Zephyr 14.14 “Cold Darkness”
THE SENSATION OF dislocating space-time is worse over longer distances, and coming out of the fuggy Atlantic City atmosphere and into the compressed clinical treated air of the international space station doesn’t improve things. We are in a foil-lined corridor, no visits from Kevin McCloud out here in the cold darkness of space, just a view out an unsurprisingly rare pressurised porthole at a sight that might make a lesser man crap his pants, our watery blue globe peeking out the edge, a few thousand miles of airless space in between us.
Taking a moment to swallow on the zero gravity, I turn and clasp the Pal-mart Punisher’s shoulders to stop the guy shaking himself to bits, then I hand him over to Negator with practised ease like we’ve been doing this good cop, bad cop routine for much longer than we actually have.
“Keep an out eye for him,” I tell Negator. Then to the kid: “Just hang back and don’t get yourself killed. You’re here for the PR and to earn me a pay check, got it?”
“You’re earning . . . money . . . for –”
“It really doesn’t bear thinking about,” I say and turn, striding along the cramped corridor to where the others wait.
I have to brush past Raveness first. Her breath is hot, sickly sweet on my cheek. I fear she might lean in and bite as I go past. Instead, she whispers, “We’ve still got unfinished business, you and me.”
I stop, not keen on looking cowed. Eye her up and down. “Nice to see your teeth grew back. And your eyelids.”
I leave her growling, moving into the demesne of the Ill Centurion staring down commandingly from his extra six inches, hi-tech spear at an angle to avoid piercing the precious skein surrounding us. Crescendo watches me with a wide awful smile. The Tragedian stands back like the one-man freakshow he is, ragged hood masking his face except for the sickly white chin, arms folded, wide stanced.
“Just remember there’s not much more than a kid’s Mechano set keeping us from an icy death out there,” I stage whisper.
“My armour will preserve me,” Ill Centurion replies. “I regret the rest of you are so vulnerable.”
“Let’s just not fuck this up,” Raveness growls. “Get this crap done. Get out of here.”
“And you shall get us ‘out of here,’ correct, Centurion?” Tragedian intones.
Ill Centurion doesn’t answer for a moment. His suit makes a funny raspy noise it takes me a moment longer than the others to realise is the bastard’s laughter. Still no answer though.
“I suggest we proceed,” he says.
There’s an air-lock door ahead of us. Noises. If the vague sketch of this place I looked up on Google Images before we left White Nine serves me well, we’re just outside the main nexus, which is the only place where we’ll really have room to do more than swing a dead cat. I nod back to Negator and his right fist powers up and he vaporises the door and then basically all hell breaks loose.
SUFFICE TO SAY the Prime is fucking surprised to have his orbital lair invaded. On a level with Darth Vader pissed to see the Death Star blow up, Titan is actually sitting in a chair eating a bowl of macaroni when we come through the suddenly vanquished doorway and invade his sanctum sanctorum.
For a guy with super strength and speed, what’s less surprising is his recovery time’s pretty good. At least he didn’t have his shorts around his ankles watching Chaturbate. He throws the bowl, then fires up the red eyebeams only to check himself at the last moment.
“That’s right, motherfucker,” I say and very carefully send a zap his way that throws him back against a series of consoles, the collision, whatever it does, also making the lights dim momentarily. “One wrong look from you and we’re all floating in deep space for the rest of eternity – you as well.”
The Prime growls, throwing himself low and about to pounce, but Tragedian steps forward and splays his fingers wide in a suitably dramatic gesture. Screw me Jesus if the Prime doesn’t just stand there like a mesmerised chicken, chest heaving, a tiny blob of cheese at the corner of his lip as the bowl of macaroni, now emptied of its contents, drifts back slowly across the chamber.
“You’ve . . . got him?” I ask.
“He’s mine,” Tragedian confirms. “The boy has a mind like pudding. Weak as putty in my hands.”
Ill Centurion walks forward and my head is still spinning as I watch the uncaged villain literally poke the Titan with one gauntleted finger.
“Holy shit,” I say. “My plan worked?”
Negator comes alongside, mouth agape. We swap looks. The temptation to hug briefly surfaces, but instead we high five like escapees from a 70s TV show, too cool to show anything other than our total contempt for our own awesomeness. This is, to quote my daughter, just utterly fucking amazeballs.
The Punisher shuffles forward, relief almost audible – hell, I can practically smell it on him – as he joins our myriad goggling eyes staring at the Prime held fast by the Tragedian’s mind control.
“You promised us we were gonna have a scrap,” Raveness says, low in her throat.
“Settle,” I say.
I look from Raveness eyeing me up to where Crescendo stands, gaze locked on the Punisher in what can only be a bad sign. I flick my eyes to the Ill Centurion, then catch myself, as if this guy, a world-renowned megalomaniac, is going to be the voice of reason here. And just before I can open my mouth to say anything, Raveness throws herself at me the same moment Crescendo lets rip with one of his sonic howls that throws all of us – me, Raveness, Negator, our Pal-mart friend and Tragedian – smashing back down the narrow space-station hallway, the Punisher’s head catching on one of the numerous equipment nooks and crannies and knocking himself out.
“Jesus Christ, you fucking retards!” I snap, more angry at myself for thinking this could even work, let alone being the architect of this cosmic clusterfuck.
I manage to lever Raveness off me, the crazy bitch trying to chew a hole through my neck as I scan about madly to confirm Tragedian picking himself up and looking momentarily bewildered. It’s unsettling, like seeing a parent fall over in public for the first time as age comes to claim them. The crashing and smashing going on back in the other room confirms my most immediate fear, which is quickly followed by another round of cursing as the Prime clearly decides fuck that when given the choice between mutually-assured destructions and defeat. Red beams chew past me, wall outlets ejaculating freezing sludge and air, gravity doing weird things, the rapidly shuffling air pressures playing like a kaleidoscope over my skin and my barometric senses.
Raveness gets her head in the way of me and my anger and I punch her hard, just once, my fist crackling with the power of a small, well, God knows what, but the effect is to put her lights out, no pun intended, as she caroms off the corridor wall and breaks a few more structural panels in the process.
My eyes find Negator and we share a mutual look of “holy shit did we really not see this coming?” Then I get some leverage to get up off the ground and rush back into the main atrium in time to see Ill Centurion swivel his power-spear and open up in a series of attacks that pretty much guarantee our doom.
The noise is like a wendigo howling as the far wall starts to crumple under the distorted pressure. Crescendo emits his attack back that way and for a moment I think he’s actually trying to do something useful, the sonic energy basically a kinetic power that might counteract some of the pressure we’re under. But no, the madman’s just taking pot-shots at the Prime as he spins around the room, avoiding more shots from the Ill Centurion’s spear as he gets closer to me.
If I am taking anyone with me, it’s the Prime. Yet just as I am about to pounce, Raveness gets on my back and drives me into the ground, ribs smashing into a concealed metal step that really hurts far more than I could possibly convey, even with my super-dense physiognomy, and in between trying to elbow her off me and yelling for common sense and trying to track the Prime and cringing as the far side of the chamber starts to give way and there’s a palpable sense of the whole station lurching in its suspended position above the planet, Raveness bites me on the ear and I let loose a blood-curdling howl and reverse headbutt the villainess, driving her nose into her face and hopefully killing her, but I should be so lucky. Blood raining down the inside of my collar, I wrestle free of Raveness’s grip by slipping free of the jacket I stole several days earlier, twist on the floor and double-boot her in zero-g across the room and, for a moment at least, out into space.
You see, the far wall is gone now. The fabricated atmosphere is sucked out of the room faster than a concert audience to a fight in the car park outside. But just as the full horror of her impending death dawns on the silly bitch, Negator flies out and grabs her, eyes closed against the risk of his eyes and tongue freezing fast, and drags her back inside the station.
I have no idea what she did to deserve that.
Untrammelled momentarily, I get to my feet and quickly collide with the Prime. He really is somehow a slightly more impressive version of all the other bastards who’ve been cluttering up our parallel in the past few days, so it is a struggle to wrestle him still, let alone actually do anything useful like break his arms and legs. We strain like Grecian wrestlers a moment, me snarling and him, this remote, placid, I’m-too-good-for-this-shit look on his face that only spurs my anger. He gets one brawny arm free and stiff-arms me back a pace and is about to give me the red stare of death when Negator comes in and smashes a blazing fist into the side of the dude’s head. It’s bed-time for the Prime, who slumps back into my arms unconscious.
Zephyr 14.14 “Cold Darkness” is a post from: Zephyr - a webcomic in prose
