Author's note: Please tell me if there's anything wrong or if there's any improvements to make. Criticism welcome, but please don't be mean.
I ran my thumb over the rough face of the penny, feeling my finger tip where it was melted and smoothed at the top of Abe's head. A heated needle was stuck trough to make a hole so I could put a string through it to wear it. When was that? Fourteen years ago? No... Thirteen and a half, the anniversary was today.
"Damn you, Loki." I breathed.
I stumbled out of bed, maneuvering my way around clothes, some garbage and last week's rummaging where I found an old radio. Pausing for a second, I grab it and adjust the single, rusted antenna. Turning it on without flipping the switch I hear some garbled words.
"... The Twentieth Anniversary of our great leader-"
"Great leader my pale ass." I muttered.
I turned the knob again.
"So, you were in Stuttgart?"
"Yes, such a great presence he had-"
"Bullshit." I groaned.
I decided to try one last time. I flipped the knob between 100.9 and 101.3 and listened.
"Two days from now, we will be celebrating at Crown Tower, previously Stark Tower, of the day King Loki of Asgard took New York and liberated the world from peace."
"Shit. Shit. Shit. Nothing but crap on today." I thought.
I tossed the radio behind my shoulder and heard it clatter into some metal stuff. Probably tin cans of corn. I like corn.
"Now I'm hungry." I moaned.
I checked my little, too-tight, fake leather watch. 6:57 PM, it was really AM, but the little knobs were broken and I can't change the damn clockwork. I was always afraid I'd break it.
"You can reprogram supercomputers, turn off lasers and block telecommunications with your mind, but you can't figure out clockwork. Lovely."
Walked over to my metal automatic door, unlocked it with a swish of the finger (I could do it without it, but it just looked really cool) and put on my patchy leather shoes. I looked to my mantle before leaving. On it sat the only shiny thing in the room. A moderately sized iron vase, clamped tight with a shining iron cap.
"Bye Pete, I'll be right back."
I stepped out and closed the door. My room didn't have any windows, I was in the inside of the building. It really sucked because I loved watching sunsets and sunrises. Just like we always would. I walked down the hall, kicking at rats and hearing some TVs and radios in other rooms, to the window. It was dusty again. I made a mental note to trade some of my garbage for better garbage and half an ounce of window cleaner, not just for the window, but also for Peter. I turned to walk down the stairs, four floors down. I never took the elevator, I never trusted it. Not with all the power outages.
"Damn rats." I say, turning over a damp nest in the corner.
I saw a bunch of the little, pink babies nursing off the fat mother. I made another mental note to get some rat poison, or cleats. I kept descending the stairs, saying my good mornings to my friends and neighbors, and finally reached the bottom floor. I saw a cleaner looking red head girl in blue near the door outside, manipulating the dripping water from a broken pipe.
"Hey Izzy." I greeted, putting a hand in one pocket.
"Hi Penny." She replied, making a curved, fish-like shape.
I tilted my head to get a better look at it. "A dolphin?"
"A porpoise."
I bent down to look at it. "Just curious, have you ever seen a porpoise?"
"No, but..." She created two miniature, Loki horns on it before laughing hysterically. "Get it?! Do you get it Penny?"
I crossed my arms and thought a bit. It's a porpoise with Loki's horns... Loki and a porpoise.
"'I am Loki and I am burdened with glorious porpoise.'" I huffed with crossed arms.
She laughed and slapped her knee. Who does that anymore? I rolled my head and turned to walk away.
"What? You didn't think it was funny?" She asked, at a loss for oxygen.
"It wasn't. It really wasn't."
She puckered her lips and crossed her eyes at me, but quickly shrugged it off. "You going to the mess hall?"
"Yup. I hope they have corn."
"You and your corn."
"And butter too."
Izzy chuckled as she walked beside me, smiling slightly. She turned to me with a sparkle in her eye.
"If you had to choose between a fancy banquet for a week out of every month for the rest of your life or the ability to create any type of-"
"Corn." I finished.
She laughed again. "Yes, corn."
"I choose corn." I spoke, the misty glass door before me
"You're so weird."
I chuckled. "What about you, Miss Porpoise?"
"That's not weird, it's just a play on words."
We walked out into the courtyard. The sun washed over the dead grass and somehow living weeds in the courtyard. We never maintained it because we needed to conserve water and time. I looked to the wall to see the fading white "ULA" graffiti on the side of the mess hall. It's been there for years, but they never bothered to repaint it.
"Over here Donny! I'm open!" A little girl shouted.
"Alright Mandy! Here!" A boy yelled.
A couple kids were playing soccer around the courtyard. The little girl, who looked about seven or eight, took the ball and swayed it over to the goal before kicking it hard. The ball whooshed into the old fishnet goal. Another little girl whistled loudly.
"GOAL!" She exclaimed.
Izzy smiled at them. "Look at them, so carefree."
"I know." I sighed, biting my inner lip. "Hopefully, one day, kids can be free with a childhood."
Izzy's smile fell into a frown. "I know. At least they extended the age of operation to nine."
"Me too, but Adam sure was pissed. He even used me as an example!" I threw my hands up dramatically.
"You had it at seven, right?" She asked.
"Yeah, it could've been worse." I replied as we walked up to the mess hall. "We could've been Freddie."
She nodded as we both stepped in. "We could have."
The two of us got in line. It was just the start of the breakfast rush. I smelled full grain toast, soy milk and eggs. Nothing corn related. Gosh dang it. I took a smudged tray and put it on the tray-slidey thing and scooted to the Lunch Lord.
"Alright Ms. Davids." He said, making the net around his long beard shake. "What will it be?"
"Any ration limits today?" I asked.
"For the toast, yes, two per person. For eggs no, we sped up the breeding of our chickens. Also, soup for lunch." He replied.
"Two toasts and..." I looked at the sunny-side up eggs and the over-easy eggs. I was indecisive, as usual, much to the annoyance of the Lunch Lord and the people behind me. I took my penny and flicked it, it spun around the string rapidly.
"Heads for sunny, tails for easy." I spoke.
It landed in my palm. Tails.
"Two over-easy, and please put it on toast." I requested.
He nodded. He put two partially burnt toast and two runny over-easy eggs on it before letting me move on. The lunchroom was getting more crowded, and soon the only hologram TVs we had were swamped with people watching. Nearby I sat with Izzy and another friend of mine, Oliver, a tall, muscular kid with oily brown hair and pale skin. I liked him, he reminded me of Peter. Down to the brown hair and pale skin, not the light brown eyes, though. His were green.
"You and your penny, Penny." He chuckled, cutting his toast to pieces.
"Find a penny pick it up, and through the day you'll use it to make weird decisions." Izzy chanted.
"Ha ha ha. I've had this thing for almost fourteen years, Death herself would have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers." I replied, looking at my half cooked egg. "Ollie, mind if you...?"
"Ok."
Pointing at my eggs, he shocked them with a hair-thin lightning bolt. They steamed, sizzling and bubbling a bit. But now they were cooked.
"Thanks." I said, picking it up and putting it into my mouth.
We angled ourselves to the TV, reading the English headlines. Many people, here and in Outside, were glad that English remained the most read and spoken language in the world, and Loki didn't turn it into Asgardian runes. The recent headline was: "IMPORTANT NEWSCAST FROM KING LOKI".
"Oh joy, our King is going to speak." Oliver groaned, shoving a triangle of toast in his mouth.
"What is it this time?" Izzy spoke. "Last time it was Queen Asha's pregnancy. That will be like his... Twenty-fourth kid. She's his fifth wife, right?"
"I thought it was Queen Kyoko." I shrugged.
"It was both." Oliver said. "Queen Kyoko was announced pregnant after Loki and Queen Rosa's wedding. A week later during Loki and Queen Rosa's isolated honeymoon, Queen Asha was pregnant."
"Damn, he's going to have twenty-five kids. How does he keep track of them all?" Izzy questioned as she reclined.
"I bet he tagged them with magic and only he can see they have labels." Oliver joked.
I snorted. "Yeah. 'That's August. That's Keiko. That's Eloise. Wait! Not, it's Dione.'"
"I barely remember twelve of the Princes and Princesses. Man I sure do feel bad with anyone that has to put up with them on a daily basis." Izzy remarked.
Soon the anthem popped up, a strange, classical and admittedly grand music number with flutes, violins and pianos. With a white flash transmission, the symbol of the World, a golden globe within a deep green flag, appeared. Then with a black flash, it transmissioned to Loki's family, there were thirty-one in all, counting Loki. He had seven wives, which makes me wonder if they take turns sharing a bed with him, all beautiful, all intelligent and all completely loyal to him.
The first was Pyrrha, Greek, blond, she had five kids, he married her after he completely took over the world, which was a little less than a year after he came. Then was Kyoko, from Japan, two years after her, Sadiki from Kenya a year after her, Elena from France two years more, Asha from India surprisingly five years after, Huan from China five years after her, and Rosa from Mexico who was the most recent at a month and four years after Huan.
He also had twenty-three children, all of varying age, twelve boys, ten girls. I honestly forgot who was from who. But I did take a note of a couple. Prince August, the heir, nineteen, blond hair, green eyes. He always was on TV, talking about how his father is great, and how he'll be honored to take the throne and bla bla bla. And I always remembered that little French boy of twelve, Serrure because he looked just like Loki in kid form. And one that I actually kind of pitied, Diana, the youngest besides the babies at four and Pyrrha's daughter. She wasn't lucky and wasn't born with the Asgardian (Jotun?) immunity to diseases. She got Stage Three lung cancer at two somehow, got chemotherapy and is better, but always has to be on an oxygen tank and in the hospital. I really hated Loki, but that poor kid. I mean two? Cancer at two!
"BOO!" Many shouted as they threw their runny eggs at the screen.
The holograms simply shook as it passed through them and made yellow on the wall. I could hear the Lunch Lord shouting at them to clean it up when I read the subtitles of what Loki was saying. They all sat down on the steps of what looked like Versailles, the most fortified of their castles. Even little Diana on her Oxygen tank, a pink scarf that matched her dress covered her bald head as she sat in a wheelchair, August sat beside her.
"Today is a celebration of a glorious day." The subtitles read, I matched the words to Loki's mouth movements.
That statement was followed by more boos, and more eggs.
"It is the twentieth anniversary of my rule, my family and I have some wonderful news to share." He said, I could faintly hear him.
"What? Did he destroy Asgard? Jotunheim? More Chitauri visits? Universal Shakespeare day?" Izzy guessed.
He turned towards Queen Rosa, who wore bright blue and gold garb, and took her hand. "Recently we have discovered that Queen Rosa is bearing twins." The room thundered a groan.
"Lovely, two more." I muttered.
"Her approximate birth date is March 17th, 2023. Only two days before Prince Takeshi's birthday."
"You think if he keeps having children he'll have enough for one birthday every day of the year?" Oliver asked.
"Yup, and a Leap Year." Izzy added.
"And the other good news." Loki walked to the other step, to Diana. He smiled at her and put his hand on her shoulder. "After two long years of fighting and the best technology and treatment on the planet, my brave little warrior, she will soon be free of this malicious disease."
I felt an involuntary sigh of relief go through my lungs.
"Finally, actually good news." I thought, eating more toast.
He went on to talk about how he feels, what sacrifices he's made and a whole bunch of other stuff no one really cared about. Izzy, Oliver and I kept eating through his speech. It didn't last long, ten, thirty minutes tops. It was seven twenty-five when he stopped and I heard the anthem again.
"In other news, we have just received word that Universal Liberation Army spy Samuel 'Skins' Gibbon has been captured and executed."
I dropped my toast. I looked up to see a spell of silence cast around the Mess Hall. All wide, blank eyes staring at the screen.
"Infamous for being a gene-splicing scientist and supplying members and even children in the ULA with powers and in association with former SHIELD member Adam Melloy, leader of the ULA, he was caught last night in Paris, hacking into a Chitauri mainframe with an unknown accomplice that was killed that night." Beside the reporter was a picture of a young man with red hair, pale skin popped up, he was laying on marble floor, one side of his head was scorched off.
I sucked in breathe, my mouth agape. "Steven... No..."
He was the first "Tech-Head", an experiment of Professor Gibbons to control programs that worked. He was the strongest, twenty-two years old. He also was my teacher. And my friend. I felt the tears drip down my face.
"I'm so sorry, Penny." Izzy spoke.
"JACK MAROON, ALISON BAKER, PENELOPE DAVIDS, CATHLEEN MCCOY, LUIZ TOMAS AND IRENE YUU! REPORT TO COMMUNICATIONS IMMEDIATELY!" Adam's voice demanded in the PA.
I jumped up. Swerving around tossed eggs, I ran out to the courtyard. I saw the curly haired, dark skinned Jack Maroon ran out too.
"Penny, do you know what the hell is going on?!" He asked, sprinting up next to me.
"Steven's dead, Jack! So is Gibbons! Loki got them!" I answered, tears still in my eyes.
This gave him pause. He breathed heavily, then roared, making the lights around him flicker.
"Come on!" I urged. "Melloy needs us!"
He looked at me, anger still in his eyes, but he nodded and followed me. Panting, we both climbed up the flight of stairs to Communications. It's one of the few places that didn't look like it went to Hell. It was filled with radios, internet, Morse, you name it. Hell, we even had smoke signals in case of emergency. The tall Cathleen and husky Luiz were there, and we were soon joined by Alison and Irene, also exhausted.
"Took you long enough."
Adam was a middle aged man, brown hair with a lot of grays, probably due to stress, some wrinkles, especially around the mouth, he was muscular and the strictest guy you could ever meet. He was there, on the Helicarrier when it happened. When Loki was put on. When Hulk killed Black Widow, and then destroyed himself with his own two hands, when Hawkeye got away with Loki. It was Iron Man, Captain America and Thor versus an army. They never had a chance.
"Sorry." Cathleen said. "We just got up."
"You come when I call you, you understand?" Adam growled.
We all bowed our heads. It wasn't fair, but we didn't want to piss off Adam. He turned to one of the super computers.
"Alright, Maroon, McCoy, Tomas you hack into the newscast. Yuu, Davids, Baker, make sure we're untraceable."
"Don't we always?" I asked.
Adams turned to glower at me. I turned away.
"Block tracers on three." Irene spoke, holding out her hands. "One, two, three."
I closed my eyes, I let everything fade away. I only saw the programs, the numbers, I could feel the computers in my head. Each button pressed, each program opened, each gigabyte. I had it, it was mine to control. Mine to change. I could see the newscast, the Eiffel Tower in the background, people moving about the streets. Suddenly, a black box popped up, a single blue line ran through it.
"Hello, Loki." Adam's voice was heard, as he spoke the blue line moved to his pitch.
Suddenly I felt pulsations in the network. People trying to close him, cancel him, shut off the news, and worse, try and find him. Try and find us. I swept anything that reached out to me away, redirecting it. To Hong Kong, to San Fransisco, to Tibet. Anywhere but here.
"First of all, Happy Anniversary. Here's to twenty years." He chuckled. "I heard what you did. You had Samuel killed. Oh, and the other guy's name? It was Steven Mills, a new father last month, not that you care."
One particularly powerful hacking device was coming my way. I quickly fought against it, redirecting it. It turned around, then bulleted back in another direction. I stopped it. I could feel my heart pulsing, my thoughts slowly began dissipating. The only instinct was to stop it, no matter the cost.
"You killed two good men, two amazing people, two of my friends that only wanted to free the world from you." His voice turned deep, sharp. "No matter what Loki, they will be avenged. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, you took something precious from us, now we're going to take something precious from you. Bye-bye."
Soon we disconnected. The attacks ceased and I opened my eyes again. I found myself panting once more. Blocking communications was one thing, but something actively trying to breech security was another.
"Adam, what did you mean by 'Taking something precious?'" Jack asked.
Adam smirked at each of us. "All of you, and some of the more slightly seasoned Tech-Head, will be very key to a new operation."
"That is...?" Irene spoke.
"We got information, three days from now, Liberation Day, Loki and his family will be in Neuschwanstein Castle, Germany celebrating."
"So?" I shrugged.
"The day after, in the bleak dawn, after everyone's exhausted from partying we're taking his kids."