When I Come Around

I feel myself pushing at the inertia that holds me in its grip. I feel a surge of elation as I force my fingers into motion, opening up a new communications channel. I hear my own voice speaking, and I know in that instant that I have finally rediscovered the indomitable will that Whitehawk sought to break. I can resist. I will resist.

And I hear myself say, "I am attempting resistance. Please send a hypnotic pulse to this location to reinforce my conditioning." There is only an instant to despair before the screen flares into life, spiraling with Whitehawk's irresistible patterns and deadening my mind once more. My last thought is a silent prayer to whatever gods will listen to the damned that Benjamin will do what I no longer can.

*****

When I come around, I ache all over. It feels like there isn't an inch of my body that hasn't received some sort of punishment, and as I look down at myself, I realize it's fairly easy to see whether or not that's true. Whitehawk has dressed me in some sort of concubine's garb, a few wisps of fabric that doesn't so much conceal my sexuality as highlight it. I would blush, if I was still able to do so.

I get to my feet slowly and survey my surroundings. I'm no longer in the communications room--I appear to have found my way to Whitehawk's latest throne room, another of his attempts to create a palace from which he can orchestrate his dominion over the world. This one has seen better days. Laser burns criss-cross the walls, some of them still smoldering, and only a few of the grand ornamental pillars that line the path to Whitehawk's throne are only intact. The rest have been shattered to rubble. It appears I have missed a great battle...or at least, my conscious mind did. The soreness I feel is a testament to my participation.

I search the room, but find only unconscious shock troopers, smoking debris, and the twisted remains of Whitehawk's latest body. Part of me wants to kneel before it even now, but my thoughts are already clearing. Whatever hold he had on me is broken. Mostly. And I suspect I know why.

After a few minutes of exploring the base, I find exactly what I expected to see. Captain Patriot, bloody but unbowed, standing next to a terminal at the base of a vast, multi-story room filled with computers. The acoustics are amazing--even from up here, near the top, I can hear him speaking with an elderly man dressed in the uniform of Whitehawk's Science Division. "And you're sure he won't be able to recreate it?"

The old man laughs. It turns into a cough. "Not without my help," he says. "And I believe that very soon, I will be beyond any threats Jeremiah Whitehawk can offer." I see his face is covered with radiation burns. I clearly spent more time than I imagined in the grip of Whitehawk's program.

"I understand, Doctor Willoughby," Benjamin says tenderly. "You've been very brave. I'll make sure that they remember your courage when all this is said and done." He looks at the keyboard on the computer bank. "The world owes you a great debt, Doctor. This is a power that nobody should have."

Before I even realize consciously what I'm doing, I shout "No!" I match the words with action, leaping down the three-story drop to the bottom of the gigantic terminal room to land next to the two men. My body absorbs the shock effortlessly, and I rise to my feet with urgency plainly written across my face. "Wait! You need to--"

I barely dodge Captain Patriot's blow, and take a quick step back to avoid a second and a third. They whistle past with a force that leaves me no doubt as to the source of my sore and battered body--Benjamin's physical power grows in direct proportion to the threat to democracy he faces, part of why Whitehawk no doubt wanted him out of the way before embarking on his schemes of conquest. Against a plan to destroy the very concept of freedom, he must be stronger than I've ever seen him before. More than a match for even Dracula's daughter.

But I'm not interested in fighting him. "Wait, stop, just listen!" I shout, rolling backwards out of his reach. "I'm not under Whitehawk's control anymore."

Benjamin raises an eyebrow, making sure to keep himself between me and the terminal. "Of course not," he says, his voice filled with suspicion. "You just jumped down here while telling us not to delete Whitehawk's brainwashing program out of humanitarian interest."

"I know how it looks," I say. "But please, just give me a moment. Just a moment, and then you can erase the whole damn thing forever, burn the computers, destroy all of it." I know I sound desperate, possibly even insane. But I don't care. I have only one chance at this. We both do. I have to take it.

"Whatever it is you're planning, it won't work," Benjamin says. "I've already destroyed the communications systems, shut down all the transmission links. Whitehawk might have downloaded himself out of here before I locked everything down, but that brainwashing program isn't going anywhere."

"Please, Benjamin," I say, nearly choking on the words. They barely escape my lips as a whisper; even on the day he walked out of my life, I could not bring myself to beg him to stay. But I force myself to beg now. My pride is a poison, a prison, an inescapable trap that already cost me happiness once. I cannot let it do so again.

I see the shock on his face. He knows what it must have cost me to say those words. They overwhelm his better judgment, strike at him where he is most vulnerable--his heart. He stands aside to let me pass. I go to the computer terminal and begin typing, accessing Whitehawk's brainwashing program and downloading a copy to portable storage before purging it from the data banks.

"No," he says angrily as I take out the memory stick containing the last copy of Whitehawk's work, modified slightly to ensure no one else can duplicate it. He grabs my wrist tightly, his face a thundercloud of righteous anger. "You're not taking that back with you. Not to the British, not to the Americans, not to anybody. I don't care who you're working for this time, Tereza. There's nobody that can be trusted with that kind of complete sovereignty over the human spirit."

"There is," I whisper, my voice hoarse with desperation. "You." I pluck the memory stick out of my trapped hand, and slip it into his belt pouch.

His face is a mask of confusion now, his grip relaxing as he tries to puzzle out why I would do any of this. "I don't understand, Tereza, I--"

The room is rocked by an explosion, undoubtedly the result of some fail-safe Whitehawk had or some act of sabotage Captain Patriot committed. The usual conclusion to an adventure like this. "I'll explain later," I shout, as the computer terminal behind us bursts into flames. "I promise. Just...keep it for me, Benjamin. So that I can give you the gift you deserve."

Then we are both running, separated by smoke and concussion and sheets of flame as Whitehawk's dreams collapse the way they always do. I escape into the waters of the Atlantic, with no idea where Captain Patriot has wound up. But I am content. He survives, I feel certain of it...and I will always treasure the dawning awareness on his face of just what it was that I offered to him.

Five hundred years, and I could never bring myself to kneel to a man. But I can bring myself to give him the means to make me.

THE END