Manic Monday: (Dane Monday 1)

by Dennis Liggio

  "You knew that was us?" said Abby.

  "Who else would it be?" said Jaya with a smile.

  "Is it really just Dane destroying this town?" said Abby.

  "There are others," said Jaya. "But when Dane shows up in the middle of the night in a wrecked car, the explosions earlier in the day were obviously his. If not, he was at least involved."

  "I think she knows you better than you know yourself," said Abby.

  Dane ignored this comment. "We need something else from you, Jaya."

  "Of course, that's how it works," said Jaya.

  "We need a place to stay," said Dane.

  "We can't go home?" said Abby.

  Dane shook his head. "They know our names and probably addresses. If they're going to pull us off the street, I have no doubt they may be willing to go to our homes to clean up. We saw Carmichael. That may not be knowledge they want out yet."

  "You're right!" said Abby. She turned to Jaya. "You wouldn't believe it, but it was actually Rog-"

  Jaya put up her hands to stop Abby. "I don't want to know. The last thing I want to be is involved in a Dane Monday case. Favors, yes. But I don't want to know or feel involved. I definitely don't want to be asked along."

  Abby frowned, but said nothing.

  "Can we at least stay here?" said Dane.

  "Yes, you can stay," said Jaya. "It's too late at night to kick you out. I'll set some cots up in the storage room. But first, Dane, you're taking a shower. You are more mud than man at this point. I'm putting out a road of towels you're going to walk only on through my loft until you get to the shower. You really need to take better care of yourself."

  While Dane showered, Jaya made tea. Handing a steaming cup to Abby, they sat down at a table in Jaya's kitchen.

  "So," said Jaya.

  "So," repeated Abby.

  "You're the new one, I take it?" said Jaya.

  "The new what?"

  "Whatever you want to call it. Assistant, companion, tag along, sidekick. You're the latest soul dragged along on Dane Monday adventures."

  "I'm not sure if I'm his sidekick," said Abby hesitantly. "I just met him this morning. He offered me a chance to follow him and see what he does."

  "Very new then," said Jaya, taking a sip of her tea. "Sick of it yet?"

  "It's more dangerous than I realized," said Abby.

  "But...?"

  "I'm not sick of it yet," said Abby.

  "Careful, adrenaline addiction is dangerous. Especially when you ride with Dane Monday."

  "He's definitely an adrenaline junkie," said Abby. "But I'm more sensible than that. I'm just -"

  "Curious? Along for the ride? Keeping him safe? Doing research?" said Jaya, watching Abby. She noticed Abby's change in expression. "Research. Interesting. Just what do you think you're going to find out?"

  "I'm a journalist," said Abby.

  "Oh, now I see. Dane is the ultimate front page story," said Jaya. She stood and put more sugar in her tea. "Except you can't exactly tell anyone, can you? Nobody's going to believe you."

  "But if -"

  "But if I get the right evidence, everyone will believe me!" said Jaya in a mock voice tempered with a smile. "Yes, that's how it starts. But there's never any evidence, and you find yourself riding sewer hovercrafts just for the fun of it."

  "With all due respect, what's your deal?" said Abby. "You seem to know Dane well, but you seem very disapproving of what he does."

  "I approve of the lives saved," said Jaya. "But Dane himself is very dangerous. Heartbreakingly dangerous."

  "I don't understand," said Abby. "But you're not telling me something."

  "I think I keep being amazed by what you don't know," said Jaya.

  "It's my first day with him!" said Abby.

  Jaya shrugged. "That's fair. Let's start at the beginning then. Do you think you're the first wayward girl or boy to get caught up in Dane's adventures? The first to enjoy the thrill and strangeness of it all? Do you think it was just accidental that he asked you along and then seemed to fall into a comfortable dynamic with you? Maybe it's your first 'date', but it's definitely not his."

  Abby opened her mouth, but said nothing.

  "It's crazy when you find out you're not the first, right?" said Jaya. "It's like you find out your first college boyfriend has exes. You hadn't even thought of what came before you met him. Except with Dane, it's a far more complicated and insidious a relationship than simple romance."

  "You went on adventures with him," said Abby, realizing the obvious.

  "Guilty as charged," said Jaya. "I'd like to say I was young and naive as others might claim, but I wasn't. I knew the strange world of Dane Monday before I ever met him. Believe it or not, I actually worked for Professor Honnenheim."

  "You what?"

  "Crazy, right? But where you only see a madman obsessed with death rays and robots, you miss the other side of things. Professor Honnenheim, for all his arrogance, for all his adolescent desires, for his foolish obsessions, is a genius. I had just finished my doctoral dissertation in Engineering. I could have gone and worked at some tech firm like Kurogawa Heavy Industries, but then I'd be working with the same old fabrication process, iterating to make a better version of a product they already had rather than doing something grand and new. I yearned to use my mind to create! But then came the Professor. He had more schemas then he had time to build. He was willing to take on an assistant and occasionally teach me something. And he made his point in his initial contact very well."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Most people would have called, sent an email, maybe a letter, right? Not Honnenheim, no. I was finishing my dinner and the door busts open! His robots walked into my apartment, his face on those vid screens, and he made me the offer. If that didn't show me that he knew far more than others, I didn't know what would. And I was just a young student; yes, one who now had doctorate, but I still was poor and had spent the last 8 years in school. So I was very impressed. R-14s in my tiny graduate apartment? How can you turn that down?"

  "But what about the world domination thing?" said Abby.

  "Oh, who believes all that?" said Jaya. "Do you think the Professor is really going to dominate the world, even without Dane's intervention?"

  Abby paused, thinking about the absurd man with the beard and the bandages on the vid screen. Dangerous, yes, but could he really cause enough trouble that the government, heck, the governments of the world could not stop him? She half shook her head. "Not really. I guess it's technically possible."

  "Sure, it is always vaguely possible," said Jaya. "But I didn't really think it was going to happen. And if it did while I was there, well, a little creative sabotage would set him back some, right? So I was fine making strange robots. I figured I'd do it a few years, learn what I could from the Professor, then move on when I matured. Launch a startup for high quality robotic limbs for those who had lost one. Save the humanitarian stuff for when I was older."

  "I'm guessing that didn't work out," said Abby. She stood and went to pour herself a cup of tea. She only slightly jumped when the tea kettle stood up and poured itself into her cup.

  "Does anything work out as planned with Dane Monday around?" said Jaya with a smile. "Basically I met Dane when working for the Professor. Dane opened my eyes to how crazy the Professor was and how many deaths he was actually responsible for. And maybe I got caught up in all the glamour of Dane's adventures. I helped Dane sabotage the Professor's project, and after that I was Dane's sidekick."

  "But not anymore," said Abby.

  Jaya shook her head slowly. "The danger's fun at first. Robots, demons, laser guns, strange creatures, weird situations, and obvious villains. It was all so easy. It was all so ethically obvious. We located the villain and we thwarted them. End of case, on to the next one. But few things in life are so black and white. There's a certain adolescent simplicity in Dane's life. It's so easy to be excited about opposing the villain and miss all the shades of gray in the world. And
then there's the fact that Dane's amazing luck seems to focus primarily on him."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I took a laser blast to the gut," said Jaya, moving her jumpsuit and shirt to show a nasty scar near her belly button. "Singed off a small part of my liver. I recovered, but I was in the hospital for weeks. That's when I really figured it out. That's when I realized Dane was not good for me."

  "Really? He's that bad? Did he totally blow you off in the hospital?" said Abby. She thought Dane obtuse, but didn't think him heartless.

  "Of course not," said Jaya. "Of course he visited me. Dane was an enthusiastic and penitent hospital visitor. I heard him say sorry a bunch of times, the phrase right as rain soon more times than I could count, and I got four different bouquets of flowers from him. It all seemed great - for the first week. And then suddenly, no Dane. Another adventure had come up, and he was off fighting the good fight, doing what was in front of his nose. That was my first dose of reality."

  "It sounds like there was more than one reality you discovered," said Abby with a frown.

  Jaya nodded. "The second dose came later. When I could finally walk around with my IV bag, I visited some other patients. Burn victims, broken limbs, comas, shrapnel wounds. And you know what I found in common with a lot of them?"

  "They were all collateral damage victims," said Abby, the truth dawning on her.

  "Exactly! All from explosions, collapsed buildings, wrecked cars. I was directly seeing the Dane Monday Incidental Injury Count. Oh, I know he usually doesn't directly cause the explosions and other factors which do so much harm, but they seem to always follow in his wake. And his gleeful bravery isn't exactly doing anything to reduce the risks, is it? He's a natural disaster area."

  Abby frowned. "I never thought of the consequences..."

  "Of course not," said Jaya. "It's fun! It's exciting! He'll show you things you've never seen before! And despite the dark picture I'm painting, I'm not even telling you to stop following him. I'm saying to have some fun times, but be careful. Understand what he is doing. You don't want to end up dead. You don't want to end up in the hospital. But you also don't want to be left seeing all the bodies from you and Dane making a bad mistake trying to stop a villain."

  "Now I'm rethinking everything," said Abby.

  Jaya smirked and leaned back in her chair. "Feel free to ignore as much of my warning as you like. Chalk it up to the rantings of a bitter ex-sidekick. Heh, I'm like a jealous ex. A cynical woman whose life worked out differently than expected. Just keep it in the back of your mind. And maybe talk to Linda."

  "Linda?" said Abby.

  "Maybe you'll meet her later," said Jaya.

  There was a silence as Abby stared into her tea, lost in thought. Finally she said, "What happened to your dream? I thought you were going to make a startup with robot limbs?"

  "I guess I'm not so idealistic anymore," said Jaya. "Maybe I could find some way to make it work if I started over, but I'm really stopped by technical limitations. I could make a limb for someone who really needed it, but I can't do a startup. I can't mass produce them. Not using the things I learned from the Professor and adventures with Dane."

  "Why is that?"

  "Have you wondered why all this stuff goes on in New Avalon?" said Jaya. "It's new to you, but think about it. Why haven't you heard of all this stuff across the world? Why aren't there robot armies coming out of Russia or super lifelike companion dolls coming from Japan? All the crazy science happens here in New Avalon. Why is that?"

  Abby shrugged, shaking her head. "I have no idea. But I guess I do wonder if there are homicidal robots, why do I still have a crappy phone and cars still suck?"

  "Avalon Brass," said Jaya simply. She was referring to the unique material only ever found in the now tapped-out mine outside of New Avalon. Though it shared the name, it wasn't actually brass. It just looked similar. It was known for its decorative qualities, how it refracted light, and being one of the distinct features of New Avalon taught in primary schools for hometown pride. Back when it was found, nobody had found a good use to it, so while it was often used in antiques and architecture, it wasn't examined for more modern practical uses until the mines were dead.

  "The Brass? Why do you think that?"

  "All of the Professor's robots use it. Every energy weapon, every death ray. Every other piece of strange tech Dane recovered from other scientists like Dr. Romanov also use Avalon Brass either as a major component or conductor. KHI in Japan actually discovered Brass is an amazing superconductor. And all the magic people are using Brass too. There's always some fancy device or ritual implement, and it's always got a piece of Brass. And since it's rare, expensive, and generally found here, all the weird science happens here. That's why I'm still here. It's why I'm in a garage rebuilding cars and robots. I can build and tinker to my heart's content, but I can't mass produce. Usually to start something new, I have to cannibalize the parts and Brass from something else. Avalon Brass is why this town is so damn weird. And its why if I left New Avalon, I'd have to start all my research and plans from scratch. I turn thirty-five next year and let me tell you, starting from scratch is a scary prospect even at that age. I can't imagine the minds of some of Dane's older scientist adversaries when they think about giving up villainy."

  "But why is it the Avalon Brass?" said Abby.

  It was Jaya's turn to shrug. "Beats me. It's an incredibly useful metal, versatile but also volatile. I could expound on all the ways it's an essential element in robotics, but that's not what you really wanted to ask. You want to know why it's that way. No one knows. I exploit the stuff for my projects, but I couldn't tell you why it has those properties."

  "Volatile?"

  "Oh yeah," said Jaya. "That's the biggest limitation of Brass-based tech. It's incredibly volatile. It's yet another reason I'm not making robot limbs and why we'll never have Brass-based cars. It's too unstable. Brass inventions tend to explode easily and sometimes spontaneously. Do you want a Brass-based car that never needs to be refueled but might explode if it goes over a bump wrong?"

  "I could see why that might put the brakes on your startup," said Abby.

  "Right," said Jaya. "Exploding robot arms is not really an investment opportunity nor a humanitarian business."

  "Do you happen to know why Avalon Brass only shows up around here? Or did, I guess."

  "I couldn't say why it's exclusive to this area. That's the Avalon mystery. If you ever solved it that's your journalistic career right there."

  "I don't think I'll be the one to solve that," said Abby. "I don't even have a journalist job yet. Just the idea that there's a Dane Monday story."

  "There is, just one that will never be told. Another thing to ask Linda sometime. She thought like you. She never did get anything to work with. Like me, she'll do Dane favors, but she's done following his coattails into burning buildings."

  "Do you guys have like a support group or something?" said Abby. "Ex-Friends of Dane Monday?"

  "Oh, we're all still friends," said Jaya. "Just with a little distance. Most of us see Dane regularly at Wong's poker games."

  "Oh, I met Wong," said Abby.

  Jaya smiled. "He doesn't really look like that, you know."

  "Yes, I was subjected to that joke already," said Abby.

  "Boys and their hazing," said Jaya.

  "So, uh, you all support Dane. Past sidekicks, friends, allies. And he just shows up in the middle of the night or day, asks for aid or your time, and then he runs off. We could have even brought Honnenheim to you with that tracker and put you in danger. Is that usual? He shows up, gets help, and takes off?"

  "It's very usual," said Jaya.

  "But, don't you like, get sick of it?"

  "You may be wiser than all of us if you're noticing this on your first day," said Jaya. "Usually it takes us a while before we start noticing things like that. Dane's always in the moment or a few moments ahead, finding the plan to thwart evil and save the day. He doesn't rea
lly understand all the help he gets from everyone. Not until Christmas and his lame presents."

  "What does he give at Christmas?"

  "Christmas hams."

  "Christmas... hams...?" said Abby.

  "Yeah, the big spiral sliced or roasted hams from the grocery," said Jaya. "He puts a note always to the effect of, Thank you for all your help in the year, I really appreciate it! Here's a ham! It's charming in a Dane's-an-oblivious-clod sort of way."

  "That's unbelievable!" said Abby. "He thinks that hams are enough? And you all haven't said anything?"

  Jaya shrugged. "Aside from someone like Alastair, we all know the score and don't ask for something in return. Dane being unsuccessful will have consequences for the city and the people in it. We need to help. Now I personally won't get involved on a case, but if Dane needs a device, something retooled, or a place to stay, I'll help. I do it for my conscience and our friendship. And I overlook the Christmas ham."

  "I don't even know what to say about that," said Abby, taking another sip of tea.

  Jaya simply shrugged.

  Dane walked into the room, rubbing his head with a towel.

  "What are you two talking about?" he said.

  "I was telling her about the Christmas hams," said Jaya.

  "Yes! Abby, you are going to love the ham you get this year!"