Intro: Comparison
Aug. 29th, 2009 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthThe original and first drafts. (see previous post) As I say there - if you're curious and just want to read it, I suggest you read the next post, not this one; if you then are still curious, and crazy, and have way too much time on your hand, take a peak at the earlier versions. They're not different enough to be truly rewarding, but I at least am finding it interesting...and it's my journal, so that means you're all stuck with it, too. ;)
The Original Version
I originally wrote this just for the hell of it, and at the time didn't really think I'd be writing the full novel - at least, not for a while. I posted it in LJ on April 21st, 2008, which was within a day of when I finished it.
Reading through this, the first thing I note is...a lot more spoilers. I was way more subtle in later versions. That said, I also found definitive proof that this ISN'T the original version. In the very original, there was a bit about looking up at the stars and moon, in flagrant denial of the rain, whose existence I'd previously established. Guess that very original version got demolished. ;)
The Future is Prologue
June 5th, 1956
John Smith might never be certain when he’d reached a new world but for the smell. No matter how similar two dimensions might be, there was always a moment when he first arrived after a jump where he knew fundamentally that where he was now was different from where he’d been before, because in those first instants before he acclimated to his new environment, the air would smell different. At first, he had thought that this was due to pollution, the change in location, that sort of thing, but after so long he was convinced that it was something more fundamental than that. Atmospheres were just some how slightly different, even across two worlds that appeared, on the surface, to be identical.
This dimension might have been identical to the one he left, too, but for the current year. The newspaper put the date as the 5th of June, 1956; a time and world jump from mid-May, 1944. He wondered when he had started to think of the 1940’s, of that dimension, as home. It didn’t matter, he supposed, though he knew it must have something to do with her. All that did matter was that he’d be returning there as soon as he was done with his business here.
Newspapers were always a good place to start; with that in mind he put a nickel in the meter and pulled out a paper. Doc had asked for his help, the usual trans-dimensional demon nonsense that seemed to attract Doc like honey brought bears, but also in typical Doc Hollywood fashion, no indication had been given of where in the world the help would be needed, what day the emergency would take place, whether the world in which John would be arriving was safe or not, if the air would be breathable, or any of a number of other details. He held out hope that some place, buried deep in the newspaper, would be the tidbit he’d need to steer him in the right direction. He had a knack for finding such tidbits. If there was any hint at all, he’d know.
Before he’d gotten to looking through the back pages where such information usually was, though, he was struck by the headline. “THE WANDERER STRIKES AGAIN!” it exclaimed. “POST OFFICE BOMBED IN LITTLETON, ARKANSAS. LINK TO PREVIOUS ATTACKS STILL UNKNOWN.” With a twinge of nerves, John looked to see where he was. Not in Arkansas, he noted with relief. John didn’t know what would happen if he met a different version of himself during one of his transdimensional forays, but he knew enough to know that the world might not exist after the encounter, and that was more than enough to quash his curiosity about the matter. It didn’t bother him. He was an asshole, and really had no interest in meeting himself, or having anything to do with himself, if he could help it. Still, it was always interesting to note that John Smith, the Scout, did not tread large in the newspaper headlines of different dimensions, but that “the Wanderer” did. How had he avoided becoming that person, while so many of his alternates fell prey to their anger, their hostility, their resentment of the establishment, and felt driven to tear that establishment down?
Shaking off his thoughts, John glanced down the street on which he stood. It was a dusty main street in a small town which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere – the newspaper suggested that it was in Lansing County without indicating what state this might be in – and headed over to a classically rundown diner in order to sit and read the paper. The waitress looked at him as if she’d never seen a customer before, but she brought him a cup of coffee and a plate with eggs and toast without taking his order. He ignored them as he read the paper.
Sure enough, nestled among stories about foreign countries that no one cared about were the bits and pieces that he needed in order to construct what was actually going on. Few people in this dimension, in any dimension, would have been able to recognize them for what they were, but John’s instincts were spot on for such things, and he had learned through years of experience not to doubt his intuition. Doc was right; something was definitely going to go down. The Black Man was going to make an appearance, this time in California. But where in California? John looked through the entire paper again, finding another hint in a shoe ad on page 4. San Francisco. The schedule for the nearest movie theater – which was in the next county over – made it clear that John had only until that evening to get there. Muttering a curse, he set the paper down. Reaching in to his pocket, he withdrew a twenty that hadn’t been in there a moment before, left it negligently on the table, and left.
It didn’t take him long to find a car for sale, and only little longer for him to purchase it. Most people don’t ask twice when you offer them a wad of cash twice what they were asking for. Money didn’t matter much to John; he could always get more. Within the hour, he was on his way to sunny California.
It was raining when he arrived in San Francisco. Night was falling. Driving up Haight, he parked just by on Ashbury. It wasn’t a legal spot – it was too busy an area for that – but that didn’t matter, he’d never need this car again. If he was going to find Doc any where, it would be at the intersection.
At first, he didn’t see anyone there. The rain seemed to have forced most of the foot traffic inside. With a sigh, he acknowledged that it really was a pretty annoying drizzle, rapidly growing in to a down pour, and though it bothered him to use his powers so pointlessly, the idea of spending the entire rest of what was likely to be a long evening sodden through was utterly unappealing, and so he reached for an umbrella, the biggest one he could manage. Reaching across the dimensions, his powers sought out what he pictured in his head and Snatched one; it appeared in his hand silently. It would return to it’s place or dimension of origin once he stopped thinking about it – the man who sold the him the car was probably already cursing and wondering who had robbed him – but in the interim it was as real as everything else around him. However, as sometimes happened, this time the result wasn’t quite what he had in mind, a heavy (almost exactly at his maximum of 5 pounds) brightly colored beach umbrella. It would keep the rain off, though. He tried to ignore the giant bright neon pink and green daisies on it.
“It suits you, Scout,” said a suave voice behind him with unsuppressed humor lacing it. The speaker walked out of the shadows. It wasn’t that John hadn’t seen him there; he simply hadn’t been there a moment before.
“It keeps me dry,” replied John. “I thought I’d find you here.”
Doc Hollywood smiled, flourishing a bow. The rain didn’t seem to hit him. Doc took lucky to new heights. No shield kept the rain away from him, no magic or psionic barrier; luckily, though, none of it hit him, mussed his suit, or damaged is suede shoes. “You know me too well.”
“What’s different about this time? You don’t usually ask for help with the Black Man.”
“I don’t need help with the Black Man,” Doc replied. Doc had once been a hero like Scout, but in time his purpose had changed as he’d learned more about the Demon of Crossroads, and now it was his continual personal mission to thwart the Black Man wherever and whenever he might appear. Chasing the Demon across dimensions was a full time job, though, and Doc’s friends from his time and place rarely got to see him any more. Only those, like John, who were also travelers passing through the Golden Age had the opportunity to see Doc outside of that place and time.
“Then why am I here? Marie needed my help, though she lied her face off about it when she found out that you needed me.”
“Now, now, Scout,” chided Doc in an exaggerated way, “Enigma is a big girl; she was taking care of herself before she ever met you, and she’ll continue to take care of herself. You’ve been over protective recently.”
“I have a right to be,” snapped John. “She’s my wife.”
“Ah, domestic tranquility,” gushed Doc. Everything Doc said, he went over the top. It was his actor’s background. Or, perhaps, it was what had drawn him to acting.
“Doc,” John smiled, “are you going to tell me why you asked for my help? It seemed pretty important that I get here by midnight, and that’s coming right up.”
“Ah, right,” Doc nodded. “I don’t need help with the Black Man. But there is a very powerful demon currently in San Francisco who would help him if she gets wind of it. I need you to keep her busy until I’ve finished at the Crossroads.”
“No problem. Anything I should know about this demon?”
“Nope. You’ll know her when you see her, I think, she’s not very subtle. And you’re uniquely suited to deal with her.”
John flicked an eyebrow but said nothing. That there was something more going on than met the eye was obvious. Doc enjoyed playing games just a bit too much. John just wished he knew what the current game was, and why Doc masked behind his good humor such a strange mixture of amusement and sadness. John refused to ask, though. After a moment, Doc sighed emphatically. “You aren’t any fun at all, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Scout said as dryly as he could.
Doc quirked his head to one side as if listening for something. In answer, the sound of nearby gunfire echoed loudly through the streets, mingling oddly with the sound of the steady rainfall, and lights began to flip on in nearby windows. Doc smiled secretively, and directed his gaze on John once more, waiting.
John was tempted not to say anything, but the gun fire didn’t cease, and for all that he hated playing in to Doc’s games, there were lives at risk. “What’s that?” he asked as if reciting a scripted line.
“Your queue,” replied Doc dramatically with a flourish of his hand. “And thanks,” he added with a wink.
“For going and dealing with it?”
“No, for saying your line,” and with that, Doc turned back towards the shadows.
Chuckling slightly, John looked around for a moment and spotted what he wanted – a motor bike was sandwiched in between to huge clunkers nearby. Tossing aside the umbrella and ignoring the water that instantly soaked him through, John Snatched the keys without a second thought, ignoring the pink, sparkly, poofy key chain, and stole the bike.
The gun fire became more sporadic as he started the engine, and by the time he was heading in the direction from which it came, it had stopped. Resisting the urge to mutter curses, John hoped that the scene and the culprit would be as obvious as Doc had indicated. He didn’t think it would be, though. If it were really that obvious, would the moon be obscured by an ominous shadow, or the stars be shining blood red, or some other clearly evil portent? The cloud obscured all of that, though. Could the rain itself be a sign? That seemed unlikely. The bike sped down the hill, and then struggled to go up another. The small engine was not well suited to San Francisco, really, and the rain-slicked streets only made it harder. At least it was only drizzling again. John thought the motorcycle might not have been the best choice, but it had by far been the coolest vehicle in sight. He kept heading south and east and hoped his instincts would lead him to the right spot in the now overly-silent streets.
As usual, his instincts did him proud. He came around another corner and saw, illuminated brightly by a pool of light, the scene of the crime. The flood light illuminated most of a street in front of a Police precinct, and in front of the precinct, more than a half dozen police cars sat, lights flaring and reflecting off of the rain drops in a rainbow of blues and reds, sirens silent. In the distance, though, sirens began to echo. Ambulances, John knew, to come and try to help the cops who currently lay on the ground, their blood thinning as it mixed with the puddles and painting the pavement crimson. John felt his first signs of uneasiness, thinking of the headline about the Wanderer earlier. This was the sort of thing he might do – that I might do, in another world, John amended unhappily. But Doc had been clear about that, at least – his target was a woman. At the moment, though, there was no culprit to be seen.
John parked and headed towards the precinct door. Officers were helping their fallen comrades, but no one checked him as he headed towards the door. No super power was involved, they were simply too busy, but John found it odd nonetheless. He walked straight in, and no one in the front office stopped him; no one sat at the admissions desk. There didn’t appear to be any casualties inside – there didn’t appear to be anyone inside. From the front room, though, he could here a muted female voice. He couldn’t make out the words or even the tone, and yet there was something familiar about it.
Following the sound of the voice through an open door and down a hall, John descended a flight of stairs and encountered his first obstacle – a locked grate door. The basement was where the holding cells were. He could hear what the voice was saying now.
“...It’s been a while since I’ve been arrested,” the sensual female voice spoke conversationally, in the middle of a thought. A horrible creeping feeling set Scout’s hair on end, caused goose bumps on his arms. Would Doc really have asked him for help with this? John couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be. “It’s really so stimulating to be arrested from time to time. And I’m so glad it was you,” the sexy pout that accompanied these words was clear even with the speaker out of sight. It couldn’t be. John Snatched the key to the locked grate and walked on through in to the line of cells in the holding block. It couldn’t be.
“If I’m really bad,” the woman continued teasingly, “will you take me to Alcatraz?”
“Anything you want,” panted a clearly-smitten man.
“Anything at all.” A second man’s voice echoed the tones of the first.
It couldn’t be.
Down the line of cells, to the very last one, and a window near the ceiling, at street level, showed the scene in the darkened cell starkly in shades of gray; water dripped down the wall to form a puddle in the back end, stained slightly with blood from the fallen officers. The woman was stunningly beautiful. Long, smooth, shining, raven black hair framed her face and rested around her shoulders. Rich, lipstick red lips were curled in a smile, amused and sensual and begging to be kissed. She was tall and perfectly proportioned, and she wore a slinky black dress and heels that said it all – she was gorgeous, she knew it, and she wanted everyone around her to know it, every man to want her, every woman to hate her. Her eyes, though, were terrifying. They were completely dead, completely calm, her pupils were bottomless pools of blackness that surveyed everything around her with the certain knowledge that it was all beneath her concern. The two men at her feet were certainly not worth her notice. Both police officers, they had apparently arrested her. Handcuffs did nothing to detract from her radiating sexuality, though. The two men were on their knees before her, groveling, staring up at her with adulation dripping from their expressions, their body language, from everything about them. John felt sick. It couldn’t be.
“Oh,” she realized, with a moue of sadness and over-exaggerated tones of despair, “but I really only feel like I can have one of you right now. However shall I pick?” She finished with an innocent air, eyes averted skyward as if considering.
The officers didn’t consider, and they didn’t hesitate. They both scrambled for their side arms, and let the fastest man win. Gun shots echoed, painfully loud, through the cramped cell block. The officer on her right fell over, gasping, trying to rise, trying to shoot his fellow; a moment later he stopped moving, blood leaking from his chest, his back, his mouth. John should have moved. He should have stopped it. He couldn’t. All he could do was stare at her. It couldn’t be.
“Oh! My white knight,” she exclaimed with delight and a cruel smile to the surviving officer, whose face was contorted with a sick combination of lust and hatred. With a swift motion, she knelt, wrapped her handcuffed arms around his neck, and all the hatred left his face; he only had eyes for her and adoration played in his every feature. She kissed him deeply and thoroughly. From her body language, she was really enjoying it, but her eyes were a million miles away. And then, a moment later, her eyes were on John.
She moved shockingly fast, seizing the survivor’s gun, rising to her feet, handcuffs still no hindrance, stepped to the cell door, held the gun to John’s head. The muzzle pressed painfully into his skin. He’d had guns held to his head before, though, and that wasn’t what held him still.
“Hello, John,” she said breathily. “It’s been a while.”
“It can’t be,” he mumbled.
“Nonsense,” she dismissed his comment, “you can’t expect me to believe you could possibly have had any reason for coming here other than me. We haven’t fucked in a long time, now. Is it that time again? You picked a good moment, actually. I’m really in the mood.” She licked her lips suggestively, but the gun to his head didn’t waver for a moment. John suppressed a gasp as psychic energy crashed against the shields in his head and almost pushed through. Her eyes widened. “You’re slipping, John,” she teased. “That almost worked!”
I’m gonna kill Doc. John vowed. Next time I see him, I-AM-GOING-TO-KILL-HIM.
Still, John hadn’t survived as long as he had by being slow to react to unexpected situations, and now that the situation had degenerated rapidly into being life threatening his wits returned to him with surprising speed. It couldn’t be, but it was. “Hello, Marie,” he said calmly.
“And here I’d thought that you’d been so busy bombing post offices that you’d forgotten common civility. Seriously John – post offices? It’s so...pedestrian,” she clicked her tongue with distaste. “We used to have much more fun than that.”
“Did we?” What had happened to her here? What had happened to him?
“Well, I always thought so,” she sighed, “but you were always more interested in the destruction than in the toys.” Her eyes flicked to the officer, who noticed and drank up her glance like it was his first sight of the sun after months of darkness.
“What did you do to him?”
“The usual,” Marie shrugged. Her grip didn’t waver, though. “He was a strong one; he thought of his lovely wife, his three adorable ittle bitty kiddies, and he didn’t want to play with me. Can you imagine, not wanting to play with me?” She flicked her eyes the officer's way again, gave her torso a very suggestive wiggle, and he moved a step closer to her. The instant her attention went back to John, hatred flickered across the man’s face, hatred aimed at his perceived rival. “The little darling, he held out for a few long seconds. But I convinced him easily enough that none of them had anything to offer that I couldn’t exceed a million times over. I thought to have a fun evening of it. If I’d have known you were coming, I’d have spared myself the trouble, though.” Her tone made it clear that it hadn’t been any trouble at all, no more than she would have spared to wave away a fly, and that she would have done it anyway.
“Get away from her,” interrupted the officer, rage twisting his expression, moving towards John with murder in his eyes.
“I’m done with you,” she snapped him without even a glance in his direction. “Go away.”
John felt the crush of her mental powers, so stifling that they filled the room even to his limited perception of such things, and all emotion left the officers face. He moved listlessly to his murdered companion, picked up the gun that lay by the corpses hand, and splattered his brains across the back wall of the cell. The body fell heavily. Marie rolled her eyes. “Useless bastard, I meant that he could go home. Ah well,” her tone made it clear that she had already forgotten the death – both deaths – she had just caused. “So, John, you’re not acting like you want to screw. What are you doing here?”
I wish I knew. “I’m here to see you,” he replied. “I need your help with something.” Thinking fast, he tried to figure out what he needed her help with. He’d have to say within seconds, and he hadn’t the faintest idea. He’d probably have to bomb something, though.
“You never come just for fun,” she pouted, and once again he was struck by how not one of the many expressions that seemed to play across her face ever touched her eyes.
“I think you’ll have fun,” he stalled for time.
“Oh?” she sounded interested. How long till midnight? How long did Doc need him to stall? He wanted nothing more than to leave immediately. Except...
“How do you feel about Washington DC?”
“Boring,” she sighed, “senators are so stodgy, and even if you break one or two it never really goes right and it draws so much attention. Not that I mind,” she added, preening slightly. “Did you see? I was in the papers yesterday.”
“Does that mean you don’t want to go with me?” Except he needed to know what had made her like this, why the John Smith in this world hadn’t done anything to stop it.
“I didn’t say that,” she pursed her lips. She lowered the gun slightly, finally, though John was sure there was an imprint on his forehead. A moment later, though, it was right back, pressed even harder than before. “But enough of this. Who the fuck are you? What do you really want? I know you’re not the Wanderer – you’re ten years too young, you show way to much disgust, and we haven’t gotten naked yet. And your surface thoughts are all over the place.”
She had read his surface thoughts without him even noticing? God, she was powerful! “I’m John Smith,” he replied honestly.
“No, you’re not,” she cocked the gun, and her finger tensed on the trigger, and John began emergency calculations. Could he possibly jump to another world before she pulled the trigger? He didn’t think that he could, not on purpose, not when he’d already jumped that day, not without risking ending up lost in space and time. He met her eyes, and put everything he had into his expression. I know you don’t want to do this, he thought, hoping that was true. For all he knew, she really did want to.
For the first time, an expression touched her eyes. Astonishment. And, John thought, something that must have been even more alien for her. Hope. “You’re not John Smith. You’re the Scout, aren’t you. You’re actually the Scout.” The gun fell away as if her arms had no more strength to hold it up, and John nodded, feeling relieved. “Why are you here? Why would you come here? If he finds out you’re here, he’ll try to meet you on purpose.”
John was shocked. This version of himself hated himself, hated the world, so much that he wanted a meeting that would bring about the utter destruction of this dimension and possibly a large number of others as well? “How did things get this bad?”
And Marie laughed.
The Version in the Finished First Draft
This got edited more than any other part of the novel from it's origins. I got some input from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xaniquen - it is from his characters pov, after all - and made what I remember being a lot of changes. I'm curious how much I actually changed - I'm going to re-read all three after I finish the post. :)
Chapter 1: The Future is Prologue
June 2nd, 1956
John Smith might never be certain he’d reached a new world but for the smell. No matter how similar two dimensions appeared to be, there was always a moment when he knew that where he was now was fundamentally different from where he’d been before, a distinct quality to the air which marked the transition. When he first started world jumping, he had thought that the differences were due to pollution, the change in location, that sort of thing, but with experience he had become convinced that it was something more essential than that, something that was simply a part of the nature of a place. This world, for example, smelled vaguely of mud, or damp soil after a rainstorm or, a cynical thought suggested, like the freshly turned dirt of a newly opened grave. Even as he tried to put his finger on it, though, he grew accustomed to the aroma, and he moved on to try to find out why he was here.
He put a nickel in the meter and pulled out a paper; the news was always a good place to get a basic sense of a world. He’d left home that morning to a paper dated May 13th, 1944, but it hardly mattered; in this place it was June 2nd, 1956. He could learn a lot based on what was reported – and what wasn’t. Doc had asked for his help, the usual trans-dimensional demon nonsense that seemed to attract Doc like fish brought bears, but also in typical Doc Hollywood fashion, no indication had been given of where in the world the help would be needed, what day the emergency would take place, whether the world in which John would be arriving was safe or not, if the air would be breathable, or any of a number of other insignificant details. After the number of times they had worked together, though, handling threats at some of the most critical junctures of the War, it shouldn’t have surprised John that Doc was now as he had ever been – cryptic, with a taste for irony.
“THE WANDERER STRIKES AGAIN!” bold letters proclaimed. “POST OFFICE BOMBED IN NEWPORT, ARKANSAS. LINK TO PREVIOUS ATTACKS UNKNOWN.” The headline was emblazoned across the entire top of the first page, and multiple articles beneath described this latest attack, the history of the criminal in question, the deceased and their families, and other facets of the crime spree that the editor had thought might interest readers. With a twinge of nerves, John looked to see where he was. Not in Arkansas, he noted with relief, the landscape was all wrong. John didn’t want to meet the Wanderer, or to be near where the Wanderer might be. He didn’t know what would happen if they were to meet, but he suspected that the world might not exist after such an encounter.
He couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty for the plight of the people in this world, forced to deal with this Wanderer, and he even felt slightly responsible for the victims. John reminded himself that there was nothing that he could do for them, that no action he took would ease their suffering or help in the long term. This wasn’t John’s world. These weren’t John’s problems. He made himself look with detached interest, allowed himself to be intrigued by how often the name of the Wanderer was writ large in the events of other worlds. The same person, perhaps, but still a different individual in each dimension. Somehow, no matter how different their circumstances, each fell prey to anger, hostility, and resentment of the establishment, and felt driven to tear that establishment down. It made him wonder how much of what anyone did in any world was driven by fate. It made John wonder about his own future.
Shaking off the dark, unhelpful, thoughts, John glanced down the street on which he stood. It was a dusty main avenue in a small, scrappy-looking town – the newspaper suggested that it was Lansing, without indicating what state that might be in. Wherever it was, John didn’t think it warranted a second visit. No, he amended, it didn’t warrant a first visit. Down the street, a filthy car was parked in front of a classically rundown diner. John walked over, kicking up little clouds of brown powder at each step, intent on reading the paper out of the glaring sun. The waitress looked at him as if she’d never seen a customer before, but she brought him a cup of coffee and a plate with runny eggs and burnt toast without taking his order. He ignored them as he paged through the news.
Nestled among stories about foreign countries that no one cared about were the bits and pieces of information that would enable John to figure out what was actually going on in this world. Few people in this dimension, in any dimension, would have been able to recognize them for what they were, but John’s instincts were spot on for such things, and he had learned through years of experience not to doubt his intuition. After the Wanderer, the biggest news in Lansing was drought, but big news didn’t matter. “Nasser Vows End of Military Rule,” a short article apparently being published with permission from the New York Times, contained some interesting food for thought. “Jesse H. Jones, 82, Former Governor” was the feature on the obituary, but far more interesting were the two sentences on “Joseph Biddler, 90,” a “beloved father” and “community founder.” Union unrest – the upholsterers were unhappy again – suggested more leads of interest. One headline caused John to cringe – “Nixon Declares Apathy of Voters Peril to G.O.P.” If only Nixon knew how very dangerous Apathy was!
Doc was right; something was definitely going to go down. Through a process he understood implicitly, but could never have explained, John considered the tidbits of information that had caught his attention, and came to the only possible conclusion. The Black Man was going to make an appearance, this time in California. But where in California? John looked through the entire paper again, finding another hint in a shoe ad on page 4. San Francisco. The schedule for the nearest movie theater – which was in the next county over – made it clear that John had only until that evening to get there. Muttering a curse, he set the paper down. Reaching in to his pocket, he withdrew a twenty that hadn’t been in there a moment before, left it negligently on the table, and left.
It didn’t take him long to find a car for sale, and only little longer for him to purchase it. Most people don’t ask twice when you offer them a wad of cash twice what they were asking for. Money didn’t matter much to John; he could always get more. Within the hour, he was on his way to sunny California.
It was raining when he arrived in San Francisco. Night had fallen long since, and the city was eerily dark under the leaden sky. Driving up Haight, he parked just by on Ashbury. It wasn’t a legal spot – it was too busy an area for that – but that didn’t matter, he’d never need this car again. If he was going to find Doc any where, it would be at the crossroads.
At first, he didn’t see anyone there. The rain and the late hour had forced most of the foot traffic inside. With a sigh, he acknowledged that it really was a pretty annoying drizzle, rapidly growing in to a down pour, and though it bothered him to use his powers so pointlessly, the idea of spending the entire rest of what was likely to be a long evening sodden through was utterly unappealing. Reaching across the dimensions, he grabbed for what he needed, for what he had envisioned – a large, spreading umbrella. He didn’t know how his powers worked, really, but somehow they would locate an item similar to what he’d thought of and bring it to hand, more or less instantly. It would return to its dimension of origin once he stopped thinking about it – the man who sold him the car was probably already cursing and wondering who had robbed him – but in the interim it was as real as everything else around him. However, as sometimes happened, this time the result wasn’t quite what he had in mind, not a sleek, large, black, business-like umbrella, but instead a heavy – John thought it was close to his outer limits in that regard - brightly colored beach umbrella. It would keep the rain off, though. He tried to ignore the giant bright neon pink and green daisies on it.
“It suits you, Scout,” said a suave voice behind him with unsuppressed humor lacing it. The speaker walked out of the shadows. It wasn’t that John hadn’t seen him there; he simply hadn’t been there a moment before.
“It keeps me dry,” replied John. “I thought I’d find you here.”
Doc Hollywood smiled, flourishing a bow. The rain didn’t seem to hit him, thanks to Doc’s own peculiar super power. To say that Doc was lucky would be like saying that World War II had been a minor dispute. No shield kept the rain away from him, no magic or psionic barrier; luckily, though, none of it hit him, mussed his suit, or damaged his suede shoes. “You know me too well, Scout.”
“Yeah, I suppose I do,” John said dryly. “What’s different about this time? You don’t usually ask for help with the Black Man.”
“I don’t need help with the Black Man,” Doc replied, sounded vaguely injured by the suggestion. Doc had once been a hero like John, but when he learned more about the Demon of the Crossroads it had become clear that thwarting the Black Man was his true calling. Chasing the Demon across dimensions was a full time job, though, and Doc’s friends from his time and place rarely got to see him any more. He’d visit from time to time, but otherwise only those who, like John, tended to visit other dimensions ever crossed paths with him.
“Then why the hell am I here? Enigma needed my help, though she lied her face off about it when she found out that you needed me.”
“Now, now, Scout,” chided Doc in an exaggerated way, “Enigma is a big girl; she was taking care of herself before she ever met you, and she’ll continue to take care of herself. You’ve been over protective recently.”
“I have a right to be,” snapped John. Doc’s nonchalance always rubbed John just slightly the wrong way.
“Ah, domestic tranquility,” gushed Doc. Everything Doc said, he went over the top. It was his actor’s background. Or, perhaps, it was what had drawn him to acting.
“Doc,” John smiled, determined not to let it get to him, “are you going to tell me why you asked for my help? It seemed pretty fucking important that I get here by midnight, and that’s coming right up.”
“Ah, right,” Doc nodded. “I don’t need help with the Black Man. But there is a very powerful demon currently in San Francisco who would help him if she gets wind of what’s going on. I need you to keep her busy until I’ve finished at the Crossroads.” He gestured at the sign marking the intersection of Haight and Ashbury, low buildings casting long, rain-obscured shadows across the narrow roads.
“No problem. Anything I should know about this demon?”
“Nope. You’ll know her when you see her, I think, she’s not very subtle. And you’re uniquely suited to deal with her.”
John arched an eyebrow but said nothing. That there was something more going on than met the eye was obvious. Doc enjoyed playing games just a bit too much. John just wished he knew what the current game was, and why Doc masked behind his good humor such a strange mixture of amusement and sadness.
After a moment, Doc sighed emphatically. “You aren’t going to ask, are you. You’re not any fun at all, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” John said as dryly as he could.
Doc quirked his head to one side as if listening for something. In answer, the sound of gunfire echoed loudly through the streets, mingling oddly with the pitter-patter of the steady rainfall, and lights began to flip on in nearby windows. Doc smiled secretively, and directed his gaze on John once more, waiting.
John was tempted not to say anything, but the shooting didn’t stop, and for all that he hated playing Doc’s games, there were lives at risk. “What’s that?” he asked as if reciting a scripted line.
“Your cue,” replied Doc dramatically with a flourish of his hand. “And thanks,” he added with a wink.
“For dealing with it?”
“No, for saying your line,” and with that, Doc turned back towards the shadows.
Chuckling slightly, John looked around for a moment and spotted what he wanted – a motor bike was sandwiched in between two huge clunkers nearby. Tossing aside the umbrella and ignoring the water that instantly soaked him through, John grabbed the keys for the bike from his pocket and stole the bike.
The gun fire became sporadic as he started the engine, and by the time he was heading in the direction from which it came, it had stopped. Muttering a string of curses as he urged the bike on, John hoped that the scene and the culprit would be as obvious as Doc had indicated, since without the echoing sounds to guide him, his chances of actually finding where he was looking for dropped to slim. He didn’t think it could possibly be as straightforward as Doc had lead him to believe, though. If it were really that obvious, wouldn’t the moon be obscured by an ominous shadow, or the stars be shining blood red, or some other clearly evil portent? The cloud obscured all of that, though. Could the rain itself be a sign? That seemed unlikely. Overcast skies in San Francisco weren’t exactly end-of-the-world material. The bike sped down a hill, and then struggled to go up another. The small engine was not well suited to San Francisco, really, and the rain-slicked streets only made it harder. At least it was only drizzling again. John thought the motorcycle might not have been the best choice, but it had by far been the coolest vehicle in sight. He kept heading south and east and hoped his instincts would lead him to the right spot in the slick, oppressively silent streets.
He came around another corner and he knew he had found where he was looking for. A wall-mounted flood light suffused the wet streets with hard light, illuminating a broad area in front of a police precinct. More than a half dozen police cars sat in the street, lights flaring and reflecting off of the rain drops in a rainbow of blues and reds, sirens silent, though in the distance echoes spoke of more approaching emergency vehicles. Ambulances, John knew, to come and try to help the cops who currently lay on the ground, their blood thinning as it mixed with the puddles, painting the pavement crimson. John felt his first signs of uneasiness, thinking of the headline about the Wanderer earlier. This was the sort of thing he might do. But Doc had been clear about that, at least – the demon would appear to be a woman. There wasn’t a single woman to be seen. And anyway, he didn’t think he could come this close to the Wanderer without feeling something, having some sense, detecting some sign of his presence. A pounding headache, at the very least.
John parked the motorcycle with a slight screech of tires and headed confidently towards the precinct door. Officers were helping their fallen comrades, but no one checked him as he walked past them. No super power was involved, they were simply too busy, but John found it odd nonetheless. No one sat at the admissions desk in the lobby, nothing moved inside; by the desk lay a single officer, eyes closed, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth and from the bullet wound in his chest. There was nothing John could do for him, and he didn’t stop. He could hear a muted female voice from somewhere down a hallway to his right. That was his target. He couldn’t make out the words or even the tone, yet there was something familiar about it.
Following the sound of the voice, John descended a flight of stairs and encountered his first obstacle – a locked grate door. The basement was where the holding cells were. He could hear what the voice was saying now.
“…It’s been a while since I’ve been arrested,” the sensual female voice spoke conversationally, in the middle of a thought. A horrible creeping feeling set John’s hair on end, caused goose bumps on his arms. Would Doc really have asked him for help with this? John couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be. “It’s really so,” she paused for emphasis, “so stimulating to be arrested from time to time. And I’m so glad it was you,” the sexy pout that accompanied these words was clear even with the speaker out of sight. It couldn’t be. John grabbed the keys to the locked grate out of thin air and walked on through in to the line of cells in the holding block.
“If I’m really bad,” the woman continued teasingly, “will you take me to Alcatraz?”
“Anything you want,” panted a clearly-smitten man.
“Anything at all.” A second man’s voice echoed the tones of the first.
It couldn’t be.
Down the line of cells, to the very last one, and a window near the ceiling, at street level, showed the scene in the darkened cell starkly in shades of gray and red; water dripped down the wall to form a puddle, stained slightly with blood from the fallen officers lying on the street above. The woman was stunningly beautiful. Long, smooth, shining, raven black hair framed her face and rested around her shoulders. Rich, lipstick-red lips were curled in a smile, amused and sensual and begging to be kissed. She was tall and perfectly proportioned, and she wore a slinky black dress and heels that said it all – she was gorgeous, she knew it, and she wanted everyone around her to know it, every man to want her, every woman to hate her. Her eyes, though, were terrifying. They were completely dead, completely calm, her pupils were bottomless pools of blackness that surveyed everything around her with the certain knowledge that it was all beneath her concern. The two men at her feet were certainly not worth her notice. Both police officers, they had apparently arrested her. Handcuffs did nothing to detract from her radiating sexuality, though. The men were on their knees before her, groveling, staring up at her with adulation dripping from their expressions, their body language, from everything about them. John felt sick.
It couldn’t be.
“Oh,” she realized, with a moue of sadness and over-exaggerated tones of despair, “but I really only feel like I can have one of you right now. However shall I pick?” She finished with an innocent air, eyes averted skyward as if considering.
The officers didn’t consider, and they didn’t hesitate. They both scrambled for their side arms, and let the fastest man win. Gun shots echoed, painfully loud, through the cramped cell block. The officer on her right fell over, gasping, trying to rise, trying to shoot his partner; a moment later he stopped moving, blood leaking from his chest, his back, his mouth. John should have moved. He should have stopped it. He couldn’t. All he could do was stare at her.
It couldn’t be.
“Oh! My white knight,” she exclaimed with delight and a cruel smile to the victorious officer, whose face was contorted with a sick combination of lust and hatred. With a swift motion, she knelt, wrapped her handcuffed arms around his neck, and all the hatred left his face; he only had eyes for her and worship played in his every feature. She kissed him deeply and thoroughly. From her body language, she was really enjoying it, but her eyes were a million miles away. Then, with sudden intensity, they focused directly on John.
She moved shockingly fast, seizing the survivor’s gun, rising to her feet, handcuffs still no hindrance, stepped to the cell door, held the gun to John’s head. The muzzle pressed painfully into his skin. He’d had guns held to his head before, though, and that wasn’t what held him still.
“Hello, John,” she said breathily. “It’s been a while.”
“It can’t be,” he mumbled. Scrambling to bring some kind of order to the chaos she had thrown his thoughts into, John reached for something he could focus on. When was the last time I was this off balance? I dealt with the Omega Man. I dealt with Bela Jot. I faced the Warlock. The fucking King of Color. Never. I’m never this off balance. Except maybe that once. Focus. Get it together, asshole.
“Nonsense,” she dismissed his comment, “you can’t expect me to believe you could possibly have had any reason for coming here other than me. We haven’t fucked in a long while, now. Is it that time again? You picked a good moment, actually. I’m really in the mood.” She licked her lips suggestively, and her eyes flashed a challenge that John didn’t understand, but the gun to his head didn’t waver for a moment. John suppressed a gasp as psychic energy crashed against his carefully-constructed mental defenses and almost pushed through. Her eyes widened. “You’re slipping, John,” she teased, her voice not betraying any of the surprise that her expression had. “That almost worked!”
I’m gonna kill Doc. John vowed. Next time I see him, I AM GOING TO KILL HIM.
The situation had degenerated rapidly into being life threatening, and his wits returned to him with surprising speed. Asshole! Get it together, he berated himself again. It can’t be, but it is. “Hello, Marie,” he said calmly.
“And here I was beginning to think that you’d been so busy bombing post offices that you’d forgotten common civility. Seriously John – post offices? It’s so…pedestrian,” she clicked her tongue with distaste. “We used to have much more fun than that.”
“Did we?” What had happened to her here? What had happened to him?
“Well, I always thought so,” she sighed, “but you were always more interested in the destruction than in the toys.” Her eyes flicked to the officer, who noticed and drank up her glance like it was his first sight of the sun after months of darkness.
“What did you do to him?”
“The usual,” Marie shrugged. Her grip didn’t waver, though. “He was a strong one; he thought of his lovely wife, his three adorable ittle bitty kiddies, and he didn’t want to play with me. Can you imagine, not wanting to play with me?” She flicked her eyes the officers way again, gave her torso a very suggestive wiggle, and he moved a step closer to her, craving and lust his only concerns. The instant her attention went back to John, hatred contorted the man’s face, hatred for his perceived rival. “The little darling, he held out for a few long seconds. But I convinced him easily enough that none of them had anything to offer that I couldn’t exceed a million times over. I thought to have a fun evening of it. If I’d have known you were coming, I’d have spared myself the trouble, though.” Her tone made it clear that it hadn’t been any trouble at all, no more than she would have spared to wave away a fly, and that she would have done it anyway.
“Get away from her,” interrupted the officer, rage twisting his expression, moving towards John with murder in his eyes.
“I’m done with you,” she snapped at him without even a glance in his direction. “Go away.”
John felt the crush of her mental powers, not aimed at him, but so stifling that they filled the room even to his limited perception of such things. All emotion left the officers face, and, as John watched, held captive by the pistol pressed against his forehead, the policeman listlessly moved to his murdered companion, pick up the gun that lay by the corpse’s hand, and splattered his own brains across the back wall of the cell. The body fell heavily. John fought to keep his expression from betraying the emotions swirling in his head. Marie made no such effort; she looked disgusted, and she rolled her eyes. “Useless bastard, I meant that he could go home. Ah well,” she continued casually, she had already forgotten the death – both deaths – that she had just caused. “So, John, you’re not acting like you want to screw. What are you doing here?”
I wish I knew. “I’m here to see you,” he replied. “I need your help with something.” Thinking fast, he tried to figure out what he needed her help with. He’d have to say within seconds, and he hadn’t the faintest idea. Something involving bombs.
“You never come just for fun,” she pouted, and once again he was struck by how not one of the many expressions that seemed to play across her face ever touched her eyes.
“I think you’ll have fun,” he stalled for time.
“Oh?” she sounded interested. How long till midnight? How long did Doc need him to stall? He wanted nothing more than to leave immediately. Except…
“How do you feel about Washington DC?”
“Boring,” she sighed, “senators are so stodgy, and even if you break one or two it never really goes right and it draws so much attention. Not that I mind,” she added, preening slightly. “Did you see? I was in the papers yesterday.” How had he missed that headline?
“Does that mean you don’t want to go with me?” He didn’t want her to go with him. Except…
He needed to know what had made her like this, why the John Smith in this world hadn’t done anything to stop it.
“I didn’t say that,” she pursed her lips. She lowered the gun slightly, finally, though John was sure there was an imprint on his forehead; the tension left his shoulders as the possibility of instantaneous death passed. Seconds later, though, the barrel was right back, pressed even harder than before. “But enough of this. Who the fuck are you? What do you really want? I know you’re not the Wanderer – you’re ten years too young, you show way to much disgust, and we haven’t gotten naked yet. And your self-control is terrible – you’re all over the place.”
“I’m John Smith,” he replied honestly.
“No, you’re not,” she cocked the gun, and her finger tensed on the trigger, and John began emergency calculations. Could he possibly jump to another world before she pulled the trigger? He didn’t think he could, not deliberately, not when he’d already jumped that day, not without risking ending up lost in space and time, and that could be far worse than being dead. He met her eyes. I know you don’t want to do this, he thought, picturing Marie the way he knew her to be, you’re not this kind of person. You’re better than this. You don’t want to do this. He hoped it was true. For all he knew, she really did want to.
For the first time, an expression touched her eyes. Astonishment. And, John thought, something that must have been even more alien for her. Hope.
“You’re John Smith. You’re not the Wanderer. You’re the Scout, you’re actually the fucking Scout.” The gun fell away as if her arms had no more strength to hold it up, her body sagging slightly, and John nodded, relieved. “Why are you here? Why would you come here? Does he know? If he figures out you’re here, he’ll try to find you.” Another alien emotion. She sounded afraid. John just wished he knew what she was afraid of. It almost seemed like she was afraid for him, but that couldn’t be.
“Would he really?” John hid surprise under a bland tone. Could he, the Wanderer, John Smith in this world, truly harbor so much hatred that he would seek an encounter that would bring about the utter destruction of this dimension and possibly a large number of others as well? “What the hell went wrong? How the hell did this happen?”
And Marie laughed.
The Original Version
I originally wrote this just for the hell of it, and at the time didn't really think I'd be writing the full novel - at least, not for a while. I posted it in LJ on April 21st, 2008, which was within a day of when I finished it.
Reading through this, the first thing I note is...a lot more spoilers. I was way more subtle in later versions. That said, I also found definitive proof that this ISN'T the original version. In the very original, there was a bit about looking up at the stars and moon, in flagrant denial of the rain, whose existence I'd previously established. Guess that very original version got demolished. ;)
The Future is Prologue
June 5th, 1956
John Smith might never be certain when he’d reached a new world but for the smell. No matter how similar two dimensions might be, there was always a moment when he first arrived after a jump where he knew fundamentally that where he was now was different from where he’d been before, because in those first instants before he acclimated to his new environment, the air would smell different. At first, he had thought that this was due to pollution, the change in location, that sort of thing, but after so long he was convinced that it was something more fundamental than that. Atmospheres were just some how slightly different, even across two worlds that appeared, on the surface, to be identical.
This dimension might have been identical to the one he left, too, but for the current year. The newspaper put the date as the 5th of June, 1956; a time and world jump from mid-May, 1944. He wondered when he had started to think of the 1940’s, of that dimension, as home. It didn’t matter, he supposed, though he knew it must have something to do with her. All that did matter was that he’d be returning there as soon as he was done with his business here.
Newspapers were always a good place to start; with that in mind he put a nickel in the meter and pulled out a paper. Doc had asked for his help, the usual trans-dimensional demon nonsense that seemed to attract Doc like honey brought bears, but also in typical Doc Hollywood fashion, no indication had been given of where in the world the help would be needed, what day the emergency would take place, whether the world in which John would be arriving was safe or not, if the air would be breathable, or any of a number of other details. He held out hope that some place, buried deep in the newspaper, would be the tidbit he’d need to steer him in the right direction. He had a knack for finding such tidbits. If there was any hint at all, he’d know.
Before he’d gotten to looking through the back pages where such information usually was, though, he was struck by the headline. “THE WANDERER STRIKES AGAIN!” it exclaimed. “POST OFFICE BOMBED IN LITTLETON, ARKANSAS. LINK TO PREVIOUS ATTACKS STILL UNKNOWN.” With a twinge of nerves, John looked to see where he was. Not in Arkansas, he noted with relief. John didn’t know what would happen if he met a different version of himself during one of his transdimensional forays, but he knew enough to know that the world might not exist after the encounter, and that was more than enough to quash his curiosity about the matter. It didn’t bother him. He was an asshole, and really had no interest in meeting himself, or having anything to do with himself, if he could help it. Still, it was always interesting to note that John Smith, the Scout, did not tread large in the newspaper headlines of different dimensions, but that “the Wanderer” did. How had he avoided becoming that person, while so many of his alternates fell prey to their anger, their hostility, their resentment of the establishment, and felt driven to tear that establishment down?
Shaking off his thoughts, John glanced down the street on which he stood. It was a dusty main street in a small town which seemed to be in the middle of nowhere – the newspaper suggested that it was in Lansing County without indicating what state this might be in – and headed over to a classically rundown diner in order to sit and read the paper. The waitress looked at him as if she’d never seen a customer before, but she brought him a cup of coffee and a plate with eggs and toast without taking his order. He ignored them as he read the paper.
Sure enough, nestled among stories about foreign countries that no one cared about were the bits and pieces that he needed in order to construct what was actually going on. Few people in this dimension, in any dimension, would have been able to recognize them for what they were, but John’s instincts were spot on for such things, and he had learned through years of experience not to doubt his intuition. Doc was right; something was definitely going to go down. The Black Man was going to make an appearance, this time in California. But where in California? John looked through the entire paper again, finding another hint in a shoe ad on page 4. San Francisco. The schedule for the nearest movie theater – which was in the next county over – made it clear that John had only until that evening to get there. Muttering a curse, he set the paper down. Reaching in to his pocket, he withdrew a twenty that hadn’t been in there a moment before, left it negligently on the table, and left.
It didn’t take him long to find a car for sale, and only little longer for him to purchase it. Most people don’t ask twice when you offer them a wad of cash twice what they were asking for. Money didn’t matter much to John; he could always get more. Within the hour, he was on his way to sunny California.
It was raining when he arrived in San Francisco. Night was falling. Driving up Haight, he parked just by on Ashbury. It wasn’t a legal spot – it was too busy an area for that – but that didn’t matter, he’d never need this car again. If he was going to find Doc any where, it would be at the intersection.
At first, he didn’t see anyone there. The rain seemed to have forced most of the foot traffic inside. With a sigh, he acknowledged that it really was a pretty annoying drizzle, rapidly growing in to a down pour, and though it bothered him to use his powers so pointlessly, the idea of spending the entire rest of what was likely to be a long evening sodden through was utterly unappealing, and so he reached for an umbrella, the biggest one he could manage. Reaching across the dimensions, his powers sought out what he pictured in his head and Snatched one; it appeared in his hand silently. It would return to it’s place or dimension of origin once he stopped thinking about it – the man who sold the him the car was probably already cursing and wondering who had robbed him – but in the interim it was as real as everything else around him. However, as sometimes happened, this time the result wasn’t quite what he had in mind, a heavy (almost exactly at his maximum of 5 pounds) brightly colored beach umbrella. It would keep the rain off, though. He tried to ignore the giant bright neon pink and green daisies on it.
“It suits you, Scout,” said a suave voice behind him with unsuppressed humor lacing it. The speaker walked out of the shadows. It wasn’t that John hadn’t seen him there; he simply hadn’t been there a moment before.
“It keeps me dry,” replied John. “I thought I’d find you here.”
Doc Hollywood smiled, flourishing a bow. The rain didn’t seem to hit him. Doc took lucky to new heights. No shield kept the rain away from him, no magic or psionic barrier; luckily, though, none of it hit him, mussed his suit, or damaged is suede shoes. “You know me too well.”
“What’s different about this time? You don’t usually ask for help with the Black Man.”
“I don’t need help with the Black Man,” Doc replied. Doc had once been a hero like Scout, but in time his purpose had changed as he’d learned more about the Demon of Crossroads, and now it was his continual personal mission to thwart the Black Man wherever and whenever he might appear. Chasing the Demon across dimensions was a full time job, though, and Doc’s friends from his time and place rarely got to see him any more. Only those, like John, who were also travelers passing through the Golden Age had the opportunity to see Doc outside of that place and time.
“Then why am I here? Marie needed my help, though she lied her face off about it when she found out that you needed me.”
“Now, now, Scout,” chided Doc in an exaggerated way, “Enigma is a big girl; she was taking care of herself before she ever met you, and she’ll continue to take care of herself. You’ve been over protective recently.”
“I have a right to be,” snapped John. “She’s my wife.”
“Ah, domestic tranquility,” gushed Doc. Everything Doc said, he went over the top. It was his actor’s background. Or, perhaps, it was what had drawn him to acting.
“Doc,” John smiled, “are you going to tell me why you asked for my help? It seemed pretty important that I get here by midnight, and that’s coming right up.”
“Ah, right,” Doc nodded. “I don’t need help with the Black Man. But there is a very powerful demon currently in San Francisco who would help him if she gets wind of it. I need you to keep her busy until I’ve finished at the Crossroads.”
“No problem. Anything I should know about this demon?”
“Nope. You’ll know her when you see her, I think, she’s not very subtle. And you’re uniquely suited to deal with her.”
John flicked an eyebrow but said nothing. That there was something more going on than met the eye was obvious. Doc enjoyed playing games just a bit too much. John just wished he knew what the current game was, and why Doc masked behind his good humor such a strange mixture of amusement and sadness. John refused to ask, though. After a moment, Doc sighed emphatically. “You aren’t any fun at all, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Scout said as dryly as he could.
Doc quirked his head to one side as if listening for something. In answer, the sound of nearby gunfire echoed loudly through the streets, mingling oddly with the sound of the steady rainfall, and lights began to flip on in nearby windows. Doc smiled secretively, and directed his gaze on John once more, waiting.
John was tempted not to say anything, but the gun fire didn’t cease, and for all that he hated playing in to Doc’s games, there were lives at risk. “What’s that?” he asked as if reciting a scripted line.
“Your queue,” replied Doc dramatically with a flourish of his hand. “And thanks,” he added with a wink.
“For going and dealing with it?”
“No, for saying your line,” and with that, Doc turned back towards the shadows.
Chuckling slightly, John looked around for a moment and spotted what he wanted – a motor bike was sandwiched in between to huge clunkers nearby. Tossing aside the umbrella and ignoring the water that instantly soaked him through, John Snatched the keys without a second thought, ignoring the pink, sparkly, poofy key chain, and stole the bike.
The gun fire became more sporadic as he started the engine, and by the time he was heading in the direction from which it came, it had stopped. Resisting the urge to mutter curses, John hoped that the scene and the culprit would be as obvious as Doc had indicated. He didn’t think it would be, though. If it were really that obvious, would the moon be obscured by an ominous shadow, or the stars be shining blood red, or some other clearly evil portent? The cloud obscured all of that, though. Could the rain itself be a sign? That seemed unlikely. The bike sped down the hill, and then struggled to go up another. The small engine was not well suited to San Francisco, really, and the rain-slicked streets only made it harder. At least it was only drizzling again. John thought the motorcycle might not have been the best choice, but it had by far been the coolest vehicle in sight. He kept heading south and east and hoped his instincts would lead him to the right spot in the now overly-silent streets.
As usual, his instincts did him proud. He came around another corner and saw, illuminated brightly by a pool of light, the scene of the crime. The flood light illuminated most of a street in front of a Police precinct, and in front of the precinct, more than a half dozen police cars sat, lights flaring and reflecting off of the rain drops in a rainbow of blues and reds, sirens silent. In the distance, though, sirens began to echo. Ambulances, John knew, to come and try to help the cops who currently lay on the ground, their blood thinning as it mixed with the puddles and painting the pavement crimson. John felt his first signs of uneasiness, thinking of the headline about the Wanderer earlier. This was the sort of thing he might do – that I might do, in another world, John amended unhappily. But Doc had been clear about that, at least – his target was a woman. At the moment, though, there was no culprit to be seen.
John parked and headed towards the precinct door. Officers were helping their fallen comrades, but no one checked him as he headed towards the door. No super power was involved, they were simply too busy, but John found it odd nonetheless. He walked straight in, and no one in the front office stopped him; no one sat at the admissions desk. There didn’t appear to be any casualties inside – there didn’t appear to be anyone inside. From the front room, though, he could here a muted female voice. He couldn’t make out the words or even the tone, and yet there was something familiar about it.
Following the sound of the voice through an open door and down a hall, John descended a flight of stairs and encountered his first obstacle – a locked grate door. The basement was where the holding cells were. He could hear what the voice was saying now.
“...It’s been a while since I’ve been arrested,” the sensual female voice spoke conversationally, in the middle of a thought. A horrible creeping feeling set Scout’s hair on end, caused goose bumps on his arms. Would Doc really have asked him for help with this? John couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be. “It’s really so stimulating to be arrested from time to time. And I’m so glad it was you,” the sexy pout that accompanied these words was clear even with the speaker out of sight. It couldn’t be. John Snatched the key to the locked grate and walked on through in to the line of cells in the holding block. It couldn’t be.
“If I’m really bad,” the woman continued teasingly, “will you take me to Alcatraz?”
“Anything you want,” panted a clearly-smitten man.
“Anything at all.” A second man’s voice echoed the tones of the first.
It couldn’t be.
Down the line of cells, to the very last one, and a window near the ceiling, at street level, showed the scene in the darkened cell starkly in shades of gray; water dripped down the wall to form a puddle in the back end, stained slightly with blood from the fallen officers. The woman was stunningly beautiful. Long, smooth, shining, raven black hair framed her face and rested around her shoulders. Rich, lipstick red lips were curled in a smile, amused and sensual and begging to be kissed. She was tall and perfectly proportioned, and she wore a slinky black dress and heels that said it all – she was gorgeous, she knew it, and she wanted everyone around her to know it, every man to want her, every woman to hate her. Her eyes, though, were terrifying. They were completely dead, completely calm, her pupils were bottomless pools of blackness that surveyed everything around her with the certain knowledge that it was all beneath her concern. The two men at her feet were certainly not worth her notice. Both police officers, they had apparently arrested her. Handcuffs did nothing to detract from her radiating sexuality, though. The two men were on their knees before her, groveling, staring up at her with adulation dripping from their expressions, their body language, from everything about them. John felt sick. It couldn’t be.
“Oh,” she realized, with a moue of sadness and over-exaggerated tones of despair, “but I really only feel like I can have one of you right now. However shall I pick?” She finished with an innocent air, eyes averted skyward as if considering.
The officers didn’t consider, and they didn’t hesitate. They both scrambled for their side arms, and let the fastest man win. Gun shots echoed, painfully loud, through the cramped cell block. The officer on her right fell over, gasping, trying to rise, trying to shoot his fellow; a moment later he stopped moving, blood leaking from his chest, his back, his mouth. John should have moved. He should have stopped it. He couldn’t. All he could do was stare at her. It couldn’t be.
“Oh! My white knight,” she exclaimed with delight and a cruel smile to the surviving officer, whose face was contorted with a sick combination of lust and hatred. With a swift motion, she knelt, wrapped her handcuffed arms around his neck, and all the hatred left his face; he only had eyes for her and adoration played in his every feature. She kissed him deeply and thoroughly. From her body language, she was really enjoying it, but her eyes were a million miles away. And then, a moment later, her eyes were on John.
She moved shockingly fast, seizing the survivor’s gun, rising to her feet, handcuffs still no hindrance, stepped to the cell door, held the gun to John’s head. The muzzle pressed painfully into his skin. He’d had guns held to his head before, though, and that wasn’t what held him still.
“Hello, John,” she said breathily. “It’s been a while.”
“It can’t be,” he mumbled.
“Nonsense,” she dismissed his comment, “you can’t expect me to believe you could possibly have had any reason for coming here other than me. We haven’t fucked in a long time, now. Is it that time again? You picked a good moment, actually. I’m really in the mood.” She licked her lips suggestively, but the gun to his head didn’t waver for a moment. John suppressed a gasp as psychic energy crashed against the shields in his head and almost pushed through. Her eyes widened. “You’re slipping, John,” she teased. “That almost worked!”
I’m gonna kill Doc. John vowed. Next time I see him, I-AM-GOING-TO-KILL-HIM.
Still, John hadn’t survived as long as he had by being slow to react to unexpected situations, and now that the situation had degenerated rapidly into being life threatening his wits returned to him with surprising speed. It couldn’t be, but it was. “Hello, Marie,” he said calmly.
“And here I’d thought that you’d been so busy bombing post offices that you’d forgotten common civility. Seriously John – post offices? It’s so...pedestrian,” she clicked her tongue with distaste. “We used to have much more fun than that.”
“Did we?” What had happened to her here? What had happened to him?
“Well, I always thought so,” she sighed, “but you were always more interested in the destruction than in the toys.” Her eyes flicked to the officer, who noticed and drank up her glance like it was his first sight of the sun after months of darkness.
“What did you do to him?”
“The usual,” Marie shrugged. Her grip didn’t waver, though. “He was a strong one; he thought of his lovely wife, his three adorable ittle bitty kiddies, and he didn’t want to play with me. Can you imagine, not wanting to play with me?” She flicked her eyes the officer's way again, gave her torso a very suggestive wiggle, and he moved a step closer to her. The instant her attention went back to John, hatred flickered across the man’s face, hatred aimed at his perceived rival. “The little darling, he held out for a few long seconds. But I convinced him easily enough that none of them had anything to offer that I couldn’t exceed a million times over. I thought to have a fun evening of it. If I’d have known you were coming, I’d have spared myself the trouble, though.” Her tone made it clear that it hadn’t been any trouble at all, no more than she would have spared to wave away a fly, and that she would have done it anyway.
“Get away from her,” interrupted the officer, rage twisting his expression, moving towards John with murder in his eyes.
“I’m done with you,” she snapped him without even a glance in his direction. “Go away.”
John felt the crush of her mental powers, so stifling that they filled the room even to his limited perception of such things, and all emotion left the officers face. He moved listlessly to his murdered companion, picked up the gun that lay by the corpses hand, and splattered his brains across the back wall of the cell. The body fell heavily. Marie rolled her eyes. “Useless bastard, I meant that he could go home. Ah well,” her tone made it clear that she had already forgotten the death – both deaths – she had just caused. “So, John, you’re not acting like you want to screw. What are you doing here?”
I wish I knew. “I’m here to see you,” he replied. “I need your help with something.” Thinking fast, he tried to figure out what he needed her help with. He’d have to say within seconds, and he hadn’t the faintest idea. He’d probably have to bomb something, though.
“You never come just for fun,” she pouted, and once again he was struck by how not one of the many expressions that seemed to play across her face ever touched her eyes.
“I think you’ll have fun,” he stalled for time.
“Oh?” she sounded interested. How long till midnight? How long did Doc need him to stall? He wanted nothing more than to leave immediately. Except...
“How do you feel about Washington DC?”
“Boring,” she sighed, “senators are so stodgy, and even if you break one or two it never really goes right and it draws so much attention. Not that I mind,” she added, preening slightly. “Did you see? I was in the papers yesterday.”
“Does that mean you don’t want to go with me?” Except he needed to know what had made her like this, why the John Smith in this world hadn’t done anything to stop it.
“I didn’t say that,” she pursed her lips. She lowered the gun slightly, finally, though John was sure there was an imprint on his forehead. A moment later, though, it was right back, pressed even harder than before. “But enough of this. Who the fuck are you? What do you really want? I know you’re not the Wanderer – you’re ten years too young, you show way to much disgust, and we haven’t gotten naked yet. And your surface thoughts are all over the place.”
She had read his surface thoughts without him even noticing? God, she was powerful! “I’m John Smith,” he replied honestly.
“No, you’re not,” she cocked the gun, and her finger tensed on the trigger, and John began emergency calculations. Could he possibly jump to another world before she pulled the trigger? He didn’t think that he could, not on purpose, not when he’d already jumped that day, not without risking ending up lost in space and time. He met her eyes, and put everything he had into his expression. I know you don’t want to do this, he thought, hoping that was true. For all he knew, she really did want to.
For the first time, an expression touched her eyes. Astonishment. And, John thought, something that must have been even more alien for her. Hope. “You’re not John Smith. You’re the Scout, aren’t you. You’re actually the Scout.” The gun fell away as if her arms had no more strength to hold it up, and John nodded, feeling relieved. “Why are you here? Why would you come here? If he finds out you’re here, he’ll try to meet you on purpose.”
John was shocked. This version of himself hated himself, hated the world, so much that he wanted a meeting that would bring about the utter destruction of this dimension and possibly a large number of others as well? “How did things get this bad?”
And Marie laughed.
The Version in the Finished First Draft
This got edited more than any other part of the novel from it's origins. I got some input from
xaniquen - it is from his characters pov, after all - and made what I remember being a lot of changes. I'm curious how much I actually changed - I'm going to re-read all three after I finish the post. :)Chapter 1: The Future is Prologue
June 2nd, 1956
John Smith might never be certain he’d reached a new world but for the smell. No matter how similar two dimensions appeared to be, there was always a moment when he knew that where he was now was fundamentally different from where he’d been before, a distinct quality to the air which marked the transition. When he first started world jumping, he had thought that the differences were due to pollution, the change in location, that sort of thing, but with experience he had become convinced that it was something more essential than that, something that was simply a part of the nature of a place. This world, for example, smelled vaguely of mud, or damp soil after a rainstorm or, a cynical thought suggested, like the freshly turned dirt of a newly opened grave. Even as he tried to put his finger on it, though, he grew accustomed to the aroma, and he moved on to try to find out why he was here.
He put a nickel in the meter and pulled out a paper; the news was always a good place to get a basic sense of a world. He’d left home that morning to a paper dated May 13th, 1944, but it hardly mattered; in this place it was June 2nd, 1956. He could learn a lot based on what was reported – and what wasn’t. Doc had asked for his help, the usual trans-dimensional demon nonsense that seemed to attract Doc like fish brought bears, but also in typical Doc Hollywood fashion, no indication had been given of where in the world the help would be needed, what day the emergency would take place, whether the world in which John would be arriving was safe or not, if the air would be breathable, or any of a number of other insignificant details. After the number of times they had worked together, though, handling threats at some of the most critical junctures of the War, it shouldn’t have surprised John that Doc was now as he had ever been – cryptic, with a taste for irony.
“THE WANDERER STRIKES AGAIN!” bold letters proclaimed. “POST OFFICE BOMBED IN NEWPORT, ARKANSAS. LINK TO PREVIOUS ATTACKS UNKNOWN.” The headline was emblazoned across the entire top of the first page, and multiple articles beneath described this latest attack, the history of the criminal in question, the deceased and their families, and other facets of the crime spree that the editor had thought might interest readers. With a twinge of nerves, John looked to see where he was. Not in Arkansas, he noted with relief, the landscape was all wrong. John didn’t want to meet the Wanderer, or to be near where the Wanderer might be. He didn’t know what would happen if they were to meet, but he suspected that the world might not exist after such an encounter.
He couldn’t help but feel slightly guilty for the plight of the people in this world, forced to deal with this Wanderer, and he even felt slightly responsible for the victims. John reminded himself that there was nothing that he could do for them, that no action he took would ease their suffering or help in the long term. This wasn’t John’s world. These weren’t John’s problems. He made himself look with detached interest, allowed himself to be intrigued by how often the name of the Wanderer was writ large in the events of other worlds. The same person, perhaps, but still a different individual in each dimension. Somehow, no matter how different their circumstances, each fell prey to anger, hostility, and resentment of the establishment, and felt driven to tear that establishment down. It made him wonder how much of what anyone did in any world was driven by fate. It made John wonder about his own future.
Shaking off the dark, unhelpful, thoughts, John glanced down the street on which he stood. It was a dusty main avenue in a small, scrappy-looking town – the newspaper suggested that it was Lansing, without indicating what state that might be in. Wherever it was, John didn’t think it warranted a second visit. No, he amended, it didn’t warrant a first visit. Down the street, a filthy car was parked in front of a classically rundown diner. John walked over, kicking up little clouds of brown powder at each step, intent on reading the paper out of the glaring sun. The waitress looked at him as if she’d never seen a customer before, but she brought him a cup of coffee and a plate with runny eggs and burnt toast without taking his order. He ignored them as he paged through the news.
Nestled among stories about foreign countries that no one cared about were the bits and pieces of information that would enable John to figure out what was actually going on in this world. Few people in this dimension, in any dimension, would have been able to recognize them for what they were, but John’s instincts were spot on for such things, and he had learned through years of experience not to doubt his intuition. After the Wanderer, the biggest news in Lansing was drought, but big news didn’t matter. “Nasser Vows End of Military Rule,” a short article apparently being published with permission from the New York Times, contained some interesting food for thought. “Jesse H. Jones, 82, Former Governor” was the feature on the obituary, but far more interesting were the two sentences on “Joseph Biddler, 90,” a “beloved father” and “community founder.” Union unrest – the upholsterers were unhappy again – suggested more leads of interest. One headline caused John to cringe – “Nixon Declares Apathy of Voters Peril to G.O.P.” If only Nixon knew how very dangerous Apathy was!
Doc was right; something was definitely going to go down. Through a process he understood implicitly, but could never have explained, John considered the tidbits of information that had caught his attention, and came to the only possible conclusion. The Black Man was going to make an appearance, this time in California. But where in California? John looked through the entire paper again, finding another hint in a shoe ad on page 4. San Francisco. The schedule for the nearest movie theater – which was in the next county over – made it clear that John had only until that evening to get there. Muttering a curse, he set the paper down. Reaching in to his pocket, he withdrew a twenty that hadn’t been in there a moment before, left it negligently on the table, and left.
It didn’t take him long to find a car for sale, and only little longer for him to purchase it. Most people don’t ask twice when you offer them a wad of cash twice what they were asking for. Money didn’t matter much to John; he could always get more. Within the hour, he was on his way to sunny California.
It was raining when he arrived in San Francisco. Night had fallen long since, and the city was eerily dark under the leaden sky. Driving up Haight, he parked just by on Ashbury. It wasn’t a legal spot – it was too busy an area for that – but that didn’t matter, he’d never need this car again. If he was going to find Doc any where, it would be at the crossroads.
At first, he didn’t see anyone there. The rain and the late hour had forced most of the foot traffic inside. With a sigh, he acknowledged that it really was a pretty annoying drizzle, rapidly growing in to a down pour, and though it bothered him to use his powers so pointlessly, the idea of spending the entire rest of what was likely to be a long evening sodden through was utterly unappealing. Reaching across the dimensions, he grabbed for what he needed, for what he had envisioned – a large, spreading umbrella. He didn’t know how his powers worked, really, but somehow they would locate an item similar to what he’d thought of and bring it to hand, more or less instantly. It would return to its dimension of origin once he stopped thinking about it – the man who sold him the car was probably already cursing and wondering who had robbed him – but in the interim it was as real as everything else around him. However, as sometimes happened, this time the result wasn’t quite what he had in mind, not a sleek, large, black, business-like umbrella, but instead a heavy – John thought it was close to his outer limits in that regard - brightly colored beach umbrella. It would keep the rain off, though. He tried to ignore the giant bright neon pink and green daisies on it.
“It suits you, Scout,” said a suave voice behind him with unsuppressed humor lacing it. The speaker walked out of the shadows. It wasn’t that John hadn’t seen him there; he simply hadn’t been there a moment before.
“It keeps me dry,” replied John. “I thought I’d find you here.”
Doc Hollywood smiled, flourishing a bow. The rain didn’t seem to hit him, thanks to Doc’s own peculiar super power. To say that Doc was lucky would be like saying that World War II had been a minor dispute. No shield kept the rain away from him, no magic or psionic barrier; luckily, though, none of it hit him, mussed his suit, or damaged his suede shoes. “You know me too well, Scout.”
“Yeah, I suppose I do,” John said dryly. “What’s different about this time? You don’t usually ask for help with the Black Man.”
“I don’t need help with the Black Man,” Doc replied, sounded vaguely injured by the suggestion. Doc had once been a hero like John, but when he learned more about the Demon of the Crossroads it had become clear that thwarting the Black Man was his true calling. Chasing the Demon across dimensions was a full time job, though, and Doc’s friends from his time and place rarely got to see him any more. He’d visit from time to time, but otherwise only those who, like John, tended to visit other dimensions ever crossed paths with him.
“Then why the hell am I here? Enigma needed my help, though she lied her face off about it when she found out that you needed me.”
“Now, now, Scout,” chided Doc in an exaggerated way, “Enigma is a big girl; she was taking care of herself before she ever met you, and she’ll continue to take care of herself. You’ve been over protective recently.”
“I have a right to be,” snapped John. Doc’s nonchalance always rubbed John just slightly the wrong way.
“Ah, domestic tranquility,” gushed Doc. Everything Doc said, he went over the top. It was his actor’s background. Or, perhaps, it was what had drawn him to acting.
“Doc,” John smiled, determined not to let it get to him, “are you going to tell me why you asked for my help? It seemed pretty fucking important that I get here by midnight, and that’s coming right up.”
“Ah, right,” Doc nodded. “I don’t need help with the Black Man. But there is a very powerful demon currently in San Francisco who would help him if she gets wind of what’s going on. I need you to keep her busy until I’ve finished at the Crossroads.” He gestured at the sign marking the intersection of Haight and Ashbury, low buildings casting long, rain-obscured shadows across the narrow roads.
“No problem. Anything I should know about this demon?”
“Nope. You’ll know her when you see her, I think, she’s not very subtle. And you’re uniquely suited to deal with her.”
John arched an eyebrow but said nothing. That there was something more going on than met the eye was obvious. Doc enjoyed playing games just a bit too much. John just wished he knew what the current game was, and why Doc masked behind his good humor such a strange mixture of amusement and sadness.
After a moment, Doc sighed emphatically. “You aren’t going to ask, are you. You’re not any fun at all, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” John said as dryly as he could.
Doc quirked his head to one side as if listening for something. In answer, the sound of gunfire echoed loudly through the streets, mingling oddly with the pitter-patter of the steady rainfall, and lights began to flip on in nearby windows. Doc smiled secretively, and directed his gaze on John once more, waiting.
John was tempted not to say anything, but the shooting didn’t stop, and for all that he hated playing Doc’s games, there were lives at risk. “What’s that?” he asked as if reciting a scripted line.
“Your cue,” replied Doc dramatically with a flourish of his hand. “And thanks,” he added with a wink.
“For dealing with it?”
“No, for saying your line,” and with that, Doc turned back towards the shadows.
Chuckling slightly, John looked around for a moment and spotted what he wanted – a motor bike was sandwiched in between two huge clunkers nearby. Tossing aside the umbrella and ignoring the water that instantly soaked him through, John grabbed the keys for the bike from his pocket and stole the bike.
The gun fire became sporadic as he started the engine, and by the time he was heading in the direction from which it came, it had stopped. Muttering a string of curses as he urged the bike on, John hoped that the scene and the culprit would be as obvious as Doc had indicated, since without the echoing sounds to guide him, his chances of actually finding where he was looking for dropped to slim. He didn’t think it could possibly be as straightforward as Doc had lead him to believe, though. If it were really that obvious, wouldn’t the moon be obscured by an ominous shadow, or the stars be shining blood red, or some other clearly evil portent? The cloud obscured all of that, though. Could the rain itself be a sign? That seemed unlikely. Overcast skies in San Francisco weren’t exactly end-of-the-world material. The bike sped down a hill, and then struggled to go up another. The small engine was not well suited to San Francisco, really, and the rain-slicked streets only made it harder. At least it was only drizzling again. John thought the motorcycle might not have been the best choice, but it had by far been the coolest vehicle in sight. He kept heading south and east and hoped his instincts would lead him to the right spot in the slick, oppressively silent streets.
He came around another corner and he knew he had found where he was looking for. A wall-mounted flood light suffused the wet streets with hard light, illuminating a broad area in front of a police precinct. More than a half dozen police cars sat in the street, lights flaring and reflecting off of the rain drops in a rainbow of blues and reds, sirens silent, though in the distance echoes spoke of more approaching emergency vehicles. Ambulances, John knew, to come and try to help the cops who currently lay on the ground, their blood thinning as it mixed with the puddles, painting the pavement crimson. John felt his first signs of uneasiness, thinking of the headline about the Wanderer earlier. This was the sort of thing he might do. But Doc had been clear about that, at least – the demon would appear to be a woman. There wasn’t a single woman to be seen. And anyway, he didn’t think he could come this close to the Wanderer without feeling something, having some sense, detecting some sign of his presence. A pounding headache, at the very least.
John parked the motorcycle with a slight screech of tires and headed confidently towards the precinct door. Officers were helping their fallen comrades, but no one checked him as he walked past them. No super power was involved, they were simply too busy, but John found it odd nonetheless. No one sat at the admissions desk in the lobby, nothing moved inside; by the desk lay a single officer, eyes closed, blood leaking from the corner of his mouth and from the bullet wound in his chest. There was nothing John could do for him, and he didn’t stop. He could hear a muted female voice from somewhere down a hallway to his right. That was his target. He couldn’t make out the words or even the tone, yet there was something familiar about it.
Following the sound of the voice, John descended a flight of stairs and encountered his first obstacle – a locked grate door. The basement was where the holding cells were. He could hear what the voice was saying now.
“…It’s been a while since I’ve been arrested,” the sensual female voice spoke conversationally, in the middle of a thought. A horrible creeping feeling set John’s hair on end, caused goose bumps on his arms. Would Doc really have asked him for help with this? John couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be. “It’s really so,” she paused for emphasis, “so stimulating to be arrested from time to time. And I’m so glad it was you,” the sexy pout that accompanied these words was clear even with the speaker out of sight. It couldn’t be. John grabbed the keys to the locked grate out of thin air and walked on through in to the line of cells in the holding block.
“If I’m really bad,” the woman continued teasingly, “will you take me to Alcatraz?”
“Anything you want,” panted a clearly-smitten man.
“Anything at all.” A second man’s voice echoed the tones of the first.
It couldn’t be.
Down the line of cells, to the very last one, and a window near the ceiling, at street level, showed the scene in the darkened cell starkly in shades of gray and red; water dripped down the wall to form a puddle, stained slightly with blood from the fallen officers lying on the street above. The woman was stunningly beautiful. Long, smooth, shining, raven black hair framed her face and rested around her shoulders. Rich, lipstick-red lips were curled in a smile, amused and sensual and begging to be kissed. She was tall and perfectly proportioned, and she wore a slinky black dress and heels that said it all – she was gorgeous, she knew it, and she wanted everyone around her to know it, every man to want her, every woman to hate her. Her eyes, though, were terrifying. They were completely dead, completely calm, her pupils were bottomless pools of blackness that surveyed everything around her with the certain knowledge that it was all beneath her concern. The two men at her feet were certainly not worth her notice. Both police officers, they had apparently arrested her. Handcuffs did nothing to detract from her radiating sexuality, though. The men were on their knees before her, groveling, staring up at her with adulation dripping from their expressions, their body language, from everything about them. John felt sick.
It couldn’t be.
“Oh,” she realized, with a moue of sadness and over-exaggerated tones of despair, “but I really only feel like I can have one of you right now. However shall I pick?” She finished with an innocent air, eyes averted skyward as if considering.
The officers didn’t consider, and they didn’t hesitate. They both scrambled for their side arms, and let the fastest man win. Gun shots echoed, painfully loud, through the cramped cell block. The officer on her right fell over, gasping, trying to rise, trying to shoot his partner; a moment later he stopped moving, blood leaking from his chest, his back, his mouth. John should have moved. He should have stopped it. He couldn’t. All he could do was stare at her.
It couldn’t be.
“Oh! My white knight,” she exclaimed with delight and a cruel smile to the victorious officer, whose face was contorted with a sick combination of lust and hatred. With a swift motion, she knelt, wrapped her handcuffed arms around his neck, and all the hatred left his face; he only had eyes for her and worship played in his every feature. She kissed him deeply and thoroughly. From her body language, she was really enjoying it, but her eyes were a million miles away. Then, with sudden intensity, they focused directly on John.
She moved shockingly fast, seizing the survivor’s gun, rising to her feet, handcuffs still no hindrance, stepped to the cell door, held the gun to John’s head. The muzzle pressed painfully into his skin. He’d had guns held to his head before, though, and that wasn’t what held him still.
“Hello, John,” she said breathily. “It’s been a while.”
“It can’t be,” he mumbled. Scrambling to bring some kind of order to the chaos she had thrown his thoughts into, John reached for something he could focus on. When was the last time I was this off balance? I dealt with the Omega Man. I dealt with Bela Jot. I faced the Warlock. The fucking King of Color. Never. I’m never this off balance. Except maybe that once. Focus. Get it together, asshole.
“Nonsense,” she dismissed his comment, “you can’t expect me to believe you could possibly have had any reason for coming here other than me. We haven’t fucked in a long while, now. Is it that time again? You picked a good moment, actually. I’m really in the mood.” She licked her lips suggestively, and her eyes flashed a challenge that John didn’t understand, but the gun to his head didn’t waver for a moment. John suppressed a gasp as psychic energy crashed against his carefully-constructed mental defenses and almost pushed through. Her eyes widened. “You’re slipping, John,” she teased, her voice not betraying any of the surprise that her expression had. “That almost worked!”
I’m gonna kill Doc. John vowed. Next time I see him, I AM GOING TO KILL HIM.
The situation had degenerated rapidly into being life threatening, and his wits returned to him with surprising speed. Asshole! Get it together, he berated himself again. It can’t be, but it is. “Hello, Marie,” he said calmly.
“And here I was beginning to think that you’d been so busy bombing post offices that you’d forgotten common civility. Seriously John – post offices? It’s so…pedestrian,” she clicked her tongue with distaste. “We used to have much more fun than that.”
“Did we?” What had happened to her here? What had happened to him?
“Well, I always thought so,” she sighed, “but you were always more interested in the destruction than in the toys.” Her eyes flicked to the officer, who noticed and drank up her glance like it was his first sight of the sun after months of darkness.
“What did you do to him?”
“The usual,” Marie shrugged. Her grip didn’t waver, though. “He was a strong one; he thought of his lovely wife, his three adorable ittle bitty kiddies, and he didn’t want to play with me. Can you imagine, not wanting to play with me?” She flicked her eyes the officers way again, gave her torso a very suggestive wiggle, and he moved a step closer to her, craving and lust his only concerns. The instant her attention went back to John, hatred contorted the man’s face, hatred for his perceived rival. “The little darling, he held out for a few long seconds. But I convinced him easily enough that none of them had anything to offer that I couldn’t exceed a million times over. I thought to have a fun evening of it. If I’d have known you were coming, I’d have spared myself the trouble, though.” Her tone made it clear that it hadn’t been any trouble at all, no more than she would have spared to wave away a fly, and that she would have done it anyway.
“Get away from her,” interrupted the officer, rage twisting his expression, moving towards John with murder in his eyes.
“I’m done with you,” she snapped at him without even a glance in his direction. “Go away.”
John felt the crush of her mental powers, not aimed at him, but so stifling that they filled the room even to his limited perception of such things. All emotion left the officers face, and, as John watched, held captive by the pistol pressed against his forehead, the policeman listlessly moved to his murdered companion, pick up the gun that lay by the corpse’s hand, and splattered his own brains across the back wall of the cell. The body fell heavily. John fought to keep his expression from betraying the emotions swirling in his head. Marie made no such effort; she looked disgusted, and she rolled her eyes. “Useless bastard, I meant that he could go home. Ah well,” she continued casually, she had already forgotten the death – both deaths – that she had just caused. “So, John, you’re not acting like you want to screw. What are you doing here?”
I wish I knew. “I’m here to see you,” he replied. “I need your help with something.” Thinking fast, he tried to figure out what he needed her help with. He’d have to say within seconds, and he hadn’t the faintest idea. Something involving bombs.
“You never come just for fun,” she pouted, and once again he was struck by how not one of the many expressions that seemed to play across her face ever touched her eyes.
“I think you’ll have fun,” he stalled for time.
“Oh?” she sounded interested. How long till midnight? How long did Doc need him to stall? He wanted nothing more than to leave immediately. Except…
“How do you feel about Washington DC?”
“Boring,” she sighed, “senators are so stodgy, and even if you break one or two it never really goes right and it draws so much attention. Not that I mind,” she added, preening slightly. “Did you see? I was in the papers yesterday.” How had he missed that headline?
“Does that mean you don’t want to go with me?” He didn’t want her to go with him. Except…
He needed to know what had made her like this, why the John Smith in this world hadn’t done anything to stop it.
“I didn’t say that,” she pursed her lips. She lowered the gun slightly, finally, though John was sure there was an imprint on his forehead; the tension left his shoulders as the possibility of instantaneous death passed. Seconds later, though, the barrel was right back, pressed even harder than before. “But enough of this. Who the fuck are you? What do you really want? I know you’re not the Wanderer – you’re ten years too young, you show way to much disgust, and we haven’t gotten naked yet. And your self-control is terrible – you’re all over the place.”
“I’m John Smith,” he replied honestly.
“No, you’re not,” she cocked the gun, and her finger tensed on the trigger, and John began emergency calculations. Could he possibly jump to another world before she pulled the trigger? He didn’t think he could, not deliberately, not when he’d already jumped that day, not without risking ending up lost in space and time, and that could be far worse than being dead. He met her eyes. I know you don’t want to do this, he thought, picturing Marie the way he knew her to be, you’re not this kind of person. You’re better than this. You don’t want to do this. He hoped it was true. For all he knew, she really did want to.
For the first time, an expression touched her eyes. Astonishment. And, John thought, something that must have been even more alien for her. Hope.
“You’re John Smith. You’re not the Wanderer. You’re the Scout, you’re actually the fucking Scout.” The gun fell away as if her arms had no more strength to hold it up, her body sagging slightly, and John nodded, relieved. “Why are you here? Why would you come here? Does he know? If he figures out you’re here, he’ll try to find you.” Another alien emotion. She sounded afraid. John just wished he knew what she was afraid of. It almost seemed like she was afraid for him, but that couldn’t be.
“Would he really?” John hid surprise under a bland tone. Could he, the Wanderer, John Smith in this world, truly harbor so much hatred that he would seek an encounter that would bring about the utter destruction of this dimension and possibly a large number of others as well? “What the hell went wrong? How the hell did this happen?”
And Marie laughed.
