by James Maxey
“I still can’t believe it will stop the horseman.”
“Maybe not,” said Arc, holding up the golf ball sized reactor he’d taken from the other tower. “But with any luck, it will be a strong enough explosion to turn this into a bomb.”
Chapter Eighteen
Wild Trip
Jenny’s Story
It doesn’t feel right to let the Spelunker go,” said Nimble as we emerged from the abandoned subway line beneath DC and headed for the tachyon tube terminal near the Washington Monument. Chem Queen raised her hand to shield her eyes from the morning sunlight.
“I can’t remember the last time I saw daylight,” she said. “And stop grumbling about our deal. I’m helping you, ain’t I? Letting Ringo go is the price.”
“I’m not complaining,” I said, also a bit dazed by the light. For the last few weeks as my depression deepened I’ve been a real night owl. I seldom go out during the day, and never go out any place crowded, and the sidewalks near the monument were packed. Lots of people in suits and uniforms walked briskly between buildings, looking important as they prepared for the end of the world. Plus a surprising number of tourists posed for selfies in front of famous buildings, either not believing the danger the world faced, or willfully defying it.
“I guess the apocalypse isn’t worth postponing a vacation for,” said Nimble.
“I hate that the DC tachyon tube is in such a crowded area,” I said as we walked, taking note of all the people noticing us. “We’re turning heads.”
“I’m used to the attention,” said Nimble.
“I bet you are,” said Chem Queen. “Since when do two strips of electrical tape count as a costume?”
“I’m sorry that this isn’t a comic book and they can’t make me a costume out of ‘unstable molecules,’” she said, making air quotes. “My powers don’t leave me with a lot of clothing options. And it’s not electrical tape. It’s more like KT tape. And why do I owe you an explanation?”
“Just making small talk,” said Chem Queen. “Trying to make a little human connection, you know?” She was quiet for a few seconds, then said, “I really don’t have any friends. I mean, I get along with Ringo okay, but he’s terrible at anything like an ordinary conversation. You can ask him what he wants for dinner and half an hour later you’re wonder just what it was you said that sounded like a request for a half hour monologue on plate tectonics. He’s not just a nerd, he’s a geology nerd. They’re insufferable.”
“Then why do you stay with him?” asked Nimble.
“You did notice I’m covered in green blisters, right?” asked Chem Queen. “I’m a fucking monster but Ringo tells me I’m beautiful about fifty times a day. He was a virgin before he met me and still feels lucky I let him touch me. So, yeah, the lectures about rocks make me want to kill him, but it’s not like I’ve got a line of suitors standing outside my door.”
We reached the tachyon tube. Just outside the Washington Monument there’s a ticket station. There’s a door at the back of it with an ordinary looking doorknob that will only turn if your palm print is in the Lawful Legion database. I didn’t know if it would still work for me, but it worked for Nimble just fine. A few steps later and we were back in Tallahassee. The tube terminal there is in the basement of a parking deck downtown, behind a door covered with high voltage warning signs. Two minutes later we were back in Nimble’s rental car and headed to my place. Nimble drove, and Chem Queen got the shotgun seat since she was really tall and the backseat was tiny.
“So what’s Big Ape like?” said Chem Queen, pulling off her hood now that we were in the car. Aside from the green blisters freckling her cheeks and her green hair, she looked pretty ordinary. She also looked really young, probably younger than me.
“Are you asking in a generic, hey, what’s it like to know a famous superhero way?” I asked.
“Naw. He’s your boyfriend, right? I’ve watched the YouTube video of your press conference a couple of times. Y’all don’t come out and say you’re a couple, but anyone can see it.”
“Yeah, we were… involved.”
“Were?”
“I don’t know. It’s kind of like you and Ringo. At the time, I don’t think either of us had any better choices. I felt lucky to have found someone who didn’t regard me as too damaged to love. But Harry does have other choices. I mean, except for, you know, being half ape, he’s really normal. Frustratingly normal. He’ll find someone who’s better for him than I am.”
“Has he broken up with you or something?”
“No. But… things are complicated.”
“Is he at least good in bed?” she asked.
“As good as I’ll let him be,” I confessed. “The problems in our sex life are all my hang ups. He’s got all these things he wants to try because he’s watched too much porn and I’m always saying no. It’s probably why he slept with someone else.”
“He cheated on you? And you haven’t set him on fire?”
“No,” I said, with a sigh. “Not that I haven’t considered that once or twice.”
“You want me to put him on my murder list?” asked Chem Queen.
Nimble interrupted. “I hate to get in the way of the two of you bonding, but shouldn’t that acid you took back in the cave be affecting you by now?”
“What makes you think it isn’t?” asked Chem Queen.
“I thought you’d be… I don’t know. Acting crazier. Having hallucinations.”
“I’m talking about boyfriends with a couple of superchicks instead of trying to melt your faces,” said Chem Queen. “On an average day, I’m a fucking lunatic. Me acting kinda normal might be proof I’m on a pretty wild trip.”
“So maybe the drugs are working,” I said. “Have they opened up any hidden memories?”
“Nah. But, I guess I shouldn’t have got your hopes up. With my weird chemistry, drugs don’t always affect me like a normal person. I have a hard time getting drunk, for instance. My brain sees alcohol molecules and starts taking them apart. The same thing’s going on right now with the acid. It’s nothing I can really describe in a way that makes sense. It’s a synesthesia thing. My brain perceives molecules as sounds and smells and colors, sometimes even tastes, or tingles on my skin.” She pulled of her glove, holding out her forearm. It was covered in the goosebumps. “Right now, one of the compounds in the acid feels like feathers lightly teasing the hairs on my arms. Another part of it is putting this briny pickle taste right at the back of my tongue. I’m also hearing murmurs. Like whispered voices, far away, but I can’t tell what they’re saying.”
“Maybe they’re memories coming back?” I asked, hopefully.
“Naw, this is one of those synesthesia things,” said Chem Queen, pulling her glove back on. “I’m hearing the shape of the molecules as they hit receptors in my brain.”
“So this has all been a big waste of time,” said Nimble.
“Maybe not,” said Chem Queen. “I’m learning a lot by paying attention to what the drug’s trying to do. It’s interesting. Following the molecules around my head is kind of helping me draw a map of where the receptors are for the drug. I’m noticing some funny stuff. This might not make any sense at all to you, but as the drug turns into colors in my mind, it’s illuminating a wall in my brain. I’ve never noticed it before. I wonder what’s on the other side?”
“Your repressed memories?” I asked. “A wall in the mind doesn’t sound crazy to me. I kind of felt something similar when the Victorian messed around with my brain. It’s like there was a locked door in my head I wasn’t even aware of and he accidently cracked the door open. When I peeked inside all my old memories were still there.”
“Interesting,” said Chem Queen. Her eyes were distant, unfocused. I couldn’t tell if it was my words she found interesting, or what she was seeing in her own head. “Hmm. There are locks all over the wall. Chemical keyholes that LSD almost fits, but it’s not exactly the right key.” She looked at Nimble. “Stop at the first conveni
ence store we reach. I need to run in and pick up a few things.”
“Like what?”
“Like stuff. I’ll know it when I see it.”
Nimble shook her head. “You’re still dressed in your costume. Someone’s going to call the cops.”
“You guys are cops,” she said. “Don’t sweat it. People will think I’m on my way to a Halloween party.”
“In April,” said Nimble. “In the morning.”
“Do it,” I said. “What’s the point of bringing her along if we aren’t going to trust that she knows what she’s doing?”
Nimble muttered something under her breath as she pulled into the parking lot of a minimart.
“This will only take a second,” said Chem Queen. “Wait here. Keep the motor running.”
“It sounds like you’re planning to rob the place,” said Nimble.
“Just some light shoplifting,” said Chem Queen, stepping out of the car. “I don’t have any cash on me.”
“That’s really not necessary,” I said. “I’ve got—”
Chem Queen didn’t stick around to hear me say I had cash. Instead she cackled and ran right at the front window of the minimart, crossing her arms to shield her face as she leapt, crashing right through the window.
“Jesus Christ!” yelled Nimble, opening her door. “She’s fucking crazy! That’s it, I’m arresting her.”
“No!” I shouted, grabbing her arm. “We need her! Don’t you want to find out the truth?”
“She’ll kill somebody!”
Before we could argue further, Chem Queen jumped out from the broken window, holding several bottles to her chest, stuff like bleach, window cleaner, and a two liter Mountain Dew. She’d also grabbed a few cartons of Marlboros.
“Drive!” she screamed, jumping back into the car. “Drive drive drive!”
“Oh Lord,” said Nimble, throwing the car into reverse. We nearly crashed into a car pulling into the parking lot before she put the car into drive and floored it. “I am not cool with this!”
“You’re driving, ain’t you?” said Chem Queen. “You could have waited around for the cops.”
“Which I would have if I could think of a convenient lie for why I helped break you out of prison,” said Nimble. “Did you hurt anybody? Please tell me you didn’t hurt anybody.”
“Nah,” said Chem Queen. “I mean, I don’t think so. Sometimes people get an allergic reaction to my knockout gas. That’s rare, though. Everyone’s fine. Probably.”
“Oh Lord,” said Nimble, jerking the wheel hard when she realized she was about to overshoot the ramp onto the freeway. “This whole finding out if I have repressed memories thing was a terrible idea,” Nimble said, practically shouting. “At this point, I want repressed memories! I want to go back and erase the whole goddamned day!”
“I’ve been told that Jägermeister is good for that,” said Chem Queen. “Not that it does anything for me except make my pee smell like licorice.”
She unscrewed the bottle of bleach and rolled down her window. The roar was deafening as she emptied half the bottle into the wind. She rolled her window back up and tore into the pack of cigarettes with her teeth.
“Don’t smoke!” said Nimble. “This is a rental car. I’ll lose my deposit!”
“You have very strange priorities,” said Chem Queen. “Chill. I’m just peeling the nicotine out of these for the compound I’m building.” She dropped three cigarettes into the bleach bottle, then followed that with some of the washer fluid. She paused to sniff the jug. Then she tilted it back and filled her mouth with what still had to be 90% pure bleach. I winced, imagining how painful that had to be. But she just swished it around between her cheeks like it was mouthwash, then spat a small puddle of blue-green fluid the consistency of antifreeze into her hand. The atmosphere of the car took on a strong ammonia stench as white crystals grew in her palm.
“Now that is a thing of beauty,” she said, snapping off one of the crystals. She popped it into her mouth. It sounded like a potato chip as she chewed it up. “Even my metabolism won’t break this shit down before it can lock into all those little keyholes in the wall in my brain. And it should hit really fast, like—AAAAH!”
She seized the dashboard with both hands. The dashboard bubbled, giving off acrid smoke as the plastic turned to sludge around her fingers. Chem Queen arched her back, pressing her neck hard into the headrest, before it too turned into sludge.
By now, the whole car was full of a chemical smoke that gagged me. The tires screamed as Nimble aimed for the shoulder of the road, slamming the brakes. Chem Queen wasn’t wearing her seat belt and slammed her head into the windshield hard enough to spiderweb it. She fell against the door, which melted away as powerful acid oozed from every pore. I fumbled to open my own door, falling from the car. Something rubbery and ropy wrapped around me and I was suddenly twanged away as Nimble extended herself about a hundred feet down the shoulder of the road, getting me to a patch of clean air.
Horns blared as cars whizzed by, but no one slammed on their brakes, or even slowed down. Florida drivers get used to seeing crazy shit on the side of the road.
“You all right?” asked Nimble as I lay on my back, coughing. “Do I need to get you to a hospital?”
“I’ll be okay,” I croaked. “It all happened so fast.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m planning to tell the police,” Nimble said with a sigh, looking back at her car, which was now in flames. “Not to mention the rental place.”
As I made it to my feet, I saw Chem Queen on her hands and knees crawling away from the burning car.
“Can I arrest her now?” asked Nimble.
“Do you really need my permission?” I said. “Do what you have to do.”
Nimble stretched her legs to cover the distance back to Chem Queen in a single step. She grabbed her by the front of her suit and lifted her up. Chem Queen had a crazy smile on her face and was babbling something, though I couldn’t make out what because cars were still blaring their horns as they flew past, helpfully pointing out to us, I guess, that our car was on fire.
A few seconds later, Nimble set Chem Queen back on her feet. She shook her head, then rubbed her eyes as Chem Queen stood there, smiling. Nimble wrapped a ropy arm around Chem Queen and did another long step back to my side.
“We’re not arresting her,” said Nimble, with a sigh.
“Oh sugar,” said Chem Queen, laughing maniacally. “You were so fucking right! I was at the Butterfly House! I remember everything!”
Chapter Nineteen
Moral Compass
Echo’s Story
Anyman reached out, grabbing both me and my double by our shoulders. He said, “This might feel weird.” He closed his eyes and pressed his lips tightly together, concentrating.
“What’s going to feel weird?” I asked. “Aside from, you know, standing face to face with a guy I just met while he gives me a shoulder massage?”
“I’m not giving you a shoulder massage,” he said. “I’m filling you with tachyons. At least, I’m trying to. If it works you’ll experience the time acceleration along with me.”
“I don’t think it’s working,” my clone said.
“It’s working,” he said. “Look out the window.”
I turned my head. Nothing struck me as odd, except that the two horsemen weren’t getting any closer to the tower, and Arc and Prodigy weren’t getting any closer to them. At first, I thought it was just because their movement was hard to track against the background of stars, then I realized they were all as still as statues. Even at this distance, I’d seen the robotic horses galloping. Now, their legs were immobile.
“It worked?” I said. “Weird. It doesn’t feel like it did the last time I was in a bubble of frozen time.”
“You’ve been in a time bubble before?”
“There’s this time travelling weirdo named Fan Boy and, you know what, it’s a really crazy story, so forget I brought it up.” Telling him I’d beaten u
p a nerd from the future and stolen the lottery ticket he’d tried to bribe me with didn’t seem like a good idea.
Anyman’s voice sounded strained as he said, “Both of you hold still for just another few seconds. I tried using this trick on the Cobalt Cowboy but I didn’t get the tachyons distributed evenly. I wound up not getting him fully into the field and he lost fingers and toes to gangrene before I even realized what was happening.”
“That seems like the sort of thing you should have mentioned before dragging us into a time bubble without our permission,” my clone said.
“Sorry. I’ve been on the team for a few years, and you eventually sort of take it for granted that all your teammates are going to go along with whatever life endangering scheme pops into mind when you’re in a hurry to stop the bad guys. Besides, assuming at least part of your book is true and you really are Tempo’s granddaughter, you should be especially receptive to tachyon manipulation. It’s in your genes.”
“You’ve read my book?” I asked.
“Both of them,” he said.
My clone and I cringed in stereo. My first book, Sliced, had been ghostwritten for a publisher intent on making a fast buck with a lurid tell-all that exaggerated my admittedly deviant sexual past. Or, even more embarrassing, didn’t exaggerate it enough that I could just laugh it off as all lies. It was a pretty messed up time in my life.
“That was, uh, some interesting stuff,” he said.
I felt my cheeks turn red.
“No!” he said, realizing how uncomfortable he was making me. “I don’t mean the sex stuff. The Butterfly House stuff. You must have… a wild imagination.”
I sighed. “Is this a test? Are you wanting to make sure I’m really denouncing the book as fiction?”
“It didn’t read like fiction,” he said. “At least, if it was fiction, it certainly didn’t possess any sort of traditional narrative arc. Of course, for non-fiction, it was frustrating in its lack of footnotes and hard evidence.”
