by Matt Cowper
“Because you—”
“And as far as these standards of yours go, I’ll say this: you’re wearing a leotard.”
“It’s functional,” she snapped, but her cheeks now looked like someone had poured red paint on them.
I yawned and shook my head. “As illuminating as this debate is, I need rest and food.”
“I can…I can get some take-out for you, if you want. While you’re cleaning up, I mean.” Her tail lashed about for a few seconds, then hung loose; she didn’t know if offering that was a misstep or not.
I didn’t, either. One part of me wanted to say, “Sure, Felicia. You can order for yourself too. It would be like old times. Scarfing up take-out on the couch, laughing, and then caresses and kisses after the meal….”
But the other part, the part I liked to think was more sensible, disagreed with much liveliness and cursing.
“No,” I finally said through gritted teeth. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Don’t push me aside, Johnny,” she said. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, but we do need to talk. I want to know what you’ve gotten into – what you’ve really gotten into.”
“Why? We’re no longer an item. You don’t have to look after me.”
“I know we’re no longer an item,” Felicia said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t…feel concern for a former teammate.”
“Well, I really do appreciate the concern,” I said, with pathetically feigned nonchalance, “but I’ve got everything under control. Please leave.”
“You don’t have anything under control,” Felicia said, pointing her tail at my right arm. “You never do. You can’t, not with that God Arm. It influences you more than you care to admit.”
“Hear me, woman,” Dak roared, his god-voice causing the apartment to shake a little. “I put up with your slander enough when you and John Wagner were ‘dating,’ as you mortals call it. I do not care what he thinks of you, I will not be insulted by some misbegotten harlot!”
“What Johnny thinks of me?” Felicia said, looking at me quickly. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing!” I gasped. “Nothing, he means nothing! You know how he is, says and does random shit all the time.”
“Dak!” I yelled in think-speak. “Shut the fuck up!”
“First Felicia insults me, now you? How much ignominy must I endure?”
“A lot more if you don’t pipe down!”
“I will put my pipes wherever I wish, down, up, or sideways, and you cannot – you will not – stop me.”
“OK then. I’ll tell Felicia about the fireball.”
“YOU WILL DO NO SUCH THING!”
“Shut up, then.”
The sound of pebbles cracking as Dak muttered to himself.
“You have used this fireball calamity against me far too many times.”
“Yes, I have – because it works.”
“Fine,” Dak said. “I will remain silent for the remainder of this conversation.”
“Good. Thank you.”
“I do not want your thanks, John Wagner, especially since you give it grudgingly.”
“What’s going on, Johnny?” Felicia asked. “Are you and Dak having one of those ‘think-speak’ conversations?”
“Yeah, we were,” I replied. “Had to calm him down.”
Felicia stared at me, her whiskers twitching and her tail dancing.
“What?” I asked.
“Dak said something…about what you think of me….”
“And?”
“Well, what do you think of me?” Felicia asked, scratching her arm with a claw. She always did that when she was nervous. “Do you…um…I mean…do you still have feelings for me?”
No, not really – I just thought about you all the time. Your soft body, your kind – and yes, heroic – heart. Your idiosyncrasies, like your hatred of yogurt. I wanted to wrap you in my arms and kiss you long and sloppily. I wanted to tell you that you were the last thing I thought about when Waverush had me helpless at the bottom of Jameson Bay….
“Nah,” I said, grinning as if this was all just a bunch of silliness. “We broke up months ago. I’ve moved on. Haven’t you?”
“Yeah,” Felicia said, too quickly. “I’ve been too busy to think about you. Work, patrolling the streets, training so some low-life doesn’t get the jump on me – really busy.”
“Well, that’s great,” I said. “Glad you aren’t moping around.”
“I’m not. I’m…busy.”
“Really busy.”
“Yeah.”
We stared at each other for a few seconds, then both of us looked down at the floor.
“Well, goodbye, Johnny,” Felicia said. “You need help, but you’re too stubborn to admit it, so…yeah. Goodbye.” She turned around quickly and started walking towards the window – which I really needed to clean. It looked like a Weeva spore colony was growing on the panes.
She opened the window gingerly, obviously grossed out by the green and brown growth, and sat down on the sill, one leg dangling out. Cool air rushed into the apartment, rustling her fur and whiskers.
“You know, you could leave the way you came,” I said.
“I feel like jumping.”
“The Felicitous Feline’s getting restless, huh?”
“It’s Fractious Feline now.”
I blinked a half-dozen times. “You changed your superhero name?”
“Yes.”
I blinked another half-dozen times. “Fractious is more intimidating that Felicitous, I admit…but…is this some bad girl thing you’re trying to pull off?”
She furrowed her brow. “I don’t know why I put up with you.”
“Uh…you don’t? Not anymore?”
“I’m leaving, Johnny,” she said loudly. “Don’t call me.”
“I wasn’t planning to!” I yelled back.
She slid off the window and plummeted towards the pavement. I walked forward and leaned outside. Even though we were three stories up, I wasn’t worried about Felicia; cats always landed on their feet, especially superhuman ones.
Felicia was already running up the alley, doing front flips to get the blood pumping – and probably to release some anger. She kicked a trash can, and it sailed to the end of the alley and clattered against the sidewalk. Then suddenly she leapt, and the sight of her lithe form sailing through the air literally took my breath away.
She grabbed the bottom of a fire escape, slung herself another thirty feet higher, spinning and flipping, then landed on a window sill, a space not six inches wide, and then jumped again, pirouetting so smoothly it looked like she was in control of the very air – and then she landed on the roof and sprinted out of sight.
I just let that run away from me – again.
“I am disappointed, John Wagner,” Dak rumbled. “Although I think that woman a fool, you clearly wanted to fornicate, so I would tolerate her presence for your sake – but there will be no fornication now.”
“I thought I told you to be quiet,” I said.
“I said I would not speak for the remainder of your conversation with the Feline of Fractiousness. That conversation is now concluded.”
I sighed. “Yup, it is.”
“I will let this be known: her new name is much more destructive. Perhaps she is changing.”
“She has changed – sort of.”
“If she is evolving into a more destructive state, I, Dakroth’gannith’formaz, would gladly instruct her in devastation and slaughter.”
“Not gonna happen, big guy. She’s gone, for good this time.”
“Is that what you think?” Dak said, in a tone lighter and more mischievous than I was used to. “I disagree. She will be back.”
“She will?” I said, a little too hopefully. “How do you know?”
“Gods know many things, and—”
“And gods are inscrutable, blah blah blah.”
“I was going to state that she did not return your key.”
“Huh,
” I said. “You got a point there. Maybe she just forget about it in all the arguing – or maybe….”
I took another lingering look at Felicia’s parkour-like route, seeing her in my mind’s eye spinning through the air – so free, so sensual. Then I closed and latched the window, and pulled out my phone to order some Chinese.
Chapter Eleven
“Good morning, Miss Tuppingham,” I said, closing the office door behind me. “How are you?”
“I’m very well, thank you,” she replied. “As you can see, Jared is fixing my emotional control centers. He says I’ve been too glum lately, but I completely disagree. I think I’ve been as chipper as ever. Don’t you think so, Mr. Wagner?”
“I haven’t noticed any change in your personality,” I said, “but Jared is the expert here.”
“That’s right,” Jared said, a little too loudly. “I am.”
The top portion of Erna’s head had been removed, revealing her mechanical brain. It was made of metal and plastic, with pulses of energy darting through translucent wires. Jared had attached some wires to a portion of the brain, and the wires ran to a handheld device he was using to analyze Erna’s emotion regulators.
“Hello, Erna Tuppingham, Mark-CCCLV,” Dak rumbled. “I see that—”
“Look here,” Jared interrupted, waving the device. “Compassion down 0.5%, Cheerfulness down 1.3%….”
“Oh, those are such small numbers!” Erna complained. “Mr. Wagner, tell him he’s overreacting!”
I raised my hands and shook my head. “I’m not getting in the middle of this.”
“But…oh, I’m going to blow a circuit, dealing with this boy!”
Jared was too clingy, I had to admit, but I didn’t want to rile him up. He’d created Erna Tuppingham Marks 1-355, robots modeled after his beloved grandmother, the woman who’d raised him, but who then lost a grueling bout with cancer – and these robots were good secretaries. Marks 350-355 had worked for me, and they’d all been great.
However, since Erna was a robot, she didn’t have true autonomy; if she got out of line, Jared could reprogram her, or even scrap her and start work on a new model.
Usually Jared was pleasant enough, but whenever someone picked on his pudginess or geekiness at work – he was a master engineer, but he didn’t have a college degree, so he was forced to work at Yay-Mart – he tried to calm his anger by making Erna even more perfect. Erna of course complained that he was going overboard with his tweaks and upgrades, which made Jared even angrier.
It wasn’t the healthiest relationship, but what did I know about healthy relationships?
“How was your day yesterday?” Erna chirped. “I didn’t see you at all after you left around lunchtime, and I locked up around five o’clock. Were you busy?”
“Yes, I was,” I said warily. “Did you, uh, hear anything about me?”
“No, I didn’t,” Erna said. “Should I have? Did you get in any trouble, Mr. Wagner? You suddenly seem a little nervous.”
“No, no,” I said quickly. “I was just pounding the pavement, chasing leads, questing for truth.”
“Well, that’s good,” Erna said as a bright pulse of light zipped across the right side of her brain.
Yes, that was good. Neither Erna nor Jared knew of my past as the Daring Destroyer, and they only knew Netmaster by name. The news reports on that incident with the Gridlock Grenadiers had been vague; Woodruff and Co. clearly wanted to downplay what had happened. The Daring Destroyer had barely been mentioned, Netmaster hadn’t been mentioned at all, and Baldwin had been unsurprisingly called “an angry black man.”
Erna and Jared had no reason to connect me to that brouhaha, nor did they have reason to connect me to the battle with Waverush. The press was calling that “the work of eco-terrorists,” which was fine by me. As Deathrain said, that gave me time to maneuver. Waverush was being held at St. Josephine’s Hospital, but doctors expected that, due to his advanced physiology, he’d be back on his feet sometime tomorrow. I needed to pay him a visit when he awoke – if Deathrain didn’t get there first.
Deathrain. Was I going to meet her tonight or not? I still didn’t know.
Those breasts, though…and that feisty attitude….
I shook the impure thoughts out of my head and walked towards the interior office. “Erna, I’d like you to check out some things for me.”
“Certainly, Mr. Wagner,” Erna said.
“It’ll have to be after I’m done here, Johnny,” Jared said, glancing over at me with that pinched-face look he got whenever he was working on Erna. “This is very sensitive work.”
“Fine,” I said. “Erna, see if you can find any information on an assassin named Deathrain. She’s not the kind of person who has a website, but see what you can do.”
“I’ll be happy to do that,” Erna replied, “but if you don’t mind my saying, doesn’t that Netmaster fellow do your research for you? I’m not trying to be contrary, I’m just—”
“You’re right, Erna, but Netmaster is…busy. Just do the best you can.” I hadn’t heard from him since our encounter with the Gridlock Grenadiers, and I was beginning to get worried. Was he safely underground (or more underground, since Netmaster was always underground), or was he still on the run?
“Also, there’s a superhero named Waverush recuperating at St. Josephine’s Hospital,” I said. “He’s unconscious right now, and I don’t know exactly when he’ll wake up, but I need to talk to him. Can you keep checking in with the hospital and let me know when he’s able to receive visitors?”
“I will, sir!” Erna said. “I’ll give it 110%!”
“Stop overcompensating, grandma,” Jared chastised. “I can see the numbers right here. You don’t have to pretend you’re happier than you really are.”
“Well, I never!”
“I’ll be in my office,” I said, sliding away from the bickering.
I shut the door to my inner office and sat down heavily in my office chair. I’d slept ten hours last night, and I was still dragging. All that self-talk about being able to recover from yesterday’s frenzy after one night’s sleep was pure hubris. I wanted to take a nap already, but I had work to do, so I grabbed Julia Anderson’s file and found her contact information.
“I hope today will be as eventful as yesterday,” Dak rumbled. “My god-realm will blister and smoke and burn if it is, and hot jets of magma will issue forth from my veins.”
“I don’t,” I said. “Right now, this case is sprinting away from me – almost literally.” I thought of Deathrain running through the sewer, Netmaster and Big-Eyed Baldwin running from the DOT, and, though it wasn’t directly connected to my case, Felicia acrobatically jumping and flying through the twilight. “I need to catch up to it.”
“What is your plan, then?” Dak said.
“First, I need to have a long talk with Julia Anderson,” I said as I dialed her number. “Both Gray Squirrel and Waverush said some interesting things about her. She may be hiding something, something that’s—”
Before I could finish my thought, a wary, slightly high-pitched voice sounded in my earpiece. “Hello?”
“Mrs. Anderson?” I said. “This is Johnny Wagner, Godlike PI. I’d like to—”
“Oh, Mr. Wagner. We were just….” I heard some background noise. It sounded like a male voice. “Now’s not a good time.”
“Why not? Is something wrong?”
“No, everything’s fine. I just have a…guest.”
More background noise. Now the male voice was clearer; it was somehow both condescending and unctuous. I gripped the phone tighter; I had an idea who her guest was.
“Who’s that in the background, Julia?” I said.
“It’s Damien Woodruff,” she said quickly, as if Woodruff wouldn’t notice his name being mentioned if she blurted it out. “We’re just going over the Gray Squirrel…situation.”
I ground my teeth and switched the phone to the other ear. I had an idea what the chief prosecutor’s “solut
ion” would be to this “situation”: sweep everything back under the rug and make sure us rabble-rousers didn’t disturb his slam-dunk conviction.
“Julia, I know I’m just the hired help, but trust me, Woodruff is dangerous,” I said. “I’m coming over there now. Don’t agree to anything, don’t make any promises, until I get there.”
“But…he says….”
“I’m on my way.” I slammed down the phone and jumped up, knocking over my chair. Erna and Jared started as I stormed out of the inner office and made for the hallway.
“Is everything all right, Mr. Wagner?” Erna bleated.
“I’ve gotta get somewhere fast,” I replied. “Don’t worry about—”
I opened the outer door, and came face to face with a voluptuous woman covered in grass. She looked like a walking soccer field, albeit one that hadn’t been mowed in a while.
“Hello, Johnny,” Mardi Grass said. “We need to talk about rent.”
Mardi was my landlord – “lord” being emphasized. She treated her tenants like peasants, refusing to authorize customary repairs and yet demanding that rent be paid the first of the month, while at the same time asking for certain “favors.” It was a strange mixture of domination and lust – sort of like the porns she used to star in. Only the has-beens and never-weres, the people who couldn’t afford decent accommodations, stayed in this building for any length of time.
I guess that included me – though I didn’t know if I was a has-been or a never-were.
Mardi had been working at a lawn and garden center when a radioactive meteorite crashed into the bags of fescue, sending the seeds shooting into her then-svelte form. The radioactive seeds bonded to Mardi’s cells, and, nourished by her body, they sprouted. Soon she was covered in a thick mat of green grass, which had to be maintained, just like regular grass.
Of course, this made her instantly exotic, and the porn peddlers soon came calling, and Maria Garth became Mardi Grass, star of many lawn-and-garden themed porns, such as Sprinklers and Lawn Gnomes XXVI: Nitrogen Fixers. After she “retired,” she purchased this dilapidated building.
I’d watched one of her porns out of idle curiosity, but I won’t recount what I saw.
“Not now, Mardi,” I said, trying to brush past her. “I’ve got a slickster jackass to thwart.”