A few moments passed and eventually Leno looked up.
“Thank you. Thank you everyone, I think we needed to do that. Because look tonight, tonight might not be about the victims-”
“No but they’re such an important part,” added Matt.
“Absolutely, such a pivotal, pivotal part. But I don’t think anyone’s ever going to forget that. I’m certainly not.” There were more sounds of agreement, a couple of interspersed sobs. “But look, I think, we’ve had that moment- and tonight isn’t about everyone we’ve lost. We’ve had days for that, we’ve had times for that, but tonight- that’s not what tonight’s about. Because we’re always going to remember them but sometimes, in the midst of all this horribleness, you’ve got to focus on what’s good. On the good guys. On you two.”
“Or it’s all too bleak.”
“Or it’s all too bleak. Exactly!” Leno turned to the crowd. “When tragedy strikes, look for the helpers. That’s what, I think Mr Rogers used to say that. Look for the good people, look for the good parts of mankind. And that’s what tonight’s about.” He lifted a hand towards the ceiling. “To the good people.”
“TO THE GOOD PEOPLE!”
The studio took up the words, raising them like a toast, then descended into applause. When the noise finally died down Leno pressed forward.
“So. Sorry. Getting back to your story. So you discovered the truth.”
“We did, sort of. We knew something was wrong.”
“And then Heydrich found out that you’d told people.”
“Yeah.”
“And at that point, well… the game’s up.”
“Yeah, the truth’s out there.”
“Which, I think, is where most of us-” he gestured to the cameras and the audience, “-where the rest of the world becomes, you know, becomes aware of what’s going on...”
“Yeah.”
“There was that broadcast.” Leno’s mouth twitched and a murmur ran through the crowd. The memory was still fresh. “Had he confronted you, before then? About outing him?”
“Yes,” said Matt, “He, um, I was hiding in the desert. And he came down and talked to me. And he wasn’t really angry, you know, he was almost sort of… pleased? I don’t know. I think, for me, what was the hardest part of keeping my secret all those years, about being human, was having no one to talk to about it.” He looked at the crowd. “And I think one of the things we forget about the Black Death, about Klaus Heydrich, is that underneath it all, underneath all the horrible things he did and all his powers… he was still just a man, you know? He was still… flawed. He wasn’t a god.”
The host nodded his agreement. “Is that what you were thinking, when he came after you?” He paused and turned to the crowd. “Because can I just say, personally, I was terrified. Can I say that?” He looked at the audience and the audience murmured their agreement. “I’m not ashamed to admit it, I was terrified, I think we all were, and I mention that because it’s so easily overlooked, it’s so easy to… to get swept up in that fact that, at the end there yeah, there was this happy ending, but in the moment… it was terrifying!” He let out a short, strained laugh and shook his head. “This demon, this monster, this… the worst person in history, literally threatening to conquer the planet, and I… what did you do? How did you feel? Not just seeing this on television but being there, on the ground, right there in front of him, going… ‘holy crap, he’s coming for me’?”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Matt paused, screwing up his face as he considered his answer. “I just…” he started finally, “I was just trying to focus on what came next. I knew… I knew I couldn’t run from him. I knew there was nothing I could say or do. But I just kept looking at him, and I kept thinking, ‘you’re not better than me; you’re just some guy’.” A cheer went up amongst the assembled audience, and Matt flashed them a lopsided grin. “I don’t know, is that stupid? It was probably pretty stupid. But I’m just like, alright, let’s do this. You think I’m a clairvoyant? Fine. And so I told him he was going to lose.”
Leno gawked at him. “You said that to his face?”
“I did, I told him,” Matt nodded, as murmurs rippled throughout the crowd, “I said, ‘if you take my blood, you’re going to die’. And then I let him read my mind to think I was clairvoyant.”
“How do you get around through the day?” Leno asked, with complete sincerity; then added: “With those gigantic balls?”
Laughter erupted from the audience, and to the right of him Jane joined in. Matt gave the crowd a sheepish grin. After a few moments the host waved everyone back down and he turned to Matt, still smiling.
“Seriously though, what were you thinking? Are you mad?”
“Honestly?” replied Matt, “Mainly, I just didn’t want him to kill me. I thought, he’s going to be so angry if he figures out I’m lying – that he’s gone to all this trouble to get me, and then it turns out there’s no point – so I didn’t want to piss him off.”
“But you could have just given up. You didn’t need to say that.”
Matt’s eyebrows furrowed. “I guess... I wanted to stall him?” he replied, “I just… I was trying to keep him talking, I don’t know, buy everyone else some time.” He paused. “No, it was more than that,” he admitted finally, “I… I wanted to mess with him. It was sort of like this… this feeling, this screw you, this… I couldn’t do anything else, right? I couldn’t stop him.”
“Right.”
“Right. But I had to do something, anything, anything that could help. And so I think, maybe, maybe I can scare him. Maybe if he believes I am who I say I am, if I believe I am who I say I am, I can make him think this is a bad idea. Because he’s just some guy. Deep down inside, he’s just some guy, some scared little kid who doesn’t know what he’s doing any more than any of us, making it all up as he goes along, same as me. Doesn’t matter if he has all the powers or none of them. And it was a long shot, it was always going to be a long shot, but at the same time I’m thinking, well, one way or another he’s not getting a clairvoyant, so… why not?” There was more murmuring from the crowd. “Because if he thinks he’s getting clairvoyant powers, and then he doesn’t, and I’ve told him taking my blood means he’s losing, then… he’s never going to be able to get that out of his head, is he? There’s always going to be this deep-seated seed of panic, like, I’ve taken this power, I should be able to see the future but I can’t, I can’t see what’s coming, I don’t feel any different – and I’m terrified I’m going to lose.” Matt leaned in towards Leno, staring intently. “And see, this is where there’s the psychology of it. Because he doesn’t know what being clairvoyant feels like, does he? And I’ve made this prediction that he’s going to lose, and he believes I’m real, so he can’t forget it. So he’s worrying about losing, but at the same time feeling that feeling and going ‘oh God, is this what predicting my own doom feels like?’. And maybe that would shake him, maybe that might spiral, and spiral and spiral, until maybe, maybe, it’s really messing with his head. Maybe. Who knows.”
“Wow,” said Leno. He looked genuinely stunned. “So you’re facing off against the greatest mass murderer in history, and you’re playing mind games.” The audience laughed. The host shook his head. “Like I said, wow. Remind me to never play you in poker.”
Matt grinned as there was more laughter. “So yeah,” he shrugged, “That’s about it.”
“So you didn’t know your blood was going to affect him?” Leno asked, “That didn’t cross your mind?”
“I mean, a part of me…” Matt started, but then he stopped himself, “I mean I wondered, I guess? Maybe a little? But I just thought it would do nothing, you know, I wasn’t expecting anything special. I didn’t want him to take my blood, because you know, I didn’t want to bleed to death – but if he was going to take it then maybe I wanted him to feel a little scared about it, you know, just in case, I don’t know, somewhere down the line, maybe, that fear turned into something. Maybe made him panic. Maybe made him do something stupid. Give someone stronger the upper hand.”
“Which brings us, I think, to Jane,” said the host, “Jane-” he turned to her, “-talk to me. Tell me what happened. Tell us how you came to be, standing there, holding the power of Dawn.”