Daphne relayed the message, then she said, “He wants to know if ‘we’ includes the Dome Police, or if it’s just you.”
“It’s the BPI. I’m working with the BPI.”
“You’re with the BPI?” the Chinese kid cried. He immediately got his camera out and started recording her. Sunny gave him an irritated look, but knew better than to try and make him stop.
Daphne hesitated. “Sunny, I know you’d never lie to me…”
“I’m not lying,” Sunny snapped, struggling to stay ahead of the teenager with the camera. “They saw what I was doing with Dortez and they offered me a job. Something about having the proper skillset for an agent.”
There was a long pause, then Daphne said, “Seriously.”
“I’m serious,” Sunny said stubbornly. “I’m with the BPI and this is our plan.”
Another long pause, then Daphne relayed the message. “He says who’s your boss at the BPI?”
Sunny gritted her teeth. “A medium-height Indian guy called Bukkhaza or something. People call him Khaz.”
Daphne mumbled something over the phone, then said, “And who’s his boss?”
“Erik Vandyke.”
There was a long moment of hesitation on the other end, then an almost reluctant, “Gary says it checks out. What’s the plan?”
Wow, that was easy, Sunny thought, a little shocked. She had expected to fight the corpulent rules-monger every step of the way. “All right,” she said. “Get him to start escorting people into the back car, as far away from the creature as you can.”
“That’s not hard, considering normal people run away from the forty foot interdimensional octopus,” Daphne commented.
“The TV’s showing Dortez on the engine in the front car,” Sunny said. “Is that the one powering the train?”
“How am I supposed to know that?”
“Check ,” Sunny snapped. “You’ve got less than fifty minutes before he flattens you all on the Interchange.”
Daphne muttered something, but eventually, she came back with, “Both the engines are running. Front and back.”
“You see any employees nearby? Anyone who works there? You gotta get someone to disconnect the back cars, then cut the back engine.”
There was a pause while Daphne talked to someone on the other end. When she came back, she said, “This guy works as a waiter in the luxury cab.”
Sunny winced. “Does he know anything about disconnecting the cars?”
“He says it’s not rocket science, but it does take a special tool.”
“Get him on the line.”
“Where are we going?” Sheng asked.
“Skyline Seafood,” Sunny said, a little too close to the phone.
“What?” the waiter on the phone asked.
“Nothing,” Sunny said. “Where’s the tool?”
“They keep it up in the conductor’s box,” the man said.
“You mean with the monster?”
“Uh-huh…”
Score. “Get Gary on the phone.” It was her sister who wrenched the phone out of the waiter’s hand and snapped, “No way, Sunny. No way.”
“Daphne,” Sunny said patiently, “do you want all your kids to be killed by a wrathful octopus or Gary to get a new medal for risking his life saving everybody?”
“Screw you, this was your plan all along,” Daphne growled.
“Let me talk to Gary,” Sunny said.
There was a really long pause and Sunny heard Gary’s voice on the other end. Up ahead, she saw the fishmonger’s shop. “There it is,” she told Sheng, pointing. “We need an octopus about two feet long and gray.”
“Door’s locked,” the Chinese kid said, trying the door.
Sunny cursed and cupped a hand to the window to look inside. “Where are they? It’s midday.”
“We were told to evacuate,” Sheng said. He was still filming her like she was the most fascinating thing in the world.
A moment later, Gary came on the phone.
“Guess what, asshole,” Sunny said. “You get to do something with your miserable life other than knock up my sister.” To the Chinese teen, she said, “You mind looking away for a second?” The kid grinned, but didn’t take the hint. Sighing, she put her leather-clad elbow through the window and unlocked it.
“Wow!” the Chinese kid cried, capturing the moment, “You broke that window with your arm ! I thought they only did that in movies!”
“Did I just hear a burglary in progress?” Gary said.
“Your job, Gary , is gonna be to be a hero, and hopefully die in the process,” Sunny said, brushing broken glass off her leather coat.
“I still don’t see how you and Summer are twins. She’s so sweet and caring and vulnerable…and you’re like the undead evil half that keeps digging its way out of the grave after the townsfolk stake it and bury it alive.”
Sunny shuddered at hearing Daphne’s first name. Gary was one of the only ones in the world who used it, and Daphne claimed it was ‘intimate’ and ‘endearing.’ Sunny knew, however, how much it had irritated her sister growing up, remembering how many times she’d caught Daphne curled up crying in the bathroom because some heartless child had mocked her mother’s naming strategy.
“Stick your dick in a paper shredder, pedophile,” Sunny retorted. “She’s not vulnerable. She’s stronger than you and your bucktoothed pondspawn, combined.” Sunny leaned through the jagged glass and peered inside. Immediately, she was hit with the damp reek of fish. As it was described in its ad, Skyline Seafood was a veritable emporium of aquatic edibles, taking up the first floor of an entire city block.
The Chinese kid dutifully poked his camera into the hole and took a shot of the broken glass lying on the floor inside.
“So the plan is I disconnect the cars…then what?”
“Then the Division of Paranormal Security takes it from there.” She stepped into the seafood shop, crunching glass under her feet, and started scanning the endless rows of open refrigerators for something she could use.
“I heard all their agents got massacred last month,” Gary said. “Like, almost down to a man. Word was it was this thing, the first time they tried to stop it.”
“And that’s why we’re taking special pleasure in bringing it down,” Sunny said, in the most government-agent-badass voice that she could summon.
There was a long moment of silence, then Gary said, “You’re so full of shit, Day.”
Sunny flushed embarrassedly at being called out. “Yeah, well, I’m here at the Interchange and Khaz gave me something to blow its mind, so just fucking do what you’re told and maybe we can take the thing out.”
There was a very long silence, then Gary said, “Are you really working with the DPS?”
“Eat your heart out, you fat fuck.” Sunny found the cooler of octopus and walked behind the counter to get at them.
“I never thought I’d say this,” Gary said, “but that’s probably the best thing I’ve heard all year. You have a…skillset…that would serve well for government work.”
A ‘skillset,’ huh? Sunny narrowed her eyes. Obviously, him and Dad had bonded over the no-Such-Thing-As-Monsters conversation. She wondered how Dad-the-Esteemed-Biologist was taking the forty foot octopus hijacking the Megarail. He’d probably write it off as a mass hallucination later, after he wasn’t pissing himself. “Yeah, whatever, get the cars separated. I’ve gotta grab some calamari.”
“Some what?”
“Never mind. Just do your job. The BPI is counting on you.” Sunny hung up and handed Sheng his phone back and grabbed an octopus roughly the same size as the dead monster baby from a bed of ice. She held it up, then said to the kid, “This look like that monster?”
The teen gave the octopus a confused look around his video camera. “No?”
Sunny held out the octopus and squinted at it, twisting the glistening corpse back and forth. “You’re right, aren’t you?” She shrugged and tucked it under her arm. “Let’s hope he do
esn’t notice.” She headed back to the front door. “Okay, we gotta get this baby back to the Interchange.” She jogged back out into the sunlight, the Chinese kid holding the cell phone out as he struggled to keep up.
Sunny was actually surprised he hadn’t forgotten her yet, but she supposed filming her was helping hold his attention. She logged that as useful for later.
By the time she got back to the Megarail, police had barricaded off Sixth Avenue, with emergency floaters and lights flashing, camera crews gathered along the hazard tape around the entrance to Station North.
“Oh wow,” the Chinese kid giggled. “This is great. So great…”
Sunny expected him to lose her in the crowd, but was pleasantly surprised when she ducked under the yellow caution tape and he was right there with her. It had to be the filming, she decided. He literally hadn’t taken his eyes off the screen of his camera.
Several Dome Police officers rushed to intervene as she walked towards Station North. “I’m sorry, Ma’am,” one of them said, pulling a gun but not going so far as to point it at her, “we have a dangerous situation and this is a restricted area.”
“Yeah,” Sunny said, glancing at the people-swarmed barricades only a few dozen feet from the overhead Megarail, “you’re gonna wanna move people another five hundred feet backwards. This thing is a rare Cephalopod with an arm span of forty feet, and it has two even longer front tentacles laced with a toxin that triggers acute anaphylaxis and death in less than forty minutes. I would know. I killed its kid.” She held up the octopus by the squishy head.
The officers glanced at each other. Their eyes flickered to the octopus in her hands. “Who are you?”
“Agent Sunny Day of the BPI, DPS Division,” she said, holding out her hand.
Though they didn’t say it, the look that the two police officers passed between each other said, She looks like a blockker.
Well, fuck ‘em. “I spend a lot of my time undercover.”
They obviously didn’t believe her. “Ma’am,” the closest rules-monger said, reaching out to her arm, “we’re gonna have to ask you to get behind the barricade with the rest of the people.”
“Tell ya what,” Sunny said, planting her feet. “Call DPS. Ask for Khaz Basuchandra. Tell him you want to double-check my story, then tell him you fucked up an operation that’s already claimed half our agents trying to bring this thing down.”
“DPS, you said?” Mr. Dilligent asked her, entering it into his phone. He made the call.
Khaz must have answered, because when Dilligent said, “Yeah, uh, we’ve got a Sunny Day here and she’s claiming she works with you guys…oh…uh-huh. Yeah, okay. Will do. Thank you, sir.”
The officer hung up and Sunny had to fight the insane urge to giggle when he said, “She checks out.”
“So what’s the plan?” the other officer asked. They were both young and green, and Sunny had the feeling they’d been given the job because nobody expected the train to stop at the station.
“Move people back another five hundred feet,” Sunny said. “Get everyone out of the nearby buildings. Gimme some space to work.”
“You got it,” the man said, ushering people back as they made disgruntled sounds. He quickly forgot what he was doing, however, making Sunny curse. She checked the time on the huge clock overlooking Station North, took a deep breath, said a prayer that Gary wasn’t as incompetent as his greasy, potato-chips-in-chest-hairs off-duty dress habits suggested, and turned to the officer that had stayed with her. “You got live shot of the train hijacking?”
He pulled it up on his phone. The Megarail was crossing the sandy gray delta of the Susitna River, only thirty minutes north. There was only one car left.
“Well whaddaya know…miracles can happen,” Sunny muttered. She spun to the officer who was now walking up and down the barricade, his orders to evacuate people forgotten. “Get them away from the station!”
“Why?” the officer asked. “He’s going to South Dome. We’re just here to make sure no one tries to climb onto the track.”
“He’s stopping,” Sunny said.
The two officers exchanged another look. “Ma’am, I’m pretty sure he’s going too fast to stop,” one said patiently. “He’s been speeding up ever since the hijacking.”
“I’ve got it on good authority he’ll stop,” Sunny said. “Get everyone out of the nearby buildings.”
The officer raised a brow. “We haven’t been told anything about—”
“I’m telling you,” Sunny said. “Back the barricade up to G Street. Get it done or people are gonna die.” She turned to the group of firemen. “Get them on it!”
The police officers turned to do what they were told…
…and then gave her a funny look.
“Damn it!” Sunny cried. This was so not what she needed right now. “You guys need to keep your eyes on me at all times! Just tell them to leave without looking at them, okay?” Yeah, because that didn’t sound crazy…
The two officers exchanged nervous glances, then eyed her shotgun. “Ma’am, we’re gonna have to ask you to get behind the yellow tape,” the closest one said.
“I’m with BPI,” Sunny said, frustrated. “I need your megaphone!”
“We wanna see the monster!” someone from the crowd complained from behind the barrier. “Let us see it!”
“Stop hiding the truth!” someone shouted, who happened to carry a big red and white sign that said the same thing.
“We have a right to know!” one of them cried. “We wanna see the Krakken!” a skinhead in a red shirt shouted. “Show us the Krakken!” He pumped a fist, starting an angry shout of, “Krakken, Krakken, Krakken !” Those that had backed away slowed and started to move forward again.
As the officers were distracted trying to push the mob back, Sunny tucked her octopus under her shotgun arm and grabbed a megaphone from the closest mob-control officer. “This is BPI agent Sunny Day!” Sunny shouted. “Everyone get the fuck outta here! Back up to G street! The train is gonna crash and it’s wiping out this whole block! Go !”
Nobody moved. “You just don’t want us to get video!” the skinhead shouted. People followed his shout with more taunts. The officer’s eyes stopped on her octopus. “Ma’am, we have an emergency situation here and I’m gonna need to see a badge if you want me to believe you’re BPI…”
“We don’t have time for this,” Sunny cried. “We need to evacuate the area. Now .” She handed the policeman his megaphone back. Her injured elbow, which had been only a minor throb immediately after the baby monster’s beak had ground against bone, was now a throbbing ache that made it difficult to even hold out the megaphone to him.
The policeman took the megaphone, both him and his partner looking wary. Nobody moved to do as they were told. “What are you doing with the shotgun, ma’am?” Mr. Dilligent asked her.
Sunny sighed and dropped her octopus. “Fine.” She wiped slime off her hand. “See that massive bridge up there? See how the train’s gonna go right over it?”
The officers looked. They forgot she was there.
Sunny took aim at the bed of the Megarail and pulled the trigger. Sunny knew what was coming and braced, but both the Chinese kid and the two officers were knocked to the ground in the purple thunderbolt that sizzled from her shotgun’s muzzle in an electric zap a moment later, breaking every window on the block.
The railway overhead exploded in chunks of granite that rained down like hailstones, smashing windows and setting off floater alarms and bigger chunks punching through the concrete road directly under the blast area. People dropped their YOU CAN’T RUN FROM THE TRUTH signs, screamed, and ran.
“Holy shit!” the DP officers cried, shielding their faces. “Someone bombed the Interchange!” Behind them, people were screaming and shoving each other to get away.
“Oh look !” Sunny cried, pumping another round into the chamber, “the monster’s gonna stop here. What a coincidence.”
“Oh my gawd awesom
e !” the Chinese kid screeched in a shrieking cackle as he scrambled to his feet, alternating between footage of Sunny, the falling Interchange, and the people screaming and scattering like lemmings. “Where’d you get that gun ?!”
Sunny retrieved her dirt-crusted octopus. “I took it from a demon.” She hoped it sounded as cool as it felt to say it because, technically, it was true. He did hand it to her…
“Sweeeet ,” Sheng said, still taking footage.
“Come on,” Sunny said, gesturing for the teen to follow her out of the danger zone. “We need to get outta here before Dortez shows up.” She led them down to G Street and off to one side, waiting.
Already, firemen were scouring the nearby buildings for any remaining people and moving them behind the barricade. Twenty minutes later, the chaos had settled and the Dome’s purification system had filtered out the dust. The firemen had pulled out the last stubborn old farts who wanted to go down with their ship and had formed a barrier with their trucks a thousand feet from the Interchange in either direction. The people that were left were standing well behind the new barricade, taking pictures. Everyone was silent, listening.
Then, Sunny heard it. The quiet rumble of an approaching Megarail.
“Here it comes!” someone shouted. People cried out in fear. Several people ran. Probably the smart people, all things considered. Sunny stood off to one side of the crowd, octopus fisted in one hand and shotgun fisted in the other.
Overhead, the rumble grew. The tension in the dusty air was absolute. People murmured and shifted uncomfortably.
“What the fuck did you do?!” a familiar voice demanded behind her, making her jump. “You blew up the Interchange?!”
Darren the Douche came stalking up behind her, outfitted in black combat gear and boasting two automatic rifles strapped to his back.
“Me?” Sunny asked innocently. “That’s crazy.”
“What’s in your hand?” He squinted at it.
“What, you think I took down the Interchange with this ?” Sunny held up her shotgun innocently and glanced around at the Police officers. “A mere shotgun? Did anyone see me blow up the Interchange with a shotgun? Anyone? Officers?”
Sunny with a Chance of Monsters: An Urban Fantasy Action Adventure (Sunny Day, Paranormal Badass) Page 29