Marvel: Tomorrow MAX (Chapter 2)
Title: Marvel: Tomorrow MAX
Chapter 2: Armored Blade
Fandom: Marvel Universe
Disclaimer: Crapsack future mine, general universe template Marvel's
Principal Characters: Audrey Hopkins/Arachne (OC), Karin Kusanagi/Fearless (OC), Sam Carter/Winter Soldier (OC), Michael Giles/Hate-Monger (OC)
Rating: Hard PG-13
Summary: Super-villains are one thing, but "mundane" bigotry is something else, something worse for all that it hides beneath the veneer of civilized society.
Warnings: Gratuitous German, and horrific examples of human hatred
Fearless perched on the ornate cross rising from the rooftop of a Baptist church, having waited for three quarters of an hour. The person she was waiting for dropped from a web-line and landed on the rooftop. Fearless turned to look at that person, a faint smile behind her mask.
“You came . . .”
“Yeah, I did,” Arachne replied curtly. “What do you want?”
“Panzerblatt.”
“It’s been a while since my German elective. What’s that?”
Fearless looked at Arachne. “It’s a white supremacist organization. That’s what Ethan’s mixed up in.”
“Why would Ethan join those guys?” Arachne asked.
“I don’t know. But I want him out.”
“And you want me to do that for you?” Arachne’s tone was one of quiet derision.
“I wouldn’t be able to reason with him, but you could. From what I heard, he seemed to have a soft spot for you.”
“Can you tell me more about this Panzerblatt?”
“Their whole shtick is that the race war isn’t coming; it’s already here and it’s being fought in the boardrooms and in the White House,” Fearless explained. “According to them, the ‘Aryan Race’ is on the losing end of the race war, with the ‘mud people’ ‘infesting’ the halls of power and gradually reducing whites to a ‘slave class.’” She paused. “Yeah, I know; it’s ridiculous to me, too. Problem is, you’ve got a lot of suckers who believe that crap, who are just pissed off for no good reason and looking for someone to take it out on.”
“Ethan’s not like that,” Arachne protested softly.
“I know that and you know that. But whatever caused him to join Panzerblatt . . . it doesn’t matter. What matters is getting him out before he goes too far and we have to take him down.”
“Panzerblatt believes that a covert race war is already happening. What are they doing about it?”
“All kinds of nasty crap. On the one hand, they act like vigilantes, going after black, Latino, and East Asian gangs. On the other hand, they go into minority-owned shops, trash those places, and beat up the storeowners. Then there’s what they do to the women in the gangs I mentioned. . . .”
“You can stop there,” Arachne hissed. “I’ll do it. I’ll get him out of Panzerblatt.”
“Thank you,” Fearless said.
“I’m not doing this for you,” Arachne sneered. “I’m doing it for Ethan.” She dived off the roof and swung away on a web-line.
“Thank you . . .” Fearless whispered into the empty air.
Arachne dropped by Winter Soldier’s apartment and would have crept inside the open window, except the sudden dilation of her perceptions warned her not to. “Winter, let me in.”
“Oh, it’s you,” Winter Soldier greeted idly. With a clap of his hands, Arachne’s perceptions returned to normal and she crept inside the window. “What do you want?”
“Panzerblatt,” Arachne replied. “Heard of them?”
“Yes,” Winter Soldier answered grimly.
“They’re recruiting at my school,” Arachne said. “Some of my old classmates have joined them.”
“Let me guess, you want my help.”
“It would be appreciated.”
“Fine. Besides, I have a score to settle with their boss.”
“You know who their boss is?”
“Michael William Giles,” Winter Soldier confirmed. “Ku Klux Klan by family legacy, but imagined himself an entrepreneur, an innovator of racism and white supremacy. Hell, he joined a PMC just so he could be sent by our lovely government to kill people that didn’t look like him and take away the skills he’d need to fight his little race war.”
“Sounds like you don’t like him very much.”
The attempt at humor went utterly over Winter Soldier’s head. “What’s there to like?”
“Good point.”
“How is the son of a bitch recruiting?”
“We should probably patrol everything within a two-mile radius of Midtown High,” Arachne suggested. “With any luck, we ought to catch a recruiter in the act.”
“And what will we do when we find him?”
“We go to civilian guise and pretend we want in. We’re a couple of WASPs, last I checked, so we ought to fit right in.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Winter Soldier remarked.
The next day, Arachne haunted the campus grounds of her school, shielded from onlookers by the stealth capabilities of her living suit. She watched teenagers pass by on the sidewalk below her, and spotted a man with a shaved head passing out leaflets. She climbed down and crept closer to get a better look at the man, or at least his leaflets, although she was pretty sure that this was the same man Karin had spoken to her about.
She began stalking toward the man, altering her camouflage so that instead of looking invisible, she looked like someone else. When the man spotted her, he saw a blonde with dyed purple streaks in her hair and garbed in a black shirt and pants with strategic tears in the shoulders, elbows, and knees. When the girl reached out to snatch up one of his leaflets, he saw black-painted nails tipping her fingers.
“What’s this?” the girl asked in what had to be a rough Southern accent. She flipped through the leaflet. “Hey, looks fun. I think I downloaded one of those bands once.”
“What are you doing?” the man asked, feeling affronted by the girl’s boldness.
“Showing interest,” the girl replied in that same rough Southern accent. “Got a friend who wants to check you guys out, too. Says he’s down for the struggle.”
“You serious?” the man asked, somewhat startled.
“F#$% yes, I’m serious,” the girl drawled. “Mind if I hold on to this? Thanks. You’re sweet.” She sauntered away, leaving the shaved-bald man mumbling to himself about “the forwardness of girls today.”
The girl walked over to a tall, broad-shouldered brunet young man in a nondescript leather jacket and motorcycle gloves and slapped the leaflet onto his chest. “Here you go, Winter-baby,” she twanged. “You wanted us in, so we’re in. We just gotta check ‘em out tonight.”
“Arachne . . .” the young man whispered. “I’m worried about you. The way you’ve been acting lately disturbs me.”
“You’re the one who wanted us to take a harder stand on guys like that, and I want the same thing. What the f#$% is your damage?”
“This just isn’t like you.”
The girl walked past him, camouflaging herself in her living suit. “You don’t even know me.”
Nightfall came, and Arachne was on her way to the park where the leaflet had said the meeting was going to take place. The actual meeting would be in a nearby indoor complex, formerly a greenhouse, rented precisely for this event, but there would be some outdoor “festivities.” Below her, she noticed Winter Soldier on his razorbike, speeding ahead of her. Arachne picked up her pace; she hadn’t just gotten stronger since her wardrobe change, after all.
Gotta time this just right, she thought, and swung into an arc that ended in an acrobatic flip onto the back of Winter Soldier’s cycle. “Hey, baby. Going my way?”
“Arachne, what the hell is wrong with you?” Winter Soldier asked.
Arachne simply wrapped her arms around Winter Soldier’s midsection and a deadly smirk crossed her face beneath the mask. “Just ride.”
When they arrived at the far end of the park, the Winter Soldier parked his bike and pocketed his domino mask. He set aside his helmet and Arachne flipped off the back of the bike, letting her suit change into a black tank top with a ripped midriff and black jeans with ripped knees. The suit’s unique camouflage made her look like a blonde with purple streaks dyed into her hair, ensuring that she would not be recognized so easily by those who knew her as Audrey Hopkins.
“Let’s go,” Winter grumbled, beginning the trek across the park to the former greenhouse. Arachne followed him, subtly swaying with the throbbing “warcore” music blaring from the complex. Winter didn’t know whether she was actually drunk, whether she was just pretending, or whether she actually liked that godforsaken music, and it was precisely that not knowing that scared him. The girl beside him had definitely changed, and it was frightening to him.
When they actually reached the complex, Winter noticed that a miniature mosh pit had formed inside. As for Arachne, she was starting to wobble, as though she were losing her mental cohesion. “Too loud,” she moaned in her Southern twang.
“The music?” Winter deduced. “Thought you liked it.”
“F#$% off,” Arachne grumbled.
The doorman, a burly crew-cut man, looked at the two young people. “Hey, you supposed to be here?”
“Of course we’re supposed to be here, dumbass,” Arachne spat, taking the leaflet from
Winter’s jacket pocket and flashing it to the doorman. “See?”
“Uh-huh, that’s it,” the doorman replied. “But you might wanna lose that attitude, girlie, or you won’t make it long in there.”
“I’ll manage,” Arachne retorted, slipping past the doorman and dragging Winter behind her. As soon as they were inside, Arachne let go of Winter’s wrist and clutched her ears in pain. “How goddamn loud is this?!”
“If you can hear yourself think, you’re not doing it right!” a spiky-haired brunette shouted to her.
“And who might you be?!” Arachne asked angrily.
“Leonie!” the girl shouted. “You?!”
“Elisabeth!” Arachne answered. “My boy here is Jason!”
“Nice meeting you!” Leonie yelled over the music. “Wanna get into the pit?!”
“I’m not -” Winter started to say, but Arachne cut him off.
“Oh, don’t be a scaredy-puss! The pit it is!” She grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him toward the mosh pit. Once close enough, she tugged hard and sent him tumbling inside, following immediately. Winter struggled against the bodies throwing themselves against him, while Arachne brutally shoved against the others in the pit. Just then, a tall, muscular young man in sleeveless army fatigues and with an armored swastika tattooed on his right bicep shoved into Arachne, who fell back into the mass of bodies around her and ricocheted off them to shove “soldier boy.”
Inspired by the violence between Arachne and “soldier boy,” the moshing audience began to surround and buffer them while simultaneously moshing against each other. “You’re pretty strong for a chick,” the “soldier boy” half-leered, half-complimented.
“Thanks,” Arachne spat. “You’re not so bad yourself, for a totally femme bastard.”
“You’re gonna see how femme I am when you’re on your knees, bitch!” the “soldier boy” yelled, outraged.
“Do you even have anything there for me to be on my knees?” Arachne taunted.
“Soldier boy” pushed through the moshing crowd to get at Arachne, who similarly parted the sea of bodies to get to him. When they met, they began brutally moshing against each other. To “soldier boy’s” surprise, Arachne was far stronger, tougher, and rougher than he was. In fact, it was his body that began to bruise from their impacts, while her skin didn’t seem to bruise at all.
Just then, the disc jockey shouted from his perch by the CDs and vinyl records, “You ready for the kampf, f#$%&?!”
The audience roared, “Kampf! Kampf! Kampf! KAMPF!”
“Then come on . . . and rock for the kampf!” the DJ shouted, starting a new song, even louder and heavier than the last one.
I got my problems,
But you mud f#$%& ain’t one!
When the war comes,
You’re gonna be done,
You and those race traitors!
White girls sucking monkey c#$&
You n#$%^& get ready to be blocked!
You bitches get ready to taste my Glock!
All you mother$#%& gonna learn
That all you can do is burn!
The song went on in that vein for the next three or four minutes, but those few minutes felt like an eternity for Arachne. Her living suit’s pained screams were like nails on the chalkboard of her mind, while Arachne struggled to remain standing in spite of it. It didn’t help that “soldier boy” kept pushing against her, and despite the pain the suit was going through, she really wanted to wipe the floor with him. When he came at her again, she pushed him into the sea of moshing bodies, which seemed to be even more violent than before thanks to the new song.
Arachne moved through the moshing bodies, trying to get away from them. She had to find Ethan, but she could barely see a thing thanks to the flashing strobe lights confusing her eyes. Then again, she didn’t need her eyes; she had a spider-sense for that sort of thing. She pushed through the moshing teens and out of their midst, struggling to remain upright despite the agony of the music. Much to her relief, the music stopped, but the audience’s cheers of “kampf” were slower to cease.
“Hey, Aryan warriors, you wanna test your killing skills?!” the DJ shouted. “There are some good shooters over in the next room! Check ‘em out and get some killing done in the name of Panzerblatt!”
Having already pushed herself out of the moshing crowd, Arachne was closer to the game room than most of the others. She opened the door and stepped inside, noticing a boy playing a computer game that resembled the Grand Theft Auto franchise of the early 21st century. She sidled up to him and asked, “What’re you playing?”
The boy turned to her, revealing Ethan’s face. “Salvation: New York City,” he answered.
“What’s that?” Arachne asked.
“I’m an ex-cop and I’m cleansing the city of the mud people,” Ethan replied. “They’re all thugs and parasites and criminals, anyway, so it’s perfectly all right.”
Arachne bit back a horrified response. How could he have changed this much? Out loud, “Looks like you’re having fun.”
Ethan pressed a series of buttons on the tactile keyboard and his player avatar shot an entire African-American gang to death with dual pistols. “Mission complete,” the computer spoke. The screen shifted to a cutscene featuring Ethan’s player avatar discussing the gang’s deaths with a clean-shaven man with crew-cut blond hair. Judging by their dialogue, the crew-cut man was pleased with Ethan’s player avatar for “eradicating yet more filthy animals” from the city. The screen shifted again, this time showing a variety of high-tech guns and ammunition while the voice of the crew-cut man explained what the guns and ammunition could do.
“Yeah, I am having fun,” Ethan admitted.
“What got you into this in the first place?” Arachne asked.
“I got sick and tired of the n#$%& running amok, making good people afraid to step out of their houses at night,” Ethan spat. “I got sick of the damn sellouts in Washington and Albany talking about how we gotta respect their ‘rights.’ What rights? Don’t we have rights, too? Like the right to be safe in our persons and our property, like the right not to be afraid that we’re gonna get robbed, or raped, or even killed by those do-rag-wearing f#$%&?”
“Yeah, I can see your point,” Arachne answered, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat as she spoke.
Ethan looked at her searchingly. “Hey, do I know you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Arachne tilted her head at Ethan.
“Nothing.” Ethan chuckled. “I think I’m just being silly, but your voice sounded really familiar for a minute. Like a girl I knew.”
“You wanna talk about her?” Arachne prompted.
“Nah. She’s in the past. That’s all.” He turned back to the game, embarking on the next mission, which was to kill a pimp who was forcibly prostituting white teenagers to black gangsters.
“If you say so.”
Arachne was about to leave when she spotted Leonie and Winter entering the room along with several other youths. “Hey, there are plenty of other computers. You can play something if you want,” Leonie suggested.
“What’s there to play?” Arachne asked.
“Just get on one and check the Games list,” Leonie answered.
“Sure,” Arachne acceded, sitting down in front of one of the computers and checking the Games list. She scrolled down, finding titles such as “Übermensch,” “The Reich Strikes Back,” “Endgame: Zionist Empire,” and “Revenge of the Aryan.” She resisted the urge to throw up, imagining just what the content of the video games would be. Worse, if she didn’t want to blow her cover, she would actually have to play one of those games. “What’s ‘Übermensch’?”
“It’s a superhero game,” a black-haired boy replied from two computers down. “Basically, you’re Nietzsche’s ‘man above men,’ a literal superman boosted to the maximum of human potential and ability, and it’s your job to lead a global revolution against the mud people infesting the planet. It’s like what Captain America would be if he weren’t such a tool for the Zionists.”
Arachne looked at Winter Soldier, and while his expression was utterly neutral, his eyes were flaring with righteous anger. Arachne looked back at him and made a silent promise to him. When we start wrecking this operation, you’ll get first crack at that son of a bitch. She turned away from him and clicked on “Übermensch,” letting the game upload and then signing on to play. She waited through the cutscene depicting how her character gained his powers and how the “Zionist scum” - as the narrator called the enemies - had made it their mission to destroy him.
Then the game started for real, and Arachne plunged herself into the dark, dank, and dirty world of white supremacist interpretations of superheroes. She played through the initial stages of the game, swallowing the vomit that rose up in her throat as she guided her character through vicious attacks on “race traitors” and “mud people,” both of which appeared in super-villainous incarnations. According to the karma meter, the more vicious and violent she was, the higher she would score and the closer she would get to being a true “man over men.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, she had gained a rooting audience from her efforts, including Ethan and Leonie.
“Damn good job, Liss,” Leonie commented.
“Yeah,” Ethan agreed. “Keep it up.”
“Gee, thanks for the support,” Arachne drawled, forcing the sarcasm in her voice.
“Hey, look out, that n#$%& is about to shoot you!” Ethan warned.
Arachne turned her attention back to the screen and snapped out the wrist-gun, shooting the attacking gangbanger in the head. The graphics of the impact of the shot were nothing short of gruesome, with brain matter, skull fragments, and blood flying everywhere. Arachne swallowed deeply, trying very hard not to lose her lunch in front of everyone watching.
“Hey, if you’re this good in a game, I wonder how you’ll do when we get rocking for real,” the black-haired boy remarked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Arachne asked.
“You’ll see,” the black-haired boy replied somewhat cryptically.
Just then, Leonie peeked out the door and turned back to the others. “Hey, he’s here!”
“Who’s here?” Winter Soldier asked.
“The Hate-Monger!” Leonie replied.
“Hate-Monger?” Arachne echoed, confused. “Isn’t that the name of some lame-o super-villain from pre-reg?”
“Watch your mouth,” Leonie admonished sharply. “This guy’s badass.”
“Then let me see the guy myself,” Arachne answered, saving her game and standing up from the computer console. She joined the crowd filing out of the game room and into the main room. Once outside, she tried to look over the shoulders of those in front of her to see this “Hate-Monger.” Unfortunately, being only five-and-a-half feet tall and surrounded by young men much taller and broader than herself made that somewhat difficult. She looked for Winter Soldier, finding him near Leonie. “Hey, a little help here?”
Winter Soldier looked at Arachne once and then bent forward, letting Arachne climb onto his back. Arachne looked over his head and got a look at the Hate-Monger, a tall man with a clean-shaven head. He had a small patch of hair on his chin, a vestigial beard, while his ears and eyebrows had silver rings embedded in them. He wore an olive drab jacket over a black T-shirt emblazoned with a bleeding Star of David impaled by a sword-styled cross, and he had serrated black blades - no more than tattoos - rising from his neck. His eyes blazed with cold fire.
Is that him? Arachne asked Winter Soldier silently, having established a mental link by way of wiring her symbiote into his neuropaths.
Yes, Winter answered grimly. It’s him . . .
“Welcome, brothers and sisters in our kampf,” the Hate-Monger, otherwise known as Michael William Giles, greeted, his voice amplified by the microphone hooked to his ear. “I see we have some new people here. Why don’t we all take the opportunity to say hi and get to know each other a bit? Remember, these are your brothers and sisters in revolution, your kindred by the Aryan spirit and blood that runs in all of your veins.”
The crowd began to mingle amongst itself, longtime soldiers greeting new recruits. The “soldier boy” that Arachne had been so brutally moshing with earlier walked up to her and made an expression that was probably supposed to be an amiable grin. The unholy gleam in his eyes ruined that, though, but Arachne slipped off Winter Soldier’s back and greeted the boy.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Elisabeth,” Arachne replied. “Call me Liss.”
“I’m Van,” the “soldier boy” answered. “You know, you’re good at the whole moshing thing.”
“I’m an aggressive bitch,” Arachne retorted. “That’s how I got so good.”
“I like that in a girl,” Van commented. “Aggression. It goes a long way, in a lot of ways.” At that moment, warcore music began pounding out through the speakers again. It wasn’t as loud as when they were moshing, but it was still quite loud, and the lyrics were as violent as ever. “Hey, this is some pretty hardcore s#%$. I could almost dance to this. You wanna try?”
Arachne gave that some thought. She was instinctively repulsed by this boy’s beliefs and attitude, but she had to maintain her cover. Rejecting his invitation could be more trouble than it was worth. While her strength and agility would allow her to get the upper hand if he got too pushy, she would draw the suspicion of the others. Thus it was with a heavy heart, although carefully disguised, that she looked up at Van and prepared to speak.
None of you n#$%& get out alive!
We ain’t letting you out alive!
Gonna be buried in this pit,
All you little race traitors and mud s#%&$!
Blow your n#$%& brains out!
That you won’t live to doubt!
Wannabe n#$%&, your time has come!
All y’all bitch asses gonna be done!
At that moment, Ethan drifted up to them from Giles, having spent some time being personally introduced to the man. His bearing seemed rather nervous, but focused in spite of that nervousness. He looked at Arachne and asked, “Wanna dance?”
“Beat it, squirt,” Van spat. “She’s with me.”
“I never said I was with you,” Arachne retorted to Van. “Come on, let’s dance.” She took him by the arm and guided him away from Van and Winter, the latter of whom drifted over to Leonie. “Hey, wait, how do you dance to this stuff?”
“Like this,” Ethan replied and put her in a hold resembling a fusion of slow dancing and grappling.
“How’s this supposed to work?” Arachne wondered.
“It’s called Kriegtanz,” Ethan explained. “It’s like dancing and fighting together, only you do it with a partner instead of by yourself, and it’s better than that slave s#$&.”
“Looks like fun,” Arachne remarked, and half-grappled, half-wriggled against her partner. Ethan grappled and writhed against Arachne, the dance taking on the appearance of a physical struggle. “You know, I never got your name.”
“Ethan,” the boy answered. “Yours?”
“Liss,” Arachne replied. “Why did you wanna dance with me?”
“I just . . . I feel like I know you from somewhere, but I can’t place it.”
“Well, I’m probably not the girl you’re thinking of. Not these days. . . .”
Chapter 2: Armored Blade
Fandom: Marvel Universe
Disclaimer: Crapsack future mine, general universe template Marvel's
Principal Characters: Audrey Hopkins/Arachne (OC), Karin Kusanagi/Fearless (OC), Sam Carter/Winter Soldier (OC), Michael Giles/Hate-Monger (OC)
Rating: Hard PG-13
Summary: Super-villains are one thing, but "mundane" bigotry is something else, something worse for all that it hides beneath the veneer of civilized society.
Warnings: Gratuitous German, and horrific examples of human hatred
Fearless perched on the ornate cross rising from the rooftop of a Baptist church, having waited for three quarters of an hour. The person she was waiting for dropped from a web-line and landed on the rooftop. Fearless turned to look at that person, a faint smile behind her mask.
“You came . . .”
“Yeah, I did,” Arachne replied curtly. “What do you want?”
“Panzerblatt.”
“It’s been a while since my German elective. What’s that?”
Fearless looked at Arachne. “It’s a white supremacist organization. That’s what Ethan’s mixed up in.”
“Why would Ethan join those guys?” Arachne asked.
“I don’t know. But I want him out.”
“And you want me to do that for you?” Arachne’s tone was one of quiet derision.
“I wouldn’t be able to reason with him, but you could. From what I heard, he seemed to have a soft spot for you.”
“Can you tell me more about this Panzerblatt?”
“Their whole shtick is that the race war isn’t coming; it’s already here and it’s being fought in the boardrooms and in the White House,” Fearless explained. “According to them, the ‘Aryan Race’ is on the losing end of the race war, with the ‘mud people’ ‘infesting’ the halls of power and gradually reducing whites to a ‘slave class.’” She paused. “Yeah, I know; it’s ridiculous to me, too. Problem is, you’ve got a lot of suckers who believe that crap, who are just pissed off for no good reason and looking for someone to take it out on.”
“Ethan’s not like that,” Arachne protested softly.
“I know that and you know that. But whatever caused him to join Panzerblatt . . . it doesn’t matter. What matters is getting him out before he goes too far and we have to take him down.”
“Panzerblatt believes that a covert race war is already happening. What are they doing about it?”
“All kinds of nasty crap. On the one hand, they act like vigilantes, going after black, Latino, and East Asian gangs. On the other hand, they go into minority-owned shops, trash those places, and beat up the storeowners. Then there’s what they do to the women in the gangs I mentioned. . . .”
“You can stop there,” Arachne hissed. “I’ll do it. I’ll get him out of Panzerblatt.”
“Thank you,” Fearless said.
“I’m not doing this for you,” Arachne sneered. “I’m doing it for Ethan.” She dived off the roof and swung away on a web-line.
“Thank you . . .” Fearless whispered into the empty air.
Arachne dropped by Winter Soldier’s apartment and would have crept inside the open window, except the sudden dilation of her perceptions warned her not to. “Winter, let me in.”
“Oh, it’s you,” Winter Soldier greeted idly. With a clap of his hands, Arachne’s perceptions returned to normal and she crept inside the window. “What do you want?”
“Panzerblatt,” Arachne replied. “Heard of them?”
“Yes,” Winter Soldier answered grimly.
“They’re recruiting at my school,” Arachne said. “Some of my old classmates have joined them.”
“Let me guess, you want my help.”
“It would be appreciated.”
“Fine. Besides, I have a score to settle with their boss.”
“You know who their boss is?”
“Michael William Giles,” Winter Soldier confirmed. “Ku Klux Klan by family legacy, but imagined himself an entrepreneur, an innovator of racism and white supremacy. Hell, he joined a PMC just so he could be sent by our lovely government to kill people that didn’t look like him and take away the skills he’d need to fight his little race war.”
“Sounds like you don’t like him very much.”
The attempt at humor went utterly over Winter Soldier’s head. “What’s there to like?”
“Good point.”
“How is the son of a bitch recruiting?”
“We should probably patrol everything within a two-mile radius of Midtown High,” Arachne suggested. “With any luck, we ought to catch a recruiter in the act.”
“And what will we do when we find him?”
“We go to civilian guise and pretend we want in. We’re a couple of WASPs, last I checked, so we ought to fit right in.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Winter Soldier remarked.
The next day, Arachne haunted the campus grounds of her school, shielded from onlookers by the stealth capabilities of her living suit. She watched teenagers pass by on the sidewalk below her, and spotted a man with a shaved head passing out leaflets. She climbed down and crept closer to get a better look at the man, or at least his leaflets, although she was pretty sure that this was the same man Karin had spoken to her about.
She began stalking toward the man, altering her camouflage so that instead of looking invisible, she looked like someone else. When the man spotted her, he saw a blonde with dyed purple streaks in her hair and garbed in a black shirt and pants with strategic tears in the shoulders, elbows, and knees. When the girl reached out to snatch up one of his leaflets, he saw black-painted nails tipping her fingers.
“What’s this?” the girl asked in what had to be a rough Southern accent. She flipped through the leaflet. “Hey, looks fun. I think I downloaded one of those bands once.”
“What are you doing?” the man asked, feeling affronted by the girl’s boldness.
“Showing interest,” the girl replied in that same rough Southern accent. “Got a friend who wants to check you guys out, too. Says he’s down for the struggle.”
“You serious?” the man asked, somewhat startled.
“F#$% yes, I’m serious,” the girl drawled. “Mind if I hold on to this? Thanks. You’re sweet.” She sauntered away, leaving the shaved-bald man mumbling to himself about “the forwardness of girls today.”
The girl walked over to a tall, broad-shouldered brunet young man in a nondescript leather jacket and motorcycle gloves and slapped the leaflet onto his chest. “Here you go, Winter-baby,” she twanged. “You wanted us in, so we’re in. We just gotta check ‘em out tonight.”
“Arachne . . .” the young man whispered. “I’m worried about you. The way you’ve been acting lately disturbs me.”
“You’re the one who wanted us to take a harder stand on guys like that, and I want the same thing. What the f#$% is your damage?”
“This just isn’t like you.”
The girl walked past him, camouflaging herself in her living suit. “You don’t even know me.”
Nightfall came, and Arachne was on her way to the park where the leaflet had said the meeting was going to take place. The actual meeting would be in a nearby indoor complex, formerly a greenhouse, rented precisely for this event, but there would be some outdoor “festivities.” Below her, she noticed Winter Soldier on his razorbike, speeding ahead of her. Arachne picked up her pace; she hadn’t just gotten stronger since her wardrobe change, after all.
Gotta time this just right, she thought, and swung into an arc that ended in an acrobatic flip onto the back of Winter Soldier’s cycle. “Hey, baby. Going my way?”
“Arachne, what the hell is wrong with you?” Winter Soldier asked.
Arachne simply wrapped her arms around Winter Soldier’s midsection and a deadly smirk crossed her face beneath the mask. “Just ride.”
When they arrived at the far end of the park, the Winter Soldier parked his bike and pocketed his domino mask. He set aside his helmet and Arachne flipped off the back of the bike, letting her suit change into a black tank top with a ripped midriff and black jeans with ripped knees. The suit’s unique camouflage made her look like a blonde with purple streaks dyed into her hair, ensuring that she would not be recognized so easily by those who knew her as Audrey Hopkins.
“Let’s go,” Winter grumbled, beginning the trek across the park to the former greenhouse. Arachne followed him, subtly swaying with the throbbing “warcore” music blaring from the complex. Winter didn’t know whether she was actually drunk, whether she was just pretending, or whether she actually liked that godforsaken music, and it was precisely that not knowing that scared him. The girl beside him had definitely changed, and it was frightening to him.
When they actually reached the complex, Winter noticed that a miniature mosh pit had formed inside. As for Arachne, she was starting to wobble, as though she were losing her mental cohesion. “Too loud,” she moaned in her Southern twang.
“The music?” Winter deduced. “Thought you liked it.”
“F#$% off,” Arachne grumbled.
The doorman, a burly crew-cut man, looked at the two young people. “Hey, you supposed to be here?”
“Of course we’re supposed to be here, dumbass,” Arachne spat, taking the leaflet from
Winter’s jacket pocket and flashing it to the doorman. “See?”
“Uh-huh, that’s it,” the doorman replied. “But you might wanna lose that attitude, girlie, or you won’t make it long in there.”
“I’ll manage,” Arachne retorted, slipping past the doorman and dragging Winter behind her. As soon as they were inside, Arachne let go of Winter’s wrist and clutched her ears in pain. “How goddamn loud is this?!”
“If you can hear yourself think, you’re not doing it right!” a spiky-haired brunette shouted to her.
“And who might you be?!” Arachne asked angrily.
“Leonie!” the girl shouted. “You?!”
“Elisabeth!” Arachne answered. “My boy here is Jason!”
“Nice meeting you!” Leonie yelled over the music. “Wanna get into the pit?!”
“I’m not -” Winter started to say, but Arachne cut him off.
“Oh, don’t be a scaredy-puss! The pit it is!” She grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him toward the mosh pit. Once close enough, she tugged hard and sent him tumbling inside, following immediately. Winter struggled against the bodies throwing themselves against him, while Arachne brutally shoved against the others in the pit. Just then, a tall, muscular young man in sleeveless army fatigues and with an armored swastika tattooed on his right bicep shoved into Arachne, who fell back into the mass of bodies around her and ricocheted off them to shove “soldier boy.”
Inspired by the violence between Arachne and “soldier boy,” the moshing audience began to surround and buffer them while simultaneously moshing against each other. “You’re pretty strong for a chick,” the “soldier boy” half-leered, half-complimented.
“Thanks,” Arachne spat. “You’re not so bad yourself, for a totally femme bastard.”
“You’re gonna see how femme I am when you’re on your knees, bitch!” the “soldier boy” yelled, outraged.
“Do you even have anything there for me to be on my knees?” Arachne taunted.
“Soldier boy” pushed through the moshing crowd to get at Arachne, who similarly parted the sea of bodies to get to him. When they met, they began brutally moshing against each other. To “soldier boy’s” surprise, Arachne was far stronger, tougher, and rougher than he was. In fact, it was his body that began to bruise from their impacts, while her skin didn’t seem to bruise at all.
Just then, the disc jockey shouted from his perch by the CDs and vinyl records, “You ready for the kampf, f#$%&?!”
The audience roared, “Kampf! Kampf! Kampf! KAMPF!”
“Then come on . . . and rock for the kampf!” the DJ shouted, starting a new song, even louder and heavier than the last one.
I got my problems,
But you mud f#$%& ain’t one!
When the war comes,
You’re gonna be done,
You and those race traitors!
White girls sucking monkey c#$&
You n#$%^& get ready to be blocked!
You bitches get ready to taste my Glock!
All you mother$#%& gonna learn
That all you can do is burn!
The song went on in that vein for the next three or four minutes, but those few minutes felt like an eternity for Arachne. Her living suit’s pained screams were like nails on the chalkboard of her mind, while Arachne struggled to remain standing in spite of it. It didn’t help that “soldier boy” kept pushing against her, and despite the pain the suit was going through, she really wanted to wipe the floor with him. When he came at her again, she pushed him into the sea of moshing bodies, which seemed to be even more violent than before thanks to the new song.
Arachne moved through the moshing bodies, trying to get away from them. She had to find Ethan, but she could barely see a thing thanks to the flashing strobe lights confusing her eyes. Then again, she didn’t need her eyes; she had a spider-sense for that sort of thing. She pushed through the moshing teens and out of their midst, struggling to remain upright despite the agony of the music. Much to her relief, the music stopped, but the audience’s cheers of “kampf” were slower to cease.
“Hey, Aryan warriors, you wanna test your killing skills?!” the DJ shouted. “There are some good shooters over in the next room! Check ‘em out and get some killing done in the name of Panzerblatt!”
Having already pushed herself out of the moshing crowd, Arachne was closer to the game room than most of the others. She opened the door and stepped inside, noticing a boy playing a computer game that resembled the Grand Theft Auto franchise of the early 21st century. She sidled up to him and asked, “What’re you playing?”
The boy turned to her, revealing Ethan’s face. “Salvation: New York City,” he answered.
“What’s that?” Arachne asked.
“I’m an ex-cop and I’m cleansing the city of the mud people,” Ethan replied. “They’re all thugs and parasites and criminals, anyway, so it’s perfectly all right.”
Arachne bit back a horrified response. How could he have changed this much? Out loud, “Looks like you’re having fun.”
Ethan pressed a series of buttons on the tactile keyboard and his player avatar shot an entire African-American gang to death with dual pistols. “Mission complete,” the computer spoke. The screen shifted to a cutscene featuring Ethan’s player avatar discussing the gang’s deaths with a clean-shaven man with crew-cut blond hair. Judging by their dialogue, the crew-cut man was pleased with Ethan’s player avatar for “eradicating yet more filthy animals” from the city. The screen shifted again, this time showing a variety of high-tech guns and ammunition while the voice of the crew-cut man explained what the guns and ammunition could do.
“Yeah, I am having fun,” Ethan admitted.
“What got you into this in the first place?” Arachne asked.
“I got sick and tired of the n#$%& running amok, making good people afraid to step out of their houses at night,” Ethan spat. “I got sick of the damn sellouts in Washington and Albany talking about how we gotta respect their ‘rights.’ What rights? Don’t we have rights, too? Like the right to be safe in our persons and our property, like the right not to be afraid that we’re gonna get robbed, or raped, or even killed by those do-rag-wearing f#$%&?”
“Yeah, I can see your point,” Arachne answered, swallowing the bile that rose in her throat as she spoke.
Ethan looked at her searchingly. “Hey, do I know you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Arachne tilted her head at Ethan.
“Nothing.” Ethan chuckled. “I think I’m just being silly, but your voice sounded really familiar for a minute. Like a girl I knew.”
“You wanna talk about her?” Arachne prompted.
“Nah. She’s in the past. That’s all.” He turned back to the game, embarking on the next mission, which was to kill a pimp who was forcibly prostituting white teenagers to black gangsters.
“If you say so.”
Arachne was about to leave when she spotted Leonie and Winter entering the room along with several other youths. “Hey, there are plenty of other computers. You can play something if you want,” Leonie suggested.
“What’s there to play?” Arachne asked.
“Just get on one and check the Games list,” Leonie answered.
“Sure,” Arachne acceded, sitting down in front of one of the computers and checking the Games list. She scrolled down, finding titles such as “Übermensch,” “The Reich Strikes Back,” “Endgame: Zionist Empire,” and “Revenge of the Aryan.” She resisted the urge to throw up, imagining just what the content of the video games would be. Worse, if she didn’t want to blow her cover, she would actually have to play one of those games. “What’s ‘Übermensch’?”
“It’s a superhero game,” a black-haired boy replied from two computers down. “Basically, you’re Nietzsche’s ‘man above men,’ a literal superman boosted to the maximum of human potential and ability, and it’s your job to lead a global revolution against the mud people infesting the planet. It’s like what Captain America would be if he weren’t such a tool for the Zionists.”
Arachne looked at Winter Soldier, and while his expression was utterly neutral, his eyes were flaring with righteous anger. Arachne looked back at him and made a silent promise to him. When we start wrecking this operation, you’ll get first crack at that son of a bitch. She turned away from him and clicked on “Übermensch,” letting the game upload and then signing on to play. She waited through the cutscene depicting how her character gained his powers and how the “Zionist scum” - as the narrator called the enemies - had made it their mission to destroy him.
Then the game started for real, and Arachne plunged herself into the dark, dank, and dirty world of white supremacist interpretations of superheroes. She played through the initial stages of the game, swallowing the vomit that rose up in her throat as she guided her character through vicious attacks on “race traitors” and “mud people,” both of which appeared in super-villainous incarnations. According to the karma meter, the more vicious and violent she was, the higher she would score and the closer she would get to being a true “man over men.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, she had gained a rooting audience from her efforts, including Ethan and Leonie.
“Damn good job, Liss,” Leonie commented.
“Yeah,” Ethan agreed. “Keep it up.”
“Gee, thanks for the support,” Arachne drawled, forcing the sarcasm in her voice.
“Hey, look out, that n#$%& is about to shoot you!” Ethan warned.
Arachne turned her attention back to the screen and snapped out the wrist-gun, shooting the attacking gangbanger in the head. The graphics of the impact of the shot were nothing short of gruesome, with brain matter, skull fragments, and blood flying everywhere. Arachne swallowed deeply, trying very hard not to lose her lunch in front of everyone watching.
“Hey, if you’re this good in a game, I wonder how you’ll do when we get rocking for real,” the black-haired boy remarked.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Arachne asked.
“You’ll see,” the black-haired boy replied somewhat cryptically.
Just then, Leonie peeked out the door and turned back to the others. “Hey, he’s here!”
“Who’s here?” Winter Soldier asked.
“The Hate-Monger!” Leonie replied.
“Hate-Monger?” Arachne echoed, confused. “Isn’t that the name of some lame-o super-villain from pre-reg?”
“Watch your mouth,” Leonie admonished sharply. “This guy’s badass.”
“Then let me see the guy myself,” Arachne answered, saving her game and standing up from the computer console. She joined the crowd filing out of the game room and into the main room. Once outside, she tried to look over the shoulders of those in front of her to see this “Hate-Monger.” Unfortunately, being only five-and-a-half feet tall and surrounded by young men much taller and broader than herself made that somewhat difficult. She looked for Winter Soldier, finding him near Leonie. “Hey, a little help here?”
Winter Soldier looked at Arachne once and then bent forward, letting Arachne climb onto his back. Arachne looked over his head and got a look at the Hate-Monger, a tall man with a clean-shaven head. He had a small patch of hair on his chin, a vestigial beard, while his ears and eyebrows had silver rings embedded in them. He wore an olive drab jacket over a black T-shirt emblazoned with a bleeding Star of David impaled by a sword-styled cross, and he had serrated black blades - no more than tattoos - rising from his neck. His eyes blazed with cold fire.
Is that him? Arachne asked Winter Soldier silently, having established a mental link by way of wiring her symbiote into his neuropaths.
Yes, Winter answered grimly. It’s him . . .
“Welcome, brothers and sisters in our kampf,” the Hate-Monger, otherwise known as Michael William Giles, greeted, his voice amplified by the microphone hooked to his ear. “I see we have some new people here. Why don’t we all take the opportunity to say hi and get to know each other a bit? Remember, these are your brothers and sisters in revolution, your kindred by the Aryan spirit and blood that runs in all of your veins.”
The crowd began to mingle amongst itself, longtime soldiers greeting new recruits. The “soldier boy” that Arachne had been so brutally moshing with earlier walked up to her and made an expression that was probably supposed to be an amiable grin. The unholy gleam in his eyes ruined that, though, but Arachne slipped off Winter Soldier’s back and greeted the boy.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Elisabeth,” Arachne replied. “Call me Liss.”
“I’m Van,” the “soldier boy” answered. “You know, you’re good at the whole moshing thing.”
“I’m an aggressive bitch,” Arachne retorted. “That’s how I got so good.”
“I like that in a girl,” Van commented. “Aggression. It goes a long way, in a lot of ways.” At that moment, warcore music began pounding out through the speakers again. It wasn’t as loud as when they were moshing, but it was still quite loud, and the lyrics were as violent as ever. “Hey, this is some pretty hardcore s#%$. I could almost dance to this. You wanna try?”
Arachne gave that some thought. She was instinctively repulsed by this boy’s beliefs and attitude, but she had to maintain her cover. Rejecting his invitation could be more trouble than it was worth. While her strength and agility would allow her to get the upper hand if he got too pushy, she would draw the suspicion of the others. Thus it was with a heavy heart, although carefully disguised, that she looked up at Van and prepared to speak.
None of you n#$%& get out alive!
We ain’t letting you out alive!
Gonna be buried in this pit,
All you little race traitors and mud s#%&$!
Blow your n#$%& brains out!
That you won’t live to doubt!
Wannabe n#$%&, your time has come!
All y’all bitch asses gonna be done!
At that moment, Ethan drifted up to them from Giles, having spent some time being personally introduced to the man. His bearing seemed rather nervous, but focused in spite of that nervousness. He looked at Arachne and asked, “Wanna dance?”
“Beat it, squirt,” Van spat. “She’s with me.”
“I never said I was with you,” Arachne retorted to Van. “Come on, let’s dance.” She took him by the arm and guided him away from Van and Winter, the latter of whom drifted over to Leonie. “Hey, wait, how do you dance to this stuff?”
“Like this,” Ethan replied and put her in a hold resembling a fusion of slow dancing and grappling.
“How’s this supposed to work?” Arachne wondered.
“It’s called Kriegtanz,” Ethan explained. “It’s like dancing and fighting together, only you do it with a partner instead of by yourself, and it’s better than that slave s#$&.”
“Looks like fun,” Arachne remarked, and half-grappled, half-wriggled against her partner. Ethan grappled and writhed against Arachne, the dance taking on the appearance of a physical struggle. “You know, I never got your name.”
“Ethan,” the boy answered. “Yours?”
“Liss,” Arachne replied. “Why did you wanna dance with me?”
“I just . . . I feel like I know you from somewhere, but I can’t place it.”
“Well, I’m probably not the girl you’re thinking of. Not these days. . . .”