“He’s not alone in there,” said Happy. “He’s hardly there at all. More like a memory, now, pressed down and supplanted by something else. Someone else has… moved in and taken over. Riding him.”
“And that’s what killed everyone?” said Melody. “One dead man, with a rider in his head?”
“He’s not like any dead man we’ve ever encountered,” said Happy. “Not a zombie, not any kind of lich… Whatever’s riding Patterson has suffused his body with so much power, it’s a wonder the world is able to bear his presence. This is far more than a simple possession. This is a Power, walking unfettered in the world.”
“I don’t care what it is,” said Latimer. “It’s killed my people. No-one gets away with that.” She nodded quickly to the commander. “Blessed and cursed bullets, half and half. Take that thing down.”
The commander nodded easily and turned to his men. He didn’t seem too bothered at the idea of shooting Patterson. JC wondered briefly if perhaps the commander had known Patterson, before. The commander moved easily among his people. His voice was calm, professional, assured. “Target dead ahead. Put him down.”
The security people all opened fire at once, and the quiet night was filled with the roar of massed gunfire. Bullets pounded into Patterson, over and over again, and he stood there and took it. Every single bullet hit him, not one miss, and none of them did him any harm. The dead body soaked up the punishment, and the horrid smile on the dead face didn’t waver in the least. He didn’t even rock on his feet under the multiple impacts. The bullets made holes in his flesh, but that was all they did. He felt no pain, took no injury. The occasional head shots blasted the back of his skull away, blowing out long streams of grey and pink brains, but his awful gaze never wavered. He was dead, and there was nothing more the guns could do to him.
The gunfire died slowly away, as one by one guns ran out of ammunition. The security people lowered their weapons. The echoes died away, and Patterson was still standing. The security men looked at each other and muttered uneasily; but not one of them retreated. The commander opened his mouth to give new orders, but he never got to say them because Patterson was already off and moving. He raced forward with inhuman, unnatural speed, arms and legs moving without grace or efficiency. Shattered bones in his arms and legs made harsh protesting sounds as the possessing will drove them on. Patterson hit the commander first. One punch ripped the man’s head right off, and Patterson was already moving on before the body hit the ground. He was in and among the security people in a moment, striking them down with closed fists, breaking their necks and clubbing them down, ripping out throats with clawlike fingers. Most of them didn’t even have time to scream before they died. He tore arms out of their sockets with inhuman strength, his dead fingers sinking deep into mortal flesh, laughing silently as blood sprayed over him. He crushed skulls and punched out hearts, and stalked over fallen bodies to get to those who remained. None of them ran. They fought him with gunbutts and knives and bare hands; and none of it did any good.
It was all over very quickly. In the end, Patterson stood alone, surrounded by the dead, with fresh blood dripping from his hands. He laughed soundlessly. And then he turned to look at Catherine Latimer.
He nodded cheerfully to her, and she stared back at him with stiff, frozen features. Patterson took a step towards her, and JC, Melody, and Happy immediately moved forward, putting themselves between their Boss and the dead man. Latimer started to say something, then stopped herself. They were following their training. Patterson studied them all thoughtfully.
“Who are you?” said JC.
Patterson stood very still, not breathing hard, not breathing at all. He nodded slowly to JC, still smiling his wide, wide smile, as though this was the finest thing ever, the most fun he’d ever had.
“You’d know my name if I said it,” the dead man said in a breathy, scratchy voice. “So I won’t say it.”
The voice grated on everyone’s nerves. It was only breath, moving over vocal cords. Nothing human in it at all.
“All right,” said JC. “Let’s try an easier one. What do you want?”
“I will kill you all,” said the dead man. “And you can’t stop me. You should never have come here. You should never have interfered.”
“I hate to be picky about this, oh high-and-mighty dead person,” said JC, “but you brought us here. Or at least Patterson did, presumably on your orders.”
“You were supposed to fail,” said the dead man. “I chose you, above all the other A teams, because you had the least experience. I had to get you in place before someone better turned up. You were supposed to walk in there, like good little sacrificial lambs, and fall to the New People. Or their creatures. The New People were taking too long. They needed a nudge, some exterior pressure, to get them moving. We arranged for their creation, you see, so they would damage reality… break it open from within. Smash the walls of the world.”
“You wanted the New People to destroy the world?” said Latimer. “Why?”
“The world doesn’t matter,” said Patterson. “It’s merely a cage, from which we will escape. The New People were only ever a means to an end.”
Latimer’s phone rang. Everything stopped for a moment, reacting to the harsh ringing tone. Latimer took out the phone and put it to her ear, never taking her gaze off the dead man before her. He looked vaguely annoyed at being interrupted but let her answer it. Presumably some reactions are ingrained, even on the dead.
“Yes, I know,” said Latimer. “Yes, I’m looking right at him. No! Stay where you are! That’s an order! Maintain the perimeter at all costs. Nothing else matters. Hold the line until I tell you otherwise
… or until it’s clear I’m no longer in charge. Then you take your orders from the Second In Command. God help you. Now don’t bother me again. I’m busy.”
She put the phone away. Happy looked at her, almost in shock.
“That’s it? Shouldn’t we contact Institute Headquarters, get some serious reinforcements down here, with really serious weapons?”
“By the time they could get here, this will all be over,” Latimer said flatly. “One way or the other.”
“You should get the hell out of here, Boss,” said JC. “You’re too valuable to the Institute to put yourself at risk.”
“Yes, I am,” said Latimer. “Good of you to remember that, for once. Unfortunately, my emergency teleport button isn’t working. It should have removed me to safety the moment it became clear brute force wouldn’t stop that thing but it would appear something… is blocking it. Which isn’t supposed to be possible. I can only assume Patterson betrayed us on a great many levels, sharing his insider knowledge with whoever or whatever is riding him now. I could run, I suppose but I doubt I’d get very far.”
“Typical,” Happy said bitterly. “The Boss gets an emergency teleport button, but we don’t. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as an emergency teleport button.”
“I did,” said Melody. “I’ve been trying to hack its files for months, so I could build one of my own.”
“Oh, that was you, was it?” said Latimer. “We will discuss that later, young lady.”
“Excuse me,” said JC. “Do you think we could all concentrate on the matter at hand, pretty please? Namely, the dead man with the blood of many on his hands, standing right in front of us? And no, I wouldn’t try outrunning him, Boss. You saw how fast whatever it is moved. I suppose once you’re dead, human limitations don’t apply any more.”
“No,” said Kim. “They don’t. But there are other limits.”
JC looked at her. “Anything you can See, anything you can tell us, about the dead man?”
“He’s got one hell of an aura. Lots of purple. Just by being present, he’s burning up that body. Though probably not soon enough to do us any good. So much power… Whatever it is that’s riding Patterson, I don’t think it’s human. Or at least, not human any more.”
JC nodded quickly, as though that was nothing more than he’d expected, and turned his attention back to Latimer.