All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault

by James Alan Gardner

  One way or another, the excitement was over. The four of us staggered down the corridor and around a corner, to where the toxic vapor was only a finger-thin layer on the floor. We leaned against the wall and listened to Jools cough her lungs clean.

  3

  Suspect Terrane*

  BELATEDLY, ALARMS STARTED RINGING

  Why so long after the crisis was over? My guess was that the Darklings disabled the safety systems in their own lab, and the coppery vapors took their own sweet time diffusing elsewhere. Eventually though, the fumes reached a toxic-gas sensor in one of the other labs and the ruckus began.

  These were serious alarms: so loud, they hurt my eardrums. We couldn’t possibly stay in the building with all that painful noise. My roommates and I covered our ears and ran for the exit—straight into a campus policeman who’d arrived to check out the fuss.

  THE POLICEMAN “DETAINED” US

  No surprise: When people stagger out of a building where an “incident” has occurred, police will request that you stop and give a statement. Inconveniently but with reason, the cop declared it unsafe to talk on the building’s doorstep. Not only were alarms clanging away at deafening volume, but Richard had actually succeeded in calling 911. So the cop knew about the explosion—the first one, not the second. Firefighters were on their way, plus more police, ambulances, and (probably) news crews. To avoid getting caught in the furor, we were escorted to Police HQ.

  The cop never said, “You’re under arrest,” nor did we ask if we were. We let that stay nebulous, for fear of crossing a line we’d all regret.

  AN IMPORTANT FACT

  UW’s campus cops aren’t private security. They’re full-fledged police, officially authorized by the province. They can investigate crimes and throw you in jail. They’re more chill than regular cops, because our university isn’t a high-crime area: no knife fights, no gangs. But our campus police are still the real deal. On our way to the station, Miranda whispered, “First sign of trouble, ask for a lawyer.”

  Duly noted. She was the voice of experience.

  In the station, we were led one by one into a room where a detective took our statements. He was gray-haired and grandfatherly, despite being twice my height and five times my width. Polite, even friendly, in a heavyweight wrestler way. He was just in shirtsleeves, no jacket, as if we were having a casual chat around the kitchen table.

  I told the truth pretty much as I’ve written it here, except more incoherently. Since that night, I’ve had time to process everything that happened. In the police station, I was still high on adrenalin and yipe-yipe-yipe. My clothes reeked from the copper gas.

  The detective stayed deadpan, despite my talk of portals. Our world has had Darklings for more than thirty years, and the Light for over a decade. Bizarre shit happens.

  On the other hand, every crook in the world invents far-out lies to blame their crimes on supernatural weirdness. “I was mind-controlled!” “Possessed by demons!” “A supervillain broke it, then ran away!”

  I don’t envy the police their jobs. Someone says, “This was done by otherworldly forces,” and almost always, it’s bullshit. But one time out of a thousand, if you don’t take it seriously, a million people get eaten by alien sludge worms.

  And really, I was in the same boat as the cops: I had to decide what to believe. Did I really want to make an official statement about fireball-bees and the rest? I would have loved to leave parts out. (I did leave out Elaine. I just said that the flames got inside my head and they really hurt.) But what if I left out too much? If this was the start of a major crisis and I hid some crucial detail, it would be like seeing a suspicious package and not reporting it. So I spilled.

  The detective took notes without calling me a liar.

  THAT WAS ROUND ONE

  We all were interviewed. Richard too—he arrived at the station soon after we did. When the “chats” were over, the five of us sat in the small front lobby while the police decided what to do with us.

  None of us spoke. Miranda glared when any of us opened our mouths.

  A paramedic arrived and, once again, we were taken away one by one, this time to a different back room where we were examined. Pulse, blood pressure, etc. The woman told me I didn’t seem to be in immediate danger, but I should go to a hospital ER as soon as possible. “You were exposed to an unknown gas. You need to get tested.”

  That made sense, but the police showed no signs of letting us leave. They began a second round of interviews, starting with me. That annoyed me. Did they think the queer little kid with thick glasses would be easiest to crack?

  Two detectives this time: the grandfatherly one and a younger man. The new guy was in his midthirties and wore a high-priced suit. (I hate that I pay attention to the cost of people’s clothes, but I picked up the habit from the Vandermeers and I’ve never managed to shake it.)

  I assumed that detective number two was from off campus: maybe Waterloo Regional Police, maybe provincial, maybe even the Mounties. The university does its share of government research. An explosion in one of our labs might attract high-level attention.

  Especially when Darklings are involved.

  Or should I say “allegedly” involved? Detective number two used that word a lot. “These alleged Darklings … this alleged portal … this alleged blinder wall…”

  The friendly atmosphere was gone. The younger detective soon laid out his version of the “truth” and badgered me to confess. “Is it not true, Miss Lam…”

  (I hate being called Miss. I said, “It’s just Kim.” But apparently paying attention to a person’s preferences was a violation of standard interrogation procedures.)

  “Is it not true, Miss Lam, that Miranda Neuhof is a fanatic anti-Dark radical?

  “Is it not true she persuaded Ashariti Chandra, a dean’s-list chemistry student, to manufacture a bomb?

  “Is it not true that the four of you detonated the bomb yourselves, then concocted a story intended to foment anti-Darkling unrest?

  “Is it not true that you yourself have anti-Darkling leanings, having been jilted by a young man from a prominent Darkling family?”

  I wanted to ask, Is it not true that you know way too much about us, way too fast? It was no surprise the cops would find Miranda’s arrest record—basic operating procedure must be to run everybody’s name through police databases. But my relationship with Nicholas? We kept that hush-hush. First, to prevent his family from finding out; then, when they did find out, because the Vandermeers themselves wanted zero publicity.

  They weren’t happy with Nicholas dating a nobody. They also saw me as a vulnerability: someone who might be used by the Vandermeers’ enemies. So I’d never posted a word about us on Facebook, Tumblr, or wherever. Trust me, I’ve had experience keeping secrets. But in less than an hour, a detective in Waterloo found out about a clandestine relationship that had happened three years earlier on the opposite side of the continent.

  WTF. Seriously. WTF.

  I WAS ABOUT TO ASK FOR A LAWYER, WHEN A KNOCK CAME AT THE DOOR

  Detective number two looked pissed at the interruption. He locked eyes with the older detective and jerked his head toward the door. The older man quietly stood and answered the knock; after a whispered conversation, the older detective turned to me. “Thanks for your help. You’re free to go.”

  “What?” said the young guy in outrage.

  The older man just held the door open for me. “Have a good night, Kim. You take care.”

  Through the open doorway, I could see a young woman with “second-generation Darkling” written all over her. If you scraped off the makeup and put her in denim, she’d look eighteen, but she wore a maroon business skirt suit and cosmetics that aged her by a decade. She stood uncannily still; or perhaps the uncanniness came from her Shadow manipulating my emotions. One way or another, she had an air of authority. I could tell why even a seasoned police detective deferred to her.

  The Darkling stared at me expressionlessly.
I got up and left the room. As I passed her, I felt like a mouse under the gaze of a cat. She waited for me to walk by, then went into the room with the two detectives and shut the door.

  THE HALLWAY WAS DARK AND QUIET

  To my left lay the route back to the front lobby where my roommates waited. To my right …

  I found myself looking toward the lobby again—as if time had skipped a beat when I glanced the other way. I turned my head right …

  Skip. Lobby.

  Huh.

  My sense of direction said the right-hand part of the hallway had to extend some distance back into the building. This hall was the only access from the lobby to the rest of the station. I assumed the police station had offices, washrooms, a lunchroom, all the usual. Those rooms had to be farther back.

  I looked again. Skip. Lobby. This time a chill of fear bloomed from nowhere: Really seriously, don’t look. It’s dark, it’s scary. Go back to the light.

  So now I knew: an Ignorance spell.

  Also called a No-See-Um spell, Avidya, and (in tribute to Douglas Adams) Someone Else’s Problem.

  Like blinder walls, the Ignorance spell was so basic that even brand-new Darklings could learn it. I’d experienced it before, thanks to Derek Vandermeer, Nicholas’s older brother. Derek was a show-off and a bully, but he’d taught me a lot about magic—mostly by subjecting me to various spells and explaining how they made me his dancing monkey.

  An Ignorance spell forced people to ignore you. Their eyes simply skipped past where you were. Usually, they didn’t notice the blind spot: just a moment of inattention. If circumstances made the gap obvious and someone persisted in trying to look, emotional aversion kicked in. Something like the way that children shied away from the dark stairs to the basement.

  So a Darkling had to be standing in the hallway to my right, and they didn’t want to be seen. Was the Darkling working with the woman in maroon, or was it spying on her? I figured the odds were even either way. Darklings showed solidarity against outsiders, but behind closed doors, the Dark were competing predators, divided into factions, clans, and rivalries that shifted with every breeze.

  My safest move would be walking away: letting the Ignorance win. That’s what Kimmi had done when Derek used the spell. Kimmi wanted the Vandermeers to like her. She let Derek make her look like a fool.

  But I wasn’t Kimmi. I was Kim, and grouchy as hell from all the repetitions of “Is it not true, Miss Lam?” Something inside me said, Fuck this crap, and I snapped my eyes right with all my willpower.

  Oh, look. My old boyfriend Nicholas.

  HE STILL LOOKED SEVENTEEN

  It’s strange how it hit me, him looking so young. My mental image of Nicholas had aged as I did. I didn’t have a precise picture of what he’d look like, but I imagined him as a third-year university student, not a high schooler. Now, here he was, still a teenager. My never-entirely-abandoned fantasies of reconnecting with him instantly turned creepy; it would be like robbing the cradle.

  I say Nicholas hadn’t changed, but that was only my first impression after a glimpse down a darkened hallway. A moment later, I realized he was a ghost.

  Slightly transparent. Gray-white skin. Stringy hair with the texture of dead grass. His hair used to be blond, but it had bleached to the same gray-white as his skin. He wore a nondescript white shirt, but only the collar was distinct. Below his neck, Nicholas’s body faded, growing more and more vaporous until it vanished completely at waist level.

  I felt so bad for him. He had believed the Dark Conversion would give him more: that he’d become a vampire like the rest of his family, lethally charming and powerful. As it was, Nicholas was reduced to an ashen half person, hovering with his head the same level as mine.

  It was the same height as when we’d been together. Nicholas was a ghost and didn’t need to touch the ground, but consciously or not, he chose to position himself at exactly the same height as when he’d been in his wheelchair.

  NO, I HAVEN’T MENTIONED THAT BEFORE

  It was and wasn’t important. It was everything and nothing.

  You know how that goes? How something can be the central fact of a person’s life, yet almost irrelevant to who he is?

  Anyway. Riding accident. Age six.

  You really don’t need to know more.

  BEFORE YOU ASK

  No one had attempted to cure him, either with magic or super-technology. Nicholas’s injuries were complex; invasive treatment would have been risky.

  Besides, his family took for granted he’d embrace the Dark Conversion the day he turned eighteen, the earliest age allowed. Nicholas would be reborn, presumably without his “condition.”

  Mr. Vandermeer Sr. decided it didn’t matter if Nicholas had to use a wheelchair for eleven years. A brief inconvenience was trifling compared to the infinite remainder of his life.

  Yes. That’s how Darklings think.

  I DON’T THINK NICHOLAS RECOGNIZED ME AT FIRST

  Then he gaped as if he’d seen a ghost.

  I’d changed since the last time he saw me. Leave it at that.

  HE SAID, “KIMMI?”

  “No. Kim.”

  He said, “Oh.”

  I SAID, “YOU FINALLY GOT OUT OF YOUR CHAIR.”

  “Yes. I’m a Darkling now.”

  “With powers and everything.”

  “Yes.”

  “You can hover,” I said. “Can you fly?”

  “I can do lots of things.”

  “Ghost things.”

  “I can haunt like a boss.”

  He was trying not to gawp at me. I was trying not to gawp at him.

  I said, “Your Ignorance spells need work. Mortals shouldn’t be able to beat them.”

  Oh good, Kim … start criticizing him. But he didn’t seem upset. He just said, “Look, we can’t talk here.”

  WITHOUT WAITING FOR ME TO RESPOND, HE FLOATED OFF DOWN THE HALLWAY

  A door opened at his approach. It creaked when it moved—haunted house stuff. I wondered if Nicholas had actively used a power, or if doors just naturally opened for him, even if they were locked. Probably the latter. When Darklings are around, the world is infected by their presence. The environment writhes in response to their Shadows.

  Nicholas went through the doorway, and I followed. We entered an unlit room: somebody’s office. Vertical slats of moonlight came through venetian blinds, and a chocolate smell hung in the air—someone had left a box of Turtles open on the desk. It was probably a Christmas present; the last night of term sees a lot of Secret Santa action. I usually like Turtles, but my stomach had gone fluttery. The smell threatened to make me sick.

  Maybe Nicholas felt the same fluttering nervousness. He quickly went around behind the desk, putting it between him and me.

  He took the corner wide, as if he were still in the chair.

  I closed the office door behind me. Alone in a moonlit room with the Ghost of Christmas Past.

  NICHOLAS SAID, “YOU’VE CUT OFF YOUR HAIR.”

  “Not all of it.”

  “Most. And you’ve dyed it. What color?”

  “You can’t tell?”

  He looked away. “I don’t see colors anymore.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Some Darklings gained the ability to see in pitch blackness, but lost their color vision. I said, “My hair is basically white. I spray on color when I feel like it. At the moment, it’s light pink.”

  “Oh. Interesting.” He was staring at me again. I wasn’t wearing my coat—I’d taken it off in the lobby—so Nicholas was getting the full effect of the new me. No more Goth in a push-up corset. “Is this because I … we…”

  “No,” I said. “It has nothing to do with you. It’s who I am. Why are you here, Nicholas?”

  His jaw tightened. His flesh was so white that even in the dark, I could see he had no beard stubble. As smooth as a thousand-count sheet. I remembered the first time he’d given me whisker-burn. The memory made my stomach ache with loss.

 
“I can’t tell you why I’m here,” Nicholas said. “It would be bad for you to know.”

  “You could tell me, but then you’d have to kill me?”

  He smiled slightly. “Nah, I’d just wipe your mind clean.”

  “You can do that?”

  He nodded.

  “Is that what you’re going to do when we finish talking?”

  Nicholas didn’t answer.

  I said, “You probably suck at mind wipes as badly as you do at Ignorance spells.”

  He laughed a little. “You must have natural resistance—some mortals do. Either that, or I’m unconsciously pulling my punches because it’s you.”

  “Bull. You didn’t even recognize me.”

  “I knew you might be in the building,” he said. “I heard someone say ‘Kimmi Lam.’”

  “Really. Kimmi?” All my current IDs said Kim—student card, driver’s license, health card. Of course, my passport and birth certificate said Kimberlite. No one should have been able to find the name Kimmi.

  “What’s going on, Kimmi?” Nicholas asked. “How did you end up in a police station?”

  “It’s Kim,” I said, “not Kimmi. And you have to know something about what’s happening, or you wouldn’t be here. Unless you make a habit of invisibly invading police stations a thousand miles from home. You still live in Calgary, right?”

  “Officially. But I travel on family business.”

  “This is connected with family business?”

  “No,” Nicholas replied. “And I’m not saying anything more on the subject.”

  “Then I’m not saying anything more either.”

  Silence. Prolonged.

  I sighed. “This isn’t how I imagined things would go if we met again.”

  Pause. “Me neither.”

  “You really spent time imagining it?”

  He gave a rueful smile. “Oh, Kimmi … Kim. I imagined a hundred scenarios.” Nicholas blurred for a moment, then became a Hollywood version of himself—tall and strong, standing casually on long muscular legs. He wore tennis shorts so I could see his legs and even his manly bulge.