Crossover Earth '98
Wayward #1 Christopher Shea
The only sound in the apartment was the gentle rush of slow-flowing water.
Li Hsien's footsteps made no more noise on the hardwood floor than a stray leaf
would have.
The American knelt motionless on a mat in the large room just beyond the doorway where
Hsien lurked, his back to the door. Glass walls on three sides of the room let in a
generous amount of sunlight, and the thickly clustered plants and the small ornamental
pond and waterfall before which the man knelt made the room look almost like a garden.
Only the gray rooftops of New York beyond the windows spoiled the illusion.
Hsien studied the American. "Wayward," he called himself, as if boasting of a
lack of discipline. If half the stories Hsien had heard about him were true, indiscipline
was the least of the man's flaws. It seemed incredible he could have learned anything of
the fighting arts. But Master Chang had warned Hsien not to underestimate Wayward. There
was a fierceness about him even in the calming pose, a tension in his back and shoulders
that spoke of violence. Still ...
Hsien hesitated. He should really leave, get back to the others, but seeing their prey
there, back turned and oblivious to his presence, was a temptation that might move even
Master Chang himself. What glory there would be for Hsien, if he defeated Wayward by
himself! Not giving himself time to think, Hsien leaped, one leg thrust ahead of him,
irresistible force focused in the ball of his foot ...
And then Wayward was gone. Hsien sailed across the mat, unable to react fast enough to
avoid an awkward landing in the pond. Water and lily pads slopped everywhere. Hsien had
half gotten to his feet when a stunning blow to the back of his neck doubled him over
again. Dimly he felt strong hands seize him at shoulder and waist, and then he was flying
through the air again to smack down hard in the center of the mat. A foot drove into his
stomach, and Hsien's breath left him in one great whoop as a gray haze slid over the
world.
Shaking his head, Wayward turned to where he had been kneeling and picked up a palm-size
square of metal. With the instinct of long practice, his fingers found the hidden,
strangely twisting seams, and he quickly unfolded it, transforming it into a metal spike,
five feet long and sharp at both ends. His lance, his favorite possession. Its slender
straightness was deceptive; there was a twisting and bending about it, more felt than
seen, that would have given M. C. Escher inspiration for half a dozen prints. Wayward
never got tired of looking at it. Hsien was beginning to stir, groaning, and Wayward
gently touched the tip of the lance to his throat.
"You know what this is?"
Hsien started to nod and caught himself just in time, as the motion made the lance score a
thin red line across his skin. Wayward smirked. "Dumb. Doesn't Chang tell you
people anything? This is *sharp*. If one of us so much as twitches wrong, it'll go through
you like a hot knife through butter. Now, how many of you are there?"
"I am alo -- ughh!" In one motion, Wayward swept the lance point away and kicked
Hsien hard in the ribs. Bone gave way. Wayward rested the point between Hsien's eyes now,
producing a small bead of blood.
"Chang doesn't send you guys alone any more. Unlike you, he's not stupid enough to
underestimate me. 'Course, if he was really smart, he'd just give up and leave me alone --
but then I wouldn't get to beat up useless punks like you. You were just here to scout me
out, right, but you thought you could take me. Wrong, big-time wrong." Hsien was
grimly silent. Wayward leaned down. "Come on, let's hear it -- you made a
mistake."
"I was ... overconfident."
Wayward hooted. "I'll say you were! Listen -- I am the *best* student Chang ever had.
I could take him in half a second, only I'd be ashamed to hit an old guy. You, what do you
have? Some crummy black belt? Did Chang order you to commit suicide or what? Never
mind, I don't care. All I want to know out of you is where your buddies are. I'll
save them the trouble of coming to look for you."
"You should surrender now. You cannot fight us forever."
The smile evaporated off Wayward's face like snow on a radiator, and before Hsien had
quite registered his movement, he had raised the lance and driven it through Hsien's
shoulder. The keen point went through flesh, muscle, and bone without slowing and bit deep
into the hard floor. Hsien writhed.
"Don't tell me what to do. Answer my questions." Wayward's face was dark red,
his voice all cold ferocity. "Where are they?"
"We are ... " Hsien groaned. "A friend of Master Chang's has a restaurant
... he gave us a room above it ... 181 Bleecker Street."
"Thanks, pal." Wayward pulled the lance free and extended a hand to his fallen
foe. "C'mon."
"You're ... not going to kill me?"
"Why bother? You ain't worth it. But I want you out of here in thirty seconds, or
I'll break you in half. Door's that way."
Hsien turned and fled, chased by Wayward's laughter.
***
It was a long way back downtown for the wet, bleeding, battered Hsien. He
had walked the distance easily that morning -- but now he was injured, and time was of the
essence. He had no money with him, and the few times he managed to swallow his pride and
try to ask a passerby for something, they invariably stared at him and drew away before he
could speak a single word. More than once a policeman looked hard at Hsien, forcing him to
dart down a side street, taking him further out of the way.
But finally he was cutting through Washington Square Park and passing through crowds of
New York University students to arrive at Bleecker Street. Gratefully he pushed through
the glass doors of the Chinese restaurant and then stopped, looking around him in shock.
The place was empty. Half-eaten plates of food, hastily discarded napkins, and overturned
chairs showed that it had not been evacuated quietly. All his senses were on alert as he
raced for the back of the restaurant, his injuries forgotten for the moment, and took the
flight of stairs quickly.
The first thing he saw when he emerged on the floor above was Jui Feng's body, in the
middle of the short corridor. Her back was broken and her cold eyes stared at the
fluorescent light above. His movements slowed by horror, Hsien moved unwillingly down the
hallway, eyes passing unseeing over the cracked plaster and the shattered furniture that
marked the site of a fierce battle. At the end of the hall, the door to the room they
shared hung partway open. As Hsien approached it, a figure stepped out. His blue-and-gray
costume concealed his identity, but Hsien knew him instantly. He held the deadly
needle-like lance negligently in his left hand.
"Yeah, they're all dead," said the all too familiar voice. "Cops'll be here
soon, but I wanted to wait around and see if you showed up."
"No ... no," Hsien stammered. "It is not possible! They were five of Master
Chang's most skilled students. How could one man ... "
Wayward smiled. "Who said anything about one man, kid?" And Hsien's jaw dropped
even further as a second blue-and-gray figure came out to stand behind Wayward ... a third
... and a fourth. "I told you -- I'm Chang's best student," the second Wayward
said in a voice exactly like the first's. "I know a lot of tricks you
don't," the third put in. "It's been fun, but it's time to go now," the
fourth said. "Give my regards to Chang -- oh, that's right, you won't be able
to." All four laughed, the same laugh that Hsien had heard as he fled the apartment.
The first Wayward's arm blurred, and the lance took Hsien full in the chest, piercing his
heart. He staggered back against the wall and slumped down, the lance disappearing just
before his body hit the ground and reappearing in Wayward's hand. The villain wiped the
bloodied point against the wall, just under a decorative mirror that had been cracked in
the fight. He glanced at it, seeing all four of him reflected in the shattered surface. A
slow smile spread over each face. "Michael Keaton, my ass," they said in unison,
and then vanished as the first sound of sirens reached into the room.