by G. X. Knight
It took another few rounds of karaoke until I had where I wanted her. She came alive with every new song, and we had fun singing and laughing for countless miles. Finally, after some Bon Jovi, she started talking, and when that dam broke, it flooded. She confirmed everything my father had told me about Humans, AKA Slates, being turned into Amalgams by Pure Bloods and other Amalgams. I did not realize just how few of the Pure Bloods were actually left. According to Maeve, it was generally believed by some of the Amalgam populace that there might only be as few as three or four Pure Bloods still alive.
When I told her about what happened at the expo, she explained that I had fallen into a Siren Enchantment. It was something the Street Vipers had come up with to vex anyone who possessed great Amalgam potential. The greater that person’s potential, the harder they were compelled toward the instructions of the Street Vipers’ suggestion. I guess I had been the hot new thing. Whatever they had found out about me during my stay with them in that truck, had been significant enough to have sent shockwaves of rumors rippling throughout the community at damn near the speed of light. They grabbed me and Skipped town before anyone else besides Maeve had a chance to move against them. Unfortunately for them, she was more than what they were expecting.
Whoever had sent her, she still wouldn’t give a name, commissioned her within hours of my abduction. She puffed her chest out and raised her chin as she explained how everybody else was too scared to take a job that would directly oppose to the Street Vipers. They were considered to be one of the most powerful and dangerous collection of Amalgams on the planet. Not a comforting feeling knowing that I had their crosshairs sitting on my forehead. I also wasn’t entirely sure this job was as simple as a mercenary-for-hire gig. She spoke of her employer with a respect and admiration that made me think there was something more there, and perhaps the cover story, was just that, “a cover.”
I tried to stick a toe in the water of the subject about how she had known Cade and what her past was with him and the Vipers. I found a snapping shark that bit at me with a heavy “none of your business,” so I quickly decided more talk about me combined with my bad singing would be the safest course.
She insisted on wanting to take me somewhere. I knew it was to whoever had paid her to collect me, and I was none too eager to find out who would shell out cash, and go against the Street Vipers, for me of all people. People like that would have plans, and I’m not about to be a part of anyone else’s plan but my own.
Instead of protesting I did what I do best. I delayed. We were passing the first sign of civilization I had seen in hours. For whatever reason Maeve would not use the interstate, and so the winding back road of nothing we stayed on all day was getting torturous during the few intermittent quiet times that still lingered between our bellowing. It was getting late in the afternoon, and I was thirsty and beyond hungry. Ever since I had woken from my Street Viper experience my appetite had been off the charts. I think she knew that was going to be a byproduct of what happened to me; otherwise she would never have brought all those burgers this morning. I thanked her for not bringing biscuits. I don’t know how she talked the fast food guys into making those for her during breakfast hours; though as charming, pretty, and dangerous as she was, I doubt she ever had a problem getting what she wanted.
She was the money; at least I hoped she was since I was broke, and she obviously didn’t have a problem acquiring whatever we needed. We found a Red Star Café, and she let me stay out in the car unattended. Actually, she suggested, well ordered, that I stay out in the car. Kind of like she was still afraid somebody might see me. It wasn’t like I was on the government’s Most Wanted list; I mean I was wanted by a secret organization of people who spent their lives hiding in the shadows. I felt confident that I could move about in backwater Texas without being recognized. She did not agree.
There was very little around us for as far as I could see. Just a couple of necessity stores lined the chipped up highway. There might have been something else near a ridge off in the distance, but I felt like I wasn’t seeing as well as I was the night before. The sunlight hurt my eyes. I was grateful to have sunglasses. Maeve’s attention to detail in anticipating my needs was becoming impressive.
I know she told me to stay in the car, but I couldn’t. My legs were twitching, my ass was hurting, and I had to pee. I tried to respect her wariness about staying incognito. I even waited until nobody was around. But, I was done. I had to go, so I got out, and raced a piece of rolling tumbleweed across the street to the only gas station. It had an outdoor men’s room entrance, so I let myself in and ducked out of sight before Maeve caught me.
After I washed my hands, I stared back at the man in the mirror. The guy who looked at me did so with disapproval. He resembled my father, maybe a little less than he used to since Dad would never embrace the monster I had. He… I… looked sad. I missed Dad. I had to get home to see him. As much as I was beginning to enjoy my time with Maeve, I knew she was not going to let me go, so I needed to find some way to ditch her.
Good luck with that.
I turned as the door to the bathroom was swung open with so much force the door handle cracked the brown-streaked tile. Maeve stepped in chiding, “What are you doing?”
I looked around and pointed to the gross collection of yellow-stained urinals on the wall, “What are you doing? This is the men’s room.”
She changed her voice to a harsh whisper. “Someone might have seen you.”
I copied her unnecessary whisper, “Well nobody would even notice me if I was standing next to you. You’re just too pretty.” I pocketed my sunglasses and batted my eyelashes with obnoxious intent.
She rolled her eyes, “Come on.” She said half exasperated and half amused. The charmer strikes again. Look out ladies, he’s dangerous!
The more I live the more I appreciate the detail available during the slow times, because when something goes wrong it usually happens so fast I don’t have a chance to really know what is happening. Maeve exited first. As I stepped out I felt her hand snatch me by the shoulder and drag me around to the backside of the building. She cursed under her breath using sailor-blushing-profanity that only reaffirmed my suspicion that she could be the one for me.
She peeked around the corner toward the GTO. I took a glance myself to see a new Street Viper rig pulling in behind us, and around it three cars and six motorcycles circled the GTO. All of them were pimped out in full Street Viper style and color: straight black, cool paint. One of the leather clad Vipers had hopped off his bike and cupped both hands over the driver window so he could peer inside through the dark tint of the windows. Maeve looked somewhat panicked. I wasn’t too worried. She dispatched three times as many of Cade Arkman’s goons during my rescue, and from what I had seen of her armor, it was something she called up using some kind of mojo.
“Well?” I said ready to get the show on the road.
“Well what?” She snapped back.
“Get dressed up in that armor of yours, and go do your thing.”
“First of all, we’re in a public place. Second, it’s the middle of the day. There are rules and laws about that kind of stunt.”
“So?” I didn’t really care about rules. I cared about not being Street Viper experiment fodder. “This is the middle of nowhere Hicksville. People see UFO’s all the time, and when they report something, it’s just assumed they’re crazy.”
“That’s just part of the conspiracy,” She hissed, “Most of the time those people really did see something, and most of the time the offender who was dumb enough to show himself or his tech was severely punished by a collective of powers-that-be.”
“Who are?” I asked, concerning those powers.
“Now is not the time for a social studies lesson.” She turned to pace the back length of the building. “Besides, there are other factors at play. You just don’t understand yet. Magic is not going to be of help to us right now.”
Well that sucked. Then I thought
about my own performance that night. I was strong. I had the ability to punch through what Maeve had described as a protection charm Cade used to keep himself safe. I was fast; I was strong. I could handle those few guys.
I balled up my fists, “Then wait here.”
Maeve stepped in front of me to block my way, “Not a chance.”
The sound of motorcycles roared and echoed across the street. It would not take long before the bikers would circle the gas station and find us. There was so little to check in that town. (And I use the word “town” generously.) “We don’t have a choice.” I insisted. I had an idea about what I could do physically, but I needed a test. I found a baseball bat sized steel pipe on the ground, and with a miniscule amount of pressure, I bent it into a curl. “I don’t know how I can do this, but I can. I’m going to get us out of here.” I really should have taken some time to appreciate how cool that was.
“You need more than brawn,” She said, “If you go out there, they will take you, and I can’t let them do that.”
I huffed with a bit of my infamous overemotional disgust. “Yeah, I’d hate for you to miss your precious payday. You’re nothing but some bounty hunter, and all I am to you is the next check in the bank.” I sneered with a little more bite in my voice than I meant to have. I guess I wished she felt about me the way I was feeling about her, but I knew it was just a pipedream. I was just another job to her.
She looked down at the ground. Just like with Dad, I had done it again. “It’s not like that.” She promised with a hint of sadness. She lifted her eyes to meet my accusing gaze. The ache of her stare made her seem desperate for me to believe her. I wanted to, but I couldn’t afford the trust.
“I’m going.” I said, “And if you can’t armor up, then you can’t stop me.”
A wicked grin curled the corner of her pink lips, “You think I’m a one trick unicorn?” She whipped out a device from her back pocket. The thing opened up like a four legged spider and pinned me to the wall. Each leg dug into the brick, and the oval body that connected to the legs unfolded like paper into a long flat piece that crushed me almost to the point of being breathless. I couldn’t move, and all my strength was nothing compared to the power of her device. “You’re not as strong as you think you are.” She pointed up to the sky, “At least not yet.” She patted me on the face. “I’ll tell you more about it later.”
There was no breaking the spider-bot’s hold on me. The harder I struggled the tighter it got. I felt helpless when Maeve left to confront the Street Viper gang who surrounded our car. I felt like I had something valuable to contribute to our liberation efforts, and I should be out there with her. It should have been my choice. I was not going to let everything else in this new life clutch my reigns. It was my life. Why couldn’t I drive it?
Maeve didn’t know who she was dealing with. Hell, I didn’t know who I was dealing with. It was hard to accept that I was a different person. I still couldn’t use the “A-word,” but I knew things were different, and I was working on accepting them, whatever they might be. I kind of had to. If my own instincts weren’t evidence enough that something worse than I realized had happened to me, the way Maeve kept trying to catch sidelong stares in my direction proved that something was indeed wrong with me. I was cute. I wasn’t that cute.
The less I struggled, the looser Spider-Bot’s grip became. How was I going to get out of this? I sat still and banged the back of my head against the wall in thought. Then as I stilled, I felt the grip loosen a little more. Then I remembered Dad’s “Fingers of Doom.”
Ever work a Chinese finger puzzle with your fingers stuck on each side, and the only way to pull them out was to push in? Dad loved those things. We would go to the fair when I was younger and we’d always get a couple. He would have to buy extra because I would undoubtedly end up cheating. I would get a knife and cut it in half. I had the worse time with those things, something about a lack of patience. I had hoped the concept could get me out of those claws. I sucked in and tried to make myself as small and still as possible. The bot loosened more until there was a little space that grew between its flat metal body and mine. It wasn’t much, but it was all I needed. I pushed my arms outward as hard and as fast as I could. The bot strained for a second before two of the legs snapped outward because of the pressure. When it lost its grip, the mechanical nuisance fell off me, and I kicked it away. It was still skidding just as a young newlywed couple came around from the other side of the gas station obviously lost and circling the building in hunt of restrooms.
The wife, in her little Bride’s-white, “Just Married,” track suit, took one look at me, dropped her bottled water, and screamed a sonic blast that could have turned glass into sand. The guy, who had a matching Groom’s-black track suit, fell backward and crab-crawled toward his wife. He knocked her over, before rolling over and running off to leave her there alone on her back screaming. Her husband dove into the car and locked the door. His wife was still terrorized at my feet. He’s what I like to call the “hero” type.
I offered her a hand trying to help her up and calm her down. I was concerned for her, but she might as well have waved a sign saying “Here I am,” for the Street Vipers. I needed her quiet. She wanted nothing to do with me, and finally scrambled away in a clay-ruined not-white-anymore tracksuit. At her car she tried to open the locked door, but her husband was too stunned to do anything. Only when she screamed his name in a way that turned his fear from me to her did he let her in. They screeched out of the parking lot. I don’t know if I felt more sorry for me at what I was about to deal with from the Street Vipers, or for that guy when his blushing new bride did the mental replay of how she ended up on the ground with ruined clothes.
Almost immediately the chorus of bike engines came my way. I took off in the other direction and then ran back around the corner to the bathroom side as a biker came zooming past. I took a swing and knocked the guy backward while his still-throttling crotch-rocket drove itself driverless for another handful of yards in the empty dirt lot before teetering down onto its side.
Another of his really smart friends came around and gunned his bike at me full blast, head on. It’s important to note, my back was against the building. I jumped and rolled out of the way, and he ran full-on through the women’s bathroom door. The bike disappeared with a guttural crash. A little smoke floated out the now-doorless entryway, and he raised a shaky hand from the beneath a pile of shattered stall doors and broken porcelain. Thank God for little victories, because that was the last one.
I was surrounded by the other four bikers. I was about to jump them, but I happen to glance over to see a guy in the middle of the road with a weapon pointed at Maeve as they both watched me. The gunman met my glance with an angry wince, and then he moved his rifle barrel up to the temple of Maeve’s head. I got the message. I wanted to throw a beat down on those biker guys. Instead, I smiled with satisfaction at the guy trying to pick himself up off the ground. So far my win column consisted of: Him, Cade, and the poor dude buried under badly cleaned women potties. I was racking up some points. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a video game, and there were no more extra lives. I had one chance to do things right, so I raised my hands and started walking toward gun-guy and Maeve.
The sun was playing hell with my vision. Details one minute were fuzzy, the next super clear. I was about halfway to them when I recognized the man holding the gun. It was the silky voiced announcer from the expo. He was the one putting the siren mojo on the expo crowd. He caused all this. I owed him something special.
His voice was still just a smooth, but this time covered with extreme distaste, “So nice of you to join us.”
There were a lot of Vipers surrounding the three of us, and right in the middle of the street too. I counted at least twenty. That rig must have been carrying them. I don’t know what happened to the few people who were around when we arrived, or why we were suddenly in some old west scenario with everyone in that pit-stop of a town gone into hidin
g, but we had a high-noon standoff with me on one end of the road, Mr. I-Gotta-Gun on the other.
“What did you do to me?” I demanded. I broke my rule regarding the non-verbal standoffs, but in this case I wanted to shoot the question first. He was not going to intimidate me. At least that’s the lie I told myself in order to fake some courage in front of this guy, because I was amazingly intimidated by him, his little army, his power, and everything else, right down to his black and red pinstriped gangster suit. He had an old mob boss look that was out of place next to his leather-wearing Emo stickmen.
“I found you.” He said with big gestures waving his free hand around as though he had done me a favor. “And how do you repay me? By nearly killing my son!”
Who in the heck could have been this guy’s son? I thought for a moment, and then it hit me. I think it was the hollow eyes that helped make the connection. Cade?
“You kidnapped me, and your son got what was coming to him.”