Black and Blue

by Nancy O'Toole Meservier

  Wait, that wasn’t me.

  I blinked and found myself standing across the room, separate from the sight in front of me. Of Calypso, surrounded by nurses, falling into unconsciousness. I looked down at my own outstretched hands.

  Okay. Definitely back to being me, although my street clothes looked oddly out of place in a mental hospital.

  Calypso’s mental hospital.

  “It’s a good thing you’re getting better at shocking yourself out of that because things were about to get aw-kward!”

  I jerked, spinning around toward the source of the new voice.

  “Sunshine?” I blurted out.

  “Wrong!” My best friend said, pointing a single red painted nail at my face. She was wearing a vintage dress from the sixties. The same one I had seen her in at Northwest Comics the day Marty Tong had come looking for Michael.

  “Um…I don’t understand. You look just like—”

  “Look being the key word.” She let out an exaggerated sigh. “No, as much as I’d like to claim to be this level of awesome, I’m only a mental projection, a convenient and, dare I say, appropriate stand-in. After all, where do you go when you need advice?”

  “My best friend,” I said. “Wait, you said mental projection. Does that mean—”

  “We’re in your mind!” She raised her hands and wiggled her fingers. “A far more treacherous place since you got your powers. I’m here as your guide. And as your guide, I’d like to start by getting us out of Calypso’s corner before this memory shifts again. God knows what we’ll come across next.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “The same way you exit any room, the door.”

  I turned to open the door to the room. As I did, I couldn’t help but notice that the world was almost…shimmering?

  “It’s shifting! Need to get moving. Go-go-go!”

  I moved toward to the door (Calypso? Where had Calypso gone?) only to find that the closer I got, the farther away it seemed to get. The surrounding white walls and tile floor shifted to chain link fences and broken concrete. In the background, children laughed. Was this the memory where she had met Amity?

  The door started to fade in front of my eyes, disappearing completely. I doubled my pace to a sprint, diving through at the last possible second, landing not on concrete, but tile.

  “Phew!” Sunshine said, leaning against the adjacent wall. “Didn’t know if we would make that one.”

  I shook my head, looking back to see the door fading away. The last thing I saw as it disappeared was the tween versions of Amity and Calypso, chasing each other and laughing through that broken-up playground. Then it was just a white wall.

  But a different one from before. I looked up and around at my familiar surroundings.

  “We’re at Bailey U?” I asked, then paused. “Or at least a—what did you call it? A projection of Bailey U?”

  “Technically you called it that,” Sunshine replied. “It makes sense that your memory would call this up as a familiar, safe place. You spend enough time here, after all. Or at least you did, until you started skipping classes this week.”

  I winced.

  “I know, it’s just with everything going on—”

  “There was no time. I get it. You’re a good student. It should take minimal groveling to get back on track. But for now, we have more important things to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “We have a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time to do it. And trust me when I say you don’t want to be late for this one.”

  Alex

  Saying Edison Kent’s headquarters looked “different” from my last visit was an understatement.

  As Jane pulled the Forger’s white van to the front, I saw that the door had been torn off its hinges. The flyers, stacked in neat piles during my last visit, were now strewn all over the street.

  Much as I hated politicians, this seemed like a bit much.

  “Yikes,” Dana said. “Kind of wish we hadn’t been right on this one.”

  It hadn’t taken long to figure things out. After stepping into that hallway, Calypso had gone straight for Dana. Not me, the “traitor,” but Dana. Combine that with the fact that she had just attacked Edison Kent, and it was logical to assume that Calypso had shifted back to plan A: getting revenge on the five people she held responsible for her time in an asylum

  No, I told myself. Not Calypso. Dawn. Dawn was Black and Blue now.

  Jane had tried to explain how with Dawn’s illusion-based powers, Calypso’s memories had somehow been able to take control of her body and transform her into Black and Blue. But that didn’t matter. What did matter was stopping Dawn before she did something she would regret.

  “It’s daytime,” I remarked. “Even if she just showed up, someone had to have seen this from one of the nearby buildings. Police will be here fast, so we need to move faster. Dana, where is Dawn?”

  Dana peered up at the building. “Third floor, I think.”

  “Right,” Jane said. “Let me get my cannon.”

  She turned off the vehicle, then hesitated.

  “You sure you’re okay?” I asked.

  “I’m fine.” Her voice was sharp as she reached up and grabbed her goggles from the overhead visor.

  “All right,” I replied.

  Let’s hope that one didn’t come back to bite us in the ass.

  Jane had insisted on coming. That she was healed up from her concussion. Seeing as that blow had happened days ago, she could be telling the truth, but she could also be lying. Unfortunately, since Riley was currently a pile of broken ribs in the Forger Headquarters, I couldn’t be picky about my allies.

  “God, I hope your next words are, ‘Dana, do yourself a favor and take a hike,” the hacker said.

  “Pretty much.” I patted him on the shoulder. “But I’m going to need you to take the van with you. Probably best not to have it here when the police arrive. We’ll give you a call if we need a getaway driver.”

  “Why do I feel like I’ve suddenly signed up for a life of crime?” he murmured.

  “Okay then.” I looked to the building. “Let’s get moving.”

  Inside of Kent’s campaign headquarters, the tables had been literally overturned. The ground was covered in flyers, making it almost slick. I couldn’t help but wonder. Had Dawn messed with them on her way in, or had the campaign volunteers done so to defend themselves?

  When I first stepped in, I thought the room was completely empty. It was darker than you’d expect for mid-morning due to the overcast weather, and some of the lights above us appeared to be broken.

  “Over there,” Jane said sharply, nodding toward a desk, her mirrored goggles reflecting the room.

  It was then that I heard the whimpering.

  I circled around the back and immediately recognized the source as the redheaded woman I had run into just days ago. The second she saw me, she let out a sharp sob, half muffled by her cupped hand.

  I couldn’t really blame her. I didn’t exactly look comforting in my armor.

  “We’re here for Black and Blue,” I said. “What’s the quickest way upstairs?”

  In response, she stared at me, eyes wide.

  Well, shit. That wasn’t going to be much help. I turned to tell Jane to look for a stairwell, but she was already ahead of me, stepping around an overturned desk chair and checking what I knew to be the back exit.

  “This one is blocked,” she said.

  “The p-pallets,” the redheaded woman stuttered. “Never m-moved them. Blocked our only exit. F-fire hazard. Everyone h-headed upstairs.” She let out a low sniff. “Kent said Actuals were dangerous to regular people, but I never t-thought they would come here…”

  She was yammering, probably only half realized what she was saying.

  “Is Kent here?” I asked.

  “N-no,” she replied. “He’s d-doing lunch with someone…SynergyCorp, I think.”

  “Great,” I murmured.

  Of cours
e, I didn’t want Dawn to feel guilty, knowing that she had seriously hurt Edison Kent, but maybe a single well-placed punch would have done that blowhard some good.

  “Here,” I heard Jane say.

  I straightened up from where I stood, then paused. Dawn wouldn’t want this woman to be in danger from the fight. I turned back to her.

  “It’s safe to go outside now,” I said.

  In return, she shook her head.

  “Hey,” I said sharply, wishing to God I could remember her name. “Miss. The police are going to be here soon enough, and they’re going to need someone with a clear head to tell them where to go. They’re going to need you.”

  Her gaze sharpened, and she nodded, but didn’t move.

  Hopefully, she would change her mind once I was out of her face. I turned and headed to Jane.

  The stairwell was in the back-left corner of the building, next to Kent’s empty office. I led the way up, Jane behind me with the cannon pointed at the ground, her finger far away from the trigger. As unsettled as she had looked before, she appeared to be in complete control now.

  When we reached the second floor landing I stopped and turned to her, raising a single finger. She nodded sharply.

  And on the other side of the door, I heard what sounded like a sob.

  I opened the door slowly and stepped inside.

  Then I looked to my right and felt my breath catch in my throat. Because not twenty-feet away from me stood Dawn, in her black and blues, leering over a group of Kent’s campaign workers huddled against the wall.

  All except for Noel White, who stood out in front of them, arms outstretched like a human shield.

  Dawn

  It took only a second to realize that this was more than just some hallway from Bailey U. All the extra doors and windows gave it away.

  Pretty much every space of wall was covered with them, most of them closed, but plenty of them open. And every time I looked through one, I saw flashes of memories—both Calypso’s and mine—on the other side. I saw my first visit to Northwest Comics, watching as a younger and thinner version of Steve showed me Batgirl comics while Michael and Alan played a game of Magic at the counter. I saw Calypso, my age, working for Edison Kent during his last campaign. I saw myself as a little kid, spending time at my parents’ beach house with my family. And I saw my first jump over Bailey City, which I knew ended with me flying face first into a wall.

  Eventually, the doors and windows became so numerous that they filled every inch of available wall space, including the now-curved ceiling.

  “These are my memories,” I finally said, then frowned. “But…not all my memories, right?”

  “What do you think the closed doors represent?” Sunshine nodded toward one, which looked like the door to a plastic playhouse.

  “Memories I’ve forgotten?”

  “Forgotten, repressed, shoved away. You’ve got hallways and hallways of these.”

  “This place must be enormous!”

  “Pretty much, which is why we’re going to have to take the shortcut to get to where you need to go. Don’t worry, we’re almost there.”

  I nodded and hesitated as I passed by an image of Mark and me standing on top of a mountain.

  “Yeah, that jerk is going to have to wait for another day.” Sunshine’s voice was bitter.

  I let out a pained smile. “I guess it would make sense that the Sunshine in my mind wouldn’t like him either.”

  “Well, don’t forget I’m not really Sunshine. I’m you. So, what do you think that means? Ah, here we are.”

  We came to a stop in front of a large, weirdly familiar set of wooden doors, propped open just enough to let in some light. I reached out and rested my hand against the large, heavy doors, feeling the sensation of wood beneath my fingers.

  “These are the doors to the courthouse,” I said, feeling my stomach drop. “From my father’s trial.”

  “Yep.” Sunshine nodded. “Although that’s not precisely where we’re heading. As previously mentioned, this place is enormous. It would take forever to get to where we need to go, and we just don’t have the time. So instead, we’re going to jump from one memory to the next. You see, certain memories can trigger others.”

  I felt my body go stiff. Triggered memories from the trial. That would mean…

  “I don’t,” I began, then paused. “I don’t want to relive—”

  “No, Dawn,” Sunshine said, her voice softening. “I’m not going to make you relive finding out about your father’s death. The point of you being here is not to needlessly traumatize you. It’s about knowledge, and an answer.”

  “An answer? What’s the question?”

  “Why do you do it all, Dawn?”

  I blinked. “I…you mean, why am I an Actual?”

  “It’s like our minds are linked.” A smile cracked on her face.

  “Well…I do it to protect my city. Because there are some threats the police can’t take care of on their own.”

  “True, but not the answer I’m looking for.” She nodded toward the door. “Go on.”

  I hesitated, not sure of what to think. Of course, being an Actual was also fun, but I didn’t think that was quite what she was looking for either.

  I pushed the door open.

  The courtroom was just how I remembered it, large, imposing, awkward. I sat between my mother and brother on the left-hand side, near the prosecutors. David Adler and his lawyer sat on the right. And at the center of it all was the judge in his long, dark robe.

  And they were all frozen as if time itself had stopped.

  “Okay,” I said aloud. “Time to trigger some memories.”

  I took a step forward, walking past the bailiff by the back door. And as I did, a window appeared on the wall behind him. In it, I could see a conversation he had exchanged with my brother before the trial. One that I had not been meant to see.

  “You’ll need to be the man of the house now, son,” he had said.

  I shook my head and began to turn from the memory. As I did, it disappeared from the wall.

  The courtroom wasn’t set up the way I was used to from television, with a long aisle in the middle and rows of chairs on each side. This court room was older, with rows and rows of pew-like benches taking up most of the space. The front part, with the judge, town clerk, defendant, and attorney, was sectioned off, but it was a much larger area than on TV.

  I made my way to the front of the room.

  “Dawn…I’m going to need you to do me a favor.”

  I jumped at the voice, jerking my head toward my mother, who now sat alone on the benches, her gaze distant, as if caught in a memory herself.

  “This isn’t healthy,” she said. “Staying in your room like this.”

  I blinked in surprise.

  This wasn’t how the trial had happened. But I remembered this conversation.

  Alex

  “I understand that you…admire him,” Dawn said. “But it’s important you tell me where he is. He’s not the great…person you think he is.”

  She didn’t talk like Dawn, not exactly. Or like Calypso, either. No, she was struggling to get the words out of her mouth, speaking through clenched teeth. Like she was facing some sort of inner battle.

  Which I suppose she was.

  “If you don’t tell me…” she began.

  “What, you’ll hurt us?” Noel said, holding his head high.

  Shit, kid. What are you doing?

  “Weirdly enough, I agree with you about Kent. He’s just another slimy politician willing to manipulate others for his gain,” he continued, a scowl on his face. “But he’s the only one who gets it. Gets us.”

  Grunts of agreement could be heard behind him.

  “You people and your stupid comic book games.” He scowled. “All it does it hurt us. Red and Black, hell, Faultline may have fought against Calypso, but in the end, they didn’t save us. We’re fucked up forever because of them, and I’m supposed to line up and be gratefu
l because they fit a certain narrative? Hell no. If anything, you being here proves everything Kent said.”

  I heard the hum of Jane’s cannon next to me.

  For a second, Dawn didn’t say anything. And then she took a step toward Noel. When she spoke next, the anger had been drained from her voice. Instead, it was unsure, hesitant.

  “Noel,” she said. “Noel White. I…remember you. Both of us…” She shook her head. “You’re the artist.”

  Noel blinked. “How did you—”

  Jane shot Dawn with a bolt of electricity. And as much as it seemed like she was interrupting a lovely moment, it had really needed to happen. Dawn was separate from the crowd and distracted, allowing Jane to fire with minimal risk to the campaign supporters and drones. And damn, was it a good shot, hitting Dawn right in the center mass. She went flying toward the back wall, her body hitting the hard surface with a crack. I winced. Noel blinked in surprise.

  And then Jane raised a hand to her face and began to sway on her feet.

  Shit.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Faultline.” Noel spat out my codename as if it were a curse.

  I felt a spark of frustration inside of me but shoved it away. I turned to Jane.

  “You need to get these people to safety.”

  “What?” She began, “I—”

  “I remember how long that takes to properly recharge,” I said, voice low. “What’s the best way you can use that time?”

  And you need to get out of here before you throw up again, I wanted to add.

  Her jaw stiffened, and then she nodded. When she spoke next her voice was shaky but clear.

  “Citizens, follow me please. We need to vacate the building before she—”

  One of the women in the group let out a loud gasp.

  I turned to the pile of cubicles where Dawn had landed to see her moving to her feet, glaring straight at me.

  She braced herself.

  “Jane,” I began, “Go—”

  And with that, Dawn launched herself across the room and straight at me. We flew backward, fueled by that powerful jump of hers, through a group of chairs and straight into the wall. We fell to the floor, and I grunted in pain, suddenly aware that my back was still pretty bruised up.