Out of the Box 7 - Sea Change

by Robert J. Crane

  I’ll admit it, I got offended by that. “Wait, you’re casting me as Vader? Are you serious?”

  He just stared at his missing hand, his skin rippling as he shifted in and out of phase. “I … I was gonna …” It was almost enough to make me feel sorry for him.

  But then I remembered that he’d killed more innocent people than I could count, and my inner b-word came rising right back to the surface.

  I stalked toward him, vaporizing his disembodied hand before his eyes as he watched, tearfully. “No one will remember your name,” I said, and he looked at me, dazed. “No one will know who you are. No one is watching you now, no one will see what you’ve done. When I report this little incident, it’s going to be without acknowledging you as anything other than a rabid dog that needed to be put down. What you have done is beyond the pale, who you have become is subhuman. However you think you were wronged, the wrongs you did in return more than tipped the scales.”

  “You can’t hide it,” Redbeard said, thinly satisfied smile peeking out of his lips beneath the cold resignation. “If you just kill me, the world will always wonder.”

  I thought about that for a second. “You’re right, Redbeard—”

  “Say my name,” he said, face darkening. “I know you know it.”

  “You’re not worthy of that recognition, Heisenberg,” I said coldly, looking right back at him. “You have no soul, no humanity.”

  “Neither do you,” he shot back. “Everybody says so.”

  “Unlike you,” I said, shrugging, “I never put much stock in the opinions of the masses.” I glanced back. “Anyone got a phone?”

  “Uh, yeah,” Steven pulled his out, and so did Scott. “Why?”

  “You might want to record this,” I said, smiling coldly as I turned back to Redbeard. “For posterity. And as a warning to others who think this chickenheart is some kind of hero.”

  “I am a hero,” Redbeard said, still flickering. “I am—”

  I’d had about enough of his shit so I let loose the fire.

  It blossomed out and consumed him before he could pull himself out of the physical realm. I knew he wanted to say his name, but the pain was swift and sudden, and his voice was consumed by fires hungry for oxygen. Karl Nash died over the course of about ten seconds as the flame raged over him, consuming him, turning him crispy and burnt. His screams and cries were pitiful, the sort of disgusting, heartbreaking noises that might even have moved me to tears if I hadn’t been doing everything I could to hold back the tide by playing a little video in my head of all the horrors he’d done.

  “Who’s Vader now, asshole?” I asked as his body was turned to ash, to smoke, to dust. I kept my voice even only through the most extreme effort. In truth, I wanted to go home and curl up in the fetal position, but I just kept my face straight and lowered my hand as the final scream of the man who would forever be known to the public as Redbeard echoed in my ears.

  And as his last scream died with him, I stood there, listening to another cry rising in my head—that of the humanity most people denied even existed in me. It was a cry of desperation inside me, the hope that the horror I had just committed would serve as a warning to any future copycats seeking glory that there was no glory to be found here at all.

  96.

  “So he’s definitely dead?” Detective Waters asked, looking at me skeptically.

  “The video already has like ten thousand views on YouTube,” Kat said, playing with my phone. She glanced up at me. “You should not read the comments.”

  I wanted to sigh, but I didn’t. I’d known what I was in for when I’d made my choice. I looked at Waters instead. “He’s definitely dead. Vaporized, no remains, no way to tell who he was.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me. “You sure that was the best way to go?”

  I looked around. The neighborhood was still standing, the fires that had destroyed Taggert’s car were out, Steven was leaning against his own ride, and Scott was … well, he was doing his damnedest not to even look at me. “You know as well as I do that with these types, copycats are a real danger. Keeping him anonymous and making sure his death had no glamour to it seemed like the way to send him off the stage.”

  “You make it sound like this was all a play,” Waters said, harrumphing her disdain as she made notes in her notebook.

  “In his mind,” I said, “it was all drama. Some people think being in front of a big audience, on TV, is some kind of a good thing, regardless of how you got there. They’re so desperate for any kind of attention that they’re willing to debase themselves and lose their humanity just to have people see their stupid face and know their name.”

  “Okay,” Kat said, and her face was flushed, eyes all narrowed, fuming as she looked at me, “I get it. I’ve been dumb—in your opinion.”

  “I wasn’t talking about y—” I frowned. “Though I guess that does apply, doesn’t it?”

  She looked like she’d never been amused and never would be. Sour does not begin to describe it. “You—”

  She was interrupted by a car screeching to a halt. I turned to see a taxi stop a hundred feet away and Guy Friday come springing out. “Federal Agent!” he shouted at the taxi driver in lieu, I suspected, of paying his fare. He ran over to us. “I missed it all, didn’t I?” He was already grown to supersize, slapping a ham-like fist into the palm of his other hand. “Man. You should have called. I would have made sure and Team Rocketed this bastard.” He stared at us, waiting for the joke to land. “Like … Team Rocket’s blasting off again?”

  I blinked. “Nice one, Yancy.” I turned my attention back to Waters. “So … Redbeard had a backer. Guy named Buchanan Brock.”

  “Buck Brock?” She looked up at me from her notebook. “I know of him. He human or one of yours?”

  I eyed her, deciding to let that one pass. “Human, so far as I know.”

  “Got an address on him?” she asked.

  “I’ve got one,” Scott said, finally breaking his silence. He shuffled over to us, stiffly, like he was aching all over, and held out his cell phone. “Here’s his number, here’s his office.”

  “I’ll get him picked up,” Waters said.

  “Be careful with that one,” I said, “he’s one of the president’s donors. Got a lot of connections.”

  “I could go help,” Guy Friday said to Detective Waters. “Just in case he’s not human.”

  She gave him the once over, in his giant form. “All right.” She waved him to follow, and he trotted after her like a loyal dog. She stopped, turned and looked back at me as the first news van came rolling up. “We’re not done with you yet, you know. Don’t go running off until we get things wrapped up, okay?”

  I frowned at the sight of the press, knowing that I was due a good pillorying for how I’d handled this one. “Of course you’re not done with me.” I lowered my voice to a sarcastic whisper. “Because getting the hell out of town before this thing explodes in my face would make my life way, way too easy.”

  “Ooh, you got a text message,” Kat said, slipping my phone into my palm. It buzzed again in my grip.

  Ricardo

  My heart and loins are aflame for you in much the same way as that man you set on fire. I know that you, too, must feel the burn in your—

  My eyes forced themselves shut of their own accord, probably in hopes of unseeing what I’d just seen. Didn’t help. With them closed, I had a vision of Dick-o fanning himself. It was not pleasant. “Dick, if only I could do to you what I just did to Redbeard, you might stand a chance of making me happy.”

  “Who is this Ricardo?” Steven asked, sidling up to me and looking at my phone now that Waters had walked away. The scene was buzzing with patrol officers, but they didn’t exactly have it cordoned off yet.

  “Just some Dick,” I said.

  “Can I have your phone back?” Kat asked, looking at me with hopeful eyes.

  “Don’t you want to go give an interview or twelve?” I asked, nodding at the press already
starting to butt up against the police perimeter.

  “Oh, right,” she said and off she went. She’d just been through a hotel collapse, a multi-state flight, a car accident and a fight with Redbeard, and her hair looked totally fine. Her dress was even still in good condition. Some people get all the luck, or the glamour, or something. She wandered off in her bare feet, blades of grass tilting toward her where they sprang up from cracks in the pavement.

  “That girl’s destined to make some poor bastard really miserable,” Steven observed, watching her with a visible cringe.

  “She’s not that bad,” I said half-heartedly. He gave me a sympathetic smile. “What are you doing sticking your neck out on this, Hollywood? Aren’t you famous enough without boosting your box office cred by being all crazy and dangerous?”

  “Well, I decided to generate some controversy, see,” Steven said, not quite keeping a straight face. “I know, I know—the traditional wisdom says scandals are the way to go. Maybe do what Flannery did, run in with the law, have a big pile of drugs, but I just—I can’t handle my liquor, I’m not really into narcotics—”

  “What are you doing in this town again?”

  “—so I decided to try old-fashioned guts and glory,” he said with a smile. “I figure it’s something different for this age.”

  “Hmph,” I said, shaking my head. “You better be careful. People might go thinking you’re a real-deal hero.”

  “I’d settle for you thinking it,” he said with a smile. “So … what do you think?”

  “I think you live in LA, and if I ever come back to this town again, it’ll be too soon,” I said with a little grimace of my own. “Sorry.”

  “Wow,” he said with a little laugh. “Shot down. That’s … I forgot what that felt like.”

  “If it makes you feel better,” I said, trying to be a little consoling, “I can honestly say that it’s not you, it actually is me.” I put my hands uneasily in my jean pockets. “I’m a wreck, Steven. I haven’t had a healthy relationship in years,” I looked at Scott, who was lurking nearby, definitely in listening distance, but he wasn’t looking at me, “I’m a public menace, and, uhm … you really don’t want to be near me for the next few months, because this thing I just did—it’s not going to play well in the press.” Or anywhere else, really. I’d just documented myself roasting another human being alive and had it posted on the internet. This put even my past YouTube videos to shame for sheer, nasty brutality.

  “I think you might have made the right call,” he said. “These guys—these—what did you call them?”

  “Injustice collectors,” I said. “That’s what the FBI calls them.”

  “Yeah, them,” he said, “when they get to go out in a blaze of glory, it probably appeals to the impressionable idiots just like them.” He shuddered. “I don’t think seeing one of their own get roasted like fresh venison on an open fire is going to inspire anyone to step up and copycat, that’s for sure. And otherwise, this guy … I mean, if he’d pulled off what he planned to …” He shuddered again.

  “Yeah,” I looked around the neighborhood. “I don’t even know what they’re going to do about that. There’s got to be more unexploded bombs buried in the ground here than a World War II battlefield in 1945. Pretty sure that’s not going to push property values in the direction Brock was hoping for.”

  “They’ll get ’em out somehow,” he offered hopefully. I didn’t quite share his optimism. He looked me straight in the eye. “So no chance, huh?”

  “For us?” I pretended to give it a moment’s thought. “Chalk this up to another bad decision for me on a whole pile of them, but … I gotta say no. I need to work on me for a while before I go inflicting myself on anyone else.”

  “You’ve always been nice to me,” he said with a smile.

  “You barely know me,” I said with one of my own. “Also, you’re kinda hot. Aren’t you used to being treated differently?”

  He nodded. “That’s a good point.” His eyes twinkled. “Let me know if you change your mind.”

  “Why are you pushing so hard on this?” I asked as he started to turn away. “I know I’m nothing special in the looks department—”

  “Yeah,” he said, cutting me off, “I don’t agree with you there. You never wear make-up or do your hair, and you still look pretty nice to my eyes. Plus,” his smile disappeared and he got serious, “there’s that whole fact that … fifty, sixty years ago … back when we saw things a little more black and white, before all the shades of grey crept in … you would have been a hero, period, full stop, no questions asked.”

  “I kinda like the shades of grey,” I said, trying to force a smile and failing. “I hate to think what I would have been like if I was never challenged on my … my bullshit, let’s call it. My out of control …” I lowered my eyes. “Well, some of the questionable things I’ve done. I’d probably be like—”

  “A goddess?” Now he was smiling again. “Handing down commands from on high?”

  “Something like that,” I said and extended my hand. He took it and shook it, and leaned in to give me a quick peck on the cheek.

  “It was nice to meet you, Sienna Nealon,” he said. “And if you ever do come back to LA—”

  “If it’s up to me, I won’t, no offense.”

  “Yeah, terrible weather,” he said, looking around, “awful food—”

  “Lovely traffic, such wonderful, deep and considerate people—”

  He grinned. “Take care of yourself. Maybe go a little easier on those flaws you see in the mirror—’cause I don’t see ’em like you do.” He walked away, and I watched him.

  I didn’t need to see the flaws when I looked in the mirror. I turned my head and saw Kat gushing to a TV reporter, putting a hand on hers, complimenting her on something or another, being nice, looking personable, and giving an interview that beat the hell out of the confrontational mess I’d put up when questioned by Gail Roth all those years ago.

  No, I didn’t need to look in the mirror to see my flaws. I’d be seeing them on every TV station for the foreseeable future, that much was certain. I listened in, just for a second, to try and hear what Kat was saying to the reporters in the cluster.

  “Sienna’s a real hero,” Kat said, “and this entire city would have been destroyed if not for her. I’d be dead. Like, for real. She saved my life and she stopped Redbeard, and I think she sent a really solid message to all these sick people who think that this is the way to get famous, and she did it by—you know, like really taking the burden on herself. She’s such a hero. I couldn’t even imagine having to go through what she’s gone through, or having to be as brave as she’s been over some of the things people have said about her—”

  Damn.

  Are we sure there’s a drought going on in Los Angeles? Because my eyes just watered. Must be the humidity.

  97.

  Scott

  The scene was a loose sort of chaos, and Scott felt lost in the clamor. It wasn’t the press or the violence that had discombobulated him. It was the voice in his head that reminded him that, in spite of whatever victory he’d been part of today, he was still missing something.

  Something big.

  It buzzed in his head as he listened to Kat talk to the press. She was giving tireless interviews, one after another, and the things she was saying about Sienna made him nearly sick on the spot.

  “She’s lying, you know,” he said, certain that Sienna was still lingering behind him.

  “I know,” came the answer, her voice quiet enough that even a boom mic wouldn’t have caught it.

  Scott whirled around and saw her sitting there with her arms folded, leaning against a parked police cruiser, the wreckage of Taggert’s car still smoking behind her. “You’re not a hero. You burned that guy to death—”

  “For a reason.”

  “Because it’s who you are,” he said, controlling his anger just barely. He held up a hand and water vapor wafted off it. “What you told Ste
ven, about not wanting to live in a world where you wouldn’t be held accountable … you’re kidding yourself. That’s like, your fantasy.”

  “I thought you didn’t know me anymore,” she said, and sounded … hurt?

  “I know enough,” he said, looking away from her. “I know enough to know I don’t want to be around you. That I don’t trust you.” Now he looked her in the eye, but she dropped her gaze. “I may have helped you today, but we’re not okay. And we’re never going to be okay again.” He held up one finger and pointed it right at her. “Don’t ever call me asking for help again.” He started to walk away.

  “I never have,” she said quietly. He did not turn, just kept walking, past the police line, ignoring the reporters. He broke into a run, not entirely caring where he ended up, just knowing he needed to get away from here—and from her.

  98.

  Sienna

  I hung around the scene after Scott told me off. No one heard, but it was still embarrassing. Well deserved, probably, but still embarrassing. I leaned against a police cruiser’s hood, feeling the dry air on my face, wondering if he’d taken the minuscule amount of moisture in the air with him when he’d stormed off. Probably not, but I imagined him doing it like a lover packing his things and slamming the door behind him after a tense argument.

  It didn’t take much imagination to come up with that simile, because I’d seen him do it before, in almost exactly that way.

  My phone rang, and I didn’t even want to look at who it was. Probably Dick, seeing how my luck was going at the moment.

  It wasn’t. It was Phillips. Better or worse? I dunno, you decide.

  “Yeah, what?” I asked, not half as nastily as I would have a few days earlier. I was too tired to be snarky.

  “Did you know—uh, Friday—went with the LAPD to arrest the human suspect behind this attack?” Phillips opened with this, so naturally my stomach tensed in anticipation of terrible news, like that Friday had accidentally caught a bullet to the head or something. Wait, would that be terrible?