Orphan of Mythcorp

by R. S. Darling

  The stainless steel injector nozzle was two inches from my forearm when a beefy hand grabbed it and tore it out of my grasp. I looked up into the rubbery mug of Bruno Groothius.

  “What do you think you’re doing? I need that.”

  Bruno inspected it. “What would happen if I broke this? Would you . . . die? No, you’re already dead, aren’t you. So what would happen, do you think?” he asked this of his goon, a red head I knew to be a pal of Kant’s.

  Did these bullies somehow know I was responsible for Kant’s beating?

  I stood, held my hands out in supplication. “Listen, I know you need to maintain your very important position as the school’s bully, but if you—no don’t!” I screamed as he made as if to crack the hypospray gun in two. He stopped and sneered. “What do you want?”

  “Now that’s no way to deal with his kind,” Ash’s voice came from behind me. He marched up between us, little hands folded in front of him. He gave me a glance, his vacant eyes flicking to my thermal. Then he turned to Bruno, craning his neck to gaze into the bully’s eyes. “His kind,” looking at Bruno but speaking to me, “only responds in like. He needs—”

  Bruno shoved Ash, who lost his footing and landed hard on the floor beside me. Bruno, still gripping my hypospray, fell onto Ash. “You don’t scare me with those creepy eyes. You know, ever since you came here, a lot of crazy crap’s been going down. What do you think, Mike, should we—”

  He stopped speaking as, during the whole time, Ash had been gazing into his eyes. They froze like that, Bruno leaning over Ash. Then the Morai spoke. “Mike here has been spreading rumors about your sexual orientation. He’s been telling everyone what a huge puff you are. He’s been saying that, when you’re in the locker room—”

  “That’s enough,” Mike snapped. “Shut your mouth!”

  “Give Sanson his hypospray gun,” Ash said. “And then maybe you should show Mike why he shouldn’t spread nasty rumors.”

  Bruno tossed the gun at me. With the beginning of rigidity taking hold, I fumbled it, barely managed to grab it before it could crash to the floor. Bruno rose and turned on Mike. They fought. Ash looked over at me. He sat up and cradled his elbows. By the time the fresh injection of nanites had taken effect, Ash had all my gear packed up. “Come on,” he said, “we better run before the Iconocops come to break up the fight.”

  The bell rang and the hall filled with yahoos, who meandered over to the fighting duo. “Thank you,” I told Ash on the way to the nurse’s station. “Was it true, what you said about Mike?”

  He shrugged, winced. “I don’t know. Could be. Does it matter? I got to get my arms checked out now. Good luck with Lexi. Hopefully next time you won’t bomb so badly.”

  Oh yeah, Lexi, I’d almost forgotten.

  For a while I just stood there, mulling, pouting as yahoos detoured to avoid me. Wait, I thought, that’s it! They all thought I was contagious. That was why Lexi and her fellow Goth’s considered me official GRODY material.

  I swiveled on my heels almost violently in my haste to catch Lexi. As I turned I slammed into Ava, who’d apparently been on her way to speak with me.

  I dove forward to catch her hand as she fell backwards. I pulled her up, catching her in my arms. She stepped back out of my embrace and tugged down on her white t-shirt till it was situated properly on her petite frame.

  “Thank you,” without looking at my eyes. “I um, never thanked you for . . . you know, that thing with Kant. Oh God, does that sound bad? I don’t like how you . . . but . . . anyway.”

  The second bell rang. I was going to be late for sixth period. Oh well. Looking over Ava’s head, I caught a glimpse of Lexi’s black dress twirling into Mr. Pribecks room. Great, another missed opportunity. “Hey Ava, you’re a girl, right?”

  She giggled and then seemed to reconsider her reaction, because her face got all serious and gloomy. “Yes, I am a girl. What of it?”

  “Help me get in tight with Lexi. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll even confess to beating up Kant.” I had no intention of confessing any such thing. But you do and say what it takes to get the job done.

  “That Goth chick? Why? You like her?”

  “Hey!” Mr. Dodds was sauntering down the hall towards us. “Get to class, you two.” There was a pause in his giddy-up when he noticed that one of us was a Morai. “What do you think you’re doing out of class?”

  “Meet me at our stairs after school,” Ava whispered before turning round to face Dodds.

  I snuck away, having the distinct advantage of not being a Morai. When I looked back, Mr. Dodds was leading her down the hall. I couldn’t help but wonder; How long till Ash asks me to deal with the Iconocops?

  Three o’clock rolled around. I was standing at my locker. It was only now dawning on my pea-brain that I had agreed to meet Ava for help, but that if I did, I’d lose my second chance with Lexi. If I went outside to try my hand at wooing her under the Willow tree, I’d be standing Ava up, and how would I get her help then? But if I didn’t go for Lexi now, I’d have to explain to Ash why.

  “Ah, screw it.”

  Misty and Missy happened to be walking by, and they gave me their best sneers. I turned and made my way through the crowd to the Morai stairwell with the whispered word ‘Zombie’ wafting behind me.

  Ava opened up and crept down the steps at 3:17. Her white braid swayed as she scoped out the halls. “It’s clear,” I assured her. “So, I have to ask. Why are you helping me?”

  She shrugged. This whole shrugging deal was really starting to bug me. “We all agree we owe you one. But still,” and here she sauntered up to me so that I could smell her apple or peach or whatever perfume, “why are you all like slam-bang interested in this Lexi kook?”

  I shrugged. “She’s . . . hot, and stuff. I like her sexy . . . wristbands.” And Suave-o returns.

  Ava laughed. “Right. Well, whatever the reason, you can’t just waltz up to a girl while she’s eating with her girlfriends. That’s a real dum-dum thing to do. You need to catch her alone. Bring her a gift. Something Gothy. Something that’ll make her feel dynamite. Here,” she handed me a slip of paper. “Gift ideas.” Ava turned to head up the steps in such a rush that her ponytail slapped me. “Remember, approach her when she’s alone and act all whiz-bang-like when you do. Night Charles.”

  “Charles.” I liked hearing my name come from her lips.

  I was heading for the front doors, head down, perusing Ava’s list, when the padlocks on all the lockers to my left and right shuddered. A thunderous boom followed. Seconds later I heard the distinct patter of someone scampering up the basement stairs. I jogged a few paces, rounded the corner. To my left lay the stairwell to the furnace room, the detectors and front doors ahead. Gray smoke billowed out of the stairwell. The pattering grew louder, faster. Someone was racing the smoke. I was beginning to retreat, leaning towards the doors to escape the growing smog, when a Morai burst from the cloud.

  “Stay back!” George the Iconocop roared at me as he withdrew his sick-stick and clocked the Morai. I fled through the doors before he hit the floor. I wanted no part of this; I had a date to prepare for.

  Chapter 18

  It was still pouring out when I reached the back doors of the school. I peaked inside while chill rain dribbled down my back. The chill was a relief though; I was burning up. You could almost see steam percolating off my flesh.

  The peek inside through the spanking new doors revealed the single row of nighty-night fluorescents, flickering. It made my guts go all shivery. I tried the door handle. Nothing.

  ‘Too bad you can’t just waltz through the wall like me,’ Castor boasted, waltzing through the wall. ‘Ooh, you don’t look so good, kind of like you swallowed vomit and want to sick it up now. Is that how you feel, Morgan, like some twisted freak who’s just—’

  “Shut up,” I fell to my knees, stomach clenching.

  ‘Oh yeah, here we go,’ Castor rejoiced. ‘That’s it, skinny-minnie, chuck it up. Spew th
em spongy food-bits, blow them chunks, hurl your lunch, sling that chow-mien, recycle them giblets. Yeah!’

  That dang-blasted spook.

  I turned from the fresh puddle that had formerly been my last meal (whenever that had been), and stood leaning against the glass door. While massaging my leg, a thought sparkled inside my noodle. I stood up straight, conquering aches and pains.

  “Yeah, that should work. Thanks Dex.”

  Five feet from the door seemed like a wise enough distance.

  Hindsight is a wondrous thing.

  I raised the cripple-stick, or rather cane (I was going to have to start calling it what everyone else did and not use the Morai slang) and directed its purple peepers at the doorknobs. ‘What are you doing?’ Marie asked. ‘Whoa, hold on. I know you are not going to do that. That’s something Knox would do and—’ she trailed off.

  “Like Knox, huh?” I smirked.

  Thumb slid down to the button on the back of the silver crow-head. Slight pressure didn’t do jack. I pressed harder. Still nothing. “Okay, this is getting annoying—”

  SIZZLE-ZAP

  The cane recoiled violently as a stream of purple lightning scythed from its peepers. As I adjusted my aim, the stream screamed from the top of the doors down to the knobs. You could hear raindrops hiss as they encountered the fire-bolt.

  Thumb eased back. Man-made lightning died and stunning silence took up its scream.

  Smoke wafted off the doorknobs as I approached. As I kicked the doors the welts on my back writhed and opened up. Fortunately the metal knobs and locks had melted, so the doors flew in on the first try. It was a beautiful thing.

  And then, crossing the threshold, vision blurred, head went all airy, and I crumpled.

  The whine of someone pleading broke my beauty sleep. I didn’t open my peepers, not at first; my noodle was gyrating inside my skull, threatening to break loose, explode and kablam all over the place—and then how cool would I be? I could feel beefy hands under my armpits.

  “You can’t do this!” someone was yelling. It sounded like Galahad.

  ‘Stop it! Leave him alone,’ Marie screamed. Castor added: ‘They are gonna mess you up.’

  Man oh man. I had Morai and spooks worrying their heads off. Though touching, it wasn’t doing me a fat lot of good.

  A metal door slammed and the Morai protestations ceased. With an effort I raised my head, opened my peepers. Should’ve kept them shuttered. Wes was dragging me down a flight of concrete steps in a stairwell darker than a blind man’s dream.

  The Iconocop propped me up against a wall at the bottom of the stairs. Squeezed his face inside my territorial bubble. “Save yourself some pain, boy, and tell me where you were.”

  His breath smelled like dog crap. I gagged. “It’s one A.M. Don’t you ever go home?”

  ‘Why do you always have to goad them?’ Marie groaned.

  Wes snorted, drew out a pair of scissors. This was getting heavy. “I knew—I knew you manfacs were going to be trouble.” He punctuated ‘trouble’ by tapping my nose with the scissors. “I told the GC legislature that you people would be more trouble than you were worth. But did they listen?” he sighed, proceeded to slice my shirt open. “Me, and George and Mentkowski have been trading night shifts, because we just knew—”

  Wes trailed off as he yanked my shirt clear of my torso, noticing the welts on my back. “Well, looky here. You just make friends everywhere you go, don’t you. Turn around, orphan.” Before I could turn around or even offer one of my not-so-clever retorts, Wes whipped me around and positioned my hands so that I was hanging from some heavy-duty ceiling conduit.

  I was seeing double of everything. Sauna-like heat tore sweat beads from my body: I was pretty sure I was going to drop dead any moment now. So when the Iconocop undid his belt and slowly drew it out of his pant loops . . . well, let’s just I wasn’t interested in seeing how this was all going to play out.

  Dropping to my knees turned out to be the dumbest idea yet. When I leaned forward, ragged and wheezing, Wes smacked that belt across my exposed back.

  Now, being whipped is one thing, but having your fresh welts whipped is a whole other ball of ear wax. I yelped. The yelp-echoes kept me company for a long time down in the basement. Wes strung my hands back over the conduit again. “Don’t move.” By the weak light of a single bulb I could see beads of sweat rolling off his nose.

  “Front or back, orphan? One or the other.”

  I swallowed. “Why either?”

  “Excuse me?” still all up in my face.

  “You said if I acted up,” my voice cracking, “you’d send me packing to the Home.”

  He stepped back, snorted. The Iconocop was kind enough to raise his belt so that I could have a better look at it. Embedded in the black leather were two rows of chrome prongs, like mini pyramids all coming to sharp points.

  Now what kind of sadistic manufacturer would make such an obvious torture device?

  The second and third chest-lashes were done with zeal equal to the first, but didn’t sting quite as much. Well, apples and oranges, sure as sure, but at least I wasn’t going to have welts on my welts. On the fourth strike (after wincing and biting back a whimper) I pleaded, “Why don’t you send me back to the Home?”

  Whiz-bang-like I had another two snaky bruises growing on my chest. Sweat dribbled over the fleshy speed bumps. “Send me back Home,” I screamed. “Send me home, please.”

  Slap-slash-slap. My chest was starting to look like a road map of hell. Even my peepers were sweating. “Why don’t you send me—”

  “Because I can’t!” Wes boomed. “They won’t let me.” He struck me again with that unholy belt. “I tried them all; mayor, governor, Senator frigging Montaigne. I even went all the way up to the cats in DC.”

  Mind you, he did not stop beating me during his explanation.

  “You know what they told me, orphan? You know what the U.S. government told me when I asked them to take you and your albino manfacs back?”

  A pause in the abuse. Was he actually waiting for me to answer?

  He started beating me harder, his fury coming with holy-moly swings of the belt. “They told me that the Home was closed. That it was my job now to keep you in line until your eighteenth birthdays!”

  He sagged, dropped his belt. I slumped to the floor, shaking. “What . . . happens now?” Twenty long ticks clicked by. I sweated ten beads for every tick.

  “They didn’t say.” Stating this aloud seemed to piss Wes off, because he retrieved his belt and bore down on me. With his chem-shades and stiff kooky saunter he seemed like some kind of terminator.

  I curled into a ball and took the pain. But boy was I going to get my come-up. I was beginning to understand why some of the Morai were so intent on avenging their parents.

  A sort of quasi-consciousness lent me sufficient strength to stumble along beside Wes as he dragged me up the stairs and out into the hall. Galahad was there on the other side of the door. His mouth was agape (though I’m not entirely certain what a ‘gape’ is).

  “Are you alright . . . holy krit!” He turned to Wes and started pummeling him with his itty-bitty fists. “What did you do to him?”

  “Go away, G,” I groaned. He seemed hurt by this, but followed us anyway.

  In addition to the fresh bruises forming on my chest as we made our way to the nurse’s office, the spastic fluorescents were making me queasy. Wes shoved me up against the wall and removed his ring of keys. While he was picking out the correct one, Galahad inspected my wounds. I could see that he was about to cry—which made me want to dig the Iconocop’s peepers out with a spoon.

  Key found, Wes lugged me into the nurse’s office and deposited me on a cot, the same cot I’d woken up on after being attacked by Nimrod. The circle of life.

  Wes dragged a kicking and screaming Galahad back out and then, standing all big and bad in the doorway, looked at me. “Enjoy the heat, orphan. You have your pal Pellinore to thank for that. Nurse Lit
tle will see to your wounds in the morning. Tata.”

  I was favored with the cries of Galahad as he was taken away, his complaints growing fainter and fainter until silence was my only company. I mean that, too; it was dead silent. Even the constant drone of the AC was gone—thanks to Pellinore, apparently.

  A search of the darkened nurse’s station rewarded me with the discovery of a tube of ointment. I wasn’t completely sure what it was for, but it was cool and minimized the discomfort of my welts. I tried the doors but they were all locked, besides, it hurt to walk without my cane. So, eventually finding a position that squashed only two wounds, I slept.

  Light was streaming in through the open window when I woke. I tried to sit up but found my hands cuffed to the cot. “What the?”

  “Oh good, you’re awake.” Miss Little looked delicious in her skinny jeans. All she needed was a white nurses cap and she’d be the living embodiment of every boy’s fantasy (and probably some girls too). “Sorry about those,” pointing at my shackles. “The Iconocops insisted. How are you feeling? I gave you some morphine.”

  “Not bad. How’d you get painkillers into the school?”

  “I contacted our congressman about getting some drugs to treat your friend Gareth. Congressman Gerace then called Senator Montaigne, who approved and set it all up with a pharmacy.”

  “What happened to Gareth?”

  Nurse Little pulled back a curtain, revealing the sleeping Gareth in a cot. His normally chalky complexion was colored by a rainbow of bruises. His left peeper was so screwed up that I doubted he’d be able to open it anytime soon. “What happened?”

  “Apparently Manny Kant and Gareth here had some kind of argument. The day after they brought him to me, Kant was found by Mr. Pangborn near the bleachers in the gym, badly beaten. It’s all so sad. Violence just begets violence, my mother always says.”

  ‘I’ll bet you my left arm Ash had something to do with that,’ Marie said, looking at Gareth with sympathetic dead peepers. ‘Sure it was Ash,’ Castor agreed. ‘But the zombie did the actual deed.’