Attack Doll 5: The End of Lily Lee

by Douglas A. Taylor

Chapter 11

 

  Since we didn't expect another monster attack for a while, Mike decided that I would spend my first morning back teaching my teammates how to slow down time. He had us all gather in the gym to try it. I think it was the first time since Shelley had been arrested that we had had seven fully-powered Primes, from Red down to Violet, all in the same room together, and I have to say, it felt awfully good. As if the world had been put back to rights.

  I did my best to explain the things Wizzit had explained to me -- how to set oneself and perform the brief mental concentration necessary to make the shift. Wizzit hadn't seemed to know about the sharp inhalation that kickstarted the effect, so I explained that as well, along with a few more insights that I had gained.

  None of it worked.

  I shouldn't have been surprised; Wizzit had told me it wouldn't work, at least not the first day. I hadn't said anything to the others, though, because I didn't want to discourage them. I imagine we would have looked pretty silly to an outside observer, all powered up and gasping sharply for all we were worth, with nothing to show for it.

  After about twenty minutes of trying, Trina decided she was bored and declared that she wanted to learn the other cool trick one can do with a force shield, something called a shock wave. That's where you draw in energy from your force shield and then release it in a concussive blast. Typically it's something the current Prime Red pulls out of his or her back pocket in case of an emergency.

  As I've already mentioned, all of us fully-powered Primes are supposed to be equally powerful, but certain things get easier the lower your prime number gets, which is why it's usually only Prime Red who can perform a shock wave. I had done one once, months ago, but I hadn't tried it since and wasn't sure I could do it on command. So it was Mike who reluctantly went off into another part of the room to work with Trina.

  (I said "reluctantly", but truth be told, I don't think Mike minded it all that much. Sure, he wanted to learn the speedup trick, but see, he and Trina seem to have some sort of mutual-attraction thing going. It's kind of cute, because I don't believe either one of them knows exactly what to do about it. Well, Mike probably know exactly what he wants to do about it, but Trina's different from the girls he normally hooks up with, and I'm pretty sure he knows that and is scared to death about blowing it with her.)

  Regardless, after another twenty minutes or so, we all heard a sort of teeth-rattling boom coming from Mike and Trina's area of the gym. Then we heard a shout of triumph from Trina. "I did it! I can do the shock wave!" She turned excitedly to Mike. "How soon until I can do it again?"

  "Yeah, would you mind practicing that outside?" Toby said irritably. He stuck a finger in his ear and shook it. "It's bad enough that Blue's got us hyperventilating over here without you making us all half deaf."

  Mike chuckled. "He's got a point, love. Perhaps we should repair to some place more private. Wizzit, what about somewhere in the Himalayas?"

  "Negatory on that, good buddy," Wizzit said. "Orange's force shield will be out for another seven minutes, thirty-eight seconds. After that much time in the Himalayas, she would be suffering from oxygen deprivation or hypothermia. You need somewhere that doesn't require a force shield for you to be comfortable. I could send you to any number of isolated spots in the Australian Outback, the Gobi desert, the Sahara desert, various Pacific atolls . . ."

  "Now there's an intriguing thought." Mike held out a hand to Trina. "What do you say? Fancy a trip to a tropical island paradise?"

  "Er, might I tag along?" Padma hesitantly raised a hand. "I don't think I'm going to learn any more from Blue today."

  "Me, neither," agreed Toby.

  "I don't think anyone is," I admitted. "I've explained everything that I can explain; I think the lesson just has to sink in for a day or so."

  Mike sighed. If I could have seen his face under the red mist, I'm sure it would have looked seriously ticked off. Still, his voice was cheerful enough. "Right, let's all go, then, shall we? Wizzit, you've no objection?"

  "None. In fact, it's a good idea." It was hard to tell, but I don't think Wizzit had picked up on the fact that Mike wanted a good excuse to have Trina all to himself. If he had, there would have been more . . . let's call it glee . . . in his voice. In case you haven't noticed, Wizzit is about as subtle as a sledgehammer about things like that. "Just take care that no more than half of you have defunct force shields at any given time.

  "Got it."

  It was full night when we materialized on a sandy beach. Angie exclaimed, "Wait, why's it dark out? It's still morning, isn't it?"

  "It is still morning at HQ," Nicolai explained, "which is on Greenwich Mean Time. Here, we are probably somewhere near the International Dateline -- twelve hours time difference. Of course it's dark."

  "Oh, sorry. I guess that makes sense."

  Padma patted Angie's shoulder. "Don't worry, you will get used to it."

  Mike gathered everyone around and began explaining what he knew about generating a shock wave. I moved a little way down the beach, out of earshot. It was a nice night. There were a million stars blazing in the sky and a suggestion of a breeze scented with something that smelled lush and green and alive.

  "Sulking again?" I turned to see Trina's orange-glowing form approaching me. "Are you upset that everyone abandoned you in favor of Red?"

  I laughed. "I'm not sulking. It's just that I did a shock wave once before, and I wanted to try to remember exactly how I did it. I thought that would be more helpful than listening to Mike explain it."

  "Ah, I see." Trina moved closer and took my arm, walking with me along the beach. "You're worrying about her, aren't you?"

  "You mean Lily?" Duh, of course she meant Lily. Who else could she mean? "I'm . . . yeah, I'm worried about her." I sighed. "And trying not to think about how worried I am about her, and all the things she must be going through."

  "We will get her back, never fear," she declared with confidence. Then she looked up at me and said, "After we do, when will you tell her that you love her?"

  I let out a long breath. Leave to Trina to go straight to the heart of the matter. "I don't know. Maybe I shouldn't tell her at all."

  "Why not?"

  "It's complicated. I mean, her life is going to be messed up enough as it is." I shook my head. "She's got, what, five different personalities running around in her head? With all that screwing things up, she doesn't need me trying to be her boyfriend at the same time."

  "With that many selves, perhaps what she needs is a unifying principle."

  "You mean, me?"

  She shrugged. "That's not what I said, but if that's what you think . . ."

  I glanced up the beach to where the others were beginning to scatter. "What I think," I said with a grin, "is that we'd better not wander off too far, because Mike might suspect we're getting up to something we shouldn't."

  Trina laughed. It was good to hear. She had been having trouble with her family in Russia since before last Christmas, and it has made her somber all too often. I missed the old flirtatious Trina.

  She must have read my thoughts, because she stepped closer to me and pulled my arm around her waist. My hand brushed up against some of those luscious Trina curves, and I don't think it was an accident. "And what I think," she said in a playful, husky whisper, "is that you are far too much of a gentleman for a lovely night like this. If you were more of a rogue, who knows? We actually might have gotten up to something we shouldn't."