Hero for the Holidays

by Charles Payseur

  “I’m really sorry,” Cody said quickly, trying not to stare. “But he’s really not here, and I really don’t know anything about any Heart of the Arctic. I’m Cody, by the way, Cody Gilscrest.”

  The shark’s black eyes narrowed as they looked Cody up and down.

  “My name’s Finn, baddest shark-man this side of the Pacific,” he said, then gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling. “Or, I guess, the Atlantic? All this travel has me all confused. Anyway, the shark-men don’t like being ripped off, and we’re here to collect what’s ours.”

  Of course his name was Finn. Cody felt like a fish himself, suddenly pulled out of the water. His mouth worked a moment before words caught up to him. “I just—”

  “Look, little man,” Finn said. “I’ll make this real easy for you. Either you point me to Dr. Devious and the Heart of the Arctic, or I eat you for a snack to wash down the dolphin I had on my way to the beach. I didn’t take crap when I was an inmate being experimented on by a corrupt prison warden, and I’m not taking crap from a little stepped-up lair-sitter.”

  The shark-man towered over him, mouth a nightmare of teeth and rotten fish. Cody knew running wouldn’t do him any good, and while the broom in his hand could be used as a weapon, it looked little more than a toothpick compared to Finn. He needed to stall, needed to—

  The alarms cut out, and it was like the anxious thoughts Cody had been feeling went with them. In their place was just a light confusion. He looked up to find what had caused the sudden change. And, as if the cessation of noise had confused him, too, so did Finn. Together they stood staring at the ceiling when a voice from the wall beside them made them jump.

  “Sorry for the delay in response,” Aubrey said.

  Cody and Finn looked as one at the electronic face projected on the hallway wall.

  “Uh, who are you?” Finn asked.

  Cody gaped. The face looked more human now, with smoother features and a pinkish hue that might have been a poor attempt at skin. For all the added effort, though, it was even more disturbing than the previous, more electric face had been. It was also on the wall without any assistance from a screen or console, which was new. Cody was beginning to hate all the new things he had to keep up with, though perhaps it was his fault for wanting to get away from the old and familiar.

  “I’m Aubrey. I’m in control here. You will vacate immediately, or I will initiate hostilities with you.”

  Finn looked from the face, over to Cody, then back at the face. It was like he couldn’t quite make up his mind if this was real or not. “Look, I’m here for the Heart of the Arctic,” Finn said, “and I’m not leaving without it. I’ve got the whole gang circling the island, and if we don’t get the Heart pronto, I’m going to start breaking more things. Got it?”

  The face on the wall narrowed flesh-colored eyes. “Initiating anti-intruder protocols.”

  Finn grunted like he wasn’t afraid, but Cody very much was and took the distraction to throw himself down into the space between a couch and ottoman. Finn gave him an almost disappointed look, but it was replaced by one of shock when an enormous cannon dropped down from the ceiling directly in front of his head.

  With a deafening roar, the cannon fired, and Cody winced at the noise and what was probably going to be a lifetime’s worth of therapy for seeing a shark-man’s head exploded at close range. Except somehow Finn ducked just in time, the shot only succeeding in blasting the metal door to the lair completely off its hinges and out onto the beach. A moment later Finn lunged forward, under the cannon, and grabbed it with both hands. Metal groaned and circuitry sparked as he pulled it from its moorings and threw it onto the floor.

  “That all you got?” Finn demanded.

  Three more cannons descended from the ceiling at different points. The color drained out of Finn’s face.

  “Will these be enough?” Aubrey asked.

  “Shit,” Finn said, and bolted for the exit.

  The cannons fired, but none of them connected as Finn fled out into the brilliant Caribbean sunlight. Cody remained on the ground, arms over his head in protection as debris rained down from the destruction. After a moment, when it seemed like nothing else was going to blow up, he peeked out at the carnage.

  “Thank you for your assistance in this matter,” Aubrey said, the creepy projected face moving down the wall to the floor right at Cody’s feet. “I’m still experiencing some difficulty with fully integrating with the lair’s systems. But future outages should be minimal.”

  “Future outages?” Cody asked. “With a gang of shark-men outside wanting to get in and no front door?”

  “I will endeavor to make repairs to the lair,” Aubrey said.

  “But what happens if you go offline again? I was almost eaten!”

  “Unlikely,” Aubrey said. “Files on these shark-men state that they are pescatarians. They don’t eat human. That was probably just a threat to intimidate you into cooperation.”

  Cody pursed his lips. Pescatarians? Really? He shook his head. “But still, what happens if you go offline again? It didn’t sound like those shark-men were going away.”

  “I will be busy with repairs for the near future. Please refrain from distracting me with questions.”

  Cody frowned, realizing he was being brushed off. Then he remembered something Dr. Devious had said just before he left and had a sudden idea.

  “Sure thing,” Cody said. “Good luck.”

  And with a smile, he retreated from the ruined entryway and toward the lair’s communications suite.

  THE COMMUNICATIONS interface was simple enough that Cody didn’t need Aubrey’s help navigating it. The list of emergency contacts was prominent, and each one was helpfully annotated by Sanjay.

  In case of aliens: Lady Kraxxis.

  In case of robot uprising: Tech Knight.

  In case of tricksters: the Raven King.

  In case of unexpected time displacement: Ted Temporal.

  In case of animal attack: Gorillord.

  In case of vengeful ghosts: Cas the Unfriendly Lich.

  The list went on, but nothing seemed to fit exactly right. Cody hovered his finger over animal attack, then hit the contact button. The screen suddenly showed the inside of what must have been a kitchen. There was a counter, covered in mixing bowls and pans. It was all decked out in Christmas colors and decorative towels, but other than that, it was a chaotic mess. Flour or powdered sugar seemed sprinkled at random—over an empty baking sheet, over an open bottle of wine, and all in the fur of the large gorilla frantically working. Gorillord, naturally.

  “Um, excuse me?” Cody asked.

  Gorillord’s gaze shifted from the large bowl he was stirring to what Cody imagined was a live feed of his own awkwardly smiling self. “I’m a little busy here,” Gorillord said. “The Christmas party at Sinister Plan is only a week away, and if I don’t have this fruitcake recipe done by then, I’ll be a laughingstock. I’m not getting shown up by that magical pipsqueak. Not this year!”

  “Right,” Cody said. “Well, the thing is, I’m lair-sitting for Dr. Devious, and he listed you as an emergency contact in case of animal attack.”

  Gorillord kept working at the bowl, adding a pinch of spice and a splash of what looked like bourbon. “Okay, so what’s attacked?”

  “Shark-men.”

  Gorillord paused and looked at the screen. “What do you mean, shark-men?”

  “I mean, like, a giant shark with arms and legs and a huge set of teeth,” Cody said. “The leader’s name is Finn, and they’re after something called the Heart of the Arctic.”

  “Don’t care,” Gorillord said, then sipped from the bottle of bourbon directly. “I mean, are they sharks who have grown into more humanoid shape, or are they humans who have been altered to look like sharks?”

  Cody considered. Finn had said something about being a prisoner and having been subjected to some kind of experimentation. “I guess they’re humans who were altered to look like sharks?” Cody asked mo
re than said.

  “Ah, well, then I can’t help you.”

  “What?” Cody demanded. “Why not?”

  “Look, I’m an animal expert,” Gorillord said. “If these were some sort of superintelligent sharks who had quickened their evolution to have arms and legs and walk on land, I might be able to help you. But your shark-men are more like men-sharks. They’re humans. And so they’re not really my thing.”

  “But can’t you—”

  “Sorry, I have to go,” Gorillord said, reaching forward toward the screen. “Good luck with all that, though.”

  The feed disappeared, and Cody was left with the same list of names as before. Only there didn’t seem to be anything on the list that covered mutant shark-men. Cody sighed and deflated. So much for getting help that way. Who could possibly have had experience with a gang of mutant shark-men?

  Cody suddenly perked up again. A superhero might! Superheroes fought things like mutant shark-men all the time. And there just so happened to be a superhero Cody could ask. He raced back to the containment cell.

  Sonny was pacing when Cody arrived, and the look of relief on his face was enough to make Cody pause, words dying in his throat.

  “What happened?” Sonny blurted out. “There were explosions and the alarms stopped and after that, just silence, and I thought something must have happened to you.”

  Sonny’s words had come out in a stream, and Cody blushed at the near-panic in them. He hadn’t realized that Sonny would be so concerned. Probably he should have. Probably he should have realized that after spending so much time together the last few days, Sonny might… care.

  Cody sucked in a breath, a whole slew of thoughts that were far too premature trying to claw their way into his brain. “I’m sorry. A shark-man named Finn broke through the front door while the defenses were down and I had to stall him until Aubrey came back online. Then I tried to use the communications here to ask for help, but that didn’t really work out. Aubrey says she’s going to be offline again, and that means that if the shark-men come back—there’s apparently a whole gang of them looking for something called the Heart of the Arctic—then we’re in big trouble.”

  “Tell me everything.”

  Sonny absorbed the words without question, nodding along as Cody continued to speak, relaying everything that had happened. For Cody, it was like handing off a burden he hadn’t realized was weighing him down. He wasn’t a superhero, wasn’t a villain, was just a guy hoping to get away for the holidays. This wasn’t his world, but it was Sonny’s, and having him there to talk to, to treat Cody like he wasn’t completely weird, was suddenly very important.

  “I’ve never had much dealings with any shark-men,” Sonny said, “but it sounds like they had some sort of agreement with Dr. Devious that went bad. Which is possibly why the island was moved from the Pacific Ocean to here in the Caribbean.”

  “Wait, what? The island was moved?” Cody had never heard of an entire island being moved before.

  “We’re not entirely sure how,” Sonny said, “but yeah. It used to be part of a chain of islands up closer to Alaska. We thought maybe he just wanted to get to a warmer climate, but the entire island just sort of sailed all the way down around South America and then back up here. It was a pretty big international incident, but the governments kept things hushed because they didn’t want to cause a panic. Besides, Dr. Devious has mellowed out some recently, so no one tried to stop the move.”

  Mellowed thanks, no doubt, to his relationship with Sanjay. But it fit with what Finn had said about swimming so far. If the deal was what Devious had been running from, then he must have assumed he’d gotten away with whatever it was. Unfortunately for Cody, that didn’t seem to be the case.

  “Well, what do you suggest?” Cody asked. “We can’t just do nothing. And Aubrey won’t be any help if she’s offline again.”

  Sonny inhaled deeply. “First thing we need to do is to find some way to stay in contact. I can’t do anything from inside this cell, and I can’t stand the thought you’d have to face this all alone.”

  He looked at Cody, and there was a moment of electricity between them that had nothing to do with the containment field. Cody’s face heated, and his pulse quickened. He imagined leaning into Sonny, feeling those strong hands around him. He imagined Sonny lifting him into the sky, flying him far away to safety. He imagined—

  “I can go search Dr. Devious’s labs,” Cody said before his thoughts could venture too far into desperate horny territory.

  Sonny stroked his chin. “You’ll have to be careful. Those labs are probably full of incredibly dangerous devices. He might not have left too much out in the open, but regardless, don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

  Cody smiled. “What could go wrong?”

  IT WAS easy enough to find a full map of the lair. It was more difficult coming to terms with the fact that the main lab was located down the stairs Cody had seen in the cavernous room with the voice and the lava. It was labeled Heart Chamber, and Cody didn’t like anything about having to return. Still, he couldn’t just do nothing.

  The stairs down to the chamber weren’t difficult to find—the memory of his time below was seared into his mind. Reaching the bottom, he took a deep breath and walked into the dry heat of the large space. Once more he noted the river of lava flowing lazily by. Was it following a different path than before? No, that was impossible. Cody shook himself free of the last of his hesitation and moved for the stairs. The stairs… on the other side of the lava river. Oh right. Shit.

  He kept walking, though, refusing to give in to fear and doubt, refusing to run back to the relative safety of the main level of the lair. With the shark-men and Aubrey’s strange behavior, it wasn’t like it was really safe, just familiar. And he remembered the look of worry and helplessness on Sonny’s face. There was no way Cody was putting him through that again.

  As he neared the river, it began to change. The surface of the molten rock bulged upward, and there was a voice like the earth moving.

  “You… bring… spoils?”

  That question again. Cody stood defiantly in place, mind racing to try to figure out what it meant. And the lava oozed into the rough outline of a person, humanoid and average height. Their skin darkened as it cooled, but their mouth and eyes still glowed with heat.

  “I need to get to those stairs,” Cody said.

  “What… happened… to… Asher? And… Jacobim?” They spoke haltingly, like each word was an effort, but as their skin cooled and settled, their cadence evened out.

  Not that it helped Cody figure out what the fu—wait, had they said Asher? And Jacobim? That sounded like….

  “Wait, are you asking about All My Werewolves?”

  The lava creature slowly nodded. “Has… Jacob. Returned… from the… Shadow. Dimension?”

  “Wait, what?” Cody asked. “What’s the Shadow Dimension? And who’s Jacobim?”

  “Jacobim is. Jacob’s. Shadow self. Who replaced him. At the end. Of the last season.”

  “Whoa, dude, spoilers,” Cody said, and then clapped a hand over his mouth. That was it! Spoils. Spoilers. The lava creature was asking about spoilers. For All My Werewolves. “How far are you?”

  “The episode. Two weeks ago.”

  “Okay, so I’m not quite that far yet. But I promise I’ll check that out soon and come back to talk about it. Do you have a television down here or something?”

  “No,” the lava creature said. “My eyes. Are not for seeing. I sense vibrations to perceive. But Sanjay tells me. Everything that happens.”

  Cody could totally imagine Sanjay scampering down from above after every episode to talk over the latest developments—Cody had the entire show muted on social media exactly because Sanjay would live tweet or post extensive comments right after each episode.

  “Well, I’m Cody, and I’m lair-sitting while Sanjay and Rex are away.”

  “I am Heart,” the lava creature said.

  Cody winced
. “I don’t suppose that’s short for Heart of the Arctic?”

  “That is my full name.”

  “Then I’m afraid there’s some angry shark-men looking for you,” Cody said.

  A rumbling hum shook the entire island. “I am not done,” Heart said. “There is much to explore. Please make them go.”

  Cody took a deep breath. “Well, I’ll try, but to do that, I need to get to those stairs. Any chance you’d help me out?”

  Heart smiled, the glowing red of their mouth stretching out much farther than a human’s could. Cody suppressed a shudder. Beside them, though, a new bulge of lava lifted, becoming a bridge as it cooled.

  “Please come back,” Heart said when the bridge was fully hardened, “when you’ve seen the latest episodes.”

  Cody promised he would, then rushed across the bridge and down the stairs.

  “YOU COULDN’T have found something a bit more… inconspicuous?” Sonny asked.

  Cody stuck his tongue out. So what if the communicators weren’t exactly elegant? They worked. And he had spent the better part of an hour lugging it all up from the lab and then setting it up in the containment room. The bulky part would stay there, at least—the part that allowed Sonny to see what Cody saw, to hear what Cody heard. It looked like a 1970s idea of what a spaceship’s computer would look like—a two-foot cube of metal with about a hundred different screens, gauges, and meters. All connected wirelessly to an utterly ridiculous pair of thick-framed glasses resting on Cody’s face.

  “You’re just lucky this is a mostly empty island,” Cody said. “There’s no way I’d be wearing these around in public, and I don’t care how much you’d worry.”

  “I don’t know.” Sonny stroked his stubbled chin and looked Cody up and down. “You could go as a superhero’s secret identity.”

  “Like these are enough to fool anyone,” Cody said, rolling his eyes and flicking the glasses with a finger. “Besides, if there was a better communicator system down there, I couldn’t recognize it. Superscience isn’t exactly my field of expertise.”