Playing For Keeps

by Mur Lafferty

  “That way,” he said. They made their way down the hall and stopped in front of the locked stairway.

  “Now what?” Ian said after tugging on the door.

  The door opened then, hitting Ian on the forehead. He bumped into Peter who stumbled against the wall. Michelle yelled in surprise, and the yell was echoed on the other side of the door.

  There was a moment of silent as Peter and Ian untangled themselves, and then Michelle screamed happily. “Keepsie!”

  Peter grinned, adrenaline making his knees quake. The two women embraced quickly, and Keepsie pulled back.

  “What happened? Where’s the Librarian?” Michelle asked.

  “Dead. Timson killed her,” Keepsie said, looking down at the floor. “She’s got powers.”

  Peter swallowed. “Powers?”

  “She...killed The Librarian. I ran. She caught up with me, and then, I guess, had some kind of seizure.”

  “So she’s has powers as of when? Is she like us or like them?” Ian asked.

  “Them. She’s got some kind of elemental control thing, but more than Heretic, she can become the element. She killed The Librarian with fire, but apparently can become others, cause she ended up a puddle of water. That’s when I ran.”

  “Western or Eastern elements?” Peter asked. Keepsie stared at him incredulously. “It could be important.”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “I didn’t stick around to count her elemental states.”

  “So she’s still down there?” Michelle asked. Keepsie nodded.

  Ian took a step down the hall. “Then let’s get the hell out of here!”

  “Wait,” Peter said. “We need to know more about what she took.”

  They all stopped.

  Peter swallowed. “This is an opportunity we’ve never had before. We have the run of the Academy. The rest of the town is in chaos. We need to know these things if we’re going to survive. Now is the best time.”

  “You’re insane,” Michelle said.

  Ian was nodding. “Yeah, he’s totally insane. That’s why we need to do it.” He clapped Peter on the back. “You’re unclenching, dude!”

  Peter smiled uncertainly at the backhanded compliment. He looked at Keepsie.

  She shrugged. “So much for my daring escape.”

  “So much for our daring rescue,” Peter replied, and she laughed.

  Peter looked down. “You knew we were going back down.”

  Keepsie followed his gaze. He was staring at her foot, which propped the stairway door open.

  “Well. Losing an opportunity is a bad thing,” she said.

  * * * * *

  Peter pondered those words as they descended the stairs. Ian and Michelle went first, as theirs were the most offensive powers. Keepsie pulled back on Peter’s elbow and he slowed.

  “Something I didn’t tell you,” she said. “Before she died, The Librarian found some files. Timson took that drug to get powers. The Academy designed it for normal people, but it enhances regular powers. It’s not ready yet, it’s too unstable; that’s how I could get away.”

  “That’s why Doodad and Jack stole it,” Peter said. “They wanted stronger powers. That must be how Doodad made the self-powered mechs.”

  Keepsie nodded. “I don’t like thinking of what the Academy wanted to do with the drug.”

  Peter was speechless. He didn’t know who was good or bad anymore. “We need to tell the others,” he said, indicating their friends several steps below.

  She looked at him for a moment. “I guess you’re the only one I trust anymore.”

  The kiss was brief, a quick brush of her lips on his, and he could smell her blood, sweat from days of stress and danger, but it made no difference. His mind exploded again with everything about her, things he shouldn’t have known, things he’d have preferred she tell him on her own, but he could no more control than he could control his hammering heart.

  She squeezed his hand and said, “Let’s go.”

  Mind whirling, he followed her down to the third subbasement.

  * * * * *

  When they opened the door (Keepsie had propped this one open as well) to the basement level, Peter inhaled and cried out. His mind was aflame with images of The Librarian, her pain, her panic and death. He collapsed and cradled his head in his hands.

  He thought he heard retching. Someone said, “Oh dude, that’s rank.”

  Hands landed on his shoulders and helped him up, took him into the cool stairwell away from the flames and the heat.

  Keepsie looked at him in concern. “Better?”

  He nodded, not wanting to risk speaking.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t think. I was so panicked on the way out that I didn’t really smell it,” she said.

  Ian and Michelle came into the stairwell, Michelle looking queasy. “She’s just a grease spot,” Ian reported. He nudged Peter and grinned. “Guess the Bloodhound has a weakness, huh?”

  Peter sat down on the steps and leaned his head against the cool, stone wall. “Now what?” he said. “Was Timson there?”

  Michelle and Ian exchanged looks. “We didn’t see anything except what The Librarian left behind,” Michelle said.

  “Crap,” said Keepsie. “She was in the middle of the hallway when I left.”

  “Do we think she’s gone?” Peter asked. He couldn’t help but to look around.

  “No idea,” Keepsie said, walking to the doorway and peeking into the hall again. The smell of burned flesh wafted back as she opened the door, and Peter’s head reeled again.

  “Do we still want to look for—wait, what are we looking for, anyway?” Ian asked.

  Keepsie threw a furtive glance Peter’s way. “Information. Seems a waste if we don’t. Peter, are you OK here?”

  Peter nodded. “You guys go ahead. I’ll serve as lookout.”

  “OK, then,” Keepsie said. “Yell if you need us.”

  As they left him, he muttered, “You too, that is if you need a completely useless helping hand who will ride up on his white horse and fall off immediately.”

  He realized he was talking to himself, and stopped.

  26

  Keepsie glanced once more at Peter as she left him in the stairwell. He stared at the ground, his face slightly green in the emergency lighting, muttering. She sighed and closed the door.

  Ian pointed to the open door beyond the greasy husk that was The Librarian’s corpse. “This where you found the info?”

  Keepsie stepped over The Librarian without comment. Her head felt numb, far too much had happened today. She thought of Alex, who had taken care of her more than once. Her hand trembled for a moment, and she dropped it and clenched the fist at her side.

  “You know, it would be really useful if we had some Third Waver who could, I dunno, be a human flashlight or something,” Ian said.

  “Isn’t there someone who does that?” Michelle asked. She picked through papers in a file cabinet The Librarian had left open.

  “Letitia,” Keepsie said, shifting through some files on the floor. “But she moved a year ago.”

  “Keepsie, eyes on the prize, check it out,” Ian said, pulling a folder out of an open cabinet.

  The file said ZUPRA EX. Keepsie stuffed it under her arm.

  They searched through the room, which took little time since they were unable to open any of the drawers The Librarian hadn’t jimmied open.

  “Zupra Ex,” Keepsie said softly. She shivered. Was it really going to be this easy? She pulled the ball out of her pocket and twirled it on the floor, experimenting with Jack’s technique. It twirled open like a flower, revealing the drugs inside.

  She shivered again and realized it wasn’t nerves that was causing it. Her breath puffed out in front of her face.

  “Oh crap,” she said. “Guys, she’s here.”

  “Man, is that why it’s so freaking cold in here?” Ian said.

  Keepsie nodded. She grabbed the open device, grabbed a pill, and then closed it, slipping bo
th in her pockets.

  “We’ve got enough stuff, let’s head out,” Michelle said.

  Ian got to his feet and promptly slipped, his feet going above his head, which hit the floor with a crack. Michelle swore, going to him.

  Keepsie started forward, but she slipped too. Pinwheeling her arms, she regained her balance and look around her. The walls had taken on a sheen that she had not noticed before.

  “Is he OK?” Keepsie said.

  Michelle knelt beside Ian, softly slapping his cheeks.

  The temperature kept dropping. Keepsie looked around but didn’t see Timson. “Can he walk?”

  Ian groaned in reply, and Keepsie slid to him, trying to walk on the files instead of the solid ice that coated the floor.

  With much struggling and complaining, a groggy Ian got to his feet with Keepsie’s and Michelle’s help. The back of his blond head was matted with blood, but he was conscious, and that was all Keepsie could ask for.

  Michelle looked around. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. She just came out of the floor last time,” Keepsie said, shuffling forward.

  They exited the room into a hall of ice. Keepsie had a fleeting thought of an ice hotel she had once heard of, but the thought was banished when she saw Timson.

  Where she had once been a creature of fire, now she seemed to be made of ice—solid, flexible ice—as she grinned at them. Her hand lay on the stairwell door and ice spread from her fingers, creating spidery designs on the door that disappeared as more ice covered it. It looked as if a six-inch sheet of ice stood between them and their exit.

  Well, six inches of ice plus a slightly mad woman with elemental powers who was intent on their deaths.

  Timson took a step forward, and Keepsie wondered for a moment how she wasn’t slipping. Then the woman pushed off with her back foot and went sliding towards them.

  Too fast, Keepsie thought, but Timson didn’t aim for her. She was on Ian and Michelle, clotheslining them both. They lost their footing on the slippery floor and both went down hard, Ian groaning. There came a pounding on the door, but it held fast in the ice.

  Keepsie steeled herself for an attack, but Timson rounded on her friends again. As Ian raised his fist weakly to point it at her, Timson said “No, not this time,” and placed her hand on his forehead.

  It took a moment. The ice flowed from her hand, coating his face, cutting off a scream.

  A disk smashed into Timson’s arm with a loud crack, and she cried out. The flow of ice stopped, and Ian lay prone.

  Michelle stood up the hall, eyes narrowed and knees bent for stability. She had armed with another bar tray. “Step away from the surfer dude.”

  Timson cradled her broken wrist against her abdomen. She glared at Michelle with wide eyes, and Keepsie’s heart, which had leapt at the thought that they would get out of this alive, sank. Ice flowed down Timson’s arm to serve as a cast, and she extended the arm again.

  “Bitch, I said step away!” Michelle shifted her left foot, and Timson struck.

  A spear made of ice flowed from her hand and struck Michelle in the shoulder. She cried out and slipped, the spear quivering in her shoulder.

  Keepsie looked at Ian. The ice sealed his eyes shut, but wasn’t blocking his nostrils. He could last a little longer, barring frostbite. Michelle writhed on the floor, groaning.

  Timson advanced on Keepsie. “Give me the drugs, Laura. Or I kill them.” She fashioned two more spears out of ice. Their tips pointed at the ground.

  Keepsie shook her head and backed up. The icy wall made her gasp as she leaned against it.

  “One more chance. You’ve caused enough trouble today, I’m sure you wouldn’t want your friends’ deaths on your hands.”

  Keepsie rummaged in her pocket. Timson paused. Just a moment more. She fumbled for a moment with her right hand, and then popped the pill into her mouth, grimacing as she dry-swallowed it.

  Timson’s eye widened. “No! Those are mine!” She lunged forward, slipping on her own ice and falling. Her ice cast split and she cried out in pain as her wrist fell between her and her body.

  Keepsie’s ears buzzed. Everything seemed to take on a white aura. No, that wasn’t true. Ian glowed. Michelle glowed. Timson didn’t glow. Peter’s hammering on the door continued, and it sounded much louder. Keepsie smiled. She felt good. Confident.

  What is in this?

  Keepsie inched over the ice, and Timson growled from her position on the floor. The doctor frowned and engulfed her own body in flames. Good. That will melt the ice.

  Timson held out her hand and fire shot from it towards Keepsie. It licked around her, feeling like a warm summer day. They soon died away.

  Timson now looked like a statue carved from stone. “No, not now.” She looked at her stony hands, the right one hanging at an odd angle. She clenched them slowly, grimacing.

  A crash sounded from the end of the hall and the walls crumbled. The ceiling fell in and Keepsie shielded her eyes and looked in the direction of the destruction.

  There was another hole in the Academy. Light streamed through—or was that Light of Mornings? She hovered slightly above the rapidly melting floor and gazed at them, her blonde hair floating around her head as if she were underwater. Keepsie knew she should be afraid, but she just couldn’t bring herself to care.

  Timson writhed on the floor, seemingly oblivious to their visitor. “Control, got to control,” she said through stone teeth, and then she gasped, taking in air with a great whoop.

  “Ice. Fire. Stone. I guess she’s going for air,” Keepsie said. She made a mental note to tell Peter it was looking like Timson had Western elemental control.

  Light of Mornings continued to stare at her. She returned the girl’s gaze, interested. The walls dripped as the ice melted from Light of Mornings’s heat. The shaft buried in Michelle’s shoulder melted, as did Ian’s ice mask.

  “Hey, thanks,” Keepsie called to her. Light of Mornings did not acknowledge her, but floated into Timson’s office.

  “Best not to bother her,” Keepsie said, and went to check on Michelle.

  Her friend was unconscious, which was a blessing considering the large wound in her shoulder. As the ice melted, her blood ran freely.

  Keepsie turned then to Ian, whose face was bright red from the ice that had recently melted. It looked like first-degree frostbite, as Keepsie had suffered a spot of frostbite on her ear as a child and remembered it vividly. She patted a non-red portion of his cheek.

  “Ian, hey, Ian. We need to get Michelle out of here. She’s hurt. Well, so are you, but she’s worse, I think. Then again, if neither of you can hear me, then I guess you tie at who’s worse, and we’ll just see which one of you dies first. I suppose I can drag you out one at a time. Hey, maybe Peter can help. Oh, no, wait, the door is sealed shut.”

  Light of Mornings exited the room and frowned at Timson, who still panted on the floor. The girl raised her hand and her young face became ugly, morphing into a scowl that reminded Keepsie of a child about ready to throw a tantrum.

  Timson swelled, and even as the light grew brighter, her form shimmered once, and then she was gone.

  Before Keepsie could act, a wave of light and heat burst from Light of Morning’s hand, focused on where Timson had been. It lifted Keepsie as if it were a warm hand and pushed her gently through the concrete wall, through the dirt and out through a hill about a quarter of a mile away. Her friends landed gently beside her and she looked up at the smoking remains of the Academy and thought what a nice day it was to be attacked by the strongest supervillain there ever was.

  27

  Peter’s shoulder ached from repeated attempts to bust the door down. He had been resting, head in his hands, trying not to breathe the stench of the deceased Librarian too much, and hadn’t noticed Timson’s sealing of the door until it was too late. When he started hearing cries of pain and yelling, he doubled his efforts, but all he got was a sore shoulder and the promise of a major bruise.
<
br />   About a minute before, he noticed that he had begun to glow slightly, which was somewhat alarming, but there was no pain associated with it, so he tried to ignore it. The ice had disallowed any scents to seep through, so he felt entirely blind.

  Then the door had been blown off, and he only managed to throw his arms up to ward himself before it hit him. Only it didn’t hit him; it vaporized.

  The shock wave knocked him into the opposite wall, which vaporized as well. He felt little pain—well, new pain, anyway.

  He didn’t realize he had blacked out until he woke up. He picked himself up out of the rubble. There was no blood or new bruising; he was entirely unharmed. For a guy who bruised when brushing up against a counter, he seemed rather well off.

  He approached the crater that used to be the hallway, sticking his head slightly in and looking up the hall. The gaping hole in the ceiling dribbled fire onto the floor. He didn’t see any of his friends, and Dr. Timson didn’t seem to be anywhere either, unless she’d taken refuge in one of the rooms. Although none of the rooms looked as if they had survived the blast.

  A hole in the wall next to the stairwell led to a crudely—and freshly dug—tunnel. Well, not dug so much as punched out. If this had been from a direct Light of Mornings attack, he assumed Keepsie would be all right, or rather, she wouldn’t be dead, but the others...

  Peter dove into the tunnel. The going was not as easy as he’d assumed it would be, but the glow that came from his skin gave him sufficient illumination. The floor was anything but smooth and his own breath sounded ragged in his ears as he stumbled along.

  He had no plan, which frightened him. If they had come to a stop somewhere in the hill, broken and bleeding in a cave made by their own bodies, there wasn’t much he could do about it except for maybe pull them out one at a time. But he couldn’t leave them there.