“Why didn’t you do anything when you saw me?” I ask. “If Aria was there, she could have swooped in and pulled me out so fast no one could stop her.”
“But we didn’t know it was you,” Zirc tells me. “I thought you were a member of Robin’s gang. You wore that red costume, mask and everything, right? Nice codpiece, by the way; are you finally joining me on Team Nonbinary?”
“Sorry, no,” I answer. “I’ve still got a double X in the cis-het-female check box. But you really didn’t recognize me?”
Zirc shakes zir head. “It never crossed my mind the chick in red might be you. Spark anonymization, right? I literally couldn’t recognize my best friend when she was wearing a dumb little mask.”
Best friend? I give Zircon’s hand a squeeze. It’s like squeezing a hunk of granite, but I hope ze can feel it anyway. “So,” I say, trying not to choke up, “are you and I okay again?”
“I’m gonna make you do my laundry as penance,” Zirc replies. “But shit, Jools, we had no idea where you were or even if you were alive. The Darklings ran hour after hour of TV footage showing Robin Hood blowing out your guts. How could I stay mad when I was so worried?”
“My guts really blew out?”
Zirc nods. “It was horrible. We knew you could regenerate, but healing from something that awful? It didn’t seem possible. And cops and politicians, even the prime minister, were saying, See? Robin Hood is a monster. We’ll pursue him and his terrorists with everything we have.”
“They still have to find him,” I say. “And this base is way off the map.”
“Pffft,” Zircon says. “I found him easily enough. As soon as you found the bazooka during the robbery, I just flew over and hid on it, real small. Then I rode it back here to Sherwood.”
“Yeah, but…”
I stop.
I think.
“Fuck,” I say. “The gun is a Trojan horse.”
* * *
DIAMOND SAID THE BAZOOKA wasn’t his. I finally get that he wasn’t lying.
And I realize why I couldn’t figure out how the gun worked: because it didn’t.
I understood the medi-tank. It made sense—it was real Cape Tech. But the bazooka was only a mock-up, like a prop for a superhero movie. I’ll bet it was actually made by some A-list props master. Who else would the Dark Guard hire to make something convincing?
The gun looked so good, even Marian couldn’t tell it was fake. It drove both of us crazy. We kept thinking we ought to comprehend it, but always came up short.
The Dark kept showing the gun out in the open, hoping someone would steal it. Hell, all that rigmarole at the airport, with the ice-cold strap on my wrist … I don’t know if Reaper realized the gun was fake, but his boss must have. The whole magic ritual was just an excuse to keep the airport vault unlocked long enough for one of Robin’s outlaws to arrive.
I thought the Darklings were only using the bazooka as bait. I didn’t grasp how the trap actually worked.
When Zircon first saw the bazooka, ze said it had a little glowing speck of power. We assumed the speck was Cape Tech. But what if it was magic?
A magical homing beacon. As soon as the outlaws brought it back to Sherwood, the Dark got a fix on Robin’s HQ.
Marian told me that Sherwood blocked all transmissions, specifically, “every form of emission known to science. Conventional science and Cape Tech.”
But I’ll bet it doesn’t block magic. The Light and the Dark are nonoverlapping magisteria. Weird science has trouble counteracting spells and vice versa. A strong but subtle sorcerous signal might shine as clear as day.
As part of the same plan, Calon Arang arranged for an innocent victim—i.e. me—to be killed dramatically on camera, supposedly by Robin Hood. For years, superpowered good guys have given Robin a pass: he’s just a rascal, not a villain. But now everyone thinks he’s crossed the line. If the Dark Guard announces, “We know where Robin is,” they’ll have no trouble assembling a team to smack the Merry Men down. Heroes of the Light will think it’s their duty. The Aussie All-Stars were already in Waterloo, and plenty of other Sparks would volunteer, too. As for Darklings, they’ve always hated Robin. You could muster an army to invade Robin’s den.
Mounting an assault won’t be simple—Sherwood Forest is up in the stratosphere. But I can picture the Dark Guard assembling Sparks and Darklings with powers that can cope with the tactical difficulties.
They’ll need people who can fly. Enchantments to keep attackers alive in thin freezing air. Advance scouts to check Sherwood’s defenses. Containment spells to prevent the outlaws from teleporting away.
How long before the onslaught is ready to go?
Soon. It’s gotta be soon. The clock is ticking.
Suddenly, getting caught by Marian is the least of our problems.
* * *
I SPELL IT OUT to Zircon, or at least I start to. Zirc catches on fast, and sees the implications without me explaining. “Shit,” Zirc says, “it may be too late already. They’ll have people watching outside. Like Sensorium—that suit of his won’t have trouble operating in the stratosphere.”
I say, “And his sensors are the best of any Spark in the world.” (I didn’t feel WikiJools feeding me that factoid, but I doubt if I knew it two seconds ago. Welcome back, my wiki pal.) I say, “If we break out of Sherwood, Sensorium can track us all the way to the ground. He’ll send his buddies to arrest us once we’re within grabbing distance.”
“But that’s great!” Zircon says. “They won’t arrest you. You’re the victim, Jools, the innocent bystander. Everyone saw Robin Hood shoot you, then run off with your body. If you bail out of Sherwood, everyone will think you’ve managed a miraculous escape.”
“I’ll tell everyone you rescued me,” I say. “Noble Zircon, infiltrating the outlaw hideout.” I stop. “Just one problem. This miraculous escape involves falling twenty-five kilometers.”
“Falling yes, crash-landing no,” Zircon tells me. “As soon as we’re outside Sherwood, my comm ring should work again. I’ll call Aria and have her catch us. She’ll have plenty of time to do it; we’ll take a long time to reach the ground. And Aria can be careful so there’s no sudden snap.”
“We still have to survive the first few minutes,” I say. “There’s virtually no air outside, and the temperature is in negative triple digits.”
“Jools,” Zircon says, “I got ninety-three in Atmospheric Science. I’m not an Olympic-level aerologist like you, but I’m not a total ignoramus. And by the way, I’m also a rock. I don’t need to breathe, and in negative triple digits, I’m just a cold rock. NBD. As for you, I’ve seen you regenerate from all kinds of lethal crap.”
“Yes, but it hurts!” I say. “Before we jump, let me build some survival equipment.”
It occurs to me I’ve already made a heater that can deal with the cold: the gadget I built to warm myself after the freezing shower. The only other thing I’d need would be an oxygen tank. Oh no, wait. “Problem,” I say. “Here in Sherwood, air pressure is normal. Outside, it’s basically zero. Explosive decompression isn’t a real thing, but terrible shit will still happen. To me, if not to you. Embolisms, the bends, a serious case of the farts…”
“Okay, yes, your farts are truly dangerous,” Zircon says. “If it’ll stop you whining, take a few minutes to build a space suit. But then we have to go. Has it occurred to you that instead of attacking Sherwood with an assault team, they may just shoot it with a big-ass bomb?”
Crap, that never crossed my mind. And it would certainly be simpler than gathering a strike force for a not-CG act-three fight. On the other hand, blowing up Sherwood would send its burning remains plummeting onto whatever lies below. Not a forward-facing public relations move. Besides, Sparks have a habit of surviving big explosions and showing up later for revenge. Attacking with an actual army reduces the chance that anyone slips through the cracks.
“I don’t think they’ll use a bomb,” I tell Zircon. But I hurry my pace. This’ll
get messy.
* * *
WE MAKE IT SAFELY to Marian’s lab—no attacks from outlaws or Dark/Spark assault squads. Inside the lab, I no longer have gadget prosopagnosia. (That’s the word.) I recognize every weird-science widget on the lab desks: the molecule ticklers, the energy spoons, the Maxwell demon drunk tanks, and all the other impossible gizmos you can assemble with Cape Tech.
I say to Zircon, “Did you see the jet packs we used during the robbery?”
“Jools,” Zirc says, “seeing is what I do best.”
“Then look around the lab for something like that. A backup plan, in case something has happened to Aria and she’s not available to catch us.”
I expect Zircon to walk through the lab, opening cupboards in search of jet packs. But Zirc simply leans against a desk and relaxes. Apparently, Spark-o-Vision can see through cupboard doors.
Zirc’s powers are scary. Then again, so are mine.
Ideally, I’d make my pressure suit out of whale blubber. Whales can dive from the ocean’s surface to crushing depths of two kilometers, so obviously, they’re your pressure-control market leaders. But Marian doesn’t have whale parts stocked in her lab. Tsk. Exactly the kind of shortsightedness you expect from someone in robotics. Apart from the medi-tank (which obviously had to deal with living tissue), Marian’s inventions use metal instead of organics.
But I can cope. I’m a master of every known science, not just the fun ones. And Marian has plenty of human-shaped robot shells lying around in various stages of assembly. I find one that’s the right size to hold me once I pull out the wires inside. I hope I’m not killing an intelligent being, or destroying some brilliant new breakthrough in cybernetics. But screw it: I rip out everything in the robot’s metal shell and set about outfitting it with enough of an oxygen system to keep me alive the four minutes it’ll take to fall twenty-five kilometers.
As I work, Zircon lugs over a jet pack ze found. It’s not quite the same as the one I wore earlier today—it looks like a more advanced prototype. I hope it actually works … but even if it doesn’t, Aria will be waiting to catch us. Right? In fact, Aria’s feelings will be hurt if we try to save ourselves without her.
But I still want a Plan B. Cuz I’m a grown-up who’s all cautious and shit.
* * *
“CRAP!” ZIRCON SAYS. “WE have company.”
I say, “Who?”
But Zirc has already shrunken too small for me to see. A moment later, Marian barges through the door. She has Vernon in tow, and she holds a nasty weapon I’ve never seen before. It’s only a pistol, not nearly as imposing as the fake Diamond bazooka. Even so, it has “blow your brains out” written all over it.
“Leaving us, Jools?” she asks.
“I thought it was time,” I say. “Considering that I finally figured out what the Dark Guard is up to.”
“Enlighten me,” Marian says, training her gun on my face.
I tick off on my fingers. “One: Gisbourne. That’s what you call your Darkling informant, right? And Gisbourne was the one who told you the bazooka was at the airport?”
Marian nods.
“Wrecking Ball tried to steal it, but that went to hell when the airplane exploded. So two.” I tick off another finger. “Gisbourne gave you another crack at stealing the gun—this time from the memorial service. But why would they have the bazooka there in the first place? Forget that nonsense about auctioning the gun off; the truth is they wanted you to steal it. They put up a token resistance so it wouldn’t look too easy, but they wanted you to end up with the gun. They must have been furious when Robin ordered a retreat so he could save my life.
“Then three.” Another finger. “The Darklings decided to move the bazooka by train. By train! They could have transported it a million other ways, but they chose a method Robin Hood couldn’t pass up: a great train robbery. Which Gisbourne told you about, too. At last, you finally succeeded in stealing the gun. You brought it home … and ever since, it’s been sending out a sorcerous homing signal telling the Dark Guard where Sherwood is.”
“We scanned the gun for magic,” Marian says. “It’s clean.”
“Cape Tech has trouble detecting magic,” I say. “So how did you scan it? Did you perhaps get Gisbourne to do it?”
“Oh,” Marian says. “Bugger.”
I say, “Dude, you named your spy Gisbourne. In the Robin Hood stories, Guy of Gisbourne was a shithead. So what did you expect?”
Marian mutters something. At first I think she’s swearing under her breath, but then I realize she’s using her comm implant to speak to the other outlaws.
While she’s distracted, I dive for cover behind the robot shell I’ve been working on. But Zircon also takes advantage of the moment: Zirc uses zir trick of growing real fast to uppercut Marian the same way ze did to Robin.
It almost works. Zirc hits Marian with good solid contact, strong enough to knock out a rhino.
But two things go wrong.
First, Marian’s finger was on the trigger of the gun. Twitch, and the gun goes off.
Second, saying bye-bye to Marian means hello to Ninja Jane.
19
Territorial Aggression
ZIRCON ISN’T STUPID. WHEN Zirc sucker punched Marian, ze stood out of the pistol’s line of fire. But Marian’s gun is Cape Tech. Straight lines mean nothing.
The shot explodes out of the gun’s muzzle, then circles like a heat-seeking missile. It might be designed to target Sparks. The projectile spikes forward several meters before it loops and hits Zircon from behind.
I can see it as if in slow motion. Zirc has zir back to me, between me and Marian’s gun. I see everything, but can’t react fast enough to yell a warning.
Zircon’s rocky skin shrugs off normal bullets, but Marian’s ammo isn’t normal. The slug pierces Zircon’s stone and vanishes inside. I don’t know if Zircon has any internal organs, but on a normal person, the bullet would have just embedded itself in the lower lobe of zir right lung.
The professional surgeon inside me knows it’s not the worst place for a gunshot. It’s still pretty bad.
Zircon collapses. Ze falls like a curtain dropping to reveal what’s behind: that lean mean version of Marian I saw when Ninja Jane slashed off her costume.
Jane immediately drops the gun, and draws two daggers from beneath Marian’s lab coat. Vernon cringes away, but Jane ignores him. Marian may be fond of Vernon, but Jane doesn’t give a damn.
“Jane!” I snap. “Don’t be stupid. We have to get out of Sherwood before things go to hell.”
Jane doesn’t answer. Just twitches her knives. Her face is grim. It’s crazy how she can look exactly like Marian—same face, same clothes, same haircut—yet be nothing like Marian at all.
Still, she has a share of Marian’s intelligence. Without taking her eyes off me, she places her foot on the gun she just dropped. With a quick backward jerk, she scuffs the pistol out through the door behind her.
She’s much stronger than she looks; the pistol flies out of sight into the darkness. I’ll never be able to find it in the shadows of the forest. Too bad—a gun with Spark-seeking bullets would come in handy right now.
“Vernon,” I say, “do you know first aid?”
“Not really,” he says.
Shit. And Jane won’t let me doctor Zircon myself. Jane won’t let me do anything except fight to the death.
“Get Zircon out of here,” I tell Vernon. “Find the other outlaws. When they evacuate Sherwood, make sure they take Zirc to a hospital.”
Vernon bends and picks Zircon up. Zirc is usually four-foot-ten, but is now less than half that, about the size of a ventriloquist’s dummy. When Zirc was shot in the back, ze must have tried to shrink out of sight—an automatic defensive reflex. But lucky for Zirc, ze fainted before ze got too small. If Zirc had gone microscopic, we never would have found zir. One other lucky thing: at this size, Zirc is light enough for Vernon to lift, even though ze’s solid rock.
Vernon c
radles Zirc in his arms. He takes one step toward the laboratory exit, but Jane gets there ahead of him. She raises a knife and shakes her head. I don’t know why Jane won’t let Vernon leave, but it’s clear she’s made up her mind. Maybe she wants Zircon to die; Jane knows that Sherwood will soon be attacked, and she’s decided Zirc and I are to blame.
Only one other way out of the lab. It’s crazy, but we don’t have a choice. “Vernon, head for the clean room,” I say. “You know where that is?”
He nods.
“Then go.”
The way should be clear. I doubt that Marian has had time to fix the lock that I broke.
Vernon keeps a wary eye on Jane as he heads for the ramp to the clean room. Jane doesn’t try to stop him; her gaze stays fixed on me. Whatever Jane intends to do about Zircon, she must think she has plenty of time.
After all, I don’t look like I’ll put up much of a fight. I’m empty-handed against Jane’s two daggers. And of course, they aren’t ordinary daggers. They’ve already started whispering. And those blades can cut steel as if it’s Brie. Or maybe it isn’t the knives that are so lethal, it’s Ninja Jane. She’s super-strong and -fast, even compared to other Sparks. Compared to nonsuper me, she’s a buzz saw facing a rubber knife.
All righty then. Let’s even the odds.
I wait for Vernon and Zirc to get clear, then I scrunch up my forehead and concentrate. I may be dressed like Willow Scarlet, but I’m really Ninety-Nine. I hold out my hand and a glowing green hockey stick appears in it. The stick hums softly, like a light saber.
I say to Jane, “Okay, dude. It’s hockey night in Canada.”
* * *
JANE’S FACE GOES WARY. One nice thing about being new at the superhero game: nobody knows what tricks you have up your sleeve.
They Promised Me the Gun Wasn't Loaded Page 32