. He had a long walk ahead of him. He might make it home by dark if he got going. He could camp in the ruins, but he’d rather not, what with the vampires and whatnot. Also, honest truth, he would rather get home and take a hot bath, have a shot or two of Zeke’s hooch, and go to sleep in his bed, rather than rough in the field. Weariness hung on him like a wet cloak, and he was already starting to feel the aches and pains now that the adrenaline was fading. His back, his shoulders, his arms, his hands, most definitely his back, it was all beginning to throb and tighten. The prospect of a long walk, of the trembling weakness he could feel in his legs as he started carefully picking his way past the bodies and down the long flight of stairs, the fact that he was lugging not just his own gear, but also everything of value he looted from the dead Red Hats too, it was almost enough to make him consider camping here tonight.

Honest truth, he might not have a choice when it came to whether or not he was going to be camping in the wild tonight. He was just feeling too old and too tired right now. “One step at a time, old man,” he muttered, feeling a twinge in his knee that he could tell was going to be trouble.

He sighed again; he was really looking forward to a hot bath tonight.

By the time he emerged into the mix of smoke, heat, and dust filling the street, he was limping, bent hard beneath his bulging duffel bags. His back felt like it was on fire.

But the convoy had started moving at least. It was slowly trundling its way around the burning wreckage of the checkpoint with jingling tack, clucking tongues, and horseshoes ringing on the street. A few were still picking through the ruins of the Red Hat checkpoint, poking at the dead bodies.

“Hey,” the Corpsemaker barked, “if there’s anything good in there, it’s mine.”

An old woman paused as she rifled through a dead Red Hat’s jacket, straightened and squinted at him through the smoke. “You really that superhero? The Corpsemaker?”

The old man hawked phlegm, and spit it in the street. “The Corpsemaker is dead. All the heroes are dead. My name’s Henry Rook.”

Chapter Two

The Bloody Red Rabbit

(Later that night…)

The sun was sinking below the horizon. The skeletal shadows of the broken buildings grew longer, like bony fingers stretching across the ruins of the old city. The sun’s last beams of red, yellow, and orange streamed through the twisted girders and jagged stone, spearing the rubble-strewn streets, but their light quickly faded before the relentless creep of the coming night, the darkness spreading from the corners and crevasses like spilled ink.

Jaya Adlahka sat on the rubble at the bottom of the steps and drew on a joint, the cherry glowing in the evening twilight. She drew deep and held it, watching torches bloom above her, the old batteries letting the lights flicker on up and down the broken heights of Vindicator Tower. She blew out a lungful of smoke. Closing her eyes, she listened to the chatter of voices on the floors above, smelling the wisps of smoke from the cookfires. She sighed and laid back on her elbows on the rubble, reclining in her ragged, patched leathers, the once-bright pinks and whites now dusty and sun-faded, the metal elbow of her cybernetic arm scraping the broken concrete. She stretched her long legs out. She had taken off her battered boots and crossed her bare feet. She smiled, content, a little bit high, and took another drag as the breeze was a cool caress on her shaved head. She held the smoke, not saying anything.

“You can ignore me all you want, bitch,” a voice barked, “but it ain’t gonna change the message none… That tower there? It belongs to the Gray King now.”

Vindicator Tower had taken a lot of hits thirty years ago during the Vaahuk Kal invasion, especially that first chaotic night. It was scorched, blasted, and pockmarked, and whole chunks had been torn from some floors At its peak, where the famed promontory of the Vindicators had once kept its watch, there was nothing but a burnt and twisted ruin, a steel flower splayed open, a broken crown hung askew. When Captain Awesome had first encountered the Nessmik Talon General, the fearsome Spaons Juditor Topeax–the former warlord turned decorated Vaahuk Kal Centurian in his bonded conscription, the creature who would eventually kill the Man of Might–he had been thrown through the middle of Vindicator tower and down to the street. His fall blasted through the floors, and left a hole of sky framed by a tangle of wires, bent rebar, and torn ducts. But the tower was still standing. Edison Yamazaki, the original Bronze Rider, had built it well. Meant to serve at the headquarters of the team he had helped to found, he had built the tower to last, and in the end, it had. Not even a world-ending alien invasion had been able to knock Vindicator Tower down. Not completely, at least.

Now, all these years later, on most of the floors, there were hanging gardens and colorful tarps that rippled in the wind like flags, and at night, it was alive with light and with laughter and music. Now, after all these long years, thanks to Jaya and the others, Vindicator Tower was providing shelter and  protection yet again. It was home to nearly 400 people.

Of course, that brought new problems…

“Open your eyes and look at me, you tired old bitch!” the voice yelled at her.

“Call her a bitch one more time, Longlegs,” she heard Zeke say, “and I’ll go hog wild on your ass.”

Jaya exhaled a long plume of smoke, opened her eyes, and smiled back over her shoulder at Zeke Dowd. He was a massive man, a half man, half boar, with big tusks and a big snout, and covered in short bristly brown hair, with a spikey ridge standing tall atop his head and down his back. Missing an eye from back in the dark days of the Invasion and now wearing an eyepatch, he stood like a blockade at the top of the steps leading to the Tower’s front entrance. He was a nine-foot, seven hundred pound wall of slabbed muscle, with a big round belly pushing at the old Rancid t-shirt he wore, his gut framed by green suspenders, above a pair of ripped blue jeans. His hooves clacked on the concrete.

“I called her a tired old bitch, because she’s old as fuck and looks it, Hogg! And threatening to go hog wild on my ass is a stupid catchphrase,” The angry voice belonged to a man who had been known as Duke Longlegs back in the day. “You’re just saying your own superhero name!”

Zeke smirked, crossed his arms, “Remember that time I hit you in the gut so hard, you shit yourself?” He winked at Jaya, lounging on her pile of rubble, then turned his attention back to the line of villains standing in the street.

Duke Longlegs clenched his fists and his face, standing in front of his little gang of former costumed villains turned low level thugs. His harness of long, multi-jointed metal legs held him aloft, his own legs withered and hanging limp. There used to be eight legs in his harness, but now there were only seven and a half. His signature ten-gallon hat had seen better days too. Duke inhaled slow and angry, and then exhaled a long blast from his nose. “That was…” he started, speaking through gritted teeth, but he paused, breathed slowly, and then said, “that was one time, and I told you, I’d had Chipolte for lunch! Stop bringing it up!”

Jaya and Zeke both laughed, and so did the gang spread out behind Duke.

The little group of bandits behind Duke Longlegs had looked better thirty years ago too, but then, that was true for everyone these days. They looked dirty and underfed, like starved alley cats, all of them wearing a mix of scavenged clothes and cobbled together gear. The Terrible Grasshopper’s armor was rusty, and crudely patched in spots. His helmet was missing an antenna. Frigid glared defiantly at everything and everyone, breathing out a chilly fog, but her temperature regulator was obviously failing, as evidenced by the frosty patches creeping up her neck. Machine Gun Molly was still clinging to her crazy riot girl act after all these years, but she just looked old and sad now in her smeared make-up, torn baby-doll dress, and scuffed patent leather high boots. The Her-icane had obviously developed some kind of drug problem and was nodding out in the back of the group next to Killer Panda, who just looked bored and tired in his giant floral mumu. The big bear-man found a pile of rubble and eased himself down with a tired sigh.

“Shut up!” Duke snapped at them, “All of you!” at everyone, and then whipped around, leveling a finger at Jaya, “Keep laughing! Go ahead! Nobody gives a shit about the Bloody Red Rabbit anymore. We’ll pull your other arm off! You ain’t a threat,” he nodded, assuring her. “You ain’t a threat! The Gray King has a big gun now!”

“So, wait…” Jaya interrupted, “you guys aren’t the big guns?”

“They’re definitely little guns,” Zeke added with another snort.

“Where’s Brutus Rowdy?” Jaya asked. “Is he the big gun?”

“Hey!” Duke yelled. “Hey! Fuck you!” pointing at Zeke and then Jaya. “And fuck you too! Don’t you worry about where Brutus Rowdy is! You’re dealing with me, and you need to start showing me some respect! Because you’ll find out what happens if you don’t… it’ll be BRUTA—”

Jaya flicked her joint at him. It burst in his face in a shower of sparks.

“Aaah!” Duke sputtered, his hands waving at his face as he wobbled on his seven legs. The metal tips tick-tacked on the uneven concrete as he stumbled, the broken eighth leg wiggling wildly, still trying to help steady him. “Fucking… asshole!” Duke blurted.

Jaya hopped down from the pile of rubble, rubbing at her shaved head, and making a confused face. “What the fuck do you bag of dicks think you’re doing?” She asked, sounding bored, annoyed, tired. “Look at your raggedy asses. You used to be supervillains. Now what are you? Dumpster bandits?” She sneered. “Seriously… What are you stupid assholes even doing here? I’m like, forty… something now. You all gotta be about that too, right? Doesn’t everything hurt now? I know it does for me. I don’t want to be rollin’ around in the dirt with you dummies anymore. I will. But why? Shit, man, look around you!” She gestured at the dark ruins surrounding them, “The whole world is broken, and anything that isn’t… the fucking Vaahuk Kal took it a long time ago. What, you want our scraggly little patch of ugly cucumbers? Huh? What do you want?” She jabbed a metal finger at Duke. “You! Asshole! I’m talking to you! What do you think you’re doing here, Duke?”

“…Delivering a message,” Duke croaked, cleared his throat, repeated. “I’m delivering a message!”

“A message?” she said, sneering.

“Yeah,” Duke nodded, gathering his courage, “yeah! The Gray King rules here now, and you need to recognize that! Your people need to recognize that, if they know what’s good for them!”

Her eyes narrowed. “And you know what’s good for us, huh? Is that it?”

“Yeah, I do!” He yelled, “And you better listen—”

“To the Gray King’s little dogs? You sad-ass fuckers have been begging for scraps around that old has-been’s heels for years. Look at you!” flicking a hand at them. “Ugh… I mean, I know it’s the end of the world and all, but you guys look like shit.” She considered the line of villains behind Duke, and then in a quiet aside, “Look at Her-icane, dude…”

Duke glanced back over his shoulder at the woman in the old green trench coat, patched and stained, and ragged along the hem. She looked withered, skinny, and wrinkled. Her eyes were glassy and far away, her head slowly sinking and then jerking back up. Killer Panda was trying unsuccessfully to get her to sit down. Duke shrugged. “The Gray King allows us the freedom to make our own choices…”

Jaya glared. “I offered you all a place here years ago. A home… clean up, fix your shit, live, be safe, and all you had to do was help out, but no, you couldn’t do it. You’re still hung up on the masks and capes bullshit, and now look at you,” she sneered, shaking her head. “You sad sons of bitches… It’s so fucking dumb. Now we’re gonna have to fight? Over this?” She gestured around, “People are going to die, and for what, Duke? For what?”

“I’m doing my job!” he hissed.

“It’s gonna get you killed, Duke,” she stepped in close quickly, backing him up, forcing eye contact as he tried to avoid her gaze, nodding her assurances at him, “it’s gonna get you killed. I’m gonna kill ya’,” she clarified. He flinched. “You know I will, Duke. For the people in this tower?” gesturing behind her at the lit-up tower looming over them, “You know I’ll do it. You know I will. This is all I have.”

“Whatever. The Gray King’s not scared of you, Rabbit!” he assured her, assured himself, the crack in his voice betraying the lie, “You, or any of your new Vindicators,” he said, sneering. “This all belongs to the Gray King now.” His face hardened, jabbing his thumb at his chest. “And I’m claiming it! That’s what the fuck I’m doing here!”

Jaya lunged forward, jaw clenched, chin out, fists balled up, and the villains all stepped back quickly, flinching. “Come and take it then,” she said through gritted teeth. “Come and fucking take it! You think I need my gear to handle you fucking never-weres?” She leaned in, “You ain’t scared of me?”

A long pause, “No,” Duke mumbled.

“You better be,” she nodded, “you fucking better be. Ask your buddy Grasshopper about fucking… what’s his name?” she snapped her fingers, thinking, “What was his stupid name… Hey!” she yelled, pointing past Duke at the paunchy man in the battered and rusty insect-themed armor “What was that one guy’s name? You know who I’m talking about! That one fucking guy! With the crown of horns!” Duke looked over his shoulder at the Terrible Grasshopper.

Grasshopper shifted uncomfortably under the sudden attention. “Lord Ox,” he finally said.

“Lord Ox!” Jaya shouted triumphantly in Duke’s face. “Ask him what I did to Lord Ox!” Duke grimaced, and stayed quiet, so she shoved him, “Ask!”

Duke sighed and looked back at Grasshopper again, “What… what’d she do?”

The Terrible Grasshopper’s segmented armor creaked and groaned as he shrugged helplessly, “She… uh… she kicked… um… a wrecking ball into him with her bunny boots… and he just…” he made a splatting noise with his mouth, spreading his hands, and shrugged.

Duke looked back at Jaya but said nothing.

“First of all,” Jaya shouted to the world, exasperated, “They’re called Leap Boots. Secondly,” she sneered at Duke, “Now ask Killer Panda to tell you what happened to The Limerick?” She said, and Killer Panda shook his head at Duke in a no, don’t ask kind of way. “Ask Frigid about her buddies Rundown and Whitewash, and that was after I lost my arm!” She held up her right arm, fingers splayed, the burnished metal glinting in the fading light. “Ask Machine Gun Molly… No, wait,” she held up a hand, “I’ll do it for you.” She leaned around him again and called out, “Hey, Molly! Did you ever get all of Mr. Bedlam out of your hair?” Wide-eyed, Machine Gun Molly did not answer, one hand hesitantly touching  her hair. Jaya squared up on Duke Longlegs, staring him down, stepping in close, and saying with quiet threat, “You haven’t forgotten what I did to your old pal, Captain Smash, have you, Duke?” He swallowed heavily. “You’re not scared of me?” She asked again, a doubtful eyebrow raised. “…Say my name, bitch.”

Duke whispered through dry lips, “The Bloody Red Rabbit.”

“Say my name!” she yelled, lunging at him.

“The Bloody Red Rabbit!” he screeched, stumbling. “Damn it!” angry at himself for cracking.

“I’ve been killing cheap scumbags like you in my dimension since I was a kid, and ever since I ended up stuck in this dimension, I’ve been killing ‘em here too,” she growled. “No one’s ever been able to stop me. Not the Red Rabbit from here, not Captain Awesome, not the Cowl, not the Vindicators, not even the Alliance of Heroes… and they’re all gone now, you understand me? It’s just me. I’m in charge. You get me?” She pointed at him and Duke nodded, averting his eyes. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” he croaked again, cleared his throat and repeated, “Yeah.”

She watched him a moment, glaring, then, “I’m saying get the fuck out of here, and don’t come back, or I’m gonna add you to the list of dumb assholes I turned into a god damn stain, that I then use as an example to scare off the next group of dumb assholes.” She could feel a rage welling up within her, a snarling beast that always seemed to be there, ready to fight, hoping Duke would push back, and then, it could bury her in violence, like an avalanche crashing down the mountain and sweeping everything away before it. It raged in her. Ready to go, to unleash, to blast forth. All that anger and hurt. So much of it. So much. Thirty years of it. She clenched her fists.

Duke held up his hands, warding her off, stepping back, “Okay,” he said, “okay…”

She let her eyes slide past Duke’s shoulder, and spoke past him, “What do you think, Henry? Think he understands?” The villains all jumped and spun around together. Except for Her-icane, who looked up dazedly, and upon noticing that everyone was looking in a different direction, slowly turned.

Standing on the other side of the street were two men. One of them was an incredibly fit, broad-shouldered, and square-jawed young man in combat boots and faded jean shorts, his long blonde hair curling around his shoulders. He was shirtless, except for a tattered American flag wrapped around his shoulders like a keffiyeh. He held a thick, golden mace topped with a crown of eagles, wings spread.

Next to the young man was an old man. Big and bent and gray and old, he had dark skin, white hair, small wire glasses and a big mustache. He wore dirty black jeans and a shirt, and a battered straw cowboy hat smashed atop his head. He had a pistol in one hand and a sawed-off shotgun in the other.

“I could kill a couple,” The Corpsemaker said, voice rumbling like an old truck, “just to be sure.”

“A memorable example might make a lasting impression,” the shirtless young man next to him added, his tone flat and unconcerned, good to go either way.

“I wouldn’t mind beating on a couple of them,” Zeke agreed.

Duke Longlegs and the other villains were exchanging nervous glances, backing away together, except for Her-icane, whose attention had wandered, and was looking twitchy, scratching at herself.

“Look…” Duke said, holding up a stalling hand, “Look… wait a second…”

Jaya let the moment drag out. She sniffed, hemmed and hawed. Then, “Naw…” she said, “I think they got it.” She looked at Duke. “You got it, right?”

Duke nodded, “Yeah, I got it.”

“Don’t come back here. I’m serious.” Jaya reminded him. “Tell the Gray King.”

Duke Longlegs winced, hesitated, exhaled, “I… I will.”

She nodded out toward the waiting darkness, “Get the fuck out of here.”

Duke glared at her for a moment, and then jerked a nod at the rest of his crew. Killer Panda stood with a tired groan, dusting at his mumu. They all started backing away, easing off down the street, their cautious eyes on Jaya and the others. Frigid pulled at The Her-icane’s ragged coat, her pale fingers leaving behind a lace of frost, urging the dazed woman to follow them. Duke went last, backing away. “The Gray King is not gonna be happy. It would’ve been better for all of you if you’d just bent the knee. When we come back, it’s gonna be… brutal.”

“Yeah, yeah… I heard that shit the first time,” she said, unimpressed. “I just hope you heard me, Duke. You show your face around here again, I’ll kill you.” she pointed at him, her metal finger twitched and shook. She noticed the twitching and, looking concerned, lowered the arm, “I mean it. Show up here again, and I’ll make putting you down my priority, Duke. You hear me? I’m coming straight at you.”

Duke Longlegs spread his arms at her, “I’m right here,” he dared, but then flinched back as Corpsemaker raised his pistol. He froze, waited, and when there was no shot, his eyes narrowed. “Fuck you, guys,” he sneered, and turned, his long multi-jointed legs quickly tick-tacking him away.

Zeke came down the stairs, his hooves clacking on the concrete, and stood next to Jaya, both of them watching as the villains faded into the shadows. Henry and the shirtless young man crossed the street to join them. They all watched in silence for a moment. Zeke crossed his arms, and regarded the shirtless man, tsking, slowly shaking his big boar’s head.

“Do you ever wear a shirt, Johnny?”

The young man nodded solemnly, “Yes, I do,” and said no more, shouldering his massive golden eagle mace, staring off after the villains.

Zeke and Henry smirked at each other, smirked at Jaya.

Jaya shook her head at the pair of old men, and then said to the young man, one hand on his muscular arm. “Hey,” she said, “I need you to shadow those assholes for me, okay? Don’t engage, just make sure they don’t double back, understand?”

The young man nodded, eager, instantly ready, “Yes, Ma’am.”

Zeke and Henry snickered.

“Hey…” Jaya leaned in close to him, voice pitched low, “we talked about that… the whole ma’am thing. Remember?”

“Right,” the young man said, sincerely, nodding, “just in the bedroom,” he corrected.

Snickers from the Zeke and Henry

Jaya sighed. “Get going,” she urged him off. “Come see me when you get back,” she called after him as he jogged off.

“You got that boy trained,” Henry said, smoothing his mustache and giving her a look from under the brim of his crumpled straw cowboy hat. Zeke snorted.

“You two old farts mind your business,” She said, giving them a little smile.

The boar-man and the old man both laughed.

“That ‘stamina of 10 men’ must come in handy, huh?” Zeke noted faux-casually.

Henry chuckled.

“All right, all right,” she waved them off, “we’re both adults, so…”

“Technically, he’s five,” Zeke pointed out, “That’s when we decanted him.”

“That’s true,” Henry added, clearly amused. “Ol’ Zeke there’s got a point.”

“Okay, okay… first of all,” Jaya said, holding up a metal finger while the two men chortled together, “fuck you guys. Both of ya’. Mind your business.” Henry guffawed, Zeke snorting. “Secondly… Secondly,” repeating loudly over their laughter, “don’t say decanted, he’s not wine. He’s a clone, but he’s also a person. Thirdly, he’s a fully formed adult…” she paused, raised an eyebrow at them, “fully formed,” she repeated, smiling lasciviously.

They all laughed together, trailing off into silence.

After a moment, Zeke said, “You caught that whole ‘brutal’ thing Duke kept saying, right?”

Jaya sighed heavily, “Yeah, I heard it.”

“You think it means what I think it means?” Zeke asked.

Henry shook his head, “No way that thing’s still around. Impossible.”

Zeke clucked his tongue, his snout wrinkling, shaking his head, “I dunno…”

“Doesn’t matter,” Jaya said dismissively, “We got too much other shit to deal with. That’s a problem for another day that hopefully never comes.” The two men side-eyed each other. “What?” she asked, “After everything that’s happened, hope is gonna turn out good for us one of these times, right?” She looked at them with an exaggerated hopeful face, and was answered with rolled eyes. Her face fell, she sighed. “We’ll deal with it when we have to. That’s all we can do.”

Both men grunted.

Her right arm, the robotic one, suddenly whirred and jerked, jittering wildly. “Son of a bitch,” she hissed. She smacked at it. “Come on... god damn thing…” she poked at the place along her shoulder and over on her back where the prosthetic attached. “Damn it,” she clutched at it, and managed to pin it to the rubble, and pry open the panel on the inside of her wrist, peering in at the workings while it wiggled. “Stupid…” through gritted teeth. The arm was a thing of iron, steel, and Kevlar, scavenged and cobbled together by her friends Imani and Felix. The arm shook and twitched. “God damn it…” she muttered. Then it flopped like a fish out of water, and went limp. “Mother fucking fuck!” she barked.

“Dead again?” Zeke leaned in close, squinting down at the arm.

She groaned in loud frustration, just one more thing. “Have you seen Felix and Imani?”

“Nope,” Zeke said, “can’t say that I have… not for a day or two, come to think of it. I’ve been looking for them too, I need ‘em to fix the solar arrays or our grow lights are fucked.” He paused. “Also, for your information… the cucumbers aren’t scraggly, they’re coming in really nicely. They look great.”

“Oh, yeah, I know,” she assured him, reassuring, “I’m sorry. I saw them. They really do look great. I was just… y’know… being theatrical.”

“I know, but thank you for saying that,” Zeke nodded, mollified.

“You should’ve killed them all,” Henry said.

Jaya shook her head. “They’re dumb assholes, but I didn’t want to kill them. That’s not the way we do things, not if we don’t have too,” she looked at Henry, at his bloodstained clothing, looked him up and down, finally seeing him. “You got blood all over you… Where the fuck you been?”

“Oh,” he grunted, “Eh… I heard about a new Red Hat checkpoint out past the old airport,” he said, “so I went to take a look.”

”I don’t like you going off by yourself like that.”

”I work better alone,” he said.

A grunt and a glare, “Well,” she asked, “are they dead now, at least?”

“Yup.”

“Is it gonna blow back on us?”

“Oh, I’m sure ol’ Marty Millions, as the officially appointed governor of the Vaahuk Kal Commonwealth for the Eastern Seaboard, will want to come sniffing around up here, but I doubt he will after the last time...” Jaya grunted, not pleased, but not all that upset either, just another problem for another day that hopefully never comes. “But, good news?” he kicked at the bulging duffel bags at his feet. They shifted heavily. “I managed to get us some supplies while I was there.”

“At least there’s that,” She said, eyeing him. Scowling from beneath his large mustache, his face craggy with scars, and his dark eyes peering out from under a heavy shelf of a brow, Henry was still a big old slab of meat, with hands like chunks of concrete, still the giant beast of man who had terrorized both the underworld and the halls of power alike decades ago, but he was withered and bent now, definitely showing his age. Deep wrinkles lined his dar, gaunt, wind-chapped face. She could clearly see he was moving slowly, limping and wincing from aches and pains. “You’re getting too old for that shit, Henry.”

“I see gray hairs on your head too, kid,” he sniffed, “I don’t see you slowing down.”

“You got twenty years on me, you goddamn dinosaur. My gray hairs,” she said, scrubbing her shaved and stubbly salt and pepper scalp with her left hand, her right one now hanging limp, “are from the myriad stresses that plague my life every day. Stresses like you, for instance, wandering around the ruins all on your own, old as shit, picking fights, maybe dying of a heart attack in some old building...”

“Hopefully with a Red Hat’s blood in my teeth,” he added wistfully.

“Besides,” she continued haughtily, posing nobly, raising her chin, “my gray hair makes me look dignified and noble. Yours,” flicking a dismissive gesture at him, “yours just make you look half dead.”

“Well, it certainly feels that way at the moment, I’ll give you that.” He eased himself down onto the rubble she had been lounging on, groaning. “I need a drink. You want a drink?”

“Every single moment I’m awake,” she sighed.

“I gotta new batch upstairs,” Zeke said, “hardly tastes like paint thinner at all…”

She looked up at the tower, watched the shadows moving through the light of the flickering torches and old fluorescents behind the screens of wind-rippled tarps. She heard snatches of laughter and conversation, bits of music floating on the breeze. She smiled. Even with everything going on right now, with everything seemingly constantly going on… as the cool evening fell, the tower all lit up above her, filled with people who felt safe enough to laugh and sing, and all because of her and the others… It felt good. It felt like something to be proud of, something worthy, almost like all of these hard years, the sacrifices and the dead weren’t for nothing. Almost like, maybe, back in the day, if the Vindicators had been gathered at their great table, they would have all looked at her and nodded their approval, giving her a look of respect and honor, like she was one of them. A true hero.

Maybe Jayant would’ve been proud of her too.

If you can help, then you should help. She could hear his voice in her memories. In her mind, she could see both of them in their Red Rabbit gear, before he had shipped her off to that school, the both of them standing together on a skyscraper’s edge. The bright and brilliant city at night had been laid out far below them, the streets had been flowing rivers of light, the clash of their noise rising up to them. Jayant had smiled from beneath his goggled cowl and the long spikes of his Red Rabbit ears. So, let’s go help, he had said, his Leap Boots ka-chunking, launching him off into the starry night, a high leap that hurtled him off toward the buildings, sending him bounding off into the city.

She smiled at the memory and looked over at Zeke and Henry.

She opened her mouth to share this feeling with them, this quickly passing good moment, and almost didn’t, as an embarrassed heat rose on her cheeks, but still smiling, she barreled on. “Y’know…” she began, “I mean… I don’t want to jinx us, bu—”

The sky above them split open.

There was a flash of blue light. A deafening boom threw them back, sent them sprawling. The ground shook with a thunderous impact, throwing up a cloud of dust and grit, sending bits of stone and dirt pattering back down to the street like rain. The haze hung over them, choked them, covering them in a cloud of chalky powder. Jaya slowly stood, confused, coughing, unsteady on her feet. She saw Zeke and Henry in the haze, doing the same. “Is someone shelling us?” she said, her voice way too loud, her ears were ringing. The dust and grit slowly cleared, pulled to tatters by the evening breeze.

There in the street between them was a small, deep crater. It was a jagged circle of concrete, deep and wide, the ground stove in as if smashed down by a large fist.

A young woman lay at its center.

She was slim and young, maybe in her 20s. Her hair was short and fiery red. She was wearing a black domino mask, and a one-piece black and white bodysuit, a pair of stylized dice drawn on her chest, one showing three pips and the other four. She had a belt of white discs around her waist, and a baton in a holster strapped to her thigh. She was breathing, but she was out cold.

Jaya and Zeke both stopped short at the crater’s edge, shocked.

“What the fuck?” Henry muttered, and then turned around, looking in all directions, squinting up at the cloudless evening sky. “Where the hell did she come from?”

“Holy shit!” both Jaya and Zeke exclaimed together, and then exchanged shocked looks.

“Is that Fearless?” Jaya gasped at Zeke, pointing at the girl.

“I… I…” Zeke shook his big bristly head, stammering, at a loss, “It’s… It’s been decades, but… I mean, yeah… it definitely looks like Olivia, I think…?”

“I thought she was dead,” Jaya said quietly.

Zeke shrugged, shook his head, at a loss, “I went to her funeral.”

Henry looked at them, looked at the girl in the crater in the street, and then looked at the pair of them again, “Who the fuck is Fearless?”

To be continued...

And that's it...

The answers to all questions, to everything, lie in the later chapters. Maybe I'll post more someday.

I hope you enjoyed it.