The Edger Collection

by David Beem

  “May as well just attack them one by one at this point.”

  “Well, now you’re just being defeatist.”

  Four gunshots ring out on my right. Caleb’s sword is a blur in my peripheral vision.

  Ching-ching-ching.

  Halved bullets fall to the ground.

  “Watch your six!” he yells, and my shoulders hunch reflexively as a crash sounds from my other side: Seuss breaking through the wooden railing and tumbling over the balcony. Mary steps through the hole in the wall, and I follow her to the broken railing. She peers down at her former mentor draped over the throne below, his arms and legs bent at weird angles. Next to him, on the dais, Anna and Fabio battle a batch of clones attempting to reach their fallen master.

  “You okay?” I ask, stroking Mary’s shoulder.

  “I had him in my hands. He just…slipped.” Her helmet turns to face mine. “The Seuss…got loose.”

  A yell from below—

  Anna twirls, her armored leg flashing past as she kicks one, two, then three agents in the face. A fourth gets the drop on her, but Fabio bonks the hilt of his sword on top of that guy’s head. Anna turns around, and the two exchange a fist bump.

  Red letters scroll across the HUD.

  WOULD YOU LIKE ASSISTANCE? Y/N?

  I mean, it looks like I’ve already got assistance.

  ASSISTANCE GRANTED.

  Whoa, hey—

  More sizzling and popping. My palms sweep up. Guns are ripped from hands, then flown up to stick on the ceiling.

  INTERFACING WITH MARY THOMAS.

  “Sounds kind of dirty when you put it like that,” I mutter.

  “Edger? What’re you doing?” Mary’s arms rise on either side like mine, palms out. All the remaining clones in the room zoom backward on their heels and slam against the walls like they’re on a centrifugal force ride.

  INTERFACING WITH ANNA PENILITY.

  “Whoa, hey!” I say. “I didn’t sign up for a three-way.”

  Anna edges her leg back as her arms reach forward, palms out in a pushing gesture. Mary’s arms come down as Anna holds the agents in place.

  “Yeah!” yells Fabio, performing three spin kicks in a row, just to show off, then striking a kung fu pose. “That’s how we do it!”

  “Humiliating,” says one of the clones.

  “I been thinking about getting outta this racket,” replies another. “Just the other day, I was tellin’ Jan we oughta cash in on some of that Hollywood money. Least then you get a little star treatment.”

  “I was tellin’ Fran the same thing,” says yet another clone.

  Mary’s posture relaxes. Caleb’s helmet swivels from Anna to the clones and back to Anna.

  “You’re just gonna hold them like that?” he asks.

  “Can’t we just put them to sleep?” asks Fabio.

  I shake my head. “Clone minds aren’t like our minds. They’re folded in a tricky way.”

  Through the Collective Unconscious, I can sense Caleb probing their minds. Reluctantly, he nods.

  “You guys go,” says Anna. “I’ll hold them here. Something tells me there’ll be others to face on the levels above.”

  “Of course,” says Fabio. “It wouldn’t be Game of Death unless we had separate challenges on each level.”

  The stairwell door bangs open. All five of us whip around, katanas at the ready.

  Five ninjas and a Green Bay Packer are standing in the open door. Their gazes take us in, then the agents stuck to the walls, then us again. They whirl around and tumble with colliding shoulders through the stairwell door, which bangs shut behind them. The five of us hold position a beat longer before Caleb lowers his sword.

  “Was that Yourmajesty Fapa—?”

  “Better check it,” says Mary.

  “If those were ninjas, then Shmuel’s a Mensa,” says Fabio. “I’ll deal with this.”

  “You sure you’re up for that, buddy?” I ask.

  “Dude, are you kidding? I’m gonna rock this out! Have you seen my moves?!” Fabio sweeps his hands in an elaborate kung fu gesture and finishes by striking a crane stance. “I know kung fu!”

  “Okay,” I reply. “Caleb, Mary, let’s head up to level two.”

  Mary hurls the door open using the Force. We float across the throne room and touch down on the staircase landing. Fabio heads downstairs. Caleb stretches his arm in front of me.

  “Be ready for anything, bro. Maybe I should go first.”

  Mary takes the decision from us and storms up the stairs.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Wang races down the stairs, his hot breathing all but drowning out the pounding feet on the steps behind him.

  “I think that might’ve been Zarathustra?” says Shmuel.

  “Zarathustra is one armored space ninja,” says Consuelo. “That was five armored space ninjas.”

  “He multiplied?”

  “You guys, I did kick Tom Brady in the nuts,” says Yourmajesty. “I don’t want the world to end without confessing.”

  “You owe me a thousand bucks!” exclaims Ralph.

  “Quiet!” calls Wang, his breathing thick in his ears as he reaches the landing at the bottom of the stairs. “All of you.”

  The others race to a halt behind him. He takes a moment to catch his breath outside a heavy steel door with a keypad lock.

  “Now we find out if that code is worth the price we paid,” he mutters.

  “Price?” asks Shmuel. “What price?”

  “The knockout gas!” exclaims Wang. “And the indignity of being rescued by a pig!”

  “Usually we pay for the knockout gas?” says Shmuel. “That was some good shit? And his name is Spy Pig? He’s, like, filling my void?”

  Wang’s brain jams on all the possible “filling his void” retorts that spring to mind. He shakes his head. “Just be quiet for a second. I’m trying to remember the combination.”

  “Oh yeah,” says Ralph. “It was that, um, song, right?”

  “Oh, I remember,” says Yourmajesty. “You told me… Um…”

  Christine nods. “Eighties song. Something about a girl.” She folds her arms and taps her temple.

  “‘Rosanna’?” asks Consuelo, and Yourmajesty starts nodding his football helmet head in time and humming Toto.

  “‘Billie Jean’!” cries Ralph. “No. That’s not it. Sorry.”

  “‘Carrie’?” asks Christine.

  “No, that’s a car, not a song,” says Consuelo.

  “‘Carrie’ is not a car,” says Ralph. “You’re thinking of ‘Christine.’”

  “Hey,” says Christine. “‘Carrie’ is a song by Europe.”

  “There’s a band called Europe?” asks Shmuel. “Is there a band called America?”

  Ralph snaps his fingers. “There’s a band called Boston, and they sing that one song… ‘Amanda’!”

  Shmuel frowns. “‘Amanda’? I don’t think that’s the one? Let’s see.” He clears his throat. “Ah-man-dah…I’ve got your nuh-umber… It’s for this co-ode…for the kee-ee paa-ad…”

  “Da fuck?” asks Wang.

  Shmuel slumps. “You’re right. That’s not it.”

  “How about ‘Elvira’?” asks Ralph. “Ba-oom papa oom papa oom papa mow-mow…”

  “Would you guys shut up!?” yells Wang, trying to block them out. “Hey—wait.” Wang cocks an ear. “You hear that?”

  Ringing feet on the stairwell fall suddenly silent. Christine, Consuelo, and Ralph peer up the stairwell. Shmuel’s shoulder nudges against Wang’s as he presses his back into the door. Wang elbows him in the ribs.

  “Ow!”

  An armored space ninja flips over the handrail and lands on the landing one up from the bottom. Fists on his hips, he peers down at them. Wang swallows.

  “Aren’t you a little short to be a Zarathustra?” asks Yourmajesty.

  “I’m not Zarathustra,” the armored space ninja replies in a voice like Ghostface from Scream.

  “Who are you?”
asks Wang.

  The space ninja, his fists still on his hips, peers up and to the right. “There are some who call me…Thunder Cobra.”

  “Thunder Cobra?” says Ralph.

  “Sometimes I go by Captain Cobra?”

  “Well, at least that’s alliterative,” says Christine. “But it’s still gay.”

  “It is not,” says Cobra.

  “Are you here to kill us, Captain…One-Eyed Snake?” asks Wang.

  “One-eyed—?” Cobra lowers his fists and trots down the stairs. “Guys. Superheroes don’t kill. They serve and protect.”

  “Yeah, they do,” says Consuelo. “Serve the one-eyed snake, heh-heh.”

  “Stop saying that,” says Cobra.

  “Okay, superhero, when we get through this door,” says Wang, “we’ll need serving and protecting.”

  “Why?” asks Cobra. “Is there something dangerous in there?”

  “How the fuck should I know?” asks Wang. “You’re the superhero. Now be quiet. We’re trying to remember a song title.”

  “Song title.” Captain Cobra casts his gaze around the six of them.

  “Oh,” says Ralph. “I just thought of another one. ‘Gloria’ by Laura Branigan?”

  “I thought you were gonna say ‘Sara,’” says Yourmajesty. “It’s by Starship.”

  “You mean Jefferson Starship,” says Christine.

  “No, by then it was Starship,” says Consuelo. “They started as Jefferson Airplane. Then they kinda split, and half of them became Hot Tuna and the other half became Jefferson Starship.”

  Yourmajesty nods.

  “Hot Tuna?” says Christine. “No. No, there’s no way that’s factual.”

  “No, it’s true,” says Consuelo. “They gave us ‘Uncle Sam Blues.’”

  “No, you’re thinking of the federal government,” says Christine.

  “What kind of song title are you guys looking for?” asks Captain Cobra.

  “The kind that’ll get us through this door,” says Yourmajesty.

  Wang presses his back to the door and slides down. He raises a hand and shields his eyes.

  “You okay?” asks Shmuel.

  “‘Oh Sherrie’!” cries Ralph, snapping his fingers. “By Steve Perry. Try that one.”

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  One level up, we find another enormous room. Oval windows, wrecked weapons displays with swords all over the floor. Low Japanese-style tables. Broken teacups. Torn shoji screens…

  “Edger.” Mary’s voice resonates in the open space as she points with the tip of her katana. A woman in formfitting clothes is silhouetted behind an intact shoji screen. The woman slides the door open.

  Kate.

  Caleb raises a blocking arm over Mary and me, then twists his ring. The nanofibers soften and bubble, separating at the top of his head, oozing in halves down his scalp, and revealing his sickeningly handsome face. When the last of it is sucked into the ring, he removes it and stuffs it in his pocket.

  “Well, that was disgusting,” remarks Kate. “Caleb, hon, if you’ve come back for our breeding program, I’m gonna ask you to take a shower first.”

  “We’re not here for that, Kate,” Caleb replies.

  Kate shrugs. “A girl can dream.”

  “Come on,” he says. “You can’t really believe in all this.”

  Her forehead scrunches. “I can’t? I’ve been given pretty amazing powers.”

  “He gave you the serum?” asks Mary.

  “Quiet, Mary, the grown-ups are talking.” Kate breaks eye contact with Caleb to train her gaze on me. “I might’ve come over to your side once. Alas…”

  “Oh, come on, Kate,” I say. “I’m not buying it. You played me once. You won’t play me twice.”

  “That’s a shame.” She turns away and glides with gratuitous hip swinging toward a chest a few yards to her left. “I liked us. You know?”

  “We were built on a lie.”

  “Like you and Mary aren’t?” she counters.

  “Okay, I’ve heard enough.” Mary swings her katana up. “Stop. I’d rather not find out what’s in the chest.”

  Kate stops with the hip walking. “Uh-huh. Okay, Mary… So, you get the guy. You get the fancy powers. And now you think, what? You get the one-point-five kids and a dog? You get your shitty house back in Burbank? You’re just a clone, bitch. What makes you think you’re better than me?”

  “Shoulder artillery,” Mary replies, as, ga-chunk-chunk-chunk, two M134 Miniguns—that is, six-barrel rotary machine guns—pop out of her shoulders.

  Kate’s eyebrows rise. “That much firepower could do serious structural damage.”

  “Ladies,” says Caleb. “Come on. There’s no need to shoot this place up.”

  “Oh, I agree.” Kate’s gaze sweeps the perimeter of the room, where at least two dozen other chests identical to the one she’s standing next to begin vibrating. “Mary, Mary, Mary. Not every problem in life is solved with a gun.” Her arms sweep up, and the chests fling open.

  Steel everywhere!

  Mary’s rotary miniguns whir and fire—ah, loud! A surge of telekinetic energy blasts from Caleb as, too late, three daggers nick him, one in the leg, one in the shoulder, and one on his cheek, as they speed past to slam with a quivering thunk into the far wall. Kate hyperspeeds past, shards of wood exploding behind her as Mary’s glowing barrels rip everything to shreds. I lift into the air above the fray, microenergy sizzling through me as I cast a shield around Caleb, who’s fallen to one knee.

  Kate sweeps her arms upward like an orchestral conductor. The knives lurch from the walls, swoop in an arc, and zoom toward me. I thrust my hand out. Another burst of energy releases. Bullets ricochet wildly off my and Caleb’s shields.

  Knives rebounding every which way.

  Glazed light streams in through splintered walls. Sawdust falls like rain.

  The walls and floor vibrate. Mary stops firing.

  Guys! calls Anna from one floor below. You’re making me very nervous!

  “Edger!” yells Mary over the still-whirring miniguns. “She’s too dangerous!”

  Crack!

  Wooden beams splintering. Sawdust raining sideways. Terrifying sensory memories surface from my subconscious. A collapsing warehouse. Nostradamus. Flying Peterbilts… Dad’s murder.

  “Mary, no!”

  Fizzing energy tingles beneath my skin as I zip across the room and wrap my arms around her waist. Her psychic sense flashes with annoyance. Shards of wood explode. Kate shrieks. I yank Mary toward me. Her arm flails across my face. Spinning—Caleb, leaping? Flying?

  Weight lands on top of me—Mary’s.

  Another crack. My stomach plunges. Pain flares through my back, and my wind is knocked out as Mary lands on top of me a second time. A white cloud of plaster and sawdust plumes around us. Her elbow digs into my gut. She pushes off me. Red letters scroll across the HUD.

  FLOORBOARDS’ STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED.

  “Guys!” yells Anna.

  And then—silence.

  I roll left—my stomach lurches—fingers grip my arm. Beams streak forward as I’m yanked backward. Mary’s got me. We’re in the rafters. But how?

  “Guys!” Anna yells again.

  The sawdust clears. Terrified clone faces peer up at us, still frozen against the wall one floor below. And just below them, Anna is as we left her, thrusting her palms out to hold them in position. Her gaze finds mine through the splintered wood.

  “If you’re going to tear the place down,” she says, “I’d like a heads-up.”

  I swallow, but can’t think of anything to say. Mary’s telekinetic power lifts us through the hole and into a bright haze. All that’s left of our level are fallen rafters and blown-out walls. Outside, the ghost battle is raging. Flaming ordnance arcs away from catapults.

  Caleb looms over Kate, his hands raised in front, tense and curved like he’s holding an invisible basketball. Kate’s flat on her back, arms in surrender position.

>   “I can’t…hold her…forever…”

  Mary’s supersuit helmet turns to face me. “You okay?”

  I nod, and we scramble over the detritus for the next flight of stairs.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  “‘Sharona’?” offers Ralph.

  “‘Jolene’?” offers Christine.

  “‘Roxanne’?” offers Consuelo.

  “If you guys would just tell me what we’re doing,” says Cobra, “I could probably figure this out. I am a superhero.” Cobra’s head cocks to the side. “Hang on. I’m sensing through the Force my powers are needed elsewhere!”

  “Heh-heh,” says Consuelo. “The Force.”

  “Sit tight,” says Cobra. “I’ll be back in a bit.” He zooms up the stairs—

  “Holy crap!” says Ralph, flinching and nearly falling. “That was like, light speed.”

  “Huh?” says Shmuel, looking up from the keypad. “Somethin’ happen?”

  “Guess Bonsai Boner really is a superhero,” says Christine. “Seems about the kind of superhero we’d get.”

  “He’s fast,” says Yourmajesty. “No way I’d get him in the nuts.”

  “‘Nikita’?” says Consuelo.

  “Huh?” asks Christine. “No. His name was…the Daring Dick, or…Captain…never mind.”

  “No, no,” says Consuelo. “I meant the song. I’m still trying to guess the song.”

  “Oh, right, that,” she replies. “Um. How about ‘Valerie.’ It’s by Steve Winwood, if that matters.”

  “Oh! ‘Angelia’!” Consuelo strokes his chin. “I forget who wrote it.”

  “‘Eileen’?” says Shmuel.

  “Eileen?” says Ralph. “That’s not a song.”

  Shmuel nods. “Yes it is. It goes like this: Crumbs on Eileen, oh I swear I’ll be mean?”

  Ralph shakes his head. “First, those are not the lyrics. Second, the song is called ‘Come On Eileen,’ not ‘Eileen.’” Facing Wang, he asks, “Anyway, we’re looking for one-word titles, right?”

  Wang stares longingly at the keypad lock and sighs. “It is a numeric keypad!”

  Shmuel snaps his fingers. “‘Shaquita’!”

  Ralph shakes his head. “That’s not a song.”