by Peter Clines
“Three years?” echoed Connolly.
“Two years, nine months,” said Freedom. The images and sounds rushed through his mind again. “I lost four good soldiers that day, along with Sorensen’sIlya and DaveofAp family.”
Franklin set his jaw and gave a faint nod.
St. George looked at Connolly. Her lips twisted. “Something else wrong?”
She stared through the window. The dead girl was tapping her fingers on the end of the chair and looking around the room. “I’d never’ve guessed she’s been dead for that long.”
“The ex-virus does slow decay significantly,” said Stealth.
“It does,” agreed Connolly, “but it doesn’t stop it. And it doesn’t do anything to halt rigor mortis, evaporation, or basic wear and tear. I would’ve said she’s been dead for a month at most. And a pretty gentle month.”
“What are you implying, doctor?” asked Stealth.
“Just that I’m probably going to want to do a lot more tests after all this blood work’s done. If that’s okay.” She glanced through the window at the dead girl. “With everyone.”
Stealth nodded once.
The two doctors left the heroes standing at the window.
“So,” said St. George. “Now what do we do?”
“We interrogate it,” said the cloaked woman. “Captain Freedom, you are the most familiar with Madelyn Sorensen. Would you be able to confirm its identity?”
The huge officer straightened up and his face got hard. “That depends on what type of interrogation you’re asking me to do, ma’am. I won’t hurt a teenage girl.”
“For the moment, a verbal interrogation should suffice. If you are satisfied with the results, there would be no need to go further.”
One of the guards in the room, Cook, glanced at the dead girl. She smiled at him. “Hey,” she said. “I’m Maddy.”
He ignored her. “You think if she turns out to be an ex they might let us have her?”
His partner followed his gaze. “For what?”
Cook shrugged. “She’s not that messed up. Can’t touch her but she’s still fun to look at.”
“Hey, creeper,” snapped Madelyn. She glared at him. “I’m right here, y’know.”
“Shut up, corpse girl,” Cook said. He leveled his rifle at her. Her eyes went wide.
“That’s enough of that,” said Freedom. He stepped through the door and made the room look small. He walked over to Madelyn and gave Cook a hard stare. “You can wait outside, gentlemen.”
Cook opened his mouth to speak but thought better of it. The other guard cleared his throat. “Stealth’ll have our heads if we leave our posts.”
“Your dedication is admirable,” said Stealth from the doorway. “Wait outside as the captain instructed.”
She made no move to get out of their way. The two guards turned sideways and pressed themselves against the wall to get out of the room without touching her. Once they were gone, she walked in the rest of the way. St. George followed her in.
“I apologize for that, ma’am,” the ex-virus?”ess Freedom told Madelyn. “There’s no reason for them to be speaking like that to you.”
Her eyes flitted from St. George to Stealth and up to Freedom. “It’s no biggie,” she said. “I’ve heard worse in gym class.”
“I’m still sorry.” He reached over to her and pulled the straps open. She stretched her arms out and flexed her wrists.
They’d cleaned Madelyn up, even though she still wore the inner layer of her ragged outfit. Her slim body had started to fill out with the shape of maturity, but she couldn’t’ve weighed more than a hundred pounds. Her skin was the dusty gray of the long deceased. She had her mother’s dark, wavy hair, and it brushed her shoulder blades. Freedom recognized the shape of Dr. Sorensen’s eyes, even though they were pale and cloudy.
She stared at him for a moment. “Are you Captain Freedom?”
Something twinged in his chest. He paused, half crouched into the other chair. “Yes, ma’am. How did you know?”
“Dad told me about you. I know he wasn’t supposed to, but he was really excited and proud of how you guys turned out. Especially you.” She smiled. Her teeth were bright and flawless. “I like your coat.”
“Thank you.” Freedom spread his duster and settled into the chair. It creaked under his bulk but held him. He glanced back at Stealth and St. George. The hero stood by the door. The cloaked woman had settled behind Freedom, near the window. “And your father is …?”
“Emil Sorensen,” Madelyn said. Her thin brows furrowed up. “He’s the doctor out at Project Krypton. Your military base, right?”
Freedom nodded again. “How do you know about that?”
She raised an eyebrow at him. It let more of the light hit her pale eyes. “Because you guys flew me and Mom out there to meet him.”
“When was that?”
“Just a few …” She closed her eyes for a moment. “It was July of 2009,” she said. “We got on the plane late on the twenty-sixth, landed in Arizona a little before noon on the twenty-seventh.”
“Okay.”
“Why are you asking me all this?”
“We need to make sure you are who you say you are, ma’am.”
“Is this what St. George was talking about? You think there’s someone else talking through me or something?”
“More or less,” Freedom said. He paused for a moment and studied the girl’s face again. The twinge grew to a small knot. “Do you remember what happened after you landed?”
She nodded. “Some of Dad’s soldiers … your soldiers, I guess … picked us up at the airport. There were exes there. They shot most of them, and the noise really freaked Mom out. One of the guards was bit, but I couldn’t tell how bad it was and nobody wanted to say. Then they got us into a big armored jeep-thing and we headed for the base.”
“It’s called a Guardian,” said Freedom.
“Okay, cool. So, we were driving along. I remember we could see the base up ahead. Mom and launchedre together was relieved and I was excited to see Dad and his new lab. And then …”
“Yes?”
“Then the guy driving the jee—the Guardian—shut it off. He turned the key and said the gas tank was empty, even though the gauge said it had half a tank. The woman in charge, Sergeant Washington, she said it was empty, too. I thought it was some kind of joke, just to see if they could make us scream or something. Then there were some explosions, and the exes were trying to get into the car. Their teeth were super loud. And all the soldiers kept saying there wasn’t any gas, and they were serious. They really thought it was empty. So they were calling for help and me and Mom were freaking out and begging them to start the car back up and then one of the soldiers started freaking out and …”
She stared past Freedom to St. George. Her hands crawled toward each other and knotted together.
The memories crawled through Freedom’s mind. The team had been brainwashed by Agent Smith and his mind-control powers. They’d looked at the gauge, seen empty, and believed it. One of the soldiers, Adams, decided it was better to try running through hundreds of exes to reach the gate. He’d dragged Madelyn with him and they’d both been torn apart right in front of Dr. Sorensen. The whole team had died.
He’d never been sure why Smith had done it. Maybe it had been to punish the doctor or keep him in line. Or maybe Smith had done it just because he could.
Freedom brushed the thoughts away. He took a slow breath to help cover the pause. “And then?” he prompted.
“I don’t remember,” she said. Her fingers shifted in their knot. “I think that’s when I died.”
“Do you have any idea how this happened to you? Why you came back with your mind intact?”
She shook her head. “Nope.”
Freedom set his hands on the table. They looked massive across from hers. “Do you know what your mother’s name was?”
“Eva.”
“Do you know what year—”
; “Wait,” said Madelyn. Her eyes got huge. “What do you mean, was?”
Freedom’s chair creaked again. The knot by his heart caught fire. He glanced over at St. George, then studied the tabletop for a moment. His voice dropped a few decibels, but it still rumbled in his huge chest. “I regret to inform you, ma’am,” he said, “but your mother died with you in the Guardian attack.”
The knot of fingers unraveled and she wrapped her arms around herself. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said. “I was there. We tried—I tried to stop them, to save both of you and my soldiers. I … I’m very sorry for your loss.”
A lone tear raced across her cheek. Her chest heaved. With her eyes closed, she almost looked alive. After a few moments she wiped her face with her arm and opened her chalk eyes to look at him. “Does Dad know?”
Freedom paused again, then nodded. “He did. I’m afraid he died last summer, while we were evacuating Project Krypton.”
Madelyn shrank a little more in her chair.
“Your father loved you both">“How do you figure?”re together very much,” said Freedom. “In all the years I knew him, I don’t think we had more than a dozen conversations where you didn’t come up. Losing the two of you was a huge blow to him.”
She sobbed for a few minutes, but there were no more tears. Freedom’s chair creaked again as he turned to look back at St. George and Stealth. The cloaked woman nodded once.
“I knew with all the stuff going on …” Madelyn stopped to blow her nose. “I knew they were probably gone, once I realized how long it had been. I just … I hoped.” She sniffed again and wiped her dry face with the back of her hand.
Freedom let her sit for another minute. “May I ask you a few more questions?”
“Sure,” she said. She sniffed hard and her voice got strong again. “I’ve got nowhere to be.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just need to be sure.”
“I get it,” said Madelyn. “Ask away.”
“What was your sister’s name?”
“I don’t have a sister. Or a brother.”
“Do you remember the names of any of the other soldiers who picked you up at the airport?”
“I don’t, sorry. I just remember Sergeant Washington because I thought of the president, and then she said her name was Britney.”
He nodded. “So how’d you end up here? Why not Phoenix or Las Vegas or someplace closer to where you … closer to Krypton?”
“You can say where I died. I’ve gotten used to the idea.”
“Okay. So why here, ma’am?”
“And please stop calling me ma’am. You make it seem like I’m some ninety-year-old dowager or something.”
“I can make do with Madelyn,” he said. “So why here?”
“I saw fireworks.”
“What?”
She sighed. “Could I get my bag back?”
Stealth nodded to St. George. The hero stepped outside and a moment later he carried in the dusty duffel bag. It was unzipped and some clothes hung out of it. Madelyn pulled a battered book from one of the side pouches. She flipped through the pages, then handed the open book to Captain Freedom.
July 1st 4th, 2011
Dear Diary,
There were fireworks out to the west! West and south.
They must’ve been huge for me to see them from out here.
“That was almost nine months ago,” he said. “It took you nine months to get here?”
“Sort of,” she said. She tapped her head with her fingertips. “I have trouble remembering things since this happened to me. If I don’t write stuff down, it’s like it didn’t happen. There may have been a couple days I was backtracking and didn’t know it.”
“Nine months, though?”Ilya and DaveofAp
“Maybe a lot of days.” She looked him in the eye. “I know it’s been almost three years since this happened. I can see it written out in my journal. But it feels like it was a couple of weeks ago.”
St. George spoke up. “Is that what all the watches are for?”
She nodded. “Yeah. I kept forgetting days, so I thought the watch was broken, so I got another one. Then I thought maybe they were both broken. But three saying the same thing have to be telling you the right date and time.” She closed the journal and pulled it into her lap. “Are you sure there’s no chance Mom or Dad survived? I mean, maybe they’re like me or something.”
Freedom set one hand on top of the other. “No, I don’t believe so.”
“You’re sure?”
“In your father’s case … no. I’m sorry to say there’s no way he could’ve come back.” The huge officer paused for a moment. “Your mother’s body was never found. We’d assumed she reanimated and walked away, or she’d been … damaged to such an extent that her body was destroyed.”
Madelyn stared at him for a long minute. She didn’t blink. It occurred to Freedom that she didn’t need to. Then she lowered her eyes and sighed.
He gave her another moment. “Why did you try to hide your … condition from us?”
She looked down at the straps. “Not counting the chair, you guys have been great, but not everyone’s so chivalrous to a seventeen-year-old girl on her own.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “Some of them thought me being dead made it okay to do things to me.”
The captain’s face hardened. “Did anyone … Were you assaulted in any way?”
Madelyn shook her head, then shrugged. “Not like that, no. I got groped a couple times, but that’s it. Some people stole my stuff. I lost my shoes once. Most of them got freaked out by me being dead and still, y’know, smart. I could get away without too much trouble.”
“And the pistol? Where’d you get it?”
“I found it in a car, under the seat. It was empty, but there was a box of ammunition in the glove compartment.”
“Your father taught you how to shoot, correct?”
“Yeah, right,” she said. “Dad and Mom hate guns.” Her face fell. “Hated guns. It was pretty easy to figure out, though. There wasn’t a clip or anything, just the … Are you still testing me?”
“Yes,” Freedom said, “and it’s called a magazine, not a clip.” He turned his head back to Stealth again and nodded.
Stealth stepped forward. “We are prepared to accept you are who you claim,” she said. “You are not Legion.”
“Cool,” said Madelyn.
The cloaked woman turned to St. George. “However,” she said, “this poses a question. How is she not Legion?”
“Maybe because she’s conscious,” St. George suggested. “His powers may need the … the space of an emp to the hospital.in peoplety mind.”
“Perhaps she doesn’t count as a regular ex,” said Freedom. “Some tweak to the virus or something similar. If Legion’s possession ability is very narrow-ranged, she might fall outside its parameters.”
“According to everything we know,” said Stealth, “the virus never mutates.”
Madelyn tapped her fingers on the tabletop. The rhythm was from a song, something popular before the outbreak, but Freedom couldn’t place it. “So,” she said, “what happens now?”
St. George cleared his throat. “If you’re up for it, I think the doctors want to run some tests on you and try to figure out why you are … well, the way you are.”
“What does that mean?”
“To be honest, I couldn’t tell you. I’m not a doctor.”
“Am I … am I under arrest or anything?”
Freedom straightened up from his chair and shot a look at Stealth. “I don’t think so.”
Madelyn stood up, too, and swayed side to side. She was smaller than all of them. “Can I go out and walk around? It’s been a while since I could just, y’know, walk and not worry about bumping into exes or anything.”
St. George caught the shift in Stealth’s body language. “Maybe we should ease into that,” he said. “Most people probably won’t react well to seeing a dead person ins
ide the walls. Just for now, you shouldn’t go anywhere without an escort.”
“And until we are certain why you are the way you are,” said Stealth, “we should make running tests our main priority.”
Madelyn’s face dropped. “Yeah,” she said, “I could see that.” She looked at St. George. “Where am I going to stay until then?”
“We shall have a room prepared for you here,” said Stealth. “Captain Freedom will set up a liaison for you to take care of whatever needs you may have.”
The dead girl glanced at Freedom and her lips twitched for a moment. “You mean, a guard to watch me.”
“To protect you,” said Freedom.
Madelyn looked ready to say something else when St. George’s earpiece squawked loud enough for them all to hear. He slapped his hand up to block the sound, then yanked the plug out. He held it an inch from his ear. “Calm down, Barry,” he said. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be right there.” He looked at Stealth and Freedom. “You didn’t heD;
She shook her head. “What does he need?”
“He says we’ve got to talk in person. It’s urgent.”
St. George found Zzzap in Stage Four, pacing in the air outside the electric chair. Is it true?
“Yeah,” St. George said. “We’ve got an intelligent ex and it’s Dr. Sorensen’s daughter. But we’re not sure how she—”
The other hero shook his head. No, not her. Jarvis was bitten?%Hss
The reminder hit St. George in the chest. “Yeah, he was. Sorry. I thought you would’ve heard by now.”
Only rumors on the radio. He glanced at the entertainment center and gave a little nod. His hands did something in front of his chest, a motion lost in the glare of his body. Is he going to make it?
St. George shook his head. “There’s a chance, but probably not. Sorry.”
Zzzap nodded and continued the odd motion with his hands. St. George realized the wraith was tapping his fingers together. He glanced at the television again.
Okay, this is going to sound a little weird but … we need him.
“We need him for what?”
No, not you and me “we.” I mean—yeah, shut up. I’ve got this.