Gruefield 18 (Tarnished Sterling Omnibus)

by Robert McCarroll

  Tossing it aside, Sixteen crawled out of the building through the hole Irvin had made.

  Part 8

  It was Xiv who found me. By the time I almost had one hand free, he spotted Irvin's trail of destruction and flew down to investigate. I probably could have wormed my way free of the wrist restraints and untied myself, but it would have taken a few hours more. I was particularly happy that this escape didn't require breaking my thumb again. My story wasn't all that well received, mostly because of the implications. Serar was still comatose from whatever Irvin had done, and Grigor wasn't much better off. The worst part was Nora's jibes about my propensity for getting kidnapped by Morlocks. I didn't find them particularly funny. Neither did my missing eye. Or the headache that thundered about my brain like an aftershock. I was diplomatic enough to distill it all down to one glare. I think she got the message.

  I wanted to ruminate on the whole mess that had come piling in on us, but my mind kept going back to my missing hour and a half. Everything said I shouldn't be up and about. While I mentioned the fact that Subject Sixteen had drugged me, I skipped over the part about feeling my heart stop. I wasn't sure what it all added up to, but something slithered up the back of my mind. "You have all the markers. You should be manifesting something spectacular." Those were Uth-sk's exact words. I don't know how credible the alien's research into humans was, but I never managed to get him out of my mind. The haze through which I shambled hung like a 'do not disturb' sign about my neck.

  I guess after I spent almost thirty six hours half-slumped in the same chair, people figured something might actually be wrong. So now I was half slumped in a chair in some shrink's office. There was a glass wall separating me from a courtyard with a concrete pond and a small fountain. I stared at the water instead of looking towards Carl. At least that's what Doctor Lindenbaum asked me to call him. The analytical part of my mind was off on a tangent, telling me this was the same sanatorium Jack had checked into last year. The cream colored carpets, white walls and tan furniture were offensively inoffensive.

  Carl hovered in the corner of my vision dressed like he was ready to play a round of golf. I would have preferred a white coat, to at least give the image of knowing what he was doing. The casual air of fake normalcy was there to avoid setting off violent patients. Subconsciously, I reached up and touched my right eyebrow. I wasn't wearing either my mask or my eyepatch. Somehow, it made me feel naked, despite otherwise being fully dressed. The other parts of my mind screamed at analytical me as he brought up acclimation. I kept the right side of my face turned away from Carl out of reflex. It didn't matter that this was a fund operated facility, and the shrinks here almost certainly knew everything the fund did about me.

  "Why am I here?"

  "People are concerned about you." I noted he didn't use either my name or code name. He was hedging his bets, trying to avoid the verbal misstep that could get him shut out. He also dodged the issue. Dad brought me here, and a more honest answer would have admitted as much.

  "Am I free to leave?"

  "Do you want to leave?"

  "That's not what I asked you."

  "The door is not locked, and it's about ten miles to the city. If you really want to, you could go."

  Monotone sarcasm. Was this his strategy, give me someone new to hate? No, I didn't think he was that stupid.

  "Though I think you know it will be faster to wait until your father comes back in a few hours," he continued. "So, you can talk to me, or sit there and stare at the fountain."

  I sighed. "You get paid by the hour, don't you?"

  "Actually, I'm salaried. I get to spend as much time with my clients as I need to."

  "Why not just call us patients?"

  "That implies there's something wrong with you."

  "If there weren't something wrong, we wouldn't be here."

  "Is there something wrong?"

  "There must be. I'm here."

  Carl gave a cryptic smile, but refused to continue engaging me in word games. "What would you rather being doing right now?" Unprompted, my analytical mind began enumerating tasks that needed to be done. The list never made it near my mouth as I interrupted analytical me. That wasn't what he'd asked me.

  "I don't... I don't know."

  "Oh?"

  "Everything I've ever done has been to either meet expectations or keep up appearances. I don't actually have any hobbies, or pastimes. Even my running is just for general fitness and keeping up with the 'bad guys' when they try to get away." I wondered why I hadn't even thought of spending time with Stephanie. This set off a riotous debate in my mind about what the appropriate next step would be. There wasn't a good answer forthcoming, only questions and uncertainties. It didn't help that more than half the time I thought of her as Ixa. Ixahau was a cover identity, and a legacy one at that. I pushed it all to the back of my mind for later rumination. It was getting crowded back there.

  "Why is that?" Carl asked. "Why did you feel compelled to spend your time that way?"

  "Someone had to be the dependable one. Mom was dead. Dad was busy at work. Nora kept running off, and Donny never stopped dreaming. Someone had to keep things in order. I was the only one left to do it."

  "And before then?"

  "What?"

  "Before your mother died, what did you spend your time on then?"

  I gave a snort of contempt. "I was a stupid kid. It doesn't matter what happened back then."

  "It was five years ago," Carl said. "That's not that long."

  I gave a dry, humorless chuckle. "You really want to know?"

  "While we're on the subject, yes."

  "I pretended to be who I am now. Like I said, I was a stupid kid."

  "Do you regret wanting to be a hero?"

  "By any objective measure, the life sucks. You're first in harm's way. You shoulder all the blame and responsibility for the worst shit the universe can throw at us. Then you die alone, unremarked and anonymous in some dank alley because you got sloppy. The best you can hope for is to retire to obscurity and pray that none of the enemies you made is determined enough to hunt you down before old age gets you."

  Carl nodded. "Dark and cynical thoughts are not unusual at your age." I cast a sidelong glare in his direction. He was mostly bald, with short black hair along the sides and back of his head. "So I doubt that's what is actually bothering you." His monotone was starting to get on my nerves. How could he be convinced I was avoiding the issue? I... I was. I didn't need a shrink to tell me what had me shaken. It was all summed up in two pairs of words, 'abject failure' and 'ninety minutes'. The first was my uncritical assessment of my career so far. The second was the time I spent effectively dead from an overdose of sedatives. All my successes had come with the team at my back. Anytime I tried to do anything without that crutch, I was little more than a pitiable screw-up.

  How was I not dead?

  I brought my knees up to my chin and wrapped my arms around them. Memories of all the times I nearly died ran through my head. Michelangelo, Masquerade, Xiao, Doctor Omicron, Uth-sk, Valeria, Subject Sixteen, even the senseless car accident that put me on the hood of the beemer. Some I survived by happenstance. The only one I could claim credit for overcoming on my own was Uth-sk. Of course, it was my own fault I'd ended up in his clutches in the first place, as I'd botched my escape from the Ygnaza.

  "Can I move out by the pond?" I asked, meekly.

  "If you want," Carl said. I found a door in the glass wall and stepped into the courtyard. Reaching the edge of the pond, I sat on the flagstones and returned to my near fetal position. Piebald white and orange koi swam about the water. They were fat and ugly fish, even by the standards of koi. They looked aimless, yet content. Carl sat down in the same relative position, near the left periphery of my vision.

  "I haven't slept for the be
tter part of a year," I said. "I've noticed that when I see some people, people I've never met before, I have the urge to introduce them to my fist. I've never had that reaction before. If that's as bad as it is going to get, it won't be a problem, but if it gets worse, then I don't know."

  "You sounded like you were going somewhere, but turned away at the last moment."

  "Maybe I was. Maybe I was just filling time."

  Carl's cryptic smile came back. The insufferable twerp knew when I was baiting him, and simply refused to engage. "I don't think you want to waste your time. You're smarter than that."

  "How smart can I be? I'm still in the life when it'd be in my best interest to walk away." Except for the matter of the insurance payments. Connected to so many people in the community, I was at high risk of being targeted, even if I ran away. I couldn't get away from the insurance requirements if I wanted to, the BHA made that pretty clear. Without the fund, I couldn't afford the premiums. I really was trapped. My head sank until my forehead rested on my knees. "The government would tear me to pieces if I walked away. The bureaucrats would come looking for their pound of flesh, year after year." I closed my eyes and fought against the rising despair.

  "So you're trapped?"

  "It's the family business," I said. "So what if everyone else in the family has powers and I'm ordinary. I'm in it because they're in it. Only I get stuck with the paperwork and the book keeping, because I'm the dependable one."

  "It sounds as if you almost resent your brother and sister."

  "You can't change what might have been. I've come to grips with being the ordinary one. That old envy was petty and childish. I let it go years ago."

  "Your words say one thing, your tone says another."

  I sighed. "Every kid wants to have powers, to be able to do something no one else can. Most of them get disappointed, then get over it. The truth hurts more when everyone else in the family has them, along with everyone your family knows. But I still got over it. It's just the way things are."

  "I see," Carl said in his infuriating monotone. I was really starting to hate him. "This sounds a bit like an old wound."

  "And picking at the scab won't help."

  "Then what will?"

  "Leaving me alone."

  "We tried that - you didn't move for a day and a half."

  "An hour and a half." I clenched my jaw as I realized the words were leaving my lips. Carl didn't miss it. The bastard didn't miss anything.

  "What lasted an hour and a half?" I kept my mouth shut, refusing to speak for the rest of the session.

  I was more comfortable with my eyepatch back on. I was nobody again, ready to disappear into the background. I sank into the passenger seat of the car and waited for Dad to broach the topic - or any topic. He didn't. He was being 'understanding' and giving me my space. He had lousy timing. I was downright annoyed when we drove back into town in silence. We went to the house. I had trouble remembering the last time I'd spent any real time there. It was a boring looking lower middle class house in an equally boring looking lower middle class neighborhood. I trundled inside and plopped down in my usual seat.

  Donny held out a piece of plastic towards my face. It was blue and white, bearing the logo of the Bureau of Hero Affairs along with a mess of numeric data. Its deformed holofoil eagle looked at once both familiar and malignant. "You got your class three license?" I asked.

  "Yup," Donny said. "We filed the paperwork yesterday. I'm now the eighth Baron Mortis. The seventh will formally pass on the skull mask at his retirement dinner next week." Donny grinned his stupid, toothy grin. For a moment, all the worries he'd come to me with were gone and he was his old self again. I gave a bit of a smile, just to be polite. I didn't really feel it, but it would be wrong to ruin his day. He put the card away. "So, are you feeling any better?"

  "Sort of," I lied.

  "Are you ready for your birthday?"

  "No." I couldn't really avoid it. There were no convenient excuses like Masquerade having put me in the hospital. He was safely locked away in a psychiatric center. Though from what I hear, he's still as batshit insane as ever.

  "Oh, come on, it's one of the happy reasons I flew back home."

  "I'm not comfortable being the center of attention."

  "I'm sure you can put up with it for one day. I mean, compared to some of the other stuff..." He caught sight of my expression and lost the goofy grin. "I'm sorry, bad timing."

  "It's not you," I said. "Doctor Lindenbaum barred me from active duty."

  "What?"

  "Until he determines I've recovered from whatever he thinks I'm suffering from."

  "Can he do that?"

  "He's a Fund shrink. I'm on a Fund team. Yes, he can do that."

  "That's a serious downer."

  "It's for his own good," Dad said, taking a seat across from us. There was a sadness in his eyes he was unable to give voice to.

  "We should do something with your time off," Donny said, straining to inject a cheerful tone.

  "Like what?"

  "I haven't thought it out yet."

  I sighed. "What's for dinner?" Donny and Dad exchanged a glance that told me neither had given it any thought. Typical. I forced myself to stand and trudged into the kitchen to see what was available. In my absence from the house, it had grown so understocked as to be an embarrassment. "Still no time for groceries?" I asked, trying to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. I knew the answer all too well.

  "We'll go out to eat," Dad said, getting up. We filed out of the house and I locked up as they climbed into the car. I got stuck with the back seat, but complaining was pointless. I tuned out their debate about where to go, and we ended up at a burger place. It was a regional chain, known mostly for not being international. The atmosphere was artificially cheery, and the furniture was exceptionally cheap. I sat in the grossly uncomfortable molded fiberglass chair, taking some solace in the fact that it was built to hold the girth of the chain's regulars. It was unlikely I would break it.

  I stared at the tray before me, trying to figure out why I'd even been worried about breaking the chair. I never broke chairs, not even by hitting people with them. An image flickered in the periphery of my vision. The scowl of an obese woman with a cigarette glued to her frog-like lip. Fear and dread wafted through the air like an unwelcome aroma from the deep fryer. I turned slowly towards the source, but saw only my reflection in the pane glass windows. I wanted to shake the feeling, but it slowly became clear I was not the only one in the restaurant to notice it. I stood up and walked outside.

  The street was lit by the overly bright and cheerful sign over the parking lot, but trepidation rolled over the asphalt like fog. Across the street, in the shadow of a worn office block, I spotted a heap of garbage bags piled against the side of a dumpster. A momentary shriek of disapproval wrenched in my gut. Checking the near-dead street for traffic, I crossed to the alleyway. I clicked on the tiny penlight on my key chain as I passed out of the illumination of the street lamps.

  On the far side of the dumpster, cowering by the brickwork of the office block was Irvin Keyes. He looked as though he'd changed out of his hospital gown by rummaging through thrift store rejects. He'd torn open several of the garbage bags, finding only shredded papers. His gaze flashed up at me. "Two demons and a lord of the dead," he muttered. I glanced around. Dad and Donny had followed me. The implication of his statement sent a shiver down my spine.

  "You look half-starved," Donny said, offering up his still wrapped burger. Irvin's eyes went wide with surprise and fear, but eventually hunger overcame both and he took the food.

  "Dad-," I started.

  "I know."

  A look told me he'd spotted the same thing I had. Two demons and a lord of the dead - Shadowdemon, Razordemon and Baron Mortis.

  Part 9
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  Being off active duty by doctor's decree, I was shut out of the debate about what to do with Irvin Keyes. His problems were legion, and would have tested the ability of Child Protective Services even if he wasn't a powered individual. Having gone toe to toe with Jack without any training made it downright impossible for them to render aid. It was beyond their capacity to deal with. I hated that part of me which was thankful for not having to take part of the debate. But was he actually my responsibility? One corner of my mind came back with the trite answer that everyone was. I told it to shut up, no one could be responsible for everyone.