Big Ape_Lawless Book Two

by James Maxey

  “I knitted one just like it!” she said. “I’m a huge fan!”

  I nodded, smiling at her enthusiasm. But as the smile reached the far corners of my lips, the full memory of the events that had brought me here rushed back. My smile vanished and I said, in a voice almost a whisper, “How many?”

  “What?”

  “How many people died?” I asked.

  “Oh!” she said, sounding strangely excited to answer. “None!”

  “None?” I didn’t believe her. “How the hell is that possible?”

  “Well, it was early,” she said. “They say the city never sleeps, but it’s pretty drowsy at four in the morning. Not many people out and about. And, Technosaur wasn’t trying to destroy buildings. She was opening them so her technodactyls could raid the offices for what she was looking for.”

  “What was she looking for?”

  “Mother’s research, of course,” said Sasha. “Technosaur thinks she can use Mother’s genesplicing technology to repopulate the Earth with dinosaurs now that the climate is warming enough to make that viable.”

  “There’s a side effect of global warming you never hear discussed in the media,” I said. “But why was she raiding Wall Street?”

  “Wall Street isn’t just home to the stock market,” said Sasha. “There are more lawyers per square block than you’d find anywhere outside of Washington. As you know, Mother holds numerous patents on genetic information, though she had difficulty making use of those patents while she was behind bars. But, there’s a lot more to mother’s research than her patented discoveries. The stuff Technosaur stole was the secret data captured when mother was first arrested years ago. Mother was decades ahead of anyone else in genetic engineering since she hadn’t allowed herself to be bogged down by red tape. That information has slowly been trickling out to pharmaceutical and agricultural companies, where it’s potentially worth billions. Of course, lawyers have to pass the discoveries through legal hoops to make it look like original, patentable breakthroughs rather than work stolen from Mother.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I had no idea supervillainy could generate so much red tape.” I gave a grim smile. “Val—Cut Up Girl—once pointed out to me that billionaire superheroes like the Blue Bee used to spend their time beating up muggers and drug dealers, but never lifted a finger against crooks in suits who swindled investors out of billions of dollars.”

  “It does seem like a rather selective set of laws enforced by the Lawful Legion. Why was Mother targeted, while someone like Bernie Madoff was ignored?”

  “Because Madoff wasn’t growing monsters in test tubes?”

  “She wasn’t growing monsters,” said Sasha. “She was growing you and me. You don’t think of yourself as a monster, do you?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that.

  “Do you think of yourself as human?” she asked.

  “Sometimes,” I said. The corners of my lips turned up. “Especially with a few beers in me. I don’t suppose you could hook me up?”

  “Mother forbids alcohol,” said Sasha.

  “Then how about a few more of those pills? If I don’t take seven at a time, they might give me a decent buzz.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “When you were Sock Monkey, you recorded anti-drug PSAs. Don’t joke about drug abuse.”

  She sounded genuinely bothered. I did remember making the PSAs. I had no idea anyone would actually pay attention to them.

  “Your mother would get along well with Reverend Rifle,” I said. “He also has a thing against drugs and booze.”

  “Mother also forbids us to use guns, so I suspect a man named Rifle might not find much in common with her.”

  “No, I suppose he wouldn’t,” I admitted. “So where is she?”

  “Mother?”

  “Yes. That’s the reason you brought me here, isn’t it? To talk to her.”

  “Oh no,” said Sasha. “Did I say something that implied that?”

  “You mean I’m not here to meet with her?”

  “No,” she said. “I mean, yes, eventually. Of course she’d want to meet you. We all want you to meet her.”

  “Then tell her I’m ready to see her,” I said. “I mean, I’ve come this far. I may as well see things through.”

  “Oh dear,” she said. “I’m sorry. I really have given you the wrong impression, I’m afraid. Mother can’t see you. Mother isn’t here.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Where is she? When will she be back?”

  “She’s a prisoner of Technosaur,” said Sasha. “As for when you’ll see her, that depends on how quickly you heal.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because, silly,” said Sasha. “You’re going to help us rescue her.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Better People

  ONE WEEK LATER I was riding across southern Texas on a big-ass Goldwing Cruiser. I used to ride motorcycles all the time when I was with the Red Line. Back then I sometimes dreamed of taking off and tooling across the country, seeing the sights. The reality of actually doing it didn’t quite live up to the dream. Having driven about two thousand miles of interstate, I was pretty much over motorcycles. Remember my saying I had no butt? That never really bothered me on my late night zips around the Port City beltline. But around mile 200 on I-73 through Pennsylvania, the lower back pain really kicked in, and grew worse with each mile.

  Still, for an ape travelling incognito, a big bike isn’t a bad way to move across the country in broad daylight. The new-men had fitted me up with a helmet big enough for my huge head, a custom-made leather jacket and gauntlets that hid my hairy arms, and when you’re squatting on a bike people don’t really notice that your limbs aren’t the right proportions. I did get a few odd looks when I stopped to pump gas with the credit card the new-men had given me, but no one called the cops. Like any good supervillain, Dr. Moreau had safe houses dotted across the US, so only once did I have to sleep in the tent I’d packed in the Goldwing’s saddlebags.

  Finding Reverend Rifle’s compound out in the middle of nowhere wasn’t easy. Back in New York, when I told the new-men that his ranch had been built on top of a missile silo, it took Ivuna about twenty minutes of searching public records to come up with potential locations, and a simple peek at Google Earth had been all I’d needed to figure out which was his based on the layout of the house, the outbuildings, and the airstrip. Still, finding it on Google Earth was one thing. Finding it down the maze of seemingly endless, dusty dirt roads once I left the paved roads behind turned out to be a little trickier. I’d set off on the last leg of my journey with a full tank of gas but after wasting a lot of time driving in circles the needle edged the E. I did vaguely recognize the mountains in the distance. I was close. But how close? I pulled up to an unmarked crossroad of thin dirt lines vanishing toward the horizon. To my left I saw the carcass of a horse, nothing but bleached bones and a few golden tufts of mane. Yeah, this probably was how my luck would break. Drive all the way across the country without incident, then die of thirst in the desert when the reverend’s ranch was probably a mile away, behind one of the low hills. But which one?

  I studied the dust in the roads with the intensity of a detective peering at fingerprints. It paid off. There were tire tracks going down the road to my right, the tread still relatively sharp. Something had to be in that direction. I gunned the engine and hoped that some future traveler wouldn’t come to a similar crossroad one day and wonder what the hell the bleached bones of Bigfoot were doing out here.

  Fortunately, just around the time I was pretty certain I’d picked poorly, I came to the top of a low hill and beyond it was the ranch. I zoomed down the road, kicking up a trail of dust. I saw the door open and the reverend step onto his porch, a rifle in hand. I hoped he’d consider it unchristian to shoot a stranger without first asking why he was on your property.

  I pulled the bike up to his porch. He stared at me, not raising his gun as I pulled off my helmet.

  “Surprised t
o see me?” he asked.

  He shrugged. “I figured you’d gotten away. Nothing in the news about you getting captured, at least.”

  “Yeah, but aren’t you surprised I figured out how to find you?”

  He shook his head. “Google makes it hard to keep airstrips secret.”

  “Heard from Jenny?” I asked.

  “Yup,” he said. “She was waiting for me when I made it back to my jet.”

  “I heard no one died in the attack,” I said.

  “You heard wrong,” said the reverend. “No one died that morning, sure. But there was a homeless guy in intensive care with third degree burns. He died two days ago.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I’ve been on the road. Haven’t really been following the news.”

  “They haven’t caught him,” said Reverend Rifle.

  “Caught who?”

  “Kracker. Technosaur. Whatever he calls himself. She. Whatever. Apparently, she’s vanished from the face of the earth.”

  “I know exactly where she went.”

  He pushed up the brim of his hat. “That so? How’d you find out?”

  “Sewer manimals,” I said. “Technosaur stole their mama.”

  He studied my face a few seconds, then nodded.

  “No follow up questions?” I asked.

  “Not immediately,” he said. “I’ve done some homework since getting back to Texas. Jenny’s no Kracker, but she knows her way around the dark web. We’ve already figured out that the real purpose behind the attack on Wall Street was to steal the genetic research of a villain named Anastasia Moreau. We also learned a lot of the human/animal hybrids documented in her records have never been captured. I take it you met them.”

  “Yep. They patched me up. Gave me a motorcycle. Good people.”

  “Jenny tells me Dr. Moreau is your mother.”

  “Only genetically,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, she’s just another mad scientist with too much time on her hands. She deserves to spend the rest of her life in prison. But, a real prison, not where she’s at now, a captive of Technosaur.”

  “So you’re planning to rescue her,” said Reverend Rifle.

  “That’s what my, uh, siblings want,” I said. “But my real reason for agreeing to do this is it gives me a shot at Technosaur. She duped us, rev. We’ve got blood on our hands because of her. I need to take her down. I’m still committed to finding out who murdered Valentine and clearing my name, but, for now, Technosaur has to be my top priority.”

  “You’re not doing it alone,” said Reverend Rifle.

  “You want a piece too? I thought these big league supervillains were a little outside your comfort zone.”

  “Nothing about what I do is comfortable,” said the reverend.

  “Really,” I said. “Cause I gotta say you pull off the cool and confident mystery man act in style.”

  He shook his head. “Every night before I go to sleep I pray for confidence, or for at least a little peace. Every morning, I wake filled with doubt and anger.”

  “Anger?”

  “There are creeps who go down to Mexico and promise young women the chance for new lives in the US doing honest labor like working in a factory. The second they have them in the truck, these girls turn into property, bought and sold as sex slaves. If they’re lucky, they might wind up in the US, where at least the law will protect them if they ever come to the attention of the cops. If they’re not lucky, they wind up overseas, in places where slavery is still more or less part of daily life.” He shook his head slowly. “After I got out of the army, I never, ever dreamed I’d aim a gun at another man except in self-defense. But when I met my first slave trafficker…” his voice trailed off. “I pray for love in my heart and wake with rage. I pray for certainty, and wake with doubt. But what if rage and doubt are His will for me? What if it truly is His will that I do the terrible things I do? I suppose, on Judgment Day, I’ll finally learn if I made the right call.”

  “Man,” I said. “That’s heavy.”

  He took a deep breath. “Yeah. And now I’m angry and doubtful about a dinosaur genius and her robot army. The Lord does work in mysterious ways.”

  “I, for one, am happy to have you along for the fight. Let’s tell Jenny.”

  “Ah,” said the reverend, with a partial smile. “That might not be a good idea.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “She’ll be on board with going after Technosaur, I promise.”

  “If you say so,” he said. “We’ll see what she says. She won’t be getting back until after sundown.”

  “Where is she?”

  “My church,” said the reverend. “She’s volunteering in the soup kitchen.”

  “As, uh, part of an undercover mission?”

  The reverend shook his head. “Just told me she wanted to help out down there.”

  “Oh,” I said, wondering what she was up to.

  “These sewer dwellers you were talking about. More half-men, like you?”

  “I’m all man, Reverend,” I said, in my best Barry White tone. “But, sure. Half their DNA is from other animals.”

  “They going to help us take down Technosaur? How many are there?”

  “Being half animal doesn’t automatically make a person a good fighter,” I said. “I met maybe a dozen of them, but only two will be joining us, Sasha and Bobbie.”

  “What are they?”

  “Girls,” I said.

  “I mean, what’s their animal half?”

  “Technically, their human half is animal too,” I said. I don’t know why I was giving him a hard time. I mean, it was only natural to be curious, and the reverend had a right to know what kind of people he’d be fighting next to. “Bobbie’s half bobcat. Fast as hel… heck. Nasty claws. And Sasha’s part gorilla.”

  “Like you?”

  “I don’t have any more gorilla DNA than you do. I’m part chimp.”

  The reverend nodded. “You like her?”

  I gave him a curious look. “Sure. She’s nice enough. But I don’t think that’s what you’re really asking.”

  “I mean, you can’t have met too many half man, half ape hybrids. The two of you must have something in common.”

  “We’re both fans of Adventure Time,” I said.

  He looked bewildered. Maybe he didn’t get Cartoon Network out in the boondocks.

  “Look, I’m in a committed relationship with Jenny. I’m not on the market.”

  “Come on inside,” he said. “You look like you had a long ride. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a body covered in so much dust.”

  I nodded. “I need a shower. I need a glass of ice water even more.”

  “I can hook you up with that,” he said, as I followed him into the house. The shadowy interior felt twenty degrees cooler than it had outside. I dropped my helmet and jacket onto a coatrack beside the door and followed him to the kitchen.

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about Jenny,” he said, as he got a glass from the cabinet.

  “What about her?”

  “She’s young,” he said.

  “She’s my age,” I said.

  “Twenty? Maybe twenty-one?”

  I nodded.

  “Lots of people think they’ve found the love of their lives when they’re twenty,” he said. “Lots of people are wrong.”

  “I don’t think Jenny or me fit into the broad category of lots of people. We’re unique.”

  “Maybe on the outside,” said the reverend. “Emotionally, though, you seem like most people. I’m sure what you feel for her is completely genuine.”

  “What I feel for her is love,” I said.

  “Which is why I think you should break it off with her,” said the reverend as he opened the freezer. He took out an old-fashioned tin ice tray and took it to the sink.

  “What is your problem?” I asked, feeling the hair rise on the back of my neck. “You didn’t approve of me and Jenny being together from the first day you met us.”

  “B
ecause I wouldn’t let you sleep together?”

  “We slept together anyway.”

  “I figured you might,” he said, pulling the lever to break the ice free. Shards tinkled into the ceramic sink. “I hoped you wouldn’t.”

  “It’s because I’m just a gorilla to you, right?” I asked, trying not to raise my voice. “You think I’m a fucking animal.”

  “Watch your language,” he said, dropping cubes into the glass.

  “Watch your prejudice,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t approve of an unmarried couple sleeping together under my roof even if you were human,” he said.

  “There it is,” I said, feeling almost smug. “If you were human. You really can’t see past my exterior, can you?”

  “Should I?” he asked, filling the glass with water.

  “Don’t you think this God you supposedly worship would?” I asked.

  “I promise you He does,” said the reverend. “And He probably wouldn’t mind you sleeping with Jenny—if you married her.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You don’t think Jenny and I haven’t talked about marriage?”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me if you had.”

  “We decided it wasn’t worth jumping through all the hoops,” I said.

  “Hoops?” He sat the glass down in front of me.

  I nodded. “I mean, it’s not like we can run down to the courthouse and get a license. I don’t even have a real birth certificate. I’m sure the Legion’s lawyers could pull some strings, but what’s the point? We know we love each other.”

  The reverend nodded, then said, “I’m sure you do. But, I’ve married my share of folks over the years. Counseled a lot of couples. Love isn’t enough to keep people together for their whole lives.”

  “That’s kind of cynical, isn’t it?”

  “It’s realistic,” he said. “Love is a great starting point. But successful marriages are about accomplishing more things together than you ever could apart. You help each other become better people.”

  “Jenny and I do that.”

  “Do you?”