Attack Doll 5: The End of Lily Lee

by Douglas A. Taylor

Chapter 31

 

  I didn't know it at the time, but that one word -- "revoking" -- was the last thing Lily would ever say to me. Objectively speaking, I suppose one could come up with more eloquent, more memorable parting words, but I doubt there were any more fitting for our peculiar relationship.

  I sat beside her for a while watching her blink and breathe, blink and breathe, as she processed my final command to her. It had taken just a couple of minutes for her to do her revoking from the Earrings user, so I started to get worried after she had been sitting there, unmoving, for ten minutes or more.

  "Uh, Lily?" I said. "Lily, it would be a really good idea to wake up right about now." I took her hand in mine; it was limp and unresisting. "Lily, please wake up."

  Mostly, I was concerned that something had gone seriously wrong in her head. I didn't understand how her mind worked, and maybe removing myself as a completely trusted user was the worst thing in the world for her. I didn't really do too much second-guessing on that part, though; seeing her anguish when she thought I was angry with her and then seeing the look of hope on her face when I said I'd help was enough to tell me that, whatever happened, I had done the right thing. I just hoped that "the right thing" didn't entail rendering her catatonic for the rest of her life.

  I was also worried about our situation. We were still stuck in an Enclave base, and a couple of miles -- and probably many, many monsters -- lay between us and the nearest teleporter. Things looked grim. If Lily had been awake, alert, and cooperative, we could have made it, no problem, my own injuries notwithstanding. Or if I had been by myself, I could have turned on Junior Prime Blue's camouflage mode and tried to make my way there while invisible, and I probably would done it.

  But I wasn't alone, and Lily wasn't currently capable of doing anything to help me. Unless things changed soon, I was going to have to attempt to carry her clear to the other side of the complex. There was no way I was going to abandon her here, no matter how hopeless things appeared or how badly my hand hurt. I mean, even aside from the fact that I felt personally responsible for her safety, she was wearing our one and only Unity belt, and I couldn't let that fall into Enclave hands.

  As I thought about our situation, it occurred to me that she might be able to walk if I held her up. I put my arm around her and tried to raise her to her feet, but no dice; her legs refused to support her, and after a few seconds, the two of us sagged back down to the floor. All right, I really would have to carry her, and I decided we should start as soon as possible. There was no telling when someone might discover Bat-ears' body and raise a ruckus.

  I opened the door, and then, ignoring the pain in my hand as best I could, I managed to heave Lily's limp form onto my shoulder in a fireman's carry. Then, with a quick glance up and down the hallway, I stepped out and began walking.

  An alarm started ringing about ten minutes later. That was actually better than I had hoped; truth be told, I was a little surprised it had taken that long. I ducked into the nearest doorway and listened hard for any sign of pursuit. Nothing. Not that I really expected anyone on my heels so soon. After all, we were still pretty far out from the center, and we were no longer in the hallway that housed the room we had teleported into. Still, it was not hard to imagine an army of Zoinks somewhere directly ahead of me, getting closer and closer with every step I took.

  I took advantage of the opportunity to catch my breath. Lily was not that big, and I'm in good shape, but carrying an extra hundred pounds will start to tax anyone after a while. We had passed a green hallway not too long ago. That told me that soon we would run across a blue hall, and then the indigo one we were looking for. Once we were on that, we could follow it to the teleporter room and get out of this place. Easy-peasy, I told myself. The simplest thing in the world.

  I readjusted Lily's weight on my shoulder, muttering as I did so, "It would make things a heck of a lot easier if you could walk." And then, just because I . . . well, you know, I'm not exactly sure just why I did it, but I said the same thing in Cantonese, as if I were speaking to Li Lin-fa.

  Lily responded with a sharp intake of breath. That's all it was, just a tiny little gasp, but it was more of a reaction than she had shown to anything else I had said or done. I quickly knelt down and eased her onto the floor, my heart starting to pound a little faster.

  "Can you hear me, Li Lin-fa?" I asked anxiously, practically shouting in her ear. No reply; she had gone back to that same slow, blank-eyed blink-and-breathe rhythm. "If you can hear me," I said, "then I need your help. I need you to walk. I will lead you, and I want you to come along with me. Can you do that?"

  I searched her eyes for any flicker of recognition, or even of consciousness, but there was none. There was just that empty stare. Still, I thought, it wouldn't hurt to try. Again, I slipped my good arm around her shoulders and attempted to raise her up. This time, it worked. Lily didn't immediately slump back down to the floor; instead, she remained upright, swaying a little. I felt like cheering. It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless.

  I carefully wrapped her hand around my left upper arm, trying to keep my blaster hand free, and we began walking down the hall together. Slowly. I wanted to run, but she would go just so fast and no faster. I tried to keep up a running commentary in Cantonese, hoping to stimulate further responses from her, but it was hard to do both that and keep an eagle-eye out for Zoinks, alters, and monsters. After several minutes with no discernible reaction from her, I gave it up.

  We were just coming within sight of the blue hallway when I heard the sound of marching feet. Lily and I ducked into a doorway and I listened. Yup, there were definitely several somethings coming toward us, although the peculiar acoustics of these halls made it difficult to say whether they were coming from directly ahead or from one side or the other of the blue hallway.

  Regardless, I decided we couldn't stay where we were. I tried the door; it was unlocked. Hastily, I yanked it open and pulled Lily inside.

  Bad move. I had never thought about it, but I guess even alters needed some sort of training, and we had just stepped into a classroom. Worse, class was in session, and even though I hustled Lily back out of there as quickly as I could, the instructor saw us. I heard some yelling and scraping of chairs as I slammed the door and starting pulling Lily back the way we had come.

  I drew my blaster, and as soon as the first alter poked his nose out the door, I began firing. There was a screech, and the door slammed shut again. The marching feet quickened their pace, and soon a group of about fifteen alters and a couple Zoinks came into sight. The monster leading them, some goon so tall that his head nearly brushed the ceiling, spotted us and waved his troops forward.

  Muttering a few choice words under my breath, I scooped Lily up and began running the other way. At this point, I didn't really have any concrete plans other than to stay out of their clutches for as long as possible. I did entertain a vague notion that I could slip around a corner and then into an empty storeroom and maybe wait things out, but I didn't have high hopes for that idea.

  We made it to the green intersection. I dithered briefly, then decided to turn left, away from the center and hopefully away from any other pursuit. That, I soon realized, was a mistake. There were no handy doorways nearby. My merry band of pursuers had seen which way I turned, and when they reached the corner and turned left, Lily and I were still in sight; there was no longer any chance that we might slip into a side room unobserved.

  Enclave monsters are not built for speed, not unless they're built specifically for speed, so it wasn't too tough for me to stay ahead of them. Still, Lily was slowing me down enough that I couldn't increase my lead. But then I discovered that it didn't make any difference anyway; the green hallway ended abruptly in a blank wall. We had come to a dead end.

  I think I said just about every bad word I knew in every language I spoke, and then I made
up a few more for good measure. We were trapped; I just couldn't think of a way to get us out of there. I set Lily down and turned to face the oncoming monsters. Blaster first, I decided, and then the vajra once they came close.

  I glanced over at Lily; she was still staring off into infinity, blinking and breathing. I tried to think of some suitable final words to say to her, but nothing came to mind. So, I just drew my blaster, ready to sell my life as dearly as possible.

  "Look lively, everyone. Keep your eyes open. They must be around here somewhere. They're probably in trouble, so let's find them as quickly as possible."

  I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The voice had come over our Prime-to-Prime channel, and it sounded like . . .

  "Red? Red, is that you?"

  Mike's response was immediate. "Blue, where are you?"

  "I'm at a dead-end in a green hallway," I said. "If you tell me where you are, I can probably give you directions."

  "We materialized in a large room of some sort. There were a number of nasty buggers here, but we took care of them. We've since exited the room and are now in a yellowish corridor that --"

  Angie's voice interrupted. "Blue, are you all right?"

  "Not really!" I had to bite back a laugh at the absurdity of the question; it would have sounded like I was hysterical, and I didn't think I was. "I'll be a whole lot better once you guys get here. It sounds like you landed in the same place I did, so here's how to find me." I quickly gave them directions to my end of the green hallway, adding, "Better double-time it. We're in serious trouble here."

  "You said 'we'," Trina broke in. "Is Unity with you?"

  "That's right. Look, I'd love to chat, but I'm going to be unbelievably busy in, like, ten seconds or so."

  "Understood," Mike said tersely. "We're on our way."

  I began firing as fast as I could, not bothering to take close aim, just trying to keep the monster and his pet alters at bay for as long as possible. My blaster isn't strong enough to incapacitate a normal monster, although it might seriously inconvenience an alter. Regardless, they advanced on us slowly, cowering under my shots. I found myself wishing I had Trina's triple-blaster; that would have been capable of dealing some serious damage.

  After a few minutes of this, the monster who was their leader evidently lost patience and decided to charge me. I concentrated my fire on him, trying to hit him in a vulnerable spot. No good; he was on me before I could steady my aim. I tossed the blaster and pulled the vajra from my belt. He came at me, arms outstretched like he wanted to give me a bear hug. I ducked under his rush, spun around behind him, and slammed the knob-end of the vajra against his lower back, right where the kidneys would be in a human.

  I'm glad I got that one shot in, because I didn't get another. The alters had followed right behind their leader, and the instant I hammered him in the kidneys, they grabbed me. One alter took hold of my left hand and twisted it around behind my back. Now, up to this point, I thought I had been doing a pretty good job of toughing out my injury, but when he did that, it felt like my insides turned to water. My knees buckled and I screamed with pain. I may have fainted.

  The next thing I knew, someone was hauling me to my feet and I heard a voice saying, "Grab her!"

  "Yes, grab her," came another, almost identical voice. "Grab her and don't let her get away!"

  "Yes, don't let her get away. We have plans for her."

  "Big plans. Important plans."

  "Very important plans!"

  I opened my eyes to see the Harley twins supervising a group of alters who had almost completely encircled Lily. One of the alters reached out and tentatively took hold of her arm. When she didn't explode into a series of furious punches and kicks, other alters grabbed her as well.

  "Bring her to us!" said Red-cap. "We'll take care of her."

  "We'll take good care of her," said Black-cap. "We'll make her obey us."

  "She'll obey us and follow our every command."

  The alters dragged Lily over to the two red-and-black-clad figures. One of the twins drew something out of a pocket. I couldn't see what it was, but I assumed it was a pair of gold earrings. Sure enough, he took hold of first one ear and then the other. When he was done, the other twin pointed JB Swift's remote control at her and pressed a button. I held my breath, hoping that Lily had been right about the earrings.

  She had. Either that, or the remote needed new batteries. Regardless, she didn't react at all. Red-cap turned to me. "What did you do to our attack doll?" he shouted. "Tell us what you did!"

  "Tell us now or we will hurt you!" shouted Black-cap. "We have to have our attack doll back!"

  "We have to have her back now!"

  Their attack doll? I shook my head slightly, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of a reply. Red-cap beckoned the tall monster forward. "Hurt him, monster!" he commanded. "Make him sorry."

  "Make him very sorry!" ordered Black-cap.

  Tall Monster strode forward and roared in my face. I was being held too tightly to do anything except shake my head again. He raised one of his huge hands like he was going to swat my head right off my shoulders.

  I thought it was all over for me then, and I fixed my eyes on his, determined not to show any fear. His hand went up and up until it brushed the ceiling, and then he froze. His eyes suddenly went wide, and I saw him begin to spark. Within seconds, he looked like something you might wave around on the Fourth of July. The hands gripping me slackened, and I saw that both Harley twins and every single alter around me were all sparking as well.

  I put my arms around Lily and forced her to the ground, covering her with my body. Sparks from a monster are real electrical-type sparks, and they can burn you if you get too close. I heard Mike's voice say, "Blue, where are you?"

  "I'm right in the middle of the light show, Red," I replied. "Was that your doing?"

  "It was Green, actually. Are you all right? Is Unity all right?"

  "Well, my left hand is pretty badly broken, and Unity has gone catatonic. But aside from that, we're just peachy, thanks."

  Trina's voice said, "Can you initiate a healing coma?"

  "Negative," I replied. "My force shield is completely drained. I've been relying on my wristband to power my weapons."

  The sparking started to die down after a couple of minutes. I sat up and discovered I was completely surrounded by monster debris. Mike, Trina, Toby, and Angie were hovering anxiously around me. Toby was holding something that might have been a blaster, but the size of a bazooka. I struggled to my feet and then tried to pick up Lily one-armed, but I found I just didn't have the strength. "Can someone help me with her?" I asked wearily.

  Angie came over, and between the two of us, we managed to maneuver Lily into a sitting position over in one corner. She was still staring straight ahead, blinking and breathing, giving no sign that she recognized anyone.

  "We can't take them with us," I heard Mike's voice say. "Especially Unity, not like that. It's too risky. We'll have to leave them here."

  "I'll stay with them," Angie volunteered. "You'll be keeping everyone busy, right? So we shouldn't need more than one Prime to keep an eye on things?"

  "One-and-a-half Primes," I muttered.

  "Fine," Mike said. "Violet, you stay here and protect these two from any stray alters or Zoinks that get past us. Orange and Green and I will continue on. Blue, what's the fastest way to their nerve center?"

  "Just follow this hallway; it'll take you right there. Actually, any hallway will, if you go the right way. Where are Yellow and Indigo?"

  "They're with Black; Black's got a weapon just like Green's. We're clearing out this nest of vipers." He turned to Trina and Toby. "Let's go." The three of them ran off at top speed down the corridor.

  It felt good just to sit quietly with my back against a wall, not having to worry about monsters or beautifu
l, crazy Asian women trying to kill me. I was exhausted, and if not for my throbbing hand, I probably would have drifted off to sleep.

  "What happened?" Angie asked me as I tried for the umpteenth time to find a comfortable position to rest my arm. "To your hand, I mean."

  I gave a short laugh. "I punched a guy, and if you think I'm in bad shape, you should see him." And then I gave her an abridged version of my adventures in the base.

  Angie stared at Lily for a long time after I finished. "What if she never recovers?" she asked softly. "What if she's like that for the rest of her life? What are you going to do?"

  I shook my head. "I don't know. I'm hoping Wizzit will have some suggestions."

  "You really love her, don't you?"

  I gave a long sigh, but didn't answer. Li Lin-fa's words came back to me. How could I love Lily if I didn't know what she was like? And after that last conversation we'd had, I had to admit, I didn't know Lily at all.

  After a moment, Angie said, "You know, maybe you shouldn't have released her when you did. If you had waited until you got back to HQ, you could have done it with Wizzit watching for any problems."

  It was a good thing that we were speaking Prime-to-Prime, because I could hear all the vocal inflections that normally got flattened out by our voice filters. I could tell she wasn't blaming me; she was just worried, and this was her way of dealing with it. Nevertheless, she kind of ducked her head and said, "Sorry, I'm just saying . . ."

  I shrugged. "Maybe you're right; maybe I did the right thing, but at the wrong time. The thing is, I'm not sure Lily would have wanted to wait that long. But I guess we'll never know now." Wanting to steer the conversation away from this particular subject, I said, "How did you guys get here, anyway? I didn't think Wizzit could track me at an Enclave base."

  "I don't know," she replied. "He just said he knew where the two of you had gone. He said you had given him the coordinates a while ago."

  "I had?"

  "That's what he said."

  I tried to think back to when I might have given Wizzit any kind of information like that, but my head felt too fuzzy. "What about that weapon Green was holding?" I asked. "Was that . . .?"

  "It was that super-weapon that Green mentioned earlier," she affirmed. "The one Green and Black had been working on. They had made two of them, and after you and Lily got teleported away, Wizzit told Green and Black to break them out. They're pretty cool. You shoot one, and any monster in your path blows up right away. They made pretty quick work of the monsters we were still fighting at Athens."

  "I thought they said we could use them only once?"

  "Yeah, but I think they meant for only one mission, because I've seen Green fire that one a couple of times."

  "And this is that one mission?"

  "I guess so."

  The conversation died after that. I, for one, couldn't think of anything else to say. After a while, Angie muttered something about scouting the area. She got up, turned on camouflage mode, and disappeared. I drifted into a haze of exhaustion and pain.

  The next thing I knew, Angie was shaking my shoulder. "Blue," she said, "Red wants us down at the command center as soon as we can get there."

  I shook myself to full alertness. "Uh, okay. You'll have to help me get Unity up."

  "Can Unity walk?"

  "As long as we don't go too fast."

  The three of us strolled arm in arm towards the center of the complex. Angie insisted on being in the middle. I think she felt like she might have to support both Lily and me, like either of us might collapse at any moment, and given the way I felt, I'm not sure she was wrong. Regardless, when we finally made it there, all the rest of the regular Primes, plus Bill, were gathered in the central area.

  "I think that's it then," Mike was saying. "Now, you're sure there are no more monsters left anywhere?"

  "There couldn't be," Nicolai said, shaking his head. "We tied our weapons into their power and lighting grid; the disrupter frequency was sent everywhere in the complex. Nothing could have escaped it."

  "What about humans?" Trina asked. "They would not have been affected by the disrupter."

  "We met a few," Padma said. "We let them go, as Wizzit said, with a promise that they would not be harmed if they left immediately and a warning that we would begin shutting down power to the base within two hours. I think most of them are at the teleportation room right now."

  "Yeah, same here," Toby added.

  Nicolai said, "I have been broadcasting that same message over their communications system."

  "Is there anything left to take care of?" Mike asked.

  "I have been studying some of their blueprints," Bill said, "and I think I know where the power supply for their screens is located. I'd like to take someone with me -- Green, I guess -- and see if we can shut it off, or failing that, destroy it. That would enable Wizzit to scan the area for any strays that we might have missed."

  Mike scratched his head. "Couldn't we just switch it off from here?"

  Bill shook his head. "There's no way to do that," he said. "And really, there shouldn't be. They would want to make it difficult to turn off their screens so that it is not done accidentally."

  Mike nodded once. "Go, then. Stay in contact and let us know what you find." He turned to me. "So, how is it with you, Blue? Are you well enough to stay, or do you need to leave and heal up?"

  "I can help if you need me," I said.

  "That's not what I asked."

  I looked down at my hand. For quite some time now, I had been feeling a good deal of pressure there, as if a giant fist were squeezing the life out of it. I had attributed that to the bruised tissues swelling up inside my sap glove. Now, though, parts of it were actually starting to go numb, which I thought was probably a bad sign, like maybe the swollen tissues were starting to crush nerves or something.

  "I should go," I told him.

  He clapped a hand on my shoulder. "Fair enough," he said. "We brought the teleport trap with us; Green set it up in one of the rooms over there." He waved a hand. "Take Unity and go. Yellow set the coordinates to send you to a neutral site; Wizzit will pick you up from there."

  "Thanks, Red."

  "No worries. We need to send a report to Prime Commander anyway. Tell the commander that the new weapons worked as well as we hoped and that we have neutralized all resistance. You heard what Blackiron said. With luck, this whole place will be open to Wizzit's scrutiny before too long."

  I did as he said. Shelley met Lily and me in JB Swift's old lair; while my force shield was recharging, I gave her Mike's report, and then I told her everything that had happened with Lily and me. When I was done, we both watched Lily for a while. She stared blankly back at us, blinking and breathing.

  "Maybe Angie was right," I said quietly. "Maybe I should have waited until we got back here. Maybe if I had, she wouldn't be like this."

  Shelley slid a comforting arm around my shoulders. "Don't beat yourself up about it," she said, a world of encouragement in her voice. "You did an amazing thing out there, Trev. A lot of guys in your position would have tried to keep Lily as their own personal slave, and you can bet they would have taken serious advantage of her. You didn't do that. Instead, you set her free -- not because of anything she promised you, but just because it was the right thing to do. You made the best decision you could." She leaned over and planted a big-sisterly kiss on my temple. "And there's no guarantee that it would have gone any better even if you had waited."

  "Thanks," I mumbled, but it didn't make me feel any better.

  "You said she wouldn't walk at first, but then she let you lead her around after you appealed to Li Lin-fa for help?"

  "That's right. But that was the only reaction I got, and I spoke Cantonese to her for quite a while."

  Shelley nodded, but didn't say anything. A moment later, Wizzit announced that
my force shield was fully recharged and that he was ready to send me to my room to heal up.

  I hesitated. "Maybe I should stay here with Lily . . ."

  Shelley shook her head. "Go. You have to take care of yourself first. Don't worry, I'll do whatever needs doing for her."

  I let my shoulders slump. "I guess you're right," I said. As bad as I was hurting, it actually felt good to turn over responsibility for Lily to someone I trusted. "Whenever you're ready, Wizzit."

  "Teleporting now."

  What followed was the longest, most involved healing session I have ever experienced. Normally, Wizzit just knocks you out, and when you wake up, you're fine. This time, though, he put me into just a light healing coma for about ten minutes, and then he told me to go play the piano.

  "You want me to do what?" I asked.

  "Play the piano," he repeated patiently.

  "But . . . why?"

  "Because," he explained, treating me to one of his ultra-expressive Wizzit sighs, "you drove your fist into a relatively unyielding object at a velocity approaching one thousand feet per second. At this point, your hand, to put it bluntly, is not much more than pulp. No unbroken bones any larger than your thumbnail. If I'm going to reconstruct it, I will need to know how you use it."

  "And that's what my playing the piano will show you," I concluded. "Got it. Anything in particular you want to hear? Bach? Joplin? Gottschalk? Debussy?"

  "Something that will use both hands approximately equally. If you could move them as mirror images of each other, that would be even better."

  "You got it."

  I knew exactly what I would play. One of the techniques my mom had taught me to make practicing scales a little less tedious was to play them in contrary motion -- one hand going up and the other going down. Mirror images, just like Wizzit said.

  I carefully placed my left thumb on middle C, sharing the note with my right thumb, and I attempted an ascending scale with my right hand and a descending scale with my left. It didn't work very well, of course; I could barely press down on the keys with any of my injured fingers, and the pain from even trying was excruciating.

  Still, I stuck with it; by the time I made it down one full octave, I was sweating pretty hard. Wizzit called a halt. "All right, that gives me enough information to start. Go lie down."

  We continued that pattern for the rest of that day. He would induce a healing coma for a period of time and then have me play my piano, and then we'd go back to the healing coma. Sometime after my second healing coma, he sent Toby in to help me remove my right sap glove and to cut the left one off my hand.

  I didn't see much improvement at first, but as the hours passed, the pain steadily diminished and I could feel my fingers loosening up, becoming more limber. At last, he said, "That's enough for today. You might as well go get ready for bed. One final healing coma after that and then sleepy-bye."