Limitless

by Robert J. Crane

  It didn’t even take my sleep-addled brain more than a few seconds to process a nasty possibility on that one. “Marjorie!” I shouted as I threw my pants on.

  I heard the light click on down the hall as I opened the door to my bedroom, hobbling down the narrow, darkened hallway. I thumped against the wall and dislodged a picture, sending a glass frame shattering to the ground behind me. I heard her door open in front of me and wondered if Marjorie had meta instincts.

  “What is it, dear?” She wore a bathrobe and clutched it tight in the front. Dressing gown? Whatever. “You look as though you’ve seen a—”

  “Villain,” I pre-empted her. “I think he’s going after Matthew. I need to get to his apartment now.” I put all the urgency into the last syllable.

  She rushed for the stairs and I followed behind her. She was moving pretty quickly. Not as quickly as I could, but as quickly as her older joints and human reflexes could carry her. She ran for a door on the far end of the hallway and grabbed a set of keys off a ring as she threw open the door to a garage.

  “Get in!” she shouted as she hit the garage door opener. It started to creak as it lifted automatically. I threw myself into the passenger seat, still buttoning my blouse, and pulled my shoes after I slammed the door so hard I shattered the window glass.

  She was going before the door was all the way up, and I heard the top of the car scrape as we passed underneath it. She hit the road and the car bounced, the bottom scraping the road. We were in a little Volkswagen of some sort, and she did not spare any of the horses as she streaked down the street into the night.

  Chapter 64

  To her credit, she didn’t ask me any of the stupid questions like, “How do you know he’s in danger?” Maybe it never crossed her mind; maybe she just didn’t care. Maybe she ascribed to me mythical abilities that were no more in evidence than a tail hiding in the back of my pants. (I don’t have one, just FYI.)

  Whatever the case, “bat out of hell” was an apt descriptor for how she drove, taking side streets and going down alleys with a precision and ability that would not have looked out of place in the footage of a NASCAR driver but looked ridiculous from an older English lady in a dressing gown.

  We came out of the mouth of an alley in a drifting slide that made me worry she was going to roll the car. She hit the curb and I heard the hubcap pop off, flying into the night and caroming off a nearby tree like Captain America’s shield. I saw it in slow motion and then it was gone, and we were onward, making our next turn.

  “How far?” I asked. I still hadn’t quite caught my breath after the dream, and part of me wondered if that was the point. Maybe Philip was idly threatening. And maybe he’d give up his life of crime if I asked politely.

  Sarcasm. I haz it. All the time, not just when it’s appropriate.

  Marjorie came around one last bend and brought us to a screeching halt, mounting the curb and stopping in the middle of a patch of lawn outside of an apartment building. I was out of the car a second after her, and she was already running toward the entry, gown flapping behind her.

  “Which floor?” I asked.

  “Ground,” she replied, breathless. She pointed to a sliding glass door just around the side of the building. “Right there!”

  I veered off course without missing a beat, taking flight and crashing through his sliding glass door like a cannonball. It hurt. A lot. But I didn’t care, using Wolfe to pull my skin back together and healing the otherwise serious lacerations that resulted. I could feel the trickle of blood running down my skin in various places as I stood there, in the still living room, night air flooding in around me. The place smelled faintly—very faintly—of sweet tobacco smoke, like Webbo liked to have a cigar or a pipe every now and again.

  I heard movement in a room off to my right. I flew through the open door and surged into the dark of the room. The light clicked on and there he stood, in his underwear, a flat-headed cricket bat clutched in his hands. As he registered who I was, his expression changed.

  “What the hell—?” He let the bat drift downward. “Is this that same argument again?”

  I stared at him in weak disbelief. And a little relief. “What?”

  “About the whole gun thing?” He shook his head. “Because I would have shot you just now, if you’d have been anyone else—”

  “We have to get out of here,” I said, clamping a hand on his wrist.

  “Why’s that?” He stared at me. I was briefly distracted by his well-muscled chest. Well. Muscled.

  “I think Philip is coming after you,” I said, getting ahold of myself.

  He glanced at the bat in his hand. “Well, I might need more than this if that’s the case, so point taken, I guess—”

  “We have to go,” I said and pulled him forward.

  He took stumbling steps as I jerked him toward me. “Hey, I do need that arm—”

  “No time for this,” I said, and picked him up, An Officer and a Gentleman-style. I wrapped my arms around his bare back and lifted him up, reversing my course and flying through the bedroom door.

  “What, like this?” I felt him squeeze tighter to me, like he was afraid to be dropped. “Can I at least put some trousers on, first? This isn’t quite how I imagined I’d end up naked with you—”

  I passed over the threshold of the sliding glass door a second later, and saw Marjorie coming a little more slowly toward me, crossing the lawn as—

  The apartment exploded behind us, and it felt like a great hand struck me in the back, swatting me out of the sky to the ground. Webster hit first and I landed on top of him, my conditioning allowing me to roll out of the impact with him still pressed against me.

  The world was echoing around me, a sharp ringing in my ears. I realized I was lying on something and I pushed off quickly, landing on my back, the black night sky hanging above me like a blanket of darkness. The smell of something burning filled the air, and I saw the crackle of flames in the wreckage of the building behind me.

  There was a crater in the side of the building where Webster’s apartment had been, extending three floors up, like someone had taken a God-sized pickaxe and just brought it down and out, removing that section of the brick facade. I could see every floor where the concrete hung out of the gash, where bedrooms and kitchens had once stood and were now replaced by empty air and smoke.

  I could see Marjorie, pulling herself up from the ground, her dressing gown hanging limp around her. She wobbled as she drew herself to her feet and staggered toward me, reminding me what—who—I’d come here to protect.

  Every part of my body ached, but I pushed myself up to one elbow and looked over at Webster. There was a layer of blood running down from his scalp, and his skin had a dirty, scraped look to it. I put my hand against his cheek and felt the hints of life there, but as I shook him and shook him, he did not even once stir.

  Chapter 65

  I sat in Commissioner Marshwin’s office, staring across the desk at her sullen façade. I knew I was in deep shit. Not just because it was the wee small hours of the morning and not just because Alistair Wexford was there looking utterly defeated, but because Ryan Halstead, U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, was sitting the chair across from Mary Marshwin’s desk, and he had a look on his face that told me he was the cat that had eaten the canary.

  “I know silence is supposed to be golden,” I said, staring at each of them in turn, “but it’s more like turds spray-painted a yellowish color when this ass has that look on his face.” I pointed to Halstead, who didn’t look any less self-satisfied. I waited to see if Marshwin would crack first and break the silence, but she did not. “Fine, I’ll just guess. The law passed Parliament.”

  “Got it in one,” Halstead said, snapping his finger at me and then pointing it at me. What a cool guy.

  “Awesome,” I said, “it’s always fun to watch people flail ineffectually about. When does the removal start and where are you sending them?” I caught the stricken look on Marshwin’s f
ace. “Tell me you’re not setting up concentration camps.”

  “Incarceration, then deportation,” Marshwin said. “Though we haven’t found a country that will take them yet.”

  “So, basically incarceration for now,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Camps. Why does that sound familiar? You’re not going to give us a symbol to wear on a patch, are you? Like a yellow DNA helix in place of the Star of David, are you?”

  Marshwin looked utterly revolted. “I am not in charge of this. I am in the charge of the Metropolitan Police Force.”

  “So what are you supposed to do if a metahuman crosses your path?” I prodded her.

  “They’re forming a unit for that,” Marshwin said abruptly. “Again, not my department, not my concern. Mine ends with enforcing the laws of London and the surrounding areas. To that end—”

  “You want me to leave,” I said and watched her deflate as I said it.

  “I want no such thing,” she said. “But I am in charge of law enforcement, and as much as I don’t like it, this is now the law.”

  “It’s a good law,” Halstead opined, clearly gloating. “I wish we could get one like that in the United States. Once again, Europe leads the way—”

  I slapped him in the back of the head just hard enough to send his head into the desk. He hit it and bounced back, flipping over backward in his seat as his body recoiled from the force of impact. I glanced down at him and he was limp. I wouldn’t have bet he was unconscious, but I would have bet he was smart enough—or at least averse to pain enough—to quit while he was only slightly behind.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Wexford said, a cup of tea in his hands and a tired look on his face. “Perhaps now we can get to the crux of this without interruption.”

  “You know every single cop movie gets to the point of the lead detective getting thrown off the case,” I said, looking from Wexford to Marshwin. Neither looked impressed with my comparison.

  “We are not removing you from anything,” Marshwin said primly. “And as you’re hardly a lead detective, I don’t see how this applies. My lead detective is suffering from a concussion in the hospital.”

  That was true. Webster was a little out of sorts, but I’d heard he’d regained consciousness. He was definitely out of the game for a bit, though, and I hadn’t spoken to him since he’d woken up.

  “It’s not as though we have the power to force you in any direction,” Wexford said. “Nor would I care to, in any case.” He stirred his tea with that little spoon. “I prefer to retain the shape of my face as it presently is.”

  “It’s a good look for you,” I said. My comment elicited a slight smile from him in return, as he raised his teacup in salute.

  “However,” Marshwin said, “you do have a problem coming. The government will call for your expulsion, since you are presently the most visible metahuman in our country.”

  “Is there a list of other ones?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “Angela Tewkesbury would be the only other one I’ve heard of, and you can be well assured I’m not listing her as such on my report.”

  I stared at her through narrowed eyes. “Worried she might get carted off and gassed?”

  “Och,” Marshwin said, her disgust evident. “No, I don’t think she’ll be treated any such way, but it doesn’t mean I think any good will actually come of it, either.”

  “I guess you could let Antonio Ruelle be the test for you,” I said. “Since it looks like he’ll be staying regardless, and he’s known.”

  “Ah, yes,” Wexford said, “he will be a guest of Her Majesty for an indefinite period, and I suspect you are right. He’ll be an excellent judge of what’s to happen to metahumans in the United Kingdom, though from what I’ve heard his future won’t be particularly sinister. More boring, I’m afraid, being in confinement roughly all the time.”

  “He could do worse,” I said with a grunt.

  “He could indeed, as you have pointed out,” Marshwin said and glanced at the clock nervously. “I’m afraid I don’t have a great deal of time left to humor you, Ms. Nealon. I can’t allow you to remain in the building, not with this bloody law. As for this investigation,” she looked almost contrite, “I am assigning it to another detective inspector. I think it’s fairly obvious, given the direction the winds are blowing, that our conversations are at an end for now. If you plan to do something about this ‘Philip,’ whoever he is, make it soon.”

  “You’ve got nothing on him?” I asked. “From the description I gave you?”

  “Nothing,” Marshwin said and set her knuckles on her desk. “I wish you the best of luck in all your endeavors, but do your endeavoring elsewhere now, if you please.” She stood straighter. “My department has enough problems without having the whole of the government land upon my head.”

  “I shall be glad to walk you out, Ms. Nealon,” Wexford said, suddenly on his feet. He had his coat draped over his arm, and a thin smile on his face. “If you wouldn’t be averse to my company.”

  “I could not imagine a politer way to be thrown out of a building,” I said and walked through the door, which he had opened for me.

  “You mustn’t blame Mary for her circumstances,” Wexford said, putting on his coat as we threaded our way through a quiet and near-empty bullpen, “she’s caught quite in the middle of this unpleasantness. I suspect you know something of being given orders from on high that make little sense to you.”

  “I have a passing familiarity with it, yeah,” I said, thinking of the ten billion rules and regulations I’d been forced to adapt to after my agency, which had been so easy to run back when it was only the work to worry about, got a lot more complicated after the war once we’d gone public and the oversight had gotten serious.

  “This Philip has left us with a bit of a black eye,” he said, letting me lead the way through the door out of the bullpen. “Extreme measures will have to be taken in order to soothe the unease among the populace. I apologize if these measures cause your life to be more difficult.”

  “Why? Did you vote for them?” I asked sourly.

  “Indeed not,” he said with a chuckle, “nor would I have were I able to.” He let a little sigh. “I came back to London with the Prime Minister after a few lovely years on my country estate. I can tell you at this point, given all that is going on, I wish I had stayed away.”

  “Why didn’t you?” I asked.

  He stopped as we stood in the hall, waiting for the elevator. “I should think it would be obvious to you, of all people. How did Tennyson put it? Oh, yes: ‘How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use! As tho’ to breathe were life!’” He straightened, standing tall. “There is more to life than merely surviving, or living for one’s self, after all.”

  “Lot of that sentiment going around lately,” I muttered as the elevator dinged. I stepped in and Wexford followed a step behind me.

  “Have you ever dealt with this type of meta before?” Wexford asked, facing the front of the elevator as the doors shut. “Cassandra, I think you called him?”

  “Kindasorta,” I said, letting the wheels turn on their own. “I knew a girl—Adelaide—who was like me, a succubus. She’d absorbed one at one point.” At the behest of Omega, no less, which was trying to stuff her full of powers.

  “Do you know the limits of their powers?” Wexford asked. “How they operate?”

  “Not really,” I said with a shrug. “They can see the future somehow. Beyond that… I’ve got nothing.”

  “Knowledge is power, as they say.” Wexford had his hands clasped in front of him, and he moved them to start buttoning his coat. I didn’t see his motion, it was so smooth, but he reached in the coat and came back with a manila folder that he slipped behind him. It took me a moment to realize that he was holding it there because there was a security camera in the corner of the lift, and that section of his body was hidden from it by the way he stood. “One gets the feeling that one is always being watched in London.
It doesn’t exactly inspire me, but it is a different sort of knowledge, I suppose.”

  “Probably didn’t get watched constantly on your country estate, huh?” I shuffled slightly and took the proffered folder, rolling it up and slipping it up my left sleeve while using his body as cover. I tried not to look too obvious about it, but I suspected I failed miserably.

  “Good luck, Ms. Nealon,” Wexford said as the door opened. A couple cops were waiting to get on the elevator, and Wexford slipped off between them. “May you find all the knowledge you are looking for.” With a last smile, he disappeared down the hall before I could get out of the elevator, and by the time I managed to get out, he was gone.

  Chapter 66

  I got the hell out of New Scotland Yard as fast as I could, slipping down the first alley I came across. I parked my back against a wall, feeling the hard concrete against the back of my head as I leaned, and tried to ignore the smell of the dumpster nearby. It was worse than the smell of the one I’d been thrown in, somehow. I looked at it out of the corner of my eye as I slipped the folder out of my left sleeve, which was, not coincidentally, the sleeve on my coat that was intact.

  A street light hung over my head, and the dark horizon was showing only the barest hints that it might eventually have a sun over it somewhere. I stood in the alley, catching my breath, and checked for nearby surveillance cameras. I saw none.

  I paused for just a second, realizing I probably looked like I was homeless, given that part of my clothing was ripped, part of it was burned, and—oh, yeah, I still didn’t have any money. Son of a bitch. I also had no place to stay, since there was not a chance in hell I was going to go back to Marjorie now that I’d gotten her son’s apartment blown up with him nearly in it.

  I stared at the manila envelope in my hands and channeled all that rage, that nearly-make-me-cry rage that I had been bottling up since I’d tried to shake Webster awake and failed, and I poured it all into thinking about Philip.