Out of the Ashes, Book 2 Part 3

Out of the Ashes, Book 2 by Misty Meenor A Comic RetCon Universe Story The Martian Manhunter and Miss Martian characters are the property of DC Comics. Captain America, the Red Skull and Union Jack are properties of Marvel Comics. American Dream used with the kind permission of Lilith Langtree. "Ah, that would be Lord Falsworth, ectually." His upperclass accent certainly matched his snotty tone, as he snatched the hand I'd extended for the doctor. "But titles are such a bore, don't you think? Teddibly pleased to meet you both." His eyes swept over me, and then to Court, leaving a greasy stain. "But you can call me Jack. Union Jack." My eyes narrowed at his rudeness. "How do you do, Jack. I must say, you seem very familiar to me -- you wouldn't happen to own any binoculars, would you?"

---

Court had been shaking hands with the doctor, covering the momentary awkwardness Jack had caused, but my question caused her to drop the poor woman's hand like a hot potato and turn on Jack. "That was you? You followed me! You were spying on us?"

I extricated my hand from Jack's grip and offered it to the doctor, finally. "My apologies, doctor. Joanne Jahns. I hope you'll be able to shed some light on all this."

The doctor gave me an exasperated look. "Perhaps not all of it," she admitted, with a glare at Jack, "but as far as what happened to those poor people in the village, I think we have some of the answers, yes. They're not very promising, though."

"Da, da. The will be plenty of time for briefing in the morning," the Colonel interrupted. For now, I suggest we adjourn to the hotel."

The majors had procured another ubiquitous government SUV from someplace, and had tossed the bags in the back; in addition there was a large aluminum case, presumably the doctor's equipment, which the men treated more gently.

The Colonel and the majors took the first SUV, and Court and I climbed into hers, leaving the doctor and Jack to choose a ride. Not surprisingly, Jack chose to avoid us and ride with the men, so the doctor obligingly climbed into the back seat, and we followed the men to the hotel.

I spent the trip interrogating the ring. "There's no record of a Jack Falsworth prior to a month ago, but of course if he's undergone the metagene activation, there wouldn't be. There is a Lady Jacqueline Falsworth, or rather, was -- she was discharged from the Special Reconnaisance Regiment on compassionate grounds after the death of her older brother Brian in Iraq, and the subsequent death of her invalid father James. Both were decorated military heroes, and it seems Jacqueline was following the family tradition. The SRR has quite an elite reputation, primarily anti-terrorist infiltration, and it's the only British elite service that allows women in combat roles. At any rate, Jackie dropped off the map a few months ago, canceled the lease on her flat, sold her car, and vanished. Now, here's Jack."

"But that makes no sense," I sent the puzzled thought. "If she'd been caught by the metagene change, she wouldn't have been able to settle her affairs. Not without a lot of documentation, and a computer trail a mile wide. Unless..." I glanced at Court. "She knew it was coming. Her metagene was triggered on purpose."

"Got it in one, honey. Third-level analysis concurs. Most likely candidate for flipping her switch is the British government, at eighty-seven percent."

"Jackie-boy's the British super-soldier." I whistled soundlessly. "Better let Court know."

"Oh, she knows. She recognized the name right off. She knew Brian in Iraq."

I chewed on that for a while, hesitating to ask Court about it with the doctor in the back seat. "Where are you from, doctor?" I called back, to fill the awkward silence.

"Originally, I'm from Atlanta. I was with the CDC for fifteen years, then I became liaison to the WHO in Geneva. I've been there eight years now, come April. This is the most excitement I've had since the Ebola attack in Toronto, back in 2003."

I snapped my head around to face her. "I never heard about that."

She smiled knowingly. "Sure you did. We called it SARS at the time." She frowned. "We're still not sure who was responsible for that one. Our best guess is the attack was intended for another target, but the package broke in transit." She shrugged. "Or it could have been a demonstration, of course."

I made a polite response, but was saved from further smalltalk by our arrival at the hotel.

Once checked into my room I lay on the bed, thinking. Jack's background -- or rather, lack of it -- would be common knowledge to anyone in the intelligence community. The fact that he retained his family name made his identity even more obvious. So the Brits weren't making any real attempt to disguise the identity of their super-soldier.

Unless it was some kind of a ruse, and that wasn't Jacqueline in there.. But that made no sense either. Why pretend to be somebody as prominent as a British aristocrat? Too many people would know the family, come from the same schools, share the same background. There was no point in creating your supersoldier, putting him in the spotlight by sending him to a top-echelon conference on metabumans, and providing a flimsy fake background that could be shredded by any random stranger.

Like Court. If Court knew her brother, did she know Jacqueline, too? It seemed possible. So why the spying, and the charade? I was reasonably sure Jack wasn't half the upper-class twit he pretended, but his motivations eluded me.

In the meantime, a glance at the clock informed me it was Christmas Day. I sighed miserably and hugged a pillow to my chest, wishing it smelled like Dolores. Merry Christmas, Angel. I hope it's nice up there, 'cause it still sucks to be down here without you.

~o~O~o~

Wakeup call came early, and I was running a little late. When I got downstairs Court handed me a takeout cup of coffee and rushed me out to the car with her best drill-instructor voice. "C'mon, slowpoke, let's go, let's go, we're on a military schedule here. No slack for lazy-ass civilians who can't get out of bed on time."

I stuck out my tongue and hustled out to the car, grateful for the coffee. I smiled to the doctor in the back seat. "Morning, doc. Um, Merry Christmas, I guess," I added, taking in the early morning. The day was shaping up to be every bit of what you'd expect of a summer day in the equatorial rainforest: clouds low and heavy, the air already hot and steamy, thick enough to part with a machete, insects droning in the background. Very un-Christmas, for which I was grateful.

She returned my smile, peering at me over a copy of the local morning paper. "Good morning." She scanned the headlines. "'Chica Verde rescues food shipments from Somali pirates, delivers famine aid'," she read. "Goodness, you've been busy!"

I shrugged modestly and glanced sidelong at Court. "Well, we can't all be civil servants with cushy government jobs, sleeping in soft, comfy beds every night."

"Workaholic," she muttered.

We caught up with the men at the airport, where the majors were arguing with the pilots of a good-sized helicopter. "The Brazilians, they loan us the chopper, two-man crew," the Colonel explained, "but they won't let it stay. Drop off, pick up. One minute on the ground only. Less would be better."

I raised an eyebrow. "What do they know that we don't?"

"Nada," he grunted. "Zilch. They know nothing, same as us. That is the problem."

Can't argue with that. I looked around. "Where's Lord Falsworth?"

The Colonel's lips twitched. "He said he wanted a morning run. He'll be here."

A hint of motion caught the corner of my eye, and I turned to catch sight of a figure moving impossibly fast, following the perimeter road of the airfield, perhaps a half a mile away. A roostertail plume of dust and leafy debris followed him, lifted by the turbulence of his passage.

Court had followed my gaze and was watching the trail of dust trace its way to the far end of the airfield, then across and along the far fenceline. "That's Jack?" Her expression was incredulous.

I nodded. Despite the distance, with my enhanced sight I could see him clearly. Even at his incredible speed, I could see he was running easily. "It's him. This looks like just a morning jog, I don't think he's pushing it."

Court whistled softly, and I ran some quick numbers in my head. "Court, what would you say a lap is? I'm figuring about six miles."

She appraised the airfield, thinking out loud. "Two diagonal runways, military length, call 'em two miles long. That makes the sides about... a mile and a half." She nodded to herself, gauging the distances, confirming her estimates with a soldier's professional eye. "Looks about right. Call it six miles."

I'd begun counting in my head as soon as he started along the fence farthest away from us. One steamboat, two steamboat... I hadn't quite reached thirty as he reached the corner and headed back in our direction. A mile and a half in just under 30 seconds... Jesus, he's running at two hundred miles an hour!

Jack must have been watching for our arrival; he changed course towards our group, without slacking speed. Just as it appeared he was about to fly past us, he just... stopped, so quickly my eyes tracked past him, decelerating in a matter of two or three paces from an impossible velocity to an equally impossible lack. Dust raised by his passage swirled around his knees briefly, then settled in the heavy air, as he strode nonchalantly over to join us. "Good morning! I hope I haven't kept you all waiting," he grinned.

Court had dressed for work, army-style: a loose khaki tee, with camo pants tucked into a combat boots, her long hair held out of her face with a cord at the nape of her neck. I'd chosen comfortable shorts and hiking boots, and a canvas safari vest over a white tank top. Jack's eyes lingered over us, not even trying to be subtle, and it didn't take much for his grin to become a leer.

Court cleared her throat, pointedly, to get his attention off her chest and to the place where the words came out. "Not at all, we were just enjoying the show. How many laps was that, anyway?" she prompted.

"Oh, that was just a warmup, four or five, I wasn't counting. I could have run at that pace for hours. My top speed is maybe twice that."

The doctor gave herself a little shake and hurried off to supervise the loading of her equipment aboard the helicopter, muttering something to herself about respect for the laws of physics. I watched the two of them, a suspicion growing in the back of my mind, as Court nodded. "Impressive. Since we're working together, do you have any other talents we should know about?"

Jack shrugged modestly. "Well, I'm stronger than I look -- nothing on your scale, of course, but stronger than most normals. And I'm tougher than most, but far from bulletproof. Although I heal quickly, too. If it doesn't kill me, I can heal from most anything in a couple of hours. Or so they tell me." he added quickly. "It's not something I care to test with any rigor. I did break my arm rather badly while we were testing my abilities. It was as right as rain an hour later." He rubbed his arm ruefully. "I brushed against a tree. The slightest bump at speed has painful consequences. I learned that quite early on."

I thought about something. "What about water? Can you run across an open stretch, say a river or a lake?"

He nodded, his attention moving from Court's chest to mine, before reluctantly finding my face. "Calm water, certainly. Rough water, well, it's a bit of a risk. The slightest misstep and I'd... well, it would be spectacular, I'm sure. At that speed, water is hard. Wouldn't do to take a tumble and wind up in the drink, with broken bones or worse, miles from shore, would it?" he grinned.

I returned his grin, replaying the mental image of him cartwheeling out of control across the waves a few times, from a number of angles, and enjoying it more than I should. "Yes, I imagine it would be pretty spectacular, at that."

From the helicopter, Major Roth signaled to the Colonel, who interrupted us. "Okay, is time to go. Lots of time to chat in the air."

We climbed into the helicopter and lifted off, soon we were over untamed jungle. Well, not completely untamed, occasionally it was possible to see the outline of a road, if you could call them that; wide unpaved tracks would be a better description. But they were rare, and the distances between them just made the vastness of the jungle more real.

"Doctor, for the benefit of Agents Carter and Chahns, would you kindly review what you told us on the plane?" the Colonel prompted.

She cleared her throat. "The short story is, we don't know much at all, and what we do know is bad news. Every one of the brains we examined showed the same pathology: damage on a cellular level permeating the entire brain. Every major center was affected -- speech, memory, fine motor control. The effects are permanent and irreversible; even if we had a live patient the best we could do would be to sedate them and watch them die. Without the brain to manage things, their endocrine system is out of control; adrenal glands pumping away like crazy, it doesn't take long for their hearts to give out, a couple of days at most. We could deal with that, but everything falls apart when the brain goes; we might postpone death by a day or maybe two, but to what end? These people are literally the walking dead."

She paused, looking frustrated and grim. "What we don't know, is anything else. Not what causes the damage, or how it's transmitted. No clue how almost two hundred people's brains turned to mush at the same time."

The chopper lurched abruptly, causing us to clutch reflexively at our armrests, then recovered smoothly. After a moment, we relaxed.

"That explains why the Brazilians don't want to have anything to do with the place," I nodded. "But aren't we taking a big risk, going in unprotected?"

The doctor shook her head. "Oh, we're not going in without protection." She pointed to her equipment case. "I have the latest in biocontamination gear for all of us. Based on tech Stark Industries acquired the rights to, I'm told." She shrugged, "Whatever the source, Stark makes good stuff, and I've used these suits before. If these things can't protect us, there isn't anything that can."

Suddenly there was a roar and the sound of screaming from the cockpit and the chopper began to plummet, veering out of control, throwing us from our seats.

Hastily, I flew up to the ceiling, pressing my hands to the roof, attempting to lift and stabilize the helicopter, as it pitched and yawed like a wild thing. "I can keep us in the air, but the controls are all over the place. It's like fighting a gyroscope. Kill the engines, or the rotors'll tear themselves apart!"

Major Weiss was already in motion, scrambling towards the cockpit door as the chopper bucked and heaved. He drew a gun from his shoulder holster, but he never got a chance to use it. There was a sudden lurch, throwing the major off-balance; as he struggled to recover, the door crashed open, and out of the cockpit raged a... thing, a gross distortion of a man, eyes wild, face distorted in fury, fingers distended into bloody claws, screaming wordlessly as he fell upon Weiss with tooth and nail.

Court shot across the tiny cabin and hit the thing with a tackle that would have done credit to an All-Pro linebacker; the impact all the more impressive because she massed as much as any two linebackers. The creature hit the cabin wall so hard I thought he might go right through, and there was a sickly sound of ribs splintering like green wood, but he was barely fazed, merely turning his rage from Weiss to the slender teenaged girl that hit like a freight train. Despite the fury of his attack, it was awkward and uncoordinated, almost like a child's tantrum. Court's skin was was impervious to his claws anyway, and she held him off with little trouble while Weiss scrambled to get out of the way, bleeding from gouges to his throat and face.

It was one thing to hold the zombie at bay, but Court quickly discovered it was quite another thing to subdue it. Its fury was relentless, struggling single-mindedly to strike and bite and claw at Court, regardless of the damage to itself. All the while it screamed in rage, made even more disturbing as its shattered ribs added a hideous wheezing sound as it drew each breath. She twisted the thing's arm behind its back in a hammerlock, pressing it to the cabin wall, but the creature simply ignored the hold, attempting to turn and claw at her with one hand even as the other arm was being pried from its socket.

There was a sudden, deafening BOOM and the zombie's head exploded, splashing bits of brain and bone across every available surface. Wind whistled through the new hole in the cabin wall as we turned as one, in stunned disbelief, toward the source of the gunshot.

"Webley forty-five automatic. It was my father's gun." Jack said, as he wiped a bit of gore from the weapon in his hand, admiring it. "Bit of overkill, I daresay, but there's no such thing as too much gun, eh?" Our dumbfounded expressions finally registered. "What?"

We were literally shaken out of our astonishment as the helicopter began to vibrate distressingly. Major Roth quickly scrambled into the cockpit to hit the kill switch, and the chopper steadied as the rotors spun down, and I began to think about how I might land this thing

"Jack," Court began mildly, as she wiped brains from her face, "if you were worried that zombies were caused by something attacking the brain, something that might be infectious, something that you didn't understand at all, what part of the zombie would you least want to SPLASH ACROSS YOUR CO-WORKERS?"