Marrow

by Preston Norton

  All eyes were on Fantom. More importantly, all cameras were on him.

  We were on live television.

  Amid the news reporters standing on the front line was Donnie Danson with his gravity-defying hair. His toothy smile was replaced by a slack-jawed look of astonishment.

  “Sweet mother of Mike Wallace,” said Donnie.

  Nightmare, Flex, Sapphire, Havoc and I all dropped to the floor. I was so disoriented that I landed on my face, but that was okay. Oxygen had never tasted so wonderful.

  The look on Fantom’s face tasted even better.

  Havoc and Nightmare had planned this. Havoc had actually teleported us to the Tartarus, and Nightmare had masked it as Spine’s hospital room with his power.

  This is what Nightmare meant by taking “a more subtle approach.” I would have stood up and started applauding right then and there if I wasn’t so dizzy.

  “Awkward!” said Flex under his breath. He was covering his mouth, attempting to hide an irrepressible grin

  “I…uh…I can explain,” said Fantom. “It’s…you see…um…him!” Fantom pointed a wildly accusing finger at Nightmare. “He’s a Telepath! He was controlling me. He’s trying to frame me! He…has telekinetic powers too. I mean…he’s an Omnipotent! He’s trying to make it look like I’m an Omnipotent, and I’m not!”

  Nightmare merely folded his gorilla arms and snickered. He made no attempt to defend himself.

  A higher ranking police official with a Tom Selleck mustache gestured to two of the officers beside him and emerged from the crowd. The Tartarus chamber was in complete silence as they approached Fantom. I recognized one of the officers at his side as Jenkins, who had interrogated me after the blowout at Oracle’s house.

  “Hello Fantom,” he said, forcing a smile. “My name’s Lieutenant Reese. Would you mind if some of my men escorted you back to the station? I just want to ask you a few questions.”

  “Why do you want to ask me questions?” said Fantom. His eyes were wild, darting around the silently observing crowd. “I’m innocent. Nightmare’s the one trying to frame me! Why don’t you escort him to the station?”

  “We’re going to bring everyone back to the station for questioning and get this all sorted out. But I would appreciate it if you would let Parker and Jenkins escort you to the submarine.”

  “How come you don’t have any officers grabbing them? I’m a victim here! I demand to be treated with respect!”

  Jenkins’s hand twitched at his holster.

  Fantom apparently noticed this because his hand lunged out, grabbing Jenkins in a telekinetic grip. Jenkins choked and gagged, grabbing at the invisible force around his throat.

  “You think you can pull a gun on ME?” Fantom roared.

  Reese and Parker both reached for their guns. Fantom swung his other arm, and the two of them flew back, crashing into the obstacle course of computers and machines.

  At least fifty other officers reached for their holsters and whipped out their guns.

  “Put your hands up!” said one.

  “Oh,” said Fantom. His eyes were distant, with a slightly crazed lack of focus. “Okay. If that’s what you want.”

  Fantom thrust his hands in the air. As he did, nearly everyone in the crowd flew up in unison. But no attempt was made to hold them up, the disarray of flailing limbs and screams came crashing down, tumbling on top of each other.

  “How dare you,” Fantom snarled. “I was your hero. And this is how you treat me?”

  It wasn’t until now that I noticed Nightmare crawling to his knees. He crept over to Havoc who was still lying in an unconscious heap, shaking him gently.

  “Havoc,” he whispered with an unsettling sense of urgency. “Wake up. We need you.”

  “Fine,” said Fantom. “You want to make me the villain? Then I’ll be the villain.”

  Fantom’s eyes erupted into blazing green fiery orbs—Gaia’s eyes. But something was different. There was too much twisted, maniacal passion in his expression for it to be just Gaia.

  “I’ll be the greatest and most terrifying villain that Cosmo City has ever seen!” Gaia’s eerie chorus of voices was joined by Fantom’s distinguished voice at the forefront.

  I didn’t know how, but Fantom and Gaia had somehow merged together—more than they already were, at least. The end result was horrific.

  He threw his arms in the air, fingers contorted. The floor jolted with a sudden tremor that knocked several screaming people off their feet. I barely kept my balance with my arms extended. The entire Tartarus began to tremble—like an earthquake, minus the minor detail that we were nowhere near solid earth. Metal groaned with the lurching movement. Machines rattled. Loose objects shifted with the vibrations. My gaze then wandered to our outside surroundings. The flowering colors of the surrounding coral reef descended into shadow. The ocean floor slipped out of view.

  “What’s happening?” said Sapphire. She clung to my arm for balance.

  Something was moving. But it wasn’t the ocean floor. Bubbles fizzled around the network of spheres, flooding past the glass surfaces. Water was rushing past us.

  The Tartarus was being lifted.

  Not just the Tartarus—the entire Gaia Comet was being elevated as well. Its swirling green mist trailed downward as the rising Tartarus gained momentum. The spider web of dancing light on the ocean’s surface reflected brighter and brighter.

  “Oh crap,” I said. “Hold on.”

  Sapphire didn’t need to be told twice. She squeezed my arm even tighter, cutting off my circulation. I tapped into my bone structure, weighing my feet down, and wrapped my arms around Sapphire.

  “I am so not drunk enough for this!” said Flex.

  The Tartarus heaved and lurched, metal groaning against the changing water pressure. And then it burst free of the ocean surface. Water gushed down the rounded glass surfaces, raining down on the fizzing sea below. The airborne research facility jettisoned upward even faster now that there was no water to restrain it. A hundred feet. Two hundred. Three. The ocean became a distant blue slate.

  The Tartarus slowed to a jarring halt. We were hardly floating in midair though. The Tartarus changed direction, and the distant ocean drifted beneath us as we soared parallel to it. The horizon was separated by a silver line of spires. Even from miles away, I could make out the sharp, defined edges of the looming CTN Tower, stabbing into the heavens.

  We were flying to Cosmo City.

  Fantom’s eyes—Gaia’s eyes—shifted to Sapphire and me. “Would you two like to see what I can do with your friend’s power?”

  Fantom raised his palm and then balled it into a fist.

  Clink—clank—sheenk! Sharp, metallic sounds echoed from deep below in eerie percussion. As soon as those sounds ended, the silence was swallowed in something new. Scratching. Screeching. Howling. Roaring.

  Boom, boom, boom…

  Although Fantom could easily take control of every human in the room, he clearly had something worse planned for them. With Whisp’s power, Fantom had an entire army at his disposal.

  An army of mutated sea creatures. And we were trapped inside the suspended Tartarus with them.

  I silently approached the rounded glass wall, eyeing the spherical chambers below. Though the glass hallways were distant and obscured by the glare of sunlight, I could make out something—hundreds of somethings—scurrying through the glass passageways and into the elevators.

  “I hope you people like sea food,” said Fantom. “Because that’s what’s having you for dinner.”

  CHAPTER 36

  The entire room erupted into pandemonium.

  People were running and screaming, cops were yelling and carelessly waving their guns, and Fantom was hovering over the whole scene, gleefully watching the chaos like a kid who had just stepped on an ant pile.

  Several of the elevators—packed like monster sardine cans—were beginning the long ascent to our level.

  “I hate seafood,” said Flex.


  “Marrow! Sapphire!”

  Sapphire and I both whipped our heads simultaneously. Whisp emerged from the commotion in a hospital gown and handcuffs, fighting his way through the crowds.

  “Whisp!” I said.

  Sapphire shrieked, covering her mouth. Racing forward, she attacked him in a fierce hug. When she finally released him, she was in tears.

  I jogged forward, catching up with them. “Hey, buddy,” I said, forcing a bleak smile. “How’re you doing?”

  “On a scale of one to ten?” said Whisp, mimicking my sad attempt at a smile. “Probably negative infinity.”

  I grimaced. “That bad, huh?”

  “Well, it’s a little depressing that my power was not only stolen from me but is also the thing that’s going to get us all killed.”

  “Yeah. Doesn’t get much more depressing than that.” I glanced down at his swollen, handcuffed wrists. “Here, let’s get you out of these things. Sapphire, can you ice up the chain?”

  Sapphire sniffed, wiping her eyes, and grabbed the chain. Frost hissed, creeping and spreading across the chain links. She let go.

  “Hold it steady,” I said.

  Whisp pulled the chain taut. I swung my hand down in a karate chop, going from light to heavy in an instant. The chain snapped in a clean break, barely tugging Whisp’s arms in the process.

  “What are we going to do?” said Sapphire. Her tear-stained gaze was now riveted through the glass walls. The first wave of monster-filled elevators had nearly reached our level.

  I had no answer. Instead, my gaze wandered to Nightmare who was shaking Havoc’s limp form more furiously. “Wake up, Havoc. Wake up, wake up, wake up.”

  Havoc’s eyes fluttered open.

  “Havoc!”

  Havoc blinked as his gaze shifted from Nightmare to Sapphire to Whisp to me and then drifted to the mass hysteria around us.

  “Wha—what the—?” said Havoc.

  “Fantom just lifted the entire Tartarus out of the ocean,” said Nightmare. “He’s controlling all of the mutated sea creatures on board. Do you think you can get it to work?”

  Get it to work? What the heck was “it”?

  Havoc continued to blink, adjusting his jaw from left to right. “Uh…yeah,” he said. “Piece of…cake. I’m sure I’ve only got a minor concussion.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or serious.

  Havoc’s gaze shifted to Whisp. “I’ll need you to come with me.”

  “M-m-m-me?” said Whisp. “Why?”

  “You know computers, right?”

  “Uh…yeah.”

  “Then I need you.” Havoc turned to Nightmare. “Give me fifteen minutes, okay?”

  “Fifteen minutes,” said Nightmare. “Be watching for your cue from the surveillance cameras.”

  Havoc nodded. Grabbing Whisp’s hand, the two of them vanished in a subtle ripple of air.

  “Okay, what’s going on?” I asked. “What cue?”

  “I’ve got a plan,” said Nightmare. “Flex, I need you to distract Fantom.”

  “Distract Fantom?” said Flex. “How in the holy name of Bob Marley do you propose I do that?”

  “I dunno. Insult his masculinity. Tell him fart jokes. Say morally questionable things about his mother. Be your usual derogatory self. The world is your oyster, Flex. Just, whatever you do, keep him on this side of the Tartarus!”

  “I am sooooooo not drunk enough for this.”

  And with that, he turned to Fantom who was still levitating over the chaos, cupped his hands over his mouth, and said, “HEY, FANTOM! HAS YOUR MOM BEEN SAVED?”

  Fantom turned. Gaia’s electric green eyes blazed in his eye sockets.

  “BECAUSE SHE’S SO FAT, SHE’D HAVE TO GET BAPTIZED AT SEA WORLD.”

  Fantom’s nostrils flared, and I swear, he was breathing a hurricane out of each one.

  “Welp,” said Flex. “I’m screwed. See you, losers.”

  Flex whipped his stretchy arm at the nearest doorframe, latched on, and slingshotted himself out. Fantom swooped after him.

  “Is he going to be okay?” I asked.

  “He’ll be fine,” said Nightmare. “Listen, I need you and Sapphire to hold off the creatures. Get all the police you can to help you. Have them organize the others and form a perimeter. We have two entrances we need to secure.”

  A sudden burst of screeches, wails, and hungry snarls erupted louder than ever. My gaze darted past Nightmare to an adjacent sphere. A glass elevator door slid open and a mass of slimy bodies, appendages, tentacles and claws spilled out into the neighboring chamber.

  “We don’t have time!” said Sapphire. “They’re already here!”

  I want to say something snapped inside of me. It probably would have been cooler. But it wasn’t like that. I felt calm. And at the same time, something was wrenching my heart—twisting it inside my chest, folding it inside out.

  The emptiness in Whisp’s face.

  The tears in Sapphire’s perfect blue eyes.

  I knew what I had to do.

  “It’s okay,” I said. I rested my hand on Sapphire’s shoulder. “I’ll secure that entrance. You go talk to the police and secure the other entrance.”

  Sapphire’s eyes grew big. “What? No! You can’t do that by yourself. You’ll get killed!”

  “You kidding?” I said, forcing my cockiest grin. “Don’t you know who I am? I’m Marrow—son of the greatest fake villain of all time. I’ve got this.”

  I planned to say something cocky like that. I didn’t want her to worry. I wanted her to know that everything was alright. Even if it wasn’t.

  What I didn’t plan on doing was what I did next.

  Grabbing Sapphire by the waist, I pulled her close. Her big blue eyes went even wider. Our faces hesitated only inches away from each other.

  Then I kissed her.

  This was no wimpy Disney kiss either. This was like Han Solo kissing Leia before he was about to be frozen in carbonite. Like Mr. Smith kissing Mrs. Smith. Like Spider-man kissing Mary Jane. All those rolled into one.

  As our lips parted, our eyes opened. We stared at each other for several long seconds—mouths open and eyes large like two scared animals.

  Okay, now it was weird.

  Blushing, I whipped around and bolted to my entrance.

  “Marrow!” said Sapphire.

  I didn’t turn back. There was no turning back now.

  The sliding glass door zipped open as I approached. It whizzed shut again as I entered the long hallway—a rounded metal framework with long, curving glass panes. The only additional features to the otherwise empty passageway were intermittent surveillance cameras and even an occasional display screen, the kind that I assumed played annoying informative videos for tourists. Thankfully, they were all turned off.

  The sliding glass door at the far end of the hallway zipped open. A menagerie of slimy and scaly mutated monstrosities poured in.

  I tapped into my bone structure, taking a defensive stance.

  Bounding forward at the front of the pack was a top-heavy, mucus-covered sea gorilla. At least that’s what it looked, with forearms three times the size of its legs. Except where a face should have been, there was a gaping mouth with teeth spiraling all the way down its throat. Tendrils writhed and squirmed from the top of its head and down its hunched back.

  Defense? Psh! Offense is the best defense.

  My body became light and I dashed—practically glided—across the floor. I pulled my arm back and swung, packing as much density as possible into my uppercut. The sea gorilla lunged, mouth open to swallow me whole, but my fist connected with its jaw. Snap! I felt the shift of its jawbone breaking. The sea gorilla toppled backwards, crushing an agile, six-limbed mutant under its massive frame with a sickening crunch. Green blood seeped out from underneath.

  The hulking sea gorilla’s corpse was almost a blockade in and of itself.

  The second wave didn’t find this a problem, however—a swarm of gangly humanoid
creatures with lanky, clawed limbs and saucer-eyed, jagged-toothed piranha faces scurried and sprung over the corpse with nimble grace, screeching and howling. The creature at the head of the pack lunged at me. I swung my heavy fist like a wrecking ball into its abdomen. The creature doubled over as its rib cage caved in. Another clawed limb lashed out at me. I snatched it by the wrist with my light hand, solidified the bones in my arm, and swung it 360 degrees. The violent patter of smacking flesh reverberated through the glass hallway. I released the creature, flinging it at the last creature bounding over the corpse. I nailed it in the face with its cousin, causing it to buckle midair. One of the creatures I had just knocked over staggered upright. I brought my solidified elbow down on its skull. The creature collapsed.

  A writhing mass of tentacles erupted over the thick corpse. Clinging their suction cups to the glass, they heaved a snapping, rotten-toothed mouth that could easily swallow me whole. The mutated octopus filled the entire hallway. With so many tentacles wriggling and twisting, there was no way of getting past it.

  Well…no conventional way.

  Retracting the density in my fist, I took several steps back. The real-life kraken squeezed its way around the corpse. The moment it burst free, I sprinted. My lightened frame flew. My feet barely touched the floor. The kraken opened its mouth wide as I approached, like I was a piece of candy being tossed into its mouth.

  Unfortunately, the mouth was what I was aiming for.

  I lunged, thrusting my fist forward, pumping in as much density as possible. Four foot-long bone spikes sliced directly out of my knuckles. I gritted my teeth through the pain.

  My plunge through the kraken’s throat lasted only a second, immersed in its putrid, steamy breath. I sliced through its gooey innards like gelatin, only to blast out the back of its bulbous head. Green guts splattered around me. I landed in a mucus-slickened roll. The kraken remained stationary for only a brief moment before crumpling to the floor.

  Something slithered around my legs. The moment I glanced down, my feet were ripped out from under me. Thick turquoise coils wrapped around me with crushing force. They pinned my arms to my side. I hastily solidified my skeletal structure before I could be crumpled like an aluminum can. An elongated body weaved over me, attached to a bulky, serpentine head the size of small wheelbarrow.