Yesterday's Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  Tabitha says something inaudible to Clyde. His arms explode outward, violently flinging fistfuls of nothing at the ragged dinosaur skeleton.

  It squeals, staggers sideways, trips over itself. Its head smacks against a mezzanine walkway with a spattering of plaster.

  Behind Clyde, Tabitha fist pumps.

  I’m back on my feet. The T-Rex struggles to gain its own. Head down, I scramble towards Shaw.

  The T-Rex bellows again. Clyde balls his fists, pulls them into his chest, preparing the next blast. I imagine I can hear him muttering magical gibberish underneath his mask.

  The T-Rex arcs round. Its tail blurs, traceable only through the wake of destruction. A vase becomes so much powder. A brontosaurus femur becomes a complicated jigsaw puzzle.

  Tabitha and Clyde become rag dolls.

  The tail connects, lifts them both into the air, slaps them carelessly away. Clyde barrels over Tabitha in midair. He hits double doors. They swing wide. Both figures tumble through. Dismissed.

  The T-Rex peers at where I’m hunkered beside Shaw. I aim at its nostrils and attempt to widen the holes. The T-Rex screams, its undead breath wafting over us, filling my nose with the scent of decay. It is definitely more of a zombie T-Rex and less of a skeleton T-Rex.

  I am less enthusiastic about this fact than I was a few minutes ago.

  Shaw fires. The bullet ricochets off the T-Rex’s ribs with a whine, buries itself in a wall somewhere.

  The T-Rex paws the ground with a massive foot.

  I pop my pistol’s magazine, slam a fresh one home. I turn to Shaw. “I don’t suppose there’s chance,” I say, “that we get the day off on the grounds of, you know, the whole saving the world yesterday?”

  TWO

  Now

  The T-Rex is gone from the main hall. Priceless artifacts crashing to the ground mark its progress a few halls distant.

  Tabitha and Clyde stagger through the door on the hall’s opposite side, arms around each other more for support than to display affection.

  “Well,” Shaw says. “That wasn’t exactly according to plan.”

  Maybe we should claim the plan was for us to have our arses handed to us. Still, a new one wouldn’t go amiss. Step one: dealing with information gaps.

  “Didn’t we agree it was going to be a skeleton?” I say. “It’s… fleshier than I expected.”

  “Show off bad guy,” Tabitha says, without even opening her laptop. “Glamour.”

  I love the way this job just keeps finding new concepts to totally mess with my head. “English version?” I request.

  “Illusion magic,” Shaw supplies.

  “OK,” I say, processing that. “Obviously the kicking-everyone’s-ass plan has issues. Probably time for a more nuanced approach.” I try to think at the same rate my heart is beating. “While the T-Rex is the only thing trying to nibble our legs off, it’s a secondary problem.” I nod to myself, and hope the others come with me on that one. “Whoever created it is our primary target. We take him down, the T-Rex falls too.”

  “Agreed.” Shaw nods. Which is nice.

  Tabitha rolls her eyes. Which is not.

  “Excellent,” Clyde says. “Totally agree. Except… well, not really an objection, just a question. Seeking clarity on just one issue. Probably just being dense. But this chap we’re trying to find. Or chap-ess. Villainy is gender neutral, I’m sure. But anyway I was really just wondering, how do we find him? Or her?”

  I open my mouth. Close it again. I look to Shaw to see if she wants to leap into the leadership breach, but she doesn’t seem to have anything to add.

  I’d rather come up with a better plan than following the T-Rex. The further we can keep from that bastard the better. I scan the hallway in search of inspiration. It looks like a bomb went off. Rubble is strewn everywhere—chips of marble, porcelain, bone, and pottery. I see the remnants of the information booth that I stumbled through—the tattered entrails of a computer, discarded ballpoint pens, a crushed security camera…

  Security cameras…

  “Security cameras!” I say.

  Everyone looks at me. There’s a familiar moment of panic that I should have gotten over by now. “The T-Rex can’t have destroyed all the security cameras in the museum yet,” I say.

  “Good thinking.” Shaw nods tightly. I get a moment of warm fuzzies. “Tabitha,” Shaw turns to our researcher, “a floor plan.”

  A few moments and violated firewalls later, Tabitha says, “Basement.”

  We move in a tight diamond. Shaw takes point, Clyde tails behind. I can hear the coppertop clacking against his teeth beneath the mask. I walk next to Tabitha, the shaved side of her head. She catches me looking.

  “Nice haircut,” I say. I try to breathe enthusiasm into the compliment. I am not so good at that.

  Tabitha gives me the finger. It’s rather sweet for her.

  She guides us to a locked door marked “Staff only” and Shaw produces a rather complicated-looking key which opens it without protest.

  “That legal?” Tabitha asks.

  Shaw ignores her. Which pretty much confirms that Shaw is apparently the type to carry around rings full of illegal skeleton keys.

  This is the point where I should be charmed to find out something new and previously hidden about my new girlfriend. Being intimidated… well, I’ll pretend that’s close enough.

  Stairs lead down. I go to take a step, but Clyde catches my elbow. I stand aside, but suspect chivalry probably isn’t his motivator for letting Shaw and Tabitha go first.

  Clyde shuffles his feet and doesn’t say anything. It’s a maneuver his new body doesn’t seem designed for. A movement from his old self.

  “So,” I say, taking a stab at the most obvious topic, “you and Tabitha.”

  “Yes,” he says. He doesn’t sound as enthusiastic as I’d imagine he would given the length of time he let the crush fester.

  But I suspect I know the fly in the ointment. Devon. The girl, not the shire. Because, I’ve no idea how Clyde feels about the south-west of England, but Devon-the-girl is Clyde’s ex of about ten hours. I also suspect she’s the main reason Clyde didn’t go back to his flat and try to find more suitable attire no matter what he says to the contrary.

  “Well, I’m sure...” I start. “I mean I assume Shaw’s going to declare you dead. Which obviously—”

  “Oh,” Clyde says. The sort of “oh” that means that something unpleasant is going to happen to my assumptions again.

  “What?” I say.

  “I may have phoned her.”

  That one actually rocks me back on my feet. I have to take a step back.

  “You did what? You’re in a new body. You’ve left her for another woman. Why did you...?” I can’t finish. I can’t comprehend the logic. Why would you do that to a nice girl like Devon?

  “Well,” he twists his long elegant hands, “I didn’t sort of in any way take into account the declaration of death thing. And, anyway, the really important news, I thought, and maybe my judgment was clouded at the time by the, erm, well, I don’t want to go into details. But Tabby was involved at the time, and if we could leave it at that...”

  God, please let us leave it at that. And this is hardly the most appropriate time for this conversation. Except Clyde is our big gun, the only one who the T-Rex even seemed to notice. And, more importantly, he’s a friend. Plus, for a man without a face, Clyde looks remarkably shame-faced.

  “You see,” he twists his long elegant hands, “the thing is, well… I was thinking… Usually a mistake, I realize. But Devon wasn’t aware of the entire situation vis-à-vis my sudden reduction in corporeality. And I thought, well, Tabitha suggested, helpfully I think, though maybe in retrospect I should have reconsidered, but… Well I didn’t want to have to muddy the waters while clarifying the whole relationship point by having to clarify the whole being-a-wooden-mask point, so I sort of, maybe, perhaps, and, like I say, hindsight, twenty-twenty, all that stuff, but I sort of broke up wit
h her over the phone.”

  Wow.

  Such… Devon… Just a nice girl. And why would you…

  Except, maybe he wasn’t wrong. At least if he didn’t realize we were going to declare him dead. In that situation, how can you both show up on someone’s doorstep as a mask, and dump them in the same conversation? But holy hell.

  “How long were you guys dating?” I say, which is not an entirely politic question.

  “Twelve years,” Clyde says with remarkable succinctness.

  “Jesus.”

  I can picture Devon—an impregnable fortress of happiness in sudden and abrupt defeat. I feel bad for her. She deserved better. But I don’t know exactly what better would be in this situation.

  I start down the stairs. “Assuming we make it out of this place in the usual number of pieces,” I say to Clyde, “you want to grab a pint later?”

  “That does sound like a rather good plan.”

  So that’ll make at least one today if the security camera thing doesn’t work out.

  Above our heads, the T-Rex roars. A rattle like gunfire replies. I remember Inspector Chevy talking about civilian militia. And where are they in all this? Who are they? Remembering the way Shaw’s bullets ricocheted off the T-Rex’s bones, I rather doubt I’ll get to meet any of them.

  The security room is a poorly lit, low-ceilinged room with far too many TVs coating one wall. Three are blank. Others show the rooms above us, some still whole, some less so. But no T-Rex. No villainous spell-caster.

  I rather expected an array of colored buttons and glowing panels worthy of James Tiberius Kirk and boldly going where no man had gone before, but instead there is just one desultory-looking computer the same shade of brown as the seventies.

  “Tabitha,” Shaw says, and nods at it.

  And should that be my line? Not that I should begrudge my boss taking charge. And I don’t really know why I should object to someone taking the pressure off me. Give me more time to concentrate on not being eaten. Except… Does she not trust me? Is she just being protective of me, now that we’re an item? Is she thinking of taking me out of the field?

  Am I just over-thinking things?

  Tabitha sits and starts pressing buttons. The TVs switch images with little spits of static. One by one by one. Another hall. Another. The same hall from a different angle. The same shots of nothing and nobody.

  “Faster,” Shaw urges.

  “This is it.” Tabitha seems unsure of whether to give her evil eye to Shaw or the computer. “My Google fu: strong. My security knowledge: excellent. My supernatural ability to overcome shitty programming: not real. Could rewrite the program. You got a spare half hour?”

  Shaw shakes her head, more in frustration than in answer. Tabitha keeps clicking. The images drag through their cycle. Another hall. Another. Another. Nothing. Nobody.

  From the corner of my eye, I catch Clyde standing next to me, twitching. I look at him to be sure, to try and work it out. Tabitha clicks. An image changes. Clyde twitches. She clicks. He spasms.

  Every time she hits the button—a tremor running though his body.

  “They’re wireless,” he says, catching my eye.

  “Come again?”

  “All the cameras,” he says, gesturing to the screens with a trembling hand. “No wires. Pinnochio-esque, one might say. Well one probably wouldn’t. Horrible adjective, but you get the idea.”

  Tabitha looks up from her console. “How do you know that?”

  Clyde tilts his head, saying nothing. I try to read him. He used to be so obvious, every emotion writ large across his face. But now there’s nothing. Utterly blank. He looks… inhuman feels like the wrong word. But suddenly what he’s lost is very apparent.

  “I can feel them,” he says. “I can…” He trails off.

  “What?” Shaw urges. “Information, Clyde. Keep the team in the loop.” She sounds like she’s summarizing a training manual.

  There’s a decent chance that instead of worrying about why she’s in the field, I should be taking notes.

  Still Clyde says nothing. Tabitha is watching him, some distant cousin of concern on her face, finger poised above the keyboard of the computer. The televisions illuminate us in wan light.

  I’m trying to think of something incisive and commanding to say when all the TVs go white. Tabitha is a black gothic silhouette framed next to the computer. The edges of Shaw’s face are shown in sharp detail.

  Clyde’s body snaps up like a dancer’s. He’s balanced on the tip of his toes, body arched back. Like a live wire is stuck to his spine. A violent shudder runs down his spine, though his arms, his legs. He starts to shiver, a violent tremble.

  “Clyde?” Tabitha has cranked up the volume of her concern.

  The blare of light from the TVs is unrelenting. And then something flickers, a trembling shadow from the monitors. Everyone’s gaze twitches. Clyde twitches. An image appears on one screen. Then on another. Clyde twitches again. He starts to jerk. Another image. Another image.

  “Not me,” Tabitha says, her professional calm definitely abandoned now. “It’s not me.”

  Still Clyde twitches. Still the images change. Faster now. One image. Another. Another. My eye tries to track the images but they pick up speed. Clyde is shuddering, no gap between each jerk. His mask shakes, precarious on his head. The spasms grow larger, more violent.

  “Clyde!” Tabitha is out of her seat, reaching out to him.

  “Clyde, stop.” Shaw’s bark is intended to be obeyed.

  But he doesn’t. His fingers blur. His wrists.

  Electrocution? Except there are no wires. No electricity. And I’ve seen Clyde electrocute himself in the name of magic. This is different. Something stranger.

  A seizure?

  I move towards him. I grab his hand, try to calm that at least. It’s like trying to wrestle a runaway jackhammer. I scan the desks for a ruler, something I can jam in his mouth to try and stop him from chewing his tongue off.

  Suddenly Clyde stops. The TV images stop. Clyde stands still, panting hard.

  You could hear a pin drop. At least you could if Clyde would stop panting for two seconds. We’re all staring at him. I let go of his arm. It seems a little odd all of a sudden.

  Clyde flips an exhausted hand at the TVs. “There,” he says, and there’s a smile in his voice even if it’s not on his face. “Got them.”

  His mask is focused on the TVs.

  Our eyes flick there.

  Sixteen images. Sixteen continuous feeds. Not a flicker on them. A shattered door. A wall with a T-Rex-sized dent in it. A T-Rex denting walls. An Asian woman, early thirties, firing a semi-automatic pistol. A teenage girl with headphones the size of soup cans over her ears and a revolver in each hand. A middle-aged black man with… wait is that an assault rifle? Seriously?

  And more. A bullet-pocked security bench. Shattered glass on a mosaic floor. And there—Clyde’s quintessential bad guy. A stocky, hard-faced woman. A substantial amount of robotics strapped to her left side. A vast spark arcs from a wall towards her, then leaps away from her outstretched palm and beyond the limits of the camera’s vision. In another screen the black man leaps sideways. The screen goes dark. The image blinks, another angle of the man sprawled out, a smoking scar in the floor behind him.

  And I don’t know how—I’m actually a little scared of “how”—but Clyde’s right. He’s got them.

  THREE

  We all take a moment to be a little stunned. Which is a nice change of pace, I think.

  “I didn’t know I could do that.” Clyde sounds as shocked as the rest of us look.

  Tabitha is staring at the computer. “You did that? How?”

  “I…” Clyde shakes his head. “I could feel them. In my head. Like thoughts. And then… I don’t know. Just thinking about them differently. And on the screen…”

  “You, sir,” I say, wrestling my confusion under temporary control, “are one useful bugger, aren’t you?”

  �
��But, was it…? Are you wireless?” Tabitha asks.

  “Not now,” Shaw’s voice cuts through. She points to the screen. “We will work this out. But not now. Now we go save the day.” She slides the action back on her pistol to emphasize her point.

  She is so obscenely badass at that moment I have to admit I am briefly distracted by thoughts of some very naughty things indeed.

  But, she’s right. Now is not exactly the time for that sort of thing.

  “Where are they?” I ask, pointing to the three people with guns. Surely the militia Inspector Chevy was talking about.

  Clyde bows his head. A shudder runs down his spine. Some of the cameras start panning about, zooming in on pockmarked displays and wall posters.

  And OK, that’s a little creepy.

  But still useful. “Minerals,” I say. There are large crystalline chunks of rock scattered everywhere. A picture of a volcano against one wall. It’s not the hardest piece of detective work I’ve ever done.

  “Route incoming,” Tabitha says. She moves even as she taps on her laptop. “Got it.” Shaw kicks the door open and we’re off again.

  Two minutes later

  Finally: Kayla. She’s waiting for us in the lobby when we get there.

  Except… The word “supersoldier” obviously has some baggage attached with it. The captain of a certain nation across the pond is probably responsible for that. There are images of thick-armed men with can-do attitudes, patriotic shields, and Lycra outfits that laugh in the face of fashion laws.

  Our supersoldier kicks disconsolately at rubble. Her hair is greasy, disheveled, reminiscent of someone who either just got out of bed or out of a high-end Soho beauty salon. Her shirt is more wrinkled than an octogenarian’s elbow. I’m pretty sure her shoes are on the wrong feet.

  To be fair, this is worse than normal. And, considering her week has probably been worse than mine, she’s doing pretty well.

  I, at least, am not down two foster children. Kayla on the other hand is dealing with the fact that one of hers had her brain eaten by aliens, and that the other became a demigod who popped the first one out of existence. Basically, she’s been through a lot lately and if she wants to take it out on her wardrobe I’m not going to comment.