by David Beem
He’s going to be a problem like this, I say.
Affirmative, replies Killmaster. We need him to pull it together. Let’s get him lit, sir.
Good thinking, I reply. He likes scotch.
I cross to the nearest bar and poke around the other side. Ah-ha! Laphroig, Quarter Cask. Nice and peaty, just how he likes it. I pull out a highball glass and bottled spring water. Funny. Last time, it was him pouring me a scotch. Right before he made me the world’s first superhero. I pour out a glass, then break the seal on the bottled water. Just a splash, like so. Mikey’s forehead creases.
“What’re you doing?” he asks.
I push the glass across the bar. He looks at the glass. He looks at me.
“Edge, you’re not listening. Now is not the time. The entire world has fallen under Nostradamus’s mind control. And don’t forget the monkeys.”
I frown.
He frowns.
He slides onto the barstool. “Screw it. You’re not having one?”
I shake my head. “I’m on the clock. Listen, can you sit tight for a few?”
He sticks his bottom lip out consideringly, then shrugs. “Sure. Bottoms up.” He raises the glass, then pounds it. He waves for me to pass him the bottle.
“Hey-hey. Pace yourself.” I slide it over, and he pours out another shot.
“You only live once.” He laughs. “Unless you’re immortal, of course. Then you could be Edger…forever.” He sticks his bottom lip out again, shrugs, then raises his glass in toast.
“Immortal? That’s a weird thing to say. Why would you say that?”
He waves this away. “You’re here for the actor, I assume. Johnny Gemini?”
“You’ve crossed paths?”
He pours another before answering. “No.” He pounds back another glass. “Woof.” Shakes his head. “Saw them bring him in. I don’t think he understands the gravity of his situation at all.” He pours another glass and waves me off. “Suite A. Right there.”
Sparing him one last glance, I turn and go.
This is probably a celebrity’s worst nightmare. Dak Q. Neutron of Space Pirates fame, handcuffed to the bed in nothing but a mind-control-canceling medallion and barely there loincloth, just waiting for someone to roll up on him, snap the compromising photo, and upload it to TMZ. Then again, nobody’s exactly downloading compromising celebrity photos anymore. Gemini arches a perfectly trimmed eyebrow at me.
“I’m sorry, and you are…?”
I stare at the fluffy pink handcuffs and wait for my brain to catch up to…whatever this is.
Please tell me Mary isn’t being held like this, I say.
We haven’t found her yet, sir, Killmaster replies.
“Hello?” says Johnny Gemini.
“Right. Um…” I scratch the back of my neck. “Well. I’m Edger. Hi. I guess I’m, you know, here to rescue you.” And then Caleb, and then—finally—Mary.
Yes, sir, says Killmaster. You want to find Mary. Literally the entire Collective Unconscious got the memo. Hey, Bill Shakespeare! Did you hear? Edger wants to find Mary!
Thou can express no kinder sign of love, than this kind diss, Shakespeare replies.
Hey!
“Edger, you say?” Johnny makes a tight smile. “You wouldn’t happen to be that friend of those two stoner morons?”
“Ooh. Right. We’re more on an acquaintance-level situation, really—?”
“Not to be rude, acquaintance of those two stoner morons, but in case you didn’t notice, I’m a bit in the middle of something.”
“You don’t say. Thing is, um, it’s a good three hundred miles to shore.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Well. It’s not like I’m just passing by.”
His flat-eyed stare remains.
“And it’s not like I’m going to be passing by again anytime soon. So…” I purse my lips and rock on my heels, giving him all the time he needs to calculate two plus two.
Rather daft, isn’t he? observes Nigel, dead British salesman.
“Well?” Gemini’s eyebrows rise. “Don’t let me keep you. Shoo! Away!”
“Dude. This is your rescue.”
“Did you know they’ve outlawed sex?”
I frown.
“Oh yes,” he says, eyebrows climbing. “No sex! None at all! Well. Not unless it’s for procreation.”
“And your point is…?”
“I’ve a job to do. And I rather like my job. So. If it’s all the same to you…?”
“Right! Ooh…ah. Jeez, man. Sorry.” I raise two open palms and back out of the room.
That is the luckiest man on earth, that is, says Nigel.
Shakespeare snorts. Oh happy dagger indeed.
My head’s spinning as I exit the suite and round the polished railing. Doesn’t want to be rescued? Johnny Gemini, marquee star of the Space Pirates franchise…
He’s a sex slave, says Nigel. Lucky bugger.
He’s got good genes, offers Killmaster, not sounding surprised in the slightest. Makes sense.
Fine, I say. We’ll come back after he’s had time to think this through. He’ll come around.
Sounds like he already has, snickers Nigel. And around, and around, and—
I scan for Mikey, but he’s no longer at the bar. He’s near the pool, back to me, arms at his sides. I wonder if he’ll be any better now he’s got some booze in him.
“Mikey?”
He turns, and his open shirt and sculpted chest triggers a Slave Johnny Gemini flashback.
Except Johnny was wearing his medallion, says Killmaster. Sir, watch out!
Mikey raises a finger. His jaw opens slowly as his lips tighten into an o shape. He points and screams, his tone a bizarre falsetto. The doors to the other suites fly open. Zombies stream out, all of them wearing the same blank expressions as the rest of the planet’s mind-controlled population.
I can’t sense them, replies Killmaster. Their minds must be on the other side of the curtain. They’re with the Übermenschen!
Nostradamus is separating the living minds from us also? Is it safe to rescue Mikey now?
I’m sorry, Edge, sir, Killmaster replies. Your friend is gone.
Chapter Three
I glide over the railing and launch high into the sky, powering through the smog and reaching the clean air. The black exhaust wisping far below my feet thins into the horizon like evil ghosts. My hands are shaking. Blood’s really pumping. I can’t imagine losing my mind. Do zombies know they’re zombies? Would it be better or worse to know you’re a prisoner in your mind?
My focus turns inward. The warmth on my face fades. Air-conditioned fumes of stale cooking oil and chargrilled steak seep into lungs as I remote-view Fabio’s location. Several hundred round tables draped in white linen are covered in fancy place settings. Fabio’s got his ring off for some reason. He’s peering up at a stage, fists on his hips, he’s in his flip-flops, cargo shorts, and Black Sabbath T-shirt. I push my gratitude through the Collective Unconscious to Bruce for keeping him safe, quit the remote viewing, and float down. Eesh. It reeks of rocket fuel out here. Two missile launchers, one on either end. My feet hit the deck outside a set of double doors. Maybe one last check through Fabiovision before I barge in, just to be safe.
Focus…
Familiar green eyes peer back at me—
The Fabiovision rebounds like a rubber-band snap to the brain. I grip the balcony railing, pant, and wait for the old ache of our breakup to pass. Kate Clarke! I just saw Kate Clarke!
I can’t sense her, says Bruce.
Fabiovision again: Through the double doors is a balcony overlooking the main floor below, and Caleb Montana, NFL superstar, secret agent, and Thor incarnate, is on a literal center stage in a loincloth and slave collar. One side of the chain is broken and dangling from his neck. The other side is anchored at my ex-girlfriend’s feet. He’s holding her at gunpoint.
Fabiovision falls apart again. Oh, man. I can barely bre
athe. And here comes that annoying, cinematic cheese-o-vision my imagination sometimes does. Kate, her bright red lips and ivory skin. Glossy black hair. She tosses it from side to side in slow motion. Her seductive emerald gaze targets me. Her full lips open. “L’Oréal Paris… Because you’re worth it.”
Steady, Edge, says Bruce.
I’m frozen where I stand. What can I possibly say to her? My brain buzzing, I tentatively open Fabiovision again: Caleb holding Kate at gunpoint, Fabio looking up at them. Okay. Nobody’s doing a hair commercial.
“Fabio, right?” asks Caleb.
“That is one name I go by,” Fabio replies, squaring his shoulders and speaking in a lower than normal voice. “Although some people call me…” He presses his fists into his hips with a swagger. “The Rear Admiral.”
Kate snorts.
“Sometimes I go by Backup Piece?” he hurries to add.
Kate’s bright red lips quirk.
“What?” demands Fabio. “Those are great sidekick names.”
“For a gay porn star.” Kate examines her nails. “I guess Hershey the Fart-Hole Bang-Bang was taken?”
“Hey, now—”
“Butt Smasher the Kid?”
“Well, that’s just…”
“The Bearded Butt Bandit?”
“…immature and homophobic.”
“Buddy Badonkadonk.”
“Look, lady,” says Fabio, now talking over her. “This is a rescue. I am saving NFL superstar Caleb Montana, and I don’t appreciate your juvenile, no—déclassé—remarks.”
“Ooh.” She shrugs with apparent delight. “All that and vocabulary?”
“I mean, technically, I rescued myself.” Caleb hefts the gun to call Fabio’s attention to it, then aims again at Kate. “Come on, Kate. It’s bad when even the dudes are telling you to grow up. Grow up.”
Kate snaps her fingers, her face brightening. “Dick the Boy Plumber! Honestly, how did you not realize Rear Admiral sounds like a gay porn star name?”
Caleb shrugs. “Backup Piece is at least an actual weapon. Yeah. I’d probably have gone with that one before the other one, little bro.”
“Wait a sec, rewind.” Fabio faces Caleb. “I know you think you escaped on your own, but you won’t get very far without me. This place is crawling with zombies. And the clones are highly trained martial artists. They’re like The Matrix meets Rambo.”
“Ram-boner,” corrects Kate.
“I’ll be careful,” deadpans Caleb.
Fabio scoffs. “You don’t get it. Those clones are packing heat.”
“You’re like a walking manifestation of Poe’s Law,” says Kate. “Am I honestly the only person here who appreciates this?”
Caleb, focusing on Fabio, holds up his gun and gives it a slight jiggle. “Then it’s a good thing I’m armed.”
“Where’d you get that?” asks Fabio.
“Off one of the highly trained martial artist clones packing heat.”
Kate’s fingers splay. “Okay. The next person that says packing heat, I’m gonna lose my shit.”
Edge, says Dad. I hate to interrupt…whatever this is—
No, you don’t, says Bruce.
—but thought you’d want to know I found Mary. She’s headed into the dining lounge from the other side.
Dad’s words detonate in my brain, and a dopamine-infused screen locks into place between me and the Fabiovision, which pops and fizzles. Flinging the doors open, my chest misfiring like a loose piston rod, I barge in with the confidence of a cowboy and the courage of a mouse.
Fabio scratches the back of his head. “Oh boy. Here we go.”
“Yeah, bro!” yells Caleb. “Thought you’d never get here.”
My neurons sizzle as I lift into the air. Kate covers her mouth with both hands.
Dad’s psychic sense ratchets into combat mode. Watch out, she’s using the Force!
Caleb’s gun lurches forward. Eyes widening, he grabs the handle with both hands, leans back. His heels scrape against the carpeting as he’s hauled across the stage toward Kate.
[I can’t sense her doing this,] says Hanzo. [How is that possible?]
“This isn’t how I wanted it,” says Kate, and Caleb’s gun jerks out of his hands, turns in thin air, and presses the barrel to his temple. Caleb’s arms flatten at his sides.
“For real?” I scan exit signs for Mary. “I catch you porn-dressing Caleb and all you’ve got is this lousy evil-ex trope?”
“It’s not a trope.” She and Caleb float into the air. “I love you, Edger.”
“No. That’s not love. Love means not having to say you’re sorry you’re part of an evil global cabal.”
“Okay that is not the saying,” says Fabio. “That is never the saying.”
Kate’s head tilts as she pushes her bottom lip out. “I’m sorry I’m part of an evil global cabal.”
“And now it’s a saying.” Fabio tosses his arms up in apparent frustration.
Dad seizes control of me, and tendrils of psychic power reach for Kate. Her forehead tightens. The telekinetic cords evaporate in a silver mist.
How is she doing that? asks Dad.
“Oh, baby.” Kate tips her head down and pouts. “I don’t wanna fight.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have trophy-stolen his boxers, princess,” calls Mary, gliding down a curtain, her feet thumping on the balcony above mine, and that piston misfires in my chest again, triggering a barrage of sensory memories: her lavender shampoo; her thumbs stroking my back; her lips whispering so close to me, I can feel the impact of her tongue.
Bang!
Gunshot. The stage snaps back into focus. Empty. My gaze snaps up. Caleb’s plummeting toward terminal velocity, arms, hair, and loincloth lifting as Kate drops him from the third level—
I cast telekinetic energy like a net, catching, then hurling him toward Fabio. My insides swell like an overinflated balloon as I wheel around. And there’s Mary, her golden-haired ponytail flipping as she kung-fu-kicks a clone agent in the face while breaking the wrist of a second on her other side. All black: tank top, shorts, boots.
[What a woman,] gushes Hanzo.
Now that one does not compare to a summer’s day, says Shakespeare.
Sure she does, says Killmaster. Try Iraq, 2003.
The door crashes open behind her. An agent rushes through. Mary’s elbow strikes his nose, and light glints off her fist. She snatches his wrist—dang, he’s flipping over the balcony, Wilhelm-screaming, and crashing into the porcelain and stemware on the linen-covered table below.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? asks Shakespeare. Thou art more lethal and less temperate.
You know, says Killmaster. I never liked poetry before, but that’s got a real ring to it.
Another agent barges in, raises his gun. A flick of my fingers, and the telekinetic energy tickling beneath my skin lifts him into the air and whips him around like he’s starring in The Exorcist. He blacks out, and I release him into a heap on the floor. A fleeting smile quirks Mary’s lips, and then she’s sighting her gun on Kate.
“Ah, Mary,” says Kate. “Just so you know, I’m keeping his boxers.”
Still peering down her sights, she tilts her head. “We’ll see.”
“Wait, you two know each other?” I ask. “What am I saying? Of course you know each other. Probably trained together. Where was that again? Femme Fatales ‘R’ Us? Kill-Mart?”
Kate holds up her phone, swipes, then taps. “That’s the self-destruct button.”
“Man,” says Fabio. “They really do have an app for everything.”
Kate smiles. “Since you know all the tropes, trope this: Chase me, or save the innocent.”
Splintering wood and plastic release a piercing crack as a fifty-foot-tall pane of glass floats from the side of the ship out to sea. The stench of fish and diesel wafts in. Kate’s eyes find mine. Her mouth compresses.
“Just know I’ve been kicking myself these past five years. There I was. I h
ad the greatest guy in the world. And then, poof, gone. I thought, no global cabal gig is worth losing this.”
I turn to Mary. “Did she just say no global cabal gig is worth losing this?”
“Mm-hm.”
Fabio raises a finger. “’Scuse me. What’s the health insurance like? If you don’t mind my asking, I mean.”
“Goodbye, Edger.” Kate drifts nearer the open window, turns, and then rockets away.
Mary charges for the stairs. “We’ve got to escape the blast radius!”
Fabio jams the ring over his finger. Black goo bubbles over his hand and slithers up his arm. Ridges and detailing take shape, but I’m not seeing it. I’ve gone inside my head. A bird’s-eye view of the cruise liner crystalizes in X-ray vision with all the people glowing in blue.
I count two hundred and three all told, says Bruce.
[Hold on,] says Hanzo. [Another in the engine room.]
Two more in the kitchen, sir, says Killmaster.
And this poor bloke just sat down on the crapper with his magazine, offers Nigel.
Dad snatches that guy off the john while Hanzo and Killmaster grab the three from the engine room and kitchen. Doors up and down hallways fling open on every level. Twelve here, thirteen there…
“Edge!” yells Caleb.
My psychic energy swells. Air rushes into my lungs. Escape vessels detach from the sides of the ship as Caleb, Fabio, Mary, and I blast through the exit Kate made.
I lay on the psychic accelerator.
“Put me back!” yells Johnny Gemini, his loincloth flashing anyone who’ll look as our group of refugees hurls across the ocean like a squadron of human F-16s.
I huff under the strain, dropping one, then catching him. Another kicks her legs crazily as she goes too high. The Collective Unconscious signals we’re at a safe distance. I plop the boats in the water. Refugees and clones splash down next. The rest of us speed off for Fiji as the ship’s countdown clock crystalizes in my mind’s eye.
Four…three…two…
The cruise liner explodes.