Max Collins - After the Dark

And in the center of the room, raised up on a five-foot platform, was a molded black chair, strangely like a human hand rising to caress the person perched there, with controls built into the wide flat armrests — Captain Kirk’s chair, revised by Salvadore Dali. In this chair, this throne, his hood back, sat silver-haired Matthias.

All of this she took in, in a moment, which was all she had before a figure flew at her, snarling, a priestess with a ceremonial dagger in one hand and long clawed nails ready with the other. Rather lost in her robe, the priestess was slender and lovely, or would have been if her face had not been covered in ritual tattoos, and she took Max down in a diving roll, one powerful arm and hand slipping around Max as the knife rose.

But before the blade fell, Max grasped the arm hugging her and snapped it like a twig, then flung the woman off — the priestess, Familiar or not, was feather light.

One arm dangling, useless, the priestess hissed and came at Max low, charging, knife again raised; and Max sidestepped her, latching onto the flowing robes and running her headlong into one of the monitors, crashing the woman’s head through the screen in a shower of glass and an eruption of smoke and flame.

“So much for monitoring London,” Max said to Matthias as the priestess shuddered and shivered, literally jolted as electrocution won out over centuries of selective breeding.

Matthias swiveled toward Max. He seemed not at all concerned, certainly not a whit distraught over the loss of the priestess.

“In the pre-Pulse world,” Matthias said to her, his voice rich, strangely soothing, with a faint Teutonic lilt, “such demonstrations of your mutant powers might impress. Now... as we await the momentary arrival of the Coming, seeing such a childish display on your part, 452... seems almost nostalgic.”

She kept her distance from him, for the moment; his hands were on controls on those armrests, and she had no idea what he could do from his perch.

She heard something behind her, whirled, and it was Alec, with Mole bringing up the rear.

“Whoa,” Alec said. “Dude’s got some home entertainment center...” He nodded toward the slumped, smoking priestess hanging out of the London monitor. “But y’know, it’s dangerous, if you sit too close to the screen.”

Mole, glancing around, said, “So who’s this character? Blofeld?... Building’s clear of snake suckers, except for this guy. Lots of inmates, though, on the second floor.”

Matthias seemed bored with them. But he granted them this observation: “The Coming is inevitable. Your efforts... They are small, pitiful attempts, small boats hoping to ride out a typhoon.”

Hardly listening, Alec was staring at the ceiling. “Now, that’s a skylight...”

Matthias gestured toward a bank of monitors — in the hooded, loose robe, it was like the specter of death, pointing.

“We flee into the night, and you cannot stop us,” he said.

Among the monitors were views of the parking lot, where robed Familiars were frantically getting into their cars and booking.

“Where do you keep your car keys in those cloak things?” Alec asked.

Max shot him a look.

“Just wondering,” Alec said.

“Some of our brothers have fallen tonight,” Matthias said. “But these others will go out into the world and spread the word... and our seed... even as the ordinaries wither like unpicked fruit on the vine.”

Alec, still chatty, asked, “So in a few minutes, when this biotoxin hits... How long’s it take to kick in?”

“Many will die in moments,” the silver-haired Familiar said. “Others, the strongest of a weak species, will cling to life.”

“And Max here,” Alec said, “can give ’em a clean bill of health, once we get the vaccine goin’... Mole, you’re a businessman. How much do you think we can get, for a shot of Maxine?”

Max arched an eyebrow. “Maxine?”

“Vaccine... Max... get it? We’ll have to trademark it.”

Mole was not amused. “Let me ice this sucker, and let’s be home for Christmas.”

Matthias stood, looming over them. “Kon’ta ress! Ken’dra hiff!” He was staring at the sky — the stars — and, seemingly, speaking to them. His arms outstretched. He continued the ancient incantation: “Adara mos rekali... konoss rehu jek!”

Mole, raising his pistol, said, “Nobody can make me listen to this crapola...”

“The future!” Matthias’s voice echoed through the dark, dim chamber, the monitors glowing like small fires. “The future... arrives!”

The trio of transgenics followed the Familiar’s finger to the glass dome...

... and saw a streak of silver and gold, appearing in the sky, a fiery Christmas ribbon flung across the heavens, its tail a shimmering scattering of white sparks.

“Cool,” Alec said.

Max had never seen anything quite so beautiful, nor so breathtaking. And still she shuddered: was that stardust trail the bearer of the biotoxin — the beginning of the end for mankind...?

Matthias stood on his roost, his eyes going from one monitor to another...

On some of the screens, faces shone with delight from the sight of the Christmas comet. In some locales, a sea of small candles glowed, as if at a church service; in others, gay streamers of silver shook in upraised hands, in happy imitation of the remarkable event they’d just seen. Though there was no sound from the monitors, it was clear cheers and hoops and hollers and whoops of Yuletide joy were ringing in the air at the various locales. And then, slowly, spectators began to filter off, into their own lives, their own celebrations of the holiday...

... and they all looked just fine.

Matthias stared with an astounded expression — Max had never seen a longer puss on a guy. He kept shifting his vision from one monitor to another, and all he could see was ordinaries having a good time... clearly feeling hunky-dory.

“Maybe it takes a while to kick in,” Alec said. He seemed vaguely disappointed. “An hour or so.”

“Or maybe a thousand years,” Max said.

Matthias sat — heavily — in his black chair; it was as if the hand shape of it was trying to crush him.

“Hey, don’t be down in the dumps,” Mole said, stepping up to him. “Do what the other end-of-the-world cults do, when the big day craps out on ’em. Pick a new one! Revise and move on.”

“We... are... superior,” Matthias said, dazed.

“Sure you are,” Max said. “I read about this cult... before the Pulse? A comet was coming to take them to outer space, where God was waiting for ’em. First the men had to castrate themselves...”

“Ouch,” Alec said.

“... and then take poison. Purify themselves — y’know, you don’t want to meet God without sprucing up a bit. But they just knew that comet was gonna take ’em to outer space. Guess what? They’re still waiting.”

Matthias looked directly at Max, his expression haunted. “It was predetermined thousands of years ago. We shall prevail—”

“Maybe next comet,” Alec said. “When’s that, 4006?”

Max stepped nearer to Matthias. “Can you control the facility from where you sit?”

Matthias turned his gaze upon her. “Of course.”

“Then unlock all the cells... Cooperate, and we’ll spare you.”

Mole said, “Hey! I say we—”

“It’s not a democracy,” she reminded him. Then to Matthias she said, “Well?”

Matthias’s ice-blue eyes fell to the computer screen built into the armrest — he touched the screen, in a “button” at the upper right...

... and the monitors changed image.

All of them the same.

All, in huge red numbers, reading: 5:00 . For one second, that is; then they read: 4:59... 4:58... 4:57...