17

It turned out they had a minor league telepath, and it really sucked to be them.

Logan didn’t see them until later. He just felt the sudden and violent intrusion in his mind while he was punching and slashing his way through the remaining members of Black Fire that decided attacking him was a wiser decision than running (they were idiots). But as they barged in, the blue energy seemed to rear up in his mind, and push back, totally independent of him.

He wasn’t sure if he’d heard the scream in his mind alone, or out loud. It was hard to tell, and it didn’t matter. But after the surge, a song fragment kicked up in his mind, something from Bob’s memory: “I don’t have a god complex, you have a simple god.“ That sounded like Bob’s motto; he bet he had it on his business cards.

He wasn’t even sure what the powers were of half his opponents, because he felt high on all the energy coursing through his body, almost possessed, hardly of this world. He wasn’t sure if concentrating on finding the power or if the fact that Timebomb blew his chest up was responsible for unleashing it, but he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to put the genie back in the bottle. He felt like he was barely hanging on to himself as the power carried him along on a wave of something like bliss, and he was content to let it do the fighting for him. He could see how easy it was for Jean to get lost within Camaxtli; the power was intoxicating, the world’s most powerful drug.

Upon leaving the complex, he came across a man on the floor twitching, blood leaking out his ears to form a deep puddle in which his head rested. The telepath? Most likely. Shouldn’t have tried to mindfuck an active avatar - that was just asking to get a brain enema.

Once he was back upstairs, he kicked open the front doors of the factory, shattering the lock, and walked safely out of the minefield, vaguely aware that at least one had gone off, leaving a huge crater in the ground. Animal? Or had someone fled and not been careful enough? Maybe he should have checked it out, but honestly he didn’t care.

He walked back to what passed for civilization, feeling like no time had passed at all. He started feeling everyone around him, every living thing, and he wasn’t sure how to block it out. On the outskirts of Rasiva, as the city grew large, the feelings became almost unbearable. How did he manage this? How did he block it out? It wasn’t painful; right now it was just annoying. But it was increasing, and he knew it was a matter of time.

He noticed a very small, modest building with peeling paint and some minor scorching on its far side - not unusual for the buildings around here - but it had a peaked roof, and in a little niche in the outside wall, he saw a small cement Buddha, sitting cross-legged and looking serene, in spite of some minor blast damage. Had to be a Buddhist temple, no matter how small and pathetic it was; probably not a huge call for it Asrahar, where the Hindus, Muslims, and Christians preferred slugging it out between themselves. But he realized this could be his salvation.

He walked in, and found himself alone, at least for now. The interior was small and low lit, using hurricane lamps instead of just plain old candles, which was just smart considering how erratic the electricity was, and how fanatics of many faiths had a penchant for firebombing, and you hated to just give them an easy way to light Molotov cocktails.

The walls and floor were poured concrete, the air still stinging with the smoky odor of incense, and there was a narrow aisle created by about a half dozen folding chairs on either side of the room. The aisle ended at a small altar, where there was nothing much beyond a small statue of a standing Buddha flanked by two unlit candles, with a tiny stick sticking out of a small ceramic square (an incense holder) near by. Probably weren’t a hell of a lot of Buddhists in Rasiva - it was hard to search for enlightenment when you were getting randomly shelled.

There was a threadbare strip of red carpeting before the altar, it could have been a bathmat, but he knelt down on it, almost collapsing, and held his head between his hands. He felt a bit distant from all others now, the pressure had eased a bit, but damn it, there was a spider living up in the corner of the room, and a mouse was in the back room, and outside there were birds in the scraggly stand of trees….

“Goddamn it goddamn it goddamn it,” he repeated as a kind of mantra, trying to will emptiness into his mind. It wasn’t working, it was hard to meditate when your mind was starting to overload, so he decided to do another visualization thing. He visualized the blue light as filling the room, and then began to shrink it, a ball of imploding light, growing smaller and smaller. But while he was visualizing it, he didn’t feel like it was actually getting better. His skin prickled with the feeling of a thousand needles, actually just the feelings of other people, but it was a physical thing that seemed to be eroding him from the outside in.

He visualized trapping the power in a metal box, but he could feel it wasn’t working, the light was bursting through the seams, and he could feel the heat of it on his face -

- and suddenly he was looking over the water at the Sydney Opera House, the smell of saline burning his nostrils as a warm breeze caressed his skin. Huh?

Looking around, he found himself sitting at a table on a large balcony overlooking Sydney Harbor, and on the other end of the balcony, standing in from of a barbecue grill, was Bob. “Gettin’ a bit much for ya, huh?” he said casually, putting brightly colored slices of … well, something on the grill. He heard a resounding sizzle in response. He caught it on the breeze, smelled like vegetables and … fish? Really? He was grilling fish?

Logan scratched his head, and finally asked, “What’s going on?”

Bob retreated inside briefly - his sliding glass door was open - and after a moment came back out carrying a large can of beer. He seemed to be wearing khaki shorts and a blue tank top beneath a red barbecue apron that had on it, in white letters “No it’s not a spatula, I’m just happy to see you”. Beneath it was the illustration of a comically large spatula.

As he gave him the can of beer, Logan said, “You make those up, don’t you?”

Bob looked down at his apron and shrugged. “I used to, but I don’t really have to anymore. The world’s finally catching up with me. It’s a beautiful feeling.”

“I would have said scary, but whatever. Look, what’s going on? Is this some kind of failsafe?”

He went back to the grill and picked up a pair of tongs, which he used to flip some stuff over. He really couldn’t see what was on it, but Logan figured he was better off that way. “In a way, yeah. Humans aren’t really meant to take on god power, it’s just too much. I knew you could take it physically, but I knew mentally it was bound to start drivin’ you bonkers. Sorry about that, mate. There really wasn’t much I could do about it.”

“You can’t feel that stuff all the time.”

“No, I don’t. I’ve learned how to block it out, much like you’ve learned to block out men’s rooms and loud televisions. You live with something long enough, you find a way to get used to it.”

He cracked open the beer and took a swig. It felt cold, and he could actually taste it. He couldn’t fault Bob for his control of mindscapes; he did ‘em better than telepaths, but then again, he should.

A very large albatross suddenly landed on the balcony’s rail, and folded in its large winds, turning its head to fix him with a skeptical, ink black eye. “You took your time,” Bob said, and produced a plate with what looked like a fish head on it. He held it out to the small dog sized seabird, and said, “Now be nice. No picking on smaller birds.”

The albatross picked the fish head up in its beak, and quickly took flight, its wings kicking up an impressive breeze as it rose into the bright blue sky. Bob just turned away and set the now empty plate on a small side table, turning his attention back to the grill. He was now brushing sauce on something, like he hadn’t just been talking to a bird. “Uh, what’s with that Doctor Doolittle shit? The last time I had your power, swans seemed to like me.”

Bob rolled his shoulders nonchalantly, attending to his food. “Animals know I’m not Human or demon. They know I won’t hurt them, and they’re pretty cool with that.”

“And they listen when you call them up?”

Bob looked at him with that big, smart ass grin, the one that seemed to say that the world was a colossal joke that only he got. “I can always be understood by anything above a single celled organism. That’s the good part of being a Power.”

“I thought being un-killable was also a benefit, but you managed to fuck that up.”

That made him chuckle, although he turned away to grab some clean plates. “Technically I ain’t dead, though. I’m comin’ back soon - you’ll see. Hell, you know the day you don’t wake up with the power anymore.”

“I’ll be lookin’ forward to it. Hey, are you grilling fish?”

“Certainly am. It’s grilled halibut with my special mystery sauce. And no, that’s not a double entendre.”

Logan shook his head, taking another swig of his beer. “And suddenly I’m not hungry.”

Bob continued to laugh softly, loading up a plate. “Oh come on, have a sense of humor.”

“I do, but you grossed me out.”

He came over and put down a plate in front of him, still giving him that smart ass grin. There was the thick slice of halibut coated with an amber colored sauce speckled with bits that could have been pepper, but smelled like more, and grilled chunks of red pepper, potatoes, and leeks, as well as slices of tomatoes and pineapple. It did smell good, and he realized he was hungry, but that could be Bob’s doing. Oh hell, this was all Bob’s doing anyways, wasn’t it?

He picked up his fork and dug in, surprised at how good it tasted, but belatedly aware that on a mindscape, everything would be perfect. Bob took off his apron, balling it up and tossing it aside, as he sat down across from him, with his own plate and can of beer. “I really gotta invite you over for a real barbie once I get back. It’s not nearly as good as my trifles, but almost. Oh, you haven’t had any of them yet, have ya?”

He raised an eyebrow at that. “Trifle of the gods?”

“Ha. Yeah, something like that. The secret’s triple whipped cream. Oh, and manna.”

“Of course.” They ate in silence for a moment, and then Logan asked, “What’s happening to me?”

“Right this second? This is a built in default mechanism. The power’s returning to dormancy, although you can activate it again if you want to. But you’ll probably end up at some point back here with me.”

“Yer tryin’ to scare me straight, is that it?”

That made him smile. “Well, sure, look at it that way and just break my bloody heart. Where are you?”

“Real world? Buddhist temple.”

“Oh, good choice. They’ll probably think you’re meditating.” He paused to take a swig of his beer, and then added, “I’ve always liked Buddhists, you know. They seem to have the right end of the stick. No creator gods, just kindness towards your fellow man, inner peace, tolerance, et cetera. When did you become a Buddhist?”

He shrugged, using his fork to cut into the grilled pineapple slice. “I’m not sure I ever was one. I think I musta wanted to be at some point, ‘cause I seem to know some shit about it, and I thought of myself as a failed Buddhist. Jeeze, with all that non-violence and belief in karma, I wonder why I failed.” He rolled his eyes at the thought. Sometimes he could be a real idiot. “Although you know, if karma actually does exist, it explains my life completely.”

“Now come on, that’s not fair. I have a theory on why you tried it - want to hear it?” He actually didn’t wait for him to say yes or no, but he wouldn’t; he was Bob, after all. “Something was really starting to get to you. We know you were in a World War or two, right? Maybe some of the things you had to do were gettin’ to you, maybe you were having nightmares, couldn’t sleep, you know the deal. You must have had some experience with a Buddhist temple before - a monk was nice to you, you were in one and loved the architecture or the silence, something like that - so when you decided you had to do something or go nuts, you went there. It must have helped you regain some peace of mind, or you wouldn’t still have a fondness for them.”

He shrugged, then reluctantly nodded. It did make more sense than anything. He just wasn’t a religious kind of guy (which made the fact that he was an avatar for a god pretty fucked up). “I musta been really screwed up if I couldn’t figure out that the religion that didn’t believe in killing things wouldn’t work for me.”

“Don’t be like that. If you were the unrepentant killer you like to paint yourself as, I wouldn’t be hanging out with you. Also, you’d never have tried to find a way to salve your conscience.”

He stared at him. “Need I remind you you’re a weapons dealer in L.A.? I’m pretty sure you hang with killers all the time. Not to mention the fact that gods seem to be the biggest heartless killers of all.”

“Oh sure, nitpick,” he replied, then gave him a half-smile, the corner of his mouth quirking up as he chewed on a piece of red pepper.

“By the way, you couldn’t mention you’re the god Kama? Is Bob really that much better a name?”

It was his turn to shake his head and roll his eyes. “Kama is not my name, it’s just what some people call me; I have a whole bunch of different names. Oh, and I never made that guy sleep with his daughter. Total bullshit, as well as eww.”

Was that somehow involved with the Kama myth? Now he was curious, but he knew that Bob probably wouldn’t talk about it. “So what other names do you go by?”

“If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.”

“Come on, man, one name. You know too fucking much about me already, at least reciprocate.”

He huffed a sigh through his nose, chewed a bite of his fish, and after mulling it over, said, “Awha.”

Logan sat forward, not sure he heard him correctly. Was he choking? “What?”

“Awha, the Maori storm god. Got saddled with that a long time ago.”

He was almost positive he was joking, but he was so deadpan it was hard to say. “How the fuck do you go from Hindu sex god to Maori storm god?”

“Now hold on - I wasn’t a “sex god”. Kama was all about the desire thing, love -”

“Sex.”

“Stop being such a man. There’s a lot more to it than that and you know it. And how I ended up getting called Awha, well that’s a long and boring story. Kama’s just kinda complicated …”

Logan shook his head, smirking at the thought of Bob appearing both Indian and Maori. Funny thing was, he could see it in both cases - it would be a minor alteration of skin, hair, and eye color - and he would still look fabulous. It wasn’t fair, but hey, that was one of the perks of being a god.

“Don’t think I forgot the topic you were trying to steer me off of,” Bob said, pointing a fork full of fish at him. “Yasha called you a samurai for a reason. Think about it, without the self-pity.”

“What the hell do you mean the self-pity?” he exclaimed crossly, but he didn’t really get an answer, as he woke up with his head down on the floor. He was still in a seated position, so as he sat up and looked around, he figured if anyone had seen him, they might have thought he was confusing Buddha with Mecca. But there was no one else here, or at least not in the main room of the temple, and while he could hear the birds singing outside, he could no longer feel them, which was a relief. Still, he missed the feeling of floating inside his own skin, riding a smooth wave of electric bliss.

But the real funny thing was he thought he could still taste beer and pineapple.

About a quarter of a mile from the temple, he waved down a taxi and got a lift into Rasiva. The driver kept looking at him funny in his rearview mirror, and he wasn’t sure why until he realized his clothes had dried on him a bit funny, and they also smelled of the river (not good), and there were a few blood splatters on him, although he supposed he could pass them off as mud. (Or, judging by how he smelled, something else.)

Once he got to the hotel he went straight up to his room, ignoring the startled looks of the staff in the lobby, and took a long, hot shower, washing off all the evidence.

He tried not to think of anything as he cleaned off, threw away his torn, smelly, and otherwise ruined clothes before putting on some clean one and packing his shit up. There wasn’t much packing that needed doing, as he’d hardly unpacked. He then went downstairs and got his case out of the hotel’s safe, the one with the sat phone in it.

When he punched in the code, he had no idea who would pick up on the other end of the world (if it was there they were answering - technically, they could be next door), but the male voice that answered sounded kind of like Lafayette. “Alpha channel.”

That’s what he was supposed to say. It was all prepared; there was only one way to really do it. “Beta responds,” he said blandly. “Requesting immediate extraction.”

“Already?” Lafayette replied, breaking the robotic mood. But he quickly got back on script. “Request received.”

Logan hung up the phone. It was unlikely that anyone would intercept a sat phone transmission, but it was always better safe than sorry. He returned the phone to the case and the safe, and gave the guy at the front desk the name of the person who would pick up the case for him. It was, of course, someone who worked for military intelligence (a contradiction in terms) who would retrieve it.

He settled his knapsack on his shoulder and headed outside, into a warm and disturbingly muggy day. The air was so thick with the scent of exhaust, unwashed bodies, and vendors cooking food at open kiosks that had just mysteriously appeared (and would mysteriously disappear by nightfall) that he could barely separate out a single scent. But maybe that was okay, given the propensities for unpleasant smells.

He saw Ali approach him sheepishly, nervously, holding out a wadded bundle of leather. “Here’s your coat back.”

He waved it off. “Keep it.” He saved enough cash out for the taxi ride to the airport, and handed her the rest of the cash, a fairly impressive wad of bills. She looked surprised and wary over the bills, but reached out quickly to snatch it away, like the whole thing was a booby trap.

“So, uh … what about the others?”

“They’re not gonna be a problem anymore.”

She tucked the money in her pocket, nodding an swallowing hard, her eyes not meeting his. “Good. Umm … I didn’t tell anybody about … you know. You.”

He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter if you did or didn’t now. But thanks.” He started to turn away, but something nagged at him, and he knew what it was. Damn it! He could leave this kid here, scrounging a meager existence; he could. He shouldn’t feel guilty - he just gave her what was probably a year’s salary in this country. Still …

A man brushed past him on the sidewalk, and suddenly his attention was pulled away, mostly because the man reeked of plastique, fertilizer, petrol, and flop sweat. He turned sharply, and snapped, “Hey!”

The guy kept on walking, but Logan darted after him, pretty sure the guy was going to bomb something if he hadn’t bombed something already. Before he reached him, which was more difficult in the crowd, the man turned and aimed a gun at him. His eyes were wide and his hand was shaking; he was so scared he looked like he was about to plotz. “Stay away from me,” he hissed, trying to sound tough, and basically failing.

The funny thing was, few in the crowd noticed his weapon or cared much. There had been too much violence in everyday life; people were just inured to it.

Logan just glared at him, scoffing in disbelief. “You wanna shoot me? Shoot me! C’mon, it’ll be funny.”

The people were parting around them now, avoiding them, and Logan took a step forward as the man - a boy really, maybe about nineteen, in anonymous pale khaki pants and a loose similarly colored tunic - took a step back. He didn’t understand why Logan wasn’t scared, why the showing of the gun didn’t make him back off.

Logan took advantage of that confusion, closing the gap between them quickly, ripping the gun out of the kid’s hand at the same time he slammed a flattened palm into his face, shattering his nose. With a little more pressure, he could have shoved the bone up his sinus cavities and killed him, but dead guys rarely gave you any answers.

The kid reeled, and Logan shoved him up against the wall, pinning him with a forearm to the throat. He let the gun press into the boy’s midsection, an implicit threat. “Where’s the bomb?” he spat into his face. He wouldn’t be this nervous if it had gone off yet.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Ali cried, sounding as mortified as a teenager whose mother just announced her chronic acne problem to her latest crush. “What bomb?”

The kid was continuing to stare at him in wide eyed confusion, like he just didn’t get him at all. “There’s no bomb,” he said, so obviously lying he didn’t even try and hide it.

Logan backhanded him across the face, clipping him on the jaw with the butt of his own gun. “Wrong answer. Where’s the fucking bomb?”

“Why do you think he has a bomb?” Ali asked, puzzled. “Can you … are you a mind reader or something?”

The boy squirmed, no matter how hard Logan pressed on his throat, and he could feel his pulse in his neck, rapidly climbing upward. “You have to let me go,” he insisted, not even caring that Logan was threatening him with nothing short of death.

He knew why he had to let him go - the bomb was about to go off. Shit! He didn’t even have time to question him. “Get off the street!” he shouted to the crowd, looking up and down the block. “There’s a bomb! Get outta here!”

He got a lot of puzzled, startled glances, some of them betraying a great deal of annoyance. They were wondering why some stupid white man was shouting about a bomb, he could see it in their expressions. They thought he was mad, or a paranoid racist, or both. Even if he told them he could smell it on this man, strong and fresh, they probably wouldn’t believe him.

It didn’t matter.

It was a car bomb, and it went off with a flash and a roar that sounded just like the explosion in the canyon, only more compressed. He dropped the boy and grabbed Ali, pushing her against the wall as he crouched down and covered her with his body, hoping to take the brunt of the damage.

The car was parked down the block from them, but close enough that the shockwave felt like a brutal hit, and he felt hot debris pepper his back, but none were too sharp or too big. They were minor debris, fragments rather than shrapnel. It was possible Ali screamed, but he didn’t know, as the sound of the explosion temporarily deafened him, as it must have everyone on this street. But his hearing was returning with a white noise hum, and he heard that debris was still falling to earth, as was glass from windows. Looking up, he saw that nearly all the buildings around them had lost their windows, the glass all but disintegrated with the sudden, tremendous force. It wasn’t like they were even thickly paned around here; no one could afford it. What was left of the car frame burned, along with several of the cars parked near it, and the air was rapidly darkening with acrid smoke.

He sat back on his haunches and turned Ali around. “Are you okay?”

She looked at him dazedly, as if she couldn’t hear him yet, but she did read his lips, and nodded numbly. She was scared, but she was not new to this in the least. Rasiva got a car bombing every two weeks or so, as rival religions or gangs or both used the crudest and deadliest weapon they could cobble together. It didn’t even make the international news anymore, unless it was a slow day for the BBC world service.

He jumped back to his feet, and noted with some grim satisfaction that the initial shockwave had knocked the bomber off his feet. He was up now, though, blood still sluicing from his ruined nose, and Logan grabbed him before he could make a run for it. “What the fuck was this for?” he shouted into his face, just in case he couldn’t completely hear yet either.

There was a slightly glazed look in his eyes, like maybe he was in a bit of shock himself. “God is great,” he replied blandly, as if by rote.

“Oh fuck you,” Logan exclaimed, snapping a right uppercut that caught him just under the jaw, and knocked him clean off his feet before he hit the pavement, as well as knocking him unconscious before his head bounced on the cracked asphalt. “I know gods, and they’re all fucking assholes.”

He turned and looked at the destruction, the smoke making his eyes water. None of the buildings were on fire or had collapsed, which was good, but all the food kiosks looked as if they had vaporized, and there was a huge crater in the street that had also eaten up part of the sidewalk. It was maybe five feet deep, about nine feet across.

He stepped out on the street, wondering if there was anyone left to help. He saw lots of body parts, but few whole ones, and the smell of burning metal, gas, and flesh seemed to stab into his brain like knitting needles. But he thought he saw movement beneath a twisted car door (roughly fifteen feet from its car), and went to check it out.

“What are you doing?” Ali shouted at him, sounding both scolding and on the verge of hysteria. “Sometimes there’s a second bomb! We need to get out of here!”

“You go! These fuckers can‘t kill me,” he shouted without looking back. There was someone under the warped car door, an older man, still alive but clearly in shock. He also reeked strongly of blood, and Logan was sure he was pretty seriously injured.

He ripped the car door off him, and was about to ask where he was hurt when he saw for himself. His right leg below the knee was severed, and laying parallel to the rest of his body. Blood was spurting from the stump of his leg, and it had already formed a sizable puddle.

If there was the possibility of a second bomb, he had to get him out of the street. “This might hurt,” he told him, crouching down. “I’m sorry.” Logan slipped his hands under his arms and started to pull him towards the sidewalk on the other side of the street, lifting him up as much as he dared (he could technically lift him all the way up, but then the blood would spew out his leg even faster).

“I can’t feel my legs,” the man said, his voice reflecting the cool neutrality of total shock. “Is there something wrong with my legs?”

“You’ll be all right,” he told him, which wasn’t an answer at all. He propped the man up against a relatively undamaged building, far from any other parked cars, and with the least amount of shattered glass he could find. He needed to staunch the blood flow, and he knew a tourniquet was his best bet, so he ripped the sleeve off his shirt, and used it for that, tying it tightly around his leg just above the knee.

“Now my leg hurts,” the man complained, his complexion a frightening chalky white, his eyes far away.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he assured him. Actually, if he could feel the pressure of the tourniquet, that was good.  It meant he hadn’t suffered any spinal damage.  Now, if those fucking ambulances would just get here and get him to a hospital, he might actually be okay after a transfusion.

He sensed someone behind him, and turned to see Ali standing there, tears streaking her dirty face, and holding up a jagged piece of metal, roughly triangular, about three and a half inches long. “You had this in your back,” she told him. “It fell out.” He knew the tears were from the smoke, but she had a kind of shocky look in her eyes as well.

He wanted to shrug, but he got the sense she required something else from him. But he honestly didn’t know what. “I didn’t even feel it. Couldn’t have hit anything major.”

She dropped the piece of shrapnel, which seemed to ring as it hit the street, and finally he heard sirens in the distance, growing rapidly louder. “I don’t wanna live here anymore,” she said almost breathlessly, sounding strangely defeated.

He wished he could blame her, but he didn’t, not one bit. He didn’t know how she had stood it for this long. “You don’t have to,” he promised.

He didn’t know how he’d explain it to Canadian intelligence, but at this rate, he didn’t give a fuck. He did them a favor - they owed him at least one.

But he was going to be sure to let them know they owed him much, much more.