by James Maxey
The burning in my lungs gave way to a far more acute burning on my left leg. I looked down and slapped the flames smoldering there. The stench of my burnt fur churned my stomach.
I heard a voice overhead. “That was a warning shot, Harry. Don’t make me hurt you.”
I knew the voice. John Naiche. I looked up and saw his ketchup-red armor glinting in the runway lights. His hands were wreathed in balls of roiling, white hot plasma.
“Goddammit,” I mumbled. This was the last guy on earth I wanted to fight, because he was my friend and also because he could kick my ass. But, I’d gotten too far into this escape to give up now. I rose on wobbling legs, clenching my fists.
“You want to hear me out?” I asked.
“What could you possibly say to justify everything you’ve done tonight?” he asked, his eyes glowing bright red as he scowled at me.
I managed a brave grin. “Should have known I couldn’t make this getaway without the ever popular hero versus hero punch out. Make your move, Atomahawk.”
Chapter Four
the new policy on cussing
ATOMAHAWK CAN FLY, melt steel by staring at it, tear a battleship apart with his plasma blasts, or hold that same ship over his head with his nuclear powered impenetrable armor. My superpowers are punching things and typing text messages with my toes. This would be a short fight. As you can imagine, I was relieved when Atomahawk unclenched his fists and allowed the plasma surrounding them to dissipate. He continued to hang in the air as he looked at me with something approaching pity.
“I don’t want to use force,” he said. “Golden Victory says this isn’t your fault. He says the reboot drug damaged your brain. But I can’t let you run around like some kind of wild… um…”
“Animal,” I said. “I’m not offended. Not by that. But calling me brain damaged stings.”
“Think about it,” he said. “When you took the reboot drug that caused your body to grow so swiftly, it also made your brain grow larger. Is it that hard to believe that some of the wiring got screwed up in the process?”
“John,” I said, “they killed Val. I’m not screwed up. The situation is.”
“I’m sorry to hear about Cut Up Girl’s death,” said Atomahawk. “They tell me you’re a suspect in the murder. I don’t want to believe it. But, if it’s not true, why are you running?”
“I think someone in the Legion wants me dead,” I said. “They don’t like that Val and I spilled the beans on the Butterfly House.”
Atomahawk rolled his eyes. “If you believed Cut Up Girl’s crazy story about the Butterfly House, you obviously can’t tell reality from fantasy anymore. I mean, she put me in her book, telling things about my so-called history that I can easily prove are lies.”
The reality was, Atomahawk was the one living the fantasy. He went through training at the Butterfly House side by side with me and Val. But while Val and I escaped, John stayed behind and went through the final step of graduation—a telepathically guided rewrite of his memories to erase all knowledge of the Butterfly House and replace his true history with a false origin story that motivated him to use his powers for good.
“John, doesn’t anything about Val’s story feel right to you?” I asked. “Don’t you wonder why you and I had such an immediate connection when I joined the Lawful Legion? We’ve known each other a long time, dude.”
“I felt a connection because you were funny and brave as Sock Monkey,” said Atomahawk. “But since you became Big Ape… there’s something scary about you, Harry.”
Off in the distance, I heard sirens. There were probably a thousand cops closing in while we argued. From the corner of my eye, I saw Reverend Rifle stirring, lifting his head, looking glassy-eyed.
“John, I’m still your friend,” I said. “I’m asking you to trust that friendship. Let us get on that plane and get out of here. I need to get someplace where no one is trying to kill or capture me, someplace where I can stop and think things through. I know your secret identity. I have your number. I’ll call you every single day to keep you up to date on what I find out about who’s behind Val’s murder.”
I’ll never know if he gave my offer any serious thought, because at that instant Reverend Rifle shot John in the back of the neck with some kind of dart. Of course, the dart ricocheted off John’s armor without scratching it, landing with a clatter on the hanger roof.
John spun around and stared at Reverend Rifle. The vigilante let out an undignified yip as he tossed his rifle away. He slapped the burning palms of his gloves against his coat as his rifle splashed on the ground, forming a puddle of bright red lava.
The reverend reached for his other rifle, but Atomahawk swooped down and punched him. Fortunately, Reverend Rifle knew a thing or two about taking punches and rolled with the impact, otherwise Atomahawk might have taken off his head. The reverend landed hard on his back. I suspected he’d be missing a few teeth when he got up.
Now that violence had commenced, John’s next move would be to come at me with one of his atomic punches. Before taking a beating from him, I figured it was worth at least trying to knock him out. Underneath Atomahawk’s armor, John’s an ordinary human. Well, not ordinary, since he’s a walking nuclear reactor, but he’s not really stronger or tougher than any other guy. Before he could turn his focus on me, I leapt forward and grabbed is left leg with both hands. With a loud cry, I swung with all my might and planted his face hard into the pavement.
I hoped to at least stun him. Instead, while his foot was still aimed directly at my torso, he unleashed one of the compressed air blasts that provide him lift. This felt like getting hit by a charging rhino, an experience I’m quite familiar with having fought the Zoo King a couple of times. I lost my grip and flew backward, managing to skid to a halt still on my feet. Atomahawk rose into the air and looked at me with glowing eyes. In two seconds, I’d be barbeque. Best case scenario, he was scanning me with x-rays looking for weak spots to attack and I’d be riddled with cancerous tumors within the year.
Then, to my shock, a petite, dark figure dropped down from the roof of the hanger to land on Atomahawk’s shoulders. It was Jenny! John was more surprised than I was and shouted, “What the—?”
He never got to finish his question, because Jenny had the dart the reverend had tried to shoot John with clutched tightly in her fist. As John opened his mouth to speak, she jabbed the dart into the middle of his tongue. I winced.
John instantly dropped from the sky, smacking hard against the pavement, completely limp. Jenny landed beside him in a classic superhero crouch, looking up at me with a badass expression of satisfaction. Screaming Jenny taking down Atomahawk was the real world equivalent of Black Canary kicking Superman’s ass.
I ran to help the reverend to his feet. “Tell me that dart wasn’t poisonous,” I said.
“Just a powerful anesthetic,” he said.
I turned around and spread my arms wide as Jenny ran to embrace me. “How on earth did you find me?” I asked.
She held up her phone. “I got a call from your old teammate Kracker telling me to rendezvous with you here.”
“How on earth did he—?”
“Kracker monitors the livestream from my mask when I’m out in the field,” said Reverend Rifle. “I know you don’t like him, but you’ve got to admit he’s useful.”
The sirens were getting closer. Atomahawk had left a crater directly in front of the hanger door. While I’m not strong enough to pick up a battleship, I am strong enough to carry the front landing gear of a plane across a huge pothole, at least while the wing wheels are helping support the weight.
Jenny disappeared behind the building for a few seconds, and when she ran back to board the plane I saw what she’d gone for. Bullet! She carried the small dog clutched tightly against her chest. Bullet looked terrified, so scared he didn’t even bark when he saw me.
We shot down the runway without turning on our running lights and vanished into the night sky as at least twenty cop ca
rs pulled up in front of the hanger.
“Shit,” Jenny said softly, stroking Bullet in her lap. “I can’t fucking believe I kicked Atomahawk’s ass.”
The reverend’s face stiffened.
“I should probably tell you the new policy on cussing,” I said.
Jenny’s brow furrowed. Jenny’s been cussing freely in my presence since the first day I met her. Her very first words to me were, “What the fuck are you?” It wasn’t a case of love at first sight.
As she inspected my wounds with a look of tender concern, all that mattered was that she loved me now. On covert ops, Jenny has to hide her true emotions, but when we’re together she lets down her guard. At least, when we’re together alone. It didn’t take her long to regain her mask of coolness once Reverend Rifle cleared his throat and said, “I suppose introductions are in order. I’m –”
“Reverend Rifle,” she said. “I know all about you.”
“Kracker filled you in?”
She shook her head. “The group I work for keeps files on all active vigilantes.”
“The Silent Shadows,” said Reverend Rifle. “You work with the Retaliator.”
Jenny said nothing.
“You’re Screaming Jenny,” said Reverend Rifle. “Kind of funny that a girl whose powers require her to be loud went into covert ops.”
“If my superpowers were my only assets, that would be true,” said Jenny.
“These files you have on me,” said Reverend Rifle. “What’s my classification?”
She shook her head. “L.”
“L?” I asked.
“Retaliator views him as a problem for local authorities.” She smirked. “I guess you might get bumped up a notch or two after tonight. We had no idea you worked with Kracker. He’s class A-X, a threat to international security. If Retaliator figures out you’re linked with Kracker, you’ll have a lot of powerful enemies. Since he successfully broke bad guys out of Malbolge, they’ll send big guns like She-Devil to bring him in once they locate him.”
Reverend Rifle eyed a small gold cross that sat on top of the instruments before him. “I’m not afraid of She-Devil. I’m friends with someone even more powerful.”
Chapter Five
The Beady Eyes of Jesus
JENNY AND THE REV kept up their chatter as we crossed the miles. After we left behind the lights of LA, the land beneath us went utterly dark as we crossed the desert in the moonless night. I’d gotten spoiled by jumping across the continent in under a second using the Legion’s tachyon tubes, or zooming across cityscapes in one of the team’s hypersonic choppers. The rev said it was a four hour flight to Texas. My phone was still back at the police station. I really wanted to post something on my social media accounts assuring my fans I was okay, but, most likely, they’d be able to trace that back to me, so perhaps it’s just as well the phone wasn’t there to tempt me.
Despite Jenny being right beside me, I found myself alone with my thoughts, staring into the darkness. Valentine was dead. After all our crazy adventures, fighting steam apes and supermen, facing off with drug lords and local cops, it felt irrational that she’d be killed when she’d finally left that life behind.
I kept thinking about the Butterfly House. It’s where Val, John, and I first met, in group therapy. I still don’t know how they selected people to join each group. There were other kids with superpowers at the Butterfly House. Blister Betty. Gator. Even Retaliator’s girlfriend, Nimble, passed through, though back then she looked more like a flesh-colored Gumby than a girl. But, while some of them showed up for a session or two in group, Val, John, and I formed the core for close to two years. I have to hand it to whoever chose us, because the therapy worked, mostly. We brought John out of the trap of his self-pity. We helped Val from the cage of her traumatized silence. I found myself with actual friends for the first time in my life. When I hung out with them, I more or less felt human. Now, of the two people I’d once counted as my closest friends, one was dead and the other was a brainwashed parody of a hero. Most likely, John was coming out of his drug-haze even now, pounding his fist on the tarmac and swearing to the heavens that he’d bring me to justice. It would be a great scene in a movie. It was a terrible scene for real life.
Jenny and the reverend ran out of things to say to one another. She leaned against me, her small hand tiny against my fingers. “I’m sorry Val’s gone,” she whispered. “I know what she meant to you.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Silently, we flew through the night. I wanted to keep thinking about Val. Instead, with Jenny’s warmth flowing into me, the smell of her sweat in my nostrils, I could only think of her. I kept hearing the first words she ever spoke to me.
“What the fuck are you?” she said, wrinkling her nose. “Some kind of skunk ape?”
Jenny was from central Florida, where the skunk ape was the local version of Bigfoot. Like a lot of new arrivals to the Butterfly House, I’d been unconscious when I’d arrived, taken down by a single punch from McGruber who’d been sent to collect the dangerous man-monkey of Memphis. He’d shown up on a day when I’d broken my foster brother’s arm and bit a cop while I was drunk on cheap whisky. I was, like, twelve. My half chimp genetics meant I was already physically an adult, but my half human side still had the emotional maturity of a young teen. In retrospect, I’m lucky I never killed anybody.
I woke up in a hospital bed with both my arms fastened to the bedframe by leather straps. Luckily, they hadn’t thought to strap down my legs. Despite having the worst headache of my life and having no idea at all where I was, I twisted my legs up and unbuckled the straps. A nurse ran into the room a few seconds later holding a big-ass syringe and shouting for me to calm down.
Instead of calming down, I punched her and she went down cold. Hearing shouts and footsteps in the hall, I jumped to the ceiling, pushing aside the acoustic tile and climbing into the wiring and duct work. While guards and nurses poured into my room, I dropped down into the hall behind them, running on all fours past a nurse station with a lone nurse remaining on watch. I reached a set of double doors and slammed into them. I tried to pry them open but they wouldn’t budge. I was strong back then, but not nearly as strong as I eventually became. I was only about four and a half feet tall, with skinny arms that weren’t up to the task of ripping doors out of steel hinges. Fortunately, I was faster than most people by a pretty good margin, and while the nurse was picking up the phone to call for help I leapt onto her desk and tore free the badge that hung on the lanyard around her neck. As I guessed, the doors opened freely when I ran at them this time.
Beyond there was another windowless hall, lined with doors. I had no idea what floor I was on. I might have been ten stories up, I might have been underground. I heard guards shouting from both directions and badged myself into a room at random, hoping I’d find a window.
Instead, I found myself in what looked like the bedroom of a young girl, with pale pink walls and shelves lined with stuffed animals. Instead of a hospital bed, there was a real bed covered with a flowery quilt. Sitting on this bed, reading a book, was a girl. Her hair was dark brown, her eyes darker still. Her eyes grew wide as she looked at me with what I first assumed was fear but quickly realized was excitement.
She jumped up, running toward me, pointing with both hands at a necklace she wore. It took me half a second to realize it wasn’t a normal necklace, but some sort of electronic device held tightly against her throat by a fairly thick band of hard plastic. She clawed at the band, locking her eyes on mine, and mouthed, silently, “Help me.”
So I helped. I grabbed her by the back of her neck and pulled her toward me. I pressed my mouth against her throat. Carefully, I snagged the plastic band with my teeth. My jaws can break open hard nuts, so with a single snip she was free.
She pulled away, rubbing her throat, laughing, then going quiet, as if startled by the sound. She looked at me, wrinkling her nose, and said, “What the fuck are you? Some kind of skunk ape?”
>
The bluntness of the question delighted me. I hated when people pretended there was nothing strange about the way I looked. Before I could answer, a red light started flashing in the hall and an alarm sounded overhead.
I said, “I don’t suppose you have a good place to hide, do you?”
“Hide hell,” she said, racing out into the hall. “I’m going to light these fuckers up!”
The second she left the room, I heard grown men shout, with fear in their voices, “It’s Screaming Jenny!”
Jenny laughed as she caught sight of the guards, arched her back and took a deep breath. She unleashed the most amazing string of obscenities I’d heard in my life. I carefully poked my head into the hall and found the far end filled with smoke. At that second, the sprinklers kicked on.
She looked at me through the downpour, pushing her instantly drenched hair from her eyes, and said, “What are your powers?”
“Powers?”
“I set things on fire by screaming at them,” she said. “What are your superpowers?”
“I hold my liquor pretty well for a twelve year old.”
At that second, her eyes rolled back in her head. Her whole body stiffened for an instant before going completely limp. I caught her as she fell unconscious. As I lowered her to the ground, I spotted at least a dozen darts jutting from her back. My left arm stopped working, and I noticed a dart jutting from my shoulder. Everything went dark.
Almost as dark as the landscape outside the window plane as we left California far behind. I hadn’t seen a single light on the ground for a long time. Where the hell were we?
It was still dark when we finally touched down on a small airstrip in a valley ringed by distant mountains. I stepped out of the plane to look up in wonder at the stars. I’d always heard about the Milky Way, but there it was for the first time, a ghostly white smudge across a sky full of diamonds. Jenny’s place in Florida is in the middle of nowhere and the sky’s pretty dark, but the humidity on a good day is, like, 200%, and haze fuzzes the stars. Here the air was so dry and cool it almost hurt to breathe.