His ear still bleeding, Doctor Alchemy wheeled his wife toward the door.
“Wait, where are you going?” I croaked weakly. I still wasn’t able to lift my head. “I was looking forward to you starting on the other leg. One’s red, one’s still white. I hate being mismatched.”
Ignoring me, Doctor Alchemy and his wife left the room. The old man in the corner, who I now knew was Doctor Alchemy’s manservant who accompanied Doctor Alchemy everywhere in the lair, shuffled after the couple.
The door snicked shut behind the three. All-consuming agony and I were alone again. Hello pain, my old friend. With a friend like this, who needed enemies?
I was proud of the fact I had found the stones to mouth off to Doctor Alchemy. It was not a victory on the level of escaping and bringing Doctor Alchemy to justice, but it was the best I could manage right now.
I would have felt like more of a badass had I not already started whimpering again.
I would have felt like even more of a badass than that had it not been for the fact that, right before I came to my senses and mustered the will to bite Doctor Alchemy’s ear, I had been about to tell him everything I knew about Isaac.
CHAPTER 24
“What’s your name, sir?” I rasped to Doctor Alchemy’s manservant. The sir part was because my parents had raised me to show my elders respect. The what’s your name part was because I felt it only right that I should know the name of the man who was wiping my butt.
Doctor Alchemy had forced me to drink water and some sort of nutritional supplement the past few days. “I would not want you to die of thirst,” he had said the first time he had forced me to drink. “I am not a barbarian.” That’s what he thought.
The water and nutritional shakes had their inevitable effect. Urinating I could handle on my own. Doing it standing up was one of the advantages of being a man; the drain underneath my feet did the rest. Having a bowel movement without soiling myself was tougher.
That was where Doctor Alchemy’s manservant came in handy. Literally, unfortunately for him, since he had to clean me by hand. I had been faintly aware of him coming in several times before without Doctor Alchemy to clean me off, but today was the first time I was cogent enough to speak to him. Though I was still in terrific pain, I was more lucid today than usual. Maybe it was because Doctor Alchemy had not sliced any more off of me since I had mouthed off to him. I had not even seen him since then. How long ago had that been? Days? A week? There was no way to know. Each moment seemed as painfully identical as the last. Perhaps my earlier display of stubbornness had made Doctor Alchemy give up on skinning me.
Not even I believed that one.
I felt the manservant behind me pause in wiping me clean when I asked him his name.
“Oliver,” he finally said. I was surprised he answered. I had never heard him speak before. Then again, I had either been out of it when Oliver had been here before or Doctor Alchemy had been here too. Doctor Alchemy’s subjects spoke to him only when he spoke to them first.
Oliver moved from behind me and toward the sink. In one hand was a bucket contained my waste he had cleaned up. In the other was a filthy towel. Nice work if you can get it. Between my blood and my waste, the room smelled like when my father and Uncle Charles slaughtered my uncle’s pigs when I was a kid. Though I had been marinating in this stench, I still was not used to it.
Oliver covered the bucket with a lid. Then he washed the towel out in the sink. The stream of water from the faucet turned brown as it ran through the towel. Oliver was doing all of this with his bare hands. He did not seem the slightest bit disgusted or revulsed by it. Rather, his face held only resignation and weariness. There were heavy bags under his eyes. His lower lids drooped down, exposing redness. Ectropion. I knew the word for droopy eyes, but not how to get the hell out of here. Clearly I had studied the wrong things.
My brain was working in slow motion. Even so, seeing the look on Oliver’s face now made me remember how he looked when Doctor Alchemy had hit him after he spilled Tiffany’s blood on Rati. The look on his face then and now contrasted dramatically with the way Doctor Alchemy’s other subjects looked. They looked like pampered indoor dogs eager to perform tricks for their master. Oliver looked like an abused dog chained up outside in the rain.
“You’re not like Doctor Alchemy’s other . . . subjects,” I rasped. I had most called them slaves before I caught myself. Sometimes calling a spade a spade was not the diplomatic thing to do. “You don’t seem happy like they do.”
Oliver’s droopy eyes flicked toward me before returning to his chore at the sink.
“My lord gives me a lower dose of his obedience potion than the other subjects get,” Oliver said. He had a slight British accent. His voice was almost as hoarse as mine, though probably from disuse instead of from screaming like me. Though you never knew with someone like Doctor Alchemy. “He wants me to understand how he treats me unclouded by the narcotic side effects of his potion.”
“Why?”
“My lord was once my employee. He believes I mistreated him when he was in my employ. Now he treats me the way he says I treated him.” Oliver said all this unemotionally, like he was reading from a script someone else wrote.
“Where is he?” Not that I chomped at the bit to see him again. Each time he cut me increased the chance of my resolve slipping again and me telling him about Isaac. I had no intention of betraying him, but the near miss before had taught me my determination was chipping away with each slice of Doctor Alchemy’s razor.
Oliver paused, obviously thinking. It looked like he thought with effort. Thinking did not seem like something he did very much anymore.
“He did not tell me to not tell you, so I shall,” he finally said. “His scheme to topple the political order in Australia and install one of his puppets as prime minister requires his personal attention. I expect him to return in a few days.”
I didn’t feel a surge of hope. I was too far gone to still be hopeful. “I see how he treats you, Oliver,” I said. “You’ve got to free me so I can help you and everyone else.”
Oliver shook his head firmly. “My lord expressly forbade me to help you escape. I cannot do anything that would betray him or his wishes.”
I was a good thing I had not been hopeful, else my hopes would have been dashed. Nonetheless, my mind raced. That’s overstating the matter. My mind was too hobbled by pain and exhaustion to race. More like it sped up a little as I thought about what Oliver said. He did not tell me not to tell you, so I shall, he had said. Apparently he could do things if Doctor Alchemy had not expressly forbidden them. Maybe it was because Oliver was on a lower dose of the obedience potion than the others were. Then again, maybe not. It did not matter. What mattered was if I could use this to my advantage.
After some thought, I said, “When Doctor Alchemy brought me here, was I wearing a watch?”
Oliver thought about it so long I thought he had forgotten the question.
“Yes,” he eventually said.
“Where is it now?”
“My lord retains a keepsake from each of his exploits. He stores them in the Trophy Room. The watch is there.”
Since Doctor Alchemy had forbidden Oliver from helping me, I could not tell him I wanted the watch so I could hit its panic button. Instead I said, “My father gave me that watch. He’s dead now. It’s the only thing of his I still have. I’d like to see it one last time before Doctor Alchemy kills me. Can you bring it to me?” Maybe all the practice I had gotten lying since developing my powers had not been an entirely bad thing.
Oliver mulled that over.
“I have two sons. Harry and Jack. They’re both older than you. I have not seen them since I started in the service of my lord eighteen years ago. I have no idea if they are still alive or dead.” His droopy eyes stared off into the distance while he spoke. The sadness he wore like a cloak increased in intensity. Finally, his eyes met mine. His pale blue eyes were rheumy. “I will bring you your father’s wa
tch. My lord did not say I could not.”
“Thank you, Oliver,” I said. And I meant it.
Oliver finished cleaning up. He slowly shuffled toward the door, still carrying the bucket of my waste. His back was rounded and hunched over. Earlier, I had thought it was not possible for me to hate Doctor Alchemy more than I did when he was slicing into me. I was wrong. Watching Oliver struggle toward the door and thinking of what Doctor Alchemy had put him through and the years he had stolen from him, I hated the Rogue even more now.
The door dilated open. Oliver paused in the open doorway. He turned to face me. There were tears in his eyes. “You are the first person to call me anything other than boy in almost twenty years,” he said. Then, he turned and left.
Chalk up one for common courtesy, I thought fuzzily through the pain. It seemed to be increasing now with each passing moment. My heart raced. Maybe that elixir Doctor Alchemy had given me before was wearing off. Who needs superpowers when you’ve been brought up with manners?
I didn’t know how long it would take Oliver to fetch my watch. Maybe he had to wipe a cellblock full of other prisoners’ butts before he got around to it. I would wait for him. It was not as though I was going anywhere.
I was still waiting when I fell asleep. Or maybe I passed out from the pain. These days, it was hard to tell one from the other.
CHAPTER 25
When I regained consciousness and opened my eyes, I saw my watch. It sat on its side on the edge of the table. Good old Oliver.
That was the good news. The bad news was that I was alone, and the table was against the wall on the other side of the room. Nineteen or twenty feet, maybe? It might as well have been twenty million feet for all the good the watch was doing me over there when I was over here. So close, yet so far away.
I swallowed the bitter taste of despair. I was better off with my watch in the room than I had been when it hadn’t been here. I just had to figure out how to use it. I forced my sluggish brain to think. Maybe I should wait for Oliver to return, and I could get him to open the watch face and push the panic button for me. I dismissed that thought. Doctor Alchemy had instructed him to not do anything to help me escape. Surely if I asked him to press the panic button, he’d realize I was trying to get him to violate Doctor Alchemy’s orders. I could hear the lie now: It was my father’s dying wish to have you push that red button inside the watch. Why’s that, you ask? My old man loved himself some red buttons. It was almost a fetish. Despite all the practice I had gotten lying since becoming a Meta, I was not accomplished enough to sell that one.
I felt hot. I was sweating despite the low temperature of the room. Was I getting a fever? A fever plus a leg that had been peeled like a carrot. Could life get any better? Maybe I had gotten an infection despite Doctor Alchemy’s precautions. Since my own waste had dripped on my exposed right leg several times, I would not be surprised. It would be mighty embarrassing if I had survived all this only to be finished off by an infection caused by my own waste. People would talk. Hey Joe! Did you hear about Omega, the Hero who brought down the Sentinels? He died. No, he wasn’t killed in battle. Turns out he shit himself to death. Imagine what that news would do to sales of the Omega dildo. They’d probably go completely limp.
Okay Theo, focus. The watch. The panic button. What to do, what to do, what to do? If I had a bunch of popsicle sticks, I could eat them, tie the leftover wooden sticks together, extend them toward the watch, pop the face open, and hit the panic button. Simplicity itself. Except I didn’t have popsicles, the desire to eat a bunch of them, anything to tie the sticks together, and no free hands to do all the necessary work. Other than those niggling little details, it was a brilliant plan.
Okay, smart aleck, you got a better idea? I said to myself.
I blinked sweat out of my eyes and thought hard about it.
Nope, I admitted.
Fantastic.
I stewed on it for a while. If I were a cowboy instead of a superhero, I could lasso the watch and drag it to me. But I did not have a rope or the free hands or the skills to use it. Not being able to use my hands really put a crimp in my escape plans.
What I needed was a way to lasso the watch without using my hands. Struck by sudden inspiration, I stuck my tongue out. Damn it. Not nearly long enough.
I shivered, suddenly both hot and cold. Yep, I was definitely feverish. My mind, already clouded by pain, had been made foolish by fever. Trying to reach the watch with my tongue was silly, I realized. It was a shame I did not have a blue whale’s tongue. Weighing three tons, dozens of people could stand on a blue whale’s tongue. It would be plenty long enough to reach the watch. A whale’s tongue! A whale’s tongue! My kingdom for a whale’s tongue! In my mind’s eye, I could see the whale’s tongue lolling out to reach the watch. In my imagination, the tongue was white, though I had no idea if a blue whale’s tongue was white in real life. Truman’s Hero sponsor to the Trials was a guy named Zookeeper, based in Atlanta, Georgia. If I visited the Peach State and asked him about the color of a blue whale’s tongue, I bet he’d know. Actually, maybe not. Whales were kept in aquariums, not zoos. It was a shame I didn’t know a Hero named Aquariumkeeper. Just as well. He’d probably be as lame as Aquaman. I mean, talking to fish? Really? What kind of lame power was that? Almost as lame as a telekinetic who couldn’t pick up a watch within eyeshot.
A thought spurred by the image of a whale’s white tongue skittered past my mind’s eye, just out of sight. The thought felt important. I concentrated, trying to coax the now-hiding thought back into sight. Here thought. Here thought, thought, thought. The thought jumped into view. I grabbed it by its neck and shook it.
That was it! I didn’t have to have a whale’s tongue. I already had something long enough to do the job.
For the first time since the day Tiffany shot herself, I triggered the Omega suit. Instead of using it as I normally did to form a protective layer around myself, I sent a tendril of it out of my neck, like when I formed a cape with it. Only this time the suit extended from the front of my neck rather than its nape. I stretched the suit out toward the watch on the table.
Like the finger of a Metahuman with elasticity powers, the suit’s tendril snaked through the air. It reached the table, then the watch. It came into contact with the watch. Damn it, too hard. The tendril shoved the watch, pushing it even further away from me.
I swallowed my frustration, tried to ignore how crappy I felt, closed my eyes and concentrated. Concentrating was tough when your leg throbbed so painfully you couldn’t stand it and when you increasingly felt like you were being set on fire while standing in the middle of a freezer.
More carefully this time, I again extended the Omega suit’s slender tendril toward the watch. Though the Omega suit was a part of me, using it like this was not like using my fingers. More like poking something with the tied together popsicle sticks I had wished for earlier.
With my eyes still closed, I gently probed the watch with the Omega suit. I groped for the tiny buttons on the side of it. Pressing the first and third buttons simultaneously twice would open the watch’s face and expose the panic button.
Even if I was healthy, hitting the buttons would have been difficult to do with the Omega suit, like trying to tap two tiny buttons with broken fingers encased in thick mittens. Now that I was at far less than one hundred percent, the task seemed impossible. Sweat poured off me, making my right leg hurt even more as the salty liquid dripped down my exposed flesh. I started blacking out again. Dark unconsciousness beckoned seductively. It had become as welcome as a lover since Doctor Alchemy had begun slicing into me. My concentration on the watch and the Omega suit waned as I turned toward its embrace. Who needed a girlfriend when you had unconsciousness to love and hold you?
No! I forced myself away from the brink of beguiling blackness. Who knew when Doctor Alchemy would return? I did not trust anymore that I was strong enough to not tell him about Isaac. This was my best and maybe only chance to call the cavalry a
nd escape. I refused to let Isaac down the way I had let Dad, Hannah, and Neha down.
Only pigheaded stubbornness kept me trying to mash the buttons as unconsciousness pulled at me ever more insistently. It took me many tries, but I finally hit the buttons. The watch face sprang open.
Finally! How dare this stupid thing keep me from my lover’s arms. Cock blocker.
I almost retracted the Omega suit and let myself pass out. Then I remembered the whole point of getting the stupid watch open in the first place. Annoyed by the further delay, I hit the red panic button in the center of the open watch. The watch flashed twice then snapped shut, indicating it was broadcasting its emergency signal. About damned time. Didn’t it know my longtime lover awaited me with open arms? It was probably jealous because I had not asked it to join us.
Relieved all the delays were over, I quickly retracted the long tendril of the Omega suit back into my body, like a roll-up window blind that had been yanked on.
Now, where were we? I eagerly asked the bewitching blackness that was so anxious for me to join her again. My second interracial relationship. My second relationship period.
I embraced her, she embraced me, and we fell into the darkness together.
CHAPTER 26
I weaved in and out of consciousness for a while. How long, I didn’t know. Hours certainly. Maybe days.
During that time Oliver came in to give me something to drink, and to clean both me and the soiled floor. My stomach rebelled at having something in it. I projectile vomited the water and nutritional supplement back up, giving Oliver even more to clean up. I might have been impressed at the force and distance of the spew had I been in my right mind. I had thrown up so hard my stomach muscles were sore. If vomiting were an Olympic event, I would have won gold for sure. Curling was an Olympic event, yet vomiting wasn’t. Unfair. I bet curlers never had sore stomachs after they competed.
Rogues Page 25
