Killing Olympia

Day 3/365

It went without saying that Sophie hated Lower Olympus, and this tiny, one-bedroom apartment only worsened her mood. She stood in the doorway, a metal crate lifted onto her shoulder and a satchel of her worldly belongings on the other, staring at this…this…What the hell is this? Cassie was a billionaire. She'd seen her charter flights from one side of the country to another without even glancing up from her documents, and this was the best she could come up with? Mildew on the ceiling. Rotting wood in the walls. There might be a dead body in the fridge judging by the sickly sweet stink, and the stench coming from the bathroom down the short hallway nearly made her vomit.

Sophie sighed through her teeth as Gold-Star shouldered past her, setting down two heavy metal cases onto the carpet. He dragged sweat off his broad forehead and looked around. The moth-hole riddled curtains were shut. A weird smell was lingering in the air, maybe smoke from the chugging factories nearby, maybe smoldering crack pipes from the people living beneath them. Gold-Star grunted and swept the plastic sheets off the one large couch.

A stain was right there in the middle of it, old and orange. Someone must've blown their head off.

Knowing Lower Olympus, it must've been a murder that the landlord never gave enough of a fuck about to tell the police. Try to wash the blood out, throw the body in the freezer, toss a tarp over the couch, the carpet, the old tv set and the rickety dining table, and sell this place to whichever poor sucker was desperate enough for a roof.

"You've gotta be kidding me," Sophie muttered. "This is where we're staying? Dude! We're meant to be covert-ops, and this is the best she can do? Where are the plated windows? The bullet proof door? Running water?"

Gold-Star shrugged, his heavy green jacket rustling loudly in the process. He had a sidearm on his hip, a knife in his boot and what might be brass knuckles in his pocket, judging by the sound they made whenever he moved. The van that had brought them into the city was theirs to keep. A shitty old white van, to be precise. It almost looked like the kind of vehicle creeps would use to snatch people off the street. Except it was armor-plated, its tires were reinforced, and for all that tech crammed inside of it, acting as an internet hub, they didn't have a/c.

And Gold-Star reeked. Maybe she'd gotten used to not being in this city, but God this place sucked. It was so…depressing. The sky was a pale blue. The smoke was a pale gray. But the only thing that wasn't muted was the smells, the shouting, the people chanting outside about the end of the world as they knew it. Great, Sophie thought, peeking outside the window. Now I've gotta listen to a cracked-out bum scream about the end of all things holy.

"Don't complain," Gold-Star, again, grunted. He pushed the door shut and slid the single deadbolt. The poor thing clattered onto the floor. Sophie folded her arms. Gold-Star spoke before she could get a word in. "It's not meant to be a vacation. We're here to work. Lower Olympus is a piss-poor place, but it's wealthy with resources."

"And now I'm a dog playing go fetch with gangsters and supervillains," Sophie muttered. She glanced down the hallway, and hovered her way to the first bedroom she could find furthest away from the toilet. "I call dibs—finders keepers, old man," she yelled. Another silent grunt. Sophie shouldered the door open, and was as disappointed as she was mildly excited. A rickety metal frame with a single mattress. A chalk outline of a body on the floor got smudged when she walked over it. Old posters lilted off the pale green walls, and she couldn't stop herself from smiling. My own room. Kinda shitty, but I guess it doesn't have to be. Sophie shoved open the single window that led into an alleyway. A cocktail of stenches gushed down her throat as she stuck her head outside.

A homeless guy was taking a piss beside a dumpster. A cat was gnawing on what might be a finger.

And the constant echo of protests from across the city hung in the air, just as heavy as the smoke.

Gold-Star barged into her room without knocking. He dumped a metal box at the foot of her bed, then put his hands on his waist. "I'll set up surveillance around the building and on the streets outside. I'll also try to get the water running as best as I can. It'll probably be a day until we can shower." She made a face. He said, "Unless you'd like to use whatever's stuck in Lower Olympus' pipes, of course." Sophie shook her head. "I figured. We'll start recon tomorrow. I'll need you to get food, water, batteries, flashlights, and spare clothes for yourself." He pulled a clip of cash out his jacket, but before he could hand it over, he pulled it away. "I need you to swear on this, alright?"

Sophie rolled her eyes. "Aye, aye, captain—I'll get your boring old groceries."

He handed her the money, but stopped her before she could leap out of the window. "Cigarettes, too."

"I get to buy something for myself then," she said. Gold-Star waved his hand, then left the room.

She slid her headphones over her ears and took off into the sky. She dialed up her music as she skimmed over low-rise apartment buildings, searching for a corner store that either hadn't been shut down, barricaded with wooden boards, or cleaned-out by looters. This place was a war zone. Car shells burned in the middle of the street. Bare knuckle fights happened under flickering street lights. The wet thud of knuckles smashing against faces turned her saliva bitter. She kept flying, her jacket loose in the wind and her untied laces trailing after her. It took nearly thirty minutes until she found a store that hadn't shut down, but only because looters will be shot had been spray painted on the door. She landed on the pavement, hands in her pockets, and flipped off a guy eyeing her.

He went to grab her arm and spin her around. He reeked of drugs so filthy it was a miracle his heart was still beating inside his concave chest. He looked her up and down, pin-prick eyes drinking her in. Sophie narrowed her eyes, looked at the hand trying to dig into her bicep, and left him halfway inside of a dumpster with a broken back.

She doubted he'd feel it, anyway. With all those drugs in his system, he probably thought it was pretty rad that he couldn't move anymore and could only stare at the cloudy sky above him. Sophie wiped her hands on her jeans and walked inside the store. Empty. The shelves were nearly barren. The store clerk stared at her, both his hands on the counter, the register missing, and his jaw set tight. Sophie pulled off her headphones and glanced at the tv above him. President Raymond Orders Martial Law in Washington. Mary Blackwood Ushers in New Curfew to Curb On-Going Looting. Sophie shrugged. The end of the world might've been a bummer for regular people, but all it meant for her so far was getting faster, stronger, and eventually gearing up to go kill Gayne in a few months.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

She'd gotten over the nerves of being briefed about what had to happen next. As the rest of the world slowly started to simmer in their own broth of confusion and fear, Sophie had a job to do—one Olympia couldn't.

Earth's most perfect creation was going to topple an empire.

"If you're buying something, either get moving, or get going," the clerk said stiffly. "No loitering."

Sophie gave him a short smile, and gathered what she could from the dusty shelves. The freezers were padlocked shut with heavy iron chains, and she'd had to beg him to crack them open so she could get the three energy drinks tucked in there. Then the lights flickered and died. An eruption happened from somewhere on the other side of Lower Olympus, followed by loud cheering. The clerk's heartbeat got faster as he packed her things. She could even smell the fear sliding down his forehead as the chanting of protestors who wanted the truth from the government got closer. An idea crossed her mind. She smiled to herself, then tapped her knuckles against the counter, grabbing the clerk's nervous attention. Time to get myself a fan and a few bucks. Sophie grinned at him.

"I can make sure those guys don't get close to your store," she said, jerking a thumb over her shoulder. "But you're gonna have to do a little something for me as well. I protect this place, and I get my stuff for free."

"Fuckin' protection racket money in this economy?" the clerk spat. He put out his hand. "Hundred bucks."

"What!" she said, both hands on the plastic counter. "Dude, that's insane."

"It's called economics and inflation, sweetheart," he sneered. "You're probably too young to know what they mean. Now either pay up, or I take my shit back and have your ass packing with a twelve gauge aimed at ya."

Sophie tensed her jaw. But she'd been trained—very, very thoroughly—by telepaths who'd made sure that whatever violent outburst she was genetically disposed to experience fizzled out into mild frustration. She could feel the pressure building behind her eyes, like a steel hammer slamming against her temples over and over. Normal people were just that—normal. Scared, doing what they could, and normal. Fine. Jackass. She breathed out and slid the money across the counter, then grabbed her grocery bags. She kicked his door open and stopped on the street.

Heat crackled on her skin. Sophie forced herself to swallow and focus on her racing heartbeat.

"God, I hate this stupid city," she muttered. "Why the hell was she always here?"

Olympia could've chosen literally anywhere else on the planet, and she stamped her foot into the shit and the mud and stayed in this god-forsaken place. But…she was getting mad over nothing. Breathing exercises weren't working as well as they used to, but her gang of therapists and doctors wouldn't otherwise care about that right now.

And if you constantly got reminded that your price tag was in the billions of dollars, you sometimes just had to suck it up and keep walking. That was exactly what she did. Slowly. A little angrily. Kicking stray cans out of her way and shouldering past people trying to make sure their doors were boarded up as the power blackout swept through the city. Either a power surge of some kind, or a band of idiots had just plunged Lower Olympus into a little more chaos. The Upper End wasn't fairing much better. After Gayne murdered all those people, they'd spent days washing blood off the streets and were still finding body parts smashed into the rubble. Earth was now afraid.

Because suddenly, there weren't just superhumans to be terrified of, but something worse.

Sophie slid on her headphones, and then felt something smash against the back of her head. She frowned and turned, looking over her shoulder. Wooden baseball bat splinters lay around her. Rock music blared in her ears. The woman holding it was old and frazzled, her gray hair a knotted mess. Sophie looked at the bat, then back at her.

The woman dropped it, then pulled a knife out of her filthy cloth folds.

Right, because if the bat totally just worked, so would a butter knife.

Sophie slid one ear free from her headphones and said, "You want something?"

Her eyes flicked to the bags of groceries, then at Sophie. She licked her cracked, white lips. She had to grab a hold of the knife with both her hands, squeezing it so tight she'd probably bend the handle. She shifted closer.

Then the woman wailed and lunged at her with the bloodied butter knife. Sophie stepped out of the way, watching her stumble. She slashed the knife through the air. Sophie was already too far out of reach. Another lunge, and this time, she stuck her foot out and watched the old woman sprawl onto the ground. The knife skittered into a sewer grate. Something went crack in her knee. She haggard old bat wailed on the filthy pavement, cradling her leg.

Sophie sighed. "See? What did we learn from that, huh? That violence is sometimes pretty pointless."

The old woman glared daggers at her. She spat on Sophie's jeans, which, ew. She swallowed a spring of anger that had leaped into her mouth. Sophie stepped back, rummaged through one of the bags, and tossed a bottle of water, canned peaches, and a cigarette packet at her. Those things went for a lot these days. Apparently cigarettes were in high demand around these parts, judging by how many makeshift cardboard signs now said, Buying Cigs, Great Prices! She flinched as they landed beside her, but she was already walking away, headphones back in place.

This was going to be an awesome month. She couldn't wait to find out what else this city had in store. A handful of hours in, and she'd been assaulted, stolen from by a greasy store clerk, and whistled at by drug addicts. Why Olympia never left this city sooner was beyond her. And if these were the normal people, then what would the supervillains be like? She yawned as she reached the crappy apartment building and flew through the cracked open window. I guess I'll find out what they're like tomorrow morning. They couldn't be all that bad, anyway. The last thing she ever fought was the Kaiju in the bay that broke Olympia's ribs. She was stir crazy for some beatdowns.

For now, though, she dumped the groceries on the plastic-wrapped dinner table, and ignored Gold-Star when he asked where the hell his cigarettes were. She was exhausted, sweaty, and as soon as her face hit the mattress, she was out cold, curled tight into a bowl, snoring quietly. At some point, Gold-Star threw a rough wool blanket over her to keep the wind from making her shiver. Purely, of course, out of necessity—a shivering Supe meant a shuddering apartment building, which drew attention, and which made his own night of rest impossible.

Gold-Star quietly shut Sophie's bedroom door, leaving her to drool into the hard bare mattress.

He guessed he'll eat on his own tonight, then. So he pulled an old wooden chair away from the table, cracked open a beer and a bag of cheese-flavored chips, and sent a short, single sentence to an unsaved contact.

>>We're here now. She's resting. I'll evaluate her from tomorrow, see how she deals with this place.

Gold-Star sat in silence. Almost for so long that he thought he wouldn't get a response.

Until, finally, almost an hour into him unpacking crates of basic weaponry, Becca replied.

>> I'll keep an eye on her. The kid's got a guardian angel.

He grunted, then pulled the golden shield from its carbon fibre casing. It still felt just as heavy as it had always done, just as dense, and just as perfect. He paused, then heard Sophie stir. He put the golden shield back inside the crate it had been, just the same with the rest of what once used to be his gear. He sealed it, then looked up.

Sophie was standing behind the couch, clutching the blanket around her shoulders, yawning wide.

He glanced at his phone. Off. Gold-Star pocketed it, then said, "You should get some rest."

She hovered over the couch, then lay down on it. She shuffled and turned her back to him, and it wasn't long until she was snoring again, her face nuzzled into the couch's back rest. Gold-Star slowly shook his head.

Kincaid better know what he was doing. Death was a certainty when the stakes were this high.

For now, though, he folded his jacket into a pillow, and gently tucked it underneath her head.

She'll need a good night's rest for what's coming next.