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Our Paranormal Chernobyl Maggie walked toward the hole in the wall. Outside, Goo seemed deep in thought. It was impossible to tell in what direction the meta was looking—perhaps all of them at once. And had it heard her conversation with Pender? With a completely malleable shape, it could probably form itself into an effective parabolic ear. I wonder if the thought occurred to him? For all she knew, Goo might not even need to reshape itself— if it was capable of perceiving vibrations all over its surface, its entire body just might be a parabolic ear. She stepped outside, and could see that Detective Waters and several other police officers were in the ambulance baby, surrounding the K-Bot. Waters, who was talking into a radio, was holding a large doctor's bag. It was shiny black plastic, like an oversized kid's toy. I need to go check that bag out, Maggie thought. See if I can make sense of any of this stuff. Maybe I can take it to New Orleans to analyze. Most of the rest of the police still surrounded the van, even though its occupants had been removed. Patients and hospital staff stood on the grassy knoll in front of the Emergency Room entrance. In the middle of the parking lot, a Chevy Surburban was turned on its side, festooned with shiny bands of titanium and white strings of netting. A bizarre artifact of the battle with Stranger. Where was the stone meta, the one who'd only identified himself as "a victim?" She turned to Goo to ask, and then her cell phone beeped. Sighing, Maggie turned away from Goo with an apologetic smile and pulled out her cellphone. She glanced at the call display—the number seemed vaguely familiar—hit "Talk," and brought the phone to her ear. "Maggie Thorin speaking." "Maggie. Thank God." It was Goran, and he sounded desperate. "I'm being hunted." Great! Maggie thought. I was wondering when he'd surface again. She moved away so she that was out of earshot from anyone else. "Goran, where did you vanish to? Everyone's looking for you." "Everyone—including robots, Maggie." The connection sounded like a cell-phone. The man talked in a rush. "I went home, and they were there. Two plastic… androids, I guess. There were going through my things. I hid—I heard them talking about going after some woman. And then when they went into the basement I got out of there. I'm downtown now, but there are men following me, two of them. I think they have guns. At least they're human— oh God I hope so. Maggie, I can't go to the police, I can't go to PRIMUS. I don't know who to trust. I need your help. And that woman needs your help. I think I know what they're doing." "Calm down—panicking won't help you." Goran was not only missing—he was an important piece of the puzzle, and Maggie would feel a lot safer with him in her hands. At the same time she couldn't help but find this entirely too convenient. She resolved to part with as little information as she could until Goran was safe. "You really should have called sooner, Goran. Which woman are you talking about? And where are you?" "I'm at…" There was a pause. "Dearborn. A couple blocks away from Adams, at a payphone. There's a Hardees right behind me. Maggie, they didn't say the name of this woman, but she'll be one of the victims, and she'll be distinctive. She won't be like the other victims—do you understand?" "As much as I can, I guess," Maggie said, frowning. "Why didn't you call earlier?" "After Freya fired me, I just… I wandered around downtown. Eventually I I made my way home, and after I saw those… those androids, I ran again. I don't trust anyone, and I didn't know what Freya told the police, so I can't go to them. I eventually realized that you're the only one I can trust, because you're an outsider—I brought you into this myself." "Wait," Maggie interrupted. "Freya fired you?" "They're calling it a 'leave of absence,' but trust me, I've been fired." Maggie blinked. Freya had said that Goran had taken a leave of absence, in effect, that he had initiated the split. Goran now seemed to be saying that Freya had taken the initiative. It seemed that one of the two was lying, and while Goran calling her weighed heavily against the videotape showing him stealing the samples, she couldn't be sure who was telling the truth. Or maybe it was more convoluted than that. "Okay. Don't move, I'll go pick you up." Maggie clicked off and frowned at the phone. The scientist's sudden re-emergence was an important factor, she knew, but the whole thing made her uneasy—even more uneasy than she already was. She hadn't told Goran about the latest events, the robots having been stopped and the rest, but she figured that it would be soon enough to inform him once she'd picked him up. She couldn't help but think that the timing of the call was a little off—chances were this was a trap, even if Goran was unaware of it. At a minimum, the hapless scientist was being followed by unknown parties. Before charging in, precautions seemed to be in order. She flicked the radio on. "Q-Ball, can you read me? Where are you?" "Thirty seconds away from you. Ready for pick up?" "Yes, but we're going to make a detour before we leave town. We have someone else to pick up first, someone who can shed some light on things." "Not a problem. I'm coming in." Maggie saw the huge white ball drop out of the sky to hover fifty feet over the parking lot. "Where are you? Ah, never mind..." The ball glided in her direction. Maggie turned toward Goo. "Goo," she said, "I'm going to need your help." Goo nodded moistly. She still wondered how the bizarre creature maintained life, to say nothing of sentience, with no signs of any kind of organs. "We're going to go pick Goran up," she explained. "He is a scientist who went missing from Sontag—he might have the keys to some of the questions we're asking ourselves." She frowned. "It might also be a trap, which is why I'm bringing reinforcements—namely you." "Re-ea-ady when you are." The ball lowered its ramp, and together they made their way into the ship. It was odd to trust a creature like Goo so quickly in this mess of a situation, Maggie thought, but the almost-innocent being was probably the most open of everyone she'd met, the only one that even her rapidly-growing paranoia could not imagine a hidden agenda for. F.M. Buck stood between the pilot and co-pilot seats, staring out through the windshield as the Chinook cut through the dark of the city. He clicked on his intercom. "Take 'er down at the Chicago HQ," he told Simon, the pilot. "We'll unload, then head back for the robots." He hated to take two trips and leave the mechanical shells with only the cops and his boys Nate and Tommy to watch them, but he'd had no choice: the helicopter was already carrying more than a full load. Buck looked back at the crowded cargo area. Eight of his hand-picked PRIMUS agents, one police detective, three GodBoxes loaded with hard-core metas, and three presumed-normal criminals. Crimeny. Thaddeus, the paramedic, was hunched over the stretcher of Reinhardt-Mapes, winding tape around the man's upper arm to keep the I.V. in place. Mape's pulped hand was bandaged now and no longer bleeding, but the man was still in bad shape. He was in shock, babbling away. Evidently Stranger had scared the be-Jesus out of him. The detective, Hammersmith, squatted next to Mapes, shouting questions over the roar of the engines, and writing down the answers in his notebook. Buck shook his head. If Hammersmith got anything useful out of Mapes, it would be a miracle. The man was a certified nutcake. He used to be a PRIMUS R&D man before his predilection for dressing up robots in lingerie got him into hot water. Buck hadn't known that the man was drawing from his own wardrobe. Mape's cohorts were probably nuts too. The middle-aged woman was dressed like a man, and the kid looked like a typical college-age stoner. They'd all been searched for weapons and equipment and had come up clean, so hopefully that meant they couldn't remote-control the robots any longer. They'd have enough problems just getting the metas to Stronghold. One GodBox held a pile of sentient, razor-edged rubble that had chopped a squad of PRIMUS agents into flank steak. Another held a psycho psychic who'd tried to do the same on the acting silver avenger for Chicago, Laura Pender. And the third held Theo August, a mentally unstable brick that Buck and his boys had taken down themselves. The GodBoxes had held a lot of powerful bad guys, but they weren't escape-proof. All three of these metas were unknowns, with uncharted abilities, and if there was anything he'd learned over the decades, it was that anything could go wrong at any— The helicopter lurched sideways, and Buck slammed into the bulkhead. "What's going on?!" he bellowed. "Giant," Simon reported. Buck picked himself up and looked out the windshield. He saw a shoulder, neck, and most of a face. The giant's eyeball was bigger than Buck with his hands outstretched. "What does he want?" Buck said. He'd heard about the giant that had erupted out of the street this morning, but he hadn't shown up since then, and Buck had hoped he wouldn't have to deal with the meta. He just didn't have a big enough box. There was a thunderous crunch, and the helicopter stopped dead. Buck flew forward and managed to throw up an arm before he hit the back of the co-pilot seat. He bounced off the seat and collapsed to the deck. Dammit, Buck thought, he was way too old for this. When would he learn to wear a seatbelt? Andrew and Simon fired questions at each other over the intercom, but the engines were dead and the rotors were coming to a stop. Interestingly enough, the helicopter did not fall out of the sky. Back in the cargo area, Reinhardt-Mapes stretcher had slid almost to the cockpit. A few agents were sprawled on the floor, but most of them had managed to grab something and stay upright. Jude was holding onto the sonic cannon. "All right," Buck said. "Get the doors open, and we'll—" The helicopter lurched again, and they were dropping. Through a porthole he could see lights of the nearby buildings race past. "He's got us," Simon said calmly. "Brace for impact." But the descent slowed, and then they came to almost a complete stop. Then a jolt as the helicopter fell maybe half a dozen feet and thunked to a stop. From the view from the porthole, they were still a dozen stories above street level. The giant had put them down on a roof. Buck looked around at his crew. "Well," he said. "It's a landing." The cargo door in front of Jude's cannon suddenly crumpled and ripped away. A big, black hand reached in, each finger as big as a man. "The prisoners," a voice boomed, "are mine." So now Pender had come for the baby. Jonathan rubbed between his eyes with two fingers. He would have killed for a shot of some serious pain medication right then, but realized he already had killed someone. This was not his day. "You'll have to join the line," Blake said, gesturing toward the knight, "But at least it's moving quickly." Crossfire glanced at Stokes. "Sorry, bad joke. Anyway, we have to get out of here if we can, there's going to be more people coming after the baby. Including, if I'm not mistaken, another mother that's got an interest in all of this." "I don't doubt it," Pender concurred. "But before we go anywhere," Jonathan said. "I think it'd be a good idea to know why everyone wants the child. Apparently, somehow the baby must have healed you. If that's true, we need to understand how. Maybe it can help me or…" … or maybe it could heal the knight, he thought. If there was still time. "I'll admit, that had been my hope initially," Pender said. "But when it didn't work as predicted, I had some other ideas on how I was healed." Out of habit, Pender glanced at where her watch should've been, but the hospital bracelet gave no indication of the time. Blake went on. "Anyway, the knight wanted the child, and that's a whole other story, if you want to hear it. Meanwhile, those plastic dolls were here for the baby, and they're with whoever's been zapping everyone in town with genetic material. What happened to them, and do we know who they're working for?" "The androids are disabled; there's more to the story, but I won't go into it right now." Every second she spent telling Crossfire news felt like borrowed time. Two people—the archer and the unidentified knight—had already ascertained where the baby was, which meant that her best hiding place wasn't all that great. If it weren't for the detective's presence, she wouldn't have bothered with any of this needless conversation. "As for why the child is so important, I'd be more willing to discuss that in a safer environment," she added, glancing down meaningfully at the knight, which, she noticed, was apparently female. And familiar. The face in the helmet was that of "Sister Purezza," the nun who'd tried to palm off a crucifix earlier. After a beat, Pender continued. "I don't know what happened here, gentlemen, but there are clearly issues to sort out which are not in your favor, Crossfire. Detective, I know the authorities could use your help outside. I can take custody of Crossfire for the time being while you resolve more immediate concerns with your department; in the short term, PRIMUS is better equipped to incarcerate him anyway." Stokes squinted at her, and slowly nodded. Then he looked down at Jonathan. "You give me your word you'll turn yourself in to me after the baby is safe?" Jonathan had tried to live his life by a code of honor. He couldn't give his word and go back on it—not to a cop like Stokes. And there was no way in hell he was going to jail. "I can't do that," Jonathan said. Stokes lifted his unbandaged arm, aiming the pistol at Jonathan's chest. The two men stared at each other for a long moment. Jonathan, in the wheelchair, held the bow loose in his hands. The quiver of arrows was on his lap. "Shit," Stokes said. He tucked the pistol into his back holster. "You know I can't out-draw you." The detective stepped between Agent Pender and Jonathan. "Agent Pender..." Stokes' right hand, wrapped in bandages, snaked out toward Jonathan's head. There was a crack as the plaster cast connected with his chin, and Jonathan's head snapped back. He slumped in the chair, and the bow fell from his hands and clattered against the linoleum. FUCK that hurt!" Stokes yelled. He tucked his wounded hand under his left armpit, and with his left hand reached for his handcuffs. "You have the right to remain silent," he told the unconscious man. The detective looked up at Pender. "You should get the baby out of here, ma'am." "Right. Stubborn fool—he had that coming." Stokes had begun cuffing the vigilante; Pender turned to the doorway. The detective straightened up and surveyed his work. "That oughtta hold you. Sorry, man, but that's the way it is. Agent Pender, you—" He stopped short, cut off by the butt of the Brick-Breaker slamming into the back of his head. The first thing Stranger heard after regaining consciousness was a loud, echoing voice, saying "Eeny, meeny, miny, moe..." He was floating, suspended in darkness. Then the darkness split open, the force holding him in the air collapsed, and Stranger fell into the light. He was on all fours, gazing down at chipped tile and rubble. The box that had contained him had been reduced to twisted steel panels. He was still dizzy from the gas they'd been pumping into him inside the box. He inhaled deeply. The air in the cavern was cool and damp. He looked up. He was in a large cavern that looked like an abandoned subway station. The dim light came from an array of car headlights, draped on the rocky walls like Christmas ornaments. "Ah… Stranger," the voice said. "I'll try again." Stranger looked toward the sound. The black giant who'd fallen on top of him this morning regarded him with a slight smile. Which wasn't all that reassuring—his mouth was twenty feet long, give or take. The giant was submerged up to his shoulders in rock and tile. His arms appeared out of the rock dozens of yards to each side. There were two more boxes in the cavern—still unopened. The giant—Ed had called him 'Iggy' back in the Q-Ball this afternoon—dipped his mouth below the rock, seemed to inhale, and rose again. "Let's try the next one." The two hands moved through the rock and gripped the sides of the next box in line. The hands twisted and pulled, and the box ripped apart. Ed fell out of the box and crumpled to the ground, his exit every bit as graceful as Stranger's. He hit the ground hard on his side, his head smacking into the tiled floor just hard enough to add stars-n-stripes to the woozy nausea caused by whatever the box had been doing to him. Thank God it was sort of gloomy down here, Ed thought. The transition from dark to light had been bad enough. He got to his hands and knees, blinking rapidly, and looked up at Iggy, wondering what in the hell had become of the helicopter and the pilot and whoever else might have been on board. Then he heard the voice of one of his newest bogeymen echoing through the tiled corridor and felt fear dance up and down his spine. "Whatever you do," Stranger said, "don't open the other box." Stranger lifted his head and tried to get to his feet. Ed pushed himself to his knees and saw two more boxes lying on the tiles. One of them crumpled, the other whole. And lookee there. Stranger. Fuck. So who was in the other box? Stranger stood up, balanced himself, and looked around. "Well, Iggy—it is 'Iggy,' right? I owe one… a real big one by the looks of you." He walked towards Ed. "Well, Ed me boy, looks like this is your lucky day." "God damn," Ed murmured as he struggled to his feet and backed away from Theo August. He came up against a wall and remained there like a deer in the headlights, watching the insanely (and insane, let's not forget that) strong meta come towards him, wondering just what Theo was going to do next. "Uh, hey, Theo," he managed to croak. Sweat popped on his forehead. "How ya feeling, chief?" Stranger said. "Looks like your friend saved us from those PRIMUS sonsa bitches." "Yeah, how 'bout that," Ed said, looking over at Iggy's huge face. "Hey Iggy. Um, what happened to the chopper? And well, thanks for the rescue and everything, but I think maybe…" He looked at Theo, then back at the huge black man. "Uh, how did you know where we were? And uh, what now? I told that cop, Hammersmith I think, about us going to meet 'cause I wasn't sure where I'd be. Like probably in jail and stuff because of..." Pender. Oh God, Pender… He swallowed. Iggy nodded slowly. It was like a two-story house tilting toward them, then miraculously rocking back. "Anyway, what now?" Ed went on. "I mean, I don't really know much more about who did this shit to you than I did before. Robots." He looked away from the manhole-cover-sized eyes and looked back at Theo. "Why did the put you in a box, man? I thought you were helping take care of that fuck, Jig…" (The Art… remember the Art?) "…saw" Ed shuddered. "Yeah, well, it's like this," Stranger said, and proceeded to tell Ed and Iggy everything he remembered about the events that occurred after Ed's incarceration. Ed tried to take it all in. The problem with having a psycho tell you what had happened while you were in a little black box was that there was no way of telling how much of what you were being told was real, and how much was part of the psycho's mindscape. Ed had seen his share of transvestites on the streets of Dallas, even hung out with 'em a couple of times. But transvestite robots? And what about all the other stuff: Stone demons? A dwarf on stilts? An image of the Tower in Theo's mind came to him, the things in the courtyard dancing around and around, chanting… Jesus… And then something Theo said caused the pit of Ed's stomach to fall away at about the speed of light. Pender. "Pender?" Ed asked, brows coming together. "Wait a minute... you just said you saw Pender at the hospital. That you talked to her. She's alive?" Ed's hands had balled into fists, his eyes gleamed in the gloom of the tunnel like copper lamps. He could feel a thousand different emotions trying to escape their cages in his mind. A vision of Pender falling backwards, blood spraying from her neck… the way it felt… "If ever you had to focus on something, August, for fuck's sake focus now. You really saw Pender up and walking around in that hospital?" he whispered. Stranger cocked his head back. "I told you before to call me Stranger. Theo August is gone," he said harshly. "And yes, I really saw Pender," he said, relaxing a bit. "She was running around and giving orders. She looked okay to me." No way… Ed thought. No way in hell, unless DuFord had some sort of super-medical thing in that ship of his. Ed felt hope and was afraid, because after all it was Theo telling him this. And hope was a fragile thing, easily crushed by the truth. "Right, right. Stranger, whatever," Ed said, turning away, blinking rapidly. He wanted a cigarette bad. And he knew he had to see for himself before they locked him away. Find out if it was true. His gaze fell upon the third box, then moved away quickly, like a stone skipping across a pond. He'd have to ask Iggy for a favor regarding that box when all this was done. Bury the motherfucker so deep that God himself couldn't find it. "So anyway," Stranger said, continuing his story. "While I was going to check on Crossfire the whole fuckin' crew jumps me. I was tempted to let them have it, but I didn't want to hurt anyone. Some fuckin' team mates. Especially that Goo bastard. He was in there the whole time holding Mapes while I did the dirty work and as soon a his precious Maggie showed up he pinned the whole thing on me. Not that I don't think it was right, mind you. But that asshole Mapes killed who knows how many people and time was running out. I had to take thing up a notch. The whole thing sinks of a cover up. I'm pretty sure that PRIMUS is up to their armpits in this mess. Fuck'em all, I say." "The wounded man," Iggy said. His voice hit subsonic registers that vibrated in their chests. "He's one of the people I took." Iggy sunk slightly into the floor, inhaled again through solid rock, and rose. "He's in the next… room." The giant's mouth turned up into a slight smile. "He won't stop talking." "Yeah, I bet," Stranger said. He turned quickly towards Ed and began rubbing his hands like he was lathering soap. "Ed, you're the perfect guy for this thing. Go probe his thoughts or mind meld with him or something. He's got all the answers. If you want I can sit close to him and scare him a little while you do it." Ed took a step back, holding his hands up. "Wait a minute here, Stranger. The whole reason I got stuffed into that fucking box was because I mind-dived one of these deviant sons-of-bitches and took a piece out with me. I almost killed someone because of it. You can bet your sweet ass that I'm not going to be repeating that any time soon." He looked over at Iggy, and could feel the giant's emotions swirling about the tunnel like fog. It was a mess, but it was there: Ed's talents were coming back. "I don't even know how strong my ESP is right now, that shit they pumped into me is royally screwing with…" He stopped. No lying, Edward. It's time to stand up boy, time to do the right thing. He sighed and looked at Iggy again. What must that be like, Eddy. Swimming through dirt the rest of your life 'cause some asshole wanted to play Mr. Science. On people that "didn't matter." "Hey man, bring him here, okay? We'll find out what he knows and see if he can cure you. I promised that, huh?" He smiled weakly. "It won't hurt him. I'm fucking through hurting people." "I'll go get him," Iggy said. "And after that—Sontag. It's why I need you, Ed." Ed nodded, and the giant sunk through the floor. The emotions behind the big man's words were easy to read: he was grim, but totally confident, totally resolved. Like some general or something, marching into battle. Ed wrapped his arms around his chest and simply waited. Soon this nightmare he'd found himself wrapped up in would be over. God, it had to be, didn't it? What more could the world throw at him? He wondered what would become of Theo and Iggy. And that pudding-pop Goo thing. Whoever Iggy was about to bring in here was responsible for a whole lot of shit, screwing up a whole lot of lives. Would ripping the guy's secrets out of him be justice? Was an answer all that Iggy wanted? And what about Theo and Goo, and whoever else was screwed over? Who really determined what punishment could fit this crime? He found himself looking again at the sealed box lying on the floor a few feet away. He knew what lay inside it; better than anyone probably. That guy was so far gone no cure would help him. There wasn't anything sane left to put together if this Mapes guy could tell them how to stop whatever had been done. He sighed. Too much shit for him to cope with right now. A minute later, Iggy's clasped hands emerged from the rock. The hands opened, and there was Reinhardt-Mapes, strapped down to a stretcher still wearing the Power Puff girls underwear. His hand was bandaged, and an empty I.V. bag lay on his chest. His eyes were wide, and he was murmuring to himself. Well I'll be a sonuvabitch, Ed thought in amazement, taking in the man's wardrobe with no small amount of shock. He glanced at Theo, waiting to see what his reaction would be. "Hi asshole, remember me?" Stranger said, laughing. He extended his hand. "Put 'er there, chump." Mapes screamed and gave an excellent impression of a trout trying to throw itself out of a boat. If he hadn't been strapped down, he might have gotten somewhere. Stranger withdrew his hand and turned to Ed and whispered, "Any info we need to get from him we'd better get in a hurry. As much as I'd like to pancake him, he needs a doctor and soon." "He's wearing girls' underwear..." Ed said with just a trace of wonder. "I… I thought…" He looked at Theo, then back at the extremely messed up man lying before him. "Goddamn…" The last thing he wanted was to walk out of this wanting to put on a dress. Better than killing people of course, but Jesus, that was waiting inside for him too. "What's next, God—Hitler?" Ed said, shaking his head. It was so not going to be pretty in there. Terror was pouring off him in waves. The guy was obviously half dead. And who knew what kind of drugs were in the near empty IV bag. Ed sighed heavily then placed a hand on the injured man's arm. He gathered his talent around him once again and slipped inside the man's mind. I want you to tell me all about Sontag, the robots, and just what the fuck caused all this mess, Ed's mental voice demanded flatly. Then we'll do what we can to get you to a hospital and away from here. It came at Ed in a rush, but after mind-diving through the fucked-up thought processes of Goo, Theo, and especially JigSaw, this was like tuning in to CNN, complete with helpful graphics and explanatory text crawling along the bottom. On the word "Sontag" Reinhardt-Mapes spewed a stream of thoughts and impressions: he was sure he was working for Freya Sontag, though he'd never met with her personally. All the contacts had been through intermediaries, and every time a different person. Ed caught snapshots of a red-bearded white man, a black woman with a huge afro, an old Hispanic man who walked with a cane, and Denzel Washington—or at least, a guy who looked just like him. The only thing they had in common is that they tended to wear gray and all were sarcastic as hell: Mapes didn't like any of them. On "robots," the man's brain went into firehose mode. Ed was hit by a torrent of details about every facet of constructing the "telepresence shells": constructing the mechanicals, perfecting the transceiver equipment, writing the software. For a moment, the man's terror of Stranger and Iggy was overcome by pride at his technical prowess that was distinctively sexual. The B shell, shaped like a Barbie Doll, was his crowning achievement, and when he "wore" the shell he felt more powerful and more alive than any other time in his life. On "mess," Reinhardt-Mapes showed him a series of images that were like complete stories, and in all of them the man was inside the B shell, his partner K next to him, and they were... …kidnapping low-lifes from small towns surrounded by red rock, knocking them out, driving them out to the desert… …deep underground, going cell by cell injecting the patients, slamming shut the doors… …pushing the button that started the explosives counting down, then running at top speed down the mine shaft as the ground shook, pursued by one of the guinea pigs trying out its powers… …meeting with the black woman in the gray suit in a dark building in Chicago, being handed the injectors and the case full of vials… …plunging the devices into the shoulders and backs of bums and winos, watching them cry and wail in confusion… …tracking down the survivors, noting their transformations, and moving on… …running and shooting through the hospital, grabbing the last of the untransformed pigs, dealing out glorious damage better than any video game… …surrounded in darkness. Dead. All systems offline. And then the cabinet opening, and the hideous mask looking down at him. The terror rose again in the man, and cut off the flow of images and words. Ed pulled back, severing the telempathic connections quickly. The tunnel swam back into focus, the real world pushing him back into himself and away from robots and gray-suited face-men. "This guy is a piece of work," he said to Iggy and Theo, stepping away from the inventor. "Iggy, he never met Sontag, he always got his instructions from other people. But he's sure he was working for her all the time. And it wasn't just here. They did this before in a desert, and they killed everybody there before they came here. Him and the other one. That woman 'K'." He closed his eyes and took a few seconds to sort through it again, looking for connections. "What I don't see is why? I mean, what's the point? Why are they going around trying to make superheroes, just to kill 'em when it works? Somebody has got to be laying out serious cash for this, and the only reason I can think of you'd want to have a bunch of superheroes is 'cause there's somebody who's ass you want to kick, or there's somebody out to kick yours and you want protection." "If they created me to do their work," Iggy said, his voice rumbling, "they made a mistake." "Only an idiot would try to build an army of metas like this," Stranger said. "You can't use them because they're out of control. The only thing they would cause would be mass confusion." Stranger turned to Iggy. "Oh yeah, when they pumped you with the transforming chemicals they also injected some kind of homing device in you. Q-Ball figured out how to track it at short range so PRIMUS might also know. You might want to try to remove it if you can. The giant nodded. "Heard about that. I haven't gotten it out yet." Ed stuffed his hands in his pockets and worried at a piece of loose tile with the toe of his shoe, the soft clicking noise of tile on tile rippling around them. "Th… Stranger, you think that those PRIMUS guys are behind all this, but I didn't see that at all. The last time he dealt with anybody, it was one of the gray-suits. The black chick. Here, in Chicago." Stranger shook his head. "They might not be directly involved but I'm sure they have a stake in it somewhere. Maybe the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. This whole thing would be a great diversion to keep a group like PRIMUS off balance. Maybe there's an internal power struggle." Ed shrugged. "Maybe." He just didn't know enough about those guys to form any sort of real opinion. They were super cops. The only reason super cops would want this kind of shit was to make more super cops. Or maybe to figure out how to neutralize people like himself and Theo? But they already had that with those damn boxes. He looked again at the box holding Jigsaw and felt a chill. "Maybe they want to figure out how to make super-people so they can figure out how to un-make them," he ventured. "Permanently. I don't know man, I can't figure out why they'd want it either." He looked at Mapes and sent his talent in again, trying to dig past the fear to find the answers he wanted. Tell me about PRIMUS, Mapes. Tell me what they had to do with this. Tell me why this was started in the first place, what you think they wanted from all this. You're smart, you've got your opinions on this. Show me. Reinhardt-Mapes sat up as far as the straps would allow, his face contorted into an ugly smile. "PRIMUS," the man said aloud, "can kiss my ass." His head fell back against the stretcher, and he continued telepathically. They stole my work, the fruits of my genius, and then threw me away. This was another emotional topic for Mapes. The rage pushed out his fear. Those sanctimonious bastards can go fuck themselves. I work for myself now, and I get TOP DOLLAR, dammit. TOP DOLLAR. Just thinking about PRIMUS was re-channeling his fear, and Ed could feel the man gather his reserves. His ego had been destroyed by whatever had happened with Stranger in the van, and only made worse by his abduction by PRIMUS and then Iggy. But his hatred for PRIMUS ran deep, and it was like an anchor for him. The man's arrogance was creeping back. "This is all about money!" Ed shouted, astonished. "You're actually killing people, changing them, for money?!" Reinhardt-Mapes blinked, but said nothing. Ed was surprised to find himself furious with the pathetic figure lying before him. After all, in Dallas it had been all about money, hadn't it? He'd worked for the gangs, been a lookout while they did their deals, sold their crap. Ed hadn't cared who got hurt then. And people probably had died because he had been there to make sure deals went down undisturbed. He'd tried to tell himself it was about respect, or about loyalty or maybe even about proving himself a man, that it was ok because he'd never actually hurt anyone himself. But it had been about the money, and the fact that he could really. That was all. So who was he really mad at here? He could almost see Gram standing there in the gloom, nodding her head at him in that knowing way she had that made him feel like he'd been caught filching quarters from her purse. He felt sick, the anger draining away as quickly as it had come. He blinked in the gloom at Mapes, watched as Iggy dipped his head again to take another breath from the ground. "Mapes, I know you've had a really bad day. I'm sorry about your hand man, that's wrong, that shouldn't have happened. But you're the one who made Theo what he is, turned him into someone capable of crushing you like a bug. So I guess that's justice, well, kind of anyway." He glanced down, the tile he'd been toying with rose silently into the air and dropped itself into his outstretched palm. "Why do the people who have hired you want this shit done? What's the point?" Ed held the tile up and squinted at it in the murky light. "I ain't threatening you here, Mapes. But I want you to tell me. I want you to tell me everything you know, and I want you to tell the truth, 'cause I will know if you're lying to me. Espers are like that, and I've been told I'm kinda unique, even for them. Multi-talented like." "If you don't tell me the truth, I'll dig for it Mapes. I'll dig so deep and look so hard that you'll dream about me for years. You'll hear me in the dark, see me in your sleep. It won't really hurt, but it's a pretty messed up thing to have happen to you. And I don't want to hurt you if I don't have to. You've made me do enough hurting to last a fucking lifetime. And I'll find out other things too. Like where you live, who you know. Where you hide the money and the bodies and who your parents and friends are. And who your enemies are too, I'll especially look for that. And then I'll take that to some people I know, and… well… it will just be about the money. No hard feelings man. You know how it goes." The tile lifted itself from his hand, then sped silently off into the darkness. Ed dusted off his hands, then shoved them in his pockets and looked into the face of Reinhardt-Mapes. Into the face of what he could still become if he didn't straighten his shit up, and do it fast. (Minus the girls' underwear, of course. Damn but that was fucked up.) "Who are they, the ones in gray? And what the fuck do they want?" he said simply. Reinhardt-Mapes gulped, and lay back on the stretcher, his eyes squeezed shut. They work for Sontag, the man projected. They're testing some serum. They don't care about the metas—they don't care if they live or die. Back in the van I told Stranger— And at the name, the man's emotions spiked back into terror. —he's just a side effect. All they're interested in are the ones that don't turn into freaks. And what happens to them? What are you supposed to do with them? Ed asked. You fucking killed the ones out in the desert. If you go to all that trouble to make them, why are they killed? They're test subjects, the man sent back. After the test, they're just witnesses, liabilities. He opened his eyes again. Hazardous Waste. Ed gritted his teeth in frustration. "Don't fuck with me, you know what I want. Why, Mapes. Why were you doing this. What's the goddamn reason for the tests. What was Sontag looking for?" He said it aloud so the others could follow along. "Don't make me dig. You won't like it." "I told you," he said aloud, his voice ragged. "They don't care about the metas. They're looking for the ones that aren't transformed. And I don't know why the hell that is, but that's what she wants, that's what she paid for. Inject them, then watch them, then bring back any of them that don't mutate. That was my job." "Did any of it work out at all?" Ed asked. "I mean, it didn't work with that porcupine guy or the glass lady or that doctor. And the heavy one, they took her away on the truck. I saw it. There was that stone guy on the bench. And there's... that... the..." He felt the color rising in his face as he tried to say the name, but instead he simply pointed at the container that held Jigsaw. "Him!" he spat. "And Stranger and Iggy. You didn't have anyone to bring back this time, did you, cause the cops found them before you could." God he wished that scientist girl Thorin was here. Or the cops. Or even Red; they might have a clue what to ask. He didn't want to have to look in Mapes' head. He really didn't. "Unless there were more. That the cops don't know about." He looked off into the gloom. The sound of Iggy shifting through the rock was kind of freaking him out. "Were there more, Mapes?" Ed's gaze shifted back to the wounded man. Were there? Tell me, show me. Show me where you took them. And tell me how Iggy can turn off those damned tracker bb's. "Just one," Reinhardt-Mapes said. "The woman." He sent a picture of a pale, lank-haired girl, dressed in a hospital gown. Ed recognized her face. He'd seen her in the schoolhouse, surrounded by corpses and blood, before the PRIMUS agents had carried her away, to an ambulance. The girl who had no tongue. We found her in the hospital, but your friends stopped us. The next thought never made it into words; he was holding something back. That's not how we're playing this, Mapes, Ed sent grimly. The sight of the girl had rattled him, (he could almost smell that hellish room again, feel the stickiness of the floor, don't think about it), but the quicker he could get through this, the quicker it would end. He gathered his talent around him and focused it, searching for the thing Mapes was trying to hide. This is where you learn I don't bullshit people. The man mentally struggled, trying to flee down white corridors of his mind, but Ed was already inside, chasing down the thought-fragments. Inside, Ed could feel the man's paranoia pulsing behind the pristine walls: he hated PRIMUS, he was in awe of Iggy, he feared Ed, he was outright terrified of Stranger. Ed could also sense the pain drugs the man had been given. The terror was rapidly burning them off, but there was still a sluggishness in the man's brain. Ed gripped his mind and shook it like a rabbit. We were taking her to the warehouse! Mapes sent. The picture was of a vast space that looked more like a run-down laboratory than a warehouse: there were metal tables bolted to the floor, and thick electrical cables ran along the once-white walls and along the high ceilings. Most of the fluorescent lights were out, and the air was heavy with some animal musk. Address. Show me, Ed sent, the rush of using his talent trying to slip inside and make him run with it, push it to the limit. He clamped down on that urge hard, seeking only the things he needed and not looking where he had no right to go. Do you know how the fucker in the other box found her? Show me that too. Give me the story and I'll leave your personal shit alone. Don't, and the last things I take will get you dead or worse. There's worse shit than cops, Mapes, we both know that. He wanted to threaten the transvestite with the thing in the box, tell Mapes that unless he talked they'd give him over to Jigsaw. Two days ago he'd have used that threat. Now it made him sick to even contemplate it. Mapes' private universe came crashing down, the tidy clean walls cracking and falling away. Outside, it looked like some post-nuclear wasteland. Evidently, Mapes' headscapes ran to science fiction. Ed could take anything now. He held the man with one hand and plucked a little white card from the rubble: "South Avenue 0 and East 90th." Wherever that was. Somewhere south. The card smelled of river water, and sounded like a slow-moving freight train. Reinhardt-Mapes struggled in Ed's grip. Out in the ruins, things moved in the shadows. Ed glimpsed something huge and black, glinting of metal. One of Mapes' pet fears. They'd be coming for the man now that the walls were down. Now that Ed had followed Mapes deeper into his head, he was itching to get out. It wasn't near as bad as Theo's nightmare world, but it was still creepy. What about Jig-Saw, Mapes? Ed kicked aside a chunk of cement and uncovered a shard of broken mirror. In the mirror, a bum put a knife into B's neck, infuriating her. Ed picked up the glass, and image became a full memory. Mapes had forgotten about the cutter until the next day when they heard the PRIMUS alerts and followed the signals from their trackers. They were surprised to find two of their guinea pigs in the schoolhouse. He didn't know why the girl was in there with Jig-Saw, or how they'd found each other. Maybe they knew each from the street. They'd watched as she was carried out of the building, and noted that she didn't look like she'd transformed. All they had to do was watch the ambulance they put her in, then go to the hospital to pick her up. Ok, so now he had a place to send the cops. Something tangible that they could follow back to whoever… Maybe. Ed dropped the glass, wishing he could shatter the damn thing. Deep in the dark he could hear the word "art" being whispered over and over, accompanied by a faint swishing sound. Knives cutting the air. Shit. This place was giving his own fears power, which meant he didn't want to be here any longer than he had to. Soon that fucking dwarf would come out, blathering poetry at him, showing him things in the light that were worse than anything the dark had to offer. Is anyone coming for you, Mapes? Ed asked, looking at the supine figure of 'B' lying supine on the ground nearby. Mapes kept looking at it, wanting to get to it, hide inside it. We all built shells or caves or walls in which we felt safe, especially in here, where the mind was unfettered by the laws of physics or science. There lay Mapes' with its face turned towards them, eyes empty of life, hair tangled and dull in the half-light. He raised the scientist towards him, copper eyes gleaming with the power of his talent. Did you have a back-up plan for if you got caught? Lone rangers comin' to your rescue? I hope so, the man answered. I called them. I told them I failed. Who are 'they', and what number did you call? Ed sent. Show them to me. Reinhardt-Mapes rolled over, moaning. From somewhere muffled but close, the sound of a telephone ringing. Mapes covered his ears. Ed lifted aside a section of splintered plywood. A pink Princess phone with gold trim. The cord disappeared into the rubble. It rang again, loudly. He shrugged and picked up the receiver. Hello, said the voice. It could have been a man, a woman, or Bea Arthur. The memory you have reached is 312 555-2410. There was no visual information accompanying the voice, and Ed knew that Mapes had never met the speaker. There was a click and then nothing but buzz. He dropped the phone, annoyed at it's bright colors and the lingering smell of perfume that hung over it like a ghost. Where is home base for you? Where do you keep the robot when you aren't wearing it? Ed sent quickly. The feeling that he was running out of time was mostly illusion, brought on by Mapes' fighting him for control of his memories, and Ed's own fatigue. He needed Gram, he needed her presence. But she was gone. He was also royally pissed off at some of what she'd said, and freaked by the other. One thing for sure: he was sick of this and just wanted it to be over as quickly as possible. No no no, the man sent, weeping. You can't take everything. He started crawling toward the Barbie shell. The things in the shadows edged closer, like in some fucking horror movie where the campfire was going out and the monsters were seeing their chance. Ed caught an image of a huge A-Frame house that reminded Ed of the International House of Pancakes, but with more glass. It was on a mountainside out west, in the Rockies somewhere. Mapes reached the side of the Barbie, and the front of it swung open like a coffin. Ed grabbed the man's leg and tried to yank him back. Mapes' leg turned to blood and shattered bone, as if Ed had pulped it with a sledgehammer. "VEIL!" Mapes screamed. "VEIL!" A monster stepped from the shadows. It's arms, like Ed's, were drenched in Mapes' blood. Its metal face stretched into a grin. Put 'er there, Chief! Blood-slicked tissue slipped from Ed's hands. Mapes clambered into the open shell, only one arm and one leg working now, dragging his useless limbs along with him. The lid came down, and it was like the whole mental landscape shut down with it. Ed was suddenly outside the man's head, in the cave, with Iggy. And the monster had come out with him. |