Hero

He looked, but he saw nothing.

Nothing that posed a threat.

He looked again — there had to be something. It couldn't be this easy.

Alex Devryasek stood at the edge of a broken lift tube, staring into the fading blackness that led to the basement. He looked around the filthy, reeking, grime-streaked lobby, eyes hunting for the trap, the trick, the thing that would try and stop him now that he was so close.

But still he saw nothing.

A dry, cracking tape strip held a yellowing piece of paper to the lift tube’s frame: OUT OF ORDER. This had to be a setup, some kind of defense. How could this be Timmerman’s building? War heroes didn’t live like this. Monarch-slayers didn't live like this.

The stairs — that’s where the guards would be, hunting for danger, utilizing the high ground, waiting to fire straight down on anyone brazen enough to try and penetrate the disguised fortress.

Alex felt the glow of fear in his chest. His nose itched. It always itched when he got scared. He considered the fear for a moment, considered his weakness, then scratched his nose and pushed the fear away. He headed for the stairs.

Tension wormed through his lithe body, threatening to cramp and knot his well-toned muscles. He ran through a quick breathing exercise, calming himself, bringing his body, mind and spirit under one unified control. The mantra of the Rillek Assassins ran ceaselessly through his head.

There is no defense against a perfect weapon.

The perfect weapon is cunning, calculating and ruthless.

I am all of these things.

There is no defense against me.

The words would die with him, for he was the last. Five centuries of tradition would fade from existence, probably as soon as he killed Timmerman. But that didn’t matter, not as long as Timmerman died this day. Poetic justice is all the more eloquent with your enemy’s brains cooked a crispy brown.

Alex reached up to his gray plastic head band and flipped down the attached eyepiece. It hung in front of his left eye like a red monocle. The head band looked like the typical street-reporter type, a hands-free recorder that captured everything the reporter saw and heard. This head band, however, held a full array of sensor equipment designed to ferret out cameras, motion sensors, auto-guns, trip beams or any other security device. Alex stared through the ruby-red eyepiece, scanning the door to the stairwell.

Nothing.

He nervously scanned the lobby for the third time, as if somehow he’d missed something the first two times, or perhaps threats had suddenly and miraculously appeared where, seconds ago, there had been none.

Where was the security?

Alex opened the door and stepped into the quiet stairwell. One of the light banks hung dead and gray, the other flashed with an erratic pulsing that filled the stairwell with a dim, irregular strobe effect. Thick layers of garbage — both rotting and fresh — almost blocked the steps. He scanned every corner, every shadow, even the garbage itself. Nothing. His nose demanded another scratch. Eyes wide and alert, pulse rocketing through his body, he started up the steps for the fifth floor.

At the third floor, the lights evened out. Trash still abounded, as did the ubiquitous anti-League graffiti. He reached the fifth floor—Timmerman’s floor. Alex stood very still, listening, seeking any sound that might filter through the landing door.

Nothing.

Alex's skin prickled. A wave of needle-pokes rolled up and down his spine. Where were the damn guards? This was Timmerman’s floor, of that Alex was certain, but if Timmerman lived here, where the hell was his protection? The scanner in his eyepiece picked up nothing … nothing, not even a single security device.

He focused his thoughts, knowing full well he might open the door to face a half-dozen armed League guards. The fear blossomed up again, a little bigger this time, a little more cancerous. But again he pushed it away — or at least he tried.

One way or another, this was the end of the line, and Alex would bridge any obstacle to complete the mission. A pinching fear made him want to draw his weapon, to feel the security of that lethal weight in his hand, but he resisted. He had a plan. His reporter disguise would probably get him close enough to take out the guards before they could sound an alarm. The odds were against him, probably, but that was nothing new for a Rillek Assassin.

Alex flipped up the eyepiece, took a controlled breath, then let the air out slow and easy. Fear would not stop him. He was ready. A lifetime of training had led to this moment — this mission was his destiny.

Alex calmly opened the landing door and stepped into the hallway.

Nothing.

Nothing but a dirty carpet and bits of trash littering the hall. Grime streaked the walls, as did spots of bad graffiti. The place was a dump. He’d thought the conditions downstairs some sort of ruse, thought that the fifth floor — Timmerman’s floor — would be a palatial apartment. What else would you expect for the man who’d almost single-handedly brought down a galactic empire?

This time Alex needed two fingers to scratch his nose. The Rillek Monarchy had fallen to the League of Planets, all because of Timmerman. Timmerman the Legend. Timmerman the Brave. Timmerman the Savage. Timmerman the Unkillable.

Timmerman the Fucking Hero.

That’s what they called him in the history classes. Alex knew the truth, knew that the man was a criminal of the highest caliber, but it’s the winners who write history.

Everyone knew the official story. As a child, Leon Timmerman had escaped the plantations of Collier’s Moon. He’d signed up in the LoP Marines and earned his sergeant stripes during action in the First and Second Galactic Wars. He was the man who infiltrated SpaceEnd Station in order to rescue Lieutenant Pamela Timmerman, his young bride, who’d been taken prisoner along with all the officers and crew of the League cruiser Listaine. On SpaceEnd, Leon Timmerman had killed the Monarch himself in order to create enough confusion that he could escape with his wife.

An assassin of a sovereign head of government, and they called him hero.

Well, Timmerman’s heroic days were over. Alex was there to make sure of that. It was far, far too late to save the Monarch or any vestige of the old ways. But it wasn’t too late for retribution.

Alex walked down the hall, feet crunching on discarded candy wrappers, sheets of used-up net-reader and an occasional empty tube of bender.

What was this place? How could Timmerman live in a drug house, a slum? The answer must lie inside apartment 5C.

It had taken Alex years to find Timmerman, a decade-long search across two dozen worlds and a hundred orbital settlements. The funny thing was no one seemed to know where Timmerman lived. They made movies about him, wrote books about him, yet no one had seen him in at least a decade. At great risk, Alex finally developed a mole in the League Office for Veterans Affairs. The mole obtained the address for Timmerman’s benefit checks. The address was an apartment registered to Timmerman’s daughter Celeste, of all things, under her married name of Brinswager. The benefit records showed that Celeste had moved a dozen times in the past ten years.

Alex flipped down the eyepiece and checked his sweeper again — still nothing. The eyepiece went back into the head band housing. He felt anxious, out of his element. He’d expected a dozen elite guards, the type of protection you’d see for a diplomat or ambassador. He’d expected to have to blast his way into the hall using the modified Transteel G-6 Enforcer tucked neatly into the holster at the small of his back. His nose never itched when he had the G-6 in his hand. He’d expected a war — but found nothing. Not a damn thing. Not even a fucking camera.

If the League scum were fool enough to let an assassin this close, then they deserved to have their timeless, un-killable hero blasted into several soggy pieces. Trick or no trick, it was time.

Alex straightened his tie and rang the buzzer for apartment 5C. Inside the apartment, a baby started crying. He heard the droning voices of a holovision, then footsteps. The door opened.

He’d studied the surveillance pictures enough to know every detail of Celeste Timmerman’s face, even though the pictures had been taken some fifteen years ago. She was in her early forties but looked a hard fifty. Celeste held a crying baby in the crook of her right arm, held the door open with her left. Heavy bags lined her eyes. Her brown hair looked dry and unkempt. A blotch of wet baby vomit rested on her shoulder. The faint smell of shit drifted out of the apartment. She looked exhausted, as if responsibility were the only crutch that kept her standing.

The baby bawling in her arm, she stared at Alex. “Can I help you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Alex said. “I’m Alex, from League Showcase Magazine. I called earlier.”

Recognition and anger flashed in her eyes.

“You again? Look, I told you, he’s not seeing any visitors.”

She tried to shut the door, but Alex slid his foot forward to keep it open.

“Please, Missus Brinswager, I’ve waited a long time to talk to him.” He towered over her, even though she had the thick build and height reminiscent of her hulking father.

Her voice went cold and staccato. “I don’t care how long you’ve waited, he’s not seeing anyone. And don’t call me Missus Brinswager … that bender-sniffing bastard is out of my life for good.”

“Fine. Miss Timmerman, then? Please, I only need a few minutes. What’s a story on war heroes without Leon Timmerman?”

“Jesus, mister — that was fifty-seven years ago. The galaxy has moved on, ya know? He’s an old man … I’m sure he’s not what you’re hoping for.”

“Please, Miss Timmerman, I’ll only be a few minutes.”

She took a small step back, considering. Alex was almost in the apartment. His senses hunted for the trap, for the secret defense that must be waiting until just the right moment to take him out. But even this close, he didn’t see anything. Celeste Timmerman held a baby, not a weapon; there was nothing dangerous in sight.

He threw out his best smile, white teeth blazing from behind his tanned skin. “Please, ma’am. I promise I’ll keep it short.”

Her brow furrowed for a moment, then the baby erupted into fresh screeches. Its little face wrinkled into a mask of misery. She sighed a tired, frustrated sigh, then switched the child to her other arm, letting the door swing open. “All right, mister, but I’m telling you I’ll be surprised if he can even hear you. Keep it short.”

“Don’t worry, I will.” Alex strode into the apartment. “This won’t take long at all.”

He casually flipped down the eyepiece, yet still, it gave no hint of any monitoring devices. He surveyed the small apartment: a kitchen, perhaps two bedrooms and, up ahead, a dark living room where the holovision droned a football game. Satirli 6 Explorers against the Harmon Free Radicals. The living room’s only light came from the holotank’s blue glow.

Silhouetted in those flickering images, a huge man slumped in a chair.

Timmerman the Hero.

Alex paused at the living room’s doorway. He felt the danger now, felt the adrenaline rocket through his system with a kick stronger than the purest bender ever distilled. His nose screamed to be itched. How many Rillek Assassins had Timmerman killed? How many elite Imperial Guards? Timmerman had once been called "the galaxy’s deadliest man."

Alex entered the living room. Celeste followed, jostling the crying baby in her arm, trying to comfort away its misery. Alex monitored her position without looking, always keeping a fix on her, ready to kill her in a blur of movement, ready to kill the baby, too, if need be. Whatever it took to get at Timmerman. If there was no security, well, that made his goal even easier.

He was close, so close — the last mission of the last assassin of an empire five decades dead, an empire that Alex had never known. He was thirty-two. All he knew of the old days was the League’s revisionist propaganda and the tales of his father, also a Rillek Assassin, heard through the partition of a prison visiting room.

All of that, and now he was here with Timmerman. The big, bald man sat in a beat-up grav recliner, the kind of chair used for fat people or invalids. Beyond him, the holovision showed that the Explorers were up 17-13.

Even as Alex came around the chair, he knew he’d found his prey. There could be only one man with those broad shoulders, that inch-thick scar running from between his shoulder blades to the top of his head, and that iguana tattoo on his throat, its tail wrapping all the way around his neck. The tattoo looked faded, blurred. The shoulders looked somehow wrong, perhaps not as broad as they should be … or perhaps they just sagged.

Alex’s training told him to pull the G-6 and put a hole in the back of Timmerman’s head. But the old man wasn’t going anywhere, and Alex wanted to see his face, wanted to see the expression as death came to claim the criminal.

Alex came around the front of the chair and stared at his target, ready to kill instantly in a dozen different ways — and despite decades of single-minded focus and training, breath escaped him in a sigh of astonishment.

Leon Timmerman sat in the grav recliner, staring more into space than at the feuding holotank images. Wrinkles lined his face, etched as clearly and deeply as his trademark scar. He wore blue pajama bottoms with no top. A terry cloth bib hung around his neck and rested on a chest that was once huge but now sagged like an old woman’s tits covered with gray gossamer hair. A thin string of drool ran from the corner of his mouth to the bib, which was wet in a dozen spots. A rough, patchy, gray beard covered his face, visible in the holotank’s flickering light.

The smell of shit was stronger here, and a scent of piss also filtered through the air. Leon Timmerman was slumped in his chair … no, not just slumped, but limp. Alex noticed a strap around Timmerman’s broad chest — a strap to keep him from falling forward. Timmerman stared blankly, probably as unconscious of the football game as he was of the spit hanging from his toothless jaw.

He was old.

Not just old, fucking ancient. Could this be the same man? Could this be the man who’d brought down the Monarchy? The man who’d killed so many men that even League historians had lost count? The man they sang songs about? Made movies about?

With one smooth motion, Celeste expertly shifted the baby to her free arm and reached out and wiped away Timmerman’s hanging spittle. Her expression wasn’t pity or satisfaction, but rather a beleaguered sadness. She appeared long-since resigned to the drooling behemoth strapped into the chair.

“Not what you expected, eh, Mister?” With her free hand, she lifted Timmerman’s bib and dabbed at his mouth.

“I … uh … no, he’s not what I expected.”

“I told you, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“What happened to him?”

“Same thing that’ll happen to me, to you, to everyone. He’s just plain old. His eighty-seventh birthday is coming up in a week.”

It made perfect sense, of course — Timmerman’s reign of terror ran its course almost sixty years earlier. Alex had expected an old man, sure, but nothing like this, nothing like this drooling moron. Here was Timmerman the Unkillable, Timmerman the Savage.

Timmerman the Fucking Hero.

“How long has he been like this?”

“Oh, he started going downhill when my mother died. Let’s see … that was about twenty years ago.”

“Twenty years? Pamela Timmerman has been dead for twenty years?”

“Yeah, twenty years … that’s about right.”

Unexpected thoughts ricocheted through Alex’s head. Pamela Timmerman dead. For two decades, no less. Sure, the Uprising had been in full swing when she’d been captured, but the Monarch had the situation under control — right up until the moment Leon Timmerman cut off his head. The beginning of the Monarchy’s end came because of that whore Pamela Timmerman.

Leon and Pamela’s story had been told a dozen different ways in a dozen different media, and in all that time, it had never crossed Alex’s mind that the pair would get old and die. There was something so immortal about the Timmermans’ story, about their timeless love, all that bullshit. But she’d been dead for twenty years, back when Alex was just a little kid who hated the League for putting his father in prison.

Alex stared at Leon Timmerman, who seemed to be a caricature of the once-imposing man. As Alex watched, Timmerman’s head lolled forward; another thin string of drool swung from his lower lip. Celeste dabbed at it with the bib, a reaction so automatic she probably didn’t even register it.

The small of Alex’s back tingled, right under the spot where the G-6 Enforcer rested. Not yet. Not just yet. He wanted Timmerman to see it coming, wanted him to know the Rillek Monarchy won out in the end.

Alex realized that his nose no longer itched.

“Why is Leon here, Miss Timmerman? Why is he here and not in some veterans’ hospital?”

“They won’t take care of him anymore,” Celeste said. She bobbed the baby up and down with one hand, the other hand gently caressing Timmerman’s bald head. The baby’s cries steadily faded away. “Can you believe that shit? They say they need the space for vets of the Creterakian Takeover. It’s hard to argue with them, really — you ever see the wounded from that war? It’s horrible what an entropic weapon can do. But still, you’d think they could take care of Leon Timmerman. It’s crazy that the people who make the decisions now weren’t even born when Daddy rescued Mom, when he killed the Monarch.”

“He gets benefits, right?” Alex realized he’d never thought to inquire about the amount of the benefit checks, only their destination. He’d just assumed Timmerman had all the money a hero could want.

“They’re still paying, but money at 2564 values doesn’t go that far in 2601, thanks to inflation, now does it?”

“No,” Alex said, his voice coming from some faraway place. “No, I guess it wouldn’t.”

“My ex-husband spent most of the benefit checks on booze and bender. Fucking bastard. Maybe things will be a little better now that he’s gone. It’s funny … Leon Timmerman is in all the history books, a real hero to the cause and all that shit, and they can’t even take care of him. No one wants to remember him like this. They all want the man that killed Romulis Rillek the Fifth. Like I said, Mister, all that shit went down fifty-seven years ago. Things move on, you know?”

Alex shook his head. It astonished him, even angered him, but he felt a pang of pity for Timmerman. Timmerman was a criminal, but he had also been an incredible soldier, a man who’d beaten odds so great, it was still hard for people to understand. The irony seemed overwhelming — the Rillek Monarchy would have never allowed this to happen to a warrior, to a hero. But the League was a far cry from the Monarchy. In a way, being forgotten by the nation he’d fought for was Timmerman’s just reward.

But still, Timmerman was alive. The Monarch was dead. Alex’s father had died after spending four decades rotting away in a League penal colony. Rotting away as a war criminal. A war criminal, for God’s sake, when he’d served his Monarch faithfully. And during his father’s sentence, they made movies about the real criminal. Drooling waste or not, this was the man who had brought down the Monarchy, who had destroyed Alex’s entire culture.

Timmerman had to die.

“Mister Timmerman,” Alex said, his voice automatically slipping into a tone most people use for small children. “Mister Timmerman? Can you hear me?”

Timmerman’s blank eyes never strayed from the football game.

Alex raised his voice. “Sergeant Timmerman? Can I ask you a couple of questions?”

Still no response. Celeste said nothing. She just stood there jostling the baby, whose cries had faded into tiny sobs.

Enough of this shit. What did it matter if the man saw it coming or not? Timmerman had to die anyway. Alex reached behind his back and pulled out the G-6 Enforcer. Celeste inhaled sharply. She covered the baby with both arms, trying to shield the toddler, but she kept her wide eyes riveted on Alex.

• • •

Celeste stared at the weapon, then at the stranger she’d let into her apartment. “Mister, what the hell are you doing?”

“He’s a criminal,” Alex said. “Old or not, he’s a criminal, and he’s got to pay.”

“Put that gun away!” Celeste felt her pulse racing, felt its rapid beat pounding through her body. Was this guy crazy? Was this some publicity stunt?

“Mister, put it away — he doesn’t like guns.”

Alex smiled. “That’s too bad. He’s also probably not going to like it when I blow his brains all over this shitty living room, either.”

Celeste tried not to move, tried not to stare as she saw her father blink once, twice, then slowly swivel his eyes to stare at the gun. Oh, God, not again, not again …

“Mister, listen,” she said in a quiet voice. “He’s a veteran, for God’s sake. Put that gun away now before he has a flashback.”

“The sad thing, Miss Timmerman, is that I have to kill you, too. You and the child. The evil of the Timmerman line stops here, stops now.”

She stared, she blinked … she finally understood the obvious. This wasn’t a media stunt; this nut case was for real. He was here to kill them all. Maybe she could talk her way out of it, talk some sense into the guy. She stole a glance at her father and felt the situation slipping from bad to worse — Leon stared at the gun now, his eyes no longer vacant, no longer empty. She forced herself to look away, look past the gun and look into the eyes of this would-be killer.

“Mister, please listen.” She tried to sound reasonable, but she just sounded scared. “I don’t know who you are, but my father isn’t a criminal.”

“Oh, really?” Barely controlled rage coated Alex’s words. “What if I told you I’m a Rillek Assassin? What if I told you your father is responsible for my father spending four decades in a penal colony? What if I told you my father was in prison for two decades before they let my mother have a child, and then only by artificial insemination? What if I told you I never once even touched my father? Can you see my point now?”

Celeste started to answer, started searching for the words to make the man just leave, but Leon Timmerman ended all discussion. His giant hand shot out. She heard a slap of skin as the hand closed on the assassin’s wrist.

The gun fired once. Celeste felt the tiniest whiff of air pass by her arm. Behind her, a huge chunk of wall blew apart in a spray of splinters. The smell of scorched plastic filled the room.

Alex turned to face her father. The brief look of disbelief on his face evaporated — he tried to pull free, but he couldn’t break the old man’s iron grip. Instantly Alex brought up his free hand, hitting Leon twice. The first punch made the old man’s crooked nose erupt in a gush of blood, and the second split the skin above his right eye. Yet Leon’s big head barely moved.

Celeste saw her father smile, saw his hand squeeze.

She heard a sharp snap — Alex let out a scream as his arm twisted at an unnatural angle, broken just behind the wrist. The gun fell to the floor. His face screwed into a mask of pain, then of fury; in a blur of blinding speed, he brought his free hand toward Leon’s throat, but the old man seemed to be waiting for just such a move. He pulled hard on the broken wrist. The pull and the momentum tumbled Alex into Leon’s lap. Leon’s free hand shot forward, fingers extended like claws, thumb heading for the assassin’s eye.

“Daddy, no!”

But it was too late. His thumb sank into the assassin’s eye with a soft, squelchy pop. His huge fingers wrapped around the man’s skull, palming it as a child might hold a toy ball — then a brief twist, a crunching sound, and the assassin went limp. A snarl of primitive fury still covered her father’s old, wrinkled, time-weathered face.

Celeste took a step forward and kicked the gun under the chair, out of sight. It was as if a light went off in the old man's head; the savage expression faded away. The blankness returned. He sagged forward in his chair, held up only by the strap around his chest. Once again, Leon Timmerman stared blankly at the holotank, a new thread of spit falling from his lips to land on the dead man in his lap.

Celeste felt weak. She half-fell, half-sat on the floor. The baby — now silent, of all things — remained cradled in her arms. Celeste felt her tears come and did nothing to stop them. A roar rose up from the holotank. She absently stared at the replay screen. A Harmon defensive back had intercepted a Satirly 6 pass and ran it back for a touchdown. The Free Radicals kicked the extra point, taking the lead 20-17.

Celeste looked from the holotank to her father.

“Damn you, Daddy. Goddamn you.” He had saved her life, her baby’s life, but those lives would have never been in danger if not for him.

Another flashback, another body.

“Damn you, Daddy … now we’ve got to move again. I love you, Daddy, I love you so much, but why can’t you just die?”

She already knew the answer to that. She wondered if he would ever die. He was, after all, Timmerman the Undying, Timmerman the Unkillable.

Timmerman … the Hero.