Ten thousand people bay for your blood, while one stands beside you and bids them hold fast. Is it folly to listen to the one and ignore the few? Is it cowardice or bravery that makes you continue the fight? I have been told that very nearly no force in existence can end me, and yet at times I beg for that end. I crave it, as an addict craves heroin. I see the looks in the faces of the people I now try to help, and I know they see me as what I was. It would be so easy, at times, to give in and become that which they fear, that which I fear, that for which I will always be remembered. I could be the thing that makes those ten thousand cry out for my destruction, if I but give up myself. Yet for the benefit of the one that dares stand up and be counted as a believer in the power of man, be he genebooster or normal, to redeem himself, I must fight. Those precious few are my strength. To them I offer my gratitude and my life. Let them take it and do with it as they will. To the rest I can offer only my service.”  

-From the personal journal of Ian Calder, a.k.a. Annihilator

It had taken days of planning to gain access to the upper floors of the office building at a time when few had made it to work. That much was important because no one was likely to allow him to open their window and step out onto the ledge. Five minutes with a set of picks stolen from a locksmith’s shop had put him inside the office of Assistant Manager Hiroshi Sato. From there, he had left the interior of the building and begun the harrowing trek along the six-inch-wide window ledge. His target was in sight, or at least it would be if he were able to crane his head forward more than a few inches.

‘This’ll teach her.’ he thought as he continued the painstaking progress along the slick stone. It took another five minutes for him to reach the window of Sheila Moncreiff, Administrative Assistant to the District Manager. He knew without question that she was present in the office. Sheila was always early for work. Always early, never called in sick, and rarely took any personal time.

A model employee, but an absentee girlfriend. For two years Keith had courted Sheila, and their relationship had become a close one. The ominous specter of Sheila’s job at TechTron remained between them, however, and Keith was an unforgiving man when it came to sharing time. His requests that she take time to be with him were constantly rebuffed, as she felt her position too necessary for the correct and profitable functioning of TechTron. Bitterness and resentment built until Sheila had moved out. Keith had fallen further into depression as his former lover found happiness in the arms of the corporation. Eventually, a plan surfaced to make her understand just how little he had left, and at the same time make her hate the place she had come to regard as a second home. When he reached her window, he would attract her attention, then jump. From that day on, Keith knew, she could never again enter the building without remembering his face at the window, without walking past the place where he landed. She would know there are limits to how much you can hurt a person before they take drastic action.

Already the sounds of sirens could be heard in the morning air. Someone must have seen him and alerted the police. It was too late, though. He had reached the window. Twisting his head to look behind him, Keith saw her. Back to the window, she was busily sorting through a stack of papers easily ten inches thick. He smiled as he saw her long red hair shift as she moved. He could remember that hair as it played across his chest, and the thought brought a smile to his face that he quickly banished by reminding himself

how badly she had treated him. It would not be right to smile. Far better to look cold and hard as the stone on which he stood. He used the palm of his right hand to thump against the glass, and she turned to see what had made the sound.

Sheila’s mouth opened in a silent ‘O’ as she saw him there, balancing on the thin rail of granite, peering in the window at her. Her eyes filled with fear as she recognized his intent. Before she could voice a protest, Keith pushed free of the wall and began his downward plunge.

For a moment it seemed as though he were just drifting down, but as the windows rushed past, Keith realized he was gaining speed. The ground came at him with horrible quickness, and he thought to himself just how stupid he had been. Terror won out of his desire for revenge, and he let out a scream as it finally occurred to him that there was no way to take back what he had just done.

Keith felt something on his back and then his thick flannel shirt pulled tight against his chest, the buttons threatening to pop loose with the sudden pressure. Something grabbed his belt and his descent slowed, then came to a halt just ten feet from what would have been a grisly fate.

“Nice scream,” declared a voice from behind and above him. Keith tried to turn far enough to see who or what had stopped his suicide.

“Stop wiggling,” the unseen savior ordered. “You fall from here, you might twist your ankle or something.”

“I...I was g-gonna d-die,” Keith stammered as they slowly descended. His Reeboks touched the ground and the rescuer released him. Keith found that his legs had gone rubbery and he collapsed in a heap on the pavement, weeping aloud.

“Go ahead and cry, kid. You’ve earned it. It won’t help, but go ahead.”

Keith looked up to see a man who appeared to be in his mid-thirties, with soft brown hair cut in a flattop. He wore a black leather jacket and faded blue jeans. His eyes were a pale green in color, and they seemed to Keith to be the saddest eyes he had ever seen.

“Who are you?” Keith managed between sobs. A police car rounded the corner, screeching to a halt on the street before the pair. A uniformed officer stepped from the vehicle, looking up to scan the side of the building, then back down at the two men on the sidewalk. His face twisted into a snarl of hatred as he broke open the snap on his holster.

“What is this?” the officer demanded. “A publicity stunt? Get your name back in the papers, figure maybe people’ll start to like you?”

Keith turned to look at the officer, confusion writ large on his face. Arrest or psychiatric detention he could have understood, but the cop’s comments did not make sense. He was not trying to get in any papers. He had just been saved from the worst error in judgment he had ever committed.

Realization struck suddenly, and he turned to look once more at the man who had saved him. His heart skipped a beat as the pieces fell together. Memories of past newscasts flashed before him. Images of his savior casually mowing down citizens in New York with flaming beams of energy from his hands. Police and National Guardsmen in New Jersey thrown aside like so many toys. Cars flung through the air, buildings leveled, genebooster heroes left broken and bloody in the debris-strewn streets. ‘All of it by the same man that just caught me,’ Keith thought, ‘and he never stopped smiling’.

“Annihilator,” he whispered, too afraid to voice the name with any volume.

“Not any more,” The man said. His voice carried a note of shame and self-loathing that even the attempted suicide could never bring to Keith.

The officer was using his radio to call for additional units as he drew and leveled his weapon. The hammer on the pistol came back with an ominous click.

“You don’t need that,” said the man. “Wouldn’t do any good anyway.”

“Yeah? Maybe not, but if you take me, I won’t go down without a fight like a little bitch. You got no right to still be walking, many people as you killed. I’d drop you right here if I could.”

Shaking his head, the man looked down at Keith. “Find some help, son. Somewhere inside you there’s a better part. Don’t let today be the day you lose that better part.”

Without waiting for a response, he rose into the air and flew straight into the early morning sun, disappearing as soon as he was silhouetted against the brilliant orb.

The streets blurred beneath Ian Calder as he flew. Buildings flashed by like dividing lines on a highway as his speed increased and he put distance between himself and the men on the streets of Indianapolis.

“Should have killed him,” said The Voice. Its whisper was a tickling feather, stroking at his mind. As it spoke, it showed him dozens of violent scenarios, each more horrifying than the last. “Should have killed them both.”

“Should have put you in your cage years ago,” Calder replied, speaking aloud though he knew it was unnecessary. He banked to the right, narrowly avoiding a startled blackbird. It squawked in impotent rage as he continued.

“But you weren’t strong enough, were you?” The Voice taunted. “It took that freak Deacon Blue to do it. It must be so sad to know that you couldn’t even stop me when I’m a part of you. How much less than a man does that make you?”

“Why? You looking for a date?”

“Oh, goody. The witty repartee portion of the game. Okay, I can play games too. I have a date for you. How about November ninth of ninety-five?”

“Shut up,” Calder said harshly. The Voice laughed, a harsh, grating sound in his head.

“Touched a nerve, did I? I’ll never let you forget that day, you know. In fact, no one will let you forget that day. Highest kill-count on record. All by your hands. Your hands, dripping with the blood of thousands. Oh, it was a glorious day.”

“It was a nightmare,” Calder said. “It was sick and twisted and I can never make it right.”

“So why bother?” asked the Voice, tone changing from amused to seductive. “They don’t like you and you don’t like them. No one likes you. No one even knows who Ian Calder is, but they remember Annihilator. I remember Annihilator. I remember wading in rivers of blood, feeling the terror in all those little pieces of meat. They aren’t like you. You are a god.”

Calder flew in silence for a moment as The Voice projected images of death and destruction in his mind. He saw with perfect clarity the results of his handiwork and knew with absolute certainty that he was the strongest and greatest of all the geneboosters. The Voice showed him a throne of human skulls made for him by those simpering fools in their bright costumes; showed him those same fools bowing before him and acknowledging him as their Emperor, swearing eternal allegiance to him as they formed his army, an army

with which he could control the world.

“Sounds good, doesn’t it?” purred The Voice.

“Control the world? Why? What would be the point?” countered Calder.

“Revenge. A chance to make them all pay.”

“For what? What did they ever do to me? Give me dirty looks? Didn’t I earn them? Hate me? Did I not give them a reason?”

“What reason? They exist only because you allow it. Should they not be grateful that you do so? It is their respect you have earned, not their hate, and you get none of it. You think that kid back there cares that you let him live? He’ll remember the fact that Annihilator touched him, not that Ian Calder kept him from becoming a stain on the sidewalk. Do you think he’s thanking you right now? Or is he thanking his God that you refrained from ripping off his limbs?”

“His thanks are not necessary. I did what I did because it was right to do so. I don’t ask for his gratitude, or his respect, or above all, his forgiveness. I have no right to.”

The Voice fell silent for a moment and Calder enjoyed the wind on his face as he flew. He smiled to himself as he remembered a scared kid who saw him, if only for a second, as someone who had performed a service for no other reason than that it was right. The Voice seized on that memory.

“He recognized you, though, and you saw what he looked like then. He knew you for who you are inside. He could sense the real you, waiting to come out again.”

“All he saw was what he’s been shown,” Calder said, holding on to the memory he had. “Very few see what’s real, even when it’s right in front of their eyes.”

With an effort of will, he forced The Voice into silence once more and angled toward the ground of rural Indiana. Below him on a two-lane county road, a speeding Dodge pickup was headed toward a hillcrest on the other side of which was a cow making its leisurely way across the road. It was time to help someone else, and the skull throne be damned.

The End