"Dark As the Dawn"
May. 17th, 2022 05:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dochermes"Dark As the Dawn"
10/22-10/25/1952
I.
"It seems so cruel to treat those animals this way," Laura Salerno mused almost to herself. She lowered the binoculars and stepped away from the bunker window with its lead-glass that was five inches thick. "I can't make them out, but I know they're there, chained to posts in the ground two miles from ground zero. A cow, a horse, two dogs, two cats, some guinea pigs and white mice. All with only a few minutes to live."
"It IS cruel, Sceptre. No point in trying to pretty it up." General Harper Terpening said. He was chewing furiously on an unlit cigar, unable to hold still, pacing back and forth. Three other officers, some aides and a dozen top nuclear researchers were crowded into that bunker as well, all sipping coffee and checking their wristwatches obsessively. "But sadly enough, in dark times such as these even our own men are expendable. We have to make hard choices to protect our country."
Laura stepped back. "So now we have the Omega Surge. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm no scientist, but this will not be a typical atomic explosion. The destructive shock waves and heat are expected to be no worse than, say, a handful of firecrackers going off. But the deadly radiation will be unprecedented in its intensity. Have I got that right?"
"That's what we're hoping," said the senior researcher there, a stout grandfatherly type with a bristling white mustache. "Unprotected organisms within a few miles will be instantly killed by radiation even further along the electromagnetic spectrum than gamma rays. It's something new. Our hope is that the wooden hut near the bomb tower will be unaffected and safe to enter."
Wearing her Sceptre disguise, Laura had affixed a long curly black wig over her short medium brown hair. She wore dramatic red lipstick that changed the outlines of her mouth and she affected sunglasses so dark they were almost opaque. Under the canary yellow blouse, her bra had been padded to distract male observers. The Sceptre also wore royal blue slacks and a matching long trenchcoat. Secured within an inner pocket of that coat hung the dreaded device that was one of the most potent talismans in the Midnight War... the Sceptre itself.
"And how is this a good thing?" she asked without sarcasm.
"The idea is that in wartime, we can capture enemy cities with this Omega Surge," the researcher behind them explained. "The opposing soldiers will be painlessly killed but the terrain will not be destroyed or even left radioactive. Our own troops will be able to move in safely."
She whispered to herself, "Bright as the midnight of Heaven, Dark as the dawn in Hell,'" quoting the decadent poet's work.
General Terpening crushed his wet cigar stub out under a polished shoe tip. "We've worked together a few times before, Sceptre. Even back in the final days of the Big One. I have no reason to doubt your loyalty or your courage, but you seem... apprehensive?"
"That's a fair choice of words, General," she replied. "We're fooling around with primal forces we don't understand. I picture us as standing in a darkened room full of powderkegs and we're lighting matches to see what will happen." She picked up the binoculars again to examine a scene that seemed uncomfortably close.
A steel scaffolding rose up sixty feet into the air above the dry white Nevada sand. It resembled a water tower but at its apex was a cylindrical metal tube big as a train car. Within that casing rested the latest attempt to harness the most destructive powers the universe held. The Omega Surge.
"T-MINUS Twenty Seconds," Boomed a baritone voice over speakers in the bunker.
"You know we're not supposed to look at the blast directly," the researcher told the sole woman among them.
"T-MINUS Ten Seconds."
"I'll turn away in time," Laura said. "There's something..."
"T-MINUS Five. Four. Three..."
"Oh my God!" she screamed. "There's a man tied to the outside of the bomb!" Then, almost too late, she wheeled around to drop to one knee and press both hands over her face. A heavy dull thump sounded in the distance, strong enough to be felt underfoot. Unearthly bluish-white light tore through the heavy plate glass and even with her eyes squeezed close, Laura clearly saw the bones in her own hands.
For a long breathless moment, everyone remained frozen in place as if dreading movement would repeat the experiment. Then, after clearing his throat, Harper Terpening asked, "Everyone okay?"
"I seem normal, sir," replied a scientists. The others all affirmed that they didn't seem to have suffered any ill effects. Away from the assembly by a few feet, Laura felt an unpleasant burning sensation along her right thigh. It was the Sceptre. The Gremthom metal shaft of the mystic weapon was red hot to the touch.
Terpening placed his hands on her shoulders with what gentleness he could manage. "What was that you said before the blast? A man strapped to the bomb?"
"Y-yes," she said. "I would swear that's what I saw. But it couldn't be. This area is restricted for three hundred miles around. Who could have been out there?"
"Wait," interrupted a researcher. "Where's Dr Waldron?"
"He couldn't make it," said another. "Complained of chest pains, said he would join up as soon as he was cleared by the nurse."
"Waldron. Henry Waldron? You don't think...?" asked Terpening.
"I don't know how to tell you this, General. Here. Take a look." Laura handed the ranking officer the binoculars and folded her arms to stare down as she felt her pulse racing. She knew what she had seen. Standing upright near the collapsed ruin of the metal tower, unmoving in a whirlwind of dust that was only beginning to settle, had been a naked man.
II.
At the command facility ten miles away from the test site, in a chilly room holding only a table and some chairs under a glaring overhead light, Laura Salerno refused to be baited. She remained as composed as if studying a menu before ordering.
"You already know I am not turning the Sceptre over to you," she told the FBI men. "Stop wasting your time and mine."
"You're in a precarious position, miss. Your security clearance was granted under wartime circumstances. Times have changed. Surely you are not denying your country a weapon of great power, a weapon that might easily fall into the wrong hands?"
"Those wrong hands would not survive taking the Sceptre," she said. Laura lowered her sunglasses to regard the two clean-cut men with immense lack of deference. "You've read my file. You know what will happen if the Sceptre is taken from me or if I die suddenly. These walls would crack apart and the ceiling would fall in, the Sceptre would scatter into millions of fragments moving outward in all directions at the speed of light. I'm afraid you two would be shredded into wet confetti before you knew anything was wrong."
"Now, see here, miss..."
"That's not a threat, young man," Laura said. "I couldn't change that result if I wanted to. Think about what you've learned about me. Like it or not, when you deal with me, you have gone beyond what science can explain. I'm magic."
Before the FBI men could continue, General Terpening strode in through the steel door and growled. "You men are dismissed. Your chief is on the line in the communications room. This is the Army's business now."
After the G-Men grudgingly and slowly closed the door behind them, Terpening allowed himself a short barking laugh. "Sceptre, you have got more sheer brass than anyone I know, male or female. You told them where to get off."
"I've been through it all before," she replied, rising and stretching stiffly. "Whew. You do know that Ike himself issued an Executive Order giving me privileged status. As long as I don't screw up... Anyway, can I see Dr Waldron yet?"
"That's why I've come to fetch you. And to get you away from Hoover's watchdogs." He held the door to the interrogation door open and returned the salute of the MP standing out in the hall. "We're heading for Holding Cell Twelve, soldier. Inform anyone looking for us that's where we'll be."
"Yes, sir!"
They moved briskly along deserted hallways, past locked doors to darkened offices, seeing no one other than another guard at the end of a passage. This MP acknowledged the General verbally, then stepped aside as Terpening unlocked a steel door.
Entering a small cubicle which had heavy white jumpsuits, boots and hoods hanging from wall hooks, the General began bundling himself up. He even tugged on white gauntlets suitable for bomb disposal. "You remember signing the Official Secrets Act?"
"Of course. My word, this outfit is heavy. It's like wearing a mattress."
"The fabric is lined with cadmium lead." Terpening initialed a clipboard hanging on the wall, then noted the time. "Five minutes exposure is supposed to be safe, but to be honest I think the eggheads are guessing wildly and trying to sound like they know what they're doing."
Laura felt alarmed as the Sceptre warmed up against her leg again. "Can't say I'm happy about any of this, sir..."
Punching in a code on a keypad, General Terpening caused a panel to slid aside. Revealed before them was a wide low-ceilinged room with three metal stools fastened to the floor. Beyond that, a thick plate glass window revealed a cell in which stood a thin man whose skin showed an unearthly bluish-white tinge that bordered on being luminous. The man's hair was pure white and his eyes so pale as to nearly be colorless. He was wrapped in a thick wool robe with its collar up around his ears.
"Visitors," came a sepulchral voice through an intercom. "Worth taking your life in your hands to see me, is it?"
"Good morning, Henry," said the General. "You've met the Sceptre, haven't you?"
"Of course. Of course. A beautiful woman in a project staffed by boring middle-aged men certainly stands out."
"Dr Waldron," Laura ventured, "How are you feeling?"
"Feeling? I have no feeling. Not anymore. They must have told you that."
"Henry, please..."
"No heartbeat. No respiration," said the pale man. "My EKG is flat. I'm not what you might call alive," Waldron laughed.
Laura stepped closer to the lead-glass plate separating them. "And yet.. you're standing up. You're talking."
Beside her, the General said, "Some of our medical experts have hopes you might still be restored to normal."
"Don't lie to me!" Waldron screamed in a sudden burst of fury. "I'm dead. I know I'm dead. This body is only running on the heat of radioactivity and who knows how long that will last?" He pressed a palm up against the window and steam rose at the contact. "All that matters now is finding who did this to me."
III.
Stepping back out into the corridor, Laura seemed unprecedentally crestfallen. Her head hung down. Terpening had never seen her so affected. "Waldron does not remember how he ended up tied to that bomb. For at least four or five hours before the incident, his memory is foggy. So he can't identify the enemy."
"And that bunker was sealed two hours before the test," Terpening reminded her. "The MPs took off in a Jeep well in advance. You saw there's only one door. No one got Waldron up there and then snuck back into the bunker. It was an outside man."
They stopped before the tiny canteen where only three rows of tables stood. A refrigerated counter held various sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, bottles of soda and plain water, bags of chips and peanuts. A coffee machine burbled to one side. Laura helped herself to an egg salad on white and grabbed a bottle of water before dropping down unceremoniously to a bench.
Getting a paper cup of coffee for himself, Terpening sat down facing her and finally lit one of the thin black cheroots he was notorious for. "Afraid there's more bad news, Sceptre."
"Heh. Can't say I'm surprised," she replied as she chewed a small bite. "Like what?"
"It's been thirty-six hours since the test. Two of the big thinkers who were in the bunker with us are on sick call. Muscle and joint pains, some unexplained bruising. One is losing his hair in clumps."
Laura Salerno dropped her sandwich unnoticed to the table in front of her. "The Omega Surge. Goddam it, Harper. We've poisoned ourselves."
"I'm sorry, Sceptre. Truth is, what we know about radiation is a tiny bit compared to what we don't know. To be honest, no one expected the Japs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to get as sick as they did."
"That is no comfort." Reaching down to her side, she found the Sceptre had cooled off. Was it protecting her? Maybe. During her career, she had found the talisman absorbed harmful sorcerous force before it could affect her, maybe it had some shielding property against atomic radiation. She hoped so.
Finishing his coffee, Terpening got up and selected a roast beef on rye, tore off the wrapper and started chewing without further comment.
"I'm sure there were cameras running during the test," Laura said after a glum moment. "Has the film been checked to look for any suspicious bad guys running back and forth?"
"It's being developed now. Multiple cameras were set up, but unfortunately the film looks like it's going to be foggy and maybe unusable. That Omega Surge was much stronger than anyone expected. The test animals were all stone dead without a visible mark on them. But the wooden shack wasn't even scratched. The radiation seems to have only affected living things."
"Like us..." Laura muttered. "All right. I know you have a minimum staff here, Harper. The FBI and Army Intelligence had been sent back to Washington because now we know there's danger of exposure. I'm going outside to look around the area."
"What are you planning, to check for footprints?"
"Whatever I can see from the air," she said as she crumpled up the sandwich wrapper.
Emerging from the double glass doors at the front of the command station, Laura Salerno lowered her snug-fitting dark-lensed sunglasses over her eyes. She had already buttoned the front of her trenchcoat and pulled on a pair of white cotton gloves. At Terpening's suggestion, the adventurer fastened a paper filter mask over her nose and mouth.
In one hand, she held the Sceptre itself, the unique talisman crafted by her late husband more than a dozen years earlier. It could never be duplicated. When he had affixed the foot-long rod of Darthan metal to the blue Eldar crystal at its top end, the blast of occult energy had nearly shattered him. The two Races used incompatible sorcery. Attempts by other mystics had only killed the experimenters. There could be only one Sceptre.
Walking a few feet away, Laura reflected gloomily that the creation of her famous weapon had been so much like what these scientists were trying to do here. Mortals fooling around with enormous destructive force like children playing with loaded guns. She felt sick at heart. Laura fastened the leather loop at the bottom of the Sceptre around her wrist and rose smoothly upward without any noise or flash.
She did not feel like she was hanging down off the talisman. The Sceptre was surrounding her with a narrow aura of gralic force which turned away gravity. Her body seemed to be effortlessly diving but upward. The Sceptre could focus several types of energy for her use, mostly heat and kinetic impact, but its power over gravity was by far her favorite. A dream of people through the ages had come true for her.
Below, one long L-shaped building of plain concrete blocks faced the observation bunker miles to the south. The roof bristled with radio antennas. There were offices, labs, a barracks for the half dozen soldiers and eleven nuclear theoriticians. Six Army Jeeps were lined up neatly, and nearby was a cleared area where the helicopter had landed which had brought General Terpening and herself here two days earlier.
There had also been the interrogation room where she had been dragged this morning. Why had the planners thought that it would be needed? Laura hated dealing with the military at the best of times. Straightening out her body, back slightly arched and legs together, she circled the area. Around the test site, she saw that the poor sacrificial animals had been taken away. The hard-packed white sand was crossed with dozens of the footprints left by men taking soil and air samples, using Geiger counters, snapping hundreds of photographs.
Laura swung out in a widening circle. Taking to the air had cleared her head. She realized now how anxious and doom-laden her thoughts had been. All these gigantic bombs were being set off in the Pacific and now Nevada right in the United States, each bigger, each more apocalyptic.. and now this Omega Surge, which did not harm to property but only snuffed out life. And she had been exposed.
There. Separating off on their own, parallel tracks in the sand. The Sceptre swooped lower and rushed along following the tire tracks. A mile sped by below her, she raced over a dried ravine, and then she saw the Jeep standing silently, far from any possible help. In the driver's seat of the open vehicle, a figure in a white lab smock was slumped over to the left, hanging down with both arms extended lifelessly.
Laura dropped her legs, landing with the ease of long practice. As she stopped drawing on gravity repulsion, she changed her thoughts to set the Sceptre to draw on concussive force. Enough to launch a kinetic blast that would flip this Jeep over if necessary.
But the man was dead. Grasping his head by the damp black hair, she raised it to see that his eyes were as solid white as hard-boiled eggs. The skin on his face was raw and blistered, and blood had dried from both ears. He had not died without suffering. The Omega Pulse again.
Feeling nauseous and not knowing if it was from exposure to radiation or simply because of the situation, she let the Sceptre dangle down from her wrist. As a civilian consultant to the Defense Department, even with the backing of high White House officials, she should have led authorized investigators to do this. She didn't care anymore. The man was wearing dark blue pants and a long-sleeved blue work shirt with the patch MAINTENANCE sewn over the left breast pocket and the name pin GODFREY fixed below that.
The pockets yielded only the obvious. Keys, a pack of a Lucky Strikes and a nearly empty book of matches, seventeen dollars five and singles but no change. A ballpoint, a pair of nailclippers. No wallet, which was what she was really hoping to find.
More disgusted than before, she started digging around inside the Jeep. No luck. Laura stepped back, trying to be sure she had left everything as she had found it, then she noticed a small anomaly. Up from inside the man's right work shoe protruded a white triangle. She tugged it out. It was a stiff cardboard card, one and a half inches by two and a half.
Professionally printed, it showed a drawing of a black cumulonimbus cloud with a stylizing yellow lightning bolt extending down diagonally toward the bottom left. The number 117 was printed in yellow digits with black outlines. Membership in some covert organization, she figured. Whether Red subversion or common crime ring, this was significant.
Laura tucked the card into a side pocket of her coat, which was technically removing evidence from a possible crime scene and certainly evidence from a death without a physician present. She didn't care any more. She was sick of all the tension and fear and lies. Laura fought back a powerful urge to pull the hot wig off her head, to tug the sticky foam rubber out from inside her bra and to wipe off the bright red lipstick she hated wearing. She could pack a knapsack with some essentials and use the Sceptre to relax out in the Canadian Rockies or on the beach at Acupulco or really anywhere away from people.
Instead, she gripped the mystic device tightly and lifted clear of the ground. Maybe this would be the Sceptre's last case. She had certainly done more than her share. Laura flew back toward the command center at the speed she could comfortably maintain the longest without mental fatigue or back pain. Sixty miles per hour, pacing a car if there had been one below her, felt best.
Despite her best efforts, her mood continued to darken. What had happened to the bright shiny world that they had all fought and sacrificed for? Where had it gone? It seemed that as soon as VJ Day ended its celebration, the bitter dirty fight against Russia had taken over. Proxy wars all over the world, atomic testing, spies and betrayals and endless propaganda. And then the fighting in Korea had started, which she felt uneasily certain would bring China in for another world wide conflict.
Why had everything gone so wrong? Didn't people deserve better? As she shot through the air, Laura Salerno choked up and stifled a sob. There below her was the Army command center, shimmering in the afternoon sunlight. Immediately, she spotted a body lying on the asphalt lot near the vehicles. A short stocky man in uniform. Her chest suffered a cold pang that made her gasp. Laura dove down headfirst and landed badly in a stumble next to where General Terpening was lying.
IV.
He moaned as she knelt and took his arm to turn him over. He was alive. The relief washed over her like a weight being lifted, but then she saw the angry red burns that covered one side of his face. One eye was gone. He made gasping noises and tried to speak.
"Hush, hush," she used her most reassuring tone. "Quiet. I'm taking you inside." Not without difficulty, she hoisted his solid form up with her hands under his armpits and dragged him toward the door, his shoe heels leaving trails in the sand.
"Hello? Anyone? We need help here!" she shouted without receiving an answer. From her quick tour when she had first arrived, Laura remembered where the sick room was. It held a desk and chair, a narrow examining bed and some wheeled cabinets of equipment. Frantic now, she manhandled Terpening up onto the table and stretched him out.
"HEY!" she yelled. "Where is everyone? We need a medic." Still not hearing any response and fearing the worst, the Sceptre rinsed off her hands hastily in the stainless steel sink, dug through the supplies until she found burn ointment and delicately wiped it onto Terpening's ravaged face. It was obviously doing nothing to help. There in a locked cabinet with glass doors, she saw what she needed.
Smashing the door open with the butt of her Sceptre, she found a bottle of morphine with its prominent warning labels. Even better, there was a row of premeasured syrettes. Good. Laura unbuttoned Terpening's left sleeve and tugged it up to reveal his forearm. No time for swabbing alcohol. She slid the point in at a shallow angle, injected him with a minimum dosage and was rewarded by seeing his tight quick breathing ease up within a few minutes.
As worried as she was about her longtime colleague, Laura had to find out what the situation was. Grasping the shaft of her Sceptre and adjusting her thoughts for kinetic blast, she rushed out into the hallways. A badly burned corpse lay where it had fallen. There was another a few yards further down the corridor.
Everyone was dead except for Terpening. Their necks were charred down to the bones, vertebrae exposed as blackened tabs. It had been Waldron, of course. Laura imagined his intense radioactivity produced heat as he was active, and he had only to seize someone to kill them. Finding the holding cell where she had met the man, she found its plate glass had been melted enough for someone to wriggle through.
What a nightmare had run wild here during the short time she had been gone! If she had been present with her Sceptre, maybe she could have prevented this slaughter. The MPs were among the dead, one with his M16 still in his hands. She sniffed the barrel and knew he had fired it, but maybe bullets couldn't harm a revenant animated by primal atomic force.
Moving more slowly than she realized, Laura Salerno trudged back to the medical room to find Harper Terpening had passed away as well. The black blood which had spouted from his mouth was still wet and his eyes were open, rolled up in his head. She saw a folded linen cloth on the tray of instruments and spread it out to cover her colleague's face in an unconscious effort to give him some trace of dignity.
Going outside now, lowering herself to sit in the open doorway, the Sceptre hugged herself and rocked back and forth without knowing it. After a few minutes, she realized how distant she felt from all of this. Not outraged, not grief-stricken, not nauseous. Her uppermost thought was guilty relief that she herself felt no symptoms. Not even a headache.
Laura held up the talisman that Raymond had crafted a dozen years earlier, feeling warmth but not heat from its Gremthom shaft. Down the side of the Sceptre ran a slim brass strip with five ivory buttons in a row. They did nothing at all. The Sceptre operated on will power from its master but the buttons had several times misled enemies who had gotten hold of the device. While they clicked away uselessly, Laura had been able to activate the Sceptre from a distance to dazzle the enemy or even blow their hand off. Adding those buttons had been a clever ruse.
A few more moments passed as she gathered her thoughts. Back to business. She looked over at the row of olive-drab Jeeps which the Army had provided for the staff here. One parking spot stood empty, the one with the name WALDREN stenciled in white paint. He should not be hard to find in the wasteland all around them.
Dr Waldron could not be allowed to run free out there, these victims must be avenged. The thought of that radioactive madman flagging down a station wagon with an unsuspecting family of tourists in it finally rousted her from her state of shock. She got to her feet with a sigh and tugged down her trenchcoat where it had ridden up. Laura made sure the leather loop was still wrapped tightly around her wrist so that she could not inadvertently drop the Sceptre. Then, one last time, she rose up to head level and then accelerated sharply back the way she had come.
V.
Next to the vehicle with the corpse, a second Jeep was standing with white steam pouring out from under its hood. Still wearing the long-sleeved white dress shirt and black slacks he had on in the detention cell, Waldron swung around as he caught a glimpse of the Sceptre passing overhead.
His bones were showing clearly. His skin seemed translucent, nearly transparent, and his skeleton glowed visibly even in the desert sunlight. Waldron's face was a skull under clear flesh, with white limp hair hanging lifelessly. As he saw Laura, he hissed in an inhuman way like air escaping a punctured tire.
"Ah! There you are!" he called up in a hollow voice. "I was wondering if I would get a chance to see your famous weapon in use? How on Earth does it work? Where is the exhaust? How can it be so silent?"
"Never mind that now," Laura said, hovering twenty feet overhead to stay well out of reach.
"Yes, I suppose I have more, shall we say, URGENT problems?" said the ghastly man. "Look at me. I'm burning from the inside out. Quite a sight. But then, being in contact with a nuclear device could be expected to have harmful effects, ha ha."
Descending slightly, watching the horrifying specter, Laura tried to sound calm. "You may not have much time, doctor. What happened? How did you end up tied to the Omega Surge?"
"Oh, that. That would be Paul here who did that. Or to use his birth name, Pavel. Georgian, you know, a top analyst for the KGB for years. He has come so far to die under a false name fighting for a faithless leader."
Laura decided to take a chance. Lowering still further, she flicked the ID card toward the skeltonized man and saw Waldron snatch it out of the air. "Does this mean anything to you, doctor?"
"Stormcloud? Why of course. I have a similar card, my number is 542. But you are tied in with the FBI and the CIA and the Mandate, you must know all about... ugh. I don't feel well." He sagged to his knees and leaned back against the Jeep.
Completely ignorant of anything called Stormcloud, Laura took a final chance and landed. As her shoes contacted the hot sand, she could smell burning insulation from the Jeep which had brought Waldron here. Evidently his radiation had destroyed its wiring. "Why did you do it, doctor? Are you a Communist? Or a sympathizer?"
"Please, what do I care about that nonsense? One corrupt system is as bad as another. I wanted funding. Congress kept turning me... turning me down. I feel weak. Dizzy. I think this is it."
Moving closer, lowering her Sceptre only slightly, Laura pleaded, "At least go with a clear conscience, sir. Do what's right. Tell me about Stormcloud. Tell me who you took orders from."
"All right. All right. Come here, I'll give you a name...." Waldron's bones were showing in great detail at this point, the jaw moving on tendons no longer clearly visible. He was a lantern lit fromn within. "There's a red sword.."
Laura sprang backwards instinctively an instant before the weird apparition heaved up and lunged for her. The Sceptre blasted a wide bolt of concussive force which threw Waldron back over the Jeep behind him and made him tumble fifteen feet away. He gasped but made no other outcry. Laura moved warily around the Jeep, past the cadaver of the spy Pavel which still slumped in the driver's seat.
Waldron's chest had caved in, the ribs were obviously snapped and there was no point in trying to check for a pulse. Not that she would have risked touching him anyway. Laura Salerno watched with great suspicion, waited ten minutes without seeing the body move in any way, then sank to a seated position on the sand as her legs gave way.
Midnight War never got easier. After all she had experienced in wartime Europe, in occupied Japan, even in the mysterious adjacent realms Okali and Chujir, she had not become hardened. Sweat poured down her face and into the collar of her blouse. Suddenly, Laura yanked the black wig off, ignoring the stinging as the adhesive tape came loose. Her own shorter brown hair was exposed and she felt much better. Enough. With the back of a damp hand, she wiped at her mouth to get the misleading lipstick off.
So much to be done. She wanted to disappear, to forget all about the past forty-eight hours but that would be impossible. If nothing else, she was going to demand a full check-up to see if there were any harmful effects from the Omega Surge. She wanted blood work and X-Rays and whatever else to see if she would be okay. At forty, she had dismissed ever having children but she still wanted to live to be old and grey and cranky.
Slowly, her breathing slowed to normal. She let the Sceptre dangle from her wrist as she moved over to stare down in repulsion at Waldron's shimmering corpse. Some white rectangle was in front of her toes. In spite of her weariness and disgust, Laura picked up the Stormcloud card and studied it.
9/9/2020
10/22-10/25/1952
I.
"It seems so cruel to treat those animals this way," Laura Salerno mused almost to herself. She lowered the binoculars and stepped away from the bunker window with its lead-glass that was five inches thick. "I can't make them out, but I know they're there, chained to posts in the ground two miles from ground zero. A cow, a horse, two dogs, two cats, some guinea pigs and white mice. All with only a few minutes to live."
"It IS cruel, Sceptre. No point in trying to pretty it up." General Harper Terpening said. He was chewing furiously on an unlit cigar, unable to hold still, pacing back and forth. Three other officers, some aides and a dozen top nuclear researchers were crowded into that bunker as well, all sipping coffee and checking their wristwatches obsessively. "But sadly enough, in dark times such as these even our own men are expendable. We have to make hard choices to protect our country."
Laura stepped back. "So now we have the Omega Surge. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm no scientist, but this will not be a typical atomic explosion. The destructive shock waves and heat are expected to be no worse than, say, a handful of firecrackers going off. But the deadly radiation will be unprecedented in its intensity. Have I got that right?"
"That's what we're hoping," said the senior researcher there, a stout grandfatherly type with a bristling white mustache. "Unprotected organisms within a few miles will be instantly killed by radiation even further along the electromagnetic spectrum than gamma rays. It's something new. Our hope is that the wooden hut near the bomb tower will be unaffected and safe to enter."
Wearing her Sceptre disguise, Laura had affixed a long curly black wig over her short medium brown hair. She wore dramatic red lipstick that changed the outlines of her mouth and she affected sunglasses so dark they were almost opaque. Under the canary yellow blouse, her bra had been padded to distract male observers. The Sceptre also wore royal blue slacks and a matching long trenchcoat. Secured within an inner pocket of that coat hung the dreaded device that was one of the most potent talismans in the Midnight War... the Sceptre itself.
"And how is this a good thing?" she asked without sarcasm.
"The idea is that in wartime, we can capture enemy cities with this Omega Surge," the researcher behind them explained. "The opposing soldiers will be painlessly killed but the terrain will not be destroyed or even left radioactive. Our own troops will be able to move in safely."
She whispered to herself, "Bright as the midnight of Heaven, Dark as the dawn in Hell,'" quoting the decadent poet's work.
General Terpening crushed his wet cigar stub out under a polished shoe tip. "We've worked together a few times before, Sceptre. Even back in the final days of the Big One. I have no reason to doubt your loyalty or your courage, but you seem... apprehensive?"
"That's a fair choice of words, General," she replied. "We're fooling around with primal forces we don't understand. I picture us as standing in a darkened room full of powderkegs and we're lighting matches to see what will happen." She picked up the binoculars again to examine a scene that seemed uncomfortably close.
A steel scaffolding rose up sixty feet into the air above the dry white Nevada sand. It resembled a water tower but at its apex was a cylindrical metal tube big as a train car. Within that casing rested the latest attempt to harness the most destructive powers the universe held. The Omega Surge.
"T-MINUS Twenty Seconds," Boomed a baritone voice over speakers in the bunker.
"You know we're not supposed to look at the blast directly," the researcher told the sole woman among them.
"T-MINUS Ten Seconds."
"I'll turn away in time," Laura said. "There's something..."
"T-MINUS Five. Four. Three..."
"Oh my God!" she screamed. "There's a man tied to the outside of the bomb!" Then, almost too late, she wheeled around to drop to one knee and press both hands over her face. A heavy dull thump sounded in the distance, strong enough to be felt underfoot. Unearthly bluish-white light tore through the heavy plate glass and even with her eyes squeezed close, Laura clearly saw the bones in her own hands.
For a long breathless moment, everyone remained frozen in place as if dreading movement would repeat the experiment. Then, after clearing his throat, Harper Terpening asked, "Everyone okay?"
"I seem normal, sir," replied a scientists. The others all affirmed that they didn't seem to have suffered any ill effects. Away from the assembly by a few feet, Laura felt an unpleasant burning sensation along her right thigh. It was the Sceptre. The Gremthom metal shaft of the mystic weapon was red hot to the touch.
Terpening placed his hands on her shoulders with what gentleness he could manage. "What was that you said before the blast? A man strapped to the bomb?"
"Y-yes," she said. "I would swear that's what I saw. But it couldn't be. This area is restricted for three hundred miles around. Who could have been out there?"
"Wait," interrupted a researcher. "Where's Dr Waldron?"
"He couldn't make it," said another. "Complained of chest pains, said he would join up as soon as he was cleared by the nurse."
"Waldron. Henry Waldron? You don't think...?" asked Terpening.
"I don't know how to tell you this, General. Here. Take a look." Laura handed the ranking officer the binoculars and folded her arms to stare down as she felt her pulse racing. She knew what she had seen. Standing upright near the collapsed ruin of the metal tower, unmoving in a whirlwind of dust that was only beginning to settle, had been a naked man.
II.
At the command facility ten miles away from the test site, in a chilly room holding only a table and some chairs under a glaring overhead light, Laura Salerno refused to be baited. She remained as composed as if studying a menu before ordering.
"You already know I am not turning the Sceptre over to you," she told the FBI men. "Stop wasting your time and mine."
"You're in a precarious position, miss. Your security clearance was granted under wartime circumstances. Times have changed. Surely you are not denying your country a weapon of great power, a weapon that might easily fall into the wrong hands?"
"Those wrong hands would not survive taking the Sceptre," she said. Laura lowered her sunglasses to regard the two clean-cut men with immense lack of deference. "You've read my file. You know what will happen if the Sceptre is taken from me or if I die suddenly. These walls would crack apart and the ceiling would fall in, the Sceptre would scatter into millions of fragments moving outward in all directions at the speed of light. I'm afraid you two would be shredded into wet confetti before you knew anything was wrong."
"Now, see here, miss..."
"That's not a threat, young man," Laura said. "I couldn't change that result if I wanted to. Think about what you've learned about me. Like it or not, when you deal with me, you have gone beyond what science can explain. I'm magic."
Before the FBI men could continue, General Terpening strode in through the steel door and growled. "You men are dismissed. Your chief is on the line in the communications room. This is the Army's business now."
After the G-Men grudgingly and slowly closed the door behind them, Terpening allowed himself a short barking laugh. "Sceptre, you have got more sheer brass than anyone I know, male or female. You told them where to get off."
"I've been through it all before," she replied, rising and stretching stiffly. "Whew. You do know that Ike himself issued an Executive Order giving me privileged status. As long as I don't screw up... Anyway, can I see Dr Waldron yet?"
"That's why I've come to fetch you. And to get you away from Hoover's watchdogs." He held the door to the interrogation door open and returned the salute of the MP standing out in the hall. "We're heading for Holding Cell Twelve, soldier. Inform anyone looking for us that's where we'll be."
"Yes, sir!"
They moved briskly along deserted hallways, past locked doors to darkened offices, seeing no one other than another guard at the end of a passage. This MP acknowledged the General verbally, then stepped aside as Terpening unlocked a steel door.
Entering a small cubicle which had heavy white jumpsuits, boots and hoods hanging from wall hooks, the General began bundling himself up. He even tugged on white gauntlets suitable for bomb disposal. "You remember signing the Official Secrets Act?"
"Of course. My word, this outfit is heavy. It's like wearing a mattress."
"The fabric is lined with cadmium lead." Terpening initialed a clipboard hanging on the wall, then noted the time. "Five minutes exposure is supposed to be safe, but to be honest I think the eggheads are guessing wildly and trying to sound like they know what they're doing."
Laura felt alarmed as the Sceptre warmed up against her leg again. "Can't say I'm happy about any of this, sir..."
Punching in a code on a keypad, General Terpening caused a panel to slid aside. Revealed before them was a wide low-ceilinged room with three metal stools fastened to the floor. Beyond that, a thick plate glass window revealed a cell in which stood a thin man whose skin showed an unearthly bluish-white tinge that bordered on being luminous. The man's hair was pure white and his eyes so pale as to nearly be colorless. He was wrapped in a thick wool robe with its collar up around his ears.
"Visitors," came a sepulchral voice through an intercom. "Worth taking your life in your hands to see me, is it?"
"Good morning, Henry," said the General. "You've met the Sceptre, haven't you?"
"Of course. Of course. A beautiful woman in a project staffed by boring middle-aged men certainly stands out."
"Dr Waldron," Laura ventured, "How are you feeling?"
"Feeling? I have no feeling. Not anymore. They must have told you that."
"Henry, please..."
"No heartbeat. No respiration," said the pale man. "My EKG is flat. I'm not what you might call alive," Waldron laughed.
Laura stepped closer to the lead-glass plate separating them. "And yet.. you're standing up. You're talking."
Beside her, the General said, "Some of our medical experts have hopes you might still be restored to normal."
"Don't lie to me!" Waldron screamed in a sudden burst of fury. "I'm dead. I know I'm dead. This body is only running on the heat of radioactivity and who knows how long that will last?" He pressed a palm up against the window and steam rose at the contact. "All that matters now is finding who did this to me."
III.
Stepping back out into the corridor, Laura seemed unprecedentally crestfallen. Her head hung down. Terpening had never seen her so affected. "Waldron does not remember how he ended up tied to that bomb. For at least four or five hours before the incident, his memory is foggy. So he can't identify the enemy."
"And that bunker was sealed two hours before the test," Terpening reminded her. "The MPs took off in a Jeep well in advance. You saw there's only one door. No one got Waldron up there and then snuck back into the bunker. It was an outside man."
They stopped before the tiny canteen where only three rows of tables stood. A refrigerated counter held various sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper, bottles of soda and plain water, bags of chips and peanuts. A coffee machine burbled to one side. Laura helped herself to an egg salad on white and grabbed a bottle of water before dropping down unceremoniously to a bench.
Getting a paper cup of coffee for himself, Terpening sat down facing her and finally lit one of the thin black cheroots he was notorious for. "Afraid there's more bad news, Sceptre."
"Heh. Can't say I'm surprised," she replied as she chewed a small bite. "Like what?"
"It's been thirty-six hours since the test. Two of the big thinkers who were in the bunker with us are on sick call. Muscle and joint pains, some unexplained bruising. One is losing his hair in clumps."
Laura Salerno dropped her sandwich unnoticed to the table in front of her. "The Omega Surge. Goddam it, Harper. We've poisoned ourselves."
"I'm sorry, Sceptre. Truth is, what we know about radiation is a tiny bit compared to what we don't know. To be honest, no one expected the Japs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki to get as sick as they did."
"That is no comfort." Reaching down to her side, she found the Sceptre had cooled off. Was it protecting her? Maybe. During her career, she had found the talisman absorbed harmful sorcerous force before it could affect her, maybe it had some shielding property against atomic radiation. She hoped so.
Finishing his coffee, Terpening got up and selected a roast beef on rye, tore off the wrapper and started chewing without further comment.
"I'm sure there were cameras running during the test," Laura said after a glum moment. "Has the film been checked to look for any suspicious bad guys running back and forth?"
"It's being developed now. Multiple cameras were set up, but unfortunately the film looks like it's going to be foggy and maybe unusable. That Omega Surge was much stronger than anyone expected. The test animals were all stone dead without a visible mark on them. But the wooden shack wasn't even scratched. The radiation seems to have only affected living things."
"Like us..." Laura muttered. "All right. I know you have a minimum staff here, Harper. The FBI and Army Intelligence had been sent back to Washington because now we know there's danger of exposure. I'm going outside to look around the area."
"What are you planning, to check for footprints?"
"Whatever I can see from the air," she said as she crumpled up the sandwich wrapper.
Emerging from the double glass doors at the front of the command station, Laura Salerno lowered her snug-fitting dark-lensed sunglasses over her eyes. She had already buttoned the front of her trenchcoat and pulled on a pair of white cotton gloves. At Terpening's suggestion, the adventurer fastened a paper filter mask over her nose and mouth.
In one hand, she held the Sceptre itself, the unique talisman crafted by her late husband more than a dozen years earlier. It could never be duplicated. When he had affixed the foot-long rod of Darthan metal to the blue Eldar crystal at its top end, the blast of occult energy had nearly shattered him. The two Races used incompatible sorcery. Attempts by other mystics had only killed the experimenters. There could be only one Sceptre.
Walking a few feet away, Laura reflected gloomily that the creation of her famous weapon had been so much like what these scientists were trying to do here. Mortals fooling around with enormous destructive force like children playing with loaded guns. She felt sick at heart. Laura fastened the leather loop at the bottom of the Sceptre around her wrist and rose smoothly upward without any noise or flash.
She did not feel like she was hanging down off the talisman. The Sceptre was surrounding her with a narrow aura of gralic force which turned away gravity. Her body seemed to be effortlessly diving but upward. The Sceptre could focus several types of energy for her use, mostly heat and kinetic impact, but its power over gravity was by far her favorite. A dream of people through the ages had come true for her.
Below, one long L-shaped building of plain concrete blocks faced the observation bunker miles to the south. The roof bristled with radio antennas. There were offices, labs, a barracks for the half dozen soldiers and eleven nuclear theoriticians. Six Army Jeeps were lined up neatly, and nearby was a cleared area where the helicopter had landed which had brought General Terpening and herself here two days earlier.
There had also been the interrogation room where she had been dragged this morning. Why had the planners thought that it would be needed? Laura hated dealing with the military at the best of times. Straightening out her body, back slightly arched and legs together, she circled the area. Around the test site, she saw that the poor sacrificial animals had been taken away. The hard-packed white sand was crossed with dozens of the footprints left by men taking soil and air samples, using Geiger counters, snapping hundreds of photographs.
Laura swung out in a widening circle. Taking to the air had cleared her head. She realized now how anxious and doom-laden her thoughts had been. All these gigantic bombs were being set off in the Pacific and now Nevada right in the United States, each bigger, each more apocalyptic.. and now this Omega Surge, which did not harm to property but only snuffed out life. And she had been exposed.
There. Separating off on their own, parallel tracks in the sand. The Sceptre swooped lower and rushed along following the tire tracks. A mile sped by below her, she raced over a dried ravine, and then she saw the Jeep standing silently, far from any possible help. In the driver's seat of the open vehicle, a figure in a white lab smock was slumped over to the left, hanging down with both arms extended lifelessly.
Laura dropped her legs, landing with the ease of long practice. As she stopped drawing on gravity repulsion, she changed her thoughts to set the Sceptre to draw on concussive force. Enough to launch a kinetic blast that would flip this Jeep over if necessary.
But the man was dead. Grasping his head by the damp black hair, she raised it to see that his eyes were as solid white as hard-boiled eggs. The skin on his face was raw and blistered, and blood had dried from both ears. He had not died without suffering. The Omega Pulse again.
Feeling nauseous and not knowing if it was from exposure to radiation or simply because of the situation, she let the Sceptre dangle down from her wrist. As a civilian consultant to the Defense Department, even with the backing of high White House officials, she should have led authorized investigators to do this. She didn't care anymore. The man was wearing dark blue pants and a long-sleeved blue work shirt with the patch MAINTENANCE sewn over the left breast pocket and the name pin GODFREY fixed below that.
The pockets yielded only the obvious. Keys, a pack of a Lucky Strikes and a nearly empty book of matches, seventeen dollars five and singles but no change. A ballpoint, a pair of nailclippers. No wallet, which was what she was really hoping to find.
More disgusted than before, she started digging around inside the Jeep. No luck. Laura stepped back, trying to be sure she had left everything as she had found it, then she noticed a small anomaly. Up from inside the man's right work shoe protruded a white triangle. She tugged it out. It was a stiff cardboard card, one and a half inches by two and a half.
Professionally printed, it showed a drawing of a black cumulonimbus cloud with a stylizing yellow lightning bolt extending down diagonally toward the bottom left. The number 117 was printed in yellow digits with black outlines. Membership in some covert organization, she figured. Whether Red subversion or common crime ring, this was significant.
Laura tucked the card into a side pocket of her coat, which was technically removing evidence from a possible crime scene and certainly evidence from a death without a physician present. She didn't care any more. She was sick of all the tension and fear and lies. Laura fought back a powerful urge to pull the hot wig off her head, to tug the sticky foam rubber out from inside her bra and to wipe off the bright red lipstick she hated wearing. She could pack a knapsack with some essentials and use the Sceptre to relax out in the Canadian Rockies or on the beach at Acupulco or really anywhere away from people.
Instead, she gripped the mystic device tightly and lifted clear of the ground. Maybe this would be the Sceptre's last case. She had certainly done more than her share. Laura flew back toward the command center at the speed she could comfortably maintain the longest without mental fatigue or back pain. Sixty miles per hour, pacing a car if there had been one below her, felt best.
Despite her best efforts, her mood continued to darken. What had happened to the bright shiny world that they had all fought and sacrificed for? Where had it gone? It seemed that as soon as VJ Day ended its celebration, the bitter dirty fight against Russia had taken over. Proxy wars all over the world, atomic testing, spies and betrayals and endless propaganda. And then the fighting in Korea had started, which she felt uneasily certain would bring China in for another world wide conflict.
Why had everything gone so wrong? Didn't people deserve better? As she shot through the air, Laura Salerno choked up and stifled a sob. There below her was the Army command center, shimmering in the afternoon sunlight. Immediately, she spotted a body lying on the asphalt lot near the vehicles. A short stocky man in uniform. Her chest suffered a cold pang that made her gasp. Laura dove down headfirst and landed badly in a stumble next to where General Terpening was lying.
IV.
He moaned as she knelt and took his arm to turn him over. He was alive. The relief washed over her like a weight being lifted, but then she saw the angry red burns that covered one side of his face. One eye was gone. He made gasping noises and tried to speak.
"Hush, hush," she used her most reassuring tone. "Quiet. I'm taking you inside." Not without difficulty, she hoisted his solid form up with her hands under his armpits and dragged him toward the door, his shoe heels leaving trails in the sand.
"Hello? Anyone? We need help here!" she shouted without receiving an answer. From her quick tour when she had first arrived, Laura remembered where the sick room was. It held a desk and chair, a narrow examining bed and some wheeled cabinets of equipment. Frantic now, she manhandled Terpening up onto the table and stretched him out.
"HEY!" she yelled. "Where is everyone? We need a medic." Still not hearing any response and fearing the worst, the Sceptre rinsed off her hands hastily in the stainless steel sink, dug through the supplies until she found burn ointment and delicately wiped it onto Terpening's ravaged face. It was obviously doing nothing to help. There in a locked cabinet with glass doors, she saw what she needed.
Smashing the door open with the butt of her Sceptre, she found a bottle of morphine with its prominent warning labels. Even better, there was a row of premeasured syrettes. Good. Laura unbuttoned Terpening's left sleeve and tugged it up to reveal his forearm. No time for swabbing alcohol. She slid the point in at a shallow angle, injected him with a minimum dosage and was rewarded by seeing his tight quick breathing ease up within a few minutes.
As worried as she was about her longtime colleague, Laura had to find out what the situation was. Grasping the shaft of her Sceptre and adjusting her thoughts for kinetic blast, she rushed out into the hallways. A badly burned corpse lay where it had fallen. There was another a few yards further down the corridor.
Everyone was dead except for Terpening. Their necks were charred down to the bones, vertebrae exposed as blackened tabs. It had been Waldron, of course. Laura imagined his intense radioactivity produced heat as he was active, and he had only to seize someone to kill them. Finding the holding cell where she had met the man, she found its plate glass had been melted enough for someone to wriggle through.
What a nightmare had run wild here during the short time she had been gone! If she had been present with her Sceptre, maybe she could have prevented this slaughter. The MPs were among the dead, one with his M16 still in his hands. She sniffed the barrel and knew he had fired it, but maybe bullets couldn't harm a revenant animated by primal atomic force.
Moving more slowly than she realized, Laura Salerno trudged back to the medical room to find Harper Terpening had passed away as well. The black blood which had spouted from his mouth was still wet and his eyes were open, rolled up in his head. She saw a folded linen cloth on the tray of instruments and spread it out to cover her colleague's face in an unconscious effort to give him some trace of dignity.
Going outside now, lowering herself to sit in the open doorway, the Sceptre hugged herself and rocked back and forth without knowing it. After a few minutes, she realized how distant she felt from all of this. Not outraged, not grief-stricken, not nauseous. Her uppermost thought was guilty relief that she herself felt no symptoms. Not even a headache.
Laura held up the talisman that Raymond had crafted a dozen years earlier, feeling warmth but not heat from its Gremthom shaft. Down the side of the Sceptre ran a slim brass strip with five ivory buttons in a row. They did nothing at all. The Sceptre operated on will power from its master but the buttons had several times misled enemies who had gotten hold of the device. While they clicked away uselessly, Laura had been able to activate the Sceptre from a distance to dazzle the enemy or even blow their hand off. Adding those buttons had been a clever ruse.
A few more moments passed as she gathered her thoughts. Back to business. She looked over at the row of olive-drab Jeeps which the Army had provided for the staff here. One parking spot stood empty, the one with the name WALDREN stenciled in white paint. He should not be hard to find in the wasteland all around them.
Dr Waldron could not be allowed to run free out there, these victims must be avenged. The thought of that radioactive madman flagging down a station wagon with an unsuspecting family of tourists in it finally rousted her from her state of shock. She got to her feet with a sigh and tugged down her trenchcoat where it had ridden up. Laura made sure the leather loop was still wrapped tightly around her wrist so that she could not inadvertently drop the Sceptre. Then, one last time, she rose up to head level and then accelerated sharply back the way she had come.
V.
Next to the vehicle with the corpse, a second Jeep was standing with white steam pouring out from under its hood. Still wearing the long-sleeved white dress shirt and black slacks he had on in the detention cell, Waldron swung around as he caught a glimpse of the Sceptre passing overhead.
His bones were showing clearly. His skin seemed translucent, nearly transparent, and his skeleton glowed visibly even in the desert sunlight. Waldron's face was a skull under clear flesh, with white limp hair hanging lifelessly. As he saw Laura, he hissed in an inhuman way like air escaping a punctured tire.
"Ah! There you are!" he called up in a hollow voice. "I was wondering if I would get a chance to see your famous weapon in use? How on Earth does it work? Where is the exhaust? How can it be so silent?"
"Never mind that now," Laura said, hovering twenty feet overhead to stay well out of reach.
"Yes, I suppose I have more, shall we say, URGENT problems?" said the ghastly man. "Look at me. I'm burning from the inside out. Quite a sight. But then, being in contact with a nuclear device could be expected to have harmful effects, ha ha."
Descending slightly, watching the horrifying specter, Laura tried to sound calm. "You may not have much time, doctor. What happened? How did you end up tied to the Omega Surge?"
"Oh, that. That would be Paul here who did that. Or to use his birth name, Pavel. Georgian, you know, a top analyst for the KGB for years. He has come so far to die under a false name fighting for a faithless leader."
Laura decided to take a chance. Lowering still further, she flicked the ID card toward the skeltonized man and saw Waldron snatch it out of the air. "Does this mean anything to you, doctor?"
"Stormcloud? Why of course. I have a similar card, my number is 542. But you are tied in with the FBI and the CIA and the Mandate, you must know all about... ugh. I don't feel well." He sagged to his knees and leaned back against the Jeep.
Completely ignorant of anything called Stormcloud, Laura took a final chance and landed. As her shoes contacted the hot sand, she could smell burning insulation from the Jeep which had brought Waldron here. Evidently his radiation had destroyed its wiring. "Why did you do it, doctor? Are you a Communist? Or a sympathizer?"
"Please, what do I care about that nonsense? One corrupt system is as bad as another. I wanted funding. Congress kept turning me... turning me down. I feel weak. Dizzy. I think this is it."
Moving closer, lowering her Sceptre only slightly, Laura pleaded, "At least go with a clear conscience, sir. Do what's right. Tell me about Stormcloud. Tell me who you took orders from."
"All right. All right. Come here, I'll give you a name...." Waldron's bones were showing in great detail at this point, the jaw moving on tendons no longer clearly visible. He was a lantern lit fromn within. "There's a red sword.."
Laura sprang backwards instinctively an instant before the weird apparition heaved up and lunged for her. The Sceptre blasted a wide bolt of concussive force which threw Waldron back over the Jeep behind him and made him tumble fifteen feet away. He gasped but made no other outcry. Laura moved warily around the Jeep, past the cadaver of the spy Pavel which still slumped in the driver's seat.
Waldron's chest had caved in, the ribs were obviously snapped and there was no point in trying to check for a pulse. Not that she would have risked touching him anyway. Laura Salerno watched with great suspicion, waited ten minutes without seeing the body move in any way, then sank to a seated position on the sand as her legs gave way.
Midnight War never got easier. After all she had experienced in wartime Europe, in occupied Japan, even in the mysterious adjacent realms Okali and Chujir, she had not become hardened. Sweat poured down her face and into the collar of her blouse. Suddenly, Laura yanked the black wig off, ignoring the stinging as the adhesive tape came loose. Her own shorter brown hair was exposed and she felt much better. Enough. With the back of a damp hand, she wiped at her mouth to get the misleading lipstick off.
So much to be done. She wanted to disappear, to forget all about the past forty-eight hours but that would be impossible. If nothing else, she was going to demand a full check-up to see if there were any harmful effects from the Omega Surge. She wanted blood work and X-Rays and whatever else to see if she would be okay. At forty, she had dismissed ever having children but she still wanted to live to be old and grey and cranky.
Slowly, her breathing slowed to normal. She let the Sceptre dangle from her wrist as she moved over to stare down in repulsion at Waldron's shimmering corpse. Some white rectangle was in front of her toes. In spite of her weariness and disgust, Laura picked up the Stormcloud card and studied it.
9/9/2020
