Zephyr Box Set 2

by Warren Hately

  *

  I’M NOT PREPARED for naked women. Hard to believe, I know, but slip a nude nymphette in the middle of my fight-or-flight mode and I get confused.

  Truth to be told, the girl is not entirely nude as she drops her other gathered possessions and struggles into an oversized t-shirt as soon as she realizes the jig is up, big dark grey eyes like saucers staring back at me from a face fringed by a single shock of faded pink hair. The rest of her hair is shaved down to stubble in a move that somehow highlights the waif’s fragile beauty rather than undermining it. As I stand unmoving, trying hard to adapt to my circumstances and making sure the other shoe isn’t about to drop, the girl keeps eyes locked on mine as she slips bare feet into a pair of scuffed, weirdly-made leather boots, Dr Martens written on the tags protruding self-conscious yet proudly from the rear.

  “Who are you?” we say at the same time.

  The synchronicity gets a laugh from me. Less so the urchin. Those big eyes scan over me once more, nostrils widening like those of a feral beast as she sniffs and nearly whimpers.

  “Bad man coming,” she says.

  “What?”

  I whip about, preparing for an ambush, but the seconds tick by and she eyes me even more weirdly and the feeling is so off-putting I’m momentarily willing to put my immediate safety at risk to shoot her a questioning look before glancing out the windows onto the grounds from which she could’ve easily seen me coming had she not been sleeping in what I presume to be Gumbel’s bed. The master bedroom has been defrocked of its many things in circumstances I can only hazily ponder, but the bed and sheets are twisted, mattress still depressed with the girl’s elfin shape. She shivers, the heat not on in the house, and I wonder how long she’s been holed up here.

  “Since just after he died,” the girl says.

  A chill goes down my spine.

  “You’re a telepath?”

  She nods.

  “Do I know you?”

  “Do you?”

  “You don’t know?”

  “You sound like you’re the one who doesn’t know,” she says, words her own, the voice somehow like a mockery of mine.

  I can see this spinning out of control pretty quickly. I make a silencing motion she only decides to follow instead of obeying.

  “Maybe you can tell me what you’re doing here,” I say.

  “You first.”

  I take a deep breath, refusing to blow this moment through my own impunity. I nod slowly, words trickling out of me.

  “I’m hunting the people who killed my mother.”

  “But you know who killed your mother and where to find her,” the girl says.

  “Get out of my head.”

  The girl shrugs, nods. Moves off a distance. I avert my eyes as she slips on underwear beneath the long tee which has CHOOSE LIFE on it in big letters.

  “I know where to find Ono, but her base in Tokyo’s impregnable. Last time I went there my . . . siblings almost killed me, and I lost my powers. The other place I know she’ll be is backwards in time. I don’t have any means to do that right now.”

  “So you are after the man who killed Bryant,” the girl says.

  I concur. “If we haven’t met before, tell me what I should call you?”

  “Tessa,” she says.

  I look at the girl like she’s kidding, but she means it, so before the echoes have even died I shake my head.

  “No no, that’s not gonna fly. Don’t you know how much confusion this is going to create if you have that name? What’s your middle name?”

  “I don’t like my middle name.”

  “Then give me another name.”

  I scowl again, re-examining the petite face, the prescient look to her eyes, her almost fairytale complexion, the mildest slant to her ears. Another face and time and place swim before me and I actually hold up my squared-off hands to frame her like a fashion photographer, but I can’t place where we may have met before, if at all.

  “What drew you here?” I ask.

  “I will tell you my story, but I need a name.”

  “Are you . . . Bellwether?”

  “Does that name means something to you?” she asks, almost playful given she knows most what I know.

  “I don’t actually know,” I say. “I only met . . . her . . . briefly.”

  My confusion addled by mixed memory.

  “Well that will do,” she says. “Belle for short.”

  I unwittingly grunt at the cuteness. Nod again. Always fucking nodding. “OK.”

  “I want to stop the man who killed Bryant as well,” the girl says.

  “Arsenal,” I say. “Steve Seagal.”

  “Will you let me help you?”

  “OK, but you gotta tell me your story first.”

  Belle nods and sits on the edge of the bed like this is going to take a while.

  *

  SO, THE STORY goes we have this girl from the Midwest and she starts going through the lady changes and all that jazz, only the part they don’t explain in the Where Do Babies Come From book her parents give her is the part where suddenly she can start hearing what almost everyone’s saying. Fair enough, our girl goes a bit loony tunes and despite the overwhelming prevailing evidence of superhuman powers in the world, Belle’s folks – maybe they were a bit churchy or maybe just a bit stupid – eventually they put her in that Angelina Jolie movie except it’s a lot darker than that and the wardens make the girls fight each other because apparently they all secretly have powers or some shit, like the way she explains it isn’t very clear because her story’s full of more than its fair share of logic bombs, but perhaps there is some guy in the middle of the system who knows these misguided or troublesome teenage girls are probably parahumans instead of ordinary freaks, but they all end up in there together and yeah, it’s pretty bad, but Belle manages to come to grips with her psionic abilities and she and another girl, her girlfriend in fact, they break out one night, only the girlfriend is killed or they get separated in the escape or something (it gets confusing here) and Belle makes her way by railroad (yeah I know, by railroad? It’s at this point I ask her if she’s making this but up because it’s starting to sound like a bad episode of Lassie – that’s not to imply there’s a good episode of Lassie, unless you’re a dog-person, which I’m not, or a pervert, which I definitely am not, or at least not like that – but Belle insists everything she’s said is true and offers to something like “download” her experiences into my mind, which I politely decline) to the east coast where Belle makes her way up from the south of Atlantic City in Georgia. Long story short, she hears about a guy who’s putting money on the street looking for people who can tell him more about something weird that’s been happening to him, and once our girl passes on word that she can read minds, a black limousine pulls up for her and its soup kitchens no longer for Belle as she’s whisked into the lap of luxury approximately, oh, about six hours before Arsenal turns up and incinerates Gumbel while he’s out inspecting the horses. The Feebs turn up and do a frighteningly good job of scaring everyone including the squirrels into the wilderness and after a couple of days they hand over the property to the family, who promptly ransack the joint and put the murder house on the market. It’s been discounted twice since, people either less than keen on the idea of buying a palatial estate where someone was recently killed, or perhaps just not keen on the somewhat idyll-destroying aesthetics of flamenco in their multimillion dollar real estate portfolio.

  “So I’m meant to just assume it’s coincidence that one of The Twelve turns up here just a day before the guy who for some reason has a vendetta against all y’all also turns up and kills the guy you know, who. . .” and I hold up a hand, knowing I am losing the battle against time, tide, logic and grammar. “Hang on, I’ve got this: the guy who you knew in a prior life, if you really are Bellwether, but that life was erased . . . erased when you. . . because you’re only . . . how old are you. . . ?”

  “Erased from before I was born,” Belle
says.

  I blink and nod, saying nothing about another infiltration into my head if this time it actually helps me get something straight. Her fey grin tells me she’s just stolen everything of what little I know about The Twelve and probably understands it better than me already.

  “I don’t know why I would’ve agreed to that, but it’s possible,” Belle says. “You said – or your memories say – somehow The Twelve were world-weary and disliked what they had become, and your father . . . no, not your father . . . that’s a doozy, that one . . . the Doomsday Man, he convinces them to willingly undergo some kind of bizarre . . . cosmic surgery to have normal lives. Or, you know, normal for successful millionaire artists and writers and fashion designers and that sort of thing.”

  “He was in league with these . . . things. In subspace,” I say. “I don’t even want to say their name. I think they can listen in, somehow.”

  “You know this?”

  “Just being paranoid.”

  “So if future me agreed to that . . . erasure, then she was agreeing to have her whole life unmade and to start over again. To maybe risk not even being born.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “That’s some pretty hardcore self-loathing right there.”

  “Well, we are not the same person,” Belle says. “We lived entirely different lifetimes, if what you say is true.”

  “And it would also mean if Arsenal is trying to kill The Twelve, you would be the hardest of them all to track down.”

  “Except . . . I’m here.”

  We both nod, looking around ominously like the assassin might appear at any moment.

  Zephyr 15.6 “Yet Another Paradox”

  FOR WHATEVER REASON we are safe for now. Tessa, or I should say Belle, has some supplies in the refrigerator downstairs, and while the power is off, I am able to do a halfway decent job of getting the electric range up and running, somewhat reminiscent of me crouched milking a mechanical cow while Belle quickly cooks eggs and fries toast and we eat on the back patio with a view over the land sweeping away magnificently, trees like fingers emerging through the seasonal fog as we discuss my incorrect use of the word milquetoast and I realize whatever she might have been in another life, there is everything to like about this curious, spritely, lively, opinionated young woman.

  “What did you do in the Midwest, you know, before?”

  “I read books, hid from boys, hid from my parents, tried to focus on the singing when we were at church. I don’t know. What else does anyone do growing up?”

  I nod at that and we eat in silence, my sensing her incomprehension at the vast quantities I digest, misunderstanding refueling for gluttony until I explain to her how my system works and she relaxes, eyeing me up in that frank, quizzical way I have only ever experienced before from my mothers – women who have absolutely no interest in whether I am handsome or ripped or hung or any number of those other terms by which the gentler sex somehow still manages to label and categorize us and then think we men are the only ones who do it, victims as we all are of the great sausage factory of thought.

  “Have you put it all together yet, how to find Arsenal?”

  “No.”

  “He wants to wipe out the rest of The Twelve, right?”

  “I checked Google,” I say and waggle my phone. “He got Suzuki four weeks ago and there’s no one else left who hasn’t died by his hand or by natural causes.”

  “What am I, chopped liver?”

  I stare at her a moment. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Don’t fall in love with me, Zephyr,” Belle mocks me in a serious voice.

  I sit up in my chair and scowl and try to throw down some defensive blocks in my mind, all the while the thought that maybe I am gravid with yet another paradox in being a slut who sometimes falls in love too easily – the more out of reach the woman the better, it occurs to me just as rapidly.

  “I’m not. I’m just saying. . . .”

  “You want to find Arsenal? We have to lure him into the open.”

  And there I am again with the damned nod.

  *

  THE NEXT DAY or two we talk it over, kicking around ideas and throwing most of them out. We are, I realize belatedly, playing house – a weirdly platonic, eerily satisfying game sequestered away inside a dead celebrity’s mansion, pretending the world we plot against doesn’t exist.

  At night I sleep in another of the luxurious bedrooms with their bedding intact, waking up once from a fervid nightmare of the Dreamtime hemming in on me, my companions reduced to skeletons and husks by the misanthropic environment. At least I haven’t flash-fried the sheets, I think, slipping back comatose as if those thoughts never occurred at all.

  The girl designs her Bellwether costume, neither of us quite able to fathom the exact reason behind her name other than the odd sense of clairvoyance it lends her. Like the day we met, she prefers a long sleeveless tee that extends down past her bike shorts and black halter bra, the curious leather boots, and for some reason, Indian war paint she daubs on her face in a moment’s playfulness. I tell her that will never disguise her from prying eyes and Belle replies she doesn’t care if her parents see her now, and since our idea involves becoming discovered, hiding her identity is a redundant ploy I can’t really refute.

  We practice some basic moves in the yard where horses once roamed. It’s pure theatre. Albeit a telepath, she has some physical resilience as well as flight. Her combat skills are completely lacking, but the only thing that matters is how long she can survive.

  We don’t even talk about what we’ll do if Arsenal takes the lure.

  *

  FINALLY WE LEAVE our recluse. The flags are at half-mast over Atlantic City because apparently the latest Pope has died, though I am sure they’ll soon replace him unless the cardinals vote to just end the sham already, split up their loot like a band of adventurers after a good day in the dungeon and each make their own way off into the distance. And so I put the matter out of my head pretty much the instant it passes through, eyes picking over the cityscape as Bellwether and I alight on a certain rooftop downtown.

  “Do you really think this is going to work?” she asks.

  I shrug, looking up, pleased at the distraction because gadgetry was never really my thing. I inhale a deep toke of the city, ages it feels since I used to do this – just like going on patrol, as we used to call it – kidding ourselves there was some kind of pulse or beat or rhythm or feeling or intuition we had for when and where crime might be happening. Not knowing it was luck, though the real luck was in how lucky we were.

  Thankfully, before I can expose the shallow depths of my wisdom, the rooftop elevator outcrop chimes open and a befuddled and angry-looking Hallory O’Hagan marches out with a bunch of manila folders and clipboards I’m pretty sure are just part of the performance to underscore she has more important things to deal with than me.

  “I thought you were dead,” she snaps like a woman who’s forgotten people have feelings and I might have somewhat more affection for my life than she. “And what did you do with my underwear model? He’s not answering calls.”

  “You called Travis already? You didn’t even call me back.”

  “You shafted me out of a big contract with the Pal-mart people, Zephyr,” Hallory says, stops herself, trouble changing gears as she takes in Belle. I can practically hear the cogs grinding. “Who’s she?”

  “You’re right,” Belle says drolly. “She’s hot.”

  “I told you.”

  “Fiery too,” Belle says.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Why does she talk like a 1940s movie star?”

  “You can start directing your questions to her now,” I say, making vague introduction motions with one hand. “Hallory O’Hagan, meet Bellwether.”

  “Bellwether,” Hallory says like she’s tasting a strange new fruit.

  Her pale dainty hand shakes Belle’s, who tries to lock her into eye contact to which the feisty agent is far too wary to succumb. By way of d
istraction, she releases Belle’s hand and eyes me up again.

  “You lost a few pounds.”

  “No, it’s a new costume.”

  “I know it’s a new costume. But you’ve lost a few pounds. Trust me.”

  I flick a look to Belle.

  “So much for the impunity of the male gaze.”

  “Where’d you read that? Online?”

  “Something from a long time ago,” I say and shrug, memories of night school not where I left them. I reorient to Hallory. Hands on hips. “Did you bring it?”

  “I am busy, Zephyr,” she replies.

  On cue, the lift shaft opens again and a hurried-looking young mixed race intern bustles out trying to balance a cardboard box, pushing her glasses back up her aquiline nose and not completely losing her mind seeing a Real Life Superhero™ standing before her.

  “Misty?” Hallory snaps. “Drop the box and go back to your work.”

  Ah, Misty, I never knew you.

  The girl goes and Hallory indicates the box with a look of malevolent disdain.

  “It’s all yours.”

  “Think of it as an investment,” I tell her.

  “Go on?”

  I pull a strange helmet and a bunch of bright red lacquered belts from the box.

  “What’s with these people and bandoliers?” I muse aloud.

  “Zephyr?” Hallory actually taps her toes.

  I fish out the rest of the costume the marketing people designed for the fixed match-up between me and the Punisher. The red jerkin slips over my body stocking easily enough, and call me lazy, but I don’t worry about the rest, keeping my nondescript and slightly now vinyl-looking black leggings and motorcycle boots. The helmet goes on over the top and I even sling on the weird criss-crossing gun belts.