by Nina Post
“Maybe it’s a reaction to the gas they gave us in the lobby,” Imamiah said. “How are we going to get back now?”
“What do you mean?” Forcas said.
“I can’t drive. Can you?” Imamiah asked.
Forcas shook his head. “Raum, can you drive?”
Raum tapped on his phone. “No, but I’m going to buy a car to drive around the parking garage. I’m texting Af. If anyone can get out of the building alone, it’s him. He finds more loopholes than there are sandwiches in the automat. I don’t know how he does it. But kudos to him.”
Af entered through the employee door near the loading dock and got a box whammed against his head. He stumbled into a pile of Cluck Snack Top’n boxes. “Ow! What the hell!”
Raum wielded a broom against him. “We’re the Canadian Dry Mix Supply Management Committee! The Cluck Snack Dry Mix supply in Canada depends on us, and we will not be blindfolded again!”
Af palpated the side of his head. “Raum, it’s me.”
“Who?”
“Af!”
“How did you get here so fast?” Raum said.
“Original form.” Af shrugged. “Changed outside.”
“It’s just that easy for you, isn’t it,” Raum said.
“What?”
Raum’s voice raised. “It’s so easy.” He snapped his fingers. “Just waltz right out of Amenity Tower on your own and turn into your original Angel of Destruction form.”
Af looked around the room. “Mm-hm.”
“You could probably go back whenever you want,” Raum said, with an expression of wonder and envy.
“Back to Amenity Tower?”
Raum paced in front of Af while Vassago, Forcas, and Imamiah openly watched. A flashing red light caught Forcas’s attention.
“They’d probably welcome you with open arms,” Raum said. “It would be like no time had passed at all. Like you had never left.”
“Uh, fellas?” Forcas said.
“It must be nice to not obsess over it,” Raum said. “To not be scared.” He looked like he regretted saying the last bit.
“Scared? What are you scared of?” Af said.
“Guys!”
A door opened on the far wall and robots rushed in. “Run!”
“Wait, the Ferryman!” Vassago yelled.
He and Forcas doubled back, picked up the Ferryman, and carried him out the door. They ran to the trolley and Raum threw Af the keys.
Af jammed the key into the ignition and started the trolley, accidentally honking the growling bear horn. The robots faltered at the sound.
“Awesome,” Imamiah whispered.
“Go go go go go!” Forcas said to Af.
Af chirped the tires backing through a turn, slammed to a stop while shifting gears, and floored it, narrowly evading the robots.
“Can we stop for an Icee or something?” Imamiah said.
elly sat at Mr. Black’s desk and watched the feed from the camera she had installed on the ground floor, above the front doors. Three goons in suits milled around the front revolving door. She zoomed in. Eyeless goons with white hookworm heads. Probably not UPS.
One spoke to the others, and Kelly noted vicious teeth encircling a gaping hole.
If they were selling cosmetics, they could forget it.
The goons pulled at the main door, but it wouldn’t open. Kelly wondered why the hell she stayed in Pothole City. Not for the first time, she fantasized about moving to a more normal place. She still wanted to rebuild the family house, but the thought of staying there by herself had lost some of its appeal.
To reach the top floor of the SSI building, if you didn’t do anything fancy with duct work or a saw, you took the fire escape window. She had locked up the old elevator when she moved in, for added security, but anyone who took it would probably die of boredom, frustration, and starvation before they reached the top floor.
“Everyone into Mr. Orange’s office, right now.”
Mr. Orange’s office, for whatever reason, had iron bars over the windows. Of course, given the kinds of things that had gotten into Amenity Tower through the air handler, something weird probably squeezed through at some point.
The SPs hustled into the office and Archie wandered out of his lab.
“What’s going on? I’m right in the middle of a sensitive flavoring exp―”
“Pack up what you can take with you,” she said. “They found us.”
“Who, the IRS?”
“No, whoever would rest easier knowing you were permanently out of commission.”
“Oh.” Archie removed his lighted magnifying glasses.
She steered him into Mr. Orange’s office and shut the door. The Destroying Angel of the Apocalypse was still at large, and at the top of her enemies list. One higher than even Murray, because Don had given the directive to torch her family’s house.
At a commotion by the fire escape window, she flattened herself against the wall and inched over. Something thudded against the window.
“Roger?”
The former Amenity Tower building manager morphed on the fire escape ledge from his vehicle of ascension into his human vessel.
Kelly waited while he screamed.
“There’s a regional manager heat over Amenity Tower tomorrow,” Roger said, once back in his person form, wrapped in a beach towel, “and I need to stay someplace close, rest up before I defend my territory.”
He crawled in through the window and rearranged the towel. “I brought this in my teeth on the way over for this purpose.”
“Why don’t you just stay at Amenity Tower? Isn’t that even more convenient?”
“C’mon, Driscoll,” Roger said with a scoffing exhalation. “You know how famous I am there. It would be emotionally and mentally exhausting for me, and you know I hate to disappoint my fans. Can’t I stay here for a night? Don’t you have this whole building to yourself? I can take a whole floor and you wouldn’t even notice.”
An SP cracked open the door to Mr. Orange’s office.
“Back inside, Zack.” She turned to Roger. “Did you see anyone outside?”
“Just three hookworm goons in the front,” Roger said. “Probably selling magazines.”
“This isn’t a good time.”
“Maybe it’s the best time.”
She sighed. “Let me get some pajamas. Don’t let anything in.” She left then returned two minutes later holding bird and fruit-pattern pajamas. “These are Ilaniel’s. He’s taller than the others.”
Roger shook his head. “Don’t like birds. They freak me out. Those blank, beady eyes. The beaks.” He made a beak shape with his hand. “Always pecking.”
“C’mon, Roger.”
He gave her a beseeching look.
She glared.
“That face!” He smiled and pointed. “I can see why you’re manager of Amenity Tower.”
“I was never the manager. Just the interim manager, and now the assistant manager. Or co-manager. They never made that clear.” She paused a beat. “I’ll get you another pair of pajamas. They may have clowns on them, or seals, or old people, or ketchup bottles or something else that you or I would be afraid of. But whatever they are, you will wear them, and if those hookworm goons get in, I will also ascend to regional manager―don’t think I lack the ambition―just so I can kick your iguana ass.”
She went into her room, wondering idly if a manager’s ascension form resembled their spirit animal, and returned with a pair of blue pajamas. They had a cheese wheel pattern.
“These are amazing!” Roger said. “Do you have any real cheese wheels around?”
“Yeah, I keep them under the mattress for when I get hungry at night.” She gestured to Mr. Orange’s office. “Now, could you go in there?”
Roger smiled. “Is it a surprise party?”
“Uh-huh.” She flashed a tight smile.
“I’m going to run over to the soda fountain first. Changing forms makes me so hungry, you wouldn’t believe i
t. Can I get you anything?”
“Grilled cheese. Thanks.”
As he went out the fire escape, Roger said over his shoulder in a sing-song tone, ‘You’re wearing my wa-aatch.”
She glanced at the Casio Databank watch he wore before he ascended.
“So? It’s a cool watch,” Kelly muttered after him.
Now it was just her and the three hookworm goons outside.
Make that inside.
The goons leaned their gaping hole heads toward her, saliva dripping off knife-tip teeth―and all she had in her hand was a beach towel.
“We have an eviction notice for Special Situations International,” they said simultaneously, in a guttural near-whisper. “You mussst vacate the building immeeeediately.” Their heads closed and opened, teeth snapping.
As Kelly just noticed, the towel was emblazoned with the What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi logo, and imprinted with the lyrics to Let’s Be Neighborly on the other side. Roger loved his promotional swag.
She lassoed one of the hookworms with it, the one in the brown suit, and choked him. He spit some bile straight up toward the high ceiling and it went right back in his head. She grimaced, but had grown accustomed to fighting gross things by now.
The other two approached, fast, and she tightened the towel on the one for a second before releasing him. He twitched on the marble floor, brownish-green fluid oozing and spattering out of his head.
“Let’s just all be civil,” she sang, while snapping the towel at the one on the right. The goon recoiled with a hiss like a steam vent, and she shot out her heel in a fast side kick, connecting with his soft middle.
“Let’s be neighborly…” The goon she kicked doubled over. She tossed the towel around his neck, if he had one, and pulled hard in opposite directions. His head separated from his body like a bifurcated earthworm and hit the floor with a squish. His teeth snapped again and again before freezing mid-snap.
“Let’s share an elevator…” The third goon started to barrel right into her like a battering ram. With about a second to react, she crouched and launched up with a right uppercut as he got close enough.
“Let’s share our hopes and dreams…” Her fist ripped the goon’s fragile skin and punched out the other side.
She stood amidst their oozing, fetid remnants and thought about what Don had said about providing a cleaning service. Back then, she couldn’t even afford bananas.
Something gross coated her right arm and part of a leg. It smelled like decomposed shark carcass left in a hot windowless room for a week. She gagged and her eyes teared up.
When she opened the door to Mr. Orange’s office, Dave gasped and the other SPs gaped at her. Some skittered backwards on their hands and feet.
“The good news is, we don’t have to move immediately, just sort of immediately,” she said, wiping gunk off her face. “The bad news is, we should still move out, at least for a while. I’m going to go hose off now.”
She passed the tube room on the way to the shower and heard that phone ringing again. She went in and opened the red metal emergency phone case, answering, “Special Situations International, A Little Tired Right Now.”
“Who is this?” the voice on the other end asked.
“Someone who just dispatched three hookworm goons and would just like to shower, watch some TV and order some pizzas.” Though Roger was supposed to bring back a grilled cheese.
She took advantage of the long pause to scribble a note to Don and Murray: D & M, Enjoying your office, protozoae? Eat my scabs, K. She put the note in the wood cylinder, popped the latch closed, and sent it whooshing through the pneumatic tube system to Don and Murray’s office on the other end. She liked to hassle them about their situation when she had a moment.
“This is Mr. Black,” the person on the phone said.
She scoffed and hung up, not having extra time to spend indulging crank callers. How did they ever get that number? The phone rang again as she left, so she turned back and picked it up.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” The caller sounded like Sam Neill.
“You sound like Sam Neill,” she said.
Awkward silence.
“Are you really Mr. Black?”
“Yes.” Affronted.
A chunk of hookworm goon tissue slid from her hair onto her shoe. She grimaced and kicked it off. “Prove it. What did you win and where did you place in the Pothole City Stop Polycystic Echinococcosis Nordics Championship & Hot Dog Eating Contest?”
“First place,” Mr. Black said without hesitation. “A paperweight.”
She looked at that paperweight every day, the only reason she could remember and pronounce the name of the contest.
“What else?”
“A lifetime supply of pencils.” He covered the mouthpiece and conferred with others in the background.
“What kind?”
“Corvid Deluxe.” He muffled the phone again and returned a moment later.
“OK.”
“Meaning you believe me now?”
She’d found cases of Corvid Deluxe pencils in Mr. Black’s desk, and more pencil cases arrived every month in the mail addressed to The Hidalgo Trading Company. Receiving boxes of pencils always reminded her of finding seventy holy pencils for a single-purpose angel held hostage by the Senior Reconciler. She didn’t really know why she hadn’t stopped the subscription, but the SPs seemed to like them.
“Yes. Where the hell are you?”
“Don’t worry about us.” She heard a melee in the background and could have sworn she heard the spider bartender’s voice breaking up another fight. She gritted her teeth. Now she really wanted to know where the SSI team was hiding.
“Tell me.”
“Really, we’re fine here.”
“I don’t give a damn how you are, I want to know where you are. Stop being passive-aggressive and tell me.”
Muffled discussion. Someone new took the phone. She tended to have that effect on people. “Screw it, you deal with her”―that sort of thing.
“Hello, who is this?” A new voice, higher, more excitable.
“Who is this?” she said.
Partly muffled mouthpiece. Kelly overheard, “Oh, she is a handful, isn’t she?”
Back at the phone he said, “This is Mr. Yellow.”
“Look, it’s great that you’re all alive and hiding out somewhere, possibly in the Northern Mariana Islands, but I really have to go. If you don’t tell me where you are, I’ll find you anyway.”
Fuzzy static ran through the connection. “―still there?”
She put the phone back in the case, latched it, and went back to Mr. Orange’s office.
“Firiel?” she called.
The SP in charge of the protection of fungus ran up to her in the nylon orienteering jumpsuit he refused to take off.
“I need to take the train again.”
He ran off toward the kitchen and returned with three canisters of oats.
fter going to the trouble of moving Archie’s lab into the SSI building, she needed to move it again. She also needed to relocate, she hoped temporarily, more than fifty SPs. They could squat in a building under construction; Clucking Along Holdings had towers going up all over Pothole City. But it wouldn’t be safe.
Amenity Tower was the only viable option. She packed them up and they crossed two streets―a bedraggled convoy pulling carts full of Cluck Snack and lab equipment―and entered through a side door.
She instructed Archie to set up his lab in the northeast corner of the huge storage room on the first underground parking level. The SPs stayed there with Archie while Kelly went up to Af’s apartment on floor forty-two, not knowing which mortal vessel to expect―his original, or the other one.
She leaned against the wood-paneled elevator, exhausted and achy.
The giant water scorpion attendant had acquired a spiffy new uniform of a black shirt with Amenity Tower embroidered on the left pocket.
“Forty-two, please, Tom.�
�
Tom took one look at Kelly and made a special coffee drink from his bar cart. “I call it the Amenity Amaretto.”
She cupped her hands around the mug, breathed in the steam, and sipped it. “I wish I were drinking this from the skull of one of my enemies.”
“I know what you mean.” Tom used two arms to resew a button on her jacket, another two to tighten the laces on her boots, and yet another two to click tiny tambourines together while singing in a soft voice. “I’m happy to be your manager, I’m happy to be your friend…”
She opened her eyes in a squint. “You are aware that Roger isn’t the building manager anymore, right?”
“Oh, yes. But I love his songs. And I’m happy to be your friend.”
After giving Tom an affectionate pat, she got out on floor forty-two and knocked on Af’s door, resisting the urge to fall asleep against it. When Af―regular Af, to her relief―let her in, she felt a weight lift off her shoulders.
Suitcases lined his front hallway. “Going somewhere?”
He poured her a coffee. “Yes. I’m going to go help the world.”
“Help the world.” She said in a flat, affectless voice.
He set a steaming cup of coffee on the counter in front of her and smiled in a way that said, “I’m about to tell you something which I think is great and I presume you will also think it’s great even though you’ll almost certainly hate it.”
She braced herself.
“I’ve found a way to leave the building on my own,” Af said. “And since I can, I should take advantage of it. I want to build, not destroy.”
“You build those photographic backdrops for household products. Brobingdangian Paper Towels Swiss Alps? Motel? I could go on.”
“Yes, but that’s not enough anymore. That barely counts. You know I’ve tried to change, living here. But now I need to do more. After what the Cluck Snack chicken said to me―”
She narrowed her eyes. “When was this?”
“The day you confronted Murray with your overwhelming evidence on What’s On Your Mind, With Roger Balbi.”
She scrunched up her face in confusion, remembering the Cluck Snack chickens parading through the lobby of Amenity Tower into the management office to visit Roger’s studio.