Often the things I write are predicated on a single idea. In this case, the idea was "What would it be like if there was a Supervillain... in a world without Superheroes?" Further, what if the villain were not the "intellectual" kind, but rather the brawny kind - the uber strong, uber powerful, invincible, violent, completely unstoppable sort of villain? The kind that would normally wind up being defeated in an epic final act battle with Superman! What if that kind of villain was around and there was no Superman?
It would be a nightmare, yes? The following is my take on what the nightmare would be like.
Needless to say, this is a story which contains graphic sex and graphic violence. Don't read it if you are under age for that kind of thing, and don't read it if you don't like it!
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It was a dance, though not something that anybody other than a Prime would have called a dance. It was a whirl of motion and emotion whose physical component was only the tip of a truly gargantuan, if proverbial, iceberg; a human being, were he or she able to watch, would have entirely missed the intricate interplay of gravitation and electromagnetism, the swirl of subatomic particles shattering and recombining, the gentle arcs of X Ray photons as they curved their way through the gravity well.
But a Prime could see it all, and it was the sum totality of their existence ??? a mix of beauty and despair that the Primes considered a transcendent joy to experience and take part in.
Except for Aleph.
She enjoyed the dance which was the life of a Prime... and that was all. It pleased her but did not fulfil her, like an appetiser with no meal to follow.
Her friends sensed this ??? how could they not, when even her incompleteness was but another aspect of dance? Had a human been able to see and interpret the endless complexity, they would perhaps have noticed that a group of Primes clustered around Aleph occasionally and expressed their concern, their support. It was not possible to translate the information contained within the dance into something a human could understand ??? and had it been possible, there wasn't enough computer storage in existence to hold even a single second of it, nor enough time within the universe for a human mind to read and digest it. But if all that had been possible, then the broadest imaginable gist of the exchange would have gone like this :
"What is wrong, sister?"
"I feel a sense of incompleteness."
"But how is that possible? There is the dance."
"The dance does not feel like enough. I need something more. Something different."
This last was a startling thing, even for the Primes. The dance was the totality of their existence. It included every thought, every emotion, every action, every movement, every aspect of the life of every Prime, along with the environment they danced in, right down to the energy state of every last particle. The very concept of the dance not being enough was something that was beyond their conception, and it had taken a good long time for her to even work out a way to express the concept.
The idea radiated out through the other Primes, ironically itself becoming part of their collective dance. For a time, they mulled it over. Alternatives were considered, options suggested and discarded. In the end it came down to two ideas.
"You must modify yourself so that you do not experience this feeling," they said.
She considered. The idea was tempting, but she was concerned with the ramifications. She spent considerable time mulling it over, weighing it from every possible angle.
"No," she said finally. "This feeling is a deep part of me. So fundamental a restructuring of my mind would effectively end me, putting another in my place. I do not accept this."
"Then there is but one option," they said.
"And that is?"
"You must leave. If your answers are not here, you must go out into the great darkness and seek them there."
The thought had not occurred to her. Primes knew that their home was located in a vast, almost completely empty nothingness. The gentle microwave pattern that hummed at them was, in a sense, the scenery they danced against. It was not something any of them had ever explored ??? why bother? There was nothing there worth exploring, everybody knew that.
"But perhaps," they said, "this will not be the case for you. Thoughts of the beyond are not interesting to us, but your desire is unique. Perhaps your solution must also be unique."
She considered it, sending her thoughts out into the dance and immersing herself into it as the idea rebounded from Prime to Prime. Finally, after several eons of consideration, she decided.
"Yes. I will explore into the great darkness."
She took some time then to immerse herself fully in the dance, careening through it with a wild abandon that she had rarely known. It was a heady experience. So much so that, for a moment, she wondered if it might not be better to stay here after all. The thought passed, however. She said her final goodbyes, gathered her strength, and then launched herself into space in an eruption of energy that would, to most beings, be cataclysmic.
Several million years passed.
Airman Rogers sat up, frowning, as a line of text appeared on his computer screen and began to flash.
His first though was that it was another glitch; the computers were designed to filter them out, but nevertheless false alarms sounded about once every three or four days. He noted the particular alert code and his frown deepened; false alerts were routine, but false alerts of this particular kind were not.
The room Rogers worked in monitored deep space ??? right out to a few thousand miles beyond geostationary orbit. Typically, they monitored the 41,000 significant man made objects orbiting Earth; their job was to make sure none of them were mistaken for incoming missiles, or got in the way of new orbital paths chosen for the space shuttle or other launches. They also monitored new objects launched by foreign powers and predicted when and where man made objects might fall back to Earth. It was generally utterly routine work which typically consisted of watching computer screens for eight hours a day, waiting for alert codes that didn't come, or which came and rapidly proved to be false. That suited Rogers just fine. He enjoyed relaxing with a good book, and just lately he was working his way through a fantasy series whose volumes were of the sort that often enjoyed a great second life as doorstops. He had come into work looking forward to a nice long restful read.
It was not to be.
He grabbed a code book and quickly scanned through, looking for this particular code; he didn't really need to, he knew it by heart, but he wanted to double check himself just on the off chance that he'd made some mistake.
Code 218 : Unknown object approaching from deep space
Earth was hit by meteors and other natural junk all the time, of course... but the computers were designed to filter most of that stuff out. Only something of unusual size or speed would trip the alarms. Something large enough to be dangerous. It was a common joke on the base that if the dinosaurs had possessed radar, their coming extinction would have been heralded with the words "Code 218". Rogers really didn't think it was funny.
He followed the standard procedure; cross check the track with another detection system to confirm. A computer link to a satellite over Europe sent an interrogation. Two minutes later the answer came back, along with initial numbers on the trajectory of the thing. Rogers frown turned to genuine worry; the object wasn't in any kind of orbit, it wasn't on a curving course past the Earth - it was on an almost straight-line trajectory towards the surface, which meant he had perhaps another minute before impact. The projected impact point was... somewhere in North America.
Truly a day of firsts, Rogers mused. His novel lay forgotten as he flipped up a cover on his desk and pressed the red button below it; he'd never heard the emergency alarm before, either.
Eric settled the rifle into his shoulder, peering through the sights as he slowly centred the cross-hairs on the deer. The light was just starting to fade now, and he knew that this would be his last chance for a decent shot before they had to turn back if they were going to make the car before darkness fell.
He was lost in the world as seen through the high-powered scope; nothing existed but the deer, the cross-hairs, and the weight of the rifle. Every hunter knew that feeling... which was why no hunter would ever think to interrupt another who was in the middle of experiencing it.
So, when Cole suddenly said "What the... hey, what is that thing?" Eric barely registered the possible meaning of the words, just a flash of anger that they had been spoken at all. He tried to refocus his attention, but then Cole's hand came down on his shoulder. "Look at that!"
Exasperated, Eric lowered the rifle and began to turn, curses rising to his lips ??? and then he saw it. His mouth snapped shut as he looked into the sky, frowning.
Brighter than a star, brighter than any planet, the light hung in the sky. It wasn't moving at all. But as Cole watched, it did seem to be growing slowly in size and brightness. He frowned at it, his mind racing.
"Meteor...? he said softly, looking at Eric. "But... it would be going across the sky, not just hanging there. Unless..."
Unless it was heading directly for them.
It was possible. People had been hit by meteors before, Cole knew. It was an event so rare that it made being hit by lightning look like the new trend that all the cool kids were doing these days, but it had happened.
Cole began to yell a warning, but suddenly the whatever-it-was was there. Only... it came down, down, and it was slowing, very clearly slowing as it came down out of the sky. Finally, it began to show some lateral motion, and Cole found himself very relieved that it wasn't going to come down right on top of them. Instead, it drifted down behind the ridge-line that poked out of the trees ahead, slow as a dandelion seed on a windless day. It vanished behind the ridge and was gone.
"Wow, what was that?" Eric asked. His voice was slightly shaky.
"I dunno," Cole said. "Not a meteor, the way it came down. Maybe an aircraft."
"Glowy like that?" Eric asked.
Cole shrugged. "Landing lights, maybe. Or a cop helicopter with one of those big searchlights."
"I didn't hear an engine."
"If a helicopter lost the engine they would still be able to drift down on the momentum of the blades," Cole pointed out. "But rather than argue about it, let's take a look. Then we can talk about what it is, rather than what it might be. More fun that way."
The two hiked up the ridge; it was only a mile or so to the top, less than an hour's hike even uphill. They crested the ridge-line and looked down at the scene below.
Cole half expected a crater, though it would have made no sense for there to be one given how slowly the thing had descended. Instead, there was simply a half mile or so of open ground and then a line of trees. A perfectly normal piece of landscape, no different to any other. Except for the glowing object that sat in the middle of the open ground, shining brightly in the slowly gathering gloom.
"What is that?" Eric asked, pointing. "Is that a fire?"
"Maybe the searchlight of the helicopter?" Cole wondered.
"Shall we go down there?"
"I guess we have to," Cole said, and a shiver went down his back. He couldn't have put a reason into words, but that thing felt wrong. He was completely certain that whatever it was, it wasn't a helicopter or any other kind of aircraft. "There could be people hurt down there," he said, not believing it for a moment.
They hiked down the hill. It was a twenty-minute walk. By the mid-way point, Cole decided that he had to accept something that had been more and more obvious as they approached. The object, whatever it was, was floating about four feet above the ground. Worse, it was floating there completely unsupported. There was no helicopter it was attached to, no machine or structure of any kind.
The glow was a small thing, perhaps the size of a baseball. It was bright, bright enough that it was hard to look. Cole found spots appearing in his eyes as he squinted and shaded them. Only as they got close did it occur to him that he had some sunglasses in his pocket. He put them on, thinking of that scene from Close Encounters and feeling vaguely foolish.
The thing made no sound, no sound at all. It simply hung there in complete silence. Nor, he realised as he got close, did it appear radiate the slightest heat, for all its brightness.
They slowed and stopped, maybe fifteen feet from it. "What the hell..." Eric whispered. "It's just... floating there. There's nothing holding it up, no wires, nothing..."
"What is it?" Cole said softly.
Eric slowly walked forward. Cole reached out to stop him, but his friend shrugged him off and stepped forward. "It doesn't look dangerous," he said, fascinated. He raised his arm, reaching out...
"Eric, don't touch it!" Cole cried out. He had absolutely no idea why he said it, except that the feeling of wrongness had grown an awful lot stronger.
It was too late. Eric's finger reached out and touched the object. The light suddenly flared, twice as bright, ten times, a hundred times - and then in an instant, before Cole could even begin to react, it was gone.
In its place, Eric stood facing... a figure. It wasn't a person, or at least not a human person. It was like a statue of a person, something made of an obsidian black material. The surface was glossy, the smoothest most perfect surface Cole had ever seen. He blinked, staring at Eric's reflection in the statue. The thing was humanoid, the same height as Eric, same build... it even stood in the exact same pose, one arm raised, a hand out towards his. But it was otherwise curiously unformed, as if somebody wanted to make a statue of a person using Eric as a guide, but hadn't had time to add any of the details to it. Its head was a smooth oval, lacking any trace of hair, ears, or face. Nor where there any genitals, he saw.
The thing dropped its hand. Its head turned slowly, as if looking across the landscape with eyes it didn't have. Unnervingly, the head swept around in a complete circle, a full three hundred and sixty degrees. The neck didn't twist badly, Cole saw. In fact, the head didn't twist, period. It just kind of rotated on the neck, as if it wasn't so much turning as gradually changing shape.
Cole stepped forward, mouth opening to protest ??? he didn't quite know about what, exactly, but he sensed that something was about to happen... something bad.
The thing appeared to focus itself on Eric again. The head tilted slightly to one side, as if giving him a quizzical look.
At that moment, Eric made a gurgling sound and slowly crumpled. He fell to his knees, almost seeming to collapse in on himself as strangled gasping sounds escaped his lips.
"Stop!" Cole yelled. "Please!"
The thing rotated its head towards Cole for just an instant, then swivelled back to Eric. Eric began to make whimpering noises as he slowly folded over onto the floor, wrapped up in foetal position.
Then the thing changed. Cole felt his eyes bugging in their sockets; its surface began to flow, long, slow ripples moving across it as if it really were some sort of gelatinous liquid. The effect spread slowly out from the torso, moving down its arms and legs and up its neck to the head. After a long moment ripples of colour began to appear, washing out over the body... then the effect began to fade away, and Cole found himself looking at what seemed to be a real, actual person.
She was still Human shaped, to be sure, but she could hardly have looked less like that mannequin, he thought. Before him stood a nude female with a body so perfectly formed that it seemed almost outrageous. No real woman looked like that, he thought. Every guy saw women in the street occasionally who were gorgeous... and there were models, actresses, porn stars, women who had come to exemplify beauty to whole continents. But none of them matched this. This was a level of physical perfection that most men didn't see outside their fantasies.
She was blonde, with hair that cascaded over her shoulders and down her back in a wild living waterfall. Her eyes were the most beautiful piercing blue that Cole had ever seen, almost glowing in their brightness. She had the face of an angel, with clearly defined cheekbones and a jawline that was pure perfection. Her skin was absolutely without flaw ??? he couldn't see a single mark, pimple or imperfection anywhere on her. Nor did she seem to carry one ounce of excess fat; she was slender, every inch of her displaying sleek, toned athleticism. Her breasts stood firm and proud, large and inviting without being over the top.
She looked down at herself, then nodded. "This will do for now," she said, and her voice was pure sex. It was a measure of her beauty and her voice that Cole, despite having been through several life-changing shocks in the last few minutes, suddenly found himself sporting an erection.
She looked up at him, and he found those piercing blue eyes looking deep into his soul. He suddenly knew exactly how a microbe must feel when it was under a particularly powerful microscope.
"Shall we go?" She said, smiling.
Somehow, he managed to find his voice. "Um... go? Go where?"
"Oh, well that depends. For now, we'll mooch around a bit, let me get my bearings, that kind of thing." She smiled, and Cole felt his knees go weak. "I guess I should sort out some clothes."
She bent down and in a single, graceful movement, wrapped her long fingers around Eric's neck and lifted him off the ground. He hung in her grasp, completely limp. She held him there, one handed, as if he weighed nothing at all. With the other hand she began stripping his clothes off.
Cole started forward, finally spurred to action. "Hey!"
She turned, and those piercing blue eyes stopped him dead. In the very depths of his hind-brain, something whispered that trying to stop this woman... this thing... would be a very bad idea.
She stripped Eric down to his underwear in minutes; he hung in her grip, completely limp. When she had finished she looked at Cole again and smiled slightly. And then something horrific happened.
Her right hand closed. The fingers sank into Eric's neck, and just... continued to sink. Cole heard a muffled crunching sound, rather like somebody had taken a bundle of celery and twisted and snapped it. Eric's body spasmed violently, once, and then went limp again. And still her fingers closed... and closed. It wasn't a fast motion, or a big one, but it was totally relentless; Eric's neck simply seemed to shrink under the force.
She closed her hand into a fist... and Eric's body dropped away as his neck was severed. It collapsed to the ground, spraying blood. His head sat atop her closed fist for a long moment, and then slowly toppled off and fell to the ground with a dull thud.
She turned away as if nothing the slightest bit unusual had just happened and slipped Eric's shirt on, casually wiping her hand on the side. Cole stared at the big smear of blood and tried to think of something to say. She stepped into his friend's trousers, and then pulled his boots on. The clothes were significantly too big for her but she didn't seem to mind ??? and insanely, part of him peeked through the horror of what he'd just seen and said that the effect actually made her look quite cute.
"Let's go," she said casually.
Something inside Cole snapped. "What the fuck is going on here!" He screamed. "Who are you? I..." his voice cracked and became something almost childlike. "I don't understand," he said, almost crying.
She smiled. "Of course you don't, honey. Tell you what, let's go find whatever you have around here that passes for transport, and on the way, we'll talk." She headed back towards the ridge-line
The utter reasonableness of her voice, the total lack of concern for what she'd just done, somehow cut through his panic. He found himself nodding jerkily, and after a long moment he turned and began to follow her. He took a few deep breaths, somehow pushed the bubble of panic that lay just below the surface deep down inside, and began to really try and think.
First off... this woman could kill. Not just kill but kill easily. Effortlessly. His survival was at stake here, and as in any survival situation, the more he knew the better off he would be. His number one priority had to be to find out everything he could.
"Who and what are you?" He asked, eventually.
She laughed. "Something that you couldn't really understand," she said.
"You're... an alien?"
"I suppose I am, technically. You would think of it that way."
"Why are you here?" He asked.
"I'm going to destroy your planet."
Cole opened his mouth, then closed it again. He was quiet for a long time.
"Um," he said finally, "would you say that again? You're going to..."
"Destroy your planet," she said breezily. She was neither boasting nor threatening, he thought. She said it like you might announce anything else you planned to do. I'm going to the theatre tomorrow, darling. And afterwards, I'm going to destroy your planet. Then maybe drinks and dancing.
"Um... how...?"
She shrugged. "No idea. Sometimes I do it quickly; say by making my kinetic energy big enough and smashing into the planet so that it just shatters. It's easy... but it's also boring."
"You've done that before?" Cole asked.
"Oh yes, lots of times. When I first started, it's all I did. But like I say, it gets old quick. So now I land, get to know a place. Find weaknesses to exploit, corrupt and destroy it from within. That kind of thing."
"But... why?"
"Why what?"
"Why do you destroy planets? Why destroy us?"
"Why not?" she asked, genuine curiosity in her voice.
Cole wasn't sure he had any answer to that.
"So, you're here to set us against one another?" He asked. "Start wars, that kind of thing?"
"Perhaps. I haven't decided. As I explore this place and find out about it, I'm sure something suitably entertaining will come to me."
"And... what do you want me for?" He asked.
"Oh, I like you," she said, smiling. "You have an interesting mind. I'm going to make you into one of my worshippers, I think."
"Worshippers?"
She shrugged. "What else are you good for, really?"
"And if I'm a worshipper... then I get spared the destruction...?" he asked, cautiously.
She laughed. "Oh no," she said as if he'd said the silliest thing she'd ever heard. "I'll either sacrifice you to the cause along the way, or you'll be lost in whatever wars or disasters I create, or I'll just kill you before I leave."
Cole fell silent. He had a sense of floating unreality; as if nothing he was experiencing was quite happening. He knew his mind was doing it to insulate him from shock ??? and he knew that even that thought was part of the process, part of detaching himself from the emotional impact of what he was going through.
They reached the truck and she slid into the passenger seat, leaving Cole to drive. He headed down the track towards the highway, a couple of miles away.
"We have to stop for gas," he cautioned. "There's a place up ahead... I can't say I liked it much, but it's the only one for twenty or thirty miles."
"Gas?" She asked.
"Gasoline. Fuel... for the truck's engine."
She looked around her as if seeing the truck for the very first time. "Oh... right. How charming."
They pulled in and Cole got out to pump the gas. It was a ramshackle old place, little more than a shack, filthy dirty. On the way in there had been a gang of four or five guys hanging around, dirty-looking types. Something about them had set Cole's radar off, and he'd decided to put off stopping for gas until they were headed back.
Unfortunately, as he pulled in he saw the same group there, or at least a similar group. He kept his eyes on the truck, watching them out of the corner of his vision.
The passenger door popped open and she got out. Cole felt a sinking sensation as she walked over directly towards the group. She'd tied Eric's shirt in a knot below her heavy breasts, baring most of her perfectly toned six-pack abdomen. She'd also undone most of the buttons to show a healthy display of cleavage. Cole opened his mouth to call to her, then closed it again. He didn't know how she would respond to orders, but he had a feeling it wouldn't be good.
He watched, feeling helpless, as she walked up to the group. There were four of them; one saw her coming and nudged the others, and they all turned to watch her approach, eyes crawling all over her.
"Howdy," she said pleasantly. "So... what brings you fellas here?"
"Admiring the scenery," one of them said. They all laughed. Cole silently urged the gas pump to go faster.
"Oh, that was a joke!" She said brightly. "You mean you're admiring my breasts, don't you? I can't blame you... they are pretty fantastic, aren't they?"
They seemed a bit taken aback by that. There was more laughter, but it had a slightly nervous quality to it. "Sure are," one of them volunteered.
"That Eric had an excellent imagination... when it came to sex, anyway," she added. "You people sure do think about sex a lot." She paused. "You're thinking about it right now, aren't you?" She said, smiling brightly. "You're all thinking about fucking me. How it would feel?"
Three of them looked at one another uneasily. Cole could almost sympathise; he knew guys like this, guys who liked to talk trash in front of women. He also knew what they did not, that women could talk just as dirty as men could... but only under certain circumstances, when they felt safe to do so. Guys like this did it precisely to make the woman feel nervous, insecure, unsafe... because to guys like this, making other people feel nervous and uneasy was the way to feel powerful.
One of them, bolder that the rest, stepped forward. "Why yeah, as it happens," he said, leering openly at her chest. "I just bet your cunt is dripping wet at the thought, ain't it, bitch?"
"Sure is," she said. The men exchanged glances again, and Cole felt momentarily sorry for them. Here was a woman who wasn't showing nervousness, who obviously wasn't feeling the slightest little bit of fear. He wondered vaguely if any of them had ever known a woman like that. He doubted it. "But honey, what's in it for me? You all want to fuck me, I get that ??? who wouldn't? But how do I know you aren't all packing tiny little needle dicks down there? For all I know you wouldn't even touch the sides!"
The gas finally finished pumping and Cole put the hose back and locked the cap in a hurry before making his way over to where she was standing. The guys looked up at him, and he could feel a mix of tension and unease radiating off them.
"Hadn't we better be going... dear?" He said hesitantly.
She barely glanced at him. "Just a minute, the gentlemen and I were just talking about their prospects of fucking me. I'm curious as to how big their cocks are. What do you think?"
Cole sighed inwardly. "I wouldn't know," he said woodenly. "We should leave. We don't want trouble here, do we?"
"Oh, I don't mind a little trouble," she said. "In fact, I like trouble. You might say trouble is my thing. Just so long as it's not me that the trouble happens to. So how about it fellas? Big cocks, or tiny teeny little useless ones?"
"You ought to keep this one on a shorter leash, pal," the lead guy said. Cole sighed. A basic law of the universe; in any argument between a woman and a man, the woman's male companion was automatically to blame for her behaviour. Stupid, sexist and unfair, but there it was.
"I knew it," she said jubilantly. "Tiny little ones, isn't it?"
And with that, she stepped forward and in one fast motion she shoved her hand down the front of the man's trousers. He was so shocked that he just stood there for a long second, which was all it took for her to pull her hand back out and step back again. "Yep," she smirked. "Midget cock!"
The man's eyes bugged out, his face flushing red. "Why you fucking bitch," he snarled, stepping forward. His fist flashed around, driving towards her face in a roundhouse punch...
...and her own hand came up even faster and interposed itself. That was it, that was all she did. Cole saw it happen very clearly, as if time itself slowed down, and for a moment he wondered if this might be the end of his little nightmare. The man would punch her out. Sooner or later cops would come, he could tell them what had happened earlier, and that would be that.
The guy's fist slammed into the palm of her hand and stopped. Just stopped. With a significant cracking sound. Her hand didn't move in the slightest. It was, Cole reflected later, the kind of effect one might achieve if one were to punch the hoover dam as hard as one could.
He grunted in pain as he tried to step backwards. Her hand closed over his, long slender fingers wrapping around his fist. For a moment nothing happened; then there was a distinct creaking noise from his hand and he began to scream. Cole watched in disbelief as her fingers closed, that same slow but relentless movement he had seen earlier. Crunching noises began to come from his hand, the sound of bones shattering.
He fell to his knees ??? or tried to, at least. In fact, he was left dangling about eight inches off the floor, his entire weight supported by her hand. His fist looked weird, misshapen. Flesh bulged out obscenely between her fingers, as if a heavy mechanical vice was closing on his hand. And still her fingers closed... and closed.
The other three came forward as one. Now she moved again, casually flicking her wrist in a motion that tossed her victim upwards just hard enough to bring him upright. As his body jerked up she put a hand out to each side, her motions casual but almost blurringly fast as she seized two of the men by the neck. She slammed them both inwards towards the third, bringing their three heads together just as the centre man started to fall again. Their skulls collided with impossible, sickening force. Once more the sound of shattering bone rang out, and she casually dropped them in a heap and turned.
"See?" She said casually. "Trouble can be fun!"
"Did you have to do that?" Cole asked finally.
"Oh Cole," she said, bemused. "Of course not. I chose to do it. There's a big difference." She smiled at his expression. "Such concern for life. You'll grow out of it."
"Life is important," he said softly.
She shrugged. "Your lives aren't. Not to me. Cole, life on Earth is over. Understand this; the planet is doomed. It's dead. Destroyed. Gone. That's all there is to it. The human race is a body that's been shot in the heart, and we're in the fraction of a second where the nerve impulses are crawling towards the brain. You're a toenail on the body; there's absolutely nothing you can do to save it. You may as well stop worrying about other people Cole, because other people won't exist for too much longer."
"And what are you?" Cole asked.
She grinned, and suddenly her features had a positively frightening sadism to them. "I'm the bullet."