“I’ll take out your guards if I have to, but why don’t you try those Feeders you so desperately rely on.”
Margaret Kepler-Madison seethed. The impudence displayed by this… this lesser was not to tolerated. Reaching back with her Mancer abilities, she sought that spark in each Feeder she could clasp onto and control.
Nothing. Emptiness.
The Madam President spun in time to see all five hundred of her Feeder fall, each one inert and radiating energies from the orifices that once absorbed it. In unison, they burnt out, burst, and settled as piles of ash. Trying to face the young woman again, she had to shield her eyes. The searing light emanating from her was like that of a sun.
“No…” the President moaned.
“No? No what?” asked the young woman, this filthy lower creature, as she closed the distance between them. “No, I can’t order a peaceful community to be slaughtered just to kidnap one person who doesn’t even know I exist? No, I probably shouldn’t have a child butchered just because she might pose a threat to my regime some day? No what?”
“Leave The Madam be!” howled Ashmore as he charged out of nowhere.
Margaret Kepler-Madison could have sworn the young woman’s eyes themselves exuded lightning as Ashmore exploded into nothingness.
“A supernova is just as devastating as a black hole,” murmured The Madam President.
“What?”
“Dr. Harvey’s last words. I… see now.”
This terrible celestial thing in the shape of a dirty young woman, it stood above and looked down upon her as if contemplating judgment. This little wretch, a disguise for a condensed composition of stars, had a scowl sculpted from infinity. The ruling came far, far too soon.
“No, you don’t see,” said the light as she took Margaret Kepler-Madison face in her hands. “And you never will again.”
DataLog Text-MemxJourn: Doyle, Sienna A. / 12-07-24
Sienna felt weariness, deep down in her soul. Too much death. Too much suffering. She lay back on the stone bench and tried to ignore the presences she felt creeping closer. Either guards or citizens. Closing her eyes, she shifted the Servant she had taken from the Madam President. While Sienna didn’t really care at the moment, Madam President wasn’t going to need it ever again. Its familiar weight felt comfortable, familiar, in her hand. Too bad about that.
There was an explosion nearby, followed by another only seconds later. Great, she was a revolutionary. Could she please go to sleep here, as thanks for liberating everyone? Awesome.
Nope. She felt a single individual strolling towards her. Openly, casually.
Another Mancer.
No, it couldn’t be…
“I hereby, without equivocation, refuse to inform your brother that he has yet again failed in his ongoing quest to rescue you in a daring fashion via an attempt to repay some unspecified sibling competition.”
“Camus,” was all Sienna could get out before being wracked with sobs.
“My dear, please! Please, everything is alright now.”
Curling up in his arms, she sobbed as he rocked her back and forth.
“Gemmel,” she got out.
I know, dear one, he was found. It was taken care of.”
“Sean… he’s…”
“He’s here somewhere, accompanied by a large and understandably aggrieved band of Northerners. They would have come, with or without my assistance, but as Kepler-Madison and I have no love lost and I do feel a sort of parental affection for you, I decided to ‘come off the bench’ as it were.”
“The Madam President’s over there,” said Sienna.
Camus hugged her tight before releasing her and striding over to the smoking crater Margaret Kepler-Madison was occupying. Her cornflower blue dress suit was covered in soot, her greying hair fried down to the scalp. She made bleating sounds, like a small, injured animal, as she groped for the pearls from her broken necklace. Something must have stirred in her head at Camus’s approach. She craned her neck up to him, seeing nothing with hollowed, blacked eye sockets and began squealing. Frantically slapping the ground, trying to find a corner in the crater to back herself into, she urinated down her leg.
“All the gods in heavens,” whispered Camus.
“She was a monster,” said Sienna, arms wrapped around herself.
“Oh, I will be the last person to dispute that. What… what has transpired here exactly?”
“You were right, I’m not a Feeder or a Mancer. Dr. Harvey, he said… Dr. Harvey was this guy who, well anyhow… Feeders absorb and Mancers manipulate, right?”
Camus just stared at her.
“Um, I radiate. I expel. I… think I break stuff back down to its most basic components, sub-atomic and shit. Then it just… goes elsewhere. Back into the universe.”
“Energy can not be created or destroyed, only transferred,” mumbled Camus.
“Yeah, that’s what Dr. Harvey said.”
“And here?” he asked, gesturing down at the cowering ruins that used to be Madam President Margaret Kepler-Madison of Raleigh.
“I removed her Mancer abilities, removed the energy signature that made her ‘her.’ She’s, like, in perpetual Leecher status now, but without a way to feed. She can’t tap into any energies, including her own, can’t manipulate, can’t control… she’s just cut off, okay?”
“You blinded her,” Camus stated, with a quiet, understated authority.
“I blinded her,” Sienna confirmed, seeing a peculiar authenticity to the word choice.
“Good,” said Camus, nodding absently. “Good.”
Just then, Sean and about a dozen Northerners rounded the corner, carrying more heavily artillery than Sienna had ever seen one person haul.
“Awww…” exclaimed Sean, seeing his sister standing there, safe and sound next to Camus. “Fucking seriously?”
DataLog Text-LiveJourn: Doyle, Sienna A. / 25-10-24
Yep.
The few actual supporters of Kepler-Madison’s rule were rounded up and executed from what I heard. Madam President herself was purposely kept alive until she got her hands on a shard of glass about a month later and stuck it in her own neck. I don’t believe the liberated citizens of Raleigh were terribly upset. Sean and Teddy, the ginger giant, helped with most of the restructuring. Last I heard, Teddy had been elected Governor with my brother as his second. This idea amuses me to no end.
Sean still hasn’t had the chance to rescue his poor little sister and make us even.
Camus and I only stayed in Raleigh for a short time after those first days. We went back to Nashville to check in with Mandela and let him know his people were okay. Jackie had been killed in the skirmish with Rove, but Rainie had somehow survived. That made me happier than I would’ve thought possible.
I also visited Gemmel’s grave.
All the victims of that day had been placed in a specially selected field, over in Shelby Park. Lined up in a row, Jay Gemmel had been placed at the end. I spent the whole afternoon there, saying my goodbyes and missing a life I never got to have.
Turns out that whole thing with Camus and Mandela dealing with Shelby Park had been about this time that Anne Gimme and her crew had snuck a relay beacon into the park, attracting Feeders. Camus had taken care of the Feeders. I may or may not have wandered south of the Cumberland River and re-introduced myself to Ms. Anne and her Gimmes. I considered paying a visit back to Sigma-8, but decided those ghosts were better left dead. And clueless.
Camus and I traveled. If we found Feeders, I destroyed them. If we found Mancers, it went on a case-by-case basis. It was all pretty easy since I had taken Kepler-Madison’s Servant and it contained access codes to all her T-Net eJournals. The Quinn Sisters in Los Angeles ended up being cool, for instance, while this one evil bastard in Seattle found himself dead real fast. I think I’d like to meet this Carter guy I keep hearing about out on his fake island in the Pacific.