Orphan of Mythcorp

by R. S. Darling

  Locked. A promising sign, right?

  Like an idiot I wiggled the knob, yanked on it, banged and cursed. The next step, naturally was to kick it. Three successively harder kicks produced no results.

  “Dangit!” slapping the door now, since kicking stuff tends to cause injuries. “Open up!”

  “Move.”

  “Holy jeez,” I jerked around. Nimrod was standing directly behind me, a fat lip and a black eye (his real eye, the augmetic peeper was untouched) giving him an even zanier look than before. “What happened? Who was that attacked you?”

  “Move,” he growled again.

  I moved. Nimrod stepped up to the door, inhaled, and then slammed it. The door blew in and hung limp on one surviving hinge.

  “Wow,” I said, looking in at the steps descending to the basement. Found the switch easy-on-my-squeezy this time. Looked back at Nimrod. “So, who was that you were tussling with? Cause he seemed ready to kick your—”

  “Malthus,” Nimrod snarled. “His name is Malthus. He’s been hunting me for sixteen years.” He spoke slowly, clearly enunciating every word so that I had no problem hearing the hatred poured onto each one. “That demon has served his master long enough. I have a spot picked out for him in my trophy room.”

  Did he mean a real demon, or was that Nimrod-slang for jerk? “So ah, why has he been hunting you?”

  Nimrod pointed towards the stairs, past the door he’d just lambasted.

  “Right,” I nodded. “But first tell me why you’re helping Ash. What’s in it for you? And how do you even know a high-school boy? That’s like, kind of creepy pedophile stuff.” Before he could bark at me again, my darn thermo went off; I realized I could see Nimrods breath.

  I only had one more vial of nanites left in the case, and if I didn’t catch the 407 bus by midnight, it was going to be a long, cold walk home. Zombies don’t like the cold. I sighed and descended.

  The taxidermist behind me was surprisingly silent as we descended; shocking considering his obvious weight issue. A nice guy would say he was big-boned, but really he was just fat. When I reached the floor, he shoved me out the way and started limping to the right. The drone of a servomotor was all the noise he made.

  I followed him.

  Crates of plastic baseball trophies sat up ahead and to our right. I thought to check them out, maybe filch one or two for myself while the hunter went about searching for mythical files. But when I reached in to grab me up a trophy, Nimrod snatched the crate out of my reach.

  “Hey, what gives?”

  “Shh,” he hissed. And then box after box of plastic effigies was removed. Nimrod looked like a man on a mission, not saying a word, bald head sporting beads of sweat. When all twelve crates had been relocated, I stood looking at an enormous green safe.

  It had one of those old chrome wheels for a lock-crank, and if you moved just right, you could see it trying to escape—downwards. One huge green safe. “So,” I said, scratching my stiff crap-colored hair, “how exactly did you know this was here?” My first guess would’ve been that he was telepathic and had picked this nugget of knowledge from the mind of some records clerk.

  “I asked around.”

  Somehow that didn’t make me picture him sitting down having a cup of Chai with elected officials and whoever else might know where any lingering Mythcorp files lay hidden. I could, however, imagine him ‘asking’ with a hammer, or perhaps with a length of pipe in his hands.

  “Don’t suppose you happened to have asked for the combination?”

  Nimrod might or might not have smiled there. His face was so bruised and degraded by scars that it was hard to tell. He reached inside his bear-skin coat and removed a real tinker kind of gizmo. It was about a foot long, with tines sticking out on one end and a knurled red handle on the other.

  “Did you steal that from Doctor Frankenstein?” I accused.

  “This is the combination,” he rasped out, and without further ado, Nimrod went to work on the safe, his gizmo getting a workout under his expert hands. Whenever he twisted the thing, his metallic right hand on its hilt, a god-awful screech filled the basement. The grinding of the tines inside the lock was enough deafen angels.

  I covered my ears, sound being one of the few things left that hurts me. “Hurry up.”

  “Relax,” he muttered. “We’re done.”

  After stuffing the gizmo back in his bear pouch, Nimrod grabbed the helm-crank and cranked on it. A bit of grinding and some elbow grease and he produced a real pleasing click from the safe. With one final tug he cracked it, yanked it right open.

  Metal shavings fluttered down to the floor, crimped flat by Nimrod as he drew the door all the way open and stepped back. No sound as we investigated.

  “Are those the blueprints of Mythcorp?”

  He shrugged, started to reach inside the safe. His hand paused mid-reach.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “Shh,” his focus zinged from the innards of the safe to the block-glass basement windows. He scanned these as if his life depended on it, the bruised flesh around his left eye crinkling and the red pupil of his right, narrowing. “You hear that?”

  “Hear what?” looking around, seeing nothing. “Let’s just grab whatever’s in there and—”

  “It’s him,” Nimrod checked his watch. “Balls. I thought my ruse would buy us more time.” He withdrew a serrated blade, long as my forearm and just as cold and dead looking, from another secret pocket. He seemed to have a lot of these kinds of pockets. “He’s getting quick in his old age.”

  Before I could ask, Nimrod ripped the moldy pages and rolled up tubes from the safe and stuffed them into my backpack. Then he glanced at the windows. “Take these to Ash. Don’t let anyone else see them. Understand?”

  Jeez this guy was bossy. “No,” I said, all sarcasm. “I’m not sure I understood that last part. Maybe if you speak slower and—”

  SMACK. The metallic hand smashed against my face. I didn’t feel anything, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t pissed. He might’ve just broken my jaw!

  “Keep that hole in your face closed,” Nimrod said as he dragged me towards the stairs. “I’ll go up first, distract him. When I say, you run up and head east. Get those papers to Ash.”

  “Okay.” I didn’t know which way was east, but my chrono gave a time of 11:42. Eighteen minutes to reach the bus depot. Should be enough, I thought.

  He had reached the top of the stairs and stepped out of sight. I couldn’t hear anything. Three minutes passed and still no shout. My temp was down to 60 and there were only fifteen minutes left to reach the depot.

  “Come on come on come on.” What the heck was taking so long? Probably Nimrod’s paranoia had gotten the better of him and that Malthus dude wasn’t even around.

  “Screw this,” I headed up the steps.

  At the top I peaked around the door frame. The place looked deserted. Cautiously, I tromped across the floor, heading towards the exit.

  Midway to the door, I froze. Yes, my joints were seizing up, but that wasn’t why. Standing in the exit was a behemoth. Fluorescent light fell across his body. His flesh was dark blue, so deep it could easily be confused as black on first sighting. He must’ve been at least seven feet tall, built like a Mr. Olympia, legs like tree stumps. And in his left hand was a sword.

  That’s right, a real live metal saber, as dark as his flesh, long as his arm.

  My thermo began to beep. I wanted to rip it off, burn it up. If I didn’t move soon I’d freeze and then this behemoth would have an easy-on-my-squeezy time of slicing me into a Sanson-filet.

  With a bit of a struggle, I shifted my weight and stepped forward. My assumption was that this Malthus—for who else could he be—would not hurt me. I wasn’t Nimrod. But you know what they say about making assumptions

  The behemoth didn’t move. He didn’t move, that is, until a shadow flickered behind him.

  And then he whipped that sword around. The clanging of metal biting metal filled
the records building. Grunts and more clanging. Nimrod drew Malthus outside, clearing the exit.

  “Run!”

  I didn’t need to be told twice. I ran out of there and didn’t look back.

  Chapter 11

  Since there wasn’t an Escaping from School for Dummies book in the library (I checked), I hobbled my way over to the Camelot staircase. I was thinking of asking Ava for advice, since she’s the smartest of the Morai. Well, the smartest next to Ash, but he doesn’t count because he’s a zipperdick.

  But then as I was standing there, massaging my buggered knee, my peepers fell on the plywood covering the busted back doors.

  “Hmm.”

  Naked Charlie walked past the plywood. He didn’t seem to notice me, too intent on something I couldn’t see. They do that sometimes, my spooks, stroll aimlessly, looking at invisible stuff. Whatever they see, it’s from Limbo, and I can’t help but be a smidge curious. He bent over near the plywood. I raised my hand to cover a certain unseemly sight. Without warning he took off through the plywood.

  Was this some kind of spooky spook guide stuff?

  I limped over and pried on the wood. The biggest sheet didn’t budge. So I tried the smaller piece, the one on the right, covering the window that had shattered during Nimrods uninvited entrance. “Come on you stubborn bugger, get off.”

  The nails pulled out, sending me sprawling backwards. As I landed on my butt, a ten-foot tall black woman’s face materialized in the hallway. “Ahh!” I screeched and scrambled backwards. The ghostly face vanished like a puff of smoke as my buggered knee exploded in pain. What was that thing? A huge decapitated spook? Man, I needed doojee.

  With sweat dripping from my forehead, I stood and used the cripple-stick to shove the plywood out of the way, looking around to make sure that face didn’t return. The opening was narrow, only wide enough for someone real thin. I knew being skinny would come in handy some day. I wedged my leg through first, and then, as I was stuffing my head through, I happened to look back inside.

  Lamorak was watching. Blast! Caught in the act. What could I do? I waved, pressed a finger to my lips. “Shh.”

  Lamorak did not move; just stood there on the bottom step, looking at me with his creepy whiteys. After ducking through the hole, I glanced back. Lamorak swiveled around and climbed the stairs, triple-braids bouncing with every step. He was tight with Ash, so no doubt my little Great Escape would be fodder for the Morai rumor-mill by sunup tomorrow.

  One problem at a time.

  I stood on the grass, sucked in great gusts of fresh air. “Should’ve worn a jacket.”

  Bending down, I dragged my cripple-stick through the hole and looked out over the baseball diamond. Quiet out here. Peaceful. It was just temporary, I knew, but still. After buttoning up the top of my blue flannel shirt, I started hobbling, tracing the perimeter of the school. Seven minutes later I rounded the second corner and reached the Weeping Willow in the front of Philicity High.

  The school was situated about a half mile (a wild guess, as I have no experience in judging distances) down from the end of the street to my left. The other end I couldn’t even see, it was shrouded in night shadows. So I took off, left down the lane. It was strange. For the first time in my life walls did not rise up beside me and there were no locked doors barring my path. I could go anywhere, do anything. I was my own man walking my Empire of Dirt.

  My right hand remained firmly pressed on the top of the cripple-stick, but my left, well, it was jittering. It kept shooting up to my face every few ticks, scratching at imaginary creepy-crawlers.

  ‘Are you scared?’ Marie asked. ‘You’re hand is—’

  “I’m fine,” I snapped. Shook my head and sighed. Marie had lost some enthusiasm for her dancing. “Listen, I’m sorry I bit your head off. It’s just,” snapping my hand and banging the stick to dispel the jitters, “I’ve never been on my own before. And it’s a big city.”

  Half-truths are the same as partial-lies, but they sound friendlier.

  As I hobbled along on the sidewalk in dark periodically interrupted by street lamps, I stole peeps at Maries face. It was still bruised. She’d always been there for me, a loony but constant presence I could always look on without feeling like a perv or a stalker. She’d even taught me how to talk and how to dance. Seeing her like this, bruised, depressed, scared—it shook me. I decided that if I ended up needing another spook spy, I’d send Castor or Naked Charlie, or maybe even Sigurd.

  Well, maybe not Sigurd. He was not someone you wanted around unless some apocalyptic bull-crap was going down.

  By the time I reached the end of the street, I was totally buggered. I plopped my rump down on some kind of huge memorial rock on the corner. As I rested, Marie kept watch, sneaking peeks down the streets while performing half-hearted pirouettes.

  The slip-slide murmur of traffic was clear from my new rump rest and I could even see red and blue blurs through the fog down the street. I looked up at the reflective green street signs. “Corner of Beta and 151st Street? Holy-moly!” We were fifty-three blocks away from the records building. We weren’t even on the right Circle. Alpha Circle is the outer circular avenue tracing the circumference of Philicity, while Beta traces the inner circumference of the metropolis.

  In other words, we were screwed.

  I tore the map Izzy had given me out of my back pocket. My knee gave a twinge of pain as I twisted it trying to score the map. “Ouch.”

  ‘Where do you need to go?’ Marie asked. She was in the middle of the intersection, oblivious to the oncoming pickup, and despite her distance from me, I heard her just fine. “I know this city like the back of my hand. I’ve lived here for years.’

  “You haven’t lived anywhere for years,” I mumbled under my breath.

  Still panting a smidge, I stood, leaned on my stick. “How do we get to Ninety-Eighth Street from here? I can’t walk that far, not with my leg so buggered and no B-drops to dull the pain.”

  ‘A cab, I suppose,’ she whispered as the pickup barreled through her essence. ‘I used to love taking the bus, but . . . I cannot recall the last time I rode one.’ She twirled and started heading back towards me. ‘It’s so hard to remember things lately.’

  She flickered . . . dimmed . . . bamfed out of sight.

  “Great.” Where was I going to find a cab at midnight?

  Alpha Circle spans eight lanes. If I was going to make it to the records building before tomorrow night, I’d either have to hump it on over right now or Frogger my way across in the day traffic. I still had a little juice left in me. Not like I was going to sleep anyway, not with the DT’s mucking my rhythm up.

  I leaned on the stick and stood. A dull ache had spread from my knee down my leg and since the devil is always in the details, my calf also felt like it had just been massaged by a hammer. “Screw it.” Looking both ways first, I stepped down off the curb. “One lane,” I grunted. Darn it was chilly out. “Two lanes.” A car approached from the left. I couldn’t see it, but the whine of the electric engine was stretching out of the fog. “Three lanes.” I was going to have to huff it faster than this if I didn’t want to end up a pancake.

  ‘A splat on the pavement!’ Castor bleeped from the other side of the road five lanes ahead. ‘Come on down, you’re the next victim under The Wheels of Misfortune. Ha!’

  Just to make sure I didn’t satisfy Castors sadistic hopes and dreams, I scurried forward. As I was crossing the seventh into the eighth and final lane, the car zoomed past behind me. I scrambled up onto the curb on the other side of Alpha Circle and blew Castor a kiss.

  The spook snorted and shuffled away to inspect the stone-encased trash can.

  A bench caught my rump. With my jittering right hand I wiped sweat from my forehead, though it seemed pointless; my whole body was doing the mambo now.

  Castor thrust his head straight into the trash—which gave me an idea. “Hey Cas?”

  ‘Hey yourself, bony,’ he said, head still inside the receptacle.
‘Kind of busy here. Look at that, some dingbat tossed a perfectly good burrito. What a bunch of wastrels skulking around these days. No one wasted food in my day.’

  “Cas.” You have to say a spooks’ name often, or you’ll lose his attention. “How would you like to snoop on someone, maybe get him in trouble?”

  He raised his head out of the bin.

  Bingo.

  I laid it out for him, careful to explain the danger he’d be in and the danger he be putting Ash in. Back when his pulse still pumped and he weighed more than a glass of air, Castor had been an Iconocop, so if there was anyone he despised more than me, it was the Morai. Shoot, he’d probably hunted down their parents, the original Morai back during the Purge. Maybe that was how he’d gotten himself eternally buggered. So this was like his chance for revenge.

  Without dragging it out—because that would’ve been a dull old time—Castor flickered and winked out of sight. As I rose from my bench I smiled. The spook was no doubt already hovering around Ash; the spooks’ ability to use Limbo as a sort of whiz-bang conduit from one place to another was absolute dynamite, sure as sure.

  I stretched and turned to follow the sidewalk down 151st Street. It was still too dark to see to the end, but the arc-lamps standing every one-hundred feet or so stretched into the darkness. This was going to take all night and I needed someplace to sleep now. A straight-backed wooden bench nestled on the edge of an eight lane trafficker just wasn’t going to cut it.

  A few hundred ticks passed as I doddered down the street, whispers of relaxing music slipping out from someone’s bedroom stereo. Trickling stream. Babbling brook. Mumbling river. I couldn’t enjoy it due to the chill nibbling at my extremities. Breath clouds lingered like comic book word bubbles.

  It must’ve been near midnight by the time I reached the opposite end of 151st Street. I was halfway into a fresh fantasy about Izzy when I reached the crosswalk. It was busier here along Alpha Circle, a car or truck or big rig passing every twenty to thirty ticks. So instead of pulling a Frogger, I waited for the red LED hand to flash green. In retrospect, I should’ve hitched my pants and sped across. As it was, I waited just long enough to allow her to saunter up to me.