by David Beem
The tide of clones thins. Fred caps my sample and sets it inside a case. He removes his rubber gloves and disposes them in a waste compartment near his knee. Hunched over, he crosses to the sink at the bar, washes his hands. When he finishes drying them, he returns to his seat. There, he pops open another compartment, removes a gun, and trains it on me. He picks up the remote control and switches on the television. Meghan McCain and Whoopi Goldberg are arguing about patriotism in jockstrap brands.
Wait—Fred and I are alone in the car. When did that happen? We’re moving?
I turn my gaze out the window, still huffing and puffing through flaring nostrils. We’re pulling through a roundabout and merging into traffic. Cars are going by, the drivers inside living normal lives. How did this happen? Dad said I needed the prime minister’s technology. I tried to do what he said and got captured. Did I zig when I should’ve zagged? He’s going to be so disappointed in me when he finds out. It’ll be worse than when I got kicked out of Notre Dame because this is the end of the line. They’ve got my blood. And he explicitly warned me: asta-la-pasta.
I strain to reach the Collective Unconscious. Nigel? Come on, man. I’m in trouble. I need help.
Nothing.
CHAPTER Thirty-Four
Fred’s narrowed eyes are staring at me. His gun is steady.
“Mm?” I say through the gag in my mouth.
“You,” he replies. “That’s what.”
“Mrm-mm-mm-mrm?”
“Look at you. I never understood what Mr. Dame saw in you. I argued against it from the beginning. You’re simply not Zarathustra material. But, in hindsight… It makes sense. By ensuring the serum got put into you, he all but guaranteed he’d be able to reclaim it if he ever lost it. Nostradamus always seems to know, doesn’t he? He always has a plan.”
“Mrm-mrm?”
“Yes, there’s a plan. Of course there’s a plan. How stupid do you think we are? Is there a plan? Really.” He rolls his eyes and stares out the window at a Popeye’s Chicken going by.
“Mrm-mrm-mm-mrm?”
“What was the plan? Ha! Like I’m going to tell you.”
“Mrrm?”
“‘Please won’t work either.”
“Mrm mrm!”
“Nope.”
I expel a burst of air through my nose.
“Which reminds me…”
Still holding the gun on me, he reaches into his pocket with his free hand and pulls out the Z-ring. My eyes widen. My ring! My stupid, stupid ring! My stomach clenches as Mary’s warning sifts to the surface of my subconscious: You’ve got to make it second nature to get your ring on when there’s trouble.
I close my eyes. My head tips back. I should’ve stayed in the Über Dork. I should never have—
“And you said it reminded you of a sea monkey,” says Fred. “I haven’t forgotten, you know. Covaledictorian of my graduating class at MIT, where they teach actual science for actual scientists. Sea monkeys. Honestly.”
I slump into my seat. Outside, the scenery has changed. We’re in an old industrial part of town. Broken-down warehouses, building husks covered in vines, crumbling half structures. This isn’t the South Bend I know. If Notre Dame is an affluent arcadia, this stretch of South Bend is a desolate ruin.
“We should have this wrapped up in a little more than twenty-four hours, Mr. Bonkovich. After that, it’ll be up to the boss whether we keep you around.”
We drive through a security gate and into a shipping yard. The driver steers us into a narrow lane between two long rows of parked semis. The fleet blocks out the light and looms over our tiny limo like malevolent sentient machines from a Stephen King book. At the end of the row is a darkened warehouse. The dirty, two-story-tall windows are pocked with broken panes. We park in front. Two more clones get me unloaded and tied up to a wheelchair. The cords are coarse. My hands and feet tingle. I make fists and clench my toes. Squeeze, relax, squeeze again. Fred goes in ahead of us, carrying the case with my blood.
I’m wheeled inside. There’s a skylight and shot-out ceiling bulbs with jagged edges. I spot Fred on the stairs going up to a gantry. A silhouette is pacing in an office window. What is this place? If it’s a shipping facility, there are no packages. The shipping bay doors are chained and padlocked.
A door clicks shut from the upstairs office. Through the window, there are now two silhouettes. Fred, and the person already in there when we came in. Fred’s silhouette hands over the case with my blood. My scalp prickles. My ears are roaring. This is really happening. No Mary, no Dad, no ring.
Bruce Lee? Killmaster? Hanzo?
Nothing. I clench my eyes and groan. What I would give to feel their presences.
Nigel?
The door opens. My chest tightens. The Sith Lord from the hotel steps onto the balcony. My spine goes limp with terror. Maybe if I hold very, very still, he won’t see me.
The armored man swaggers down the stairs. At the bottom, his trajectory slices into the light, and I get my first good look. His breastplate is massive. And those big blocks of color on his chest Mary described really are reminiscent of the tunic a medieval knight might’ve worn over his armor. There’s even a red Christian cross on his left breast. But his arms swing too freely at his sides. His gait is too light. A medieval knight wouldn’t have moved so easily, or quietly.
The rag is Force-pulled from my mouth. Terror hollows out my throat. The inside of my brain feels like a severed live cable. Sweat rolls down my forehead. My hands and feet are numb. I can’t pull my eyes away from him even though I know I’m just as helpless with him in my line of sight. He doesn’t have to sneak up behind me to kill me. He doesn’t have to sneak at all.
“I don’t wanna kill you, Edge.” His supersuit voice booms like Darth Vader.
He knows my name. The Sith Lord knows my name.
“Yes,” he says, folding his arms and straightening to assume his full height. “I’ll admit that leaves you at a disadvantage. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Michel de Nostredame. I was born in 1503 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, France. And I am immortal.”
CHAPTER Thirty-five
I’m nervous, and I have a pie hole. These two things usually combine to produce poor mouth decisions.
“Have you seen the movie Highlander?”
“Five or six times.” He shrugs. “You want to talk about Highlander? Now?”
“I mean, it’s breaking the ice? But you don’t sound French. Even in your Darth Vader voice, I think I would detect a French accent if you were really French. Also, I notice you don’t have that weird Highlander accent either. If you’re really immortal, why don’t you have one of those I-come-from-everywhere kind of accents? Like Christopher Lambert?”
“Because that’s a movie,” he replies, the electronic voice now an irritated bass.
“But it’s a good movie. And you’ve seen it five or six times, so that means you think it’s a good movie too—”
“Edge.”
“—in which case, I should probably get the obvious question out of the way first. If your head gets chopped off, will you die?”
“Of course.”
“Will light shoot out of your neck hole?”
“Don’t be absurd.”
“Me don’t be absurd? You don’t be absurd! You’re the one Darth Vadering the crap out of the Plaza and being immortal all the livelong four hundred years. Five hundred years? Hang on. Let me do the math…”
“Shut up for a second.”
“You’re five-hundred-fifteen? Five-hundred-sixteen? What month were you born?”
“December.”
“Ah. Christmas baby. Sucks for presents. Can you really read my mind?”
“Yes.”
Are you reading my mind now?
“Yes. I literally just told you I am reading your mind.”
How about now?
“Yes, Edge, yes.”
Say this: There can be only one.
“There can be only one.”
“Wow. That’s like James Earl Jones doing Christopher Lambert. But it was obvious what I was thinking, we were just talking about Highlander.” Try this. Say: I’m Batman.
“I’m Batman. Now shut up!”
An invisible cord wraps around my neck and lifts me to my toes. The weight of the wheelchair pulls against the ropes cutting into my arms and legs. I’m caught between gravity and the Force.
“You’ve seen Star Wars too, I can tell,” I stammer. “How’re you doing the mind-reading trick?”
“I told you. I’m Nostradamus. It’s what I do. You do dorky crap and computers. I read minds, Darth Vader hotels, and predict the future. Okay? Can we please move on now?”
The cord releases me. The wheelchair and I drop with a teeth-rattling thunk. Blood rushes into my malfunctioning brain. I flex and release my fingers and toes. For a second, I can only teeter in my seat and wait for the light-headed spell to pass.
“Are you going to kill me?” I ask. “Because it doesn’t feel like that’s in the cards. I’m hoping that’s not in the cards. And if it’s not too much to ask, can I have my blood back? I mean, not back in my body, aha-hah, but, you know. Seriously. Can you not use it to make more Zarathustra serum?”
“No,” he replies, drawing out the word with electronic incredulity. “No, I’m definitely doing that. That’s the whole point.”
“It’s not like I can fight you for it. You’re way too powerful. And I’m tied to this chair.”
He nods. “Right. These are also good points.”
“So… This is awkward.”
He slouches. “Come on. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“It wasn’t? Which part? Drugging and kidnapping me?”
He waves this away. “No. I wanted you drugged and kidnapped. You wouldn’t have come otherwise. I meant it wasn’t supposed to be like this. Us having this whole big conversation instead of, oh, I don’t know, discussing the future of mankind?”
“You’re the one who said he liked Highlander. I just thought you’d like to talk about your interests.”
He shakes his head. “I mean this isn’t how I prophesied it. Your dad should’ve been here by now. Man, I hope he’s okay.”
“Huh?”
“Well, in my vision of the future, he comes crashing through that skylight”—he points—“and comes flying down on a grappling hook looking really cool”—he gesticulates wildly—“and then, in his head, he’s thinking: I’ve got to put everyone to sleep so nobody gets hurt! And then—bang—all my agents are out. Which is awesome. And then I’m all, ‘Your powers are weak, old man,’ because I know you two are all into Star Wars, and—”
“Wait-wait-wait. Are you and Dad working together? I’m so confused.”
“You should try being me. Five hundred years of prophesizing crap can really mess with your head, you know? I see something’s about to happen, call it out, and then it happens. Right? Just like I said. So you see, in a messed-up kind of way, it really is like I’m partnering with my enemies. I don’t know if that makes sense.”
My head tilts as I try to process it. But, yeah, no. Too weird.
He waves this away also. “I know. Nobody ever gets it. I think you would get it if you had a little more time to learn. I wanted you to have more time.” He shrugs. “But you proved why it’s got to be me. It’s that free will thing again. Always biting me in the butt.”
I shake my head. “What are we even talking about right now? Is this one of those supervillain-monologue-type deals?”
Nostradamus releases an electronically altered sigh, and it comes out like a mouth breather on a microphone. “Why does everybody say that? I’m not a villain! I wanted you to win! You get the Collective Unconscious for one day, and what do you do? End all radical Islamic terrorism. Boom, baby! I was so proud. Especially after what that dick Fred said about you.”
“Fred is a dick. I hate that guy.”
“Yeah, well. That’s fair. He’s probably going to be the one who kills you.”
“Can we go back to talking about Highlander?”
“How about we skip to the part where you agree to help me fix the world. Because I’d rather not Darth Vader everything again. South Bend’s got enough problems without losing this gigantic shipping fleet. Plus, I like Mayor Pete.”
“I don’t get it. You seem like a reasonable guy. Why so evil global cabal?”
“I told you. People are dumb. They don’t cooperate. They kill each other for stupid reasons. And who can forgive Warner Brothers for Shrek-mouthing Superman?”
“I knew it. This is one of those supervillain monologues.”
“Whoa—hey. I love a good trope as much as the trope lover, but this isn’t one of those moments. I’m the good guy here.”
“Ah. So it’s that trope. Bad Guy Thinks He’s a Good Guy.”
“Shut up. I’m taking your blood to make world peace. Imagine it. One man, his consciousness seeping out into the minds of every living person. He could end war, famine, poverty, disease. There’s nothing that man couldn’t do. And he’d be doing it for the welfare of all.”
“Misguided Do-Gooder?”
“I am not a trope!”
“Affably Evil?”
“Look. Do you want world peace or not?”
“I mean…” I shrug. “I don’t not want world peace.”
Nostradamus swats this remark away with both hands. “Bah, that’s the problem right there. Edge, you’re one of the good ones. You’re a good egg in a sea of rotten, lousy, stinking—”
“Hey, hey, hey. You had me at good egg.”
“Really?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Then you’ll help me?”
“Well, no. I didn’t mean you had me had me.”
“See? That’s what I’m talking about. I’m here to fix the world. But nobody wants it fixed. And good Lord, where is your dad? He’s never been this late before.”
“Hey, boss!” yells Fred from the office upstairs.
“I am in the middle of something, goddammit!” Nostradamus yells, thrusting both palms out at me.
“Sorry,” says Fred. “But you wanted to know when Mary called.”
“Mary!” I exclaim.
“Oh, yeah, right,” says Nostradamus. “That babe works for me.”
CHAPTER Thirty-Six
Nostradamus kneels by my right side and holds out his hand. The metamaterial fabric in the palm of his supersuit’s glove softens into familiar black goo, the way my suit does when it comes out of the Z-ring. But his suit isn’t coming off. It’s changing properties in his palm alone. When it solidifies again, it becomes the dark, reflective surface of an LCD screen. His palm rings, and words appear across the top of the screen: VIDEO CALL: MARY THOMAS.
“Oh. Here we go,” says Nostradamus, tapping his palm to accept the call. “Hello, Mary. How’s my favorite on-duty cutie?”
Mary’s gorgeous face peers back at Nostradamus, chin up, her gaze unblinking. “I’m in position.”
“Okay. Please hold.” He taps the top right of his palm, and the video changes. The UN General Assembly, hundreds of people milling in the aisles. At the front, a podium and two gigantic TV screens framing a familiar crest, the globe couched in a laurel wreath.
“What is this?” I ask. “I thought this whole thing was a setup. You had the prime minister kidnap me, you’ve got my blood, and you’re going to kill him anyway?”
“I’m not. Mary is.” Nostradamus pats me on the shoulder. “Shh. Don’t waste the brain cells. This is so much more complex than you know. Oh, look. There’s your team. God bless ’em.”
He holds his hand out again. In his palm is a close-up shot on Alex, disguised as Secret Service stationed near an exit, hands folded in front, eyes alert. The shot changes. A man with a bushy brown afro, a ’70s mustache, and bulging muscles about to Incredible Hulk his brown suit. Is that Caleb? Now who the heck is he supposed to be? The People’s Ambassador of Grand Manistan?
&nb
sp; “I think the point is no one will recognize him as quarterback for the LA Chargers,” says Nostradamus.
“You can’t kill Mary’s dad. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a total dick. But he’s your total dick.”
Nostradamus’s helmet tilts.
“That didn’t come out right,” I say. “I meant that dick works for you.”
Nostradamus knocks on his codpiece. “Five-hundred-sixteen years. And that’s without Viagra.”
“I mean: The prime minister works for you!”
“Oh, stop. I know what you meant.”
“So what’s the point of this?”
“I thought you knew. He’s about to tell everyone about me and hand over a critical piece of hardware.”
I frown. “I don’t know what you’ve been smoking. The guy I met tried to pass off a salt shaker as cutting edge technology. He’s your man through and through.”
“But that was before he suffered his crisis of conscience. He feels very bad about handing you over to me.”
“He does?”
“I told you, it’s much more complicated than you think. You see, to understand, we have to go back to before your team got tipped off about the assassination plot. Here’s how it went down: I prophesied the future and then leaked the intelligence to your team, thereby giving you the impression Mary’s father was going to rat me out—which, of course, he means to do in a few short minutes. But when you met him, he was still loyal to me. Nevertheless, I knew you would infer his sincerity because of your love of Mary—”
“Whoa, hey,” I splutter, glancing at his glove and lowering my voice. “Can she hear this conversation? I haven’t exactly told her—”
“—And so it wasn’t until after your meeting at the diner that he had his change of heart. Just as I prophesied. Which is why Mary has to kill him.”
“This is making my brain hurt.”
