by Barry Lyga
“True dat,” Cisco agreed.
Wally groaned. “I thought we talked about true dat.”
“Is that on the list of things I’m not supposed to say?”
“You sound like an idiot when you say it.”
“True dat?” Cisco tried. “True dat?”
“Just give it up.” Wally waved him off.
Caitlin ignored them and returned to her computer. Scanning the documents, she mentally kicked herself.
“These are all statistics and data on organ matching. He was using his laptop to hack into the CCGH patient database and track people who were potential donors for him.”
“Is donor the right word for something involuntary?” Iris asked.
“Probably not,” Caitlin conceded. “He’s got a kidney list, for example, where he’s matching tissue types for common HLA antigens, looking for negative lymphocytotoxic crossmatch . . .” She shook her head. “They’re all like this. For every organ. Searching for CMV and EBV negativity for intestinal matches . . . He’s got his own information in, and he runs pattern matching on the right medical parameters against CCGH’s database.”
Cisco shivered. “He’s programmed evil. Turned it into an algorithm. How efficient.”
“The personal journal entries deteriorate as time goes by,” Wally put in. “I mean, I’m looking at one from, like, six months after the particle accelerator explosion. Check it.”
He sent the entry to the big screen. It read:
true self now open and real and true and real
sunlight is overrated shades pulled stay here in dark
belong in the Downworld
Upworld is for prey I am no prey
I am predator
so go
go down
go down for hunt
dark dark hunt
“Earthworms aren’t predators,” Cisco mused. “Why would someone who thinks of himself as a predator call himself Earthworm?”
“Maybe he doesn’t.” It was Iris, chiming in from her seat. “One of his victims scratched that word into the sewer wall that Wally found. They called him Earthworm.”
“Maybe because he regenerates?” Cisco wondered. “If you cut an earthworm in half, two of them will grow from the halves. Maybe that’s why.”
“That’s not even true,” Wally scoffed. “It’s an old wives’ tale.”
“Is not!”
“Is so.”
Cisco’s fingers danced on his keyboard. “We’ll check that authoritative voice, my close personal friend, the Internet, and . . . Oh. Oh.” He cleared his throat. “Never mind. We don’t have time for this nonsense.”
Wally cracked a grin. “Told you.”
“Guys, it doesn’t matter why he’s Earthworm,” Caitlin reminded them. “What matters is where he is and how we stop him.”
That summoned a pall of silence over the Cortex. They’d been hunting Earthworm for close to a week, and other than knowing that he was in the sewers somewhere, they had nothing. Wally had found him at one location, true, but surely Earthworm wouldn’t return to that spot, now that it had been compromised.
Whether intentionally or by accident, their foe had chosen the best possible place to hide. The metal pipes and heavy concrete of the sewers made electronic surveillance and reconnaissance difficult, if not impossible. And Superspeed was useless down there. Too many turns and twists, jagged little corridors, webs of hefty piping, narrow sluice gates, and more. An ideal spot for Earthworm.
“What we need,” Iris said at last, “is a way to think like him.”
No one spoke for a moment. Cisco tugged at his unfamiliar ponytail absentmindedly. “You intrigue me, Ms. West. Go on.”
Iris pursed her lips, thinking. “I mean . . . He’s got to have a base of operations down there, right? He only comes up to use his computer when he needs to because he doesn’t want to be aboveground. Like the journal entry Wally found says. He belongs to the ‘Downworld.’”
“But he has to have somewhere that he calls home,” Caitlin agreed. “Or lair. Or whatever. A permanent base of operations. Somewhere to sleep, if nothing else. To eat. He has to do those things; he’s still human. Marginally,” she hastened to add before anyone could disagree.
“We used the data about his latest victims to figure out where he’s been recently,” Wally said. “And it worked. I found him there. Is there a way to use the same data to figure out where he is usually?”
Wally, Iris, and Caitlin turned to look at Cisco. H.R. chose that moment to reenter the Cortex. “Are we staring at Cisco?” he asked. “OK.” He leaned against the wall and fixed his most penetrating gaze on Cisco . . .
. . . who held his hands up in mock surrender. “Guys! I’m flattered that you think so highly of me, but we need a lot more data than that. There are miles and miles of sewer down there.”
“We have more data,” Caitlin said emphatically, gesturing to her screen. “We know now that he’s using CCGH’s database to match patients to his own transplant needs. So that means we can search records back to the accelerator explosion and find any organ-removal cases where the victim is within Herbie’s tolerance for transplant.”
Cisco nodded. “Yeah, that’s better than just a list of all victims. But it’s still not enough.”
Wally whooped with joy and slapped his hand on the desk. “What about if we know the exact day he went into the sewers?” he asked, eyes shining. “I’ve got a journal entry here: ‘Downworld now Downworld always forever Upworld no more darkness takes me and I take it.’ It’s time-stamped and everything.”
Cisco clucked his tongue and rocked back and forth, back and forth. “So,” he said slowly, “we theoretically know exactly who his victims are, where and when he grabbed them, where and when he dumped the bodies. Which gives us some locations to work with. And if we know when he started living in the sewers . . .” He trailed off, his eyes going blank and staring as they often did when he was building something in his mind.
The stare went on for a long time. Wally started tapping his foot slightly, then faster; then it became a blur. Iris elbowed him and told him to knock it off.
“Cisco?” Caitlin said. “Earth to Cisco . . .”
“It’s not as easy as it sounds,” Cisco said.
“I didn’t think it sounded easy at all,” H.R. said to a chorus of agreements.
Cisco spun around in his chair and began playing the keyboard like a virtuoso. “Have to take into account storm surges,” he said. “’Cause that could change where he decided to hang his hat when he moved to Casa del Stinky. So, gotta grab weather data. Also need maintenance work schedules from the city’s department of public works database. So, yeah, hack that. And don’t forget to consider—”
“Cisco!” Iris barked. “Are you saying you can do it?”
Cisco smirked with the old Ramon confidence. “When have I ever not been able to do it?”
Iris looked at her watch. It was almost midnight. Twelve hours to the CCPD disciplinary hearing, and still no Barry.
Stop worrying about his job, Iris. Start worrying about his life.
28
Hocus Pocus opened his eyes to the very last thing he wanted to see: The Most Exalted Abra Kadabra stood before him.
“You imbecile!” Kadabra yelled. “Did you really think you could change the balance of our clan by going into the ancient past? Beating up helpless monkey people from history?”
Pocus gritted his teeth. “At least they applauded me. When was the last time you heard hands clapping?”
Without warning, Kadabra reached out and slapped Pocus—hard—across the face with his open hand. Smack!
“Close enough,” Kadabra said, seething.
Pocus put a hand to his reddened, throbbing cheek and ground his teeth. “That is the last time I’ll let you touch me without consequence.” He balled his hands into fists.
“I just rescued you from the Quantum Cops’ sleep-forever version of prison. Gratitude is in order, I believe.”
Kadabra took a step back from Pocus. “But don’t mistake my brotherly concern for one of our own for actual affection, Hocus Pocus. No one is indispensable. I’ll happily return you to the tender mercies of the Quantum Police, if you prefer.”
Gnashing his teeth and leaning in toward Kadabra, Pocus shouted, “You’ll do nothing! I am Abra Kadabra now! I traveled in time! I defeated the Flash and saw him grovel before me!”
Kadabra raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Then tell me, ‘Most Exalted Hocus Pocus,’ why is the Flash here?”
Pocus took a step back, hands now slack at his sides. “What did you say?”
“The Flash,” Kadabra said with sinister glee. “Here. In the sixty-fourth century. With a Quantum Cop, in your prison spire. If you crushed him so egregiously, what is he doing here?”
“I defeated him,” Pocus said, weakly. “I suffered a setback, yes, but—”
“You defeated yourself and no one else!” Kadabra said, his lips twisted into a disgusted sneer. “You don’t deserve this!” He waved Pocus’s wand in his face.
And Pocus grabbed it.
He enjoyed Abra Kadabra’s startled expression as he plucked the wand right out of his hand. With no time to spare, he waved the wand and teleported behind Kadabra.
“As they say in the Flash’s era,” Pocus said when Kadabra spun around, “would you like to take this outside?”
29
They slept at S.T.A.R. labs, sacking out on beds in the medical bay or cots in the workshops. Everyone wanted to be available as soon as Cisco’s program finished running.
To their surprise, they got a full eight hours of sleep, crashing at two in the morning when Cisco finished writing the program and sent it off into the digital ether to do its work. Joe woke them all when he arrived at ten, done with his late shift, bearing a sack of bagels and a big take-out box of coffee from C.C. Jitters.
“Bless you, Joseph West!” H.R. grabbed the coffee, held it over his upturned, open mouth, and went to twist open the tap.
Joe snatched it away from him. “That’s for everyone, H.R.”
“H.R. needing his precioussss,” H.R. rasped in his best Gollum imitation, which earned him a rare approving thumbs-up from Cisco.
As H.R. and Joe battled over the disposition of the coffee, Iris glared around the room. “I thought you set an alarm that would wake us up when the program finished running,” she grumped.
“Someone got up on the wrong side of the orthopedic hospital bed,” Cisco said. “And the alarm didn’t go off because the program’s still running.” He made a voila! motion at the big screen, which showed the words SYSTEM PROCESSING in flashing red letters.
“It’s been hours!” Iris complained.
“There’s a lot of data to crunch,” Cisco said defensively. “A lot of fuzzy logic. I had to code a dedicated neural net and adapt a system of machine learning—”
“Stop it!” Iris slammed her palm down on a desk. Everyone jumped. Off in a corner, H.R. and Joe went still.
“Iris . . .” Caitlin approached her. “We’re all jittery and on edge, but . . .”
Iris pulled away from Caitlin, shoulders hunched in defeat. In her hand, she held Barry’s cell phone, which she stared at as though it had the answers to all Life’s questions.
“Nothing is happening,” she said. “Nothing at all.”
“The program will finish,” Cisco said gently. “And when it does, we’ll be able to move on Earthworm.”
“Quickly,” Wally put in. “Super quickly.”
Iris shook her head. “No. Not enough. I can’t take this anymore. The waiting. I have to do something,” she whispered. “We can’t catch Earthworm. We can’t save Barry. I have to do something.” A moment passed, and then she stood upright, straightened her clothes, and headed for the corridor that led to the exit elevator.
“Where are you going?” Joe shouted after her.
“I’m going to Barry’s hearing,” she called back. “Maybe he can’t be there to plead on his behalf, but someone should.”
Joe stood at the doorway, pulled in both directions. His responsibility as a cop told him to wait for Cisco’s program to finish. His onus as a father ordered him to follow Iris.
Finally, he set the coffee down on the floor, shrugged, and looked back into the Cortex helplessly. “Guys . . .”
The Cortex went silent. Cisco and Wally exchanged a look. Caitlin turned to H.R., who had actually turned away from the promise of coffee to gaze on his friends with a resolute expression.
“I’ll fire up my face-changing gizmo,” H.R. said firmly, “’cause I’m going with you.” No one said another word. No one needed to. With one thought shared among them, they all followed Joe out into the corridor, trailing Iris as she made for the elevator.
30
As Citizen Hefa came to, Barry helped her sit up, propping her against the half wall.
“They’ve escaped, haven’t they?” she asked, her expression doleful.
“Well, yeah. Sorry about that.” He had peeled back his cowl and now ran a hand through his hair. “I was going to get you a glass of water, but I have no idea how.”
She extended her left hand, and a glass of water appeared there. She drank it eagerly. “Help me up.”
He gave her a hand and helped to her feet. She was a little wobbly but otherwise fine. “This is very bad, but with any luck, perhaps they’ve just returned to their spire.”
“Let’s go there, then,” Barry said. “I’ll get both of them.”
“There’s no point. The entrance is encrypted. We can’t get in.”
“I can. I can vibrate through.”
“No.” She shook her head, then thought better of it, still woozy from being knocked out. “You don’t understand. You may have noticed that the spires are bigger on the inside than on the outside.”
“You mean they look bigger.” Yes, as he’d entered the prison, he’d thought it seemed larger on the inside, all right, but that was impossible.
“No, I mean they are bigger.” She gestured around them. “Spires are identical on the outside, but the insides are custom crafted for or by individuals and are actually located in a subdimension. Each spire forms its own under-space, adjacent to our own. It’s a portal, not a building. So if you try to vibrate through the wall, you’ll just end up scattered through the many subdimensions of under-space.”
Barry turned around to point, meaning to show her how Kadabra had managed to come through the wall, but he realized even as he did so that Kadabra had dramatically blown through the door.
“With Hobicubispobicubis free,” Citizen Hefa went on, “the clan of techno-magicians is complete again. Who knows what sort of havoc they’ll wreak.”
“It might not be that bad,” Barry said. “In my time, it seemed like Hocus Pocus wanted to supplant Abra Kadabra. He even started calling himself Abra Kadabra, toward the end.”
Citizen Hefa reacted to this with a blank stare. “He . . . he did what?”
“I’m just saying,” Barry went on, “that maybe they’ll just be bickering among themselves and—”
“This is terrible!” Citizen Hefa said. “It will be a war of the techno-magicians!”
Outside, the sky was on fire.
It had gone red and yellow and orange, as though the sun had somehow decided to re-rise. Maybe that was possible in the far-flung future, but Barry doubted it.
No, he was pretty sure the sky was on fire because of the two figures floating a hundred feet straight up—one in white, the other in black—lobbing lightning bolts and fireballs at each other.
Hocus Pocus and Abra Kadabra.
Barry groaned. One of them had been enough of a headache. Now he had two of them to deal with!
“I don’t get it,” Barry said. “They’re fighting like this over who gets to be called Abra Kadabra? What’s all the fuss?”
“You would not understand,” Citizen Hefa said. “In this time period, names are of utmost importance. Names connect to status, privileg
e, possessions . . . Hobicubispobicubis has always envied Abhararakadhararbarakh’s status in society, as well as among other techno-wizards. If he can assume Abhararakadhararbarakh’s name, then he will take on Abhararakadhararbarakh’s power and prestige, as well. He will become the sum of both of them, more powerful and more dangerous than either of them could be separately. He will assume control of the Magicians’—”
She broke off as lightning cracked overhead. “We have to clear this area!” Citizen Hefa said.
Barry looked around. Other than the two combatants, he and Citizen Hefa were the only people there. “I don’t follow you.”
Citizen Hefa pointed to one spire after another. “There are people inside each of those spires. If the techno-magicians do enough damage to a structure, it’ll lose its connection to its unique subdimension, and there’s a good chance the people inside will never be able to get back.”
Barry hopped up and down on his toes. Above, Hocus Pocus had just launched an enormous wave of water at Abra Kadabra. As a result, it started to rain about twenty yards away. Barry figured this was probably the only rain this part of the world had seen in decades, maybe centuries.
“What do we do, then? I can go door-to-door—”
“There are only doors when someone who raised a spire or is authorized wants one,” Citizen Hefa told him. “I need to do something unprecedented.” She took a deep breath and balled up her fists. Barry braced himself and dug in his heels, ready to take off and offer whatever assistance he could.
“Hello, Citizens,” said Citizen Hefa very, very calmly, “this is the Quantum Police with an emergency alert. This is neither a drill nor a test. Everyone within the range of this broadcast, please exit your spires and move to safe territory at coordinates thirteen-alpha-twenty. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Barry stared at her.
Her lips downturned in a melancholy frown, she looked down at her feet. “I can’t believe I had to do that,” she mumbled.
“What are you talking about?” Barry demanded. He flung a hand out at the range of spires around them. “We have to do something! People need to—”