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“I hit a lot
harder than she does.”
Wonder Woman, Justice League Unlimited
“Malcolm!” screamed Ruwani as she broke into a run
straight out of the car door. She nearly vaulted over the sidewalk and
jumped into Malcolm’s arms, embracing him desperately. “Thank god you’re
alive!” she cried, her face wet with tears.
“You ain’t kidding,” he laughed with an edge of
hysteria, hugging her back. He looked past her as Kim, Alan, and Brian led
Edgar over towards him. In the darkness of the empty corporate park, the
six moved close together, staying in the light of a street lamp.
“Do the others know where to meet us?” Brian asked to
Edgar as the two larger figures stood on the edge of the group.
“We stand out,” Edgar assured the student. “Trust me,
they’ll find us.”
“And they’ve got Marilyn and Victor?” Brian asked
astutely.
Edgar took a deep breath, not letting it out for a
moment. “Victor; yes,” the knight answered honestly with hesitation.
“Marilyn; I don’t know.”
Marilyn was pushed up against the cement pillar on
the divider between the tracks of the subway. In the cool, underground air,
she stiffened as the handcuffs were pushed against a set of chains. She was
pulled tightly back against the pillar, unable to get any slack to move.
“Now,” Phillip said, standing a few feet from her,
his tie blowing in the wind as two men secured her to the pillar. “Just
stay there for a moment while we do this properly.”
“Why don’t you just drug me and throw me down there?”
Marilyn asked, fighting to keep her emotional reserves. “Why are you doing
all of this?”
“Simple, really,” Phillip shrugged. He turned around
to look out at the small crowd of Hand agents just on the other side of the
tracks, standing on the platform. The powerfully-built men milled about like
a pack of wild animals fused with a demolition derby. “We want to enjoy
watching you die. The trains don’t run very frequently at this hour. The
train may not come for some time. And if it doesn’t, if the train doesn’t
do the job, the drugs will.” He stepped closer to her, so close she could
feel his hot breath against her cheek. “We want to watch you writhe in pain
as the drugs do their thing.”
Light shattered the darkness.
Aaron whirled around as the doorway opened up in the
infinite space, the familiar frame of Orson appearing in the nighttime
brilliance.
The leader of the Investigator’s Clan nearly tore
over Orson to jump out of the single room in the abandoned asylum. Aaron
pressed himself against the barrier of the railing opposite the door, glaring
at the darkness with a hatred that seemed inhuman. His entire body was
shaking, his face covered in sweat.
“Aaron,” asked Errol from his right. Aaron looked
over at him, but it took him a moment to register who it was that had
spoken. “Hey, man,” Errol said, looking at his friend and superior. “Are
you okay? What happened?”
“Nothing,” Aaron said with a breathless voice, his
body shivering uncontrollably. “Nothing happened.”
“Then why didn’t you come out?” Orson asked, kneeling
down next to Ian, the two opposite Errol. “Why did you stay in there?”
“I-I…” he started. But Aaron closed his eyes,
breathing out in forced, regular breaths. The sweat disappeared from his
brow as he focused. He stood up. He straightened his jacket and tie, a
professional face coming to his presence. “The Triumvirate is out of
contact,” he said, his voice solid now. “Whoever sent that fax, we have to
assume that it wasn’t them.”
Roland’s car pulled up into the parking lot, its
lights turned off to spare the six waiting people the glare. The tiny car
rolled up and five knights climbed out. Roland, Ledger, and Armand from the
back, with Everett and Sydney stepping out of the front.
“Where’s Victor?” Ruwani exclaimed, rushing to the
front of the World Alliance.
“We need to have some words about your poster child,”
Roland said, meeting them. “Your boy is a raving idiot that doesn’t know
when to shut up.”
As Roland spoke, Everett went around to the back of the
car and popped the trunk. Immediately, a barrage of vulgar screams came
from the back. Everett
reached into the trunk despite of the shouting and yanked Victor out from
the space. Still handcuffed, Victor was yelled at Everett, threatening unspeakable harm to
him. Everett
was mixed with indifference and growing annoyance.
“You guys stuck him in the trunk?” Kim exclaimed.
“We only had five seats,” Ledger explained
uncaringly. “And if we got seen with him, they’d stop us. We had to hide
him, for his own protection.”
“And you didn’t take his handcuffs off?” Brian asked,
looking at Victor’s hands as the college student continued to glare
silently at Everett.
“Since Houdini here seemed convinced that he had the
entire situation under control and was about to take down the entire
Brotherhood of the Sun with just a toothpick and his hands tied behind his
back, we decided to let him try,” Sydney said, obviously just as put out as
the other knights.
“I can’t believe you guys,” Ruwani yelled to the
knights.
“Believe it,” Malcolm said from the back, taking the
members of the World Alliance by surprise. He stared right at Victor,
shaking his head. “Man, you can’t think, you can’t fight; you can’t do a
goddamned thing except get us into deeper and deeper trouble. You’re a damn
liar.”
“Shut up or I’ll kick your ass, spick,” Victor yelled
at Malcolm. The word registered across the group of college students,
silencing them all. They backed away from Victor, none sure how to respond.
“Anyway,” Edgar said, after a moment of the silence.
He looked at Everett and Sydney. “We’ve still got to find Marilyn. Any
ideas where she is or where they’re taking her?” One by one, everyone
looked at Malcolm.
“Don’t look at me,” he said, holding up his hand.
“I’ve got no idea. I got knocked out by that Phillip guy.”
“Phillip?” Everett
said, looking at the Knights. “Who’s he?”
“The head of the Hand,” Malcolm said, moving past the
other Alliance
members to stand with the three knight leaders. “And he said Marilyn was
going to be a prize or something.”
“But that doesn’t help us find her,” Sydney said. She looked at Everett, a sad, but
sympathetic look on her face. “I’m sorry, Ev, but I don’t know how we’re
going to do this. She could be anywhere.”
The Hand agents stood in ordered lines before the
edge of the subway platform. Standing respectfully at attention, they
looked down at the lowered surface of the platform that Phillip and two of
his men stood atop.
Behind the trio, Marilyn waited, chained to the
pillar of cement.
“Tonight, we shall be forever rid of a thorn in our
collective sides,” Phillip yelled, his voice echoing loudly in the hard
subway halls. “Tonight, we sacrifice this girl, this traitor, to be rid of
her meddling.”
“For too long, the pawns of the Illuminati have
controlled the world,” Phillip went on, winding the Hand agents up even
more. “The UN has governed tyrannically over nations as if they were its
subjects. Corporations beyond count endeavor to greedily control society
with their brainwashing and their monopolization of lives.”
“But we stand against them,” Phillip declared. “The
Brotherhood of the Sun shall spread the brilliance of enlightenment over
the darkness of the Illuminati’s control. We shall rise up and throw off
the intended shackles of their control, and push away from the fascism of
their domination.”
With deliberate slowness, Phillip turned to Marilyn.
He held out his hand, accepting a syringe from the man to his left. “Now,
Marilyn. This won’t hurt a bit,” he said mockingly with a grin as he moved
towards her. “Well, not at first, anyway.” He took hold of her arm, his artificially-enhanced
grip hurting her as he held her firmly against the pillar. He lowered the
syringe to her arm.
A footstep.
Phillip stopped. He stood up straight, looking over
his shoulder, the point of the syringe hovering just over Marilyn’s vein. Over
the gap between the lowered median and the subway platform, past the crowd
of men, he could see through the light and darkness of the stations’ rear
wall, up into the stairwell at the far end of the station.
A footstep.
The small crowd of men turned, looking behind them.
One by one, their attention was averted from the sacrifice to the stairs.
A footstep.
The other two men with Phillip walked past him,
coming up to the edge of the median, to stand defensively before their
leader while also to see into the conflicting light and darkness of the
stairs. A footstep.
Marilyn turned her head, fighting back her hysterical
tears. Through the opening between the men before her, she could see up to
the crowd itself. She could see the apprehension and worry in their eyes.
She could also see the approaching figure himself.
Morgan stepped into the light.
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