Star-Lord, page 19
part #1 of Marvel Wastelanders Series
“It hurts. Oh, God it hurts! I can feel it… grinding against my spine…”
“You’ll be all right. Focus on my voice. You’ll be all right. You’ve lost a lot of blood, but we’ll get this arrow out of you.”
“I ain’t got long…”
“Just hold on, Paul. Hold on.” The horse lapsed into silence and the man’s voice changed, panic now layered on top of the pain.
“My horse! The old girl got hit, too…”
“We’ll sort her once we’ve sorted you. I’m gonna pull out the arrow now, OK? Take a deep breath…”
There was a wet, tearing sound, a heartbeat of silence and then a dreadful scream filled the airwaves. As the vignette ended, quiet descended, possibly across the whole of Doomwood.
“They died,” said Best, somberly. “Paul White, a good man and a loyal patriot, and his horse both died. A load of steel was taken. For what purpose? We don’t know. Weapons, perhaps. Designed to hurt us, the law-abiding residents of the Victorlands.”
Forge chewed the nails on her remaining hand as she listened, intent on what Best was saying. There was a moment or two to allow the horror of the recording to dissipate and the commentator continued. “Now, I don’t know about you, folks, but I can’t help but see a connection in the rise of this local violence and the arrival of the terrorist Peter Quill – the self-named ‘Star-Lord’.” He played a sound effect of a crowd jeering and booing. Rocket winced.
“For this reason, I must inform you that Lord Doom will be implementing a twenty-four-hour curfew. There are some exceptions – our miners, millers, and steelworkers. All these people will remain on site, provided with food service so as not to interrupt productivity. The rest of you, and I cannot stress this enough, please remember to report, report, report if you see anything suspicious. He’s out there, people. Let’s find Peter Quill. Let’s restore law and order and, more importantly, end this anxious time of pain and unrest. In other news…”
“Turn it off, Forge. I’m done listening.”
Brandon’s voice snapped off. Rocket looked over at Forge. She looked right back, the two briefly united in their mutual sense of unease.
“Let’s get on with this,” she said, breaking the silence.
•••
Elsewhere in Doomwood, Emma Frost stared out at the abandoned street. Lightning forked through the sky and in the distance thunder rumbled loudly enough to rattle the glass in its panes. The rain coursed down the office window in endless rivulets, distorting the view – but Emma stood there regardless. She was still weary from her run-in with Kraven and had one hand against the wall to prop herself up.
Cora maintained a silent vigil beside the door. After the transponder had been deployed into her internal organ hub so that her movements could be tracked, she made a simple – and accurate – statement.
“Neither of you fully trust me.”
There was no reply to that.
Emma sighed, stepping back from the window. “It feels wrong to lock the doors on a social hub like this. A bar without customers is like a hive without bees. No buzz, no sting, no honey.” She made her way slowly to her seat and lowered herself down with a soft groan of discomfort.
“Emma Frost, may I ask a question?”
“You don’t need my permission, but yes, darling. Go ahead.”
“How long will it take Rocket and Joanna Forge to reach this armory?”
“It’s about a two-hour journey, but the rain may cause them delay. The weather is extreme in these parts. Why do you ask?”
“In one day, four hours, and twenty-seven minutes, the guillotine collars will contract, terminating Rocket and Star-Lord.”
Emma flashed a brief smile. “Let’s hope they hurry, then.”
Cora crossed to the desk and Emma looked up at her. “Don’t worry. Forge should have the tools to cut through adamantium. He’ll be fine. If his endless prattling doesn’t mean she kills him first.” Emma reached for her drink and took a sip. “Not that it really matters. How sick is he?”
“His heart rate is increasingly abnormal,” confirmed Cora. “His respiratory function is beginning a steady and likely terminal decline.”
Emma let no emotion show on her face at the news, simply shook her head. “Quill doesn’t even know.” She let out a brief laugh. “The stupidity and stubbornness of men never fails to amaze me.”
“From my observations, men and raccoons have much in common.” Cora pondered. “What have you learned from Rocket’s mind?”
Emma shrugged. “Oh, he wants to be sure he’s alive long enough to save his friend.” Her eyes rolled a little at the sheer cliché of it all.
“Query: How does it feel? To have so many thoughts in your head at any one time?”
“Honestly, darling, it feels like madness most of the time. But it is exhausting all the time. All this work is so draining.”
“You are still weak from your interaction with Kraven.” It was a statement, not a question and Emma sighed, setting aside her water. She opened the top drawer and took out a beautifully made, diamond studded hip flask. She studied it wistfully.
“Is it too early to drink?” Somewhere, in the world, she was certain that it was bourbon o’clock.
“You were saying how it feels to have voices in your head,” prompted Cora.
Emma set down the flask without opening it. “There’s nothing profound about it,” she said. “Ultimately, everyone seeks the same basic things. To feed. To procreate. To find shelter. When you really break it down, we’re all just animals. Present company excluded, clearly.” She waved a hand vaguely at Cora. “But those primary needs being met isn’t enough for humans. They need more. They crave more. They are seeking…” She paused, reaching for the right word.
“Happiness?”
“Yes,” said Emma, “and no. Happiness is personal, so seeking it is to spend your life trying to track down the unknown. But yes, let’s say they want happiness. Wealth. Power. Or fame. Your average human being, darling, seeks to aspire. Without knowing exactly what, they constantly want something better.” She looked towards the window. “But out here? In the Wastelands? Aspirations are worthless. No matter how hard you work, no matter how many hours you put in, you can’t get ahead. No, there’s only one Victor out here, darling, and his name is Doom.” She took up the hipflask and sipped its contents. “Unless…”
“Unless?”
“Unless there is no more Doom.”
As though punctuating her words, there was a sudden loud banging at the door of the saloon. Three heavy bangs.
Doom.
Doom.
Doom.
Cora was reminded of the noise of the Brood attempting to breach the bridge deck of the mining ship on which Quill and Rocket had found her. Emma looked up at the recorder as the knocks sounded again. “Perhaps you should answer it,” she said. “I’m in no condition.”
“Of course, Emma Frost.” Cora turned instantly and headed downstairs, through the deserted bar and to the heavily bolted door. She reached up, slid back the top bolt, and then turned the key in the lock. As the door slowly opened, creaking on its hinges, the rumble of thunder and the torrential rain increased in volume.
“I am sorry,” said Cora to the figure outside, “but we are cl…”
“I’m tired and thirsty,” a voice interrupted. It was cracked and wobbly – an old man’s voice – or at least someone making every attempt to sound like an old man. “Make way for an old man in need of his medicine!”
Cora began to close the door against the figure in the battered old coat and wide-brimmed hat. “There is a curfew in place, and you must…” His foot barred the way and he let out a hearty laugh. Cora paused, recognizing the sound, and opened the door again. “Star-Lord?”
“Hah!” He was delighted and he slipped in through the door. Cora pushed it closed but in her haste to record Quill’s new adventure, failed to notice that it did not fully latch. “I got you good!”
“I admit that I did not recognize you.”
Quill took off the hat. His graying hair stuck out in several directions in response to having been smothered for a while. He attempted to smooth the strands back down. “That, Cora, is because I am in disguise. As an old man!”
“You are an old man, Star-Lord. It is the hat you were wearing. It obscured most of your face.”
“You like this, huh?” Quill spun around on the spot. The tails of the raincoat flared out behind him, coming to settle again. “I swiped this from a drunk passed out in an alley. Smells a little like several goats took a piss in it, but it did what I needed it to do – it hid me from the drones. To make it even better, I was walking like this…” He showed her his exaggerated gait, bent over, wobbling a little.
Cora shrugged. “That is not so different from your usual walk when you have been travelling for a number of hours.”
“No way! I’ve been totally incognito. Kraven can’t hunt me if he can’t find me, right?” He was exceptionally pleased with himself, and Cora did not reply. Besides, he was already off on a new set of rails. “Hey, you know how this bar has a heaven door and a hell door?”
“Yes.”
“Did you catch me knock-knock-knocking on heaven’s door?” She didn’t react the way he’d hoped, and he was a little disappointed.
“I am sorry, Star-Lord. Is this more of your humor?”
“No,” came a voice from the main staircase. “It isn’t. Will you stop with all the noise, please?” Emma looked Quill from head to toe and wrinkled her nose in disapproval at the odor he had brought in with him. In return, he stared at her.
“Emma? You look… different.”
She smoothed down the front of her blouse. “You mean ‘old’? Sorry to disappoint you.”
He was quick to deny it, although she did look much older than he had remembered. Still beautiful, of course: Emma Frost radiated a poise and grace that age could not diminish. “No! Not at all! Are you kidding?” He paused, before curiosity took hold. “Was it an illusion before? How you looked when we first saw you? Guess that’s why I couldn’t figure out why it was that you’d not aged.”
“Psionic armor, I suppose. My own disguise that I just don’t have the energy to maintain right now. This is the real me.” She flickered a smile. “Warts and all.”
Quill shook his head, defiant to the last. “C’mon Emma, knock it off. You shouldn’t bother hiding who you are. Really. Truly. I don’t mean that in a ‘wear sweatpants and drive a minivan’ kind of way. But you look fantastic, Emma. Like seriously… wow.”
He was laying it on thick, but there was just enough truth in what he was saying for her to arch one eyebrow. “Well, cheers to that, then.” She came down the last of the stairs. “I look like this right now because I’m exhausted. But that’s because of the good news that Kraven is temporarily indisposed.” Quill’s eyes widened and she took the thought right out of his head without even really trying. “Yes,” she confirmed, answering the unspoken question. “I did mess with his head.”
“Would you not… I mean, ouch, Emma. You doing that brings me all the way back to yesterday.”
“Look, I locked you in that room for your own good. Your own protection.”
“That’s as maybe. But from now on, we work together. Are we cool?”
“Much as it demeans me to use the phrase…” Emma looked as though someone had wafted an unpleasant smell under her nose. “We’re cool.”
Quill clapped his hands together. “Outstanding. I came back here counting on your trust.”
“Then I suppose you have it.”
“Great. Hey, where’s Rocket?”
“He’s safe, Quill. Safer than you are.”
Quill turned to the recorder. “Cora? Where’s Rocket?”
“If all goes as planned, his guillotine collar is being removed.”
“That’s great news!”
“It is timely news, especially since you only have one day…”
“I don’t need specifics, thanks, Cora.” Quill patted her kindly on the shoulder. “I am gonna trust that Rocket will figure it out.”
Emma slid sinuously behind the bar. “Do you want a drink, Quill?”
He nodded enthusiastically. “Yes,” he said, then immediately changed his mind. “No. Better not. I need to be tuned in if I’m going to see this through properly. You should see it out there. Doombots everywhere. Burned down buildings smoking in the rain. Protest graffiti scrawled everywhere. I even saw an effigy of Doom made from buckets and cans hanging from a tree.” He shook his head. “Call me paranoid, but something’s happening.”
“Is this vandalism the work of the Second Dawn?” Cora asked the question as Emma filled a glass from a bottle behind the bar.
“No,” she replied. “No, I think it’s you.” Both Quill and Cora were puzzled.
“You mean me?” Quill asked.
“You mean Star-Lord?” Cora asked at the same time.
Emma barked a laugh. “When heroes fall from the sky, I’d like to say that’s a sign of things to come, yes? Good things to come.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “I’m here to make up for lost time.”
“The Second Dawn has always been an idea more than a movement,” said Emma, taking a long drink. “A handful of us working together, gathering an arsenal. Waiting. I don’t know what it is that we’re waiting for. The right moment, I suppose.” She sighed. “Maybe that moment is now. Maybe all it took was…” She gestured vaguely in Quill’s direction. “…an idiot cheerleader to inspire an uprising.”
“I think the word you are looking for is ‘amazing hero guy’.”
“That’s three words,” said Cora.
“You’ve started a fire, Peter Quill. Congratulations.”
“Then let’s keep fanning it before it goes out!”
Emma sipped at her drink, studying him thoughtfully. He cut a strange figure, this peculiar man-child with his gray hair and laughter lines and irrepressible, boyish enthusiasm. As much as she did not want to be, she was caught up in his fervor.
“What did you have in mind?”
Another clap of thunder reverberated around the saloon, an ominous prelude or a tiresome coincidence. Quill leaned on the bar, studying Emma’s face intently, and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “I figured it out,” he said. “I know how to find the Black Vortex. I have got…” He held up a finger. “A Great Plan.”
He paused, presumably for dramatic effect, but mostly succeeded in looking as if he had completely forgotten what he was saying. It mattered little because his monologue was interrupted by the sound of an approaching Doombot.
“The reveal of the Great Plan will have to wait, Star-Lord,” said Cora, crisply.
Quill let his finger drop. “I am on the cusp of unloading a massive game-changer, and you want me to…”
“Star-Lord.” There was a surprising amount of firmness in the two syllables. “A second Doombot is approaching.”
Emma set down her glass on the bar and scowled a little. “You were followed here,” she said.
“No way. That’s impossible. I was in disguise. They wouldn’t have seen me.”
Emma stared at him with eyes as hard as diamonds. “You put on a bad hat and a fragrant old raincoat, and you believe yourself to be invisible?”
Quill had no time to argue because the sound of the Doombot at the door was suddenly one of the two crucial issues that needed addressing. The second was the fact that the saloon door was ajar.
He waved his hands frantically. “Down. Behind the bar! Quick! Get down!”
The three figures squeezed behind the bar as swiftly and as quietly as they could manage. There was the scraping of a stool, the scuffing of wood, a couple of briefly whispered curses from Quill and then there was nothing but silence apart from the wind and rain outside. The door creaked open.
It opened with excruciating slowness, admitting a gust of rain and wind. Quill reached for one of the twin revolvers at his side and slowly slid it free. Emma slapped at his hand.
“Put it away,” she whispered urgently.
He shook his head, his face dark. “I’m not gonna die on my knees,” he whispered back.
“Quill, a bullet isn’t going to make a lick of difference. Just stay hidden. It can’t see us.”
The Doombot paused on the threshold, clearly running some sort of preliminary assessment, before entering and methodically circling the bar with machine deliberation. It put Quill in mind of when, as a child, his great-aunt visited. There’d been that way she’d run her finger slowly across the mantlepiece before giving his mother a piercing stare. It was a strange association of memory, but these were strange times.
“Scanning for foreign individuals,” said the Doombot as it traversed the room. A slow beep came from its chest as it activated its scanners. Quill felt his heart sinking as the tone increased in both pitch and pace as it circled around and headed towards the bar. The pitch went up.
And up.
And up.
And then…
“It’s… right… on top of us…” Quill’s whisper was strained and panicked. Emma fiercely shushed him, but released his gun hand, allowing him to prepare for the fight that was surely coming. The Doombot took another step forward and then a second transmission played.
“Unlawful assembly reported near to the north stables. All Doombot patrols report immediately. Repeat, all Doombot patrols report immediately.”
There was no pause, no hesitation, no defying the order. The Doombot turned, deactivated its scanner, and pounded at top speed out of the Heaven and Hellfire, leaving the door wide open. Rain sheeted in and puddled on the saloon floor.
Thunder rumbled.
Quill and Emma released the tension they had held. Emma sat back against the wall, pinching the bridge of her nose. “That was close,” she said, her voice still a whisper. “I don’t like close.”
“You’ve been living on ‘close’ for thirty years. Look, Emma. I don’t want to be a jerk…”
