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Twenty: 3052 AD
We were not a cuddly, loving family, but we had our moments. Most of them were a little bizarre.
—Masato Igarashi Storm
Twenty-One: 3031 AD
The Faceless Man smiled and reached out to Benjamin. He wore nothing. He had no hair, no sex. Benjamin cowered, whimpering. The Faceless Man came toward him with a steady, confident step.
Benjamin whirled with a weak wail, ran. The gooey street grabbed at his feet. He pumped his legs with everything he had, yet they barely moved, pistoning in slowed motion.
The streets and walls of the city were a uniform, blinding white. The buildings had no windows. The doors were almost imperceptible. He flitted from one to another, pounding, crying, "Help me!"
No one answered.
He looked back. The Faceless Man followed him with that smile and confident stride, hand outreaching, his pace no greater than before.
Benjamin fled again, along the molasses street.
Now they opened their little peepholes when he pounded. They looked out and laughed. He flung himself from door to door. The laughter built into a chorus.
His tears flowed. Sweat poured off him. He shuddered constantly. His body ached with his exertion.
He looked back. The Faceless Man was at exactly the same distance, walking steadily, hand outstretched.
He ran in a straight line, trying to gain ground. They laughed at him from the rooftops. They called his name, "Benjamin! Benjamin!" in a feral chant. "Run, little Benjamin, run."
He gasped around a corner into a cul-de-sac. He moaned in terror, whirled, and... The Faceless Man was corning to him, reaching.
He threw himself against the walls. He tried to find a foothold, a way to scale their ivory slickness. "Please! Please don't!"
A hand touched his shoulder. The palm and fingers were icy. Thumb and forefinger squeezed together. Fire lanced through his muscles.
He spun and flung himself at the Faceless Man, clamping his fingers around the throat beneath the unyielding smile.
An unseen hand slapped his face, back and forth, back and forth. He did not relax his grip. A tiny fist began pounding his nose and cheeks.
The real pain reached through his terror. He shook all over, like an epileptic in the first second of seizure.
His eyelids rose. He stared into Pollya
He yanked the offending hands away. "Oh, Christ!" he murmured. "Oh, Holy Christ!" He slithered back out of the bed, stood over her for a moment. The shaking would not stop. The layer of sweat covering him was chilling him. He seized a robe. It did nothing to warm him.
"Polly, Honey. Polly. I'm sorry. Are you all right? It was the nightmare... It was worse than I ever had it. He caught me this time. I'm sorry. I thought I was fighting him. Are you all right? Can I get you anything?" He could not stop talking.
His heart hammered. The fear would not go away. He almost expected the Faceless Man to step into the apartment.
Pollya
He crossed to her bathroom, found a glass, tried to fill it. He dropped it twice before getting it to her half full.
She had hitched herself up in bed. She was rubbing her throat with one hand while staring at him timorously. She accepted the glass. "You need help," she whispered. "No! Stay away."
"That's the dream... I run through these streets yelling for help and they all laugh at me. And he keeps on coming... He caught me this time. Polly, I don't know what it means. I'm scared. Honey, please don't pull away. I'm all right now. I didn't mean to hurt you. I thought I was fighting him."
Pollya
"Polly, please... "
The apartment door opened.
It was night in the Fortress of Iron. The hall lights had been dimmed. They saw only the silhouette of a man standing with feet widespread and arms crossed. Anger radiated from him.
Lucifer, voice pitched an octave high, squealed, "You slut! You unholy slut! With my own goddamned brother!"
He flung himself into the room. The light of the bedside lamp caught his face. It was the face of a killer. He seized Pollya
Lucifer broke his hand. He let out a little mewl of surprise and pain and looked at the fist, puzzled.
Benjamin reached Lucifer, hurled him away from Pollya
Someone looked in the door, stared momentarily, then ran away.
Baffled and frightened, Benjamin crouched, waited. He blocked the knife stroke, punched Lucifer, tried for a grip on Lucifer's wrist above the blade. Lucifer danced back, crouched himself.
They had been taught in their father's schools. They were proficient killers. An uninvolved observer would have considered it an interesting match.
Lucifer feinted, feinted, stabbed. Benjamin slid aside, chopped down at the blade. It was not where he expected it to be. It drew a fine line of blood from the skin of his thigh as it withdrew.
"I'll take care of that," Lucifer snarled, nodding at his brother's groin. "You won't be bedding anyone's wife. Not even your own, you arrogant, pretty bastard." He circled. Sweating, Benjamin waited.
He kicked a pillow at his brother's face. Lucifer leaned out of the way, moved in.
A blast of icy water hit him, hurled him across the room. Benjamin turned. The water hit like the pummeling of a hundred fists. It drove him against a wall. "Stop it, goddamnit!" he raged.
The water stopped.
Two Legio
She did not ask what had happened. That was obvious.
"What the hell is the matter with you?" she demanded of Benjamin. "There a suicidal streak in you? First that crap with Richard's cruiser, now this."
"Mother, I... "
"Homer did it. Yes. And who's responsible for Homer? Who let him do it? Heinrich, take Lucifer to Medical. There's something wrong with his hand." She moved toward Pollya
"I did it," Benjamin murmured.
"What did you say?"
"I did it, Mother. I had the dream... This time he caught me. I was fighting him."
Frieda's face changed slightly. It was not a softening, just a momentary shadow of fear. "I'll have to talk to Madame Endor. Get a new reading. She was afraid this would happen."
"Mother... "
"Benjamin, don't you have any decency? Don't you have any common sense? This is your brother's wife. This is your brother's home. Shut up! I know she's a damned public utility. I know that anybody who asks gets. You should have brains enough not to ask. You should, for Christ's sake, have brains enough to realize that he'd want to see her tonight. He's leaving the Fortress tomorrow."
"Leaving? I didn't know... "
"My father wants him to do something. If you paid attention to anything but your own precious self... " She turned to Pollya