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Our Paranormal Chernobyl Raj Pirhu's company car was a smooth-rolling tank: a modified Lincoln Towncar with discreet armor plating, anti-decompression tires, a huge Falconer V-12 engine, and a twenty-CD carousel filled entirely with Barbara Striesand albums. Acting Silver Avenger Pender moved her missing predecessor's vehicle through the thick traffic with smooth confidence. As a cadet she'd set extremely high scores at the PRIMUS combat driving obstacle course, and a few times in the following years she'd put her cars—and her partners—through harrowing pursuits. It was one of the benefits of the job. Ed sat in the passenger seat, gazing out at this fucked up city he'd found himself in. He saw several more decorated cow statues, and a Holiday Inn that advertised a revolving restaurant. He looked up at the tower and sure as shit the top floor was slowly turning like a wheel on an axle. The radio crackled and Duong Thu Dong's lightly accented voice came on. "Agent Pender, I've got Andy Neel on the line." His tone was urgent. "He's requesting backup, and I've got his location, but I'm not sure who you want to send. He wants to talk to you." "Damn," she muttered. She was starting to feel like every time she got close to wrapping up one problem, some tentatively-tied loose end elsewhere unravelled and took her with it. "Put him on." A click and the sound quality altered slightly. "This is Neel. We have an agent down, meta on premisis, and requesting backup." Neel was talking low and fast. "Heitzman and I found Bobby and —Kvafian and Beck. They're dead. Bodies mutilated—chopped up. We spotted the meta and enaged. Phyllis is down, maybe dead. I'm in a defensive position on second floor, south west corner. Copy?" Ed felt a cold hand grip his heart and give it a good squeeze. Christ, not again. Visions of the psychopath with the buzzsaw hands from Dallas jumped into Ed's mind. "…Bodies mutilated—- chopped up…." The words replayed themselves with almost malicious glee. "Fuck," Ed said softly. He looked at Pender, wondering what she was going to do. Laura paused. "Copy. What is your location, Neel?" Dong broke in. "Corner of Clark and West Lake. It's an abandoned junior high school, red brick two-story, scheduled for demolition." Pender was at the intersection of State and Huron, ten blocks north and a couple blocks east of the school. "Copy that," she replied tersely, then turned to Ed before swerving south onto State. "Hang on." "Ok." Ed replied. "Just get somebody here, fast," Neel said. "I’m cutoff from the stairs. The thing is—" There was the sound of breaking glass, and Neel’s connection went dead. "Dammit," she muttered. Neel was gone. She flicked a button on the Lincoln’s complex dash. Above her head, the emergency light pivoted open and started wailing. "So," Ed said. "Do I sit this one out and let you professionals handle it, or could you use the help of a smart-ass punk?" "Not in combat. Not unless there’s nothing else." Her answers were short and rapid-fire; clearly she was paying more attention to avoiding the northbound traffic than to her passenger. "Already lost enough people today." Ed nodded and went back to looking out the window. He could feel Pender wrestling with her fear, and more than that, her anger. She was pissed. In her efforts to continue south unimpeded, Laura had been forced out of the northbound lanes by a wall of oncoming traffic, and since half the city seemed intent on stalling their cars in the rightmost lanes of State, she’d driven up onto the eastern sidewalk, blasting the horn all the while. Laura couldn’t tell if the pedestrians recognized her vehicle before they scattered before it; it didn’t make a difference, she reflected, as long as they scattered. "Look out," she cautioned Ed, matter-of-factly, before making a severe right-hand turn onto Lake, skidding from the northeast corner of the sidewalk, through the intersection, and into the proper lane once again. Laura sped on, westward, accompanied by shouts and car horns, which reminded her distinctly of a John Cage piece she’d once heard. It still didn’t do anything for her. She screeched to a halt at a red-brick, two-story abandoned building that could only have been the junior high school in question, and immediately exited, readying her sidearm as she did so. It seemed small comfort against a beast which had ripped through at least three capable PRIMUS agents, but it was all she had. "Stay here," she told Ed through the window, then ran to school’s entrance. Ed watched her go, wondering how long she was gonna live. Stupid woman. You don’t go running, alone, into a fucking deathtrap that’s already claimed three people. He shook his head, then picked up the radio thing in the car. "Hey, Pender just pulled a Rambo and went running in all by herself. Stupid, I know, but um... she probably needs whatever backup you guys can send." He looked at the radio, then clicked the receiver. "Ten-four, over and out." "I’m already routing backup," Dong said. "Thank you, Mister—Ed." Ed dropped the mic, undid his seat belt, clicked on his shields, then headed slowly towards the building, wondering when the screams were gonna start. Pender reached the big front doors. They were ajar, the thick chain that had held them closed laying on the steps. Judging by the gleam at the ends of the severed links, the cut had been recent. She slipped through the doors and found herself inside a wide, dim lobby. The inside had been gutted, leaving cracked tile floors and exposed ceilings. She saw why the place had been abandoned: it looked like asbestos coating on the pipes. She’d gone in facing north. The west wall of the lobby had two openings, probably for the old bathrooms. To the east, metal posts ran floor to ceiling, marking where a glassed-in front office must have stood. Framing the north and south of the lobby were two corridors. And opposite the front doors, on the far side of the room, she could just make out a set of double doors. "Why? Why do you do this crap?" Ed had asked, and sometimes she had to wonder about that herself. Laura pushed the question out of her mind and stalked along the west wall of the foyer, gripping and re-gripping her pistol as she went. When she reached the first corner, she produced a compact from her jacket pocket, flipped it open, and used its mirror to peer down the hallway. The hallway to the west was dark, except for areas of faint light that marked the entrances to the southern classrooms. The outside windows were boarded up, but some light seeped through the gaps. At the end of the hallway, a wider doorway was barely visible. Pender reversed the mirror and looked east. The hallway in that direction seemed even darker. She heard nothing. She snapped the compact shut and put it away, bringing her sidearm to bear. Knowing that Neel’s last transmission had been from the southwest corner of the building, she proceeded down the western corridor. Although she knew this necessitated stealth, the slow progress she made because of it was maddening. Neel could still be alive—perhaps Ed would be able to find him, telepathically, from the car. As she drew closer to the far entrance, she realized it was the opening of a stairwell. She moved toward it slowly, alert for any movement, or sound of movement. Half along the darkened corridor her attention was rewarded: from above, she heard a slight thump. She paused. A moment later, from behind her in the dark, she heard a slight scraping sound. Quickly but cautiously, she whirled around to face this potential threat, pistol held firmly in both hands at arm’s length. There was nothing there. This was starting to smack of bad horror movie, and Laura, like so many others, always knew exactly what people should do in horror movies, which was invariably the opposite of what they actually did. Determined not to follow suit, she put her back to the southern wall and cautiously retreated back towards the front door. Time to use Ed. She was a few feet away from the corner when a figure stepped out in front of her. Ed entered the cavernous lobby of the old school. In the dim light he could make out the naked pipes and cracked tiles, the skeletal posts marking where rooms had been. This was bad. Big-ass room, no cover except some pillars... Bad. And no sign of Pender anywhere, or of a body. Which was probably good, because Ed wasn’t near as blood-thirsty as he let on. Blood meant violence, and violence meant high emotional states, and high emotional states meant Eddie Is A Basket Case, and there’d been quite enough of that today, thank you very much. In the movies, this is where he would walk down the center of the room, calling out Pender’s name, while the bad guy crept up on him with a machete or something. No way. He kept to the side of the wall as he moved forward, slowly, senses extended, hoping he’d feel them before they shot him. He wondered why he was doing this for the eight-hundredth time. In the dark, he could sense... fear. Intense fear. It was coming from above him, to his left, and it permeated the air like a scream. "Oh great," Ed whispered, a chill running along his spine like cold syrup. "Just great." He froze, looking up towards the ceiling, wondering just what in hell had to be going on to cause such terror. And no noise. Yuck. He forced himself forward, looking for stairs or something. As soon as he entered the corridor he sensed another presence, just a few feet away to his left. He whirled and saw the glint of a gun. Training overtook reflexes. Laura did not fire, and she began to lower her weapon. In the same moment, Ed’s mind reached out instinctively, telekinetic energies focusing on the gun, trying to shift its aim anywhere but towards him. Laura felt the muzzle of the gun yank down to point at the floor. She gave Ed a quiet look that simply screamed "Don’t do that." Still not saying a word, trusting to Ed’s ability to read both her body language and her mind, she inclined her head sharply towards the door and exited. Ed let out his breath slowly, and immediately released the gun. Jesus. He glanced up towards the area where the fear was, then turned and followed Pender out. "There’s something up there, but I need to know where," Pender finally said in low tones. She didn’t chastise Ed for disobeying her; in fact, she’d expected it. "And I need to know if Neel’s still alive. Can you find him and the mutant, telepathically?" "I know where it is, but not what." Ed replied softly. "Fear, a whole bunch of it." He nodded towards the building. "As for Neel, it don’t work like that. Once I see him, I can get in, but not till then." He shrugged. "Sorry, I can try, but I don’t think it’s gonna happen." So Ed was sensing fear. At least that was good news: it was more likely that Neel would fear his assailant than the other way around, which gave good odds on Neel’s continued survival, although Laura didn’t feel like making any guesses on what that survival must be like. "Neel’s smart," she said. "If he’s afraid, it’s for a good reason, which means he probably doesn’t have much time." Well duh, Ed thought to himself. Pender wiped a hand on her skirt; her palms had started to sweat. "They’ll have backup on the way, but I’ve got to go back in now—and I need you to guide me." He nodded. "I figured as much. No sweat." He headed towards the source of the fear, shields cascading coppery light around his slouching form. "...long as you don’t fucking shoot me in the back..." he muttered with a grin. "Lead on, MacDuff." She thought it politic to ignore his last remark. "It looks like there’s a stairway to the left, at the end of the hallway." Ed, you’re an idiot. You don’t owe these people jack-shit, and yet here you go again, risking your skinny ass again, for people you don’t know again! He heaved a great sigh as he headed towards the stairs, casting his talent out, seeking any sources of thought or feeling ahead of them. One of these days he’d need his head examined. They were in the corridor, almost where he’d run into Pender a minute ago. The fear hit him as soon as he reached for it. Hit him like a blade slicing his gut. It wasn’t ahead of him—it was directly above him. Maybe a dozen feet up, maybe a dozen feet over. On the next floor. Ed suddenly knew that he and Pender had to get out of there. They had to get out or they’d be dead. Pender saw Ed freeze and look up, and she looked up too. From the floor above she heard a scrape, like a chair leg being dragged across the wooden boards, then a heavy thump as something hit the floor. "Let’s go, Ed," she hissed, agitated that he’d stopped. For all she knew, every second wasted could mean another pint of blood spilling out of Neel. "I don’t like the sound of that." "It. Is. Time. To. Go," Ed whispered, his voice shaking, his eyes wide and pupils dilated. "Something isn’t right, Pender. It ain’t right! I haven’t felt something like this... like... ever!" Ed turned and began to leave. "I ain’t goin’ up there, and if you was smart, you wouldn’t either." "I appreciate your candor, Ed," she replied in a voice which clearly contradicted her words, "but I’ve still got a man in there, and I’m not about to—" "Your man is dead, and there ain’t jack you can do. Wait for your buddies, but do it outside." My buddies, she thought grimly. Sure, backup was on the way, but how much more backup did they have left? And was there any good reason they should be going in there instead of her? Neel was well- armed and armored, and it didn’t seem to have done him any good. PRIMUS Chicago had a finite number of agents, and even at the best of times, that finite number was quite small—certainly too small to deal with what was quickly becoming widespread metahuman chaos. And who did this metahuman think he could tell her what to do, anyway? "Keep your premonitions. I’m going in." "Oh right! Listen to Ed when it’s fucking convenient for you, and just shove him away when what he says don’t match what you want to hear. You’re an idiot if you go up there alone, and all it’ll say is that whoever taught you how to do your job wasted their time." His shields practically spat with in sympathy to his emotional state. He jerked a hand towards the stairwell. "Whatever is up there is probably betting you’ll be all macho, and it’ll kill you." He wondered idly why he was trying to explain this to Pender, why he cared. He found himself wondering that too much lately. He should probably just face facts: he was a good guy at heart, and cared about people. Admitting this to anyone verbally would probably be like pulling his own spine out with his bare hands, but... He sighed. "Look, Rambette. There is no fucking way I’m letting you go up there alone." He shoved his hands in his pockets and headed towards the stairwell. "But if you get me killed, I’ll be thoroughly pissed." "No one else gets killed today," she said sternly, pausing to look into his coppery eyes. "No one." She was trying to funnel her own courage his way, Ed could feel that. It made him ashamed in a way he couldn’t quite fathom. After all, she didn’t have terror grabbing at her mind like a starved pitbull. But she also didn’t have his power, his abilities. That’s right, Eddie. You learn from this woman, came Gram’s voice from the back of his psyche. She ain’t got nuthin’ but herself, and she’s still fightin’. He locked eyes with Pender and nodded. "Ok." Pender reached the foot of the stairwell. The wide staircase turned at a garbage-strewn landing, where the cracks in a boarded-up window allowed some light, then continued up to the second floor. Pender leaned in and looked up, gun ready. She couldn’t see the top of the stairs. She’d have to get to the landing to see more. A few steps behind her, Ed opened his mind again to the channel where emotions washed over him like noise. The terror struck him anew, blasting all other signals from the channel. He was going to be... cut. Cut into pieces. It wasn’t his own fear. He knew that, dammit! He could feel the person, the source of the emotion, still above him and a little ways to the north. But still he could barely contain his own dread, the back part of his brain that was certain that if he walked up those stairs he was going to end up bleeding to death on a dusty floor. It was like Dallas, all over again. Like someone was feeding that hellish experience back into him. He knew it wasn’t the same, but with his brain on maximum scared-shitless mode, it was hard to push it down. Pender had cautiously taken the first few stairs before she noticed Ed still standing a few steps before them. Let’s go, Ed. Time is life. "Ed—in or out?" she asked in hush tones. It was painfully obvious that at the very least, he was having a tough time of it, and at the worst, that whatever he’d sensed earlier was quickly picking apart his mind, but Laura didn’t have time to deal any of it. "If you’re coming, I need you to be one hundred percent." "Yeah, I’m comin’," Ed said, rubbing at the back of his neck and trying hard to not let the terror slip out onto his face. "My Gram’d kill me if I let a girl get chopped up just cause I was scared." From upstairs, the sound of splitting wood and shattering glass. It sounded like something had crashed through one of the boarded-up windows. The Stranger moved like a man possessed, sprinting across rooftops, leaping 60-foot gaps between buildings, swinging from antenna arrays. And still the giant flying ball—his white whale, his prey—pulled farther ahead. The sphere was moving south, toward the river. At Wacker Drive it disappeared behind an island of skyscrapers, and Stranger was forced go east around the big buildings. When turned south again, the sphere was gone. Stranger kept moving south, scanning the canyons between the buildings. He’s got to come up for air sometime, he thought. The buildings in this neighborhood, were shorter, more run-down. Stranger hopped from one roof to another, growing more frustrated. How could a fifty-foot flying golf ball hide from him? He leaped up to the tallest nearby structure, a four-story tenement house, and decided to take one last look before turning back north. His patience was rewarded. A block away, Q-Ball was hovering over a two-story brick building that had seen better days. The windows were boarded up, and every surface had been spray painted with gang markings. A gleaming black car, incongruous for this street, was parked out front. So there he was. Stranger gauged the distance between himself and the orb. He might be able to leap on him, but that was if the ball didn’t notice him. No, he had to get close. Stranger glanced around the streets, making mental notes of the manhole covers and sewer drains in the immediate area. It was going to be a very difficult task to get closer to the building without getting spotted. The sewers could get him close to the car. He saw a manhole cover in the middle of the street, just a few yards away from the black vehicle. He’d be out in the open for several seconds, though, almost underneath the sphere’s shadow. Q-Ball, who hadn’t moved for several seconds, suddenly lifted another fifty feet into the air, to hover seventy or eighty feet above the roof of the two-story building. A few moments later, the micro version of Q-Ball—the same probe that had followed Stranger into the sewers several hours ago—zoomed out of the top of the larger sphere and flew to the leftmost corner of the building. It paused a second before a boarded-up, second-story window, then smashed through. Stranger saw an opening, but hesitated. It would take him too long to get there by the sewers and something about all of this didn’t feel right. I don’t think he saw me or he would have attacked. But remember what the rat said. Dammit, I have to find out what is going on. Stranger was about to jump down to the street when heard the voice: Don’t get caught out in the open. He stopped and thought about it a moment. I jump down there and he sees me, I’m screwed. He’s eighty feet up and there’s no way I can lay a glove on him. No, I had better be very careful—he stomps me if we meet out in the open. Stranger leaped off the north side of the building and landed nearly silently on the pavement below. Quickly he made his way to a manhole, lifted the cover, and dropped into the dark. The hours he’d already spent in the sewers today were paying off. The largest tunnels, he’d noticed, almost always ran north-south, and they ran under the main streets with manholes every two hundred yards. Stranger got his bearings, and ran down a west-running tunnel at top speed. The fetid water splashed as he ran, soaking his legs. He’d have to clean his clothes again, but he didn’t care, not if he could nab Q-Ball. He took a left at the first intersection, went south for a hundred yards, and climbed up. The manhole cover he was looking at should be next to the shiny black car he’d seen from above. He climbed up to the manhole cover and looked out of the holes, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on. There were three holes. North, he could see only sky, and the shadow of the building he’d just come from. Center, a bit of sky, then the side of the black car. South, he was staring up at shiny hubcap and fender of the car. Stranger slowly lifted the manhole cover and looked to see where Q-ball was. He leaned so he could see over the car’s roof, and there, still hovering high above the boarded-up two-story building, was the giant Q-Ball. Stranger quickly crawled out of the man hole and crawled under the car while still holding the man hole cover. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then he heard a high-pitched electronic voice—he recognized it from Q-Ball’s probe in the sewers. He couldn’t make out the words, but it sounded like "ASIAN BLENDER! GIBBECK!" "So the kitchen appliances have finally turned on him. I knew it was just a matter of time," he said with quiet satisfaction. "Now let’s bury this guy." He rolled out from under the car, leaving the duffel bag behind him, and ran full speed towards the door of the building. Pender and Ed looked up, towards the sound of breaking wood and glass. "Dammit," swore Pender. "Well, he either got tossed through or jumped," Ed muttered. "Either way it’s gotta hurt like hell." He glanced at Pender. "I hope you know how to use that toy." "Don’t worry about me—I need you to take a look out there." "And get my fucking head blown off? No way, babe," Ed whispered. "You could just wait a minute and let me see what I can—" But it was no use: Pender was already running up the steps, pistol held low and at the ready. She reached the landing and pivoted. The stairs were dark, but above, down the second-floor corridor, dust motes danced in a shaft of light. The top of the stairs cut off her view of most of the hallway, but she guessed that the light was coming the first or second room on the right. Below, Ed focused his senses outward, nearly cringing with the expectation of what he’d find. He wasn’t disappointed. The fear crashed into him like an avalanche, and he instinctively reached for the wall to support himself. God, it was like something physical. His body thought he was under attack, and his brain wasn’t doing such a hot job of keeping control. He tried to ride it out. The avalanche was still flying at him from the same place on the floor above. And somewhere under there he could sense Pender: yes, only a dozen feet away, but also because her complex mind (on two tracks at the same time, constantly expecting to die, and absolutely determined to rescue her team) had become familiar. Or maybe he could sense her now because the other one’s fear had lessened by some minuscule amount, become diluted by some other emotion. What was it? He could almost taste... hope? He wrapped trembling arms around himself, lips pulled back in a sneer. He hated this kind of thing—this, this invasion of his psyche by others. But sometimes it was the only way to feel what was really going on. He wasn’t skilled enough to zero in on certain people yet, so he just had to dive in with both feet, and hope he didn’t drown. He tried to narrow his focus, tried to shunt the fear away and feel only the hope, But Pender’s emotions kept managing to slip in, screwing everything up, throwing him off focus. It was cause she was so close. Shit! He forced his arms down, made himself walk slowly away from the wall, towards the stairs and the terror. It had to stop, whatever it was, it had to stop. If it was Pender’s man, it had to stop cause nobody should have to be that scared. And if it wasn’t, if it was something generating that terror, Ed wanted to blow its fucking head off for putting him through this. He reached the second step, and heard a faint sound from above. It was like a chorus of harsh whispers, calling in unison: Here kitty kitty kitty..." To Pender, the voice seemed to come from somewhere out of the dark in the second-floor corridor, somewhere past the shaft of light, en route from Hell. Nonetheless, she continued towards it, even though the sound had all the sweetness of an anaesthetic-free visit to the dentist, even though it contradicted every common-sense instinct of her being, even though "Here kitty kitty kitty..." made her suddenly rethink ever cat calendar she’d ever seen and hated from a new, twisted perspective—there was nothing else for it but to keep going. She was either saving a man’s life or, as some particularly un-Laura part of her suggested, avenging his death. Doesn’t this just suck, Ed thought bitterly. Goddamn psycho up there, probably ripping off agent-boys head and pissing down his neck, and here I go like a whipped dog. Just cause…. cause…. "Fuck if I know why…" he whispered almost too softly to be heard. Pender was trotting straight into the jaws of death, and here he stood with his feet rooted to the floor like a little girl. But shit, he’d seen what happened to the brave and the stupid on the streets of Dallas. They got blown to hell and back, is what happened. "Stupid stupid stupid," he muttered as he pulled his senses inward, dampening the flow of terror, but also leaving him empathically blind. Better that than a pussy, though. He felt a bit of shock from the "Gram" part of him at the use of the word, but right now that was the least of his worries. Pender, be fucking careful, goddammit, he sent to the back of the agent's head. I don’t know who to call if you get toasted, and I don’t want anyone blaming my ass, OK? He forced one foot to follow the other up the stairs after her. She tried to remain as silent as she could, mentally—if such a thing were possible for anyone but Zen monks and supermodels—despite the fact that his sudden presence in her mind was possibly more unnerving than whatever lay ahead. As Pender’s eyes drew level with the top of the steps, the length of the corridor became visible to her. The shaft of light was coming through the open door of the second room on her right. Laying in front of the door, illuminated in the dusty light, was a white-clad arm, gloved fist still clenched. PRIMUS armor. The top of the triceps had been sliced cleanly away from the shoulder. Blood had pooled around the limb, shining like oil. Movement drew her eyes up. A white sphere, perhaps six inches in diameter, floated out of the sunlit room, and hovered in the corridor a foot from the ceiling. She raised her pistol, opened her mouth, when— —a man-sized shape charged out of the darkness at the end of the corridor. As he moved toward her, he began to come apart, cracks opening in his skin, releasing a red-orange glow. The cracks widened, separating him into jagged pieces, so that he seemed to elongate and grow as he moved. The flickering energy at his core leaped brighter. He looked straight at Pender. There’s my kitty, the jig-saw man said. Again it sounded like a chorus of whispers. The white globe rotated in place. "AGENT PENDER!" The electronic voice coming from the sphere was loud, and unpleasantly high-pitched. "GET BACK!" Stranger hit the metal double doors at full speed. He knocked them off their hinges and sent them clanging and clattering into the room beyond. Stranger skid to a stop. With the sunlight behind him, he could see that he was in a wide, dim lobby. The inside had been gutted, leaving cracked tile floors and exposed ceilings. On the far side of the room was another set of double doors. The west wall of the lobby had two openings, probably for old bathrooms. To the east, metal posts ran floor to ceiling, marking where a glassed-in front office must have stood. Framing the north and south of the lobby were two corridors. "Hmmm," he said aloud, quickly surveying his surroundings. The place was chock full of ammunition he could use against Q-Ball. "Somehow I think I’m going to be seeing more of places like this." He quickly moved towards the double doors at the far end of the building, all the while scanning the room as he went. As he entered the intersection to the first corridor, he looked right and saw a dark corridor broken by faint patches that marked the open doorways to the south-side classrooms. Left was much the same, though that corridor ended a hundred yards away in a stairs to the second floor. The stairwell was faintly lit from some high windows he couldn’t see. The light was disturbed by movement further up the stairs: someone was there. "Ah ha," he said. "That’s the same direction the Q-Ball went." He wheeled left and took off towards the stairs at a full clip. When he was ten feet from the stairwell, he could see up the steps to the first landing. The surface seemed to be covered in garbage—crumpled newspapers and plaster and tile—and in the corner he could see the legs of someone standing there in the garbage—men’s trousers, it looked like. And the legs were surrounded by a coppery glow. The same glow he’d seen around the kid in the great suit who’d been crouched next to the naked giant this morning. Stranger slowed down and continued to silently make his way towards the steps, keeping to the deepest shadows. He got to the foot of the stairs, in a nook diagonal from the person on the stairs, that kept him out of the light. Yes, it was the kid from this morning. The young man in the suit seemed to be scanning the darkness of the corridor, his face grim. What the hell is this guy doing here? Stranger thought. This guy had seemed pretty cool to that big fella at the Museum, and if he was in trouble now Stranger wanted to help. But damn, he seemed tense. Better let him know that I’m here, Stranger thought, then said aloud, "Pssst. Hey man, down here." The kid swiveled his focus to the shadows where Stranger was hiding. Then from somewhere higher in the stairwell, Stranger heard a chorus of whispers, words in unison. It was like no sound he’d ever heard. Don’t want to play ball! the voice/voices said. Just want to play. Next to the glowing kid, a flurry of motion. Someone out of Stranger’s line of sight was on the landing, moving in the garbage. Then he saw the kid’s eyes jerk to the left and up, shock registering on his face. The hairs on Stranger’s neck stood on end. This is very bad, he thought to himself. He quickly moved out of the shadows and started up the stairs. She didn’t need a freaky talking softball to overstate the obvious. Before its words were out of its—whatever it had, she was diving back down the stairs, hoping Ed wasn’t in the way, both for his sake and for hers. Ed, however, was on the landing six steps below her, staring at her back. He was still inside her head, so he felt her urge to jump backwards a split second before she leaped, and threw himself to the side. Pender came down hard on her right shoulder, the shock almost knocking the pistol out of her hand. She was half buried in damp newspaper and chunks of plaster. Least she had the brains to get out of the way, Ed thought. His shields had absorbed the brunt of his own impact with the wall, and he crouched down, wondering just what sort of hell-sent abortion was going to come slathering down after it’s Pender Supper. Somewhere at the top of the stairs, a sha-ring! like metal going through a beer can. Two halves of the white sphere struck the wall behind Pender and fell into the garbage by her feet. A second later, as if in counterpoint, something exploded downstairs. It sounded as if a metal wall had been blown down, with big pieces clanging and cartwheeling away. Ed, standing with his back to the corner of the landing, could see down the stairs to the first floor, but he didn’t see flames or smoke in the short length of the corridor visible to him. The explosion had happened further away, out of sight, maybe as far as the lobby. "Surrounded. Great. Fucking wonderful," Ed muttered, not really caring what the hell was on the second floor, ‘cause it would have to get through Pender first. Instead he focused his attention below, readying his talent to mind-fry the first thing that stuck it’s ugly-ass head in his direction. His heart was beating about a hundred miles a minute, and he was pretty sure he was ruining his new clothes with all the sweat he was generating. Could you charge a psycho for dry-cleaning? Maybe his lawyer or something? Definitely an avenue of research he’d have to look into, if he was still breathing ten minutes from now. "Pssst. Hey man, down here." It came out of the darkness at the foot of the stairs. A man’s voice, low and gravelly. Ed focused on the noise. There, just inside the corridor, in the shadows to his left, the glint of something metal. Pender had an interesting view as well. She scrambled to her feet, heart hammering. The Jigsaw man had appeared at the top of the stairs, the jagged pieces of his body floating on the sea of orange-red energy at his core. The surface of those pieces was like red-black flint rock, rough in the middle but tapering to razor edges. Don’t want to play ball! the voices whispered in unison. Just want to play. It leaped toward her. Grabbing Ed by the jacket, she launched herself down the short flight of stairs, blurting out, "Down, Ed!" Jigsaw had an enormous advantage over them in this tight corridor, and whatever was blowing up downstairs couldn’t be any worse than being sliced to ribbons—and if it blew up again, Pender thought ruefully, it might take Black and Decker with it. Pender grabbed for Ed’s jacket and launched herself down the short flight of stairs, blurting out, "Down, Ed!" She heard Jigsaw land where she’s been standing a moment ago. The meta had an enormous advantage over them in this tight corridor, and whatever was blowing up downstairs couldn’t be any worse than being sliced to ribbons—and if it blew up again, Pender thought ruefully, it might take Black and Decker with it. But her hand slid off the silky shell of Ed’s forcefield, and then she was past him, diving for the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. The darkness met her half way. A figure all in black ran up the stairs at her. The man—it was shaped like a man, at least—moved so fast it wasn’t until it was past her that she realized that his face under the black hood was silver metal. Stranger reached the side of the copper-tone kid, and wheeled to face the thing that the woman was running from. There was an aura of total brutality around the creature that shocked him. Nothing good would come from this thing. He had to be very careful. If only the rat were here. The creature looked at Stranger and Ed over its left shoulder, leering. So many! the voices whispered. The sound seemed to come from all of the floating pieces at once. Gonna have to rearrange. One minute, Ed thought, he’s staring into the dark, trying to figure out what psycho would be down there whispering at him, the next Pender goes flying by, some BIG motherfucker in a mask is standing next to him, and a burning leper is coming at him from above. He wanted to curl up into a little ball and just whimper for his mom (not that the bitch would do anything as maternal as comfort him—screw that idea). But that wouldn’t fix anything, or save him or Pender. He needed room, dammit! Everything was getting to close, people surrounding him, crazy-ass bastards no matter where he looked. Hoping this would work (‘cause he’d never done anything like it before), he reached out with his talent, trying to grab the leper and throw him into the masked monster. Maybe (if it worked) they’d be so busy killing each other, he could grab Pender and get them both the fuck out of there. If it didn’t, it probably wouldn’t really matter anymore. Life was just fucking swell. The leper from hell lurched sideways and caught his balance—but he was now within a few inches of the man in black. You want to dance? whispered the voices. Let me cut in. "Yeah, but I’ll lead," Stranger said with a feigned bravado. "By the way, didn’t I see you in Hell Raiser?" He lashed out at the funky beast, aiming for the large bony plate floating above the thing’s chest. But the plate slid away from his knuckles, and Stranger’s fist plunged into the red-orange energy at the creature’s center. He felt a shock in his hand, like he’d slapped the hot coil on an electric stove. But he wasn’t puny Theo August anymore. Stranger’s tough skin didn’t even singe, and the pain disappeared a second later. "Somebody has been his eating Wheaties. I’m a Fruit Loops man myself," Stranger said with scorn, and he prepared to defend against the blow that he knew was coming. He was in trouble. He could only hope that the others would help if they could. The beast was still in motion, however. The pieces of the jigsaw man rearranged themselves across the glowing surface, and then its long left arm came swinging down. Could use a diagonal, it whispered to itself. Three lengths of sharp-edged stone scythed across Stranger’s chest, from right clavicle to left hip. This time Stranger felt no pain at all, merely a slight itch, as if someone had run the hook of a coat hanger along his skin. "Hey, man, I just washed this," he mocked, thankful that his mask hid his relief. Jesus Christ. If that thing gets a paw on me I’m cooked. He hoped the woman and the kid had brought more with them than their good looks. Now, he thought, where is that damn RAT. He glanced down at the front of his black shirt, which still smelled strongly of Pine-Sol. The material had been cut diagonally, as straight as the side of an isosceles triangle, and a bloody flap was hanging down past his waist. Damn. Then he realized that he was looking at a flap of his own skin. He stumbled backwards, unable to look away. The skin of his burn-scarred chest had been peeled back to reveal a butcher’s display case: gleaming intestines, ready to slide and unravel, the ribbed red-brown tissue of his stomach hiding underneath, and pearly white protrusions of his ribs. He was surprised by the lack of blood—but then the veins and arteries seemed to realize that they’d been uncapped, and the blood gushed forth. He put his hands over stomach and leaned back against wall. He remembered this feeling from along time ago. It looked a lot like the last time he’d seen an old friend.
Jigsaw’s gaze lingered over the eviscerated masked man, the pieces of his face shifting into an expression something like disappointment. Short dance, the voices whispered. Then he stepped up to the glowing kid in the well-made suit. Next. |