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Suddenly Memories: WhoIsBrodie
By Dac
The guard walked into the room where the federal chancellor was standing over a table, studying some maps. The chancellor looked up expectantly.
“Sir, the ambassador from America is here,” said the guard.
The chancellor raised an eyebrow.
“Already?” he asked. “I was informed he was only dispatched a couple of hours ago.”
“We asked him that, sir,” said the guard gravely. “He just kept laughing at us.”
The chancellor’s brow furrowed and he turned back to his maps, cursing to himself. He was having enough trouble dealing with riots in Hamburg. News that an uppity young politician in the USA wished to talk with him irritated him enough. He didn’t want to have to deal a cocky young fool with no respect for etiquette, much less an American.
“Fine, bring him in,” said the chancellor. The guard walked out. Slowly, the chancellor straightened up and rubbed his eyes. He moved to the window and surveyed the city outside.
Dresden had seen better days. For the most part the city was fine, but the southeast quadrant was cordoned off and officially declared a quarantine zone. The place had never really been the same after the Dresden Wall had fallen; for some reason the socialists all holed up there and became a guerrilla force, prompting the chancellor, then early in his appointment, to destroy it. Rather than expend his country’s finances in rebuilding it, he had the brilliant idea to turn it into a memorial for all those killed. His cabinet ate it up.
The guard came back in with an untidy man behind him. The new man had messy brown hair and a grey uniform that showed signs of wearing out. He grinned at the chancellor chirpily. The chancellor frowned.
“I don’t like him,” he said in German before changing to English. “You were sent by...the Leader, was he calling himself?”
“That’s right,” said the American. “My name is Brodie. It’s an honour to meet you, sir.”
“You’re new to this, aren’t you?” asked the chancellor.
“Yes sir, I am.”
“Then let me give you some advice. Don’t ever open this sort of meeting with that sort of cliché false flattery. It never goes well.”
Brodie looked taken aback.
“I’ll...ah...keep that in mind.”
“Good,” said the chancellor, gesturing for him to sit. Brodie quickly moved over to the seat, almost before the chancellor had finished pointing at it. The chancellor pursed his lips and sat down. Behind them the guard stepped out of the door.
“You arrived quickly,” remarked the chancellor.
“Yeah, I would’ve been here sooner,” said Brodie. “But I spent a bit of time in Berlin. I thought that was the capital of Germany.”
The chancellor felt vaguely insulted. “Dresden has always been the capital, boy. Does your leader always send you into foreign territory with incorrect information? Basic information?”
Brodie looked bewildered.
“Ah, no,” he said quickly. “Mental blank, my mistake. I’ve been busy over the last few days, a few details got confused in my head. Sorry.”
“Think nothing of it,” said the chancellor icily. “Let us, what is it, cut to the chase then. What does the Leader want with Germany?”
Brodie leaned back and spread his arms, missing the tone in the chancellor’s voice and getting comfortable. The chancellor remained frozen in his seat, leaned over and watching Brodie like a hawk. Brodie didn’t notice. He felt remarkably confident, and was enjoying being overseas, away from the others for a change.
“The Leader’s looking to expand outwards,” said Brodie. “You know the politics game, how important it is to have friends. He is extending you the hand of friendship. He’s amenable to your problems here in Germany and wants to help.”
The chancellor watched him closely. He traced a line from behind his eye to the edge of his mouth, contemplating Brodie’s words. “And what exactly does the Leader propose in regards to our problems?”
“The riots in Hamburg,” smiled Brodie knowingly. “He predicts that, before too long, they will grow out of hand. Half the city is already caught up in it, and the other half is going to follow. The question isn’t if, it’s when. When that happens, the Leader will volunteer his best men to aid your forces in bringing the city under control.”
The chancellor did not look impressed. “And what exactly can these best men do that the German police can not?”
“Simple. These men have abilities far beyond those of mortal men. For example...I’m over here...”
Brodie suddenly vanished from his seat. Before the chancellor could blink he was standing by the window, a faint blur receding from the chancellor’s vision.
“Now I’m here.”
He shot back to the seat, mere seconds after having left it. The chancellor sat back in surprise, and Brodie felt pleased with himself to have elicited another reaction from him.
“So the rumours are true,” said the chancellor. “The Americans have superpowered people. Like the old heroes.”
“The old heroes are gone,” said Brodie proudly. “Artefacts of a forgotten time, no more now than stories told over campfires. We, on the other hand, are real, and we are now. There are a number of us, each gifted with special abilities, and we work for the Leader. He offers us to you, to call on in times of dire need. To begin with, these riots. What follows, well, that’s up to you.”
The chancellor resumed his emotionless, stony position, frowning over his fingers at Brodie. “And the Leader asks in return...what?”
“Partnership, assistance, consultation and support. Nothing too drastic. I have here an outline of his policies and aims for you to read through...”
“I received that already,” said the chancellor. “It was emailed to me this morning. It arrived even faster than you did. His policies are sound. Commendable, ambitious. I find no fault with them. I want to know in detail what your Leader desires with Germany.”
Brodie paused. To the chancellor it felt like a very brief pause, but to Brodie it dragged on for what seemed like minutes.
“Alliance,” said Brodie. “With strong political support from a long-standing world leader such as yourself, the Leader will have influence in the political system, and lots of it. On the other side of that, you gain a strong and competent ally willing to provide foreign aid whenever you need, however you need.”
The chancellor sat back, his expression severe. For the first time, Brodie began to get a bad feeling. He had played all his cards, been as charismatic as he could, and the old bastard still seemed hard as a rock. He was going to have to sweet talk this one, and Brodie hated doing that. That was the problem with old-school politicians; they just couldn’t deal with newer, better ways of running countries, and even a silver platter looked suspicious if it was prepared differently. His insides kinked a little. He hated diplomat work, but it was more convenient for the guy who could run between countries. Data had been insistent on that.
“A curious offer,” said the chancellor. “It isn’t often one gets offered the use of superpowers in the most literal sense.”
“The Leader wants to demonstrate he is willing to offer you anything you may need or want,” said Brodie smoothly. “This is not a commodity he offers, it’s a luxury he and he alone possesses. Exclusively. You give him your support, and you’re one of two people in the world who has access to such an elite group.”
“I can see how that would seem appealing,” said the chancellor.
Brodie smiled, then his gaze hardened cautiously. “I’m sorry?”
“Your Leader opens up negotiations with such an offer,” said the chancellor. “You say generosity, but I see desperation. This is not the action of a man who is secure in his position, but one trying to secure that position. Your Leader’s political career is still in its infancy, correct? He makes it obvious with such an offer. I ask you, how many other world leaders has he made such an offer to? How many countries at the moment are undergoing turmoil of some kind? How many of them has he approached, either personally or by way of one of the breathing examples of such a rarity such as yourself, with the offer? The Leader will make your problems go away by giving you coarse, rough men with superpowers! Forget your plans, your strategies to deal with your problems yourself, and instead hide behind the supremely fast man or whoever else is on your team! I know how this game, as you call it, works. You don’t approach just one person, in case he turns you down. You approach many of them, and hope one of them doesn’t reject you, like sending out résumés for a job. I do not doubt your Leader is clever, I have investigated his political career since I was first contacted, but he’s not impossible to figure out. This is what I see: a man desperate for power, looking to gain it by overexploiting his secret transhuman team.”
Brodie sat silently, slightly overwhelmed by the speech. The chancellor’s frown was twisting upwards into the ghost of a triumphant smile. Brodie kept his face carefully neutral, and struggled. The bastard had him on the ropes.
“I want no part of this endeavour,” concluded the chancellor. “Tell your Leader I wish him the best of luck in his career, and I will follow it with renewed interest, but my support is not something he should count on. Not until he knows what he’s doing at least.”
Brodie forced himself to respond. “He will be disappointed.”
“One of my cities is rioting. I’m used to disappointing people.”
Brodie stood up to leave. “That’s not what I meant,” he said coldly. He took a look around the palace and grinned. It was not the same as his flippant, casual smile, but a spiteful, cruel grin. “Nice palace.”
“What did you mean, then?” asked the chancellor, tensing.
“The Leader is not used to being disappointed,” said Brodie. “He may decide to pay you a visit himself soon enough. If that happens, I would advise you to listen. I pride myself on being pleasant, but the Leader...well, he makes himself agreeable, but he’s a lot more intense than I am.”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” said the chancellor. “Americans don’t scare me. When a few revolutionaries tried to bring back Nazi ideals, I ended that conflict by punching their leaders in the face. I got two bullets and gangrene for my troubles, but I stopped them anyway. First-world politicians and their political correctness are nothing.”
“That’s another reason the Leader likes you,” countered Brodie. “You’re a hands-on guy. You do the right thing, even if your best and closest would never advise it. I urge you not to turn the Leader’s opinion.”
“You see, there,” said the chancellor, smiling for the first time. “I do the right thing. That’s what I’m doing now, boy. Keep that in mind. Run back to your Leader and tell him what I said. If he has a problem I’m willing to talk to him. Until then, my answer will not change.”
“Suit yourself,” said Brodie, standing up straight. He walked towards the door before glancing back over his shoulder, his face nothing but black disgust. His voice dripped with venom. “I warned you. Don’t blame me when things don’t go your way.”
The chancellor’s face went gray. At the same time, his eyes seemed to go pale, and Brodie felt a chill. “Is that a threat?” he said faintly. Brodie could sense he’d crossed a line.
“No,” he said calmly. “Just a statement of fact.”
He opened the door and walked out. The waiting room contained two bodyguards and a receptionist, all of whom he glared at. The bodyguards glared back, but the receptionist didn’t notice. Brodie stood up straight and strode confidently towards the far door, keeping his speed at a standard human pace. The bodyguards watched him the whole way, not saying a word. He put his hand on the doorknob and sighed.
A sound came from behind him. A gun being loaded.
Brodie whipped around the room and slammed into the bodyguard who had pulled out his weapon. The man fell to the ground before he even saw Brodie move. Brodie kicked the other man in the face as the receptionist screamed and dove beneath her desk. He ignored her, delivering rapid-fire blows to the guard, who took four hits he couldn’t respond to before hitting the floor. Brodie stood up straight, breathing calmly.
“Pansies,” he muttered.
A gunshot rattled the windows, deafeningly loud in the enclosed space. Crying out, he turned and sprinted, delivering his new attacker a sharp backhand before realising it was the receptionist, who flew sideways with a scream. Brodie blinked, confused, looking from her to the gun.
“Christ, that thing’s bigger than you are,” he said to himself.
He bit back the pain and studied the shot. It had grazed his leg, leaving a small wound that wasn’t threatening but still hurt like hell. He frowned. That could limit his speed, or throw him off on wild angles. He’d have to watch it.
He walked over to the chancellor’s door and ripped it open, more than a bit irritated, but the bastard was gone. He must have used a hidden exit. Brodie wondered if he’d given the order to kill him before leaving; the guard had been about to attack without provocation. That meant orders. Brodie frowned and turned to leave just as the waiting room’s door burst in and a whole team of troopers swarmed in, dressed in riot gear and holding shields. Brodie froze for a second. The single tiny moment of time was all he needed to assess the situation. He had orders to abort if the mission went south. He had a minor injury to a vital area which could potentially be problematic. He was outnumbered 15 to one. Every single one of them was equipped to take punishment and was wielding a weapon of some kind.
Only one option.
He turned and sprinted for the window, diving out just as they opened fire.
The fall took such a long time, it seemed almost leisurely. Brodie smiled serenely as the ground took its time to rise up and meet him, tucking in his legs in preparation for his landing on the grass. He landed and fell somewhat awkwardly, but stood up uninjured. He dusted himself off and walked beneath cover, pausing beneath a nearby roof to take a drink. Confident that the riot troopers, or whatever they were, couldn’t shoot at him, he reflected on their firearms. The chancellor, apparently, had invested some time and money into weapons development, as most of them had been completely unfamiliar to him in appearance, and even the sounds they made on firing didn’t resemble anything he’d heard. He’d heard a strange blend – some normal gunshots, some that sounded like flamethrowers even though he’d seen nothing of any fire, and some that made odd crackling noises. He made a mental note to tell SuperGenius when he got back about what he’d seen.
He heard several loud thuds behind him. He turned disinterestedly, and jumped in surprise. The troopers were following him through the window.
Brodie sprinted at the nearest one and delivered a solid kick to the man’s helmet with the sole of his boot. The man staggered back and gave a grunt. His friends watched, not moving. Brodie froze, staring. The trooper looked back at him. His helmet wasn’t a standard riot cop’s, with a retractable visor. The visor was built into the helmet, a single sheet of black fibreglass covering the front half of his head and tucking in under his chin like a motorbike helmet. Brodie couldn’t see through it, but apparently the troopers could see fine. The man stood up straight.
“That all you got, speedy?” he asked.
Brodie turned and ran through the streets, his face burning with embarrassment. The troopers ran after him, and Brodie slowed his pace enough so they could still follow him. His mind was racing furiously, fuelled by humiliation which was in turn breeding fury. He had outmatched some of the best opponents that had risen up since they arrived in this world. He had taken on entire groups of guerrilla soldiers, several ex-government agents turned guns-for-hire, and domestic terrorists, and every one of them he had bested. Yet here he was, on the run from glorified riot cops.
He let out a derisive snort even as he ran. The others wouldn’t let him live it down if they found out. Not unless he did something about it first.
He ran into the quarantine zone he’d seen on the way in. The ground was hazardous, covered in potholes and jagged crevices, and the buildings around him were crumbling slightly. Whatever had happened here had really done a number on the place. He paused in the shadow of a building and waited, thinking over his options. His old favourite, running circles around an opponent while delivering punches from every direction, wouldn’t work. Their body armour was too thick. He couldn’t strip it off them. He looked around, but the terrain was too unfamiliar and unpredictable for him to work with. He had to come up with something else.
The shouts of the troopers met his ears and all of them came into view up the street. They spread out uncertainly, searching for him. His eyes narrowed as they all fanned out, moving down the street towards him. He sized them all up, and spotted his target. Crouching, he tensed and controlled his breathing. Only one shot, as always. He nearly grinned.
They got closer and he sprang into action. Bolting out from cover and up towards them, he ran so fast they couldn’t even see him. Passing them within an instant, he snatched a holstered weapon from one of them and slowed to a stop 30 feet behind them. The one he’d stolen the gun from felt the wind as he passed, and looked back in confusion a second too late. Brodie pulled the trigger and something bizarre, like a luminescent blue ripple in the air, erupted from his gun with a crackling sound. It slammed into the trooper and sent him flying backwards with a cry. The others all turned instantly, but Brodie was preoccupied with his gun.
“Oh-”
He sprinted up behind them and shot another as he passed, sending the man crashing into one of his teammates and they both crumpled ten feet away.
“-my-”
He fired a third blast as he ran into cover and bent to examine the gun. His target flew backwards and slammed into a rotting building.
“-God!”
He studied it in the shadow of the building and stared at it in astonishment.
“Is this a gravity gun?” he wondered aloud. “Oh please tell me this is a gravity gun! Holy shit, my life has new meaning! I have a fucking gravity gun, bitches!”
He heard the noise of another weapon, identical to the one he clutched, being fired from the street, and the wall he was standing behind cracked apart. The remaining troopers ran at him, guns akimbo. He raised the weapon and fired again, sending one flying backwards before any of them saw him move. In response, he heard several different weapons being unloaded at him – gunshots, flamethrower noises and crackles, just as before. He sprinted towards them and ran straight at the leader. Jumping, he managed to get his foot on the man’s shoulder and pushed himself into the air. He planted the barrel of his concussion rifle into the man’s helmet and fired, grinning as it crumpled inwards like a cola can. Landing, he swung the rifle around and unloaded several more shots at point blank range, dropping more of the men. He turned to face the remaining troopers, and was surprised to see only one was left in the street, turning to face him at a speed that seemed ridiculously slow. The other appeared to be sprinting inside a building. Brodie ignored him; he could always play cat and mouse in a second. He sprinted at the remaining man and dropped his shoulder into the man’s chest, sending them both to the ground. Brodie stood up first and sprang away nimbly, but as he swung around and aimed at the trooper as he stood up, the man raised his own weapon.
“Nice,” said Brodie. “You’re a fighter.”
The trooper said something in German he couldn’t understand. Brodie rolled his eyes.
“You speak-a de English?” he sneered.
“Some,” said the man. “You think speed will always save you?”
“Buddy, you’ve seen how fast I am,” cackled Brodie. “You can’t even see me move unless I want you to. I’m the fastest man on the planet. You really think you can pull the trig-”
There was a sound like a flamethrower and Brodie fell backwards, howling in pain.
“Ja,” said a smug voice.
Brodie seized his weapon and fired a dozen shots in a wide arc until he heard the sound of a concussive blast hitting riot armour. The man gave a cry of pain and went silent. Brodie stood up shakily and rubbed at his eyes. Whatever had hit him had once again only grazed him for a moment, but it had landed right in his face, which was burning with pain. He scraped frantically and blinked several times. The pain in his skin slowly receded, but his eyes still ached.
He blinked. It was still early afternoon, but for some reason everything seemed incredibly dark. He kept blinking, trying to clear his eyes, but the only change was a few odd glowing spots flashing against black. Brodie raised his hands in front of his face and waved them around.
He couldn’t see them. Realisation began to dawn on him.
“Oh...oh god...oh god no...”
He panicked and tried to run, only to sprint straight into a wall. He fell back, dazed, and tried to sprint again. This time he ran for a reasonable distance before something caught his foot and he fell, rolling several times, and to his shock he fell into a hole of some kind. Landing heavily on his back, he let out a cry of pain. He frantically felt around his hands. As close as he could guess, he’d landed in one of the many deep crevices in the roads, going through the foundations of the buildings. He could only guess; although his eyes were open, he couldn’t see a thing. He furiously rubbed at them, trying to clear them.
“God...oh god...come on...”
Something slammed into the back of his head and he fell down again, wheezing. He felt a foot land on his back and heard the voice of the last trooper above him.
“Shore got you with that one, huh?” said the smug voice. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
He kicked Brodie in the face. Brodie flew back and landed heavily, gurgling and choking. The man laughed.
“Pain will last,” he said. “The eyes, that should last l-URK!”
There was a sharp cracking noise followed by the sound of something heavy hitting the ground. Brodie struggled to sit up, but the exertion defeated him. He gave up and slowly crawled forward instead, cautiously putting his hands out in front of him. It seemed like hours he crawled, but it was really barely a few seconds. Even involuntarily, he moved swiftly. He took a sharp stone through the palm of his right hand as he went, but bit down and ignored it, still crawling forward, until finally he found what he was looking for and confirmed his suspicions.
The trooper was dead.
Brodie felt all along his body, finally coming to the man’s neck, and examined it without being able to see. It was twisted to an unnatural angle, and the man’s tongue was lolling out. Stranger, though, was the man’s face. He must have lifted his visor to taunt Brodie, but there seemed to be some odd scarring. He couldn’t begin to guess what shape it was, but the scarring was warmer than the rest of his skin. Brodie held his breath.
He turned and began crawling in the opposite direction, trying to distance himself from the body. He moved back where he had come from, when he felt something that hadn’t been there before. Something smooth and rounded at the front. It felt like old worn out leather, in an odd shape, or at least, it was odd until he discovered laces.
Boots.
“Are you finished?” said a ragged voice.
Brodie sprang backwards and raised his fists in the direction of the voice. The newcomer did not respond.
“Who the hell are you?” demanded Brodie.
“I just saved your life. That’s who the hell I am,” said the man bluntly. “Keep your voice down. They might hear you.”
Brodie felt uneasy. He hated people that appeared from nowhere with the power to take lives with ease. They always had an agenda and he had long since learned to distrust them, regardless of whose side they appeared to be on.
“They’re all gone,” he said cautiously. “I took them all out.”
“With a pressure rifle? Yeah, bullshit,” said the man casually. “Maybe at close range, but from what I could gather you only tagged a couple with it.”
Brodie blinked his useless eyes. “You were watching.”
The man hesitated. “You could say that. Anyway, I can hear them now. They’re regathering.” He paused, taking advantage of Brodie’s confused silence to listen. “They’re travelling,” he went on. “Come on. We need to hide.”
Brodie felt a hand seize his shoulder and pull him roughly to his feet. “But I can’t see a thing,” he protested. “That gun...I think it blinded me!”
The other man gave a derisive snort. “Never stopped me,” he grunted.
The man took Brodie’s wrist and began walking. Brodie heard a distant shout from the troopers and, after a minute of wrestling with his better judgement, allowed himself to be led away.
Wherever the man led him, Brodie couldn’t see. He wondered in the corner of his mind if the tunnel was as dark as his vision was. All he could see was utter blackness, the kind that only comes from staring into a night sky without stars. Nothing on earth held the darkness Brodie could see. For what seemed like a long time and interminably slow progress, they walked down some path that may as well have been invisible to him, and though his gut screamed he was in danger, he let the man lead him to wherever they were going. Sometimes they paused for a moment and the man would mumble to himself, and Brodie could feel his body twisting as he examined something, but before long they would continue walking.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Shut up,” hissed the man.
Brodie screwed up his face in irritation. Every time he asked a question he got the same two words in response, and the only thing that changed was the increasingly-grouchy tone.
As they walked, Brodie noticed a change in the air. It seemed to grow slightly more stale. It got close and claustrophobic, and Brodie felt unnerved.
“Are we underground?”
“Shut up.”
Brodie winced. The man’s grip didn’t feel that tight, but his wrist was stinging badly. Just as he was about to say something, he heard the sound of a door bolt being thrown. The man released his wrist and there came the squeal of something large and rusty being opened. Brodie clamped his hands over his ears at the deafening sound, but it ground to a halt quickly. The man seized his arm and pulled him through what he guessed was the doorway, and the squealing noise came again as he closed it.
“There,” said the man. “That took longer than I thought it would. I’ve never had to bring anyone down here before. You’re fucking slow, you know that?”
Brodie bristled. “I’m the fastest person-”
“Yeah yeah yeah, I heard you bragging up there before,” said the man. “Big deal. You were slow when I led you down here. So to me, you’re slow.”
Brodie heard the man moving past him, and it struck him just how quiet the man’s footsteps were. Listening to him move was no easy task; it was like the man’s feet never touched the ground, and it occurred to Brodie he’d been like that the whole way down. But he’d felt him move normally...
“There’s a couch seven paces behind you,” said the man. “Sit down. I’ll get you a drink.”
Brodie shuffled back cautiously, his hands held out in front in case anything loomed out at him, unseen and maliciously inanimate.
“There’s nothing there,” he heard the voice say in exasperation. “Just walk normally and count your steps.”
Feeling foolish, he straightened up and rigidly stepped forward. He reached five paces when his shin hit the moth-eaten couch and he swore loudly. Sitting down, he fumed and waited for the man to walk back over to him. After a few minutes the man tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a glass.
“You should have counted,” the man said dully. “Well, welcome to my home. Don’t get comfortable. You’re only here until you get better.”
The man dragged a chair from nearby. The scraping sound echoed around them as he sat down across from Brodie. Brodie turned his head in what he hoped was the right direction.
“Where are we?”
“An old underground train station,” said the man. “This is the southeast quadrant of Dresden. It got bombed to hell a while ago, but there’s still a lot of tunnels around here. It’s mostly a safe place. The security forces don’t come down here.”
Brodie cocked his head. “Why not?”
He had a feeling the man was shrugging. “Why would they?” he said. “They don’t know anyone’s down here. No one comes down here. There’s no need for them to come down here, they’d just be wasting time.”
“You’re down here,” Brodie pointed out.
“Yeah, well,” said the man awkwardly. “They don’t know that.”
Brodie waited to see if the man would say more. He didn’t. They sat in silence, drinking slowly, for a full minute before Brodie spoke again. To him, the minute seemed much longer.
“So who are you?” he asked. “Why’d you save me?”
He heard the man swilling his drink thoughtfully for a moment before setting it down. There was the clink of glass on stone. It sounded strange in the confining air.
“I don’t like the troopers,” he said. “Saving you was incidental. One of them was right on my doorstep so I had to get rid of him.”
“What happens when they find the body?”
“They won’t.”
An ominous feeling struck Brodie as the man said it. Calm, casual, but with a distinct sense of finality and a hidden warning in the words. The shadow of a threat. This wasn’t the first time.
“Who are you?” he asked nervously.
“I’m just a transient who got on the wrong side of the chancellor,” said the man. “I may as well be a man with no name here. I have no family, no friends, no ties, nothing. I’m just a destitute guy.”
Brodie’s eyes narrowed out of reflex. “What, a hobo?”
There was a brief moment of pause. Brodie thought he heard the man give a small chuckle. “Yeah. You could say that. I went from place to place, country to country, but when I wound up here as a mercenary, the chancellor put my eyes out and left me to rot.”
Brodie started. “Wait, what?” he said. “You’re blind too?”
He could feel the quizzical look the man gave him. “I already said that,” he grunted. “I swear to god, nobody fucking listens to sarcastic people anymore.”
Brodie ignored him and went on. “But you walked all this way,” he said. “You killed the trooper. You move around here fine, you know exactly where everything is. How the hell do you do all that if you’re blind?”
“I deal with it. What’s your excuse?”
Brodie gaped. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but no sound emerged from them. He had a feeling the man was enjoying his bewilderment. After a moment of trying to find the words, the man spoke up again.
“What would you expect me to do?” he said. “Cry about it? Complain that it’s not fair? Curse God, or the men who did it to me? Pray for revenge? Demand some cosmic force make it all right again? I tried that, pal. And you know what? Absolutely none of it brought my eyes back. At the end of it, I was just as blind and bitter as I was before, and nothing I or anyone else did could change that. So, sure, I could sit back and weep for my loss for the rest of my life, or I could build a bridge and get the fuck over it. I survive down here. It’s not the best existence ever, it’s not the most comfortable, but hey, it’s living.”
He picked his glass up and drained it of water. Taking it and Brodie’s he moved back over to what Brodie guessed had once been the station’s cafe. Brodie listened to his footsteps as he went, and even though he strained he could barely hear the man move. A thought flashed into his head, and with his mind racing even faster than normal he thought it over rapidly. The more he did, the more likely it seemed. He raised his head in the man’s direction and called out.
“Are you like Daredevil?”
The question was met with silence for some time. Brodie scratched his head thoughtfully. It made sense.
“What?” The man sounded confused.
“Are you like Daredevil?” he repeated. “You’re blind, you move quietly, you can do incredible things without sight...do you have enhanced senses, like hearing and touch and all that?”
The silence came back, but this time it was briefer.
“Are you fucking retarded?”
Brodie started. “I was just wondering...”
“You’re an idiot,” spat the man. “Yes, I can do incredible things without my sight. Know how I learned to do them? I was fucking patient. Trial and error, pal. I haven’t been able to see for god knows how long, so I learned to do without it. I’ve injured myself doing that, nearly died a few times, and it took me a long time to hear as well as I do now. That’s not a superpower, that’s just fucking patience.”
He sat back down across from Brodie, scraping the chair deliberately, as though to mock Brodie. Brodie folded his arms.
“Well sor-fucking-ry,” he said, his ego wounded. “I see enough people with superpowers now, I thought you might have one too.”
“Who says I don’t?” said the man, his tone of voice betraying a small grin. “How’s your wrist?”
Brodie blinked again. “Huh?” He rubbed his wrist where the man had held it, dragging him through the tunnels. He remembered how it had stung, and as he ran his other hand over it he felt some strange indentations. “What the hell...”
“Yeah, sorry about that,” said the man. “I can turn it down, but I can never really turn it off. You might have some minor scarring, but you’ll barely notice it.”
Brodie pointed his head at the man and stared in confusion. Neither could see the expression the other was making, but the man guessed from the silence.
“I have an acidic touch,” he explained. “At its strongest I can melt rocks. I keep it turned down, though. Mostly I don’t have much of a use for it.”
“Yeah, I was gonna say,” said Brodie. “It seems pretty useless.”
The man snorted again. “Useless?” he said. “Like yours is any better, speedy.”
Brodie felt his face grow hot again with indignation, but he laughed derisively. “You think speed is useless?” he said incredulously. “I can run across oceans and snatch a peregrine falcon out of the air.”
“And I could melt my way to the earth’s core if I felt like it. What’s your point?”
“My point?” Brodie echoed. “How about the point that I can outrun any opponent and kick the crap out of anyone who crosses me?”
“Really,” said the man. “Is that why you were being pinned to the ground when I found you, unable to defend yourself against one trooper?”
Brodie bristled. “I was blind!”
“So was I.”
Brodie fell silent. He tried to come up with something, but every argument in his head fell flat. Before he could muster anything, the man spoke up again.
“There’s your problem. You rely on your speed too much, so much that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be in a situation where your speed ain’t gonna help you do shit. You tried running up there, and I heard you run straight into a wall. Some help your speed is when one little shot to the eyes turns you into a Marx Brothers skit.”
Brodie sat in stunned silence. The man stood up and made a point of walking away so Brodie could hear his footsteps. From the sound of things he was rummaging around in the cafe.
“I know the weapon they hit you with,” he called as he worked. “It’s mostly used as a humanitarian weapon. Incapacitates people without killing them, and the effects are temporary. Usually the eyesight returns.”
Brodie felt a chill up his spine. “Usually?”
“When the troopers let the target live long enough, the eyesight returns. Sometimes they kill them before they get the chance.”
Brodie breathed heavily, holding his hands out in front with his palms upturned. He imagined seeing them held there, but his eyes remained dark. He couldn’t even begin to picture what the room around him looked like, whether he was sitting on the platform or in an office, what objects might lie around him in the darkness. He suddenly felt very isolated, and his breathing increased rapidly. The man returned, walking so Brodie couldn’t miss the sound of him walking over.
“Here,” he said. “Plate of food. Don’t knock it over.”
Carefully, Brodie raised his hands and took the plate, lowering it onto his lap. Gingerly he poked his food and felt something rubbery and sticky.
“What is it?”
“Canned spaghetti. There’s a lot of it back there. Fork’s on the plate. Eat it, then leave it on my chair. I’m going to get some sleep. You can sleep on the couch when you’re done. If you need to go to the bathroom, there’s a bucket five paces to your right and some napkins to wipe with. We’ll see how your sight’s going when we’re both awake.”
Brodie had his mouth full of food. He swallowed hastily and turned his head in what he hoped was the right direction. “A bucket?” he said. “How long have you been living down here?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know that?” asked the man, sounding indignant. “I don’t have a watch, or the eyes to see it with.”
“Sorry,” said Brodie. “I just...I dunno how you do this, especially since you’re blind. Pretty impressive, man, and that’s a huge understatement.”
The man didn’t say anything. Brodie had the vague feeling he’d insulted him backhandedly. He called out again, changing the topic.
“You got a blanket or something?”
No response. Brodie waited in case the man was just taking his time responding, but several minutes passed before he realised he’d walked out. Brodie was alone in the dark of the underground, unseen through the dark of his eyes. He shivered and lay down on the couch. Slowly, the sounds of the darkness came to him, gradually at first, then louder as he became attuned to them. He could hear water dripping, a small animal scrabbling around somewhere, and the tunnels themselves shifting and making small noises.
He screwed up his eyes and clamped his hands over his ears.
***
The pair of them sat awake, Brodie on the couch and his underground friend on the chair, eating some canned vegetables the man had withdrawn from his stores. Brodie had no way of knowing how much time had passed, if it had only been a few minutes or a few hours. It occurred to him that he would have no way of telling if he had been down in the darkness for days until he got out.
When he had woken up, the man had walked over to him and asked how he was. Brodie had panicked – his eyes still seeing nothing but darkness, he freaked out, until the man shook him roughly.
“Hold on,” he had said, and pulled something else out of the cafe while Brodie sat ranting.
“You said it would wear off,” he had muttered feebly, sweating. “I still can’t see. I still can’t see. I still can’t see.”
“That’s because there’s no light down here,” the man snorted as he returned. “And your night vision must be as useless as your speed. Here. Shut up and hold still. Can you see this?”
A light had flared to life several feet away. Brodie yelped at the sudden brightness, however small it was, and shielded his eyes. Slowly he peeked between his fingers and saw what the man was doing. He had struck a match, and it was already burning itself through. All Brodie could see of the man were his hands, one holding the match and the other cupping over the top of the flame. The flame, although so tiny, burned with a furious intensity to Brodie, who still felt pain just by looking at it.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” said the man. “There. Your vision is back. You’d better get out of here.”
The hand holding the match had shaken it out and Brodie found himself plunged into darkness.
“Wait, light another one,” he said. “So I can see.”
The man snorted again. Brodie was coming to resent that sound. “Haven’t you learned anything?” growled the man. “Seeing’s not going to help you! Say I gave you this box of matches and let you go off on your own. Would you be able to navigate the tunnels and get out? No, because you wouldn’t have the faintest clue where you’re going. I do. I’ll take you out, and I’ll do it without seeing a thing, because sometimes you have to learn how to do without the comfort of your normal fucking senses!”
Brodie had put his head in his hands in exasperation. “Oh God,” he moaned. “You’re trying to teach me a lesson.”
“I’m not trying a damn thing. I’m just stating a fact, which you’re refusing to believe. The lesson is conveniently incidental.”
Brodie had sat in sullen silence since then, aside from a dull word of thanks when the man handed him the plate of vegetables. They ate hungrily, and then the man took the plates back to the cafe. Brodie heard the sound of running water, and instantly more questions formed in his head, but he pushed them down, maintaining his sullen air.
“Come on,” said the man suddenly, his voice startlingly close. “Let’s get you out of here. Give me your wrist.”
“And let you burn it off? No thanks,” said Brodie. “Put my hand on your shoulder and I’ll walk like that.”
“OK, fair enough.”
His hand firmly gripping whatever the man was wearing on his torso, Brodie allowed himself to be led to the door, hearing the rusty squeal as it opened again.
“I can’t believe you never wore gloves,” he muttered almost inaudibly.
“I never had anyone to complain about the lack of them,” the man replied. Brodie could almost hear the smirk on his face. “Besides, I’d probably just burn straight through them.”
They walked through the darkness for a long time, and slowly Brodie realised his night vision was returning. Why it had taken so long, he didn’t know, but he welcomed it as he realised he could make out the rocks and the stalactites, and even the vague blurry outline of his guide. They walked for a long time, neither of them having any idea how much time, until the man came to a halt. Brodie nearly walked into him and looked further up the tunnel.
Light.
Not the harsh yellow light of a match. Clear blue sky, only about twenty metres walking up a steep slope. Brodie looked at his saviour, still hidden in shadow, and wondered how he had known to stop there. Just as he was wondering if the man wasn’t as blind as he’d said, he felt a cool breeze and the penny dropped.
“This isn’t where I brought you in,” said the man. “This is on the edge of Dresden. The guerrillas who lived in the tunnels used this as an escape route. Once you’re out here, you should be far away from the troopers, so they won’t know you’re here.”
Brodie blinked, his eyes watering from the light. He stared up at the blue sky above him and felt relief. Back in the station he had known his sight was back, but it wasn’t until he saw the sky that it sank in. They couldn’t take the sky away from him as the man had extinguished the match. Brodie smiled and stared up at the sky, feeling his spirit begin to lift.
“Go on,” said the man, interrupting his reverie. “Go back to the States. There’s nothing left for you here.”
Brodie looked back at the man, and even as he watched the man seemed to surround himself with the shadows. Only his outline was even remotely visible, though he was barely five feet away.
“Come back with me,” said Brodie. “We’d be able to help you. Get you somewhere more comfortable to live. Come on. You shouldn’t stay down here.”
“Why not?” said the man roughly. “This place is what I know. I’ve memorised thousands of tunnels for the sole reason of living down there. There’s enough food and water for me to live well. I’m fine here.”
“In a cave?” echoed Brodie.
“Yeah,” said the man. “Look...Brodie...I appreciate the thought. But out there, I’m a blind guy with a useless power. Down here, I’m my own master. I’ve never been good at following rules, or being there when I’m needed. I’m better off here.”
Brodie looked up at the sky again. His elation at seeing it again was punctured, and it occurred to him that this man would never feel as he did then. He could not. His eyesight was gone and never coming back. He could never know what it was like to use his eyes again and see everything in the world.
“Go on,” said the man again, gentler this time. “For your own sake. Do what you have to do. Run across your oceans.”
He gave a small chuckle. Brodie laughed himself, shaking his head. He opened his mouth to speak and turned back to the man. He started. The man was gone.
Brodie looked back into the tunnels, but his night vision was lost again, and he saw no sign of movement within the darkness. Wherever the man was, he had vanished from sight back into his domain. Brodie breathed heavily, staring into the depths before a moment longer, before turning back to the sky and walking slowly, slower than a normal man, towards it.
9/25/2011 5:13:30 AM
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