Integration

by J. S. Frankel

  He felt as though he’d bust out in tears any second, but knew he couldn’t do it here. There were still some things he had to finish.

  Angela, though, had heard the death rattle and she began to cry openly. She didn’t stop until they carried Quill’s body from the chamber back to the surface and buried her in the field. Paul slashed a stone with his claws and placed it over the freshly filled grave. The inscription read—

  Name—Brianna Quill

  Real name—Unknown

  Date of birth—Unknown

  Date of death—December 10th

  He paused to think, then slashed one more line.

  She died as she lived—bravely

  It sounded sort of corny, but he meant every word, and it would have to do. This being the middle of nowhere, there was little chance of someone disturbing her grave. Angela came over and stood beside him, her lips moving as if in prayer. “She shouldn’t have done what she did.”

  “She saved both of us,” he replied, making a conscious effort to keep his voice from cracking. “She made that choice. I don’t know if I could do it.”

  “You have, many times and more,” Angela replied, wiping her eyes. “Every time you and I go out on the streets, we make that choice—the same choice she made.”

  Dispiritedly, he nodded. “Yeah, she did and we did, but I don’t think I want to do it on anyone else’s terms anymore.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  He didn’t answer her. He’d been thinking about his future for a long time and what it meant to be what he was. Now, though, was not the time to go into it. He had one more job to do. “I’ll be back soon,” he said, as he headed for the mine.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To close this chapter.”

  Paul took the elevator to the bottom and walked into the main lab. The chambers were there, all functional. So were a number of computers and discs. He thought about taking them, but…no. Perhaps someone with a wiser and more rational mind would be able to figure all this out—in time.

  Searching the premises, he found a tank of gas and poured it into all three chambers. Once done, he slashed his claws against the metal of the elevator cage. A spark fell and immediately the gas ignited. He got inside the cage and rode it to the top. There, Angela and Sandstorm waited. “I’d take a few steps back if I were you,” he advised, waving them away.

  Fire shot through mineshaft, and they hastily took cover. A second later, a rumble sounded and the entranceway to the mine began to collapse. A fine mist sifted over the area. The mine was sealed and so was the madness inside it.

  I never want to do that again, signed Sandstorm. Being inside that man’s body was terribly gross.

  Paul chuckled. “You won’t have to.”

  The sound of rotor blades broke through. Apparently the pilot had gotten some extra gasoline in the interim. “Let’s go home,” he said.

  ****

  At a press conference held two days later in front of City Hall, Paul and Angela stood next to Atwater. A full crowd stood behind the news reporters, maybe a thousand or more, braving the frigid weather. With cameras whirling and flashes going off, he felt a little overwhelmed.

  Atwater stood in front of a row of microphones and spoke in his usual authoritarian manner, praising the efforts of the Nightmare Crew. “We have seen their bravery in battle, witnessed their plight, and we mourn the loss of one of their members. Her name was, er…”

  “Brianna Quill,” whispered Angela in a fierce undertone. “Get it right.”

  His face turned red, and he cleared his throat. “Her name was Brianna Quill. We know very little about her except to say she fought with honor. I am proud, though, that the threat of attack has been thwarted, and we are grateful for the efforts from our friends.”

  Flashes went off, a round of applause went up, but Paul noticed not everyone was applauding. A sizeable section of the crowd remained silent, watchful. In a way, they might be the most dangerous of all. He didn’t know which side they’d support, but right now, in a burst of realization, he understood what to say. More important, he understood what to do.

  Atwater turned to him. “Would you like to say a few words?”

  Stepping up to the microphones, Paul gazed at the crowd. Out of the corner of his eye, Angela wore a knowing smile. They’d discussed the matter the night before and he knew what to say. “You know what to tell him,” she whispered.

  After giving her a nod, he began. “Thanks, chief. It’s nice to hear you’re grateful for our help. I would have liked to have heard, ‘We’re sorry for throwing you in jail,’ or ‘We’re sorry for treating you like second-class citizens,’ but I don’t think the reporters are going to want to listen to that. Maybe the people here will.”

  A murmur went through the throng. At the front of the pack, the newscasters glanced at each other. “I would have also liked to have heard the reporters say something a little more positive about us,” he continued. “But hey, why write the truth when making stuff up is so much more fun?”

  If anyone had a right to feel indignant, it was him, him and his friends. Only they knew what it was like to be classified as ‘other’. No one out there knew, not really.

  “I was one of you once,” Paul continued, nailing each reporter with a glare before moving on to what had to be said. “I still am. I did what I did to help. Some of you thanked me or Angela, and that’s all we wanted. You didn’t have to, but you did. Most of you didn’t.”

  Falling silent, he mentally railed against the injustice he and his friends had been put through the last couple of weeks. Helping out was one thing. Being persecuted for being different constituted another matter entirely. He stepped back from the microphones and waited.

  For a moment, no one said anything. They merely looked at one another or shifted uncomfortably in their positions. Being publicly shamed had to be doing a number on their individual psyches, but all the same, when it came time to point the finger of blame, they weren’t going to point it at themselves. Finally, one reporter asked, “What are you planning to do?”

  “We’re going home,” Angela called out. “As of today, we’re retiring from the business. The chief said the police could handle the crime. You saw the newscast. You heard him. So”—she took Paul’s hand in hers—“we’re going to go home and think about what to do next.”

  By now, Atwater’s face had gone from red to purple. Paul knew the meaning of the word apoplexy, and the chief was a prime example. Sweating and shaken, he stepped up the microphone and said, “It’s true. I did say that, but that’s all in the past.”

  “So are we,” said Paul.

  He said those words softly, but they echoed over the crowd and beyond. Without another word, he and Angela walked off the platform and made their way past the reporters, past the crowd, then turned down an alleyway. A fence lay at the end and they ran to jump it, landing cleanly on the other side.

  “That went well,” Angela opined as they strolled out of the alleyway and over to the van where Ooze sat at the wheel.

  Stander leaned against the side of the van, a smile on his face. He pulled out his phone and waved it gently in the air. “I was watching the newsfeed on my cell. That’s one way to make friends with the press,” he said, and yes, sarcasm showed in his every word.

  “Better to tell the truth now than deal with a lie later on,” Paul replied. He did have a thought, though. “Did your men ever find anything back at the mine?”

  “No,” Stander responded with a trace of regret in his voice. “No, they didn’t. After we picked you up, our men searched the area around the mine, found nothing else then called it a day. The Canadian authorities have already been informed. They’ll do a follow-up job, but I doubt they’ll find anything.”

  Well, call this chapter closed, considered Paul. “Good enough for me,” he decided to
say. “We’ll see you around.”

  “You could sign up with us, you know.” Stander stood upright. “I mean it. I saw how you fought, and I understand you.”

  So it came down to that. Bring out the old line of defending the country, serving with pride and smashing the enemy. There’d been enough death already. Paul was sick of it. He’d already killed too many people for his liking. It didn’t matter if they’d been stem-cell creations or hybrids. Taking on the common criminals had been enough for him at the time, but now…

  Shaking his head, he repeated his earlier statement. “Colonel, we’re done here. We’re home now, and this is where we’re going to stay.”

  “And what are you going to do?”

  The question had been asked with no malice. It was an honest question, and it deserved an honest answer. Paul offered a brief smile. “If we do help out, then it will be on our terms. We’ll get by. I never finished high school, so I’d like to get whatever education I can get.”

  “And I’ll be with him,” added Angela. “I know what I look like. I know what I am. So does everyone else. I’m not out to change people. I’m out to be me.”

  With a smile on his face, Stander snapped off a sharp salute. “I kind of thought you’d say that. Just know I’m grateful for your help, and if you ever need another job, I’ll do what I can.”

  With a sharp turn, he exited stage left into the daylight and soon disappeared among the throng of citizens enjoying their freedom.

  Back at the warehouse, safely inside and with the door locked, Ooze decided to take a trip. “I think I’d like to see the ocean. I’ll be gone for a while, so have fun, you two.”

  He walked over to the sink, opened the valve on his suit, and poured his essence down the drain. Once gone, Angela took a seat at the table and sifted through some of the files, her face a study in speculation.

  “So what are we going to do?” she asked, as Paul took a seat next to her. “Did you mean what you said to the colonel? The part about going back to school, I mean.”

  “Yeah, I’ve thought about it,” he replied. “I mean…we can’t fight crime forever. I have to think about the future. We both do.”

  A slow smile began to creep across her face. “Does marriage figure into things?”

  The suddenness of the question startled him. Brianna had mentioned it not very long ago, and he had—sort of—asked Angela if she wanted to get married. He really couldn’t think of being with anyone else. Eighteen or not, early or not, he knew for a fact he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. “Yeah,” he finally decided, “it does.”

  If a judge would marry them, that is. Paul didn’t see any reason why there would be a problem, unless some hotshot lawyer for an anti-hybrid movement wanted to make a case. Looking ahead, Paul wondered if the State Department or the Attorney General’s office would create a special law…but did they really have to go there?

  Legal questions, though, would have to wait. “How about you?” he asked, turning the question around. “What do you want to do?”

  With a wistful look on her face, Angela said, “I don’t know for sure. All I know is that I want to walk in the sun. When it’s dark out, no one really cares or can see me when we’re on patrol, unless I decide to show my face.

  “But now that we’re out of the business, at least temporarily, I want to walk around like everyone else in the daytime and not have anyone stare. I want to go to a movie theater and watch what everyone else does.” The longing in her voice was unmistakable. “I want to go dancing, maybe out in the middle of the street if I feel like it, and not have everyone gawk and point and yell that I’m some kind of a monster,” she continued. “And I need to buy new clothes. Can I go into a boutique and buy things, just like everyone else? I can’t, not yet—not without someone staring at me or tossing off an asshat remark.”

  Paul sympathized. He’d never cared about how she looked, except to think her totally hot.

  However, others out there placed great value on appearances. “We go and do what others do,” he said, while putting his arm around her shoulder. Giving it a gentle squeeze, he added, “We’re special. We’re not the new normal or superior or anything else. We’re us, and we need to remain just us. The rest of the world? They’ll get used to it, in time.”

  “Time,” Angela repeated.

  “Yeah, time,” he said, and got up, pulling her up with him. “People don’t want to see beyond what they know. We have to show them. Maybe we won’t do it by fighting crime, but just by being ourselves.”

  She nodded and held out her hand. “I thought you’d say that, so let’s go home.”

  Confused, he took her hand in his and said, “Uh, we are home.”

  “No, I mean home, as in the place where I was born. You can say created or made or born. It doesn’t matter. But I want to be where I want to be.”

  She meant Angelica in upstate New York. That’s where it had all begun, and he reasoned that’s where it should end, for now. “Well, we’ve got enough money to buy a house—or at least put a down payment on one. Stander left us this equipment and didn’t say anything about taking it back, so…”

  “So,” she cut in and made a sharp left in the direction of her room, “we’ll go out tomorrow morning. I have an idea of where we might live.”

  They were going to her room… “Uh, what about…?”

  She hushed him by putting a finger to his lips. “Don’t ask so many questions.”

  Paul said nothing more as she led him inside. Then she grabbed him and kissed him hard then…

  Bliss, he thought as he willingly succumbed to her touches. He decided to call it bliss. No other word would do.

  ****

  Angelica, a small town in upstate New York, was much the same as he’d remembered it, a number of white and gray quaint-looking houses done in the Georgian style. They’d departed from their warehouse well before dawn, after loading up the van with only the essential equipment. “I’ve got the rest of the knowledge inside me,” Ooze said, recently back from his ocean visit. “If I can get my hands on the materials, I can build what we need.”

  The drive over had been uneventful and, as they entered the city, Paul remembered the antique shops, the quiet streets and the laid-back atmosphere. Inhaling the cold air—dawn had broken and purple and yellow fingers were slowly peeling back the darkness, illuminating the world in a cold but cheery glow—he exhaled slowly as Ooze maneuvered the van down a quiet residential area and parked at the last house. “Uh, why are we stopping here?”

  “We’re home.”

  Paul got confused. “Here? You mean this place?”

  “Let’s get out and look,” suggested Angela.

  Doing as she suggested, he got out and walked around the premises, noting the small but neatly kept backyard, the white picket fences, and the garage door open and the interior empty and clean. “What’s going on?”

  “Go up and knock,” said Ooze, and started to chuckle.

  Now totally at sea, Paul walked up the front stoop and saw the welcome mat. Small and green, it had the words Nightmare Residence neatly lettered on it. On a hunch, he bent over and lifted it. A key sat there, accompanied by a note.

  Ooze said you’d need a place to live. He figured you’d end up back here. Call it pulling a few strings. We’ll be in touch.

  Stander

  “It’s always nice to have friends in high places,” Ooze said. “It doesn’t mean we have to join up again. It just means they’re doing something nice for us.”

  “Yeah,” breathed Paul, awed and appreciative at the same time. “Yeah, that works for me.”

  Grinning, Angela added, “It works for me as well.”

  Ooze started back to the van. “I’ll park inside the garage. Why don’t you two take a walk?”

  Doing as he suggested, they began a stroll down the silent
streets. Gravel crunched under his feet as they made their way down to the creek and watched the water rush by. “Ooze might like swimming here,” Paul opined. “I don’t know about Sandstorm.”

  “There are always fields for him to slither around in,” she responded and picked up a few stones to chuck into the creek. “It’s got lots of open space, clean air and a clean creek, just how I like it.”

  She fell silent then, and Paul knew she was thinking the same thing as he—she missed CF. The zombie had always loved cleaning things up, and thanks to him, the creek was now sparkling, the smell had gone and it looked like something out of a picture postcard. “Do you think…we should try reconstituting him?”

  Angela jerked her head up at the question. “You mean do we play God, just like Peterson did? Is that what you want?”

  “We’d be responsible—”

  “No,” she replied in a firm voice, putting her fingers to his lips. “I liked CF. I was happy the first time Ooze brought him back, but Peterson was right about one thing. Anyone can make a monster. He did, and I don’t want to be responsible for that. You don’t, either.”

  When she was right, she was right, he mused. Playing God in the lab—while he thought he’d be able to handle the consequences, no one else could. The rest of the world was still getting used to the idea of laboratory creations and hybrids.

  For better or worse, he existed. And on the worse side, there were probably others out there…

  A snap from Angela’s fingers brought him back to reality. “What are you thinking about?” she asked.

  “I was thinking about what Peterson said, you know, about the chambers and stuff around the world.”

  Angela offered a gentle shrug. “Maybe there are. If we find them, if there are others like us…we’ll be there to help out. But for now”—she linked his arm with hers—“let’s go home. I want to see how Ooze is doing.”

  On the way back, they ran into an old lady. Paul searched his memory. It was Mrs. Porter, the local snoop and all-around busybody. She was walking a little dog on a leash, and it shivered in the cold as it trotted along in front of her. The old woman approached them with a firm step that belied her age and without shying back. Her dog, though, thought differently. Once it saw Angela, it started to growl, and its hackles rose.