All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault

by James Alan Gardner

  «I thought you might have.»

  Fuck, we were all so ick.

  «Do that instead of killing her,» I said. «Erase the whole of tonight if you can.»

  A moment later, the were-bat finally blew up.

  THE EXPLOSION SMUSHED ME DEEP INTO THE GROUND

  The ground itself got cratered by the blast. (Ooh, a geological shock structure! I wanted to look for shatter cones. But that was craziness talking: displacement. If you ever have a person blow up on top of you, just see if your mind doesn’t grab at stupid random thoughts to avoid processing what happened.)

  I lay in the middle of the crater, shoved into a divot in the dirt. I hurt as if my skin had been flayed with a rusty jackknife, then burned before my eyes. But when I examined my body from above, I saw no damage to my rocky hide … and I had an unobstructed view, because the detonation had incinerated the front of my clothes.

  Bloody hell. Letting the Goblin enchant my costume may have been rash, but I suddenly felt pretty good about the deal.

  The back of my outfit was intact, having been shielded from the blast by my body (and having regrown in the few short minutes since the last time it had been trashed by an explosion). As I lay in the pit, I could feel threads beginning to creep over my shoulders, around my sides, and up my crotch as the back of the costume worked to reconstitute the front.

  It was pretty damned arousing. Or maybe that was just more crazy-desperate displacement. Either way, I shrank fast so no one would see me wriggle.

  «SKINLESS IS GONE,» ARIA TRANSMITTED

  She was descending from the sky after disposing of the skeletal demon. I hadn’t heard him explode, so she must have taken him so high, his demise was out of earshot. Now he was just bone dust scattered across the jet stream.

  «The eclipse has reached totality,» Aria went on. «It’s lovely and red: a real blood moon. Too bad you can’t see it for the snow.»

  «The snow will stop soon,» Ninety-Nine said. «That’s a given.»

  Ninety-Nine stood with her hockey stick planted against Elaine’s chest. Dakini had joined her and was crouching over Elaine’s unconscious body. Violet tendrils snaked from Dakini’s head into Elaine’s. It wouldn’t have broken my heart if Dakini erased years of memory instead of just minutes, but I didn’t say that.

  «How do you know the snow will stop?» Aria asked Ninety-Nine.

  «There’s no point to it anymore,» Ninety-Nine said. «The snow was intended to cause accidents and keep the po-po busy. Also to conceal what was happening out here until the portal opened.» She gestured toward the rift, which was closing, though not quickly. «If Diamond wanted people to enter the rift and get superpowers, the snow would be counterproductive. People couldn’t reach the portal as easily. Besides, what Diamond really wants is the big dramatic reveal.»

  «Reveal of what?» Aria asked.

  At that moment, the snow stopped falling, like a tap being turned off. It must have stopped minutes before, but only now were the last of the flakes reaching the ground. What was left was indeed a reveal: the gigantic rift, tall enough to be seen for miles, and the bloodred moon shining luridly above it.

  «Oh,» Aria said. «That.» She paused. «Is it horrible to think that whatever gets people out of bed to see an eclipse is a good thing?»

  Inside the rift, Lilith screamed.

  «Okay,» Aria said. «Just checking.»

  LILITH HOVERED AWAKE AMIDST THE RIFT’S BROWN GAS

  Despite the scream, she looked composed. She stared at us without blinking. One of her eyes was a normal blue, but the other was utterly black: no white, no pupil, just a flat black sheen.

  That would be the eye I’d splattered with the tranq dart. Whatever superpowers Lilith had acquired, I did not expect good things from that eye.

  THE LIGHT’S FIREBALL-BEES SEEMED SCARED OF THE EYE TOO

  They pulled quickly away, leaving a broad gap between themselves and Lilith. Like backing off from a rabid dog.

  Aria met Lilith’s half-black stare. “You’d better come out,” Aria said. “We’ve destroyed the machine that keeps the portal open. If you don’t leave the rift soon, you’ll be trapped.”

  “If I come out, you’ll attack me,” Lilith said.

  “We won’t,” Aria said. “Why would we?”

  “Because you’re Light and I’m Dark.”

  “That’s no reason to fight.”

  “Of course it is. The Dark and the Light are enemies. Order and chaos.”

  “Which is which?” Aria asked.

  Lilith sneered. “See, there’s another reason to fight: You’re clueless.”

  “Then enlighten us,” Dakini said. She had finished mind-wiping Elaine. Dakini and Ninety-Nine came to stand shoulder to shoulder with Aria.

  Lilith sighed dramatically, although I’m sure she relished the chance to speak. Monologuing: It never fails. “The Dark embody order. Organizers. Leaders. We manage sources of prosperity to maximize their return. We bought our powers legitimately, through a mutually beneficial, clearly defined agreement. Sparks, on the other hand, are nobodies. They didn’t get their powers through accomplishments or character. They just won the lottery and didn’t even buy a ticket. Is that fair? Is it right? Why should you have godlike abilities when the person next door doesn’t? Because you got hit by lightning? How does that make you special?”

  “What makes us special,” Ninety-Nine said, “is that we came here to stop a villain and save lives. As opposed to you, who conspired with said villain because you were bugfuck with Spark envy.”

  “I don’t envy Sparks, I hate them. And I hate Diamond. He’s a mass murderer, and now that I have both Dark and Light powers, I’m going to tear him to pieces. But despite all that, I paid for his services. He set a price to make me super, and I paid him, fair and square. I didn’t just fluke my way into undeserved privilege. I paid.”

  “You gave Diamond money,” Aria said, “which means you helped bankroll everything he’s done here. He hoped to kill hundreds of thousands of people. Such an admirable investment, especially since it’s going to kill you too.”

  Aria waited for a reaction. She didn’t get it. Lilith was a vampire, and vampires are good at deadpan. “Guess you haven’t heard,” Aria continued. “Diamond’s process has killed every Darkling it touched. He must not have told you about the mess in the Market, and you missed seeing what happened to the others who were with you. But look around. They disintegrated. A few minutes ago, Diamond bragged that the Light and the Dark are like matter and antimatter: Lock them into a single body, and kaboom. That’s what your money bought you. A quick, ugly death.”

  Lilith shrieked and shot out of the rift. The Dark and the Light really can’t avoid useless fights.

  LILITH FLEW WITH THE SPEED OF A “BURST PHENOMENON” AUGMENTED BY SUPERPOWERS

  She was fast enough to break the sound barrier, sonic boom and all. If Lilith had gone for Ninety-Nine or Dakini, she might have killed them instantly. Their mere human reflexes couldn’t have reacted quickly enough.

  But Lilith targeted Aria. Thanks to our Halos, all four of us looked like legends made flesh; even so, Aria was the center of attention. I’m sure it’s one of her superpowers. Miranda claims to be fed up with people gawking at her whenever she walks into a room, but when she became a Spark, her wish fulfillment included a strong urge to stand out. Miranda-slash-Aria might not have craved attention, but she totally assumed she’d get it.

  Ergo she did. From Lilith and damned near everyone else we met. Aria was our designated Attention Magnet.

  Luckily, she had the reflexes to handle that role. She could throw up her force field in a nanosecond. By the time Lilith reached her, Aria had surrounded herself with a golden barrier three times thicker than I’d ever seen before.

  She was still bowled off her feet. Lilith hit Aria like a three-hundred-pound football player: one who could run a thousand miles an hour and punch through bank-vault doors. Lilith rammed Aria back a good fifty meters, at whic
h point they hit a garage full of dump trucks and front-end loaders.

  The attack didn’t stop there. Lilith and Aria went through the garage’s brick wall and slammed into an earthmover twice the size of a dump truck. The impact knocked the vehicle sideways; it toppled onto the garage’s floor with a thunder of metal on concrete. Then and only then did Lilith and Aria stop.

  For a moment, Lilith just lay on top of Aria’s fat force field as if it were one of those big rubber exercise balls. Then her dart-damaged eye vomited hideous black bile over the field’s golden surface.

  THE BILE SPLASHED OVER THE FORCE FIELD

  Its effect was like acid. It ate at the golden energy, making black pits in the smooth protective shell. Immediately, Lilith followed up with her fists. She pounded on the damaged surface with the force of an avalanche, fists hammering so hard and fast it sounded like a drumroll on timpani.

  Maybe it was my imagination, but beneath the thunderous booms I thought I could hear the force field making soft eggshell cracks.

  NINETY-NINE RACED FORWARD, HOCKEY STICK IN HAND

  The stick glowed a gleeful green.

  Right up to the moment when Ninety-Nine swung it at Lilith’s head.

  The stick didn’t break, but neither did the head. Lilith didn’t even notice. The stick, on the other hand, bent as if made of rubber. It folded double under the force. Ninety-Nine yelled, “Ow!” and let go; the stick unbent and boomeranged away, clattering into the shovel of a front-end loader.

  Ninety-Nine shook her hands, trying to flick out the pain. I remembered the sting of hitting a baseball full strength with an aluminum bat. I didn’t envy Ninety-Nine the sensation.

  Dakini reacted more slowly, but she didn’t have to move. A sheet of violet light swept from her head toward Lilith. The sheet wrapped Lilith’s face in its folds, enveloping eyes, nose, and mouth. Lilith was still a vampire and didn’t need to breathe, so blocking her airways wouldn’t do much. On the other hand, covering that bile-puking eye was definitely commendable; even if the violet blindfold couldn’t withstand the bile’s effects, it gave Aria another layer of protection. I thought it might also make it harder for Lilith to hit her target, but that didn’t seem to be true. As Aria tried to dodge Lilith’s fists, the punches remained 100-percent accurate—as if Lilith could see through the blockage.

  Super-speed, super-strength, super-sight, and an eye that shot deadly emissions. Who did that remind me of?

  If the Light bestowed powers according to wish fulfillment, I could tell what Lilith had been wishing for, ever since that night in the wheat fields. I wondered if there was a rank of Sparks worse than Hiroshima.

  I AIMED MYSELF TOWARD THE FRAY

  What did I mean to do? I don’t know. Murderous things.

  But before I could flap my coattails, I spotted movement above me. Normal vision wouldn’t have seen it—the motion was high overhead, and it shed no ordinary light. But Spark-o-Vision saw the glimmer of superhuman power: an armored figure hovering backlit in front of the bloodred moon.

  Diamond had discarded his Popigai identity. He was no longer pretending to be steel. Instead, he was covered in colorless crystal, with thousands of glinting facets. It was his famous battle suit made of actual diamond, but hardened even more, thanks to Mad Genius technology, and outfitted with an arsenal of Cape Tech weapons.

  As I watched, the glow surrounding his body increased until he shone with a pure white brilliance. I don’t know what he looked like in the visible spectrum—maybe still as dark as night—but in Spark-o-Vision, Diamond blazed with power, all of his energies activated.

  While Lilith distracted my teammates, Diamond intended to attack.

  I FLAPPED HARD IN HIS DIRECTION

  I wondered if I should warn the others. No, not yet. I didn’t know how the comm rings worked, but Diamond was a Mad Genius. He might have a way to spot our communications. If I transmitted anything, it was possible he could pick me up as a source and know I was moving toward him. Better to maintain radio silence; I’d only have one chance for the element of surprise.

  DIAMOND SHOWED NO SIGNS OF NOTICING ME

  He raised his hand, as he had above the Market before loosing that missile at us. The coin-sized hole that I’d seen before appeared once again in his palm.

  He aimed at the scrum, where Lilith beat on Aria while Ninety-Nine high-sticked Lilith. A single missile would hit all three. Maybe it would also hit Dakini; she stood nearby, trying psionically to make Lilith stop.

  Without any better ideas, I shrank to microscopic size and propelled myself into the hole in his palm. As soon as I was inside, I grabbed my knees, curled into a fetal ball, and grew as big as I could in order to clog the missile tube.

  I hoped I was as tough as I thought.

  ZIRCONS ARE SURVIVORS

  The oldest things on Earth.

  Earth is four and a half billion years old. Almost every pebble in the crust has been bashed to fragments, melted, and metamorphosed under furious heat and pressure.

  But zircons endure. They don’t go to pieces when everything else falls apart.

  Diamond fired his missile. I blocked its way.

  Spectacularity ensued.

  THINGS WENT ASPLODY

  Diamond’s armor protected him from external threats, but when his missile detonated against me, the blast was still very much internal. The hull of a Sherman tank does no good when a shell goes off inside. It only contains the force and makes it all the more lethal for the tank’s occupants.

  Diamond was just lucky the explosion took place around his hand. The resulting discharge vaporized everything up to Diamond’s wrist and continued along his arm, charbroiling flesh as it went. It only stopped when it ran into some kind of seal at the shoulder joint. The seal choked off most of the blast, but a squirt of hot gas still got through. Diamond’s chest received second-degree burns, but the major damage stopped at the shoulder.

  Meanwhile, the armor’s “sleeve” ruptured into diamond shards. Diamond’s arm went with it, flayed into minced meat and bonemeal. Other weapons housed in the glove self-destructed in jets of acid, shrapnel, and Freon.

  BY THEN, I WAS FAR AWAY

  The explosion propelled me out of the missile tube. Since Diamond had been aiming at Lilith, that’s where I went. Still tucked in fetal position, I was the size, shape, and weight of a musket ball. It would have been useful if I’d bulleted into Lilith herself, but I was far from a perfect sphere, so I instantly went off target. I might have ended up hitting the ground, but instinct kicked in: Rather than fly like a badly shaped ball, I shrank out of sight. At the size of an aphid’s eyebrow, I was soon stopped by air resistance.

  The air didn’t resist much against someone the size of Diamond. The missile blast slammed him sideways with the strength of a wrecking ball. His trajectory turned into a classic parabola, as he fell under pure Newtonian gravity. His boot-jets did nothing—they must have gotten pwned by the explosion. Diamond basically became a first-year physics problem, destined to accelerate until he hit the ground.

  It’s likely impossible to lose your hand and flambé your arm without passing out. Even if you manage to stay conscious, you stop paying attention to your surroundings. Besides, what could Diamond do to stop his fall? His battle suit was toast. His only true superpower was hyper-intelligence. With his armor reduced to deadweight, he became a really, really smart crash-test dummy.

  Diamond fell. He hit the pavement outside the garage with a thunk. The sound was made even louder by the extra mass of his armor. It was the sort of impact you’d call a sickening thud, except if you weren’t already sickened by what happened to Diamond’s arm, a noise wouldn’t likely do it either.

  ONE THREAT DOWN, ONE TO GO

  Make that two threats to go, because the rift produced an ear-popping whomp as it shuddered and contracted.

  The earth shook. All over the landfill, holes opened in the ground as buried junk shifted and subsided. Every time I’d seen a rift close, the consequ
ences had been seismic. This rift, so much bigger than the rest, might be more deadly than Lilith.

  And Lilith appeared plenty deadly. Ninety-Nine lay sprawled on the garage’s concrete floor. Lilith must have smacked Ninety-Nine hard before returning to wallop on Aria. Aria had gone into complete defensive mode: She pumped everything she had into her black-pitted force field, no energy left for attack.

  Lilith hammered on the force field, screaming, “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!” Inside the rift, she had seemed more lucid than the other super-Darklings. Now her sanity bubble had popped and she was playing for Team Berserk.

  Surprisingly, Lilith hadn’t attacked Dakini, even though Dakini now had dozens of violet tentacles embedded in Lilith’s brain. Maybe Lilith was ignoring Dakini because of those tentacles. Dakini might have made herself invisible to Lilith’s frenzied mind. That would give her more time to stop Lilith cold, but so far, nothing in Dakini’s psionic repertoire had had a noticeable effect.

  Aria’s force field was weakening. Lilith’s fists moved as fast as hummingbird wings, drumrolling on Aria’s bile-damaged protection. Unlike Aria, Lilith showed no signs of tiring.

  HOW COULD I TURN THE TIDE?

  Fly into Lilith’s ear and hemorrhage her brain? Considering that Lilith could have been as tough as the Big Blue Farm Boy, I might not have had the strength to hurt her even if I kicked her in the gray cells.

  Use Scout, Falcon, or Asp? No. The blades might break against Lilith’s skin. Even if they could hurt her, they’d demand a high price for doing so. More blood. Greater sacrifice. Every use of the knives was a downward step. I knew what lay at the end of that road.

  That left me with only one option.

  I flew to where the Widow and her driver lay unconscious. I grew up, got what I needed, then shrank. Flew back to Lilith. Went to Max Zirc size.

  I shot Lilith in the head with Trent’s pistol.

  I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT THE PISTOL WOULD SHOOT

  Fire? Gamma rays? Poisonous spiders? I was pretty darn sure it wouldn’t be bullets. As I’ve said, the gun screamed Cape Tech with a side order of magic. It practically had its own Halo. I hoped it would shoot something that would rock Lilith back on her heels without actually killing her.