All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault

by James Alan Gardner

  “Sparks,” Nicholas said, shaking his head. “Why are you all so territorial? You’re worse than were-beasts.”

  “Good question,” I said, and I meant it. Sparks are amazingly focused when it comes to geography. Take New York City, with its ridiculously high density of superheroes and villains. If you wanted to commit super-crimes, why wouldn’t you go elsewhere? You could rob every bank in Cleveland without superpowered opposition.

  But no. Almost every supervillain in the entire US of A operated in metro New York: the one place where there were enough heroes to foil every villain’s plans. Crazy! But villains never seemed to consider leaving what they saw as their turf.

  And what about me and my teammates? Mere minutes after discovering our powers, we’d told Grandfather we were claiming Waterloo as our protectorate.

  Strange. And strange how natural it felt. “That’s how it is,” I told Nicholas. Or should I say Wraith? No. I might have to call him Wraith to hide my identity, but inside my head, he would always be Nicholas.

  I said, “I’m involved with this because I’m concerned with any trouble in the region. And you?”

  “I can’t say,” he replied. “I signed an NDA. That’s a nondisclosure agreement.”

  “I know what an NDA is,” I snapped. I didn’t mention that Nicholas himself was the one who’d explained the concept to me—particularly the special NDAs Darklings often signed in blood or whatever effluent their bodies could produce.

  If Sparks had a thing about territory, Darklings had a thing about contracts. They couldn’t just say, “Let’s work together,” they had to draw up formal legal documents. When I was with Nicholas he was only seventeen and physically restricted, but he’d still been forced to sign multiple agreements with his family, dictating what he would and wouldn’t do. Some of those agreements were only on paper and therefore unenforceable—he was still a minor, so anything he signed wasn’t legally binding. But some of the contracts were “special” and far more inviolable than mere Canadian law. If he tried to defy them, he might go blind or catch fire. Now that Nicholas had come of age as a full-fledged creature of the Dark, he had undoubtedly signed even more pacts, probably all of them “special.” Nicholas might be lying, but if the NDA was real, either he’d literally be incapable of going against it, or he could do so but would face a severe magical backlash.

  “What can you tell me?” I asked. “What do you know about Popigai?”

  “A professor in chemical engineering,” Nicholas said. “Recently hired, Russian background, and he’s covered with metal. Either flexible skintight armor, or his body is actually metallic.”

  “Darkling or Spark?” I asked.

  “He’s not in the Darkling Index.”

  I kicked myself for not checking the index on my own. It was a public list of everyone who’d signed the Dark Pact since 1982. Darklings had a love/hate relationship with the index. On one hand, they got off on the status of being listed, like making the Forbes list of the world’s richest people. At the same time, rich people had a knee-jerk aversion to being on public lists of any kind. Many tried to cut deals with the Elders of the Dark: “If I pay you double, can I be Converted without anyone knowing?” But as far as anybody knew, no one could stay off the index. The Elders had sworn an oath to maintain a true and complete account of every Darkling they created, and they laughed at the idea of breaking their oath just to please some whiny wannabe.

  The only unlisted were the Elders themselves.

  And the Unbound.

  And whatever offspring the Unbound chose to sire outside the Pact.

  “SO POPIGAI IS LIKELY A SPARK,” I SAID

  “That’s the only alternative,” Nicholas replied.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  Nicholas said nothing. When he was still human, he’d told me about the Unbound. Now that he was a Darkling, he was less forthcoming. After a moment, he said, “What do you know about Popigai?”

  “No more than you.” But I could now hear voices in the quiet building. My teammates were out of sight but not far away. “Shall we check Popigai’s office?”

  Nicholas gestured down the hall. “Lead the way.”

  I WALKED; HE FLOATED

  It was eerily like when he was in the chair and rolling beside me through Banff. His head drifted along at the same height as mine, and I walked a fraction slower than when I was alone.

  Old patterns in new containers.

  As we walked, Nicholas’s face surreptitiously aged from seventeen to thirtyish. He must have wanted to seem more mature when dealing with Sparks. It made me smile; so many second-gen Darklings went through Conversion as soon as they came of age, then spent the rest of their potentially endless lives trying not to look like kids.

  Darklings yearned for respect more than they yearned for blood or flesh. With one another they vied for status; with mortals, they wanted deference, admiration, and acknowledgment of their greatness. However, once Sparks had arrived, the hero worship that Darklings saw as their due switched over to the folks in tacky costumes rather than the Beneficent Bestowers of Prosperity.

  Now I was a Spark myself: on the same level as Nicholas and all the Vandermeers. Three years ago, if Zircon had been in that room with Elaine instead of poor powerless Kimmi … well, we’d already seen that Zircon could handle vampires.

  I thought about that. Had I beat up Lilith as a subconscious stand-in for Elaine? No. If I had equated Lilith with Elaine, I might have done things I’d seriously regret.

  But the real Elaine was still out there. So were the other Darklings I’d met when I was with Nicholas: the ones who had bullied and belittled me. Now I had the power to …

  No. Just no. Wish fulfillment is a pleasant fantasy, but when you suddenly aren’t shooting blanks, you have to be more responsible.

  Maybe the real purpose of Darklings is to show Sparks who not to be.

  WE TURNED A CORNER AND FOUND MY TEAMMATES

  Dakini and Aria were watching Ninety-Nine fiddle with a lock on an office door. I wondered how Ninety-Nine happened to be carrying lockpicks. Maybe thinking ahead was another one of her talents. (That proved, by the way, Ninety-Nine ≠ Jools.)

  Dakini saw us coming. “Look, Zircon has found a friend.”

  “This is Wraith,” I said. “A Darkling. He’s interested in Popigai too.”

  “Why?” Aria demanded.

  “I can’t say,” Nicholas replied.

  “Can’t or won’t?” Aria asked.

  “Let’s not be adversarial,” Dakini said. “If Wraith wishes to help us, we should welcome his support.”

  She smiled at Nicholas. I wondered how soon it would be before her violet tentacles were rummaging through his brain.

  NICHOLAS SAID, “I DIDN’T KNOW THIS CITY HAD SO MANY SPARKS.”

  “Waterloo is a quiet place,” Dakini told him. “We’ve had no reason to show ourselves.”

  “Towns with Sparks don’t stay quiet,” Nicholas said. “The presence of Darklings makes no waves, but as soon as Sparks arrive…”

  Aria bristled. “Are you blaming us for something?”

  “Just making an observation. By the way, if you want to keep Waterloo quiet, I recommend you stop picking that lock.”

  “Why?” Ninety-Nine asked.

  “It might be booby-trapped.”

  Ninety-Nine stopped working the picks. “Really?”

  “I don’t know what Popigai is up to,” Nicholas said, “but he might be a bad guy, correct?”

  “Possibly,” Aria said. She obviously hated to agree with a Darkling, but until we knew what was going on, we had to treat Popigai as a potential villain.

  Maybe a supervillain.

  Maybe a Mad Genius.

  “In that case,” Nicholas said, “he might have rigged that door to go Gothic on intruders. A bomb. Poison gas. You name it.”

  Ninety-Nine carefully withdrew her picks from the lock. “Zircon,” she said, “tag, you’re it.”

  I SHRANK


  I did it slowly, and kept my gaze on Nicholas’s face as I got microscopic. Since he didn’t have eyes, I was denied the satisfaction of seeing them go wide, but it was gratifying to see his mouth gape in surprise.

  I tried to move my viewpoint into Popigai’s room, but Spark-o-Vision went dead halfway through the door. Crap: a blinder wall.

  If Popigai was a Spark, how on earth did he get a blinder? They’re created with magic. But perhaps a Spark with engineering cred could build something similar to a blinder using Cape Tech. Besides, Popigai had Darkling acquaintances; any of the six Darklings I’d seen might have cast a blinder spell on Popigai’s behalf.

  However the blinder got there, it meant I had to enter the office without advance reconnaissance. Not good. But if I shrank really small, I probably wouldn’t set off traps.

  Probably.

  I grew back to full size and told the others, “Back off a bit. There’s a blinder wall down through the middle of the door. I can’t see if anything will go boom when I enter.”

  “I could likely dispel the blinder,” Nicholas said. “They’re usually easy to break.”

  “And breaking the blinder wouldn’t set off a trap?” I asked.

  He looked sheepish. “Actually, it’s pretty common to set booby traps on blinders so if anyone tampers with them…” He shrugged.

  “Move down the hall,” I said. “I’ll call you when it’s safe.”

  I SHRANK IMMEDIATELY

  Otherwise, Aria might have argued at being told to back off. Once I was gone, however, she and the others grudgingly put some distance between themselves and the door.

  When I thought they were far enough away, I shrank to virus size and flew under the door. I could easily see the blinder ahead of me, reaching down into the floor. Just short of the black curtain, I landed, then jumped forward with all my strength. I worried I might get trapped in the black neural nothingness, but I cleared the blinder’s breadth with millimeters to spare. That’s huge when you’re the size of influenza.

  Past the blinder, I stopped. I was still underneath the door, but now my Spark-o-Vision could check out what waited inside. It was a mess much akin to Popigai’s lab after the explosion.

  At one point, the room must have been a normal office: bookshelves, desk, computer, etc. But something had tossed everything around like a whirlwind, emptying the shelves and heaving the computer so hard the monitor screen was embedded edge-on into the wall. The place looked like it had been hit by an artillery shell. Strangely, however, the air smelled of spice, not smoke: some herb that was sharp and sweet. I had no idea what the spice was. On my very best day, my nose is hard-pressed to identify anything more exotic than soy sauce. But Dakini would know the smell immediately, so I didn’t waste time guessing.

  The only question I cared about was whether it was safe to open the door. I examined it with Spark-o-Vision. The door was standard university issue: a wooden core covered with white plastic laminate. The plastic was charred and melted, baring the wood beneath. A patch of damage showed a curlicue pattern. I suspected that a glyph had been painted on the door, and had surged to plasma heat in the blink of an eye. The glyph’s combustion might well have caused the hurricane that tore up the office. I wondered if the glyph had been designed to hurt intruders, or just eliminate any evidence the room might hold.

  Whatever its purpose, the glyph had gone off and spent its energy. I saw no other traps. I finished crawling under the door, grew to Max Zirc height, and let the others in.

  MY TEAMMATES AND NICHOLAS TROOPED INTO THE ROOM

  The office didn’t have space for five full-grown people, so I shrank to Barbie size. I stood in one corner of the room and let my Spark-o-Vision roam, searching for “clues” that hadn’t been destroyed by the glyph’s incineration.

  My companions did the same. Ninety-Nine searched methodically, Aria sang her searching song, and Dakini “attuned herself psychically to serendipitous forces.” As for Nicholas, does a ghost have powers that help in searching? If you survey world folklore, you can find ghosts with any power imaginable. Some ghosts seem able to do almost anything as long as it’s creepy. Others are virtually powerless, like the ones trapped in loops washing their hands or trying to open a door.

  Nicholas likely had a large ghostly repertoire, but for now, he just turned intangible and backed partly into a wall so he wouldn’t interfere with my teammates. Even so, I could tell he was concentrating: His expression was distant, and he’d gone as motionless as a vampire. Watching and gathering intel on how we operated.

  “LOOK AT THIS,” DAKINI SAID

  She dragged a corkboard from under a pile of books. A lot of offices had corkboards, usually covered with xkcd cartoons, takeout menus from nearby restaurants, and reminders about deadlines that had already passed. Typically, such papers are held up with thumbtacks, but the winds that Cuisinarted the office had torn off anything merely tacked on. The only things remaining were two items stuck on more securely with staples—a white business card and a color brochure.

  I zoomed in my Spark-o-Vision. The card bore nothing except the name C. G. Rossetti in an elegant handwriting font. The brochure had a generic sun-sea-and-swimsuits photograph with the title Fabulous Caribbean Escapes! Aria snorted when she saw it: “Can you get any more lowbrow?”

  “I believe that’s the point,” Dakini said. She made a V with two fingers and laid them on the card and the pamphlet.

  Immediately, both the card and the pamphlet changed. “Psionic illusions,” Dakini said smugly. “They can fool weak minds.”

  Aria glowered, then leaned in to look at the newly revealed items.

  THE CARD WAS STILL A CARD AND THE BROCHURE STILL A BROCHURE

  But the card now had a lurid purple background, against which a cartoonish face had been drawn as if in white chalk: a huge grinning mouth full of sharp jagged teeth … pointed ears lined with dozens of earringed piercings … gigantic eyes with cat-slit pupils. As we stared, one of the eyes winked.

  The brochure had also turned purple. It was covered with writing in a script I didn’t recognize, all squiggles and geometry. I can read Chinese pictograms (very, very slowly), and I know the basic look of Cyrillic, Greek, Arabic, and Klingon. This wasn’t any of those. I suspected it was “Enochian,” a name that Darklings used in front of rubes when they talked about the language of spell incantations. All I knew about “Enochian” was that its true name was something different, and Darklings hated outsiders catching a glimpse of it.

  Nicholas tried to snatch the brochure. His movement looked involuntary, as if his hand moved without his brain’s involvement. But Aria had speed-of-sound reflexes and caught Nicholas’s wrist in midair. “Problem?” she asked.

  “No.” He let his arm turn to steam and diffuse from her grip.

  “You recognize this brochure?” Aria asked him.

  “Not at all,” he replied. We knew he was lying, and he knew we knew, but it didn’t matter. Unbeknownst to Nicholas, thin violet tendrils had run up the wall beside him and inserted themselves into his brain. We’d find out what he was hiding soon enough.

  IN THE MEANTIME, I CONTINUED TO STUDY THE BROCHURE

  I couldn’t read the writing, but the brochure’s layout reminded me of a restaurant menu: headings in large type, followed by lists in a smaller font. I didn’t want to think what kind of food items might be on offer.

  “I know every human language in the world,” Ninety-Nine said, “but I can’t read that. Wraith, are you sure you don’t recognize it?”

  “It might be a sorcerous language,” Nicholas said, still feigning ignorance. “Centuries ago, there were dozens of Darkling factions—the Hermetic Order of This, the Secret College of That—and they were all deadly rivals. Each group invented its own secret language, deliberately hard to decipher.” His fingers twitched. “If you let me show that around, I might find someone who can read it.”

  Aria said, “If Popigai was a Spark, why would he have something written in a sorcerous la
nguage?”

  “He was working with Darklings,” Nicholas said. “That’s more common than you might think. Lots of people on both sides want to combine the Light and Dark. They want to build sorcerous computers. Laser-guided golems. And the ultimate prize: finding a way to let Sparks cast magic or give Darklings superpowers.”

  “Has anyone ever succeeded?” Aria asked.

  “If they have, they aren’t blabbing it around,” Nicholas said. “The Elders say the Dark and the Light are non-overlapping magisteria: If you have access to one, you’re absolutely cut off from the other, period, full stop. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying.”

  “Especially the Unbound?” Aria asked.

  “The Unbound are a myth,” Nicholas said, as automatically as a politician saying, No comment. “And if they did exist, they wouldn’t conduct such experiments. The Unbound refuse to change with the times. They’d be horrified at the thought of getting into bed with the Light.”

  I found myself blushing. I shrank even smaller.

  “LOOK,” NICHOLAS SAID, “THIS OFFICE IS A DEAD END”

  “Whatever trashed the place was designed to eliminate evidence. Not to mention that someone got here before us—that’s what set off the trap. We won’t find anything useful.”

  “And this brochure?” Aria asked.

  “If you let me take it, I’ll see what I can find out.”

  “You think we’ll let you walk off with the only clue we’ve found?”

  “Can any of you read it?” Nicholas asked. Nobody answered. “See? It’s useless to you but maybe not to me.”

  “Why should we think helping you is a good idea?”

  “The Dark and the Light don’t have to be enemies,” Nicholas said. “We come from different backgrounds but often have common interests. Why not extend professional courtesy rather than being dogs in the manger?”

  Aria bristled, but Dakini said soothingly, “Let him have the brochure. A gesture of goodwill. Someday, he can return the favor.”

  Nicholas’s eyes flashed. “Favors” mean a lot to Darklings—more like business obligations than casual generosity. He said nothing as Dakini detached the brochure from the corkboard and handed it to him. “Let us know if you learn anything,” she said.