Pastor Philip Fredericks stood at the base of the cellar stairs and stared down at Matt, his face blank.
“You’re awake,” he said simply – and for once there was no emotion in his voice, no conviction, no rapture. The words simply fell dead at the Pastor’s feet, cold and empty, and from the light leaking in through the trapdoor Matt could see the bare dispassion settled in Fredericks’ eyes.
“I’m going crazy,” Matt whispered. The priest did not respond. Instead, he walked over with slow, deliberate steps and bent down, checking Matt’s chains and manacles.
“What do you want?” Matt demanded. The barest flicker of annoyance passed over Fredericks’ face as he tugged briefly against one of the steel plates bolted to the floor. The metal did not move. With a grunt of satisfaction, Fredericks rose.
“Be quiet,” he muttered, turning away, moving back towards the staircase. Matt’s mind turned rapidly.
“I get it now!” he cried, “I get it! I understand!”
The tall man’s footsteps halted. He paused and straightened his back, rising to his full height, an imperious six and a half feet, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. When he turned, the grey, unblinking eyes Matt had once seen stare at him with such kindness were filled only with simmering fury and contempt.
“Really?” he said quietly, “You ‘get it’?”
“Yeah,” replied Matt, a little breathless. He tried to sit up a bit straighter against the frame of the timber barrel, though the chains prevented him from rising very far. “I do. It’s been you all along. You’ve been working with the government.”
The cult leader stood silent, framed by the light of the staircase, his features engulfed in shadow.
“All along you’ve been playing me,” Matt continued, “Pretending to be harmless. Playing on my need to be liked. But I should’ve seen it sooner. You hate powers. You’d like nothing more than for my blood to get out, to rid the world of the superhuman.” Matt leaned towards Fredericks wearing a breathless triumphant grin, chains straining against his wrists. “What did they promise you? Abilities for good, God‑fearing Americans only? A sole nation of superpowers? Or did they sweeten the deal somehow? Put you over a barrel? You’ve got a daughter they’re holding? Assassins coming for you? You got gambling debts?”
When the Pastor did not answer, Matt laughed. “It doesn’t matter. I should’ve seen it all along. Of course the group that thinks superhumans are a sin is going to be trying to help destroy superpowers. No cure for the gays but there might be a cure for freedom, right? Of course you were onboard. Self‑righteous, inbred, pea‑brained, sanctimonious traitor. Your God isn’t real and if He is He hates you.”
Matt closed his mouth and let the stream of words fade into the damp darkness. With nothing more to go on he’d hoped his tirade might bait Fredericks into rage, into revealing more; but the Pastor just stood there, silent, absorbing Matt’s insults without so much as a ruffle of his grey‑streaked brown hair or a shift of his thin, frameless glasses. The words washed over him, and then they faded into oblivion, and the two were left with only the cold, dark basement between them, the smell of dirt, of long‑drained alcohol and rot.
“You know nothing,” Fredericks muttered, and without another word he turned back towards the staircase and ascended into the light. The heavy wooden trapdoor slammed shut behind him, and once more Matt found himself engulfed in darkness.
The cellar remained silent for a few seconds, save for the distant thump, thump, thump of the Pastor’s retreating footsteps. Matt traced their path along ceiling by sound and the dust shaking from the floorboards – and when they had retreated into nothingness, he glanced down.
“Alright,” he said, tapping his finger three times firmly against his chest, “I think it’s time to go.”
And as Matt spoke a tiny speck leapt off him, and from the dank floor of the darkened cellar a second shape began to grow.
*****
Several hours earlier
Matt Callaghan wandered aimlessly through the empty streets of New York City, fuming at himself, fate, and the entire world.
It was not, despite his frustration, entirely lost on Matt the uniqueness of his situation. Rarely in the hundreds of years since its inception had New York been so utterly deserted – its workers fled, its storefronts vacant, its citizens evacuated beneath a looming supernatural threat. It would be a good day or two, Matt guessed, until people returned in significant number, until the all‑clear was given, until the city was confirmed safe. He had a rare opportunity, a chance he might under other circumstances have appreciated, to wander these normally bustling streets practically in isolation, with only rubble, rubbish, and the occasional yowling cat or cooing pigeon to disturb his peace.
Well, except for Celeste. The faunamorph clopped behind Matt at a steady distance about ten feet away in the form of a moose, keeping her long brown face pointing discreetly downwards and maintaining a respectful gap. Matt appreciated the space she was giving him. Someone else might have been tempted to try and make small talk or ‘keep him company’, but Celeste could read the room well enough to stay quiet. They plodded along together in silence and at times, until he inevitably glanced round and caught a glimpse of thick flat antlers, Matt could almost pretend he was alone.
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Matt stomach felt sick and his thoughts swirled. He shouldn’t have shouted at Jane. Again and again, their conversations kept getting away from him and… and ultimately she was trying to help him. She was doing her best. And what she was saying, ultimately, about using the death powers to undo damage, was in many ways not totally unreasonable, so long as it was restricted to individuals; it was only when one stood back and stared at the bigger picture did the terrible, tremendous implications become apparent. Jane was trying her best to save him. Was he trying his best to save her?
Matt ran his hands across his face, over his eyes, through his wind and dust‑strewn hair. The problem was it was just all so endless. So frustrating. One disaster after another, lurching from home to broken home, never reaching any sort of resolution, an end to all these threats. He had beaten one God‑like being only to seemingly incur the wrath of another. He had convinced Jane not to abuse one terrifying power only for her to absorb a different one. He had escaped two hit squads, but it seemed only a matter of time before another came after him.
“ARGH!” Matt bellowed, a wordless roar of frustration that echoed out into the grey and empty streets, scattering a flock of pigeons, causing Celeste behind him to raise her lumbering head. Matt flapped his hand back idly at her, waving her moose worry down. When would it end? When would he finally, finally, be free of all this? He still had no idea who was behind it, what they were planning, if it was the Child or some other antagonist pulling the strings out to get him. Heck, did the thumb drive… was that Time Child‑esque organisation? Would a time traveller even need…? But it was impossible to know. Maybe after Azleena had gone through the data, he tried to console himself; but even then there was no guarantee she’d find the answer. No guarantee they could stop whoever was behind this, that they wouldn’t escape or reform, or that someone entirely new might not simply take up the murderous torch. And there was no guarantee the Time Child or Time Children wouldn’t keep hunting him, no matter what Matt attempted, keep pursuing their nebulous quest to free Matt from his protective tethers and leave him lying in an unmarked grave.
How could he fake his death now, when everyone knew Jane could just resurrect him? How could he possibly escape to another life with all this bullcrap pressing in around him, refusing to let go, refusing to let him be? Staring between the buildings, despondent, it was like Matt could see his future stretching out before him – no freedom, no happiness, to be ping‑ponged back and forth between life and death like a cat toy by God‑like forces who wanted to maintain him and God‑like forces who wanted him dead. He just wanted his old life back. He wanted to go back to being normal.
The hilarious absurdity of the situation suddenly hit him, so hard that Matt actually stopped dead in his tracks and let out a sharp, painful bark of incredulity devoid of humour or mirth. Normal? Normal?! He was walking through an abandoned metropolis being followed by a moose, having just been dead an hour ago, after Home Alone‑ing a team of mercenaries while his time travelling, star‑eyed girlfriend battled forty‑foot monstrosities in a break from her usual job of kidnapping foreign leaders who could talk to fish. He had broken into prison to speak to a comatose robot man, there was at least one poster child for the Aryan Brotherhood tracking him across dimensions, and he had drunk beer and mind‑gamed a genocidal super‑Nazi on national television. He was a nineteen-year-old self‑made multimillionaire. He was in the Legion of Heroes. He’d been on Leno. And before that? Everything had been a lie. The deception, the clairvoyancy. He’d deliberately doped budding superheroes. At thirteen he’d tricked the US government. He’d shoved a drugged crow into a backpack and thought it was a solid plan.
He could beat the greatest psychics in the world. He could outsmart literal superpowered people with nothing more than a few tools and quick thinking. He had stared down the choice between staying safe and saving other people, and had run headfirst into death. And he’d do it again, Matt realised: in a heartbeat.
He was not normal. He would never be normal.
What the hell even was normal anyway?
And suddenly it was like a veil had lifted. Suddenly, something clicked. All along, for so long, Matt had been holding onto this idealised version of what his life was going to be, feeling betrayed, feeling forgotten, slighted by things he could never seem to have or never seem to get back. He’d placed so much weight on normality, so much obsession over everything he wasn’t, that he’d never once stopped to realise who he was.
There were things in life he would never have; things in life he would never have again. Simplicity, anonymity, normality, maybe even peace – but in their place were other things worth having. Money, status, celebrity. Health, luxury, excitement – a voice to change the world. Camaraderie. People, wonderful, brilliant people who shared, who wanted to share in, his life’s maddening battle, who would fight for him until their knuckles bled and save his life with their dying breaths. Friendship. Companionship. Purpose. Intelligence. Cunning. Identity. Love.
Matt’s chest clenched and his vision suddenly swum. What was he going to do? Was he going to stay fixated on all the things he couldn’t have, a dorm and dog and a white picket fence, or was he finally, finally going to let go? To accept that this was his existence? And it might not be the life he’d always wanted, it might not be everything he’d always dreamed, but it didn’t matter. Because he could either accept the truth and make the most of it, and find joy, and seize upon all that was good in the world – or he could spend the rest of his life wasting away, pining for a day that would never come.
He was not safe. He was not normal. And he could either grow the hell up and accept that, or be miserable until the end of days.
You either play the hand you’re dealt, or you complain about the cards.
In the empty streets of an unbeaten city Matt Callaghan wiped his eyes free from tears and for the first time, the first actual time since all this nonsense started, knew exactly what he had to.
“Celeste,” he called, turning to face the moose. The giant deer tilted its huge, gormless antlers, and as Celeste continued forward her body shifted, and she came to a halt three feet away from him, returning to human form.
“Wassup?” she asked, “Everything okay?”
“Better than okay,” Matt replied. He beckoned her close and lowered his voice. “I have a plan,” he said. He paused. “You like horses?”
“You goddamn better believe it,” Celeste shrugged.
Matt fixed her with a victorious grin. “How about Trojans?”