Will McIntosh - Defenders

It was cold outside, but Kai didn’t mind. When he was outside, away from Erik, away from the TVs that doubled as monitoring devices, he felt infinitely more relaxed, more alive. He inhaled deeply as they walked, looked up at the sky.

It seemed as if the stars should be different, now that the rest of the world was unrecognizable, but they were bright and white on a black background, just as they’d always been.

“I had a game with the usual gang before the tournament,” Kai said as they cut through the fenced backyard of Erik’s house, out through the gate and into an alley.

“How’d you do?”

“Up eleven thousand.”

Lila popped a Tick, offered one to Kai. He shook his head.

“Marcus said this resistance movement is serious. They had to expand Earth2 to hold all the people visiting. It’s packed in there. He said there are rumors the inner circle is planning something big.”

“Something big.” Lila sighed.

“I’m sure it’s not any sort of direct confrontation. Unless they’ve lost their minds, they’ll stick to their plan, borrowing from the Luyten playbook. Conquer the world from the edges, in. Disrupt the enemy; harass them.”

Lila nodded. Not in approval, Kai knew—just acknowledgment. “I’m pretty sure that’s a human playbook. The Luyten borrowed it from us.”

They emerged from the alley, their chins tucked against the cold wind. Lila swept her hair back. “They’re so stupid. They’re just confirming the defenders’ paranoid worldview. It’ll only make things worse.”

“I’m not sure things could be worse.”

Lila glanced at him, must have seen something in his eyes. “Kai, please don’t get involved in this. When the defenders stomp this out, they’re going to use a very big boot.”

“I haven’t decided what I’m going to do. For now I’m just watching.” Sometimes Kai had no choice but to push back when Lila made a pronouncement like that.

“The defenders don’t want to admit it, but they still look up to us,” Lila said. “If we play it right, we could get them to back off willingly.”

“They look up to you . They hate the rest of us.” They’d had the same argument before, and it was pointless, because they had no control over the rebels’ actions. But Kai couldn’t let it drop. “You can’t let go of that last shred of hope that these monsters will turn into the defenders of your childhood, the heroes who rode in to save the day.” Kai tried to check the sarcasm in his tone. “You know better than anyone: They’re engineered to understand nothing but force.”

“They’re engineered to use nothing but force, and to respond to it effectively. They don’t know what to make of kindness. It knocks them off balance. If you hug them, they regress into a childhood they never got to have.”

“Maybe we should launch a hug attack.” Kai threw his hands in the air. “A guerrilla love offensive. Leave bouquets of flowers on their doorsteps.”

Lila didn’t smile. “Keep your voice down.”

“I’m so sick of keeping my voice down. I’m sick of having sex in closets. I’m sick of Erik .” They turned onto Monticello Street, which was mostly deserted on the cold night. A few defender vehicles, like tanks with wheels, cruised by. “It’s like Erik is your husband now, and I’m the nanny.”

“I don’t like it any better than you do.”

“You like Erik better than I do.”

Lila stopped walking. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You stick up for him. When I say something mean about him, you don’t agree with me, you make excuses for him.” Wisps of white condensation escaped Kai’s mouth with each angry breath. “‘He’s not as bad as the others are.’ ‘He can’t help it, it’s the way he was designed.’”

“It is the way he was designed, and he isn’t as bad as most of the others.”

Kai looked at Lila and realized that at this moment, he didn’t like her. It was the first time he’d ever felt that way, and it scared him. “I’m not sure I can go on living this way.”

Lila let her head loll back until she was staring at the black sky. “If there was any way for us to get out of that house, I would pack up in a heartbeat.”

“He won’t let you leave, but he’d be happy to see me and Errol gone. We’d probably be able to see you as much that way as we do now.” It wasn’t the first time Kai had thought about moving out, but it was the first time he’d said it out loud, because he wasn’t sure how Lila would react. Now he knew. She looked devastated.

“You would want that?” she asked.

He licked his chapped lips. “I just wonder if it would be better for all of us.”

“You think it would be better for me if I lived alone with a defender? You think I’d be happier with you and Errol gone?”

Kai put his head down. “No. It’s just that, the way things are, Erik is tearing our family apart. I’m trying to think of a way to fix that.”

Lila reached out and took his hand. “The way we fix it is, we don’t let him. From now on, when you say something negative about Erik, I won’t make excuses for him. I’ll pile on. I promise.”

They continued walking. The red and yellow lights of the Timesaver reflected in puddles on the sidewalk ahead.

“Fucking Erik,” Lila said. “Clueless arrogant asshole.”

“Selfish prickless bastard.” In the shadows alongside the Timesaver, Kai noticed the Dumpster was so full the lid was jammed open.

“Grandiose pinhead,” Lila said.

Kai squeezed her hand. The green Dumpster tucked alongside the Timesaver was filled with bodies. Others were stacked in front of it, leaned up against both sides. In the tepid light of streetlamps and store signs, blood-soaked skin appeared black instead of red; deeply shadowed eyes were nothing but black sockets. A single Luyten corpse lay wedged between the Dumpster and the wall.

They kept walking, around to the front of the store and inside. They picked out their sodas and headed to the checkout counter.

“So what happened out there?” Kai asked the clerk, a teenage girl in tight jeans. He tried to sound casual.

“There was a traffic accident,” she said, shrugging, like she was just making conversation.

“A bad one?”

The clerk shook her head. “Not too bad. A woman backed into the front of a defender’s SUV. Evidently. He got angry.”

Kai nodded, glanced at the TV mounted over the woman’s shoulder. She was being careful with her words, in case someone was listening. What she probably meant was, the defender rear-ended the woman’s car, then went berserk, even though it was his fault.

They thanked her and headed home, both of them looking away as they passed the Dumpster. It was possible there had been more casualties. Sometimes people still risked retrieving murdered loved ones and burying them, even though bodies were supposed to be left out for the sanitation trucks to cart away. Kai felt sorry for people who worked as trash collectors. That would be one grim job.

“We have to do something. We can’t live like this,” Kai said.

“I agree. The only thing we disagree on is tactics.”

Kai limped along, his bad leg starting to give him trouble. There was no point in arguing; both of them were too stubborn to be shifted from their opinions.

October 11, 2047. Washington, D.C.

There was a letter in Oliver’s mailbox. It was handwritten, with no return address. Oliver tore it open, withdrew an index card with a single thing written on it: Earth2.

Even if he hadn’t recognized Kai’s handwriting, he would have known the message was from Kai. No one but Kai and Lila knew he lived there. He headed back inside his little basement apartment, decorated primarily with Marvel comic book memorabilia, and sat at his computer.