Hiro shook his head. “Why? Just because she saves the day all the time? Just because I’m a thief? She’s still human, even if she likes to ignore that fact now and then. But heaven forbid our little Connie ever take a moment to acknowledge her own failings. Oh, no, she’s too busy keeping the universe from exploding, too busy being little miss amazing to ever reflect on her own mistakes.”
He guzzled his beer and burped.
“You can’t put her on a pedestal, Byron. That’s no way to build a relationship.”
“I don’t do that.” Byron considered it for a moment. “Do I?”
“How could you not? She’s like Batman and Wonder Woman and MacGyver and a grown-up Nancy Drew who also knows karate and how to fly spaceships. And you’re, my god, man, you’re an accountant. Sorry to keep hitting that, but it’s hard to get over.”
“You’re not really helping.”
“Sorry. Sorry.”
“How did Connie betray you?” asked Byron.
“How do you think? The same way she’s acting with you. She always checked out emotionally long before my own betrayals.”
“Didn’t you leave her trapped in a death labyrinth twice?”
“Only once.” Hiro waved his hand. “Oh, wait, wait. Does she call the Temple of Airmid a death labyrinth? It had maybe four or five decent booby traps at best. But that’s just like Connie. Always pointing the finger at somebody else when it comes to relationship problems. And can you honestly say which is worse, emotional dishonesty or a spring-loaded guillotine?”
“The guillotine is worse,” said Byron.
“Is it, though?”
“Yes, it is.”
“But is it, though?” asked Hiro, leaving the question to hang in the air with all its uncertainty.
“Yes, it is,” said Byron.
Hiro put his chin on his chest and chewed on his lip.
“Is it—”
“It’s much worse,” interrupted Byron.
“Forget the guillotine,” said Hiro. “Forget the booby traps and the betrayals, justified or not. I like you, Byron, but if you want my honest opinion—”
“I don’t think I want that anymore.”
“If you want my honest opinion,” continued Hiro, “then it isn’t going to work between you. It’s not your fault. You’re a good guy, and it’s obvious you care about Connie, and she cares about you. But at the end of the day, she’s used to adventure, and, buddy, I know I’m not the guy to break this to you, but you aren’t adventurous.”
“She says that’s one of the things she likes about me.”
“You’re a novelty. Once that wears off, what are you left with? What do you have in common? In another year, if she’s still around, if you’re both still trying your damnedest to make it work, and you’re staring at each other across the dinner table, trying to feign a conversation, you’ll realize that she’s Connie. And you’re an accountant.”
Every counterpoint running through Byron’s head came up hollow.
“Ah, shit,” said Hiro. “I know that’s harsh. But Connie isn’t meant to have what you have to offer. My advice is just relax and enjoy the ride. There’s an ancient ninja parable about a guy in a sinking boat surrounded by sharks. I don’t remember it, but it fits your situation, I think. Are you going to eat that?”
He reached for Byron’s burger, but Byron snatched it off the table. He wasn’t hungry, but guys like Hiro, smooth and good-looking and confident, just thought they could have everything.
Byron could never be a guy like that. He could never be the guy Connie needed.
But he’d be damned if he let Hiro have this.
The burger had pickles.
He didn’t like pickles.
“Something wrong, buddy?” asked Hiro.
Grumbling, Byron took another bite.
22
Decades before, Lake Lake Monster had been nothing more than an unremarkable body of water, just picturesque enough to encourage real estate developers to make it into a campground, complete with prefabricated log cabins and carefully calculated folksy-themed restaurants and shops.
Connie’s family had vacationed there then, and by the end of the week, she had foiled a plot to drive down the property value by scaring away visitors with a mechanical lake creature. At the time, it’d made sense, though later, she would wonder why anyone capable of building a functional sea monster robot would waste time on real estate scams.
The lake was uncreatively renamed and turned into a different sort of tourist trap. The monster robot was repurposed, performing two shows a day, three on Saturdays. She hadn’t kept up with the place over the years, but she was disappointed to see it financially floundering now.
The Lake Lake Monster lake monster’s head sat in a display case in the cabin rental office. It was a ghastly thing, a metal skull with a few bits of plastic flesh clinging to it. Its once-terrifying glowing crimson eyes, now just two lifeless orbs. Its jaw hung open, leaning to one side, like it was aghast with embarrassment to be seen this way.
The clerk caught Connie and Tia studying the artifact.
“You can touch it for ten bucks,” he said. “We aren’t supposed to allow that, but I won’t tell if you don’t.”
“Thanks. We’re good.” Connie lowered her head on the off chance he might recognize the girl in the yellowing photographs as her. “Where’s the rest of it?”
He sucked on a lollipop, flipping through a muscle car magazine. “I think it’s out back somewhere, under a tarp. They tell me it broke down beyond repair ten years ago. Tried to keep the show going, but nobody was interested in a lake monster that could only swim in irregular circles.”
“Shame. It was impressive,” she said.
“That’s what they say.” He glanced up from his magazine, at Connie, at the photos in the case. He chewed on his lollipop and grunted. “So, do you want a cabin?”
“I might have a reservation.”
“Well, I might be able to check that for you.” He pushed the magazine aside and typed on the old keyboard. He had to smack the aging computer a couple of times to get it to turn on. “Name?”
“Constance Verity.”
“Sounds familiar. Are you famous or something?”
“Or something,” said Connie.
The green screen went black. He jammed a few keys persistently with his fingers and shook the monitor.
“Why would Larry come here?” asked Tia. “This place is a shithole.”
The clerk paused in his battle with the computer.
“No offense,” added Tia.
“None taken, miss. It isn’t the Ritz, but the lake is nice, even without the monster show. Got some decent fishing.”
He resumed his struggle.
Connie pointed to one of the photos. A familiar boy stood to one side.
“Is that Larry?” asked Tia.
Connie nodded. “Helped me catch a fake monster. Didn’t have anything to do with Lady Peril. Just happened to be staying here at the same time.” She held up the lake-monster magnet. “It was a clue only I’d figure out.”
A portly older woman poked her head from the other room. “Just check the manual system.” She paused on Connie’s face. “You look familiar.”
“I have one of those faces,” said Connie.
The clerk grumbled as he reached under the desk and deposited a ledger with a heavy thunk. “Why the hell do we even have a computer if we have a manual system?”
“The march of progress?” said Tia.
He glared at her attempt at humor, ran his finger down the page.
“Here it is. Verity, Constance. Must be why I remembered your name.”
“Must be,” said Connie.
“Some of your party has already arrived.”
He handed her a key and directed her to Cabin Six with a working fireplace and a good view of the water. Connie and Tia followed the trail.
In the light of day, Lake Lake Monster had its charms. The cabins themselves were fa
lling apart. The picnic tables were all broken, and even Connie would’ve feared for her life using any of the rusted grills scattered throughout. But the woods themselves were lovely, and the afternoon sun reflected off the water in a cascade of shimmering blues.
“Is this a trap?” asked Tia. “Should we be on guard?”
“Why would you think that?” replied Connie. “Am I acting like it’s a trap?”
“Waiting for you to act nervous is a waste of time.”
“No, I don’t think it’s a trap.”
“You don’t think?”
They stepped onto the cabin’s porch, and Connie knocked on the door. “I’ve been wrong before.”
Tia stepped behind Connie as the door opened, but it was only Larry.
“That was faster than expected,” he said. “I wasn’t sure you’d remember.”
“I remembered.” She tossed him the lake-monster magnet. “Are you going to invite us in?”
He moved aside and gestured toward the sofa. “Please.”
The cabin’s interior was tastefully decorated in generic outdoorsy kitsch. Paintings of wilderness scenes decorated the walls. A stuffed deer head hung over the fireplace. A threadbare imitation bearskin rug and assembly-line “handmade” furniture rounded out the look. The place smelled faintly of mold and pot. Lots and lots of pot, infused throughout, a ghost of the general clientele.
“Can I get you anything?” he asked. “I’ve got some beers and stuff for sandwiches.”
“You can tell us what’s going on.” Tia sat on the lumpy sofa, having to shift to find a spot with support that didn’t have pointy springs poking her in the ass. “Why’d you leave?”
“It’s complicated. Are you sure I can’t get you anything?”
Connie went to the window and parted the curtain slightly. “Just answers, Larry.”
He sat in a creaky rocking chair. “You weren’t followed, were you?”
“I don’t think so,” said Connie.
“You don’t think so? You don’t know?”
She shut the soiled curtain. “If it was a successful tail, we wouldn’t know, would we? But I’m fairly positive we weren’t.”
He leaned back in the poorly balanced chair, and it nearly toppled over. “Ah, screw it. Not like it matters. Not like any of it matters. I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. Who the hell am I? Larry Peril, mastermind. It’s a fucking joke.”
“Where’s this coming from?” asked Tia. “You seemed okay last time we saw you.”
“I was faking it. I do that a lot. Mom taught me. Put up a brave front. That’s what she always said. Actually, what she’d always say was ‘You’re a bitter disappointment to me, Larry, so please shut up and stay out of the way.’ ”
“She was a supervillain,” said Connie.
“Yeah, well, she was still my mom, and she did the best job she could with me. Couldn’t have been easy for her, but she tried. And all I ever did was let her down.”
“You let her down because you’re a good person,” said Tia.
“No, I let her down because I wasn’t any good at being an evil genius. Never had any aptitude for it. I’m not a commanding presence, a logistical genius, a master manipulator. I never was. Lord knows I tried. I really did. But I wasn’t cut out for it.”
“Why here, Larry?” asked Connie. “There were plenty of places from our past that you could’ve picked. Places nicer than this.”
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because it was where we first met. Thought it might be more memorable.”
“That’s not why,” she said.
“You always did know me better than almost everyone. Even after all these years.” He smiled. “I’ve been thinking about it, and the best times of my life were with you, Connie. Stupid, I know. They probably didn’t mean the same thing to you. Why would they? You’re always off doing amazing stuff, meeting amazing people. The only thing special about me is Mom. I’ve always been in her shadow. Admit it. If I wasn’t Larry Peril, you’d probably not even remember my name.”
He scraped paint off the armrest with his fingernail.
“When Mom died, if she died, I wasn’t interested in taking her place. Then I thought I might be able to do some good. And have an excuse to see you again.”
He looked away, blushing.
“You could’ve just called.”
“I know, but I thought if you saw me doing something extraordinary . . .” He glanced at Tia. “Never mind what I thought.”
“Hey, I saw some cool knickknacks at the gift shop,” said Tia. “I’ll just pop out and take another look.”
“Yeah, you do that,” said Connie.
Tia grabbed a beer and headed out, and Connie had a seat across from Larry.
“I’m flattered, Larry, but I’m in a relationship.”
“I know. I knew before I contacted you. I’m not a great mastermind, but I did some checking. This Byron guy, he’s nothing special. And I thought if you could go for a guy like that, maybe you could go for me.”
“Byron is special,” she said. “He’s a good guy.”
“I’m a good guy.”
“Larry—”
“It’s not that crazy. We have a history, at least.”
“Larry—”
He jumped out of his chair and poked the logs in the fireplace, even though there was no fire. “And how long do you think you’ll be able to juggle your relationship and your adventures? He’s bound to get sick of it sooner or later.”
“Don’t make this about Byron. Or me. It’s about you. Are you seriously nursing a twenty-year-old crush? We were just kids.”
“Oh, god. It’s pathetic, isn’t it? I’m pathetic.”
“I never said that.”
“But it is.” He kicked a log and cursed as he bruised his toe. “Shit, it sounds so fucking stupid when I say it out loud. Putting my life at risk to impress some old flame. I can hear Mom now. Nice job, Larry. You have the resources and power to do anything, and you chose to woo my greatest foe.”
“I wasn’t her greatest foe,” said Connie.
“You were up there. She really hated you, but she respected you. She never respected me.” He limped over to the couch and sat beside her. “I’m a joke. And not even a funny one.”
She considered her next move carefully, as if defusing a bomb. She put her hand on his shoulder.
“Larry, you were raised by a supervillain. That comes with some baggage. Not becoming a megalomaniacal madman is a triumph in itself.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No, I mean it. You can say it was lack of aptitude, but there’s more to that. I’ve run across plenty of lousy masterminds. There was this one guy who wanted to crash the moon into the Earth. And when I asked him how he planned on achieving world domination like that, he had to finally admit he didn’t know. It was just the first thing that came to his mind when his scientists invented a gravity ray.”
He laughed. “That’s pretty stupid.”
“Or this other idiot. He wanted to melt the polar ice caps, but his secret base was built right on the coast. We’re ankle-deep in water, and he’s screaming at his engineers about waterproofing.”
They chuckled.
“You can claim it’s a lack of aptitude, but you had the resources and background for it. You didn’t take it up, and that’s a good thing. It says you’re a good guy.”
“Yeah. Maybe.” Larry took her hand. “Connie, if things had been different, do you think we could’ve been something?”
“We were kids,” she said. “When does that ever work out? But who knows? If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that anything’s possible.”
She couldn’t decide if that was true or not, but it didn’t matter. She said it to make him feel better.
“What are you going to do now?” she asked.
“I don’t know. What do you think I should do?”
“Oh, no. You don’t want to take life advice from me. We can head back to
Siege Perilous and continue what you started. Or I can walk away, and you can stay hidden. It’s your call.”
He lay back, put his feet on the coffee table. “If I go back, I’m destroying my mother’s legacy. If I walk away, I’m leaving it in the hands of nefarious individuals who will use it for evil.”
“That doesn’t have to be your problem.”
“But it is. Doing nothing is the same as allowing it to happen.” He covered his face with his hands. “I guess the only way to get out of her shadow is to follow it through. Funny thing, I can’t shake the feeling that this is all part of some master plan, that she faked her death and I’m playing right into her hands. I don’t know how dismantling Siege would do that, but I never could predict her plans.”
“She was one of the best,” admitted Connie. “And one of the worst.”
“But you always managed to stop her,” said Larry with a smile. “It’s why I called you. Well, one of the reasons.”
“I’ve got your back, Larry.”
He went to pack, and she walked out on the porch, where Tia was standing by the lake, waiting for the conversation to end.
“How’d it go?” Tia asked.
“Good. We’re taking him back.”
“Cool, but that wasn’t what I was asking.”
Connie grabbed a stone and sent it skipping across the water. “We straightened it out.”
“That’s good.” Tia threw a stone of her own. It landed in the lake with a loud plunk.
“You can say I told you so,” said Connie, “about Larry.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Tia.
Connie threw another stone. This one bounced across the water to land on the other side of the lake.
Tia managed to get a single skip out of her next toss. “You don’t have to be great at everything.”
“It’s all in the wrist,” replied Connie.
Tia said, “Poor guy. Guess having an evil genius for a mom can really screw with your head. But I suppose we all have to deal with our parents’ efforts one way or another. I’m still waging a brussels-sprout war with mine from when I was five. Every Thanksgiving, there’s a big plate of them and an expectant look from my mother. And every year, we have the same stupid argument about it.”
Constance Verity Saves the World Page 19