Authors: Daryl Gregory
"I can’t hurt him, you know," she says. "The sword can’t even touch him."
"Yeah," I say. Meaning, Yeah, I noticed that when you tried to chop him in half—but I don’t have the breath for that. I was with Soliton when he went after Teresa a few weeks after Chicago. I was still on his side, then. Still a believer. We’d just discovered what she’d done to Dr. Hunter, and I went along to try to get her to surrender peacefully.
Yes, I was an idiot.
She was waiting for us in the Utah desert, a hundred miles from the nearest town, so that they wouldn’t kill anyone when they went at it. Until that day I’d thought that Lady Justice was Soliton’s match—the check to his nearly unlimited power—but no. That’s not the way this world works. Soliton will have no other heroes before him.
We reach the landing at Level 1 and Plexo’s yelling in my ear: She just ran past me. And me! Down the central stairs. She’s checking the stairwells, man. Move! Somewhere below, a sound like the roll of thunder: titanium boots hammering concrete, fast as machine gun fire.
I yank open the door and stumble through into a long hallway hazed with smoke: the row of intake rooms where they processed me. The old woman on my back feels like a cast iron stove. I drop to my knees, and Teresa slides off and thumps to the ground. I manage a "Sorry."
Dim figures wrestle in the distance. Voices shout. I get to my feet, turn toward the stairs, braced for her.
I’m wrong again. She comes at me from behind, through the smoke.
The Gazelle, fastest animal on any number of feet, skids to a stop with a scrape and shriek. I wheel to face her.
God, she’s beautiful. The costume looks like it’s been redesigned by Jean-Paul Gaultier, but she’s kept the thigh-high golden boots. They still knock me out.
"Hey, Jackie."
Her voice comes out in a squeal—she does that when she’s revved up—but then she concentrates and brings down the speed. "—combing this place for you, Eddie. No, I’ve been looking for you for months. What the hell are you up to? What are you doing with her?"
I think it’s pretty obvious, but I want to be helpful. "I’m kind of ... " I take a breath, and then cough in the smoke. "I’m in the middle of a jail break."
"Oh, Ed. You were doing so well." I frown. I don’t think I was doing well at all. She says, "Listen to me. I’m going to round up the escapees, so why don’t you get out of the crossfire, and afterward—"
"You’re using that mom voice again."
"Dammit, I don’t have time to argue you with you. Take Teresa into a cell and wait for me to come back."
I glance back. Teresa’s on the ground behind me, propped up on her elbows. I say to Jackie, "If you’re trying to talk me into turning myself in, that only works once." I cough again. "I will say this, though, you were right about the quality of that hospital. Great doctors, professional staff, decent food. Except for the forced meds, it was—duck."
She becomes a blur, and a big green arm swings down through the space where she’d been standing. Her leg comes up in a roundhouse—two loud thwacks as she spins and connects twice before the man can even recoil—and Johann the Lizard Man hits the floor.
"You still trust me," I say.
"I heard him coming." But there’s a smile in her voice.
"You know what diagnosis they gave me?" I say. "Adjustment disorder. I’m not much for psychological mumbo jumbo, but I had to admit that that one was dead on."
"Eddie ... "
"You ever read the Gnostic gospels, Jackie?"
She stares at me.
"It’s like they’re talking about Dad. An insane, capricious god messing with us for his own amusement. That’s when I realized, if God is insane, how can there possibly be a cure for an adjustment disorder?"
"Ed, your jailbreak is over. The only question is—"
"Over? Before Dad gets here? He’ll hate that. He loves chasing down bad guys—he’s like a fucking Labrador retriever shagging Frisbees." I take a step forward. "Jackie, you know how bored he gets when there’s no one to fight. He hates it. And the past few years, he’s been getting bored more and more easily. The usual shit isn’t doing it for him anymore. You can see it in his eyes."
"What? I see no such thing."
"We’re not real to him. Not like the people back on his home Earth."
"Don’t start this again," she says.
"Listen to his voice when he talks about the people he used to work with at that lab. Or Jesus, that fucking Mustang he used to drive. That’s the real world to him. This is just ... " I stop, see how still she’s gotten. "He’s never talked about his home world with you?"
"We talk about everything."
She’s lying. "Then he told you how he didn’t have powers there? No one did. It’s like our world used to be. Like it’s supposed to be."
Her hips shift in a familiar way. At any moment she’ll put the left side of one golden hoof across the right side of my head, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
"Jackie, wait. He doesn’t love you. And you don’t love him, not really. See, he’s got to have a girlfriend—that’s in the script. That’s what he wanted, and so that’s what happened. He’s making you love him, just like he made those supervillains hate him. But you can fight this, Jackie. You can join us."
"This conversation’s over, Eddie."
And then, heat. A jet of flame whooshes between my legs. Jackie becomes a human torch, whirling around in circles. She doesn’t scream, but I do. I jump sideways.
A few feet behind where I’d just been standing, Teresa’s on her stomach, aiming a sword of flame where my crotch used to be. I’d forgotten she was back there. "Take her down!" she yells.
I step up to Jackie, clench a fist. "Hit her!" Teresa yells. "Hit her!"
Then Jackie’s gone, disappeared into the smoke—probably to find a fire extinguisher. Or the lake.
She’ll be okay, I tell myself. She’s a fast healer.
"Are you kidding me?" Teresa says. The sword disappears and her hand unclenches. "Join us?"
I don’t want to talk about it. I extend a hand, figuring Teresa’s has cooled off by now. "Can you walk?"
She can, sort of. She looks stronger than she did five minutes ago. I put an arm around her and we limp through the smoke. Prisoners come up from behind, push past us. Some are winged or clawed or bulging with muscles, but most of them look like ordinary men and women in cheap coveralls, unremarkable and indistinguishable without their costumes. In their mad rush for the exit, they don’t seem to recognize us.
The vault door has been torn from its hinges. Teresa and I shuffle through, and then we’re in the no-man’s-land between the vault door and the blast shield. The shield has been stopped just a few feet above the floor; prisoners slide and skitter under it like roaches.
I manage to direct Teresa through the gap, and when I scramble after her I’m blinded by golden light. I shade my eyes and squint, heart hammering. But it’s not Soliton—it’s just the afternoon sunlight streaming through shattered windows. The floor is a glittering beach of broken glass.
Outside, the guards are taking their last stand. They’re firing down into the yard from towers and administration buildings. A few of the prisoners, the berserkers with more testosterone than sense, are throwing themselves against the buildings and crawling up the towers, but most are running for the fences. The flyers and other fast movers are already gone.
"Plex," I say. "Where the hell are you?"
Little busy! he yells in my ear.
"Please tell me you’ve got a way out of here," Teresa says.
And then I see Plexo. A dozen pint-size blobs are swarming a red-haired prisoner, tearing into him like a gang of ninja gingerbread men. I don’t recognize the man he’s attacking until I see that one of his hands is made of crystal. He grabs the neck of one of the little Plexos, and the miniature turns white and shatters into a puff of flakes.
Plex screams, You want a piece of me? Huh? You want a piece of me?
I yelp and grab my ear. The bit of Plex I’ve been carrying has launched itself from my ear canal toward the fight.
"Jesus, Plex, leave the Icer alone, we’ve got to—"
I hear a distinctive, whooshing hum. The air above the yard shimmers like a heat mirage on a desert highway, and a huge black sphere, 50 feet in diameter, abruptly appears, dropping fast.
"That sound," Teresa says. "I know that sound." She looks in my direction. "It’s that piece of crap the Magician used to ride around in."
"Please don’t call it names when we’re inside," I say. "It’s sensitive."
Painted on its side is a black 8 in a white circle. Before the sphere can touch down, the circle irises open and a six-by-six slab of Plexo leaps out, flattened like a flying squirrel. The Icer has time to scream before he’s enveloped by a blanket of flesh.
I grab Teresa’s hand but she shakes me off. We need to run but she can only move at a walk. A few of the other prisoners are looking at the sphere, dimly realizing that their most likely means of escape has just landed. A steel ramp extends from the base of the door with a rusty shriek but stops a foot short of the ground. I take Teresa’s hand again and before she can pull free I tell her to step up.
She scowls at me and says, "They’re here."
"Who?"
She points over my shoulder at the eastern sky.
From a mile away, the group of flyers are no bigger than specks. The lead figure, however, is unmistakable: that golden glow, that speed, those impossible, inertia-less changes of direction, like the beam of a flashlight flicking across a wall. The laws of physics do not apply to him. He is not in the world, Dear Reader, but projected upon it like a cartoon.
I would like to say that the sight of him doesn’t faze me. But Jesus, I’ve seen the man shrug off an atomic explosion. I’m not ready for him yet.
I shove Teresa’s bony butt up and through the door, then scramble in after her. "Eight-Ball!" I yell. "How’re the batteries holding up?"
On the main video screen, white text swims to the surface: "Reply hazy, try again."
Shit. I lean out the door. "Plex! Dad’s here!"
Below, Plex unwraps himself from the Icer, and the man falls unconscious to the ground. "Now would be good," I yell.
I scan the sky. The flyers are closer, and I can count them. Only three with Soliton. Half the team is probably on the east coast, fighting yetis. Not that it matters. Soliton alone can mop us up.
But then the group dives toward the ground, disappearing from my line of sight. They’re rounding up the faster escapees first.
Plex pogos up and through the hatch. I slam a button and the door begins to cinch closed. "Make with the disappearing," I tell the 8-Ball. "And get us to five thousand feet right n—"
Talking becomes impossible as the G’s throw me to the floor. Half a minute later I push myself upright and stumble to a screen and toggle to one of the cameras aimed at the ground. The heroes are in the yard now. I make out a couple of blurred forms careening between lime green dots—Gazelle and Dad, the only two capable of those speeds, having their high-velocity way with the prisoners.
Such fun they must be having.
"Eddie." It’s Teresa. "Eddie, look at me."
"When he gets like that you just got to poke him," Plex says.
"Eight-Ball, get us higher," I say. "But not so fast this time. Then head east."
Teresa’s gotten to her feet. She says, "Did you really believe what you said to Jackie back there? You think he’s a god?" She’s adopted the tone of a cop talking down a junkie.
"Don’t get him started," Plex says.
"Then you’re already screwed, Eddie. If he’s scripted Jackie, if he’s scripted everything, then the story already includes us. What we’re doing now. Everything you’re planning."
"Pretty much," I say. I thought this through months ago. "Headhunter’s dead. Dad’s got to have a nemesis—he wouldn’t know what to do without one. Might as well be me. Besides, there’s plenty of precedent for sons wanting to kill their fathers—it’s not exactly an original plot line." I smile. "The difference is, I believe in my job."
She doesn’t say it, but I know what she’s thinking. "You don’t have to believe me for us to work together, Teresa."
"I don’t," Plex says.
"We all want the same thing," I say. "We need each other."
"If the sword can’t touch him," Teresa says, "Nothing can."
"Nothing in this world," I say.
"So you’re going to hurt him how? Harsh words?"
"The sidekick has a plan," Plex says.
She tilts her head. She seems to be staring at me through the blindfold. "No. Now he’s the criminal mastermind."
"Excuse me?" I say. "Insane criminal mastermind."
Even at this speed it’s a long trip to the ruins of Chicago. Plenty of time to explain what I have in mind.
This is my message to you, Dear Reader: We’re tired of being trapped in here with your madman, your psychopath playing out his power fantasies with us. Two million people were erased from my city. I lost every relative, every childhood friend, every neighbor and teacher and shop clerk I grew up with. Why? Because it was interesting.
No more. We’re sending him back to you.
Watch your skies for a man tumbling to earth like a shot bird.
Free, and Clear
W
arily, Edward told Margaret his fantasy.
It’s Joe Louis Arena in late August, peak allergy season. He’s in the ring with Joe Louis himself, and as Edward dances around the canvas his sinuses feel like impacted masonry. Pollen floats in the air, his eyes are watering, and everything beyond the ring is a blur. Joe Louis is looking strong: smooth glistening chest, fierce gaze, arms pumping like oil rigs. Edward wipes his nose on his glove and shuffles forward. Joe studies him, waiting, drops his guard a few inches. Edward sees his opening and swings, a sweeping roundhouse. Joe sidesteps easily and the blow misses completely. Edward is stumbling forward, off balance and wide open. He looks up as Joe Louis’ fist crashes into his face—but it’s not Joe’s normal fist, it’s the giant Joe Louis Fist sculpture that hangs from chains in downtown Detroit, and it’s swinging down, down. Two tons of metal slam into Edward’s skull and shatter his zygomatic lobe like a nut. Sinus fluid runs like hot syrup down his chest and over his silk boxing shorts.