Crush
2001
Grey clouds blotted the sky, and Will Herd appeared alone on an empty hill.
The world around him was brown, the air sour and cloying. Grass that had once spread green over fertile fields lay sickly, dry and barren, dying atop cracking soil that sprouted withered skeleton trees like the hands of dead giants struggling to claw their way from the ground. In the distance, on the horizon, the silhouettes of machines rumbled – colossal superstructures, miners, smog-spewing behemoths burying themselves like metal ticks into the Earth. The Mindtaker’s war needed resources, and all those who surrendered to him surrendered their homelands, their populations to feed the beast. If it was there it was used. If you were there, then you worked. It was hell, and it was their good intentions that paved it, all in exchange for the notion, the promise, that one day, eventually, they would have their lives back.
Will stood in place, gazing out across the emptiness, watching the distant machinery with a stomach‑curdling mixture of fear, regret and disgust. He didn’t know if could do this. He’d always felt so goddamn confident, but now he realised he was a child playing at being grown up, ready to turn tail at the true horrors of war. Still so naïve. Still so young.
There was a second rush of sulphur on the hilltop, and a dark, familiar shadow stepped into the dust‑choked air.
“Master Teleporter.”
Will turned to find himself staring at the Black Death’s smile.
For a moment, truly, he felt like he was going to be sick. A hot wind blew dry and filthy down his throat, and tiny beads of tainted sweat rolled in droplets down his temples. It was all he could do to bury his fingernails into his palms, and to lock his knees to keep them from giving out.
“H…h… Heydrich.”
“Please, Klaus, no need to be so formal.” The Black Death stood three feet away from him with his hands behind his back, immaculate, immutable. Somehow, seeing him calm and unmoving like this was so much more terrifying – so much worse than the threat of the unknown. There, alive – and unharmed. Completely unbothered and intact. Everyone in the world was out there trying to kill him – and still here Heydrich stood, without a single fray to his coat. Will’s arms and legs shook freely. Somehow, in the blighted air around them, only the Black Death seemed to burn with real colour – a strain of stainless darkness, the only thing not drained and muted by the dying of the Earth.
Heydrich stood there a moment, gazing patiently down.
“You received my message, obviously.”
“Yes,” Will said through trembling teeth, “My family.”
“Lovely people. But quite easy to identify. Despite the change of address.” The Black Death paused. “I find it fascinating that your mother took your father’s name, but he took her religion. An almost equitable swap, I must say – so rare in matrimony. Which would you prefer me not destroy, I wonder, once I subdue humanity? The name of your ancestral slavemasters, or your religion of sand‑dwelling thugs? Though I do admit, in all fairness,” he mused cheerfully, “Despite its barbarity, your desert cult does at least take a commendable stance on Jews.”
“I…” Will mumbled. Every fibre of him trembled. “What… what do you want?”
“The same thing I’ve always wanted,” Heydrich replied, his smile broadening, “An end to senseless wastage. A stronger, better world.” He gestured at the desolate scene around them. “A cessation of the Mindtaker’s petulance. Look at the harm he’s doing just to preserve his ego. The man’s lost – have some dignity about it. All he’s doing now is spoiling the prize.”
Will’s eyes stayed at Heydrich’s feet, unable to leave the ground.
“And if I do it?” he asked.
“If you lead me to him?” Heydrich replied, sounding light and pleased as though the answer was friendly and obvious, “If you free us all from this pointless war? My dear boy, at that point you can have anything you want. Everything. Forget your family simply living, I’ll give them a citadel. The richest men in America will scrub their feet in iron chains and rags. Quite the ironic turn, I may say, given your history. Field slaves to lords and masters. I wager there’d be quite some satisfaction in it.”
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Will said nothing, only continued looking down. Eventually, the Black Death sighed.
“Look,” he said, crossing his arms in genial impatience, “We both know this is inevitable. Let me cease this senseless carnage. I have no desire for Earth to be poisoned. I have no urge for its people to be destroyed. This is one man, throwing four billion lives in a furnace just to satisfy his desire to be right. We all know how this ends. We all know what’s going to happen. The only question now is how many more people need die before I tear that Russian imbecile in half.”
For a long time neither of them spoke. The wind hissed, and Will felt a hazy stinging in his eyes. Eventually, he forced his lips to move.
“You promise you won’t hurt them?”
“My dear boy,” the Black Death replied pleasantly, “I am many things, but I am not a liar. I give you my word; help me now, and anyone you pick will not just live, but thrive. I guarantee it.”
Slowly, Will nodded. He looked up at the dark fabric of Heydrich’s uniform, unable to raise his eyes above his chest – then held out a limp hand.
“He has a complex,” he murmured, “Underground. There are Disruptances, but… I can take you to it.”
“See?” smiled Heydrich. He gripped Will’s arm firm at the elbow with one black glove. “I knew you were intelligent. Let us end this sordid business and bring some better days to the world.”
Will closed his eyes and imagined the compound. Mentok’s shining halls, the daunting soulless caverns carved deep within the rock. The metal walls, the ceaseless robots – the unassuming entrances scattered hidden amongst the cliffs. He imagined the Mindtaker waiting there; imagined the other Acolytes. Those few who were still left. People he’d once called his friends. Wally. The fleeting glances they’d shared.
He imagined his mom and dad and sisters, far from the cavern, fled from their hard-earned lives; hiding somewhere in Midwestern suburbia, refugees in some white family’s home. His father demanding to pay rent to the adamantly refusing owners; his mother in her khimar bustling around the house trying to mend and clean and cook. His sisters playing with the golden retriever and giggling about how they’d finally inadvertently managed to get a dog. He imagined them all looking up, relieved and ecstatic to see him. He imagined them all living long and happy lives.
And then Will closed his eyes as tight as he could close them, held firm to Klaus Heydrich’s elbow, and imagined the centre of the sun.
*****
“How big an explosion?” asked Frisk.
He leant over the desk, one hand on the wooden tabletop, the other around his coffee mug. Fifty-six, gaunt‑faced, bald and no longer caring about any of those things, the head of TV broadcasting – or the propaganda station, or whatever they were now in this grey, dying world – spoke with the same weariness they all shared. The same relentless, overwhelming grief.
“I don’t know. Big. Compared to… about half the city.” Whitebridge, his ever-faithful producer, in her blouse and pencil skirt, tapped a plastic pen to her thigh more out of habit than of impatience. Once, Frisk had fantasised about sleeping with her, about some illicit office romance. Now, he could imagine nothing more despicable than adding heartache and betrayal to their families’ existing pain.
“How?”
“They didn’t say. Probably another orbital bombardment.”
“Things keep slipping through.”
“It’s hard to respond.” Frisk just shook his head.
“Always wondered how long it’d be before Heydrich hit the Motor City,” he grimaced, “Site of the Legion’s first victory. You’ve got to think that’s a symbol long overdue.”
“Does symbolism still matter?” asked Vanessa. Frisk grunted.
“What does our esteemed overlord want from us?”
“To report factually on the destruction.”
“Are we still covering destruction now? Think the market’s probably saturated at this point.” He let the dry anger drip from his words, then he sighed. “Alright. Put Abby on it. Get her to draft a breaking announcement and then… I don’t know, as soon as possible.” He stood, pinching the bridge of his nose, and made heavy footsteps towards the door. “I… I should make a phone call. My nephew’s girlfriend lived there. Detroit.”
“I’m sorry,” said Whitebridge. She tried to smile, but the movement didn’t seem to work nowadays. “Maybe she got out.”
“Out to where?” replied Frisk. He shook his head and sucked a heavy breath between his teeth. “Sorry. Enough of that. Despair when we’re dead.”
“Onwards and upwards, fearless leader.”
“You’re goddamn right.” Frisk turned the door handle.
“Boss?” came Whitebridge’s voice. The chief of broadcasting turned back round. Vanessa had walked over to the far side of his desk. She held up his half-drunk coffee mug.
Life’s a beach.
“Don’t forget your breakfast.”
“A princess and a scholar,” Frisk said with a sad smile. He started towards her.
“Just don’t want you out there half-”
The room exploded.
Suddenly everything was sideways. One second Frisk was standing on the far side of the room looking at Vanessa, the next he was on the floor against the wall, coughing, spluttering, ringing in his ears, his hands cut through with splinters from his broken desk. Vanessa… his producer was gone. Pulped, blown to pieces by the explosion that had decimated the office’s outer wall. The wall and everything within three feet of it just gone, disintegrated to a gaping wound torn through concrete and cabling.
And as Frisk struggled to stand, mind stuck in a dream-like stupor, four floors above the wailing traffic, through the dust and debris and the bus-sized hole leading out to open air, floated the Black Death.
“Hello,” he said calmly, his hands upturned, “I’d like to send a message.”
Frisk mouth opened in a mangled shout – then the Black Death raised his fingers and cocked an eyebrow. Abruptly, Frisk’s voice withered and died.
“That’s better,” the Black Death said, and smiled his flat, dead smile. He clasped his hands behind his back as the station head’s shoulders slumped. “Now. Where would I go if I wanted as many people as possible to see me?”