by Edward Aubry
Harrison was delighted. It had been years since he'd last seen that movie, and it was his favorite Marx Brothers. They settled in to watch it, and as the parody of collegiate football progressed, Harrison began to wonder if there was a subtext to Apryl's choice. This was the film in which each of the four brothers took a turn singing a version of "Everyone Says I Love You." Zeppo sang it straight, of course, as a sappy love song. Harpo whistled it to his horse (another love, of a sort), then later played it on his harp. Chico took his turn on the piano, singing a nonsense version in which, "The fly, when he stuck-a on the flypaper too, says 'I love you!'" was among other absurdities. Listening, Harrison kept trying to decide if the song was a coincidence or a message. Eventually, Groucho took up a ukulele, cynically declaring, "It's just inviting trouble for the poor sucker who says, 'I love you!'" Harrison felt a sudden awkwardness. He had allowed a moment to come and go, but by the time Groucho's scene was stolen by a pair of ducks, Harrison realized Apryl had fallen asleep.
Chapter Forty-Four:
Gag Order
"Okay," said Harrison. "What's the plan?" He was eager to get past this meeting. With only five days until the Ptolemy was due, he wanted to be sure his team was completely prepared. He thought about saving the world and his head started nodding, just a little. It was dancing to music that only he could hear from the movie he had seen the night before. Across the dining room table from him on this beautiful winter morning sat Hadley. Glimmer was seated on the table itself, on a paperback novel.
Hadley looked at Glimmer. She looked at her nails. Harrison waited.
"There isn't one," said Hadley.
That didn't sound right. Harrison waited for a clarification. The music in his head faded out. "Meaning what, exactly?" he managed to ask after a few seconds.
Hadley scratched the back of his head, then looked at Glimmer again. She scratched the back of her head and looked away. Harrison suddenly noticed the blond beard stubble covering the scientist's face. It was so pale it was nearly invisible, but catching the light just right it became obvious that it was several days' growth.
"It means," Hadley said, "that I can't find any way of setting off the counterbomb without using the remote."
Harrison blinked. It sounded like Hadley was saying that he hadn't bothered to look for a solution, but that didn't seem like him. Hadley was a problem-solver. Inactivity on his part made no sense. "You had two days." Harrison tried to say it nicely, so it wouldn't sound like an accusation, but they had now lost vital time.
"Yes, well," said Hadley. "I'm sorry."
Sorry? He was sorry he had squandered two entire days? "Hadley," Harrison said, "we don't have the luxury of dawdling on this. You told me yourself we have less than a week to get ready." He hoped anger wasn't seeping into his voice, but from the surprised look on Hadley's face, it must have been.
"That … It's not about the time."
Harrison was drumming his fingers on the dining room table. "Well," he said, "how much time do you need?" He was feeling pressure in his head. His heart was racing.
Hadley shook his head. He looked frightened of something, and this made Harrison question his confidence. "Harrison," he said, "I don't think you're hearing this." He turned to Glimmer, who was still gazing off into space, and tapped her gently. "Glimmer? Can you help me please?"
Glimmer heaved her shoulders in an exaggerated sigh. She stood up, walked across the table, and sat down again right in front of Harrison. "The only way to set off the bomb is to use the remote thingy," she said. "Hadley and I have spent the last two days working on the problem, even long after we knew we couldn't solve it. I'm all right, thank you for asking, but Hadley hasn't slept, and if you ask me he's not eating right, either. We tried, Harry. We tried hard."
Apryl was dead. That's what they were saying. No wonder it didn't sound right. They wanted to kill his girlfriend. "What did you try?" he heard himself ask. He didn't remember thinking of that question.
Hadley snapped. "What? Like you would understand it?" He laughed. "All right, let's see. We jury-rigged a detector to measure Glimmer's myston emissions, thinking that she might be powerful enough to trigger the bomb, but unfortunately her current ailment has cut her power considerably. It's just as well, because even if she could set it off, she'd have to sacrifice so much body mass to do it that she wouldn't survive. Building that detector and running it took most of an afternoon. Next we took a sample of Apryl's blood and put a genesis charm on it to grow it into a clone. It didn't live very long, but we learned a great deal from it, most notably that Apryl's power didn't replicate into it. We also confirmed that Apryl's power is entirely magical. That alone would normally be cause for celebration, because we have long since determined that you and Claudia have abilities that are completely physiological and devoid of magic, and we had assumed that any telekinetic would be likewise. Apryl is a spell caster, with a power level easily in the seventh heptile. Probably considerably higher. So after getting that useless windfall of information, we explored the possibility of siphoning life energy from everyone in the group. We discovered that nonmagical life signatures, while vulnerable to all sorts of spells, are totally incompatible with Gizmo. That brought us back to Glimmer. Again, she's too depleted to be a donor. I've made more discoveries in the last two days than in most of the year I spent working for Esoteric Studies, and I have no idea how to use the data." He looked at Glimmer. "Does that about cover it?"
She shrugged. "I s'pose."
"Well, there it is then. It's a numbers game, Captain. It's a numbers game, and we lose."
Harrison was barely able to tell if Dr. Tucker was finished, or if he was just regrouping, cooling down, and preparing for another scientific onslaught. Most of what he had said was way beyond Harrison's lay knowledge of magic at his best, and right then he was dizzy and nauseated. Apryl was dead. He heard that much. He forced himself to surface. "You took a sample of her blood?" he asked. His return to alertness was far enough along that the thought of Apryl being violated started to gel.
"Jeannette took it. She told her it was for a mono test."
Harrison digested this. "You told Jeannette?"
Hadley looked down. His hands were folded on the table. He studied them. Carefully. "We told her it was for a test of magical ailments. She had no idea what we were actually doing."
That brought Harrison back up one notch. "You cloned her!" he said, then caught how loud he had said it and winced.
"Sort of," said Glimmer. She looked at Hadley and then rolled her eyes.
Hadley was still looking at his hands. "We made an embryo. It grew to about a centimeter and then …" His voice sounded weak. "Well, it died."
"Exploded," Glimmer corrected.
Harrison felt the faint-headedness return. He pushed past it. "What's a heptile?" he asked, looking for any anchor he could find.
"Oh," said Hadley, looking up. "It's one seventh of a population. Ahhh, magic is all sixes and sevens. That's just the way those things are measured."
In spite of himself, Harrison found the ability to laugh. "Sixes and sevens. That's what Alec always said, but I think he meant something else by it." Harrison stopped talking and used both hands to wipe away a considerable amount of wetness that he was only just then noticing on his face. He sniffed and sat up straighter. He could tell that they were waiting for him to say something, but he wasn't ready.
"Harrison?" Hadley asked. "Are you going to tell her yourself?"
So, that was it then. She was dead. Dead as a dishrag, and there was nothing they could do to stop it, short of letting her off the hook and letting the world end instead. "No," he heard himself say.
Hadley went one shade paler, looked at Glimmer, then back at Harrison. "Are you asking me to tell her?"
Harrison sighed. "No," he said again. There was a pause, and he guessed that Hadley was waiting for him to say something else. He was silent.
"Harry, she has to know," said Glimmer. He looked at her and saw little
beads of glitter forming on her face.
"No," he said again.
No one spoke for nearly a minute. Finally, Hadley stood up. "This is wrong," he said. "It's wrong, and it's going to kill you when we're done here."
"Thank you, Dr. Tucker," said Harrison. "You're dismissed."
"Harry?"
"No," said Hadley. "No, he's right. I'm through here." He said it to Glimmer, but his eyes were locked on Harrison's. He walked to the door, then stopped in the doorway, his back still turned. "If Alec were still in charge-"
"This is exactly how he would handle this."
Hadley waited a beat, then said quietly, "That's exactly what I was going to say. This isn't you, Harrison."
Harrison swallowed. "You don't know me."
Hadley stood still for a moment, then right before slipping out the door, faced Harrison again and said, "I'm so sorry you think that." Harrison stared at the door well after it had closed.
"Harry?" He turned to look at her, expecting more tears. He saw them, but the face they covered was hard and angry.
"You say nothing," he said.
She said nothing.
Chapter Forty-Five:
Secrets
Harrison sat across from Apryl, savoring the texture of a mouthful of al dente linguine. He swallowed, and followed it with a pull on his cold glass of Heineken. Apryl was drinking some sort of red wine. Harrison had no taste for wine and had passed on sharing the bottle. She had seemed disappointed. Inconsistent light from the candles between them reflected off her face. He felt it made her especially beautiful.
The Ptolemy was due into port the next day. Harrison had not told Apryl anything about what would come after that. His only focus for the past few days had been to keep her happy. She was clearly enjoying the attention. Harrison assumed she was crediting it to the novelty of their relationship.
They had been eating in silence for about five minutes, tossing each other playful, but meaningful glances. He had made a game out of getting her to giggle. It was getting easier. He was beginning to wonder how much the wine had taken hold.
Apryl pulled her chair around to the side of the table so they were sitting across a corner from each other. Then she moved her plate and resumed her meal. After a minute, she moved her chair again, this time to the corner itself. She looked uncomfortable there, but she was struggling to keep a straight face. She moved once more, and now her chair was touching his. She moved her plate so that its edge rested against his. She went back to eating.
She leaned against him as she chewed, turning her face toward him, smacking her lips as she swallowed. She giggled and snorted involuntarily. Harrison laughed.
She leaned harder into him, brushing her cheek against his chin. He absently ran his fingers over her hair. She tilted her head up, and kissed him. He could taste spaghetti sauce on her lips, wine on her breath. He savored these tastes.
She took his hand in hers, and ran her fingers over his knuckles. Then she pulled his hand up, and placed it on her breast. It felt soft and inviting, and he held it, caressing her lovingly. She hummed quietly. It was a friendly sound. She let go of his hand, and moved her own into his lap. She brushed him, then enveloped him, stroking gently, but assertively. He responded naturally, reaching back, filling her hand. He moaned.
He stood up so quickly that his chair fell over, almost taking him with it. Apryl looked at him with patient eyes. Two days from now, he told himself, or less, she would be dead. He couldn't bear the thought of being intimate with her, knowing her fate when she did not. It felt like the vilest of lies, like an unforgivable liberty. It might as well be rape.
"I'm not ready for this," he lied. Maybe she would believe him. They had been here before, though never this close. At first, she had shown real respect for his restraint. She had even told him how gratifying it was to be in a relationship that she knew wasn't just about sex. She had added that she was in no hurry. He was a little shocked now, therefore, that she had become so aggressive. He wondered if she was drunk.
She stood and moved closer to him, kindness in her face. She stretched up to his ear. She nibbled it, and whispered, "We won't have another chance."
Harrison's heart dropped to the floor. He pulled away from her. "What did she tell you?" he demanded.
"Nothing I didn't already suspect."
Harrison closed his eyes. "She had no right."
"Harrison?" He opened his eyes. "Don't be angry with her. I know you were trying to protect me. I appreciate it. Really. But I don't want that. I'm okay."
He could feel tears pulling at the edge of his vision. "How can you be okay?"
She shrugged. "I'm saving the world." A tear ran down her cheek. He wrapped his arms around her, and they wept together, softly. "I don't want to die," she whispered.
"I don't want you to die," he whispered back.
"Well, I'm going to. And I want my last day to be perfect." She kissed him. "I want you," she said a minute later. "Take me to bed."
* * *
From their blind, Harrison and his crew watched the Ptolemy sail right up to the dock and stop. Ropes flew over the side, and dock hands tied them to stanchions. The sails pulled themselves back up.
"I forgot how pretty she is," said Claudia. "I hope my omni is still in there."
Harrison laughed. He thought back to his first impression of Claudia, from a billion years ago. She was the sultry, come-hither voice on the radio, a woman of mystery who had stunned him by turning out to be a little girl. Then she stunned him over and over again by being a woman after all, with a wisdom and maturity that belied her chronological age. He thought about the first time he had seen her use her power. She had recited "Jabberwocky" to him from a distance so great he could barely see her. He remembered how inadequate his own ability seemed by comparison. He had only just learned that he had a superhuman talent, and already she was making him wish he had hers instead. He smiled at the memory. They had come quite a way since then. He rested his hand on her back.
For no apparent reason, his hand started to tingle. Then he felt a sudden and painful shock. He jerked his hand back and stared at it. The silver ring on his middle finger was glowing slightly. It faded and put out a tiny puff of blue smoke.
"Ow!" said Claudia. "What the fuck!" She was rubbing her back where Harrison had touched her. "What the hell is that thing?"
Harrison was unsure how to answer. He looked at Glimmer, who rolled her eyes.
"Hey!" said Apryl. She was pointing to the ship. "Look!" Two men were disembarking. Even from that distance, they could tell that they were Scott and the animated statue.
"They don't have the bomb," said Alec. "That's good. Maybe they didn't find it."
"Then we stick to the original plan," said Harrison. Their first order of business was to get the bomb off the ship and get it as close to the center of the island as possible. The exact center was Scott's fortress, but Harrison felt it might be a stretch to put it there. Hadley assured him that it would work as long as it was within about half a mile of the target.
"Are you ready?" Harrison asked Apryl. She nodded. She would have to teleport him in and out, and he wanted her to be ready for whatever strain that put on her. She had been remarkably courageous. He was, in fact, probably having a harder time with this than she was. Glimmer had asked him if he loved her. He pushed the question out of his heart. He could feel himself coming closer to an answer. He gave her a hug. "Let's do it then," he said. She closed her eyes, and her hair started to flutter.
There was no sense of motion or transition.
He found himself standing in a dark room. The initial overwhelming sensory experience was aroma. Outside, it was too cold to truly smell anything, and now he was suddenly confronted by the scent of oiled wood in a stuffy closed chamber. He felt Apryl wobble, and he caught her and held her. She gave him a thumbs-up. He nodded.
He found a light switch and turned it on. The bomb was unmoved, apparently untouched. Scott's men had either not been ab
le to open the door or had not tried. He checked the lock. It was still crushed shut, and he did not experiment with touching it. He inspected the bomb closely, to confirm that no one had tampered with it. No one had.
The next part would be the trickiest. They would have to teleport it close enough to do good, but far enough to avoid being seen. He took a long look at the contraption, mostly built from sticks and string, that would save what was left of the world. And suddenly, he saw it in a wholly other capacity. This was the thing that would kill his girlfriend. Beyond that, even. This thing would kill, really kill, his sister. He knew that it was still possible to bring her back, but only for an instant. The backlash would make her disappearance permanent, meaning he would lose even that minuscule opportunity to see her again. He would use the bomb to kill her. It would kill Jeannette's husband, too. It would kill Mitchell's parents. Dorothy's sisters. Six billion people who were not yet dead, but in some frozen limbo, and he was going to kill them all.
He shook his head. Even if he could save them, they would all return just in time to watch the world end again, this time forever. He had promised Titania that he would fix the world, that he would freeze it in its current state. He knew he had to keep that promise.
It would even kill Oberon.
Shivering, he waved Gizmo over the bomb. The emerald marble glowed green, and, briefly, so did the bomb.
He glanced at Apryl, who was looking on curiously. He held out his palm, and pointed, a hand signal telling her it was time to go. She took his hand, and laid her other hand on the bomb. She was ready to take them to a well-hidden location half a mile from the giant Gryphon.