“Run,” I ordered, swiveling to see the thing behind me. Just then, Marie popped into sight. She brought her hands up to her mouth and shrieked. What was she so worried about?
‘It’s the Hunter,’ she said, pointing at him.
“Ya think?” I couldn’t move to run. Frozen by fear, or fascination? He was fascinating. But he didn’t let me goggle for long. The Hunter, framed by the devastated door behind him and the growing shadows in the distance, stepped forward and grabbed me by my flannel.
He was beefier than he was tall, still dressed in that same ugly bearskin cloak. He hoisted me so my feet were inches off the floor and, with the faint whine of servo-motors, drew me close. It was nasty. He smelled of oil and burnt rubber.
His red augmetic eye dilated at me. “Where is he?”
‘I think he wants to kill you,’ Marie declared. Sometimes not so helpful.
The Hunter shook me, paused, and then dropped me. I fell on my bum and tried not to cry out. Galahad was there, gazing into the Hunters freaky peepers. “You, leave now.”
The Hunter seemed to consider this command. But then his right hand, the metal one, went for the blade nesting in a sheath on his belt. He gripped the hilt and drew it out.
And then he was gone. Yanked by the scruff and dragged off into the shadowy night.
Whatever had just happened, the Hunter knew who I was. I raced outside after him.
Chapter 6
Muted arguing. I realized I was lying on my back. What the flip had I missed?
With a mighty effort I pried my lids open. A mini sun was beaming down, trying its darnedest to blind me. I struggled to a seated position, shielding my peepers as I rose.
“Ahemguk.”
“Oh good, you’re awake,” a soft voice, female, youngish. “Here, drink this.” She shoved a glass of water in my face and I drank, closing my peepers to the light glinting off the water.
“What happened?” I asked. I was working on the assumption she was the school nurse.
She took the emptied glass and felt my forehead.
“We were hoping you could tell us.”
Once more I pried my lids open. The nurse still had her hand on my forehead, her face inches from mine. Her perfume invaded my nose. I could taste her flavor. Oh crap. I was starting to get a Naked Charlie. I know; it seems like every female I run into revs me up. But come on, what guy hasn’t had a Nurse Fantasy?
She gazed into my peepers.
Her hazels reminded me of my golden butterscotch candies. I pulled one out of my front jeans pocket, noticing with fiendish delight that the nurse followed my hand with her hazels.
She backed up and watched as I popped the b-drop. Course, she had no idea it was laced with doojee. In moments my headache began to retreat and I relaxed, neither tired nor peppy, but just divine.
The nurse smiled. “How are you feeling?”
“Like . . . dynamite,” I muttered. “I’m great, Miss . . .”
“Miss Little,” she said. “Now, are you ready to tell us what happened? Mr. Dodds found you out on the baseball diamond, passed out.”
The Iconocop found me? That figured. Good old Wes Dodds was going to be a problem. “Second base, specifically,” Wes clarified, suddenly appearing over Miss Little’s shoulder. He squeezed between me and the nurse. Good thing I was flying or this’d be a total drag. “What were you doing out after curfew, boy? Did you bust those doors up? Don’t lie to me.”
‘Tell him you were chasing the man that busted the doors,’ Marie ordered. ‘No,’ Castor interrupted. ‘Tell the old fart the truth; that you’re just a young idiot out looking for his marbles. Because, idiot, you’ve clearly lost them.’
I scowled—which probably seemed loony-tunes to the two adults standing over me.
When I hopped down off the bed, pain exploded in my left knee. “Holy frigging—”
Pain like that, while on doojee, means someone has seriously fudged you up. Wes hoisted me, plopped me back down on the bed. I inspected my knee. The bottom half of my black jeans had been cut away and replaced with a dressing that was distressingly bulbous.
I could only gawk. Miss Little walked away and reappeared with a cripple-stick twenty ticks later. It was a plain-Jane wooden deal, curved neck, rubber foot.
“You sprained your knee, which is a hard thing to do. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say someone twisted it. See the bruises on your calf, and here,” higher up on my thigh. “Almost like someone grabbed you and twisted. But the strength it would require to do that—”
“What were you doing outside after curfew?” Wes interrupted.
Nurse Little cringed. “Mister Dodds, please.”
“I was . . . I tried to catch the kook, ah, the man I mean, who busted the doors. I know it was stupid but I just got the urge.” I moved my hand to probe the dressing, but Miss Little slapped it away.
Wes grunted. Fingered his sick-stick. “That’s just what Galahad said. Word for word, in fact.” He loomed over me and pointed a finger in my face. “I catch you out of line again, there’ll be consequences, boy.”
“Alright, that’s enough for now,” Miss little said. “I think he was a little heroic.”
“Hero is just a synonym for stupid,” Wes snorted. “What was this alleged ‘kooks’ name?”
I shrugged.
Mr. Dodds huffed, swiveled, and left the room.
When we were alone, and when I could stand without blatantly displaying how I felt about Nurse Little’s body, I slid down off the bed and tried out my toy. The pain wasn’t as bad now that the doojee was flowing. “How long do I have to use this cripple-stick?”
“A few weeks,” Miss Little answered. She was following me around on my test toddle, her hands out, ready to catch me should I fall. I considered falling. Right into those dainty hands.
Marie interrupted my dirty thoughts. ‘You look just like him with that cane.’
“Who?”
“Excuse me?” Miss Little asked. “Listen, if you’re feeling up to it, you can go on back to your dorm. Someone is waiting for you in the office.” She smiled and ushered me away. “That’s right, through those doors there. I’m sorry to rush you out but I need to look in on my other patient.”
“Who’s that?” I was only somewhat curious about Miss Little’s other patient. Much more pressing was of whom I reminded Marie.
The spook followed me, staring, looking as if she’d just seen a ghost. Uber-creepy.
“Alice, er, Mrs. Deem,” Miss Little answered with a sigh. “She passed out as she was walking to her car. I know what you’re thinking. Why didn’t I call an ambulance? What a silly woman. I know I’m just a school nurse, but Alice—Mrs. Deem—regained consciousness almost immediately and insisted she was okay.”
I nodded, wondering if Mrs. Deems’ feinting spell had something to do with Ash.
In the outer office I found Galahad sitting on a hard-backed chair, hands in his lap. “Jeez G, you didn’t have to wait for me.” I was grateful for his comradeship, but I also wanted to be alone so I could ask Marie my question. “How long have you been sitting there?”
“A couple hours,” he said, rising to stretch. “I thought that kook was going to kill you.”
‘Prolly shoulda,’ Castor snickered. ‘What good is a bum-legged scumbag who can’t even keep his willy under control?’ More spook laughter. I didn’t respond, and so Castor shoved off.
“How come he didn’t kill me?” I asked Galahad while watching Marie.
Galahad glanced around as we headed down the hall, he darting and weaving around like a Jack-in-the-box, me hobbling, a bum-legged scumbag, sure as sure. “There was someone else out there,” he whispered, and I noticed his hand trembling.
“What? Who?”
“A demon.”
I froze. Looked at Marie for confirmation. She was losing interest though; her essence fading, twinkling, gone. Well that’s just dynamite. Good thing I was high or this would be a total bummer. “What do you mean
a demon?” I whispered, so as not to be overheard by the Iconocop pacing the hall behind us, making certain we didn’t wander ‘off course’.
Galahad shrugged. “I don’t know what else it could’ve been. He sort of blended into the shadows. But I caught glimpses of him, whenever he came under the moonlight or the bleacher lights.”
At the stairs I restrained Galahad. No sense revealing our bizarre conversation to the other Morai—Ash in particular. Sheets of plywood were concealing the evidence of the Hunter’s illegal entrance into the school.
“He was huge, like . . . a demon,” Galahad continued. “And he fought that kook off of you. I think he might’ve slipped something into your pocket, too, which I thought was a strange kind of thing to do during a fight, but then, who knows why demons do the things they do. Man,” a deep sigh and a long stretch. “This whole day has been one long pisser. Come on. Sleep time. Ava’s got a nice niche picked out for you.”
I’d always suspected Ava had a nice niche for me.
And that was definitely a niche I intended to scratch one day.
That night in my cot I dug in my pocket for another B-drop. In the dark I twisted the wrapper repeatedly, pulling the edges of the golden plastic apart so the candy/drug threatened to fall into my mouth with every turn. Mr. Bors had been my supplier back at the Home. I needed to find a new cook, some little genius willing to infuse candy with heroin for a small fee.
Shouldn’t be too difficult; this was high school after all.
One last B-drop. How had I managed to let my stash get so low?
I shoved the golden idol back into my pocket—and felt a slip of paper there. I’d forgotten all about Galahad’s bizarre note-dropping-shadow-hopping-demon.
Had to lean over to my right, near to Ava and the back of the room where hazy yellow light was leaking out of the kitchen. I unfolded the slip of paper. It emitted a whiff of piss. In script devoid of curves and humor, it read: See Dex at Number 13, 21st Street. Watch your back.
Chapter 7
Sanson
“All I know is what my folks told me about it,” I answered Ash. We were in Theorics class two days after that mysterious break-in and Ash had developed one heck of an obsession with all things Mythcorp. I couldn’t blame him; he was, after all, the offspring of Mythcorp products.
“Did they ever mention the building itself?” looking at me with those blazing white eyes.
“—put forth the First Law of Theorics?” Mr. Pribeck asked Ash. “Oh I’m sorry, am I interrupting something? Because I can wait until you and Mr. Sanson are finished.”
“That won’t be necessary, but thank you all the same,” Ash turned his head only long enough to direct his piercing gaze onto Mr. Pribeck and to utter the words: “The answer is T.M. Wilson, in 2018. Now ask me if Wilson was a homophobe and a Zoner.” His gaze did not waver from Mr. Pribecks’.
Everyone was silent. Even the birds outside the window had stopped their annoying twittering. A few guys were avoiding Ash’s stare, while others—most of the girls—seemed to find Ash riveting.
He blinked and turned back to face me. Poor Mr. Pribeck slumped against the chalkboard as though he’d just been released from chains. After fixing his glasses and recovering, he resumed teaching. As if nothing had happened. The girls who had been eye-screwed by Ash seemed hardly capable of paying attention to Mr. Pribeck, while the smarty-pants who’d avoided his peepers glanced around the room, fury or maybe fear written on their faces.
“Sorry about that interruption,” Ash said to me. “Did your folks ever mention anything about the safeguards the government put into place to keep people out of Mythcorp?”
“Ah,” I muttered. “I think my dad once said something about some gangbangers being stationed on the rooftops surrounding the building. Something about poison darts.”
The thermo on my left wrist, designed to monitor my body temp, started beeping. After awhile the nanites swimming around inside my body break down; some crap about their vulnerability to gastric acids. So eventually they wear out, need replacing. Why hadn’t Dr. Wilmut drained my gastric acids? I don’t know. I’m not a freaking doctor.
I took a swig of Nanex and the thermo stopped whining, but my body temp only went up to 62 degrees—still a bit low. If the Nanex didn’t raise it up to room temperature soon, I’d have to give myself a hyposhot of nanites. That’s always fun.
“Are you okay? Should we take you to the nurse?”Ash asked.
I leaned in close to him. “I’m fine. Just a little deader than usual.” To distract him I added, “The Goth chicks are staring at you.”
He turned around. Lexi and Misty and Missy smiled when he caught them. He returned their smiles with a “You should pay attention to what Mr. Pribeck is saying.” Ash looked at me before swiveling back to face the girls. “For now.”
They giggled and obeyed.
Ash wore a thoughtful expression for a few minutes as Mr. Pribeck droned on. Then, just as I was considering removing the hypospray gun from my bag, Ash turned to me. “Listen, I need you to get me the blueprints on Mythcorp Tower from the city record office. I checked, and they must’ve been deleted from the web. But the hard copies might still exist.”
“You’re insane,” I quipped. Mr. Pribeck looked at us, snatched his gaze away, an expression of guilt on his face. “Listen,” I whispered, “even if those blueprints do still exist, which I doubt, they’re not just going to hand them over to some high school punk just because I ask for them.”
Not very bright, these Morai.
“Who said anything about asking?” he almost sounded impatient. “You’ll be going at night.”
“Oh I will, will I? Listen, just because you can dupe a few Goths and a teacher or two, don’t mean you can make me do any idjit thing happens to pop into your little white skull. I think you’ve got those braids wrapped a bit too snuggly around your head.”
I expected a retort, or at least a dirty look. Instead I got the opposite.
“Of course you’re right,” Ash breathed. “I apologize for assuming I could get you to do whatever I wanted. Obviously you are not a simpleton.”
Sometimes I had to remind myself this guy wasn’t any older than me. He could speak with such maturity you’d think he was a fifty-year old philosophy professor—a tiny one. “Forget it, it’s cool.” Did he just dupe me into forgiving him?
Later, as we were leaving class, the guys who’d patently ignored Ash made every effort to steer clear of him. One yahoo, Manny Kant, even went so far as to race through the door before Ash could even stand. But not everyone was so careful. The Goths shadowed us, and Damien, the beefcake, actually stopped him in the hall.
“Yo Ash,” he began. Then, noticing me, he nodded and said “S’up zombie?” before turning back to Ash. “Me and my boys been wanting to axe you a question.” He paused for dramatic effect. “The hell went down with Mrs. Deem?” He towered over Ash, could probably hoist Ash by his boxers with one arm. “And don’t even try that Morai bullcrap on me.”
To his credit, Damien did not flinch from Ash’s gaze. Craning his neck to look up at Damien, Ash answered, his voice barely registering over the clamor in the hall, “I merely pointed out to Mrs. Deem the inherent foolishness in—”
Damien slapped him! “Yo, Powder, don’t try to play me.” Damien is not the kind of guy you try to swindle.
Ash nodded, infinitely patient. A crowd had begun to knot around us. For two days the debate about Mrs. Deem’s possible Mesmer had raged. Everyone wanted to know the truth and here was their chance. Damien Frigg was about to rip the truth out of Ash.
My dang thermo started wailing again, ripping attention away from Ash’s crowd. I yanked the black plastic case out my bag, clicked it open, and removed the hypospray gun. Pin-dropping silence as everyone gawked at the zombie. Just frigging awesome. I drew a vial out from plush cushion, snapped it into place on the gun and pressed the nozzle to undead flesh.
I pulled the trigger. A faint whoosh and the fr
esh nanites were injected hypodermically.
I didn’t feel a thing.
Thirty seconds went by, no sounds but the beeping of my thermo. Then, slowly, the digital readout climbed from 61 degrees up to 68. Safe again. Good thing too; I’d hate to have to go toes up in front of the entire school. The worst part would be the fact that the nanites in my brain would continue firing neurons and synapses long after rigor mortis. I would, in effect, be able to watch myself die.
I raised my hands to the slack-jawed gawkers. “It’s all right. I’ll die to live another day.” No one laughed. I thought it was pretty funny. Through my teeth I whispered to Ash, “Help me out here?”
He placed his hand on Damien’s arm and looked up at him. “I did not Mesmerize Mrs. Deem. She is smart enough to concede her opinion to a point well made. The man who ran Mythcorp—” a collective gasp “—was misguided. Overly ambitious. But Mythcorp’s premise, to bring to life our greatest tales of fantasy, to provide the world with a meta-human policing force, and to replace lost love ones with clones, was sound and noble, and something worth doing. It is still worth doing.”
“Dat’s cool,” Damien shrugged. He seemed ready to take off. Something brought him up short.
“What’s going on here?” Wes Dodds asked. His head swiveled from Ash to Damien.
“Nothing’s up, sir,” Damien said. He started to walk away. Wes grabbed him by the arm. Damien stopped, his eyes slowly going from the uninvited hand on his shoulder, up to the blank face of Wes. “You want to let go of me.”
Wes paused before releasing Damien. As he was walking away, I noticed Damien fingering something in the pocket of his black cargo jeans; his smokes, most likely. At the edge of the crowd he shoved passed Morgan, who turned, spoke to Damien, and then followed the beefcake down the hall to the bathrooms. Probably to shoot up or do lines.
Orphan of Mythcorp Page 4