Marrow

by Preston Norton

  CHAPTER 31

  I didn’t realize that I’d fallen asleep until I woke up to an annoying computer voice saying, “Please be ready to board the Tartarus in fifteen minutes.” Crawling to my knees, I peered through the porthole window over my bed. The research facility was a vast accumulation of glassy spherical chambers bathed in the green glow of the Gaia Comet. The comet itself emerged from the midst of them like a ghostly monolith. The Cronus Cannon gleamed like a great fallen tower.

  Okay, I could understand Fantom’s fascination with this project. I could even understand the millions of dollars he had personally tied into it. However, I suddenly had the hardest time understanding why anyone would want to live down here. It was cool the first time, but now the Tartarus seemed less like a technological utopia and more like a tomb. How was it even practical for a Superhero like Fantom to live down here anyway? I mean, it wasn’t exactly ideal for a fast response time if the world happened to need saving, you know?

  Mechanical arms reached out from the Tartarus loading dock as we approached. The submarine drifted smoothly in between them, lurching slightly as it was clamped into place. My stomach lurched along with it.

  “So how vas your first submarine ride?” Gustav asked as we filed toward the exit.

  “I think I would’ve rather taken the unicorn,” I said.

  “Ha! Unicorn! That’s a good one.”

  As we descended the boarding ramp, scientists scuttled hurriedly like ants, glancing at computer screens or clipboards and tampering with machinery. There was only one figure who wasn’t in a white lab coat—Fantom. He was still wearing his Super suit which now appeared slightly scuffed and dirty, his slick hair disheveled, but still smiling his literal million dollar advertisement smile.

  How the heck did he beat us here?

  “Marrow,” he greeted, brawny arms extended. “Glad to have you back. I trust Gustav kept you entertained?”

  “But of course,” said Gustav before I could respond. “I juggled for him and everything.”

  Fantom glanced down to my wrist. “Ah, good, I see you’re already situated with your communicator.” He raised his own wrist, revealing an identical wrist band. “If we happen to get separated during a fight, we have a way to keep in contact. And these are how we’re notified of emergencies. Usually the calls will go through Gustav and he’ll inform us via the communicator, but occasionally the Guild or the chief of police or other select individuals will alert us if the need ever rises. So be sure to keep your communicator with you at all times.”

  “Select individuals?” I said.

  “Oh, you know…the mayor, the governor, the President of the United States. They like to keep a line of communication open. You know. Just in case.”

  “Ah…” I said, trying not to look too surprised.

  “They’re expensive little buggers too. I tend to update these things with every sidekick I get. I’ve even added a revision or two since Nero. This current edition has a tracking device. That way I can find you if you’re ever lost. Sure would’ve come in handy when Nero went AWOL.”

  Fantom and Gustav both laughed. I made a weak attempt to chuckle along.

  “At least we don’t have to worry about my father kidnapping me, right?” I said.

  This was my bleak attempt at humor. About as funny as the IRS, but I at least expected a pity laugh. Instead, Fantom and Gustav’s laughter both faded on cue. Fantom forced a fake smile and nodded unconvincingly. “Yeah. Of course.”

  I didn’t like where this was going.

  “What?” I said, glancing between the two of them. “Did something happen?”

  Gustav cleared his throat and readjusted his grip on my luggage. “Vell, I’d better get these to your room.”

  My gaze followed him as he started towards the nearest glass passageway. The door zipped open and then shut behind him.

  “Walk with me,” said Fantom.

  This wasn’t good.

  Fantom was already walking, heading for the same exit as Gustav. I took several quick steps to catch up.

  “There was an incident at Cosmo General Hospital a few hours ago,” said Fantom. “The hospital where they’re keeping your father.”

  This definitely wasn’t good.

  “Spine healed faster than we anticipated. He somehow managed to escape his restraints and got past the guards.”

  “HE WHAT?”

  “He didn’t escape though,” Fantom inserted hastily. “I managed to incapacitate him before he got out of the hospital. But we still don’t know how he got out. None of the guards’ stories seem to be matching up, and even the security cameras glitched out. He didn’t even break his restraints. We’ve doubled security, though. I would tell you that it won’t happen again, but…well…it shouldn’t have happened to begin with. The sooner we transport him out of that hospital and into a special containment facility, the better. Although I’m not going to be content until the Supreme Court legalizes the use of the Cronus on all Super-enhanced criminals.”

  My mouth was dry and my throat felt tight. I didn’t know what to say. And even if I did, I didn’t know how to say it.

  Fantom cleared his throat, noting my discomfort. “Anyway…you’re probably wondering how I beat you and Gustav here. Am I right?”

  I blinked at the jarring change of topic. It took me a second to remember that I had been wondering exactly that when I stepped out of the sub. “Yeah. How did you?”

  Fantom’s familiar grin returned. “Follow me.”

  I followed him through several round, glass passageways interconnecting each sphere chamber to the next. They all looked pretty much the same to me from their beehive-like glass-plated infrastructure to the endless tubes, pumps, gears, and blinking computer lights. Until we reached our destination. Right when I thought Fantom couldn’t possibly be any more filthy, stinkin’ rich.

  The chamber we ended in didn’t look much different from the others except for the sudden shadow cast over us and a narrow glass elevator tube in the center of the chamber leading upward. My gaze followed it up, landing on something that looked like a cross between a submarine, a jet, and a spaceship all rolled into one. Its core was a massive torpedo shape, though it gradually flattened and branched out into dual pairs of sharp, curving wings, bending out and meeting back together at the tips with sleek, bullet-shaped engines.

  My mouth hung open and I craned my neck back until it hurt. “What…is…that?”

  Fantom clapped his hand on my shoulder. “That, my friend, is the Fantom Wing.”

  “Yeah, but…what is it?”

  “It’s a submersible exojet. It’s a durable, light-weight multicraft. It can fly, ascend as far up as the exosphere while withstanding intense levels of ultraviolet radiation, and, of course, submerge underwater with the same water pressure resilience as most submarines.”

  “What’s an exosphere?”

  “It’s about as far as you can get into space while still remaining in the Earth’s gravitational pull.”

  I blinked. “Oh.”

  “Oh is right,” said Fantom, chuckling. “Its exterior is a resilient synthetic material crafted from rock samples of the Gaia Comet. Basically, this puppy is indestructible. It’s still in the prototype stages, but I’ve taken it out for a spin a couple times. It’s the only way I can justify living down here. From the moment I start her, I can make it out of the water in forty-seven seconds, and I can get to the coast in three minutes flat. Also, the cockpit only reacts to my DNA, so only I can pilot it. Don’t have to worry about thieves that way.”

  The pain stabbing through my neck reminded me that I hadn’t budged. When I finally met Fantom’s gaze, he was grinning wildly.

  “Pretty, isn’t she?”

  “Yeah, I’ll say,” I said, breathless. “I’d die to take a ride in that thing.”

  “Well you’re in luck. Any emergency calls we get while we’re in the Tartarus, that’s our ticket out of here. No dying necessary.”

  I didn’t
respond with words. I couldn’t. So instead I made this weird gasping/croaking sound that I’m sure was really impressive for a Superhero-in-training.

  I am, of course, being sarcastic. Don’t ever make a sound like that in front of someone you’re trying to impress.

  Fantom chuckled. “Well, how about I show you to your room now? Let you get situated?”

  I nodded with my mouth still hanging slightly open.

  If I was expected to memorize my way through the Tartarus, I was in big trouble. The place was a labyrinth. A big, fat, science-fictiony, fishbowl labyrinth. I was suddenly much more appreciative of the tracking device in my wrist communicator.

  After completing what I swear was a complete circle, we reached a door that branched off from the glass corridor, separating it from the sphere chambers. Unlike the many automatic doors, this one didn’t whiz open as we approached. Instead, Fantom reached into his pocket and removed a keycard.

  Yes. He had pockets. Inside his skintight bodysuit. Was there anything this dude didn’t have?

  Fantom swiped the keycard through the door’s control panel, which blinked green. He then grabbed my wrist and slapped the card into my limp palm.

  “Don’t lose it,” he said with a wink.

  The door slid open. I dropped the keycard.

  I was dead. I mean, I had to be. Because I was suddenly in heaven.

  Like Fantom’s flat, my room had a single glass wall with a mesmerizing view of the reef. But hey, who cares about beautiful views when your room also happens to be an arcade?

  Pinball machines? Check. Air hockey table? Check. Basketball hoop, big screen TV, and enough video games to choke a level 80 dark elf? Check, check, check. And then, if all of that wasn’t enough, it even had a Mountain Dew vending machine.

  MOUNTAIN. DEW. VENDING. MACHINE.

  It was enough to make a grown man cry. At least, if I was a grown man, I would have felt completely justified in doing so.

  It wasn’t until I was already wandering inside that I even noticed my luggage. Gustav had set it in the middle of the room, and I nearly tripped on it.

  “Well, I’ll let you get situated in here,” said Fantom. “If you need anything, your communicator has an option that’ll reach Gustav. He’ll take care of you.”

  I nodded vacantly while my gaze struggled to absorb everything at once. “Okay,” I finally managed to say.

  Fantom left, and the sliding door zipped shut behind him.

  In the midst of all the glory and glamour that any kid could ever hope for in a bedroom, it was a wonder I even noticed what I saw next. On the nightstand next to my bed, there was a small, leather-bound book. As I stepped closer, I noticed the faded silver words emblazoned on the cover:

  The Morse Code Handbook.

  Of course, it came as no surprise when I opened it and read the name scribbled on the inside cover:

  Nero.

  It’s amazing how a stupid little notebook can suddenly ruin the coolest bedroom in the world.

  No. Heck no. Heck freaking no! I wasn’t about to let that stupid jerk ruin this for me. I fumbled with the communicator on my wrist, bleeping and blooping my way through the interface. I finally found Gustav’s name under my list of contacts and pressed “Call.”

  Gustav’s face popped up, looking overwhelmingly unimpressed. “Vow, that didn’t take long. Vhat do you vant, little man?”

  Ladies and gentleman, I present to you the most condescending butler of all time.

  “Can I call my friend, Sapphire?” I asked.

  “Do I look like your mommy?”

  “Um. Okay, I want to call my friend, Sapphire.”

  “Okay, thanks for letting me know. Do you have any other status updates you vould like to share?”

  “Um. Yeah, like, how do I do that? Because I don’t have a cell phone or anything, and even if I did, like, I don’t even know if Verizon has service twenty thousand leagues under the sea.”

  “Your friend, Sapphire—she is Specter’s sidekick, yes?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Okay. Scroll through the contacts on your communicator to Specter’s name. Are you scrolling?”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. I minimized the image of Gustav’s face, scrolled, and found Specter’s name.

  And then press “call.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And then tell Specter that Gustav thinks she has a nice popa. That is Russian for butt.”

  “Uh…”

  Gustav proceeded to promptly hang up on me.

  Well, okay then.

  I selected Specter from my contacts and pressed call. I obviously had no intention of relaying Gustav’s heartfelt message, but that did not make this any less awkward.

  Specter’s face appeared—looking just as drop-dead-gorgeous and cold-hard-tenish as I remembered, and overall, way hotter than a camel despite her exceptionally camel-esque eyelashes. Naturally, she was wearing her blue and white bodysuit which surely emphasized her nice popa that was unfortunately off screen at the moment. The top half of her face was obscured by a white mask, but that only gave her this mysterious appeal that, like, oh my freaking gosh, what was I even calling for again?

  Sapphire. Right. I was calling for Sapphire.

  “Marrow?” said Specter.

  “Sapphire,” I said rather loudly. “Is she…uh…Hey, I need to talk to Sapphire. Well, I mean, I don’t need to talk to her—like save-the-world need—but I was hoping to talk to her, and…um… Hi, Specter. How are you doing today? Fine weather we’re having.”

  If this communicator had a function that could stop me from talking right now, that would be the greatest technological achievement of our era.

  Specter smiled. “I’ll go get Sapphire.”

  A moment later, Sapphire’s face appeared. “Hey, Marrow. What the…? Why’s your face so red?”

  “Um. Pushups,” I said. “I was doing pushups.”

  “Oh. So…what’s up?”

  “This is up.” I pulled the communicator away from my face and directed my wrist at my bedroom wall. I slowly rotated 360 degrees so she could absorb my new bedroom in all its awesometacular glory.

  “No way,” said Sapphire. “Is that a Mountain Dew vending machine?”

  “That is, indeed, a Mountain Dew vending machine.”

  “I thought those only existed in my dreams!”

  “Now they exist in your dreams and my bedroom.”

  “Profound. Man, I still can’t wrap my brain around the fact that you’re Fantom’s sidekick now. When Specter told me the news this morning, I practically spewed my orange juice. I mean, it’s what you’ve always wanted. And now here you are, living the dream. With a Mountain Dew vending machine, no less.”

  “So when are you coming over?”

  “To your bedroom? That exists at the bottom of the ocean?”

  “Yeah. That.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Oh,” I said. I tried not to sound bummed, but that single “Oh” contained in its two-letter, one-syllable existence all the disappointment in the universe. Of course, the Flex situation may or may not have had something to do with my current state of unstable moodiness. I just…like, was it too much to ask to hang out with a friend? Here I was, having what was supposed to be the best day of my life, and a deep, dark part of me just wanted to cry. Was there a delayed side effect of puberty that made you feel like you were turning into a girl?

  “It’s just that Specter has me on a really tight training program,” said Sapphire. “I have almost a dozen different routines she has me doing throughout the day. She has a timer that goes off, not only in my bedroom, but throughout the whole house. And then it’s off to mixed martial arts, or off to target practice, or off to torture interrogation resistance training or whatever.”

  “What? Wow. That’s…uh…intense.”

  “I was just joking about torture interrogation resistance training. But seriously, it is intense. Specter always says that women have to be twice as good as m
en in order to get half the acknowledgement they get. So in order to be considered equal, we have to be four times better than any guy Superhero. Anyway, that’s that, so I’m not really allowed to leave the compound. Er…house. Whatever. But if you want to come over here tomorrow afternoon, you totally can.”

  “Seriously? You don’t have to ask Specter’s permission first?”

  “SPECTER!” Sapphire shouted. “CAN I HAVE A FRIEND OVER TOMORROW?”

  “DO I LOOK LIKE YOUR MOM?” Specter’s voice echoed back. “DO WHAT YOU WANT. JUST DON’T SKIP THE OBSTACLE COURSE OF DEATH AT TWO O’ CLOCK OR YOU ARE DEAD MEAT.”

  Sapphire shuddered. “I hate the obstacle course of death.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” I said.

  “I have stealth tactics at noon, but that usually only takes a half hour. Can you come at twelve-thirty? That gives us an hour and a half to hang. Longer if you want to watch me get pulverized in a million different ways for your entertainment pleasure.”

  “This already sounds like the best day of my life.”

  “I’m glad my pain and suffering brings someone happiness.”

  “You bet it does. Oh, random question: does Specter have a VCR?”

  “Wow, that is random.”

  “You were warned.”

  “Um, I think she does. Wait, scratch that. I know she does. I saw one in her surveillance room.”

  “Specter has a surveillance room?”

  “Specter has an everything room. Heck, she even has a scrapbooking room. But I’m allegedly not supposed to tell anyone that under the threat that I’ll be murdered in my sleep. So tomorrow at twelve-thirty?”

  “Tomorrow at twelve-thirty!”

  It was only after Sapphire hung up that I realized I was still technically trapped in a luxurious underwater prison. I scrolled through the contacts on my communicator, selected Gustav, and pressed “Call.” Gustav’s face appeared, and contorted into a magnificent scowl.

  “Unless you’re bleeding to death,” said Gustav, “I vould seriously reconsider vhatever it is you are calling me for.”