The Post-Humans (Book 1): The League (36 page)

Athan grabbed Dereck’s tattered shirt to try and balance himself and took the chance to hit the man once more in the face.

The punch was dull and sickly, the shock glove didn’t work and he barely had the strength to carry on.

The secretary had told him that one of them had to die for the strain on the universe to ease, but Athan felt neither of them was going to survive.

Dereck’s face was so burned and mangled, he was barely recognizable. He was coughing and choking on his own blood. Both men were barely conscious and streaked in blood and black soot.

“Do…you even know what…you are doing?” Athan gasped.

Dereck shoved him backward and Athan tried to keep his balance, but his legs were weak and numb. He took tiny stumbling steps and grabbed desperately for Dereck’s shirt. His throbbing fingers clawing the fabric.

Then the world tipped upside down.

There was a sense of relief as all the strain was lifted from their bodies; everything was weightless.

The two men had fallen from the ledge and into the cold night air.

They were plummeting downward in the dark.

Slow motion.

Over and over they spun in their silent descent.

The world was a blur.

The cold air rushed up around them as they struggled with one another.

Athan had no concept of how quickly they were falling or how long it would take, only that it was done. Dereck would be destroyed, but it had cost him his own life in the process. Somehow it felt fitting. Peaceful. The way it should be.

Downward they spun.

Cold.

Emptiness.

The city lights were reflected in the glass that encased the Lucas and Associates building making the surface into an enormous mirror.

Through squinting eyes Athan watched these reflections flash. His awareness was peaked and it felt like the fall was happening in slow motion.

Then something caught his attention; there was a continuous, vertical black line cutting through the reflected lights.

A hanging cable?

He was contemplating this only a second before both of them crashed onto the window cleaner’s suspended platform.

Pain and cold.

Athan tried to get his bearings, but couldn’t loosen his grip on Dereck who was now unconscious under him.

The wind was still heavy and cold, sucking the air from his lungs. He wanted to yell or call out, but all he could do was groan and try to swallow the blood in his mouth.

It hurt to breathe.

Athan was straining his teary eyes trying to analyse his new surroundings. He was about to try and find a lever or some other way to lower the platform when there was a groan and a crack.

No…

Suddenly his stomach leapt upward as the platform’s cables came loose.

There was a creak then a rush of cold air in his face.

The platform was falling and they were falling with it.

The cables whistled over his head.

Falling again.

Athan dared to look over the edge and saw the street below rushing up to meet them, but it was a lot slower than it should be, he had channeled his ability to experience time faster than a normal person. His mind raced with the idea of being able to avoid plummeting to his death in the street, or being able to somehow miraculously survive by holding on for dear life.

He decided he must live.

Someone had to ensure that Dereck’s evil mess was cleaned up somehow, and a vision of Furnace came to mind.

He had not seen her in a few years, but the thought of meeting her after this was all over gave him a warm feeling beneath the broken ribs in his chest.

He looked over the edge again, roughly one hundred metres left.

If he was going to choose life over death, now was the time.

Four young people stumbling, walking on the street below, maybe drunk, but they were his ticket to survival. His ability to step into people like doorways was going to save him.

The roof of an old sedan was rushing up, too fast, even when Athan was seeing things happen more slowly.

Metres now.

Athan pulled his aching legs closer to his body ready to push off. He glanced one last time at the mutilated face of Dereck Lucas, as he lay unconscious. Athan thought it was almost too nice a way to die; not knowing his world was ending.

Now or never.

Athan gathered all the strength his broken body had left to make the jump. The four club goers were almost exactly in position, it was time to jump.

Athan pushed off.

His arms waving helplessly in the freezing air.

The rest of his life depended on this fall.

My future.

Humanity’s future.

The future of more than just one reality.

Kiranda.

Finally there was impact. The platform crashed into the top of the old sedan and the steel roof roared as it buckled and was crushed. The windows of the car exploded into a glittering shower around the smashed vehicle.

Athan’s trajectory took him further out from the car, closer to the middle of the road.

The club goers standing on the road cowered and recoiled as the car was smashed beside them.

Their frozen position was Athan’s way out.

If he missed and hit the ground right now, every bone in his body would shatter. Athan only saw the young man for an instant before impact.

He closed his eyes tightly and took a deep breath.

He landed on, and through the young man.

Athan came tumbling out of soft gateway onto the smooth pink ground of the subconscious landscape.

I’m alive.

Athan opened his eyes to look through the pale mist at the white glow.

The light hurt his eyes, but the leathery ground felt like a spongy mattress. He tried to roll over onto his side so he could get up, but multiple stabs of pain pulled him back to the ground.

He cried out in agony, but the crisp pale world only replied in silence.

He was totally alone.

He lay on his back breathing heavily, hoping that the different nature of the place could help repair his body.

He twitched his hands and feet and found that they were stiff and bruised. He lifted an arm carefully to look at his right hand. The shock glove was still on there, caked with dried blood and sooty black stains. He raised his left to undo the Velcro strapping that held it on.

He peeled off the glove and looked at the pale hand underneath. It looked pasty and white from his sweat, and the bruising in his hand made the rest of it look purple. He let his aching hands fall to his sides.

He wondered how many bones were broken.

ATHAN HAD CHOSEN Dempsey as an exit to return.

He could barely move, but he thought Dempsey must still be alive; otherwise there wouldn’t be an exit through his mind.

He slid into the rippling doorway, which had appeared in the leathery landscape. It had been concealed by some bony protrusions like ribs that arched around it like an avenue. It was as if the landscape was guiding his broken body to the safe route of return.

He closed his eyes as he passed the threshold, ignoring the black void around him as he slipped from one plane of reality to the next.

Dereck was dead.

He had been there when the window cleaner’s platform had fallen onto the roof of the car. Nothing could have survived a fall that violent or that far.

The machine was destroyed and the Gate closed to The Blind.

He could rest now; he was on his way home.

As he drifted he thought of his friends, he thought of The League, of Aadi and the watchers and The Blind.

His quiet world in the minds of men, the metaphysical plane where he had hidden for so long in the last few years had become an enigma, it was more of a mystery to him now, and he thought he had known it so well. He was only a very small part of a much bigger, more complex ecosystem that spanned many realities. He promised himself he would go back to the city of flesh and bone and speak to the secretary again, maybe even meet the ones that he had referred to as Gods.

Dereck was gone, and The Blind no longer had their Gate to the human plane. The universe was safe once again.

Athan slipped through his exit onto the floor of Aadi’s infirmary.

As he fell back into the human world he thought he could hear Dempsey call his name.

Athan’s eyes fluttered open.

Time had passed again.

He didn’t know how long he had been unconscious.

The room was warm and there were fluorescent lights trying to blind him. He tried to move his arm to prop himself up but he was too weak, and the pain reverberated through his body.

He let his eyes venture a flutter and they held open longer, the blur sharpening, like a hand was focusing a manual camera lens.

It was a dark flower, no, a ring of shapes.

“
What
…Where am I?” he stammered.

His lips split and stung.

“Safe, darl. You were lucky you made it after the shenanigans you pulled off. We saw some footage the guys upstairs got: you on that window washer’s platform sailing down to the ground. Can’t wait to hear how you got your arse out of that, pussy cat,” a woman’s voice chirped.

Cynthia…

“Where am I?” Athan tried again. As nice as it was hearing Deadfall’s voice, she didn’t give him specifics.

“Aadi’s place, the warehouse. He’s set up a little hospital here. You are lucky you chose Dempsey as a portal, he was sitting in here on this very bed.”

“Dempsey? He’s alive?” Athan asked trying to focus on the moving face, which he gathered was the source of the voice.

“Your friend is one tough bastard. He’s only just going to sleep. He took two bullets and got here on his own, and still stayed with you while the Doc did your stitches and bandages.”

Athan tried to moisten his dry lips. “I was worried… Are you okay? How’s Kira?”

“I’m alright. Better than you are,” a familiar voice chimed from his opposite side.

“
Kiranda?
” He said, while producing a hideous attempt at a smile. “You’re okay? You look good.”

“I’m fine. You look awful,” she said sharply, making him smile more, which brought more pain.

He felt Kiranda’s soft hand lightly touching his bruised fingers.

She felt warm.

“So glad the gang is back together,” he croaked.

“Well not everyone. Cal is gone.” Cynthia said, looking at the blur that was Kiranda. “He was wounded, but he disappeared. Aadi sent a group out for a reconnaissance drive, now it’s day light, but odds are if he’s dead or alive, he’ll end up at a hospital.”

“I…thought he’d be okay, Cynthy. Like he’d remember us or something.”

“Sorry. We are able to stay here with Aadi and his team, which is nice. We might be helpful again. Brad told us about the monsters in the subway.”

“Oh, I forgot about them…” Athan groaned.

The goblins and vampires…

He closed his eyes and was bombarded with memories of his fight with Dereck Lucas and the fall.

As long as I’m awake I’ll be fine.

“We are part of something bigger now Athan,” Kiranda said, lightly squeezing his hand, “something that gives us a purpose, and if it wasn’t for you, we would still be blindly trying to survive out there being heroes and hiding in plain sight. This is a new beginning,” Kiranda sounded a little teary.

Athan remembered that night so many years ago when they sat on the roof talking about who they were and where their place was in the world. He thought of Brad a few days ago, telling him that he felt like he was asleep.

Now he was awake.

The League was awake.

This was the way it is supposed to be.

He gently turned his head toward the voice of Kiranda and whispered, “there’s always a place for us Kira, there’s a place for everyone.” After which he felt a light kiss on his forehead, which made his bruised body tingle all over.

“I missed you too,” she said.

His consciousness rode the stream of tingles like a raft down a torrid river until he drifted away into another dreamless sleep.

ONE HAND IN front of the other.

Dereck Lucas could barely move, his whole body was wracked with so much pain that it could not be described as pain any longer, it was like a weight was on top of his body holding it down and squeezing it from all sides.

He stretched another arm out and dug his fingernails into the asphalt and tried to pull his weight a little further.

He could hear the wail of sirens in some nearby street, but he couldn’t tell which, he was completely disoriented.

“
He…elp…
” He gasped.

He felt like he was in one of those nightmares where no matter how loud you tried to be, you can only manage a whisper.

Am I even alive?

He wasn’t sure, but he was certain of the weight of the pain.

The streets were lit with street lamps and neon signs for various bars and eateries, yet the streets were empty of people.

Dereck stopped a moment to catch his breath and try and swallow. He saw a person in the shadows, two people.

They looked at each other and looked back at him. They must have been tourists of some kind, too drunk to make sense of an injured man of the ground needing help.

“
He… He… elp
.” He gasped again in their direction.

He realized then that he wanted water, or anything to drink, preferably water. It dawned on him that he’d never had a craving for water before.

The figures in the shadows didn’t come closer; one of them crouched as if they were gauging the distance to where he lay.

Damn it
, thought Dereck, taking a wheezing breath.

He thrust the next hand forward and buried his fingertips into the asphalt before pulling with what little strength he had left, eyes screwed tight in agony.

Then there was the cold grip around his wrist. He opened his eyes to look at his extended arm. It was bruised and caked in dry blood except for a set of bony white fingers wrapped tightly around it.

“
Help?
” He tried to say as he was dragged quickly up over the curb and down an ally.