by Liana Brooks
The smell of Thane’s homeopathic treatment bothered him. Maybe because her shirts reeked of it when she came home from the fight. Evan looked up at the cold starlight. The smell, the T-shirts, and a tall blond man.
He’d never paid much attention to super heroes and their identities. Some villains dedicated years to researching a nemesis. A few went as far as fixating on super heroes, but that was too creepy-stalker-freak for him.
Super heroes came, and after a polite chat, they went away. Except Tabitha. He’d been too spellbound to speak before she broke the Agree-With-Me Ray.
But the big, blond Thane, he looked... Evan slapped his thigh. Time for the professor to do a little homework.
At home, Evan pulled out all the reference material he’d amassed on superheroes, super villains, and the unsolved crimes of the last century. Most of it he’d stolen, some of it had been compiled from court records and newspaper printouts by the minions, and none of it was alphabetized.
Blessing snuggled on his lap as he flipped through the reports on superheroes unmasked. Delila and Maria helped the minions sort the Morality Machine parts, and Angela thumbed through a thick book.
“Here we go,” Evan said, shifting Blessing to his knee. “The Rainbow Dane, also known as Thane Mitely, raised by a single mother named Ava Mitely. It’s rumored that his father was the Roaring Thane, and that’s where his name came from.” He set the papers down. “I don’t remember the Roaring Thane.”
Hert tilted his head. “I’ve read about him, sir. He was one of the early super heroes. Super strength, if I recall correctly.”
“Who did he fight?”
“Everyone, sir. He fought any and all crime. If he saw a wrongdoing he’d roar, hence the name, and attack.”
“So, what, drug dealers and hippies? Corrupt cops? What was his MO?”
“Anything, sir. Jaywalkers, clerks giving wrong change, people who ran stoplights. He said once that he could tell someone was going to commit a crime even before they acted.”
Evan shook his head. “Sounds psycho to me.”
“The police objected as well, but he helped enough that they were hesitant to stop him. He was killed in a fight with the Magenta Fox, who in turn was killed by the Roaring Thane’s mother. She called herself Lady Grimoire and her super skill, if you call it that, was potions.”
“Interesting.”
“When the super heroes first appeared in the public they weren’t under any code of conduct with the government. The only thing separating a villain from a hero was media perception,” Hert said.
“I can’t say the registration card scheme has changed that.” Evan drummed his fingers on the floor.
“Daddy?” Blessing asked. “What does this say?” She pointed to a caption under a black and white photo of a little girl on a swing in front of pine trees.
“Zinnia Perl, age four, near her childhood home of—” Evan gasped, taking the book away from Blessing. “I’d forgotten all about this. It’s in her book, the one we wrote the year she was pregnant. Some news reporter kept calling to demand the official story of her life, so she finally wrote the autobiography just to keep people from asking questions. It was her tell-all book!”
“Daddy?” Blessing pulled the book back. “Is this Mommy?”
“Yes. Her parents took her to Aspen for Christmas that year. It was a generic snow picture.” He had sorted hundreds of old photos trying to find the ones that didn’t have enough detail to unravel her false history. Evan snapped his fingers. “Hert, listen. I have two theories.”
“Very good, Master.”
“The first is that the Morality Machine breaking somehow caused Tabitha to lose her memory of everything that’s happened since I turned it on.”
“A possibility, Master. Although an unlikely one.”
“Right. The Morality Machine shouldn’t show precise brain damage like that. Maybe it would affect impulse control, but not memory. My second theory is that someone has taken, or suppressed, her memory.”
His minion frowned. “I haven’t heard of anyone working on memory, sir.”
Evan sighed. “Yes, that’s where it falls apart.”
Angela walked over and sat in his lap. “When do we get to see Mommy?”
He studied the girls for a minute. “How does tomorrow sound?”
Their eyes lit up. “Really? Tomorrow? Promise?” The cacophony of four piping voices drowned out his reply for a good minute.
Evan waited it out. When they finally fell silent, he smiled grimly. “Daddy needs more data so he can prove his theory. Do you want to be my ice cream minions tomorrow?”
Maria raised an eyebrow in an exact copy of his favorite cynical pose. “What’s an ice cream minion?”
“It means I pay you in ice cream cones to help me follow Mommy.” The clapping started. “One ice cream cone per person. Not multiple cones per kid,” he clarified.
The clapping stuttered away.
“Go upstairs and get pajamas on. Tomorrow we are stalking a superhero!”
He waited for them to go upstairs before turning to Hert. “Find out Tabitha’s schedule for tomorrow. It’s a Saturday. Maybe see if you can lure her to a park or something. I think that once she sees the girls, she’ll remember them at least. No woman forgets her children after twenty hours of labor. If this is some joke she’s playing on me because she’s angry...” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “She won’t pretend that she doesn’t know the girls. It doesn’t matter how angry she is with me. She wouldn’t hurt them.”
Chapter Fourteen
I can only recall one instance before this where I truly felt nervous: the night I waited to see Tabitha the second time.
Expectation was pure torture. Every breeze that brushed past the warehouse door made me turn. Every noise made me jump. I’d put everything into this one gamble, wagered everything on getting my machine right the first time.
In retrospect, I could have tried the Morality Machine on any number of victims. But at the time, it never occurred to me. My entire focus was on winning Zephyr Girl for myself.
When she arrived, words failed me. She was beautiful. Beyond beautiful. She put Helen and her thousand ships to shame. She made springtime seem dowdy, and long summer days plain. Zephyr Girl landed lightly and sauntered toward me, an unfathomable expression on her face. “Hello, Doctor Charm. Or should I say Evan?”
I hesitated, holding the control for the Morality Machine and drinking in her beauty. “I knew you wouldn’t stay away.”
She laughed, the sound of angels. “Do you know why I’m here?”
I looked away then, wishing the burning kiss she’d left me with would lead to more without mechanical intervention and knowing it wouldn’t. “I can guess.” And just like that, I flipped the switch that changed her life.
When I looked up, her eyes had filled with erotic hunger. “I want you. Against the wall. On the table. I want a blistering hot love affair that will keep the tabloids talking for decades.”
“Really?” Vivid images filled my mind. I’d never brought a girl home to the lab before her, but it was years before I could look at some of my machines without picturing her stretched over them wearing nothing but her thigh-high boots.
I remember, now, that I fumbled for the ring. It was the first time in my life I felt truly sinister. I was taking something I knew no woman as beautiful as Tabitha would ever offer me.
My hand shook as I held the ring box out. “Why don’t you marry me instead?”
She froze, and I swallowed a curse, certain the Morality Machine wasn’t strong enough.
And then she was wrapped around me. Fingers tangled in my hair, her lips teasing mine. Torso...well, a gentleman doesn’t divulge all the details. Suffice it to say, I thought my conquest was complete.
***
Chasing four sticky children around a strange city on an unbelievably warm October day counted as a torture more cruel than even the most depraved super villain could devise. Pitchfork
s and eternal damnation had nothing on whiny, tired children who just wanted their mother. Evan collapsed into a park bench as the girls tore into their third ice cream cone each.
Delila looked up at him with a huge smile ringed in blue. “I love you, Daddy!”
“Love you too, pumpkin.”
“Can we have cookies when we get home?”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “I thought you girls weren’t going to give Daddy a heart attack until you turned sixteen and started driving. All this sugar is killing me.”
Delila frowned at him. “I don’t remember saying that.”
“I remember it distinctly. Right after you were born you signed a contract.”
Her eyes narrowed and she turned to her sisters. “Did we sign a contract with Daddy?”
“In sparkly purple pen,” Evan added. “I distinctly remember the ink was sparkly purple.”
The girls fell into earnest discussion, giving him a moment to breathe. Across the park, something caught his eye. A familiar silhouette in the afternoon sun. Tabitha.
Blessing gasped. “Mommy!”
“Wait!” Evan caught her arm before disaster struck. “Mommy is undercover, remember?”
“Ooooo.” Four innocent, ice cream-smeared faces turned to him.
“We’re going to go play catch, and Mommy is going to give us a sign. But you have to pretend you don’t know her. Okay? We don’t want the bad guys to find out about Mommy.” He looked each of the girls in the eye. “Do you understand?”
“Yes, Daddy,” they chorused.
“Good.”
He watched Tabitha for a moment, heart in his throat. This was the only way to know. Even if angry with him, Tabitha wouldn’t ignore the girls. If the Morality Machine had erased her memory, well that was a bridge he would burn later.
“Come on, girls, let’s go play catch.”
They played with an over-sized pink softball. Delila tossed it to Angela, Angela tossed the ball to Maria, and Maria tossed to Blessing, who tossed it to Evan.
Tabitha sat down in the grass, talking animatedly with her friend while she flipped open a psychology textbook.
A few more times around the circle and Evan growled in frustration. “New plan!” he told the girls. “Let’s make teams. Blessing and Maria against Delila and Angela.”
“Whose team are you on, Daddy?” Angela asked.
“I’m going to be the monkey in the middle. If I catch the ball I get to throw it anywhere in the park.”
Delila put her hands on her hips. “Anywhere?”
“Anywhere. Even up a tree!”
“Not fair!” Maria protested.
Evan shrugged. “I suppose you better keep the ball away from me then.”
They threw the ball around him, rolled it between his feet, and once Angela threw it so hard he had to duck or risk a serious head injury. All the while, Tabitha talked blithely on as if her four beautiful daughters weren’t mere feet away.
Desperate for some sign, Evan jumped after the ball. He grabbed it, twisted away, and rolled the softball so it bumped against Tabitha’s foot.
She looked down at the pink ball in surprise, then smiled brightly as Blessing went running up. “Is this your ball?”
Blessing stared, and finally nodded. “Uh-huh. Daddy bought it for me.”
“What a nice Daddy you have,” Tabitha said. She handed the ball to Blessing. “Here you go.”
Blessing moped back to the circle. She looked back at Tabitha. “Daddy, why didn’t Mommy say she loves me? She always says she loves me.”
Tears and fear choked him.
“She’s undercover!” Angela said in exasperation. “Weren’t you listening?”
Blessing nodded. “I forgot. I thought she was going to wink at me.”
Evan struggled to find his voice. “Undercover agents don’t wink,” he lied.
They played ball for a few more minutes, but the girls had lost interest. They wanted their mommy. The one that didn’t recognize them anymore thanks to him.
Eventually, Evan caught the ball and steered them away from the park. Back at the rental house, he served a dinner of ramen noodles and grape juice. Everything reeked of failure.
He read the girls their bedtime story, tucked them in, and slunk off to the improvised lab.
Hert looked up as he entered. “Good evening, Master. I have excellent news.”
Evan raised an eyebrow as he collapsed onto an up-turned crate.
“The latest Election Ray results are very promising. I believe we have the calibration 95 percent perfected.”
He nodded wearily.
“Sir?” The minion looked confused. “Isn’t that good news?”
“What about the Morality Machine, Hert? Where do we stand with that?”
“Um.” The warty minion checked his clipboard. “Not finished, sir. We’ve inspected all the components and run all the tests you specified. There is nothing conclusive.”
Evan covered his eyes, well aware that he was too exhausted to move, but unwilling to give up. Failure wasn’t something he could accept. There had to be a way to fix this.
Hert cleared his throat. “If I may say, sir, it would help immensely if you were in the lab during the day.”
“I can’t be in the lab! The girls need me!”
Hert gave him a flat stare. “Sir, I am genetically programmed to point out personal inconsistencies that hinder your work. Sir, you did nothing today.”
“I took the girls to see Tabitha.”
“No, sir. You walked around the city eating unhealthy amounts of frozen non-dairy concoctions mooning for a woman who left you.”
Evan surged to his feet. “She didn’t leave me. Tabitha wouldn’t leave me. She wouldn’t leave the girls. She...forgot who we are.”
Hert cleared his throat again. “Sir? The Morality Machine doesn’t work that way. I can think of no way the Morality Machine could affect a person’s memory. The magnetic waves specifically target the posterior pituitary gland to excite production of vasopressin.”
“She’s a super hero. No one really knows how their body chemistry works. It’s a mix up. It’s just...just...” He paced in the tiny rat-trap of a basement. Swallowing back a lump in his throat, Evan took a deep breath. “I need some fresh air. I need to think. Watch the girls.”
He walked out of the garage, not quite sure where he was headed. While his mind swirled with all the possibilities and implications, he found himself walking under the looming shadow of the university library.
A few late lights dotted the campus buildings. The students were off partying, or sleeping, or visiting family. Anything but studying, if he remembered college correctly.
A chill wind stirred the pine trees, bringing the first scent of winter. How had it all gone so wrong?
He had a timetable. He was supposed to be a few days away from the single greatest achievement any American could have. The world should be unfolding at his feet. Nothing on the timetable mentioned Tabitha storming out, or—the word he’d danced around—divorce.
With a sigh, he collapsed onto a bench, staring into the darkness as he waited for an answer.
Chapter Fifteen
I can’t recall a time I truly felt guilty. Even when one of my minions ate all of Great-Grandmother’s fine china my senior year of high school. Guilt was the same thing as getting in trouble, and I could always talk my way out of trouble.
The only person with any measure of control over my actions was myself. I think that’s true of everyone, although most people will deny it. There is no angel or devil sitting on your shoulder telling you what to do. Laws are there as pleasant reminders of the consequences that await the foolish, but in the end the only authority a person can rely on is their own.
And you know what? You can’t sweet talk yourself. There was no rationalization for what I had done. Not a single thing I could say that made the situation better. I had the perfect life, and I’d lost it being stupid.
I could bend the
will of anyone I met to suit my needs, but I could never force them to give me the one thing I always craved. Even with the Morality Machine, I couldn’t force someone to love me. I tricked Tabitha into love, but the emotion was tainted. Seven years of lust with never a moment of true love. It was the one-night stand that never ended, until the machine broke and Tabitha walked back to her life with nary a backward glance.
***
Wind rustled through the pine trees, bringing the scent of wood smoke and car fumes. Evan sat back in the park bench with a sigh, watching the sun sink low over the mountains as he replayed the afternoon’s encounter in his mind. This wasn’t the end. He wouldn’t let it be the end. Somehow he could find a way to get Tabitha back. If he couldn’t, what was the point of going on?
The girls, obviously. They needed a parent, although a stuffed zucchini would probably do a better job than he was at this point.
Tabitha’s laugh broke through his misery. He looked around and spotted her walking into a large, square building across from the park.
He ran to catch the door as it swung closed and stepped into what looked like an unused gymnastics center, complete with a sad pair of rings hanging off to one side over a cracked mat. He could smell the faded sweat from glory days long past.
A large woman in tight blue spandex walked past, completely ignoring him. The door shut quietly behind him as he took in the rainbow array of spandex suits. Apparently Tabitha had joined an aerobics class for the middle-aged and balding. One violently yellow suit with red zigzags on the far side of the gym caught his attention—The Rolling Shock. Evan looked around trying to find other familiar faces.
When he knew what to look for he could see the old gymnasium was packed with the full roster of super heroes he’d defeated. He stepped into the shadows, weighing his options. The Rainbow Dane was there, standing on the far side under a spotlight in earnest discussion with Hempman and The Rolling Shock. All three a good reason to leave. But Tabitha was there too, still dressed in her jeans and T-shirt, and holding court with Angler Girl, The Buxom Boss, and The Starlit Starlet near a table of snacks.
