One thing the robots couldn’t do well, apparently, was cook. Which explained Paco. Paco was Mindo’s exact opposite. Mindo was tall, muscular, and never spoke unless spoken to. Paco was a doughy, squat man who jabbered ceaselessly even when no one was around. While Mindo turned up everywhere in the mansion, Paco was never seen outside the kitchen.
Richard liked to sit in the kitchen and nibble on snacks as Paco waddled around his domain, giving a running commentary on his every move. It was like a cooking show on the Food Network.
“Look at this tomato,” Paco would say as he prepared a salad. “Nature’s artwork has never been finer. Look at the red glow, the gentle curves. Smell it.”
Then Paco would sniff the tomato and sigh before attacking it with his knife, at which point he would deliver an editorial on the virtues of a good knife.
Richard understood why all of the Knowbokovs were so trim. It was easy to eat right with someone like Paco working round the clock to feed you. That, and there weren’t any fast food joints on the island.
The other thing that Richard liked about Paco was that while Paco was certainly a little odd, he was well within the acceptable realms of oddness that Richard understood. He didn’t fly or fight crime or build time machines. He just talked to himself while cooking.
One morning he went into the kitchen and found Katrina there with Paco. Katrina was someone who rarely entered Richard’s thoughts. He had to admit he enjoyed the guilty pleasure of having a girlfriend whose mother didn’t know he existed. Katrina kept to herself, and when he did see her she was usually reading.
Even this morning, as she sat at the small table in the corner of the kitchen drinking tea, she had a book in front of her. But she was talking to Paco, and Richard deeply wished he hadn’t entered in the middle of the conversation, as the first words he heard from Paco were, “As you say, he would know if you asked me to put poison in his food.”
“He knows we’re talking about this now,” said Katrina, who looked like she hadn’t slept well. “But he won’t mention it. He’s never mentioned it in the past. I’m no longer of any consequence to him.”
“Your husband is a good man,” said Paco. “If you would talk with him, I’m sure he would listen.”
“Why should he listen when he knows every word I’m going to say?”
“I know this is difficult for you,” said Paco. “But the man saved my life. I love him. I love you, too, and your daughters. And it’s because of this love that I ask we not discuss these morbid daydreams.”
“Paco, you’re the only normal person I have left in my life. Can’t you understand me at all?”
“You’ve been stressed by all of this joking by your daughter about her invisible boyfriend,” said Paco. “Let me make you something that will take your mind off your troubles. Something comforting; gnocchi, perhaps.”
Katrina sighed. “Food isn’t going to make me feel better.”
“What you are saying,” said Paco, “contradicts my lifetime’s experience.”
Katrina left the room as Paco silently set to work mixing dough, looking worried. Richard followed Katrina, unsure of what to do. Should he tell Dr. Knowbokov about Katrina’s feelings? On the other hand, if Dr. Knowbokov really was telepathic, didn’t he already know?
Katrina went to the library, to the furthest wall with its rows of thick, leather bound reference books. After a moment’s study she reached out and tilted one of the books forward. Richard was struck by how much her action reminded him of triggering a secret door in an old movie. Then, the shelf began to slide apart, revealing a passage beyond.
Richard laughed. Dr. Knowbokov’s at least had a sense of humor. Richard followed Katrina into the enormous room beyond. The first thing he noticed, high overhead, was a rocket ship that looked like it had been lifted from the pages of a 1930s comic strip. It was painted cherry red, and had chrome fins on the tail.
The room was filled with countless odds and ends, like the attic of a museum. Everything had a label, or a little metal plate describing it. For a moment he forgot about Katrina as he looked around the chamber and whistled. In one corner of the room was a fifty-foot-long construction crane arm tied into a bow. He leaned over to gaze into a microscope on a nearby table. In the petri dish below it, flea-sized dinosaurs grazed among a forest of hair-width trees. Next to this stood a suit of medieval armor, crafted for a warrior ten feet tall with four arms. Richard leaned over the plate, and saw that the armor had once belonged to a “Dr. Alterman” from the “Mirror Dimension.”
He remembered Katrina, and hurried through the maze of exhibits mentally cataloging things he wanted to examine further when he had the time. Just what did one do with a radioactive skateboard? An anti-sound piano? A warp-monkey?
Katrina was standing in front of a skeleton of a football field-sized snake with wings. When Richard reached her, he saw she was crying. He felt awkward, even though he knew she couldn’t see him. He wondered if he should leave.
Then, Katrina took a deep breath, threw her shoulders back, and wiped her tears. She walked past the snake to an exhibit of a crib in an aquarium. Richard didn’t have time to read the plaque in front of it before Katrina rushed it, and pushed it over with a shattering crash that echoed throughout the huge chamber. Water poured across the floor and Richard took a step back, worried this might be mirror dimension water that could turn him into a warp-monkey.
Katrina moved on to the next exhibit: a petrified baseball bat in a case. She flipped the lid open, grabbed the bat, raised it over her head, and took aim at a globe containing glowing gold fish.
Before she could swing, Dr. Knowbokov slipped up silently behind her and snatched the bat away. “Katrina,” he said. “We should talk.”
Katrina spun around and slapped him. Richard winced. The doctor stood stoically, unfazed by the blow.
“How dare you?” Katrina said. “How dare you tell me we should talk when you know every word I will say?”
“I knew you would strike me,” said Dr. Knowbokov. “And chose to receive the blow, in hopes you would feel better for having struck me. Whether I anticipate your words or not won’t negate the therapeutic effect of saying them.”
“Sometimes I think you’ve spent the last thirty years dreaming up ever more elaborate ways to break my sanity,” said Katrina. “How can you stand there so calmly and tell me we should talk?”
“What other path would you have me follow?” asked Dr. Knowbokov.
Katrina brushed the hair back from her face and set her jaw as her lower lip trembled.
“No matter how you feel,” said Dr. Knowbokov, “it’s unwise to start wrecking exhibits. Breathing the fumes of the aqua regia fish could damage your lungs. And there are things you could unleash here that would be even more dangerous to you.”
“Nothing could be more dangerous to me than you,” said Katrina, slipping past Dr. Know, walking quickly, though gracefully, back toward the library.
Dr. Know knelt down, sighing. He tilted the overturned crib back onto its rockers. He said, “I’m sorry you had to see that, Richard.”
“I feel like I should be apologizing,” said Richard. “I didn’t mean to spy on your wife. She just seemed so upset. And in the kitchen, she was… I mean she—”
“She was talking about killing me,” said Dr. Knowbokov. “I know. I fear we have entered a terrible downward spiral, she and I. The more I know and understand what she is feeling, the more I attempt to react to it, to offer my help. But this only serves to further remind her that I am aware of her thoughts. Sarah didn’t help matters when she used her powers on Katrina the night you first joined us. That hadn’t happened in years. It stirred up unpleasant memories, I fear.”
“Unpleasant memories?”
“I can only say that life has not been easy for Katrina. Sarah and Amelia both demonstrated their powers from childhood. Sarah was especially challenging for Katrina. Imagine having your will subverted to the needs and desires of an infant. I attempted to i
solate Katrina from Sarah, but this seemed to trigger even greater pain.”
“I can see how this would lead to marital strife,” said Richard. “But, if I may ask a blunt question, why doesn’t she just leave you? Better still, why don’t you send her away? Set her up in a nice little house someplace far away from your crazy little world and let her get back to a normal life?”
“She would never be safe from my enemies if she left this island,” said Dr. Knowbokov. “Her situation is difficult, but I continue to have faith that one day she’ll be able to accept my ‘crazy little world.’”
Later that night, he went back to the museum with Sarah.
“I don’t even know where to begin asking questions,” said Richard. “What is all this stuff? Heck, let’s start with the winged snake.”
“Quetzalcoatl,” said Sarah. “It was some kind of god to the ancient Aztecs or Incas or whatever. Rex Monday triggered a spell that brought it back to life. Amelia killed it. When it died, all of its feathers and flesh just turned to dust and blew off, leaving the skeleton. This isn’t even close to the strangest thing I’ve seen in my life.”
“As long as we’re on the big exhibits, what’s up with the rocket ship?”
“Is that a joke? Up? Rocket?”
“Uh, no,” said Richard.
“It’s not a real rocket,” said Sarah. “It doesn’t have any engines. Amelia just picked it up and moved it around with her mind the only time she had to use it.”
“OK. How about the dinosaurs in petri dishes?”
“Some weird side effect of Dad’s earlier attempt at a time machine. I can only say that you’ve never really itched until you’ve had microscopic velociraptors in your pubic hair.”
“Ew,” said Richard.
Sarah took out a cigarette. Within five seconds of her lighting it, a silver bumblebee-sized robot swooped down from the ceiling and extinguished it in a puff of lemon-scented mist. It buzzed away before Sarah could swat it.
“Damn it,” she said. “Dad couldn’t be satisfied with a simple no smoking sign?”
“Would you obey it?” asked Richard.
“Don’t give me grief,” said Sarah. “I smoke. It’s a bad habit. It pisses Dad off maybe even more than me using my powers on Mom. But I’ll stop on my timetable, not his.”
“They say that every cigarette you smoke takes a day off your life,” said Richard.
“If that were true you wouldn’t be the only person in the room who’d never been born. I’d be, like, negative forty-three by now.”
Richard laughed, but then was hit by a serious thought. “About your mother,” he said. “Look, I don’t know if I should tell you this, but she seems to really hate your dad.”
“Duh,” said Sarah. “She hates me, too. She’s been scared of me since before I can remember.”
“Do you hate her?”
“No. Of course not. Jeez. She’s my mother. I feel sorry for her more than anything, I guess. When she married Dad he was just a normal guy. A very smart physicist normal guy, but he wasn’t telepathic. When they were planning to have babies, she definitely wasn’t planning on the freak show she got. On the other hand, Amelia and I didn’t exactly get to pick whether or not to have weird powers. I wish Mom had learned to deal with it. I mean, some mothers give birth to babies who are blind, or who have no hands, or who are retarded, but they still love their kids. Is it mean of me to want my mother to display even a tiny fraction of this acceptance?”
“No,” said Richard. “It’s not mean.”
“How about this,” she said. “I sometimes wish my parents were dead.”
“Now you’re veering into mean,” said Richard.
Chapter Eight
Red and Wet
Mean or no, Richard enjoyed Sarah’s honesty. Sometimes when he was with her, he could completely forget he had ever had another life. Waking up next to her was like waking up in his proper place in the universe. Then, one morning, he woke up in the dark and found only a note by his side.
“Father called with a mission,” the note said. “Will be gone for a week. Would have woken you but you looked so peaceful. Plus, I think that if you looked at me right I would have told my father to do his own dirty work and spent the day here with you. I don’t know that I’m ready for that confrontation yet. I’ll think of you constantly. Love, Sarah.”
He couldn’t go back to sleep. It was 4 A.M. Nothing was on television. He decided to spend a little time in the gymnasium he’d spotted on his ramblings around the mansion. Sarah’s energy had really been pushing him to his physical limits, and he felt like perhaps he should start doing a little weight lifting. Comic book heroes always seemed to be packed with muscles no matter what their profession before they gained their powers. Rocket scientists, geeky students, and physicians were revealed to have long ago sent off for the Charles Atlas course the second they ripped away their shirts to reveal their colorful underwear. Richard felt a little cheated. He was the same skinny guy he’d always been. Sarah and Amelia both could probably take him in arm wrestling.
As he opened the door to the gym, he was greeted with the solid thumping sound of someone murdering a punching bag.
Amelia stood in the far corner of the gym, in old sweats with her hair pinned atop her head. Her hands were bound with tape, and she was dripping sweat and grunting as she lay into the heavy bag.
“Kick its ass,” said Richard. “America’s safe if Rex Monday ever attacks with an army of intelligent, radioactive punching bags.”
Amelia stopped and wiped her brow.
“Why?” she asked. “You going to talk them to death?”
“Was that a joke? I don’t think I’ve heard you tell a joke before.”
“There’s not much in this world I find funny,” she said.
Looking at her sweaty, stern face, with her hard, steel-gray eyes, Richard believed her.
“You’re not much like your sister,” he said.
She leaned over and grabbed her water bottle. “My sister’s going to get herself killed one day. She doesn’t train like she should. She doesn’t push herself.”
“She seems healthy enough.”
“Healthy doesn’t count for much in this game. Her powers are useful for certain missions, but when there’s real fighting to be done, the burden falls to me. I have to watch both our backs. Now, I’ll have to watch out for you as well.”
“I guess,” said Richard. “I didn’t ask for this life, you know.”
“You signed on voluntarily,” said Amelia. “And you blew your first mission. All you had to do was follow your target.”
“Am I the only one who thinks that saving those kid’s lives was important?”
“My sister approves, apparently,” said Amelia. “She seems to have become fond of you.”
“Fond isn’t quite the word,” Richard said with a grin.
“You don’t seem to take much seriously,” said Amelia.
“Why try? I’m some sort of time-ghost, my girlfriend flies, and I’m talking with a woman who can pick up trains with her mind but still feels like she might have to rely on her fists in a fight. It’s easier to just roll with it.”
Amelia took a drink from her bottle. “Have you ever been in a fight, Richard?”
“Not really,” he said. “Don’t guess I’m likely to, since no one can touch me.”
“I can touch you,” said Amelia.
“You wanna fight?” said Richard. “I don’t. You’d whip me from here to next week.”
“Worth one shot,” said Amelia.
Before Richard could even blink, she had crossed the twenty or so feet that separated them and planted a punch squarely on his jaw. Stars flashed before his eyes. When his vision cleared, he was flat on his back. Amelia knelt over him.
“You’re sleeping with my sister,” she said. “I don’t approve.”
“Ow,” said Richard, shaking his head to clear it. “I don’t care what you approve.”
He sat up, lookin
g at Amelia warily. “That’s the second time I’ve been taken out with a shot to the jaw. I don’t like it.”
“I suspect you’ll grow used to it.”
“What? You really think threatening me is going to make me stop sleeping with Sarah?”
“No,” said Amelia. “I’m not threatening you. I’m making you an offer. Right now you’re weak and have zero combat skills. You’re more dangerous to yourself and my family than you are to any of our enemies. You need martial training. I can provide it. Who knows? I might train you well enough that I won’t be able to take you down with one punch.”
“You must learn your negotiating style from your father. He destroys my world then sells me on what a great opportunity it is to make this world a better place. You knock me out with one punch then want to train me until you can hit me three or four times before I’m down.”
She held out her hand to help him to his feet. “You went along with father’s plan. You want to sign onto mine?”
“Let me think about it,” he said taking her hand. “I’m not all that eager to be your full-time punching bag. Why don’t you approve of Sarah and me? She’s a grown woman. Let her live her own life.”
“As I said, you’re weak. I don’t want Sarah getting killed because she’s looking out for you in battle.”
“Does your father know about Sarah and me?”
Amelia shrugged. “I don’t know. For a man who’s close to omniscient he can sometimes be blind to the obvious.”
“So he didn’t send her off on some solo mission just so you’d have a chance to punch me in the jaw?”
“Father has sent Sarah to Jerusalem. He’s decided to bring her unique talents into play in his efforts to broker peace.”
Richard scoffed. “Christ. Your father wasn’t joking about wanting to save the world. But, c’mon, how long do you think a peace she negotiates using her powers is going to last over there? A week, tops.”
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