Head Rush

by Carolyn Crane

  There are only three ways to break somebody out of one of Otto’s force field prisons. One is for Otto to make a descrambler, and for the person inside to get hold of it. No way would he have made one for the fun house. The second is to get Otto to change his mind about keeping the person sealed up. That’s how we got Packard out. The third way is to break Otto’s will enough so that he just lets up all his force fields. Disillusionment would do it. In fact, we’re pretty sure that if I zinged Otto hard, that alone would probably break his will enough to get him to let them out. If Shelby and Jordan joined in, all the better.

  Unfortunately, thanks to Otto’s new personal force field, he’s unzingable.

  We can’t zing him, Ez the dream invader can’t get into his dreams to control him, telepaths probably can’t read him, and bullets likely can’t harm him either. Not that anybody wants that—if Otto dies, his force fields become eternal.

  Shelby is staring at the wavy mirror again. She moves her head from side to side.

  After getting everybody’s requests and promises to return, we head out of there. Time is running out; not only do I have to meet Otto in several hours but the Brick Slinger will be rousing soon.

  We scramble back into the car and speed off, arguing about where to question him. The backup walk-in cooler at Mongolian Delites is the obvious place—it’s made of metal and you can lock it, and best of all, it’s usually empty, so the Brick Slinger won’t have anything to sling.

  “No Mongolian Delites,” Packard says.

  I give him a look. It’s dangerous that Packard’s out in public this much already. Where will he go if not Mongolian Delites? Where will he sleep? When did he last sleep?

  Time is running out. The Brick Slinger is waking up. We end up pulling him into one of the empty railcars in the yards near our old headquarters. We lay him inside and open up the vent in the ceiling for light.

  Shelby stays outside with a machine gun—having a gun inside there with him would be suicide, of course, because he’d take it away. We also tie up his hands and feet before we wake him. He’s a pretty big man. If he telekinetically gets his bindings off, the plan is that Packard will subdue him and I’ll stoke up some terror to zing him with, but that’s a last resort. Terrified people don’t give the best information.

  When we’re ready, Jordan flicks water in his face, and the man rouses. She and I jump back. He swears a lot and struggles against his ropes.

  “Hey,” Packard speaks to him reassuringly, tells him we have some questions, that he needs to work with us.

  The Brick Slinger looks out from under bushy, brown eyebrows that match his beard. He has the look of a hunted man. “What day is it?”

  “Friday, March 19,” I say.

  “No!”

  “Why is that significant?” Packard asks. “Why is the date significant?”

  The man tips his head back against the wall and looks around. A creaking sound. I look up—the corner of an old, rusted ceiling panel moves back and forth, back and forth. Packard watches it too.

  “You better let me out of here or I’ll bust up this whole car and impale you with the parts.”

  Packard smiles. “No you won’t, or you would’ve. You go ahead and bend that corner all you want.” There’s something regal about the way he settles down onto a crate, legs crossed, leaning back against the corrugated metal side—a sultan on beach holiday, amused for the moment. Thoroughly confident.

  Packard once told us that he looks at people the way a demolition expert looks at a building—he can see the cracks, the lines of strength and weakness. Is he doing that now?

  The man keeps bending the corner. Creak. Creak. It seems like it’s loosening. I hold my breath, tense all over. But then it stops.

  Packard says, “So, you want my severed head; let’s start there.”

  The Brick Slinger frowns. “I’m not telling you anything.”

  Packard shrugs. “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “You can’t hold me,” he says. “Just a matter of time before I get something loose.”

  “No you won’t.” Packard crosses his arms. “I’ve got my own force fields guy coming over later. My guy’s been holding up the Tangle for ten years.”

  The Brick Slinger harrumphs back, like it’s all quite ridiculous, but he seems worried.

  Packard presses him on the severed-head bit, and then he takes a different angle, painting a picture of himself as the outsider rebel. The rising threat. The man you’d be crazy not to ally with. The way he talks, I feel crazy not to be allied with him, but then I remember that I am.

  The Brick Slinger looks away, face stubborn. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters!” Packard talks about the severed-head job some more. “Who does that? Somebody desperate, and not all there,” he says. “It will end badly for you even if you deliver, I guarantee. I’ll tell you also, that you have about five minutes until we leave and get somebody else to give me the details.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  Packard tilts his head. “You think I’m here to bargain?”

  The Brick Slinger touches the back of his neck. “Get this thing out of my neck. Tonight. I’ll tell you everything. Everything. But it has to be out tonight.”

  I stare at him. “What do you have in your neck?”

  “I want a bargain first.”

  There’s new energy in Packard’s gaze. The Brick Slinger has some sort of ticking clock, counting down on him. They go back and forth some more.

  I’m getting worried about our own ticking clock—we only have a few hours until I have to show up at the condo. And is Max still waiting outside Shelby’s apartment? I’ve supposedly been in there for like five hours. I’m also stressing about Dad’s being safe, and what happens after dinner. Otto will expect me to stay with him. No way will I do that.

  Things are shifting. The Brick Slinger will tell Packard everything if only Packard will consider helping him. He wants to help Packard—to be allowed to help Packard, in exchange for some amorphous goodwill.

  And just like that, the Brick Slinger is talking about life in the toll booth. Apparently, a man came with water and energy bars every week. “Got a toilet right in the floor. Like living in a goddamned latrine.” His beard jerks when he makes eeee sounds, like in the word latrine. He goes on about the boredom of the toll-booth prison. And then it all changed.

  “A week ago, they come to let me out. I thought I was in heaven, but the next thing I know, I wake up on an operating table in some form of hospital. I’m lying face down and I can’t move a muscle. It’s some form of circular room with lights all around. Greenish lights, and there are other tables with other people—I can’t see any of them, but doctors are operating while they’re awake—I can tell by their screams. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t use my powers. I don’t know what they gave me. All these doctors with face masks. And the lights are green. The mayor is there. Watching.”

  “Mayor Sanchez?” I ask. “Was there?”

  “He was there. Across the room, watching. He’s in on it.”

  I straighten. Otto? Watching people screaming and getting operated on? It’s so out of character…the last thing he’d ever do.

  “So after that, two surgeons in masks come over to where I am,” the man continues. “One holds down the back of my head, and the other cuts into the back of my neck—got a knife of some sort. Scalpel, I suppose, and it’s this sharp pain, and I’m screaming and trying to move, but I can’t. And then they’ve got some laser thing going, like pins and needles. It sounds like a dentist’s drill, but it’s a laser. I’m begging for them to stop. And then I can feel something cold going in, on the back of my neck. Sharp edges. They seal it all up and it’s warm again.”

  He goes silent for a while, staring vacantly at the light coming through the vent. Packard’s attention is focused on the Brick Slinger, but I exchange glances with Jordan. It’s all so bizarre.

  “I feel this hot laser after that. The thing is sti
ll in my neck—I can feel it.” He goes on about the pain, the horror, and how the green lights played tricks on his eyes, and made everything that wasn’t black seem neon green.

  I lean back against the cold boxcar wall. It’s all so science-fictiony. And really, Otto watching an operation? But why make it up?

  “The next thing I know, I’m waking up in this seat in some kind of theater. Maybe thirty other guys and a few women are in the other seats. None of us can get out of the theater seating. Fielded in. There’s loose stuff all around the room—books, stools. I’m trying to get some projectiles going, cause I’m in the mood to wreck something, but it’s a no-go. The fields. We get to talking, turns out we’re all highcaps and we’ve all had this operation.”

  “Had you all been arrested at some point?”

  “Oh yeah. It was a who’s who in terms of Midcity criminals. Lots of us thought each other was dead.” He rambles on about the criminals, and how deferential they were to him; he’s clearly proud of being near the top of the Midcity criminal totem pole. I suppose he was pretty famous in his day.

  “So the bunch of us, we’re stewing there, and finally some guy in a white coat walks in through a side door, up to this podium. Man just stands at the podium and tells us we all got a chip at the base of our brain. And on Saturday, March 20, at exactly three in the afternoon, every one of our chips will explode. One week.”

  “The twentieth is tomorrow,” I say. I should know; it’s my wedding day.

  “That was a week ago,” he continues. “The deal was, if any one of us deposits your severed head on the steps of the government building, all the chips get deactivated.”

  Packard crosses his arms. “My head for all yours.”

  “That would be…” The Brick Slinger nods, “…yup. Yup. They showed us slides of you. PowerPoint about you and your powers.” He points to Jordan. “Of you too. You’re a known accomplice. A few other guys. They tell us it’s okay to take out anybody defending you or keeping us from you, but no regular citizens. Any of us go and start up with attacking normal citizens, our chip will explode. One week to deliver your head.” He nods at Packard. “Your head or ours. One day left now. After the speech, the doc, he walks back to the door and opens it and he says, You are free to go. Well, he didn’t have to tell us twice. When we felt the field lift, we were crawling over each other to get out of there. Except Mangler. You know who that is?”

  “Wish I didn’t,” Jordan says.

  “Next thing I know, the podium is floating in the air above the doc. Mangler’s doing it. He says to the doc, How about you get that thing outta my head or I kill you? The doc turns around, calm as day, and looks at the Mangler. Then, right there, Mangler’s head explodes. Some of it goes on me. On my face. Warm. His goddamned brain on my face.” The Brick Slinger’s lips curl, and his expression stays like that for a few beats, as if the memory takes time to re-process. “It was like nothing I ever saw. So fast. Like a cartoon, but fast. His head exploded in front of us. And the sound…” he makes a popping sound with his lips. “Well, I would tell you that was a very motivational demonstration. We get the fuck outta there, the rest of us. You’re a lucky man, Packard, lasting as long as you have.”

  This hush falls over the boxcar. It’s all so horrible. And now there are maybe forty violent, powerful highcap criminals after his head? To be delivered to Otto by three on my wedding day? Like a twisted wedding present?

  “Any of them working together?” Packard asks.

  The Brick Slinger shrugs. “Nah. But yesterday we started getting suggestions where to look. Guess you’re better at hiding than they thought.”

  “The Tanglelands?” I say, recalling Otto’s phone conversation. “Was that a suggestion?”

  “Yeah,” he says.

  Something’s not right. “Was Mayor Sanchez standing close enough to be watching these operations?”

  “Oh yeah,” the Brick Slinger says. “Yup.”

  Packard looks at me. He sees where I’m going with this.

  I say, “I can’t imagine him watching a surgical procedure of any kind. Especially one around the head.”

  “Are you calling me a liar?” The Brick Slinger demands.

  “And a circular medical facility. Implants that explode. As a nurse, or almost-nurse, I just have to say, that technology isn’t here. Especially not in Midcity.”

  “Head implants that explode unless a certain high-stakes mission is completed…” Jordan’s laughing. “Yeah, I saw that movie years ago. When it was called Escape from New York.”

  I straighten. She’s right. It’s almost the same plot.

  “I’m not making it up!” the Brick Slinger says.

  “Yeah, you’re not making it up.” Jordan plants her hands on her hips. “Kurt Russell starred in it. Guess who’s the biggest Kurt Russell fan in town?”

  My heart flips over. Sophia. Sophia loves Kurt Russell. He’s her screen saver.

  “Kurt Russell? Who is that?” Shelby asks.

  “He’s an actor,” Jordan says. “In a movie that has a suspiciously similar plot.”

  “What are you talking about?” The Brick Slinger asks.

  Jordan turns to the Brick Slinger. “You said they let you out. Was one of them a pretty redhead?” Jordan points to Packard. “Hair much redder than his, but with Cruella de Vil eyebrows?”

  “Yes, yes!” he says.

  “And was she there at other times? Was she there when you got free?”

  He seems surprised. “She was in the car that dropped me at the Parklands.”

  Jordan looks around at us, prim eyebrow raised. “Who has a circular operating theater lit in green? Nobody…except a UFO. It’s Escape from New York mashed up with half the UFO movies ever made. The entire operation was a memory revision.”

  “But what if it’s not?” The Brick Slinger asks. “I remember it—I was there.”

  “You think you were,” I say. “She was there to get you out of the booth, and there to drop you off, and in between you had an implant at an alien facility as the mayor watched?” I shake my head. “You were revised during that car ride, that’s all.”

  “What do you know?” he snaps.

  “Plenty,” I say. “And I know you wanted the chip out of your neck by tonight, and guess what? It’s out.”

  He yanks at his bindings when he realizes we’re going to leave. Shelby sticks him with another knockout pin and we take off.

  Packard calls his force-fields guy from the car. Some highcap I’ve never met named Robert. Packard congratulates Robert for getting out of the hospital and arranges for him to create a field around the Brick Slinger’s boxcar.

  I pull out my phone. It’s two. I have to be back at our condo by five o’clock.

  Jordan laughs some more at the false memory Sophia chose to plant. “You’d think she’d try a little harder to make it seem different from a TV show or a movie.”

  “I don’t see anything funny about Midcity’s most dangerous killers thinking they’ll die if they don’t deliver Packard’s severed head.”

  “It is strange that she’d make it so bizarre,” Packard says. “And why put Otto in the new memory? I don’t think that was her getting sloppy. I think it was a small rebellion. A clue.”

  “They believe it; that’s the part we should worry about.”

  “I’ll be okay,” Packard says.

  “Yeah, if you go back to the one place they won’t look.”

  “You must go to Delites,” Shelby says. “Our only choice is to leave city or you must go back to Delites.”

  “I’ll do neither,” Packard says. “We need to find Sophia. There are other prisons out there, and she’s probably in one of them. Let’s see what she wanted to tell us.”

  Jordan says, “I’m going to guess her information pertained to crazed highcap criminals out for your severed head.”

  “It’s a no-brainer that Otto would send people after me. There has to be more that she can tell us. Something useful. We need the
rest of the Vindalese document translated—I bet her location’s in there.” He fingers the hem of my jacket. “And guess who knows a guy who has a contact who knows Vindalese? Simon.”

  Shelby says, “Simon?”

  “We had some of Otto’s books looked at once,” Packard says. “Do we know where Simon is right now?”

  “Tailor,” Shelby says. “For outfit. For wedding.”

  “Call him,” he says. And then he catches my eye.

  The wedding.

  Chapter Twelve

  A bell rings as we enter Trinh Tailor, a tiny storefront in the university corridor, just west of the Tangle. The four of us wait at the counter, watching the little door that must lead to the back room. Here in this small space, I’m uncomfortably aware of how badly we must stink of Tanglelands tea. We raised a few eyebrows at the drugstore where we stopped to print out my photos, too.

  While we were there, I picked up some sterile bandages and antibiotic ointment that I’m eager to use on Packard’s wound. I’ve noticed he’s not using that arm much, and I worry it hurts, which could signal infection.

  A dark-haired boy of maybe ten comes out and frowns—at the smell, no doubt—then motions us to follow him down a hall and into a large back room, which is mostly empty except where Simon and Ez stand on side-by-side elevated platforms. I half expect them to react to Packard strolling in, but they don’t. Meeting with him all along, I suppose.

  Ez wears the lovely black bridesmaid’s dress we picked out last month, only now she wears a black silk cape that’s trimmed with white fur. The cape is pinned to her dress and she’s glowering in a general way—at the room, us, the situation.

  Simon wears a cape identical to Ez’s, but that’s where the similarity ends. His chest underneath the cape is bare, except for two crisscrosses of leather and one chain, allowing for yet another display of his many dragon tattoos. His black pants are shiny as can be, and his boots reach up nearly to his knees. The bruises on his face from the impound-lot fight complete the insane effect.

  “What are you supposed to be?” I ask. “King of the freak farm?”