They Promised Me the Gun Wasn't Loaded

by James Alan Gardner

  So I wait. At last, Zirc finishes zir painfully slow stroll-by. “Well, it’s definitely…” Zirc stops. When Zirc is that tiny, zir voice is an ultrafalsetto. It sounds like a Pokémon chickadee: enormously cute and enormously undignified. Zirc grows back to normal height (which is still pretty short) and starts again. “The gun is definitely more than mundane. My Spark-o-Vision sees magic and superpowers as weird-colored glows … and there’s something right here with serious shine.” Zirc points to a section of the gun barrel right above the trigger.

  I say, “I don’t see anything.”

  “You wouldn’t,” Zirc says. “The glow is the size of a pinprick and deep inside the weapon. Still, it’s like a bright pink LED.”

  “Maybe a power source?” Aria suggests. “A Cape Tech battery?”

  “Don’t know,” Zirc replies. “I zoomed in for a microscopic close-up, but I don’t see anything special. The light doesn’t come from any specific component. It’s just a fleck of I-don’t-know glued to the inside wall of the gun barrel.”

  I ask, “Have you ever seen anything similar?”

  Zirc shakes zir head. “No. And that’s odd too. Up till now, my Spark-o-Vision has been consistent. When Aria uses a power, the glow is always gold. Ninety-Nine, you’re green, and Dakini is violet. It’s the same with Darklings—no matter what powers or magic they use, each Darkling radiates their own personal color. Like for instance, that vampire, Lilith: every supernatural thing she did lit up with the same shade of red.”

  I say, “So?”

  “So I’ve always seen Diamond’s powers as bright white. Even when he pretended to be someone else, his powers didn’t change color. The tech he made shone the same color, too.”

  “But the glow in the bazooka is pink,” Aria says.

  “Exactly,” Zircon says. “And the rest of the gun doesn’t glow at all.”

  I think for a moment. “If this gun was made by Diamond, it’s defective, right? Otherwise, it would have self-destructed by now. Maybe it glows the wrong color because it’s broken.”

  “Or maybe it wasn’t built by Diamond,” Aria says.

  “You think two different supervillains stashed weapons around Waterloo?”

  Aria shrugs. “Or else Reaper lied to you. Or somebody lied to him.”

  “Lots of ‘or’s,” Zircon says. “That’s the problem with magic and superpowers. Whenever you play detective, you’re dealing with umpteen weird possibilities that you can’t rule out.”

  “Then let’s gather hard data,” I say, pulling down the magnifying glass and angling it into position.

  “Ooh, look at you!” says Aria. “Acting all like a scientist.”

  I say, “I fart in your general direction.” I am a scientist, dammit, and I can figure out what’s going on.

  So I look. I examine. I test.

  E.g.: I pry off glittery niblets from the barrel of the gun, have Aria crush them to powder with a sound blast, and run them through the mass spectrometer.

  E.g.: I fire up UV lamps and go inch by inch along the exterior to see what fluoresces.

  E.g.: I scrape off flakes of bazooka using Zircon’s pocketknife and look at them under a microscope. (This is Zircon’s ordinary pocketknife I’m talking about—the one ze carries in case a rock’s hardness needs testing. I don’t mean Zirc’s magical knives; as far as I’m concerned, those horrors should be locked in a rowan-wood coffin and sunk into Challenger Deep. I think Zircon agrees with me: ze’s hyperextremely reluctant to pull the knives out of their sheaths. Let’s hope that lasts forever.)

  I soon zone out, getting blurry drunk on science. I’m still teching and it feels productive … but the Jools part of me is off the clock.

  It’s restful. I wouldn’t call it pleasant, just as I wouldn’t say being drunk is giggly bouncy fun time, but my battered brain gets to go AWOL.

  No worrying. No beating myself up.

  It lasts maybe an hour. When my mind finally returns from the Nothingness Spa, I expect to be staring at results. Instead? Fuck all. I have a cartload of superficialities—printed numbers, scribbled notes, graphs on computer screens—but none of it sparks any comprehension.

  Maybe I’m just too stupid. After all, my powers only make me human-best in everything. Maybe to understand Mad Genius tech, you have to be more than human: beyond the house-trained end of the scale where knowledge politely uses the litter box, and into the part where there’s shit all over the house.

  This should make me happy. Hey, Jools, you won’t go crazy: you’re too dumb! But I’m sick of feeling like a moron. It’s the story of my life since I got to uni, and I hate it.

  I WANT TO BE SMART, DAMMIT! I DON’T WANT TO FEEL LIKE EVERYONE ELSE UNDERSTANDS THINGS I DON’T.

  I want to believe I can force my brain to catch on if only I focus. Like when I’m training for hockey, and don’t have the strength for another chin-up, but I try anyway. There’s a moment when you aren’t using muscles anymore, but just pure determination. It feels like you’re going to rupture a vein, but you steal one more chin-up from thin air.

  I’ve always been able to do that with physical stuff. I’ve wished and wished I could do it mentally, too.

  Am I getting a glimmer about the gun? Through absolute stubbornness, am I pulling back an edge of the curtain? Or am I lying to myself, same as always?

  Can’t tell, cuz I get derailed. Zircon suddenly hollers inside my head, « Aria! Get me out of here! »

  “What?” says Aria. “Why?”

  « Just do it! » Zircon snaps. « Please! »

  Ze collapses to the size of a Barbie. Aria looks worried as fuck, but she has superhuman reflexes. She snatches up Zirc in one hand and bolts out the door so quickly it slams behind her. I’m left standing in the lab, Hommina hommina, and wondering whether to expect a zombie invasion or a hail of frogs.

  * * *

  MAYBE ZIRCON JUST HAD to pee. That’s serious when your costume is white. But since Zirc can shrink to the size of E. coli, ze could strip down naked without being seen and take care of business.

  So what the hell is up? Did Zircon’s Spark-o-Vision detect a flock of hungry velociraptors? But then why not just say that? Why would Zirc demand to bug out but not worry about leaving me behind? Especially when Zirc can hide from damned near anything just by shrinking out of sight.

  The lights just flickered. Crap, now they’ve all gone out. The only light comes from computer screens … and there is nothing scarier than the muted glow of monitors in the dark.

  Flashbacks to playing Alien: Isolation till three in the morning. Creeping around dark labs filled with ambush predators.

  Crap. Crap. Crap.

  Smoke starts to seep under the door. No, not smoke. Oh, fuck.

  I snatch up the diamond bazooka. I have no idea what will happen if I pull the trigger, but the gun looks imposing as hell. Whatever is leaking into the lab from the hallway should be nervous about finding itself in the crosshairs.

  “Dude,” I say to the Definitely Not Smoke. “Not to be confrontational, but you’re hovering where I’m about to shoot.”

  Creepy laughter of the sort that usually needs a reverb microphone. The smoke congeals into a transparent human form: a man, thirtyish, with stringy hair, hollow eyes, and an emaciated body draped in a long leather duster. The duster reaches to the floor, but the man’s body doesn’t; he dims at the waist, trailing off into nothingness.

  “Oh,” I say, “Wraith. Short time no see.”

  “Ninety-Nine,” he says, tipping his head in a little bow. “You’re not who I expected to find.”

  Who did he expect? Zircon? My friends and I met Wraith on the night we became super, but I picked up definite vibes that Zircon and Wraith already knew each other. Zirc never explained how ze might know a Darkling ghost. But hey, we all have secrets. Zirc would tell us if it’s important.

  Still, it’s clear that Zirc saw Wraith a’coming and ran off spooked. It could be time for a team meeting.

  Now that
I think about it, I’m the only one in our group with experience being on teams. Miranda, K, and Shar all occupy the lone-wolf end of the spectrum.

  Then again, if I’m such a great team player, why am I here on my own?

  “What are you after, Wraith?” I ask.

  “Your toy.” He nods toward the bazooka that I’m aiming at his chest.

  “Why do you want it?” I ask.

  Wraith purses his desiccated lips. “I can’t tell you.”

  “Because?”

  “I signed an NDA. That means a nondisclosure—”

  “I know what an NDA is!” And since Wraith is a Darkling, it’s no doubt an NDA with teeth. Darkling contracts aren’t necessarily signed in blood—Wraith doesn’t look like he has blood—but whatever the technical niceties, Darkling contracts can fuck you up good.

  If you sign a Darkling NDA, either you’ll find yourself physically incapable of saying certain things—your mouth simply won’t form the words—or else you can say them, but you then suffer serious blowback. You could literally get struck by lightning … and that’s tame compared to other punishments I’ve heard of.

  If Wraith truly signed an NDA, I’d be wasting my time trying to wheedle him into talking. I say, “Fine, your lips are sealed. But that means you’re working for someone. Hopefully not the same bozos as Reaper. He was supposed to keep the bazooka safe; he screwed up royally.”

  Wraith says nothing. I continue. “Yes, I know about Reaper. I happened to save that nice Jools Walsh when the airport caught fire. She told me everything she knew. So if you were working with Reaper, you’d probably flash official-looking ID and say you were claiming the gun on behalf of national security. You haven’t tried that. Nor have you tried to beat me up, or to play ghostly mind games and make me drop the weapon.”

  “I can do that if necessary,” Wraith says. “But I’d rather you be reasonable.”

  I laugh. “Is it reasonable to give a superweapon to someone I barely know?”

  He hesitates, then says, “Ask Zircon about me. She’ll tell you I’m trustworthy.”

  Interesting. I say, “Zircon is a ‘ze’ now, not a ‘she.’ Just FYI. And ze isn’t here at the moment.” I stare at him, thinking, I don’t think ze trusts you as much as you believe. “Speaking of Zircon,” I say, “Zirc’s the one who commandeered this gun in the first place. Jools saw Zircon sneak in while Reaper was fighting Wrecking Ball. Zirc decided neither could be trusted, so ze took the weapon into protective custody.”

  Wraith says, “We figured that was what happened. Sparks are as territorial as wolves. Your team has claimed Waterloo as your turf, so naturally you’d turn up when the airport went to hell. You’d also believe you had the right to confiscate anything you thought would disturb the peace.”

  “You said ‘we,’” I tell him. “You and who else?”

  “Me,” says a voice from the doorway.

  Big surprise. I knew someone else would be waiting to make an entrance.

  It’s a vampire woman with skin the same white as our kitchen Corelle. But unlike Calon Arang, this newly arrived vamp is a classic second-gen Darkling. She must have taken the Dark Conversion the moment she turned eighteen, so she’ll look that age for all eternity … or at least until someone cuts off her head and stuffs it with garlic. The woman wears dark-rimmed serious glasses, a short serious haircut, and sharp-pressed serious Armani, all to project an air of gravitas; but she looks like a Goldman Sachs Barbie, or one of those stock photos where a teenage model wears a business suit and points at fake sales charts.

  And I’ve seen this vampire before. It was back on the night of the solstice, when she and I tried to pound the crap out of each other in the middle of our local landfill. The chick was dressed differently then—I remember sneak-in-the-dark clothing and razor-sharp claws. But I actually enjoyed the battle. Of all the Darklings I’ve had to duff up, this vamp was the only one with combat training. Pity she won’t remember our fight; my teammate Dakini erased several hours of the woman’s memory.

  Knowing Dakini, she likely snarfled up information from the vampire’s brain while wiping away the memories. But Dakini didn’t share. Neither did Zircon, even though this vamp had some kind of hold on Zirc’s mind. But I never got the details. I just know that I whacked this woman unconscious without learning who she was or what the heck she was doing in the dump.

  At least WikiJools gives me a name. “Hi,” I say. “Elaine Vandermeer, right?”

  The woman’s face freezes, the vampire equivalent of gaping in shock. (When a vamp is taken aback, she doesn’t tense up in surprise. Her body does absolutely nothing, like a robot with its power off. Nothing happens till the vamp’s brain recovers and can give her muscles new orders.)

  Elaine finally puts on a curious expression. “It’s odd that you’d recognize me.”

  I smile. “I know things.” Thanks to WikiJools, I know that Elaine belongs to a wealthy Calgary family who made their money during the oil boom sixty years ago. Every member of the Vandermeer clan is now a vampire, except the youngest son, Nicholas. He became a ghost.

  Hi, Wraith. Now I know who I’m dealing with.

  Elaine says, “You really should give us the gun.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “I can’t tell you. I signed the NDA, too.”

  “Of course you did.”

  I consider the situation. Being alone with a vamp and a ghost, I’d be crazy to put up a fight. Besides, why bother? I’m clearly too stupid to figure out how the damned bazooka works. And it may still self-destruct explosively. Possibly the first time anyone pulls the trigger.

  If I were truly a hero, maybe I’d do that: blow up myself, the lab, and the Vandermeers in order to eliminate the gun. But after an hour of getting nowhere, the damned bazooka just pisses me off. I sure as hell don’t want to die for it. I want it out of my sight.

  But should I give it to the Vandermeers? No good reason why. But what’s the alternative? Handing it over to the cops? The gun might blow up the police station; and if not, the cops would likely pass on the gun to Reaper and Stevens & Stephens.

  I like Elaine better than those morons. She and I share a bond: we tried to kill each other.

  Still, I refuse to give the gun away for free. I say, “What are you offering in exchange?”

  Wraith gives a laugh—creepy and sepulchral, of course, but it sounds genuine. “Now you’re talking our language.”

  “What do you want?” Elaine asks. “Money?”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m a Spark, not a Darkling. Don’t care about money.”

  Elaine shrugs. “Robin Hood and his outlaws are Sparks. They care about money. A lot.”

  “Do they?” I ask. “The way they talk in their YouTube videos, they just steal from Darklings to make you look like idiots. The money is icing on the cake.”

  “Interesting,” says Elaine. “You watch Robin Hood’s YouTube videos?”

  “No, I just know things.” At this second, I know how much these two apparently care about Robin Hood and Company. A datum to file away.

  “If you don’t want money,” says Elaine, “what are you asking for?”

  I ponder. When an answer pops into my head, it’s so surprising I let it slip directly out of my mouth. “Invitations,” I say.

  “To what?”

  “The memorial tomorrow night.” I watch as Elaine does another vampire freeze. Wraith goes temporarily misty. I grin. “The memorial takes place here in town, correct? To honor the people who died at the Goblin Market.”

  “You do know things,” says Elaine.

  “Our Spark team should be there,” I tell her. “Just in case.”

  “In case of what?”

  “Anything. Like, what if Diamond shows up? If I know about the event, he does, too. And plenty of the partygoers will be Darklings who survived the fiasco. Diamond may want another crack at them.”

  Elaine says, “There’ll be security measures to deal with Diamond.” />
  I say, “Security measures so reliable you can’t use four Sparks as backup?”

  “You won’t be backup,” Elaine says. “You’ll be provocations.”

  “Without us,” I say, “the body count at the market would have been much worse. Don’t we deserve invitations?”

  Wraith turns to Elaine. “They’ll come whether we invite them or not. Sparks can’t let anything happen on their home turf without getting involved.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Elaine says. She turns to me and says, “Fine, I’ll get you put on the guest list. What names?”

  “Ninety-Nine, Aria, Zircon, and Dakini,” I say. “Plus four unnamed guests.”

  Elaine raises her eyebrows. “You’re worried that Diamond will attack, but you want to bring dates?”

  Actually, I just want to cover our asses in case we decide to show up in civilian ID. In a party with geysers of flowing booze, I’d rather wear a dress than a bulky hockey uniform. Besides, I’ll be able to thumb my nose at Calon Arang and say, Ha! I got here without you.

  I say, “I’m just thinking ahead. We may want backup of our own. Maybe Sparks from Toronto.”

  “Whatever,” says Elaine, waving her hand in dismissal. “I’ll leave eight entry cards at the reception desk. Anything else?”

  I try to think of other perks to scrounge. I’d love to squeeze these two for whatever they’ll give, but I’m operating in the dark.

  Should I ask for stock tips? A fruit basket? No. I’ve seen what happens to fruit around Darklings: it rots. “That’s enough,” I say. I slide the bazooka off my shoulder. “Which of you wants this?”

  The gun floats out of my hands of its own volition. Clearly, Wraith could have taken it anytime he wanted. Brownie points to us all for acting so civilly.

  Still, I want one more shot at figuring out what’s going on. I say, “So you really won’t tell me why you want the bazooka? The Globe and Mail’s ‘Report on Business’ says your family specializes in mining and oil, not weapons.”