"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
Warily, 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.
"That’s what I like to think about the most," Edward told her. "That hot liquid draining."
His wife stared at him. "I don’t think I can take this much longer," she said.
The address led them to an austere brick building in an aging industrial park.
"It doesn’t look like a massage parlor," Edward said.
"It’s a clinic," Margaret said. "For massage therapy."
Edward could feel a sneeze gearing up behind the bridge of his nose. He pulled a few tissues from the Kleenex box on the dash, reconsidered, and took the whole box. "I don’t think this is going to help," he said. It was the first line in an argument they’d performed several times in the past week. Margaret only looked at him. He sneezed. In the back seat his four-year-old son laughed.
Edward lightly kissed Margaret on the cheek, then reached over the seat to shake hands with Michael. "Be a soldier," Edward said, and Michael nodded. The boy’s nose was running and Edward handed him a tissue.
Margaret put the car in gear. "I’ll pick you up in an hour. Good luck."
"Good luck!" Michael yelled. Edward wished they didn’t sound so desperate.
The waiting room was cedar-paneled and heavy with cinnamon incense (heavy, he knew, because he could smell it). There was a reception desk, but no receptionist, so he sat on the edge of a wicker couch in the position he assumed when waiting—for allergists; endocrinologists; eye, ear, nose and throat specialists—his left hand holding the wad of Kleenex, his right thumb pressed up against the ridge of bone above his right eye, as if he were working up the courage to blind himself. Periodically he separated a tissue from the wad, blew into it, switched the moist clump to his other hand, and wedged his other thumb against the left eye. It was all very tedious.
A chubby white woman in a sari skittered up to him and held out her hand. "You’re Ed!" she said in a perky whisper. "How are you?"
He smoothly tucked the Kleenex under his thigh, and as he lifted his hand he ran his palm against the side of his pants, a combination hide-and-clean move he’d perfected over the years. "Just fine, thanks."
"Would you like some tea?" she asked. "There are some cups over there you can use."
She gestured toward the reception desk where a mahogany tree of ceramic mugs sat next to an electric teapot. What he wanted, he thought, was a syringe to force a pint of steaming Earl Grey up his nose; what he wanted was a nasal enema. He said no thanks, his voice gravelly from phlegm, and she told him that the therapist would be available in a moment, would he like to walk this way please? He followed her down a cedar-paneled hallway, tinny sitar music hovering overhead, and she left him in a dim room with a massage table, wicker chair, and a row of cabinets. A dozen plants hung darkly along the edges of the room, suspended by macramé chains.
He looked around, wondering if he should take off his clothes. His wife had read him articles about reflexology but he couldn’t remember if nakedness were one of the requirements. Once she’d shown him a diagram in Cosmopolitan: "Everything corresponds to something else, like in voodoo," Margaret had said. "You press one spot in the middle of your foot, and that’s your kidney. Or you press here, and those are your lungs. And look, Hon." She pointed at the toes in the illustration. "The tops of the four little toes are all for sinuses." He asked about people with extra toes, what would those correspond to, but something interrupted—tea kettle or telephone—and she never answered.
He sat on the table rather than the chair because it was what he did in most examination rooms. When the door opened he was in the middle of blowing his nose. The masseuse was short, with frizzy brown hair. She waited politely until he was finished, and then said, "Hello, Edward. I’m Annit." Annit? Her accent was British or Australian, which somehow reassured him; foreigners always seemed more knowledgeable than Americans.
"Hi," he said. Her hand was very warm when they shook.
"You have a cold?" she asked sympathetically.
"No, no." He touched the bridge of his nose. "Allergies."
"Ah." She stared at the place where he’d touched. The pupils of her eyes were wet black, like beach pebbles.
"Can’t seem to get rid of them," he said finally.
She nodded. "Have you seen a doctor?" Obvious questions normally annoyed him, but her sincerity was disarming. The accent, probably.
"I’ve seen everyone," he said. "Every specialist my insurance would cover, and a few that I paid for myself. I’ve taken every kind of pill that I’m not allergic to." He chuckled to show he was a good sport.
"What are you allergic to?"
He paused a moment to blow into a tissue. "They don’t know, really. So far I seem to be allergic to nothing in specific and everything in general." She stared at his nose. "Allergies are cumulative, see? Some people are allergic to cats and, say, carpet mites. But if there’s carpet mites but no cat around, they aren’t bothered. Cat plus carpet mites, they sneeze. Or six cats, they sneeze. They haven’t come up with a serum that blocks everything I’m allergic to, so I sneeze at everything."
"For you," she said, "it’s like there are six cats around all the time?"
"Six hundred cats."
"Oh!" She looked genuinely concerned. She jotted something on the clipboard in her hand. "I have to ask a few other questions. Do you have any back injuries?" He shook his head. "Arthritis? Toothaches, diabetes, emphysema, heart disease? Ulcers, tumors, or other growths? Migraines?"
"Yes! Well, headaches, anyway. Sinus-related."
She made a mark on the clipboard. "Anything else you think you should tell me?"
He paused. Should he tell her about the toe? "No," he said.
"Okay, then. I think I can help you." She set down the clipboard and took his hand. In the poor light her eyes seemed coal black. "Edward, we are going to do some intense body work today. Do you know what the key is to therapeutic success?" She pronounced it "sucsase."
He shook his head. She was hard to follow, but he loved listening to her.
"Trust, Edward." She squeezed his hand. "The client-therapist relationship is based on trust. We’ll have to work together if we’re going to affect change. Do you want to change, Edward?"
He cleared his throat and nodded. "Yes. Of course."
"Then you can. But. Only if we trust each other. Do you understand?" All that eye contact.
"I understand."
"Okay, Edward," she said briskly. "Get undressed and get under the sheet. I’ll be back in a few minutes."
He quickly removed his clothes and left them folded on the floor. Should he lie face up or down? Did she tell him? Down seemed the safer choice.
Okay now, he thought. Just relax.
Almost immediately, the tip of his nose began to itch and burn. A hot dollop of snot eased out of his left nostril.
He’d left his Kleenex with his clothes.
He scrambled out of the bed, grabbed the box, and got back under the sheet. Ah, facial tissue, his addiction. Like a good junkie, he always knew exactly how much product was in the room and where it was located. While making love he kept a box near the bed. He preferred entering Margaret from behind because it kept his sinuses upright and let him sneak tissues unseen.
Edward propped himself on his elbows and blew, squeezed the other nostril shut, and blew again. He looked around for a place to toss the tissue. At work he had two plastic trash bins: a public one out in the open, and a small one hidden in the well of his desk to hold the used Kleenex. But he didn’t see a trash can anywhere in the room. Was it hidden in the cabinets?
A knock at the door. Edward pitched the tissue toward his clothes and put his head back in the doughnut. "Okay!" he called casually. He tried to arrange his arms into what he hoped looked like a natural position.
The door opened behind him and he felt her warm hand on his shoulder. "Feel free to grunt and make noises," she said.
"What’s that?"
She peeled back half of the sheet and cool air rippled across his skin. "Make noises," she said. "I like feedback." He heard a liquid fart as she squirted something from a bottle, and then felt her oiled hands press into the muscles around his neck.
Well, that felt good. Should he tell her now, or wait until it got even better? And what feedback noises were appropriate?
Ropes began to unkink in his back. She used long, deep strokes for a time, then focused on smaller areas. She pressed an elbow into the muscle that run along his spine; at first it felt like she was using a steel rod, but after thirty seconds of constant pressure something unclenched inside him and the whole muscle expanded, softened. "You work at a computer?" she asked.
Unpossible Page 20
