by James Maxey
“So you want to fight dirty,” I said, clenching my fists.
“I don’t want to fight at all,” she said. “I’m your sister. I want to help you, so you’ll help us. Mother needs you.”
“Goddamn it!” I snapped. “Stop calling her that. She’s not my mother!”
I lunged at Bobbie, not even bothering to open my eyes. She liked the way I smelled? She wasn’t the only one with animalistic senses. I could hear her heart beating like a drumroll, revved to high intensity by our race down the steps. She’d been standing in the corner of the stairwell. To reach steps going up or down, she was going to have to go through me. Since that wasn’t practical, her more likely path was to go over me. Sure enough, she leapt, aiming to clear my shoulders, but I was ready. I snatched her leg as she flew over.
Then, WHAM! I slammed her into the wall. She went limp. I could hear her heartbeat shift gears. I’d knocked her out. I dropped her and stepped back, wiping blood from my eyes. God, it stung. I was going to come out of this day with an interesting set of scars. I left her where she fell and limped down the stairs, heading toward ground level. By now, there would be cops everywhere. With any luck, they’d gun me down. I felt done, both physically and emotionally.
I’d almost reached the ground floor when I heard noises coming up the stairs. My brain tried hard to pick apart the tangled sounds. At least three people, breathing hard as they ran up the flights. Something was off. The footsteps didn’t have the hard impact you’d expect from the boots of firefighters. They were more like the soft slapping sound of bare feet. The breathing was odder still. One of the people heading toward me had a lung capacity that rivaled my own.
They were only a few floors beneath when the smell hit me. I’d never been to a zoo—you can probably guess why I wouldn’t be a fan of the idea—but I’d fought the Zoo King. He’d had a trained gorilla as part of his crew. The scent coming toward me was almost identical.
I pushed through the nearest door, intending to get outside whether I was on the ground floor or not. Instead, I wound up with a face full of heat and smoke. I coughed, taking a few more steps into the room, trying to find a path through the flames, but anywhere I looked I saw fire. I turned back toward the stairs and found my half-human siblings had caught up with me.
One of them looked like a heavy-set teenage boy dressed in jeans and a t-shirt whose head had been replaced with that of a Saint Bernard. He was panting hard, bent over, his hands on his knees. Beside him was a creature a good deal taller than Bobbie, her limbs slender, almost twig-like, wearing spandex running shorts and a sports bra over a flat chest, which was the only real reason I thought of her as a her. Her face looked like a morph of a gazelle and human child, hairless, with curved black horns jutting from her brow. She was barely breathing hard at all despite her run up the stairs. Still, she was so skinny, I couldn’t take her seriously as a threat.
The last member of the trio was a bit more imposing. After my growth spurt following taking reboot, people often tell me I look like a gorilla. But I don’t, not really. I look like a very tall, heavily muscled chimp-man hybrid. Which, okay, looks a little bit like a gorilla. But the final creature before me really did look like a gorilla, wearing hot pink jogging shorts and a matching sports bra that, unlike the gazelle girl’s bra, was actually having to do some work. Female gorillas don’t have particularly prominent breasts, but this creature’s human side chose to manifest itself in some oversized hooters and a long, curly head of hair held back with clips adorned with pink butterflies. The gorilla girl wasn’t as big as I was by a long shot, but she was solidly built, with bulging, sculpted shoulders that would have been the envy of any bodybuilder.
“You must be Harry,” the gorilla girl said.
“Where’s Bobbie?” asked the gazelle girl.
“I’m Sasha,” said the gorilla girl. “Short for Kinshasa.” She sounded weirdly nervous. Not in a nervous that we’re about to fight kind of way, but nervous in an excited to meet you kind of way, the tone of voice I often hear just before people ask to take a selfie with me.
“We can do introductions later,” said the gazelle girl. “Where’s Bobbie?”
“Can we talk someplace we’re not about to die from smoke inhalation?” I asked, coughing to emphasize my point.
They cleared the doorway and I followed, trying to decide if I should attack them while I had the element of surprise. Sasha was the only one of the three who might be a threat, but I was tired as hell and no longer seeing the point in fighting. Was getting captured by the Legion seriously a better fate than turning myself over to my long lost mad scientist mother? Did the fact I couldn’t tell the difference indicate there was something fucked up with my head, or something fucked up with the world?
We closed the door to the stairwell. I slumped against the wall, coughing, wiping more blood from my eyes.
The dog boy narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been fighting Bobbie,” he said, in a matter of fact tone.
“Who’s Bobbie?” I asked, figuring it was best not to admit anything.
“I smell her on you,” said the dog boy. “And the cuts on your brow—Bobbie always goes for the eyes.”
I took a closer look at his face and noticed a series of parallel scars on his own brow.
“Whatever,” I said. “She’s knocked out on a landing a few floors above. You’ll forgive me for not wanting to hand myself over to your mother. You guys are obviously smart enough to talk. Are you also smart enough to understand you’re working with a bona fide supervillain?”
“Human laws matter nothing to us,” said the gazelle girl. “Your opinions matter even less. We will come with us. You may choose whether you will walk or be carried.”
“We shouldn’t hurt him,” said Sasha. “Mother wouldn’t like that.”
“But it’s fine that he can hurt Bobbie?” asked the gazelle girl.
“I’m not hurt,” a voice called out from the floor above. We looked up and saw Bobbie land in a crouch at the top of the steps we stood beside. “At least, not seriously. He could have killed me while I was unconscious but didn’t.”
“I’m not a murderer,” I said, crossing my arms.
“I saw the video of you beating a man to death,” said the gazelle girl.
“I was trying to knock him out,” I said.
“With a manhole cover,” she said.
“He was fucking invulnerable,” I said. “I mean, his skull dented the damn manhole cover. I swear to God I never expected to kill him.”
“I believe you,” said Bobbie.
The gazelle girl frowned, crossing her arms and turning away as she said, “I accept that it’s difficult in the heat of combat to calibrate your use of force.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “So you must understand that, should we be forced to fight you, we’re not to blame if you’re injured.”
“He’s already injured,” said Sasha, her eyes focused on my chest. “You’ve been burnt.”
“Burnt, pummeled, half-drowned, electrocuted a little bit, and bitten by robo-lizard birds with needle teeth.” I shrugged. “An average day.”
“We have all we need to heal you in the House of Love,” said the dog boy.
“I suspect love might have a different meaning for you than most people. I don’t suppose you’ve read Orwell, have you?” I asked.
“Of course,” said the dog boy. “I’m a huge science fiction fan. My name is Hugo. Did you know there’s a science fiction award called the Hugo?”
“And I’m Ivuna,” said the gazelle girl.
“Ivanna?” I asked, not sure if I’d heard her correctly, though she spoke with surprising clarity considering the inhuman shape of her jaws.
“Ivuna,” she said, with a tone of contempt. “I’m named for a region in Tanzania where my father dwelled in the wild.”
“And you’re all my brothers and sisters?” I asked.
“In spirit, at least,” said Sasha. “I’m the product of the genetic blend of a human male and
a gorilla female, so we aren’t biologically connected, not directly. Hugo underwent a similar process. But, there’s more to being family than merely sharing genes.”
“Yes,” said Ivuna. “There’s also shared history. A history Harry hasn’t shared. He was raised apart from us, among the old-men. He can never truly be part of our family.”
“You’ll hurt his feelings,” said Sasha.
“I’m honestly not bothered,” I said.
“Ivuna you’re being hard-headed, as usual,” said Bobbie. “Harry is one of us, even if he hasn’t lived with us. I can only imagine that growing up among the old-men has made him more aware of how different he is from them. He’s one of the new-men. He belongs with us.”
“At this point, I belong with whoever is going to give me massive doses of ibuprofen,” I said. “I’ve got a headache you wouldn’t believe. Honestly, pretty much my whole body hurts except for a two inch patch on the back of my thigh. Promise none of you will bite me there and I’ll come quietly.”
“I’ve got pills right here,” said Hugo, digging into the pocket of his jeans and pulling out a small bottle. He rattled them, but it only sounded like a few.
“At my size, I take a dozen at a time,” I said.
“There’s more in the House of Love,” said Bobbie.
“And we promise not to attack your thigh,” said Sasha.
“I’m not promising anything,” said Ivuna.
Chapter Sixteen
nothing weird
SASHA HAD SOME water bottles tucked into her fanny pack, which, curiously enough, sat above an actual fanny. Gorillas don’t actually have much in the way of butts. Neither do chimps. I’m flat as a washboard back there. Sasha proved to be rather curvaceous from behind, almost feminine if you looked past the thick black body hair and linebacker muscles. I took the pills from Hugo. He only had seven in the bottle, but I swigged them down hoping they’d do a little good. Hugo’s face lit up, like he was happy I’d taken his pills. I guess the Saint Bernard half of his makeup left him eager to please.
Outside the door to the stairwell, there was a loud, sizzling, rumble as firehoses were trained on the burning floor.
“We should leave,” said Ivuna. “The last thing we need is to get spotted by humans again.”
“You’ve been spotted before?” I asked as I followed her down the stairs.
“Occasionally,” said Bobbie. “Our home isn’t completely self-sufficient yet. We sometimes make late night raids into the city to secure what we need. Simple things, like salt, flour, other staples.”
“And office supplies,” added Ivuna. “Mother goes through a lot of paper and toner cartridges.”
I was going to make a joke about this when Hugo added, “We also occasionally raid the morgue.”
“The morgue?” I exclaimed.
“For equipment,” said Ivuna.
“And bodies!” Hugo said cheerfully.
Sasha winced as he said this. Bobbie sighed.
“It’s for a good reason,” said Sasha, hastily. “Mother harvests the bodies for essential chemicals needed in her projects. It’s nothing weird.”
I decided I shouldn’t inquire further into what, exactly, she would consider weird. We’d made it down into an underground parking garage. It was empty of all but a couple of cars, dark save for the dim light of a distant exit sign which must have been running on a battery. Things were eerily quiet. The insanity on the streets above reached us only as muffled thumps and thuds.
I felt like I moved in slow motion as I followed them through the lot. I tried to push through the exhaustion, but with each step I felt weaker, more lightheaded. I closed my eyes for what I thought was only a second and when I opened them again I found my arm draped across Sasha’s shoulder as she propped me up.
“We can rest when we reach the tunnels,” she said. “Not much further.”
I managed to walk under my own power again, though Sasha hovered close by, ready to catch me. I followed them through caged doors into a freight elevator. I started to ask how it could move if there was no power, but Hugo and Ivuna worked together to remove a gray panel from the back wall of the elevator revealing a large, roughhewn hole punched through the concrete into a brick-lined tunnel beyond. Sasha helped me through and I sat down on a block of broken concrete as Ivuna put the panel back in place.
“Christ,” I whispered. “I can barely keep my eyes open.”
“The pills are kicking in,” said Hugo.
“The ibuprofen?” I asked.
“I didn’t technically say they were ibuprofen,” he said, sounding apologetic.
“This is for the best,” said Bobbie.
“You drugged me?” I whispered.
I don’t know if she answered or not, since I blacked out for a few seconds and wound up flat on my back. I opened my eyes briefly once more, my mind in fog, confused by why a cat, a gazelle, a gorilla and a dog knelt over me, watching my face.
I thought briefly of Bullet, wondering how he was getting along back on the ranch, and if the house-robots would still feed and walk him with Kracker gone. Then, darkness.
Then, light. I opened my eyes and found myself staring at florescent bulbs above me. I looked around. I was in a hospital room. Only, I suspected it wasn’t actually a hospital, since the lights were hanging from a distant stone ceiling. I propped myself up on my elbows, wincing. My chest was wrapped in bandages adhered to scabs beneath. When I moved even slightly, the bandages tugged my wounds. I had an IV in my left arm. I pulled it out, noting that my hands hadn’t been bound.
Waking up in a hospital bed made me think of the first time I’d met Jenny.
“Jenny,” I whispered as I sat up fully in the bed. I hoped she was okay. I also hoped, more than anything else, that she wouldn’t come looking for me. The beast people obviously wanted me alive. I had a hunch an ordinary human, or at least someone who looked like an ordinary human, wouldn’t be as well received.
I swung my legs over the edge of the bed, wondering where the hell I might find pants. Except for my bandages, I was buck naked.
“You shouldn’t move,” said a woman’s voice behind me. I twisted my torso to see who had spoken and wound up gasping in pain. I did, however, catch a glimpse of Sasha in a nurse’s uniform standing behind me.
She walked around to face me.
“So,” I said. “You’re a nurse? Or do you just like dressing up?”
“Both!” she said. “Some of the new-men don’t like wearing clothes. Ivuna would go around naked if Mother allowed it. But I have a lot of outfits.”
“I had no idea you could order a uniform in size gorilla,” I said, trying to smile, wincing as the stitches in my eyebrow dug into tender flesh.
“I’m an excellent seamstress,” she said. “Not to mention a pretty good carpenter, and a decent sculptor. I carved myself a dress dummy in my size out of some old ceiling beams I salvaged. Basically, anything that requires a steady hand, I’m good at.”
“You sewed me up?” I said, touching my stitched brow.
“I did what I could,” she said. “Bobbie had cut you rather badly. Mother will be very cross with her.”
I frowned. “Bobbie only attacked me because I attacked her.”
“Most of the new-men would have found a way to subdue you without damaging you,” said Sasha. “Bobbie likes the sight of blood more than she would ever admit. The sight and the…” Her voice trailed off.
“Taste?” I said.
“I was going to say smell,” said Sasha, though not in a convincing tone. “None of the new-men eat meat.”
“Even carnivores like Bobbie?”
“Bobbie isn’t a carnivore,” said Sasha. “She eats the same diet the rest of us do. Nothing but vegetables and grains and crickets.”
“Crickets?”
“They’re very high in protein.”
“They don’t count as meat?” I asked.
She shrugged.
I stretched out on the bed once mor
e, looking at the distant ceiling. “Are we in a cave?”
“Not a natural one,” she said. “The bedrock beneath New York is riddled with tunnels. The original subway system was built as a series of giant pneumatic tubes. This chamber was dug to be a boarding station before the pneumatic system was made obsolete by electric trains. Eventually the unfinished system was walled off to keep vagrants out, and mostly forgotten.”
“But Moreau found it?”
“She found the tunnel entrances marked on an antique map. You know she has a strong interest in artifacts from the Victorian era,” said Sasha.
“Why would I know that?” I asked. “I’ve never met her.”
“The Lawful Legion must have files on her.”
I nodded. “I haven’t read them.”
“You weren’t curious about your own mother?”
“I’ve never thought of her as my mother,” I said. “I celebrate Mother’s Day by sending a card to a petri dish.”
“That’s funny,” she said, smiling. “I’ve always liked your sense of humor.”
“Always?” I asked. “You just met me. How long have I been out?”
“Thirty hours.”
“Thirty hours!” I said. “What the hell was in those pills?”
“The pills were to relax you and keep you from seeing the path we took here,” she said. “They would have worn off on their own in a few hours. The rest of the time, you’ve been sleeping because your body required it.”
“Thirty hours seems like coma territory,” I said.
“You were fine,” said Sasha. “We monitored your vital signs. You seemed quite peaceful sleeping.”
“Sleeping is one of my many talents,” I said. “Like you and sewing.”
She giggled. It was a strange sound coming from a body that look capable of bench pressing a small car. “When you were with the Legion, I watched every video they released of you in action. I loved your press conferences as Sock Monkey. You were so goofy.”
“Goofy?” I said, in mock offense, then nodded. “It’s hard to be taken seriously when you’re wearing a striped stocking cap with a tassel.”
