I glance at my non-existent wristwatch. Six-hundred million light globes and all that. My stomach rumbles.
“Give me an hour.”
“Faster than a speeding train wreck. Wonderful,” Kirkness sneers and signs off.
One of these days I really am going to have to discipline that woman.
It is the first morning – er, make that afternoon – we’ve awoken in the Sentinels citadel as a team. That said, Mastodon and Samurai Girl don’t actually live in the Wallachian Fortress and Smidgeon is only a part-timer. There are Roman-style baths on my floor, or at least there is whenever I think of them, and after a quick dip, I change back into my rancid leathers and drift down to the ready room. It is thankfully empty, with nothing but a half-eaten bowl of muesli on the corner of the glass table to mark that anyone was ever there.
I’ve been looking forward to a moment alone with the table, actually. After the world’s briefest reconnoiter with Seeker, it’s been all action since being introduced to perhaps the finest example of the Wallachians’ alternate tech.
My tired hands stroke the glossy surface and conjure half-a-dozen visual feeds you won’t find on an ordinary search of Google Images. I knit my brow and concentrate on my search, reminded by Seeker to vocalize requests to cut through the unconscious background clutter.
“Show me news from the last twenty-four hours on house fires in Lincoln, Astoria,” I tell the tube.
The sanitized news footage starts popping up like a montage of Windows error messages, each one a little living light show for my digestion. I press a finger to each in turn and the sound enters my ear somehow, but none of the reports mention retrieval of a body. I don’t know if that means my mother George is still out there. I quiver at the prospect, though I also have to acknowledge what state this means she might be in. And none of that does anything to say what it all means for Maxine – and whether she ever existed at all.
*
I AM ABOUT to do an ambient database search when I hear a noise behind me and swivel at the waist as Smidgeon comes in. While he’s in full costume, like me, he somehow manages to convey the sense he’s slept in his clothes after pulling an all-nighter with a handful of Playboy models. I give him the Maori nod and turn back to the table of wonders.
“Living here’s gonna take some getting used to,” the blue-and-red hero says.
That’s the longest speech I’ve ever heard him make and I make a sympathetic, approving face and wait patiently to see if he’s going to expound.
Smidgeon looks around the room and plucks at the domino mask over his eyes. He wears a full cap from the neck up that covers his hair and ears but leaves his face free but for the mask. His chin is lightly stubbled blonde.
“I’ve just watched four hours of Nic Cage playing Dexter,” Smidgeon says.
I blink. So much for the supermodels.
“What?”
“The Wallachians’ TV,” the shrinking hero says. “Have you checked it out? You’ve got to try it some time. They stream live satellite from over three hundred thousand alternative Earths. It’s fricking crazy.”
“Nic Cage playing Dexter, huh?” I remark wanly. “That sucks. You know I heard about an Alt Earth once where he was a military dictator.”
It’s a huge lie of course, taking me back to the little kid I once was in grade school, happy to ad lib huge and entirely made-up stories about my weekends and my dad with a cast of thousands just for the sake of shooting the shit. Not even to fit in, or at least that’s what I, The Boy With Two Mums, believe. That I still do it now should probably bear some looking into, though I resigned myself to being a fibber long ago and haven’t really suffered that badly for it yet. Right?
“Of the United States?”
“Na. Cuba,” I answer.
“Hmmm. There’s one world where they watch pretty much nothing but live gladiator sports with people like us. You can bet on ‘em too. It’s pretty rad.”
“Sounds . . . rad.”
“And The Sarah Connor Chronicles is in its sixth year. And Seinfeld is still going.”
“I bet it’s crap, though.”
“Yeah it is,” Smidgeon says.
We stare at the table a minute.
“When do you think we’re gonna take our first mission?”
“Actually, that reminds me of something I’ve gotta do,” I say. “Catch you later, OK?”
Ol’ Smidge nods like we’ve got ourselves a man-date and I hustle from the room wondering if I am going to yet again confirm every bias the insignificant Alison Kirkness has about me.
She calls me for a hurry-up when I’m halfway across the city.
*
ONCE UPON A time a robot went crazy in City Hall. Looking back, now the memories are almost fond, though it begs the question about where Hermes is holed up these days. Last thing I remember about his shiny ass was he was given a gold makeover thanks to Twilight’s magickal rampage. Hasn’t been seen since. His maker, Doc Prendergast, wasn’t backward about chasing after his science project back then, so it is another in a long line of questions going begging to wonder why all has been so quiet from the old Westchester-based pervert. Then of course there’s his pal Dr Martin Thurson. Even thinking about the name puts me in a fug, Sal Doro’s words a chastisement and an obligation.
Late or not, I’m determined not to show it. As I thump down outside the venerable-looking dome of the mayor’s office, I thumb through my phone directory until I pull up Synergy’s number. It must be my week for enigmatic and utterly spankable ebony babes. I lumber up the steps like Tony Danza in Rocky.
“Oh my stars and garters, is this Zephyr? Or have you lost your phone?”
“Very cute, and just as you’d expect from my favorite Federal hottie,” I grin and try not to take notice of the public servants scattering at my approach.
“To what do we owe the honor?”
“The honor is all yours alone, darlin’,” I say. “Nothing against Vanguard, but he doesn’t have quite the same appeal.”
“Still got your silver tongue, Zephyr.”
“My tongue’s good for all sorts of things, honey –”
“Whoa. Back it up, leatherman,” Synergy growls. “Is this official business?”
“You’ll only flirt with me if it is, right?”
“Something like that.”
“You guys still got that fucker Fuse I blew at Mys-Tech?” I scowl at my own failed quip. “Tell me you haven’t lost him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Zephyr. He’s in lockdown at White Nine, as you and the American taxpayer would expect.”
“Glad to hear it,” I tell her, “because I need to see him.”
“Really? Why?”
“It’s in relation to an ongoing investigation.”
Synergy reminds me it’s the FBI who run investigations. I guess she thinks jarheads like me are just good for emergency protection when madmen and their menaces run amok. As sweetly as I can, I tell her it’d be a failure of my obligation of duty not to follow up on some questions recently arisen. And I drop in the ambivalent promise of a possible downstream information leak should my inquiries strike any ore. The agent signs off promising to make a few calls and by the time I’ve left my next appointment, damn it to Hell if I don’t have an interview slot at White Nine pegged in for that afternoon.
Alison Kirkness is poised in the shadows of the big Doric columns, a clipboard to her unimpressive chest. She’s not a lot to look at apart from her legs, with her crinkly pale hair, blotchy freckles, formal demeanor and secretarial eye-glasses, but the mother of all personal organizers lies behind that mousy exterior. As you’d imagine, we’re chalk and cheese. She all but grabs me by the arm as I flounce in, my grin radioactive in the cool gloom of the big formal open space, our forefathers present via metonymy, the classical busts, polished wood and chrome all trés magnifique, as Julian might say. We break a move for the row of elevators and after the little bell and a moment’s contemplative silence, Miss Kirkness
absorbed in her blackberry in the break in-between, we scuttle from the carriage and into a diplomatic stormfront.
Black-clad Secret Service guys loom everywhere, diplomatic protection and so on. In their midst are two women waiting patiently in their suits.
Senator Ivory Keenan has the hair to match her namesake. Platinum tresses wound back tight only seem to enhance the vivid glow of her blue eyes. Her power suit is black, gold striped, her blouse off-white with a sprig of lavender on the lapel. Standing close by is Anatolia Dufresne, a powerhouse of Greek-American good looks and expensive dentistry. We exchange hands, me making such a show of being extra-delicate for the ladies that it’s hard to resist playing goofy to the point of hilarity. Roland Pykes bootscoots from another walnut doorway and tersely shakes my hand, a blow-dried battleship with permanent eyeliner tattooed beneath his baby blues thanks to his various media gigs.
“This way, please,” Miss Kirkness says and leads the whole damned lot of us back through the closest doorway and into a conference room lined with venerable tomes bespeaking democracy and litigation.
And at the other end of the room is the Pope and a half-dozen red-clad cardinals.
Zephyr 5.4 “The Stuff Of News Footage”
“AH, ZEPHYR, MY dearest son,” the Pope says as he struggles to rise and ultimately fails, slumping back into the plush chair with the air of a rich man who has just let loose with a particularly satisfying fart: one made perhaps all the more satisfying for the flunkies who have to stand there, drinking in the air and commenting on its magnificence.
Let me be clear, the Pope and I have never met. He’s new and I’m so lapsed I don’t think I even count as Catholic any more. Where he gets off speaking so pleasantly I can’t tell you. I can see Pykes, Dufresne and the Senator thrilled to the point of Rapture to be in the flatulent old German’s presence. I make a pained face and keep walking and when the Pope offers me his hand with the big ring on it I play stupid and pump his arm a few times and then sit down at the nearest chair.
“It’s a pleasure,” I baldly lie. “Now what’s this all about?”
My frankness breaks the mood like even the Pope’s weak ass couldn’t. Pykes and Kirkness exchange glances and Senator Keenan emits a girlish titter and sits close enough she can reach out and periodically stroke my knee, which she proceeds to do with alarming regularity. She’s a handsome and well-preserved woman, but up close and looking through the layers of her nearly Baroque make-up, it wouldn’t surprise me if at any moment she suddenly bared yellow fangs and her bloodshot eyes rolled up into her head as she gave in to her desire for human flesh.
“Please excuse Zephyr’s candidness, Your Holiness,” the mayor says with a nervous little frown I’ve rarely seen him wear. “I can only explain that he understands the value of your time and doesn’t want to beat around the bush, as we say here in the States.”
His Holiness waves his hand and looks beneficent as they taught him to in Pope school. I smile, he smiles, the row of unspeaking cardinals smile, and Ivory Keenan titters just a little more. And again with the knee.
“It’s regarding the Bloomingdale bombing, Zephyr,” the Senator says. “Paramilitary Zionists called Israel’s Black Commandos have claimed responsibility for the attack. It took twenty-five lives and left a further fifteen people who are still in hospital.”
My memories are the stuff of news footage. I nod and look around the room. A few bland suits have slipped in and one of them, she has the whole black hair/green eyes/big titties thing happening, oh boy, and she starts taking notes with an electronic stylus. I try to catch her eye, but I guess Catholicism comes with the Irish genes and proximity to the Holy Father puts a dent in her receptivity.
“OK?” I say and resist the shrug.
“The City States Symposium has deliberated,” the Pope says in his heavy-lidded German English. “We have decided we cannot take any position except to condemn all violence that encourages segregation.”
I nod and glance around the room. Pykes looks like a kid too afraid to put his hand up to go to the toilet and might just risk pissing himself before the afternoon ends. Ironically, it is his deputy Dufresne who has the poise to pull off the high-powered meeting.
The Pope stares at me until he traps my wandering eye.
“We will not make any formal statement. However, the government assures me it will endorse a statement of sorts in retaliation for this attack on its sovereign soil.”
I blink, nod again. “OK.”
It looks like no one else really wants to speak. Dufresne scowls, looking around the room. Finally, she rests forward, arms crossed over her knee.
“Zephyr, we want you to go after them.”
*
I TRY TO think this through for a minute and basically fail.
“You want me to go after the terrorists?”
“Absolutely,” Pykes says.
“On behalf of, and sanctioned by, the United States government,” Senator Keenan says with a bold, affirmative nod.
I glance around the table and eye the cardinals briefly.
“So, where are they, then?”
My question elicits more glass-eyed stares. Dufresne looks at Pykes who looks at Keenan who in turn stares at Kirkness. No one dares look at His Holiness.
“We understand the security forces in Jerusalem have contained some members of a local cell,” Keenan says.
“Sure, but that’s on neutral soil,” I remark. “That would kind of undermine the whole idea of the neutrality of the City States, wouldn’t it, to send me in there?”
Someone clears their throat. It’s not anyone helpful.
I ask, “Um, do you mind if I ask why you want me to do this? Surely the government. . . ?”
“The President feels it would be best not to formally link our response to the government,” the Senator says. “However, a well-known American parahuman, taking the matter into his own hands with the tacit approval of the current administration. . . .”
“Sorry,” I say and risk cutting her off, though Keenan looks far too pleased to be stopped talking for me to call it that.
“I’m not sure exactly what you’re after,” I say. “This attack was launched from within Atlantic City, obviously. Can you give me some kind of information about these Commando dudes and any contacts or networks or . . . anything?”
I drift off because of the uncomfortable looks around me.
I hesitantly add: “I’m not sure what you think it is I’m able to do about, um, all this. I’m, like . . . I’m a superhero, you know?”
“Terrorism is a crime, Zephyr,” Ms Keenan rebukes me.
“A crime? Yes. A specialist crime,” I say back to her. “This is like . . . like getting hand models to take on the Triads or something.”
“Finally, something sensible. . . .” Kirkness mutters.
“Zephyr, I think you’re doing yourself a disservice,” Senator Keenan says.
“You must have faith, my son,” the Pope adds.
“I’m sorry,” I say and stand with genuine remorse. “If you know where the bad guys’ lair is in Atlantic City, you let me and the Sentinels know and we’ll kick their tails. International terrorism and diplomacy though, that’s just not my bag. Sorry.”
Only slightly less incredulous than they that I’m actually doing so, I open my palms apologetically and walk from the room. The security cadre eyes me as I jostle past. Their eyes are too busy for anything resembling sympathy.
Zephyr 5.5 “A Hellish Storm”
EVEN I WONDER sometimes at what psychological perversion makes me take such succor from burning my bridges like that. I stride from the tomb-like echoes of City Hall like someone who’s just won Millionaire rather than telling the US Government (not to mention the Papacy) to go stick it in their collectives asses, adding blasphemy to possible treason in one foul swoop.
I have two missed calls from Tessa, but somehow time has conspired against me once again so I have to hammer my way across to Rikers, back to
the East River it seems. There is another call from her, fluttering against my hip as the strong easterlies buffet me, the wind and my trajectory stripping the phone of its dire ringtone, but there is no time for me to take the call without throwing my interview with the villain Fuse out of kilter – and Salvador Doro has instilled far too much guilt now for me to turn from this course.
It’s heartening to see the SAM array declines to track my progress as I wing it and touch down right in the guts of the facility. I feel like ace fighter pilots must, technicians and signalmen running out to usher me into the prison like there is some urgent mission awaiting that only I can complete. Maybe this is the tack the Pope and his goons should’ve taken. Within minutes I’m strolling down the labyrinthine white corridors, Dr Zane Wilson and a technician called Ned walking fast to keep up with my stride. At the corridor’s end, Synergy herself appears, the gauzy Princess Leia outfit over her white body stocking really only adding to the allure as I think she knows too well. The agent offers one coffee-colored hand and it’s all I can do not to bow and kiss it, me Francis Drake returned from the wilderness and meeting the queen.
“You sure about this?”
“Sure,” I smile like a man who knows only confidence.
I keep my grin even as the alarms start flashing.
Synergy shoots a look at our guide, the good doctor, whose face collapses into a mire of panic and confusion. The technician takes off at a sprint, no explanation forthcoming, and it falls to me to glower impatiently at the carceral chief to clarify the bells.
“All three sirens are going,” Dr Wilson says. “That means the prison is under attack.”
Without prompting, the doctor’s hand unit goes off on his belt and he tugs it free and presses a button, leaving us all to hear the good news.
“Raiding party, Doc,” a male voice comes trembling down the line. “North-west quadrant. Seven biometric signatures.”
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