Presents..... Specters of the Past
SHOWCASE #9 - March, Year Three	by Curt Fernlund

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DeadMan

Phantom Stranger

Rocket Red Rajas

---

Somewhere Between…

The light was behind him now, all around. Lighting his way.

He could feel the burn on his back, yet oddly he felt no pain. There was only warmth, a comforting sense of contentment and peace. No, there was no pain at all, and that in itself was strange. There had been pain for so long.

He walked on, and that too was strange. He had been confined to the chair, his console for so many years that he barely remembered what it had been like before. For so long he could barely move let alone walk. His arms and hands had been all but useless, the muscles of his neck barely able to support his head, and then all too often only with the aid of the brace on the better days. He had barely been able to draw a breath.

He had been dressed by attendants; bathed and put to bed. His offal had been shunted through a catheter, changed in humiliation and agony. His food had been liquid, spooned into his mouth or dripped into his arm. His body had been a huge, festering sore that would never heal nor expire.

And now he walked. He was whole again, the scars and burns wiped away by the light and fire of God.

God…

I was in Chaman when the Russians first came.

Sami was there, and little Prachi and we stood at the side of the long dusty road watching as the tanks rolled by. There were dozens moving through the city, the noise deafening, and not just tanks rumbling along but huge trucks filled with soldiers and other strange machines lined with rockets and missiles. There were lines and lines of soldiers marching through the hot, dusty streets carrying their bulging packs and shining weapons.

Most of the people stood back or even hid, running back to their small houses; hovels really then, little more than four walls and a roof, a dirt floor. Mothers were screaming, wailing, praying to the gods for deliverance. Husbands and fathers, sons stood warily- those that stayed- trying to show a front, never afraid but cautious. They remembered the days when men vanished in the night to serve the country.

We watched in awe as the line continued, the war machine of the Soviet Union marching into the wastes of Afghanistan. Rolling on and on. The soldiers seemed depressed, sullen. Occasionally one would smile, looking our way but there was pallor about them, a pall of doom. Many knew that they would not pass this way again.

There was one I recall walking near. He reached out in passing, touched Sami on the head ruffling his hair. He gave Prachi chocolate. She was sick the next day.

There was an explosion, the sound of gunfire in the distance. I saw blood and bits of body raining from the sky. The noise echoed in my ears, set them ringing and I fell to the dirt. I felt afire and my skin tingled, a thousand burning pricks piercing me. Sami stood above me shouting something. Prachi was crying, her lips stained brown.

The Russians were invading Afghanistan and the Afghanis had retaliated. Someone had driven a delivery van loaded with explosives into a tank where the army was crossing the border. The doctor had told me I had been lucky. Dozens had died. He had removed the shrapnel and sent me home in a swath of bandages.

I sold the antibiotics he had given me, bought food; bread and fruit, water.

Prachi was still crying when I got home, our little house on the dusty street.

Our parents were dead.

I had been lucky…

The LIGHT gave way to mist, the shadowy realm he recalled where he had seen the ghost, the man dressed in red that had pointed him on his way. The Deadman…

He walked on, there was little else to do. Wander the shadow lands perhaps, maybe learn their secrets. Take the road less traveled or the beaten path. He still felt the warmth behind, swelling about him- guiding him? He did not know. There was something. He remembered the voice vaguely, the sound of God, the Source. It had been warm, sincere. The guiding light…

He was expected somewhere he knew, and soon. But not yet- not quite yet. There was still a little time. The choice was his after all.

“Yo!”

The ghost was there. He was hovering in the mist sitting cross-legged at an odd angle, almost upside-down. His wrinkled, parched lips were quirked in a smile, his blank eyes staring.

“Back so soon, son? You only left a minute ago. Job just didn’t work out, hunh?”

“Look again, Boston Brand,” another voice called from the swirling mists. The Deadman’s eyes went wide for just a moment as he stepped down from the air, angling to hover at a more proper angle though still slightly above, aloof.

“Gaze with what remains of your soul and see the truth for what it is. There have been great decisions this day.”

The Deadman seemed to sag, to sigh, but he turned letting his eyes wander and probe. Behind him the swirling fog seemed to part, the misty shadows gathering substance as a dark form took shape. A tall man dressed in black, his eyes dark beneath the brim of his fedora, a golden medallion swaying lightly with his step.

“I know you…”

“Then you are fortunate, one of the few. I am known by some, but their numbers are small, infinitesimal. To most I am simply…”

“Here it comes,” the Deadman said with a sigh.

“A Stranger…”

“Ya just gotta love ‘im.”

“I do not understand…”

“Look into yourself,” the Stranger said, ignoring the ghost. “All is there. You have been chosen, and HE would not leave you wanting.”

“Chosen for what?”

“Vengeance…”

I remember when the Russians returned.

It was years later, and my sister and I were grown, surviving. The war had ended and ended badly, but still the Russians came back. They could not learn, or did not care.

We were in school. Prachi was struggling with computer analysis, still a growing field, and basic mathematics. I was a sophomore in University. I was seventeen then, a man. I had been brilliant once, not quite a prodigy, but better than my peers. They of course hated me for it- for my brilliance. They had beaten me time and again, ignorant and jealous. They had raped my sister.

Major Gorchev had seemed congenial those first few meetings. He had been impressed with my brilliance, my ability to read beyond the lines, to improvise. I understood, and he was looking for young men like myself to work for the Union. There were advances to be made, a race to be won. I was uninterested.

He promised money and prestige. He promised rank and life. He promised to help my sister in the end.

I signed his papers, reading, believing his promises. I had my contract well in hand, little knowing then. Not suspecting at all. I was naïve.

They sent my sister to America, part of a plan of friendship- Glasnost they called it. Outsourcing. I never saw her again, though we spoke on the telephone once. At least I assumed it was her.

They sped my studies, streamlined them with a plan in mind, some grand scheme. I graduated soon, within a year tired and excited for my life ahead. I would leave Islamabad; first for Moscow, then for someplace called Chernobyl…

***

The light was dim now, its heat and comfort a memory. The mist had grown; thicker, cool and there were shadows moving about in the odd twilight darkness. The Stranger seemed unconcerned and the Deadman would not stop talking, floating along above at queer angles. Rajas stared into the dim.

He could feel the cold now, and his body oddly seemed… different. There was still no pain, but he was… aware. He could not explain it, and when he asked-

“It shall pass,” the Stranger said walking on. “It is a common sensation, not unlike déjà vu in the realms beyond.”

“Where are we?” the man asked, looking about in wonder. Far in the distance lights flickered and danced a myriad of color. He could hear a slight, melodic moan like the wind- though there was none.

“Second star to the right,” the Deadman said swooping down, “and straight on ‘til morning-“

“We are at the crossroads,” the dark stranger said, his mouth barely twitching at the ghost’s reference. “Here lie the crossroads of your life, that place where you must make the final decision.”

“I do not understand.” Rajas stared at the tall man, the ghost hovering in the background with a shrug. The Deadman pointed at his own head and twirled his finger in a spiral. If the Stranger noticed, he did not care.

“There lies the world,” the Stranger said ominously, his hands gesturing at the swirling mists as he spread his arms wide. Rajas watched as the fog seemed to part and there in the distance hung the planet Earth. It seemed close enough to touch- almost- but too it did not seem quite real. It almost seemed to glow, and it seemed too crystalline, too clear. Surreal…

“Here your life has passed,” the dark man continued. Stars began to twinkle in the velveteen black beyond. “And here shall you return, if you accept your station.”

“Accept?” Rajas whispered, his eyes watching as worlds seemed to rise and crumble, great stars exploding as gaseous clouds swelled, sparking into radiance. He saw creatures great and small rise from the dust and mire, growing to seeming perfection; queer beasts and things with no real form, flickers of light with cognizance, sentient water aging with the roll of the tides. He saw cities spring forth from barren clay, empires expanding in violent skies spreading like a bank of clouds. He saw light, darkness… Void…

“What station?”

The Stranger almost seemed to sigh, his eyes smoldering in the shadows cloaking his grim face. He turned his gaze skyward, his attention focusing on a silver point of light, tiny and far, far away-

“Once we were legion…”

We were in the cafeteria when the first alarm sounded.

The harsh metallic clang of bells split the relative calm of a shared meal. The soup was tepid, the bread bordering on stale but we had not cared. Passion fed our hunger, love blinded our senses and needs.

Nardja’s eyes went wide to hear the blare of alarm, both of us- and all in the room rising in a clatter of tipped metal chairs and tumbling utensils. We stared at the monitors lining the walls of every room, watching as lines of red stretched across the screens signaling disaster, catastrophe.

“Meltdown…”

We all heard Nardja’s worried gasp even over the clamber of the bells, now joined by the claxon of louder, harsher buzzing alarms. I stared at the woman I had come to love, her thin face looking gaunt in the glare of red that washed over the room. Her big, brown eyes were wide with sudden fright, her tight bun loosing strands of graying hair, framing that face I so adored. She bit her lower lip as she looked to me, pleadingly, her brows angling with sorrow. She blinked back tears as the room exploded in a commotion of frenzy.

We all ran, most of us to our emergency stations. Some in their panic tried to escape, and that more than anything was probably why we failed. We that stayed however knew our duty. That was why we were chosen I suppose, despite out intellect and knowledge. We were the fools with no lives, both dependable and expendable. It fell on us.

I reached my station quickly, Nardja running on to the next room beyond. We both fell to the controls, our bodies operating by rote, the endless sequences that we had learned and practiced ad infinitum it seemed. We hoped that the others were doing their job as well. We had to assume that they were, there was no way to really know at the time.

I had finished my emergency contingencies, sweat washing down my face and back from my own stress and adrenaline as well as the growing wave of death seeping ever closer. I glanced at Nardja, just a room away and saw her slamming her fist into her own console, hammering in frustration. She turned to me, her lips parting to speak when we heard the first wail of the sirens-

EVACUATE, EVACUATE…

The soft, feminine voice whispered calmly over the internal speakers throughout the plant, cutting quickly through the bells and whistles and buzzing. I heard too the sound of gunfire.

I turned and saw a patrol of soldiers pointlessly dressed in kevlar and blackened helmets. They were carrying rifles and charging down the cross-corridor yards away. I saw an occasional one stop and aim, his gun flaring at the muzzle briefly, sporadically as a thunderous chatter of gunfire echoed down the hall. Whom they were firing at I had no real idea, but I could guess; deserters, or perhaps those that knew too much.

As I started to move away from my station I saw part of the squad break away, heading in my direction. They were charging forward, weapons raised and as I started to back away- suddenly, actually afraid despite the impending catastrophe playing about us- I heard Nardja call my name-

No, not mine- Rejek!

I saw then General Rejek, commander of the facility and liaison to the Union and the Kremlin. He was a hard cold man, chiseled from stone and gray. He had seen death and war, famine and plague in his long career. We had nicknamed him the Fifth Horseman.

He paused as his squad assumed a defensive stance, their weapons aimed at me, at us. He stared, his cool dark eyes sparkling in the emergency lighting as he reached out to the wall. I paled as my heart clenched in my chest. I heard Nardja scream-

Her cries were lost as the security doors slammed into place. I dashed forward, slamming my fist, kicking the thick steel and lead, uselessly screaming at the impassable barrier. I could see the blurry image of the general through the tiny window layered with crystalline plastic blends set in the upper center of the door. His shadow simply faded from my sight.

Turning I saw that a second door had sealed me in from the other direction. I was trapped I knew, but I was not alone. I could see Nardja’s face pressed against the window in that door and ran to it- to her.

There was everything to say, but of course we could not hear one another; the alarms and at least six inches of blast door separated us. I could see her shadowy face though, her lips moving as she pressed her hand to the window plate trying to reach out. I mimicked her movements whispering my love, hoping that she might somehow hear or know. Hoping for a miracle…

I remember that the alarms just suddenly cut off. I could hear the rumble of the air conditioning and realized that I was suddenly cold despite the glow of heat rising, seeping through the vents. The monitors began to explode one by one, my console lashing out in electrical madness, sparks flying everywhere.

Suddenly was silence as the emergency power failed. The red glow of the warning lights sputtered and dimmed only to be replaced by the pulsing ambiance of spreading radiation. I could feel the burn now and turned once more to Nardja. The window was black.

Light exploded, white and pure, a square burned into my sight forever. I saw the darkened, spectral outline of my beloved’s face. Her skin appeared black; black teeth framing the white, gaping maw, the final scream I could not hear. Something spewed from her mouth as she clawed at the window and I saw a hairline crack stretch across the frame. Then she simply dropped from sight.

The light enveloped me then as well, though oddly I remember feeling no pain. That would come later.

After the darkness…

“We were Host,” the Stranger went on his voice almost warm, laced with emotion, or something close to it. “Horde some said; Vanguard and Vizier, Vision and Villain. Vengeance…

“The Chosen, the First of the First, pure and unblemished, still there was friction and envy. There was pride and it was reflected down, a tarnished image emblazoned on those below. There was war, and it stretched away and forever. Some fell while others simply walked away, banished willingly to walk the winding road. One of those you might know. Another remains… a Stranger.”

The Deadman shrugged, his prune-like lips twisted oddly. “Don’t ask me, pal. Way I heard it the whole thing’s run by a woman; Rama Kushna. I seen some things since I took my big plunge into the damp sponge, but I don't believe-"

“Which is why you continue to walk the Fringes, Boston Brand, never to know peace. You do not believe.”

“Yeah, but I got faith, son,” the Deadman quipped, swooping down to face the Stranger. “Hell, if a schlub like Corrigan can tally up enough points to move on-“

“Do not mention him, Boston Brand. He has not passed so far that he might not hear, and return. That is not our mission here, to recall lost friends-“

“I thought strangers had no friends.”

“Allies then,” the Stranger said, almost smirking. “Regardless of semantics, it has been decided otherwise, by a higher authority-“

“What?” Rajas asked, his eyes widening as he saw vapors of breath rising before him. He was cold again, shivering. He looked at his hands, trying to stop their shaking. They looked white, like chalk. “What has been decided? Stop speaking in riddles!”

“Vengeance, Rajas,” the Stranger said as the mists swirled again, blotting out the world.

Red Star was there when I woke. The People’s Hero as so labeled by Progna, looking tall and proud if not leery of his position there beyond the plastic bubble containing my remains.

The recovery team had found me buried in the complex; a team of Rocket Reds so they said. I was little more than a burnt out husk, a shell of a man fried almost beyond recognition. I was lucky they had told me, the first to survive on the edge of nightmare. Nardja was dead. I could not cry.

I could not move, my body had been burned so badly. My skin was all but gone, which left me hanging in the straps and swaddling support of a burn unit. They tell me I had spent weeks within a ‘Burn Bag’, bathing in healing gels created by scientists in Vladivostok, working with the Japanese. I was on full life support complete with monitors designed to stay abreast of my slightest bodily function; my heartbeat and breathing, cholesterol, blood pressure, bladder capacity, brain activity. Intravenous Tubes kept me fed, awake when they needed, or asleep as the case may be, my feces flowing away into a mobile machine. I was like a marionette, dancing to the whim of the Union and their puppeteers dressed in yellow, plastic suits and carrying their own oxygen, hanging by the rubber ‘string’ shoved into every orifice of my broken, useless body.

There were others as well, surrounding me. I recognized the uniforms of the ‘People’s Heroes’ standing alongside Leonid, though I did not recall their names. Too was a member of the Blue Trinity, her name a blur as well though she seemed quite attractive in a fleeting sort of way. Among the doctors were old soldiers and politicians come to wish me well. I could almost smell the reek of the Union in the cigar smoke of the KGB agents. I was suddenly interesting it seemed.

Eventually the parade ended, the platitudes and congratulations on my spirit of survival trickling to a sporadic drip of praise. Leonid- the Red Star was still there, and another whom I would come to know and respect. Wut was his name, a colonel in the Soviet Military Machine.

“You have great powers it seems. Great responsibilities,” Wut said, but I was still so intoxicated by the medicines that I had no idea as to what he meant. I dreamt of Nardja often, and she was ever at the forefront of my thoughts those days.

“We would like you to join us, comrade,” Leonid had said.

He went on to explain the Meta Gene and how the ‘accident’ at Chernobyl had sparked some latent ability in my mind. I could control machines somehow, simply by thinking, willing it. There was a new version of the Rocket Red that I would be perfect for it seemed; a robot. I would become a hero, a part of a fledgling group called Red Square of which Leonid would be the leader. There were others apparently, forever changed, and blessed by Chernobyl. ‘The bright side’, Red Star had said with a grin from behind his yellow radiation proof mask.

What else did I have to do?

He knew.

Rajas stared at the two men before him and suddenly it all came clear as his memories came rushing back in a flood. He remembered the terror and the pain. He remembered the weeks that he had spent after Chernobyl, simply trying to breathe on his own, to sleep without the burning sensation that raged through his very being. He remembered how proud he had been when he was finally lowered from the lattice and onto a real mattress, able to touch again, ignore the agony on half-grown skin.

He remembered nurse Kechev, fat merciless cow that she was. She had helped him through the pain and into the chair for the first time.

He remembered Wut and the RDC; his little cubicle where he could see the world pass by undisturbed.

He remembered Mysta, months later, another survivor of the accident that had been ‘blessed’. A child trapped in a body of pure, beautiful light.

Vostok, Chen, Ryenko and even Putin…

It was over now, he knew. He had died along with so many others when the creature that looked like Fate had attacked the Russian Defense Command. Bjorn was dead- if he had ever been alive. Leonid was crippled, his body shattered, but he would heal eventually. He was the People’s Hero! Mysta was simply gone, the light turned to darkness. Rajas had died, but Nardja was not there, nor Sami, nor his parents. There was only the voice and the ghost…

And the stranger…

“It is of course your choice, in the end. Choice is Man’s right, as many fell to prove. You may accept, or deny as you like.”

“Nardja…”

The Stranger frowned. “She is not waiting, cast to the Plane of Souls the world spins on. There waits a brass jar for you, small true but there none the less. None await you.”

“I was Agnostic. I took the God’s names in vain, but I did not believe. I should believe now?”

“Impartiality is your asset. It is your strength and guidance. Corrigan did not believe-“

“Hey!” the Deadman shouted, swooping down again, but the Stranger said no more. The ghost turned-

“Don’t do it pally,” he said watching the dark man out of the corner of his eye. “Do the time. Move on. This ain’t no party, son. This ain’t no Disco.”

“The Lord moves in mysterious ways, Boston Brand. The Source is carved in stone, but Destiny is uncertain.” The Stranger turned, staring at Rajas, as did the Deadman. Waiting…

Waiting…

I thought of Nardja…

I thought of Prachi…

My parents…

I thought of Leonid and Valentina, Wut and Mysta, the pretty girl in the slick Blue Trinity uniform…

I thought of Rejek walking away, sealing my fate…

“Vengeance,” I whispered.

“Vengeance is Mine sayeth the Lord…” the Stranger echoed-

And the world fell away…

Next Issue: Head on over to JLA #27 for the next installment of Twist of Fate and see just what Nabu is sucking up all the magic for. Part 3, or 5 depending on how you’re counting- Blast From the Past!

Story © 2005 Curt Fernlund  and may not be reproduced without permission