The plan was now to ride the president’s hidden emergency train to its destination, an abandoned and gutted factory very close to the Polish border, and there go their separate ways. It was left unspoken that Vosla would leave Amar to fend for himself once he was sure they had reached safety, but Amar supposed it was better than Vosla seeing him as another loose end.
Vosla stood at attention, as if he was at a military parade, staring through the window even though there was nothing to see except the cement and tile walls of the underground tunnel. Amar stretched out on one of the seats. It was ridiculous, almost obscene, but this getaway train of a quasi-dictator had seats cushioned with silk and even small chandeliers. Amar idly thought that once they got away he would have to “convince” someone to pay his way at a nice high-end hotel. After this entire fiasco, he really could use a day to himself before he went about the hard work of figuring out a secure place to hide out for the long term, much less a new plan to get his kingdom back.
Suddenly there was a distant crashing noise. Amar ignored it. Vosla’s reverie was broken and, for the very first time since they met, he looked nervous.
“I think he found us,” Vosla muttered to himself and not to Amar.
Amar could understand Vosla’s fear but was still annoyed by it. He closed his eyes and leaned back more into the seat until he was practically sprawled over it. He could only think about how he deserved a break. Yes, for a while there should be no more schemes, no more danger, no more having to deal with self-glorified thugs like Vosla. He would rebuild. After all, wasn’t there still that bank account with all that money he got that useless billionaire to sign over to him? Maybe things weren’t as hopeless as…
Suddenly the train bucked, throwing Vosla down to the ground and almost knocking Amar off his seat. The lights inside the train went out for a frightful second but came back on. The train itself, however, had come to a dead halt.
Amar looked to Vosla. His terror almost made him look human, which was in of itself unnerving. “We just crashed,” Amar said. “That’s it. We need to find the emergency exit.”
Vosla did not turn and said nothing. Amar got up and started looking for a way out. Like anyone else, he knew Sans Pareil was powerful, even by superhuman standards, but he was not ready to believe that he somehow figured out where they were so quickly.
Amar was about to step into the next car when he was startled by the shrieking sound of metal and plastic being torn like paper. He did not need to look to know it was Sans Pareil making his way from the outside to where Amar and Vosla now stood.
Vosla cocked his gun and pointed it as Sans Pareil. A gesture of violent, futile defiance was all he had left, and he would not surrender it.
“You…” Vosla growled. “You had to interfere yet again, didn’t you?”
Sans Pareil stood expressionless. Amar knew he should run, but helplessness and awe kept him rooted. He had been involved with fights against Sans Pareil before, but never to a point where they were almost alone against each other. After a moment that seemed to go on forever, Sans Pareil simply asked, “You know where you went wrong, General Vosla?”
Vosla did not reply. It was another bit of defiance, Amar thought.
“It’s how you always go wrong. You expect people to just surrender themselves to authority, to whoever happens to be in charge. But the people of Ruthenia from the military leaders to the average citizens of the capital were working against you and helping me for weeks now. It was just a matter of figuring out how you were doing it.” What Sans Pareil said next did not at all come across as a boast, but as a statement of absolute fact. “You never had a chance.”
Vosla shrieked with rage and fired his gun stupidly, madly at Sans Pareil. Amar dove to the ground to avoid any possible ricochets. He glanced up just in time to see the caped man almost gently push the charging Vosla aside, nonetheless causing him to collapse like an abandoned doll against the train wall. As soon as Amar realized that Sans Pareil’s attention was now squarely on him, he half-stumbled, half-ran into the next car.
His mind raced. There had to be an exit. He could escape into the tunnel and into some kind of repair shaft or something would lead to freedom. He simply could not wind up in one of their prisons again.
Sans Pareil was walking up to him. There wasn’t enough time to try the other car. Amar turned and lashed out, although he already knew it would probably be useless. The onslaught he unleashed would have been enough to turn an unprepared, normal human mind into a paperweight for at least a couple of minutes. But even Sans Pareil’s mind was anything but normal. He gave no impression of even getting a slight headache. Instead he just spoke calmly. “It’s enough, Ensi Amar Paragisi Kadingir.”
Amar did not see in his eyes the anger or exhilaration he was accustomed to seeing in his enemies. Instead he only saw what had to be described as disappointment. That look turned Amar’s fear into anger.
Gathering up his courage, he now stepped toward Sans Pareil and looked directly in his eyes. “Is this the part where you hurl or blast me through one of those windows?”
Sans Pareil sighed. “Unlike you, I don’t believe in hurting people who don’t pose a threat to me.”
“I didn’t kill that soldier.”
“I can recognize General Vosla’s handiwork,” Sans Pareil said, casually taking a seat. He gestured, indicating that Amar should sit down as well. Despite himself, Amar obeyed. He was too exhausted to indulge in any little gestures of resistance like Vosla. “I meant President Makowski. You stole more than two months from his life. You wreaked havoc on his relationships with his loved ones. You did damage to his mind that will likely take years to completely repair, if ever. And, worse than any of that, you very nearly forced him to hand his people and their futures over to a madman. All that just because you were promised an army.”
“Please, Makowski’s almost what you people call a dictator already.”
“True, but that’s not really a point in your favor, is it? Especially because you knew General Vosla was someone much worse.”
Amar felt the rage course through him like bile. “I wouldn’t have to take such measures, you know, if ‘heroes’ like you just minded their own business once in a while! But you – you think you can just meddle wherever you damn well please, as if your powers give you some kind of license to force your morality on every person and even every society you come across, to decide on a whim who’s the villain and who’s the victim! And you wonder where your so-called supercriminals come from?!”
Sans Pareil looked thoughtful for a minute, as if he was actually weighing Amar’s words. Then he spoke again, but this time it was almost as if he was just thinking aloud. “I’ve been at this for almost a decade, you know. Well, since I was thirteen years old, but professionally it hasn’t been that long yet.
So, I guess I haven’t been dealing with what you call the community for that long, but still I’ve seen a lot, for better and for worse. I’ve seen outcasts from the scientific realm slowly turn into megalomaniacs who threaten the survival of the entire human species for no reason except some irrational grudge, petty thieves and con-artists who overnight become ruthless masterminds who hold entire cities hostage, and people with powers and more than justified grievances who just suddenly become mass murderers worse than any ‘normal’ serial killer.”
“I don’t –“
“You did do your homework on General Vosla, didn’t you? I mean, the cape press likes to only talk about the sillier stuff Vosla has done, like when he and Lady Revanche hijacked that experimental submarine or when he got most of the street gangs of Los Angeles to organize and act like a professional army, but there’s also the things he did that made him wanted by the Hague. Have you ever heard the name Kalnubirz?
Amar only shook his head. He was starting to feel numb.
“It was on a beautiful spot, right on top of a few hills just outside a deep Old World forest, but you can’t visit it nowadays. As Vosla was marching through there in his uniform, a nine-year-old boy spat on him. So Vosla and his troops gathered up every single person in that tiny village and had them all shot. It’s been many years since then but one lives there today, as if the whole place is under a curse.”
Amar said nothing.
“You’ve been wronged. I know that. And maybe things could and should have played out very differently when we first came into conflict with you. But you really don’t have to let your past and other people’s mistakes weigh on you so much you just keep sinking deeper. At least, you shouldn’t let it decide the company you keep today.”
For a moment, Amar felt stung. Then he remembered that this self-anointed hero knew nothing about him or the struggles he had since the miserable day he first encountered his compatriots. How dare he take it upon himself to judge him, just because he could fly through the air and bend steel with his bare hands? Did his powers also make him an expert on his life and
his father the liar and traitor
his people and what was needed to keep them safe from this vile, poisoned world ruled by greed?
“What are you going to do with me now?”
“Well, now that I spoke my piece, I’m going to escort you and Vosla to the nearest military regiment. But I don’t plan on leaving you alone, especially since your antics drove the entire government and military into a frenzy now. For his sake, I hope Vosla will wind up in a proper international court and not a prison around here. As for you, well, with your…ah, ambiguous legal status I don’t think even Makowski can hold you for long. Whatever happens, I’ll do what I can to get you back to St. Helena Prison.”
Amar realized he truly didn’t care whether he ended up in some tyrant’s rat hole or that relatively cushy prison for supercriminals in the middle of nowhere he already knew too well. With this latest failure, he only wished for the ground to swallow him home.
As he silently walked beside Sans Pareil (who carried an unconscious Vosla unceremoniously over his shoulder) down the dimly lit tunnel, he could only wonder if he had any real chance at a future, no matter what Sans Pareil said. Whether he stayed on the path he was forced to take long ago or instead escaped on some path toward a quieter life, he could only see an even deeper darkness in either direction.
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