THE SHORTEST ROAD TO OLYMPUS
by Tenda
The panic van is picking up speed, is racing through the tunnel on the tip of its toes, is swerving left-to-right and right-to-left in its best effort to put distance between it and its pursuers. They are half-hewn half-men, shadowy shapes made of something ethereal, something otherworldly; Jonathan Morse, crouching by the back-facing doors of the panic van, calls them ghosts. The other occupants of the panic van don't disagree.
On cue the doors swing open, and Jonathan Morse with one hand holding on for dear life pulls a CD-player to his chest and waits for the very last second as the ghosts notice and approach, slip closer and the van is flying now, it's easily going sixty seventy eighty miles per hour, but the ghosts are keeping pace, are gaining ground. The steering has locked up, the tunnel seems to go on forever; they're trapped, Jonathan Morse knows, because Jonathan Morse has done his research.
Three years ago, these very same ghosts trapped people in this very same tunnel in this very same method. And they would be beaten back now by the very same way they first were defeated, Jonathan Morse smirks as he turns on the stereo and the tunnel becomes flush with the sounds of the Runaway Five performing "live" from the Topolla. Almost instantly, the ghosts withdraw, and again instantaneously the end of the tunnel comes into sight. Threed breaches the horizon line, and the panic van fills with celebratory cheers.
They pull over, for the moment, to catch their breath. Time is precious but lives are precious too, and everyone is tired from having traveled so far already. The four pile out onto the crisp night air: Jonathan Morse, Chris Weaver, Rebecca Kylie, and the strangely out-of-place Jun Sakurada; Japanese ambassador to Eagleland.
"That's good," are the first words to break the silence and smiles, as Chris Weaver cracks his knuckles and flashes the crew a thumbs-up, "we're about halfway there now. It should all be open road from here," he remarks, and they nod, and the panic van's crew is busy stretching and cracking bones and doing jumping jacks. "It's important to stay limber in times of crisis," Chris Weaver taught them. This is definitely a time of crisis.
The Giygan war is three years over, and Giygas is long-gone, but Eagleland is closer than ever before to becoming swallowed by nightmares and monsters. And worse, this time, there is no Chosen Four to be seen rising to the occasion, and for what it's worth, there are no regular people rising to the occasion either.
A lot has changed in three years, Jonathan Morse thinks to himself as he covertly looks over Rebecca's lithe body.
"Alright! Let's get back in the van, everyone! No more breaks from here on out! We're not stopping until I park the van right on the First Amalgamated's front porch!" Chris Weaver shouts to his weary and woozy troops, who comply regardless and scamper into the back of the van.
"A lot has changed in three years, like I was saying," Jonathan Morse quietly offers to Mr. Sakurada as they sit side-by-side on the cold steel bench in the back of the panic van. Rebecca Kylie is opposed them, sitting on her own bench, minding her own business. Jonathan Morse gives her an involuntary cursory glance before he turns to Mr. Sakurada and continues, "and as far as any of us, any of the Panic squad can tell, it all started with the establishment of the First Amalgamated."
A confused glance from Mr. Sakurada leaves Jonathan Morse sighing. He really doesn't know anything. Mr. Sakurada is a refugee of sorts, was rescued roadside by Chris Weaver and co. back in Onett where the very surprised and confused Mr. Sakurada was hoping to do some sightseeing. Apparently, news of recent conditions had not yet spread to Japan. Sakurada had come across the ocean innocently enough, not even on a diplomatic mission, but of his own interest in the history of Eagleland, and he had unfortunately been at the wrong place at the wrong time; or conversely, the opposite could be said, because in the end he'd ended up in the hands of Panic instead of the monsters, or worse, and that was enough for Jonathan Morse.
"Let me start from the beginning," Jonathan says after a brief pause for reflection. The panic van continues to hum along the highway at its own pace, thirty or forty miles faster than the speed limit, unhindered by traffic or the law. Law is dead now, law has been dead for a long time; the highways are dead, too. No one travels anymore. "The conclusion of the Giygan war saw the rise of four heroes that you're probably familiar with; Ness, Paula, Jeff, and Poo. They're superstars world-wide, I'm sure. But here, it's even worse; here, they've become gods."
"The day after Giygas's defeat, the First Amalgamated Church of the Chosen opened its doors in Fourside. At first operating out of a back room in Jackie's Café, it was small. Real small. But even from the start, it was full of real dedicated people. Pilgrims would come from all over Eagleland to pay respect to the Chosen Four, but more importantly, people would come from all over Eagleland to pay respect to the power of prayer."
Jonathan pauses again, seeing Mr. Sakurada struggling with the explanation already. It's complicated enough material, and Mr. Sakurada's English leaves something to be desired. He doesn't talk much, he doesn't ask very many questions, but he seems to be a very good listener. Rebecca is silent, isn't paying attention, is daydreaming and cleaning the barrel of the standard-issue Panic AK-47 automatic rifle she's holding on her lap.
Seeing this, Jonathan is reminded for a moment of sheer absurdity of the situation and he tries to get a handle on the situation, he tries to think where am I? but draws a blank.
How long has it been, he figures, since he left home with Panic? How long have they been fighting? He could ask Chris, but he knows he wouldn't get a straight answer. He counts on his fingers, one two, three through ten. It's been a week and a half since Jonathan Morse left home with Chris Weaver, since he set out on this impossible task. He doesn't have a lot of information. He knows it's called Objective One, and he knows Objectives Two and Four were similar and both ended successfully.
The only information given Jonathan Morse about Objective One is the first phase involves tracking down one Ness Langley, leader of the Chosen Four, savior of our Earth, and, well; Chris Weaver said he'd tell Jonathan more when the time called for it.
In Panic, you don't get more than you need.
It's been a week and a half of surviving on the tip of the edge of the word survival, living off of crusty bread and unfiltered water. There are no stores left open, there are no jobs left worked. Panic survives by breaking and entering, by taking advantage of a lawless world, taking what they need when they need it.
Panic is full and well aware that Panic is the only solution, and Panic will not let trivialities like dead law get in its way.
Besides, Jonathan Morse muses, it's been like this since even before the monsters came. The nightmares are only the latest and greatest problem, Jonathan Morse knows. The businesses and homes have been locked since long before, are casualties of the past; Jonathan Morse, just like everyone else at Panic, blames the First Amalgamated for this.
"It's the devotion to prayer that became the problem," Jonathan Morse continues, in steady rolling rhythm in tune with the panic van's easy rolling roaring pace. "The First Amalgamated Church of the Chosen taught, as one of its first precepts, that if prayer could defeat the ultimate evil force in the universe, well... prayer could defeat anything. People took it a little too literally."
"Imagine the slow turnover of tangible science to intangible religion. The slow exchange of material for immaterial, the workable hope of progress for immutable blind faith. Technology and medical halted first; it was probably medical that suffered the worse windfall. Doctors and professors turned to prayer and left their patients unattended, let them falter and outright die. No one cared about working anymore, everyone was so sure that if enough people prayed together, misery and woe and everything would just disappear and vanish. Everyone and their brother was just clinging to this blind, childish faith."
"No one was leaving their homes anymore except for the bare necessities, to keep their homes stocked with food and whatever else it took to stay alive. Non-essential business fell off the face of the Earth. That's why the Onett you found yourself in was deserted, was full of locked doors and empty streets. As membership in the First Amalgamated grew, the schedule of Eagleland became standardized: three square meals a day, and round-the-clock prayer. There's no time for normal life anymore, there's no time for that."
Mr. Sakurada's mouth is agape in astonishment, is wide open and waiting for more when the panic van screeches to a halt. Jonathan Morse pauses his retelling to open the cabin window and ask Chris what's the matter, and sees Chris Weaver on his cell phone smiling and nodding. He doesn't say anything but one "roger", one "congratulations", and one "goodbye". Chris Weaver turns to Jonathan Morse and cheerfully reveals, "Objective Three is complete. Everything's up to us now buddy, we gotta hurry! I'm gonna really push it now!" And summarily slams the cabin window shut and leaves Jonathan Morse with no more information than that.
Objective Three is complete, but the information is as good as dirt for Jonathan Morse, who, for the life of him, can't figure out what that means in the first place.
Rebecca's expression is unchanged from before. Mr. Sakurada is still in contemplation. Jonathan Morse goes back to his seat and pulls his rifle out from under the bench and holds it, mirrors Rebecca, and thinks for a moment how peculiar it is that Panic has outfitted them with weaponry and yet maintains a policy of avoiding combat whenever possible.
And yet, Chris Weaver has gone on to say that this is a "hunt". The more Jonathan Morse thinks about it, the more unsettling the confusion of the entire situation becomes. But in his heart he knows, he feels, that he's doing the right thing.
All that he has to do is stick with Panic long enough to complete this final objective, and everything in Eagleland will sort itself out and he'll be a hero on par with the Chosen Four.
(Of course, in the aftermath, Jonathan Morse won't let them dedicate a life-consuming religion to him.)
Through the panic van windows Jonathan can see flakes of snow colliding with the van as it streaks its high-speed path across the country. Suddenly, it hits him; he's been with Panic for ten days. That makes today Christmas Eve.
Hah, he thinks. My first Christmas away from home, and look how I'm spending it.
"Did you know today is Christmas Eve, Rebecca?" Jonathan Morse says in pitiful monotone.
She stops cleaning her gun and looks up, brushes her blended brown and blonde hair back to look Jonathan clear in the eyes and say, "Yeah."
"Well, what do you want for Christmas?" Jonathan Morse says, now playful, now smirking, now having a good time.
"I want my mom and dad to come back from church," Rebecca counter-offers, not at all playful, not at all enjoyable, certainly not having a good time.
In response a flustered Jonathan Morse attempts the rebound, attempts to turn a flounder into a bass, and cocks his rifle, leans back and poses as coolly and calmly as he can so he can in turn offer back, "Don't you worry, Becky, I'll have sorted through this objective soon enough and your family will be right as rain again."
It's not all that different from a normal Christmas, Jonathan Morse mentally nods to himself. I give a gift, and hopefully I get something in exchange from that fine-looking lady, he thinks, and he laughs.
Jonathan Morse is not unlike what could be called desperate.
The panic van is crossing a bridge now, and the horizon has taken on the faint ambient glow of a cityscape just beyond sight; Fourside is close. Objective One is close. The end to the madness, Jonathan Morse hopes, is close, too.
(WIP)