Ex-Communication - Ex-Heroes 03

by Peter Clines

  The dead girl shifted on her feet. “Someone like me?”

  Christian nodded and gripped her Bible a little tighter. “Someone who came back.”

  Madelyn looked around the street. Her brow furrowed above her sunglasses. “Came back from where?”

  Christian’s smile faltered, but she caught it before it fell. “From the mindless dead. Your soul’s risen again in your body.”

  “Oh,” said Madelyn. “Thanks. I guess.”

  “We’re heading to evening services now. Would you like to join us? I’m sure everyone there would love to hear about your experience.”

  “Umm,” said the dead girl. “I don’t really know you. Or them. No offense.”

  “We’re a good group,” said Christian. Her smile, a rare thing the past few years, was beaming at news-conference brilliance. “People can depend on us when things get tough.”

  “That’s … umm, cool.” Madelyn looked up at Freedom.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m afraid Ms. Sorensen isn’t going to have a lot of free time for a while. Stealth and Dr. Connolly have her on a fairly extensive schedule of tests.”

  The smile wavered again. It came back just as quick, but this time it didn’t touch Christian’s eyes. “Of course they do,” she said. “It’s a waste of time, though, trying to explain a miracle with science, isn’t it?”

  “If it can be explained with science, it isn’t a miracle,” said Madelyn. When the cold eyes flicked at her, she added, “That’s something my dad used to say. He was a scientist.”

  “Of course, remember falling asleep said, people” said the older woman. Her smile warmed. “You’re probably still in shock from learning you’d lost them. My condolences. But there’s still hope.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “Well, we must be going or we’ll be late,” said Christian. “It has been a pleasure meeting you. I hope you’ll take me up on my offer and visit our congregation sometime soon.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” said Madelyn. “Thanks again.”

  “Thank you for being so understanding. I know everyone wants to meet you.”

  Christian bowed to Freedom again and walked past them. The two men fell in step behind her like good assistants or bodyguards. One of them nodded to Freedom. The other gave Madelyn a long look.

  They walked on for another half a block. Then Madelyn spun to walk backward so she could face Freedom. “What was that all about?”

  “It’s complex,” he said.

  “Was I wrong, or was she completely giving me a creepy ‘chosen one’ vibe back there?”

  “It’s complex,” repeated Freedom. “There are some people who’ve come to believe certain things about the ex-humans. Your existence … well, like Christian said, they’ve all been hoping to see someone like you.”

  “But Dr. Connolly says I’m not an ex. And wouldn’t your supervillain guy, Legion, count as back-from-the-dead, too?”

  He smiled. His lips were tight and controlled, but it was a smile. “Not exactly,” he said. “That’s complex, too.”

  Something caught his eye. He looked past her and his brow furrowed. She spun back around.

  Another trio, two women and a man this time, headed for them. Beyond them were two couples, looking and pointing at Madelyn. Her shoulders slumped. “Seriously?” she said. “How did I end up becoming the golden child?”

  Freedom looked around. He held out his arm to Madelyn. “Ms. Sorensen,” he said, “I believe you asked about the Big Wall?”

  She looked up and smiled. “Yes,” she said. “That’d be cool.”

  He picked her up, cradled her in one arm, and she threw her arms around his neck. The huge officer flexed his thighs and launched into the air. He landed on top of the Wall and the structure shook from the impact.

  Madelyn’s sunglasses tumbled from her face. She snatched them out of the air before they fell into the street beyond the barrier. She slid out of Freedom’s hold and thumped onto the wooden platform.

  The two guards there saw her face, the white skin and pale eyes, and brought their weapons up. Freedom stepped forward. “At ease, men.”

  One of the guards, a soldier named Truman, lowered his rifle. The other, one of the civilian guards, kept his weapon up for a few moments and then let it drop it grudgingly. Both of them kept their eyes on her.

  “This young woman is a guest here,” Freedom said, “and should be treated as such. Her name is Madelyn Sorensen.” He said the last with a pointed look at Truman.

  The soldier’s eyes went wide. “You meanfor pr direction she’s the doc’s—”

  Freedom nodded once.

  Truman shouldered his weapon and held his hand out. “It’s an honor to meet you, ma’am,” he said.

  “Again with the ma’am,” she sighed, shaking the hand.

  “Your father was a great man,” he said. “He made me who I am today. Literally.”

  Her mouth wavered and she pushed the sunglasses back over her eyes. “Thank you.” She looked up at Captain Freedom, then back to Truman. “You’re one of the Unbreakables?”

  He nodded and stood at attention. “Alpha 456th, ma’am, at your service. You need anything at all, you just come looking for me.” He tapped the name on his chest. “Sergeant Mike Truman.”

  “Thank you,” she said again.

  The other guard’s mouth twitched. His eyes flitted between the sunglasses hiding the dead girl’s eyes and the pale skin of her neck. His fingers did a subdued dance on the strap of his rifle.

  Freedom gave him a look. “As you were, men,” he said. Truman gave a sharp salute and turned to continue his patrol along the wall. The civilian guard stared at Madelyn for another moment, then turned to follow his partner.

  She watched them walk away, then let her eyes drift down beyond the Big Wall. A hundred or so exes were there, pressed up against the stack of automobiles. The constant click-click-click of their teeth echoed even louder here. Their dead eyes followed the two guards as they walked away along the Wall. Many of the staggering corpses went after them.

  “Do I really look that much like them?”

  Freedom stepped up behind her and the exes shifted their attention to him. They reached up and grabbed at the air. “According to my mother,” he said, “looks aren’t everything.”

  “Your mom never went to high school, I guess.”

  The exes clawed at their side of the Wall for a few moments, trying to reach the platform. Then they grew still. Their chattering jaws went silent.

  Madelyn’s eyebrows went up. “What’s going—”

  “Hey, big guy,” rasped one of the exes. It had been a tall, dark-skinned man with a thin beard. One of its eyes was missing, and the opposite arm. The bloody rags of the shirt fluttered as it moved.

  Madelyn shrieked and jumped back. Her oversized sunglasses dropped again, and this time they fell into the swarm of dead people below. Freedom stared down at the dead man with practiced disdain. “Did you want something?”

  The ex blinked. Its eyelids flapped over the empty socket. “Getting lazy, esse,” said Legion. “Forgot to call me ‘sir.’ ”

  “I didn’t forget,” said Freedom. “I made a point of not using it.”

  The dead man barked out a laugh. It opened its mouth and a handful of exes around it spoke in sync. “Yeah, you the big tough guy, hiding behind a gate,” they said. “Adams thought he was tough, too.”

  Freedom’s jaw shifted.

  “You remember Adams, right? He was one of your guys. Now he’s remember falling asleep t“of one of mine.”

  “This is him?” asked Madelyn. “This is the guy who can talk through exes? He controlled them out at your base?”

  “Yes,” said Freedom.

  Madelyn stared at the dead man. It ignored her and continued to glare at Freedom with its one good eye. She set her jaw. ybe a tenth th

  ZZZAP FLOATED INSIDE the electric chair, annoyed as all hell, and shot little bolts of electricity out of his finger at one
of the rivets.

  It wasn’t really his finger. It was just an outline, a shape his subconscious formed to help him relate to the energy form. It was closer to a mathematical model than flesh and bone. And he wasn’t really shooting electricity. It just streamed off him as potentials shifted, like a giant Tesla coil. It was an easy trick to do with all the conductive material in the cage, and it only added up to half a pound or so of himself that he was burning off each day.

  Truth be told, he wasn’t even aiming at the rivet. He didn’t have that kind of fine control. It was just excess power that struck there instead of somewhere else along the copper-wrapped rings. If he actually fired a blast of energy at the rivet, he’d annihilate the electric chair, most of his entertainment center, and the far wall of Four. Not to mention the east and west walls of Five across the street, Zukor past that, part of the old telecommunications building, the lobby of Roddenberry (which would piss off Stealth to no end), the Gower manufacturing mill, and a little office complex past that which had been single apartments for two years now.

  So, really, he wasn’t doing anything. Except being annoyed as hell.

  St. George and Stealth were angry at him. And he knew they had every right to be. Max had played him like an idiot. Whatever was lurking around their home right now was there because Zzzap had helped the sorcerer. Which he’d only done because he’d been too stupid to tell the others what was going on.

  Now he was stuck wondering just what Max had brought back with him. And what it was going to do. And how many people were going to get hurt because of what he’d done.

  Something shifted by the door. Somebody was lurking there he didn’t recognize. He turned to get a better look and the figure cleared its throat. “Excuse me? Mr. Zzzap?”

  No need to be formal, he said. You can just call me Zzzap. Or even Barry, if you like.

  The figure stared at him for a minute. It looked like a boy, maybe ten or so. Zzzap tried to pick out some more details, but it was always tough with strangers. There were only so many particulars he could pick out with a smear of electromagnetic and thermal energy over the visual spectrum. He was pretty sure the boy had blond hair cut spiky-short.

  Seriously, he said, it’s okay. Come on in.

  The boy took another step. “I’m sorry,” he said, “I can’t understand you. It sounds like you’re humming a lot.”

  He nodded and focused on his words. Better?

  The boy’s face lit up. “Yeah. I can hear you now.”

  Fantastic. I’m Zzzap.

  “Yeah, I know. I’m Todd,” he said. “Todd Davidson.” He paused after the name, as if hoping Zzzap would have something to say.

  When the boy didn’t continue, Zzzap nodded again. Okay, he said. What’s up, Todd? To save time, the rumors are true—I have the finest collection of sci-fi movies in Los Angeles. If there’s something you want, odds are I’ve got it.

  Todd smiled but shook his head. “Nah,” he said.

  Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t loan out my comics to strangers. Besides, you’ve probably read them all, anyway. All my favorite titles stopped three years ago. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think it’s a coincidence that civilization collapsed right after Spider-Man made a deal with the devil.

  The boy walked forward and squinted at the wraith. “I wanted to know, that is, I was wondering if maybe you’d heard anything from my dad?”

  Zzzap cocked his head at the boy. Your dad?

  “Danny Davidson. Daniel, but nobody calls him that.”

  Not ringing any bells, sorry. A few threads of electricity crackled from his shoulders to the curving rings above his head. He wondered if the boy was lost. A lot of kids had grown up inside the walls of the Mount, and when the Big Wall increased their world tenfoldp>

  “He’s about this tall,” said Todd, holding up his arm as high as he could, “with blond hair like mine. He used to be kinda fat but he lost a lot of weight just before the zombies showed up.”

  Sorry, said Zzzap, still nothing. Where would I know him from?

  “What do you mean?”

  Is he one of the scavengers or a gate guard or something? Were you guys out at Krypton?

  Todd shook his head. “No, we’ve been here all along. Mom and I live over in Fifteen with my little sister.” He turned and pointed back at the door. “We stayed here after everybody else moved out.”

  Okay. So where’s your dad?

  “Well, he’s … he’s dead. He died just before we moved here to the Mount.”

  Zzzap’s stomach dropped. It was a sensation he’d never felt in the energy form before. He didn’t like it.

  “Some people were talking about the corpse girl and the magician,” said Todd. “They said you could talk to him when he was a ghost and that’s how he came back to life.”

  Yeah … That’s not how it happened.

  “But you could talk to him. To the ghosts.”

  Not exactly. I mean, yeah, but Max—the magician—he was a real special case.

  “Can you talk to my dad?”

  Y’know, Todd-buddy, I think this is a conversation you might want to have with your mom. Or maybe Father Andy.

  “It was Mom’s idea,” said the boy.

  What was?

  “Asking you. She thought you could bring Dad back, too.”

  Zzzap knew he didn’t have a stomach in the same sense he didn’t have a finger. The energy form mimicked the shape of his body, not his internal organs. But his stomach was churning now.

  “I miss him a lot,” said Todd. “Cloddy—she’s my little sister, Claudia—she doesn’t remember him as much, but she was sad remember falling asleep.“of for a long time when he died. Mom says she sees him outside the Wall now and then. He’s hanging around because he remembers us, too, deep down inside.”

  Yeah, that’s probably it, said Zzzap. Look, Todd, I don’t think you understand what you’re asking me for.

  “I’m asking you to bring my dad back.”

  I would if I could, he said. I swear I would. But it’s just not how it works.

  “But you already did it once. Couldn’t you do it again?”

  But I didn’t really do anything, he said. It’s like saying the radio has something to do with writing your favorite song.

  The boy scratched his head. “Maybe you could just let me talk to him for a while.”

  Zzzap wondered how much trouble he’d get in if he fled the Mount right at that moment. They had lots of solar cells and some storage batteries. I can’t.

  “Or Mom. She misses him, too. She cried a lot when we first moved here. I know she’d be happier if she could talk to him for a little while.”

  The boy glanced over his shoulder at the door. Zzzap followed his gaze and focused on the far wall. It wasn’t hard to look through objects, it just made everything a lot blurrier. There were at least two dozen people waiting outside. Maybe closer to thirty. Men, women, children. He was pretty sure he recognized Christian Nguyen among them. Half of them were on their knees, their hands pressed together.

  Oh, frak me, he muttered. It came out as a blast of static.

  The boy flinched from the sound, but only for a moment. “Can you do it? Please?”

  Todd, look, you’ve just got the wrong idea. All of you. It’s not that—

  “Is there a problem?” a voice echoed through Four.

  Zzzap sagged inside the rings of the electric chair. Oh, thank God.

  Stealth walked out of the far corner of the room. The one with the deepest shadows, of course. She moved across the chamber with slow, even steps, and her boot heels clicked on the concrete floor. Her cloak caught the small currents from the electric chair and drifted behind her like trails of smoke.

  Zzzap saw Todd’s temperature shoot up three degrees and his heart rate jump. He wasn’t sure if the boy was facing his childhood boogeyman or his first prepubescent fantasy. Todd probably didn’t know, either.

  She stopped in front of the boy and crossed her arms. Even
with her featureless mask, it was clear her gaze had fallen on him. “You are Todd Davidson,” she said. “Age ten and three months, son of Marcie, older brother of Claudia. Not doing well in English class.”

  The boy’s heart rate revved again, just as he was getting it under control.

  “You should not be here unescorted.”

  There was a long pause before he squeaked, “My mom’s right outside.”

  “Then why are you in here?”

  The boy shivered. He hadn’t blinked since Stealth had crossed her arms. “I remember falling asleep to say people … I just wanted to ask a favor.”

  “You are being unfair to Zzzap,” she said with a gesture at the wraith. “He wishes to help, but you are asking for something he cannot give you.”

  “He helped the magician.”

  “You refer to Maxwell Hale?”

  Todd nodded twice.

  Stealth’s head swung side to side within her hood. “You are mistaken. Zzzap did not help him. Maxwell made several preparations on his own which allowed him to survive. That is all.”

  “But he was dead,” said the boy. “He was dead and he could talk to him.” He pointed an accusing finger at the gleaming figure.

  “It might appear that way,” Stealth said, “but that is not what happened.”

  “But everyone’s sayingD;

  “Everyone saying something does not make it true. You are old enough to know this.” The cloaked woman let the words echo in the room for a moment. “Zzzap did not and cannot bring anyone back from the dead.”

  Todd sighed. His face slumped into the universal expression of a kid who’d been told something depressing that he’d suspected anyway. “Are you sure?”

  “I am.”

  Sorry.

  The boy stared at Stealth’s boots. Zzzap could see him cooling off, and the hint of moisture at his eyes. “Okay.”

  “The crowd outside is going to be leaving soon,” Stealth said. “It is not safe for people to block the entrance of an important building like this. You should return to your mother and explain this mistake to her.” She paused for a moment, then reached out to set one gloved hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Can I trust you to do this?”