Death Idol
I am become Kali, embodiment of death and destruction and dancing.
Sweetheart is the most popular celerity on the planet. Movie star, dancer, singer, philanthropist and a real hero. She has done it all and most of the world worships her for it. So it's a surprise to everyone when this ultra popular idol comes out and announces a contest. Or more of a war. She announces that one of her fans had procured a small nuclear weapon. One she has linked to her heartbeat.
Sweetheart demands that her fans fight each other in a free for all battle. The winner gets to be on stage with her when the bomb goes off. The losers simply die. With nearly a third of the world's population attempting to take the prize the governments of the world are forced to bow out as world war three is not fought over land or religion, but instead a fan war for a pop princess.
"We're not worthy! We're not worthy!"
—Wayne's World
" Be the symbol of perfection, the subject of psalms… "
—The Road to El Dorado
"Practically perfect in every way."
—Mary Poppins
" I have your hearts and you have my pity. "
—Bette Midler Oliver and Company
"Kneel!"
—Zod
Death Idol
She Will Kill You With Love
By, Clayton Overstreet
Introduction
Five Years Earlier
Sweetheart had the day off for once and was spending her afternoon playing video games. She enjoyed the worlds of MMORPG because it gave her a chance to interact with people like a normal person. She was a pretty big deal and easy to recognize on the street. Millions of people had watched her grow up from toddler to teen on her first show, not to mention in movies. The reruns still played most days, se essentially her baby pictures made up a part of the weekday night lineup of classic TV channels.
Now that she was seventeen and going from everyone's favorite little sister to a sex symbol it was even harder to get time to herself. She was tall with thick long black hair, perfectly tanned skin and a light dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks. Her eyes were red on the left and purple on the right, a rare case of partial albinism that also caused a streak of orange-white in the back of her hair. Aside from that an army of trainers and makeup artists had kept her in top shape her whole life and despite her slight genetic problem her body was budding into a woman who put supermodels to shame and a lot of her fans were clamoring for her to pose in the more risqué magazines and a lot of people were half-joking and half-hopeful that she would do nudity or even porn the minute she turned eighteen. Not all of them were willing to wait and she and the characters she portrayed had plenty of websites dedicated to art, altered photos, and fan fiction all about her in every possible scenario.
People were not that subtle in real life either. Her own parents had long ago seen her as their meal ticket and then resented her when she took over the reigns of her own career and life. She lived in a large estate she had bought with all the amenities and luxuries she wanted. Sweetheart had been assigned a tutor, but had ignored her parents insistence that she do the bare minimum and taught herself until she was a true scholar and eventually kicked them and the agents and managers they hired to the curb so she could take over the company built around her and feel that she was good enough o deserve the millions that poured in.
All of which meant she had to have bodyguards to keep off kidnappers, crazy fanatics, or even just the general public who would swarm her like flies. If she wanted to go out to a movie or shopping she had to call ahead and arrange for the whole place to be cleaned out so she would have the place to herself and her entourage.
It was not as if she did not have friends. She had a lot in the industry including childhood games, sleepovers, and dates, as several celebrity entertainment shows loved to tell everyone. Her whole life had been sent on stage so she did not feel any loss at not having a "normal" childhood. Whatever that meant. As far as she could tell normal usually meant either boring or just plain horrible a lot of the time. She did not feel she lacked anything or have any desire to give up her opulent and at times consuming life to go to a regular school or make friends with kids whose biggest worry was their last math test.
At the same time though it was interesting to get online and chat with people who did not recognize her on sight and beg for her autograph. Including actors, singers, models, and sports stars that had been at it a lot longer than she had. Just as a break that let her appreciate her high status.
Sweetheart never flaunted her position of course. Nor did she try to downplay it. She had never felt the need. Except of course when she had her "me" time online.
"Eat fragmentation grenade noob! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Digital explosions and strobing lights radiated out of the flat screen in seizure causing levels as three of her team's enemies died in a hail of shrapnel and full screen blood.
"Nice work DP29!" Their team leader Love-Sweetheart-96 said. He had on the digital voice augmenter that made him sound like Darth Vader, but Sweetheart was pretty sure he was either twelve or forty… it was hard to tell the older nerds from the younger by how they talked and acted. A lot of people online figured she was using a similar voice modulator to sound like Daniela Paragon also known as Sweetheart. Lots of people, men and women, did that.
The other anonymous members of their assault force gave brief congratulations before they headed out to find a new target.
Sweetheart's phone rang. Sighing she grabbed her earpiece and popped out an ear bud to put it on the free ear. She had told people not to call her unless it was an emergency and they were pretty good about it. She tapped the side button without even checking the name on the phone. "Hello."
"Sweetheart?" The voice sounded weak and trembling. It was a man, but it sounded like he was in trouble.
Probably someone screwing up some reports or lost some merchandise. She tried to be a good boss, but when you got the job by taking it away from your parents and forcing them to retire on an allowance, even if it was to Hawaii, you tended to get a reputation in business. A lot of her executives were terrified of her. Probably because she had caught two embezzling when she took over and had them arrested in the boardroom. "What's the problem?"
"I… I need to see you. in person. Please."
"What about?"
"I just… want to see you. Maybe get your autograph. My… my name is Tyler."
She hit mute. "Hold on guys, I have a business call. Give me a few minutes."
"Okay, snack break guys," LS96 signaled. "Let's hunker down behind that rock so we don't get sniped."
Once they were in position she switched sides again. "Sorry about that Tyler, I was on another line. Who are you again?"
"I'm… I guess just a fan of yours."
"I see. And how did you get this number?"
"I'm in your offices. Um… Saber Records? You own it. I came in and asked the manager to put me in touch with you."
She frowned. And Rachel just gave you my number?"
"After I talked with her." Behind his voice Sweetheart heard a siren. No, lots of sirens. Getting closer and louder. "Damn it…" Soon they were almost deafening and she heard someone scream. "Shut up you stupid bitch or I swear I'll shoot you too!" The voice immediately cut off.
Sweetheart felt a chill in her veins. "Tyler…"
"Look," he said sounding calm and desperate again. "I'm real sorry about this, but I've tried writing and calling a thousand times. Nobody would put me in touch with you. I knew you'd understand if we could just talk."
"Understand what?"
"I… I can't say it over the phone. Can you come down here?"
"It sounds kind of busy where you are. Why don't you meet me at my place? You do know where I live, right?" All her fans knew where she lived.
"I tried that. Your guards said they would shoot me. I think they put me on some kind of list."
"Sorry about that. Come on by right now. It's my day off so I'll be here." Please let him be stupid.
"I think I'll be stuck here a while. Why don't you come down to the office?" She hesitated. "I think your employees would appreciate it. Would you like to talk to one?"
"Not really." She hung up the phone.
It was not like she did not care exactly. She loved her fans and new they were the sole reason she had everything she did. It was just crazies that got on her nerves. She had stopped accepting the letters and calls a while ago, shunting them off to the police usually unopened. A lot of them had been scary especially when she was just a kid.
It was mostly that it sounded like the police were there. She was not a negotiator. They would probably tell her not to talk to him and let them handle it. If she went down there she would just be in the way and could set him off. If he was shooting people he might kill her too. As it was she did not see what she could do.
The phone rang again. She ignored it.
It rang again and again.
After about twenty minutes she growled and paused the game. "What?"
"Get your ass down here or I'll kill the hostages!" Tyler snarled.
"Yeah right."
"Don't you care? How can you…?" And the way he said it made it obvious that she disappointed him. "How can you just leave them to die?"
"What do you expect me to do? From what I can hear the cops are there. They will probably shoot you if you try killing anyone or if you give up they'll arrest you and get you some help. You should probably give up."
"Not until I see you! Face to face. I'll die happy then and I won't hurt anyone else, I promise." He sounded like he was crying. "Please. I just need to tell you how much I love you. I know once you see my face and look into my eyes you'll understand how much you… you've always meant to me. I love you Sweetheart. Please. Please come down here."
"You know they won't let me. Even if I did go down there the cops aren't going to let me anywhere near the building. They will be too scared that you'll take me hostage or kill me."
"I'm not a kidnapper or anything. I don't want money. I just want… I just want you."
"You and thousands of others."
"I know you're popular. People would have to be insane and blind not to. Are you going to tell me you're really a bad person?"
"No. I just... I have to trust the police."
He sighed. "I know you do. You're the best. But the system is also what's keeping me from seeing you and that's wrong. Isn't it wrong that I don't even get to try? That I can see you every day and yet it's only from a distance from behind a thousand other people flocking for your attention or from the other side of a TV screen where you can never look back? I love you Sweetheart. I know everything about you. I see how much you care when you look at people, not like all those other celebrities. You go all over the world, but at the same time you live in a little box. On screen, on stage, or in real life.
"Don't you think it's sad that people like me can fall for you, but never even get rejected? That we'll do anything for you, but we never stand out from the crowd? You have so many fans. Don't you think it's possible that at least one of us is your true love? Instead of those Hollywood phonies you date. Seeing you with all those pretty people… I know most people think it's great and they want to see you with someone as great as you, but it's so limiting. It's like they take famous people and breed them like horses with no chance to just fall for some ordinary guy on the street, even though everyone knows the relationship is doomed.
"In the old days a guy had a chance. He could wait outside a lady's dressing room and hand out flowers, a note, or jewelry. Did you even get the gifts I tried to mail you? Do you even recognize my name?" She sat in silence. Guessing would probably be worse than admitting she had never heard of him. "I see." The tone sounded dangerous.
"I'm sorry," she said. "But that's the way it has to be. I have something like ten million fans. Even if just a few of them would really love me like that, how am I supposed to choose? I can't even meet them all and if I tried they would tear each other apart and me too. Other people hate me. There's only one of me Tyler." She took a deep breath. "I am not coming. Just please, give yourself up. If you start shooting the cops will come in and kill you."
He did not seem to hear her. "I never expected you to love me. Not really. But I thought if you could see me you would remember my name. To have Daniela Paragon know who I am. To remember me for the rest of her life."
Sweetheart sighed and shook her head. Without another word she reached up and hung up the phone again. Then she got up and turned her phone off. The cops would take him down. There was nothing she could do about it. Hopefully he would not hurt too many people. Though it was sort of sweet that he went through all this trouble and was risking his life.
She thought about the guys she had dated. Also that one fling she had with heather James, the TV fashion consultant. All o them really had been good looking and self assured. Tyler had a point though. There had been excitement and passion and some of them had been really great, but…was that love? What was love anyway? Well it was not stalking her and killing a bunch of people to get her attention… was it?
She decided to put it out of her mind. No doubt she would be contacted later by the authorities. She just hoped she did not get in too much trouble for taking that guy's calls. They would probably blame her for the hostages he managed to hurt before the cops could stop him. That would be a PR nightmare. She would probably be on isolation for a month at least if he killed people and she got connected to it. Nothing to do but sit around and watch news feeds and feel guilty even though she was not responsible for what some crazy guy did.
Well at least she had video games and movies to watch. It was not like she had to watch television. She could avoid the news cycle.
As expected the police arrived at her house by the evening and the guard at the gate called her up to tell her that they wanted to talk. She lived in a mansion where the other residents were all carefully screened staff. Not that she spent much time in her private castle. Often she was on the road doing tours or shooting movies and TV appearances. Truthfully she spent maybe a few weeks there a year. So she met up with them in an extremely clean den. Two of her bodyguards took up positions by the door standing in dark glasses and suits.
The cops were two men, one in a gray suit and the other in dark blue. Fairly young and with the look of office workers. Well it was not as if they needed to send detectives. This was not some TV drama where she was a suspect. Sweetheart was careful not to say anything until they started.
To her surprise all they wanted to do was tell her about the hostage situation at her business. "Did you see the news coverage?" the one in blue asked.
"No. I was playing video games. It's my day off."
The one in gray smiled. "We're sorry to have to tell you about this then. I see you all the time in all kinds of things. You must be seriously busy and we're sorry to interrupt, especially in the face of all this tragedy."
"How bad was it?" She had intended to avoid the details, but could not help asking.
They both lost any semblance of happiness at meeting her. The one in blue said, "There was a standoff for two hours after we arrived. The negotiators tried contacting him, but he refused to speak. Then they heard gunshots and began to breach."
"Every employee at your work, over three hundred people in the building, are dead. The man went through a lot of work and after taking hostages apparently rigged the part of the building he was in with fragmentation grenades. I don't know if you're familiar with them but…"
"I know what they are."
"Well there was a lot of damage. He also had an assault rifle. Aside from the civilians he killed thirty-seven officers including the SWAT team. Then he used the last clip to charge the ones outside."
"He killed everyone?"
"We're still reviewing the security tapes, but he trapped everyone in part of the building with the grenades and then spent some time in a few of the offices. We checked and he tried to call you."
"I got a couple of calls but I turned my phone off," she admitted.
"Well something agitated him. Probably couldn't get through. Anyway he came out and said something to the hostages about giving you time to show up. Only a few of them were fans of yours and when they heard you were his real target they attacked."
"They did?" The security system at the recording studio was spot on with audio and video surveillance to keep people from sneaking out any unreleased music and songs. It recorded everything and checked it against anyone listening or playing stuff when they were not supposed to, on the premise that any thief would probably have to listen for what they intended to steal.
"Once they knew you were under threat it did not matter what weapon he pointed at them. At least not to them. Sadly courage and bravery provide little protection from bullets."
"So this guy…"
"Tyler Donavan. Age twenty. He was a sales rep for a small magazine. Though his father was a member of a militant group who died some years back. Apparently Donavan had a key to a storage locker where his munitions were kept and he used about fifty grand worth to try and meet you." He cleared his throat. "You shouldn't blame yourself. From what we can tell this man spent a great deal of time planning and would have been able to assault a bank, let alone a record studio."
"I don't' feel guilty. I know nobody can predict something like this and with proper preparation a person can pull off anything. All the same if you'll give me their names I'll arrange a memorial and try to compensate their families if the insurance companies fail them."
"You don't need to do that. In fact it might be best if you keep your name out of it. We don't want to encourage more people who think killing others will get your attention."
"Do you think that's likely to happen?"
The gray suit said, "Are you kidding? We get hundreds of stalkers every year from people who aren't half as popular as you. If even as much as one percent decide to mimic this guy we could be dealing with thousands of crazies."
"It's best to keep this quiet miss. These people… they have holes in their lives. They see someone like you who has it all and does well with it and they think that you can somehow fill that emptiness. As if your worthiness transfers to them via osmosis. It varies to certain degrees, but there always seems to be someone out there who will latch on like a parasite to anyone they deem worthy or respect or love. Normally it fades when that person fails to live up to the version of the person they imagine."
"You however are super cool, so this will probably keep happening and encouraging it will only cause a lot more problems. Sadly these guys usually don't have enough going on in their lives to distract them from their obsessions."
"But he killed three hundred people just to prove that he loved me?" Sweetheart asked, focusing on that. The two men nodded sadly.
Inside though Sweetheart's feelings twisted She felt very guilty, but not because she felt for the dead. Because she did not. That was what was eating her. She fought against it, but she kept trying to imagine feeling that way about somebody. More than life and death. It was… flattering. Only she knew it was not supposed to be praiseworthy. So why did a little voice keep saying that as a reward for all that blood and death, she would remember Tyler Donavan? That she would grant his wish.
FBI Headquarters September 13th 3:42 AM
(Shortly after Sweetheart's 22nd birthday)
"Ladies and Gentlemen, the world is facing a catastrophe the likes of which it has never seen before," head profiler Doctor Theodore Lawrence Bundy said. He was a tall stern looking man whose sour face immediately let you know he was well aware of the irony behind his name and occupation and did not appreciate humor based on it.
Around him the room was packed. Tiers of seats and tiny desks arranged in an expanding cone just like a college lecture hall. Men and women in suits ranging from blue to black to gray all with ID cards pinned to their lapels. More were filing in. A few sitting on the floor and squeezing in between desks or in the aisle or at the profilers' feet. Finally when there was no room left and the floor was creaking the door was propped open and the hallway began to fill up.
Turning up the microphone and adjusting the projector he gripped the report in his hand so hard his knuckles were white. He had an urge to tell everyone to quiet down even though nobody was speaking. The silence was deafening.
Taking a deep breath he pressed a button and a picture appeared on a roll up screen behind him. "For those of you who do not know, this woman is Daniela 'Sweetheart' Paragon. As of twelve forty-three AM this morning she is officially the most wanted terrorist on the planet. We will be working with the CIA, NSA, Interpol, and various countries around the world. All peace treaties keeping us out of other people's borders are nullified and we have been giver authority to enact immediate martial law anywhere we deem necessary."
Now there was some mumbling, though most of them already knew at least part of it. It was hard to believe that the young woman on the screen was dangerous. She was slim of build and had, for most of her life, been fairly flat up top and childlike. Not hard to believe since she was only twenty-two and had not blossomed into full womanhood until she was seventeen. Now she was gorgeous and literally a supermodel. Thought hat was only the beginning of her résumé.
"This woman is an internationally renowned superstar. She has been in television and movies since she was a few weeks old first appearing at little Rachel Bridges on the TV series life is enough. By ten she had appeared in six movies, three of them with starring roles and went on to her own series on the American Family Network that won her three Emmy Awards and two Oscars for voice acting and singing in the most popular animated film of all time before they made a fictionalized anime series about her life. At twelve she started her career as a pop-star, worked internationally translating songs into other languages personally including Japanese, German, Chinese, various African dialects, Dutch, and Russian and has performed in every style including rock, gospel, country, parody, and show tunes just to name a few. According to school records she is a certified genius who speaks thirty languages fluently and can get by in another forty that we know of including Klingon. She also has numerous contacts in political arenas. She held a concert largely believed to have helped our current president get elected and one of her shows was performed during peace negotiations in the Middle East and there is film of African tribes who were blood enemies for centuries in a crowd singing along with her together. She took over managing her own business from her parents, agent, and manager by the time she was fourteen and her current known net worth is between fourteen and three hundred and sixteen billion dollars, at least half of which is liquid and has connections to a vast network of businesses from clothing to food.
"In addition she has played in several exhibition matches in various sports showing Olympic level skill at all of them. At one of her concerts in Uganda she used martial arts to help stop a group of armed guerilla fighters who came to take the under-funded school the show was to raise charity for, saving the lives of sixty female students destined to be forced into underage marriages and three teachers, all of whom she spent time teaching self defense for several days afterwards. The fact that she took the insurgents alive, if seriously injured shows just how good she is on a physical level and she even saved one of their lives by performing an impromptu surgery while making homemade penicillin to cure an ailment one of the students was suffering from. She then took apart a tank they had brought with them and used the parts to give the school a functioning water-wheel generator.
"Miss Paragon has also been suspected and is now confirmed to be directly involved in several underground enterprises including gambling, illegal shows, and fighting, at least as a spectator and managing the events."
"What do you mean by illegal shows?"
"Her alternate identity, Kali, has been confirmed to have been at several death metal raves and even held them." He pushed a button and a blurry photo of a woman in black leather wearing a fangs and twisted black mask of the Indian goddess stood on stage clutching a microphone. All around her were dozens of screaming fans. "The kind where people get hurt or hurt themselves. One of the acts we know of literally slit their own throats on stage and their bodies were found floating in a river. Much to the delight of those who saw it including some on the front row who felt the arterial spray."
The room exploded for a second with disbelief. He waited a moment and tapped the microphone, quieting them. "Various agencies have been following Kali and her shows for years and while there were rumors that Daniela Paragon was seen that the shows, there was no way to confirm or deny any connection to Kali until now. A few hours ago in a televised interview Sweetheart herself publicly admitted to being her. She provided information readily identifiable to places and times and information that had been investigated that a civilian could never have known. Including several where undercover law enforcement and reporters were brutally murdered trying to infiltrate. We have no proof that she directly murdered these people, but she was at least likely aware of them and in no way made any attempt to stop or report the incidents.
"I am sorry to say that we have proof that she has also been encouraging violent and dangerous actions among her fans for a long time. While there is no evidence that her undeniably popular music and song lyrics in any way incite anyone to such behavior, the way she has been handling her fans, particularly the more outrageous elements among them, has been carefully designed to cause hazardous behavior and precarious mental instability in ways that were previously designed to appear like poor judgment and indifference at worst. We now have proof that the provocative and damaging results of those actions were entirely intentional on her part.
"That's impossible," a horrified and heartbroken voice rang out. Several others joined in. "She would never do something like that!"
"She would and did!" Bundy snapped over them. "Now that we've identified her our people and others are uncovering a vast network that has been following her lead. And that's only what she controls directly. Possibly a built though it's too soon to define whatever this is." He cleared his throat and said, "I know this is a blow, but the very fact that so many in this room have an emotional investment with this woman shows just why we're mobilizing so immediately and severely. We aren't dealing with some backwoods preacher or crazed militia out to purify the world. This is possibly the single most popular person in the world. Her last CD sold over five hundred million copies it's first weekend. She employs more people than live in many countries and her fan base ranges from loyal to fanatical. And she just weaponized them."
He clicked the remote and video footage began to play. They had not found a full copy yet, though they were working on it. Thankfully someone had realized rather quickly how important this was and had hit record a few minutes into the interview. Dr. Bundy had only watched it once so far, after being dragged out of his bed before it was even over. It was better than a shot of coffee for waking him up. Thought hat had come later when he started suffering caffeine withdrawal. He so did not need two headaches right now.
"—an event that will rock the world," Sweetheart said with a grin. She had gotten taller and a bit bustier than when she was seventeen. At the moment she was dressed in an off the shoulder royal purple dress that sparkled because it was actually sewn of thousands of amethysts.
"But why did you choose me to host this interview?" The girl sitting across from her said. She was a Japanese woman of about nineteen wearing a pinstriped woman's business dress and large round coke-bottle glasses that made her brown eyes look huge. "As I'm sure most of our viewers don't know, I've run a conspiracy site about you for years claiming that you are actually Kali, the head of a devious underground organization that runs raves featuring violent murder themed music, death games, and other hazardous and highly illegal enterprises and that you have even encouraged people to kill themselves to prove their love for you. For the most part I'm considered a complete nutcase who put herself in danger a thousand times to prove her crazy theories. My website barely has a dozen regulars and ten of them log in just to tell me how stupid and awful my theories are."
"Oh I picked you for this, Chino Imamate, because you are the best investigative reporter I've ever seen!" Sweetheart gushed. "Oh my god, you are so amazing I mean the backstage of all of Kali's events are totally rigged with functioning deathtraps and you've manage to navigate them like a total ninja and even get pictures of me in my mask. I know you were hoping to unmask me, but considering how many cops and other reporters have died just trying to get into the events you are totally awesome!"
"Wait, what?"
"Oh, um. Yeah. You were totally right about me the whole time." She reached behind her into the interviewee couch and pulled out a black mask of a woman's face with blood red lips and tusks.
She stood up slamming her hands on the desk, eyes bulging behind her glasses. "And you're just admitting it?!"
Sweetheart shrugged. "Sure. I've got like, ten lawyers and it's not like the cops have actual proof so they can't really arrest me just for saying stuff on TV. Plus I've never actually hurt or killed anyone myself so while dozens have been killed at the events you mentioned which by the way you totally documented like a pro, I think at most I'd get fined for reckless endangerment and trespassing."
"I… see…" She sat down behind the interviewing desk and blinked. "Sorry, it's just… I've spent two years trying to crack this case with everyone thinking I'm some kind of crazy whack-job and you just came out and admitted it. Aren't you afraid this will affect your popularity?"
"Not at all. It doesn't really matter anyway. Because you see, in a little over one year I'm going to die."
The studio was audience free, but around the room cameramen, directors, and various other crew screamed out loud in shock. Chino stood up again and shouted, "You're dying? Did you catch some sort of rare disease or get cancer or something?"
"Not at all." She lowered her voice. "By the way Miss Imamate it's bad stagecraft for a great reporter to freak out like this. You might want to rein it in."
Coughing a bit Chino sat down and nodded. "Understood. I'm sorry. I usually do this on my vlog and can edit it out."
"Oh don't apologize. I love those rants you sometimes go on." She smiled brightly. "I always loved them since you were basically the only news on my events."
"So is your impending death the only reason you are admitting it?"
"Not at all. As I said, I'm a huge fan and I've been planning this for a long time. Do you mind if I speak directly to the camera?" Chino waved her ahead. She stood up and placing a hand on her hip she looked into the lens. Then she motioned to an assistant off stage who ran forward holding a human skull. It had a small round hole in the forehead. She handed it to Sweetheart and then hurried back offstage. Sweetheart held it up and smiled brightly at the skull and spoke with tones of obvious affection. "This is Tyler Donavan. Who, up until now has been, at least to me, my number one fan."
"Wait, Tyler Donavan? That nutcase who took three hundred and nineteen people hostage and killed them and a bunch of cops just to get your autograph?" Chino asked.
"Wasn't that sweet?" Sweetheart asked. "Naturally I couldn't come out publicly and say it, but when he actually went through with that, it really touched my heart."
"It did?"
"Certainly. I know it's not considered appropriate in today's society, but in times gone past such acts were considered the height of romance. Two men might fight one another in a duel to the death. Or a man would hunt down arrival, kill him, and the present his heart or tongue or some other body part in a box to the woman they were fighting over. Other times entire wars have been fought, for years, like with Helen of Troy." She looked at Chino. "When Tyler was blocked from meeting me in person by conventional means, he loved me enough to do whatever it took. Such devotion… how could I not be touched by that?
"Since then I've actually taken an interest in those kinds of fans. Rather than turning in the less conventional… some would say stalker and obsessed… mail and phone calls, I've been running a site where I critique them. One lovable guy said he would gladly kill his girlfriend if I just asked and another girl wished she could wear my skin. Not something I am going along with of course, but the sentiment is so lovely."
"You… you like that sort of thing? It sounds as if you are encouraging it."
"Oh I am." More shocked gasps. "In fact that brings me to the event I am talking about. You see, ever since Tyler here sacrificed himself and hundreds of other people just for the chance to win my heart I've been wondering if he really was my number one fan. Was he potentially the person who loved me most on this planet? Or could there be someone else who would go even father? Tyler acted on his own which really gives him an edge. It's so impressive that he had the courage to act on his feelings. I wish I could have met him in real life instead of seeing an old picture on television as they dragged body bags out of the building."
"Wow. You're crazier than I thought," Chino said slightly dazed.
"I know, right? And if you think that's crazy, listen to this. I'm holding a tournament." She smiled hugely into the camera and reached into her cleavage, pulling out a small egg-like thing with a screen. It was colored gold and had little flapping wings on it. "Everyone who attends one of the ten concerts I hold starting in six months on Valentine's Day, the anniversary of my first concert, will receive one of these! A Cupid's Egg! This little gizmo is biometrically linked to the owner and it notifies them of another in the area. The two owners are then supposed to fight to claim the other's egg, though if someone without one finds someone with one they can also try and take theirs. Through any means necessary."
"Hold it," Chino said. "When you say 'any means' do you mean you expect them to kill for it?"
"I would never say that," Sweetheart said with a wink. "But you know that's up to them and I'd be super impressed if they went that far. There is nothing in the device that says how they can be claimed. Of course if they are lost or damaged in some way don't worry, I'll send replacements to whomever they were last registered to. Even if someone tries to stop the delivery it will get through.
"The people who have them will be given advanced notice of upcoming events where they can earn more and others with special prizes, like autographs, specialty merchandise, and even dates with yours truly. Then exactly one year later on my final concert at a place to be named later, I'm going to have a fight to the death between me and my number one fan. Whoever that may be, based on how many eggs he… or she… has collected."
"Why would you do that?"
Twirling Sweetheart said, "Because I don't want my fans to see me get old and die. Elvis died overweight on the toilet. Monroe was murdered. Buddy Holly died in a plane crash. Usually after their initial popularity faded. Me, I want to go out on top and with a bang, loved by all my fans and never having disappointed them. Not clinging to every opportunity for the rest of my life until I get sick or old and wither away."
"Okay, but why would your fans…?"
"For love silly. I don't expect all of them to, but my last CD sold out five hundred million copies on its first weekend. My fan base is estimated to be at least two billion of varying degrees. Even if only one percent chooses to participate that's twenty million active participants and I estimate that number to at least triple once a few brave souls start up. It'll be the biggest event in history with people in every country. I'm not even sure there have been wars fought with that many active participants.
"The winner will appear on stage at the end of my final concert and if they beat me in battle they will get to do whatever they want with me. Kill me. Kiss me. Have sex with me. Sing a song with me. Anything. Though I'm afraid there will be a bit of a time limit." She reached down to a hidden seam in her dress and pulled it open. Inside, embedded in her abdomen just above her belly button, was a flexible black rectangle.
"What is that?" Chino asked.
"It's a digital timer that I'm going to activate starting at the end of my first concert on my going away love tour. It will count down for one year to my final concert. Then when the clock strikes twelve: dun-dun-Dunn! BOOM!"
"Boom?"
"Big boom. Not only have IU packed a big of C-4 wrapped in small bearings into my abdomen, but my costumes are going to include wire-wrapped detonation-cord that is set to explode. That explosion alone would be enough to topple a building." She smiled showing teeth now. "Not only that, but it's rigged so that any tampering will set it off and of course if anyone interferes and I feel that I wont' be able to make whatever my next show is, I can set it off myself anytime I feel like it!" Chino audibly gulped and slowly knelt down behind her desk. "Plus I have an extra special surprise!"
"W-what's that?"
"A nuclear bomb!" She closed her dress. There were some choking sounds from around the studio. She leaned towards the camera, ignoring the pale and almost fainting cameraman behind it and spoke in a conspiratorial tone. "One of my really devoted fans worked at a storage facility in a top secret location that I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to know about. One of the things they keep there are a collection of Snoopy briefcases and I'm not talking about the dog. I mean the kind that had tiny nuclear explosives built into them capable of destroying everything within two miles not even counting the fallout. Just incase someone in the government doesn't believe me here's something they can check. The number of the little beauty he managed to sneak out to me is J786K23F79-304A. Activation code: walrus!"
"Eek!"
"Oh don't worry, I changed it. You see this device in my belly is a dead man's switch. It's got all kinds of redundancy systems to read my bio-feedback. Even though the time hasn't been activated yet, if I die or get just a little bit too agitated, the whole thing goes off. And the bomb is hidden in the secret location of my final concert. This is in a highly populated area, just incase you were wondering."
"Why would you even do that?" Chino yelled.
"Because of love, just like I said. In my opinion love is not necessarily about how much you like someone. It's the idea that life is meaningless if they are not in it." She held up Tyler's skull and nuzzled it playfully. "My boy Tyler here was willing to do absolutely anything for me and the biggest regret of my life is that I did not believe that. I honestly thought he was just some loser who would wet himself when the cops busted in and just surrender. Instead he went all the way. I can only hope that when this is all over I get to see him and apologize in Valhalla."
"So you're going to blow up countless innocent people?"
"Not if nobody interferes. Don't worry, the concert will last a while. There should be plenty of time for people to evacuate if they want to."
"If?"
"Well I assume my real fans will want to stick around and watch live. Plus like I said; if the letters and videos and threats I get are any indication then life without me for those who really love me would be unthinkable. That's how I feel imagining what it would be like if I lost all of my fans. My number one fan, especially. So even if they're the only one who shows up, then I'll still hold the concert. And if I can't make it for that concert, well then there's no reason to go on living."
Peeking over the desk Chino stared at her with a mix of horror and awe. "You're serious, aren't you? you're actually going to kill yourself."
Looking over her shoulder and smiling sweetly the super star said, "You betcha! I made sure the guys who installed the device can't even undo it. I can set it off early and so could anyone ho tried to disarm it, but that's it. It's even set up so that the signal it sends is randomized, that way nobody can just copy the signal itself and keep sending it to the bomb. If it stops or they sent the wrong encryption at the wrong time, the whole thing ends early along with anyone who happens to be nearby.
"Naturally I don't want innocent people getting hurt, so if it's up to me I won't set it off someplace like, oh, this crowded television studio. Though if someone stupidly sent SWAT or something in to manhandle me or drag me off, well that would be unfortunate.
"Likewise I don't want my fans to just start killing random people. Anyone who doesn't want to participate or who decides to give up can just hand off their Egg to anyone they want. I'm sure some will sell really well online. And I think anyone who hurts somebody who doesn't want to participate is just scum. In today's world it'll be easy to check and I have a lot of hackers among my fans. Anyone who breaks the rules will be kicked out and forbidden from participating in the tournament. I'll be monitoring, along with a team of snipers, so I expect fair fights. The details have already been posted through various social media in the form of a video I compiled explaining it. Sorry Chino, but I'm not sure how big of an audience tuned in for this."
"Uh, that's fine. Something tells me the numbers on the reruns are going to be great," she muttered, glancing guiltily to the side as she was torn between the situation and the thought of how freaking famous she was about to become for holding this interview. If this was some weird publicity stunt… god let it be a stunt… people were still going to die. There were a lot of crazies out there and this was very irresponsible. People were going to die. Chino meanwhile was going to get rich. She fought the urge to check the visit counter on her site via her cell phone. Was that wrong? "What exactly do you want out of all of this?"
"I'll say it again: love. I want to know who loves me the most. All these people clamoring for my attention as they watch me. It'd hard enough to choose between two or three. How do you decide out of billions? I couldn't possibly. I have to leave it up to fate to find the person who will do their best to earn a place by my side."
"I see… Well I can't deny choosing one person out of all of those people is not going to be easy. But isn't it a bit self centered?"
"What else can I do? I can't even just walk down a street and meet people by accident. Tyler tried to write and call and arrange a meeting, but was blocked at every turn. Even if it was just because all my fans immediately crowd me and everyone shouts and begs for my attention. How can I pick one person out of a sea of faces? If I did it would hurt a lot more."
"You may have a point there. But um, aren't you a little young to be… well dying. Or settling down? There are a lot of roles you could play if you waited a little while. More… mature ones?"
"Are you saying I couldn't play those now? Because I'll have you know that next month I'm releasing a movie in which I played twelve different characters in various ages and forms. Partially animated and with an all star cast I paid for myself. I could have made billions on it, but all things considered I intend to release it for free world wide, translated into all languages. It's been prescreened for the guild and I have been assured that it's a masterpiece."
"I don't doubt it. They sometimes call you Kid Midas because everything you touch turns to gold."
"I hope so. Anyway I could spend the rest of my life chasing better roles, better songs, but really what's the point? I'm as popular now as I'll ever be. The older I get and longer I wait the fewer I'll have. Many will get over me or find someone or something else to care about. People are already afraid I overwork myself and am going to burn out."
"There's a chance that may have already happened…"
Sweetheart tilted her head. "Maybe. But either way I already have hundreds of billions of dollars. I'm rich, I'm famous, I've helped a lot of people… what else can I expect out of life? The only thing missing is to find out who really cares about me the most and will put the most effort into being with me.
"Meanwhile I've done my best. I studied until I'm very good at most things, I write my own music and movies and books. I work hard and I do my best to treat all of my fans with respect and be the very best I can for them. I know it's not the same as being a housewife and I'm not everyone's cup of tea, but given my situation I'm not sure what else I can do. I can't choose between all the people that want me for themselves so I have to let them make the choice for me."
"By killing each other."
"Well, fighting at least," she admitted. "My biggest and most ardent fans will want to be at my last concert, even if it means dying. So if they do meet untimely ends first it'll be fine. After all they'll have lost their chance to end it all with me. Once I'm vaporized in the explosion I won't even have a grave for them to visit. My hardcore fans will show up so they can come with me and others I'm sure will just commit suicide at home.
"Meanwhile the rest of my darling public can either help or just cheer on everyone else. I wouldn't want someone who is not one hundred percent committed to dying with me. I just want everyone to know that this was my idea and I am happy to do it and that there's no undoing it at this point. It's all automated, but being monitored by hundreds of my most loyal fans as well as paid mercenaries, so there's no way to stop the countdown and lots and lots of innocent people will die in the blast if anything should happen that interferes. Alright? I'd hate to have my named tarnished because I was responsible of some sort of terrible civilian tragedy. I've tried really hard to make this as safe for the general public as possible."
"Uh, Miss Paragon, don't you think the authorities will have something to say about this?" Chino asked as respectfully as she could.
"Almost certainly and I'm certain they will try their best to stop it. However since those involved will be expecting to die and or live in a world without me in it, I don't expect them to give up their prizes. Anyone committed to this will be able to do anything consequence free and if they work together there's now ay to actually stop them. There are only so many prisons and so many guns in the hands of the world's armies. I expect my real fans to take out anything that gets in their way and soon it'll be obvious that the best and safest way for this to end is to let them get on with it. Otherwise what happens will be on their heads." She held up the skull. "Just ask Tyler. If I had been contacted by the police and gone down to the studio or even just let him into my home, all those people might have lived.
"Left alone it's a specific group who will only destroy themselves. If they're fought the loss of life will be catastrophic. Sorry everybody, but that's how it is." She put two fingers to her lips and blew a kiss to the cameras. "Well I hear sirens so I expect the police want to interview me next. Goodnight everybody." In the background they could hear the sirens approaching.
The film ended and the agents sitting around the room looked at Mr. Bundy. The man cleared his throat and took a sip of water from a bottle on the podium. "Naturally we have kept as much as we could from the public, but unofficially the number she gave for the Snoopy is authentic and missing, replaced by an almost identical suitcase some time back. We have no idea when or who. They are doing security checks, but whoever was responsible is still unknown and may have backups in place. There is a wide search for the device itself, but so far nothing has been found and we have neither confirmed nor denied all inquiries. There's no telling how long that will last.
"Sweetheart… sorry. Daniela Paragon went with the police willingly and answered all of their questions until she was asked who her accomplices were and where the devices were hidden, but no luck. Pressure was applied which was mostly ignored until the device in her belly began to flash yellow and beep. She informed them that if it went to red the bomb in her stomach would explode. At that point the interrogators lost their nerve."
"Can we confirm the device is real and active?"
"Well she certainly has something implanted in her and while it's unsafe to use X-rays or an MRI there were tests done. A bomb sniffing dog trained to detect C-4 indicated on her and a check of her medical records shows that she is a good twenty pounds heavier than she was at her last physical. She also sets off metal detectors when completely nude." He sighed. "The bomb squad refused to try tampering with it. They suggested a controlled explosion, but they did in fact detect a constant changing signal from her just as stated, so unless we find the nuke that's not really an option."
"Is she still in custody?"
"No. Her lawyers got her out within the hour. Sighting public endangerment among other things." There was a murmur. "It could not be helped. The local police stations and jails all house hundreds of people including public servants. Not only that but within a few minutes, people began showing up and surrounding whatever building she was in. not only is the device itself a tracker being monitored, but she's the most famous and popular person on Earth and she just declared war on everybody. She is never not being monitored by pretty much the entire planet including foreign governments, criminals, and law enforcement. Since she's on a dead man's switch taking her to a black site isn't even an option. Our preliminary assessment is also that she is serious and if we did detain her too long or put her in a situation that either stresses her out or deprives her of hope of completing her plan she will detonate herself.
"It was deemed advisable to let her go for now. As she stated it's impossible for her to hide or get any one on one contact with the outside world. She's as isolated and guarded as any prisoner could be. Our top priority is to find the bomb and do out best to contain the situation. We seized the studio they broadcast from but not only was it live, but streaming and we suspect some of the people involved in the conspiracy will be broadcasting it themselves. Within a few hours it's going to go viral. Our best estimate is that there are riots going on even now that have not been reported yet. This whole thing is going to be big.
"Keep in mind that most celebrities are concerned about their future and maintaining their popularity and lifestyle. In many ways while it seems petty the way society holds up such people and rewards them while more important jobs like teaching and sanitation take a far backseat, it's actually a matter of safety. Many societies have been destroyed when strong dominant personalities have been left to isle they tend to cause problems. Most of them either manage to come to a comfortable existence balanced among other strong people or cause enough problems that they are discarded or eliminated by the rest of their society. If discarded they are poor and lack resources or otherwise get sick or die. That or they are considered not worth listening to.
"In this case however I believe we've reached another problem. This girl has in all fairness achieved possibly the pinnacle of our entertainment based society. She is at optimal age, high intellect, fantastic physical condition, skilled, and talented with virtually limitless resources. Not only that but she was raised in an environment and has long expected this situation, so the power and wealth and popularity that might otherwise be novel or overwhelm someone is a matter of course for her and provides little incentive or variety in her daily life. Even if she lost every legal asset she has there is a large portion of our population that acts as a safety net. She is so beloved that millions of not billions would take her in and provide her with anything she asked for. A fact that she is fully aware of."
"Is there a plan to kill her?"
"It has been discussed, but with the inclusion of the bombs there are problems. Her own death will, if her description of the device inside her is accurate, destroy any building she's in. Forcing her into isolation will either cause her to explode or allow her time to do it intentionally. Knock her out and we've still got the problem of disarming the bomb safely, which is a problem since the nuke is connected to her via a signal, so it's not activating it but deactivating it that will cause the problem. If her fans do not storm whatever place she is taken to for the surgery require to proceed and they can do it successfully and the bomb is not sensitive to her being drugged.
"A worst case scenario has been discussed in which the nuke is active and in a heavily populated area. Unfortunately with the constant observation of her, possibly from inside the device itself and from any camera that can be hacked or owned by one of her followers, it is likely that anyone who took the shot would be killed by her fans, anyone running him would get the full blame for the resulting devastation, and there would be no way to cover it up. With a time limit acting hastily will be seen as incompetence by the public. They will say we've got a year and a half to do this."
"So what can we do?"
"For a start, we're going to keep looking for the A-bomb. Wherever it is can't be completely radiation proof or else the signal controlling it would not be able to penetrate either. There are satellites for just this sort of thing. There may be several decoys, but a concerted effort by major countries should find it quickly.
"As for Paragon herself, we need to set up a campaign to eliminate some of her popularity. Display her as a terrorist, a psychotic, and anything else we can throw on her to drive off her fans and reduce the popularity."
One man, a guy he recognized from his own office, raised a hand. "That may not work."
"Why not?"
"She has already admitted to being involved with illegal activities including murder. If that's going to make a difference then it will. But if we set her up with false crimes or exaggerate things she's involved with too much it could end up backfiring on us. Lack of trust from the population would do more harm than good and it's too easy to verify her location at any given time. Even her actions as Kali did not go unnoticed by everyone. The interviewer was aware of her actions and while they were not talking I doubt it would be difficult for the underground people to come forth and verify her location and actions complete with video, to discredit us."
"What do you suggest?"
"Well certainly we'll investigate her and decry things we can actually confirm in the worst possible light, but misinformation is too fragile in this case. It'd be like walking on a floor made of window glass. Too risky, especially this early in where we don't have any real information the public lacks."
"Good point. We'll come back to that." He clicked the projector. It showed a pie chart. "Sweetheart's prediction of one percent of her fans participating in this is a best case scenario. These numbers are just estimates, but we suspect that the numbers she gave in the interview are a best case scenario. The actual number of potential participants is staggering. Our guess is that she may have as many as four billion fans. They will however not all participate. We feel that a large majority will see this whole thing as crazy and dismiss it or even act against it. Though I think a vast number will observe and may choose to interfere.
"The next tier are those who decide they are not capable of winning or are too afraid to fight. These will likely encourage others and even assist them. I suspect that many of her confederates are drawn from this tier. They will worship her as some sort of goddess or at least royalty and will likely go to great lengths to help her or those who participate. Possibly to the death, almost certainly as far as going to prison, and the lengths they will go to may depend on how confident they are of getting away with it. Others meanwhile will happily take full credit and there is little doubt if they do that Daniela will encourage them and even reward them for help. This group will almost certainly grow and be the hardest o dissuade or contain the longer this goes on.
"Finally we'll have the most dangerous group, those who choose to join in. It won't happen right away except in select groups. Those who have diagnosed mental issues or little to lose. However once the concerts actually begin and if she hands out those devices, once there is concrete proof that all of this is real it will snowball. So if we at least pretend to ignore her until then or do the minimal, that buys us six months to find the bomb. If we let the concert go on it'll buy us more time, but by then possibly millions of people will be fighting each other over this crazy bitch. Not just the ones she wants, but anyone looking to prove themselves or feel they have nothing to lose."
A woman cleared her throat loudly and raised her hand. "Sir, there are two things you're missing. One is that Sweetheart is not demonstrating any signs of instability. There is nothing in her statement or actions that indicate a mental illness or defect. In addition this plan seems to have been thought out in a slow and methodical way. The device in her belly had plenty of time to heal over and I seriously doubt she installed it herself. Indicating a well thought out plan with not just massive financial backing, but competent intelligent people backing her up who have had time to cover most of the flaws. Treating them like terrorists or as if they are somehow insane will just give the people trying to stop her false senses of superiority. It's entirely possible that they are better equipped to fulfill her plan than we are to stop it and while there are morality issues she seemed perfectly rational with valid reasons for her actions. There may even be a deeper plan that we are unaware of."
Dr. Bundy considered. "That is always a possibility and one of the big problems we've always had with terrorists acting out of religious fervor rather than crackpot ideals of bigotry. Thankfully the vast majority of people who tried this have been ill equipped or lacking funding to pull something like this off. In addition they were on the fringe of society and obviously not fitting in, giving them the drive to do this. Meaning the worse possible outcome was something like Jonestown where an isolated group dies with minimal outside damage.
"Add in mass idolatry like this and a popular charismatic leader and we're no longer dealing with terrorism. Technically we're dealing with what has been described as a crime so awful that there is no law against it. Unless we stop it and fast we'll be at war. One in which the enemy nation has no borders." He paused. "What was your second point?"
She smiled. "I think you're discounting those who think themselves unworthy. I think they are a greater threat to stopping this since they will long for prizes they cannot hope to achieve while others get them. Since they feel doomed to failure they will choose sides and feel no need to keep any of Sweethearts tournament rules. In situations like this it's the lesser members of the group that strap on suicide vests and throw themselves at the enemy, not the leaders. Those followers who see their bosses as greater than themselves will consider helping them to be their own stab at greatness."
"I'm not so sure…"
"Oh trust me on this one sir. That large majority, who could be anyone and anywhere, will do everything in their power to stop anyone interfering with whatever she wants. By any means necessary. Especially since Sweetheart has promised to add our names to the Easter Egg on her final CD to be released after her last concert." She reached up and unbuttoned her suit topped. Everyone watched until she opened the top and revealed a familiar face on the t-shirt underneath. Daniela Paragon over the caption "Sweetheart Forever". Bundy and the others barely had time to register this before she flicked her wrist and something the side and shape of a marker appeared in her hand, with two wires leading up her sleeve and into her clothes. There was a beep and a blinding flash of light.
FBI Field Office September 13th 7:42 AM
(Shortly after the explosion of FBI Headquarters)
Doctor Emily Vasquez, the FBI's second best profiler looked around a similar room, this one filled with people in FBI labeled sweatpants and shirts. The security video captured from the other meeting finished playing behind her. "Which is why you were all strip and cavity searched before being allowed into this building. Are there any questions?"
September 13th
(One year Later)
The world had changed a lot in the year since Sweetheart made her announcement. The authorities failed in their search for the bomb. So when the first concert was finally announced they tried to bar the area. As failure due to them underestimating just how many people showed up for a free Sweetheart concert alone, let alone one this important. The massive mob did not even hesitate at the wall of tanks and guns and in the end nobody could give the order to fire on the crowd. If they had it would not have ended well because there were so many that to say they violated the fire code was an understatement.
The concert had been in the little town of Bishop, California and so many people showed up the valley it was located in between mammoth Mountain and the desert had been packed. Not the town. Not the open air theater set up on the edge of town in the desert, the entire valley. A sea of people covering everything. Roads. Yards. Cars. Nobody could count them all but it was easily three times the number of people living in New York City. The sheer body heat had raised the local temperature on that February morning. Still pouring in when Sweetheart's helicopter arrived, dropping her on the only clear spot (the stage) and then circling with loud speakers so everyone could hear. The sheer volume and abject failure to so much as slow them down turned the whole thing into a political nightmare.
That was before the sheer loss of life. As promised eggs were dropped from the helicopters, each with a little parachute. In the course of the concert there were several trips. Even still there were only enough that maybe a hundred thousand of the people there caught them. Not all of them would walk away with them though.
As soon as the concert ended the fight began. Sweetheart watched the whole thing from her stage. A beatific smile on her face as the massive horde turned on itself the moment she announced she had finished her song. Some had brought weapons, others had come bare handed, and a few abandoned their prizes to whoever picked them up while they curled up in a fetal position to hope. It was a bloodbath. A wave of death out on the ocean of bodies, rippling and seething as they fought and snatched in a place with nowhere to go. Some tried to run, but there was no room or anywhere to go. Not at first anyway. Too many bodies. Not enough room. All of them going from rapt attention to Sweetheart's show to a snarling mass of murderous beasts.
"It was beautiful…" She was quoted as saying later. They made t-shirts.
Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Armies were not that big. They never had been. Real armies needed to be paid, fed, housed, and trained. These days most had to pass psychiatric evaluations. These were just random people. People with nothing better to do, nowhere to go, and nothing to lose. The kind who would spend a week in line and fight to the death to get their hands on a video game or see a movie, paying for the privilege. This was worse than a battle between trained soldiers. It was a fan war.
Later the surviving soldiers, those who had not foolishly panicked and actually tried to bring their weapons to bare, had hidden inside their tanks in terror until the fighting ended. Several were still being treated for trauma.
Eventually it had ended. People got tired and hungry, hurt and horrified. Some of the survivors gave up in the sheer face of it all. Also as the crowd thinned down it became clear that eventually those with the eggs had managed to eventually sneak off with their prizes. Packs of people rushing off to follow them like hounds. The last to leave were a few who sifted through the bodies searching for any that might have been dropped or buried under the bodies. One witness described it as a scene from another time, when bandits would ambush caravans in between oasis (plural?) and sift for lost valuables among the bodies of the victims.
More people came back later. The eggs could sense each other and put out signals. Frequency detectors, the kind used to sweep for bugs, allowed people to find a few amongst the carnage.
It took weeks to move the bodies. The locals had left in droves, if only to wait out the fading stench of death. The floor of the valley was painted red and the turkey vultures, coyotes, and other scavengers feasted well. Rumor had it that the local Indian tribe was somewhat less shocked by the carnage than most, looking at it as a sort of karma. Though nobody had gotten an official statement.
There was a shock almost as big later when it was revealed that in accordance with Sweetheart's rules none of the civilians not attending the concert seemed to have been harmed. Massacres were not supposed to be orderly. It was worrying to all that her control over the people had been so absolute amidst what looked like nothing but madness. Mass murder among millions of otherwise completely different individuals. Devastating. Overwhelming. Unstoppable by anyone but the woman egging them on.
And it kept happening. Across the world. There were just too many people for anyone to stop it. In Egypt they fired on the crowd. The three thousand soldiers who did that were found literally torn apart. They barely managed to shoot three hundred before the crowd got to them. No force was big enough to equal let alone overpower the crowds that showed up when Sweetheart announced an event.
At one someone tried to launch missiles. It turned out weapons dealers had sold defense systems to Sweetheart's people and they were blown out of the sky miles before they could reach their target. The leader responsible was literally thrown to the street from his office window by his terrified people. Not even Sweetheart's Sweeties, as they were called. Just people who understood that the bomb could have been in their own country. For all they knew she carried it with her.
The Unworthy, as they called themselves, were indeed a force to be reckoned with. People who supported Sweetheart or what she was doing or even just the participants. Nobody knew how many there were, but the sheer numbers of those identified was daunting. Too many to capture or even kill. As they failed again and again to stop it more were added to their side.
In between the "winners" who had the eggs went after each other. Stopping and stalking one another through cities and streets. Killing each other in broad daylight to claim each other's eggs. Some tried to break the devices but true to her word Sweetheart sent out replacements. The duels were sacrosanct. Not only were the surviving owners of the eggs fighters with nothing to lose, more than once the crowd turned on the police sent to stop them and would act as barriers, bodyguards, or more. When the cops themselves were not fans. Plenty of them ignored it or actively impeded investigations.
By the third concert Sweetheart had won. Her army of lawyers and more found a happy medium to help governments save face. They resurrected dueling laws. They declared the tournament legitimate for public safety and forbid interference in any way. Anyone who was on the list of registered participants or registered after claiming an egg of their own within a day, were pardoned. A good thing too because it turned out the Bishop concert barely put a dent in Sweetheart's fan base.
It was over, at least for everyone else. The general consensus was "let them kill each other as long as they leave the rest of us the hell alone". When the final concert came they basically accepted that what would be left was a radioactive crater. It was World War III and most of the world lost before it was barely begun. People turned it into the event Sweetheart wanted, pausing to watch if a sword or gunfight broke out on the street between people over one of those little gold eggs. No government was able to do anything about it.
Not that they were the only ones who wanted to stop it. Another group collectively named The Haters came to the foreground. People who disliked Sweetheart. Fans of other people or things that wanted to steal the potential glory. Some who lost friends or were horrified by the Tournament in general. Some who wanted to earn their way close to Sweetheart to try and save her or who were just crazy and wanted to set off a nuclear weapon, wherever it might be. A few who were just jealous of Sweetheart or a few Unworthy members of her own fan club who felt they would not make it to the end of the tournament and instead wanted their shot at stopping it or killing her or doing anything that might get their name into a history book when the dust settled.
Thankfully the only thing that did not happen was a copycat. Even among the other celebrities who might want to use this for their own aggrandizement. Somehow the world decided that anyone trying to launch their own Tournament would just be poseurs, unworthy of participation. Pathetic mimics. There would have been no point in even trying. A few suggested it, but with the crackdown on nukes the morons were unable to match Sweetheart in the threat department and after a few of them up and vanished or got mysterious bullets to the brain, the attempts to turn it into a fad quieted down.
With half a year left before the final concert the world in general just sat back and watched as the Sweeties whittled each other down and frontrunners began to arise. Killers declared fighters in a war with no borders and whose victor would claim no spoils but the glory of victory. Numbers ultimately trumped morality as around the world it became easier to just call it a war rather than murder and sit back to see who won.
And when it ended and the bomb went off, it was widely agreed that the participants would be no great loss to the world in the long run and that so long as they evacuated the area of civilians, a little hole on the surface of the Earth was worth finally ending this madness. In the meantime the world turned and the Tournament went on.
Chapter One
Kyle Danvers sat in a tiny office listening to "Love is All I Want", the last CD released by Daniela "Sweetheart" Paragon. Studying the superstar was his job and had been for months. He had thought he would be getting ready to enter into the FBI at this point. He was nineteen though in a few weeks he would be twenty. Light brown hair, light brown skin, and bright green eyes. His father had been black and his mother white. Thanks to his uncle, a Green Beret, he was also fairly muscular.
The title of the CD was supposed to be some sort of clue to her motives, but he had listened to it a thousand times and aside from the encrypted list of Tyler Donavan and his victims there were no hidden messages or secrets to uncover as far as he could tell. It seemed pretty straight forward and there was no subliminal message making people follow her orders or suggesting they bow down to Satan. It was just another dead end. Still people around the world had theories and the SSA had to look into all of them.
Thankfully the music and lyrics were good enough that listening to them over and over again had not driven him nuts… yet.
SSA stood for the Save Sweetheart Association, a group that had been formed for the sole purpose of keeping Sweetheart from killing herself.
Not because they liked her. In fact most of the members had lost someone to this stupid pointless Tournament of hers. Kyle's father for example had been in FBI Headquarters when it was blown up. So when the world governments had decided to unilaterally ignore the cause of it, there were some bitter feelings left over. Sure the actual killer had acted alone, but she had done it for Sweetheart. Was even up on the woman's Wall of Heroes website right next to Tyler and people who had helped kill hundreds of soldiers and cops and other people who had tried to stop the Tournament.
It would have been easy to sit back and just let the people in it kill themselves. Only while the world in general were willing to do that, a lot of individuals were not. Some had friends or family in the Tournament and hoped to stop them from participating before they got killed for something as insipid as some celebrity's quest for love. Others hoped to find and disarm the bomb. For the most part though it was agreed that not only was this one of the major events in human history, but that society itself would be altered if Sweetheart's plan was not stopped. Laws had already been changed to accommodate the Tournament. People were allowed to kill each other in the streets. If things went the way Sweetheart wanted some researchers thought it could usher in an era of barbarism.
Some suspected that if nothing else it would be the start of a new religion. Similar to the Thugee cults of Kali or the gladiatorial combat arenas of Greece. It had already been done on the edge of modern society. Trekkies and Star Wars fans. Avatar or anime fans. Elvis. Sparkly vampires versus shirtless werewolves and wannabe witches chasing balls around a field with broomsticks stuffed between their legs. They all had amusement parks, churches, and followers and if the actors playing Kirk and Skywalker or even Vader had done what Sweetheart at the height of their popularity did they could easily have caused as much chaos.
To stop that she needed to be shown to be flawed. To fail and grow old if possible. To mar that image of perfection she had cultivated.
Sadly it was not that easy. As far as they had discovered once you got over this thing where she wanted people to fight to the death for her, Sweetheart was generally as perfect as they came. Smart. Beautiful. Talented Rich. Kind. She was a hero several times over. It was hard to contemplate she was also the one making half the planet vie for her affections.
Originally the plan had been to show her for whom she was, but who she was turned out to be pretty biblically awesome.
Killing her was not an option. It would just martyr her and disappoint her psychotic fans. Also setting off the hidden nuke. Generally speaking she was also surrounded by people whenever she was in public so her own death would kill them too. People had and were trying it, but so far her army of nerds had kept their idol alive and her shows ticking away without a hitch.
Instead the SSA had eventually decided to join in. They made a point of at least trying not to kill their adversaries as they collected the eggs. They were a crowd funded organization, those who did not participate slipping them as much money as possible. Win or lose they were going to be rich when it was done. The plan now was to win the prize, get on stage, and somehow disarm the bomb. Meanwhile taking as many of the others out of the Tournament as possible, preferably without killing them.
Bobbing his head along with the music Kyle tapped his computer keyboard and pulled up the scoreboard. Enough people had dropped out or died that people monitoring the Tournament's progress had begun to notice those that excelled at it. The top people were getting fans of their own cheering them on and shipping them with Sweetheart or each other. In many cases more than cheering, but helping keep them funded and alive as best they could.
Bobby "The Knight" Sheffield: Age 27. British former MI6 agent. Publicly claimed he was in the tournament to bring honor to Queen and Country. From a long line of British nobility he usually wore a white immaculate suit and blue tie. Favored weapon: family claymore sword.
Isabella Giaconda: Age 21. Leader of the group Sweetheart Row. Daughter of a former Italian mob don she and a lot of younger mafia members from Russia to Japan overthrew their elders in one violent bloody night, seizing their assets for the sole purpose of participating in the Tournament. Presumably they would eventually turn one ach other in a last man standing kind of way, but at the moment they were working together to collect as many eggs as possible and ensure that whichever of them made it got a serious shot at the top spot. Favored weapon: Guns. Lots of guns.
Jeffrey "The Kid" Styles: Age 13. A young boy with an inoperable brain tumor winning the tournament is on his bucket list and his entire family are helping him do it. They will do anything to see the boy on stage and have worked together to kill their boy's way to the top and collect the eggs for him. Favored weapon: weighted baseball bat.
The Cat/Real name Unknown: Age unknown. A former jewel thief who sneaks in and steals people's eggs. Rumor has it that this is his or her retirement plan. Rather than participate The Cat is collecting the eggs for the status but also so that after the Tournament ends the eggs can then be sold for a fortune. Still in order to use them to find others and prove their authenticity The Cat still had to register and claim them. Favored weapon: none.
The Wayland Twins: Age 32. Olympic gymnasts Sarah and Stacy (Born Steven), the two redheads share everything and live in an openly incestuous relationship since entering the Tournament. They want to die with each other and their favorite pop singer, showing their love to the world at the end because since coming out they have been decried by friends and family alike. They both dress and act like Sweetheart and have been mistaken for her by fans and foes alike. Favored Weapons: martial arts.
Tatiana "The Black Russian" Malakoff: Age 25. An extremely popular Russian singer, ballet dancer, and actress in more classical styles she is very popular in Europe and Asia, though never quite able to make it in the American, African, and Australian markets. Publicly declaring herself Sweetheart's greatest rival she admits she wished she had thought of the Tournament first. She can't do it now for fear of looking like a copycat, but she intends to use it to catapult her own popularity. If Sweetheart is a goddess she says that she will be the devil, killing her rival on stage and going with her. Destroying Sweetheart's chance at finding true love and instead dying with her greatest enemy. Trains openly with former KGB and Russian Special forces. Favored weapons: stun baton and brass knuckles.
Gregory Peck. Age 34. A serial killer who had fled to non-extradition countries he came back to participate in the Tournament and kill to his heart's content. He keeps the rules, but is wanted by the police for numerous crimes unrelated to the contest. So far though he has followed Sweetheart's rules. He claims he loves her for what she's doing, has been a long time fan of her Kali persona, and now wants to end his life holding her dying body in his hands. Sweetheart has expressed a great admiration both for how horribly he mutilates people in her name and for some rather disturbing letters he sent her which are posted online. Favored weapon: scalpels.
Carol "Beast Mistress" Ferreira: Age 17. An animal trainer from the circus. Little was known about her from before the Tournament. From a long line of circus performers older than The Knight's family she trained animals to star in shows. Now she's gaining her own fame from her quick rise in the ranks of the Tournament. Favored weapon: trained attack animals.
Jason "Big Deal" Smith: Age 37 Leader of the Southside Boyz out of LA he's a gang banger and amateur rap artist known best because he's seven feet tall and weighs nearly four hundred pounds rather than his dubious musical abilities. Claims to be in it for his chance at being with "such a fine ass woman" and for street cred. Said to have been shot several times, but the bullets were unable to penetrate his fat and muscles and bones. Favored weapons: Chains and a sawed off shotgun.
Harmony "The Lumberjack" Ozark: Age 19. A professional Canadian lumberjack from a small Inuit village near the border of Alaska she's not at all as polite as one might expect. Using native hunting skills learned in her home village she's proven to be an adept tracker and a fantastic killer, taking out her enemies in a quiet business-like manner. Despite being big, butch, and muscular she also runs a surprisingly feminine Sweetheart fan site. Favored weapons: ax and chainsaw.
None of them were considered terribly stable individuals.
For now nobody in SSA was on the list. They were keeping a low profile, dividing the eggs among themselves until the last possible instant when they would choose a representative to appear in the final fight. Kyle liked to think he had a chance, but it was not about winning for them. It was about stopping the Tournament entirely. Whoever was best suited for that would be sent.
While they each kept an egg on them most of their Intel on potential enemies came from friends and family of participants. In an underground way it was becoming known that if you wanted to stop someone you cared about from competing you called the SSA. Seven out of ten times they could take someone down and deliver them to their family for psychiatric care and deprogramming. Though it had cost them a few fighters to be that gentle.
Shooting them from a distance would have been preferable, but the rules set forth by Sweetheart said no sniping or other ambush attacks and no drugging or disabling an opponent in anything but combat. You had to give them some warning before a fight started. Some people did it, but they were taken out of the Tournament and often ended up being harassed by the Unworthy. Hacking their lives and driving them crazy as examples. It was not pretty to say the least.
A knock on his door interrupted his thoughts and he pulled down the headphones. Come in."
A young blond woman with blue streaks in her hair and ridiculously large hoop earrings about his age in biker leathers carrying her black helmet stuck her head in. "You've got a gig, K. Some lady just saw her son just gave up a promising scholarship offer mid-game beat a guy to death with his football helmet. His kill count is at eighteen and she's apparently decided she's done trying to talk him around. Her exact words were 'hamstring him if you have to'."
Kyle got up and said, "I'm surprised you came and got me Artemis. Usually you love smacking around tough guys."
"Just got back from a double in New York, a team of two sisters. The little one got in a lucky shot while I was fighting her big sister. I prevailed, but I need to recuperate before I take on any serious contenders. Careful, the woman says her boy's been juicing up since he lost the scholarship and I guess decided he's really going through with this. Up until now he's been participating mostly to show everyone how tough he was. bought his first egg on an Internet auction by pawning some jewelry behind the family's back."
"Great, a roided up football player with nothing to lose." He stood up and walked over to the door. "Why do I never get the nymphomaniac hotties with a thing for fighters? Jim never gets tired of telling that story."
She leaned up and gave him a kiss on the chin before batting her eyes. "Because I'd get jealous."
He smiled and kissed her back. They had been dating for three months. There had been some friction when he started because she had, up until then, been one of the best female fighters. She liked taking on big guys and starting fights. Also people liked calling her in because they liked watching her kick the butts of people three times her side or preferred to think she would go easier on their relatives and friends. They were wrong but who wanted to look bad in front of the world or Sweetheart in particular by whining that they got beat by a girl?
Kyle meanwhile had not been the best fighter they had, but he had turned out to be better than her. His uncle had put him through a backyard boot camp when Kyle had been planning to join the FBI and taught him knife fighting. Had even used some SEAL techniques, though he would never admit as much to his buddies. She had never stood a chance.
Still she was hit and after a few confrontations he surprised her by asking her out. She surprised him and a lot of other guys by saying yes. Most people have been convinced she was gay or possibly under a curse that turned her naughty bits to stone years before. Thankfully Kyle had found the second theory to be completely false and the first to be iffy at best. Certainly if it was true she could make exceptions.
If they made it through to the end, he intended to ask her to start a private security firm with him. In the meantime they were living their lives as if Sweetheart's Snoopy was hidden in the drywall of their own offices. They needed to stop it or nothing else would matter. The future could be taken care of if there was one. In the meantime they were just having fun and enjoying life while they still had one between missions.
They finished making out and he asked, "Got an address?"
She held up a folded piece of paper. "If you get your ass kicked I'm posting that video of you wearing my panties."
"I only did that because you said it was sexy! But okay, if I die or end up in the hospital feel free. But if I make it back I expect you to delete it."
"Not on your life. Your ass looked fantastic. Not to mention…" She reached down between him as he grabbed the paper and honked the front of his pants like a bicycle horn. "You can lose an arm or something, but please don't end up like Soprano Cyrano."
Cyrano was a colleague of theirs. An excellent swordfighter who had taken a bad wound from a short Chinese farmer whose weapon of choice had been a scythe. One near miss that had not missed quite enough and while he had surprised a very dear appendage had been lost in a rice field and carried off by birds before the fight had ended. He had gotten a replacement about a month before and his voice had not actually gone up, but everyone knew the story and that the replacement required a built-in pump.
Kyle glanced around. Cyrano was famous for his lack of humor on the subject. The last guy he heard talking about it had gotten a punch to the back of the head. Nope, there he was in his own office. "I'll wear a cup." He normally did anyway. Even barring accidents a lot of Sweetheart's fans liked to cut bits off their opponents, living and dead, for pictures to post on their social media and to try to send them to Sweetheart herself.
Something else Sweetheart went out of her way to praise publicly and encourage those who did, giving shout outs, critiquing their techniques and presentation, and occasionally giving shout outs at public events. It always stirred up the fans and started another wave of violence. Sweetheart loved stoking the fires even though she never seemed to get her hands dirty. Getting covered in someone else's blood would tarnish her public image and might cheapen the death match at the end of her show. Though rumor had it she had no problem setting death traps backstage for anyone who tried sneaking in without permission.
No, not rumor. Chino, the former paparazzi website owner and now the most respected reporter on Earth, said it and thus is must be gospel. She was no longer a crazy conspiracy theorist since every crazy conspiracy she posted about the world's favorite psycho celebrity had been true. As far as anyone could tell aside from that one interview while Sweetheart was a huge fan of Chino, they were not working together and Sweetheart was not giving her any preferential treatment and Chino was not actively in the Tournament. Still the woman had managed several times to get some backstage shots that had gotten other reporters, overzealous fans, and a few Special Forces guys killed. One actual rumor was that she was descended from Chiyome Mochizuki, the founder of a school for female ninjas (kunoichi) back in fifteen-hundreds Japan.
So far the Unworthy did not seem to be working against her and she kept to merely reporting what Sweetheart and her associates did without giving too much opinion on it. She was no longer the only one looking into Sweetheart's dark side, but she was sill the most successful and a lot of people wanted to know how. Even more just enjoyed reading her articles.
Sometimes it really bothered Kyle how much of his life Sweetheart took up. Easily as much as it did any of her stalker psycho fans. It reminded him of his father's lectures on how thin the line between law enforcement and criminals was and how cops turned bad. Sometimes it became a little too easy to think like a criminal.
Kyle pulled up in front of Chad Huston's house in his armored jeep and honked the horn. He pulled the vibrating and chirping gold egg, which felt disturbingly good, out of his pocket and checked the tiny screen where a compass icon pointed at the house, inside he knew there was at least one more doing the same thing. At the office they usually kept them in a padded sound proof box. Not enough to knock out the signal, but it kept them from being quite so annoying.
So far their own security measures and sheer number of signals had kept anyone from assaulting the office, though a few suspicious people staked out the place on a regular basis. Thankfully for the most part the fighters worked alone and the rules forbid assaults inside people's homes or places of work. Technically Chad could stay inside and be perfectly safe. Of course nobody serious about the Tournament would do something cowardly like that.
He appeared at the door a few seconds later, a gold egg in his hand and dressed in a red and white football uniform covered in vicious looking spikes. Except where the number was supposed to be was a screen printed picture of a smiling caricature Sweetheart winking out of his chest. He could not have been on steroids that long but if they had done anything to him it was clear he was already well muscled beforehand. There were even spikes on the palms of his gloves. It would hurt to get grabbed by those.
Kyle got out of the jeep. He wore chain mail body armor that had originally been designed for people who swim with sharks. There were knee/elbow pads and a full codpiece and it was padded with Kevlar underneath. Overall it made him look like an old warrior from a fantasy movie. The links were a tight light metal meant for stopping small arms fire, but in order not to restrict movement it was not exactly a hundred percent effective. It was meant to help block glancing blows while he took down the actual threat.
His weapon meanwhile was a Roman style whip. A heavy handle that doubled as a mace when necessarily the long reaching weapon was tipped with a sharp piece of lead that could open a man's skin like a zipper all the way down to the bone. He also had a stunner, but had learned a long time ago that crazy people who were fighting to the death did not let people get close enough to use them most of the time. If they did they likely had a hidden weapon.
First he had to make an impression.
"You know Chad we don't have to do this. Just hand over the egg and then let me cuff you and we'll take you someplace you can get help."
"You know my name? Do you visit my site?" Then he saw a curtain twitch behind him and too the left and frowned. "Oh I see. She called you, didn't she? She said she would. I didn't think she would do it."
"Your mom just wants what's best for you."
"She just doesn't get it man. This is my shot. My chance to do my best. I can do all the stuff they don't let you do in sports these days. I can go all out. I can bulk up with steroids. As long as I do my best Sweetheart doesn't care about any of that crap. If I make it all the way to the end I got down as the best. People will see that I trained and juiced and fought until I was the top and got the most beautiful woman in history. I'll be a legend.
"If not, there's plenty of ways to leverage the fame I get for another scholarship or something better. The more people I beat, the harder I beat them, the bigger the prize at the end."
That was probably true. That was why SSA members stepped in for cases like this and stomped them down. Not only did it get them more eggs, it kept people like this from turning into some sort of gladiatorial role model. Crime rates spiked enough when someone did a movie or something. Let real people encourage violence and the Tournament could only be the beginning. It took thousands of years to get the majority of big strong men to give up killing each other in favor of non-lethal sports and million dollar contracts. It had not been in effect that long and took very little for them to backslide under normal circumstances.
No way was Kyle going to do anything but his best to keep the next generation from turning into murderous barbarian street brawlers. He reached down to his hip and the whip uncoiled. "I can't let that happen, Chad."
The unfortunately well-built teenager snarled behind his face mask. "Then you're in my way. And you know how Sweetheart feels about people who get in our way."
"Yeah, she loves it just as much when we beat the piss out of you as when you do it to us. You don't think she favors you do you? Forget it Chad. She'll never even know your name. At best she might ad you to the list of people the SSA took down on our way to the top."
Chad was suddenly beyond words. He screamed and charged. Not a great situation. The uniform had a helmet, pads, and spikes. Plenty of armor that would make even Kyle's well known accuracy with his weapon a bit difficult. At least if he used it just as a whip. Fortunately in Kyle's hands it was a bit more versatile.
He flicked it to the side where a small tree had been planet in the yard. It wrapped around the trunk and he dove the other way, easily avoiding the kid's charge. In truth Chad probably was used to fighting civilians or halfway decent sports players. Kyle's uncle would have kicked his ass. While he was fast and strong, he was also not very maneuverable. Yanking the whip with him as he dodged Kyle felt to whip pull against his hand as Chad and the tree hit the ground.
Moving back Kyle slammed a foot down on the kid's back, but Chad managed to roll away and avoid the blow. A good thing too as it would have broken something. Football uniforms were designed to make the person wearing them into a human battering ram. They provided great protection if you threw your whole body at somebody head first or if you anted to protect the joints, but they assumed the enemy was in front of you or if they came up from behind their goal was just to pull you to the ground. Knives were not allowed on the field and referees looked poorly on kidney punches.
Chad's improvised armor looked intimidating, but it was only good for head on fights. This was more like bull fighting. It looked dangerous for the matador, but in real life the bull had about as much chance of winning and rushing the little turd as the average person had of winning the lottery.
A flick of the wrist and the whip came off the fallen tree and wrapped around Chad's legs while he rolled. Another twist and it wrapped tightly around his shins. Chad snarled and tried to rip it off, but for all his bulging muscles he was not Superman. The whip was not just leather, it also had wires woven in it reinforcing it like rebar in concrete he tried twisting to bring his spikes into play.
That might have worked but in his efforts to escape like a trapped animal he was too focused. He forgot about the other end of the while wile Kyle casually walked up behind him and slammed the handle of the whip, weighted nicely, into his neck where the uniform had a crack between helmet and uniform. He barely even had a neck under all that muscle, but anatomy was anatomy and Kyle was well trained in using it to his advantage. It helped that there were micro-needles and a powerful sedative imbedded in the hilt.
There was a grunt followed by a thump. Chad was down and he was not getting back up for a while. Kyle untied the whip and a few minutes later had some 500 pound test rope wrapped around Chad's arms and legs in a hogtied position. His uniform of death stripped off and piled to the side. It must have weighed more than a hundred pounds all on its own. The kid might as well have gift-wrapped himself.
The mother came out and checked to see if Chad was breathing. When she saw he was she let out a sigh of relief and asked, "Will he be alright now?"
"Not even close ma'am. It's obvious he's been abusing steroids. If you let him out of there he'll be little more than a dangerous animal. I've called some people to pick him up and they'll take him to rehab. I don't imagine he'll be thanking either of us for this any time soon. In the meantime does he have any of these around the house?" He held up his Cupid's Egg. She nodded. "I need you to find and bring as many of these to me as possible. Mine can track the others so if you miss any I'll let you know." She nodded and hurried back into the house.
Kyle bent down and double checked Chad's bindings. He was pretty strong, but the kid was a wrecking machine pumped up to the max. His kidneys might fail in a few years, but underestimating him just because he appeared to be a hulking brute would get Kyle killed now. One of his coworkers had gotten brained not so long ago because he had been unaware that the guy he was sent to take down had been an amateur magician and could dislocate his thumbs.
He had just confirmed that the bindings were tight when he heard the distinctive sound of a cocked shotgun behind him. Mrs. Hudson's voice said, "Now young man, why don't you just untie my boy and hand over that little egg of yours? I was going to just get his for you, but it seems to me my son is already a lost cause. The neighbors know he's a psycho and his sports scholarship is gone. Incase you haven't noticed he isn't exactly Harvard material and god knows what his rehabilitation will cost me. Seems to me the best I've got is being the mother of the boy who won the Tournament—Aiiiiiieeee!"
The last past was because Kyle had taken his stun gun off his bent and aimed it between his legs at her shin. The woman sounded touch but she was actually cautious. A quick glance over his shoulder showed him that she had not even had her finger on the trigger. Now she was twitching and wetting herself on the lawn a few feet away from her son's prostrate form.
By the time the people came to scoop up the boy he had put the unconscious woman back in the house. Having to take care of her son was punishment enough he decided. He found half a dozen eggs inside. Apparently Chad's confidence was not quite so misplaced. That or he went up against complete mismatches. Frankly his mother, had she been in on it from the start, struck him as the bigger threat. Despite the fact that Chad woke up by the time the pickup crew arrived and was practically foaming at the mouth as they threw him into the back of a car like luggage.
Now that he was out of the game he might not go to jail for killing whoever it was he had gotten the eggs from, but a blood test would probably reveal enough illegal steroids in his system to start his own pharmacy. Kyle kindly stuck around to file a report with them about what had happened and let them download the video from his body-cameras and dash-cam, so Mrs. Hudson could not claim she was innocently attacked and stick him with the bill for her son's care.
Finally he got back in his jeep and headed back to the office with his trophies.
At least that was the plan. Things went a little sideways as he rounded the corner a short time later and saw the huge plume of smoke rising up into the sky. It almost looked like it was coming from SSA headquarter. His suspicions were confirmed when he arrived and found himself in the middle of a war zone.
Chapter Two
Isabella Giaconda should have seen it coming. No honor among thieves after all. Her associates had all been criminals, they all wanted that brass ring, and betraying her at the right time was not the worst plan. At least for them. For her it was rapidly becoming a horror show.
When Sweetheart had announced her little contest Isabella had taken it as a sign from God. She had spent her life as a little mafia princess. Living in a big mansion with bodyguards and crooks all over the place. It was like growing up in prison. It was a modern era so it was a toss up what her position was. She might be the next head of the family or she could be used to marry some other guy and unite two families. She had been trained for both. It had been confusing but she had the time and the dedication.
Then suddenly there was her favorite artist, throwing it all away after attaining pretty much everything a person might want and it occurred to Bella that she had spent her life with options presented to her by other people For all she knew the bomb Sweetheart hade could be a mile from her house or in the store she shopped at. She could be on a plane when it went off and plummet to the ground because of the EMP.
So why were her only choices being a criminal or marrying some guy to secure a peace treaty? She was rich and powerful, but because of her family her options were limited. Sometimes they went to prison. Sometimes their lawyers kept them out. But everyone knew they were criminals. Extortionists. Thieves. Murderers. Assassins. And her whole life she had been dragged along with them because everyone knew what they were and they were family.
So she decided to go out with a bang too. She was rich and famous. The idea of dying with the world's biggest celebrity and the woman causing the largest death toll in history seemed like a wonderful third option. It was world War Three and instead of being fought by soldiers and governments, it was all about the civilians. The people. Like a mob war. Everyone had their own reasons.
For Bella it was to go out just like her idol. Sweetheart's number one fan, dying by her side. Forget a family legacy. That was immortality. And she wanted it. Dying in prison. Dying old and alone in a mansion. Dying an old woman who popped out a bunch of kids surrounded by family. Dying because some assassin decided to take her or a family member out. Forget that noise.
It did not take much to convince the other children of her family and their associates to join her in her plan. A lot of them chafed under the yokes of their elders. The Italian, Russian, and Irish mobs. The Japanese yakuza. The Chinese tongs and triads. African black marketers and smugglers. Drug dealers and fences. Dirty cops. It was not exactly difficult to convince their younger members to support her and yes, overthrow their elders. Less than a month after Sweetheart's announcement they gathered together and slaughtered their families and organizations.
It was actually easy. A lot of the mafia's power was based on legalities, money, and personal power. Before such an overthrow would have been impossible. Anyone inside the organization wanted those things. So the structure had to remain. They needed the accounts, the manpower, and the connections. They had to worry about the future.
Once they decided that as a group with Bella at the head, were going to die, they had nothing to lose but their lives. Besides they were already on the inside. With one coordinated attack they took down the heads of the most powerful crime families in less than one night. Billions of dollars in ill gotten gains lost forever along with account numbers and the gods alone knew what else. Possibly trillions.
Not that they were left penniless. They were rich kids with some of their own money. Maybe a few billion. More than enough to keep going for the year of thee Tournament. Not to mention warehouses full of illegal weapons and all sorts of other contraband. A big reason the authorities had supported the legalization of the Tournament was that not only were the main criminals now dead along with anyone interested in picking up after them, but those left were armed with better equipment and had nothing to lose. Police had better things to do than die trying to keep people like that from killing each other and working towards suicide as long as they left everyday people alone. They were busy taking apart the criminal enterprises.
It took five more months before Isabella was in the number two slot on the top ten list. Using their skills to find and kill the other competitors stealing their eggs. Not all of her followers intended to die. Most wanted to just get her there and later be able to say they were part of the gang that won. That kind of street credibility was worth a lot. The killers who took down an entire generation of bad asses then won Sweetheart's tournament. They would be able to build up their own criminal empire that dwarfed their predecessors and the only one who might be able to head it would be Isabella herself, except she would be dead. Meanwhile they could duke it out amongst themselves to establish a pecking order. All without going to jail because they were acting under the auspices of the tournament.
It was working great up until they heard about the SSA. The organization was not exactly a main target like the top ten list but by the six month mark they had gathered thousands of eggs. More than enough to catapult Bella into first place though above that bastard Robert Sheffield. All they had to do was rush in, slaughter the lot of them, and take their eggs. The idiots even had a public headquarters.
Isabella had vetoed the idea. "Don't be ridiculous."
Ushio Kida, a young former yakuza argued against it. He was a fairly good looking guy who wore a red suit and often played with his left pinkie, which was missing a joint. His back was covered in tattoos of skulls, one for each person he had personally killed. "Why not? It'd be a big score. One we hit number one we can stop taking on the small fry and work on eliminating the rest of the top ten."
"I'm no saying we can't fight them, but you're talking about an ambush."
"Of course. Have you seen these people? Fighting them one on one will just deplete our resources. We should just watch and when they're all together kill them all and take their eggs. Don't you want to be up there on that stage when the bomb goes off? If so you can't keep taking half measures like we have been. We're running out of time. Knife fighting fan-boys works, but not nearly fast enough. I forget who said it but someone once came up with a proverb. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who do not."
"I said forget it! I'm cool with using guns when a group comes after us that way, but if someone is willing to face us with hand weapons besides guns we should face them the same way. It's not about winning Ushio. It's about being Sweetheart's number one fan and deserving the honor. Scooping it up because we have the numbers and the resources is corporate bullshit. If I wanted to live like that I'd have stayed with my daddy's organization. I thought you Japanese bastards understood ritualistic suicide."
He did not say anything but she could see it in his eyes. Maybe he would kill himself like that if he fucked up and his bosses would have killed him worse, but he would never gut himself and have someone cut off his head as a matter of honor. That was the moment she knew she had screwed up. She had seen the same look on a lot of her guys.
They both let it drop. Him because he had plans. Her because she realized what those plans might be.
They did not need her help any more. She was the face. They could lock her away and throw her on stage like chum to a shark in the end, provided they gathered the eggs in her name. Bella was no longer necessary. All Ushio or one of the others had to do now was make a big move to prove it and the others would follow.
She was out. Unworthy. A fuck up. It was all for nothing. Loser.
Well it was like Sweetheart said from the start. You did not get into Valhalla by winning. You got it by going out in a blaze of glory while facing your enemies.
Kyle could see that the building was rubble. There was an alarm blaring, but that was for burglars. The cops were not coming for this. He could see a few bodies around the place. A few of them familiar either because he knew them or from the news. None of the people from the SSA were up and about. Instead men and women in suits were shooting at each other.
His passenger side door opened and he saw Isabella Giaconda glaring at him. She had a smoking pistol in her hand and a cut on her temple. Her left shoulder was bleeding from a bullet wound and her left arm was drooping. For a moment Kyle thought he was about to die.
"Get out of there dumb ass!" Bullets peppered his side of the jeep and he quickly followed her out to the other side so they could use his ride as a barrier.
"What the hell is going on?"
"My team just broke up," she said with grin. She pressed something into his hand. It was an egg. "I hereby bequeath you with my collected eggs."
Kyle blinked. "Why?"
"Nobody on my team deserves it. Including me. About half my guys decided to use it as a power play and the rest of us fucked up and let them do it. So we're out." She thumbed back the trigger and he heard the click over the sound of the gunfire. "Of course if those fuckers kill you and take it, handing it over means nothing. I don't suppose you have a gun."
He nodded. "Some, if I could get into the back of my jeep." The side windows made of bullet resistant glass finally broke under the assault. He peeked through the ones closer to them. "That's some fairly heavy fire power."
"Just be glad they wasted the missiles and rocket launchers killing your friends. You're Dancers, right?"
"You know me?"
"You were in the files my guys got on this place when they planned this attack. I told them not to, but as you can see they've decided to go their own way on this." She peeked around the corner and fired her gun six times. Two men died and some of the others fell back. Those loyal to Bella were well armed, but so were the guys against them. Bella's side had surprise on their side, but the others had set up a surprise attack on a fortified base. All that separated them was the parking lot and reinforced cars of the dead SSA. "I don't know you that well, but since you're the only one left you'd better represent."
Kyle felt his heart sink. "The only one?"
She shrugged. "They could have moved against me any way. Wasn't sure how until they did it. It was swift and brutal. No chance to prepare or retaliate. You know, the Chicago way."
"You're dying…"
"I'm tasking them with me. When this is over, if you live, just pile up the bodies and burn us all. Then win this thing."
"I wanted to stop it."
"Yeah, well good luck with that. Maybe you can pull that off another day. Today the only way we stop it is if you live through this. I have a plan if you want to hear it. Better decide quickly though, I'm bleeding out." He nodded. "Great, then I'm going to run out there and take out as many as I can. You stay here and keep your head down. If you're lucky they will either ignore you because they think you are a civilian who just wandered into on this or they'll be focused on me. Either way, get to your fucking guns. Don't let them goad you into a duel. These guys have no honor."
"Understood."
She took a deep breath and stood up. He watched rather impressed as she reloaded one handed. A tear fell from her eye. "When you see Sweetheart, tell her that I really did love that crazy psychotic bitch. I was ready to die with her. Instead I have to do it for her. Her and her damned Tournament. I admired her before, but I put my heart and soul in her hands so I could die with her. I'm just sorry I wasn't good enough." Then she dove forward, running as fast as she could and raising her gun.
As expected the men followed her, forgetting about him.
It finally occurred to him that he and the others… they had been playing. Training and fighting sure. It was life and death. But it had been a game. A game called "rescue the damsel". They had been nipping at the edges of the field. Like rodeo clowns taking on the bull knowing they could always duck out and be safe huddling in a barrel. Brave, helpful, but ultimately not the heroes. The heroes climbed up on the bulls and rode them. Risked being crushed beneath their hooves.
Moving fast he went to the back of his jeep, reaching into his pocket to swap the egg she had given him with his car keys. He could have opened it automatically, but the beep would have attracted attention. So he fumbled it into the slot and threw open the back by hand. Then eh hit the combination lock on the floor. The metal door opened and revealed his arsenal. Nothing illegal, but definitely the sort of things hunters got away with claiming in case of bear attacks. Semi-auto jury-rigged to full auto. Their teacher let them try trick shots, like ricochets.
Most days the SSA put in five hours on the range. With moving targets. As the mob guys took aim at their former leader, it was almost unfair.
The whole place was a bloodbath already. Hundreds of men on both sides dying. Kyle took out the last thirty of the men on the other side. The ones close enough to do anything were already dead or down by the time they heard the new shooter. A few were still alive. Turns out though that with the right licenses you can buy detonation cord and dynamite to remove tree stumps. A hook or a stick was easy enough to throw and as it turned out could make an armored car jump a few feet if you threw it under them and incinerate a struggling man with a leg wound at the same time.
They all saw the last guy hiding around a van. He had a full clip on his Uzi and a few more guns hanging from his hips. And why not? He had not been shooting since the fight started. That was for canon fodder.
Bella was still on her feet though and a little wobbly and she had nineteen or twenty guys left, but a few of those were in no shape to fight. She limped forward. "Ushio, I see you. Come on out."
"Fuck you Bella! I have more than enough bullets to take you out. All these bodies, I could disappear and they might never even know I was here. I'm young. I can start over."
Bella said, "We've got a lot of explosives out here and a lot more guns. Maybe we're low on ammo, but we only need one bullet. The guy by the jeep is about to blast that van aside and if you survive with your legs in tact you're going to be Swiss cheese before the wheels are back on the asphalt."
There was a pause. "What do you propose?"
"Come out here and face me hand to hand, with a bit of dignity. You beat me and you walk."
"You can't—!" Kyle began.
Bella pointed her gun at him in a casual move. "I paid a wergild for your people. You took it. Let me deal with him."
Kyle considered. Looking at the man's half face as he peeked behind the van he could see what kind of person this was. The loss of the eggs would hurt him most. Kyle considered yelling out about that. The guy would probably come rushing out into a hail of bullets. Instead he kept his mouth shut and nodded. This woman had taken severe casualties trying to save or avenge his. Let her finish it.
Still he kept his gun light in his hands, just incase this was some elaborate trick.
"You have thirty seconds to decide," Bella shouted. "I swear if you win the others will let you walk. Better odds than you have now. Toss out the guns and pull out your knives." Ushio considered his options. Things were knee deep in shit and rising. Either way his plan was over. If he killed that Italian bitch at least he might walk out of here.
A moment later the guns were thrown out. Then he followed, two knives gripped in his hands. One was a Bowie knife and the other a switchblade. Isabella nodded and dropped her own weapon. Then she reached into her cleavage and pulled out a knife that had a handle made of spiked brass knuckles. Her other hand remained limp. Everyone else took a bead on Ushio but did not pull the trigger. Yet.
"It would have worked," Ushio said.
She shrugged. "Of course. It just would not have been the right way. I didn't FUBAR the families and decide to die so I could cheat." She gripped her knife and dove forward.
The fight was not like on TV. It was short and brutal. Both of them were well trained in the art of stabbing people and would have been deadly with a sharpened toothbrush. With knives they were artists. The blades were like silver streaks in the afternoon sunlight even though smoke from the burning building was starting to block it out.
At first it looked like a quick win for Ushio. His knife slashed and hit her in her injured arm. She screamed and dropped to one knee. Blood flew through the air.
Only as he brought his right blade around to finish the job she blocked it. Kyle could see she had led with her dead side, letting him cut her and putting her body between him and the knife. Not a move a person normally would make. Not if they planned to survive the fight. As she blocked the other blade with her knife, knocking it away with her remaining strength Ushio tried to jump back, but the spiked knuckles hit him in the abdomen, knocking the wind out of him and puncturing him.
She was slighter than him, but as Houdini could attest, nobody was immune from a properly placed blow to the solar plexus. His knives clattered to the ground and his red suit was letting blood flow. He might have gotten up but Isabella twisted her wrist and pushed upward, planting the place to the hilt in the underside of Ushio's jaw. She did not even try pulling it out, just let go and allowed him to fall.
Without looking at Kyle she turned and walked back towards her people. On the way she stopped and picked up her gun. One of them came forward. "What now boss?"
She looked him in the eye. "We're done."
They stared at her. "What do you mean?"
"I mean we are done. It's over. We're out. I'm not worthy to stand on the stage on the final day of the Tournament. This is as far as we go." She smiled and raised her gun in shaking fingers. She pressed the barrel to her temple. "Follow me or not. We've got plenty of money and supplies left. As for the eggs I already gave those to that man over there."
"Stop," Kyle said. "You don't have to do this."
Bella tilted her head to the side and back until she was looking at him sort of upside down. She had a long slim neck. If he was any judge she could have been a ballet dancer. A wide grin filled her face and she looked at him with eyes that held no regret and if anything very little sanity. "Did you see how many eggs that one I gave you has recorded on it? Did you think I got them by asking please? We're all killers here Kyle. Publicly. You think after this all ends we get to go back to our lives? It's sweet that you and yours thought you could save Sweetheart. Maybe you can. But once the Tournament ends I can't just walk away. Not after being in the top ten. My honor won't let me be a loser and my fame won't let me just walk. Good luck."
Kyle might have tried talking her out of it, but she pulled the trigger. It was hard to tell if she would have had the strength in another minute. Kyle watched her head explode and her body crumple. Then there were several other ops and he looked up to see the others blow their brains out, following their leader and their enemies to the grave.
Looking away Kyle saw only rubble. He could hear approaching sirens. Absently he walked over to the building, the place he had worked out of for six months. There might be someone alive in there, but Kyle knew better than to just start digging. If anyone was alive down there they would be better off with a professional team. If Kyle bumbled in he would just collapse the rubble down on top of them.
Instead as he saw the approaching flashing lights he reached down and checked the numbers on the egg Isabella had given him. He had to whistle when he saw it. Her hundreds of followers had killed thousands of people. In fact the numbers were going up. Each others? The ones from inside the building? Both?
"Crap." It was dawning on him that Kyle was now number one. An honor to some. A target to everyone in the Tournament. He took a deep breath and put it away as the fire trucks, ambulances and police showed up. None of them seemed to be in much of a hurry or surprised by the bodies all around Kyle. They did not even order him to drop the gun. Kyle realized they had seen something like this coming.
Now that he was the last of the SSA Kyle realized he needed to stop playing. The game was over. It was time to take things seriously.
By five o'clock that afternoon the world knew there was a new top contender. Not only had the police respectfully retrieved his body cam footage, but the SSA had security cameras and the mafia competitors had their own cameras. People in a contest like this did not work in secret and they had fans. Besides Kyle was the only one to walk away from the SSA Slaughter, as it would be known. Hundreds dead. The number two slot empties and the eggs all transferred to his account.
Sweetheart herself appeared via satellite after they aired some of the footage including Isabella's final words. She had tears in her eyes and a smile on her face as she told the world, "That is what I am talking about! Wasn't that beautiful? A man betrays his commander for glory. His commander retaliates even though it was in her best interest to let him go through with it. Instead she chose honor even though she was raised among criminals. Even though she and her people had already spilled an ocean of blood clawing her way to the top of the game. All for me.' She seemed to swoon and clasped her hands over her heart. "It makes me feel weak in the knees. All those people she and her men killed should be honored to have died at the hands of someone like her. Even if she is a big old loser.
"You know I'd heard about the SSA and I appreciated their sentiment. That is why we've respected Miss Giaconda's last request and officially assigned all those eggs gathered by her and the SSA to Kyle Danvers, catapulting him to the top of the list." She smirked into the camera. "Won't it be fun to see if he can take it?"
Kyle's next fight with not one but two of the other top ten was that very night. He was emotionally spent and physically tired. Maybe he should have expected it, but it came as a complete surprise. In fact he came closer to dying that evening in his own bed than he ever had before. He was completely unaware of it, but his life depended on a race.
In New York City Gregory Peck was watching the news. He was living in a cheap motel owned by one of his fans. The police might be ignoring the Tournament, but they might not ignore some of his other pet projects and the families of his victims certainly weren't willing to let bygones be bygones. He wanted to be the top killer of all time and could not afford to let someone on the street take him out or arrest him.
Still… a lone kid with no backup and no bodyguards in the top ten. Not even the fans most of the others had. Oh he would get them, but for now he was alone. Fresh meat. Absently Gregory reached over to the tray where he kept his knives and picked up one that was still stained with fresh blood. Absently he licked it, letting the tip of his tongue follow the edge of the blade.
"Guess I'll have to let the maid clean up the mess in the bathroom," he said. "Just as well. It's going to start to stink in here soon."
He packed up his things and called the owner to arrange for a trip.
Meanwhile in Seattle Washington another criminal, one known as The Cat, was watching the same broadcast. Information was already streaming in on the lone survivor of the massacre. He lived in a little apartment. Alone People were swarming the area, curious about him but understandably cautious. He was well armed after all. Not to mention the only one with access to the SSA account. Plenty to hire new people and put in a decent security system.
At the moment though, young Kyle was still reeling from the deaths of his team. A girlfriend. God knew who else. Had it even occurred to the boy that the egg in his pocket was currently the single most valuable object on the planet? It would shortly and a smart and enterprising thief would take advantage of the tiny window to relieve him of it. Particularly a thief who for had gotten to spot four on the list by doing just that.
Best to move fast before someone else got there. The kid would probably thank him in the long run for relieving him of the device. Like the Cat the boy had no intention of actually winning the prize. Taking it without bloodshed would save the kid's life and when the dust finally settled the surviving eggs would be worth a fortune. They were The Score and most people who had them did not even realize it. Or care. Most were destined to be hoarded by collectors and possibly incinerated in a nuclear fireball.
Those that survived? They were like flawless diamonds the size of a truck's headlights. The cat would possibly become one of the richest men in the world. Certainly it was a good retirement plan, provided he waited for everyone to round up the surviving psychopaths one the Tournament was over. Maybe five years and it would be safe to start discreetly selling them off. In the meantime gathering as many as possible would increase the horde and made sure they were even rarer and more expensive.
Someone else would take over the top spot and win. The other main ten or someone else. Kyle's position was tenuous at best just like the rest of the top ten. If he kept the egg he would only be killed for it. Just like the Cat would if he did not keep the ones he collected in a special box designed like a Faraday cage. Where they would stay until the time came.
Absently he picked up his cellular phone and dialed the number to the airport.
Chapter Three
Kyle was woken up by a hand closing tightly on his mouth. The man standing over him was about thirty-eight or so with iron-grey hair peppered with white. His moustache was waxed into a handlebar and he wore a solid black outfit, making his face seem like a ghost's severed head in the dark. His other hand came up and for a second Kyle thought he was getting ready to stab him. Instead he push a finger up to his lips. "Shhhhh."
Kyle would have asked what was going on, but then he heard the sound of glass breaking further into his apartment. The front window. He nodded and the man moved his hand. He stepped back and Kyle reached under the edge of his mattress for a large machete. The other man nodded and took up a spot behind the door while Kyle stuffed his pillow under the blanket and then took his position on the opposite side.
He barely made it before silenced bullets punched through the door in a line that included his bed, the wall, the floor, and the lamp. It formed an X quickly and would have hit Kyle anywhere else in the room. He and the other man shared wide eyes glances and prayed like hell that the gunman did not fire through the drywall on either side of the door.
Suddenly the door banged open with a kick. There was a pause and a man's voice said, "I don't see blood so—"
Kyle did not wait for him to finish the sentence. He had read once that men had some sort of urge to say stuff when they killed. Had to do it while their victim was still alive. Some sort of connection to sex probably. Meanwhile women would happily kill you in the middle of a sentence and keep on talking to the dead body.
The man was indeed caught off guard, but not enough. He brought the handgun up to block. It was like trying to block a baseball bat, but it did the job. The gun dropped to the floor, but the man himself was able to jump back and pull a hunting knife from his belt. This man was younger, maybe thirty-four and built with more muscles than Kyle. Unlike the other man he was also someone Kyle recognized usually appearing on news reports alone with the word "Manhunt" and "Gruesome Crime Scene" and of course "Vicious Murder".
Gregory Peck had been a killer a long time before Sweetheart started her little fan war. Starting when he was twelve and continuing up through his whole life. Though the cops only found out about him about ten years before. Tracing his victims had mostly bee about working backwards at that point.
Peck had gone into hiding and occasionally sent letters to his fans (serial killers always had fans) and the police. None traceable. Stories surfaced of people he had killed popping up around the world. Not as often as before, but it seemed he was having more fun dodging the cops to kill his victims than he had when he was completely anonymous.
Then Sweetheart had happened and he had upped it. According to a letter he left on a body in Australia he was in it to win it. He had long ago come to terms with the fact that he was likely to die in a hail of gunfire. It was only a matter of time and one reason he had been able to stay ahead of the police was that he was well aware of what they were capable of and did not underestimate them. He had come close to being caught a few times and even did a year in France early on before they knew what he really was.
"I'm going to gut that little pop princess and take down as many people with me as possible," he claimed. "I bet I can keep her alive for the entire last hour as I cut bits off before the bomb blows." Considering what he had done to dozens of egg holders since then, nobody doubted his intentions.
Kyle's blade had a dent in it now where it had hit the gun, but the tip was still sharp. He resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. If the older man had wanted him dead he would be. Or maybe he was waiting for the proper moment. Like when one of them had eliminated the other. Still whatever the old man had planned, even if it was a knife in the back, it would be better than what Peck would do to him so Kyle kept his eyes rooted.
The two began circling each other through his darkened living room. Kyle had the advantage, knowing where everything was, but Peck moved smoothly and even when he bumped into something he recovered quickly. He had done this many times before after all and the people in the Tournament had not all been pushovers. He bushed the wall and felt a light switch, turning it on so they could get a good look at one another and their surroundings.
"How did you get in here? There are three dozen people camped around this building."
"They saw me," Peck said with a smile. "I don't worry about the fans. They want to see what I'll do next and the cops won't get involved in a Tournament fight even if it's me. If only because the fans will literally help me escape."
Kyle sighed. "Of course they will." Sometimes he felt like he was the only one in the world trying to stop the Tournament rather than encourage it.
Actually at this point he probably was.
"You know kid you aren't really my type of victim. I usually prefer women. If you just put the knife down and tell me where your egg is, I'll let you go." Kyle's disbelief must have shown. "Okay maybe not go, but I'll kill you quick."
"Your negotiating skills need work."
"I don't usually haggle." He jumped forward. For a moment they clashed, knife on knife. Sparks flew but Kyle was well trained and Gregory was experienced. They both jumped back, knives at the ready. "You're pretty good."
Not mothering to respond Kyle moved more to the center of the room. His foot kicked out and a drawer popped out of the side of his coffee table. This one with a very nice gun. He reached for it and Peck lunged, knife whizzing through the air. Kyle had to jump away, dodging to keep the muscled psycho from plowing into him in a tackle.
Peck laughed and grabbed the gun from the drawer. He brought it up in an arc aiming for Kyle. At this range there was no way he could miss.
As he pulled the trigger and heard the click as the trigger came down on an empty chamber he saw Kyle doing the same with the gun he had just dropped. It occurred to him as the gun fired that at that range, Kyle could not hope to miss either. And he knew that gun was loaded. The last thing he saw was the muzzle flash. The bullet pierced his heart before the sound of the gun going off registered in his ears.
Kyle was watching Peck's body fall when the man who had been hiding in his room stepped up behind him and clipped him over the back of the head with the lamp from beside his bed.
Kyle woke up this time with a splitting headache and his egg sitting on his chest. Under it was a note. Skull ringing he sat up and gingerly checked them. The egg, to his shock, was not only still functioning, but the numbers on it had nearly doubled. "What the hell?" Shaking his head he picked up the note.
Mr. Danvers.
I originally came here with the intent of stealing your egg as I have so many others. Fortunately I arrived here in time to notice someone else actively casing your apartment. Not like the fan boys across the street. I recognize the intent to break and enter. I have never been one for violence and while I lack the altruism of you and your associates I could not merely let the man I recognized have his way with you if I could stop it. As for the thump on the head, I never claimed to be a saint.
In fact I may have screwed you over in a way quite as bad as your erstwhile murderer. You see as I stood over your two prostrate forms it occurred to me that I may be biting off more than I could chew. Ad number four on the list I occupied a space as somewhat negligible with my anonymity in tact. Important and yet not so much as serious people were looking for me. However since I have no intention of dying for this tournament, claiming the spot as number one would draw unnecessary attention. And as stealing the eggs was merely my retirement plan, it seems a fool's errand to take the number one spot.
Rather I have taken Mr. Peck's egg along with his body. The actual points however I have transferred to you, both his and mine. His egg along with those I have stolen will more than finance me in extreme luxury for the rest of my life, not to mention being able to claim the rewards on this man's head as well as selling off his body parts, ghoulish as that may seem. I am afraid that I do know several people who will give six figures merely for his skull. It is a sick world full of twisted people and those people have money. It is time for the Cat to fade into the background permanently while they are trying to decide if you or Peck killed me.
You are now officially the most wanted man on the planet. In the span of twenty-four hours you have eliminated three of the top ten. In this pyramid scheme of a game you now have controlling interest. Admittedly it's possible for someone to catch up with you, but barring them all killing each other, it will be nearly impossible for them to knock you off the spot through sheer numbers. The only way would be to kill you.
My advice in exchange for drawing all of this attention away from me and my business is for you to disappear. Immediately. At least for a time. Take yourself off the board and let your enemies fight it out amongst each other. Your attempts at stopping them from fighting each other are over.
Now you must focus on your primary goal of stopping Sweetheart yourself. If you intend to live. You are otherwise as dead as your compatriots. The game is afoot and I rather like the world searching for you rather than me for a few months. That ends if you get yourself killed.
Sincerely, the Cat
Kyle stared at the letter for a while and tried to think of other options. He checked hi clock. Two hours. Nobody had called the cops. Or they just had not come.
The Cat was right. When he was part of a crew he had a shot of doing some good. Now he was alone and hunted. Not one but two people had entered his house with very little effort. How easy would it have been for them to blow the place up? He had not given much thought to his position. Kyle Danvers had gone from one nobody in a group of second rate do-gooders trying to police a billion crazed fans to the second biggest celebrity on Earth. Everyone n the planet knew where he lived five minutes after his friends were dead and he did not have time to mourn. Not if he wanted to stay alive.
He stood up, wincing at the throbbing of his skull and headed back to his room, opening the closet and pulling out his luggage.
"Welcome to Sweetheart Watch. Your up to the minute twenty-four-seven streaming service for all things to do with the Tournament. I'm your host Chino Imamate. Today we saw a startling upset as the last surviving member of the SSA swept the top ten list and took the top place away from Bobby Sheffield by a huge margin. Gaining the collected eggs of Sweetheart's Row, the serial killer Gregory Peck, and the still as yet unidentified thief known as the cat who was the only one on the list to gain a place on the top ten without violence.
"Up until now young Mr. Danvers had been an unknown, a mere cog in the machine of the Save Sweetheart Association. One group of many who out of a sense of righteousness and civic pride have in face been opposing the tournament. Hording eggs in an attempt to use them to gain access to Sweetheart and try to convince her to give up her plans or to figure out some way to disarm the bomb.
"Unfortunately they were a bit too good at their job and unlike so many similar groups actually managed to gather enough eggs that their group was a stone's throw away from making the list. Causing a schism between those in Sweetheart's Row and their leader famed mafia princess Isabella. The only survivor of the massacre and group suicide Kevin returned home to decide his future and was subsequently attacked by serial killer Gregory peck and the Cat. Nobody knows exactly what went on inside but blood found at the scene and Kyle's registered egg indicate that the boy once again triumphed.
"That was three days ago. That very night only a few hours after solidifying his place at the top of the list at least for now, Kyle Danvers disappeared. He gathered some of his possessions, walked out his front door, and drove to a car rental place. Since then he has managed to shake the fans who were following him and disappeared from the public eye. His last known stop was to several banks where he withdrew a total of one hundred and fifty-thousand dollars, more than enough to live off of for a few months.
"At the same time Danvers' rise in the rankings has accomplished just the opposite of what he and his cohorts wanted. It has spurred what might have been waning interest in the Tournament to new heights. People are rushing to catch up. In fact the remaining top ten have sequestered themselves in various ways as the rest of the participants race to kill each other and take the open two spots on the top ten list or open up yet another. This fight is far from over people.
"In response to all of this Sweetheart has sent out a message that you will see here first!"
Sweethearts face appeared on the screen. "Hey people! I heard what happened the other day and in response I've scheduled a whole new event that nobody was expecting. On Thanksgiving Day I'm inviting the top five contenders to my place for dinner. Fully catered except for the turkey which I will make myself. Call it a reward for anyone who manages to claw their way to the top and into my heart. This Tournament is getting close to the finish line people and I for one can't wait to see who wins. Let the good times and the blood flow! You're running out of time and if you can't secure a place in the top ten by then, well my geeks tell me you might as well give up now.
"You know unless you can take them out." She winked and the scene cut off.
Chino appeared again. "That's all for now folks. Keep an eye on my website as the best investigators track who has what, where they are, and who manages to take it from them. We're in the home stretch now folks and as this bloodbath reaches it's end only a handful will have the chance to die on stage with Death Idol Sweetheart! Stay tuned to see who that will be. This is Chino Imamate, signing off."
Chapter Four
After months of hiding and doing little but training Kyle felt a little exposed as he arrived via taxi having paid in cash. The young man had shaved his head, bought a fake moustache in red, and begun wearing loose track suits. He had not used a card to pay for anything and had swapped over to a used computer and free net access in restaurants and libraries to keep an eye on his competition. He had not contacted any members of his family, though they had been harassed several times for information on his whereabouts and likely had their phones illegally bugged.
Comparatively not fighting anyone had been like a vacation. He was becoming a little anxious, wondering when someone would finally track him down. No police agencies were officially looking for him, but everyone knew that Sweetheart had many of her die-hard fans among them who would abuse their access and authority on the sly.
It ended because he had to go to Sweetheart's Thanksgiving party.
True he could have stayed in hiding, but he had also been attending her concerts and other events. A lot of people had died trying to stop her. Including his friends and coworkers and girlfriend. It would be wrong to simply hide away and wait for it to be over. Though of course at the other events he had hidden away his egg in a box lined with thick foil and chicken wire. Carrying that thing would be like sending up a flare inviting people to kill him and then each other as they fought to the death over it. He did not even stay for the brawl at the concerts. Merely kept an eye out for a chance to get at Sweetheart herself. It was not as if he needed to add to his score at this point.
It was her mansion they were to meet at. It was of course surrounded by reporters and fans and guards. So many guards in a wall of black. The fence, a long way from the mansion itself, was lined with cameras and robotic guns. Chino had reported on several attempts to infiltrate what had been made over by bored geeks into an impregnable compound. Including some attempts to blow the place up with missiles.
Terrorists. Fans who knew they did not have a chance in hell of winning. People who just wanted the fame and some who had lost close people to this stupid contest of hers. Some wanted to rush in and profess their love. Others just wanted to see her and get autographs. Most wanted to be the ones to kill her and to hell with the consequences.
To keep her alive they had raised an army and outfitted it with things warmongers had wet dreams about. While still looking like a Malibu dream house.
The cab dropped Kyle off about a mile out. There was still a crowd. As he walked forward though they saw him meandering along and parted like the red sea for Moses. Without his moustache maybe they would not have recognized him on the street, but here and now with Sweetheart declaring an armistice for the holidays he would need more than a cheap disguise to keep everyone gathered there from recognizing him on sight.
A few said his name, but it was not pleasant. He was not one of them. He had what they wanted, but was the spoiler sport who intended to ruin the celebration. Yet he still had a seat at the table. Yeah, you could feel the resentment and hatred they all had for him. Even more from the crowd he could hear the other eggs as they responded to his and wondered with each step if one of them would break Sweetheart's rules and attack him in defiance of her wishes on her very doorstep.
Nobody did. A good thing too since under the hooded sweatshirt he was wearing his hands were gripping a pair of guns that would kill the first two dozen people who tried it.
When he reached the gates the guards stood aside. No need for an ID. He had been monitored probably since he arrived in town. Besides if we was not who they thought he was, whoever had the egg probably got anyone carrying it into the place.
There was an empty space outside the gates. Well mostly empty. There were a few other people there. Bobby "The Knight" Sheffield in his trademark white suit, Harmony "The Lumberjack" Ozark in flannel and hefting an ax, and Tatiana "The Black Russian" Malakoff wearing a Gothic Lolita outfit and veil, something she had adopted a month before when she finished off "The Kid" and his family. Considering how Jeff had looked it had been unlikely he would have made it to February anyway, but Tatiana wanted to acknowledge that she had killed a kid half her age with a handheld chainsaw even if he and his parents had been shooting at her at the time. They all looked at him and nodded in recognition. Then the crowd parted from another direction and a new face appeared. Not anyone Kyle recognized.
"Who are you?" Harmony asked in a thick French-Canadian accent.
He shrugged and held up an egg before saying something in Spanish. Tatiana said in her own thick accent, "he is Anaconda. Former cartel hitting man. He took out the Wayland twins yesterday. He's from South America and I don't think he speaks English."
"So? I got to the number three spot by whacking the circus woman and the fat man, eh. Guess that buys us dinner, no?" She openly eyed Tatiana. "Maybe if she let's us stay zee night you and I can have some fun?"
Tatiana laughed. "Back off Le Pew, I do not swing that way." The gates suddenly opened. All of them looked around as the rest of the crowd was painted with little red dots. A loudspeaker said, "Anyone but the top five who approaches the gat will be shot." There was a bang and a thud. None of the five so much as flinched let alone looked around as the air rumbled with the sound of a thousand people stepping back at once.
"Anyone else expecting Willy Wonka?" Kyle muttered. The other four laughed. Even the new guy.
"Just make sure you wait until the gate is all the way open, it'll look much more impressive," Bobby said in his own thick upper class British accent. Hew repeated it in Spanish and Anaconda nodded. When they gates opened they marched forward in a line.
"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here," Tatiana muttered.
Sweetheart met them at the door. "I'd have had you introduced, but after I had the food prepared I sent everyone else home. We're being monitored and broadcast world wide of course, but we've got physical privacy anyway. I hope you don't mind."
Harmony winked. "Well it could be better if it was just you and me, but if you insist on an audience I can work with that too."
Sweetheart giggled. "Well I like to thin of myself as an old school girl. I think my suitors should all stick around as chaperones."
Bobby smiled. "Just my type, my lady. I for one have not eaten all day and cannot wait to see what you have for us."
Tatiana said, "I am expecting KFC Cajun style turkey and maybe cheap beer." She eyed Sweetheart. "And I am most decidedly not your suitor."
Anaconda pulled out a cell phone and said something. The translator function said, "I have not eaten in a week. It's hard to get a decent meal when you are hiding from some pissed off drug dealers."
"Da. Is what happens when you steal their weapons depots and drug money," Tatiana said.
"Seemed like a good idea at the time." He looked at Sweetheart. "I can't say I hate your music, but it just seems that I have little to lose by dying with you rather than how they would like me to."
"Bella says hi," Kyle said to her.
Sweetheart smiled at him. "Oh wasn't she a sweetie? I swear I felt my heart go pitter-pat when I heard what she did for me. Love and honor and all of that. That is the sort of thing I want out of this competition. Makes my knees go weak just thinking about it." She turned and led the way inside. "Let's get to the dinner table." The food was set up on a long table. They could sit anywhere with plenty of room and still have a turkey they could get to. "Don't worry about wasting anything. The leftovers go to a mission I know in town and I've donated literally billions to various charities this year."
"Assuaging your guilt?" Kyle asked.
She shrugged. "Not particularly. It's just that you can't take it with you and I don't have a lot of family left to give it to. My parents are well provided for and all that. Seemed the least I could do is give my tribute to people who will still be around to use it."
"Tribute, like a goddess?"
"Pretty much. Empress. Goddess. High priestess of pop." Tatiana snorted. "I got you caviar."
"Racist stereotype," she replied, taking a seat at the head of the table and grabbing a bowl of fish eggs anyway.
"Can I get some of that?" Harmony asked, grabbing one a bit further down.
They took their seats around Tatiana making sure to keep three chairs apart while Sweetheart took the other end of the table.
"God this food is awesome," Kyle said. The others looked at him. "Hey I've never eaten a turkey that cost… what three hundred dollars?"
"Five. You wouldn't believe what's in the stuffing." Sweetheart winked at Tatiana. "If I'd known you preferred deep fried Cajun style I would have gotten that. At this point though I believe they are sold out."
"I can adjust," she said scooping a helping of mashed potatoes.
Sweetheart motioned to a bowl full of something that looked like green puke. "My personal favorite is something we always called Green Stuff, since Gelatin Salad implies you make actual gelatin.' She scooped some out. "A mixture of whipped cream, cottage cheese, lime gelatin powder, crushed canned pineapple, and walnuts."
"I am allergic to nuts," Bobby said apologetically.
"Pass it down," Harmony said. Kyle did, taking a helping for himself.
When he was full Kyle looked down and said, "Can I please see the bomb?" Everyone at the table froze.
Sweetheart smiled. "Naturally. You can have a close look. But first I need to warn you any X-rays or MRI or that sort of thing could set it off. It's designed to be impossible to switch off without detonating. It's a dead man's switch. I try not to go anyplace that would cut off the signal to the nuke. Wouldn't be good for that to go off prematurely, but considering that I have enough C4 in my belly to level this house, it wouldn't really be my problem." She looked around. Is everyone else here ready for the show?" They put their forks down and nodded.
Kyle came forward and Sweetheart stood up. She began to strip. Kyle said, "You don't have to—"
"You want to examine the bomb? I am the bomb. I just happen to be a bomb with boobs. Man up." She stripped off her clothes and threw them aside until she was naked. "I have done porn."
Kyle swallowed and tried to act as if was not examining the most desired woman on the planet. She looked normal. No, she looked in remarkably good health. Well tones and not an ounce of fat except on the curves of her ass and breasts.
Instead he focused on the display. A flexible digital readout in neon green letters. Counting down in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. Her skin had grown over the edges. "I don't suppose you can give me the details."
"A system 6 Apex detonator hooked up to six one pound bricks of K-7 C4 explosive contained within an orb of silicone plastic with motion, heat, audio, and biometric sensors. Some of it experimental prototypes designed and built by my fans. It knows the difference between my heart rate increasing because I'm having sex or when I'm stressed and under duress. In addition it produces a constant signal uploaded by satellite to the nuke and several decoys scattered across the country. If the signal is cut off the nuke and the C4 detonate." She shrugged. "With guys like Gregory Peck out there as potential winners not to mention the consequences of living if the nuke went off were unlikely to be pleasant."
"Or you could have faded into obscurity like a normal celebrity and not encouraged a billion people to slaughter each other." She shrugged and he did not bother to look at her face. "Damn it."
"Problem?"
"I've spent the better part of this year studying bombs. Knew a fair bit about them before. Military family." He circled her and shook his head. "I think we all believed deep down that you gave yourself an out. That there would be some trap door or secret exit. That your plan was always to fake your death and enjoy the fame." He finally met her eyes, "You're really just this fucking crazy."
"I am become death, destroyer of worlds," she said with a grin. "Some burn brightly while others fade away."
"Hate to criticize darling, but you are mixing your metaphors a bit," Bobby said.
"Look, my fans are just as fanatical. Just as crazy. Every fifty years or so something like this happens."
Kyle said, "Comparing yourself to Hitler and his crew isn't exactly helping your case."
Sweetheart looked at Tatiana. "What do you think Mussolini?"
"Please, Stalin."
"Hey, you were the one complaining about stereotypes."
"Very well. I think I am sorry I did not think of it first. You will be greatest pop star in history. Me? My best shot is to be number two by dying with you. I will not live in your shadow forever, but I cannot stop you either. It's too late. The best I can do is to kill you myself and become a star alongside you." She spit on the floor in disgust.
Anaconda said something and his phone said, "I am a walking dead man. One of the few organized crime outfits Isabella did not take apart from the inside wants me dead. I screwed them. They found out. I'll be lucky to live long enough to die in nuclear fire. If they get me first, it will be much worse."
"Then may I say you made a lovely choice by becoming one of the ten most tracked and recognizable people on Earth," Bobby said.
He shrugged. "If I was that bright I would not have stolen from the cartel in the first place."
"I on the other hand have decided to go for honor and the hand of the beautiful maiden," bobby said. "I'm royalty, the youngest son of several. Never destined to inherit or even marry well. Raised to be a playboy and appear on the tabloids to draw attention from the rest of my family. Then I hear of a grand quest. Win the hand of a fair maiden and die for her love." He nodded at Sweetheart. "I was already a fan, but then I fell in love."
"Me too buddy," Harmony said. "I always on those cold six month nights up North think what it would be like to love a girl like Sweetheart. I got a choice. Live a life where I either get hurt in work accident or knifed in bar fight. White Canadians, men, even Inuit tribes. I just always seem to piss everyone off. Too manly. Like women. Not white. Too white. I always piss somebody off, eh? Then I think like Sweetheart, why fade away? If there's going to be big bomb. If people are going to die. I be right in the thick of it. Then it turned out my enemies were little girly pansies and here I sit, eating turkey with heroes and villains." She lifted a glass of wine. "This turkey cost more than I make in a month and I will be carrying it away in a doggy bad? That is the life."
"I was going to be a cop. An FBI agent." Kyle looked at Sweetheart. "Then you made your announcement and threw the world into chaos. Got so many people killed they decided to turn a blind eye. The cops. The villains. You knocked over the board. I think I thought I could set it back again."
"And now?"
"And now I want to win," he said. "My friends are dead. My family will be better off when I'm out of the picture. There's no going back and whatever the world is when this is all over, it won't be what it was. I held on to the idea of the way it was so hard, I don't even want to know what it's going to be like when your bomb goes off.
"But I do know I want to be the one to set it off and wipe the slate clean. To be the last one standing."
"You could kill me now. I know you're all armed."
He stood up and smiled. "That wouldn't be cricket, as our English guest would say. Still, as long as you are here and we're together there is one thing I want to do. Not just for me, but for everyone you did this to."
Kyle dropped to one knee and grabbed Sweetheart. With one swift move he bent her naked body over his leg and face down. Then as the others stared in shock he raised a hand and brought it down, repeatedly as she struggled. And across the world six billion people and generations to come, watched as Kyle Danvers gave Sweetheart, the princess of destruction, a well deserved spanking.
The evening ended with desert. Chocolate mousse, cake, and a selection of pies served by Sweetheart, still nude. The others were incensed that Kyle had spanked her, but did nothing about it. He had the right after all. None of them tried it. Well except harmony and really the ass slap had not exactly been meant as punishment. What Kyle had done was, frankly, all anyone could do. At least without leaving a crater.
Sweetheart offered to let them spent the night. Kyle declined as did everyone but Harmony. "I came here to get laid."
"I'm a gentleman. I'd join in, but it would tarnish my motives." Bobby got up and bowed. "I intend to keep fighting until the very end when we all face off at the last concert."
"I look forward to removing your head from your shoulders," Tatiana said. Then she looked at Sweetheart. "You I just want dead."
"Love you too Tatiana." Sweetheart blew her a kiss.
Anaconda said, "I won't promise to wait to kill any of you. If I get the chance I'll take you all down."
Kyle looked at Sweetheart. "I really did want to save you, you know?"
She smiled. "I know. It was sweet." She looked at all of them. "You represent my fans at the moment. I don't know if I'll see any of you in February but know this, I love you all. I appreciate the rivers of blood you've waded through in my name and those you still have to cross. Go forth, as the children of the Tournament both you five and the millions still around the world. Fight for me my darlings and may the best of you stand beside me at the end."
Chapter Five
Anaconda and Harmony were dead by Christmas. The crooks he stole from never caught up with the former criminal, but an Australian named Beck managed to take him out with an actual boomerang. Someone caught it on tape and it made the rounds online and on the news. His head popped right off.
Harmony meanwhile had pissed off the more romantic branch of Sweetheart's fans by getting what they wanted. Nobody expected a dying woman to be celibate, but jealous is an ugly thing and her egg had, since her death, been making rounds and passing from one new owner to another. It stopped even being news when it changed hands.
Chino made her way backstage at the Sweetheart Christmas Special. She was wearing a shiny full body suit that hid her thermal signature from the sensors dotted around the place and had an under-layer of body armor that would stop most small caliber bullets. The mirror-like covering was excellent camouflage indoors, reflecting the surroundings until she was nearly invisible unless someone got close.
She pulled a tube out of her sleeve and held it up. With a soft hiss two lines popped out of either end, securing themselves to the opposite walls. Then she grabbed the tube and slid along the line with a soft mechanical whirr. She had already seen one sneaky little fan try to simply walk down the suspiciously unguarded hallway. The floor had tilted slightly and he had disappeared with a quickly cut off scream. Chino was not sure what was down there, but Sweetheart's squad of psycho nerds tended to be nasty with their deathtraps.
The tube came to a stop outside of Sweetheart's door and hanging by one hand she placed a small charge between the knob and the frame. It exploded, blowing the door inward and Chino immediately followed after it, landing softly on her feet as Sweetheart stared at her.
She was wearing a red and green outfit and was half way through putting on her own makeup. Up until this year she had a team for that, but paranoia when millions of people wanted you dead, was a good thing. She dropped her eyeliner brush and reached for a shiny handgun sitting next to her on the table.
Chino threw back her hood and put up her hands. "Hey, don't worry. It's just your friendly action reporter."
Sweetheart smiled and bent down to retrieve her brush. "You know a lot of celebrities would be more likely to shoot you for being a reporter than trying to assault them."
Chino grabbed a fold up chair leaning against a wall and took a seat. "Please. I'd kick those poseur's butts."
"Indeed you would." She sighed. "You know it's a shame you aren't one of my admirers. You'd have done amazingly well."
"Maybe I'm just biding my time. If I wait until the last concert I could snake the winner." She smirked. "You know if I was dumb enough to try taking on whoever legitimately beat everyone else. Or if I liked you."
"You don't like me?"
"I'm riding your coattails to fame and fortune. Doesn't do me much good if I die." She leaned forward. "How about you? Any regrets? You have a literal death clock in your abdomen and a little less than two months to live. Whatever happens you aren't making it to the next Oscar ceremony, you'll never have children, and likely the only monument to your life is going to be a smoking hole in the ground that's going to glow in the dark for the next fifty thousand years.
"On top of that you've staked your very soul on the Norse being right about the afterlife or at the very least that whoever runs it is willing to overlook the fact that you are directly responsible for the untimely deaths of more than seventy-million people to date. In most religions you'll be lucky if the atheists are right."
There was a moment of silence and then Sweetheart took a shuddering breath. "Of course I have regrets. Of course I'm scared. I happen to know that I was loved. I don't suspect it or just think it. I'm not a narcissist. Like you said millions of people care about me so much that they were willing to die for me. To kill for me. Most people have to wonder if their own family would do that and here I sit knowing that the things I have done with my life meant literally everything to those people. That I was important and I mattered.
"And every one of them mattered to me. They held me up. They fought for me and gave up everything to be with me. They love me." She sniffed. "Besides it just seems like a lot of people because there are more than in medieval times and I'm allowing women to compete. Wars like this have been fought for centuries for the fair maiden's hand and they were not half as impressive as I am. And it is not as if at the end of the Iliad they really kept track of Helen's story in detail. If Zeus had struck her and the winning army with a thunderbolt it would have been more memorable."
Chino laughed. "You know the best part of all of this? We finally know what happens when you have a war and only one side shows up."
Sweetheart tittered. "Indeed. As for the afterlife, I considered it. But once one of my fans killed someone in my name, what was the difference? I mean they haven't licked out Jesus or Mohamed yet."
"Do you see yourself as some sort of messiah? Are a divine being?"
"I believe that the world gave me a lot of generous gifts. What that means for my soul is a matter for the afterlife, as you say. I am just doing the best I can with what I was given. The fact that this includes millions of people who wish to accompany me to the afterlife seems like something I should use before I die or let it just wash away in the river of time. I'm not hurting anyone who doesn't want to be part of this, I established honorable rules, and when its all done for the most part the only ones dying will be us and people who got involved of their own free will. Meanwhile wherever my soul will end up I will at least have company." A tear fell from her cheek. "Besides it's too late to back out now."
"True, but if you could, would you?"
She lifted her head a bit. "Not a chance. Whatever happens I am going down in history as possibly the single most famous and openly adored person in the history of the world. Every aspect of my life is going to be known for decades if not centuries and there will be myths and legends that live beyond our current society. It was paid for with an ocean of blood and I will not dishonor those who fought for me by changing my mind at the eleventh hour." She looked at Chino. "You've been at my heels for years. If you had known what I was going to do, would you have killed me when you saw me holding Russian roulette games and pit fights? Or at least if you had been able to have me arrested back then, would you have rather than become the media darling you are now?"
Chino said, "I can't say I haven't asked myself about that. In March when those girls at the amusement park fought and gutted each other. When that suicide bomber took out that group in New Jersey. The people who committed suicide when they decided they could not be good enough to win. I've seen so many bodies this year it has pretty much dwarfed every war in living memory. And they say that at your last show the death count may even triple.
If I knew then what I know now would I have put a bullet in your head before you got your hands on a nuclear weapon?" She shook her head. "Not a chance in hell?"
"No?"
"That's too much responsibility for me. It'd be like, if I killed Hitler, would it have stopped anything? There would have still been just as many racists. Only they might have built up slower, had a better leader, and then where would we be?' Her eyes narrowed. "You shouldn't have done what you did, but can I say anyone else would have done it better? Tatiana has a pretty large following. Other celebrities in their time could have done it. Like you say it's been done before, for a lot worse reasons.
"I would feel stupid if I changed history and it caused something worse to happen. I mean someone stole a nuke for you. People have been killing each other in the streets. For a celebrity. I can't help but wonder what would have happened if they had latched onto another religious leader or someone who did not put as much thought into this as you did. Anyway it's not like I was the only one and it is far too late now to kiss everyone's booboos and make it all better."
Sweetheart nodded. "True that. Well my dear since you made it in I suppose you are owed another exclusive. Do you want to know about tonight's show?"
"Something that airs live in an hour? What would be the point? Come on, give me something really good."
"Very well. My final concert is going to be held in New Mexico." Chino's eyes bulged "I won't say where exactly until about six hours before it begins. I want everyone to get there in time, except the bomb squad and I want everyone who can to evacuate. I've still got an event in Alaska in January to which I am inviting a while bunch of other celebrities to party with me one last time. I'm hoping I can get an orgy going before the killing starts. And I'm auctioning off most of my personal possessions in the weeks beforehand to pay for the damage."
"Is the bomb already there?"
"I'm not telling even you that Chino. I will say the bomb is being kept someplace with a lot of people. Schools. Families. All of whom will be fine provided nobody screws with my plan." She smiled. "Until then the world is my hostage." She lowered her voice and said playfully, "How screwed up would it be if I set the bomb off right now and you and I died together? Right now and leaving the world wanting?"
Chino smiled confidently. "You won't do it. Not with me."
"True. Not only are you the one who is supposed to tell my story, but I want to go with someone who really cares about me."
"Even if Tatiana wins?"
"She cares. Hate and love aren't all that different. She's just mad because she isn't me. She still wants to die with me."
"She wants to die killing you."
Sweetheart laughed. "Who doesn't?"
Chino had to admit she had a point. Everyone wanted her dead. The people who worshipped her. The people who loved those people. Everyday citizens who just wanted it to end. Governments. Other celebrities. They were all just waiting for the big day when Sweetheart would die. The world currently turned on that one united thought.
It made Chino think of those wizard books and movies from a few years back. Not just the consistent subculture it had spawned that included clothes, games, phrases, and things. But there was a line about the villain in there. Something about how he'd done great things. Horrible, messed up things, but great. She was like a unicorn. Beautiful and magical and amazing to the point that you could forget that in all the old stories where the people were not virgins, the unicorn would kill hundreds of people before it was caught and was often a worse monster than the fiercest dragons.
"Hey, I have an idea. Let's go on stage together."
"What?" Chino asked.
"Come on it'll be great," Sweetheart said. "We can get you all dressed up in your own outfit and you can see it from my perspective. Besides as my unofficial biographer we really should get together in public. I don't want anyone claiming you were behind all this, hologramming me like some dead celebrity being brought back to appear on stage with computers and lasers. A week after I'm dead they'll be claiming you killed me and staged the whole thing if we don't appear together at least once."
Chino wanted to argue, but the woman had a point. Saner people than her fans firmly believed they had faked the moon landing and the world was flat. Chino being the mastermind behind all of this would be an easy one. besides, she kind of wanted to see what it was like up there.
"We can make the first song a karaoke one," Sweetheart tempted.
"Can I pick the song?"
"Sure."
It was almost like being at a fancy sleepover. Chino and Sweetheart did each other's hair and picked out clothes. It was odd to do something so mundane with the most important person on Earth and the greatest mass murderer in human history. Also possibly the greatest investigative reporter. Anyone watching would have mistaken them for any two girls getting ready for the prom or something.
Sweetheart got Chino a sequined red dress with a silver ribbon sewn through it. It took Chino a moment to realize the sequins were actual rubies and the dress probably cost more than Sweetheart's mansion. "Are you sure I can just have this?"
"No problem. I picked it up in Milan last year. It's not like I need the thing." She gestures to herself and Chino realized the red and green of her outfit was also precious gems.
Chino wanted to feel guilty, but was too awestruck. She just could not wipe the smile off her face. Also it occurred to her that it almost looked like someone had spilled blood over her like in that Japanese urban legend about the red and blue toilet paper. Both cool and a little disturbing.
Just like the whole damn world since this thing started.
When they were finally all dolled up Sweetheart went to the door and hit a button to deactivate the deathtraps Chino reluctantly followed her out into the hallway, but as they made their path down and out the floor stayed put, though the scent of death leaked up between the boards. Fresh shit from pierces intestines, the coppery tang of blood anyone who saw the aftermath of one of Sweetheart's events became familiar with, and even the low moan of somebody still barely alive that could have just been a creak.
How many corpses were under their feet at this very moment? How many had Sweetheart walked over in her life even before this Tournament? The execution grounds of the Romans were soaked in less blood.
As they made their way guards and people with clipboards joined them. A few looked at Sweetheart, fingering the triggers of their guns and waiting for permission to off the intruder. She waved them off and took Chino by the hand. Her fingers were warm and soft except for a few musicians' calluses. The result of years of hard work and practice.
It was easy to see why so many people were in love with her. And all the more baffling why she had given it all up.
Finally they came to a large curtain and from the other side Chino could hear the roar of a crowd. People cheering. Sweetheart's name echoing into the distance as if they could summon her like a ghost in a mirror. Others just talking and chatting with the people around them, calm and relaxed as if this was any other concert. As if only a handful were not going to die, butchered by the same people they were talking to so calmly. Chino started to move toward the curtain to peek, but Sweetheart held her back.
"No. let it be a surprise. You may never see something like this again. You need to be hit with the full feeling."
"Whatever you say."
Someone came by and handed them microphones. Then from speakers music began to play and the sounds of the crowd faded. Some kind of Christmas carol. It was like silencing the surf. Chino was shaking a little and she saw Sweetheart take a censing breath and felt a little better. A huge celebrity and someone doomed to die felt nervous. It made her feel better.
Of course Chino had appeared on camera many times and even a studio audience, but this… this was different.
Suddenly the curtains opened and the lights shown and they were momentarily blinded. Chino squeezed her eyes shut and then blinked and the world came into focus. A world like she had never seen before.
It really was a sea of faces. In the distance it was like watching the water shimmer. Up close were more people than she had ever personally met. Standing and staring up at them in awe and respect. Mixed in were signs declaring love or hatred for Sweetheart. There were glow sticks and cell phones like stars. Music played and every eye for miles around was focused on them while up in the sky helicopters with acres soared and further out more on stands were set up. Lights in the dark that blotted out most of the stars with their faces.
And every eye in the place was focused on the two of them. It was a heady experience to say the least. Frightening and yet comforting at the same time. Chino glanced at the woman next to her, the real star of the show. What was it like, to know that she could order every person out there to do her bidding and they would do it? Kill the person to their left. Slit their throats. Offer up their life savings. Storm Washington and drag the politicians from their beds.
Men, women, old people, and even a few children. She saw flashes of weapons. Handles. Blades. All gazing up adoringly as if they were having a religious experience.
"Hello my people!" Sweetheart's voice boomed into the distance. The air erupted in a loud cheer that felt almost physical. Chino had to fight not to step back as the previously silenced waves rolled over them. Then it quieted and she went on. "I was just doing a private interview with my good friend Chino here. An interview where I've provided clues to the location of my final concert!" This time the sound was even louder and far more shocked. Demands. Screamed. "Sorry, you'll have to wait for Chino to tell you the details. In the meantime I made her promise to sing a little song with me up here in exchange for the information. How does that sound?"
Chino's ears were still ringing with the cheers of the crowd when the music started. She recognized the song though. She had picked it after all, right from the soundtrack of one of Sweetheart's films. Chino had never been much of a singer, but she had sung along with this one a hundred times while watching the movie. Hopefully Sweetheart's voice would cover up hers so she would not embarrass herself too badly.
In reality the song faded almost as soon as they began singing it. The silent masses stared with rapt attention and Chino knew she was singing, but it was like she had been transported to another world. A place where the normal rules did not apply. And it dawned on her exactly why Sweetheart wanted to die before this feeling faded. Before she looked over smaller crowds or less enthusiastic fans who had heard all her songs before.
Then it was over. The song ended and Sweetheart said, "Not bad kid. Now…" Chino was suddenly pushed forward and off the edge of the stage. "Get her out of here before the concert ends. Can't have the reporters getting killed now can we? See you in Valhalla Chino."
Chino landed in hands. Dozens of them as people caught her in a classic stage dive. She floated up like she was in a pool as the hands carried her away. Backwards so she could see the stage slowly disappearing into the distance and Sweetheart began singing another song with her angelic voice. She waved to Chino as she was passed down and away. Lost in the seemingly endless crowd. It may have broken some sort of record how long it took her to get to the end and be dropped off at the edge.
She would have to check. All she knew was that it lasted nearly the entire concert and when they put her down Chino had to turn and run. Run as fast and as far as she could. Because behind her was the grim specter of death. Implacable and unstoppable as an avalanche. At the head of which stood Sweetheart, a force of nature in human form.
Their undisputed empress. Chino looked up and saw that sweet beautiful face floating in the sky on a screen. Smiling like a child as she finished her final song and calmly ordered the crowd to turn one ach other.
Turning away Chino refused to look back, like she was escaping the underworld. Behind her she heard gunfire and angry roars of bloodthirsty delight, and screams of those already falling in battle. Thousands… maybe millions… of people eager to please their queen with gifts of blood and pain as they crawled over one another's dead bodies merely in the hope of standing by their side.
Part of Chino knew why she was running so hard. She was not afraid of dying. After being up there with Sweetheart, looking out over a crowd of fans like that, she was afraid she would want it again. To be up there one more time next to Sweetheart as the world worshipped and adored her with all their hearts.
She was afraid that if she stopped running she might turn around and join in on the fight.
Interlude of Death
A sea of blood. Sweetheart stared out at what had been her audience with a wide smile and the sparkling eyes of a lunatic. There was the sound of gunfire and the smell of cordite. The flash of steel. Some people were going wild while others remained calm. She watched as one fool was distracted reaching got a fallen egg only to be impaled by a fifteen year old girl wielding a katana she had likely picked up at a pawn shop, only aware he was dead when the blade exploded through the front of his shirt from behind. The girl was sprayed in the face by a severed artery but she yanked her sword free and with a mighty "Hai-yaaah!" dove at an old woman whose Uzi had just run out of bullets. A man in a power suit brandished a handgun with absolutely no emotion as one person after another dropped, one bullet each as he calmly replaced clip after clip. Someone tried to stab him only to find that under his suit was a layer of mail designed not to spoil the lines.
It was like watching a meat grinder made out of people. The best part was the variety. Old, young, black, white, Asian, gay, straight, men, women… the variety was astounding. She actually saw a clown who, once her music had ended, had put on the Old Bamboo song from Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang playing from hidden speakers in his outfit and was clubbing people with a bamboo staff like a freaking ninja. She was pretty sure she had gotten a glimpse of Bobby in his white suit and the muscular bulk of Kyle too, the boy having waded into battle along with everyone else. They were pointedly avoiding each other, presumably saving it for the final show down and other people were avoiding them too. In fact a few were gathering eggs for them, having chosen a side.
Fans were wonderful and this was beautiful. Standing above it all and watching the bloody carnage made Sweetheart's chest swell with pride and honor that thee people, these every day people, were throwing themselves into battle and death for her. That they would fight until only a handful remained too tired and hurt to continue. Searching through the bodies for eggs so they could score points just for her.
Suddenly there was a break in the action. A group of about thirteen who had been biding their time broke out of the crowd. They all had on black shirts showing the image of Sweetheart, half her face smiling and bright with the other half a bare skull. They rushed between fighters heading straight for the stage, brandishing weapons like baseball bats, clubs, and knives.
As they jumped onto stage snipers took out five right away, but as they dropped their friends did not look away from Sweetheart. She had seen this before. Some people just were not willing to wait and see how it ended. Sure they would lose and with reason they wanted to snatch the prize for themselves. Around the stage the fighting paused so people could watch and see how she handled it.
The snipers took out three more, taking out the last ones with guns, but the rest got too close to Sweetheart for them to risk another shot. She signaled for them to stand down and then slipped her hands into her skirt. They came out in a blur and shuriken sprouted from the eyes of two more. They fell, the momentum taking them across the polished floor of the stage.
The last three surrounded her. One was a fat pimply faced guy of about six feet tall with an aluminum baseball bat. Around the top was a weight with spikes sticking out. Next to him was a small woman swinging a chain with the expertise of someone who did it a lot. Maybe a gang member or some other habitual delinquent. Sweetheart glanced over her shoulder at a middle aged man wearing a pair of boxing gloves wrapped in barbed wire.
"You're outs Sweetheart," pimple-face snarled and charged, wielding his bat with all the skill of a caveman.
She ignored him and ducked as the woman's chain snapped into the space where her head had just been. Sweetheart reached up and caught it, yanking so she stumbled and it went taut just as the bat came down. It bounced off and hit its wielder in his own face with a satisfying coconut-like sound and a metallic ring making him cry out and stumble back even though he missed the spikes.
The boxer tried to land a blow on her back but Sweetheart kicked back, the heel of her shoe puncturing his pants and the shin underneath making him scream and trip, missing her with his swing. She backed up, wrapping his neck in the chain like a garrote. The owner tried to pull it back, but that just made her choke out her ally. Sweetheart twisted around him as he hit the stage and dove at the recovering bat wielder, kneeing him in the abdomen so he gasped and dropped the heavy weapon.
Sweetheart caught he bat and twisted to throw it with perfect accuracy at the woman who was trying to untangle her chain from the boxer. The spiked weight hit her right in the forehead and stuck as she was knocked back, dead before she hit the ground, eyes wide. The weight of her pulling on the chain tightening it around the boxer again making his eyes bulge as he tried to work free.
The fat guy, still gasping for breath grabbed her from behind and Sweetheart was mildly disgusted to feel a hard lump at the front of his pants. This was probably the most action he had ever gotten.
He tried to work an arm around her throat in an attempt to choke her out, but Sweetheart, a trained martial artist, slammed her head back and felt the sting of pain even as his nose flattened with a satisfying crunch. She jumped away as he cried out and turned to see blood gushing from his crushed nostrils and a missing tooth fall from a split lip. With a snarl she kicked out, burying her heel in his neck, blood fountaining over her in a high spray as he fell gurgling to the stage never to rise again.
Turning she saw the boxer had freed himself, but when he saw the look on her face he tried to run. Only when he looked around at the angry crowd brandishing their own weapons he had no place to run to.
"Oh no, you don't get to back out now," Sweetheart snapped. He turned and tried to punch her, but she casually raised an arm to his elbow deflecting it and stepping inside his guard. Her other hand came up and punched him in the jaw with precision if less power. Then she ducked around his broad back and reached up, wrapping her arms around his neck the way the other guy had tried with her. Jumping up she wrapped her legs tightly around his waist as she maneuvered into the proper position for leverage. With the microphone on her lapel everyone in the area heard the satisfying pop as she snapped his neck and then let go so his body could hit the stage.
Looking out over the remnants of the crowd, already down to a third of what it had been, she gave them a dazzling smile from behind a mask of drying blood. "Anyone else feel like cheating me?"
There was a brief silence and then an explosion of cheers. Louder than even they had given when she was singing. Louder than when there were more of them. love her or hate her, it was possibly one of the best moments of the tournament. People had rushed the stage before, but the snipers had taken care of it along with a few well placed traps. This was different. Sweetheart had just proven she was not just some manipulative bitch watching from on high as people killed and died for her amusement like some Roman emperor at the coliseum watching the lions feast on Christian flesh.
No, she was a fighter too. Skilled, awesome in her ferocity, and just as invested as they were. That was the moment she earned a new title. The Duke of Demise. Not duchess as some people tried to change it to later. No, a duke. A nobleman who got his title by leading armies into bloody battle. A warlord. Their unquestioned leader.
"Well? What are you all waiting for? Get back to it or I'll come down there and kill you all myself!"
They might have enjoyed that but the crowd roared and rushed each other again, all of them smiling. Hardened veterans who saw it on TV would later say how strange it was. There was no malice in the eyes of the fighters. No disappointment as they died or hesitation. It was more akin to watching kids playing Cowboys and Indians than battle, for all the pain and death. As if when they finished they were all going to get up and go out for pizza afterwards. This, they said, this is what Valhalla must truly be like.
Sweetheart, her blood pounding in her ears, stood a the edge of the stage watching again. She ignored the drying blood though it started to itch. She would not dishonor her fighters by not watching through to the end. She could clean up later.
When it finally died down there were maybe a dozen people still alive. There were Kyle and Bobby, both stained with blood much like she was. Oh and there was Tatiana. A half dozen people were bowing at her feet presenting her with captured eggs. Other nameless faces gathered their own spoils, looking about with a mixture of jealousy that those three were so far ahead of them, paranoia that someone might still attack and claim their treasure, and pride that they had survived so far. One man looked like he might attack Kyle and try for his, but their eyes met and he backed down. For now.
Another person came tiptoeing through the bodies. Chino. Whose car was actually parked nearby. She looked half awed and half sick as her feet squelched over mud that was a mix of blood and dirt. She stepped on someone's kidney and almost fell over, but she had good balance and avoided it.
All of them looked up to the stage and it was impossible to read their thoughts on what had just happened. Possibly they did not know themselves. Birds were arriving. Vultures and crows and ravens. A couple of seagulls. They would feast until the army of coroners arrived to retrieve the bodies. A service Sweetheart paid for along with having purchased a large plot of land where her followers were buried if their families would not or could not handle it themselves. Not in graves, but one big burial mound for the fallen who would never see her final show.
Chapter Six
"Hi folks!" Sweetheart's smiling face said as she peered into the camera. "Well we're coming up on the end! We've got twenty-four hours and then I and everything around me will be glowing dust raining around the countryside. The first nuke to ever go off on American soil without government assistance.
"Which American soil? Well as I already leaked I set up in New Mexico. To be specific Roswell, New Mexico. Sorry to ruin a great tourist trap, but I needed someplace where the nuclear signature would be hidden and White Sands is where they used to test the suckers. On the bright side it'll be just as big a tourist attraction when they come to see the crater.
"Okay guys now that you know the where, here are the rules. The Tournament is almost over, so no more battle royal. I love you all for participating, but we've got our top five and I'm afraid it's down to them now. The eggs are deactivated and killing them won't get you on stage. Naturally you are all still free to come to the concert and see the show live before the final count down, but for that final spot at my number one fan, it's up to those who have earned it.
"As for the rest of you, remember me later as you watch on television and listen on the radio. I love that you loved me. That I could be the one you did all this for and that I could bring a bit off happiness and entertainment to your lives. You did the same for me. I ruled the world for a year. I was an idol a star and the reason so many of you lived and died. You may not be the first in my heart. But you were there. Every one of my fans meant he world to me. Well… given the kill count of two point five billion deaths to date, a third of the world anyway. A bit more soon.
"As for the rest of you that are going with me, I say spend the remainder of your time working on your bucket lists. Eat drink and be merry as the saying goes."
Chino took her place. "And that's it folks. The greatest war in history is about to end in a flash. The United States government has already begun removing the citizens of Roswell and sweetheart had reportedly already sent out checks for double the value of the properties she intends to vaporize. Fortunately with the drastic decline in the world's population there should be plenty of places even in their own state. Real-estate in New Mexico has been bouncing up and down since Sweetheart's announcement of it being her last resting place."
The view changed from a satellite view. "However some of the evacuation and relocation efforts because as you can see from this shot millions of people are pouring into the state and heading for Roswell. Many already guessed at the location or were in Roswell to kill time while they waited for the exact time place of the show. Others are not fans of Sweetheart and refuse to abandon their homes either out of a sense of pride and ownership or because they flat out refuse to believe that Sweetheart will go through with her promises. Personally I wish those poor souls well in the afterlife.
"As for the rest, a token gesture was made by the governor to try and stop the influx but if anything more of Sweetheart's surviving fans are coming that ever before. It's their last chance to see their idol and frankly I'm not sure they'll all fit in the two mile predicted blast zone. Not everyone is even a fan. A few are just suicidal or looking for their three seconds of fame. Others have vowed to storm the stage and steal the prize from Sweetheart's fans as one last desperate attempt to thwart the will of the pop-star of pestilence. And a few vendors are setting up intent on selling as much useless junk to the patrons before hauling ass away from the concert before the bomb goes off.
"Meanwhile this reporter is going to be working the aftermath and doing a special on the end of the world as we've known it. Afterwards I have other stories to cover. The pollution scandal in Shanghai that I uncovered. The live Bunyip caught in Australia. The loss of tons upon tons of Earth's water and air to the world's space programs. Not to mention a few other celebrity secrets that might even shock Sweetheart's surviving fan base. Because for those of us left behind the world will keep on turning. Good bye and good luck."
The Final Five
Cyrus Spade: Age 65. A half Ethiopian half Dutch multimillionaire from South Africa who has secretly been gathering eggs but not claiming them until recently. His company was worth over sixteen billion dollars, but he recently liquidated it all and donated it to Sweetheart's victims, several schools for poor black people in highly racist regions in Africa, and a little for Same Sex couples in areas where the police are known to practice "corrective rape" in honor of harmony Ozark who showed Sweetheart a good time before she died. Well muscled for his age the man fights in hand to hand combat and since arising from the shadows has shown no mercy despite his philanthropic gestures.
Bobby "The Knight" Sheffield: Age 28. British former MI6 agent. Publicly claimed he was in the tournament to bring honor to Queen and Country. From a long line of British nobility he usually wore a white immaculate suit and blue tie. Favored weapon: family claymore sword.
Kyle Danvers: Age 20. The last survivor of the SSA. Kyle rose from obscurity to the top of the charts over night with skill and determination and managed to stay there even after the slaughter of his associates. With nothing left to lose he has thrown himself into Sweetheart's Tournament will gusto and managed to maintain his place in the top five despite stiff competition and a fifty million dollar bounty on his head using skill and a whip.
Tatiana "The Black Russian" Malakoff: Age 26. An extremely popular Russian singer, ballet dancer, and actress in more classical styles she is very popular in Europe and Asia, though never quite able to make it in the American, African, and Australian markets. Publicly declaring herself Sweetheart's greatest rival she admits she wished she had thought of the Tournament first. She can't do it now for fear of looking like a copycat, but she intends to use it to catapult her own popularity. If Sweetheart is a goddess she says that she will be the devil, killing her rival on stage and going with her. Destroying Sweetheart's chance at finding true love and instead dying with her greatest enemy. Trains openly with former KGB and Russian Special forces. Favored weapons: stun baton and brass knuckles.
Karla Willow: Age 15. A come from behind favorite Karla was a ballet dancer in Florida when one day she came across a temporary top-five contender Jeffrey Grace. She was merely sitting in her mother's car while the lady herself was in the bank, leaving the car running. Karla had before never considered herself really fit for the Tournament, but when she saw this long time fan of Sweetheart could not resist sliding into the driver's seat and mowing the man down, securing her place in it despite her family's horror and refusals. In the last few months she's been on a rampage against the legions lining up to try to take it away from her with surprising ferocity with a pair of steel toed and bottomed combat boots and a kick like a mule.
With more than two billions corpses under their feet these five contestants are ready to face each other down for the place on top of that pyramid of skulls right along Sweetheart.
Moses would have been impressed to see the crowd part for the Final Five. Sweetheart had flown them in via helicopter and had already her people had shot thirty people who had rushed them upon landing. Not kill shots. That would not mean much to this crowd. No, they had been shot in places that dropped them and left them writhing in agony.
Nobody got to flaunt Sweetheart's word today.
A special octagon had been set up. A steel cage match. Five people enter. One leaves.
Around them the desert spread out unhindered. The town of Roswell had been torn down by the fans. Flattened to make room and kill time until the real fun could begin. When they spread out you could see a half crushed plastic gray alien shattered on the street among other rubble. Then as they passed the people closed in again and it all vanished. The last anyone would ever see of it.
There were a few moves against them again but the five did not even flinch as shots rang out and their would-be assailants dropped. They were all calm and collected. The video clips of them were going to circle for decades, people watching their faces for any sign of weakness or stress, but for all that they were walking to the gallows there was not a sign of either.
"I have to admit, it's a shame they died," many people of both genders said later. "I'd have probably fallen for any one of them."
A lot of the attention was on the two newcomers. Cyrus was a six foot tall mass of wide shoulders and muscles with dark skin and orange hair streaking towards white. He had earned his first bit of money in street fights in one of the most racist areas of South Africa before investing it and building a fortune. He was wrinkled and dignified with a square jaw and several visible scars. He wore a black tank top of cargo pants.
As for Karla she was a skinny rake of a creature. Adorable and dressed in a black leotard. She was dwarfed by the others and looked like she should fall over in breeze, her black hair tied in a tight bun on her head. She was Cuban and looked it. Meanwhile she stomped forward in heavy books that gleamed as metallic treads hit the dust of the former town, the treads gleaming like razorblades in the spotlights shining down on the quintet. But nobody who followed the Tournament and had learned to recognize killers could miss the look in her eye or the set of her shoulders. She was invested as anyone else.
They were led to the cage right up beside the stage and there were benches inside along with a table full of a special catered dinner. Sweetheart had gotten their requests and added a few surprises of her own. There was even a door to a small portable toilet. This was their last meal after all and winners deserved something. There would be plenty of time to digest before the real show began.
All five were comfortably seated when Sweetheart took the stage, smiling out across the crowd. She was dressed in a sexy ringmaster costume, bare legs and a proper looking tuxedo style sequined one piece swimsuit under a ruby jacket that shone in the light like drops of blood and a top hat an thigh high black boots edged in gold. In one hand she was carrying a silvery metal case. She held it up as she got to the microphone stand, revealing the bomb inside. The roar of the crowd shook the area so loudly you could feel it in the ground and air and probably would have destroyed the town all on its own if there had been a building left standing. It was not as if any of them were worried about hearing loss.
"Welcome to the greatest show of our lives!"
Tatiana glared openly from her seat. She had done her own show a week before. It had been well attended, but nothing she did would ever top this. She just wanted to get up on the stage. Her fingers were white under her brass knuckles.
Kyle and Bobby looked at each other a d nodded, hands on the hilts of their own weapons but confident they would not need them right away, and then glanced at Cyrus; worried as the old man was doing one handed push ups like he was in a prison yard. Then there was a clang as Karla kicked one of the bars of the cage. It bent with sparks, her boots leaving grooves in the metal. Kyle surreptitiously felt a bar near him. An inch thick and solid. The kick was impressive and he would hate to be on the wrong end of one.
Were they the five deadliest fighters in the world? Or just lucky? It did not matter. They were here and their competition was dead. They were the kinds and queens of death waiting for their ascension to godhood beside Sweetheart. On the screen behind her and on a dozen more in the area was a countdown showing that they and everyone in the surrounding area had a little over five hours to live. The world was watching.
"The show will go on for three hours," Sweetheart said. "I'm going to sing my bloody little heart out for all of you. Then our fearsome five will have one final battle. Hopefully one of them will survive to join me on stage. For that last hour we will do whatever the winner wants while the world watches. Make love. Fight to the death. Hell if asked I will stand right here while they cut me up and you all watch. They've earned it. And then, when it is all said and done, we are all going to die!" There was another ear shattering cheer. From the circling helicopters high above it began raining pink cherry blossoms.
On stage Sweetheart gave a signal and the curtains rose showing a live band behind her. The crowd gasped as they recognized the musicians. William Gents, the lead guitarist from Jane's Revenge, the top punk rock band in England. Rachel Kidd the drummer from Lady Moffat best known for their work in movies and animated features. Tyler Road, Jeremy Watts, and Veronica Thief. Members of all the top bands.
They were three songs in, Sweetheart belting out her lyrics like a madwoman, obviously not caring about saving her voice for later. It was the most heartfelt and self destructive thing anyone would ever see a professional performer do. Later in interviews a number of voice specialists thought there was a chance she had probably overstressed her vocal chords and might have never been able to sing again, regardless of what happened. At the time though it was just amazing. Along with the dance moves and lighting and pretty much everything else. No expense had been spared and she was not holding anything back.
Suddenly things changed. Three helicopters, distinctly different from those carrying to spare screens, suddenly swooped down out of the sky. The crowd screamed, backing away as they landed, obviously not caring if they landed on anyone or that they were interrupting the concert. The rotors were deafening and the wind like a small hurricane as they landed, interrupting the start of Sweetheart's fourth number.
Men began pouring out. Maybe three or four dozen. They carried medieval weaponry. Axes and swords and poleaxes. They wore body armor in desert beige. One stepped forward, a large black man with a buzz cut and a bullhorn. Raising his sword he shouted through it. "We represent the group Star Slayers! We are here to kill Sweetheart, but not until we've seized her bomb for our righteous cause. Stand aside and you will not be hurt. Get in our way and we will not hesitate to kill you all." To punctuate the point one of the helicopters suddenly burst to life with the ratatatat of gunfire as a machine gun fired from one of the doors, killing a couple dozen people in a second. A lot of people backed away giving them a wide berth.
"What the hell is going on?" Tatiana snarled.
Bobby said, "It's obvious. These guys have waited out the competition until the bomb was brought into the open. They don't care about winning, though I suspect they won't mind being known as the ones who finished off Sweetheart, but they do want the bomb."
"Are they terrorists or something?" Karla asked.
"Who knows? Or cares?"
"He's right," Kyle said. He stood up and headed back the way they had come. The others quickly followed. "We've fought too long and hard to let anyone else interfere."
"Damn right," Cyrus grumbled.
The other fans, thinking in much the same way, quickly got over their brief fear of the weapon's fire and began to close in again around the helicopters. They had after all come here to die and if they could do it for Sweetheart rather than just with her then they were all for it. The guns fired again, mowing down more people, but this time nobody backed away and the crowd surged forward over the dead bodies of their fellow fans.
The final fight had begun early.
If there is anything real fighters hate, it's facing off against someone who is not only willing to die or who wants to, but who expects to. Someone who genuinely expects to drop dead will do crazy things that even those going out for god and country would balk at. The entire crowd expected to die in nuclear in a handful of hours. The invaders had apparently not considered that, seeing only a group of rabid fans. They had expected everyone else to run and then with their planning and equipment had expected to walk away with the prize. They were wrong.
Before the chosen ones could even act the crowd was on the intruders. They got a few shots off but there were just too many of them. Soon the gunfire stopped as did the screaming. Pieces were raised up, heads and arms, to the cheering masses. Passed around even thought hey were dripping blood.
The five competitors were left with nothing to do, until Tatiana suddenly lashed out, hitting Cyrus in the back of the head with her brass knuckles. The old man fell forward hard, hitting the ground face first. He was not moving or even breathing. The blow had been precise and devastating. She turned to the others and smiled.
"Well?"
Bobby took up the call to arms and only the sound of his sword being drawn warned Keith of an attack. He dodged to the side just in time to avoid the blade. He drew his whip and stretched it between his hands.
"No hard feelings mate," Bobby said.
Keith shrugged. "Of course not. After all there's a reason knights went out of style." He flicked his wrist and sent the whip for Bobby's face, only to have it deflected by the blade.
The two circled each other warily and were tensed to attack. Only they were distracted by a sudden scream. Karla and Tatiana had squared off as well, but Karla's deadly footwear had the longer reach. She kicked out and shattered Tatiana's shin bone, sending her screaming to the ground. With a smile she raised up a boot while the older woman was still writhing in pain and brought it down on her skull, crushing it like a coconut.
Turning to the men she said, "Who is next?"
"He is," Keith said as his whip wrapped around Bobby's neck. The knight choked, dropping his sword to try and pull it free, but Keith had the leverage and pulled the man off his feet letting him land in front of Karla.
Laughing she brought her foot down again. Between the blow and Keith's tight grip the man's head popped off, flying through the air and spraying her with blood. Karla cried out, stepping back, her foot trapping the whip under her heel.
Keith threw the whip handle at her head just as she was recovering, knocking her aside again. He dove forward and got her in a quick headlock. He hesitated, knowing that she was just a girl. Even thought hey were all scheduled to die shortly.
His indecision came to an end as her boot scraped his leg and slammed on his foot breaking a few bones. Keith screamed and his muscles flexed. He heard a soft pop as her neck broke in his grip and the girl's body went limp. Grunting in pain he tossed her aside.
On stage Sweetheart cleared her throat and he looked up. She was holding a mace, about two feet long with a large rounded head studded with spikes. "You ready for this?"
"I've been ready for a long time," he said. Looking down at the ground he saw his whip, but instead he reached down for Bobby's claymore. It scraped the ground as he lifted the heavy blade. Swallowing back the pain from his broken foot he limped to the stairs off the side and joined Sweetheart on stage.
"Any last words?" Sweetheart asked.
"I'll say them after I've skewered you."
Laughing she rushed him and Keith blocked with the blade. Despite her smaller size Sweetheart was strong and her weapon heavily weighted. He felt the blow and it stung his hands, ringing the sword like a bell. The mace was designed not to react that way, a weapon for fighting swords.
Keith was in too much pain already to care much. He gripped the sword and swung. She blocked it and stumbled back. Far enough for him to take the momentum and swing the sword in a circle, gaining enough force to slice through a small tree trunk. Sweetheart was too far away to take advantage, but she mirrored him, swinging in the opposite way so that her mace his with nearly the same force as the sword.
The thinner blade snapped when the mace hit. Sweetheart stumbled. Keith had been expecting it. The long blade shattered leaving only a jagged one foot long shard. It was enough.
While Sweetheart staggered he took what was left and drove it into her belly. It was more than enough. She screamed in pain and dropped her weapon, letting it bounce across the stage as the remains of the knight's blade pierced her body and came out her back.
Keith stepped back and looked down at her. "It's over now."
"Will be... when my heart stops." She laughed, blood bubbling out of her lips and dropping onto the stage.
Keith turned away from her and faced the crowd. He picked out a camera looking into it and grabbing the microphone. Raising it to his mouth he said to the world, "The monster is slain. And the world is once again at peace."
Behind him Sweetheart slumped forward onto the sword's hilt. She twitched a time or two before falling to her side. Her heartbeat slowing and then finally coming to a stop before the world heard a beep.
For the in the audience it was over in an instance of blinding white light. Those watching via the cameras it just saw the image cut off, going to snow. Others who watched from a distance saw the first non-test nuclear explosion on American soil, a small mushroom cloud wiping out everyone who had been at that final concert and leaving a radioactive crater lined with cooling glass in their place. A monument to death and destruction.
The End
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