Mr. Real

by Carolyn Crane

  As soon as Alix left, Paul allowed himself to twist his face into an expression of agony. His arm killed. But he kept the pressure on. Was it enough to keep Sir Kendall from bleeding out?

  Sir Kendall was sweating.

  “Hold on, Sir Kendall.”

  “She needs to hurry, old man. I’m dying.”

  “I won’t let you,” Paul bit out.

  “My body will still go back. She’ll write a message on me, but it must be with my pen.” He made Paul memorize a complicated message about a launch that included an email address of somebody named Henry, and coordinates in Kingston, Jamaica. “Somebody will relay the message to my people. The launch can be stopped without me.”

  “Let Alix get a doctor for you.”

  “My good man, Alix must secure Hyko after she writes on my arm. And above all, she needs to destroy an important paper he’s written on. If she lets him go back with that paper, both our worlds are gone. If I’m not conscious, you have to tell her. Our worlds must be saved before you attend to me.”

  “We’re not letting you die.”

  “If I’m unconscious,” Sir Kendall said, “you must tell her this—” He related complicated instructions about tying up Hyko using only rope and other items that had arrived with them from their fictional world—he seemed to believe that if Alix tied him up with things from their present world, then those would not blink back with them. “Tell her, Paul. And she has to take the blue paper from him—I believe it’s in his pocket—and cross out everything he’s written on it with my pen. And do thank her for her hospitality. And do give my regards to Karen. People were kind to me here. More than I deserved.”

  “Shut up and don’t talk like you’re dying. The good guy always wins, right?”

  “Oh, but I’m not a good guy. I’ve done terrible things, Paul. Despicable. You can’t understand—I’m so far from innocent. Like Hyko, I’m a kind of monster. I was never even a child. I have none of that sort of goodness in me.”

  “You shut up. You do have that goodness. You were always there for me. You helped me, Sir Kendall.”

  The spy’s breath sounded ragged. “I remember only flashes. People. Feelings…”

  “I remember. You’re like a brother to me. You’re the brother of my heart, brave and strong.”

  “You see us as brothers?”

  “I know we are,” Paul said, sweating from the wrenching pain. “Alix says you don’t remember your parents, your childhood, but let me tell you something—you were a good little boy from a nice home. You had a mother and father who loved you very much. Do you hear me?”

  “What’s this?”

  “They loved you so much, Sir Kendall. You had a room there that was blue with trains on the wallpaper, and you were amazing at Lincoln Logs.”

  “Lincoln Logs?”

  “It’s a toy that you build things with. Brown logs that lock together. They’re made of wood, and you can use them to build these huge towers. And then some terrible things happened. New brothers—”

  “The threat,” Sir Kendall said. “I remember the threat of them. I have flashes of them. The violence.”

  “They hated me.” Pain. Paul shifted. “It was my fault in a lot of ways—”

  “No!” Sir Kendall said. “It wasn’t your fault. I remember that now. And the brothers. They were angry.”

  “Yes! I got under their skin.”

  “No, you were innocent, that’s why they hated you,” Sir Kendall grated out. “You were the only one in that place who was innocent.”

  “No—”

  “I remember, I should know,” Sir Kendall said weakly. “You were never to blame. You were just a boy.”

  Paul could feel the tears streaming down his cheeks.

  “Everyone knew you were innocent,” Sir Kendall said. “It’s why they hated you, don’t you see? You were a little boy—you deserved nothing but love. But you got hate.”

  Innocent. Paul could barely breathe.

  “I feel you shaking, Paul,” Sir Kendall whispered, “you can’t keep up this pressure.”

  “I will keep it up, Sir Kendall. You’re the brother of my heart.”

  I need him.

  Sir Kendall was the part of him that knew he was innocent. And they were together now. He felt washed, as if that stain on him had lifted. It never really was a stain.

  “Tell me more, brother,” Sir Kendall whispered. “Were there pictures on the walls? Posters?”

  Paul told him about a picture of a monkey riding an elephant. He told him countless little details of life before the horror started. A swing set out back, a neighbor’s puppy, Dad playing catch, a tricycle with streamers, trucks in the sunny sandbox. With every detail, Sir Kendall’s expression softened. The corners of his lips tipped up.

  Paul had the sense that he and Sir Kendall were healing together. Reclaiming their losses. Alix had it right all along—Sir Kendall was his people. He didn’t understand how it all worked, but it didn’t matter. They were together.

  “And now you’re going back,” he said. “Maybe we should get you out of there. Conjure you again.”

  “You mustn’t.”

  “But you’re different now.”

  “Yes, I’m more. And I have a duty.”

  A duty. Sir Kendall was one of the good guys.

  When Alix came back out with the pen, Paul instructed her to write the message on Sir Kendall’s arm.

  “Yes,” Sir Kendall panted. “Thank you. Tell her the rest, Paul.”

  Paul relayed Sir Kendall’s instructions—the way she needed to remove Hyko’s weaponry from his pockets and elsewhere. And she was to tie his hands and tape them. She was to get her computer away from him. And he’d started copying the code on a blue sheet of paper—she was to find that paper he’d written on and scribble it all out with Sir Kendall’s pen.

  “Can’t I just rip it up?”

  “No, he might be able to piece it together. The writing has to be totally unreadable,” Paul said.

  “Hurry,” Sir Kendall said. “The paper is in Hyko’s pocket. He could wake up. But he’ll be groggy.”

  “Hold the phone—” Alix straightened. “Hyko might wake up?”

  “Please, Alix,” Sir Kendall panted.

  “No, I can do it,” she said. “Let him wake up. That guy is done fucking with the people I love.” She pointed at Paul. There was something new about her. “I love you, Paul, and I’m going to make this right. I’m going to kick some Hyko ass and save some worlds.” She turned and ran toward the house.

  Paul smiled through the blur of pain. She was the most wonderful girl in the world. And she loved him. And he was innocent.

  He felt washed clean.

  “I need to warn you of something, but now I can’t recall,” Sir Kendall said. “Something having to do with that comic…a pizza…I daresay; I’m feeling woozy.”

  “It’s okay. It’s all under control now,” Paul said. “You can relax. Conserve your energy.”

  “You think Alix can handle it?” Sir Kendall asked.

  “Damn right she can,” Paul said.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Alix raced across the gravel in her bare feet, heading toward the house with Lindy right behind her. Like hell she’d let anything slow her down. All she had to do was think about Paul and Karen and Sir Kendall, and her parents and sisters, and Lindy, and everyone else who needed her now.

  Sir Kendall and Paul believed that if Hyko blinked to the other side a free man, he could destroy Sir Kendall’s world. And if he blinked to the other side with the code, he could destroy both worlds.

  She’d get that code away from him.

  And she’d told Paul she loved him. Somehow, seeing Paul and Sir Kendall both so injured, banding together, it hit her that the not-deserving-Paul thing was a lot of crap. If she wanted to deserve him, well, she’d start acting like she deserved him, dammit! It wasn’t up to other people to define her; it was up to her. She needed to define herself.

  She ran
into the mudroom and through the kitchen. She paused at the top of the basement stairs.

  All quiet.

  Taking a deep breath, Alix headed down, hoping Hyko was still out. She snuck across the cold floor past the boiler and crept into the musty computer room. She hadn’t expected to see the fans in the walls spinning—and the lights of some of the big wrecked computers were on and blinking, too. It was like one of those scary movies with an abandoned funhouse and everything inexplicably lit up. And a pizza box was on the desk—with a pizza still in it, judging by the smell.

  And crumpled on the rug in front of the old brown couch, snarled blond hair half covering his face, was Hyko, like the evil clown at the center of the insanity. He lay sideways, with his legs folded under.

  She wasn’t prepared for the sight of him—he was so big! Not just physically big. Just more, somehow. The way Sir Kendall sometimes seemed more. Except Hyko was scary-more.

  Lindy ran up and licked Hyko’s face.

  “No!” She yanked her off and pointed at the corner. Lindy whined and backed away, alarmed, Alix guessed, by the tone of her voice. “It’s okay,” she said, glancing at the clock. Just a bit past 7:30. Fifteen minutes. “Everything’s okay.”

  With shaking hands, she crept over to Hyko and crouched by his shoulder. Gently, she tried to pry the gun from his fingers. It wouldn’t come. Was he awake and messing with her? She tried straightening his fingers one by one, but they kept curling back around the loops of the bizarrely modified grip.

  Eventually she got enough of them straight to yank the thing from him. She set it on the couch, well out of his reach.

  She went to work as the guys had instructed, tying his hands together using only the ropes that had come over from their world, and then looping those ropes around his waist and into his belt loops. She bound his ankles together, too. Paul and Sir Kendall had said to get the ropes tight as possible.

  He grumbled once, almost giving her a heart attack.

  She searched his coat pockets for the blue paper. No go. His jeans, then. She slid her hands in his right front pocket, feeling his hip bone, and the place where his leg started. But no paper. His hair had fallen away, revealing more of his face. He wore a smirk. Was this how he went out? Smirking? She kept feeling like he was faking it! But why let her tie him up?

  She tried the other pocket. Nothing. Back pocket then. She heaved him over just enough to check and finally found the blue paper. She stood and shoved it into her shorts pocket with the pen. Now to get the laptop. She spotted it over on the desk.

  Movement out the corner of her eye.

  She looked down. To her horror, Hyko was twisting his hands, getting the ropes loose.

  Shit!

  She grabbed his crazy gun. It felt like it weighed ten pounds. “Stop moving or I’ll shoot.”

  He wriggled in the ropes, grinning. “Go ahead, shoot.”

  She braced herself, aiming for a shoulder. She didn’t want to shoot him. “Stop it! I really will shoot.”

  He laughed and kept twisting his wrists.

  She pulled the trigger. Nothing. “Fuck!” Was the safety on? She fussed with a small knob. Was that even the safety? The gun had been so weirdly modified. She tried again to shoot. Nothing.

  He was moving faster, getting free. She kicked him and still he wriggled. She turned the big, heavy gun so that she held it by the barrel and slammed the butt down onto his head with all her might. It connected with a deep klonk that made her feel sick.

  Hyko laughed a big, booming laugh.

  She whacked him with it again. Then she slammed it against his still-bound hands a few times, hoping to break his fingers.

  And he grabbed hold of the thing.

  She pulled, trying to wrest it from his grip. He wouldn’t let go. She couldn’t let him have the gun. She checked the clock—ten minutes. Ten minutes until he blinked back, and she still hadn’t crossed out the stuff on the paper!

  And he was taking the gun! She jammed a foot onto his stomach and pulled at the gun. Suddenly he let go. She fell backwards onto the couch.

  And he had her big toe between his fingers.

  It felt like a vice grip.

  “Ow!” She hit his knee with the gun butt. It was like he didn’t feel anything.

  “Catch a trashy tigress by the toe.” He tightened his grip, working his ankles now, loosening those bonds. She had to get away from him and cross out the stuff, but she couldn’t break free.

  He had her toe at such a weird angle—the only way she could yank it with any force would be to twist it in a way that it didn’t go. He heart raced. She felt panicked. “Let go!”

  “Give me the paper and you get your toe.”

  “Like hell.”

  “I’d imagine you could twist it free,” he said in a weirdly jolly way, “but that would require you to break it.”

  Break it.

  It would go that way if she broke it. Then she could run away from him and destroy the paper and keep him off somehow. She could run out the clock if she got away from him.

  Did she have a choice?

  She closed her eyes. What was Paul always saying? The trick is to not mind that it hurts. With a scream, she wrenched her toe and jerked it clear out of his grip. The pain exploded, shot all the way up to her knee.

  “Ooh, you did it.” Hyko said. “That was hot.”

  She grabbed his gun and hopped over to the desk and grabbed her computer, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  She scrambled up the stairs with Lindy right behind her. She locked the basement door, hoping to slow him down. She felt blinded with pain as she threw his gun in the trash. Surely he wouldn’t find it there, but where would she go? She thought of the sledgehammer under her bed. She could smash her computer with it.

  Noises below. He was coming.

  All she needed was enough time to wreck her computer and cross out the stuff on the paper. Decided. She climbed the stairs and hopped to her bedroom, toe sizzling with pain, even from the jolts of hopping.

  A noise below. Banging on the basement door.

  She locked her bedroom door and fell to the floor, feverishly crossing out the numbers and squiggles on the paper. She even wrote new wrong numbers on top of them. She crossed them out so much that she ripped holes in the paper.

  Footfalls on the stairs. Outside the door.

  She crawled around to the far side of her bed and shoved the paper under, then felt for her sledgehammer, pushing away the old joke rifle to grab it. She put her computer on the floor next to the bed and brought the sledgehammer down hard on it, cracking the plastic case.

  A thud against the door. Then another. She heard the door crash open and slam against the wall. She looked up to see Hyko coming around the bed.

  The code was ruined and so was the computer, but he would be a threat to Sir Kendall on the other side. She stood and swung the sledgehammer at him. He ducked. She swung again, but he grabbed the thing and, with a jolt of force, he shoved her down to the floor.

  “Where’s the paper?”

  “Too late.”

  “Get it now or I smash your skull and get it myself.”

  “You want it?” She reached under the bed, crunched the paper in her fist, and flung it at his feet. “Read it and weep.”

  He grabbed the paper and scowled at it. “Very evil of you,” he said.

  She smiled.

  Then, cool as a cucumber, he picked up her smashed laptop and opened it up. The screen lit.

  She gasped. It still worked?!

  “Girl needs to work on her sledgehammer skills, however. But to be fair, these things are actually designed to take a good deal of abuse.” He set the computer on her windowsill, flattened out the crumpled paper, and, using a tiny red pencil held awkwardly between his fingers, began to copy code off the screen. “Now you sit there nicely and don’t move, and I won’t kill you for this.”

  She crouched on the floor next to her bed, glaring at him. She had to stop him. She got an idea
—she shoved a hand under the bed behind her and fumbled for the joke rifle; when she located it, she felt for the knife part. Still in the protruding position. Good. Slowly, she slid it out from behind her.

  Hyko scribbled furiously, not looking up.

  She gripped the rifle in both her hands, and, with a scream, she lunged up and flew at him, aiming the point upwards from beneath his ribs. She felt it break through soft tissues and hit something bony. She let go. The gun stayed stuck into him.

  He gasped and stood, dropping the pencil and paper, eyes wide on the appendage that was now hanging from his front.

  She backed away.

  He collapsed to his knees. The gun swayed pendulously from his chest. “What?” he gasped. He closed his fingers around it. Blood soaked his front and dripped onto the floor and onto the blue paper. His blood. He’d never be able to read it now.

  Lindy barked.

  “What?” Hyko stared at Alix in shock. “A fucking bayonet? Is this a joke?” He swayed, seemingly unable to focus. Was he about to lose consciousness? “A bayonet?” As though he barely understood the concept.

  “It’s no joke, Hyko.”

  And just like that, he vanished.

  The gun clattered to the floor, as though it had never been stuck in him. Even the blood was gone.

  It was 7:46.

  She collapsed against the bed, heart racing. The room seemed to hum, or was that just her ears? Was this a kind of shock? She needed to get up—Paul was still out in the cage! Was he all right? And what about Sir Kendall? She stayed very still, not entirely trusting that Hyko wouldn’t pop back. Do something, she thought to herself.

  Lindy licked her hand. The sloppy, wet warmth of the dog’s tongue brought her back. Life. She was okay. She’d done it. She put a hand on the bed and pulled herself up.

  She hobbled out the room and headed down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out onto the gravel drive as quickly as she could with her broken toe, still in her bare feet. She sucked in a breath when she reached the back of the carriage house.

  The cage stood empty.

  No! In a panic, she wandered into it and fell to her knees, touching the ground. Gone.