Part VI: The Law Falls Silent

Benjamin Russ is the king on this board of chess. He’s the father of Malcolm Bidd and Odin Roy, and the deadliest, most ornery, most subtle bastard in town. He’s commonly known as Boy Benjamin. Ten years ago, the wife of one of his many victims became absolutely convinced that she was going to succeed where countless others had failed. Bessie Mueller, widow of Freddy “Ratbeard” Mueller, wanted revenge, and the head of Benjamin Russ on a platter. She was an offspring of the Solomon clan, rulers of this roost before Russ’ arrival, before Viper, before Rancor, before the Cad. What nobody ever understood was that Russ is the grandson of John Winston Bidd, the Alarmist, the Blue Beacon’s chief rival of more than half a century ago. He didn’t go off to war because of the color of his skin.

The Alarmist rose during a time when he couldn’t have found less cultural acceptance. He lived nearly thirty years before he found a way, and he did it by doing what he had always done; struggled to survive, only this time he did it under a mask. Armed with a specially tuned bell, he set about making it safe for others to live, putting his own life in danger, and because he had no other abilities beyond his pure strength of will, every fight had the chance of being his last, every battle. He fought corruption. Does that sound ironic? He fought corruption and injustice, and raised a family that had as its only goal to make it to another day. The country was focused on a war, and recovery from a great depression, which made it easy for cities to be overrun with opportunists looking to remake or create fortunes, to seize power. The Alarmist was creating power of his own, but it never crossed his mind. He was angry every day of his life. Traverse had all but surrendered to the Solomons, even as its citizens did what they could to make things right on their own. William Tekamthi, the Dread Poet, invested in the future by ensuring good things were built, too. His betrayal, as the Beacon saw it, was anything but. He was doing what he could. When the Blue Beacon did come, a late arrival from the war and a symbol of the changing reality the Alarmist had worked so tirelessly to create himself, the world had already started the shift to a new reality, one that once again had no place for John Bidd. He didn’t fight for his people. That never crossed his mind. When others did, he wasn’t around to see it. He was already dead. He’d made his fight, and when he died, he thought he hadn’t made a single difference. His family was just as impoverished as when he’d rung his bell for freedom, and corruption still gripped his city.

The Bidds moved on. Mallory Bidd begat Benjamin, who saw the results of his grandfather’s work as John never could. The good fight had produced an opening, and the fight the Alarmist neglected had made it possible for the powerless to finally see the light. Things were changing, and people were, too. The powerless became less interested in settling, less interested in the status quo. They were finally seeing the common ground they stood on, and united against their oppressors. A single decade revolutionized a country. Half a decade later, a president was brought down, and Benjamin Bidd changed his last name, smashed his grandfather’s bell, took up his new cause. He would avenge the Alarmist. He would take the reigns of the city into his owns hands, take it away from those who would tell him what he could not do, when he alone knew what he could do, what he was meant to do, what any one life, given half the chance, was destined for. Benjamin Russ, who never lost the innocence of youth, took hold the reigns of responsibility. He took on the city of Traverse.

Were there compromises in the decades to come? Corruption? Of course there were. No dream comes about from a cocoon, fully realized. There is always work to be done, work that knows no end. And there are always those who think they know better, simply for the reason that they don’t like the methods currently in place. They see the mistakes, but they don’t see the future. Boy Benjamin has always reflected on how he is a man of vision, just as his ancestor was, how the Alarmist sprang as if a wake-up call. He was always more a beacon than the Beacon ever was. Why was there a rivalry between them? A clash of egos? A clash of methods? They were working toward the same goal. They were working to see a better tomorrow. Benjamin sees that tomorrow today. He sees that tomorrow always becomes today. And when Bessie Mueller came to tell him differently, he was forced with the same choice he’d made for thirty years.

Except his son had other ideas. His son, the one the Eidolon had rescued. Benjamin had always wanted to thank the hero, for that and for many other things. Yes, he wanted to thank him. Does that sound perverse? Can a man such as Boy Benjamin, who has only ever hoarded for himself, benefited himself, taken for himself, be seen as good? Can he be seen as a benefactor? He is, in so many words, a mafia boss. He is the mob, the godfather. Is there sympathy for him? Can there be? He gains because others lose, and rarely sticks his own head out to see how. His word is enough. He is sovereign. He would more accurately fit the profile of a feudal lord than a modern philanthropist. Yet that’s how he sees himself.

The intercession came as a shock to everyone. And yet it soon became clear that Odin and Elizabeth, as he preferred to call her, were not entirely strangers to begin with. Benjamin would still have killed her, as a loose end, a threat, or as a simple whim, had it not been for this, and he soon became very pleased with this decision. She had much to offer, this widow. She made Benjamin aware of many things he hadn’t known, and she brought with her Clayton Neville, who was more valuable still, knew even more. This had been at the beginning of the war, and in many ways, the start of it, moreso than anything the pest Viper had done. The Eidolon tried to get her back. It was almost an obsession. For so long he’d been gone, and yet right under Benjamin’s nose. He could almost laugh at this irony. The Eidolon came, and he brought Godsend with him. It was Godsend who interested Benjamin most, because he knew how to unravel him better than any other of these hostiles. Xenon, the grandson, as Benjamin was a grandson, took Lotus off the field, and through this Barracuda was persuaded to fight still further. This war in his city, it has been a matter of contests, orchestrated beyond imagination, champions eliminating each other until each side will be dwindled to a final decision. The hostiles, the barbarians at Benjamin’s gate, are approaching that hour.

Neither Malcolm nor Odin have given him a son, or a daughter for that matter. For this reason above all Benjamin blessed this union, and in effect, gave the signal for this war. He believes the third generation is always the key. He is a third generation. The Alarmist defeated the Blue Beacon in the third generation. This war will see Benjamin’s third generation reap. He wonders in victory, wonders at the causes for such needs. Why couldn’t Traverse support two champions? Why must they have quarreled between each other? They would have been stronger united. He has seen the same today, and he is certainly gracious that he benefits.

Benjamin enjoys most of all the luxury of sitting back during these hours. He has earned it. He is an old man now, his powers reached their peak years ago. Luckily for him, not too long ago, or he would have missed his window, for every victory comes from opportunity, which the careful are there to seize. His grandfather was always angry, but he had a power in that anger, and that power served as an inspiration in the mind of a boy who decided he would never grow up, and with the wisdom of the innocent, he was able to see what none other could: power is not a reward but an obligation. He is told that he is somehow evil because of this knowledge, yet none have ever truly challenged him. What does that mean? It means that he should never become concerned about this war.

In these hours, all he can do is relax, and his favorite form of relaxation is music. There was a time when he preferred it live, when he employed the choir of a local church to sing for him. Such moments tended to remind him that he was better off isolated, because there is always going to be the looming threat of doubt in the company of others. He has a chosen method to deal with that threat, but he long ago grew weary. No, wait, that isn’t true. He forsook that method the day the widow Mueller came to him, and he saw his son embrace her. He beheld her radiance, surely the most beautiful in all the world in that moment. His other son believes he was the instrument of that change, but he only made it official. No, Benjamin changed the day he saw something greater than himself. He had never known love. From that day forth, he was all but impotent. Yet that was the day the war began. The Eidolon came in pursuit of a late friend’s wife, convinced she was in mortal peril, and as he hadn’t for so long, this new vision of the angry avenger Benjamin knew so well was filled with a renewed passion for everything he thought he represented, and he at last set his sights on the biggest threat he had ever known. It wasn’t even the man who had betrayed him. For his part, Benjamin was honored.

In his own council now, Benjamin laments the news that this man, for intents, has met his end. “I will miss him,” he toasts, a pinot noir rolling about his glass as he says this.

Others in the room are uneasy. Malcolm and Odin, Elizabeth and Clayton, rarely all of them in the same room, some for more obvious reasons than others, each in turn raise their own glasses, each for their own reluctant reasons. Malcolm sees the Eidolon as his greatest rival, and now understands whom this torch is passed to. Odin sees a mentor whom he will never be able to properly thank now. Elizabeth sees the last act of treachery fulfilled. Clayton sees the man he wanted dead for so long, dead at last, and by his own hand, the method by which the sweetest he can imagine. The wine is bitter for each, and yet Benjamin doesn’t seem to notice. He places his glass down, and speaks again: “This business of ours is nearly at an end. The siege won’t last much longer, and even if it does, I have one more champion on her way, one more against one less of theirs.”

“They have recently brought their own reinforcements,” Malcolm notes.

“Negligible,” Benjamin says. One change the years have finally brung is that he no longer holds onto his boyishness in anything but appearance. He had once affected an entirely artificial manner of speech that now only embarrasses him to think about. He is the consummate professional, which makes him more menacing now than when he was trying to be. If he wanted, he could have taken the office his son won, on grounds no one would have found fault with. He brings respect with him now, but delegates it only when he deems it appropriate. “The Staged Man? When did anyone take him seriously? Brother Jack? Neither are in the league of the one warrior who refuses to enter this fray, who is herself hardly a match for my own champion, Gonzalez Inarittu. She will see this conflict to its end for us.”

If there’s anything a few of these figures have less taste for than the wine they’re meant to drink, it’s being told that they are inferior in this man’s eyes. One or two have made solids appeals on their own behalves, at least in their own eyes. One knows what he still hopes to accomplish, and he believes it will be greater still. Who is this woman that she holds such sway? Only the woman Benjamin loves. “She will prove a greater challenge than the meddling Viper ever could have,” he adds, and for a moment, his affectation shows itself again.

“I think you underestimate Viper’s worth to this campaign,” Neville says.

“Are you suggesting that I’m wrong?” Benjamin says.

“Of course not,” Neville says, “but to say he had nothing substantial to offer us is to refute the basic fact that without him, we would never have come to this. I believe this war has had its benefit.”

“Its benefit? ITS BENEFIT?” Benjamin howls. For those who knew him so well before the change, it is a far more unsettling moment than it might have been, just on the surface. His glass is shattered on the carpet, the wine staining the white hatch work. “Are you saying there was a need for any of this? That coming anywhere near, no matter how far they always remained, in obtaining their goal is acceptable? That even the suggestion of this city’s ruin has benefits? Benefits? You are a fool, Neville. That is why you have only ever been a pawn. Don’t you see that? Why you could never accomplish something great on your own? Is the Eidolon dead? Can you tell me? It was your job. You were supposed to kill him. Can you tell me that you succeeded? Can you truly admonish me for toasting the man, when you can’t even tell me that you defeated him? He is a far greater man than you could ever be, will ever be. He is still alive, he will still be alive the day your rotting corpse is disposed of, your sad duties on this earth finally complete. I will not kill you now, because you still have some use to me, and because I will kill you when it pleases me, and you will serve me all the better now, because you know your fate. You fool! This war has its benefit? I wish your service was ended now, you mongrel.”

Malcolm, who agrees with every word of his father’s, overheated though he knows them to be, listens to all this, knowing he is as liable of sharing such a fate as anyone else in this city, even though he is Benjamin’s son. That station means nothing. His political accomplishments mean nothing. His power means nothing. “This squabbling will achieve nothing,” he finds the courage to say, even though he relishes it. “You’re only going to help our enemy by dividing your ranks. We have worked a great deal at unifying our forces. Neville is, beyond everything else, an asset.”

“Of course he is,” Benjamin says, noticing what has happened to his glass, frowning. He calls for another. No one else has drank any more in this time, and he was already half-finished the spoiled glass. “You will forgive my temper, but as you may understand, it is frustrating, sitting before this war, the impotence of it. I don’t take it lightly, and I appreciate those who share this sentiment. I also appreciate your efforts, Clayton. I do. A man has certain instincts he’s hard-pressed to subdue. One would claim that such moments reveal the truth that’s hidden in the mind of the speaker, but I prefer to believe that truths are only revealed in action, and not in word. Words are useless. We can do with them as we like. It is harder to accomplish things than to talk about them.”

Those convinced by such words would not be found in this room. Odin, for example, knows better than anyone. As the youngest, he should have the least experience, but as his father discovered years ago, youth has its advantages in its observations. Youth is more likely to catch things older, more plotting minds may overlook. Odin seeks to accomplish his father’s bidding, which he has voiced here today, as much for the reasons Benjamin himself has expressed as for those more obvious. Neville is a parasite, unworthy of what he has lately assumed for himself. He sought to kill the Eidolon. He doesn’t have it within him. He doesn’t have the right. “I prefer, like my father, to believe the vigilante still lives,” he says. “He would make a greater asset than adversary. Is he so far from our ideals?”

“An interesting thought, my son,” Benjamin says. He is suddenly hungry for steak. It is the afternoon, he’s already had lunch, and yet he is suddenly hungry for steak. He will probably be eating it before long. He likes it red. He wouldn’t be waiting long. “Turn your foe to your own side. Would he as powerful for our cause as he is against it? Would his heart truly be in it? You have an interesting mind. An eager appetite, and an interesting mind, son.”

He never uses that term with Malcolm, and he’s never used its equivalent with Elizabeth. She never wanted to become a part of this, not even when she fell for Odin. She still wishes for the day all this can be put behind her, she longs for it, she needs it. Will she earn it? It’s this question that haunts her more than any thought, any regret, any other pain. What must she still do? She fears that she doesn’t have the strength anymore. The day she set out to murder Boy Benjamin, it was the most resolved she’d ever been. Even as a Solomon, she couldn’t bring herself to feel such hate. She married Freddy because he seemed to be so harmless. But that had only been in the sense she’d known, she came to realize. Freddy had still be dangerous, and thus, in danger. “Even if we did manage to turn him, he would become a greater threat than ever? Do you honestly think they wouldn’t become more angry? That their resolve wouldn’t be doubled? It wouldn’t matter what he brought to the table. It would be the end of us all. It wouldn’t matter if we won or not.”

“That is what your family is known for,” Benjamin says. “Its pragmatism. It’s why it’s lasted for so long. You do realize that, right?”

Elizabeth can’t help but blush, and feel ashamed for it. Malcolm can’t help but feel angered. This is a war they’re discussing, and these people are busy making each other feel better? It’s his father, though. He should understand by now. He wishes he could. “For ten years,” he says, trying to change the subject, trying to reinsert his perspective, his influence, his power, “we’ve had the law working on our side. It’s funny, they believe they should have the law the other way, and maybe they’re right. And yet we’ve been undermining them with their own rules, empowering them. That’s how your Eidolon came about in the first place. His whole story is riddled with it. We’re all familiar with his trial, how he was able to barter his freedom. The events in Texas around that time didn’t help, but our own system worked in his favor. Don’t you see? We’re in a position now where we can change that. We have been using our system for ten years to help them. I say that today, the law falls silent. When has it ever done anything but, in a time of war? We let them think they’re free now, free to pursue this conflict as they always wish they could, in the open. We thought it was always to our advantage, , our ability to flaunt the law while they were hindered by it. And yet, they were emboldened by it. All the while, they were no better than us, and yet we allowed the system to reward them. They have the public’s support. We can take that away. We can turn the tide with a single decision, we can win with a single word. Anarchy.”

Moreso than Benjamin’s outburst, this is the single worst moment of this meeting. Even Benjamin recognizes this. His son has asked that a line be crossed, a line that Benjamin long ago conjured out of thin air. He made it. Does he now approve its obliteration? Elizabeth is horrified, Odin troubled. Neville sees what his life has come to. He, like Benjamin, realizes that this is the moment they have been waiting for. This is the moment they seize victory. They retain the city by blessing its destruction. The city is law, the city is a line, the city is an intersection of civilization. Take away each of these? The plan is genius. And it is madness. So begin the descent.

Benjamin has finished his replacement glass. As if this is what they have been waiting for, each member of this council now begins to depart. Benjamin clicks on a stereo with a remote he has had handy all of this time. The choice of music is haunting. The Rolling Stones say “Gimme Shelter” and there’s no one disagreeing, not a single head nodding in dissension. The scene becomes a parade, a funeral march. Benjamin pulls Malcolm aside. “I might have had you killed, saying such things, before,” he says.

“I know,” Malcolm says.

“You’re m son, though,” Benjamin says. “I could never do that.”

“I know,” Malcolm says.

“I’m glad you do,” Benjamin says. “It warms my heart, it really does. Do you understand? I’m proud of you. I always have been. You think I prefer your brother, don’t you? You always have. I don’t know where you’d get such ideas. It pains me to think about. I love you, Malcolm. We both know what waits for you out there. I wish it wouldn’t come to this, I regret this war because of that. I don’t want to lose you. I believe in you, but I won’t pretend to know better. I’m not a fool, Malcolm. I would have said what you said, but it wasn’t my place. My time is coming to its end, too. I can’t ignore that. I respect you enough to say all this. I respect you as a man. You deserve to hear it. I’ve owed it to you for too long. I’m sorry for that. Even now, I can’t be sure how receptive you are to all this, and it pains me to think so. I should never have let things get this bad. But I can sleep easier knowing that you’re here, Malcolm, do you understand that? I can sleep easier knowing that I’ve done that much good in this world.”

He doesn’t expect a response, and Malcolm doesn’t disappoint him. This was a big day for both of them, these are important moments. They are acting out their parts.