Conflict

Part Three: Events Conspire

Three Weeks Later
Sunday, May 18, 1980

For all of her newfound power, returning to the godling's semi-corpse gave Chantelle the creeps. The thing itself, the mass of flesh with ten thousand hands and arms – not necessarily connected to each other – as well as eyes, feet, ears and other body parts, had not changed. It was still as freaky as fuck; this was not helped in the slightest by the fact that the glowing stone ceiling and walls ensured that shadows didn't look like they should.

Did I trap any monsters inside the vault? Hovering over the grey mass, Chantelle picked out her ability to detect powers and brought it online. She was pretty sure that she hadn't. But 'pretty' sure isn't 'totally' sure. She wanted to be absolutely, one hundred percent certain that nothing was going to jump out on her and Fortuna while the latter was doing her impression of an insane gardner in an even more insane garden. "How long are you going to be?"

Fortuna's voice floated up to her from below. "It will take me a little time to cut the appropriate parts from this mass. I will be here for at least two more hours."

Chantelle silently groaned. She had an immense amount of respect for Fortuna. The girl had literally saved her life and given her super-powers. Fortuna's own powers had also proven invaluable in acquiring the resources that they would need for the confrontation with the Other. But sometimes, she could be so unbelievably finicky. Chantelle loved the girl to death, but it still irritated the crap out of her.

"I have the list that you made up, of powers that you don't want or need," Fortuna went on. "I know where to cut. You don't have to wait around if you don't want to. I'll be fine. Just leave me a portal back to the base."

Chantelle did one final sweep, her ability picking out only Fortuna within the vast vault enclosing the godling. "All right then," she called back. "I'll be watching TV or something."

Turning in midair, she flew at a leisurely pace down to the doorway leading into the chambers set aside for Fortuna's laboratory. Chantelle only had the vaguest idea how the girl converted bits of flesh-creature into a formula that conferred powers on to a person, but so long as it worked, she had no complaints. Every power that she gives to someone else is a power that I can't use any more, but it's not exactly like there's a limited supply. Even after only three weeks, Chantelle had found dozens of powers that she'd never use, if only because there were even better powers on offer, powers that did the same thing but more effectively or more efficiently.

Calling up one of these powers, she caused a portal to form in midair, linking the godling-vault to what they had started calling their 'base', for want of a better word. Consisting of one entire floor of a mid-rise building in Manhattan, it had been acquired using a dummy corporation, a set of false identities and a small fraction of their money.

This money had been amassed using Fortuna's powers in Monte Carlo, Caesar's Palace, Baden-Baden, and other places; the ease with which this had been accomplished was almost terrifying. If we weren't trying to save the world, we could easily break it. Financially, if not literally. And she wasn't too sure about the latter; with each new power she explored, she became more and more convinced that nothing short of the Other could actually seriously challenge her. Once the super-weapons finish building themselves, we'll see about that.

Stepping through into the base, she fetched a soda from the kitchen, then wandered over to the picture windows. The view, she had to admit, was stunning. Early morning over Manhattan meant that the lights were beginning to go out as the shadows attenuated. Before all this started, she had been to Paris and several other large cities with tall buildings, but it seemed to her that Manhattan was made up of nothing but tall buildings. In the distance, she could even see the Twin Towers, standing proud above all the others, shining bright as they caught the first true rays of the dawn.

With a thought, she sent the empty soda bottle from her hand to the trash can in the kitchen. The dull thump of it hitting the bottom of the can reached her ears as she strolled into the living room. Settling herself on to the sofa, she picked up the TV remote. A press of a button caused the wall panels to slide aside, revealing the 84-inch screen for the Advent VideoBeam TV display. Another button turned the floor-mounted projector on; she stretched and made herself more comfortable while the mechanism warmed up.

It's six in the morning. What am I going to watch? She didn't want to just go to bed while Fortuna was still in the godling vault. A flight of the New York skyline was something that she'd done before, but only at night, when the chance of being seen was minimal. Maybe I should go out for real, start stopping criminals or something. It's not like they'd stand a chance.

She seriously considered that for a few moments as she flipped from one channel to another. Mostly it was just test patterns and early-morning shows, though she did catch the last few minutes of a late-late movie, which she watched for want of something better to do. It finished and she was about to change the channel again when a news logo filled the screen.

The headline was MIAMI UNREST; Chantelle sat up a little as the newscaster began to speak. His expression was serious and his tone sombre as he explained that the 'protests' had begun on the previous day, following the acquittal of several police officers from charges related to the death of an African-American man named Arthur McDuffie. The 'unrest', he stated, had gone on all night and was still continuing.

Chantelle could read between the lines. Despite the soft-soaping and the downplaying of the situation – no doubt at the behest of the local authorities – this sounded like a full-fledged race riot. Especially given that, as the news report admitted, the National Guard had been called in to deal with it, and had so far failed to do so.

Tossing the remote to one side, she stood up. Now this is something I can deal with. The hooded robe she had created with her power lay over one end of the sofa; putting it on, she tied the belt around her waist. Frowning, she paused. She didn't want to cover her face, but neither did she want her identity broadcast far and wide. One of those stupid little masks that they wear in the comic books just won't do.

Taking a deep breath, she reached for a concept that she had briefly tried out before. It wasn't exactly a single power; instead, it used elements from several powers to create a unique effect. The field created by the power covered her completely, mapping to her body – clothing, skin, even hair – as if painted on, but didn't stop there. Activating it caused a portal effect to somewhere out in space, she presumed; looking at herself in the mirror just showed a starfield with distant galaxies. It was even three-dimensional; someone walking around her would see the starfield changing.

But it wasn't just pretty, although she liked it for that too; the real trick was that anything hitting the field over a certain level of force went to where the other end of the portal was. How Chantelle could actually see or breathe with the field in place was beyond her, but that was powers; it worked, so she didn't bother too hard with the how or why.

Visualising where Miami was in relation to New York was surprisingly easy; she concentrated and triggered her teleportation power. A green flash lit up the apartment and she was gone.

"Why can't they just let it be?"

Patrolman David Corcoran looked over at his partner as their black-and-white rolled down the street. "Excuse me?"

Brad Tomlin gestured expressively, keeping one hand on the wheel. "Just let it be. The guys went to court, got found not guilty. Why are they getting all up in arms about it?"

David shook his head. "You do know it's about one of their own getting killed, right? By half a dozen cops."

"Yeah, but they had their day in court. The judge found the guys not guilty. Case closed, move on."

"Hey, if it was a cop got beaten to death by six black guys, would you be happy with a not guilty verdict?"

Brad looked disgusted. "You taking their side now?"

"No, but we're supposed to be impartial in this. Would you accept a not guilty verdict?"

A snort. "Fuck, no. There's no legal reason for black guys to be beating on a cop. Cops subduing a suspect, that's a whole different thing."

David shut up. It wasn't as simple as Brad was making it, but he didn't know how to express it. It wasn't like he thought the blacks were doing the right thing by rioting, but he was pretty sure this wasn't supposed to be the way things were done.

A green flash far up in the dawn sky caught his attention. What the hell was that? Leaning forward, he peered upward through the windshield, trying to catch another glimpse of whatever it was.

"Hey!" Brad broke into his thoughts.

David brought his eyes down from the sky to see someone running into a side-street. He couldn't be sure, but he thought the guy was black. "What?"

The patrol car accelerated as Brad tromped on the accelerator. "He had a knife. What's the bet he's been out robbing someplace?"

"I barely got a look at him," protested David. "You sure it was a knife?"

"Sure as hell," Brad said. "Call it in."

"You got it." David grabbed the microphone and called in a code 38; 'Suspicious Person', hanging on as Brad took the turn into the side-street.

The first indication that something was seriously wrong came as they finished the turn; ahead was a derelict car, turned sideways to block the street, with its wheels and one door missing. There were people standing around it; each of them held some sort of weapon, and they didn't look as though they were out for a pleasant morning stroll. "Oh, shit." That was Brad.

"Shit!" echoed David. "Back up. Back up now!"

"No shit!" shouted Brad as he slammed on the brakes. "Backup! Call for backup!" The gears ground as he tried to shove the car into reverse.

That was when the TV came in through the windshield.

Hovering far above Miami, Chantelle reached for a power that would show her where to go. There was one that showed danger; she took it on. A network of lines sprang up all over the city, visible only to her inner eye. If I went down there, where would I be in the most danger?

Nothing showed up. A moment later, she realised why, and dropped the starfield portal-shield. With that on, there's very little down there that can hurt me.

Immediately, spots and specks of colour began to spring up all over the city. These designated places where it would be unsafe for her to venture in her current vulnerable state. Large blotches, however, showed up in one area, showing deeper and deeper shades. That's where I want to be.

Singling out the closest splotch of 'danger', she swooped down, throwing out a light air-shield to cut the wind-rush without attenuating the power that she was using to sense potential danger.

There. A police car in a side street, with what looked like a TV set embedded in the windshield. There were two people, a man and a woman, on a fire escape above the car; this explained how that had happened. Ahead of the car, a derelict vehicle set to trap it. Behind the car, a dumpster had been pushed into its path with the same aim in mind. The vehicle was already surrounded; as she watched, a window was smashed inward, then a door was wrenched open. There may have been shots, but she couldn't be sure.

All right then. The protective field flowed over her in an instant. She discarded the danger-detection power, pulled up another one. On the fire escape, the couple looked up and saw her. The man raised a pistol. She gestured in their direction; a mass of crystals grew up over the fire escape, encasing both of them, trapping his arm.

Dropping down toward the car, she switched out the crystal power for aerokinesis; a great wind blew up, blasting the attackers from either side of the car, from on top of it, tumbling them down the side-street until they fetched up against the derelict car. She kept the aerokinesis, using it to keep herself airborne as she swapped out her flight for another power; the asphalt grew up over their arms and legs, trapping them as they lay there.

Chantelle landed beside the car. Within, one officer was still moving, checking on his partner. She saw blood, and pursed her lips. Losing the asphalt power, she switched it out for a wide-area regeneration ability. The aerokinesis made way for a more hands-on healing capability.

"Are you hurt?" she called out.

The officer, startled, turned around and stared at her. "What – what happened?" he demanded. "What the fuck's going on? Who are you?"

"I am Eternal," she said simply. Walking around the car, she approached the open door. The driver of the car had gotten a face-full of shattered windshield when the TV hit, and then he had been brutally assaulted when the door was opened. He was covered in blood, and she was sure she could see at least one stab wound.

"Can you help him?" The police officer leaned across and looked up at her. "Get him to the hospital?"

"He won't need a hospital," she corrected him. Placing her hands lightly on the wounded man's chest, she exerted the healing power. It required conscious direction and she only had the vaguest idea of the wounds that she couldn't see, but it worked well enough; contusions smoothed out, blood vessels closed, torn flesh healed over. He would have some scarring, but that was better than nothing. The process was assisted and accelerated by the regeneration field that she was currently emanating; this also helped to heal the other officer of any injuries that he might be suffering.

A cracking, crunching sound from overhead warned her that the fire escape was about to give way. Whoops, didn't consider the weight of the crystal. She had just enough time to swap out the healing for telekinesis before the fire escape came free altogether. The invisible force caught it as it began to swing in toward the wall, swivelling on the part that was still connecting it to the building.

Chantelle exerted a little more force, pulling the fire escape away from the wall and placing it on the ground. The couple, still trapped in the crystal like flies in amber, stared at her in horror and awe.

With a gesture, she moved the dumpster aside as well, then looked at the police officers. The one she had healed looked to be coming round, if still a bit groggy. She looked at the other officer. "You. What's your name?"

"Uh, Corcoran. David Corcoran." His eyes were wide. "How did you do that?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she replied, smiling at the look on his face. "Now, we'll need to take all these to the nearest station. I don't know the way."

"Uh, how are you going to do that?" asked Corcoran.

By way of answer, she swapped her regeneration back to the power that let her treat asphalt like silly putty. A solid band of it wrapped around each of the perpetrators, but they were free of the street, at least. Her telekinesis let her pile them all together, along with the two still trapped on the fire escape, and she bound them into one mass using excess asphalt. Then she swapped out the asphalt manipulation for levitation and hefted the lot into the air, herself included.

The officer who had been hurt was now out of the car, staring at the ton of material, living and otherwise, that was floating in the air as if it had been given a special dispensation to ignore the law of gravity. Which, in a way, it had. Corcoran was explaining matters to him in a low tone; this didn't take long, given that Corcoran knew essentially nothing about what was really going on.

When Corcoran was done, the other officer turned to Chantelle. "Uh, I'm Tomlin. Brad Tomlin. You're … Eternal?"

She nodded, once. "I am."

"And you want us to show you where the precinct house is?"

"I do, yes. Unless you want me to just release these people?"

He grinned. "Hah, no. But it might be hard to drive with this fu … with this TV in the windshield. Don't suppose you could fix it?"

"Easily." She swapped out the telekinesis for a more specific version, one that moved silicate materials only. The TV pulled itself out of the windshield and fell to the ground; a moment later, the windshield popped back into shape, the hole closing and the glass fragments melding together to form a seamless whole. Even the pieces that had come free leaped back into place. The whole process took less than thirty seconds.

"Oh, man," David breathed, looking at the pristine windshield. "You could send every windshield repair place broke in weeks."

Brad grinned. "Days, more like." He started the engine and looked over his shoulder so that he could reverse out of the side street. "I'll drive, you follow?"

"I have a better idea," she said. Moving the perpetrators over toward the police car, she extended the levitation field toward the car, lifting it six inches off the ground. "I'll drive, you give directions."

Miami TV Enterprises wasn't exactly a multi-million dollar concern. Started by a couple of would-be television moguls, the company possessed exactly two vans, three television cameras, and a dilapidated building sporting a broadcast tower on the roof. Stumbling along from month to month on a shoestring budget, the fact that they managed to keep the cameras rolling and the lights on could be attributed more to a string of minor miracles than good management on their part.

A significant part of their revenue stream came from getting good footage of events and incidents around Miami, which they would then sell on to the big names. This meant that any time anything dramatic threatened to happen, such as hurricanes, sports events or riots, the MTVE vans would be out and about, a camera crew in each one, ready to capture on film anything that looked vaguely like news.

Today was just such a day. Both vans had been sent out late the previous evening, but Van One had suffered a double puncture from broken glass on the road. One tyre changed, they had set out to limp back to base on one flat tyre, leaving Van Two to roam the city alone.

Van Two held three men; Joseph Monaghan, Larry Constanzo and Paul 'Buck' Rogers.

Joe was the sound tech and driver in one; soft-spoken and burly, he was also black. This last quality, more than anything else, had squeaked them past more than one potentially nasty incident over the last eight hours.

Larry was the cameraman. Florid, overweight and balding, he was a genius when it came to framing shots and capturing dramatic atmosphere. Unfortunately, unless he was carefully supervised, he was also likely to end up viewing the world more through the bottom of a whiskey bottle than through the lens of the van's beat-up Arriflex camera.

Paul was the reporter in the crew. No sci-fi fan, he nevertheless resembled his namesake somewhat in looks if not in height; he was only five feet tall. A master of the incisive question and the snappy comeback, he tended to announce the news from the studio. But tonight was all hands on deck, so he was out with the crew in Van Two.

At this moment in time, they were cruising down a back street in a neighbourhood that had seen some heavy action the night before, if the rubble that Joe was dodging was any indication. The sky was beginning to lighten, but they weren't interested in the sunrise. As they rolled down the street, Paul had the passenger side window open and was leaning out, listening for any sounds of shooting or other disturbances.

"Uh, Paul, we're gonna need to get some fuel soon," Joe pointed out. "That gas needle, she's showin' mighty close to empty."

"Sure, okay," Paul decided. "But let's swing past that tyre place again first. Larry should be able to get some good shots of the smoke against the sunrise."

"Can we get a drink too, Buck?" asked Larry from the back of the van. "Awful thirsty here."

"I'll think about it." Paul leaned out the window for one last scan of the surroundings. A movement caught his eye and he turned to look back down the street behind the van. "Holy shit! What the good goddam was that?"

"What was what?" asked Joe. "You see something?"

"Turn the damn van around," Paul ordered him. "Larry, get the camera ready. Open the sunroof. Go go go!"

"What?" asked Larry. "What'd you see?" He had to grab for a handhold as Joe pulled the van into a tyre-squealing turn. "Hey, watch it! Working back here!"

"Yeah, what'd you see?" Joe straightened the van out again. Without needing to be told, he pushed his foot to the floorboards. The aged engine sputtered, then picked up again with a roar.

Paul hung on as Joe swerved around the pieces of rubble that he had carefully picked his way around before. Curses floated forward from the back of the van; Paul ignored them. Larry would be ready. "I saw … I saw …"

"What?" That was Joe.

"Fuck it, I don't know what I saw."

"Well, what did you think you saw?" Joe slowed down for the corner. "Left or right?"

"Turn right. What I think I saw? A UFO shaped like a cop car, abducting a bunch of people. Floating by about five storeys up. That's what I think I saw."

That got him an incredulous stare from even the normally unflappable Joe. "A flying cop car. Abducting people. You sure you saw right?"

"No, I'm not. But I'm sure of one thing. Whatever it was, has gotta be newsworthy, right?"

"Uh, Buck, you ain't been drinkin', have you?" That was Larry.

"Not a drop."

There was a meditative silence, broken only by the roar of the engine as Joe pushed it to its max. "Maybe you should start."

As Paul leaned out the window, scanning the skyline, he couldn't help but wonder if Larry was right.

Dave Corcoran had done a few odd things in his life, but this one topped them all. For a start, the patrol car was flying, or floating, or whatever, at the behest of a talking piece of night sky shaped like a cloaked person. So, too, were the perpetrators, trapped in their bonds of asphalt and crystal. He couldn't even tell if Eternal was supposed to be a man or a woman; there was no texture or detail to go off, except the outline. There was depth, however; when he looked at Eternal, he was sure that he was actually looking at stars millions of miles away.

I don't even know how that's supposed to work.

Nor was Eternal's voice much of a clue; there was tone there, but it was echoing and somehow distant, as if transmitted from far away. All he knew was that the mysterious being had saved Brad's life for sure, and his as well.

With a grin, Brad motioned to the radio. "Call this in. I wanna hear what they say."

David shook his head. "You have to be kidding. There is no way they're gonna take this seriously."

Brad's grin widened. "Come on. You know you want to."

He was right. David did want to. Picking up the microphone, he cleared his throat. "Uh, you're not gonna believe this, but …"

Paul heard the cop's voice over the police scanner. "Larry! Recorder!" he yelled. Leaning forward, he turned the volume up as high as it would go. Intently, he listened to the conversation between the officer and police dispatch. They didn't seem to be taking the officer too seriously, but Paul took in every detail, especially where the officer said they were taking the perpetrators.

"Precinct house!" he shouted to Joe over the roar of the engine. "Get us there!"

"Buck!" called Larry from the back of the van. "Did you want me to get the camera ready or not?"

"Yeah!" Paul replied. "And get the sunroof open. If Joe can get under them, I want all the footage you can get, got me?"

"Gotcha," Larry said. Paul heard the sunroof slide open.

The van swerved to avoid a car that was stopped in the middle of the street, angled across two of the four lanes. Paul didn't want to think about what might have happened to the driver, especially if he was white. Clutching a notepad, he began to scribble down what he recalled of the radio conversation. Larry may have gotten a recorder operating in time, and it may have captured the exchange between Officer Corcoran and his dispatcher, but there was no time to check. Of course, because it was police radio traffic, they couldn't actually use it on air without official permission, but with any sort of luck, he'd be able to use it to ferret out other information.

The van took a corner on what felt like two wheels; Paul grabbed for a handhold, then swore as he dropped his pen. It rolled about in the footwell, but his seatbelt prevented him from retrieving it. And there was no way he was undoing the belt at this point in time. So he just hung on and searched the sky for the anomalous floating object.

Dave had been right. They didn't believe it. Right up until the point that the car – with Brad hamming it up at the steering wheel – settled into a parking spot at the front of the precinct with barely a jar. When they first came into sight of the building, there had been half a dozen officers out at the front. By the time Eternal put them down, the crowd was a dozen strong and growing fast.

As the patrol car settled on to its springs, David unfastened his seat belt – old habits died hard – and scrambled out of the vehicle. Eternal lowered the dozen imprisoned perpetrators into the next parking spot, to the jaw-dropping astonishment of basically all their colleagues.

"Would you like me to free them of their restraints so that you can arrest them?" That was Eternal, of course.

"Uh, yeah, sure," David agreed. "That would be good. Uh, one at a time, if you can?"

"I can." Eternal proceeded to be good as his (her?) word, the asphalt binding each criminal falling free, one after the other, giving Dave and Brad the chance to cuff them and hand them over to their somewhat-stunned fellow officers before the next one was freed. Even the chunk of crystal binding the two to the fire escape melted away like morning fog once Eternal decided that it had served its purpose.

"So, uh, what happens now?" asked Brad once the last one had been led inside. "Do you want to come meet the Captain? Or do you -"

The sound of a roaring engine and screeching tyres became suddenly audible; everyone reacted, turning toward the noise. Dave drew his service weapon, as did three or four others. A van was barrelling down the street, swerving toward them. Eternal seemed to put up one hand – it was hard to see what the enigmatic being was doing, based purely on outline – and a faint green shimmering haze appeared between the officers and the oncoming vehicle.

And then the van slowed, jolting to a halt. The engine was left running as both front doors burst open. A big black guy and a short white guy jumped out; Dave relaxed just a little as he registered that neither man appeared to be armed. They were joined by a fat white guy in a Hawaiian shirt, holding something that was worse than a gun. It was a television camera.

"Oh, shit," groaned Brad. "It's the media."

End of Part Three