Last Playground

by Geoff North

  His eyes remained open but Oscar was swallowed up in darkness.

  ***

  Oscar blinked. He could see again. A surgical lamp above shone light on his face. He turned his head and saw Brinn, Lowe, and Reginald looking down at him. Pipes was standing on the other side. He sat up and saw he was on the same operating table he had found the android woman on.

  “Thought you were a goner there, buddy,” the costumed hero said.

  Reginald’s topmost row of squares flashed green. “He would’ve been if I hadn’t given him a jolt of electricity and sewn that hole back up in his tummy.”

  Oscar inspected the tear in his stomach. It wasn’t so much sewn—more fused shut and scarred over.

  “I couldn’t replace the arm,” Reginald said more gently. “It was damaged beyond even my capabilities to repair.”

  Someone had been kind enough to wrap the elbow stump over with a piece of cloth. He looked at Brinn and she winked back at him.

  Pipes tapped him on the shoulder. “This young lady tells me you’ve traveled all the way here to stop me.”

  “We don’t even know what it is you’re trying to do,” Lowe said. “But yeah, we’re gonna put a stop to it…or die tryin’.”

  Pipes folded his impossibly large arms across his chest and sighed. “You haven’t changed a bit, have you, Angus? You’re as ornery and ill-tempered as you were forty years ago.”

  “I’ve mellowed some.”

  Pipes laughed and started back towards the elevator. “You’re welcome to give it a try, old friend. You’ll fail of course, but you’re welcome to try.” The doors slid open before him. He turned to the others and motioned for them to follow. “Come on upstairs and I’ll show you what I’ve been up to all this time. Maybe you’ll change your minds.”

  Another floor, Oscar thought to himself again. Of course.

  The elevator doors opened on floor five hundred and one. Ahead of them stretched a long black hallway with a single row of fluorescent lights above. Brinn touched one of the walls and let her fingertips trail along it as they went. They were covered with stars and a spattering of distant galaxies. Brinn had seen the wallpaper before. They followed Pipes down the length of it to a single steel door. He punched another code into a keypad and waited.

  “I seldom leave this room anymore. I would’ve stayed earlier if it wasn’t for all the ruckus I heard below.” He shot Oscar a sideways glance.

  There was a beep and a click and the door opened.

  Brinn went first—into the bedroom back in the farmhouse where Neal had lived his short life. It was all here—the posters on the walls, the toy spaceships and model airplanes hanging on strings from the ceiling. There were comics and books shoved into shelves and a little desk pushed up into one corner covered with sheets of paper and coloring pencils.

  Pipes whispered, “His home away from home.”

  They all stared silently at the single small bed in the center of the room. On it lay a boy dressed in blue jeans and a red tee-shirt. His eyes were closed and his chest was still.

  “Who—?” Brinn whispered the question, but in her heart she already had the answer.

  “Neal.” Oscar and Lowe said the name in unison.

  Pipes nodded solemnly. Oscar rested his fingers on the boy’s arm. The skin was neither warm nor cold. The android matched an exact temperature to the air in the room. There was no pulse.

  Brinn felt his other arm, running the tips of her fingers along the soft fuzz on her uncle’s freckled skin. “Is he…is he—”

  “He’s not dead,” Pipes finished for her. “And he isn’t alive either.”

  “I don’t understand,” Oscar said. “I brought his body back to the S.S.I.A. in hopes their science could revive him. All those scientists and doctors…like children without their creator…they said it was too late. They said nothing could be done. How can his body still be in this condition after so many years? There’s been no decomposition—rigor hasn’t even set in.”

  Pipes shrugged his wide shoulders and sat on a worn stool at the head of the bed. “I guess they were right…in a way. When I found out, I came straight here. Most of the Agency had already up and left. I’ve been here with Neal ever since.” He removed one of his gloves and placed a big hand over Neal’s small chest.

  “The S.S.I.A. didn’t disband altogether,” Oscar said. “The few survivors left were murdered by a new agency. An organization from Earth is running things now. That android below was proof.”

  “I can’t be everywhere at once. I have to stay with Neal… I have to make him better.” Pipes rested his head against the fluffy pillow next to the boy’s and shut his eyes.

  The others felt a wave of warm energy wash over them. Reginald rolled up beside the marshal and whispered, “That’s the energy source we’ve been tracking all this time. Pipes is sucking up power from the world and channeling it through Neal’s dead body. He’s trying to jump start him back to life.”

  “He’s not dead,” the hero corrected without lifting his head or opening his eyes.

  “And he isn’t alive,” Lowe added. “You said so yourself.”

  Oscar limped to the bedroom window, noting the poster of Manchine taped up to the wall next to it. The night was already ending. The pale sun hadn’t risen yet but the eastern sky was beginning to glow sickly brown. Neal’s world was dying at an accelerated rate, and Pipes’s attempt to bring the boy back was speeding up the process. “You’ve been trying to revive him for over three decades. As powerful as you are, your efforts will end in failure. Unless you stop and let Brinn help us rebuild this world—and unless you help me put an end to this new threat from Earth—everything will be lost. Everyone will die.”

  “These things take time,” the hero answered in a tired voice.

  Lowe’s hand went to his rifle. “Time’s up, old friend.”

  “I could eat your gun, Angus, and spit out the bullets. Don’t be foolish. Take your friends and the girl away from this place. Just let me be.”

  Brinn shook her head at the marshal and his hand lowered. She went and stood beside Oscar at the window. New Hamden spread out before them—the once gleaming city of glass and steel had been reduced to darkened, crumbling ruins. “Isn’t there anything we can do to make him change his mind? Isn’t there anything else we can say?”

  The android shook his head. “Can you summon any of your creations to match his strength?”

  Brinn thought hard. Although her imagination was powerful, it obviously paled in comparison to that of her uncle’s. Bertha, Paris, and Esme combined couldn’t hope to topple the giant sitting in that chair. She recalled other characters from her past that she used to play with: a pink lion with a missing eye, a yellow canary that could sing and talk. There was Edward, the big St. Bernard dog that could transform into an eight-foot-tall werewolf. She closed her eyes and tried to bring him to her. She stopped after a few seconds, realizing how hopeless it all was. Pipes would tear the shaggy creature to pieces, along with her pink lion and talking canary. She looked back into Oscar’s eyes. “No…I have nothing.”

  “We didn’t come all this way for you to give up at the end.” The android sounded frustrated. For the first time since she’d met him, he appeared angry with her.

  “It’s not like it once was,” Brinn protested. “I can’t summon them as easily.”

  “Why? Because you aren’t a child anymore? That carefree desire to imagine and play may fade as you grow up, but the ability is still there, Brinn. That atom in the center of your brain Gunnarson spoke of hasn’t disappeared. You just don’t want to use it anymore.”

  “That’s not true! I brought Bertha, Paris, and Esme back.”

  “And what good would they be if they were still with us?—No, Brinn. You can do better than that. You have to try harder. You have to come up with something new.”

  Pipes finally opened his eyes and looked at them. “Pfft… She don’t got what it takes. Nobody…no thing can top me. Look at her… She’
s just a girl.”

  Brinn’s face turned red. She could feel the tips of her ears burning. They always felt that way when she got good and mad. Furious-mad.

  “Just a girl, hey?”

  She turned back to the window and focused her rage on the closest skyscraper. It was a three-hundred-story hulk of rusted iron and cracked glass. It started to move. Girders began to twist and take on new form. A thunderous roar sounded as it split up from the bottom in two parts, separating into legs. More metal reformed above, shooting out to the sides into quarter-mile-long arms with fingers made of broken window pane.

  It stepped out into the street towards the S.S.I.A. building with a screaming groan.

  Pipes was now standing between Brinn and Oscar. He winked at the girl. “Now that’s more like it.”

  They made room for the hero as he stepped through the window and leapt into the air.

  Chapter 25

  Brinn watched as Pipes dropped like a stone. He would end up like The Gloom—a big fat splat on the street five thousand feet below. His arms shot out and his legs kicked the air. The tattered cape billowed out and the super-hero started back up.

  Pipes could fly. It figures, Brinn thought.

  And he could fly fast. He shot towards the towering behemoth with blinding speed. The thing’s arm was already raking through the air. It caught Pipes full on, and Brinn watched as the white and black speck of crushed hero hurtled away uncontrollably. His limp form smashed into the ruins of another building half a mile distant.

  “I knew you could do it,” Oscar said. The android didn’t sound happy about it.

  Brinn had defeated the mightiest hero her uncle had ever created with a single blow—a single thought. So why did she feel so bad?

  Marshal Lowe removed his hat and placed it over his chest. “It had to be done. As much as I respected him—as much as I appreciated what he was tryin’ to do… It had to be done.”

  Reginald rolled up between the three and pointed outside. “Uumm…I think you can call your new friend off now, Brinn.”

  The transformed skyscraper was still moving towards them. Its steps shattered the concrete streets below and the tremors shot up through their feet five hundred stories above. Its other arm swung and smashed into the S.S.I.A. building somewhere between the second and three hundredth floor. Brinn stumbled forward and Oscar caught her with his remaining arm before she could topple through the window. “Seriously, Brinn… Make it stop!”

  She closed her eyes and wished it away.

  There was a second explosive collision below and their building lurched further over. Brinn opened her eyes. The thing was kicking away at the S.S.I.A.’s bottom floors.

  She remembered willing Paris out of her life three years earlier. She tried again, harder. The thing smashed away with girder-twisted fists at a section of building not that far below them.

  Brinn looked at the others helplessly. “It’s not working!”

  ***

  A wannasee animal that once may have been a horse sniffed at the human leg even though it didn’t have a nose to smell with. The little black hole at the end of its scarred face made a sucking sound as it breathed in and whistled when it exhaled. It worked its way to the foot and paused. The leg twitched.

  The animal backed away.

  A hand shot out from beneath a drift of crystallized glass. It found the remains of a rusty fire hydrant and the gloved fingers dug in. Pipes lifted his body out of the debris and dusted his suit and cape off. He looked up at the building he’d crashed all the way through. The girl’s imagination packed a mighty wallop.

  The wannasee animal made a high-pitched whistling noise a few feet away. In another time, and in a far better place, it could have almost passed for a whinny.

  “I have an old friend that used to own a horse. Maybe you two should hook up once this mess has been cleaned up.”

  He exploded into the air like a missile towards the S.S.I.A. building.

  Reginald saw the white of his cape first. “He’s coming back!”

  Pipes slammed into the creature’s side, disappearing into the middle of it. The thing paused in its mindless attack and stepped back. The hero burst through the other side and flew up above it, turning in the air for another strike. It saw him and swung out. Pipes was ready for it this time. He dipped beneath the metal arm and circled around it as effortlessly as a fly. He pounded up into what could be called an armpit, severing a series of bent girders that acted like reinforced bone. The giant arm fell away and crashed into the streets below.

  It swung with the remaining arm. Pipes evaded the blow. The creature staggered to one side, the imbalance caused from its missing appendage too great to compensate for. Its own immense weight pulled it to the ground like a felled tree in a forest of steel and concrete.

  Oscar held Brinn and yelled as the S.S.I.A. building shook, “Don’t let it get back up! Concentrate, Brinn—make it stop. We won’t survive a second round if those two keep at it.”

  She didn’t have to do a thing. Through a cloud of rising dust they could see the creature had shattered into an unrecognizable pile of metal, plaster, and glass on the streets below.

  There was an ominous moan from somewhere beneath them as their building settled into place. The floor they stood on now had a decided tilt. Reginald rolled over to the boy on the bed. The movement of the building had shifted him precariously close to the edge. The robot’s arms gently pushed Neal back to the middle of the mattress.

  Pipes flew back in through the window. He regarded Brinn with a respectful nod. “Not bad…not bad at all… Do you have anything else to throw at me?”

  Oscar and Lowe looked to her questioningly.

  She shook her head. “What’s the point? We could go on like this all day. I could probably create bigger creatures, more powerful monsters. But they wouldn’t be able to defeat you. And even if they did, the city would be destroyed and everyone here would be killed in the process.”

  “Smart girl.” Pipes went back to Neal and put the overturned stool back into place at the head of the bed. The wooden legs creaked as he settled onto it and rested his head against the pillow. His hand covered the boy’s chest and the eternal vigil resumed.

  Brinn watched the still form of her dead uncle, hoping that some miracle would take place before her eyes—that his chest would begin to steadily rise and fall. After a minute of strained silence she gave up.

  “I want you three to help me find Selma and the others,” Brinn finally said. “Then I want to go home. I can’t save Uncle Neal’s world any more than Pipes can…and I don’t have the heart to watch this any longer.”

  Pipes didn’t even bother to lift his head as the four headed back through the steel door. The last thing Oscar saw as it started to swing shut was the hand resting on Neal’s still chest, covering the small boy’s heart. What had Brinn just said?

  She didn’t have the heart.

  The android’s hand shot out before the door could seal completely. “Heart! The mechanical woman was after my heart! It all makes sense now—all of it!”

  The door continued to close. Oscar jammed one foot into the crack and pulled with his remaining hand. There was a deep groan of straining metal as the door was forced back open. Reginald’s writhing fingers took hold as well and helped Oscar pull it all the way.

  “What are you talking about?” Brinn asked as she followed Oscar back to the bed.

  “I was always led to believe my brain was the only human part of me. I know that isn’t true now. There are no physical human parts in my body. I was Neal’s last creation—the final safeguard before he eventually grew up.”

  Lowe shook his head in confusion. “Your innards must have been more damaged than we thought. You ain’t makin’ a lick of sense. Neal never had the chance to grow up.”

  “It makes perfect sense.” Oscar took hold of Brinn’s arm. “How old were you when you stopped seeing your imaginary friends? Before all of this—when was the last time you visite
d with Bertha, Paris, and Esme?”

  “Not long after Mom died, when I started my first job and went into junior high.”

  “When you started to grow up—when life started to get too real and too hard.”

  “Your teenage years,” Reginald offered with an all yellow glow.

  Brinn shook her head. “So what? I already knew that.”

  Oscar went to the bed and looked down upon Neal with the greatest reverence. Pipes lifted his head and cocked an eyebrow up at the android. Oscar removed the super-hero’s hand from the boy’s chest and rested his own there. “And so did Neal. You said it yourself, Brinn. Even though I’m not real, you saw more of this little boy in me than all the others. Maybe he knew he would outgrow his imaginary friends some day. Maybe he was already preparing for a time in his life when the games would have to end.”

  “Like a child packing his favorite toys away in a box for safekeeping,” Reginald added.

  Lowe nodded slowly. “And Oscar’s the box.”

  “There’s something inside of me that is Neal—it’s been there all this time.”

  Reginald did another excited three-sixty. “His essence! There is a little bit of Neal in all of us—his dreams, his imagination—but you carry so much more!”

  “It’s what the android woman was after,” Oscar said. “I’m the power source that new Agency was after. Gunnarson’s theory of Endless Expansion and Contraction—that special atom—maybe it was transferrable. Maybe Neal placed it inside of me.”

  Lowe grimaced and shook his head. “That don’t figure. The kid wasn’t aware of what made him tick.”

  Reginald had begun to blink a series of different colors. “Perhaps that self-knowledge wasn’t necessary, Marshal. All humans—all creatures—fight to survive. It’s ingrained into them from the moment they are born until the final moment when they die. Perhaps in Neal’s final moments, his instincts kicked in and found a way.”