“But Mommy—”
“No buts. You’re staying right here.”
“That’s not fair! I want to help.”
Mommy smiled at her, hers much warmer than Renee’s. “I know you do, baby, but you’ve done enough. It’s time to let the grown-ups handle things.”
Joanna knew she wouldn’t win this argument. Mommy hadn’t let her cross the street by herself until last summer. Despite that Joanna had learned to ride a bike at five, she still couldn’t go past the corner or Mommy would call the police. At times Joanna loved that protectiveness and at others it was just a nuisance. This was one of the latter. “OK, Mommy. I’ll stay here.”
“Good girl. Now, Dr. Earl’s friends found you some clothes. They’re a little big, but with any luck we won’t need them long before we can go home.” Mommy set a bundle on Joanna’s lap, which at the moment was covered by a shimmery silver blanket—no, a cape. “You put those on and I’m going to see how the others are doing. All right?”
“Yes, Mommy.”
Mommy brushed aside Joanna’s hair to kiss her forehead. “I love you, sweetheart.”
“I love you too.”
Mommy opened the door of what appeared to be the trailer for a big rig. Joanna brushed the cape aside to see she was naked. The bundle of clothes contained a pink Strawberry Shortcake T-shirt and a pair of bright red corduroys, both of which smelled like cigarettes and cat pee. Her nose wrinkled at this, but it was either these clothes or nothing. As Mommy had said, they were both too big; the shirtsleeves came down past her elbows and the pant legs swallowed her big feet. She pulled the pants up to stuff her feet into a pair of dirty blue sneakers. They were grown-up shoes, the only ones that would fit her big feet.
The doors of the trailer were shiny enough that she could get a rough reflection of herself. In the droopy T-shirt and baggy pants, she looked younger, like a toddler playing dress up with her big sister’s clothes. This nearly brought tears to her eyes as she thought of that awful woman Renee again. If they failed, Mommy and Emma and all the others would end up there, along with her. She would be broken down and then that evil woman would raise Joanna as her daughter to twist her to serve Isis.
No, she wouldn’t let that happen. She had to help them stop Isis. Renee had been right about one thing: she was smarter than Mommy and Emma, at least where it counted. Ever since Isis had first appeared to her, in addition to her science books, Joanna had read The Art of War and numerous books on military strategy. She probably knew as much about the subject as any West Point graduate. Even if she was too little to fight, she wasn’t too little to plan.
Chapter 33
Before they began to tackle the strategy of how to beat Isis, they first had to contend with the operational realities. First was to distribute clothes to the Reds, a process that took longer than Emma would have liked. Despite the psychic connection the others had to Akako, to find enough clothes with what little money Tim and Old Coyote possessed had made this difficult.
The new recruits also had to be fed and instructed on where to use the bathroom and so forth. Akako did most of this, but Emma had to pitch in, along with Tim and Old Coyote. The good part of this was it gave her a chance to see her makeshift army up close.
She realized they weren’t very impressive from a military standpoint. Only two had any sort of combat training and a third worked as a police officer. While the others had access to those memories and training, that didn’t mean they could be soldiers any more than the soldiers could be athletes, doctors, or dancers like some of their comrades. Most had never even fired a gun before.
Still, what they lacked in experience, they made up for in courage. The youngest—besides Joanna—was a sixteen-year-old girl named Rosita, who took Emma’s hand when she came by. “We’re not going to let you down, Dr. Earl,” she said. “We’ll stop Isis.”
“Yes, we will,” Emma said with a confidence she didn’t feel. A ragtag group of fifty—mostly civilians—going into a city of nine million controlled by an evil goddess bent on destruction and revenge; it certainly didn’t sound like a recipe for success. She tried to remain upbeat; she smiled and shook hands like a politician.
Like it or not, the Scarlet Knight’s armor made her the de facto leader of the group. She was the general and as such she had to try to keep the morale of her troops up. This included her dealings around Akako, as she knew the others could hear Akako’s thoughts. “They seem like a good group,” Emma said.
“I know they aren’t all we hoped for, but they’re brave and they’re willing.”
“They certainly are. Isis isn’t going to know what hit her.”
When she got the chance, Emma snuck off into the forest to be alone for a few minutes. She found a flat-topped rock that reminded her of the ones Jim used for chairs in his cave on the astral plane. Emma took off her helmet, ran a hand through her sweaty hair, and sighed. It wouldn’t be long before she saw Jim again. Then they could wait in his cave until Louise showed up, which probably wouldn’t be long either.
“Are you all right?” Tim asked.
She turned to him and put her fake smile back on. “I’m fine. It’s just been a long day.”
He found a rock next to her where he could sit down. He said, “I never got a chance to answer your letters,” he said. “I meant to, but I couldn’t think of what to say.”
“That’s all right. I know it had to be a big adjustment for you.”
“I thought since we might not get a chance again—I wanted to thank you for what you said at the parole hearing. The way you stood up for me.”
She put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re my friend, Tim. I couldn’t let them do that to you, not without a fight.”
“And afterwards, when I took off from the diner, it wasn’t anything against you and Becky. I just needed some time alone to sort things out.”
“I understood. So did Becky. When you lose someone you really care about, it’s not easy to get over it. It’s taken me most of my life to try to recover from my parents dying and I still haven’t done it. Mostly because I spent years running from it. I didn’t have to go through it alone, though. I had people back home—Becky and Aunt Gladys—who would have helped me, if I’d just been willing to take the help they offered.” She met his eyes and saw in them the same hurt she had carried around for years. “Provided we get through this and things go back to the way they were, I’ll be there for you. So will Becky and Agnes and Akako. We’re your friends and we want to help you get through it.”
“Thanks.” He looked back at the ground. “Do you really think everything will go back to the way it was?”
“I hope so.”
“She has Sylvia. Not the one from here, of course—”
“I know. I saw her, in the nursery with the others: Becky, Megan, Agnes, and the rest of the coven. She’s made them little kids, even babies.”
“But you think they’ll go back to normal? They aren’t going to stay like that, are they?”
Emma knew he wanted reassurance, but she didn’t want to give him false hope. “It’s hard to say. We’ll have to hope for the best.”
“I know it’s stupid, but when I see Sylvia, I keep thinking she’s my Sylvia. I mean, they look the same, they act the same, they dance the same, and they feel the same.” Tim’s face reddened as he said the last part. “I kissed her in a bar and it was exactly the same. It was like my Sylvia was still alive. Is that crazy?”
“No. You saw Jim on the roof of that police station. He and I kissed and it felt just like when I kissed my Jim, the Sewer Rat.”
“What if she doesn’t go back to normal? What if she stays a baby? Or what if at least her mind stays like that? She’s got a family back there, her sisters and her mom—” Tim shook his head sadly. “It’s my fault she’s here. I got her into this mess.”
Emma sensed that now was the time to try to give Tim some false hope. “We’ll find a way to change her back. Trust me, I’ve been a baby, an old woman, and
even Becky a few years ago. I came back every time. It wasn’t always easy or pleasant, but no matter what you look like on the outside, you never lose who you are on the inside.”
He considered this for a moment and then nodded. “Thanks, but I’m not sure Sylvia’s as strong as you are.”
“If she’s like ours, then she’s probably stronger than I am.”
They both shared a brief chuckle at this. “Thanks for listening to me.”
“It’s the least I can do for the man who saved my life.” She stood up and then took his arm. “Let’s get back and see how the others are faring.”
As they reached the edge of the forest, Emma heard Joanna’s voice—her voice, only slightly higher in pitch—shout, “I’m not tired! I want to help!”
“Baby, please—”
Joanna spotted Emma and then broke away from her mother. She threw her arms around Emma’s waist and put her head against Emma’s stomach. “You have to let me help,” she said.
“Joanna Lynn Reed, you get back here and leave Dr. Earl alone,” Dr. Reed said. “You need to get your rest. You’re still not well.”
“I think you should listen to your mother,” Emma said. She saw how pale the little girl’s face looked and remembered how blue and lifeless Joanna had been not so long ago.
“I don’t want to rest!” Joanna shouted and stamped her foot. She looked into Emma’s eyes to plead with her. “I can help. I know how to beat Isis.”
Emma turned to Tim, who shrugged. Then she looked back at Dr. Reed, whose lower lip trembled as if she were about to cry. Emma had seen how much Dr. Reed loved her little girl, the only part of her dead husband Red that she had left as she had said to Dr. Pavelski. But Emma had also seen in the hospital how smart Joanna was, far beyond her years. And at the moment they could use all the help they could get.
“I think we should hear her out,” Emma said.
***
While Emma hadn’t ever watched the entire movie Patton, she had seen clips of the famous scene where the general addressed his troops in front of a large American flag. At the moment Joanna just needed the flag behind her to reenact the scene. She strutted back and forth in front of her mother, Emma, Tim, and Akako. Old Coyote and the Reds sat farther back; they didn’t pay much attention at first, but moved in closer as Joanna’s voice got louder. Even Pepe had slunk closer to listen to her.
“The first thing you have to know about Isis is that she may be a goddess, but she’s not God. She’s not omnipotent or omniscient. That means even if she controls the entire city, she can’t be everywhere at once. Her or that meanie Renee.”
Akako bristled at this, but Emma put a hand on the woman’s shoulder to steady her. Joanna continued, “What we have to do then is to create as much chaos as we can. We have to spread Isis’s attention as thin as possible, to make it harder for her to focus. That will make it easier for Emma to reach her and stop her.”
Joanna turned to face the adults with her hands behind her back. “What I propose is that we load everyone into Mr. Coyote’s truck here. We go into the city and then we fan out in two-man teams. Each team will pick a target of opportunity: set fire to an abandoned apartment building or blow up a warehouse or shut down power to the subways. Whatever we can do without hurting innocent people. With these diversionary raids—”
“Sounds more like terrorism,” Tim said. He no doubt thought of how Harry Ward had used his RAT inventions to sow havoc across the city.
“We are not terrorists. We’re the good guys. That makes us freedom fighters,” Joanna said and Emma smiled at this. “And that’s just what we’re doing—fighting for the freedom of all those nine million people. Not just them but the whole world. Not just this world, but all of our worlds. If we don’t stop Isis now, she’s going to take over this world and then all of ours. If we have to resort to terrorist tactics to do it, then that’s what we have to do.”
Joanna gestured with one hand to Emma. “But as Dr. Earl would be the first to say, we will not cross the line. We will not kill anyone unless we have no choice. We will wound only if we have to. Is that understood?” Mumbles of agreement came from the others. “Good. So, as I was saying, we create as much panic and chaos as we can. We have the police jumping at shadows. We make sure Isis has to send out her Specials to deal with the threats. That in turn pulls resources away from our true target: Robinson Tower. That is where Isis will be located.
“Our job—all of my brothers and sisters here—will be to create enough of a distraction so Dr. Earl and Mr. Cooper can get into the building, find Isis, and stop her. While we are creating our distractions, Pepe the rat will guide them through the sewers, as close to the tower as they can get. At approximately midnight, they’ll enter the building and make their way to the top floor.
“As for the rest of you, once you’ve taken on as many targets of opportunity as you can safely, you will rendezvous back here so that I can send you home.” Joanna began to pace, channeling Braveheart or perhaps Joan of Arc now. “It’s not going to be easy. You all know that. It’s going to be extremely dangerous. Some of you may not survive. None of us may survive. The world might not survive. But what’s important is what my mother taught me, which is that we do our very best and we try as hard as we can. That way even if we fail, we fail knowing we gave it our all.”
Joanna turned to face the adults again; she seemed almost to shrink as she smiled shyly at them. “I would like to go with you, but Mommy says it’s past my bedtime.”
From behind her, Emma heard a cheer go up. It started with just a few, but soon all of the Reds cheered wildly. Even Akako applauded, though her face still looked haunted by the mention of Renee. Emma caught Joanna’s eye and nodded to her in salute. It was a good plan, the kind of crazy plan she might have come up with, but then she supposed great minds thought alike.
Dr. Reed hugged her daughter and whispered something into her ear. Joanna shook her head and then came over to Akako. “I have something special in mind for you,” the little girl said. She took Akako’s hand and the two of them walked over to the trailer.
When Akako came back a few minutes later, she had tears in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” Emma asked her.
“She told me where Renee is, where the nursery is.” Akako stopped to sob. “It’s our house. Agnes’s house. That’s where she has them.”
“I’m sorry,” Emma said.
“Joanna wants me to go to her. She thinks I can reason with Renee. Or if not, I can at least keep her distracted.”
“Are you going to do it?”
“I have to. I have to try to save her and Agnes. I love them.” Akako went off into the forest; the sound of her sobs faded away. As much as Emma wanted to go after her, she knew her friend needed some time alone. And there was a lot to do if they wanted to be in the city by ten o’clock tonight to launch their reign of terror—of freedom fighting.
***
To get the robotic suit on was a lot easier with Emma’s help. She used the strength of her suit of armor to help Tim maneuver the pieces of his. As she did, he noticed the way she looked at the suit. “This is amazing,” she said. “It looks almost identical to my old armor. Does it do all the same things?”
“It can’t turn invisible,” he said.
She bent down to study the boosters. “Can you fly with these?”
“Not for long. They seize up if I use them too much.”
“Probably overheating. If you could work out a system to cool them better, you’d get more flight time.”
He’d already thought along those lines. At the time he and Renee Kim had worked on the armor, he hadn’t envisioned he would need to fly around too much. He thought of his last bout with Isis and hoped he wouldn’t need to fly for long again.
He put the helmet on himself and then flipped up the visor so he could look Emma in the eye. “If things get too hot, don’t be afraid to leave me behind.”
“Tim, don’t talk like that.”
“I’m just
saying, the most important thing is for you to get up there. You’re the only one who can stop her.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said.
He knew it was probably no use. Emma was too good to leave him behind. He thought again of what she’d said in the forest about being there for him no matter what. That kind of heart was what made her such a good Scarlet Knight, but in this case it could also lead to disaster. In the end, he supposed they would have to hope for the best.
With the augmented strength of his suit, he didn’t have a difficult time to unload Old Coyote’s trailer. Emma helped with this as well; they stacked the crates of beans and other canned goods off to one side. Joanna directed them on how to stack them to make a little fort. This wasn’t entirely child’s play, as she would need something for shelter once they left.
While Tim and Emma built Joanna’s fort, Akako and Joanna’s mother began to hand out the weapons Tim had brought back. There would be a lot more to go around than he’d originally thought, which meant they should have plenty of ammunition. Along with the machine guns, there were also grenades and some plastic explosives. The plastic explosives Akako gave to one of the Reds who worked in demolitions. It wasn’t exactly the same, but it was better than to give it to the teenage girl or the butcher or the heart surgeon.
Joanna’s speech had energized the Reds; they almost gleefully took their weapons and formed pairs. Tim felt his sense of doom only continue to grow as he watched them. Maybe Joanna was right and that Isis wasn’t omniscient, but he had seen close-up what she could do—and what that horrible witch Renee could do. Against someone who could make buildings disappear and turn a grown woman into a baby, what could they really do?
These thoughts still ran through his head as he felt someone slap his shoulder. “You look about like I did when the doctor said I had the clap,” Old Coyote said.
“What? Oh, sorry. I was just thinking.”
“About how suicidal this all is? Can’t say as I blame you. Seems all pretty farfetched to me, but then so’s everything else since I picked you up.”
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 175