Chương 124: The Foras Funhouse, Part 3

Must and mildew were smells I could identify faster than any other. They lingered with seniority and authority over all other smells. Blood and waste are louder and harsher to the nostrils, but they always dry out. But the smells of age never go away. They live eternal, and with that comes the right to be recognized everywhere. Looking around, I could see this was part of some apartment. The ceilings were a bit low, the walls had visible splits in the seams beneath the paint, the doors had slight cracks in them.

All marks of a place in need of repair. But the furniture and floor were clean. Proof of life. The sounds of cooing and babbling struck my ears, drawing me towards my right. A crib. In it, an infant. Couldn't tell how many months old, exactly. The pink adornments in the crib told me it was a girl. She had darker features. Had to intuit that. This must have been the 'Her' that didn't survive 9/11. If 9/11 was the issue, then this was in Chicago. The only two candidates would have been May and Agent Lafeuillade.

May lived in Virginia, specifically Williamsburg. She was 20, so while she could have been a baby during 9/11, she clearly wasn't dead. So survival wasn't the issue. This meant it was Lafeuillade's memory. Lafeuillade didn't look as old as Tancred. I wasn't sure how old she was, but if my estimation of mid-thirties was right, this had to have been her sister. Lafeuillade didn't have any powers that I knew of. She was a magic user. Magic wasn't a power. Wizards aren't considered superhumans.

And if this was twenty years ago, there was likely not any magic she kne- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH A wailing yowl of pain, the noise of something alive but clearly not as human as it used to have been, penetrated my head. The sound wasn't in my ears, I didn't physically hear it, it was just blasting full force past my skull and into my brain. Cold ice claws dug into my grey matter, squeezing and tearing at it.

I could feel my eyes watering from the pain, my heart banging against my ribs for escape. This was then accompanied by the baby's screams filling my ears. I could barely focus, but inexplicably that child's shriek pulled something out in me. Some need to protect and nurture it. It was my oasis in the wasteland of agony. In what felt like minutes but likely only took seconds, I trudged my way over to the baby and lifted her up in her swaddle, trying to cradle her in reassurance that I would keep her safe.

I couldn't talk. THOM THOM The door banged and pounded away before suddenly snapping open. Two of those fake humans pushed into the room, clenching broken chair legs in white-knuckle grip, glowering at me. A man and a woman. Similar complexion to the baby. Lafeuillade's parents? I remembered what Sam told me about 9/11. How a "sonic event" caused a massive portion of Chicago to become incoherently violent. But that was supposed to be after they were dazed. Two and two were put together. The baby was in danger.

There was no getting past them without putting her at risk. I slipped her back into the crib, before stancing up to face the two frenzied people. I was trained, damn it. May not be able to beat Chris in a fight, but I've beaten trained fighters with super strength like Hidalgo. I could stand and bang. They rushed without coordination. They both wanted to attack first. Normally people stagger their charge, as no one wants to be the first guy to get hit in a fight. They didn't care. Had to split them in half.

Bringing my right leg up, I thrust a foot out towards the knee of the rightmost one, the man, wanting to keep my right hand available. Casney called this kind of kick the chassé bas. A "Chase low." Wasn't sure how kicking was chasing, but what I did see was the man's knee bend out for a second before pushing back into place, but by the time it did so he was already stumbling back. Didn't have the strength to break limbs here.

But it gave me a good single file line to deal with as the woman swung a chair leg towards my left side. I tucked my head and chin against my shoulder, using that area to absorb the impact. It didn't break off on my shoulder, I wasn't sturdy enough for that, instead the kinetic energy rumbled through my body and made my breathing difficult. But it brought her closer, enough that I could snap my right fist forward straight into her mouth, sending her recoiling back.

By the time I finished the arc of my punch, the man was already back up and rushing me. I was too far forward to take back my stance. So I leaned into it, rotating around and sticking my left leg out. As he came closer to the arc of my leg, I snapped the limb closed at the knee, a rapid flick of my heel against his jaw sending him falling back. Two knockouts. That would be the easiest it got, I imagined. I recognize at that point it was time to leave, and hefted the baby back up before rushing out of the room.

I made it into the living room, which told the same story of lived-in and cared for but under-maintained. A TV sat in the middle of the room, which flickered to life. Foras in his news anchor look was on the screen.

"What a fighter you are, Leo Holt." His voice was audible past the horrible screaming still going on. At this point I had learned to tune the worst of it out. That, or adrenaline was heightening my perception. Either could have been possible, but I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

"What the Hell was that?" I called out.

"Sam said the people during the scream initially were in a fugue state. They didn't immediately start attacking."

"That wouldn't be much of a challenge then, would it? Especially since otherwise, you would've had a far more uneven head start. There's nine hours until the Chicago area is blasted by Professor Perdition's death ray, per the request of the United States. That's far too much time for you to be able to go uncontested." He acted like nine hours was a lot of time, but I thought about another thing Sam mentioned. How only eight percent of the population of Chicago made it out alive.

I tried to estimate it, but I wasn't sure of the population, but it made my odds feel sli-"It's a bit less than a quarter of a million who survived, Leo Holt. Your odds are fine in terms of that, statistically speaking."

"How the Hell did you do that?"

"The distinction between This and That is very thin around my kind. Your thoughts will bleed out quite often."

"What does that even mean!?"

"Nothing useful to you. I was just letting you know I'm aware of what you're thinking." The front door to the apartment began pounding and banging. It was holding out better than the bedroom door, but that wasn't a high bar.

"Sounds like that's your cue to run, Leo Holt. I'll give you one fair hint: Fire escape's in the bathroom. Make it interesting." The TV shut off, and I wasn't going to waste time questioning his hint. It was either out the bedroom window or the bathroom. Couldn't afford to gamble. So I took his advice and ran for the bathroom, and immediately through the window I could see the metal frame of the fire escape. Stolen novel; please report.

Pushing the window open and ambling through, careful to not drop the baby, I made it out of the apartment right as the door crashed open. They could all play in there for all I cared. Scrambling down the steps, I made it to the bottom layer of the escape before kicking the ladder down. Carrying a screaming baby down a ladder wasn't anywhere near as easy as it sounded. My only luck was she was too small and underdeveloped to be much of a flailer. At the ground level, it was chaos.

These malformed fake-people that were being used in place of humans every step of the way were maiming each other, doing the unspeakable to their bodies like an almost primitive drive. If these things could only emulate and abstractly copy what the real things were doing, then what actually happened in Chicago must have been a portrait of Hell. I made it a goal to focus on weaving through the areas where the "people" were mauling each other.

My reasoning was that if they were so focused on mutual violence, they would ignore me and the baby. This turned out to be my best move, as I managed to break from the largest pockets of violence as it began to trail off and become a drip feed of brawls. I wasn't necessarily home free yet, but if I was able to stay out of the storm, I could make it out fine.

That was what I thought, at least, until a fuel truck slammed into a building right in front of me, going up in flames and producing a sound of breaching metal as it erupted. It all happened so fast that I felt no pain as I saw a hunk of shrapnel the size of a dinner plate dug into my upper bicep. It wasn't lethal if I kept it in. The issue, however, was that it was the same arm I was holding the baby in.

The combination of these two things produced an image I would never get out of my head, for the rest of my life. In a blink, I was back in the apartment. Uninjured. No screaming yet. I wasn't going to wait. I just grabbed the baby and rushed out of the apartment, going past the confused mimicries of people.

By the time I made it down to the ground- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH The pain was just as intense as before, but I seemed to be braced enough to maintain focus, just long enough to force my way into a parked car on the sidewalk. I kept one hand hugged around the baby, not wanting to risk her rolling around in the car. Somehow, luck found me as keys were on the dashboard.

I didn't really know how to drive, but I'd seen so many others do it at this point that I could intuit what needed to be done as the car hummed to life. In order to avoid the chaos, I chose to drive in another direction. The way this led me actually caused me to see it. Wallachia. The barbed tower of scorched flesh, standing taller than any of the skyscrapers as it stabbed into the clouds. That was the thing wailing so terribly, I could barely keep my attention on the road.

It almost sounded like it was shrieking in pain. Well, maybe it deserved to, for the pain it had inflicted on everything else. Didn't matter. Had to focus on driving out. That was what I thought, at least, until as I crossed an intersection a car came hurtling from my left side, right for the driver's seat. I couldn't accelerate or brake in time as suddenly the bumper came within touching distance of the door… and stopped entirely. The screaming also stopped. Like the world was frozen in place.

Out of the corner of my eye was Foras again. Paler. Thinner. Eyes sunken into his skull. He looked like he was almost starving. He climbed up onto the hood of the car, taking a lounging position as he spoke. His voice a raspy hiss.

"Well, it looks like you've gotten yourself into a mess you can't get out of. You'll die here, no matter how you spin it. You're not equipped for that." The lone heart sat in the corner of my eye. The bastard was right.

"I'm willing to make you an offer. Nothing that'll take any parts of your body or leave you in Hell or anything. In return for it, I'll be saving you and the infant. All you need to do is say yes to the bargain."

"What is it?" I asked. He chuckled.

"I get to be her stepdad." My heart sank. I wasn't sure what the offer would entail, but I knew that seemed too beneficial to him. But if I didn't, I'd die. If I died, the physical consequences could leave me unable to save people. This was such a fucking bullshit position. But I had to remind myself. These weren't real. The baby that was crying in my arms was a fake. A copy of a real memory. I had to avoid the tragedy. So this might be the only way.

"Fine," I agreed.

"Yes, I agree to the bargain." Foras smiled, with far too many teeth, and his eyes widened. Color filled his skin back out and his body took to its more natural proportions.

"Spectacular," he stated. Black. Then back at the apartment. Again. That didn't prevent the tragedy? I looked around to take the baby, only for her to be gone. The memory changed. Maybe she was left elsewhere. I rushed out of the bedroom, only to see it completely empty besides the TV, which flicked back on to Foras as a news anchor.

"I know you must be asking yourself:'How did I fail?'" Didn't like how he copied my voice." Well, I thought it would be fair to give you an explanation. You had the resources to infer Chris' tragedy, but you know nothing of Morgan Lafeuillade. What you did there was quite similar to the exact events of the memory. I was surprised at how close it was. I thought it was worth commending, how of-a-mind you two are. Fitting for a pair of moral outsiders."

I wanted to bust that bald head of his open for every word of what he said. My fists clenched, but I exhaled upon remembering that there was no way to actually touch him. But what he said actually did baffle me.

"So what happened? Did you take the kid after she agreed? Why would she give up her sister like that?" Foras burst out into laughter, wide palm splayed on the desk. The laugh was strong enough to shake the room.

"Leo Holt, you are a funny young man, I must tell you! No, she kept the girl the entire time, but she was under my influence. And to be clear, she was not Morgan Lafeuillade's sister…" Wait. Stepfather. Why would a sister be the one to give consent to a child having a stepfather. That meant-"That was her daughter." Nausea roiled up in me. The notion of one of the agents overseeing us doing something like that burned the back of my neck. Even under constraints like that, there had to have been a better way.

"So that sets the scene. You cannot accept deals with the old me. You must keep her alive. And of course, the city is actively trying to kill anyone normal. This is not meant to be easy, son of man." Those words put the gears in my head into a wild spin. Things started cobbling themselves together. Foras stated he hated humanity. I thought before how if he wanted to just torture us, he likely had more effective means to do so. But maybe I wasn't looking at it from the right angle.

This was the most effective means, because what he sought to do wasn't actually the ritual we were doing. Why else would the ones who succeeded be the ones who have to keep facing more tragedies? Why would you punish winners? The winning point in a competition results in you having to do less afterwards. Not more. The ones who "failed" were the ones who got to sit back and wait on us. Rule 1 said our goal was to prevent the tragedy and that if we didn't, we failed.

And the entire thing, he called the game "Wasted Potential." But what's wasted potential got to do with winning? That was it.

"Foras," I called out.

"I know what rule six is." The thing raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"You do? Go on, then. I'll give you one chance to tell me."

"Rule six… we're not supposed to win. We're supposed to fail. Because we're meant to be wasting our potential. That's what's being built up to restore May's foot." Foras' eyebrows stayed raised. The smile was gone, but he did look actually surprised. The smile did, however, come back as a thin smirk.

"You know, I expected this to go on for much longer. I shouldn't be surprised, however, that you were able to intuit it. Abichail Tancred and Morgan Lafeuillade both came close to guessing, but you were the first. Lucky timing, given the next round would have involved you trying to kill your friends." He let out a chuckle before bringing a hand up, fingers poised together.

"Alright. I will follow my terms. Let's end this game." Snap