Connie started throwing clothes on the floor. “What would you have me do? Just leave Byron to Lady Peril’s mercies?”
“No, but this isn’t the way to save him.”
Connie found both her black and camouflage ninja suits. She decided to pack both for good measure.
“Will you stop and think about this for a minute?” asked Tia.
Connie went to the bathroom and found the plastic explosives left over from a previous adventure that she’d stored under the sink. “Can you do me a favor and check the kitchen for detonators? There might be one or two in the junk drawer. And I think there’s a pen that shoots poison darts in there too. That might be useful.”
Tia found one detonator and a whole bunch of pens. She grabbed the detonator and a handful of pens and returned. She threw the pens on the bed, and Connie sorted through them, clicking them one by one. Most were just pens, although one did start beeping until she clicked it again. She stuffed that one in her pocket and held out her hand for the detonator.
Tia folded her arms tightly, tucking the detonator under her armpit. “Not until we talk about this.”
“What’s there to talk about?” asked Connie. “He’s my boyfriend. Or he was. I don’t know really. But he’s only in this mess because of me. I knew this relationship was a bad idea. I thought I could make it work. I really did. But he’s right. We really are from two different worlds. But I’ll be damned if anything happens to him because of me.”
“It’s not always about you.”
Connie said, “If he’d never met me, he’d probably be married by now with a couple of kids, living in the suburbs with a pretty wife, living a normal life.”
“You’ve only been together a little over a year.”
“You know what I mean. He doesn’t deserve to get caught in the crossfire.”
“Absolutely, but you don’t have to do this on your own,” said Tia. “Call Agent Ellington. Call some friends of yours. Call somebody.”
“No, I need to do this on my own.”
“Damn it, Connie. This isn’t about your ego.”
“No, it isn’t. It’s about Byron. And Lady Peril’s plan to use him against me. She doesn’t care about him. She wants to lure me into a trap. So, I’m going to oblige her and hope like hell that it’s enough to get her to release him.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. If she wanted you, she could’ve just taken you. Why bother with Byron?”
“Because she’s an evil genius. They love overly complicated plans, and she blames me for Larry’s death, so this is her way of making me suffer. It’s not enough to just kill me.”
“That doesn’t sound like her.”
“She’s lost her son. Grief makes people do funny things.”
“She didn’t even like Larry, and she’s a sinister mastermind,” said Tia. “Have you considered perhaps she has a hidden agenda?”
“Of course she does,” said Connie, “but that doesn’t change anything. Can you check the hall closet for my night-vision goggles?”
Tia stepped between Connie and her suitcase.
“You’re doing it again. You can’t run off half-cocked anymore. The spell is failing.”
“So, that’s all I am?” Connie glowered. “Just some dancing puppet? And now that it’s fading, I’m supposed to give up?”
“No, but it’s not unreasonable to take some time to think about it. I’ve been in Byron’s shoes a hundred times before. Getting kidnapped by an evil genius isn’t fun, but most of them are civil enough about it. Most of them even have pleasant prisoner facilities. There was this hidden base under New Orleans that served the best crab bisque, and once when I was abducted by aliens, there was a six-armed masseuse who was a miracle worker. I’m not saying getting used as bait is a spa day, but in my experience—”
“Experience doesn’t count anymore,” said Connie. “You said it yourself.”
“Which is why we need to be smart about this,” said Tia.
“We?”
“I am your sidekick. If you insist on doing this, then I’m coming with you.”
“Tia, this is dangerous.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying, but it’s always dangerous. If you want to do something stupid, I can’t stop you. But I like Byron. And if you’re going to rescue him, you’ll need all the help you can get.”
“Things are different now,” said Connie.
“Exactly, which means you’ll need more help than ever.” Tia stepped aside. “You finish packing. I’ll grab my suitcase from the car.”
“You have a suitcase ready?”
“I always have a suitcase ready,” said Tia. “I’m a very good sidekick.”
“Yes, you are.”
Connie jabbed Tia in the chest. Tia stiffened, and Connie caught her before she hit the floor. Connie lay Tia on the bed.
“What did you do?” mumbled Tia, unable to move anything but her mouth and eyes and barely either of those.
“I can’t be responsible for Byron and you.” Connie tossed four pairs of spare underwear into her suitcase and zipped it up. “You’ll be fine in about an hour. You might crap yourself. I apologize for that.”
“You aren’t getting rid of me that easily,” said Tia. “I’ll come after you.”
“Good luck with that.”
Connie saluted and left the room. Tia heard the front door open and close. She lay on the bed, grumbling curses. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Connie would’ve known some secret technique to kickstart her voluntary nervous system, but Tia could only concentrate on fingers, trying to get them to wiggle. She managed to get her pinkie to move. Then her entire right hand. Then her toes. A tingle ran through her extremities, like her whole body was recognizing itself. She tried sitting up but could only manage a flop.
The front door opened again, and Connie returned.
“I’m glad you came to your senses,” said Tia, able to speak mostly normally aside from a slight slur.
“I’m impressed,” said Connie. “It takes the monks months to get to that level to shake off the paralyzing touch. But you always were determined.”
Connie jabbed Tia in her chest and followed it up with a pinch to her lower back. This time, Tia went rigid as a board.
“What the hell?” asked Tia. Or she tried to ask. Her mouth barely moved, and all that came out was a hiss.
Connie carried Tia to a closet. She threw aside all the clothes and adventurer knickknacks and propped Tia inside.
“Sorry, but I realized that while the odds of you actually being able to follow me are small, you might be stubborn enough to figure it out. Don’t be mad.”
Tia’s right eyebrow bent in a manner not dissimilar to a scowl.
“Okay, so be mad,” said Connie, “but just know that, whatever happens, I love you and I’m only doing this for your own good.”
“Stupid,” hissed Tia faintly.
Connie turned on the closet light and shut the door. She shoved a dresser and her bed in front of the door.
“Excuse me,” said Doctor Malady from behind her.
Instinctively, she unleashed a kick that Automatica caught in a metal hand.
“Terribly sorry if we startled you,” said Malady. “We knocked, but you must’ve not heard us while you were moving things.”
Automatica released Connie’s foot. “The front door was open.”
“Doctor, I don’t have time to talk,” said Connie.
“Yes, yes, I understand,” said Malady. “I thought you might like this, though.” He handed her a printed map. “I was able to track the graviton emissions from that aircraft, and I assumed you might be interested.”
She folded the map. “Doc, you’ve saved me a lot of trouble. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. If you’d like, I could have Automatica accompany you on your rescue mission. She’s grown quite fond of Byron.”
“Harm to Byron would lower my happiness index to unfavorable levels,” said Automatica.
Connie considered the offer, but Automatica, while significantly more powerful than Tia, was still someone else to be responsible for.
“I work best alone,” she said, glancing at the closet.
“As you wish.”
“One last thing, Doc. If Tia hasn’t found her way out of that closet in five hours, I’ll need you to come back in and let her out.”
“It would be our pleasure, Constance. One thing I feel obliged to mention: I had the technology to track that aircraft across the world, but it wasn’t difficult. It wasn’t hiding. This is very likely a trap. Do be careful.”
She grunted in a way that was neither agreement nor disagreement and walked out the door.
26
Within half an hour, Tia could move a little bit. Her rigid body slumped in the closet as she grumbled.
Within another twenty minutes, she could finally call for help. She shouted and, while she couldn’t stand, she could kick the door with her left foot. Not so much a kick as a harsh nudge.
“Hey, I’m in here!” she yelled. Not very loud, but she had to try.
“Please do avoid harming yourself through overexertion,” said Automatica from the other side of the door.
“Oh, thank god. Please let me out of here.”
When Automatica didn’t respond, Tia repeated herself louder.
“Yes, I’m afraid we heard you the first time,” said Doctor Malady’s voice. “I’m also afraid we can’t do that.”
“The hell you can’t,” said Tia. “Connie needs me.”
“Connie made us promise to not let you out just yet,” said Malady apologetically.
Tia kicked the door, hard this time. “You’re a supervillain! You don’t have to keep your promises!”
“Reformed supervillain,” replied Malady. “Mostly. And I’m sure that Constance knows what she’s doing. She always does.”
Tia managed to get her legs working enough that she could stand, though her balance failed her, and she needed to lean against the door. She punched it with limp fists. “If you don’t let me out—”
“You’re upset,” said Malady. “It’s understandable. We’ll come back in a few hours to let you out.”
“Please do not attempt to break out,” said Automatica. “I am putting several more items of furniture in place to impede any escape attempts.”
Tia heard Automatica barricade the door with what sounded like the couch and maybe the refrigerator. Tia shouted and hit the door and cursed for three minutes with nothing to show for it but bruised knuckles.
“Damn it, Connie.”
She sat and felt the lump in her pocket, her cell phone, still awkwardly shaped with the doohickey Bonita had left on it. She punched in Hiro’s number.
It went to message.
“Goddamn it, Hiro, pick up your fucking phone.”
She dialed again. It went to message again.
“Hiro, I’m trapped in Connie’s closet, and I need you to come and get me. Now.”
She hung up, then dialed again, leaving another message.
“And, no, this isn’t a trick to get you to Connie’s place so that she can kill you. I swear.”
She hung up, dialed again.
“Forget I said anything about tricking you. Just come over here.” She stared at the cell and sighed. “Okay, never mind. I know you’re not coming. You’re not going to even answer. Maybe you were in such a hurry, you left your phone behind. Maybe you’re just a wimp. I’ll just call the police. Thanks for nothing.”
She didn’t call the cops. They could let her out of the closet, but she’d never catch up with Connie. She didn’t have the resources or skills.
She tried stuffing the cell back into her pocket, but the stupid alien doohickey got in the way. She dropped it on the floor beside her with a frustrated moan.
“Some sidekick.”
Tia glowered at the useless device. Connie would’ve known a dozen numbers that could solve this problem. Tia couldn’t even get her ninja boyfriend to call her back, and she was stuck with a stupid phone that didn’t even fit comfortably in her pocket because of stupid useless alien technology.
It struck her then.
She picked up the phone and glanced through her call history until she found a long, long number that wasn’t in her contacts. It had to be the number Bonita had used to teleport, but where had she gone, and would it still work? Bonita was an alien cockroach who understood the situation. She might be able to do something, but there was no guarantee she would be wherever Tia ended up. The universe was a big place, and she might end up somewhere hostile to human life, maybe in the cold void of space, maybe just trapped on an indifferent world across the galaxy.
If she’d been Connie, she’d have rolled the dice and assumed she could handle whatever happened.
She wasn’t Connie.
There was some irony to that. Connie’s impetuous nature was her greatest enemy right now. Tia was the sensible one, the one who kept her head down, the one who lent a hand now and then but left all the dangerous work to Connie. And that was a smart thing to do. Usually.
There was no caretaker mantle on Tia. The universe didn’t offer her forgiving odds. The universe’s concern for her mattered only so much as it might help draw Connie into adventures.
She didn’t exist to rescue Connie. Help out now and then, sure, but the sensible thing was to trust Connie and the universe to sort it out. It always did.
She’d been in this situation so many times before. Helpless. Sitting in a locked closet, metaphorically and, often, literally, waiting for Connie. But Tia wasn’t the hostage anymore. She was the sidekick. It was one step below the hero, and she couldn’t save the day, but she could save the hero who saved the day. Or she could die on the other side of the galaxy on a strange alien world. It was a toss-up.
“Screw it.”
Tia hit the call button and was beamed across the stars. It didn’t hurt and was so fast, she didn’t realize it until it was over. It did screw with her balance, though, and she fell flat on her face. She rolled to one side and peered out a window at a sprawling alien cityscape of swirling arches and impossibly tall towers and floating buildings. If she’d typed ALIEN CITY into a search engine, she couldn’t have been directed to a more perfect, generic picture.
She couldn’t breathe, and her eyes, nose, and throat burned with the harsh, caustic air. Everything turned black as something or someone lifted her off the cold floor.
• • •
A whoosh of cold air hit Tia in the face, and she drew in a deep gulp of oxygen. It had a tangy sourness to it, like sucking on an intangible lemon drop, but her eyes stopped watering. She wiped away her tears, waiting for her vision to clear and to catch her breath.
An insectoid hand with a glass of brackish liquid appeared before her. The hand led to a long insectoid arm connected to a tall insectoid figure. The figure’s mandibles snapped open and shut as it said something in its strange language, except it wasn’t that strange. She sort of recognized it.
The alien repeated itself. This time, she caught a little bit of Mandarin.
“English,” said Tia. “I speak English.”
“Ah, English,” said the alien. “I can work with that.”
“Was that Swahili before?”
“Yes. Do you know it?”
“My dad made me study, but I didn’t get far.”
“Then English it is.”
“You speak Earth English?”
“I speak over seven million languages. English isn’t my best. I can sometimes use the wrong pancake, but I get by. Also, you don’t have to say Earth English. You can just call it English.”
The alien twitched his antennae and held forth the glass. “Drink this. It’ll help you acclimate.”
Tia took the glass. The brackish fluid reminded her of dirty dishwater. She steeled herself and drank half in one gulp. It didn’t taste great, but she could keep it down.
The room was a small space without decoration. There wa
s a window on one side that showed the alien cityscape, and Tia deliberately avoided looking out it to avoid distraction. She’d been in outer space before. Not nearly as many times as Connie, but enough that she could stay on track.
The tall insectoid wore a brown tunic and nothing else. His bright red carapace and brilliant green eyes were beautiful. Some might have found the bug face disconcerting, but Tia had never had a problem with bugs.
“I’m Amzak,” said the tall insect. “And who might you be, and why did you beam through my personal matter transporter?”
“Tia.” She gulped down the second half of the drink. “It’s about Connie.”
“I see,” said Amzak. “And who is that?”
27
Tia was certain she’d screwed up. She’d beamed herself across the galaxy and ended up in the wrong place. She was in a worse position to save Connie from herself than before.
The room she was in now was a universal guest room with adjustable settings for any unique environmental needs that a visitor might need. Amzak adjusted the oxygen generators and gravity inhibitors. He pushed a button to generate a chair from somewhere for Tia to sit.
“You don’t know who Connie is?” she asked.
“Should I? I’m sorry. I don’t know many humans. Or any. Except you.”
“But you speak Earth . . . You speak English.”
“My species picks up language easily.” Amzak fluttered the small wings on his back in the manner of a shrug. “Most of us learn them as a hobby.”
“I don’t get it,” said Tia. “This was the number Bonita called.”
Amzak summoned his own chair, a tall stool, and sat. “And who is that?”
“She’s like you, an alien. I mean, not an alien here, I guess.”
“We’re all aliens in this universe, in one way or another,” said Amzak. “Wait. When you speak of this friend of yours, Connie, she wouldn’t be related to the Legendary Snurkab, would she?”
“Yes, the Legendary Snurkab!” exclaimed Tia, louder than she intended.
Amzak twitched. His antennae flattened.
“Sorry,” said Tia. “You’ve heard of her. Of course you’ve heard of her.”
Constance Verity Saves the World Page 22