There was another rumble in the bowels of the building as though in response. The leader jerked one of the councilmen to his feet and shoved the gun in his face. “Maybe I’ll start right now so they’ll get the message.”
Flux stood and everyone in the room gaped at her. “Let him go.”
The leader laughed. “You want to play hero and take his place, fat bitch?” He shoved the trembling councilman to the side and pointed the gun at her. “Fine.”
But people weren’t the only things she could phase. She snapped her molecular manipulation field up, this time not around her but coursing the energy to the floor around his feet. His eyes widened as he slipped through the floor, landing with a muffled crunch below. Then the field went off and the floor was solid again.
There was a heartbeat of unblinking confusion while the other three stared at the spot in the floor and tried to process what they’d just seen. She took the chance to lunge at the closest one, shifting her density again, this time as heavy as she could go. He must not have figured she could move so fast, because he took his sweet time jerking the barrel of his gun up. She landed a punch to his gut followed up with a knee to his jaw. By the time the other two opened fire, he’d already slumped to the ground.
Flux didn’t have time to phase back to insubstantiality, so she threw herself to the ground behind the conference table. Hostages panicked and screamed, some making it to the door, jerking it open and diving through the threshold, others crouching behind pressboard furniture and flimsy office chairs.
Crouching, Flux reached for the two nearest hostages, one that she belatedly recognized as the mayor. She enveloped them in her molecular manipulation field and phased just in time to let the bullets pass through. She hoped to keep the gunman’s attention on her instead, so they wouldn’t open fire on the hostages, but so much phasing in such a short period of time was taking its toll. Flux began to sweat and tremble under the strain and knew that she wouldn’t be able to keep this up for much longer.
So when she heard the click that meant they’d run out of bullets, she pushed herself to her feet. There was only one standing his ground as he fumbled to reload. The other was making a break for the door. She let the one fleeing go, hoping that one of the other team members would snag him before he got away, focusing on the more immediate threat.
Still phased, Flux ran through the table and then dropped her field. With her shoulder low, she caught the last gunman square in the stomach, knocking him off his feet just as he managed to slam the clip into the gun. They both went down on the floor, hard enough to make Flux’s bones ache. The gun, knocked out of his hand, fell to the carpet.
She might have been the metahuman, but one on one he was stronger. He shoved her back with a vicious kick to her chest that knocked the air from her lungs, and grasped the gun.
And then a flash of light left both of them blind. The gunman screamed and then went silent. She could hear his body crumple to the floor followed by February’s voice. “Christ. You couldn’t just blind one of them?”
She’ll be fine,” Silhouette snapped. “The effect will wear off in a few minutes. She’s lucky that she got here when we did, considering the mess she’s made of it.”
“You didn’t give me much of a choice,” Flux said, wanting to snap back but too disoriented and breathless to manage it. “I couldn’t wait any longer.”
Cold hands slipped into Flux’s own and pulled her to her feet. “There were other guards we didn’t plan on, plus a bomb rigged on the ground floor that we had to disarm, but it looks like you did just fine. Now let’s get you back to the base so we can patch you up.”
* * *
Once her cracked ribs were taped up and her eyesight had returned, Epsilon made a visit to the med bay. Omega Force’s leader favored her with a smile from a perfect row of teeth so white that she thought she might be blinded again.
“We found the ringleader in the room below. Both of his legs were broken from the fall, but he’ll live.” Epsilon’s lips twitched in amusement. “The mayor and the city council send their thanks, by the way. I don’t think you’ll have to worry about them spouting off to the press anymore. In fact, I think they’d like to give you a medal.”
Flux grimaced. “I’ll pass. They’ve used me enough for sound bites and I think I’ve had enough attention from the press lately.”
Epsilon’s smile faded. “Yes, I saw that. I wish I could tell you that what happened today would make the press back off and never run a story like that again or that the public will change their minds, but I’ve been around long enough to know that’s unlikely. It comes with the territory, I’m afraid.”
Flux nodded, meeting his gaze as she waited for him to tell her that she wasn’t working out for the team. Instead, Epsilon rubbed the back of his neck and said, “I’ll understand if you’re put off and want to return to Omaha, but I hope that you’ll decide to stay.”
Flux blinked. “You do?”
Epsilon chuckled. “Of course I do. Especially after how you handled yourself today. This team needs your talent.”
“But what about the team’s image? The brand marketing? The toys?”
“I’m not overly concerned about the team’s image. And as for the uniform, both February and I are tired of the spandex. I just approved a new budget for a redesign, so Silhouette will just have to come around. That just leaves you and the question of whether or not you’ll stay with us.”
Flux was silent as she considered it over. Finally she said, “Well if you’re changing your uniform just for me, it seems pretty churlish not to stay.”
He let out a breath of relief followed by a laugh. “We’re changing it for all of us. Spandex is evil stuff. And all of the other metahuman teams are getting rid of it anyway.” He turned to leave and then paused on the threshold and said, “Welcome to the team, by the way.”
And for the first time in days, she did feel welcome.
Nicole Prestin lives in the not so sunny state of Michigan where she’s a full time mom with a license to practice law that she almost never uses. She stumbled into writing as a lark and kept at it to keep her mind sharp while surrounded by her spawn. It has now, to her great chagrin, become an obsession. She has a blog at http://prisoner–24601.livejournal.com.
Davy
by Anna Dickinson
* * *
Tol bought me the painting. One of those helpless, expensive gifts he was bringing now, trying to fix whatever was broken.
The painting didn’t fix me, any more than the flowers had, or the necklace, or the pretty watch with the gold link strap. I stared at the floor and mumbled, “Thanks,” because I knew he liked it when I spoke, and I still cared just enough to try to please him.
As Tol hung the painting, Davy woke, howling in fury at whatever was wrong this time — the heat, the cold, his nappy, his stomach. I pulled the pillow over my head and tried to go back to sleep. Tol, murmuring nonsense, took him away.
Without Davy, though, I couldn’t sleep. I ached. Lying still was awful; moving was worse — all my empty flab, shuddering at the smallest movement. Too many chocolate bars when I was pregnant — did you know babies like chocolate? The rush of sugar makes them kick. At first, it’s like butterflies, and then, later, a good whack to the ribs can resonate through your whole body so you vibrate like a tuning fork. Keeps you connected, reassures you they’re safe. And when I was pregnant all I cared about was Davy being safe. So, too many chocolate bars and all that fuss with Tol trying to feed me up, pleased and nervous and proud of himself, and before I knew it, I hit a terrifying number on the scales. I’d hoped it would go after Davy was born, but no baby weighs four stone.
Losing weight would have been easier, of course, if I’d gotten out of bed. Before we’d had a baby, when I was still sucking up the chocolate bars and dreaming, I’d imagined going out walking within hours of the birth, chatting with other mums, the sunshine in my hair. I’d even bought a cute yellow pram with tiny swivelling wheels.
It was sitting in the hallway. Tol was the only one who took the baby out. I hadn’t washed or brushed my hair for days; I was too busy staring into nothing.
* * *
When I woke up, Davy was back and Tol had gone. It wasn’t his fault — he had to work sometime, but it felt like he was leaving me when I needed him.
At least Davy was asleep, his breathing snuffly and soft. I felt a stir of… something. The love I was supposed to feel, maybe. It was easier when he was asleep, his warm body curled in the blanket, one fat little fist up by his head. Guilt made it hurt to look at him, so I turned to the painting instead. That painting. What had Tol been thinking?
I mean, I like landscapes. When Tol had hung the painting I’d thought it was a sunlit forest, pale green, pale yellow — anodyne but pretty, and soothing, which I suppose was what he was hoping for. Now when I looked at it, it had changed, become eerie. Spindly trees growing unevenly towards a distant light, not a pretty sunlit forest; a wood that went on forever, tangled and malevolent.
I’d have taken it off the wall, but that meant effort. So I lay there and stared at it. The longer I stared, the more I wondered if the things in the painting were meant to be trees at all: they didn’t have leaves or branches, just grey shadowy trunks. What an odd picture. I couldn’t stop yawning; all this thinking exhausted me. Sleep while the baby sleeps, they said, and sleep was all I ever wanted to do.
I woke to humming. So many strange things happened in my head that humming felt comparatively benign. Davy’s eyes were open; the first time he’d woken without screaming. He could hear humming too.
* * *
Tol cooked. I ate without tasting, watching Davy, waiting for him to scream.
“Take your time.” Tol followed my gaze. “If he needs something I can get it.”
I nodded, but I’d already finished. Pale sauce on the plate in front of me, no memory of what it had contained. Whatever it had been was heavy inside me like ballast. As soon as I thought that, the panic that comes from nowhere reared up and drove me back to the bedroom. I took Davy with me, stood in the doorway staring at the painting, feeling the darkness within me rise. There was a strange shadow on the wall: the painting bulged oddly at one corner.
“Tol…”
He was in the corridor before I’d closed my mouth. “Are you alright?”
I turned back to the painting; it was flat, the shadow gone. “Yes… fine…” I swallowed uncomfortably, tried to trace some sort of line between imagination and reality. Tol stood in the doorway to the kitchen, watching me, waiting for me to make sense, to come back. “Sorry,” I said.
Tired from getting up for dinner, from sitting in a chair, I was almost asleep when a thin, grey arm reached out of the painting and something pulled itself into the room. It wasn’t really there, I knew that so I didn’t let it worry me. My dreams had been so strange since Davy was born that a spindly twig creature crawling onto the ceiling was a pretty mild manifestation of whatever was happening in my head. Reacting would prove I was mad, that I couldn’t tell reality from illusion.
The creature that wasn’t really there had ears like a story book elf and a flat, cat-like face with hooded yellow eyes. Its fingers and toes were very long, its whole body was grey and hairless. It hung from the ceiling above my bed, its face turned towards mine. A reflection in a bad fairground mirror; the opposite of heavy, earthbound me.
I drifted in and out of reality and more creatures emerged. Their long, thin limbs criss-crossed on the ceiling above me, their flat faces turned to me. They were humming.
We lay in contentment all afternoon, and when Davy started making snuffling noises and trying to eat his fists I diagnosed without help that he was hungry, and even managed to feed him without breaking anything. When I came back into the bedroom, the creatures were sliding themselves, one by one, back into the painting.
“Thank you,” I said, as if they were real.
The last one blinked its heavy eyes at me, and its mouth curved. Then the painting was just a painting, and the humming was gone as well.
* * *
Tol was not pleased to hear about the grey creatures. “Laura, seeing things isn’t good.” He sat on the bed and took my hand. “Baby, I don’t want to scare you. If you start wanting to hurt Davy you’ll tell me, won’t you?”
I stared at the painting, willing them to come back so Tol could see. Knowing they wouldn’t. It felt as if I’d lost myself and him; I’d gone so far from normal life that there was no way back.
He rubbed his thumb up and down, up and down the palm of my hand, frowning.
* * *
It was dark. Tol was at work. I lay and listened to the humming; Davy’s hot little body was pressed against my side. We were both calm; it was wonderful. The flat grey faces looked down at us. Peace couldn’t last forever, though, not with Davy. He wriggled and opened his mouth, then he screamed.
With my newly found competence, I took him to the kitchen, warmed a bottle. He spat the milk over me, his eyes screwing up with rage. Sticky with milk I took him back into the bedroom, hoping the humming would calm him. He lay on the bed, pulled his legs up, and screamed and screamed. I picked him up again, but he was flailing against me; his head smashed into my lip.
“Ow!” I dropped him on the bed, closed my eyes. He screamed even louder.
I didn’t know what to do. My lip was swelling. Where was Tol?
I left Davy on the bed, covered my ears with my hands. He was turning red, his eyes screwed up, his mouth wide. The screaming drilled right through me.
I wanted to walk away but I couldn’t. I was stuck. I didn’t know how to stop it.
More and more grey things were creeping out of the painting. The humming rose in volume until it was competing with Davy for space in my head. It was as if they were drawn by Davy’s distress, by my helpless fury. When I looked up, they were layered on the ceiling, hanging from each other. The lowest was inches from my face.
Davy screamed.
I picked him up.
He screamed.
I put him down.
He screamed and screamed.
I went and stood in the hallway taking deep breaths. I closed the door.
Through the door, I heard him screaming. I couldn’t stay outside. I went back into the bedroom. I was overwhelmed with the weird certainty that the grey things were feeding on us, sucking in our misery. They seemed to be growing more solid, brighter.
He screamed and screamed. Nothing stopped it. Frustrated rage ran down into my fingers, tightened my neck. My breath came fast and shallow.
“Stop it. Stop it!” I yelled, holding myself, my fury, at the other side of the room. I was so angry I didn’t trust myself near him. Something shifted above me and I was looking straight into the eyes of the lowest flat-faced thing. It smiled.
“If you think it’s funny, you have him,” I snapped. There was a wild scurrying, a tangling of limbs on the ceiling, scuttling down the wall, flowing over the floor; my vision filled with grey bodies, yellow eyes. When I could see again, Davy had gone.
* * *
The room was bright and quiet and empty. Davy wasn’t there. I drew a deep breath in the silence. For a moment I wondered if he was with Tol, if I’d just woken from a weird dream. But I knew I hadn’t. I knew, really.
I put my hand against the corner of the painting, against the spooky grey lines, and I pushed. My hand flattened against the paper. It was just paper. There was no way through.
Davy had gone. He’d gone. And I realised — suddenly, unbearably — that the love I’d wanted to feel was nothing compared to what I did feel. I needed him. Without him, I was hollow and aching and pointless.
The scream built uncontrollably, burst out of me like it would split me open — I couldn’t breathe anymore — I couldn’t think. I pulled my hair — the sharp pain did nothing — not enough — so I banged my head against the wall. I didn’t have enough breath for the scream — it whined out of me, weak and breathless — it
needed to be louder — it needed to be heard then someone would come, someone would help. Everything was focused on the agonising, breathless emptiness right in the core of me. I was all pain and horror and loss.
Screaming still, I grabbed the painting and this time my hands went straight through and I was scrambling after them, too frantic to think, not caring that I was wearing only an old night shirt damp with milk. I clambered through into the malevolent grey world, and the bedroom behind me vanished with a soft pop.
* * *
All around me was grey. Everything was cold, muffled silence, as if nothing had ever breathed here, as if nothing had ever lived. My gulping sobs were swallowed unnervingly by the air. I stopped sobbing.
The tree-things were not trees, but strands of something soft and woolly. They crossed all about me, hemming me in. Above, they were sparser, an almost-tunnel, reaching upwards towards pale light. It seemed the only way to go, so I took hold of a strand and pulled myself up. Under my weight, though, it gave and broke and the two ends drifted from my hands. I reached for another and tried again, but the strands were not strong enough to support me.
I was too big for the place, too heavy. I was the opposite of the grey creatures, and it was their home.
But they’d got Davy.
I twisted the strands together, tried my weight on two, three at once. They stuck together — I hoped they wouldn’t unravel as soon as I took my hands away. When I put my weight on them, they sagged alarmingly, but held. I started to climb, slowly and carefully, putting my feet where my hands had been, twisting more strands, pulling myself upwards. At each step I stopped to twist fibres together, checking before I trusted my weight to them. I had to be careful or I’d fall. My weight pulled me downwards towards the ground further and further away.
Fat Girl in a Strange Land Page 13
