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Our Paranormal Chernobyl Ed supposed that those chicks in all the Friday the 13th movies felt kind of like this. Boyfriend just chopped into dogmeat in front of them, Jason coming at them with something sharp and pointy and dripping blood. The guy in the mask was about to lose everything inside his chest onto a dirty, trash-filled floor, and the fucker that did it was coming after Ed next. It was Dallas all over again, that’s for damn sure. And there wasn’t fuck all Ed could do. The bastard was just too fast. All the bravery, all the mouthing off, everything… It just didn’t matter how tough you acted or thought you were in the end. He shouldn’t have stayed. He should have fucking left Pender to her business and got on with his. He’d gone beyond fear now, into a new place. A sort of resignation, mixed with irritation at the futility of it all. But at least you tried, Eddie, came Gram’s voice from that place in the back of his head. It don’t matter none if you failed. ‘Cause you didn’t, boy. You stayed when you coulda gone, and you may die here, but at least you did the right thing by that girl. Gram’s praise sort of fell flat considering the circumstances, but her words (or his own in her voice… God, was he cracking up?) did give him strength. He looked at his oncoming death and laughed. "Fuck you, pal. I’ll see you in Hell." You’re already there, the chorus whispered. Jigsaw raised one arm, and tilted his head to one side. Vertical or horizontal? it asked him. The kid didn’t answer. Jigsaw tilted his head to the other side. Vertical then. Could use a long piece. He raised the fragmented arm above his head, lining up the edges to cleave the kid in two. Ed dove to his right, toward the stairwell. The arm never came down. Stranger, leaning against the rear wall of the landing, emerged from the crashing waves of his own madness. He saw a white marble strike Jigsaw’s back and bloom into a flurry of white threads, wrapping up the meta in a cocoon. The last time Stranger had seen those threads—a few hours ago in the sewers—he’d been looking at them from the inside. The tiny missile came from Stranger’s left, but that was impossible; there was nobody in this tiny area but Stranger and the fragmented man and the glowing kid. And now even the kid was out of the way. Stranger saw him bounce down the stairs, the coppery forcefield acting like a sled carrying him down toward the woman holding the pistol. The Jigsaw man hissed in surprise. Surrounded by the threads, his voice didn’t have the unnerving surround-sound effect. Then he simply lifted his arms. The sharpened edges slid through the cocoon as if it wasn’t there, and the severed threads fell away. Although Stranger was surprised by Q-Ball’s attack, he knew he had to press this small momentary advantage. He was now resigned to his duty, ready to to die if need be—whatever it took to end the evil that was still in front of him. He summoned all of his strength and moved forward. "Hey mother-fucker," he said. "Pick on someone your own size." He swung at the meta, knowing full well that he could not survive another of the creature’s blows. Stranger’s fist struck squarely on the big slab that made up most of Jigsaw’s back. The sound in the enclosed stairwell was almost deafening. The meta’s torso flew forward, arms, legs, and head almost left behind. But then the orange-red energy that bound the fragments seemed to take hold, the rest of his body whipped after. Jigsaw struck the brick wall and slammed through, leaving a gaping hole. Stranger couldn’t see where he’d dropped to. I’m alive! Ed thought gleefully as he tumbled un-graciously down the stairs, landing in an untidy heap next to Pender. Holy fucking shit, I’m not dead yet! Yahoo! He was pretty sure, though, that his heart was about to explode from the waves of terror crashing around the stairwell. Funny, seeing as how most of it was probably his own. He rolled over, wondering if the leper was following him down, sweat stinging in his eyes. Get me out of this one, God, he silently prayed, and I’ll give up cigerettes and booze and whores and start going to church! And there went the leper, through a wall. Through. A. Wall. The big monster guy, his chest peeled open like a goddamned grape, had still punched that psycho bastard through a wall! "Jesus H. Christ," Ed whispered. Than the reality struck him: The leper was outside. Where there were more people. More people for it to hurt. "Crap," he groaned. "When does it fucking end?" "That’s what I’d like to know," Pender said. She’d narrowly escaped certain death and then watched a metal-faced man get himself torn open by a freakish, anthropormorphic set of saws, who, in turn, was thundered through solid brick by Metal-Face—all in a matter of seconds. And that included Ed’s ill-fated but ultimately non-fatal bout with the thing. There’d barely been time to breathe, let alone react, until now. Getting to her feet, Pender brushed a strand of auburn hair out of her eyes and cautiously approached both the opening in the wall and the brutish, black-clad stranger who’d created it. She couldn’t tell if he was friendly, but at the very least they had a common enemy. "Damn it! Now he’s out of the building," Stranger said, one hand pointing toward the open hole and the other holding the man-hole cover over his exposed intestines. "Be careful looking out the window," he said to the woman. "You don’t have to tell me twice," she replied, silently reminding herself to look up the definition of "window" in Webster’s when she got a chance. This was a good sign, though: he was talking to her instead of putting her through a fresh wall. Still, she remained at a cautious distance within sight of the hole, and in between the stranger and Ed. Two stories and ten feet away, the puzzle-piece man lay face down on the cement, the Halloween-orange energy crackling between the seams. As Pender watched, the meta slowly got to all fours. The sound of rotors drew her eyes. A quarter mile away, a blue and white helicopter coursed toward her position, the PRIMUS logo on the nose recognizable even at this distance. Stranger could not see where the creature had gone but he was sure that he had to follow it. "Let’s get ‘em," Stranger said as he hurled himself past the woman. As he reached the opening he could see the creature slowly getting up from the pavement. Must press the attack, he thought. With a push he accelerated into the open air, the iron manhole cover clutched over his stomach. He drew in his legs and kicked them as he came down. His boots smashed into the creature’s back, slamming it into the pavement. The orange-red energy flared and went out, and pieces of the jigsaw man scattered in all directions. Stranger stood atop a large bony plate that had sunk an inch deep into the blacktop. The shock of the landing had run up Stranger’s legs to the open nerves in his damaged gut. But he was not going to pass out. He breathed heavily, the iron lid against his body. "Dance with that, you son of a bitch," Stranger said. "Ptui!" He spit on the form under his feet. Then he looked around for Q-Ball, and saw that the big white sphere was still floating silently eighty feet above the building. He noted the sphere’s position and knelt down to take a closer look at the creature under him. He could still feel his blood racing. He’d nearly been cut in half, but in his new life things were different than before. He could already feel his body putting itself back together. He remembered the months of therapy and pain after the fire, but now before his very eyes he watched the cut begin to heal. His body felt white hot as it fought to undo Jigsaw’s vicious insult. Stranger pulled the man-hole cover away from his gut, then used his fingers to poke his intestines back into his abdomen as the healing continued. And then something struck him. Q-Ball—the missile that came from nowhere. Here they were in the middle of it and Q-Ball was just sitting there. No probe, no… Wait a minute—the probe, Stranger thought. Jigsaw said something about a ball and from out of nowhere Q-Ball’s bindings sprang up. Then he’d knocked Jigsaw out of the building and still no response from the ball in the sky. Stranger was standing here in plain sight, and nothing. Something was wrong—Q-Ball had to be in the building and not in his ship. And no ship meant no protection. Boy oh boy, the rat never said anything about this, he thought. He wanted to jump up to the hole and find Q-Ball right then, but first he had to check out Jigsaw. He yelled to the two people up in the building. "You should get down here and take a look at this!" Still marveling at the saw-man’s sudden, violent defeat, Pender withdrew from the window and produced a cell phone from a pocket. "Jardine, this is Agent Pender, inside the building, second floor," she said, contacting the helicopter still hovering overhead. "Land that thing where you can and secure the area. Meta in black"—standing in a crater—"is to be detained if possible, but not harmed. I’m going to check on Neel." "Glad to hear your voice, Agent Pender," the female pilot replied. "You want me to net-gun him from here, or merely observe, over?" "Observe—for now. Over." Ed got to his feet slowly, panting with fear, nervous energy, and a healthy dose of "Holy shit, I’m alive." He’d heard a couple of thumps from outside, and no screams, so maybe that huge bleeding guy had stomped the crap out of the leper. Though how he was still alive with half his insides hanging out was something Ed didn’t want to think about right now. It just made his head hurt. Pender was babbling something at him, so he focused in on her, trying to get his heart-rate back near something human. "I said," the woman exclaimed, exasperated, "'Still sensing anyone above?'" "Uhh… I haven’t been looking," he replied slowly. It was just too much to take. Hang on." "Is that leper guy down?" he added quickly. "’Cause we probably shouldn’t let him run around outside." Pender blinked. "Leper?" "Duh." Ed said. "Big asshole, just tried to kill us?" "Big Asshole is smashed flat," she replied coolly. Ed closed his eyes and extended his senses, hoping to God that the fear wasn’t waiting for him like a pack of street dogs. It was still there, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been (thank you god i owe you one), but he nodded. "Yeah, it’s still up there, whatever it is. But it’s not as bad as it was. I can track it down if you want." "Only if you’re feeling up to it," she answered, and it didn’t sound like a challenge. "I’ve got to go up there now. If Neel’s still alive, and it sounds like he is, I can’t waste any more time." "There is no way in hell you’re going up there alone, lady. I don’t care how much training you got." Ed finally joined her at the hole and peeked out. Below, the man in black stood on the blacktop, afternoon sunlight glinting off his featureless metal mask. He seemed to be studying a piece of rock—part of the jigsaw man, Ed realized. These black, rocky pieces were scattered over the pavement. The man looked up as a white helicopter cleared the top of the building opposite and came to a hover above the street. Ed recognized the PRIMUS logo on the nose and side. His attention turned back towards the shiny peices of the leper, lying below. A rather nasty idea marched to the front of his brain, and the young esper grinned an extremely evil grin. "Put yourself together now, dick-weed," he muttered, reaching out with his mind. He snagged a piece of the ‘puzzle’ that was on the ground behind the masked man’s back, and brought it towards him. It zipped up through the hole in the wall and hovered in front of him. The outside was rocky and coal black, and there was no trace of the red-orange energy that had illuminated it while the leper had been in motion. The piece was irregularly shaped, about eight inches long and six inches wide. It was thicker in the middle—about three inches—and tapered to a razor edge. Very nasty, this. Ed wondered if the bastard would be able to operate without it, and made plans to drop by a hardware store later. One bag of concrete, some water, a bucket, and a shovel should enable him to bury the thing where leper-boy would never find it. For the moment though, he slipped it under his arm, being careful not to let his naked skin touch it. The last thing he wanted to do was wake it up. Or have it cut him. God alone knew what booby-traps it had waiting. Stranger got no reply from above, so he squatted and picked up one of the jigsaw pieces. He had no idea what body part he was looking at: part of the torso maybe? He turned it over, careful of the edges The inside was smooth and slightly concave, colored a deep, muddy red. He touched a finger to the surface, and felt a pulsing warmth. Suddenly he heard the sound of rotors, and looked up to see a white helicopter come in over the tops of the buildings. It turned and hovered over the street, and he could see the letters P.R.I.M.U.S. on the nose. "Fuck, I hope these guys are here to pick up this thing," he said as he backed away from the chopper. Stranger had a bad feeling about this. He had to get back inside and see what was going on. He wasn’t sure who called the chopper but he was sure that they would secure the creature at some point. Hopefully that was all they were here for, but that did not seem likely. Before he leaped, he ran a hand over his gut, and was surprised to see that the wound had re-sealed completely, though there was still a pink diagonal line where the creature had cut him, and the skin was still tender to the touch. And smooth. The skin was pale and baby smooth. Not the warped, reddened tissue that had covered his body since the age of eight. He pulled his shirt higher and saw where the white skin ended like the border of a new country. Above and below, his old scar tissue was still there. He let the shirt fall back. He felt good about having taken out creature, but he was not sure of what to make of newly healed stomach. Everything was happening too fast and he wasn’t sure what to make of it all. He heard a low growl and tensed—then realized that it was his stomach and that he was hungry again. He felt as if he hadn’t eaten in days, even thought he had eaten his fill not half an hour ago. He wasn’t sure where his appetite was coming from but he guessed that it had something to do with his newly found fast healing. He’d gotten hungry after the car had fallen on him, too, but it was nothing like the cravings he had now. He wanted a big steak—no, a cow. Yes, an entire cow roasted and stuffed with ham and turkey and a side of… He shook himself. He had to concentrate, stay focused on the task at hand. He turned and leaped up through the Jigsaw-sized hole on the second floor, and landed with a light thud. There was no one on the landing, but in the dim light he could see a coppery glow coming from the stairs that led to the second floor. He was surprised to see that neither the man or the woman was anywhere to be seen. The
light coming from the top of the stairs indicated the man’s position but
still—he’d just saved their bacon Fine, he thought in disgust. Maybe they have their own problems to contend with. Let them take care of the walking carving knife themselves when he wakes up. Now that he thought about it he was surprised at his own lack of self concern. Not only had he nearly died but he had just finished stuffing his own intestines back into his body—and all he could think about was food. What the hell was wrong with him? Stranger then noticed the young man with the coppery glow poke his head around the corner. Ed turned away from the hole, ESP reaching out towards the source of the fear. "Come on," he whispered as he moved toward the stairs. His hands had gone all cold from the stress. It sucked. It totally sucked. Pender, annoyingly, stepped past Ed and reached the stairs before him. She was glad to be moving again without small white spheres or metahuman horrors to distract her. Even still, her pistol hadn’t left her hands since she first drew it, and now was no exception. Behind her, Ed sent straight into her mind: Any idea who that big guy is with the mask? No sense talking and making noise. He was a fucking telepath, after all. Yes, came her reply. It wasn’t the whole truth, as she was only taking an educated guess that the man in black was Stranger, but she was sure that would all come out in the empathic wash. Either way, she still wasn’t comfortable with Ed wandering around in her mind at will; if it were possible to think tersely, she did. Cut the crap Pender, Ed sent. If I want to talk to you, it’s safest for both of us if it’s like this. I’m fucking scared to death, I ain’t had all the fancy training you’ve had, and if this is the way I need to stay sane, you can goddamn humor me. Sorry, she returned, although her tone hadn’t changed. I’m trying to think. Something about Stranger was making something else in the back of her head click together, but she hadn’t had a chance to sort it out just yet. Behind and below them, Pender and Ed heard a thump of something hitting the the landing. Pender stopped in her tracks. She turned to look futilely at the stairs, then at Ed. Ed’s eyes shot to the chunk of black stuff he’d pulled from the leper’s body. God, please don’t let that bastard be back up. Please, please, please, please… he fervently prayed as he took a couple steps back and peered down into the gloom. "Hey man, what the hell is going on here?" It was the man in black. Stranger walked up to him, the flap of his cut shirt hanging open. Ed saw that where before had been only blood and exposed organs was now a pale smooth skin. Laura turned from the door upon hearing the voice. It irritated any fear out of her. All she wanted to do was check on her agent, and instead she had to deal with another distraction. pender, pender, pender, ohshitit’sthatguyfromdownstairs! Ed’s mental voice freight-trained into Pender’s mind. She could almost taste the kid’s fear. Easy. I’m right behind you. Her thoughts were supportive, but tinged red with anger. Okay. Thanks, Ed replied. His breathing slowed just a bit, his eyes looked a little less wild. Then his eyes locked onto the place on the masked man’s chest where he’d been fucking dying not a minute ago. It was like nothing had ever happened. Jesus-H.-Christ-in-a-fucking-sidecar. "Uh…" he managed to utter before his brain caught up to his mouth. "Are you ok?" he finished lamely. Are you going to kill us? was, of course, what was going through Ed’s mind at the time, but he figured he’d get the answer to that one pretty damn fast. "Hey, I saw you with the giant guy back at the museum. Who was the guy that just cut me in half, and what the hell is going on? Nice suit, by the way," he said admiringly. Above and out of sight, Laura held her position. Ed’s mind, still unnervingly connected to hers, was feeding her a steady stream of confusion and fear. Ed tried to remember if he’d seen this guy around Iggy, and failed. There was just too much running through his head right now. "I uh, I don’t know what it was," he stammered back. "I think it tried to kill a guy up here though, and there’s a chick here from PRIMUS named Pender who’s trying to make everything okay." Well THAT was a brilliant speech, Edward, he thought, chastising himself mentally. Laura smirked in spite of herself at the description. Accurate enough, she supposed. "Is that psycho-leper dead?" Ed asked the masked man. "Did you kill it?" "I’m not sure. I think it’s still alive, but someone had better do something with it soon, because I don’t know when it will wake up." Bad news, Laura lamented, silently. Worse new, actually. As bad as she could imagine at the moment. Ed glanced down at the shard that was pinned under his arm. "I don’t know about you, but I plan on cementing this piece up and burying the fucker. Let’s see it come back then!" He looked back up at the man. "Who are you, anyway? I’m Ed, by the way." To Ed’s thinking, since the guy hadn’t tried to kill him, and since he was on his way up towards Pender and himself, that made him a potential friend. Maybe. "Just call me Stranger. I know it sounds kind of stupid but I’m having a bit of an identity crisis right now. Anyway, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Ed." Ed nodded. He was still ready to brain-wipe the dude if he went nuts on them, but for now this Stranger character was playing nice. "Been there, seen that. So how come you aren’t dead? Are you one of those homeless guys that the doctor and nurse robots fucked up?" "I’m homeless now, but not when I met them. Those robots did something to me and they killed the person I was with." Above, Laura raised an eyebrow. Another witness—and fairly functional, to boot…. "Fuckers," Ed muttered. "We’re tryin’ to catch ‘em. At least, I am, and that Maggie chick and that dumb-ass Red," he announced to Stranger. "I think Pender here is just trying to keep anyone else from gettin’ toasted, which is cool by me." Ed fully understood that he was holding a conversation a few feet away from a severed arm, and for all his outward coolness (of which there really was very little), inwardly he knew he should try and find the guy it belonged to. "Hey, didn’t you just say PRIMUS?" Stranger asked, continuing towards the stairs. "You’re not some kinda agent, are you? You’re not going to try to arrest me?" "Not me, man. I don’t like the bastards all that much either. Though Pender here seems pretty cool." Stranger’s reaction was unreadable behind the mask. "So, did you see a floating white orb about this big?" He motioned with his hands, making space for a large softball. "Not since I saw it get cut in half," Pender answered, yanking the man’s attention from Ed. Her pistol was pointing down and away, but she stood in a solid stance, facing him. She was ready. "Theo August, I presume." Warning klaxons went off in Ed’s mind. Jes—Fuc— "Damn," Ed finally swore. Out of the frying pan and into Hell. Theo August, that guy that the police were talking about on the radio this morning. And here he stood, having just saved Ed from being gutted. NOW what the fuck am I supposed to do? he thought to himself, content to let Pender handle this one. This wasn’t his problem, nosir, uh-uh. August could pound Ed into hamburger, and he’d had enough of that with that bastard Jack. "Yes, once that was my name," Stranger said. "But not any more." "Stranger, then," Laura said. "And you must be Pender. I hope that you’re more reasonable then the other law enforcement idiots I’ve met today. Ed said that there was an injured person upstairs. If he met up with the thing outside we can only assume the worst." "I have. I was just about to check on him." Her voice was steady and measured, and although she felt the urgent need to break off this conversation and take care of her own, Pender also knew she couldn't leave Ed until she could be a little more certain of his safety. "By the way," the big man continued. "I think that one of your helicopters just got here. You might want to tell them to send someone for that butcher out there. I knocked him out but I’m not sure for how long. And," he said, shaking his head, "I don’t think he’ll let me do it again without losing a limb." "They're keeping an eye on him." Of course, they were also keeping an eye on you... She made eye contact with Ed, said, "Keep in touch," and finally stepped through the doorway. "Anyway, where did you say that you saw that ball again?" Stranger asked. He was looking around as he spoke, and then he spotted it: sticking out of the garbage on the landing was half a white shell, as if the Q-Ball probe had been neatly cut in half. Which, come to think of it, it probably was. Ten inches away was the other half, upturned like a bowl amid a pile of crumpled paper. It was hard to see, white on white, but inside the bowl… Stranger leaned closer. …was a two-inch man in a white flight suit, sitting in a tiny cockpit, surrounded by miniature electronics. His head was bleeding, and in his lap he held what looked like a white straw. The man looked up, staring straight into the eyes of the man behind the mask. In a tiny voice that barely carried to Stranger’s ears, he said simply: "Oh shit." At that moment Stranger felt a wave of guilt crash over him. Since he was a child he had been at the mercy of people who were bigger and stronger then he was. All the bullies and bastards of his life had come in big packages and now he had become one of them. The great whale that he had been pursuing had turned out to a small guppy. A harsh familiar voice rang out in his head: Way to go asshole. Are you happy now? Did you get what you wanted? Hey, maybe you could go burn down a church when you’re finished here. Daddy’s voice laughed derisively. You’re a joke. He had made a mistake. One he would correct. "Don’t worry Q-Ball," Stranger said softly. "I’m not going to hurt you. I’m sorry for any hardship that I may have caused you. Just know that you have nothing to fear from me. But enough of that now." He gently picked up the two pieces of the orb. "How can I get you back to your vehicle?" "Don’t worry about me," the little man said. If you pretended that he was standing fifty feet away, he looked normal: a white guy, about 40 with a bit of a paunch. He had sandy hair and a clean-shaven face. Perfectly normal if you ignored the white jumpsuit, the blood running down the side of his face, and his two-inch height. "There are PRIMUS agents somewhere in the building. You’ve got to help them." Stranger held the two parts of the orb close to his chest and spoke softly to the pilot. "Okay. The only thing is that I am worried about is that monster out there waking up. He seemed to me to be the only threat in the building and I thought that you stood a good chance of containing him while I looked around in here. Please tell me if there are others. Also, do you want me to tell the others about your situation, or should I keep it a secret?" "I trust Pender—she saved my life once. I don’t know about Ed, but if it’s necessary to tell him, so be it." He grunted in pain as he shifted his weight in the tiny seat. "I don’t know if the puzzle man is the only threat, but I think I can get up to Q-One and try to immobilize him if he wakes up. I just have one favor to ask. I don’t suppose you could pull this control panel off my legs before you go?" "O.K. hang on a second," Stranger said as he freed the little man. "Much appreciated. Thanks." It looked like he was having trouble putting weight on his right leg, but it didn’t look like he was bleeding anywhere from the waist down. Standing up, he was an inch taller, bringing him to a towering 0’3". "If you can’t make it up to your vehicle then wait for me here and I will help you anyway I can. I’ll put the remains of the smaller ship in front of the hole in the wall so you can retrieve it later. If you want to get in touch with me later you can leave me a message behind the dumpster of the Cook County General hospital loading docks. I check it everyday. Good Luck if I don’t see you" he said as he put the little man down. "And good luck to you, Th—Stranger. I’ll stay above until I’m not needed." With that, the man did something to his tiny pilot chair, and the back of the chair came free. He pushed his arms through straps and pulled it on like a backpack. Translucent plastic wings snapped out from the sides. He paused. "I need a catch-phrase," he said. "You know, something to uh… launch with, like ‘Up, up, and away,’ or ‘To infinity and beyond!’ Any ideas?" "Perhaps you should be more original. The infinity and beyond thing links you to being small and could blow your cover as the big Q-Ball. How about ‘Let’s away’?" "I’ll give it a try." He stepped out onto a brick near the bottom of the hole, and Stranger leaned to look out as well. The PRIMUS helicopter was still hovering above the street, the sound doubly loud it bounced between the buildings. A handful of people had started to walk out into the street. The pieces of the jigsaw man were still scattered around the pavement. "My," Q-Ball said. "You really did a number on him. Can’t be too careful, though, with civilians about." He stepped forward. "Let’s Away!" A rocket fired from the base of the pack, and the little man shot out of the window. His tiny form disappeared almost immediately. Stranger turned and ran to the stairs leading to the second floor. At the top step, he braked to a halt. On the floor in front of the first door on the right, a severed arm lay in a pool of blood, the fist clenched. The sleeve was some kind of white armor. Further down the hallway, he could see Ed’s copper glow, and Agent Pender next to him. Pender stepped through the doorway. It had been a classroom, and there were still a few chairs stacked in the corner. The windows were boarded up, except for the southern-most one that had been smashed in. And nothing else: no human remains, no more blood. Neel’s body wasn’t here. Satisfied that she’d seen what she’d seen, Pender exited back into the hallway. Ed was no longer paying attention to Pender OR Stranger. Like Lassie drawn to the well, the fear was pulling him towards whomever or whatever was generating it. It called to him from upstairs, somewhere near the middle of the building. "Pender, we gotta go upstairs," Ed said, not worrying about being quiet anymore. He hurried forward, ‘cause if the guy was missing an arm, he probably needed a fucking hospital. "Oh, and I hope you got an ambulance coming," he added, just ’cause… well… it was something that needed saying. They always said it on TV anyways. "Thanks—I’ll confirm the EMTs are on the way." Ed simply waved his hand, never looking behind to see if she was coming. He wanted this over, right now. He was tired of the incessant hammering against his mind of whatever was generating the damn terror. He wanted to go to a park and listen to the birds babble at one another about nests and sex and inane pointless bird things. Animals were simpler things than people. Pender reached for her phone when it started to buzz with an incoming call; she pressed a button and answered, "Pender." "Jardine." Laura heard the helicopter rotors in unbalanced stereo: through the handset as a background to the pilot’s voice, and from outside the building. The chopper sounded it was hovering right outside the window. "Trouble. The meta in black is back in your building—it moved before I could set down. Grodenko and Mehldau should be here with a van any second now, but I have no support for you right now, over." "Copy that. Keep the MCTs on standby. The meta in black…." Here she paused, and looked back towards Stranger closely examining the bisected sphere. "The meta in black isn’t a threat for now. Ed and I are continuing into the building to find Neel; call for EMTs, if they’re not already on the way. I’ll keep you apprised of my twenty." She nodded to Ed as an indication for him to continue, then said into the phone, "Pender out." "Wait!" Jardine said. "What about the huge floating ball?" "Huge floating ball?" "It’s hovering over the building, about fifty feet in diameter. Duong says it’s something called ‘Q-Ball’—I assumed you saw it on your way in. Advise, over." Q-Ball and Stranger—it wasn’t the first time she’d heard of them being spotted together. "It wasn’t there when we entered, but I believe it’s with our friend in black. Keep an eye on it, and if it moves, let me know. Pender out," she repeated. "Over." Ed moved down the dark corridor, the fear growing louder the closer he got. It was coming a bit to his left now—and the nearest door in that direction was ten yards away. He couldn’t see anything beyond the open frame. Ed slowed as he approached the doorway, casting his senses far and wide. He knew where the fear was coming from, so that was good. But he really didn’t need to be ambushed by some flunky that was waiting around the doorjamb with a knife. That would simply be pathetic. Pender came up behind him and tapped on his shield to get his attention, then gestured for him to step aside. If he hadn’t been "looking" Pender’s little tap would have scared the shit out of him, and she’d probably be drooling on the floor right now. He tried to keep the irritation out of his face as he turned to see what the hell she wanted. She wanted to go first. Well, alrighty then. If she wanted to go in guns a-blazin’, that was fine with him. After all, she got paid for this shit. He stepped back and to the side. And realized that there was someone else was standing right next to him. Ed’s body jumped back—and his mind lashed out. The pulse of pure thought struck a wall of steel: a rusting, riveted barrier that slanted inward: not a fortress to protect a king, but a wall to hold a prisoner. No: prisoners. The mental attack began to melt through the wall, and Ed pulled the hole wider. He could see an open space like a prison yard. The inmates turned to look at him: a burning man who wasn’t consumed, cackling and shouting his rage; a scrawny kid who danced in the dirt, pointing at him and chanting, "Cherry Belly! Cherry Belly!"; a brawny man in an orderly’s smock regarded Ed with a lurid smile; a dozen others. And beyond them, in the center of the yard, a turret of steel, its ramparts draped with razor wire. At the very top of the tower, below storm-black skies, was a small window cut into the metal. A yellow light burned inside. That, Ed realized, was the house where Theo August lived. "Yer ’bout to feel some pain, boy," said the burning man to Ed. The prisoners moved forward, reaching toward the esper’s coppery glow. This wasn’t the first time he had dealt with schizos. Nope, there’d been Alice in Dallas, and this crazy old guy named Ron who used to wander the streets, yelling at ghosts (memories of his dead kids: car wreck, Ron had been drunk) and generally being a pain in the ass. In Ron’s case, the fucker had been too far gone for Ed to reach him. Okay, maybe not, but the madness and grief inside of Ron had been too much for him to take. Alice’s madness he’d broken through, so much so that he’d considered her a friend. Underneath the swearing, filthy exterior was a true Lady. With a capital ‘L’. But this… oh man, this was something else. He had a choice: he could try to walk through the minefield that was represented by the prison yard to the building—try to reach whatever was left of Theo August. If he did so and failed, the backlash would probably be enough to knock him on his ass. At the very least, it would leave him wide open to whatever the psycho wanted to do to him in the physical world while his mind fought off August’s mental specters. Not to mention what he’d do to the shreds of August’s own splintered personality. If he did so and succeeded? Who knew? Maybe he could help the poor bastard re-form his personality. Though looking at the mean sons-of-bitches heading towards him, he didn’t know that this would be such a good thing. One thing was for sure: If he fucked up and choose wrong, he’d pay for it. Maybe with his own life. Or at the very least, his mind would pick up the rules that August had adopted for dealing with the world and treat it as real for a short time. Theo’s delusions would become Ed’s reality. Fuck them. What had been done to Theo August needed to be undone, if the man was ever gonna have a shot at a normal life. If he carried on like this, they’d take him down, tranq his ass with extra strong horse pills (maybe elephant pills: Theo was a strong bastard after all) and that would be that. He’d end up on a hospital ward somewhere, drooling into his soup with strangers giving him baths and changing his dirty sheets. That wasn’t any way for people to live. Ed pulled all his power inward, focusing it into a glimmering aura of copper light, surrounding himself with what he knew was real. And he walked into the exercise yard of Theo August’s nightmare. Stranger grunted, the pain like a thin blade under his skin. And he could feel Ed still there, inside his mind but not all the way in—somewhere in between the outside world and the wall that protected him from his daddy and the other voices. Stranger could hear them out there, calling for a fight. Pender whirled to face this new distraction, and was surprised to see Stranger there, right on top of them. The grunt had come from him. Ed had jumped back against the wall, and now he just stood there, eyes closed, looking as if he were working on a particularly hard math problem. Stranger’s entire body twitched for a moment. His bubbling confidence began to melt away, and once again he heard the whispering insanity of his sub-conscious. He had lived in this nightmare almost his entire life, and had only found sanctuary from it this very morning. Everything was different now. His new powers had finally made him feel safe. His strength had given him the hope that he could finally live his own life. Even the sewers had felt like home. He had made enemies, but he had also made friends. It was a new life, one he liked, one he would do anything to keep. The doctors had spent years trying to understand the chaos that stormed inside his mind, but he had kept them all at bay. Through all of the drugs and treatments—through his darkest and most lonely days—he would not share with anyone the creep show that was his reality. He had lifted giants and beaten the boogey man. He seen his insides in the light of day and lived to tell of it. He had caught his great white whale. All of this in but a single day’s freedom, and now someone had found a way in. He would not allow it. Stranger ripped off his mask and screamed at the top of his lungs. "GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" Jesus Christ, Ed, Pender thought, get out of his head! She’d seen what Stranger could do to the hopefully-late Jigsaw, and had no idea why Ed would want to provoke him—now, of all times, when a man’s life was at stake. "Ed, what the hell are you doing?" Her frustration was nigh-boundless, and matched only by her shock at his sudden disregard for Neel. Inside the mindscape, the light in the tower went out, leaving a terrible blackness in its place, and a hot stillness fell over the exercise yard. The young esper knew that something here was terribly wrong, for the occupants of the yard, (the burning man, the child, the trustee, and the rest) were still advancing towards him in that awful quiet, the boy giggling to himself, the burning man whining with pain, his teeth gritted, and the orderly… oh boy, the orderly’s eyes were full of a sick promise, his smile a knife-thin thing in his brutal face. Ed was completely out of his depth here. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, no sir. The humid air was full of a hissing noise, like hot bacon on a frying pan, and Ed could feel a trickle of sweat rolling slowly down his cheek. "Oh shit," he said as he gathered his power close, forging a tear in the unreal reality that surrounded him. He had to get out, and he had to get out now! He’d never encountered a mind as tortured as this one, and he sure as hell didn’t have the time to try to piece it all together now. Here. With a dying man somewhere that needed his help. A howl filled the world as Ed retreated, a horrible, raging-bull thing, and Ed caught a glimpse of what it must be like to be Theo August. He wanted to hide from that pain, to never hear it again, for it was as all-encompassing as the sea, and just as merciless. Ed’s snapped open, and he realized he was pressing back into the wall behind him, as if he were trying to back up the thing like a spider. And his face was wet with tears. And there stood Theo, in all his charred glory, howling at him. "Oh Jesus, oh man, I’m sorry," Ed sobbed. "You… I…." His hands raised in supplication. "I can’t help you here. Not now. But I will if you want to try. Nobody deserves that. Nobody. " The young man’s outburst of emotions snapped Stranger back to reality. The feel of the youth knocking around in his head had scared him. It now seemed obvious that this had not been a malicious attack. Stranger’s anger began to fade, and he put his mask back on. The young man had meant well, but had leaped before he looked. "Do not worry about what I deserve," Stranger said with a hint of anger in his voice. "I have spent a lifetime in the care of others, some well intentioned, most not. So save your psychic surgery for some other poor soul. And what you saw in there might not have been pretty, but this is the best life that I can hope to live, so I would appreciate it if you allow me to live in my own way." "No… it’s not…" Ed tried to explain in a voice thick with emotion. "I don’t get a choice sometimes. I just pick up pieces of whoever I’m inside whether I…" The words were coming out all jumbled, so Ed just shut-up as he tried to pull himself together. "If you think me so sorry a creature as to deserve your pity," Stranger said, pointing down the corridor to the landing. "Just look at that rocky mess that I embedded in the concrete." Ed just shook his head rapidly. It wasn’t about pity, damnit! It was about right and wrong, and about helping if you could. His balled fist struck repeatedly at the wall behind him as he tried to catch his breath. Theo had lived a long time with that… hell that lurked in his mind, and Ed knew he could help him sort it out. But doing so by force would just fuck it all up even more. Another time, Eddie, came Gram’s voice. Just leave it, boy. "Look, it’s okay," Stranger said. "Just get it together, kid, and stay the hell outta my head. There are people here who really do need our help. Oh, by the way," Stranger said, looking at Pender. "Who are they?" She was not quick to respond, still quite wary of Stranger and unsure of what she’d just witnessed. "PRIMUS field agents, and at least one of them is still alive." Turning to Ed, she added, "Let’s go." Ed quickly walked towards the source of the fear, latching onto that as an anchor (and wasn’t that messed up, using terror to try to ground himself. Jesus, he needed a cigarette and a drink). "In here, I think," he replied as he walked, trying hard to make it look like he wasn’t afraid of Theo August. Which he was. The room beyond was dark, but the darkness was huge, a wide open space. Far away, the seams of boarded windows leaked feeble light, leaving the center of the room in a pool of shadow. Outside he could hear the whir and beat of helicopter blades. With light-sensitive eyes already dilated by the gloom of the corridor, Ed began to extract details from the edges: thin support posts, mounds of cinderblock and crumbled drywall, a boxy silhouette that could have been a desk or a locker turned on its side. And the bodies. |