by Paul Tobin
“Everyone keeps telling me about how you’re different. I don’t see it.”
“I can lift tens of thousands of pounds. I can jump almost forty feet in the air. I can take a bullet to my eyes, to my eyes, without being overly bothered. I can…”
“Do you kiss any differently?”
I was saying something (it was probably a question, but I’m not sure) when Adele leaned into me, raised up onto her toes, and she touched her lips to mine. It was somewhat tentative, somewhat respectful, somewhat curious, and those aspects lasted for barely long enough to register (even to a man who sees the world at three times faster than the common guy on the street) and then all of the “somewhat” was gone, as was the tentative and the respectful. Her kiss became demanding. Searching. Furious.
I kissed her back.
She stumbled. Fell away from me.
I’d been too hard on her. Too much strength. It’s like that for me, sometimes. I can poke my fingers into solid steel and my lips have the same proportionate power and…
… and Adele recovered from her stumble. There wasn’t any chastisement in her eyes. No wonder. No awe. Nothing but a desire to move back against me… this time with a hand on the back of my neck so that she wouldn’t fall away. Her tongue slid into my mouth and her whole body was against mine.
It lasted.
In time, in time, after some time, she moved a step back and she blushed.
She said, “Sorry about that.”
She said, “No. Actually I’m not.”
She said, “Are you sorry about it?”
She said, “No. Don’t answer that.”
She said, “Answer it.”
I said, “Nothing has ever made me happier. Nothing has ever…”
We were kissing again.
I had barely seen her move.
Me.
A man who registers the world three times faster than most anyone else.
Caught flat-footed.
Right on the lips.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Laura and Apple had eaten half of my birthday cake, but had replaced the slices with wedges of pizza (ordered when we were gone) abutting up against the remaining cake (as if to disguise their misdeed) with candles on the cake and the pizza, both, celebrating how I was still alive.
“You guys kiss?” Laura asked.
“We guys kissed,” I answered.
“Tongue like an iron bar?” Laura whispered to Adele in a voice louder than most people’s normal conversation.
“No comment,” Adele answered.
“Good god,” Laura said. “That’s worse than any vulgar comment. Now Apple and I will have to assume the worst of you both. And about time, too.”
Apple said, “I should probably be going. It’s most definitely all hands on deck at the store after, you know, after the parking lot.”
I said, “I should make an appearance there, too. I’ll give you a ride. I’ve still got my rental.”
“Oh. Okay.” Something flickered in Apple’s eyes. I wondered what her thoughts were. I couldn’t read them. I couldn’t even read mine. It had been a strange day. For both of us.
I asked her, “You need to stop off at your house beforehand? Change of clothes?” I’d noticed that Apple’s clothes were more than a little ruffled. I’d noticed that Laura was wearing a different top than when we’d left. I’d noticed that Wiggles, the cat, was mad at them for some reason. I’d noticed a dollop of cake frosting behind Apple’s ear.
“No reason to change clothes. The cleanup’s going to be messy. Not much sense in me putting on any dainty clothes.”
There were some few comments after that. Adele made some intimations that she wouldn’t mind me staying around. Her eyes flickered up to her bedroom. I admit it made a pair of knees (ones that can support a stack of cars) go a bit weak. Her lips wiggled. I had to look away. I had to focus on being a hero. She had given me a kiss. I couldn’t forget that I had to be worthy of such things. I had something important to do.
Laura became petulant. I was driving off with her girl. She pretended to be jealous. Over-pretended. She even took me aside and said that I can’t kiss everyone. Her emotions were all over the place. I felt bad for her. I would have said something soothing, something that let her know there wasn’t anything to worry about, if my own emotions weren’t all over the place as well, and if it hadn’t been a lie.
There was something to worry about.
When we left the house, I saw Mistress Mary a block away, watching me as I got into the car. I wondered who else might be watching me. SRD, assuredly, but how about the rest of Eleventh Hour? Tempest was dead. Macabre was dead. Where was Laser Beast? Where was Siren? Were they near? I didn’t think so. Siren exudes a certain mood, one that permeates the air. In the lawn next to Adele’s, Travis Morton was mowing the grass. He wouldn’t have been doing that if Siren was anywhere nearby. He would have been standing, breathing, thinking, breathing, swaying, breathing.
And Laser Beast? Laser Beast doesn’t have an ounce of subtlety beneath that fur of his. If he was watching, he’d be shooting. Lasering. Whatever.
“Shotgun!” Apple said, as if it was a prize. There was only the two of us.
“I wasn’t about to make you ride in the back. I was thinking you’d drive, anyway. You’re a better driver than I am.”
“True. I should go pro. You happen to own any racecars? I could… hey… is that… is that Mistress Mary?”
“Yes.” I looked to Mistress Mary. Gave a short wave. She returned it. She was sitting in somebody’s treehouse, two houses down. The treehouse was in a big oak tree, hanging over the road, a danger to traffic that would have been removed from any major city, and most minor ones. I enjoyed it. There’s not enough Norman Rockwell left in the world.
Apple slid behind the wheel. Adjusted the seat. Both mirrors. She reversed onto the street, backing expertly into our lane and then transitioning into a smooth drive. I watched her hands. They were well trained. Doing their job by rote. Muscle memory. I wondered about her and Laura. If it was love or not. I hoped it was love. I hoped it wasn’t.
When we were well into traffic, I asked, “Who are you?”
“Huh? What a question! And frankly, it’s something I ask myself all the time. I’m not sure how much longer I can work part time at a grocery store. I mean, it’s not like the pay is the best. Still… job security. Food, you know? It’s the one thing that won’t go out of style.” We were passing the antique store. Gus Ferkins was sitting outside. He was a million years old. Like an advertisement for his business. He was a corncob pipe short of a snapshot from another age.
I asked Apple, “Who are you?”
“You mean my name? I guess you don’t know my last name, do you?” Her smile was infectious. My own smile was honest. I wasn’t kidding her with it at all. She was still unexpectedly pleasant to be around.
She said, “So… my name is Ming Greel. I know it’s not a sexy name, but, there you are. I think Mom named me after the Chinese Dynasty. I think Dad named me after that evil bald guy in the Flash Gordon movies. I haven’t decided which one’s better.”
“Who are you?”
“That’s the question, right? Especially lately. I mean… Laura. She’s… she makes me wonder what I’m doing with my life. I can’t be a painter, like her, but maybe school or something? You don’t know any job opportunities, do you?”
“Who are you?”
We were driving past the Mighty Convenient convenience store. I had a sudden flash of Tom, standing out back, years ago, trying to learn how to work with a yo-yo with Judy laughing about it, and then her smiling in resigned fashion (and resigned pleasure) when Tom finally gave up, held up the yo-yo, and told me, “See this? See this string? I’m going to tie Judy’s wrists together with this, later, and she’s going to pretend to be a slave girl and I’m going to pretend that I’m pretending to be her master.” That was… how many years ago? I couldn’t place our ages at the time. I wasn’t sure of
who we were, in those days. I remember knowing it all, then, though.
Apple hadn’t said anything for a couple of blocks.
I asked, “Who are you?”
She looked at me. She still had the smile. Her look was that of a person who isn’t at all nervous at being in a vehicle, an enclosed space, with a superhuman. I’ve come to be able to distinguish that look. I’ve seen the other kind, the nervous look, for enough years, starting way back with the guards in the armored car that took Greg and me from the hospital, away from my month long coma, and into SRD’s facilities.
Apple parked the car alongside the curb. We were a block from where Greg Barrows once lived. I could have thrown a baseball and hit the house.
She said, “How much do you know?”
“During the fight with Tempest, you broke away from me and you ran.”
“Yeah?”
“You broke away from me.” I couldn’t have only just thrown a baseball and hit Greg Barrows’s house. I could have thrown an anvil. I could have thrown a car.
“You noticed that.”
“Not right at first. Only occurred to me later. Normal people don’t just break away from my grip.”
“You must have relaxed your grip, then. A lot was going on.”
“Children of the Spill.”
Apple said, “Excuse me?” I rolled down a window. It was warm, inside. It couldn’t have been the temperature. Not just the temperature. I’m good with temperatures.
“Children of the Spill. That was something Paladin and I called ourselves. A few other people named us that way, too. Not the public, though. Not the public. The public never called us that, because most people didn’t know about Greg Barrows. I was the Hero of the Spill. I was the Child of the Spill. It took Greg being added into the mix before it was Heroes. Before it was Children. Most people didn’t know about Greg.”
“I think I heard you say it that way, once. I was just repeating it.” Apple didn’t seem to be trying to convince me of anything. She was just saying words. She seemed to think it was amusing she was even speaking, adorable that we were even having the conversation.
She handed me the keys to the car. That seemed to be more meaningful than any words she was saying.
I said, “Tempest didn’t simply fall from the sky. She didn’t overload, like you suggested. You brought her down, somehow. That’s why you broke away from me. Because you didn’t want me to see what you were doing.”
“This isn’t much evidence. I’ve heard you can jump like… forty feet. You sure you aren’t just jumping to a bizarre conclusion that I’m… what… someone else? Who?”
“I’ll be honest. I don’t have the slightest clue. Maybe you’re Siren?”
“Do I look like Siren?”
“You could transform. I don’t know. Paladin was always the smart one.”
“No.”
I looked at Apple. Tried to understand what she meant. No. No? Paladin wasn’t the smart one? Did she mean… did she mean… that I was the smart one? Nobody could believe that. I’ve blundered through every puzzle I’ve ever blundered into. It’s not like I have an amazing brain. It’s not like I’m… I’m not…
I said, “Checkmate?” I hadn’t meant it to sound like a question. I meant it to sound like a statement from someone who was standing tall on a mountain of knowledge.
Apple said, “When my brain first began to change, when my thoughts began….” I’m not sure if I blacked out at this point. I’m not sure I retained any real sense of consciousness. Apple’s words were an admission of who she was. An admission that she was Checkmate, that she, at least these days, was the brains behind SRD, that she was responsible for half the world’s truly advanced technologies, and was known to be holding back a wealth of other advances, machines and tools for which Mankind Was Not Yet Ready. I regained my composure (my consciousness?) fairly quickly. She was still on the same sentence. Or maybe she had started again.
Apple said, “When my brain first began to change, when my thoughts began racing, I decided I needed an identity. Not just a secret identity, but a completely unthinkable identity. So I built the suit. The Checkmate suit. I built it male, on the outside. Nobody seemed to think a decidedly male suit of armor could contain a decidedly female sort of woman.”
“Seeing is believing.”
“Exactly. The suit had the big chest, the male hips, the male voice, so nobody ever thought to wonder if maybe there was a woman inside, that the male hips were a red herring, that a voice modulator was doing its magic, and that the big chest contained an array of targeting and weaponry systems, along with a fairly nice pair of pert little boobs.”
“How’d you bring down Tempest?”
“Didn’t even distract you with talk of nice pert boobs, then?”
“Not right at this moment.”
She sighed. Opened the car door. After a bit, waiting to see if I would react, and seeing that I didn’t, she reached in for her small duffel bag (it had a Siren button stuck into its side) and waited to see if I would react to her reaching for that. To be honest, I hadn’t thought about it as being problematic, but her hesitation, her glance towards me, her wary caution, put me on alert.
Still, I let her take the bag.
I’ve done smarter things.
It’s not like I’m Checkmate.
She waited for me on the sidewalk. We were only seven blocks from the gravel drive (the one between George Kuchester’s house and the “Welcome to Greenway!” sign) that leads down into the gravel pit. There was a row of cherry trees waiting expectantly for someone to notice them. I wondered if Adele would like some of the blossoms. I wondered how they would look in her hair. I wondered how Checkmate had brought Tempest down from out of the skies. I wondered how Apple had done that.
She said, “I studied Tempest, of course, when she was in SRD. So much to learn. She was like a Rosetta Stone to unlock the secrets of nature. Haven’t you ever wondered how her powers worked? If she was just… moving the weather around like children’s blocks, or if the weather could understand her somehow? Haven’t you ever just wondered that?”
“No.” It seemed important to lie.
“Liar.” It seemed inconsequential that my lie had been caught.
Apple, seeing only my blank face (we were both walking towards the quarry, with some unspoken acknowledgment involved) went on with, “And when I studied Tempest, I worked with her brain waves. Tracked them. Charted them. All the peaks. Valleys.”
“So?”
“So I knew just how to cancel those waves. I could use that knowledge to set up a valley against a peak, and a peak against a valley. Everything cancelling each other. Flattening out the line.”
“You shut off her brain?”
“Essentially. Yes.”
There were standing puddles next to the road. The air smelled of dank water. Mosquitoes were buzzing around. The day was warm. I thought of the giant cockroach in SRD labs. I would rather face a mosquito than a cockroach. Unless they were giants. Then it’s the other way around.
I said, “Apple. Do you remember when Tempest and Macabre were…”
“Are you seriously about to ask me if I remember the time that Tempest and Macabre changed the very fabric of space and extended Earth’s atmosphere to the moon?”
“Okay. I suppose it is something you remember.” There were mosquitoes buzzing around my eyes. One of them landed on my cheek. Tried for a taste of me. It blunted its… what are they? Stingers? Noses? I’m not sure of the term. Anyway… she (all biting mosquitoes are female, I think I’ve read) broke her blood siphon on my invulnerable flesh.
I said, “Octagon took down Tempest and Macabre, that time. Octagon did that in the same way as you took down Tempest at the grocery store.”
Apple said, “Of course.” I knew what she meant by it. But I was waiting for her to say it. I was waiting for confirmation. I shouldn’t, of course, have been waiting. Being a man who moves three times faster than anyone else can make you comp
lacent. It’s easy to forget that moving three times faster can be cancelled out when you’re talking to someone who’s ten steps ahead. Or even eight.
Apple said, “I’m Checkmate.”
There was a buzzing near my ear.
Apple said, “I’m Octagon.”
A mosquito bit me on my neck. Something sank into my bloodstream. A nose. A stinger. Whatever. It was the first time I’d been bitten by a bug in almost a decade.
“Take some time off,” Octagon said, staring me in the eyes, pulling a laser pistol from her duffel bag. But I barely heard her.
The world was spinning and I was falling to the ground.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Laser Beast.
Siren.
Firehook.
Octagon.
They were all there when I woke up.
It would probably be more dramatic if I claimed that I was bound by chains of an unknown metal, unbreakable even to one such as I, with evil automatons and other advanced instruments of tortuous devastation surrounding me. Beams of destructive light, blades honed as to be immeasurably sharp, the cackling of a madwoman’s laughter rebounding from the stone walls, perhaps soaring outward through the lone window, the one that looks out across the battlements, over the edge of the cliff and down to the roaring surf below.
In truth, though, I wasn’t bound at all. I was just sprawled in the loose rocks of Greenway’s quarry. My neck throbbed where the mosquito (I had no illusions that it had actually been a mosquito) had bitten my neck. My neck had a soft green glow, barely visible from the edges of my vision. My left cheek was against the quarry floor. Perhaps two feet from me was a fossilized snail of some kind. A pair of fossilized leaves. Ten feet past these remnants of the ancient world was Laser Beast, down on his haunches, grinning at me. Firehook was standing next to him, with drops of fire slipping down from his fingers, sizzling onto the rocky surface, creating tiny pools of molten rock.
I couldn’t see Siren, but I could feel her nearby. It wasn’t exactly morning, but I was lying on morning wood.
And, past Firehook, past Laser Beast… there was Octagon in the black costume with the male shape, a shape I now knew to be as much a lie as Checkmate’s armor. I wondered if the rest of Eleventh Hour knew that Octagon was the girl from the grocery store. I wondered if they knew that. I wondered if I had the strength to stand up. It didn’t feel like I did, but I wasn’t doing anything else, so I gave it a try.