CHAPTER 57 - LEOPARD

Perhaps for the first time—at least, he could not recall if he’d had this particular insight before—Leopard understood the difference between being someone who unleashed the tempest with a gunshot, and being a piece of debris that was swept up within it.

If the others didn’t want to do anything about Monkey, if they were content to let someone else handle it, then that was fine—he’d go it alone. It was a return to the norm. Part of him felt disappointed that Defiant hadn’t lived up to her namesake, not after what she’d said to Aegis, but also relieved. He didn’t want to think about what she’d do to Monkey if she got her hands on him.

Not that it mattered anymore. The Engineer had probably killed the lot of them.

Melbourne Airport was quiet, a beacon in the gloom. If anyone was there, they were in the underground shelters. Good. It meant no one would get in the way of their reckoning. Leopard stepped out of the car he’d found up on the curb, hazard lights flashing, and took stock of the situation. Whatever Monkey was doing here, it hadn’t been a slaughter.

If he’s even here, Fisher said. You mind telling me what you’re basing this on?

“Shut up,” Leopard muttered. He’d left them behind, in the wake of the fall of that skyscraper. He didn’t need his mind playing tricks on him. He ran his hand across his brow, wiping away the rain and the grit, made his way towards the international terminal and wished he had a gun.

Inside, the terminal was quiet. Leopard looked left, then right, then left again. Cased every corner and checked every abandoned storefront. No sign of anyone, no sign of Monkey. Just a mess of luggage and belongings, strewn and scattered across the whole terminal floor, left abandoned in the wake of The Engineer’s arrival.

Something had happened here just a few minutes before The Engineer arrived. If The Engineer was here for his staff, then it had to be connected. Leopard wasn’t sure why or how, but that wasn’t important. Finding Monkey was the only thing that mattered. Finding him and making sure he couldn’t hurt anyone ever again.

There was a security guard down the concourse, lying on his back. Leopard jogged over, saw he was dead from meters away—half his chest had been blown away, sheared clean through. Leopard collected his rifle, checked the load, then his sidearm. Monkey had been here. The question now was whether he was still.

What could his plan have been? Sneak aboard an airliner, hijack it? He never would’ve made it. More to the point, the airliner was a bad target in the first place simply because you’d have to land it at an airport. Monkey would’ve been looking for something smaller, quicker—an aeroshuttle or something like it.

It took him a minute to find a map. The private hangars were maybe five-hundred meters away. Leopard broke into a run. Lightning flashed through the panoramas, casting shadows and resurrecting ghosts and memories of a life he was no longer sure he had actually lived.

This is it, he told himself. If he’s here, then this is it, and it has to be me.

It has to be me.

Doesn’t it?

The question was still sprinting laps around his skull when he found him.

Monkey was halfway across the tarmac. Past him was the sleek fuselage of an aeroshuttle. It had to have been grounded just before takeoff. Monkey was marching toward it, staff balanced against his shoulder.

Leopard brought his rifle up, set the stock against his shoulder and peered down the scope, like he’d done a hundred times before. He settled the holographic sight over the back of Monkey’s head and his mane of red hair. He had his back to him, flatfooted and vulnerable.

Leopard flicked the safety off, and set his finger on the trigger. Shooting him now was the right thing to do, Leopard knew. He hadn’t come this far to not do it, hadn’t he? But surely he owed him better than that, even after everything. Or because of everything.

Don’t be stupid, Jack, he heard in Fisher’s voice. Pull the trigger!

The world floated around him, slowing down with every breath he took in, and ramping up when he exhaled. He dropped the rifle and went for the handgun, brought it up and settled it on the back of Monkey’s skull as he advanced.

“Elias!” Leopard roared.

He turned, looking just like he did in his memories. Tall and broad of shoulder, red hair wild and free in the storm, somehow in that moment both betrayer and confidante. Leopard stepped closer and kept his aim true.

“Throw away the staff and get down on the ground! There’s nowhere for you to run!”

Monkey laughed.

“You’ve come a long way to track me down, Spots! A long way to forget your cape!”

Someone settled his pistol over Monkey’s heart. “It’s just me and you—last chance, Elias! I don’t want to kill you, but I will!”

“I know you don’t!” Monkey called out. “That’s why you missed the first time!” He gestured towards his face, where a flash of lightning illuminated the strands of gossamer obsidian crisscrossing the ragged scar across his brow and temple.

He had to get closer. Couldn’t give him the space to dodge again. Leopard stalked closer, ignoring the rain that stung his eyes.

“I didn’t miss,” Leopard replied. He hadn't. He'd seen the side of his skull come apart.

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“Well,” Monkey said, shrugging. “I’m still alive.”

Put him in the ground! Sabra said. Christ and Allah, do it already!

“Before you die, you’re going to tell me why you did it.”

Was his voice always this hoarse?

“Did what, Spots?”

The barrier cracked, and pain and anger spilled out of him before he could stop it. “Throw me away! Replace me! What’d I do to make you hate me?!” His hand was shaking now, his aim wavering.

Monkey sighed with all of his body, but didn’t release his grip on his staff.

“Spots,” he said. Then, more gently, “Jack. I threw you away for a reason. I gave you an out—one I knew you wanted.”

The usage of his name was a chisel into that crack, secondary fractures spreading. Leopard swallowed. “That’s not true.”

“Of course. Because what you really want is to be a hero, a legend, which is why you’re here now. But that’s not really true, is it? We both know why you’re really here. You’re here because I know what you’re really like.”

For God’s sake, Tiger shouted in his ear, louder than the storm. Just shoot him, kid! Squeeze the fucking trigger!

“You made me into this!” Leopard shouted, to overpower Tiger’s words. “You brought me here!”

Monkey shook his head, like he was disappointed. “It’s time to stop living this lie, Spots. You can’t forge a sword from clay. You’ve a darkness in you, Spots, and I’m the only one left who really knows about it. It was one thing to empty your clip into that guy on the ship—but everything after that? You became so fucking volatile.”

“I did what I had to do! You’re the one who said we had to do whatever it takes!”

“Christ, Spots! I was your friend, you were suffering! What was I supposed to do, let you kill yourself?”

Everything shattered, and everything hurt. Jack reeled back, stumbled a step.

“Oh, don’t look so surprised,” Monkey said, unchained and acidic. “You weren’t just cleaning your gun. We know each other too well to lie to each other. Everything I did, I did to help you—and here you stand! I gave you purpose, Jack, and then I gave you the opportunity for a new life! All you had to do to keep it was walk away. All you have to do to keep it now... is stop.”

Jack shook his head over and over again.

“That purpose came from hurting people—from stealing and killing! I never wanted that!”

“And you think I did?” Monkey asked, utterly sincere. “This world is a fucked-up place, Spots! The only thing any of us can do is survive it, and I helped you survive.”

“And this? Look around you, Elias! The man who made that staff is tearing this city apart as we speak looking for it! How many people are going to die before you get it?!”

“You’re the one who told me we had to do what we think is right, that we could be something greater than we were all those years ago. I did precisely what you said, and now I’m going to change the world for the better.”

“And now I’m the one telling you to stop! You can’t challenge the IESA all by yourself!”

“Challenge them?” Monkey asked. “That had been my plan, Spots, but your new friends made it clear that it was a fantasy. But now, I have a plan that will work—you’d love it if I told you, you’d really get it! Now, the world will change, or it will be destroyed.”

“I’ll kill you if you take another step.”

“No,” Monkey said, “you won’t. You didn’t kill me before, and you won’t manage to do it now.”

“I will,” Jack replied, but his weapon was so heavy in his hand. “I swear to God, I will. You made us both into monsters.”

“Did I?” Monkey laughed, hooting wildly. “Or did you create me, this phantasm you’ve chased all across the world? Are we all just the end result of each other’s flaws?” He stepped back and away, through the seething tempest, and towards the shuttle.

Leopard squeezed the trigger and the bullet went wide, sparking off the aeroshuttle’s hull. Monkey didn’t even flinch. “That’s two,” he said. “Well, third time lucky.”

“Take one more step and find out.” But his whole body was trembling now, caught in some private epicenter. Was it the staff, wasn’t the human body just another form of machine?

“What other choice do I have, Spots?” Monkey asked. “If I don’t, your new friends will catch me, or The Engineer will find me—either way, nothing will change and our whole lives will be for nothing! You haven’t left me with many options, Spots!”

“Just throw the staff down! We can still go back to how it used to be!”

“We can’t go back, even if I wanted to.” Monkey shook his head. “No. There’s too much at stake for me to walk away now, even for you, Spots. But if you pull that trigger, it isn’t because I made you do it—it’s because you chose to do it.”

“Why do you hate me?”

“Hate you? If we’re honest, I think we hate each other. Maybe we always have. After all, you’ve chased me this far. And every step you take forces me to take another.”

Monkey took another step back. Jack grimaced, aware of every muscle from his neck to his shooting hand. He grit his teeth, concentrating, trembling, as if he could force his neurons to fire, to bridge the gap between wish and action...

“I’m not making you do anything—don’t you see, don’t you understand? Take some responsibility for yourself, Jack! These are your choices, you’re the one who makes them. And you always have been.”

“I just want things to go back to how they used to be.”

“We can’t go back. Neither of us can. We’re too far gone, both of us, tethered and dangling over the edge of the world. And if we’re linked like this, then the only thing we can do is cut the cord. You’ll never stop chasing me.”

“Because of what you plan to do.”

“If that’s what you believe, Spots, then shoot me!”

His finger was on the trigger, the curve of it there, just against his armorweave gloves. All he had to do was find a single inch in his right forefinger, a single breath, a single notch in his brain—

Monkey stepped back further into the storm, until he was just a shadow in the sleet. “Follow me, Spots! Follow me over the edge, and to the end of the world!”

And then he was gone, and the aeroshuttle was moving. Jack roared, suddenly mobile and stalking forward, squeezing the trigger again and again and again, finger spasming until his gun was clicking dry—

—on his hands and knees, chest heaving, thoughts burning with white noise. Someone was next to him, hauling him backward, making him sit. Their raspy voice was familiar, but there was no meaning to it, like hearing a shadow of a memory.

“Jack,” they said, “Oh, Jack.”

They were reaching for his hand, prying at his fingers, trying to work them open, get the gun out of his grip, and he couldn’t find the motion to release it. “C’mon, Jack,” the smokey voice said. “It’s over. Give me the gun. It’s over. Let go.”

But she didn’t get it. He couldn’t let go.

He could never let go.