Big Ape_Lawless Book Two

by James Maxey

  All these thoughts were growling through my skull as I went back to my room to try on the crazy, oversized wet suit Kracker had designed for me to take part in this underwater heist. A heist that was the first step toward killing a woman who saved the world more times than I could count, a heist that would pretty firmly push me into the category of supervillain, a heist that, for no reason that made sense to me, the woman I loved was firmly on board with.

  I reached my room, went inside and closed the door. I sat on the edge of the bed, letting out a heavy sigh as I looked at the wetsuit in my hand.

  “What the fuck are you thinking, Jenny?” I grumbled, believing I was alone.

  “One of us has to do the thinking,” she answered, standing in the door to the bathroom.

  “How’d you get here without passing me in the hall?” I asked.

  “Came in through the window,” she said.

  “Right,” I said.

  “Ever since I became a superhero, I use windows about twice as much as doors. It almost feels weird to enter a room any other way.”

  “Damn, our lives are fucked up,” I said.

  “Then let’s unfuck them,” she said. “Unless you want to be on the run your whole life.”

  “How, exactly is killing She-Devil going to improve our lives?” I asked. “Right now, we’re fugitives. Kill the woman who saved the planet from Sterngeist and we’ll be pariahs.”

  “First, we definitely won’t let Reverend Rifle get his hands on that gun, at least not intact. Its two hundred years old. I’m guessing you won’t have a problem breaking it accidently on purpose.”

  “But why go through the motions? Why even pretend we’re going along with his crazy scheme?”

  She gave me her look of pity. Of all her looks, this is the one that hurts most. She sees things I don’t see, sure, but sometimes I catch onto stuff she doesn’t get. I don’t treat her like a retard when she slips up, but when I miss something that strikes her as obvious, I can almost hear the voice in her head whispering, “The poor thing. His brain is half chimp.”

  I never got that look from Val.

  After her brief pause to pity me, she jumped to the explanation of her brilliant idea. “Maybe you missed it, but they said Gator is going to be on the mission. I know him from the Butterfly House. So do you.”

  “So?”

  “So the really interesting part is something Kracker said in passing. He said that Gator had broken free of his brainwashing.”

  “Oh,” I said, scratching the back of my head. “Yeah, he did say that.”

  “That means Gator can collaborate our story.”

  “It will be the word of a moist redneck versus that of Golden Victory. If they don’t believe us, why believe him?”

  “There’s power in numbers,” she said.

  “You spent breakfast convincing me that no one was ever going to believe the truth.”

  “Not if it’s just us speaking out. If we can convince Gator to come forward, maybe other graduates of the Butterfly House who’ve broken their programming will also speak out. Four, six, a dozen… at some point, with enough witnesses, we’ll reach a tipping point and the world will take us seriously.”

  “You really think even a dozen people have broken free of the programming?” I asked.

  “There are plenty of people I met in the program who never turned up in the ranks of the Lawful Legion. Whatever happened to Blister Betty?”

  “Hmm,” I said.

  “More importantly, we can find out how Gator broke his programming,” she said. “I only got free because of the Victorian’s assault on my memories. Maybe there’s a simpler way to getting your real memories back than having your brain rewired by a supervillain.”

  I nodded. “Maybe. And if there is a way—”

  “We’ll use it on Atomahawk,” said Jenny. “From the day he joined the Lawful Legion, he shot to the top ranks of most popular heroes.”

  “There are ranks?” I asked.

  “Of course there are ranks. Don’t you ever go on the internet?”

  “We, uh, we might look at different sites,” I mumbled.

  “You know you don’t need to look at porn any more, right?” she asked. “You can see me naked anytime you just by asking.”

  “Sure,” I said, shifting uncomfortably on the bed. “How do, uh, how do I rank?”

  “Not so high as Big Ape,” she said. “Kind of near the bottom, actually. Which is a shame, since you were always in the top ten when you were Sock Monkey.”

  “My merchandising income practically vanished once I changed identities,” I said.

  “Well, I like you more as Big Ape than I did as Sock Monkey,” she said, squeezing my biceps. “Tall, dark, and strong as a tank. What more could a girl want?”

  I noticed she didn’t end her list of my good points with the traditional “handsome.” I wasn’t offended. I was honest about my looks. I wasn’t ever going to make it as a fashion model. Jenny seemed to take pride that she wasn’t a classical beauty either. She’d been sexually abused by her father—screaming at him was how she first discovered she could set people on fire with her voice. She dresses in a way that mostly hides her body, loose jeans, baggy shirts, and cuts her hair in a punk Mohawk that could fairly be described as unflattering. She seems hostile to the idea that strangers might look at her in a sexual way.

  Which makes it all the weirder that she’s so sexually aggressive with me. Honestly, I don’t look at porn on the internet at all these days. I don’t have the energy. She gets horny when we argue. She gets aroused if we go out on a mission together, or work out in a gym, or just sit around on the couch watching TV. Seeing me stretched out on the bed is her trigger to jump on me, and I can’t count the times I’ve been taking a shower only to have her yank the curtain back and join me. Apparently, I really do turn her on, and I find her so beautiful that it almost makes my heart shatter with happiness and wonder. What did I do to deserve her?

  “I, uh, I’d like to see you naked now,” I said.

  She smiled as she reached for the zipper on her pants.

  I WOKE A LITTLE before dawn with Jenny cradled in my arms. I didn’t want to move and wake her, but I also couldn’t go back to sleep. What the hell was I doing working with Kracker again? Back in Port City, he’d sided with the Victorian over his own teammates and then, even worse, after the Victorian had been put in prison, he’d helped him escape. I still hadn’t made up my mind on whether the reverend was a benevolent crazy or a harmful crazy, but teaming up with Kracker certainly didn’t look good for him. Of course, now I was teamed up with Kracker again. How did I keep getting into these messes?

  Not long after the sun came up, there was a gentle rap on the door.

  “Hold on,” I said, worried Stacey would open the door and find Jenny and me together. Jenny stirred at the sound of my voice. I said, “Who’s there?”

  “Just me,” said Stacey. “Thought I’d invite you to church. Jenny too.”

  “Uh,” I said. “I’ll ask her when I see her at breakfast.”

  “I know she’s in there,” said Stacey.

  “I don’t really have any church clothes,” Jenny said.

  “I’ve got boxes of donated clothes out in storage,” said Stacey. “I could hook you up with something.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  This surprised me, but not much. Jenny was raised Catholic, and I know she still slips off from time to time to attend Mass when I’m not around. She knows I’m not religious, so the two of us never really talk about faith. Given how much danger we were in, she probably figured getting in a little facetime with God couldn’t hurt. Still, I decided to skip the service.

  After they drove off in the rev’s jeep, I stepped outside to get some fresh air. Only the fresh air wasn’t all that refreshing. It was mid-morning and the thermometer nailed to the side of a shed had already hit 96. The ground shimmered like it does in movies when they want to show how hot it is, all these crazy mirages l
ooking like pools of water everywhere. Off in the distance, I saw a big cactus. On a whim, I walked toward it. It turned out to be a lot further away than I thought. I was sweating big time, wishing I’d brought a bottle of water, wondering if Jenny and Stacey would find my desiccated corpse when they got back from church. For some reason, I kept walking. In retrospect, it probably wasn’t that far. Maybe a mile. When I reached the cactus I found the arms tipped with vivid yellow blooms, crawling with ants.

  I’m more city monkey than country monkey. When I stay with Jenny in Florida we’re out in the boondocks but I hardly ever leave her mobile home. After leaving the Butterfly House, I mainly lived in Port City. When I joined the Lawful Legion, I hung my hat in LA. I’d only seen wilderness like this on film.

  I looked back toward the house. It was hidden by the shimmering air, the light so bright it washed out all details. I couldn’t think of the last time I hadn’t been in sight of a wall. The silence was surreal, no traffic, no distant radios or television or people talking. There were no birds chirping or bugs buzzing, not even a breeze to stir the rough sand.

  I felt as if I’d stepped outside of time. The desert looked so barren, yet, watching the ants crawl over the flowers, I realized that life was everywhere I looked. There were microcosms in the grit beneath my feet, a billion species of bacteria and bugs making even this dead landscape team with life.

  Standing there, as removed from civilization as I’d ever been, I had an epiphany. I didn’t have to play by the rules of men. I was half animal. I’d never really found my place in civilization. What about the wilderness? The desert might be tough to survive in, but what if I stole the reverend’s plane and hopped down to South America? Find some wild patch of jungle and vanish into it to live off the land and escape all the madness. The Lawful Legion would never find me.

  Pretending to be a man had worn me down. In the jungle, I could be the creature my DNA wanted me to be. True, I didn’t know squat about living in the jungle, but so what? I must have instincts, right? There’s a reason I can’t keep my hands off bananas, isn’t there?

  For nearly a full moment, I felt as if I’d come to the wisest decision of my life.

  But then there was Jenny. I couldn’t see her living in the jungle with me. And if I flew off in the Rifle Plane, I’d be abandoning her at the moment she needed me most. The Lawful Legion would still be looking for her.

  What’s more, despite my idle daydreams of a return to nature, I couldn’t help but think there was nothing natural about me. There’s a long history of men wandering around in the desert looking for some deep spiritual connection, some relationship with God, or the wilderness, or the wide, wondrous universe. It must be nice to feel as if you belong in the natural world, that you belong beneath the infinite sky, as if you’re part of a grand, beautiful plan. But the longer I stood beneath the blistering sun, the less I felt as if I belonged out here. I wasn’t part of nature. I didn’t fit in. I was a product of technology, and the only relationship I had with nature was that I enjoyed vegging out on a couch watching Animal Planet.

  I shielded my eyes with my hand as I stared up at the barren sky. Wilderness was vastly overrated. I’d been outside maybe twenty minutes and was already sick of it. I headed back to the house, ready for another nap.

  JENNY WAS QUIET when she got back from church, lost in thought. We waited out the heat of the day on a shady porch beneath two slow moving ceiling fans. I was looking at the desert thinking it would be improved by a highway with a convenience store selling ice cream sandwiches. Jenny was looking at the desert and thinking about God.

  I know this because she said, “I keep thinking about God.”

  “Good for you,” I said.

  “I know you don’t believe,” she said.

  “Call me agnostic.” As a young kid, I’d been bounced from foster home to foster home. Most of my foster parents had been religious. Right before I’d been taken to the Butterfly House, I’d lived with some real Bible thumpers. Their teen-age son was the guy who introduced me to booze.

  Jenny stared out at the desert a long time, then said, “The singing was beautiful.”

  I nodded.

  “The hymns were in Spanish,” she said. “Most of the congregation have Mexican heritage.”

  “Did you feel at home?”

  “No,” she said. “Everyone dressed nice. Not expensive clothing, but the girls all had pretty dresses.” Her mouth turned into a straight line as unwelcome thoughts crossed her mind. “I haven’t worn a dress since the Victorian messed up my mind.” She took a deep breath. “I might let my hair grow out.”

  “You’ve got nice hair,” I said. “I’m sure you’d look good with it long.”

  She didn’t say anything, just looked out into the desert, lost in thought. We sat quietly together as the shadows grew longer.

  That night, she didn’t join me in my room. I stayed awake a long time, expecting her. I even went to the window, looking outside. I stared at the Milky Way for almost an hour, trying to drink in the full impact of so many stars. I went back to bed and fell asleep the moment I hit the pillow, exhausted by the sheer scale of the universe.

  Chapter Nine

  Gator

  TWENTY-FOUR HOURS LATER we were standing on a dock in New Jersey. I was fighting to get my wetsuit on, which isn’t easy when you’re covered in fur. Jenny did her best to help me, trying hard not to laugh. Most superheroes wear tight clothing but on me it wasn’t a great look.

  Not that Reverend Rifle looked any more dignified. He was still wearing his cowboy hat, which looked cool with a leather duster, but not as spiffy with a wetsuit.

  Jenny, however, looked sharp. I mentioned that she normally conceals her body with loose clothes. The wetsuit revealed her curves, a youthful, hourglass shape. I’d seen her naked countless times, but there was something about the wetsuit even sexier than nudity.

  Finally, there was Kracker. I hadn’t expected him to come along for the mission. In my years with the Red Line he always stayed at the mansion. Tonight, he’d traded his scooter for an exoskeleton that resembled one of those old timey dive suits with a bell helmet, only instead of being made of canvas his suit looked like it was made out of the same kind of material Atomahawk used in his armor. He was also wearing enormous metal gauntlets that he was trying out, watching them whir through various test modes like some kind of glove-themed Transformer as they transitioned from a more or less normal hand shape into something resembling giant crab claws, then long, pointy spikes, before changing back to hands again.

  “Seriously dude,” I said to Kracker, as Jenny wrestled to get my suit zipped. “Why are you here?”

  “I can’t let you have all the fun, can I?” he said.

  “Fun isn’t on the agenda tonight,” I said. “I know a little bit about this vault we’re about to break into. I’ve been there before. This won’t be easy.”

  “You have?” asked Reverend Rifle. “That seems like something you might have mentioned before now.”

  I shrugged. “If I’d told you, you might have expected me to have something useful to say about it, but I don’t. Legionnaires sometimes get assigned to remote stations for guard duty. I got stuck here a couple of times. The assignment lasts three days and it’s dull as hell. You’re basically stuck in a guard room the size of a small camper, waiting for someone to break in. Which, no one ever does, because you need Golden Victory or someone in that strength league to open the door.”

  “All the more reason for me to be here,” said Kracker. “My exoskeleton boosts my strength 100 fold. Between the two of us, we can muscle the door open.”

  “Your suit’s not going to be of a lot of help if Golden Victory turns up,” I said. “He’ll peel you right out of that tin can.”

  “Golden Victory won’t be anywhere near here tonight,” said Kracker. “There was an earthquake in Japan a few hours ago and he’s helping pull survivors from the rubble. A lucky break for us.”

  “I wouldn’t
call that lucky,” Reverend Rifle said.

  “You’re planning to steal stuff, aren’t you?” said Jenny, looking at Kracker.

  “Of course,” said Kracker. “The whole reason we’re here is to steal a rifle.”

  “No,” she said. “The Legion stashes a lot of high tech bad guy hardware in the vault. They’ve got Bad Mother’s dolls, Technosaur’s dinomechs, and alien gadgets they can’t even figure out. You’re not planning on leaving here empty-handed.”

  Kracker gave a sly grin.

  I looked at the reverend. “Isn’t there a commandment against stealing your neighbor’s giant robot?”

  “There’s a commandment against even being jealous of it,” said Reverend Rifle. “But the larger context of every action matters. If every moral question was easy to answer there would be no need for faith.” He glanced at his watch. “Gator’s running late.”

  “No I’m not,” said a voice beneath our feet. “I’ve been here ten minutes listening to y’all jabber.”

  A big hand with ragged nails painted dark green grabbed the edge of the dock from underneath. Gator pulled himself onto the dock. He was wearing a pair of cut-off camouflage pants, the only stitch of clothing he had on except for his belt, which was covered with pouches and sheaths for more knives than I could count. His head was shaved and his shoulders and scalp were tattooed with large green scales. He was big and chunky, his muscles smoothed out by fat. He gave us a unsettling smile. He had metal spikes for teeth. Gator had more scars on his face and torso than I could count. His nose looked like it had been broken a dozen times.

  He said, “I don’t know where y’all trained for stealth missions, but gabbing on the dock about what you’re going to steal and who you’re going to steal it from is some stupid shit.”

  “Yeah,” I said to Jenny. “What kind of training did you get with the Silent Shadows?”

  She crossed her arms. “I’d be more worried about someone noticing a gorilla in a wetsuit than overhearing us talking. We should get a move on.” She looked at Gator. “I assume you brought a boat?”