Red America
Part Two: Oh Say Can You See
Christ, I need a cigarette.
Kitty Pryde could still feel her heart hammering in her chest as the Russian tanks rolled away from her hiding place. She had managed to escape the Soviet soldiers who had been combing the area for rebel soldiers by phasing herself into the sewer system, where she knew she'd be safe (for a little while, at least), and now she was feeling confident enough to poke her head above ground again. She didn't know why she was so scared – she'd seen plenty of urban combat in Chicago, and had killed Russian soldiers with both her knives and her bare hands, after all – but she thought that it probably had something to do with the metal-skinned giant who had ripped a hole in the building she'd been standing in. He had towered over the old man she'd only met a few minutes before – standing, she guessed, about seven feet tall, and packing more raw physical power than she'd ever seen in Russkie soldiers out west. She could still see the look on his face as he ripped a hole in the wall: his expression had seemed to be filled with a total devotion to what he was doing, with no room for anything else.
Kitty shuddered at the memory, ducked back into the stinking sewer, and then reached into her pocket to find the pack of cigarettes that she'd managed to scrounge off the old man. It was miraculously undamaged (she supposed that having the ability to phase out of the way of falling wood and concrete had more than its fair share of advantages), with only a few tears here and there to show for what it, and she, had just been through. Clicking her lighter into life, she lit a welcome cigarette, inhaled a lungful of smoke and then exhaled it in relief. Scratching her brow, she watched the curling grey trail edge its way upwards from the tip of her cigarette towards the manhole cover above her, and then took a second drag, feeling the shaking in her hands lessening slightly as she did so.
Before she could totally relax, however, a splashing noise came from behind her, making her almost jump out of her skin in the process. She whirled, a knife appearing in her hand in a flash of cold steel. She sprang at the noise, bowling over a dark shape and bringing them both down into the filthy, fetid water that lay ankle-deep in the tunnel.
"Hey, kid, cool it!" The voice came from the man called Jamie Madrox, who was dishevelled and dirty, his clothes ripped and a crusted scab above one eye. Trails of dried blood streaked his boyish features like the tributaries of a river. Kitty relaxed visibly, and put her knife back in her bandolier, standing up and pulling Madrox to his feet as she did so. Jamie dusted himself off, distastefully flicking a chunk of something unpleasant back into the water, and then continued "I see you're still as lively as ever, then."
"You got away too?" Kitty said, redundantly. Jamie nodded, but then shook his head.
"Well, yes and no," he said, before noting Kitty's confused expression. "Look, it's like this, kid: this version of me managed to get away, but one of me got captured. He'll be fine until I can reabsorb him, as long as he doesn't get too cut up or killed. Might give me a huge headache when I do find him, but we'll have to see, I guess."
"Where's Logan?" Kitty asked, feeling concern for the old man creeping up her spine like a snake.
"That British bitch captured him too," Jamie said, spitting the words out venomously. "We have to try and find him, kid – he's got too much information for the Reds to keep him prisoner. But we're a little low on guys and guns right now, so…" He looked down the tunnel, squinting into the darkness as he tried to see what lay ahead of them. "That way's south – I know there's a rebel base in Brooklyn, but I don't know exactly how to get there through these tunnels." He slapped the wall of the tunnel, and another Jamie popped into existence beside him. "But if I can ask this guy to scout ahead for us…"
"Gee, how polite of you," the other Jamie said, before sighing and making his way up the tunnel. "If I get killed, I'm going to strangle both of you."
"If you get killed, I'll say something nice at the funeral," the first Jamie called out as the second Jamie disappeared. Then he turned back to Kitty, and jerked a thumb towards the disappearing shape of his dupe. "Guy's a laugh riot, ain't he?"
"Yeah," Kitty said, feeling the ghost of a smile cross her lips as she did so – it was the first time she'd felt good since she'd been forced down into the sewers, in fact. "I noticed."
*
Logan grunted briefly and opened his eyes – and then quickly shut them again when he found that a harsh, bright light was shining directly at him. He felt like he'd been hit by a freight train – his brain had been rattled around his skull when that giant Russian had smashed him around the jaw with one huge fist, and even though the damage had healed, the ache still remained. When he was feeling brave enough to open his eyes again, he tried to take a look at his surroundings. Before he could do that, however, he got a slap around the face from a leather glove, as a feminine shadow fell across the bright light in front of him. Looking up, Logan saw that the blonde woman he'd encountered earlier was standing with her arms folded across her bosom.
"Good morning," she smirked, as Logan tried to wipe away the small trickle of blood he could feel at the edge of his mouth – and then found that his hands had been placed inside thick metal gauntlets, which enclosed his fists entirely and prevented him from popping his claws even a small amount. In addition, they were linked together by a solid steel bar that ran across his spine, preventing him from raising them even slightly. When Colonel Braddock saw that he had realised what had been done to him, her smile widened, and she continued "A necessary precaution, I assure you. Wouldn't want those nasty claws of yours to do anybody any harm, now would we?" Her smile faded then, and she said, in an utterly businesslike tone, "I'll make this simple for you, Mr Logan – I know who you are, and I know what kind of position you hold in the New York resistance movement. Now, in the interests of fairness, I'm going to give you a chance to tell me what I want to know, before I take it myself – and believe me, scum, if I do that, there won't be enough left of your brain to spread on a cracker."
Logan grinned, and spat a thick gobbet of bloody sputum at the woman's feet. "I've survived worse, bitch," he said defiantly. "Take your fairness and shove it up your –"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk," came another voice from behind Colonel Braddock. "I don't think you should be using such language around a lady, buddy. You might offend her delicate little ears." Logan turned his head to see another uniformed individual coming through the door of his cell – a young man with brown hair and a lopsided grin. Logan almost shuddered – he could see the devil in this young man's eyes, and smell the malice in his every step. "Long live the revolution, Comrade Braddock," the young man said briefly, saluting the woman in front of him.
"Long live the revolution, Comrade Drake," Colonel Braddock replied, saluting him almost absently, before gesturing to him and saying "This is Comrade Robert Drake. He has realised the folly of his decadent American ways and joined the forces of the glorious Red Army, and so he will be assisting me in this little… chat." She paused, and nodded to the young man. "Why don't you show him what you can do, Comrade Drake?"
"With pleasure," Drake chuckled, and then pointed a finger at Logan. Before Logan could say anything else, he saw a layer of ice start to build up around his ankles and then crawl up his legs, freezing him to the ground. When Logan couldn't move any more, Drake held out his other hand and formed a long, hard spike of ice – which he then drove right into Logan's shoulder. Breaking it off so that a sizeable chunk of it remained in the wound, Drake sneered "Now that's what I call a 'cold snap'." He snickered nastily, and then made the snapped-off lump of ice evaporate into thin air. Logan winced as the wound in his shoulder closed up, the frozen edges melting together almost instantly. "Are you going to play ball now, hairbag?"
"Fuck you, punk," Logan growled. "I ain't gonna tell you a goddamn thing."
"Ooh… wrong answer," Drake said as he wagged a finger at him, sounding almost pleased. Logan waited for another spike in the shoulder, but that didn't come. Instead, he felt a staggering pain in his skull, which seemed to almost be splitting in two under some pressure coming from deep within it. "You know what that is?" Drake said nastily. "I'm freezing the flow of blood to your pea-brain – if you don't start giving us some answers real soon, you'll end up thinking with the world's biggest Popsicle." He held up his right fist and clenched it, sparking waves of renewed pain in Logan's skull as more jagged ice crystals crawled through his bloodstream. "Tick-tock, tick-tock. Better make your mind up while you still have one… punk."
"Sooner die… than tell you anything," Logan gasped, feeling cold blood streaming from his nose. Drake raised an eyebrow, and seemed ready to freeze more of Logan's body for a moment or two, before Colonel Braddock grasped his arm and took him to one side.
"Enough," she said firmly. "Let me try my way." Sulkily, Drake stepped backwards and folded his arms, giving Logan an evil stare as he released his hold on him. As he stood in the corner of the cell, Colonel Braddock stepped forwards and put her fingertips on her temples – and at that point, a pinkish nimbus of energy flared into life around her eyes. Logan noted, through all the pain, that it was shaped like a butterfly (an absurdly pretty image, given their surroundings). "Do not try to resist me, Mr Logan," Colonel Braddock continued, "or the pain will get much, much worse. I assure you of that." Just at that moment, Logan felt a sensation like a dozen needles stabbing into the base of his spine, and then felt the woman's presence slithering inside his head, chewing up memories left and right as she did so. "Now, then. Let us begin…"
*
Kitty heard the sound of a gunshot from the tunnel ahead of her, and instinctively threw herself to the floor of the tunnel, kicking up a spray of stinking brown water as she did so. Beside her, Madrox crouched, flattened himself against the wall of the passageway and drew the pistol at his waistband. "Better get your ass up, kid," he hissed. "No time for a nap." Pushing herself to her feet, Kitty pulled her own pistol from its holster and joined Madrox, making sure to make herself as small a target as possible. Racking the slide on her gun, she heard the satisfying sound of a bullet sliding into the chamber, and tried desperately to slow her heartbeat down to somewhere below light-speed.
"I know you're out there!" came an ice-cold, utterly focused male voice from somewhere down the tunnel. "Might as well come out and make this easier on yourselves!"
"Gee, thanks for the choice," Kitty muttered, before shouting back "Don't shoot – we're Americans!" She heard the sound of a safety catch being clicked back on as it echoed throughout the tunnel, and then she felt brave enough to round the corner up ahead – and found herself in a vast antechamber, filled with weapons and ammunition from the 70s through to the 90s and beyond. In the corner, a battered flak jacket was hooked over a block of concrete, and on the wall was painted a vast, stylised white skull. In the centre of the room, though, was the most arresting aspect of the whole place. A man who was defiantly middle-aged (despite his muscular build) stood with an army-issue rifle pointed right at the centre of Jamie's dupe's chest. His jet-black hair was set into a thinning widow's peak, and his scarred face was ragged with age and bitter hatred. On the black t-shirt that covered his muscular frame was embossed a similarly stylised white skull, which grinned out at Madrox and Kitty like death itself.
Kitty recognised this man immediately from the heavily-censored Soviet Armed Forces Network broadcasts she'd sat through in Chicago – he'd been a bigger thorn in the Russians' side than any lone operator had any right to be, or so the SAFN anchorwoman Tatiana Kempinski had said as she dubbed him "The Punisher". Kitty swallowed the fear that gnawed at her guts and said "Frank Castle, I presume?"
The man put up his rifle (at which point Madrox's dupe breathed a visible sigh of relief) and raised an eyebrow. "You know me, kid, but I don't know you. Mind telling me what you were doing down here?"
"Hiding from the Reds, same as you are," Madrox cut in hastily. "We got ambushed by 'em and got separated from our unit. We were on our way to another rebel base when we wound up here – but we don't want to bother you, so if you'll let us be on our way…" He began to cross the antechamber with as confident a manner as he could muster, but then Castle pointed his gun at him, and Madrox stopped in his tracks, holding his hands up defensively. "Of course," he said abruptly, looking nervously at the depthless black of the gun's barrel, "if you want us to stay, then that's cool too."
Castle narrowed his eyes. "What are the Reds doing up there?" he asked, his cold, flinty gaze cutting through Kitty like a knife.
"They're moving troops in to level the area," Kitty said, as calmly as she could. "I saw the firepower they're bringing in, too – this place doesn't stand a chance if they use it all. They might even send some guys down here to do clean-up."
Castle smiled then, a shark's grin that almost made Kitty shudder visibly. "Let them," he snarled, the liquid nitrogen temperature of his voice dropping another ten degrees. "They want to die so bad, that's their damn problem." He advanced towards Kitty then, curiosity etching itself on his rugged features as he looked her over intently, like a platoon sergeant assessing a new recruit. "You… you can't be more than eighteen. Since when did those resistance idiots start recruiting little girls?" he asked, changing tack without batting an eyelid.
"I'm not a little girl," Kitty replied angrily, a serrated knife whirling into her hand. "I can handle myself."
"Didn't say you couldn't," Castle snorted. "Just surprised they'd let you pick up a gun, is all. Guess they must be more desperate than I thought." He glanced at the knife in her hand and pointed at it with a single fingertip. "You might want to watch how you hold those, by the way."
"Really?" Kitty asked sourly. "And why is that?" Castle didn't reply, but instead advanced on her in the blink of an eye. In an instant, he had ducked inside her guard, torn the knife from her grasp, and pushed it up against her throat.
"That's why," he snarled abruptly, as Kitty gasped against the cold steel of her blade (and struggled not to wet herself at the same time). "Dropping your arm like that leaves you wide open to being disarmed. And the Russkies won't think twice about blowing your fucking brains out when that happens." He stepped away, threw Kitty's knife down at her feet, and shrugged nonchalantly. "Just some friendly advice, kid. Take it or leave it."
Kitty knelt to pick up her knife, rubbing at her throat and giving Castle a searing glare. "Asshole," she muttered acidly, slotting her blade back into her bandolier after wiping a few stray specks of her own blood onto her fatigues. Castle nodded.
"Yeah," he said simply, walking to the wall opposite him and taking down another rifle, picking up a greasy rag and starting to polish the weapon's barrel with it. "So?"
Madrox whistled quietly. "Well, this is cheery," he said. "Anybody want to play charades?" Neither Kitty nor Castle said anything – Kitty was too busy staring daggers at Castle, while Castle was busily engrossed in cleaning his rifle – so Jamie shrugged and walked over towards another area of the chamber, where a collection of ragged-edged photographs lay in a carved wooden box. Reaching out with a gloved hand, Jamie picked out one of a blonde woman flanked by two smiling children. With them was a younger, happier-looking Castle, whose face was free of scars and pain. Jamie guessed that this was the family that the Soviets had murdered, who Castle had sworn to avenge in the worst way he could – even SAFN had mentioned the circumstances of the Punisher's initial appearances (although they had of course stated that Castle's family were victims of vile, amoral rebel activity, and had died despite the best efforts of the heroic Soviet troops).
Suddenly, a rumbling noise shook the chamber, pieces of plaster and mortar raining from the ceiling and pitter-pattering into the oily puddles on the floor. Madrox dropped the photograph back into its box as he, Kitty, and Castle all tensed instinctively, glancing about them to try and ascertain what had just happened.
Castle tipped his head to one side slightly,
squinting, and when the rumbling sounded again, he said "That's not artillery.
That's not even gunfire."
"Well, what the fuck is it, then?"
Kitty demanded, nervously ejecting the magazine from her pistol and then
slapping it back in with a quick, practiced movement. She chambered a round and
then looked around the chamber for a moment or so, as if she were trying to
pick out targets from thin air.
And then, for the second time that evening, Kitty's world exploded into pain and confusion as a section of wall was ripped away in a shower of brick dust and shrieking, tortured metal. Behind the dust cloud that had been stirred up by the shattering tunnel wall, a huge, muscular shape was lurking – for a moment, Kitty thought it was the metal monster who had attacked her earlier that evening, but then two long, metallic tentacles snaked through the gloom and coiled around Castle's waist, lifting him high off the ground in the process. Screaming wordlessly, Castle pressed the trigger on his rifle and sent a spray of lethal hollow-point ammunition shrieking towards the gigantic shape. As the bullets hit, the shape staggered for a moment, emerging from the dust cloud and revealing itself, even as it dropped Castle to the ground in an ungainly heap. Kitty gasped involuntarily as she realised that what was in front of her was the Soviets' super-weapon, Omega Red – apparently the Ivans were so intent on demolishing this whole neighbourhood that they were using their pet wrecking ball as a clean-up measure.
Christ, I need a cigarette…