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LIVINGSTON CHANCE TOME #3
"WHEN I GROW UP..."
WRITTEN BY JACOB MILNESTEIN
BASED ON CONCEPTS AND CHARACTERS CREATED BY
JERICHO VILAR

"Who is it whom I address?
 Who takes down what I confess?
 `Are you the teachers of my heart?'
 `We teach old hearts to rest.'"
- Leonard Cohen,
`Teachers'

1953

   Cold air brushed his pale, disjointed body, stirring the hairs upon the
back of his neck and unsettling the tail of his coat.
   Solemnly he placed the handful of tulips he had collected at the
graveside, watching the wind brush through the strands of grass that
filled those dormant and empty spaces between graves.
   From within his coat pocket he drew forth a familiar red and white
cardboard box and lit the final cigarette before crumpling the packet and
tossing it on top of the felled flowers that he had placed there not
moments ago.
   The deceased would have appreciated the irony.
   He had never smoked till their first meeting.
   It had been the deceased's influence that had caused him to take up the
habit in order to fill the void that his estranged wife had left behind
her.
   The other had claimed that it would improve his image as a secret agent
if he smoked and so in order to appease him, William Fencer had taken up
smoking.
   They had been friends then, over twenty years ago now. Both men had
been assigned to the particularly gruesome murder of a fellow operative
and their friendship had been the only thing that had kept them going
through those dark times.
   But that was the past and Fencer was not one to dwell upon events that
he could not change.
   He smiled sadly and cast his eyes down upon the stone testament to his
former friend's death.
   "You'd like it here, Chance," He said, voice soft and bereft of the
harsh arrogance he presented when in the company of his peers. "It's nice
and quiet, the kind of place you always wanted. I wonder what Josephine
would say if she could see you now." He laughed again, reminding himself
that it was not regret that formed tears in his eyes but the acrid smoke
of the cigarettes. "She'd probably be laughing. Say you got what you
deserved. And she'd be right. You were a bastard when you were alive. You
treated everyone like you met like some piece of shit on the bottom of the
shoe, always willing to believe the worst. I'm glad you're dead, Chance.
I'm really fucking glad."
   The warm tears ran down his cheeks, tracing lines towards his cracked
and dry lips before falling like rain upon the cold surface of the
gravestone.
   "I did you a favour. Everyone hated what you'd become and I know you
hated yourself most. I saved you for dragging out on your torment longer
than you would have wanted. I'm your fucking saviour, I am."
   The grave offered him no reply.
   "But there's no need to worry now, no need for you to do anything
anymore. You're one of the few that aren't going to have to deal with all
the shit that's in store for the rest of us. A world without Livingston
Chance.sounds like a paradise, doesn't it? But it won't be. It'll be Hell.
Someone once said that each of us create our own personal Hells. Well,
look at me, Chance, old mate. I've gone one step further. I've got Heaven
and Hell all wrapped up in one nice little package. And you, you're the
root of it all. You're death is what changes everything."
   He smiled and dropped the cigarette from his hands and onto the soft
petals of the tulips below, watching as they withered beneath the
intensity of the heat.
   "But you don't need to worry about that anymore, old friend. You don't
need to worry about anything anymore. I'm going to take care of Sophia
now; you don't have to act the big brother part anymore. Everything's
going to be perfect, I promise you." He spat the words with such venom
that spittle began to form around his lips and his entire body almost
quivered with anger.
   Slowly he turned and walked away from the grave.
   The stone remained, the flowers quietly burning in the wind.

*

2200

   "Good evening. This is Mariah Roque on the Special Reports Desk with
breaking news. As we speak Albion forces are mobilising for an attack
against our beloved nation.
   "As yet the number of enemy craft is unconfirmed but we can now report
that United American forces have already been mobilised and are occupying
the front lines as we speak.
   "As citizens of the greatest nation in the world you obviously have
nothing to fear. It has long been known that the forces of Albion draw the
majority of their power from their connection with beings allegedly of a
divine nature yet seeing as how our beloved homeland is the first
alchemist super-state, such forces, whether they be of Heaven or Hell, are
truly below us.
   "Newly inaugurated president, Nikolas Darwin III will be making a
speech on this matter later on in the day and you can trust UANN to give
you the full story as it breaks.
   "I'm Mariah Roque for the UANN Special Reports Desk. We now return you
to your regularly scheduled programmes."

   It started with a flicker.
   Francis Grayson stood alone upon the steps of his house, withered and
liver spotted hands curling together in fear as the night sky brightened
with the threat of the oncoming storm.
   The bright light collided with one another, created picturesque
patterns upon his retina, Chinese dragons warring against one another.
   Once upon a time he had been one of those lights, one of the stars that
made up the dragons that filled the sky.
   Once upon a time he had been a superhero, once upon a time he had been
the Grim Knight.
   But those days had ended abruptly on a cold night in 2189 when he had
lost not only his lover but also his will to continue the legacy his
predecessors had inscribed in the Grayson family history.
   He had cast away his masque and costume and lost himself in a world
that had never known outside of the rules he had established.
   The world had never known Francis Grayson, only the Grim Knight and yet
tonight, as the skies were illuminated by those that had followed after
him, he would quietly shuffle off the world's stage.
   A single tear rolled down his cheek.
   Carefully he wiped it away and, smiling sadly, Francis Grayson returned
inside.

   Slowly he removed the masque from his face, placing it face down upon
the smooth surface of the desk.
   It remained there, blank eyes, scared by fractures and bloodstains.
   The path he had once walked with such conviction was now closed and
distant. The skies were full of the raging storm that had erupted of the
past nights between Albion and the United Americas, a war that allowed no
room for the movement of individuals just the mindless slaughter and
mutilation of two world powers locking horns in the eternal struggle.
   Such concepts were non-redeemable and pointless. They were testament to
the old adage that nothing lasts forever.
   He had no taste for violence, not now; not after all the mindless
skirmishes that had filled his life.
   Born into the violence of his family home, he had known nothing but
hardship. Childhood psychology scared by a misinterpretation of basic
morals. In psychological terms he was what was known as a psychopath. Not
in the misguided popular conception of the word but in its actual meaning,
he was cold and indifferent to the suffering of those around him,
emotionally retarded in regards to the pain that his actions caused. His
understanding of cause and effect and the very nature of consequence was
limited to say the least.
    It had been these psychopathic tendencies that had driven him to hide
beneath the scared and battered masque he had worn.
   Until today...
   Today when the skies had erupted above him, threatening to fall down
around him. He was no Atlas, this much he knew. He was incapable of
shouldering the burdens of others at his own expensive. By nature he was
far too selfish for such acts yet the very idea of such a collapse and hit
hard against those cold beliefs that had contributed so much to the
definition of his character.
   With shaking hands he had removed the masque and looked upon the cold
face of the world with his own eyes, warm tears running down his cheeks
and tracing lines through the days worth of stubble that adorned his pale
skin.
   He hadn't cried in over ten years.
   Until today...
   The soft step of feet against stone awoke him for his reverie, a
whisper of cigarette smoke proceeding them.
   He turned around, wild eyed and confused.
   A young woman waited in the doorway for him, thin and pale, red hair
falling in curls over her shoulders and down her back.
   She was roughly in her thirties; the cigarette poised in fingers that
displayed signs of continual nail biting.
   "Who are you?" He whispered, the light danced across her pale features
from the flickering candles.
   There was something in those eyes of hers that were cruel and viscous,
something that reminded him of someone else he had once known...
   She took a long drag on her cigarette and exhaled through her perfectly
sculpted nose.
   "Every story needs a twist or two, doesn't it?" She curtsied in mock
appreciation of her fictional audience and smiled broadly at him. "I'm the
twist. I'm the person you don't believe in, the uninvited guest if you
like."
   She leant against the doorframe, the cold glint from her eyes
translating into an equally cruel and uncaring smile.
   "So, you've decided to cop out have you? Decided to walk away from the
situation because it's bigger than you and has more sets of teeth than a
busload of pensioners? You big pussy. Grow a fucking spine."
   "Y-You don't understand..." He stammered.
   "Of course I understand, I'm heir apparent to all this shit." Again she
smiled, flashing her nicotine stained teeth as the lips curled up in their
familiar cruelty.
   "Who are you?" He repeated.
   She took a deep breath from her cigarette and then turned to look him
in the eye.
   "Chance." She replied. "Sophia Chance."

   Saranyu looked down upon the leather bound tome that rested in her the
palms of her delicate hands.
   It was the book - The Chemical Wedding of Livingston Chance, most
sacred text of late 20th century alchemists.
   She had been a librarian for centuries, once she had even held the
position of Chief Librarian within Elysium's own great and vast library.
But that had been centuries ago now, more years than she cared to remember
for fear of realising how old she was.
   She shook her head, attempting to focus on the matter at hand.The
Chemical Wedding of Livingston Chance.
   Never in all her life had she seen such an artefact, let alone held it
within her hands. If rumour was to be heeded then the pages of the book
were fashioned from the oak of the great World-Tree, Yggdrasil, itself.
   She turned to the man who waited, arms crossed before her.
   She knew this man; she had even worked with him on occasion before the
Inner Sanctum had butchered his friends.
   "How much do you want for it, Blackburn?" She asked, her voice tired
and weary.
   "Nothing much," He shrugged. "I don't want money if that's what you
mean."
   She arched her eyebrows, invisible behind her purple eye mask.
   "Then what do you want?" She demanded.
   The man smiled, flicking a cigarette up into his mouth and lighting it
with an antiquated box of matches.
   Saranyu abhorred the stench of cigarette smoke.
   "I want you to stop the war." He said, his voice calm and quiet as a
whisper.
   She turned to look at him; her eyes widening and her hands almost
losing grip on the ancient volume that her former colleague had delivered.
   "You're insane." She cried, almost louder than she had originally
intended. "You can't ask me to interfere in matters of the Inner Sanctum."
   Blackburn smiled darkly.
   "Well, if that's the case, maybe you're not as interested in the book
as I thought you were. I'm sure there's a few others I might know who
would be interested. Perhaps a Fallen Angel or two?"
   He reached over to snatch the book from her grasp but she pulled
violently away, her eyes fall of terror as if this man had threatened her
with something far worse than the removal of a solitary book.
   But Saranyu was a librarian, and Blackburn knew that Heaven's book
collector could be very zealous about her chosen obsession.
   "Alright!" She cried finally, her voice echoing throughout the vast
corridors. "Alright, I'll do it."
   Blackburn's smile grew, the cigarette smoke curdling before him and
obscuring his tired and world- weary features.
   "I knew I could count on you, Saranyu." He stated, letting the
cigarette tumble from his hands and hit the smooth metal floor. "Its a
piece of piss, honestly it is. You're practically sitting on top of the
biggest mistake Albion could have ever made. All you need to do is to get
to the Hawksmoor #006753 and activate the old Team 36 self-destruct codes
and you're sorted." He paused, running a liver spotted hand through the
unruly mop of hair that rested atop his head. "Look, I know this is a lot
to ask but there's no other way of doing this. Christ knows I don't want
the UA to win this one but neither Albion nor Darwin is going to back down
on this. The best that cunts like us can do is sabotage both efforts. I'm
going to do my best to cope with the Mystery Society and I need you to
deal with Albion. You have anyone you can trust on this?"
   Saranyu sighed and averted her gaze to the smouldering cigarette upon
the floor.
   "No." She whispered. "I don't have any friends anymore."
   Blackburn smiled smugly.
   "Why doesn't that surprise me?" He smirked. "Listen, I don't give two
shakes of a dead dog's cock how you do it, just fucking do it, alright?"
   She nodded.
   "I understand."

   The broken former superhero sat down on the edge of the bed, looking
out at the night sky.
   Chance stood to his right, smoking her umpteenth cigarette as she
examined the fractured masque he had been wearing.
   "Why did you become one of the `men in tights' then?" She asked
absently.
   He shrugged.
   "I'm not sure really. I just wanted to do the right thing, I guess."
   "Buggered that one up, didn't you?" She smiled. "What were you called?"
   "Demerite." He answered. "Like demerit but with an extra `e'."
   She was silent for a moment.
   "That's really fucking lame." She finally announced.
   "I know." A faint smile crossed his face. "But you've got to have a few
screws loose really to even consider it. I mean I never had any
superheroes either. I was never exposed to cosmic radiation or born on an
alien planet, I was just a stubborn bastard really. I wanted to do what I
believed to be right but I didn't believe I was a good example...I've done
bad things, just like everyone else, perhaps more so. I wanted to create
an alternate identity, someone pure. That's where the masque came from."
   "You wanted to run away." Sophia interjected.
   "Yes, I suppose in a fashion you're right. I did want to run away."
   "So why aren't you running now?" She asked.
   "I tried." He replied, disheartened. "But I can't run from something
that's all around me and in every direction."
   "Then what are you going to do?" She probed.
   A sarcastic smile crossed his face, naked now without the masque.
   "I'm going to do nothing at all." He answered, spitefully.
   She smiled.
   "Sit back and enjoy it." Sophia answered. "And welcome to the
universal."

   Saraquel's feet brushed the ground, the large and imposing structure of
the central library overshadowing her.
   "This is the place?" Bethany asked, casually tying her pale, blonde
hair back in a ponytail and then reaching for her cigarettes.
   "This is the place." Saraquel answered, holding the door open for her
companion.
   "You sure this friend of yours will know what to do?"
   "I'm sure. She's one of the most knowledgeable Angels in the history of
our people, she'll have the answers."
   "A little knowledge can be dangerous." Bethany smiled sadly. "A lot of
knowledge can wipe out entire worlds."
   "Pardon?" Saraquel asked, turning her head slightly as the two of them
made their way down the vast, marble hallway.
   "The atomic bomb was developed a few people with a little knowledge. It
devastated both Hiroshima and Nagasaki that the skin-peeled from people
within a two-mile radius of the explosion. That's a little knowledge.
Someone with a lot of knowledge could conceivably wipe out entire
universes just be thinking about it. Thank Christ humanity was born blind,
deaf and dumb to such knowledge."
   "I'm not sure I follow your line of thinking." Saraquel frowned behind
her domino mask.
   Bethany shrugged.
   "Ignorance is bliss, I guess. Maybe that's what I'm saying, I don't
really know for sure."

   Isaac's mechanoid crumpled beneath the relentless barrage of attacks.
   Warning lights flashed about him, the fire from the outside city
seeping in and discolouring his features.
   A small trickle of blood run down his forehead, ironic for a vampir to
bleed but the blood was present none the less.
   His adversary stood, clad in his own mechanoid suit, a customised
Darwin model if Isaac guessed rightly.
   He had no idea as to the identity of the pilot only that he was
obviously a Mystery Society agent, and quite a high-ranking one if the
personalised nature of his mecha was anything to go by.
   The opposing machine was light blue in colour, its faceplate covered in
a gaudy design that made it look as it wore the face of an eagle. From its
back, great metallic red and yellow wings extended, stretching so far back
that they almost formed a horizon of their own.
   His own mechanoid staggered back a step, the mini-gun still rattling
even though his ammunition had long since been spent.
   The great machine collapsed, falling to its knees before the enemy.
   "Who are you?" Isaac gasped. "At least let me see who the fuck you
are."
   The adversary remained standing still for a moment and then slowly the
chest panel began to open, revealing the shape of a man dressed in an
eagle costume.
   He stepped out onto the platform and looked at the felled mechanoid
before him.
   A smirk crossed Isaac's face.
   "Another superhero." He whispered, his life slowly draining away. "Just
another fucking superhero."
   Slowly, Mystery Society operative Eagle-Eye lifted his hands and
removed the visor from his face, revealing a man partly of Oriental
heritage, long black hair spilling out as he lifted the helmet from his
head.
   In a single liquid movement he raised the quantum rifle and aimed for
the coolant tank of Isaac's mechanoid.
   "My name," He whispered through gritted teeth. "Is Jakob Harkes."

   Saranyu turned, clutching the book close to her chest.
   Framed in the door were two women - one of them an Angel, the other a
human. The Angel was considerably taller than her companion and easily
identified as Saraquel, Paris' Guardian Angel. The other woman was a
stranger, tall by human standards yet not as tall as the Angel standing
beside her.
   She had long, stringy blonde hair tied back in a loose ponytail and the
clothes she wore were baggy and looked somewhat the worse for wear.
   "W-What do you want?" The librarian stammered, taking a step backwards.
   "We need your help." The younger woman announced, looking the librarian
up and down, seizing her up if I fight should ensure. "We need to stop the
war."
   A brief look of confusion then uncertainty crossed the librarian's
face.
   "D-Did Blackburn send you?" She demanded.
   "Who's Blackburn?" The woman asked, continuing to approach.
   A thousand thoughts ran through the librarian's mind, her heart
pounding in her chest as desperately she tried to make sense of the
situation she was confronted by.
   "You best tell us the truth, Saranyu." The other Angel warned, her
voice low yet threatening.
   "What's the book?" The human asked, gesturing at the book the librarian
kept close to her.
   "I-Its nothing. Honestly, its nothing." Saranyu stammered franticly.
   She reached forwards and pulled the book from the Angel's grasp,
looking down with a frown at the etched letters upon the cover.
   The librarian emitted a small yelp and almost fell over herself.
   "The Chemical Wedding of Livingston Chance." She looked up. "Does
anyone else know you have this?"
   "N-No." Saranyu gasped.
   The younger woman turned to the other Angel and smiled almost as if in
apology for the events that had transpired.
   "See, knowledge is dangerous." She said sadly.

   Skies once full of stars, now full of repetition.
   Distance - no distance at all.
   Blossoms of illuminated flowers above towers of glass and steel,
discoloured canvases of abandoned bodies, eyes staring blankly at the
fireworks above.
   Relativity...
   Identity...
   Stars replaced by the last shimmers of broken wings and fire avatars
burning out like supernovas seen from a distance.
   There was no place for ordinary people amongst the stars, not any more.
Wars fought between aspects of age-old divinity and the metahuman
representatives of the world's alchemist nation required no assistance or
permission from those they perceived as their `subjects'.
   Gradually he shifted his internal organs within, rearranging them in
accordance with his changing exterior.
   The predator stood up on two feet and walked in the skin of a man.
   It was a cornerstone of Semitic faith that Man had been in God's image,
Coyote on the other hand was a God who walked only occasionally in the
image of a man.
   "I know you're there." The other whispered, voice dry and harsh.
   The predator watched him, dark eyes following his every step.
   "I should have known that you'd end up here." A faint smirk played
across his tired features. "After all we've been through together I would
have been disappointed if you hadn't shown up for this last dance of
ours."
   "Then you know we've reached the end of our little tale, you and I, you
know that beyond this is nothing but ambiguity for the both of us." The
former animal answered.
   "I know." Blackburn nodded sadly, trails of raindrops running down his
face.
   "This get this over with then." Coyote snapped impatiently.
   Blackburn nodded once and turned to take a final look at the burning
horizon.
   In a single instant Coyote's fist had punctured his stomach lining and
exploded from his back in a terrible blossoming of some alien flower made
from blood and bone, frozen in time and spilling out of the hole in his
back, hauntingly suspended in the air.
   A trickle of blood ran from his mouth but his eyes displayed no
surprise.
   Another moment passed and the lights on the horizon began to darken...

   Together they stood on the steps of the old military facility, watching
the fireworks in the sky above them and passing a bottle of Jack Daniel's
between them.
   Chance struck a match against the stone wall and lit her cigarette,
blowing a silent cloud of smoke out towards the fighting as it grew ever
closer to them.
   "What will you do after this?" Demerite asked, clearly interested and
optimistically inclined towards the idea that they would survive.
   "I'm going to clean up." She remarked.
   A frown crossed his face.
   "How do you mean?" He asked.
   "Well," She smiled, turning to him. "Supposing we do survive all this -
and incidentally I don't think we will - the world will be full of poor
bastards like us, yeah? Economy will have collapsed and everything will be
going to Hell in true Fist of the North Star fashion. What's the one thing
people are going to need to re-establish civilisation and order?"
   The frowned on his face deepened for a moment before finally he turned
back and looked at her.
   "Food, drink, money?" He hazarded a guess.
   She clipped him round the head with the back of her hand and scowled.
   "Don't be a twat." She reprimanded. "What people are going to need to
re-establish civilisation and order is fags." A broad smile spread across
her face. "I've got an entire house full of duty-free Spanish boxes of
2000 Marlboro per box. I'm going to be the new fucking Empress of the
world."
   "But how are they going to pay you?" Demerite questioned.
   She scowled at the horizon and took another drag on her cigarette.
   "Shit. Hadn't thought of that one." She remarked.

   The lower levels were shrouded in both darkness and secrecy.
   Upon discovery of the book she held in her possession, Saranyu had
willing agreed to lead her fellow Angel and the strange young woman down
into the depths of the Albionic palace, explaining her situation and how
she had come into possession of the book.
   They arrived at the door in question and with a certain amount of
terror clearly visible in her features, Saranyu opened the dusty old room.
   The scene within was both horrific and fascinating at the same time.
   In the corner of the room rested the remains of a ruined old
simulacrum, half its face blasted away by some age-old wound. The legs and
parts of the torso were missing as was its right arm but the sole
remaining eye still glared bright in the shattered and exposed contents of
its skull.
   From its wounds a pale white substance leaked and even in the
considerably dim light they could clearly see its dry lips moving.
   Bethany stepped closer, leaning in towards it so as to hear the litany
it recited. What she heard turned her face white and would haunt her for
the short remainder of her life.
   Smiling sadistically, the machine continued its recitation:
   "5...
     4...
     3...
     2...
     1...
     0..."

   The world fractured in a truly spectacular fashion.
   In a quiet room within the White House, Nikolas Darwin III glared with
wide eyes as the world began to turn white around him and then dropped
dead of a heart attack.
   In a small room in a house on New York's Staten Island Francis Grayson
placed a shotgun between his lips.
   On the steps of an old military facility in Albion, Demerite and Sophia
Chance took their final swigs of whiskey.
   In the hills of Tibet, Zhing Ra-Ming stood triumphant above the fallen
corpses of Mystery Society Cell #36.
   In a darkened cellar, Bethany Richards tried desperately to shield her
eyes from the blast as Saranyu and Saraquel looked on in terror.
   The world died, collapsing in upon itself and fading into nothing but
dust leaving a cold and empty void in the space it had once occupied.
   The story had run full circle.
   The joke was the ending had already written, long before the beginning.
   In the ashes of the planet, no life stirred yet somewhere out beyond
the cosmos the story would begin anew...
   Somewhere...

*

1921

   Sophia Chance sat upon the high wall, watching the trailing procession
of people as they made their way to the various places of employment and
education.
   Her mother stood just below her, patiently waiting for the crowds to
ease in order to take her own path into the trials and tribulations the
day held for her.
   Sophia wrapped a finger around her long curls and squinted in the early
morning light.
   "Mummy," She said, her voice still coated with the last remnants of
dream.
   "Yes, dear, what is it?" Her mother asked distractedly.
   "When I grow up I want to be just like my brother."
   A chill filled Mary Chance's heart.
   "Surely you must mean your big brother, William?" She asked
uncertainly.
   Sophia shook her head, smiling broadly from ear to ear.
   "No, I want to be just like Livingston."
   Inwardly her mother wept bitter tears of regret.

FINIS