Marrow

by Preston Norton

  “Place hand on hologram for security identification,” said the voice.

  Crap. This was my cue to leave.

  I backtracked my way the heck outta there. I made my way out of the hidden, level-zero control room, through the glassy corridors, and back to my room. I hadn’t even opened my door when I heard the buzzing/ringing sound.

  Huh?

  I swiped my keycard, and the door’s control panel blinked green. The door slid open. That’s when I saw the culprit, flashing and vibrating on my nightstand.

  My communicator—it was going off.

  Crap crap crap crap crap.

  It stopped ringing and vibrating the moment I reached it, but the display was still lit up. It read: 9 missed calls.

  FREAKING CRAP SANDWICH.

  I exited out of the screen to view my missed calls. They were all from Specter. Which meant they were really all from Sapphire. This calmed me down a little—at least Fantom or someone wasn’t trying to contact me for an emergency—but it made me panic for an entirely different reason. Why would Sapphire try to call me a gazillion times in the middle of the night?

  I selected Specter’s name and hit “Call.”

  Sapphire’s face appeared almost instantly—but a completely different Sapphire than the one I knew. This one had puffy, bloodshot eyes, and her face was glistening from what had clearly been a good, hard cry.

  “Sapphire?” I said. “Are you okay?”

  Her trembling lips hovered open. And then her face collapsed into a choking, sobbing mess.

  “Sapphire, what happened?”

  “H-h-he’s gone,” she said. “They…they took him.”

  “Who? Who’s gone?”

  “Whisp,” she said, weeping. “They took Whisp.”

  CHAPTER 34

  The communicator practically slipped out of my fingers. I snapped out of my daze, struggling to form words into coherent sentences.

  “Wha—? Who took him?”

  “Th-th-th-the police,” said Sapphire. She sniffed again, seeming desperate to compose herself. “They just arrested him. Nova tried to stop them, b-b-but they took him anyway.”

  “I don’t get it. Why would they arrest Whisp?”

  “Haven’t you been watching TV? It’s the Cronus Order. They arrested him because of the Cronus Order.”

  “But he’s not a Telepath!”

  “According to the police, he is. They called him an animal-Telepath. I mean, technically that’s what he is. He communicates with animals telepathically.”

  “That’s ridiculous! How can they even consider that the same thing?”

  “I think it’s because Oracle used him to control her cats. Once it got all over the news that she was controlling cats too and they realized she used his power, they linked him as a threat.”

  I was speechless. Whisp—shy, innocent, inhaler-huffing little Whisp…

  Flex was right. This wasn’t justice. There wasn’t anything even remotely just about it. It was just wrong.

  “So what?” I said. “They’re just going to take his power?”

  “At eight a.m.” said Sapphire, sniffling. “The police said he’s going in with the first batch of Telepaths. It’s sick, Marrow. They’re televising it live and everything.”

  My grip tightened on the communicator while my free hand balled into a fist.

  “We can’t let them do this,” I said. My brain was spinning too fast. “We have to stop them.”

  “Marrow…”

  “There’s still time. We can save him!”

  “Marrow.”

  “We’re stronger than the police, Sapphire! We can—”

  “MARROW.”

  Even over the communicator, Sapphire’s voice was piercing and irrefutable. My gaping mouth closed.

  “Marrow, there’s nothing we can do,” she said. “We can’t take on the whole world.”

  She was right. Even though we were strong—Superheroes-in-training, even—there was nothing we could do to save Whisp. He was beyond saving.

  “So we just sit here while they take his power away?” I asked. My voice was cracked and defeated.

  Sapphire pulled the communicator away from her face. Even with silence on the other end, I could tell that she was crying again.

  “I just…I just want to be with someone,” she whimpered. “I can’t do this alone. Can you come over?”

  I glanced at the time display; it was four in the morning.

  Four in the morning in a research facility at the bottom of the ocean.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll be there.”

  I ended the call, only to call Gustav a few short seconds later. It only rang once.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Gustav. He was rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Specter already called me.”

  Welp. That stole my thunder. So instead, probably sounding a little too surprised, I said “She called you?”

  “Fantom had to take an emergency call. So yeah, she called me.”

  “Wait, what? He got an emergency call? Like, a crime-fighting, justice-fulfilling, save-the-day sort of emergency call?”

  “Yes. That kind of emergency call.”

  “And he left WITHOUT ME?”

  “Oh, believe me. This is not the sort of emergency call that Fantom takes sidekicks on, nor is it vone that you vant to be involved in.”

  “Oh,” I said, sounding thoroughly hurt. Because, like, what else was I supposed to say?

  “Trust me, Fantom’s doing you a favor. Besides, you do vant me to take you to Specter’s place, yes?”

  That snapped me out of my elevated moment of self-pity. I’d already made a promise to Sapphire. Right now, she needed me.

  “Meet me at the loading dock in ten minutes,” said Gustav.

  ***

  It was still dark when we arrived at Specter’s place. Nevertheless, Sapphire was sitting on the front porch, hugging her knees. Her blue eyes were still framed in red bloodshot lines. The moment I stepped out of the limo, she tackled me in a hug. Not the playful tackling hug from before though. She squeezed me tight, like I might disappear if she gave anything less. And then she glanced down at the thing in my hand—Oracle’s videotape, stuffed back in its manila envelope.

  “You would,” she said. Her tone wasn’t accusing or even irritated. Simply matter-of-fact.

  “You know,” I said, “in case we get bored.”

  Sapphire rolled her bloodshot eyes. “I’ll never get bored of kicking your butt at Mario Kart.”

  We entered the front door of the manor, following behind Gustav. Specter’s interior decorating maintained an awkward balance between rustic countryside cabin and modern art. Polished wood surfaces. Space-age furniture designs. Classic Victorian fabric patterns. Sharp modern edges and angles. Wildlife decorations intermixed with indecipherable, avant-garde art. It was weird and arguably kitschy and awesome.

  Specter was curled up on the loveseat with a coffee mug in her hands, wearing a silky bathrobe. This might have been the hottest thing in the universe…if I didn’t feel so craptacular inside. Gustav sat down on the adjacent recliner and the two of them quietly discussed stuff that I didn’t even care to eavesdrop on.

  Instead, I offered to make Sapphire something to eat. She wasn’t hungry. I asked her if she wanted to watch the news—you know, just to stay current on everything that was happening. She said she’d rather stick her head in the microwave.

  So we just sat there. Or rather—I sat there. Sapphire curled up into a ball and cuddled against me, squeezing my arm tight and nestling her head into my chest. We stayed like this for a long time. We stayed until the sun peeked its reluctantly bright head over the horizon. I expected cuddling like this to feel a little more romantic. Instead, I felt empty helplessness expanding inside of me. Occasionally Sapphire would start quivering like she was on the verge of falling apart again. Just when it seemed like she was doing really good, she asked what time it was. I glanced at the kitchen clock and winced.

  �
�Seven fifty-two,” I said.

  Eight more minutes until Whisp had his powers taken away forever. The knot in my chest was suffocating.

  Sapphire fell apart in my lap—shaking…sobbing.

  I held her as the minutes ticked closer. The worst part was that I remembered that power-extracting chamber so vividly. The way that the Cronus Cannon pointed directly into it—like a gun to someone’s head. The shocking size of the spherical glass chamber. Dr. Jarvis’s words echoed in my skull:

  We actually designed it to contain more than one subject if the need ever arose.

  I couldn’t stand it. It was like they had planned for this! Everything about the Tartarus and the Cronus Order made me sick. And don’t even get me started on that hidden chamber beneath the Tartarus, located on a level zero that, according to Dr. Jarvis, shouldn’t even exist! What the heck was going on?

  At last the time came—the minute hand lurched like a swinging axe, slicing into the twelve.

  The silence was chilling. I glanced down at Sapphire whose downcast gaze was entranced on the floor.

  Whisp…

  ***

  Sometime during the deathly silence that followed, Sapphire fell asleep. I was glad. She needed it.

  I wasn’t even close to sleepy. Instead, my alert gaze was riveted on the manila envelope that I had left on the kitchen counter.

  I carefully slid my fingers into Sapphire’s blue hair and lifted her head off of my lap. Sliding as stealthily as I could across the cushion, I wiggled myself free of her arms and gently set her head back down.

  I left the house and made a straight line for the Control Tower. A brisk walk and two flights of stairs later, I was in the surveillance room. I popped the videotape in the VCR and pressed play. I was once again introduced to a seven-year-old’s birthday party.

  “Okay, Flex, make a wish,” said Oracle.

  I pressed fast-forward. I hit play as soon as the birthday part was cut short by a dark hallway.

  “Hello?” said Oracle’s voice. “Is someone there?”

  I watched closely—intently—as Oracle crossed the hall, descended the stairs, and entered her familiar living room. I don’t know what I was looking for, but whatever it was, I was looking hard for it. A clue. Anything to make sense of this bizarre video.

  “Spine?” said Oracle. “Is that you?”

  Spine was the obvious culprit. If Spine broke into her place, sending us this video to lure us there made perfect sense.

  “If that’s you, Spine…I’ve been seeing you. You keep appearing in my foresight.”

  And then her voice wavered.

  “But you’re not Spine…are you?” It wasn’t a question—not really. “Are you a friend of his?”

  She wasn’t just asking. The way she said it, it was like she knew it wasn’t Spine. But who could it possibly be?

  Yeah, Sapphire thought the whole video was staged. But why? Why would Oracle make a fake video, hinting that there was anyone or anything to worry about other than Spine?

  “Are you a Telepath?” she said. “I can feel something. Something trying to reach into my mind.”

  And then there was that slight scratching sound. Oracle plunged through her house, clear to the sliding back door. Her porch lights illuminated just how small her backyard was, confined within a chain-link fence. The lights glistened on dewy grass and reflective puddles after a fresh rain.

  “Who are you?” said Oracle. “Why are you trying to get inside my head?”

  Oracle lowered the camera, and the screen was lost in a blizzard of static. And then the video was back to six-year-old Flex’s birthday party which I had no interest in.

  I hit rewind and watched Oracle backtrack her way through the whole house. When she was back in the dark, upstairs hallway where she started, I hit play.

  And then I proceeded to watch the whole thing all over again. I focused even harder on the details—every word, every movement, every shadow. In the end, my obsession came down to a single line:

  “But you’re not Spine…”

  If Oracle hated Spine so much, why would she lure us to her with a fake video that pointed the finger of blame at someone else? It didn’t make sense. It was like she was trying to tell us something. But what? And better yet, why? If she just wanted to use us as bait, why would she be trying to tell us anything?

  Maybe Sapphire was right. Maybe I was overthinking this.

  The door to the surveillance room opened. I nearly fell backwards in my chair.

  “You nerd. How did I know you’d be in here?”

  It was Sapphire.

  “Sweet Mother Teresa,” I said. “You scared the crap out of me.”

  The good news was that she looked ten times better. Apparently sleeping it off did emotional/psychological wonders. The bad news was that she was drilling holes through me with her skeptical gaze.

  “What?” I said.

  “You do realize,” said Sapphire, “that Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

  “You do realize,” I said, “that I don’t care.”

  “Yeah, I’ve realized that much.”

  “Good.”

  Sapphire’s gaze drifted past me to the TV screen. “It is weird though. I’ll give you that.”

  “Which part?”

  “All of it. I mean, who plans out and choreographs something like this? Just to get you guys to come to her house? That’s beyond psychopath weird. That’s just…weird weird.”

  “Um, yeah. That’s what I’ve been saying.”

  I followed Sapphire’s gaze to the TV screen. Oracle was looking through the screen door, talking to herself or who-knows-what.

  Oracle lowered the camera and everything became static.

  Sapphire went rigid. “Wait. I saw something.”

  I shot Sapphire an incredulous stare. “What?”

  “Go back. Rewind.”

  I wanted to press for details, but I pinched my mouth shut and hit the rewind button.

  “There,” she said.

  I hit play.

  “Why are you trying to get inside my head?” said Oracle.

  She was staring out into her backyard once more. I squinted beyond her lit-up back porch, straining to see something in the shadows.

  She lowered the camera and the screen erupted in electric snow once more.

  “There!” Sapphire exclaimed, pointing. “Did you see it?”

  “See what?” I asked in exasperation.

  “The puddle! There was something in the puddle!”

  “In the…puddle?”

  “Like a reflection or something,” she said, nudging me out of the way and claiming my seat in front of the VCR. “Here, I’ll show you.”

  A blue fingernail tapped the rewind button, reversing out of the birthday party and the TV snow in between. She quickly hit play.

  “Why are you trying to get inside my head?” said Oracle.

  The camera was too far forward for me to make out the puddles on the porch. I inched closer to the TV in anticipation.

  Oracle lowered the camera, and Sapphire hit pause.

  The camera fell squarely on the largest puddle. The reflected image was the roof ledge…and a silhouette perched atop it. The silhouette was blurry, but I had seen this person too many times to not recognize him. Though most of his body was in shadow, his signature red cape was unmistakable.

  “Fantom,” I said.

  Sca-REEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!

  It came from outside—the sound of rubber screaming against asphalt. A car door opened and slammed shut, and then the most familiar, psychotic voice in the world started screaming, “Marrow! Maaaaaar-rooooow! Where the heck are you, Marrow? Dang it—MARROW!”

  Sapphire raised a blue eyebrow. “Is that Flex?”

  I couldn’t even register life at the moment. I couldn’t process what I had just seen on the video. Fantom was spying on Oracle? And now Flex, who was supposed to be in jail, had tracked me
down to Specter’s house and was screaming my name like a maniac?

  I rushed to the window of the of the surveillance room and slid it open. From this third-story perspective, I had a perfect view of the Specter Estate.

  “Flex?” I said—loud enough that he could hear me. Flex was already storming towards the front doors of the manor, seconds away from barging in like he owned the place.

  Flex halted, whipping around in every direction until his eyes locked on me. “Marrow!”

  “What are you doing? I thought you were in jail.”

  “I was. I broke out.”

  “You what?” I said, blankly.

  “Long story. Listen, we need to get out of here, like, five minutes ago, okay? We gotta go.”

  I glanced from the crazed, wild-eyed look on Flex’s face to the retro Chevy Impala parked crookedly in front of Specter’s house. “Whose car is that?”

  “I dunno. The prison guard’s, maybe? I broke in and hotwired it.”

  “You WHAT?”

  “Guuuuuuuhhhhh!” said Flex, pretending to strangle some invisible thing in each of his hands. He then whipped his elastic arm and flung it at me. I backed away because I knew where this was going, and it was a health hazard on multiple levels. Flex’s hand latched onto the open window frame, and then the tension in his rubber limb ripped him off his feet. He slingshotted towards the window and whoooooshed inside.

  And splatted against the wall—squished flat like a cartoon character.

  His right hand was the first thing to peel away, and he proceeded to peel his face off the wall. He puffed out into his normal three dimensions and staggered away from wall, slightly disoriented.

  “Listen, we need to go,” said Flex. “NOW.”

  I was still blinking, trying to register everything, and Flex’s irrational urgency was only making it worse. It was only when my gaze drifted back to the TV screen—to Fantom’s blurry reflection—that my bearings realigned.

  “It was Fantom,” I said. “Fantom was spying on Oracle. Not Spine.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Flex.

  “You know?”

  “Look, there’s no time to explain. We need to get the heck outta here right now or we’re—”