Yay fucking yay.
By the time we turned solid again, the fuss was over.
IF ANY SUPER-VERMIN REMAINED NEARBY, THE TRIPLE EXPLOSION MUST HAVE FINISHED THEM OFF. I THINK
Conceivably, my teammates had missed a few animals during the great extermination. The survivors may have gotten powers and escaped before the grand finale. If so, however, they kept a low profile in the days that followed.
Possibly even now, a Mad Genius rat is plotting revenge on the humans who slaughtered its brothers and sisters. Possibly, a well-fed eagle is scooping up field mice while flying at Mach 10. Possibly, the rat and the eagle are archenemies, having daily super-battles without humans ever knowing. At some point, the rat may set off a doomsday device and we’ll all be like, “What the—?” just before Earth collapses into a black hole.
But I hope not.
AS ARIA, NINETY-NINE, AND I RETURNED TO CORPOREALITY, DAKINI ARRIVED, FLOATING ON A VIOLET FLYING CARPET
She was wise to stay off the ground. Anything that could possibly burn was on fire. This included all the vehicles in the garage, plus the asphalt road connecting the garage to other parts of the landfill. The tar in the asphalt made a stinking smoke that would seriously drop the property values of houses downwind. Still, the breeze blew the smoke away from the city, so that was something. (Provided you didn’t live on a nearby farm.)
Another thing that was burning: the gun that had made us desolid. The weapon had been sturdily built, but it couldn’t survive being inches away from three stupidly huge explosions. Trent’s pistol was now a flaming lump of metal and plastic mush. There wouldn’t be enough left to analyze, not even for someone as smart as Ninety-Nine.
She nudged the burning remnants with her toe. “Damn. It would have been nice to have a dozen of those.”
“Trent must have bought it somewhere,” I said, then stopped. I sent my Spark-o-Vision to search where I’d last seen Trent and the Widow.
Trent was still there, extremely dead after all the flames and furor. I didn’t see the Widow. Not even a corpse. That might mean she was dead—some Darklings crumble to dust when they die. Alternatively, she might have woken up and slipped away during all the commotion.
I turned to Dakini. “Can you pick up the Widow’s brainwaves?”
Dakini shook her head. “I’ve already checked for survivors. There are none nearby. Speaking of which, that woman you asked me to brainwash—you may be pleased to know Wraith saved her.”
“Wraith?” I said.
“I was watching from a distance,” Dakini said. “Just before the explosion, Wraith appeared out of nowhere, picked up the unconscious woman, and ghosted away.”
“Of course he did,” I said.
Sparks and Darklings had Fate on their side. For every Lilith who was truly obliterated, there was always a Nicholas who seemed to be as good as dead but who recovered just in time to rescue his sister. I had to give him credit for saving Elaine, even though she’d tricked him and drained his energy …
Wait. Did she really trick him? The Dark Guard had assigned Elaine to ingratiate herself with Diamond. That was part of a scheme to remove Diamond once and for all. Could Nicholas have been in on it too? The Dark Guard consisted of high-powered Darklings. If Elaine was already in the organization, she might have recruited her Sphinx-level brother to be a ghostly James Bond.
That would explain why Nicholas had been covertly scoping out the campus police station. And why he wanted to search Popigai’s office.
Pieces began rearranging themselves in my mind.
NINETY-NINE SURVEYED THE SWATH OF DESTRUCTION WE’D SLASHED THROUGH THE LANDFILL
“Dudes,” she said, “our work here is done.”
Aria looked around and nodded. “We’ve discovered the most important reason for maintaining a secret identity. It’s not to protect loved ones, it’s to avoid being sued for massive property damage.”
“Just to be sure,” Ninety-Nine said, “we should hide most of our cash in anonymous bank accounts. There’s a financial Mad Genius in the Virgin Islands who caters to Sparks. Privacy guaranteed, and he never invests a cent in Darkling enterprises. First Bank of the Light. Very discreet.”
“Yes,” Aria said, “our foremost concern at the moment is definitely where to conduct our offshore banking.”
“You can joke about that now,” Ninety-Nine told her, “but once I start building inventions, we’re all going to be rich. What do you think: Too Many Cooks Enterprises?”
“If the inventions are yours,” Dakini said, “the money should be yours too. All of it.”
“Nah, we’re in this together,” Ninety-Nine told her. “I’m the brains, you’re my muscle. My gun molls.”
“I’m unfamiliar with the term ‘gun molls,’” Dakini said, “but it has a nice ring. Could we call our team Gun Molls? Is the name taken?”
“Shoot me now,” Aria said. “I mean it.”
“I’m not a moll,” I said. I put one arm around Aria’s waist and the other arm as far as it would go around Dakini. “I’m … oh, let’s get out of here before I say something maudlin.”
WE WENT HOME
We ate chocolate-chip cookies till dawn, thereby delaying the arrival of our rock-hard belly muscles by three days.
THE BELLY MUSCLES SHOWED UP ON CHRISTMAS
It’s true. I’m as ripped as if I do a thousand crunches a day.
Same with my arms and legs. I’m glad that nothing in my wardrobe is tight-fitting. My lean mean physique will go unnoticed. But if I ever decide to wear a T-shirt and shorts, I’ll look like a small, queer, Chinese Arnold Schwarzenegger.
No thirty-six triple-Ds, thank the Light. Nor other major changes to primary or secondary sexual characteristics.
Although I think my voice has changed. As Kim, I had to take care so my voice wouldn’t pitch up too high. Now I’m an alto without even thinking about it.
And my hair is permanently white. I mean, seriously permanent. I’ve tried spraying on color, but it vanishes within seconds. Pink, green, blue, nothing stays.
I see this as a sign that Kim is over. Kim was a stepping stone, like the brittle-ductile transition zone, where rocks change from breaking under stress to flowing smoothly.
I’m planning to get out more. Take these muscles for some test drives.
I’m also going to stop calling Jools, Miranda, and Shar my roommates or my teammates, and start calling them my friends.
Maybe I’ll call myself K. Kimberley, Kimmi, Kim, K: That feels like progress. And it’ll make things even harder for people who narrow their eyes behind my back and try to pigeonhole me.
I won’t have to turn around to see them staring.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to all the people who’ve had a hand in this book, including my wonderful agent, Lucienne Diver, and my equally wonderful editor, Greg Cox. Also thanks to first reader/editor Kat Howard, copy editor Melanie Sanders, and Tor staffer Christopher Morgan.
For indirect but ongoing support, I’d like to thank Robert J. Sawyer for many years of friendship and for hosting “Rob’s Write-Off Retreat” where some of this book was written.
I should also mention the various role-playing game systems I’ve followed over the years. In particular, White Wolf and the Onyx Path have had a great influence on my interpretation of various Darklings, while Champions from Hero Games has influenced my take on superheroes.
Also, let’s not forget DC, Marvel, and all the other companies that have spent many decades developing and refining the tropes of superheroes as we currently understand them. I grew up on comic books, and they’ll always have an important place in my heart.
A tip of my hat to Wikipedia and the Comic Book Database (comicbookdb.com), which I frequently had to consult to make sure I wasn’t usurping superhero names from existing characters.
Finally, thanks to various people, places, and things around the city and region of Waterloo, especially the University of Waterloo and its Faculty of Sc
ience. None of them gave me permission to write any of this, but I’m sure they’ll be delighted by seeing themselves repeatedly blown to shreds.
(By the way, I should note that I’ve changed many details from how these places are in real life. In a world where Darklings and Sparks exist, differences have to be expected.)
1
Deimatic Behavior
I’m the smartest actual human on the planet.
Also the strongest. And the fastest.
But despite my best efforts, I’m not the drunkest. This stupid airplane hasn’t stocked enough booze to do the job.
It doesn’t help that I’m competing for alcohol with three Darklings up in first class. My hearing is (of course) the best a human’s can be, and I can hear quite clearly that they’re having a drinking contest.
I saw the Darklings when I got on the plane: a vampire, a werewolf, and a demon one-off whose hide is a patchwork of human skin, mammal fur, bird feathers, and insect chitin. That’s only what I could see on her face and hands; under her Armani, she likely has an entire zoo’s worth of integument. Fish scales. Tortoise shell. Cnidaria jelly. Maybe tree bark and vegetable rinds too. Even stuff from extraterrestrials.
I should ask if she’d let me examine her—I need a project for Biology 399. But she’d likely tell me to go to hell. I’ve never met a Darkling who wasn’t a mean drunk.
All three drunk Darklings sound like assholes. They’re loud enough that even the normal people around me can hear them. At this moment, the Darklings are hassling the cute guy who’s playing air host for first class.
On major flights like New York to London, the airlines know that first-class attendants will have to deal with obnoxious Darklings, so every attendant gets an amulet or psi-shield to defend against black-magic mind-stomps. But gadgets like that are ungodly expensive; on pissy little runs like this one from Edmonton to Waterloo, the staff are expected to resist through sheer force of will.
Yeah, right. Even back here in sub-sub-economy, I can feel the Darklings flaring their Shadows. Every passenger on the plane is staggered by the effect—faces pale, hands trembling. A couple folks have started puking into their sick bags.
The first-class air host has probably shriveled into a paralyzed fetal ball. But I can’t tell that for sure—the curtain is drawn between the first-class cabin and ours. Still, it pisses me off.
Oh look, I’m up on my feet.
I’m not immune to the mental force of Darkling Shadows, but being a Spark, my superpowers give me some measure of resistance. On a scale from zero to totally shitting myself, this is on par with what I felt when my academic adviser told me I was close to flunking out. Or maybe more like before a hockey game, when our team is up against strong opposition: I just tell myself that getting scared won’t improve my game, so I set the fear aside and go on offense. Just like I’m doing now.
I force myself forward rather than running back to the bathrooms, partly because a crowd is already stampeding to bathroom-land, but mostly cuz I’m a heroine, fighting fuckery wherever I find it.
Also I’m partly drunk and making bad choices. So there’s that.
I push through the curtains and enter first class. It’s empty except for attendant-dude and the three Darklings. Two other seats have a lived-in look, with their TVs set to a business channel and with hastily discarded copies of the Financial Post covering damp spots on the upholstery. The occupants of those seats are nowhere in sight—probably locked in the up-front washrooms.
Good. I don’t have to worry about bystanders. I just have to figure out what I’m going to do.
Aw, fuck this, I’m drunk. I’ll wing it.
“Yo!” I say. “What’s holding up my drinks?”
The Darklings turn their eyes on me: vampire red, werewolf green, and the demon’s one-brown-and-one-composite. The werewolf is already furry. Good. Actually seeing a werewolf change is enough to make your bladder crawl into your panties. If that part is out of the way, the worst is over.
I’m assuming, of course, that the Darklings won’t actually fight me. That’s a reasonable assumption: the Dark are always as rich as fuck, so they usually pay for other people to do their dirty work. Besides, they probably own stock in this airline, so they won’t want to cause costly damage. On the other hand they may be drunker than me, if only because they can afford more of those outrageously small bottles of hooch that we rely on to dampen our aviophobia.
After a moment of silently staring at me and wondering, “Who the fuck is this bitch?” all three Darklings amp up their Shadows in an attempt to turn my brain into pudding. In Bio 370, we called this deimatic behavior: attempting to intimidate other creatures by physical displays, like cobras hissing or poison frogs inflating their butt cheeks. Most normal humans would collapse under the psychological onslaught. However, it’s common knowledge that alcohol sometimes makes you insensitive to Darkling Shadows. I won’t endanger my secret identity if I pretend I just don’t feel their mental mugging.
More interestingly, the hottie air attendant doesn’t seem too crushed either. His skin is a perfect black—I mean really totally black, and also perfect, making me want to rub my face all over his body—so he’s never going to go pale, no matter how scared he gets. But despite being here at ground zero of the Darklings’ auras, the dude is only a teensy bit shaky, and he hasn’t even retreated behind his coffee cart.
Maybe the airline did give the guy a defensive talisman. Or maybe he’s the one-in-a-million human with natural resistance to magic. Or maybe, like me, he’s just numbed himself with C2H6O, which makes perfect sense if you know you’re going to spend a three-hour flight rubbing elbows with the Dark.
“Miss,” he says, “please return to your seat.”
I say, “I will, but not empty-handed.” I’m surprised that the words actually come from my mouth, because I’m leaning strongly toward strategic retreat. I came forward because I thought a trio of Darklings were making waves without adult supervision. Now that I see Mr. Hottie isn’t jabbering in panic, I’m okay with letting him deal with the situation. It’s his job, after all; and while I happen to be the most tactful, diplomatic human on the planet, and therefore a better smoother-overer of Darkling jackassery than Mr. Air-Host Cutie-Dude, I’m also hella respectful and would never undermine his hunky authority by trying to do his work for him. I’m also not so completely in the bag as to ignore the chance of me and the Darklings ending up in a brawl if diplomacy fails. Since a three-on-one Darkling-slash-superhero fight is a bad idea at thirty thousand feet, I’m prepared to retire graciously without further ado.
As soon as I get another shot of tequila.
Or gin.
Or Johnny Walker whatever-color-is-cheapest.
“I’ll have what they’re having,” I say to Cutie-Boots, as I point to the row of single-shot bottles in front of the Darklings. “They have way way more than they’ll ever need. Consider this redistribution: Down with r, up with g, one for you, and three for me. Or else I’ll just drink these three job-creators under the table and prove that a real human’s tolerance for alcohol poisoning beats candy-ass magic every time.”
The three drunks stare at me for a long long moment. Then the demon with the patchwork skin gives me the Morpheus-Matrix hand gesture. Come on, little girl. Show us what you got.
“You want to join the contest?” the demon asks. She sets an unopened bottle on the little tray in front of her. “Okay, we’ll deal you in.”
“About fucking time,” I say. I plop myself down in the big comfy chair at the end of their row. “Hi,” I tell them, “I’m Jools.”
About the Author
JAMES ALAN GARDNER (Jim) started reading comic books near the beginning of the Silver Age, and never really stopped. Eventually, he picked up a couple of math degrees from the University of Waterloo, after which he immediately started writing fiction instead. He has published numerous novels and shorter works, including pieces that made the finalist lists for the Hugo and Nebula Awards
. He has won the Aurora Award, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, and the Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine Readers’ Award. In his spare time, he teaches kung fu to six-year-olds and collects interesting rocks. He is currently working on another book in the Dark/Spark universe. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
1. Eruptions
2. Crystallization
3. Suspect Terrane
4. Daylighting
5. Tectonic Collision
6. Rapid Uplift
7. Ground Truthing
8. Metamorphosis
9. Unconformity
10. Bedrock Exposure
11. Rifting
12. Active Faults
13. Deformation
14. Diagenesis
Acknowledgments
Excerpt: They Promised Me the Gun Wasn’t Loaded
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
ALL THOSE EXPLOSIONS WERE SOMEONE ELSE’S FAULT
Copyright © 2017 by James Alan Gardner
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Getty Images
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault Page 38