Guide To Ruin
Chapter XI: Fallout
…
DISCLAIMERS: If you recognize a name from a comic strip, I don't own it.
Yes, even for the high rankers, working in R.A.W. is extremely dangerous and terrifying. Voltaire lied about evil being easy.
Give me honest feedback. If these new twists are too corny, let me know. I'm trying to entertain (and sway you to my deranged way of thinking).
…
Failure was not tolerated in R.A.W.
High Father stressed that this was made explicit in every single situation regarding R.A.W.'s day-to-day actions, from simple maintenance to kidnappings. Minor failures were punished with degrading or tedious duties as a reminder that worse could come. Greater transgressions demanded permanent demotion to the worst jobs available.
For something of the magnitude Barry had been assigned, however, having been rendered a catastrophic failure, with five nukes disarmed and an agent in custody, the punishment meted out was death. Slow, painful death.
The one reprieve that R.A.W. offered was the cyanide injectors that were all too easy to acquire. To commit suicide immediately following an utter failure was apology enough- admission that the only thing left to do was ensure the failing individual would never again hinder R.A.W.
There was no room for mistakes; that was the simple truth of running an organization dedicated to torturing children. Only the most unrepentantly sadistic allied themselves with Rod and Whip, all others sought its destruction. Those who would be enemies in any other situation would put aside their conflicts to annihilate every last vestige of them off the map, and Calvin Halgin's expose of R.A.W.'s camps to the world had reignited old fires they had desperately tried to stamp out.
There were, however, exceptions.
Being informed of these exceptions made Barry blink, the first response he had besides staring mutely ahead for the last half-hour recitation of the many failures of his project.
He was sitting in a briefing room, straightjacketed so he couldn't dig out his own carotid artery, or jam his nose up into his own brain, or any number of suicides far less painful than the methods used to terminate failed agents.
"Given the fact that your theory of Calvin Halgins being capable of reality alteration, and given the fact a class Alpha-2 metahuman directly interfered with your backup plan, High Father has decided termination is inappropriate." Riley Goabes stated, clearly confused.
Maybe his brain had shut down. Maybe they were boiling him in oil, or flaying him alive, and this was some dying fantasy he had escaped to.
"This… is not entirely unprecedented." Goabes explained. "In the event that an agent's efforts are impeded by factors that could not be accounted for or planned against, such as a meteor striking a retrieval team or an earthquake rendering an assassination impossible, termination is avoided. Apparently, having this…"
Goabes stared at a folder, clearly incredulous. "…Superman interfere with what would have been an effective decoy strategy qualifies."
"Superman." Barry said emotionlessly. "The reason everything went to hell is because of Calvin and someone called Superman who can throw nukes into outer space."
He wanted to ask if this was some elaborate hazing ritual where they put in charge of a fake project that was going to 'fail' and then scared him shitless. What kind of idiot that could fly and toss cars around called himself Superman?
Goabes looked at the folder again. "That appears to be the case."
If the straightjacket had let him, he would have emphasized his exasperation by dropping his forehead onto the desk.
The building elation that was coming from realizing he would not be dying horribly yet was deflated by two realizations, namely that his theory about Calvin was spot on and the bastard could render nukes moot, and there was now another meta-human…
"Wait…" Barry said, cold horror stabbing in the gut. "How many metahumans are we dealing with?"
"You don't want to know." Goabes said quietly.
…fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK!
It was bad enough they were dealing with a goddamn wizard in the form of a psychotically murderous brat, now apparently there were multiple metahumans out there that could fly faster than the speed of sound, ignore the vacuum of space, and hurl nukes past Mars.
Metahumans who were now no doubt very aware R.A.W. was a thing, and that they were responsible for the nuclear strike…
So this was terror.
It wasn't a matter of if, it was when he would die. If he fucked up again, R.A.W. would give him a horribly drawn out, painful death. If Calvin got a hold of him, he'd probably do something even worse. If the metahumans got him, the best he could hope for was that he got squashed like Caldern. The two metahumans he knew of could, in Calvin's case, twist reality into pretzels, and in this Superman's case, smash through concrete and fly. He didn't know what kind of defenses the base they were in had, but it was a fair assumption they wouldn't last long if the two decided to attack together. The best cast scenario he could think of was finding a cyanide injector immediately and killing himself-
"I can see you understand what's at stake here," Goabes continued. "so I won't waste time saying things you're already figuring out. The good news is that the meta-human who caused your, in my opinion, very fiendish gambit to fail can be thwarted with certain measures you will be made aware of in due time. In fact, all of the metahumans we have on record can be dealt with to some extent. But if they locate one of our bases and act together…"
"What…" Barry found his voice. "…what do I do now?"
"You are being assigned to a think-tank as to how to eliminate this new threat in Calvin Halgins. This will be a long term, years-long project, so I highly suggest you take every precaution against any possible failure, including flying metahumans." Goabes said sharply. "And I'd recommend starting with keeping your injector on your person at all times. Shower, toilet, whatever. They're waterproof for a reason. I would also advise against taking the expedient way out and killing yourself immediately. High Father has ways, I hear, of bringing people back if they piss him off badly enough."
New plan: find method of killing myself that involves total vaporization.
Goabes coolly assessed him for three minutes. He wasn't sure if it was meant to be intimidating.
"I don't think I need to say it to someone who can orchestrate a nuclear strike, but the metahumans becoming aware of our activity means things are going to get very complicated, very fast."
Barry nodded mutely.
"Ordinarily, those deemed worthy of a second chance are given time to reassess where things went wrong and how to avoid the unavoidable in the future. You don't have that luxury. As soon as you're out of that jacket, you report to the think tank and begin work immediately."
Well, duh! We have two freaks that violate the laws of physics on our ass, and the world just saw us botch a nuke attempt. Naptime is pretty much the last thing on my mind-
"Yes sir." Barry responded, cutting off the sarcasm in his mind.
…
You have served me well.
You did not renounce me when you suffered. You tried to do the right thing, even when it meant risking your life. You did not succumb to self-pity or to evil when demonized.
You have earned your rest.
The light was peaceful.
There was no fear, no want, no need, no hurt, no pain here.
She asked the question she couldn't stand to keep silent, even though she knew the answer. "My mother…"
She rejected her last chance. The voice that had authority, kindness and mercy in it now had bitter sorrow and disappointment. I had hopes she would abandon evil, but in the end, she chose pride over repentance.
Her final words to her mother had been to "burn in hell."
She had been nothing but two-faced and cruel, her sympathy paper-thin and meaningless during the last four years. She had willingly and knowingly tortured children, sent their congregation's children to their deaths, if anyone had earned such a fate, it was her…
…and yet there was no other word but sorrow, complete, racking, sorrow for knowing she had gotten her wish inadvertently.
I can make you forget. It was an offer of mercy, nothing less. To live eternally with the knowledge her parents either suffered or would be suffering would be unspeakable agony.
To just discard all the pain… to forget her mother and father… the now painfully happy days before the punishments, the lies, the murder that only made worse the knowledge, the horrifying realization they had chosen evil and now it was too late for either of them…
"No. I need to go back." She responded. "If I don't go back, if I don't tell people who my father really is, they won't see it until it's too late, will they?"
There was a silence.
No.
"Then I need to return." She said sadly. "My aunt and uncle took me in. They can't have children, so they're thrilled to have a daughter… this would break their heart."
You are condemning yourself to suffering. The memories will hurt.
"I know." Faith said sadly. "But I'm used to that."
Pride and sorrow radiated in waves as her God understood her decision.
Please, my child. Be careful. That thing is no longer your father.
And then the light became darkness. The sense of all-encompassing peace and tranquility was replaced by a struggle to breath and dull pain radiating through her body and strong medicinal tastes in the back of her throat.
Her welcoming back to reality was, unsurprisingly, unpleasant.
…
There was still a military presence in Newden even after the all clear had been sounded.
Which, Calvin had to admit, was the only sane result. Five fucking nukes being brought onto American soil with the intent to blow any city off the map, especially after the "hoax" nuke threat by Highweller, went way beyond the scope of just another carful of mad gunmen.
The game had changed. R.A.W. wanted their young subjects in pain for the rest of their lives, only ending when every last nerve center had been burned out. To condemn him to what was an unthinkably swift death meant they had forsaken any concept of trying to break him like they did others, and were focusing on making sure he was out of the picture.
And after today, if they didn't have a guess or know outright about the gun, they sure as hell would now.
His vision was starting to normalize. The tinnitus whine had faded. Good signs.
Even sitting in a tent under armed guard really didn't faze him at this point.
They'd taken the gun away. The guards near him seemed nervous. Judging by the armor and the bars, he'd guessed they weren't your garden-variety privates.
It was 6:12 PM. The power bars and energy drinks had just barely stopped the gun's drain from killing him. The similarity of the Highground incident was not lost on him.
An older woman entered through the tent- large, black, carrying a folder- accompanied by Andrew Derkins.
She regarded him coolly. "…well, you look like hell."
Calvin looked back at her from half-drooped eyes. "Sorry, I haven't had a chance for a nap and a shower. We had a little…" he shrugged carelessly. "…'incident' recently. You might hear about it on the news."
"Sergeant Derkins, you're dismissed. Inform his parents he'll be with them… soonish." She didn't even bother looking back as Derkins obediently left.
She sat down in a folding chair. "Do you know why you're here?"
"Grindstone. Highweller. Today. Oh, and the noodle incident." Calvin couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice- it was reflexive in these exhausted states. "Is everyone in here aware?"
The woman just gave a nod. "Quick work today, Mr. Halgins." She said, clasping her hands. "Care to explain why you chose to explode the trucks?"
"R.A.W. agents were inside. If they got a word off, they'd set off the other nukes." He responded. Goddamn, he needed a burger and a coke. Mixed with red bull…
"And you know this why?" she asked.
Calvin stared back at her for a few minutes as his brain processed. "…because they're assholes."
She considered this. "Have you had any contact with their agents aside from the ones you exploded?"
"Um… yeah. This one asshole named Joe Caldern… or, at least, I'm pretty sure it was him. He was in the hospital parking garage Derkins sent me to. Would have killed me if the place wasn't hit by an earthquake… or whatever it was."
"Him." She corrected.
Calvin felt something in the back of his exhausted mind try to register that as important. Too tired to listen to that nagging voice, he shrugged. "Okay, 'him'. Yeah, after 'he' happened, Caldern was distracted. So I dropped concrete on him."
She gave him a blank stare. "You dropped a roughly one ton slab of concrete on him?"
"I used the gun." Calvin explained. "Quake-guy or whatever fractured the place, broke Joe's concentration. He couldn't argue."
"What… what do you mean, 'he couldn't argue'?"
"Gun works by people believing something can happen. More people believe, easier it gets to make something happen. Even easier if no one's watching."
"…and using the gun makes you tired?" she asked as Calvin tried to prop his head up.
"People believing makes it easier, but there's always a drain. Had to be a light particle a lot too to get around. It beats the bus, but it's really hard on me." He paused. "I'm going to need my gun back soon, by the by. I have a lot of people that want me kinda dead."
The woman looked through some files, then up at him. "I know you and Derkins have had interactions, so I'll get to the point. That kind of power is dangerous. For you. For us."
"I know." Calvin admitted. "But it's the only thing that gives me a chance when these… lunatics show up."
"Would you tell me, briefly, what you've done with the gun? After the noodle incident?" She asked.
Calvin paused. Derkins answered to her, so that indicated some level of trust. He was unarmed and exhausted, there was no point in pissing her off.
"…after the noodle incident, I put the gun away for years. Came too close to hurting someone. When R.A.W. came to my home, I started using it again. Made a toy gun real. Made cars break down. Rebooted my computer after they sent me a virus. Turned into a fly to get into the facility. Turned into a moth. Then I started blowing up their people's grenades and screwing with their security. Works on a bomb, too, apparently."
"And you chose not to use it to save those childr-"
"I TRIED!"
It was an explosion of buried grief and rage that made her jump and made the guards aim their rifles at him, but he didn't care, as tears boiled out of him…
"It didn't work! They were too hurt to believe it would be okay! I tried, I really, really really fucking tried, but all I could do was make bandages and some stuff that Miss Miles used to save some of them… I tried to bring them back… I tried to fix them…"
She looked stricken. "Calvin…"
"…th-th-there was this guh-girl. Fuh-five." Calvin snorted and sniffed. She had to know, it was a story of a pointless universe full of cold cruelty, but she had to know- "They left her in the corner with a blanket over her and I- when n-n-no one was looking I thought I c-could make her come back! I THOUGHT…"
And then he couldn't continue.
There were several minutes of stunned silence. The woman, shaking, several times made a hand as if to touch him, but pulled back.
"I can reload guns. I can break things. I can change things. I can fly. I can stop nukes. But I can't fix death. I thought… maybe… maybe if I got enough people together, told them I was going to resurrect someone, I could do it. But if it failed, or they came back wrong…" he breathed, getting the shakes under control… "…I wouldn't be able to live with myself."
…
The estates of those involved in the "Good Friday War" were liquidated to pay damages to his family and to the surviving members of the few families the mob had attacked before beginning their main assault. The upshot was between insurance, the suits, and the apology donations made by the city, they would pull through this.
Jason Fox, in a hotel room, reviewed the footage from Marcus' laptop.
The others were asleep, exhausted. (Who could blame them? They had fought a goddamn war…) He, however, needed to get some answers.
The feed was uncut, untampered, as best a quality he could ask for given the carnage and weapons deployed.
That didn't help it make one fucking iota of sense.
Malefides approached the door, grinning like a maniac, then stumbles backward, convulsing, in obvious pain.
They hadn't electrified the door, though in retrospect they should have. At first he thought maybe he had a migraine, but who the hell walks off forty nails to the chest and a liter of napalm and falls over from a migraine?
Malefides made a running, jumping front kick-
-and was thrown back.
Not tripped. Not lost his balance. Hurled up at a sharp angle, screaming, landing on his back hard enough to dent the dirt, writhing in agony.
He crawled away, and turned to look back, his mouth falling agape in horror, shaking his head in disbelief…
What in the hell was going on?
If Marcus had been holding out on him with some new kinetic weapon… well, he wasn't going to do anything, considering it had saved their asses.
Next issue.
Another camera got a shot of him talking to two women- one older, one younger. The older one held a gun at him. The audio wasn't clear enough to make out what was being said, but it was obvious Malefides was talking to the older woman and indicating the younger.
The younger turned to run, and the older turned and fired once. The girl fell.
They could be total strangers, but his money was on that not being the case.
It wasn't surprising when Malefides seemed to ask for the gun, took it, and fired one round into the woman's face at point blank range. It was a practiced, clean movement, with no hesitation.
The S.W.A.T. team arrived, surrounding him, weapons drawn…
And Malefides raised a hand at them.
Some of them visibly swayed. They remained stock still while he went over and placed the gun in the fallen woman's hand, then got into the car she had driven and rode off.
Only three minutes after he had left did they awaken, moving as one towards his house.
How had he managed to get so many followers?
How had he managed to take that much punishment?
How had he stopped a S.W.A.T. team by just raising his hand?
He reviewed the hypothetical answers in his mind. None of them were encouraging.
"Oh, fuck."
It was the most appropriate thing to say at the moment.
…
"How is he?" Derkins asked.
The woman gave him a cursory look, then her face softened. "…physically okay. Emotionally…" she took a breath. "I won't say your decision to use him during this fiasco was a bad idea. Hell, it's probably the only reason Newden's still standing. But that boy has some serious issues."
"He watched children die, ma'am." Derkins responded tactfully. "You don't get used to that."
The woman turned to face Derkins. "I'll admit that this whole thing could have been a clusterfuck if were any of the other promotion-grabbing, boot-licking, ass-kissing sycophants I deal with on a daily basis, and for your careful handling of a… delicate situation, you have your country's appreciation."
Derkins stayed silent.
"That being said, I want it made clear he's not to be… deployed for anything short of another incident like this. Right now, he's emotionally unstable, wracked with irrational guilt, and wants to personally kill every single R.A.W. agent on the planet."
"What do I tell his parents?" Derkins asked.
"That we had reason to believe that as long as they couldn't confirm where he was, they wouldn't waste their nukes. Tell the press the exploded U-hauls were faulty bombs. Dismissed."
He hadn't been thinking of his career during the crisis. You weren't supposed to- your country came first, and logically, you couldn't be promoted if there was no country left to promote you. Nonetheless, this was going to get him some attention… good or bad, he wasn't sure.
The woman was one of the government's more clandestine workers. Brought in when situations involved things that went beyond the norm. He'd heard rumors, most of them ignorable, and the rest he had decided he was better off not knowing if they were true or not.
What was her name again? Ah, yes.
Amanda Waller.
…
"A squirt gun." Waller repeated back, monotone.
The device used to manipulate reality, the secret weapon this Calvin Halgins used to save himself and the city…
…was a cheap, plastic piece-of-shit squirt gun?
"That's all we could tell. Hell of one, though. Can't chip it, can't scratch it. No radiation, no chemical residue, and the detectors from the Crowley people say it's as mundane as a turnip." The junior scientist, a blonde, twenty-something, was jumpy, eager to please.
She wasn't much for hoodoo or whatever hocus pocus people played at nowadays, but you had to stay on top of things, regardless of whether you cared for them or not. Science she could understand- that worked on laws and physics, thermodynamics, things you could ask a scientist of the appropriate discipline "why" and get a reasonable (if verbose) explanation.
With Magic you got "willpower" and "strength of heart" and "the stars are right" or "our rings won't work because of the smog." She had hoped it would be some sort of alien tech, or maybe psionics.
But psionics mostly concerned mental influence, telekinesis, things that dealt with the mind or moving matter, nothing on the scale he'd done. The closest the files had to anything like him in the past was a 'Clyde Crashcup', responsible for the rules about limited aspirin consumption by observing agents. Fifty-two years later, and no one- magician or scientist- had any idea how the hell he had done what he had.
She sighed, and took out a bottle of Tylenol. "Give him back his gun."
The scientist stopped looking so goddamn puppy like. "…ma'am, are you sure that's a good idea?"
"No." she said as she swallowed the pills sans water. "But that's my concern, not yours."
…
It had been made very clear to Calvin what he had already known.
Telling Susie or his parents, or anyone about the gun was an apocalyptic-level bad idea. They didn't know how it worked either.
It was also suggested he take the next week or so to recover mentally and physically. The schools would be closed for a while due to the chaos the not-quite evacuation caused.
And so he lies.
He lies by wiping his face and pretending he's just tired when his parents envelop him in a bone-crushing hug, and he asks if they could please get something to eat, he's hungry as hell, because he needs one speck of honesty…
…and then Susie embraces him and he holds her, not wanting to let go…
There are things he wants to tell her.
I love you, you give me reason to live. If anyone or anything tries to hurt you, I will kill them. If the beast comes up out of the pit to devour you, I will break its back. No one gets to hurt you again. Not on my watch.
But he can't.
Because that would mean dragging her into this pit of lies.
…
MARCH 30th, 2013
It was 1 AM, and the only people awake were the soldiers who drew the night watch.
Hobbes had listened to his watch's tearful rant about what he'd done. What he said he had to do.
In just a few hours, everything had gone from bad to infinitely worse.
R.A.W. was willing to use nukes, and Calvin was willing to use lethal force in generous quantities. It was like the escalating prank wars they had watched together on the TV between cartoon characters, only with all the humor and wackiness replaced with a crescendo of horror building to something terrible.
He had listened to him confess what he had done until the boy was exhausted and fell asleep, coughing from crying.
The meeting tonight with the other one was overdue. It was supposed to concern their watch's new relationship, without regard to the insanity the world threw into the mix, but after today that was no longer a feasible possibility.
Mr. Bun looked pissed.
The moon was waning, providing pathetic illumination for this meeting in a neutral park, the only interlopers a few fireflies and frogs.
"This isn't his fault." Hobbes began. "And I don't appreciate your insinuations that it is."
"He is an instigator." Bun's voice was sharp. "He is an agitator."
"You know what else he is? The reason your watch is still alive!" Hobbes snarled.
"Do not try to barb me with that which I cannot do. Or what you can't do, either." Bun retorted.
There was a cold silence.
"I will admit I expected more abuse of the power. A desire to be worshipped. I did not think he would be able to wield it so efficiently. In those regards I am pleasantly surprised. But he grows more and more predisposed to violence."
"Have you seen what these… assholes do? What they planned to do to Susie?" Hobbes countered.
"Believe you me, my only faulting with how he handled her attackers was that their deaths were far too quick. But today and recent events as to how he handled attackers show a trend towards overkill."
"You're talking in circles." Hobbes snapped exasperatedly. "You'd be fine if he took his time and tortured Susie's kidnappers to death because she's your watch, but he kills some agents so they can't call up their bosses and tell them all they need to justify detonating the nukes, and you balk?! That's hypocrisy, Bun. Pure and simple."
Mr. Bun looked resentful, furious at being checkmated so early. "…then I acquiesce that. I admit bias. The trauma of what she saw, and the guilt she feels, hasn't left her yet. Something I am sure you can empathize with."
"Oh no," Hobbes murmured sarcastically. "I just got done listening to Calvin cry himself to sleep about only being able to destroy, and how he hates living a lie. No, I wouldn't know anything about that."
Bun looked actually surprised at this revelation.
"So what is this meeting for, anyway? Are you still so opposed to them having each other?"
Mr. Bun stood there, sagacious as much as a bunny could muster, before speaking. "He cares deeply for her. He clings to her, like she's the last thing he has keeping him sane. And she may very well be."
"So what's the problem?" Hobbes asked.
"Don't you see? If something… happened to my ward, with his current belief he should be able to fix things every time without fail, he's going to believe it's his fault. He'll lose something he was trying to protect. And if he loses a reason to remain defensive…"
Hobbes had a vision of such a scenario, a hypothetical outcome where Susie fell to R.A.W. or a Malefidian or what have you, a vital part of Calvin's sanity snapping…
It would make what R.A.W. wanted to do with Newden look like a simple fireworks display.
"…so what would you want him to do? Retreat back into himself? Cut himself off from human contact out of fear of losing things?"
"To be perfectly honest…" Bun sighed. "…I have no idea what to do. We were told to watch them. To nudge them in the right direction, away from greed and selfishness. Nothing was said about "magic guns" or insane cults that punish charities…"
"I suppose the gist of what I'm saying, old friend…" Bun looked to the moon, that cold fingernail in the sky, as if to try and see an answer. "…is that we need to be very careful."
…
It was liberating, no longer trying to pretend he had a noble goal.
No more facades to himself, no more pretending to be something he wasn't.
Sure, there were some… issues that needed addressing. Soon.
Chief and foremost was his former boss, who had ceased leaving the door open and now had welded it shut. That was fine with him- it was better both parties understood that the relationship was over. The problem was that with his incredible resilience and superhuman strength came the embarrassing problem of being defeated by what amounted to someone running crying to their daddy. That, and as recent events had proven, in a flat contest between him and what amounted to an errand boy, he'd lose.
So he couldn't enter houses. There were other ways to get around that.
The radio reports were dismal, concerning Newden. It was a shame- the boy Barry had a real go-getter attitude and the proper frame of mind to boot…
Something in the back of his mind assured him he was still alive.
Well, that was one speck of good news. He knew, as he shared memories with the power, that people like Barry were all too rare. You had sadists with glimmers of intelligence, and you had intellectuals with glimmers of sadism, and on a good day you might find one with the right levels of both to do some real damage, but Barry was an engine of life destruction, bred with the belief that if causing someone pain gave him amusement, that was justification enough.
Thanks, Greg! Anything you want me to pass on to your son?
And the power let him hear the reply.
It didn't make him veer off the road, but it did make him wince, and the power graciously cut off the 'feed'.
WOW. He did not know someone could scream like that, even when they didn't have biological lungs anymore. It was a feral cry of pain and rage that would give anyone nightmares.
Motivation to figure out how to topple his own boss, at least. It would seem Greg Wilkins found no relief in death.
If R.A.W. was keeping him alive, no doubt it was because they figured he was more useful as an active agent then as a warning for a failure that, to be fair, wasn't really his fault. The trump card nuke was an insidious, delicious little "fuck you" that would have served to dash the hopes of a nation when the day seemed won, and he would have gotten away with it too, had he been warned of certain boy scouts that could fly.
He reached out for a moment… yep. The boy was pissed. Relief at not being executed had long since faded into an indignant rage at his first project being rendered moot by what amounted to God flipping the table when he was about to declare checkmate, and he felt a genuine sympathy as he felt the boy's struggle to research a better way to kill both parties.
Something itched in the back of his mind. The boy's family… two dead, he in R.A.W.'s employ, who was he missing…
…
They had tried to break him. Of course they did. That was their job. Problem was, there was nothing left to break.
After he had finished up his senior year, Curtis had decided Barry had to die, and he wanted to be the one who pulled the trigger… if he was feeling nice enough to use a gun.
If you wanted to make yourself into a thing of destruction, the sort of thing the U.S. sent in when they wanted something or someone utterly destroyed, you joined the Marines.
The recruiter had heard his story, pulled him aside where the others couldn't hear him, warned him that not everyone who went to the boot camps became a Marine.
There were washouts. There were suicide attempts. There were those who just couldn't cut it- they had given their all and fallen short of the standards put in place. Some of them sucked it up and resolved to come back and try harder, others… not so much.
He'd never know if he didn't try.
They said thirteen weeks. It had felt like thirteen years. Screaming. Little or no sleep. MREs. Running. Push-ups. Exercises designed to weed out the weak and pretenders. Firearms practice. Obey, don't question. Obey to the letter, not your interpretation.
It was, bar none, the most brutal time of his life from a physical point of view. And yet, he found he could thrive here, because unlike the mindless punishments of his home, here there was a point- you are signing up to be the elite. If you can't do this, then you will die, horribly and slowly, out on the battlefield.
Graduation day felt unreal, yet he kept his posture.
The other surviving recruits, hardened men and women, had family in the stands, here to see them become genuine marines, an accomplishment so treasured people dropped what they were doing just to see their sons, daughters, nephews and nieces…
No one was in the stands for him. Gunther couldn't make it due to finances. Chutney was working in a hospital now, and they needed her every day she could physically work.
When he received his eagle, globe, and anchor, and was addressed as Private for the first time, there was no one he knew to see it.
That was fine with him.
Chutney and Gunther would know soon enough. His mother and father he didn't give a damn about.
And Barry would get the message when he tore his fucking throat out.
…
Sgt. Norman Creed did not get ulcers, he gave them.
His wrath on recruits who messed up in any way, shape, form or fashion was legendary. He did not violate rules, because a maggot was not worth a dishonorable discharge. But he made it crystal-fucking clear: there was no kissing up to him. There was no being buddy-buddy to him. There was obedience and that got you him not making your life more hell than he absolutely needed to. Anything short of that got you a smoking of epic proportions.
Some recruits told stories of getting smoked with laughter. Those who were trained by him told their stories with nervous whispers and looks over their shoulders.
The Wilkins fuck was driven, hardened, and obedient. That had not stopped him from finding reasons to make his life, along with every other recruits, a living hell. It was his job to weed out the weak, and he was a professional.
He had fuck-ups before.
Some just broke down and cried, washed out. One had physically attacked him a few years ago, and the stories that resulted from that meant no one else had since. That maggot had a knife and a good deal of muscle on him, and the look in his eyes had shown someone who had been pushed to the point he couldn't give a fuck anymore if he'd wanted to…
Creed had not flinched, just sighed inwardly with the realization, as he dislocated both of the recruit's arms, that it would mean time wasted and more paperwork.
Curtis was just another face to him for a long time, and that was as good as it got for any recruit. It was stated, repeatedly and emphatically, by those who survived him, that you did not want special treatment by Creed.
Then one day at the range, after he had scored several perfect shots in a row, he had seen him…
It couldn't be called a smile.
It was like he was baring fangs, thinking about killing and salivating…
He'd heard that the Wilkins maggot had a hard life. So did everyone else. He'd left home at eighteen to enlist, leaving behind an alcoholic father and a whore of a mother. Wilkins had apparently come from a family that signed on with R.A.W., some sort of kid-torturing cult.
He'd been briefly impressed when he heard about his combat experience in the facility raid. The security footage showed the maggot had been responsible for a lot of dead sick fucks that day, and his respect briefly elevated for him from "glass shard covered in dog shit embedded in my foot" to "Festering Hemorrhoid".
He had asked his recruiter what reason Curtis had given for wanting to sign on, and the response was, in so many words, that the maggot had figured the Marines would be the most likely to be deployed against R.A.W. in the future, and he wanted to be the one to kill his parents and brother, all of whom were employed by R.A.W.
He had realized, seeing that feral grin, he was thinking about killing his flesh and blood, and enjoying it.
The smile, a hard, barely jovial uplift, Private Wilkins gave him at graduation was not intended to be intimidating. It was respectful. It was strong. The handshake he gave was hard and respectful. Not a trace of bitterness.
But that look he had before…
…that was the look he was expecting Satan to have when he invaded hell with the other dead Marines.
Abusive family. Tortured by sadists and his own parents. Forced to shoot dead dozens. Desperately trying to save kids, and failing with those too hurt to live. He knew hardened men who had broken down after things like that- you didn't get used to seeing dead kids.
They had trained him to move fast, shoot to kill, and endure the kind of punishment that would kill other men.
He shook himself mentally.
The boy had a hard life. So did lots of recruits. That wasn't too uncommon in or out of the service. He was obedient, reliable, and deadly, and that made him worthy of being called a Marine.
He was just another private, he assured himself, Satan's smile or not.
…
Marcus Creston was all too familiar with the concept of forbidden knowledge. He loved the works of Lovecraft, and the roleplaying games where encountering horrors or discovering awful secrets of the cosmos ate at your sanity.
So, he supposed, after he'd managed to stop throwing up, that he really only had himself to blame for cornering Jason after the fiasco had settled, and asked him.
"Does killing someone get easier?"
There had been a haunted look in his friend's eyes, and a few moments of silence where he thought he'd asked an offensive question, and then Jason had looked away, ashamed of himself, and responded.
"Yes. Fast."
In Lovecraftian games, to gain magical powers, you learned horrible secrets, and traded some vital innocence and blissful ignorance in exchange for that power man wasn't supposed to know.
In real life, he had learned that yes, his homemade exploding crossbow bolts were devastatingly effective, as were the IEDs. And the nail gatling gun. And the flamethrowers. And the acid sprayers. The cost of that had been the knowledge he had taken lives. Lives, plural, an act that despite its necessity was horrible nevertheless.
He was no fool. Killing would be necessary again, in the future, and in great numbers.
If one person could rally that many people to kill children, then R.A.W.'s resources had to be infinitely greater. There would be no time for guilt-induced vomit attacks or questioning the ethics of melting the lungs of hordes of sadistic adults.
The theoretical "cyanide wrist mounted dartgun" came to mind. He would see about making it reality when he and Jason reconvened.
…
APRIL 1ST, 2013
Calvin's birthday was a subdued affair, both due to his mental exhaustion and by necessity. They ordered pizzas from one store that had reopened after the all-clear, had the Derkins over (minus Andrew, still working late), and talked about how the world went mad.
Schools were still closed. So were many stores and restaurants, owing to people being on edge over the idea they could be burned off the face of the earth at any moment.
The notion that their existence could, at a single moment, suddenly cease had made a lot of people reevaluate their priorities.
He kissed her in front of her mother as they said goodbye, and she didn't say a single condemning word, not when Susie pulled close to him, desperate to stay together, only pulling back when she literally was out of oxygen.
What was the point in stopping it, when everything and everyone you know suddenly being vaporized was now a reality?
Today, he turned 14. It might as well have been 40, for how he felt. The world- or at least, the world as he knew it, had been saved- for now.
Gone, however, was his anonymity as just another citizen of Newden who had some extraordinary experiences. The government knew of his power, and what he was capable of. He wasn't sure what kind of threat level someone who could warp reality posed, but it had to be on par with a terrorist bearing a nuke.
Nukes… they had graduated to using nukes. No more subtlety, no more trying to simply drag him away and torture him to death, R.A.W. was ready to wipe cities off the map. He had paid enough attention to know that the last time nuclear weapons were used, the intent was to end the war. R.A.W. wanted to use them to start one, and things could only escalate from there.
He trudged upstairs. Hobbes looked up at him, waited for him to say something, but returned to sleeping when he was silent.
Nothing left to say, not after crying his eyes out over what he'd done.
He checked his email, praying for something mundane, something normal…
An email from Jason Fox, with a video attachment.
An email from Faith Wellfields.
At least, he thought, his eye twitching involuntarily, hell coming to earth wasn't isolated in just one region.
…
"Malefides is Matthew Wellfields."
"I should have seen it sooner. Take out the biblical distortions of his sermons and add pseudoscience, and you get Malefides' lectures."
"You all know what happened to the Foxes, so I won't reiterate what everyone has seen. I arrived there because I thought I could stop him, or my mother. Bring them to their senses."
"I was a fool."
"It took less than a minute for him to convince my mother to shoot me. Then as you all know, he took the gun from her and shot her in the face with no hesitation. The moment we became an inconvenience, he wanted us both dead."
"Any humanity he had is gone. Laugh at me if you want, but I felt it, and I saw it. There's no pretense of Christianity or any religion with a benevolent God anymore. There is a devil, and he's found a willing vessel in him."
"He taught child abuse, and now he teaches child murder. If you ally yourself with him, and with what he's teaching, you no longer have any excuse of ignorance."
"God help us all."
-Omnijournal entry by Faith Harrel, April 4th.
…
APRIL 6TH, 2013
The moment Malefides strolled into the room, he felt as welcome as a steaming dog turd.
It was the brainstorming room assigned to Judges Grant and Landers, with Derricks, Gathwells, and Wilkins assisting them. The table was loaded with dossiers and the room smelled of coffee and desperation, belying the sterile white décor.
"How are you alive?" Barry asked pointedly.
"You know, I was going to ask you that, Barry." Malefides observed the screen casually. "Millions in equipment squandered, a massive intel leak, weeks wasted, and all you managed to do was piss off two metahumans."
The boy's eye twitch and the pen in his hand broke with a murderous snap.
"Those two metahumans," Grant spoke acidly, "are the only reasons his plan failed. You were sent after two simple preteens. What's your excuse?"
"Oh, yes. Two simple preteens. Armed with enough firepower to kill everyone in this base twice. Except, you know, me." Malefides shrugged carelessly. "So before you use that paralytic modded-hypo on me so you can pour boiling coffee on my eyes just to prove a point I already know, Barry, you should know it's not going to do anything for me."
Barry dropped the broken pen, clearly stunned.
"Oh, I know all about the ways you want to torture me, torture Calvin, torture that girl and her mother. Real go-getter attitude, I have to say. The molten lead one wouldn't work, though- the shock would kill someone before you got to the third phase."
Barry blinked. Malefides took the moment to lean down and stare him in his bewildered eyes.
"YES. YES, I CAN."
His pupils narrowed, and Barry recoiled.
"Your problem, Barry, is that you see a total, complete, utter failure in this. You don't get the bigger picture, the bigger concept of what we can accomplish. You don't see the fear and despair lingering, the sixth nuke, bigger than all the others combined, ready to blow the world to kingdom come! OUR kingdom come! OUR WILL BE DONE! But we can't get there, not as you are!"
He looked up. Everyone looked at him with bewilderment and confusion.
"Marcus Clay Flint, you haven't given a damn about obedience ever since you broke a little girls arm for looking at you funny in a grocery store. Sandra Landers, you don't want kids to commit suicide, you want them to want to die and never be able to! Mary Gathwells, you want to break every bone in Hope's body while her mother watches? I can make it happen! Richard… my dear, dear Richard…" Malefides felt his eyes mist with pride. "They still talk about what you did to those boys in Arizona. You're mythical. But you've lost your artistry! You all have, because you're operating under this outdated, paper-thin, everyone-knows-it's-a-farce cover that R.A.W. wants obedient kids!"
The five looked at him in awe, their pasts and aspirations laid bare. He now had their full attention.
"All you see right now are the setbacks we're facing. The people against us. So what if they win once, or twice, or five times?! They're trying to preserve the status quo! Do you know how many times we need to win, in the end?! Do you know how many times we have to come out on top for it to be all worthwhile?"
They all stared, enthralled.
"Once." He whispered. "One time. One day, one battle where after everything else, they're so tired, so worn down they falter and we don't."
"You see, in the end, we don't need to kill the Calvins and Jasons, or even have them submit to us." Malefides explained. "We just need to make it clear, time and time again, that it doesn't matter."
"It doesn't matter how many times someone swoops in to stop a nuke, we'll find others. It doesn't matter how many children they rescue, we'll get them back eventually. We teach them that we are death, inevitable and unavoidable, a natural force unstoppable by any means, and we win."
"All we need to do," he concluded, as he pulled up a chair no one had noticed wasn't there before he made his speech, "is make winning cost too much."
…
This is how Malefides works.
He shares his vision with the five people he knows are going to snap R.A.W. out of what amounts to a drunken stupor, a vision of hell on earth, forces them to see themselves for what they've become- not doing evil for a greater good or even a greater order, but doing evil because it felt good.
He spreads speeches discretely and claims to have had divine power in fighting what was obviously a terrorist in the making. The more damning parts of the video he dismisses as Jason and Marcus' talents in hacking and video editing. He warns his followers that the real war has begun, that the enemy is resorting to false accusations and phony nuke attacks to distract them from the bigger picture. A bigger picture, he notes ever so subtly, that only the truly wise and truly wonderful could ever hope to see.
He dismisses abuse as firm instruction. He calls lies merely viewing truth from another viewpoint. He calls raping a little girl an intervention and murdering children he calls weeding out the incorrigible.
He declares that only the wise and wonderful can see this truth, hidden by an agenda of lies and deceptions. He demonizes the child who tells the proverbial emperor he's naked, paints him as a bringer of lies and deceit.
He lists a long string of human shortcomings and finds ways to link them all, somehow, to the children, the teens, anyone under 18 and anyone who supports them.
"It's not your fault you were divorced. It's not your fault you were fired. It's not your fault you were arrested. It's theirs. You are wise and wonderful, and they are JEALOUS!"
And it works.
The remnants rally. The fence-sitters take up the cause. "Get with the program" becomes a holy text, hid from the new Inquisition.
Because he has to do is target the malleable ones, offer not a pardon but complete exoneration, and claim their miseries were the fault of someone else.
It's a cold, deceptive system. But it works. It has worked.
It's worked perfectly since the dawn of man, and Malefides sees no reason to change it.