Home base, check, Sunny thought, wandering around the small apartment jungle. It was cold, almost icy, but she couldn’t see any major appliances, no features except the plants and the pool.
So it comes here to rejuvenate after a hard day of screwing people over, Sunny thought, looking around. Seemed simple enough. Torment the land-lubbers, then come home to relax in the hot tub for a couple hours before rinsing and repeating.
But why ? Why was it working four jobs? It obviously didn’t need the money for anything—in all of her surveillance of Gabriel Dortez, Sunny had never once seen him go to a store, buy food, or shop for clothing. This pool, it seemed, was everything it needed.
Or maybe it was this pool combined with the misery of others. That seemed to be the only thing he was attempting to cultivate on the outside. Misery…and death. She remembered his rant about under-appreciated cephalopods and wondered if it was some sort of octopus vendetta against land-lubbers.
Somehow she didn’t think it was that simple.
Because it was cool—and because she was pretty sure a glowing plant might be worth something on the black market—Sunny took one of the philodendrons from the back, then scooted the other pots closer together so it wasn’t too obvious it was missing. She guessed that if the creature had chosen to decorate its abode with just a single thing, then it was probably a good indication that that something was Very Important to it for whatever reason. She just needed to figure out why.
She was carrying the pot out of the apartment, turning her back to the hallway to close the door to 5043 behind her, when Arielle Westerly’s familiar voice said, “You aren’t really investigating Mr. Dortez, are you?”
Sunny frowned and glanced over her shoulder.
Arielle was looking…much less lively…than usual. Her eye sockets were sunken and brown, and her face was pale. She was approaching from the elevator with her Calculus notebooks held against her chest, a backpack strap over one shoulder, frowning.
What is she doing here? “Heya,” Sunny said, trying to hide her sudden feeling of alarm.
Arielle’s already suspicious face darkened further and she slowed a few paces away. “It’s me, isn’t it? My parents sicced you on me. They think I’m on drugs.”
Sunny turned from the door and frowned at her. “Why are you up here?”
“I live here,” Arielle said.
Sunny glanced behind her at the door to the cool jungle, goosebumps crawling. She jabbed her thumb at Dortez’s apartment. “You live here ? In Gabriel Dortez’s apartment?”
Arielle squinted at her like she’d lost her mind. “That’s not his apartment.”
Sunny raised a brow. She glanced back at the room number. 5043. Jungle room. The same room she’d seen Gabriel Dortez enter twice, now. “You sure this is your room?”
“What, like I’m so stupid I don’t even know where I live?” Arielle obviously recognized her from earlier that day. “You should probably go before I tell the receptionist you’re stalking me.” Teens were tricky. Sometimes the forgettable effect wore off over the course of a day or two, and sometimes, like kids, they remembered her every tiny comment to infuriating effect.
Sunny hesitated, getting a really really bad feeling for the girl seated patiently outside Dortez’s cold, clammy room. “How long you plan to wait here?”
“Until my parents realize I’m out here,” she retorted. “They locked me out again.” She shrugged. “Probably having sex in the kitchen or something.”
“Yeah, but…” Sunny glanced again at the door to the jungle-room. “Have you ever even been in there?”
“I live here,” Arielle shouted. “Go harass someone else!”
Sunny couldn’t get over the cool, clammy jungle. It had had an ominous feel, like it had been waiting for something. “Maybe we should go talk to the front desk lady, eh?”
Ariel squinted at her. “I don’t think so.”
“Well, okay—how about we take a walk downstairs?”
“Yeah, now that doesn’t sound like a serial killer line at all.”
“Look, I’ve been in that apartment,” Sunny said desperately. “I just got this out of that apartment.” Sunny raised the plant so Arielle could see it.
Arielle frowned, then, looking at the plant cradled in Sunny’s hands, she got to her feet. “You know what? I think you’re right. I think we should get some other people involved.”
“How about you tell me what your parents’ names are and give me their phone numbers?” Sunny said, scrambling to come up with a reason. “I think we’ve got a natural gas issue in the building and they’re gonna have to come pick you up.”
Arielle snorted. “Yeah, right. Like I’m believing that coming from a hallucinating block-tard.” Sneering, she turned on heel and stalked away.
Sunny stood there for several minutes, plant in hand, staring after the girl, fighting that really bad feeling. Just the girl’s countenance alone had been cause for concern, but the fact that she had totally snapped and was placidly waiting outside Dortez’s apartment like some sacrificial goat? That was gave her chills all over.
She glanced again at where the A-student had disappeared around the hall.
She’s his next victim , she realized, dread welling up in her gut. She needed to figure out what he was doing to them, and she needed to figure it out now . Was it a drug or was it psychological? Or both? Arielle had been utterly convinced she lived in that apartment, when she was really loitering outside a serial killer’s lair. Which meant he was either hypnotizing them…
She looked down at the plant in her hand and carefully held it out so that the luminescent droplets weren’t touching her or her skin.
…or he was using some weird hallucinogen on them. Considering that she was dealing with a forty-foot tentacle beast somehow crammed inside a human skin, either option seemed equally as likely.
Which meant Sunny was completely out of her depth. She once again considered the wisdom of trying to go toe-to-toe with a serial-killer tentacle beast that liked to dole out doses of anaphylactic shock as an afterthought and had ‘EXTREMELY HIGH-RISK’ and ‘EXPERTS ONLY’ and ‘DO NOT ENGAGE’ emblazoned in red across its file.
Fuck it.
If there was one place Sunny had to go from here, it was up. She had a long history of getting out of sticky situations—granted, many were self-made—and there wasn’t much difference between Gary Gables and an alien octopus. Besides, she didn’t have much of a life, but she had a sister who loved her, parents who missed her, and she’d be damned if she let a self-important squid ruin her nephew’s computer career. He was fucking with her family , and she wasn’t gonna let that shit slide.
She walked down the hall into the elevator, still carrying the plant. She had a feeling it was key to what Dortez was doing to everyone, but if nothing else, it would look good on her window sill—if she even still had a window sill after being gone for almost a week.
When the elevator opened up into the main entryway of the apartment complex, Sunny was immediately brought to a halt by a couple of police officers. Sunny recognized the older one as Jimmy Dean, one of the officers that had run the last awards ceremony where Gary got yet another plaque for his ‘diligent’ investigative work and ‘profound service to the community’. What crap. Just last month, she had filed yet another complaint to the Police Commissioner citing Republic Legal Code 15.81c that a convicted pedophile couldn’t hold a job with the Dome Police, but it, like the dozens of others before it, had gone unanswered. She was pretty sure they now had a standing order to ignore anything with her name on it, because she hadn’t even gotten an acknowledgement of receipt.
The younger officer, Lem Hardy, was new to the force—though he wouldn’t remember it, Sunny spent a lot of time hanging out at the station, harassing Gary—and she knew his wife had just had their first kid. At twenty-five. Like a normal person.
Arielle Westerly was standing with them, giving Sunny a superior sneer.
“Yeah, tha
t’s her,” Arielle said. “Just look at her—obviously shouldn’t be here. She wanted all my info—I think she was gonna try to take me home with her.”
Sunny frowned at the girl. “Convenient, for someone who was seeing shit they shouldn’t.” She sighed. “Look, officers, I found that girl waiting outside a creepy guy’s door like she’d been there for hours. She thought she actually lived there. I just wanted to call her parents—she was definitely not quite right in the head.”
Arielle frowned at her. “What creepy guy? Dortez? My math teacher? The one you’ve been stalking at New Republic?”
The two officers glanced at each other meaningfully. The older one gingerly offered, “So, uh, this is not the first time you’ve seen this lady, Miss Westerly?”
“She was sitting in on Mr. Dortez’s math classes,” Arielle said.
“Look,” Sunny said, panicking at the resolve that was forming on the officers’ faces. “The kid is drugged out of her mind. Or hypnotized. Something . Why else would she have been lurking outside that guy’s door?”
“Bitch, I live here,” Arielle shouted. “Room 5043. Ask the front desk lady. Her name is Sandy , by the way. And I know for a fact she wouldn’t let a blockker inside the residences without a good reason. Just ask her if she let this woman into the building. Ask her.”
“Room 5043 is Gabriel Dortez’s room,” Sunny said, with all the confidence of someone who knew.
“Actually,” the receptionist said, jogging up with a printout, “it belongs to one Heather and Lance Westerly, parents of Arielle Westerly.” She offered it to the officers, pointing to a line for the officers to read.
Sunny squinted at the lady. Then…she had been the one who had been hallucinating? She glanced down at the plant in her arms and held it a little farther from her body.
“Miss Westerly, you can go home now,” the elder of the two Dome Police officers told her. “We will take it from here.”
To Sunny, Jimmy said, “Ma’am, we’re gonna have to do a retinal scan.”
Sunny allowed it, mostly because she knew he didn’t have anything to hold her.
“Sunny…Day ?” Jimmy and his younger companion glanced at each other like he had retina-scanned Satan himself. One of them visibly took a step back. “Gables’s sister-in-law?”
“Have fun with that, blockker.” Smirking at Sunny, Arielle jogged back to the elevators.
Sighing, Sunny turned to the officers, who were looking acutely uncomfortable. Legally, they couldn’t kick her out of the building unless she was ranked as an Undesirable. ‘Cause, you know, rights and shit. Personally, they probably didn’t want to invoke her wrath. After all, she had a bit of a reputation with the Dome Police. After Gary had ruined her twin’s life, Sunny had spent a decade poring through legalese trying to find a way to get her brother-in-law castrated. She’d even tried to introduce a law that sex offenders—all sex offenders, even ones who committed their crimes twelve years ago—would immediately have their balls chopped off. She’d even gotten enough signatures to get it on the ballot.
It’d been voted down, though. Pity.
“Good morning, Jimmy,” Sunny said. She nodded at Lem. “Lem. I’m guessing you’re wondering why there’s a glowing plant in my arms.”
The two officers looked like she’d told them she had antennae growing out of her head. “Glowing…plant …ma’am?” He looked at the way her arm was crooked, then glanced at his buddies pointedly. “Is that…what you’re carrying in your arm? You’ve got a…plant…in it?”
Sunny laughed. “No, of course not. I was trying to keep you from looking at my buddy behind you.”
They looked. When they turned back, they looked a little dazed. They blinked at her.
“I was asking for directions…?” Sunny said.
Jimmy looked apologetic. “Sunny, don’t take this the wrong way, but we’re gonna have to ask you to come down to the station with us. You’re acting…strange.”
Sunny blinked at him. “How strange?”
“Invisible plants and phantom friends and accusing little girls of hallucinating sound familiar?” the younger police officer said, his tone rising confrontationally.
The older one hastily gestured for the kid to be silent. “Look, fact is, Sunny, you’re probably not supposed to be here. If we take you up to the front desk, what’s that nice lady up there gonna say?”
Sunny’s jaw hung open as she stared at them, totally flabbergasted. “You mean you remember me.”
The two officers glanced at each other. “Uh…kind of hard to forget. Why are you holding your arm like that?”
Sunny glanced down at the plant, which they clearly couldn’t see. And, now that she was looking, the pot looked almost opalescent, a lot like Obi-wan’s silks. She was beginning to think that perhaps taking it hadn’t been the best idea. “Oh…kay…” She lowered the plant to the ground, which made the officers nervous.
“Ma’am, you’re gonna have to come with—”
“Is that Captain Gables?” Sunny gasped, looking behind them. “Gary ? You pedophilic fuck—I can’t believe you knocked her up again …”
Anxiously, the men glanced over their shoulders again.
Leaving the potted plant in the middle of the floor, Sunny bolted. She got twenty feet away before she managed to duck behind a granite trash receptacle.
From behind her, the two police officers turned back at the sound of her running feet and started to give chase. The moment she got out of sight, however, they stumbled and slowed. When she peeked back from around the trash container, she saw them standing in the hall, looking a little disoriented. After a moment of confusedly looking around the lobby, they walked back out the front door of the building. Sunny got up and followed them, watching until they got in their patrol floater and continued down 8th .
Then, squinting, she went back to the plant that was slowly dribbling its luminescent liquid onto the floor under it, making the polished granite shimmer.
Did that thing…cancel…the Forgettability Field? The first tingling of hope rushed up from within her like a wave, and Sunny desperately fought it down. To test her theory, she went and talked to the receptionist who had given Jimmy the printout.
“Hey, remember me?” she asked, knocking on the office doorframe.
Sandy grimaced at her. “No.”
Sunny went and got the plant and carried it back to the woman. “Hey, remember me?”
The receptionist scowled around her. “You mean those Dome Police officers didn’t take you with them?” She reached for her phone.
“They told me to come down here and apologize for trespassing,” Sunny said to stop the woman from picking up the landline. “So I’m sorry, and I’m going now.”
“Apology accepted,” the receptionist said reluctantly. “Just don’t come back to the Aurora or I’ll call the cops.”
“Got it.” Sunny left the office, put the plant back into the middle of the floor, and returned to the receptionist. “Remember me?”
“No, who are you?”
Sunny waved off the question. “Never mind.” She went back out to the plant, puzzled. So the drug created memories that were somehow independent of other memories, and only triggered by the presence of the psychoreactive substance the plant was producing? That would explain a lot of what was happening with Dortez.
But even that left the question… Why was Arielle Westerly living in a clammy jungle apartment and thinking it belonged to her parents?
Leaving the plant in the middle of the floor, Sunny went back upstairs to room 5043.
She used the key to unlock the door. Just as she was about to turn the latch, it opened, and a primly-outfitted couple dressed in pantsuit and cardigan stepped out. Over her shoulder, the woman in the lead said, “I said no , Arielle. No internet or phone until you’ve gotten your Calculus grade up. You’re disappointing us.”
“I need you to believe me, Mom,” Arielle called from inside. “He’s screwing with my grade!”
/> “And bankstone makes ponies ready to ride,” the woman snapped. “Get back to your homework. No TV or internet until you fix this. Come on, Lance.” The woman turned back to face Sunny…
The woman stopped and blinked. “Who the hell are you?”
“I’m looking for someone,” Sunny said, simultaneously wondering if she was hallucinating while peeking over the woman’s shoulder into the room. It looked like a normal apartment, no humidifiers or alien plant life in sight.
The woman’s perusal of Sunny’s attire was slow and deliberate. “I think you’re in the wrong building.”
“Yeah, but…” Sunny glanced at Arielle, who was working on her Calculus notes at a table deep inside the apartment. Sunny pushed past the woman and walked inside.
“Hey! Lance, stop her!”
Muttering obscenities, the man of the house came thundering after Sunny.
Sunny quickened her pace and ducked into a bedroom. A moment later, the hunt for her stopped. She heard the front door close and lock. Frowning, she emerged from the bedroom and looked around.
Seeing the perfect, tasteful decorations, all the crystal and dark woods to contrast the cream carpeting and walls, her mind had to do a double-take. Arielle was seated with her back to her, obviously having forgotten she was there. Though she hated to admit that Dortez’s drug worked on her , it certainly made more sense that it was a normal, warm, dry apartment in 5043 than a cold, dank, humidified octopus lair.
She actually began to wonder if the octopus had been a hallucination all along. Even her bruises could have been the result of a good beating by a pissed-off nerd. Then again, she wasn’t sure how he could have put her into anaphylactic shock…
“Has this been here the whole time?” Sunny blurted.
Arielle, who was sobbing over Calculus homework, jumped up with a, “Whoa! Who the hell are you?!” Arielle was backing across the room from Sunny, tears staining her face, headed for some statuary in a corner.
Sunny held up a hand in peace. “I’m Sunny Day, your neigh—”
Sunny with a Chance of Monsters: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (Sunny Day, Paranormal Badass) Page 13