Life Like Broken Glass
Date: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00
Publisher: Plot Device Publishing

In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy

Book 16: Life like Broken Glass

Liam Gibbs

IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWRY book 16: LIFE LIKE BROKEN GLASS
Copyright (c) 2021 Liam Gibbs
All rights reserved.

This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

As awesome as this book is, it’s a work of fiction. I know, I know. We were all hoping, but it just ain’t gonna be. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s freaky imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely bonkers and coincidental. In other words, sadly you can’t get Schizophrenic’s autograph.

ISBN 13: 978-1777139698
First printing: April 2021

{ PLOT DEVICE PUBLISHING }

The Story So Far...

This stupendous, amazing, spectacular, not-at-all-overhyped comedy/science-fiction series can be found in the following parts:

Book 1: Serial Fiction Sideshow, available in the hearts of one and all

Book 2: Home Sweet Home Invasion, available in the hearts of one and all

Book 3: Technophobia, available in the h—you’re starting to see a pattern here, aren’t you?

Book 4: Armageddon Trigger Finger, available in...hey...your heart. And one and all’s too.

Book 5: The Genetic Equation, available blah blah blah.

Book 6: Power Tool, not available. Just kidding. Totally available.

Book 0: The Story So Far, you know the drill.

Available on the Author’s Super-Awesome Site

Book 7: The Lesser of Two Egos

Book 8: Untitled of Attitude Adjustments

Book 9: Those We Left Behind

Book 10: Metaphor for Life

Book 11: Oh, Crock, Here Comes a Meteor!

Book 12: His Kingdom Come

Book 13: A Wolf in Sheep’s Armor

Book 14: Man Versus Machine Part 1 of 1

Book 15: Our New Hiring Policy

Book 16: Life Like Broken Glass

Book 17: The Church of Steeple

Book 18: Blood Bunny

Book 19: Disease of Behavior

Book 20: The Paper Tiger’s Yardstick

Book 21: This One Has a Dancing Gibbon

Book 22: My Brother’s Captor

Book 23: Marching Orders

Book 24: We, Robots, but not yet ’cause it’s being worked on just for you

Please visit www.inagalaxyfarfarawRy.com for more information.

Other Stuff the Author Spewed Out

Maybe check out these other things ’cause they’re superfine too!

Not So Superpowered, available at tiny.cc/nssuperpowered

Three Flash Fictions, available upon request from the author

Random limericks, available in bathroom stalls

Your Favorite Table of Contents

Book 16: Life like Broken Glass

Chapter One: Some Plans Suck

Chapter Two: Try the Churros

Chapter Three: Housekeeping!

Chapter Four: Mob Mentality

Chapter Five: Some Assembly Required

Chapter Six: Field Trip

Chapter Seven: Commercial Real Estate

Chapter Eight: That’s Right, Parents Bring Their Children Here

Chapter Nine: A Day at the Park

Chapter Ten: Disorientation Day

Chapter Eleven: Target Sighted

Chapter Twelve: Behind Door Number One

Chapter Thirteen: Grammar Nazis, Do Your Worst

Chapter Fourteen: Family Business

Chapter Fifteen: Revenge Is a Dish Best Served with a Brazen Lack of Culinary Skills

Chapter Sixteen: Ssssooooo What Do You Guys Do for Fun around Here?

Chapter Seventeen: Celebrity Status

Chapter Eighteen: Who Invited the Third Wheels?

Chapter Nineteen Why, Hello There

Chapter Twenty: This Changes Everything between Us

Chapter Twenty-One: Target Acquired

Chapter Twenty-Two: If You Love Someone, Set Them Free

Chapter Twenty-Three: A Deal’s a Deal

Chapter Twenty-Four: And No Dating till You’re Sixty-Five, Young Man

Chapter Twenty-Five: Trial by Fire

Chapter Twenty-Six: Almost Ready for Public Consumption

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Brother’s Keepers, Loser’s Weepers

Appendices

About That Guy Whose Book You Read Once

Connect with the Series

This Isn’t Even My Final Form!

The following story ain’t professionally edited. I know, I know, why am I inflicting this on you?

For cool reasons.

Professional editing, covers, and the whole shebang takes money. And creating appendix material takes time. The In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy series has been steadily seeing new releases, but they’re release at the rate of one per year, while they’re written at a rate of one every nine months or so. Do the math. The series will never catch up.

The author, awesome brain that he has, only ever wanted to share these stories with the world.

Money wasn’t ever a goal. I know by offering these books for free—professionally packaged or not—I’ll be losing money. I honestly don’t care. Since releasing the books free of charge yet without the “professional” look, I’ve found the stress of running this whole series has gotten much manageable. This leaves me with more time to do what I set out to do: write the stories and share them.

I still attend trade shows and comic conventions and sell the books there. Each book will, eventually, be given the professional touch. But, while we’re waiting, all I want to do is share these.

If you see something ain’t right, or something you want to comment on, please feel free. Think of yourself as a beta-reader: a pre-reader of something unreleased. Voice your thoughts at liamgibbs@inagalaxyfarfarawry.com. Until the book gets professionally released, I consider it a work in progress.

So what you’re reading here is the book without the professional touches. I’ve edited this book a dozen times or more, and so I believe it’s as polished as I can get it. I feel comfortable letting you see it. It will one day be professionally edited. One day. But until then, know that you’re reading what I believe to be as polished as I myself can get it.

Enjoy!

Or don’t. I really have no control.

Chapter One: Some Plans Suck

February 14, 9110. 4:16 a.m. (Galactic Standard Time).

Time to destroy stuff. And to do that, Master Asinine always schemed up something fierce.

“Hello, everybody, and welcome to today’s planning session, starring yours truly. That’s me, in case you didn’t know.” Bad Guy leader Asinine clapped his hands to rouse the other Bad Guys, his junior thugs, that he had collected in this boardroom. What a way to start a meeting at four in the morning: the clap of hands and the rumble of growls from those he had promised not to wake up this early. Somebody spilled his coffee in a sleepy spasm. If the pajamas showing methods of torture were an indication, that somebody was the two-headed Schizophrenic. Who knew junior thugs hated being forced to participate in anvil volleyball until midnight and then being woken up at such a ridiculous hour?

“Well, welcome to those of you who are awake, which is Appetite mowing down the doughnut platter but somehow missing the doughnuts.” Asinine offered Appetite a friendly wave, but the gargoyle-like creature regarded him with no more than a hungry snort and aluminum stuck between two teeth. “For the rest of you, I’ve installed voltage distributors in your seats that release a tiny surge at the press of this button.” Asinine brandished the plunger device in his hand. And suddenly everyone was awake.

Asinine wandered the head of the boardroom, a bright, classroom-style area containing a grid of joint chair-and-desk sets two sizes too small. Here he had gathered his junior thugs Schizophrenic, Appetite, Bad Aim, Multipurpose, Punch smoking his pipe, and Master Asinine Sucks. Flanking each of his sides stood Bad Guy second-in-command, Lieutenant IQ 23, and Asinine’s bodyguard, Braindead. Braindead was of the mute and reptilian Virillian species, so he wasn’t much for input. That was why he was downgraded to getting in the way of all the light-bullets meant for Asinine.

Behind him hovered a viewscreen that detailed their scheme this week. Asinine whacked that viewscreen with a pointer. Okay, a twig really. “Everybody, our mission today”—he electrified everyone because the obese Multipurpose had lolled back to sleep after swallowing his breakfast frog whole—“is to locate this artifact.” Using the twig, he circled the image of the metallic artifact in question on the viewscreen. He tweaked his eyebrow because anything metallic fascinated him, and this artifact was metallic and oblong and red. Triple threat.

“What is that?” Schizophrenic shifted his bodybuilder weight in the seat welded too close to the desk. Tough to do. Scrunched into a ball but with legs stuck out, he kneed his chest that had recently healed from a cracked rib and some bruises. “Looks as if Multipurpose took a dump in a chocolate fondue fountain.”

The cowboy Master Asinine Sucks sighed. “Pardner, every time ya open that mouth o’ yours, ya ruin another food for me.”

Beside him, Bad Aim buried his green face in a scaly palm. His legs were severed, and for mobility, a two-foot-wide hoverdisc was installed at his waist. Because of this, he didn’t sit in his desk chair as much as on top of it since his hoverdisc was almost as wide as Multipurpose’s belly.

“This, my junior thugs, is called a pencil sharpener. It’s an artifact—no, the Oblongifact...because it’s oblong—from ancient Terra circa some century with a number. It possesses the ability to sharpen something called a pencil, which, if my research is correct, is the ancestor to today’s back bacon.”

Asinine had everyone’s attention now. All eyes were focused half-mast on him. Lefty, Schizophrenic’s left head, still probably considered aiming spitballs at Asinine, but he was focused. So Asinine continued, “If you aren’t familiar with the Chernobyl disaster, it was a level-seven nuclear accident with a yield of thirty thousand roentgens per hour, a disaster that for once didn’t happen as a result of me warming up my tinfoil hat in the microwave.”

Righty raised his hand, but Lefty swatted it away and punched him in the nose. “I’ll ask the question, you public nuisance. What the flying crock is a roentgen?”

“I never bothered to find out because it doesn’t sound like a sandwich flavor. But this Oblongifact here, a leftover from that disaster”—Asinine whacked the viewscreen again and, while he was at it, pressed the voltage plunger because why not? —“endured a thirty-thousand-roentgen bubble bath in that radiation.

“And now, four years later, it still holds some of that yield. At least enough that, when someone bears it, it will grant that person hyperabilities beyond his wildest imagination.”

“The hyperability to grow a third eye?” Master Asinine Sucks twanged.

“Maybe even a third rib. And that’s why we’re stealing it: to grant ourselves new hyperabilities...and grind the Good Guys into well-milled xenon.

“I fed all the highlights of my plot into Plotbot Four Thousand, and it spat us out a tasty plan. The Oblongifact is kept on Gaia in the Wright Family Abbott Museum, which showcases Terranity’s most famous disasters. It’s a museum of whoops. We’ll just waltz in there, grab it, and sashay out before security yells disparaging remarks about my outfit. Then we’ll have the hyperability of anything we desire, including the greatest hyperability of all: the hyperability...to dream.”

Bad Aim’s head thunked against the wall too hard: he blacked out. Behind him, the giant hand-brought-to-life Punch drummed finger dreadlocks on his desk. Master Asinine Sucks kicked his spurs up onto his desk. He propped his ten-gallon hat over his eyes, hiding everything but the wheat strand tweezed in his teeth.

“Crock.” Multipurpose wriggled around to unwedge himself from his desk, but that king-sized blimp with radiation of his own exuding from every pore couldn’t even keep his fat folds from ballooning out. He gave up and resigned himself to staying put. “You realize that thing’s probably still so high on crocking radiation you’ll die from touching it?”

“I stole a pair of oven mitts.” Asinine wondered how Multipurpose inhaled without obliterating the desk.

“For once, everyone’s least favorite perpetual brain fart makes a point.” Lefty thwacked Multipurpose across the cheek. Nice reach. “The only hyperabilities that thing will grant you include skin melting off and hair falling out. But, then again, the hyperability of stupidity is inborn.”

“Well, we’ll go ahead with this plan anyway, because we have nothing better to steal on our weekend.”

“I told you, the popcorn factory’s ripe for the picking!” Schizophrenic slammed his fists on the desk. He flexed his pavement pectorals, and his desk cracked.

“Enough with your puppy factory plans. The museum’s a go. I want to take a few image stills, visit the gift shop, maybe check out their new chicken exhibit, pose with some bantams...eat them.”

“Screw it.” Schizophrenic threw up his hands. “I’ll go just to pour quick-dry cement into their water fountains.”

“Glad we’re all on board. Lieutenant, introduce the tastier points of the plan.”

“Yes, sir.” Lieutenant IQ 23 strode forward. He smiled and finger-tapped the viewscreen to switch from the image of the Oblongifact to words. Intimidating, three-syllable words. “The Oblongifact is held inside a room guarded by rented security, an array of lasers, and weight sensors. So, first step is we dispatch those guards. And no one dispatches guards better than our very own Amaranthia.”

“Excellent,” Asinine said. “Amaranthia will clear the way by taking out the guards without asking them where the closest powder room is. Amaranthia?” No one spoke up, least of all their red-clad high-school ninja, Amaranthia. “Hello?” He stepped onto his tiptoes to check the back of the room, past the almost-seven-foot-tall Schizophrenic and the almost-seven-foot-wide Multipurpose. Not in the back. Not in the corner. Not clinging to the ceiling waiting to strike like on payday. “Amaranthia? Where is she?” He searched under the desks. Maybe Multipurpose had sat on her. “I knew we should have taken attendance. Okay, say ‘here’ when I call your media name. Amaranthia.”

Chapter Two: Try the Churros

Amaranthia totally inhaled another gulp of her gnawl burger with cheese. A dollop of grease landed on the oiled plate that held this nightmare of flavor. Grody. Who cooked these things? ’Cause this combination of animal, mustard, ketchup, and tomato guts in one salty smell reminded her of her home-economics teacher.

But her date was totally incredible. She smiled across the splintery picnic table at Good Guy self-multiplier Franchise, who looked up from his haystack of French fries to smile back through a mouthful of mulched potato. Healing gel had erased his recent bruises, and his knee was rebuilding nicely in its brace.

Today they attended the Fallowbridge Fair for no other reason than to see how carnies found a bearded lady, a fire-breather, and an armless wonder in the same three-headed body. Cray cray. Children hooted and scampered past the table with cotton candy beards and grubby fingers. In the distance, a bell, like, totally rang off: someone won a thirty-foot stuffed thundermammal. Bitchin’ prize.

A cool summer wind tossed up Amaranthia’s hair. “So...” She tongued aside the muddle of meat—the word meat might fit—to say, “Your bosses seriously, like, told you to crock off the whole entire week? Fierce.”

Franchise nodded and finished his bite. He wiped a bit of ketchup and salt off his cheek. Even with ketchup splotching his dimple, he looked way cute. “Yup. I’d saved up too much vacation, so when I asked for the day off, Legion told me to take the week. I can carry over only so many days every fiscal year. Labor laws. Mostly they wanted me to stop cleaning Jeffy’s side of the room without protective gear. You can’t imagine the things I found.” He stared off into the distance. “I went where no sanity has gone before.” If Amaranthia were keeping things straight, Jeffy was Power Plant, Franchise’s totally best friend and roomie in the Good Guys.

“Anyway, I’m staying at Shack by the Hour. For free! I guess when the Good Guys stop a robot-suited megalomaniac, they’re more than happy to throw a Good Guy a suite and put up a poster saying I’m staying there. Bed’s shaped like a heart, and there’s a mirror on the ceiling. Must be a Virillian designer.”

“That’s so bangin’?” Yeah, Amaranthia knew the rising tone of her sentences made everything sound like a question. So what? “I wish Master Mondouche would give me a day off? I always totally have to, like, bug out like a ninja? A lot harder when Cosmonaut Chimp is between seasons? Franchie?” She snapped her fingers and waved at Franchise’s eyes. Had she blitzed something inside his head? “Franchie?”

Franchise had barely heard her. Instead he slopped his burger onto his plate. “You know, I just realized I don’t know your name yet and that Franchie sounds like a fried onion snack. I think I ate some Franchies in my burger.”

Amaranthia blinked in some kind of stupor. Whoa. “Shyeah. Mondo for realsies. You’re totes right. I have no idea what your p-rents yell when they’re mad at you?” She placed her burgeresque burger on her plate and wiped her mustardy fingers on a napkin. The napkin totally dissolved into the table and left a curlicue of piquant smoke behind.

“My real name has been all over the news since Mechanism publicized everyone’s identities when he tried to cleanse the galaxy.” Franchise glanced around. “Weird that nobody here cares.”

Amaranthia clicked her tongue. “I totes snub the news.”

“Okay, then. In that case, my name’s Jacob. Jacob Rowan Refensil.” Franchise smiled. Those dimples again. So way dreamy. “My friends call me Jakey. Well, the sociopathic one does.”

Amaranthia thought for a moment. “I like Jakey. Totally suits you.” She winked. “My name’s Tamiko Brooke Kythe.”

As if some skiz had touched him, Franchise—no, Jakey now—jerked back. “Tamiko? But that’s a Japanese name.”

Tamiko dipped a fry in ketchup and swirled it around but, like, didn’t nosh. “Yeah. My dad was waysies into Japanese combat culture?” She rolled her eyes. “He was totally a fan of kung fu flicks, so when Dr. Cow, Lactation Expert came out, he got all over that bizznatch? He named me after the lead actress.” She, like, waited a beat. “But my besties call me Tami.”

Another wave of kids clamored by. Jakey waited for them to, like, take their spaz elsewhere before he reached across the picnic table for a handshake. “Nice to meet you, Tamiko.”

“Bag that handshaking stuff.” Tamiko swiped Jakey’s hand away and lunged across the table to totally plant one on his lips. Her heart blitzkrieged. She settled back with an itsy blush warming her cheeks, probably totally the same coral pink as her bitchin’ Henna Park shirt. “So what should we do first? We got rides, games, face painting? Ooh, ooh! We can totes beat up the snake charmer! But if that dude at the age-guessing booth says I’m thirteen one more time, I’m gonna do my second free tonsillectomy.”

Jakey was way spaced, but he reconnected to reality after a few blinks. Kisses did that to boys. “Uh...okay, what should we do first? I have no idea. I’ve...uh...” Jakey rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at the fugly grass where someone’s kitty balloon animal had popped a leak and deflated with a meow. Poor kitty. “Okay. Confession time: I’ve never gone to the fair.”

“Say what?” Tamiko tilted back on her way loosey-goosey bench as far as she could without falling into the grody dirt. “You like never ever ever ever gone to the fair? Like not even ever?”

“My dad owned a recharge station. It was the only thing keeping us off the breadline. I was an only child, and my dad couldn’t afford employees. So, before the Good Guys, my parents put me to work whenever I wasn’t in school or asleep. Now I send them thirty percent of my salary, so they sold the station. They’re on permanent vacation. I hate irony. Is that irony? Never mind. Last week I received a postcard from Grungebelly Canyons. They wish I was there.” Jakey bit into a fry. “I don’t.

“All that to say, growing up, I never had time for anything: fairs, carnivals, festivals, parties, midways, circuses, square dances...cockfights. Are square dances still a thing?”

Tamiko snort-laughed. “Square dances were never a thing unless your name is Cletus?”

“Explains my cousin. Anyway, since I became a Good Guy, I’ve been on duty. I’ve still never had time for anything.”

“No doy! You for real? Not even, like, a carnival?”

“Only the carnival Jeffy sets up using the kitchen appliances.”

“Forget this crusty grindage.” Tamiko swept her food away, leaped off her bench, and snatched up Jakey’s hand. She totally hightailed into the fair’s main grounds, Jakey in tow. “We’re totally, like, riding the teacups, ’kay?”

“I don’t fit in a teacup.” Jakey lost his footing on a tire tread in the ground, but he recovered like a pro. “I’ve known since Jeffy’s carnival.”

* * *

Jakey totes puked. Gyrating around in a whirligig ride, like, mondo did that to you. He didn’t hit Tamiko, but that toddler in the adjacent/diagonal/back-to-back/wherever-the-piss-it-was-now spinning teacup, like, got a nice surprise all over his Cosmonaut Chimp shirt. The dad looked way confounded.

“Nice blarg.” Amaranthia smirked to hide a giggle, but the giggle bubbled out when Jakey wiped the blarg from his cheek and scraped that on the, like, brass trim of the teacup in which they rode.

Jakey thrust his arms into the air. “Woohoo! Teacup rides are aweso—” Another puke.

Chapter Three: Housekeeping!

Here they were in Power Plant and Franchise’s living quarters on Station One, Good Guy headquarters. Ace Spandex, with Good Guy leader Lieutenant Colonel Legion beside him, stood at the foot of Power Plant’s bed, assessing the swirled sheets that had gone untouched for 2.3 days now. Ace knew precisely how long thanks to the computer in his brain and cybernetics around his body. Also thanks to the heat-print scans he’d performed. And those sheets hadn’t been changed in well over a month, which meant the laundrybot was due for a stern lecture about sanitation. And why you couldn’t put colors in with whites since Ace’s favorite shirt had come out splotchy pink on the latest wash.

This quiet room contained two beds and a few unpacked moving boxes. Franchise’s bed sat neatly made in the dim side of the room with a sign that read, “Jeffy, Don’t Even Think About It.” Power Plant’s bed sat on the bright side of the room underneath a sign that read, “Don’t Fight It, ’Cause It’s Gonna Happen.” Spellcheck made that sign legible. The middle of the living quarters bore a strip of screen tape stretching the room’s length: across the beige carpet, up the wall, along the ceiling, and down the opposite wall. When activated, a shield screen zapped into existence to halve the room. Good defense for Franchise, frustrating for Power Plant. Using the remains of pungent fruit splattered on Power Plant’s side of the tape, Ace Spandex’s computer brain counted the attempts made on Franchise’s life. Retaliation had hit in the bathroom: somebody’s toothbrush swam in the toilet.

Ace Spandex stopped chewing his bubblegum. “Jeff hasn’t slept here since he returned from the mission when the Bad Guys escaped their escort to prison.” He ruffled Power Plant’s bedspread as if underneath hid a clue where to find him. “I called him a few times, but I only get status messages that he’s unreachable and that the new season of Hotel for Artichokes debuts as soon as a single test audience finds artichokes watchable.”

He and Legion examined the bed, the room, a guinea pig feasting on the remains of both a hamster and Ace’s rationality. This place felt uninhabited. The water in the glass on the bedside table was aged and foggy. And glowing. Legion winced. “Let’s empty that glass. It’s burning my soul.”

“And check this out.” Ace Spandex hurried to the wall beside the latent technology door. L-tech was a technology that stored objects in computer memory and summoned them when commanded. In this case, the l-door was commanded to remained open. Ace rapped a hand over a sooty mark next to the doorframe. “This.”

“Yeah? And? It’s a scorch mark. Maybe Jeff’s been playing with fireworks again. He’s done that off and on since he saw my screensaver.”

“No. I’ve performed readings on this. This isn’t just a scorch mark.” Ace rapped his knuckles on it. “Jeff is suffering from hyperability poisoning.”

Legion looked confused. “Is that better or worse than the rat poison he grates over his pasta?”

“Depends on his daily dosage. You do know about hyperability poisoning, right?”

“For the sake of argument, pretend I don’t even though I do.”

“Seriously? Didn’t IP offer reading material on hyperpeople? A pamphlet?”

“Yeah, but then Kamikaze happened, and I never found the time. Remember I’m Trioxidillian. My exposure to hyperscience is limited.”

“Oh, boy.” Ace Spandex rubbed the laser scar on his brow. “Okay, quick rundown. Hyperability poisoning is a concern only for people with high-energy physical hyperabilities, nobody with low-level stuff or hypermutations. But it can become dangerous. The body usually produces enough antioxidants to cleanse itself. In Jeff’s case, his toxin levels have flared up lately due to his emotional instability. And the longer he goes without calming down, the worse he gets. Left unchecked, his hyperability will get harder to contain. Eventually the buildup of oxidants will kill him. He’ll explode. And he’ll take out anyone in an unspecified range.”

“How is that different from before?”

“It’ll be unintentional.”

“Oooookay. Now I see the problem.”

“Legion, he’s not on Station One anymore. I checked the logs, and his last command was for the public-transit schedule on Thursday at lunch. He was headed to Minerva and hasn’t been detected him on the station since. We have to find him. The more he uses his hyperability, the closer he gets to becoming an atom bomb, and this suddenly sounds like business as usual.”

“But, if he’s in a populated area when he explodes...” Legion got the message. Ace Spandex sensed his heart rate quicken to 182 beats per minute, the adrenaline sparking his body to attention, his hesitation of breath. The only sound now came from that guinea pig dragging the hamster carcass away. Legion stared at no fixed point on the carpet and asked, “And Jacob doesn’t know anything. He left on vacation yesterday, so he wouldn’t have any ideas.”

“He’s seemed...I don’t know...distracted lately, anyway.”

“Don’t tell him. Not yet. Keep this as contained as possible. What I need is a recon team, a tiny one. No more than five field agents. Make sure you and Hagen are on it. Plastique will lead. You’re in the air in fifteen minutes.”

Legion headed through the door, but he slapped a hand on Ace’s arm as he passed. “And call Catastrophe about that guinea pig. At some point in his old acting career, he must have come across an animal-control plotline.”

Chapter Four: Mob Mentality

Jeff debarked the public transport—weird mass-tran smelled like onions—that had chugged into Vantage Harbor Transport Station. He’d finally reached Gaia after two days spent on that domed industrial ball they called Minerva, three yards away from some rank shmoe who expelled more deadly gases than Space Cow’s bean cuisine.

Upon debarking, he choked on a cloud of seaweed and sour body odor like a stench wallop to his senses. His eyes feel like hot sponges. He passed a street urchin running a game of three-card monte. Jeff had worked this game when he and his older brother, Mark, played the streets. Jeff had the intelligence of a bowl of grapes, and even he knew this was a con job.

He used to be a Good Guy. Used to be media-named Power Plant, until a couple days ago when the Good Guys had decided to hire that crock Tolliver. Tolliver kept badmouthing Mark, who’d died in a galactic assault not even two weeks ago. The final straw was when Tolliver had tried to steal Mark’s media name. Fine. If the Good Guys wanted Tolliver, they didn’t want Jeff.

He tightened his tattered hood around his head. If he grew decent facial hair, he’d pass for a bum. Squeezing his backpack strap in his hand and slinging it over his shoulder, he sliced through the babbling crowd, past the free-floating advertisement touting...Jeff squinted...wow. Topical steroids could go up there? No wonder a lot of people were born with disproportionate foreheads.

“Attention, commuters. Come check our low, low prices on turtles. Visit the food court today,” the transit station’s haunt control said from a hovering speaker that shifted angles underneath the domed skylight ceiling. The haunt control was computer software that acted on verbal commands, named after their ability to make places seem haunted with their automation. It also spouted status messages or, in this case, cheap advertisements.

Jeff alternated hands on his backpack, now holding it in his clammy right. For some reason these past couple days, his hyperability had been playing cockamamie tricks. If he held something too long, the object burned. The handprint on his backpack’s right strap was indication of that. Good thing he wore l-tech clothes, or else he’d be nude every ten minutes. Public nudity was not acceptable on Saturdays.

Jeff wiggled through the ticket booth’s thick line, his shoulder jabbing a blue-skinned grump who grunted something in a dense Ulerka accent. Or maybe straight up parakeet. Jeff could never tell the difference since scientists had inserted vocal cords in birds, wanting to engineer a real version of Tweety. Wouldn’t last long. The engineered version of Sylvester would handle that. Course, the engineered version of Granny would purse-whack that cat into kibble, so who knew? The three-card hustler would. He’d probably already taken bets.

Jeff leered over his shoulder at the old grump he’d bumped, his eyes and nose getting in on the act. He kept walking—smack! He spilled onto the spit-polished floor and skidded across the large marble tiles. His backpack slapped the floor and slid away. His hoodie fell off his head, and the girl he’d collided with, a teenaged Terran with olive skin and blond hair clawing out from her cap, sneered down at him, ready for a fight. “Hey, watch it, you weasel. You ju—” Her glare dissolved into a gasp of realization. “Holy crock, I’m so sorry.” Her hands fluttered in the air and she bobbed on her knees. She screeched thinly and couldn’t help the paleness that leeched the red out of her face. “You’re...you’re Power Plant!”

Jeff’s finger shot over his lips. “Ya’s gotta keeps it downs. Sssshut—”

“I am such a huge fan. I own all your issues of Teen Beatings magazines. Your dolls. Even the matching glassware set you get only through your fan club and a few auction sites.” The girl grabbed Jeff’s hand and yanked him to his feet. His arm nearly tore out of its socket.

Jeff snatched up his backpack. “I ain’ts Power Plant. You gotsa-gotsa-gotsa keep it down. Please.”

The girl smothered Jeff in a hug so tight pythons could take notes. A kiss on the cheek and—whah, this girl adored black licorice. “Can I get your autograph?” Jeff didn’t see her yank the audio chip case out of her side pocket, but there it was.

Jeff took the laser pen she offered and examined the audio chip, Concertos in C-minor. “I gots a gangsta rap album?”

“Hey, look!” echoed a voice from across the triage hall. The acoustics in this domed hall bounced the voice across all one thousand or so commuters. “That’s Power Plant! He helped stop Mechanism from cleansing the galaxy!” She was right: Power Plant and the Good Guys had stopped former Bad Guy Mechanism’s insurrection when he and his Mechaknights tried to cleanse the galaxy, the same cleansing that had ended Mark’s life. Jeff wished this girl would keep that down, though.

The crowd’s conversational babble ceased, and the hall’s air depressurized in the silence.

Jeff stuffed the laser pen and the audio chip back to the girl and stepped away. He clutched his backpack—time to switch hands—and searched the triage hall with a frenzy of glances. Everybody, everybody and their dog was here. He said this because some had brought their Dobermans, and the plural of Doberman should be Dobermen but now was not the time to complain.

He needed to beat a quick escape. He backed into the wall behind him. Not a wall. The ticket booth. The clerk stuffed a datasheet, a paper-thin computer, through its slot and blushed enthusiastically. “You saved my aunt’s life when you took down a Mechaknight in Beckenridge Square. Can I have your autograph on this datasheet and your next baker’s dozen babies?”

Jeff whirled around. “My babies is gonna come out too awesomes for one single uterinus to handles all of ’em!”

Hands clawed at him from behind, fingers grasped his sweater, laser pens jabbed his cheeks, and one went up his nostril. Not the most painful thing to spend time up there. Was this what a zombie apocalypse felt like? Jeff ducked, scrambled away, but the probing hands and fingers and body parts that went along with them followed him into a grimy bathroom hallway. Screams of adoration sliced through the morass of clapping and babbles, and if one more person asked Jeff to sign a baby, he’d hand out child-services warnings.

“Stays away from me! I ain’t no Power Plant none mores!” He jostled from the hands grasping his clothes. Someone tore off his right sleeve. Another went for his pocket but ain’t no way that was happening. That was where he kept his lint.

A man with a microphone and a floating camera dug through the mob. “Power Plant, would you like to say a few words about Dr. Nasty Gastry’s oxtail-only diet?” Nobody should say anything about oxtail. Definitely nasty on the gastry.

Nowadays, the more energy he stored, the more his laser-based hyperability acted wonky-screwy. But Jeff clenched, sucked everything he could from the hall’s light panels, felt heat sizzle around him and scorch his backpack all the way down the left strap, felt his nerves tingle. He stammered away to distance himself from his fans and—

—rocketed into the air like a bullet with business. Left smeared, sooty footprints on the floor when his l-boots splashed apart to make way for his light energy. Crashed through the skylight. Smacked into a bird.

His backpack strap sizzled, a finger of flame where he held it. The fabric snapped in blackened cloth, so he wrapped both ends in his remaining sleeve. The babbling and screeching of the commuters faded but not the screech from the bird that shook a fist at him. First vocal cords, now fists. What the piss was science doing to these poor creatures?

Chapter Five: Some Assembly Rerequired

Early morning. Ace Spandex yawned with sleep deprivation. He disembarked from their military transport F-Reaper, which Mabel had directed into Hangar Bay F. Well, directed-slash-careened. What word could you use when someone snipped a mil-tran wing off on the hangar bay door, beheaded a servicebot with a landing wheel, then curled up under the pilot’s chair for a nap? Bashed. Seemed appropriate.

Ace hopped onto the resin flooring and felt the need to kiss it profusely. Instead, he examined the beheaded servicebot he’d have to repair later. It meandered around blindly, arms stuck out like a sleepwalker’s to feel its way to F-Reaper to recharge it. Instead it found a low-floating light panel and...Ooh. It belched bolts out its neck stem. Okay. So that was how servicebots found dates.

Behind him, Mabel disembarked, still snoring like a chainsaw. How she maneuvered her walker to weave past Plastique was a mystery left to sleep analysts. She tottered past the chubby charging cables and through the gaping hangar bay’s garage door, then flopped down on the mown grass outside. A sprinkler took its opportunity to snap on and douse her and her stinging odor of kasha.

Legion approached from the other end of the hangar bay. He strode over a charging cable and checked Mabel, who seemed okay albeit soaked. And, thanks to the gardenbots, now powdered with fertilizer. The good stuff. Tulips already blossomed along her back. And they sang. Someone at IP had been dealing with Flower Glower Mutapharmaceuticals.

“Any news on Jeff?” Legion asked.

Ace Spandex was already nodding no, chewing his gum and snapping its air pockets. “Couldn’t find a thing. And I missed Valentine’s for this.”

“Really. You had a date?” More of a skeptical statement than a question.

“No. I just like cinnamon hearts. All yesterday and this morning, we followed the trail from Jeff’s hyperability to a mass-tran station. It spiked there, but according to witnesses, he took flight. By the way, expect a bill for a skylight.

“Legion, we tracked his signal straight to the mass-tran station because his radiation clung to anything solid. Once he took flight, it dissipated. We need a higher radiation signature to find him. Problem is he loves to fly. Into things, specifically.”

“I know. We’re on our fourth optical-store lawsuit this year.”

Ace stomped on the cold resin. “He’s out there, Legion. This is the first time he’s been completely on his own. He could be dying!”

Legion watched the heavily tanned Catastrophe wander off, the Good Guy telepath Sixth Sense behind him. Unfortunately, Sixth Sense suffered a cold, which left him more susceptible than usual to mental impressions. Too close to Catastrophe, he finger-shot imaginary cameras with hands hidden under long shirtsleeves and chatted up the servicebot about his next gig. If he had a pair of sunglasses, he would have snapped them on and started signing autographs.

“We’re not out of options yet,” Legion said. “Whether we pick up his signature again, or he causes another intergalactic incident, we’ll find him. Just keep searching. I have to fly to the SIPMA hospital in Breckenridge Square on Gaia for a few hours. While I’m there...I think it’s time we told Jacob. He’ll have some ideas. He and Jeff are like deranged leprechaun brothers conjoined at the detonator switch.”

“You don’t understand.” Ace grabbed Legion’s shoulders. “I’m Jeff’s new big brother, and I’m supposed to take care of him. My programming would say so if you’d purchase the software upgrade for only four installments of fiftee—” He bonked his head with his wrist. “I’m messed up.”

“Ace, this isn’t your fault.” Legion hotfooted toward the hangar bay’s door. He pointed at his antenna to indicate its gabber, the pea-sized communication device sitting inside. “Just gabber Jacob. And don’t worry about Jeff. We or some random SWAT team will find him. It’s a good time of year for that. He thinks Valentine’s is shark week. And his version of shark week includes finding out how many he can sew together.”

“On dry land, though.”

“That’s why it’s technically not a safety infraction.” Legion scurried out of the hangar.

Chapter Six: Field Trip

“Blam, blam!” Master Asinine dispatched another light-bullet into the head of a statue that leered at him in precisely the wrong way. It bore that stony look. You know. The one that said you hadn’t lived until pigeons pooped white gold on you. Except the statue was inside, so it had nothing to boast about, and technically, pigeons had poopinated Asinine. So there, statue.

The Bad Guys were besieging the Wright Family Abbott Museum, the Terran disaster hotspot. It held artifacts dated from Ancient Terra up to four centuries ago if the candy bars in the snack machines were any indication. Here Master Asinine had begun his search for the Oblongifact, the most irradiated artifact this side of whatever he put in his coffee.

A skeleton crew of Bad Guys—led by Asinine and complained about by Bad Aim—had arrived here almost twenty minutes ago. They’d taken charge with bellows, warning shots, and misaimed pee breaks. They’d sealed the exits. The four security guards lay in a headless heap by the tire-fire exhibit that smelled like feet. And the sixty or so hostages who bothered to patron this disaster shop the day after Valentine’s sat in squirming balls on the furrowed carpet. Master Asinine had a heart: he had let the children and parents go, but only because the children kept whining that Asinine had ruined the laserdiscs in the technology-disaster display. Sorry. Further ruined.

“Hello again, people of this museum and its surrounding parking lot. And the gift shop.” Asinine’s words came out juicy thanks to this mouthwatering, four-hundred-year-old candy bar. Nougat aged well. “As my Bad Guys here have explained—except Bad Aim, because he doesn’t know what words are—”

“Yo, yo, I toldja my hyperability is rappin’ atcha, fo’ serious, broseph.”

“Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum yourself. Anyway, people, we are looking for a vvveeeerrrryyyy special object, a pencil sharpener. It’s oblong, so you know it’s gotta be good. We scoured this whoopsy-daisy museum to pinpoint it. But so far we came up with whoopsy-diddly squat. And I don’t like diddly or how it squats.” Asinine waved his gun in a horizontal arc, and the crowd gasped with heads ducking to the stained carpet. In his tinfoil-like impact suit, Bad Aim copycatted the arc, though he held a water pistol. Last time he’d shot at somebody, he’d blasted the headlights out of Asinine’s civ-tran, so he was on armament timeout.

Lieutenant IQ had brought a palm-sized radiation tracker, its display aglow in jade and red tinges. It beeped and quacked with every button pressed.

“Anyway, people of the Terran Failure Collection Museum—”

Lieutenant IQ 23 finally took time to tear away from the radiation tracker to which he’d glued himself since seven this morning. He leaned in, and the metal question mark bobbing by his helmet’s right temple knocked Master Asinine’s ear. “Sir, as we practiced on the trip here, this is the Wright Family Abbott Museum.”

“I calls ’em like I sees ’em, Lieutenant, and I sees this place as the universe’s biggest dump of crap.”

Asinine’s gun flicked back at the mewing crowd. One wet blanket yelled, “Quit pointing that thing at us!”

“Anyway, museum crowd—can I call you Musey? I’ll call you Musey—we only need a few more moments. My lieutenant here”—Asinine glanced at IQ 23, who bumped the radiation tracker with the heel of his palm and stared at it with the same expression Asinine used whenever he took a Cosmo quiz—“is tracking down the object of our quest. It’s somewhere here, and once we find it, we’ll be up, up, and away from this cataclysm gallery, and you can all return to checking out the new Aerosmith exhibit.”

“Sir?” Lieutenant IQ 23 tapped Asinine’s arm. “Sir.”

“Lieutenant, I’m explaining to Musey why they’re hostages. Give me a minute.”

“But, sir.” Lieutenant IQ 23 remained glued to his apparatus. It qua-quacked.

“Lieutenant, I gave you two jobs today. You’ve already ironed my underwear. Now track down the Oblongifact.”

“Sir, that’s the thing. I...I can’t.” Lieutenant IQ 23 finally looked up from his tracker. With a sharp wrist flourish, he pivoted the tracker’s display around to show Asinine. “Something else washed out the trail. It passed through here yesterday and immersed the area in photons.” The tracker beeped.

Asinine snatched up the tracker. “Ooh. Pretty photons at that. All blue and green and red and whatever that color is.”

“White, sir. It’s a shade.”

“Ashade. I learn a new white every day. Okay. Wow. Check out those readings. I have no idea what they mean, but I’m sure they’re impressive. I love me some triple-digit numbers.” His eyes ponged around the tracker’s display. By jove and all the jovelike joves, this thing looked radioactively awesome! And, as IQ 23’s tracker attested, it held a radiation level somewhere around double this lame pencil sharpener. “Okay, decision time. Oblongifact or this new thing. According to my fourth-grade schooling level, third-grade reading level, and second-grade intelligence level, double is better than single by almost twice as much.” He rubbed his chin. “Your thoughts, Lieutenant?”

“Well, sir, in all honesty, I’d love to chase after whatever makes you stop slapping my back and yelling, ‘I hope this changes us into Ninja Turtles.’”

“Okay, this new thing it is.” Asinine tossed the radiation tracker behind his back to let IQ 23 catch it. Of course IQ 23 fumbled, and it quacked angrily. “Okay, we’re leaving, Musey. Sorry to interrupt your day, but I’m sure the gift shop will give you some free kites for your trouble. And remember, winners don’t do drugs. Lieutenant and you other dudes”—he snapped his fingers toward the door—“let’s unbarricade this pop stand.”

“Already?” Schizophrenic looked up from the water fountain into which he emptied a burlap sack of powder. “I still got four more fountains!”

Chapter Seven: Commercial Real Estate

February 26, 9110. 7:11 p.m. (Galactic Standard Time).

Plaster slid outta that traumatic nightmare man as if he rode a log flume over a river o’ noxious grease. Noxious was right. The nightmare man, Blackguard, had a stench o’ dead bodies an’ rottin’ meat that cleared Plaster’s sinuses in all the wrong ways. All the wrong, offensive, cadaverous ways. It drifted past all the snot an’ hairs guardin’ his nostrils, and that wasn’t an easy thing.

Plaster, a dude with a ragin’ hypermutation o’ constantly meltin’ an’ constantly replenishin’ skin, looked like a melted wax statue wit’ a skull face. Totally photogenic. He used ta belong to the Bad Guys until he’d had enough o’ Master Asinine’s crock. So Master Asinine had trapped him in some basement pool area for a month, fed him nothin’ but kelp an’ chum, until Blackguard broke him out. Seemed Blackguard was now his new leader, a shadow dude made o’ pitch-black “dark essence” who commanded that dark essence to shapeshift limbs or create tendrils that weaved around like tiny appendages. Dude had wrapped Plaster up in that pool area, an’ next think ya know he dumped Plaster out here. On stippled pavement. Thanks, Blackguard. He sprang off the ground to clean off that nasty gunk o’ Blackguard an’...Wait a freakin’ minute. Ain’t nothin’ on him. He’d geared up his dustin’ hands and, whaddayaknow, the last traces o’ gunk slurped back into Blackguard’s torso as if they wasn’t never there. Plaster blinked to clear his eyes. Yup, ain’t nothin’ left but gravel.

He spun around. They popped up in an alleyway? Yeah. He hadn’t seen one o’ these for a while. He stood in a shadowy dead end that led out to somethin’ what looked like a market street. Oily puffs from vents clouded the scene, wit’ the hint o’ fish battlin’ Blackguard for top spot on vicious stenches. Plaster’d had enough o’ seafood after livin’ in the kelp capital for an eon. A restaurant must be near, which Plaster wouldn’t mind, fishy smell or not, considerin’ his stomach was chewin’ his colon right now.

Redstone buildin’s blocked the cottoned evenin’ sky and reflected rosy glows on everythin’. Casual babblin’ frothed into the alleyway, but Plaster couldn’t pick out any words. What was the point since ain’t nobody here prob’ly talkin’ about food.

“Okay, Murder Fart, what’d we just do?” An’ wherever they was, Plaster hoped they was next door to a convenience store so’s they could steal Blackguard a stick o’ deodorant or two or two million. Another sniff. Or two million an’ one ’cause one could make all the difference.

“We teleported and chronoported.”

“What the dictionary? Teleport, I know, but what was that other long, stupid word wit’ twelve Os?”

“Teleport and chronoport. We traveled through both space and time.” Blackguard blinked. Did he? Plaster couldn’t tell since them eye sockets wasn’t no more concave than the bowl of a spoon.

“That what ya meant when ya said ya can take me away from all that chlorine?” Ten minutes ago, Plaster felt as weak and dry as a freakin’ saltine. Now, though he tingled wit’ gnawin’ hunger, he felt juiced up on energy. Blackguard had helped him scarf down all that kelp—disgustin’ crap, an’ still salty on his tongue, but at least it was food—an’ he prob’ly ate a tile or two. An’ though it wasn’t much, Plaster felt more zip in his nerd-kickin’ feet. Too bad the reg’lar nerds weren’t aroun’. Speakin’ o’ which, “Hey, how ’bout we detour back home so’s I can kick IQ, Scapegoat, an’ Brick to crock?”

Blackguard’s mouth moved like he wore a stockin’ on his head in a bank robbery. “Scapegoat has defected, and Brick is dead.”

Crock. He always knew Scapegoat was defective, but Brick dead? Plaster wiped dry flakes off his lips. Fine. No goin’ home. “Okay, then where are we? An’ when are we?”

Blackguard turned to the open mouth o’ the alleyway. “We traveled to Gaia, specifically in the Arkanal Marketplace in the province of Hot Stinking Mess Electronics. I believe you confronted the Good Guys in this area three months ago.”

Plaster stumbled back a step. “Three mo—How long was I in that cockamamie pool?”

“Less than a month.” Blackguard began walkin’ toward the street, toward the babblin’. Weird that his feet didn’t make no foot sounds. “We skipped precisely two weeks, one hour, and two minutes. We are now in late February, here to collect another hyperperson.”

Plaster kicked into followin’ Blackguard. “Is it Multipurpose? Tell me it ain’t Multipurpose. He’s hungry like a black hole. I think he is one. I crock you not, he don’t walk more ’n ten paces a day, but I seen him leap clear across a table an’ snatch the last cinnamon roll outta someone’s hand. He’s a weapon o’ mass devouring.” He put his dehydrahatened palm to his desiccawhatevered face to wipe his lips again. “It’s Multipurpose, ain’t it? At least it ain’t that guy in my high school what used to fart webs.”

“No, it is not Multipurpose. If we collected him, I fear he would try to ingest me in a manner much like you ingested that kelp.”

“All suave an’ masculine?”

Blackguard stopped at the head o’ the alleyway. Looked left an’ then right, as if he was checkin’ for a taxi. Ain’t no taxi gonna let him in wit’out payin’ a cleanup fee.

Plaster caught up beside him. “So where we headed then?”

“A location with the esteemed title of Fricking Nails. It is as honorable as it sounds.” Blackguard headed left. Still no foot sounds. Leers and rubberneckin’ tracked him. Flowers wilted when he passed. So did old people.

Plaster winced when his stomach burped an aggressive gurgle: starved still. He palmed a cantaloupe from a street vendor, gave his grar face when the vendor reacted, and mashed that juicy melon inta his mouth like he was a certain pasty-white ball o’ cake batter that was the topic o’ conversation fifteen seconds ago. Took all o’ eight bites to down that thing, rind an’ all. Juice an’ seeds dribbled down his chin like clumps o’ his flesh. He grabbed two mangoes an’ a bunch o’ bananas, then dropped that stuff to the curb when he spotted a shawarma truck ahead. Grabbed one o’ them—man, this place was like a buffet. “So Funky Fresh Frickin’ Nail Salon.” He managed them words out through the saucy beef goin’ down. “How far’s that?” So good.

Blackguard didn’t slow down, saunterin’ silently. Crock, this dude kept a tight schedule, an’ he wasn’t stoppin’ even for a shower. Tromped through one o’ them pavement vents coughin’ up sour smoke from some grocer somewheres. “It is four blocks away.”

Plaster almost dropped the half shawarma he still had to mow down. With class, he might add, ’cept the tahini sauce all over his mouth’d disagree. “What? Ya mean, I gotta be seen in public wit’ you for four more blocks? Why not teleport there?” His stomach knotted again: quick reminder ta finish the shawarma an’ grab somethin’ else. He had, like, a crockin’ month an’ a half of scarfin’ to catch up on. An’ also maybe after that, brush his teeth. Gotta keep them pearly yellows gleamin’.

“Because this affords you the opportunity to eat.” Blackguard dignified that response wit’ nothin’ except his black back against an evenin’ sun that got nightier by the second. Gawks from everybody they passed, even the blind dude who probably thought he was lookin’ at the inside o’ his own eyelids.

The trip—an’ no stoppin’ for any deodorant sticks—took ten minutes. They arrived at some place what looked like a rundown shack for squatters. The street itself was hillbilly country—weeds taking command, insects eating fences, weather stripping every fixture in sight, the scent an’ aura of decay—and the shack fit in seamlessly. Pieces o’ the wood doorframe peeled off wit’ bugs scurryin’ around it. The paint flaked away in any gust what picked up. The heat wasn’t doin’ this place no good either. It dried out the front lawn, which overflowed wit’ colorless weeds that stood to Plaster’s knees an’ them insects what fed off ’em. All this finished wit’ a big neon sign what ain’t on but said “For Lease.” Now, Plaster wasn’t no expert on real estate, but when a place said it was for lease, it wasn’t a nail salon, frickin’ or otherwise. This place was definitely not in business.

“So you came here? On Con—” Urk. Plaster wrapped his arms around his stomach. The pain knifin’ his gut felt like frickin’ nails and declared it was still chow-down o’clock, no matter what the settin’ sun said. He winced and barely managed t’ open his mout’. “We came here on Continuum’s crocked-up orders? He the brainchild what sent you to some defunct nail salon wit’out checkin’ the local listings first?” Another gut stab.

Blackguard stared up at the neon sign what wasn’t neonin’ no more. Wind trickled along the street, but it ain’t budged that fake fedora on top o’ his crazy head or the bogus trench coat what shoulda flapped around them marathon-runner legs. “First off, Plaster, watch your attitude. Our Lord Continuum, the ‘brainchild’ to which you refer, is none other than the one who saved you from your deserved demise. Second off, you would best not question His perfection, for His perfection is, to sound redundant, perfect. Third off, if you impugn someone’s perfection, first consider the sauce on your mouth. And chin.” Blackguard checked. “And a twig is stuck to it.”

Plaster ain’t barely felt the twig tickle his chin. He grabbed it an’, wit’ a shrug, gulped it down. Hey, he was hungry, not choosy. “So if Lord Contrimum’s so perfectly perfect, why’s he sent us to some place what’s shut down?”

Blackguard already climbed the three stone steps toward the weather-beaten front door. He pressed his hands against the door, instigatin’ a static buzz that blocked entry. Shield screen. Anyone else— except stupid people an’ stupider people—woulda recoiled from shock. Not Blackguard. Blackguard took it like a pissin’ champ, which made him even stranger.

Plaster’s gut flared up again. That twig wasn’t doin’ the trick. He gripped his stomach tighter, hopin’ his intestine wasn’t eatin’ his other intestine. He needed them two. He hobbled up the steps, tripped over one in his feeble starvation. “You ain’t gettin’ in there, seems.” He tapped the shield screen what blocked the public from goin’ in an’ usin’ the place as a piss hole. He was so ferociously starved he didn’t feel the static shock through his tinglin’ fingertips. “Place is boarded up.” He snatched a datasheet, activated and therefore inflexible, what stuck to the screen. Eyes bounced around the datasheet. Evacuation notice. He threw it into the dried-up weeds beside the steps and smacked his parched lips. Them weeds looked tasty.

“Our everlasting Lord Continuum knew exactly what He was doing.” Blackguard still examined that shield screen. He pressed his fingertips against it, electricity snappin’ around the pressure. Blackguard ain’t twitched. Not a budge or an anythin’. Plaster watched him shirk from the sun, but an electric shock? Nothin’. He was testin’ the screen.

Blackguard reared back, an’ wit’ a slurp, his hand sharpened up into a crockin’ man-sword. Plaster tumbled inta the weeds. A sword arm? This should be good. If it was, Plaster planned on gettin’ into so many fights. Heh. Blackguard. What a wingman. All you had to do was dress him in garbage so he’d smell better.

Then Blackguard attacked. That crockin’ sword sliced through the shield screen as if it was nothin’. Right through. Static discharged so much it stood the hairs in Plaster’s ears straight outta the muck of his skin an’ earwax. If Plaster had hair on his bald head, that woulda stood up too. Blackguard’s arm arced up so hard he stepped back, that sword cleavin’ the shield screen an’ doorframe in pissin’ two.

Plaster stepped outta them weeds and clapped a hand on Blackguard’s shoul—Nope. Bad idea. Took off his hand since touchin’ Blackguard wasn’t cool on account of it suckin’. “That was awesome. Can ya do that to a car salesman what gave me a hard time when I tried to sneak somethin’ off his lot?” Blackguard didn’t react. “Okay, we’ll circle back ’round to that. Just don’t make plans for tomorrow.”

Wit’ nothin’ in the way, Blackguard shoved the halves o’ the rotten door aside. A regular swing door, it didn’t creak off its hinges. It flew off ’em. Tumbled into th’ front room an’ then snapped apart on th’ floor. The door’s l-window, more a tangle o’ cobwebs, buzzed away. Ain’t no light in here, but Blackguard looked as though he ain’t needed any when he soundlessly strode in. Plaster, though, bashed his toe on a sharp board, for crock’s sake. Numero uno, starvation. Numero two-o, now this split toe what woulda been okay ’cept he had no cushion under his skin, which shoulda been gummy except due t’ numero uno. Frig, what he wouldn’t give for a lightbulb on a beaded string. Or for a taco.

“Hello, Ms. Liddell,” Blackguard said, either t’ someone curled up in a chilly corner or nobody at all. And wit’ Plaster’s sanity goin’ south for the winter, he woulda joined in the conversation with Ms. Nobody-at-All Liddell.

A shuffle. Oh, someone was here. Plaster’s eyes weren’t adjustin’ to the dark much, not like at the pool room or that time Asinine blindfolded him t’ test if he would sense out a steak dinner like he was Daredevil. Joke was on him: ain’t no blindfold keepin’ Plaster from a steak dinner.

“Who are ya, darlin’?” oozed a lazy voice from the darkness. Sounded southielike. “Ya look like a tar pit washed in a sack o’ pig stool.”

Plaster snapped his tinglin’ fingers. Dry flakes snowed out. “I thought the exact same thing.”

Whoever was this Liddell stood. “An’ you look like the same tar pit washed in a sack o’ pig organs.”

“I’ll pig-organ you, ya”—Plaster couldn’t spot Liddell in all this dark—“Crock, I can’t even insult at ya.” He kicked a wall—Nope, bad idea right now. Stopped hisself. Ha. Take that, habit. He’d high-five hisself, but in this dark, he’d prob’ly end up slappin’ Blackguard an’ gettin’ a hand caught in his neck.

Somethin’ shuffled over where Liddell stood: Liddell approachin’ them. Shadow shifted aroun’ shadow, like a Blackguard family reunion. An’ the reek o’ mold an’ water-damaged wood in here made Plaster rather be at that reunion, ’cause despite the creep factor risin’ into the triple digits, they’d have snacks. His stomach grumbled. He could use a wienie dog.

Then Plaster saw a shadowy hint o’ who they dealt wit’ here: blonde hair, stood a few inches shorter’n Plaster, smelled as if she kept up wit’ the perfume in a place where perfume got shot an’ killed. She shook her head, an’ her blonde hair, braided behind her back, thrashed like a whip.

“Plaster, this, as the media has named her, is Marionette.” Blackguard folded his arms as if Mr. Hotshot had said somethin’ Plaster cared ’bout. He didn’t, ’cause food ain’t came up.

Plaster wondered why he was supposed to pay attention. Half-sneerin’, he checked this Maranet, then Blackguard, then Maranet. Forget this nonsense. He stomped to the door. “I’m-a go steal a taco.”

Chapter Eight: That’s Right, Parents Bring Their Children Here

February 15, 9110. Again.

Franchise approached the tented-and-carnied grounds of the Fallowbridge Fair among casinolike dings, bells, and whistles of rides and games. A mixture of sweet sugars filtered into his nostrils: cotton candy, lemonade, and that glowing green sludge some people swigged back. It twitched. It had tentacles. It spoke.

Franchise’s gabber beeped. “Incoming connection from entity Ace Spandex.” Ugh. He’d forgotten he’d activated this thing this morning. He considered the call—take it, hang up, take it, hang up, decisions, decisions. Nah, forget it. He was on vacation. Whatever problem Ace Spandex had, he definitely didn’t need Franchise botching it up. Last time he’d botched something up for Ace, they were baking, and even though fitting an alpaca in cake batter was difficult, Franchise had found a way.

“Gabber, acknowledge. Decline connection.” Franchise traipsed over a patch of grass pounded flat under civ-tran landing wheels, mass-tran trestles, and hooves from thundermammals some cowpokes had rode in on. The thundermammals were tied to the bike rack. One was eating a bike. Another was eating the one eating the bike.

Franchise tromped past the groaning Ferris wheel and spotted Tamiko in the lineup that led to—oh, crock. An invisible hand clasped his throat. The haunted house...which he didn’t mind. What had agitated his circulation was the pointy-toothed clown ushering the line forward. At least this wasn’t the line for the Day of the Dead musical: too many neckbeards.

Tamiko saw Franchise and perked up on her tiptoes. Her smile glittered in the warm sun, and she waved him over. He hopped into a trot, weaved through the crowds, side-skirted through the miniature-golf line, and reached her. She wrapped him in a hug, arms thrown around his neck. “Hey hey hey, you’re late?” Her rising intonation made her statement sound like a question.

“Yeah, I know. The first mass-tran was a mobile advertisement for polar bear ice fishing. Live polar bears on it. I was not setting foot on that thing for a three-hour commute.” He coughed. “Polar bears only talk about the economy.”

Tamiko wore a rose chemise and a crimson skirt. A white-and-red scrunchie wrangled her strawberry-scented hair into a bobbing ponytail. She wore red sandals whose color had faded into a spotty pink, and her nails bore blood-red polish. Or blood. She blew a gum bubble out, which ruptured and splattered over her cheeks. “Cherry mash, Bubble Ballistic’s newest flavor,” the bubble whispered over the pop.

Tamiko licked the bubble back in and resumed chewing. “S’okay. I’ve been standing in this line for us?” She threw a finger at the guy in front of her. “With this gitch who totally smells like an oil spill?”

“Hey,” the gitch in the stained tank top said.

“And this gitch who totally smells like sweaty barbecue chips?”

“Thank you,” the gitch in the tattered denim jacket and two hundred surplus pounds of weight said. He munched a few chips from a bag he carried.

“Oh, and guess totally what?” She kissed his cheek as finality to her greeting. “You get to meet my bestie Cammy? She’s total LOLs. You’ll love the guts outta her? She ops the ticket booth? She can scam us mucho ticketo for total freeness. She’s on break in—” Tamiko checked her watch, a vintage from late twentieth century Terra, and then held it to her ear. “Crock. We’re in total ninety-one-oh-futureness, and we can’t even make a watch work.” Tamiko’s smile grew and glittered more in the sun. “Whatevs. You’ll totally get to meet her? Not you, Sweaty Barbecue-Chip Guy.”

Franchise twinkled a wave as a diplomatic gesture to the guy. “You smell like the quality barbecue chips, though. The kind that never goes on sale.” The wind changed and—ho, man—Franchise cupped his nose in a hand. “On second thought, your body odor is way too high in trans fats. Hello, clown.” Franchise elbowed away the clown who had wandered over. Pointy teeth, a snaky tongue, and a nose you squeeze if you wanted to hear the shrieks of tortured souls. Not for him.

“So I was braining...we totally check this haunted house, right? And they have a hot-dog-eating contest under the north tent, and I’m totally gonna kick—your—crock?” She poked him playfully to accent her words. “After, we ride the Ferris wheel—”

“Nuh uh.” Franchise toppled backward into Oil-Spill Guy. Franchise now felt as if he hadn’t bathed in a week, which was probably true of Oil-Spill Guy. “I h-have this...just...I mean...Ferris wheels. Tall. Rickety. That’s the nopiest nope on the top of my non-spider-nope list.”

Tamiko blocked her vision from the sun and interlocked her fingers with Franchise’s. “You’re buzzed by the Ferris wheel? Tsk tsk, dude. You so gotta get over that phobe”—she tapped his cheek—“’cause I’m totally taking you on it when the sun goes down.”

“Ferris wheel’s nothing, sissy,” Oil-Spill Guy said. Franchise detected perfume drifting from his neck. He chanced a closer look over his shoulder, and holy falafel, Oil-Spill Guy was Oil-Spill Gal!

“And, anyway, after that, you ever went to a hall of mirrors?” Tamiko wrapped her hands around Franchise’s waist and swung him around.

Franchise screened his eyes from the sun. “Once, but it was technically a hall of mirror shards after Jeffy let loose in the bed-and-bath section of Box Store.”

“Right, I forgot. You, like, never been in public before. Well, today you’re totes doing all those rides you never could.” She patted his chest and pecked her lips against his nose. He blushed. She was cute when she stood on her tiptoes to do it. “Including the tongue twister? And I hope you nabbed dental in your meds plan, ’cause that’s totally not a metaphor.”

Franchise clamped his hands over his mouth. His blush faded. “But only one tongue lives in here!”

“Not for long,” Tamiko said below clouds rolling over the sun. “Okay-okay-okay, so we rock this haunted house first”—she counted the attractions off on her fingers—“then what’d I say? Oh yeah. The hot-dog contest, then oh my total coolness oh my crock oh—” Tamiko stared past Franchise into the shaded distance, her screams degrading into high-squealed “oh my” variations. A gasp wedged its way into the litany. She happy-hopped on ridged ground, and her hands became hummingbird wings.

Franchise followed her line of sight to spot a girl pummel through the miniature-golf line like a bumper car, a blonde wire wearing blue jeans, a highlighter-pink T-shirt with “Fallowbridge Fair” lettered across in black scribble, and a whistle strap jangling around her neck. Her sandals kicked up patches of dirt on her beeline toward Tamiko. Her and Tamiko collided like freight trains in high school trigonometry problems and a few of Jeffy’s birthdays. Hands slapped around each other in an embrace, and if Franchise had coal to squeeze between the two, he’d be a diamond dealer tomorrow.

“Tamitamitamitamisocooltoseeyoutamitami!” The blonde somehow pulled off that fused ramble without a gasp for air.

“Cammycammycammyohmycrockcammy!” Tamiko yattered. “I haven’t seen you since homeroom this morning!”

“I super know? It’s been totally, like, twelve hours?”

Franchise stepped clear of the bedlam of their spiraling embrace. He flung his arms up when the blonde’s whistle whipped around. Oil-Spill Gal became a casualty of jutting elbows. Sweaty Barbecue-Chip Guy babied his bag of chips in one arm and ducked. When the hurricane spun dangerously close to the bag, he rolled, tripping a girl. Franchise had never seen a couch potato evade anything that fast.

The dynamo wound down. Tamiko and Cammy unwrapped, and a panting Tamiko extended a hand to Franchise. “Cammy, you so gotta meet my boyfriend-slash-boyfriends, Jakey.”

Cammy slapped her cheeks. “Ohmycrockholymoly, you and your other yous are totally the guys who stopped that robo-gitch, Mechy.” She bounced in place.

Franchise’s smile slanted shyly. “I helped stop that gitch Mechy.” Nobody else reacted. Thankfully fame wasn’t a big deal at this fair.

“You’re super awesome! Tami, your boyf is super awesome. You’re super awesome!” Cammy grabbed Franchise and yanked him into a bear hug that sucked the oxygen from his lungs. He probably turned blue. “Can you sign my limited-edition Franchise cheese press later?”

Franchise grunted. He managed to dislodge a hand and unclamp Cammy. “Sure. Nice to meet you and your level-ten ADHD.”

Cammy whirled at Tamiko. “I got Franchiseness all over my shirt! I’m super never washing it again? Which is the cools ’cause I gotta hand it in at the end of my shift.”

“Download from entity Cammy-Is-Your-Super-BFF-Nine-Zero-Seven complete.” Franchise’s gabber emitted a pulse of warmth in his ear to corroborate the statement.

“What the—” Franchise twitched back and put a finger to his ear canal. Was that Cammy’s rambling callsign? “Did I download something from your gabber?”

“Oh, yeah. Natch.” Tamiko blew a bubblegum bubble. It grew to the size of a cantaloupe, Fallowbridge Fair written along the side. She spoke around it. “Cammy’s gabber totally has that auto-download app? Now you got her callsies, her contact list, her gabber log, her playlist tunes, the yogurt stands she’s eaten at, and a list of her favorite cardboards.”

“Corrugated and noncorrugated.” Franchise pursed his lips. “Exactly what I’d expect. Hello, clown. Why are you still here?” He waved weakly. The clown watched him with those void eyes and that wiry tongue that slurped the bits of bat head from its jagged teeth. “Please floss.”

“Anyway, Tami, Jakey, forget about this haunted house? It’s super wwwaaayyy for kidsies. We’re goin’ straight for the roller coaster made outta coasters. We can super skip the line if I blow my whistle and yell ‘fire.’” Cammy grabbed Tamiko’s hand and scampered off toward another line in the distance. Tamiko grabbed Franchise’s hand and—yalp! He faltered off his feet.

Franchise barely made it back up to a gallop. “That clown made smooching noises at me.”

“Aw, that means he super likes you,” Cammy said from the engine position of this arm train.

* * *

An hour later, the sun had peeked out from the clouds. Franchise stepped aside to allow Cammy to wrap Tamiko in a hug as gentle as ribbon knotted around a present. “I gotta super get back to my shift? My lunch is donesies, and the line at the ticket booth so won’t run itself? Unless they fix the machine so it runs itself. Which they won’t. Love you, BFF.”

“Love you,” Tamiko said, her voice buried in Cammy’s shoulder. “I’ll totally see you at Greg Ferguson’s bitchin’ pool shindy next Saturday? I mega-hope you’re not the one who drowns this time.”

They separated, and Cammy threw herself at Franchise for another hug. “We all gotta super do this again, ’kay, brother from another mother?”

“Super sure, sister from another mister.” Franchise returned the hug but with hands unsure how to react around Cammy’s anaconda embrace. He patted her back. Good enough. “Wait, should I phrase that like a question? Sorry, like a super awesome tonal—Piss it. I have enough trouble learning to speak like Jeffy.”

Cammy pulled back, blew a kiss at Tamiko, and dashed off over the abused grass, pulling her whistle and lanyard around her neck. “Outta my way, gitches.”

“So where to next?” Franchise put his arm around Tamiko’s shoulder. “We should play more carnival games. I’ve got a score to settle with that strongman hammer. Or we can ride the Sick Maker.” Hold on. His hands wrung each other. He...Wait. His heart didn’t eat its way out. His breath remained even. Whoa. He smiled. “Yeah, the Sick Maker. Let’s get sick.”

Tamiko giggled. “Okay, duder. Chillax a sec? I gotta visit the girls’ room?” She stood on the balls of her feet and pecked his cheek with lipstick he refused to ever rinse off. That might get problematic when he met her parents, but his decision was final. “I’ll be back in five tops and we’ll totally get you sicker than Jerry at a geography test?”

“I have absolutely no frame of reference for that.”

Tamiko padded off in search of the bathroom. She disappeared through the line that weaved toward the cotton-candy stand.

Franchise’s gabber beeped. Ugh, not Ace again. But the gabber said, “Incoming connection from entity Cammy-Is-Your-Super-BFF-Nine-Zero-Seven. Super bitchin’.” The ringtone was a giggle.

Huh? Franchise both tapped his gabber and said, “Gabber, acknowledge. Accept connection.”

“Hi-hi, Jakers.” Cammy’s voice sang through intermingled with a series of clicks. Franchise’s gabber must need a new speaker. “It’s me, Cammy, your new BFF?”

“Yeah, I know. The gabber tells me these things. It’s done that for years.”

“Cool beans. Aaaaanyway”—her voice waved through that last word playfully—“I super wanted to give you the four-one-one? Tami thinks you’re totally the cutes? Like an enchilada on a scale of glaucoma to zebra? Way cuter than Tuross from physics class?”

“Tuross sounds like he celebrates new political administrations by overthrowing the local fisherman’s dock.” Franchise draped his arm over a guard rail.

“He’s the main drag of the school’s dodgeball team? You know those Toxidillians and their dodgeball.”

“Trioxidillians.” Franchise smiled. The cutes, eh? Heh. Wait. “I’m not one of those heartburn-inducing enchiladas, am I?”

“No waysies. Anyway, I super gotta jet? This gitch in the ticket line is totes pounding on the ionizing shield? He’s ‘wanting proper change,’ whatever that means? Yeah, chill, old fart? I’m counting as fast as I can?”

“Hard to mess up change for electronic transactions, but you mess it up like a champ.”

“Totally. Gotta jet.” Click.

An enchilada? Out of zebra? Franchise covered the smile insisting over his face. Forget the Sick Maker. If he intended to leave the old enchilada-lacking Franchise behind, prove to himself and Tamiko he was no longer a chicken, he’d ride that Ferris wheel to the top, climb out of his seat, and swing from a bar like Tarzan.

* * *

Holy idiot, what was he thinking? “Ready to come down now.” Franchise held on for dear life to the girder underneath the squeaking metal-and-rubber seat that had stopped at the apex of the Ferris wheel. He looked down at Tamiko, who still occupied the seat he’d climbed out of.

“Dude, I totes have no idea what spewed through your skull when you pounded your chest and said, ‘You, Jane,’ then climbed up there?” Tamiko said. “But it was way slammin’.”

Chapter Nine: A Day at the Park

Heavy rain squalled against Jeff’s back. All he heard was the weather’s constant outburst that raged like static on a vacant radio signal. Didn’t help to stuff jujubes in his ears, but now he knew: his ear had room for a jujube and a door jamb. Experiment: success. Hypothesis: still needed to look up that word.

He had nowhere to sleep except in this park, the Glenndale Community Common. His nose dripping, his skin so warm his l-clothes had trouble staying coalesced, his arms wrapping his legs, he curled up on a bench he’d claimed as his bed. Had to kick a dude and his dog off, but they got the hint when his skin glowed. Screw them and the bottle in that paper bag the dude called his beloved.

A statue of the President of Renovodomus loomed over him, his shelter from the west-swept rain. Not much shelter. At least now Jeff knew what the President would look like if bronzed.

The weird thing was Jeff’s body heat. Strangely, he felt warm, almost feverish, in the chilly rain that attacked him with all it had. Did he have the flu? The rain sizzled on his skin. That had never happened before. Showed that weather who was boss.

The roaring wind picked up and spilled the bench forward. Jeff careened onto the pavement. Weather was boss.

Chapter Ten: Disorientation Day

Without knowing why, I had followed this oversized blue forehead with the pulsating vein into the same dingy hangar on Station Zilcho to which she’d brought me before. The hangar contained a disarray of worktables, overenthusiastic light panels that hovered near the thirty-foot-high ceiling, and a gigantic assembly machine stretching across the rear wall, unassembled robot parts stacked on it. In that mess sprawled an oil-fetid Kingfish starship, The Nemesis, stripped into components and strewn around catwalks and the vast floor. And a ghastly number of Skittles packages for some reason.

The Nemesis was Kyril’s starship. Who was Kyril anyway? For what was this starship used? Even with the cockpit section designed to look—and smell—like a rooster head, I racked my brains but came up with nothing, maybe because I racked my brains physically.

I’d woken up here in this mad scientist’s lab a couple days ago with no memory. Glimpses of memories leaked through occasionally but not enough. The same Terran/Trioxidillian crossbreed who’d awoken me two days ago indicated the hangar with a grandiose wave and a subtle fart. This gesture upended her, and she toppled over thanks to her head. Her media name was Brainiac, and from what I’d read out of her mind, our Bad Guy leader Master Asinine had hired her days ago to replace his former mad scientist, Brick. Brainiac was madder. I knew this by the objects peeking out of her pocket protector. I saw only the tips of those objects, but that X-ray laser pointer didn’t look as if it had a stun setting.

Brainiac picked herself up with concerted effort to keep her head from snapping off her neck. Skin flecks dotting the floor where she’d fallen, she wiped off a datasheet that had clung to her cheek. “Welcome back, comrade Reef, to new workspace.” Her thick accent made her sound as if she were planning my murder. Maybe she was. She had one Terran ear and one Trioxidillian ear that ended in an antenna. How could someone muster socializing with that Picasso concept? I mean, come on!

She shut off her mind-reading hyperability. Her salmon forehead stopped pulsing, and skin flakes stopped snowing the lab’s floor. For some reason, the hyperability tapered away in my own head seconds later. Not used to being attached to someone else’s brain. Then again, most people at the license bureau expected you to be. How should I know renewals were in line four?

“My new workspace?” I patted the stale air. “From what I gleaned out of your mind, you want me to assemble these spare parts. I have trouble with origami. How can I possibly help you other than fetch coffee and doughnuts after your four-thirty nap? Please tell me that nap is for beauty sleep, because if you don’t start now, you’ll never show yourself in public without causing a panic.” I sniffled. “I say that with much respect.”

Brainiac’s finger traced a wrench on a worktable. She produced a package of Skittles from her pocket and began chewing. “But you do know what to do.” She cackled, displaying teeth and an unguarded example of bad brushing. Those pearly browns.

She swept a hand over her sporadic hair. Her DNA olio caused that: a scant quilt of hair, some here, some there. From the forehead down her head was blue Trioxidillian. She tapped that blue forehead. “Please, comrade. Enter my mind again.” She emitted a curt witch’s cackle and braced her balance on the Kingfish’s metal-feathered left wing.

“There’s no way I’m entering that nightmare landscape, lady. Wait. Let me rephrase. There’s no way I’m entering that nightmare landscape, quote-unquote, lady.”

“Nyet. You must.” Brainiac lifted herself off the wing but wobbled. Her Skittles rolled out of the package.

She opened her mind again, and her thoughts asserted themselves overtop mine. Recollections of engineering classes machine-gunned into my mind like disjointed panels in a comic strip, along with knowledge of mechanics and some muscle memory as undesirable as rancid barbecue sauce on a dessert casserole. Whoa. I’d downloaded an entire career of starship repair into my brain. The assault of knowledge pulsated like a migraine from a stretch of sleepless nights.

“I can’t figure out what my ex-wife is thinking whenever she goes belt shopping. How can I figure out your mind?” I had an ex-wife? I still had only hints to my identity, facts as disconnected to me as those on the back of a rookie card.

I guessed at what she wanted accomplished. “Okay, you want me to reassemble this rooster? How? It didn’t come with instructions. It’s not Lego. Good thing, too, because I have a knack for stepping on two-by-four blocks.” I gave an assertive nod. “They hurt when you get them in the arch.”

“Oh, dear comrade Reef, you will reassemble starship.” That accent, thicker than before, smeared evil into her words.

“I can’t even lift the pieces.”

“Da. You can. With help, of course.” She stepped aside in a grand sweep...

...and behind her, clamped to an inertiabed with an incline almost perpendicular to the oil-stained floor, stood a Gharalgian I hadn’t seen until now. Unconscious, midthirties, facial hair left unshaven in who knew how long. His head lolled to one side, and he slept staunch in the inertiabed, limbs severely atrophied and shriveled. No doubt undernourished. An IV drip stuck to his arm led to a bag nearly empty of fluid. His skin looked cold, unclothed except for a set of “I Heart Master Asinine” boxers with Asinine’s tooth-packed grin over the crotch. He was unwashed. I could tell from the stench, pale pallor, and matted hair. He’d been clamped against the inertiabed for weeks!

Holy piss. I stumbled toward him—“Let him go!”—but...my third step never connected to the floor. From the neck down I was paralyzed.

She was doing this. She froze me in place in a telekinetic hold that felt hot. “Nyet. You will do no such thing.” Another witch’s cackle.

“I’ll do every such thing!” I struggled. “Unfreeze me. You have a forehead that pulses like an air pocket, and I have a pin. Do the violent math.” I shouldered into the hold she had on me. I broke a cold sweat but made no headway. “Actually, I might have forgotten the pin in my other pants.”

Brainiac approached me, circled around to my front. I saw the shark-toothed smile on her thin, blue lips. “I am low-level telekinetic. Class three. I manipulate objects up to certain weight, but nothing heavy like starship components. And telekinesis produces heat that warps materials.” She gestured to her inert prisoner. “Gharalgian is hyperperson with class-seven telekinesis. You will use him. I will refrain from use of hyperability so only Gharalgian’s remains on. If I presume correctly, you will absorb Gharalgian hyperability. You will move starship parts, tovarich.”

“One important question.” I still couldn’t budge, though I forced my legs against the hold. Nothing doing. That produced only a grunt. “Do I even own other pants?”

“Aaaannnnddddd release.” Brainiac’s forehead stopped twitching.

I crumbled onto the floor, my palms smacking hard concrete. They sparkled with pain that tingled through me. I didn’t stand, just remained on all fours. “And if I refuse to put Humpty Dumpty back together again?”

“I shoot Gharalgian.” Brainiac pulled a pistol out and aimed it at the prisoner.

“Shatterproof argument.” My joints felt rusty, but I stood. “If this is how we work at the Bad Guys, I’ll do it.” Whatever this queen of horror comedy wanted—and I knew from her projected thoughts a second ago what that was—I’d do as long as she didn’t kill anyone.

She clapped. “Excellent.” Her thick accent stretched her word as if a serpent spoke it. She slipped the gun back into her pocket and twiddled her fingers together. “Now, simply access preesoner. Use energy that flows from him on wrench.” She pointed at the tool she had traced earlier.

“You really can’t negotiate with some people.” Okay. I shook my head, limbered up my shoulders, high-marched in place, shut my eyes, “reached out”—whatever that meant—and...

Holy crock, I found somebody. Not memories, not feelings, nothing like that. But someone else’s hyperenergy. I opened my eyes, and I must have worn such a goofy look of surprise because Brainiac smiled and perked her unibrow, the one as thick as industrial stitching on Frankenstein’s monster. I checked the wrench that sat in layers of dust on that filthy worktable and redirected the hyperenergy I’d found, focused it on the wrench—

The wrench shot into the air, not a few feet as I’d intended but through a light panel. Oh...my...crock. The wrench plummeted and thudded against the worktable, bounced off, and clattered to the floor. I had to control my panting.

“Be straight up with me.” I hesitated to ask, built up the anticipation, waited until I had the breath to speak full sentences. “I’m a wizard, aren’t I?”

Brainiac tittered a thin giggle. “Excellent, excellent, excellent. As I thought, your hyperability is much than ever believed, comrade Reef.”

“No kidding. I thought I could just mimic forms of physical energy. I just found out I can mimic mental energy too!”

“Oh, nyet, nyet, nyet. You do not mimic forms of physical energy.” Brainiac blinked in rapid-fire. “You mimic hyperabilities, comrade.”

I accidentally walloped her with the wrench, which shut her up. “Wait, I mimic what?”

Chapter Eleven: Target Sighted

The rain had stopped a few hours ago, dwindling from a torrential downpour so thick it felt like guillotine blades of rain down to serene and sunny and...guillotine blades of rain? Holy crock, where did Asinine dig up these genius ideas from?

“Lieutenant, upon our return, Brainiac will drop everything and work on guillotine blades made of rain.”

“Sir, at the moment she’s working on your fajita dinner.”

“In that case, she shall drop every of the things except one.” Asinine stepped in some dog caca. A guillotine blade of rage sliced his mood. His face must have glowed red because this rage flashed hotly. Murder he abided, but not the monster who didn’t scooper this pooper.

Asinine led a short parade of Bad Guys—Schizophrenic, IQ 23 examining a path his blippity-bloopity-quackity tracker had mapped, Braindead, and Bad Aim bringing up the rear like the parade’s final float—through the Glenndale Community Common on a footpath that twisted through a treed field and around a bandstand. Wind licked the trees whose leaves whispered in response. Onlookers scattered like birds you chucked stones at. A roller skater sprawled over his own feet, hit the pavement, and rolled on the grass. The shock might have been a result of the Bad Guys’ presence or the fact that Asinine had taken the parade motif literally: Bad Aim twirled a baton with feathered tassels. Braindead’s drumroll stuttered when he slipped over a bump.

“Sir, stop.” Lieutenant IQ 23’s shadow, smearing over Asinine’s shoulder, put up its vague hand to halt Asinine. But nothing could halt this foxhunt parade. Except that hand.

Asinine wrung his hands together. “Have you finally found our new object of interest which may or may not be shaped like an oblong?”

“That and a pair of frisky squirrels like you’d asked, sir.” Lieutenant IQ 23 studied the device for another moment before examining their surroundings. Back to the device. Back to the surroundings. He matched the map on the device to the landscape. “Sir, according to My First Geiger Counter, we’re only seven point seven yards away from this new object.”

“And the squirrels?”

“Eighteen yards even.”

“Excellent. So seven yards is”—Master Asinine screened his helmet from the intolerable sun above—“I’m guessing at the candy store. My stomach is making the same guess.”

“My foot’s guessing it’s closer than that.” Schizophrenic positioned himself behind Asinine, leg reared back.

“It’s that overturned park bench over there.” Lieutenant IQ 23 checked the distance at a bench that had rolled onto the footpath.

Asinine squinted at the shelter of the upturned bench and the sleeping figure under it, head resting on an impact shirt. A backpack lay at the figure’s feet. The figure glowed faintly even in the sunlight, and the metal arm rests that bookended the bench drooped, heated past their melting points. The shirt acting like a pillow kept coalescing to erase the charred fabric the head inflicted on it. And was the figure’s skin smoking? Freaky.

“Isn’t that Power Plant?” Asinine removed his hand from his helmet. “What’s he doing being our object of interest? Is he oblong?”

A crowd kept its distance from Power Plant, both keen to greet him and wary of his weird radiance. A news camera caught the action of him shifting in his sleep. Slow news day.

“Well...” Asinine grabbed his pistol and marched toward the bench. “...time to nab our object of interest.” Bad Aim’s baton whacked him on the head. “Seriously? You can’t aim a pistol or catch a baton? Did you take only special-ed classes at coordination school?”

* * *

Jeff smacked his lips and yawned, rubbed his eyes, looked around, and...

...

Oooookay. Fans, he guessed. A crowd of them watching him sleep. Nothing good on broadcast? A news crew filming him. Birds singing about lost love or whatever “chirpity-chirp-chirp-chirp” meant in Birdish. Trees swaying in the breeze with leaves that cheered him on. A bunch of idiots pummeling through the crowd, and oh, that was Asinine. With a baton twirler. And Braindead playing a drumroll. Given the group, that seemed normal.

Asinine marched along the footpath toward Jeff, a gun in his hand and a fumbled baton rolling off his helmet. “Get him.” He snapped his fingers. “After that, get his stuff because he has snacks. I’m sure of it. Mmmmm. Processed bread.”

Schizophrenic spread out to the left, a toothpick bobbing around his words. “Faster we finish this, faster I avoid being seen with you in public.”

Braindead and that Virillian with a hoverdisc sutured to his waist circled to the right. Neither uttered a word. Braindead hissed through his mask.

Fine. If Asinine wanted a fight, he’d get one. Jeff crawled out from the bench and flexed his wiry forearms to collect solar energy into his fists. The crowd of fans scattered. One of them grabbed Jeff’s remaining sleeve and yanked it off. “Ooh. Souvenir.” What was with people and sleeves? Too bad he wasn’t a huge spider, or he’d make more fans happy. Only the news crew, a two-person unit, remained. With finger swishes, one controlled the movements of a floating camera that fixed on Jeff.

Jeff focused his lungs into a heaving roar to scream, “You wanna piece o’ me?”

“Hold up, team. He’s a jigsaw puzzle.” Asinine lifted a hand to stop the others.

Jeff’s fists now glowed too brightly, and he couldn’t look directly at them. He felt their heat. He stretched his fingers out, and the sweat that had pooled in his clenched hands sizzled. If this fight ended like his chemistry classes, he’d cause major property damage.

He punched left, and a thunderclap of energy burst from his fingers. The blast disintegrated a hole through a five-foot-thick oak. The tree’s upper half cracked and timbered down, squashing an evacuated play structure. The swings were unusable anyway. Jeff had knotted them to the slide.

“That’s it.” Schizophrenic snorted. He clawed past Asinine and that obedience junkie with the question marks attached to his helmet. Clomping on the dewy grass in boots attached to his pillar legs, he grabbed a gun from a leg satchel. He spun the trigger guard on a finger and raised it up for a shot. Power Plant let loose another burst of energy. It chinked against the pistol, fragmenting it. The remaining charge in the pistol’s chamber flashed away. Schizophrenic didn’t pause. Instead he arched his interlaced fingers outward to crack his knuckles. “Fine. I’ll give you a handmade beating instead.”

“Everyone, rush him!” Asinine clapped his hands. “Let’s take him down one jigsaw piece at a time. Start with the head. That’s where the thinking and general goings-on happen.”

The two Virillians sped toward Jeff, matching Schizophrenic’s pace. Jeff spat on the path and welled up another irate shot in his left hand. It took no time. His hyperability supercharged everything now, and with his hand bright, he threw it forward. He released a deluge of solar energy at the Virillian with the hoverdisc. In a disembowelment of hoses and gears, the hoverdisc erupted. The ring that fitted the disc’s circumference uncurled and flung out against President Statue. The Virillian eddied uncontrollably into the nearby parking lot.

That left the two-headed dude and Braindead. Jeff didn’t expect the wormy lieutenant to fight since all he did was stroke egos and star in Bad Guy PSAs: “The More You Know About Criminal Blackmail.” That was how Jeff learned you couldn’t send blackmail even with proper postage.

A quick flex of energy that wouldn’t have produced a smoke ring a week ago coursed through Jeff’s fists. He fired and gouged a seven-foot-deep trench into the grass. Dirt scented the air. Braindead toppled into the trench. Rather, Schizophrenic shoved him in, then pointed and laughed.

Schizophrenic vaulted over the trench and grabbed another gun from his satchel. Jeff jump-kicked the pistol out of his hand. He jump-kicked again, but Schizophrenic caught his ankle and threw him into the bench. The bench shattered, and a spear of wood sliced Jeff’s arm. He clutched his arm, looked up—

A brass knuckle smashed his lip. Again. He felt aching heat, his mouth drying despite his bloody gums. Instinctively, his arm shot up and swept the next blow aside. He jabbed his fingers into Lefty’s throat. Schizophrenic staggered back.

Master Asinine took Schizophrenic’s place and clonked a fist across Jeff’s forehead. Jeff spiraled away, landed on the scraps of the bench. No way would he win a smackdown with Asinine, who adorned this month’s cover of Quilting Bazooka. He flipped back to avoid another sweeping punch. A scissor kick tickled his nose.

Escape. The only option. Jeff tightened his leg muscles, relaxed, and burst into the air on a blast of light energy.

* * *

He looked up from the grungy-smelling swill they called beer at whatever this bar was called. Sorrows? Yeah, Drownin’ Sorrows, a place so famous for drunkards that cops parked across the street either to fill their arrest quota or to notch another hole into their belts via their eighth doughnut. Or both. He waved at the mustache-wearing cop in the nearest law-tran. Yeah, you especially, crock nugget.

Frat megamouths competed at beer pong among the pool tables to his distant right, dart leaguers vied for bull’s-eyes behind them, and farther on the emergency l-door faded in and out whenever a gust traveled past. Crock all that. He sat at the bar, stared into the toxic remains of his seventh or eighth beer. Or skunk piss. He’d ask the bartender which it was, but the bartender would lie anyway.

“Hey,” he said. Or maybe only thought of saying. His senses felt fuzzy right now. They’d left him after skunk piss number six. The beer pong players cheered, pumped fists, and whacked high-fives, so he sneered at them and yelled louder, “Hey, bartender.” He smacked his mug on the counter. Foam drizzled down the handle onto the wooden finish. “Another round.”

“You’re cut off,” the bartender said over those frat crock-heads with the intelligence of ham sandwiches. They burst out in louder cheers they should have reserved for whenever one of them wore his clothes right-side in.

He swatted away a fly feasting on the coppery ring his beer mug left on the bar’s wood. “Seriously, crock. One more. I got more frigging sorrows to drown.” He muttered into his arm, “Got fired a few days ago. Pissing dream job.”

“No, you’ll drink a water and hit the road. Sun’s not even down, and you’re already sloshed.” The bartender slid another mug down to him with the precision of Sam Malone’s descendant. The mug slowed to rest in front of him, a clear, headless liquid with no odor. He dipped a finger into it. Cold. Pure. Ice water with a sobriety tablet. He snorted at it.

He downed the foam of his last skunk piss, shuddering at the briny swill, and smashed the mug on the floor. He wiped his chin and checked the viewscreen. When he did, his ears tuned into its sound attenuator: “We interrupt your regularly scheduled advertisements to bring you this late-breaking news. Good Guy agent and recent celebrity Power Plant was sighted—”

Pissing crock. Power Plant. That turd. The bar now smelled of his turdiness.

“—at the Glenndale Community Common in Breckin Ridge only moments ago where the Bad Guys sought to capture him for what this news crew assumes is to teach Master Asinine how to operate a zipper. Power Plant narrowly escaped, and the Bad Guys likewise fled the scene before authorities could arrive and distract them with a magic show.”

Tolliver pounded the bar, upending his mug of water. “Power Plant. That butt cork.”

“Wipe that up!” The bartender threw a rag at Tolliver. “That’s the last time you waste my best vintage tap water. And you college boys, you have a test at four, so you’d better learn what the different animals say!”

“Pig says oink, bar meister!” Roaring cheers sieged the establishment. One of them had gotten something right for a change. “Oink, oink, oink, oink, oink! My throat feels ooky.”

Chapter Twelve: Behind Door Number One

“Okay, buck, time to wake up.” Detritus—he called himself that more nowadays to get used to the media name—flicked Wasted on the cheek with two fingers. Made sure to flick gently but firmly enough to rouse this snore machine out of whatever dream he had. From Wasted’s slurred words, Detritus guessed the dream involved sticking horse antennae into starship alternators. Horses had antennae in Wasted’s dreams now. No surprise. Yesterday frogs had them. Equestrian stuff was the next logical step.

Detritus and Wasted were here on assignment. Self-assignment anyway. They were Bad Guy generics, the lowliest rung in the Bad Guy ladder. Basic cannon fodder. Sick of that rank, Detritus conjured up this scheme of proving themselves into a promotion. So here they were in Good Guy territory, posing as new Good Guy recruits but, really, investigating Station One for a way to bust Legion’s balls and brag to Asinine about what they’d done. They’d arrived here two days ago and had yet to bust a single anything.

Detritus was the sober one, with the hyperability to blow himself up. Wasted was the drunk one, with the hyperability to convert oxygen into inebriation, convert alcohol into sobriety, and not walk under his own power. With every ounce of strength from a complete breakfast of Red Bull syrup and a jumper cable attached to his nose, Detritus had dumped Wasted into this hovering wheelbarrow. Technology had brought society to the advent of hovering wheelbarrows, and Detritus still managed to tip this thing at every sharp turn. No crock. At least he’d found probably the last all-access hallway on Station One he and Wasted had left to explore.

Detritus swabbed his goggled forehead with a green sleeve. How long would he have to wear this media outfit, anyway? The yellow pants were hot here. His arm muscles ached. Wasted was dead weight, and every slumbering snort he choked in brought him closer to total inebriation.

“Wha-whu-huh?” His eyes ajar, Wasted checked the hallway. He probably felt the lack of motion and now wondered why everything no longer spun. He swatted at the barf bag that dangled around his neck. Permanent necessity on his impact costume. “What’s hap’nin’?”

Detritus ruffled Wasted’s hair. “What’s happenin’, buck, is you kept breakfast down this morning, so I pinned a first-place ribbon on ya. Now we’re looking for stuff to mess around. The Good Guys tossed all those Mechanism statues left hanging around the joint from when he took over this station, so now I have no obvious place to take a leak. Still, I found us a hallway we ain’t found before. So here we are. Stop trying to crawl out of the wheelbarrow.” Detritus braced Wasted. Ow, his knee. “Buck, you’re gonna hurt yourself, and okay, scratch that, you’re asleep again.”

This hallway smelled like freshly squeezed juice. Detritus had studied the rest of the station with keen attention, and for some reason, something about this hallway in particular felt...off. Maybe his mind was playing tricks. Maybe it wanted him to feel off here just to catch a break in this exploration gig. He scratched his nose and leaned on his left leg. But something was off.

For instance, Station One’s building crew had crammed a room into every nook and cranny they could. Except this hallway. Enough light panels floated around the hallway to designate it a new sun, yet not a single door to be found. Detritus grunted.

“You say somethin’?” Wasted roused again. He upended the wheelbarrow and rolled into a dusty corner where a potted plant shivered when he hit it.

“I said I wish you could hold your breath and sober up.” Detritus didn’t even look at his distant cousin.

Wasted raised a finger with as much coordination as he reserved for any of his movements: none. “I...I...I freakin’...I—”

“I love you, too, buck. But don’t spread that around.” Detritus felt a cold ache in his injured knee, so he leaned on his left. There had to be a door around here somewhere, right? Especially around that small datasheet pinned to the wall that said, in yellow crayon, “Don’t Nobody Says ‘Open Closest Door’ Over Heres.” A clue. But in the most useless of crayon colors. Only reason he spotted the writing was because light shimmered off it when he’d shifted positions. Would have been easier to read if half the letters weren’t flipped as if a grade-schooler had written the words.

Okay, well...here went nothing. “Control, acknowledge. Unlock and open closest door.”

“Closest door unlocked and opened. Please, accept our gift to you, a subscription to Hopscotch Giants, complimentary for only five moolahs.”

Still with the magazine subscriptions, this haunt control. Well, crock it, because a door opened behind the datasheet that now, with nothing holding it up any longer, fell to the polished floor. On the datasheet’s backside, a hastily drawn stick figure with out-of-proportion fingers proclaimed, “Kick Me and Alls My Dupacates.”

A musty odor of rotten pork hurried out of the room. Holy piss, what had crawled in there and died? Detritus hooked his impact shirt over his nose and approached the opening stiffly enough to keep his collar pinned. He leaned into the room, looked left, right, ahead, but found only darkness. He’d never seen a room like this. No light panel. Hidden behind a door that seamlessly blended with its wall. Something that reeked up the room in the six months or so since Station One had become habitable.

Detritus uncovered his nose and risked another breath. That noxious pork—which, mind you, still beat anything cooked up at Onion Towers—had dulled to a subtle hint of its former pungency. He turned, and oh great, was Wasted hugging that houseplant?

“Hey, buck, that’s an oversized Venus flytrap you’re rubbin’ your leg against. This is the second time a plant tried to eat ya since we showed up here. Be a good guest.” Detritus strode across the hall and rolled Wasted into the overturned wheelbarrow. He flicked a button on the wheelbarrow’s side to right it. Okay, now this room. He grabbed a light panel and flung it in. All in the wrist.

He piloted the wheelbarrow inside this mystery chamber. Still too dark, but at least the light panel provided something. Detritus rubbed his hands together. “Okay. Control, acknowledge. Lights to normal capacity.”

Nothing. No reaction. He gave the haunt control a few more seconds, but still no change. “Control, acknowledge.” Huh. No click. No nothing...as if the haunt control refused to exist here. The room was profoundly empty of sound. “Control? Acknowledge? Gimme a magazine or ten?” He jumped up, waved his hands, kicked something—“Whoops. Sorry, buck. Forgot your ride was there.” Still nothing. Not even a subscription to The Last Magazine in Existence, which was all he needed for a full house.

At least he had that light panel. He scratched the coarse whiskers that speckled his chin. “Okay. Light panel, acknowledge. Lights to one hundred percent.”

The light panel gave all it had in a whoosh and a buzz. It poured out a white intensity that forced Detritus to throw both arms over his face and Wasted to snort awake and wonder if vodka caused blindness.

Whoa. Must have been one of those energy-efficient doohickeys. “Okay, okay. Light panel, acknowledge. Lights to seventy percent.”

The buzzing deluge dimmed to something tolerable for those whose pupils still dilated. Wasted was crazily outta luck on that one.

Detritus uncovered his eyes that now felt acid washed. Prying them open was an ordeal because they wanted to remain glued shut forever. But he managed. Light spots speckled his vision, but they faded a few seconds later.

And what he saw he never expected. Not Wasted standing under his own power. That’d never happen. Instead, Detritus noticed a headless corpse sitting on an isolated chair. The mummified corpse’s head wasn’t missing, though. It had popped off and bounced onto a foosball table a few feet away. But that wasn’t the heart-stopping main attraction in this chamber of holy-crock-I’ll-never-sleep-again.

The main attraction, you would ask if you weren’t Wasted, who’d hiccup four times through the question? The main attraction crowded the back of this spacious room: a row of monolithic robots, almost bumping heads against the thirty-foot-high ceiling. They stood like sentinels, perhaps awaiting some final order. Feet as thick as stone slabs used for the foundational bases of monuments. Arms as wide as apartment buildings. Heads threatening destruction down the seams of their nose cones, faceless except for the giant canopy on each scalp.

A box sat at the center sentinel’s feet, a series of red digits sprinting along a sequence. Virillian numbers, Detritus judged from the decorative serifs and dots. Crock. No one could read Virillian. Detritus guessed not even Virillians could read Virillian if their education system indicated anything.

“Buck.” Detritus backed away. He bumped the wheelbarrow behind him, which glided away at an angle until its nose tapped the wall beside the mystery door. “Wasted, buck, wake up. Stop breathing, get sober, and wake up.” He didn’t tear his gaze off the giant robots that might awaken literally any second, so his fingers found Wasted’s shut eyes and tapped them. Never mind that the eyes opened a few taps later, he kept tapping. “Wasted, buck, you gotta check this out. Wasted, don’t make me stuff beer hat tubes up your nostrils again.”

“What’s up, huh?” Wasted tried to sling an arm over the wheelbarrow, but he ended up swatting Detritus’s back. “Giant robots. Cool. Wake me up...wake...” He burped, composed himself as best as he could, and attempted that sentence once more. “Wake me up when they step on us.” He fell back asleep. Apparently twenty seconds of alertness was plenty taxing.

Crock. Robots. A headless corpse. This wasn’t what Detritus signed on for when he decided to snoop around Station One and amass history’s largest collection of magazine subscriptions.

Chapter Thirteen: Grammar Nazis, Do Your Worst

Legion had traveled the 1.9 light-minutes from Station One to Gaia in under three hours, give or take time spent zigzagging around a meteor belt not even in the flight path. Since Reef, interim Good Guy leader, had let Letchtech reprogram the Good Guys’ AI-pilot software during Legion’s medical sabbatical, the four Express civ-trans the Good Guys owned didn’t know a yield sign from a road closure sign. Made things interesting when you tried to merge with traffic but found yourself in the middle of a stone barrier. That concrete meet-and-greet was an interesting one.

Only one notch up from Mabel.

Here at SIPMA, the Special Identity Protection Medical Act hospital—a place specializing in the care of people whose identities were secret—Legion parked his starship, E-Kestrel, in the pickup lot, close to the main entrance, and turned it off. The engine rumbled to sleep after he endured the bleeping advertisement for the new 9111 Express, now with functional brakes. He exited the civ-tran. Due to that barrier confusion, he hobbled to and up the front steps that led to the hospital’s lobby doors. He’d beaten a quick escape from here a week ago yesterday, and already he’d returned. While here, might as well collect his Marsek pistol and the Alaphan necklace, testament to his deity Alaphus, that he’d left behind.

He walked through the lobby doors. This involved approaching the doors, remembering they were l-tech—Legion had a phobia of the technology—diving headfirst into the bushes for cover, waiting for the explosion with hands clutching antennae, venturing out on tiptoes, and walking through. Walking was a subjective term in this case. He skipped the triage booth that smelled like week-old muffins—he knew where he was going—and approached the hallway on the right.

From behind came a pattering of claps and a whistle as knifelike as a kettle’s shriek. The crowd of nurses, attendants, security guards, and patients were applauding. One nurse, a weird distribution of weight shaping her toadlike body, wore a shirt that read, GOOD GUYS: 1, MECHANISM: 0. A Gharalgian, his arm in a sling, raised a fist and said, “You got that Mechanism good, by crock.”

Legion smiled and offered a wave that was only a tickle of fingers. “Hey, Mechanism was hard, but convincing Power Plant to eat all his vegetables is impossible. He hates anything green, purple, and not seasoned with gunpowder.”

The cheering roared on, but Legion tickled a final good-bye and ducked into the recovery wing. The hall suggested disinfectant. A few doors to the left, past the one-stall bathroom that was both open and occupied, and down a left-rearing hall, and Legion found himself at a door. Its overhead sign read, SCAPEGOAT, CARE OF INTERGALACTIC PROTECTION.

Scapegoat was a former Bad Guy that had somehow defected to the Good Guy roster while Legion was away. So Legion read that sign again: SCAPEGOAT, CARE OF INTERGALACTIC PROTECTION. He shook off a shiver that twinkled along his spine. A lot of things had changed during his hospitalization. New Coke was also back.

He performed a similar routine dodging the l-door as he had outside, his heart revving back up after having earlier calmed. He examined the room into which Scapegoat had been shuffled. One door led to a bathroom laser-painted in a party of primary colors and housing a light panel that didn’t know what “way too bright” meant. A blank viewscreen hung on one wall. A single bed with an opaque ionizing screen boxed off the far half of the room. The window above the bed revealed only a brick wall with graffiti that proclaimed, “Horrible View. You Lost the Window Lottery at SIPMA.” No kidding.

Upon entering, Legion felt the undeniable urge to blame every incident from these last few weeks on Scapegoat, but he knew that was an unfortunate accident of the hunchback’s blame-attracting hyperability.

Scapegoat lay in bed, his hunched back twisted askew. Normal for him. He looked up and immediately sprouted a grin so wide Legion could count the awry teeth disordering the gums. “Master, master, returned have me for you!” Scapegoat struggled out of the swirl of bedsheets and floundered to his feet. As fast as his waddle allowed, he slammed into Legion in a prickling hug so hard the Good Guy leader might have to stay here to realign his spine.

Legion caught Scapegoat with a combat move reserved for countering chokeholds. He deciphered the sludge of words Scapegoat had inflicted upon him and said, “Yeah, I’m here to bring you home. That still makes no sense to me. I’d ask you why you’re now a Good Guy, but I’m afraid you’d answer. Please don’t nuzzle your cheek into my chest.”

“Thank you, you thank, thank you, you thank—” Scapegoat prattled with the drawl of a mad scientist’s assistant. This pattern labored on for another few seconds. The viewscreen thought it was a command and kept clicking on, off, on, off.

“You’re welcome, welcome you’re, you’re welcome.” Legion wiggled out from Scapegoat’s grip, wondering if he should sterilize this impact shirt. He felt clamminess along its long sleeves.

Scapegoat shuffled to his side of the room. The back of his hospital gown gaped open. Legion looked away and tried to imagine anything more pleasant than that backside. All he came up with was monkeys eating their own feces, and that still fit his criterion.

Legion still couldn’t fathom how Scapegoat had joined the Good Guys’ roster, but Sixth Sense and a wide panel of IP interrogators had cleared him. Authorities had expunged his criminal record, reasoning that anybody this laughably inept couldn’t understand his actions. Theft? Terrorism? These were concepts incapable of entering the pinhole of Scapegoat’s brain, so he was deemed innocent. That apparently made him fit for service.

“So...Ace and other questionable news sources tell me you’re now a Good Guy. I’m here to bring you home, which I’d like to do as quickly as possible.” Legion checked the room’s clock viewscreen. “If we get home before the Yurts take the dodgeball field, I’ll be a happy camper. Well, not an apathetic camper, anyway. Okay, more like a less-than-murderous camper provided you fix your gown.”

Scapegoat sprawled over his bed to pluck up some belongings: his socks and shoes, the bitter-smelling remnants of an applesauce dinner, and a cockroach he called Bill or maybe Don. “Yes, yes, master. Leave we soon here, okay, yes, yes.” He shuffled back over the bed—how with that girth?—and waddled toward the closet. There he dropped his belongings and grabbed his clothes: a brown pair of pants, a red shirt, and a blue belt. Lowensland must have chosen his harlequin outfit.

Legion felt conflicted about Scapegoat’s inclusion on the team. Sixth Sense had already tried to dig Bad Guy secrets out of his mind, but that attempt dead-ended quickly. So Legion saw no advantage other than now they employed a guinea pig to finish off wannabe chef Momentum’s leftover cooking experiments. “Okay, well...whatever you do, whatever outfit makes others cry uncle, I’ll wait outside.” He turned around and—oof—he smacked into a concrete wall wearing a shirt.

The eight-foot goliath loomed down at Legion with a right eye that divided soul from spirit and a left one covered underneath a targeting visor. That visor wrapped around to his left ear, a wire curling from there to a hole at the back of his skull. The ammo belt around the Logistican’s waist kept his pants up, these same pants that covered not legs but columns. He was bald, and every contour of his jaw was expressly visible underneath that gray rawhide he called skin.

“Who are you?” Legion tumbled into a chair that floated behind him. It creaked and glided into the wall with a dull thump.

The he-man quaked into the room on boots thicker than rhinoceros feet. He moved as robotically as a conveyor belt. Even his voice sounded calculated when he said, “I am simply known as Hearse, agent Legion.”

A memory clicked in Legion’s head. And when memories clicked, they clicked with the sound of the gunshot that erased his old friend Sopher’s life. Legion cringed at the sound but stuffed it aside. What had clicked was something Ace had told him: the Good Guys had met Hearse before. Reef and Kamikaze, specifically.

“You’re on file. A few weeks ago you came to Station One and arrested Kamikaze. I don’t know if I should congratulate you for convincing him to go with you or slap sense into you for thinking it would work.”

“Congratulations is the better choice.” Hearse tapped his metal glove with a finger. “If you slap me, I would do likewise upon you. And you would need a stepladder. Mother did when she slapped me after I boo-booed with the family civ-tran.”

“Great. I always require someone’s family history when I ask a question. But leave it out of this next one: why are you here?”

“The Good Guys’ parent organization, Intergalactic Protection, hired me to accompany you and your new subordinate to Station One, much like Mother accompanied me to the nearest police station to apologize for my civ-tran booboos—”

“What did I say about family history?” Legion stood and chopped the air with a hand. He disturbed a broadcast viewscreen behind him, which clacked against the wall. “Just tell me why IP sent you. Unless that pushy dromedary salesman outside Ceres is still there, I won’t need an escort.”

Through his creepy visor, Hearse monitored Scapegoat waddling around the room. He puffed one single breath, and with lungs like this guy must possess, he probably inhaled only hourly. “Intergalactic Protection remains unconvinced of Scapegoat’s innocence. He worked under Lowensland for one year, five months, thirty days until his capture. They express concerns that period was enough to indoctrinate him with interests in criminal enterprise. I am to observe him. However, I am mostly here for your protection. They have hired me to act as your bodyguard. They also informed me your station boasts a new cupcake store. I shall partake of every flavor that includes a swirl.”

“Let’s put aside the fact that I don’t need a bodyguard for the moment. Intergalactic Protection cleared Scapegoat. So did our telepath and our haunt control’s bioscans. He’s innocent of any criminal wrongdoing”—Legion glanced at Scapegoat and smelled something rank—“although not innocent of eating hospital food. Scapegoat, please get dressed in the bathroom.” He glanced over at a dressed Scapegoat. “What in the universe. How’d you change so quickly? You have the coordination of a paraplegic on stilts.”

“Innocent of wrongdoings, yes, but perhaps not of the premeditation of wrongdoings. He may yet attempt something.” Ice gripped Legion when Hearse’s face craned down in a mechanical dip. “Therefore they placed me as his watchdog. And your cupcake product tester.”

“Ready Scapegoat is go to!” Scapegoat performed his version of dancing toward the room’s exit. He flopped to the floor when his bulging hip caught on a bed corner. His chin walloped the chair Legion had sat in. The chair didn’t survive. Legion decided Scapegoat was now in charge of destroying all Station One’s outdated stuff.

Legion didn’t bother dignifying Hearse with another word. If he did, Hearse might treat him to stories of Mother’s punishment for bad report cards. He bumped past Hearse—bad idea because if you bumped past a giant, the giant bumped back—and reached the door. “Come on, Scapegoat. We’re leaving. Apparently this yeti is coming to Station One. But if we’re not home in time for dodgeball tonight, there goes half the Yurts’ fans.” He strode over Scapegoat, who groaned something in disorganized words. “You betcha ‘Yurts the win need to game a decade this.’”

Chapter Fourteen: Family Business

Alvin glanced up from his dresser when the haunt control made its announcement, the l-door of his living quarters dematerializing into a flutter of dust. “Entity Elton Barnaby has arrived. Greet him by entering him in our adopt-a-gorilla program. See our sponsor list for details.” The announcement over, the trumpets of Alvin’s swing music resumed crooning in the background.

Hired three days ago as new Good Guy recruit Organism with the hyperability of an elastic body, Alvin had finally started unpacking his suitcase. His socks lay strewn over his bed, and that welcome package from Intergalactic Protection—a cheese basket and replicas of his impact suit—remained upended on his pillow.

“Son!” Dad burst into the living quarters, a servicebot clanging four feet behind and tugging a suitcase. Too wide for the doorframe, the suitcase got caught, and the servicebot clattered onto the welcome rug. Dad didn’t notice.

“Dad!” Alvin approached for a hug. Dad squirmed away and instead offered a hearty handshake vigorous enough to take off Alvin’s thick arm. Instead the handshake stretched Alvin’s arm so long it flopped to the floor. Stupid hyperability. Alvin reeled it in. At least after his hyperability had kicked in, Dad’s handshakes didn’t dislocate his shoulder. But Dad insisted professional hyperpeople shouldn’t hug. The proper protocol was handshakes, fist bumps if he joined a teen hyperteam. Or butt slaps if he played varsity.

Dad adjusted his belt under his potbelly, still holding the wax-cupped drink with which he’d come in. Muddy coffee, Alvin judged by the smell. “I caught the first mass-tran I could.” After Alvin had joined the Good Guys, IP had invited his father to stay at Station One. A family perk, he called it. Dad had packed his things, sold the house, and arrived. So here he stayed, ready to thrust Alvin headlong into any and all things Master Asinine threw at the Good Guys. Hopefully a lot of cushion-related fights were coming.

“Dad, you can wear civilian clothes here. In fact, if you’re not on the roster, you’re supposed to.” Alvin checked the impact suit Dad always wore. “You haven’t been a professional hyperperson for years.” He continued unpacking his clothes. He tossed a roll of socks into his sock drawer—missed—tossed another one—missed—and another one—missed. And Dad wondered why he’d never made his high-school basketball team.

Dad noticed the music and immediately said, “Entity haunt control, acknowledge. Pause music.” That silenced the wailing crescendo of trumpets that signaled a kick in the swing music. Alvin rolled his eyes. Dad always insisted there was no time for entertainment when he instead should train his hyperabilities for walloping criminals and smashing two purse snatchers’ heads together. That was what Dad called a doubleheader.

“Music paused,” the haunt control said. “Why not taste the food court’s Llama Cuisine, now with chow that makes its own gravy.” The swing music played out the ad.

“Maybe later, entity haunt control,” Dad said.

“The haunt control isn’t a person, Dad. You don’t need to respond.” Alvin grabbed all his socks and dumped them into the drawer. “Dresser, acknowledge. Switch to pants drawer.” He folded a pair of pants and precisely lined that up with the other pants he’d already placed in the drawer. “How was the trip—”

“So proud of you, son,” Dad said with a smile so wide he showed his entire suite of teeth, even the sponsorship teeth that used to project ads for, of all things, tooth whiteners. Those ads hadn’t projected since his sponsorship contracts were severed. “You made the big leagues.” He slapped Alvin’s back, which thrust Alvin palms down onto the bed.

“Yeah, I know, Dad.” Alvin grabbed another pair of pants. This he dropped in the drawer. Forget aligning it. “You haven’t stopped talking about the big leagues for almost eight years now. And that servicebot is clawing out its motherboard trying to carry in your extra-wide suitcase.”

“Son, what’s wrong? You can tell me. I’m your dad: I practically raised you.” Dad slurped his drink through the straw, didn’t get much, and removed the plastic lid to swirl the sludge around. He slurped again. “Ah, that’s good brew. Want some?”

Alvin shoved the ice coffee aside. “No, thanks. And nothing’s wrong, Dad.” Another pair of pants. Dropped that in. It retained some of its folded shape.

“Son, I trained you. I taught you how to arm-club a burglar to within an inch of his life. I think I also taught you long division.”

Alvin hesitated to say anything. He sniffled and threw another pair of pants in. “Dresser, acknowledge. Switch to shirt drawer. Dad, it’s the big-league talk, the professional hyperperson stuff—”

“Not this conversation again. Hey, look where you are now. The Good Guys!” Dad literally stretched out his arms but had trouble controlling them. They flopped to the ground like spent caulking. He tried reeling them in, but after a few attempts, he shrugged a “meh.” That whacked Alvin’s fishbowl to the floor, where it shattered. “Eh, I’ll gather those arms up later.” He shrugged a look over at the servicebot that still struggled to fit the suitcase through the door. “Almost got it through, champ.” The servicebot shook a fist.

“Anyway, son...the Good Guys. That’s amazing! Not everyone makes it here. Look at that guy from Everybody’s Got Hypertalent. The pianist with forty fingers. They didn’t even consider his application.”

“He kept giving the interviewees thirty-six middle fingers, Dad.” Alvin grabbed a folded shirt and traipsed over Dad’s arm to the dresser.

“Son, seriously. This is everything you always wanted.”

He balled up his next shirt and shoved it in. “No, this is everything you always wanted. I wanted to study entomology.”

“Eeehhh.” Dad waved his hand dismissively, which flopped an elongated arm in the air between them. The arm whacked the dying goldfish. “Forget that. Station One’s food court is accessible by waterslide, and the horse track races two-headed horses. And those entomos have been studied to death.”

“Dad, clean up your arms.” Alvin watched his goldfish splish its last splash. Poor Sushi.

Dad set his cup on a bedpost and gathered his serpentine arms to his chest. He flexed his shoulders to shrink them in. It didn’t work. “Whatever. I keep telling you, son, with practice you can be your own parachute.”

“Not whatever.” Alvin threw another shirt in, which caught on the drawer’s edge and hung. “I didn’t even apply here. You submitted my application, Dad.” He stared at Dad, whose mustache curved down with that twitch of nervousness he used whenever the subject of entomology came up. Dad, who was the first Organism with a hyperability identical to Alvin’s, who fished without a rod, who had joined the prestigious Piss-Kickers fresh out of college, whose hyperability had attenuated with age and lack of dietary discipline, who was forced from the Piss-Kickers for his many “screw-ups,” who had entered depression and gained weight his hyperability could no longer hide...who had driven his only kid into “the big leagues” when Alvin’s hyperability first arose.

“But, son, I keep telling you, you can—robot, just push that thing in lengthwise—son, you can be a professional. You’re the next Organism. You’re that gifted.”

Alvin knocked past Dad’s wadded arms and stuffed another balled shirt into his drawer. He bonked his head against the top of the dresser. “Dad, I never wanted to be Organism. I never wanted the incessant training. I never wanted to give up my teen years to fight crime with you. I wanted to study bugs.”

“Trust me, son, this is the best career move for you. Letchtech already chose you to advertise their new line of spray-on clothing.

“Son, the Good Guys received applications from over six hundred hyperpeople. They hired five. Five. And one of them has the skin tone of an orange peel and the hair tone of the inside of an orange peel. Try this for a few weeks. See what this Legion character has to offer. That’s all I ask.” Dad grinned. His cheeks looked especially perky. “And two-headed horses!”

“Dad, this obsession is exactly why Mom left.”

Dad sniffled and studied the wall. A pause stalled the conversation. It accentuated everything in the room, especially the clatter of that servicebot’s gears. Not even breathing was white noise anymore.

Alvin forced a sigh. Calmed down. Concentrated on his pulse. He hugged Dad, cared nothing for his idea of professionalism. “Okay. A few weeks. For you. I’m just glad you’re here. Love you, Dad.”

“Entomalarkey can be a fallback.” Dad actually hugged back, and the two leaned against each other. “Admit it, son. The two-headed horses pulled you in.”

Chapter Fifteen: Revenge Is a Dish Best Served with a Brazen Lack of Culinary Skills

Back. Finally. The Bad Guys had had to beat a quick escape from the Glenndale Community Common when authorities had combed through here. After the authorities had passed, the Bad Guys had returned to scour the area for signs of Power Plant’s trail. Those authorities were so pushy with their “freeze” this and their “you’re wanted in connection with several galacticwide terrorism crimes” that, even after the action Asinine had curb-stomped into their day.

A crisp evening was falling. Now the sun sank into the horizon with red shades finger-painting the clouds. Despite last night’s rainfall, the warmth from a recent heatwave still pervaded in the breeze.

Master Asinine parked himself on a concrete median in the Glenndale parking lot. He looked at the foot-deep crater Power Plant had chiseled upon taking flight. The Good Guy was souped up.

“Sir, authorities are a mile south, but they’re sweeping back around.” Lieutenant IQ 23 sat next to Asinine, checking the readings his device quacked out. “After a few more minutes, we should vacate.”

“I suppose we should.” Asinine sighed. “After all, I’ve already attained my primary goal of remarking about my allergy to vanilla extract in casual conversation.”

“I’m familiar with your shaving techniques, sir.” Lieutenant IQ 23 kept his focus on his device. “Power Plant’s trail may grow cold soon. We’ve already searched the backpack he left when he fled. No candy.”

Asinine rubbed an aching knee. “Okay, Braindead, Schizo, you there with the spare hoverdisc—”

“Homeslice, it’s Bad Aim.” Spare Hoverdisc Guy’s spare hoverdisc whinnied cheaply.

“—another five. Then we follow whatever trail this device quacks us in.”

“Whatever you blabber, crockonomics,” Lefty said through the sausage dog he’d stolen from the vendor so desperate for a sale he hustled his cart toward the battle instead of away. Made you wonder what was in that sauerkraut if every other customer turned this guy down. Lefty flung the dog at the vendor. “Needs more crap that makes my breath smell like dead things.”

“Great.” Asinine kicked a rock. “Now I have a hankering for dead things. Lieutenant, let’s order something from the value menu at Space Cow.”

“Technically speaking, nothing on their menu fits your hankering.”

“Finally found you butt corks,” someone said from the east side of the lot. Asinine looked up at the Terran who crunched on a discarded cup to reach them.

“Lieutenant, what’s a butt cork, and is it discounted at the thrift store?”

“I’m checking, sir, but the signal strength in this park is two bars.” Lieutenant IQ 23 waved his device in the air as if introducing a new-age dance move to the public. “Aha. My search for butt corks is going through. I’m being directed to several diarrhea clinic listings as we speak, sir.”

The newcomer, a Terran with brown hair, brown eyes, 7 or so percent body fat, 80 million or so percent muscle, and slightly oversized fists, reached Master Asinine and tapped him in the ribs with a steel-toe boot. He hiccupped out the aroma of fresh skunk piss. “So you’re looking for that butt cork Power Plant. I’m here to help.”

Master Asinine scrutinized this newcomer from his boots up to the mop of hair colored tan against the light of the looming streetlamp. Hadn’t this guy fought the Bad Guys a few days ago? “How did you find us?”

“I followed the stench of failure.”

“I knew I should have bought shampoo with apple flavor.” Asinine shifted around the median to relieve an ache. “And why should we rely on your help? I’ve got a guy with two heads packed into one neck, and not even he does anything but call me an inspiration to Darwin Award hopefuls everywhere.”

Schizophrenic looked up from the second sausage he devoured. “People are waiting on you to show them how to do it right.” He snorted.

“Here’s why you should rely on me.” The newcomer smirked. “I have intimate knowledge of the Good Guys. I was one. I’ll track this butt cork you’re chasing. I’ll tell you his moves, how he operates, everything. And now, for my selling feature?” He raised his hand and sliced the air. Cackling flame drenched a tree like a gasoline-saturated torch. A new flood of orange light bled away the dimming sunlight. As quickly as the fire had engulfed the tree, it disappeared, leaving a barky husk with hissing leaves like black paper. “Remember that butt cork Burnout? Everything he did, I do better. Only thing is I’m not invulnerable to my own hyperability, so I can’t fly on my own air current.”

“No big deal. Man was not meant to fly.”

“We flew here, sir,” Lieutenant IQ 23 said.

“Okay, man was meant to fly a little bit.”

“Pay attention.” The newcomer booted Asinine in the leg. “You want the Good Guys? I’ll bring you the Good Guys. I have a plan to draw them out, and it hinges on finding that dill sack Power Plant.”

“And who are you?” Asinine screened his eyes though this bodybuilder blocked the streetlamp’s glow.

“My name’s Craig Tolliver.” The newcomer smiled like an alligator. “But call me the new Burnout.”

Chapter Sixteen: Ssssooooo What Do You Guys Do for Fun around Here?

Detritus barely considered the guy with no head. He whacked that head off the foosball table on his way across this faceless room that had been sealed so airtight that dust hadn’t accumulated. He still sensed the pork odor, but only when he thought about it. He didn’t bring Wasted with him.

What the piss were gigantic robots doing at Station One in a hidden room with no haunt control access? Detritus wouldn’t have put this room past Mechanism, but these giant robots didn’t look like his handiwork. He knew Mechanism’s stuff. That pompous aristocrat in iron Underoos had enlisted Detritus to perform every misdeed from handing over a wrench to putting pepper in Asinine’s hot chocolate. One of those proved useful. The other made Asinine a fan of pepper.

“Okay, buck, so how we gonna use this room to put the pain on the Good Guys?” Detritus lifted his foot over the long cable that snaked from the wall to this ticking timer sitting in front of all those robot feet. He punted the timer, which did nothing but stub his toe. Last time he’d seen a timer like this was on some dude’s terrorist costume at Halloween. The resulting blood mist was how Detritus realized it wasn’t a costume.

Detritus circled around to the back of the timer where he found a grid of slot-headed screws along the back panel. Who used slot-headed screws in the age of one-hour cancer curing? The only other feature on the back panel was a sticker that said, “This side up.” It was upside-down.

His back killed him since he’d carried Wasted from the toilet to his bed yesterday. Nobody took to the porcelain god like Wasted. He stretched his spine erect, every vertebral knob creaking, and noticed Wasted had crawled from the wheelbarrow across the near-barren room like a gasping man toward a desert oasis. He had reached the decapitated corpse’s head and now chatted it and its double-vision friend up.

“Hey, buck, don’t expect that thing to talk back. But if it does, you frigging run like you never have before: in a straight line.” Detritus sized up the army of robots whose kneecaps he couldn’t reach even with a stepladder. He rapped his knuckles on the nearest one’s ankle—dong-dong, the only sound in this voidlike chamber—but the robot didn’t react. They stood so inflexibly Detritus barely squeezed between their massive legs to check the rear ends. Why was he checking their rear ends? No idea, but he’d never speak of it. The light panel followed, clanking between two robots to navigate behind their knees. Again, nothing. Pff. What a crock this room was. Other than that foosball table, the corpse, and the robots, this cave served no purpose. Couldn’t even access the haunt control in here. At least the room was a magazine-free zone.

A beep shook his attention. Huh? He let his ear guide him, groped toward that ethereal sound until he’d ventured five robots left of center. Yeah, definitely coming from here. Down. Down lower. At the robot’s heel, where the boot met the floor. A muted glow, not from the light panel, percolated from that ankle as if striving to be subtle, though subtlety was tricky for a subdivision of gazillion-foot-tall robots.

Detritus bent his knees and checked the glow: a tiny viewscreen someone had welded to the robot’s heel. A few words led into a blinking cursor, as if this viewscreen was a computer with a command prompt. Beeps coincided with the cursor’s blinks.

Detritus read the computer output—holy pissing crock—and slipped onto the floor. That last command came like a shot to the skull. Now he knew what Wasted felt when groping for the bathroom in the dark.

Chapter Seventeen Celebrity Status

Day three of Franchise’s vacation. He shivered in the chilly wind that filtered between the lot’s two buildings, a stadium and the bar squatting beside it like its adoring little brother. The silver skies were supposed to let loose with rain, so this chill probably came as a precursor.

“Gabber, acknowledge. What time is it?”

“It’s five fifteen in the afternoon, a perfect time for Tiger Blood from the Sheen Bottling Company. Available at any white-coat establishment.”

He hugged himself more snugly. Wow. Only four days ago, Gaians suffered a domineering heatwave. Now this part of the planet presented an early winter. Next week it was supposed to snow. The weather network called this “unseasonably variable,” and Jeffy called it “fierce, I hope I get to mash a ball of slush in Jakey’s face.”

He checked the vista of parked civ-trans across the lot. Tamiko should have arrived on that last mass-tran, but it had hissed by ten minutes ago. This concert wouldn’t watch itself. He’d waited ten years to see these guys and their octopus drummer live.

Tamiko. He smiled. His Tamiko.

And just as soon as her sweet smile stole his imagination, her stiletto heels tick-tacked on the sidewalk around the stadium’s corner. He always recognized the sound of her footsteps: quick, light, screaming when she drove her heels through someone’s eye sockets.

She appeared a second later, her hair flapping in the brisk wind as she whisked around the corner. “Sorry, sorry, sorry, Jakey, sorry, so late. I know, I know. I missed the mass-tran? It came five minutes early? So I grabbed another one and it dropped me off way totally on the other side of, like, nowhere? Like a block and a half away.” She stopped at Franchise’s side and pecked his cheek.

Wow. Just...holy wow. Tamiko’s look stunned him. She wore a red sleeveless dress that swished around her slender legs. Around her neck was a lace-trimmed red choker. And, of course, red shoes. She could probably name all the gradients of red in her outfit, but Franchise saw only red, dark red, light red, and whatever that lipstick color was. Red red.

“You ready?” she asked.

Franchise resumed breathing. “For Has-Been and the Never-Weres? I’ve been ready since before I could blow a bubblegum bubble. I still can’t.” Franchise shrugged. “I always end up spitting it out.”

“You’re such a gitch.” Tamiko hugged his arm. “But you’re my gitch.”

“Good. I was worried when the fry cook at Space Cow kept calling me his. It wouldn’t be so weird if he wore a shirt.” Another gust of chilly wind blew past, so Franchise motioned to the stadium’s front doors. “Shall we?”

They hustled around the stadium’s corner until they spotted the line a few feet ahead. The line already snaked along the far side of the stadium and around a few transports, a hundred strong with drunk metalheads. Two of them had yanked parking signs out of the ground and now high-fived them together. If any dank refuge existed in which intelligence hid, theirs was already floundering on its couch, drinking brewskis and asking to crash rent free for the month.

“Oh, so way uncool?” Tamiko clicked her tongue when she examined the line that wound into forever. She stopped hurrying at the front doors and the warmth that escaped them when the ticket-booth operator opened them. “This weather’s gonna totally fritz my Benny’s outfit? I usually kill the weatherman when that happens.”

Crock. Franchise wanted to high-five a sign himself now. The sun was setting. The temperature would plummet any minute now. And this line would linger at least another couple hours.

But his brain still worked after drinking fourteen coffees in one morning. He could certainly think his way out of this one. A smile trickled onto the corners of his mouth. He spotted the ticket booth operator, a Trioxidillian and not an adbot. Not sure if that was pure luck or a result of the adbot that had gone crazy last month and hurled advertising viewscreens at passersby. Adbots should be banned from nunneries anyway.

“I got this.” Franchise stepped up to the ticket booth and the Trioxidillian inside, a girl named Herviss according to the tiny nametag, an inch-by-two-inch datasheet whose horizontal hold wouldn’t hold. “Hi. I’m not sure if you recognize me, but—”

“Oh-h, of c-course I d-do.” Herviss gushed into her shoulder and dipped at the knees. Franchise didn’t know a blue-skinned Trioxidillian could blush, but her cheeks deepened to a light purple. She couldn’t muster eye contact, instead looking at the floor, to the side of the booth, up at the ceiling where someone had stuck a glazed cinnamon roll and...a gecko corpse? What the crock was Cinnamon Crockery adding to their recipes? “You’re Franchise. You helped save the galaxy.”

“Yeah, I did.” Was Franchise ever hamming this up. He lit up his best salesman’s grin as if he were setting off fireworks. The wind intensified, so he hugged Tamiko more tightly. “Think you can let us in a”—he sneaked a glimpse at the crowd that grew suspicious, especially a Gharalgian meathead with a parking sign and no high-five partner—“little early?” If this galaxy still operated on physical money, he’d have slid a tip under the slot of the booth’s ionizing screen.

“Oh.” Herviss gushed again. A giggle that turned into a bashful snort-laugh tittered out. “Of course. Go right ahead.” She tapped the button that commanded the l-doors to vaporize. Sweet warmth blew outside. “By the way, I love your latest clothing collection.”

Franchise winked at Herviss. “They’ll put my name on anything now. Thanks, Herviss.” He guided Tamiko to the door—

“Hey!” Behind Franchise, a foot stamped the pavement. Franchise assessed the leering Gharalgian, a clear foot and a half taller than him. He wore a navy blue pinstriped suit with a tie a shade lighter. His chin, like a brick his skin had grown over, shifted. He clanked the gnarled end of his sign into the runner carpet that lolled out the doors. “To the back, line cutter!” That excruciating pitch in his voice. Something about the thickness of the oxygen on their planet, Gharalga, made their voices higher. Here it sounded as if someone had given speech to a rat and unleashed it on the eardrums of the public.

Several jeers rose behind the Gharalgian, and a voice said, “Dude, let him go. He trashed the entire Mechaknight army. Plus, he’s Kangaroo Footwear’s newest sponsor, so he can jump really high.”

The Gharalgian stomped forward. His hopscotch-block pectorals tapped Franchise’s nose. “What a piss. I’ve been standing here for seven hours. You think I’m letting you cut in front of me?” He shoved Franchise back with nothing more than his butting chest.

Franchise stumbled into the velvet cordon beside the doors. But he stepped forward, affirmed his stare, and smiled. “Huff and puff and blow all you want, beefcake, but my girlfriend and I are going in. And you’ll want to second-guess your outfit.” He flicked the Gharalgian’s suit lapel. “Who wears a tie to a concert?” The old Franchise would have coiled into a ball and asked to shine this guy’s shoes. The new Franchise meant business.

The Gharalgian reeled back for a punch. Thanks to his combat training, Franchise saw the punch coming so long before that the Gharalgian might as well be moving under water. Who’d have thought those flaming chairs Legion launched at him taught him evasive maneuvers? Even if Legion called it “our way of avoiding a junk sale.”

Franchise’s arm swept up and deflected the punch, seized the Gharalgian’s forearm below the elbow, and pulled him forward. The Gharalgian conked his nose into the doorframe and threw a few curse words around. Gharalgian curses sounded like filler in children’s songs. He whirled around and threw another punch, something Franchise ducked despite his injured knee.

The next time the Gharalgian reeled around, Franchise was ready. Not just one Franchise faced off against this zero-thinking stack of meat. Five Franchises opposed him now, all with balled fists and smirks that said, “This’ll be fun.”

“Try me again.” Franchise winked. He paused, and the Gharalgian twitched, unsure. “Yeah, thought so.” Franchise and the duplicates took each other’s hands. As swiftly as they had appeared, the duplicates evaporated to wherever they emerged from. The last Franchise, Jacob himself, took Tamiko’s hand and threw a glance over his shoulder. “I’d love to chat, but your voice sounds like a mass-tran dragging a tangle of staples. Enjoy the line. I hear it’s gonna rain.”

“Fierce,” Tamiko whispered at his side and leaned her head on his shoulder.

The last thing Franchise heard before the l-doors rematerialized behind him was the crowd’s enthusiastic sizzle of applause.

Now that was the new Franchise.

Chapter Eighteen: Who Invited the Third Wheels?

“My software tracked Jeff’s signal...” Ace Spandex held a finger to his temple, the other hand making concentric circles in the cool air as that last word stretched out. His thinking word. “...to the shattered bench by the path and not the ice cream guy like you think, Catastrophe.” The software he originally installed to track down Oktoberfest venues now tracked another hazardous output: Power Plant’s unique hyperability signature. It had led them here to the ice cream vendor who had worked as a hot-dog vendor until the Bad Guys had reportedly trashed his cart hours earlier. “Grab me a fudge ripple anyway.”

“And a fudge ripple for my killjoy friend.” Catastrophe grabbed the cones from the vendor. The stud in his left earlobe winked in the sunlight. “And your payment, sir: one complimentary autograph of Rock de la Roche, superstar of the classic broadcast show Jack Fistbomb.”

“Oh, good.” The vendor took the datasheet and sneered at it. “With my new windfall, I think I’ll buy that rock I’ve been looking at.”

Ten minutes ago, the Good Guys had touched down on the Glenndale Community Common’s main clearing. A procession of trees lined the path to the left, and to the right sat a small steel bandstand laser-painted black and beige. There were also crows. For some reason, tons of crows, enough that that statue of the President of Renovodomus wore nests.

Accompanying Ace and—according to the reading material Catastrophe distributed to joggers and dog walkers—the universe’s greatest broadcast actor, Plastique canvassed the passersby about anything unusual they had seen. Sixth Sense, routinely pushing his glasses up his nose, scanned vainly for something called a mental trail. A mental trail. From Power Plant, the same guy who thought sawdust came from toast. Let that sink in. Still, Sixth Sense had come across a stray mental trail. Thanks to that trail, he’d picked up its mental impression and now sat in puddles, hiding cherry bombs in mud castles. Suddenly Power Plant’s hyperability radiation wasn’t the most dangerous thing Ace could experience today.

Ace wiped away the spray the latest cherry bomb had dealt and took the cone Catastrophe offered. The cone was filthy with Catastrophe’s waxiness. He studied the radiation trail his software displayed, but unfortunately the trail cut upward like at the mass-tran station. “Crock.”

“Ice cream’s no good?” Catastrophe gave his a voracious lick.

The ice cream vendor, a slender guy wearing a hairnet and an apron with questionable red spots, slammed shut the hatch on his cart’s squeaky freezer. “Hey, my ice cream’s fine.”

Ace pulled his cone away. “Then why does your sign say your rocky road ‘is made with real ro’—Why should I even need to say it? And you”—he aimed a finger at Catastrophe—“should have thought twice before buying Chunky Monkey. It smells like a monkey’s chunky.”

Catastrophe pulled a hair from his ice cream. “This wasn’t worth my ‘playful wink’ publicity photo.”

“Excuse me a moment. Once again, Jeff’s trail faded out. I have to gabber Legion the bad news.” Ace padded across the footpath and thought about sitting next to Sixth Sense, who now relaxed on the park bench that had seen better days, asking joggers why they were on the run. Mmmmaybe not. Ace didn’t want a secondhand conversation with the maniac responsible for that mental trail.

“Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Legion.”

“Seeking connection, seeking connection. Connection attained. Taste that man’s Napoleon ice cream, two moolahs for a scoop.”

How could his gabber pick up that ad? Ace whirled around to check the vendor, who puckered his lips and winked. “Notice it didn’t say, ‘Neapolitan.’”

Ace waved at the vendor. “I ate at a cannibalistic restaurant not long ago. I’ve learned some things, and now I’m onto you.” The ice-cream man waved back, so Ace just smiled politely. “Yeah, hi there.” He tossed his cone in a trash ionizer next to the remains of Sixth Sense’s interrogation bench. You could take “fudge ripple” any number of ways. “Legion, are you there?”

“Please tell me you found Jeff,” Legion said through the gabber. Babble drawled behind his voice. Someone was throwing a bunch of words into a blender, and out came a grammar smoothie.

“No, we couldn’t. His trail cut out because he took flight again. If we’d arrived nine point three minutes earlier, we’d have stood a better chance. But we didn’t. Mabel ‘needed’ to stop by the yarn store, and now she’s knitting our starship a nose-cone cozy.” Ace checked F-Reaper, which Mabel had parked on top of a water fountain. Scratch that: on top of a decapitated water fountain. “She spent half an hour knitting the cozy up the windshield. I don’t know how she does this so fast. Legion, I say this with no trace of irony: we need to enter her into a competition.”

“Do we at least have a lead on Jeff?”

“The only thing I can tell is his radiation readings have worsened.” Ace Spandex swallowed and squinted into the sunset light. “He’s getting more volatile.”

A thud from the gabber: Legion pounded his fist on something. The grammar smoothie yelped. “Sorry, Scapegoat. I didn’t know you were waddling by.”

By now, Mabel had covered the nose cone and progressed to knitting Plastique a bodysuit. Plastique contested too late. In seconds, she was a yarn mummy.

Ace Spandex decided it safe to sit next to Sixth Sense now. The hangover the telepath experienced from the impressions of passersby had subsided. Ace propped an elbow on the bench’s ruined back. “I’m not sure what to do at this point. He and his trail always disappear by the time we arrive. We can’t seem to catch up no matter how often he destroys a massage parlor.”

“What’s with him and foldout furniture?”

Ace Spandex blocked some overhead glare with a hand. The streetlamp was a laser pistol shooting into his vision. “I did get a trace on Jacob’s gabber signal.” He checked Sixth Sense, who was sniffing hello to a poodle’s tail side.

“Sure. Gabber him again.” Legion sighed. The babbling backdrop of noise became foreground, but it passed. “Tell him I’ll reimburse any vacation time he loses. But we need to locate Jeff before he destroys another massage parlor, because you know what comes next.”

“Usually ethnic restaurants.”

“Great. A lot of them are built over ancient burial grounds. That can’t end well.”

“Roger that. According to Jacob’s gabber signal, he’s a two-hour trip away by low-altitude flight. I’m going to fly by. I won’t bother gabbering him. He hasn’t answered yet. Probably has something to do with this girl people keep seeing him with.”

“Good idea. I have to go. I have no idea what Scapegoat is saying, but I caught ‘toilet’ and ‘offload,’ and I’m not entirely confident in his potty training.”

“Go clean your mess. Gabber, acknowledge. Cut connection.” The gabber clicked off, and Scapegoat’s pervasive babble dropped away. Ace shut his eyes and rubbed his forehead, and—gah! He felt pressure around his leg. Sixth Sense was about to give it the humping of a lifetime. Ace jiggled him off, so he scampered about on other business.

“Catastrophe, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but can you come here please? I need Hagen to hand out autographs instead of scratching at his crotch with his teeth.”

Chapter Nineteen: Why, Hello There

Nighttime at the Stavehill Hyperperson Penitentiary. Lights out was forty minutes ago, but Frizzilk didn’t crocking care. Neither did Woody, the hallucination sitting next to him on the cot. Woody kept telling him, “Hey, now’s a good time for a cookie and a hot bowl of mercury soup.” Stupid hallucination. Cafeteria closed three hours ago, and as for the cookie, he’d have to wait until his parole.

Sitting on the creaking cot that felt as comfortable as a spiky meditation bed, Frizzilk leaned against the frigid brick wall. Bottom bunk sucked. He threw a tennis ball against the peeling laser-paint on the cell’s opposite wall. The tennis ball bounced back and glanced against his fingers. Crock.

“You never catch that thing,” Woody said.

Frizzilk retrieved the tennis ball from his sheets. “Shut up, pinko.” He wanted to gun his knee against Woody’s forehead, but what good would that do? Woody was a product of Frizzilk’s psycho-biochemical mind, and Frizzilk would end up cracking his own head instead.

His Terran cellmate in the top bunk squirted out a moist fart. Ugh, man. Even Woody wrinkled his nose. Frizzilk cupped his hand over his nose and mouth. Pinkos were disgusting cesspool feeders. But since when did any of them care about what smelled like sun-spoiled eggs and what didn’t?

“Hey, Considine, when you gonna stop stuffing ravioli into your maw? You make the place smell like the inside of an old guy’s intestine.” Frizzilk threw the ball but again failed to catch it.

“I’ll stop eating it when you catch that ball. How’s that sound?” came that viscous voice from the top bunk. Considine laughed a donkey’s bray.

“You should stick that guy.” Woody leaned back next to Frizzilk and shimmered as if he buzzed in and out of reality. But he stayed. He placed his wrists on his knees.

Pissing pinko. Considine stank like rotten spices. So did Woody. All pinkos did. Frizzilk retrieved the ball and looked up at the frame of the top bunk that had, over time, bowed in and screeched for euthanasia. He’d snort a laugh if that didn’t mean inhaling Considine’s noxious essence. Armies could use it for germ warfare. Any day now Considine’s two-hundred-eighty-pound flab would rip through that bedframe and pancake Frizzilk. Cut Frizzilk’s lifetime in half. But wishes seldom came true.

Frizzilk tossed the tennis ball against the wall, missed the catch, and—was it time for his meds? Probably. He checked the circular clock viewscreen on the wall. A crocking clock. as if anybody in this stupid hellhole wasn’t made of all the time in the universe. He grabbed the applicator on his bedside table and pressed the blunt end against his temple. He jabbed the button and—ssssszzzzhhh—it lasered meds into his brain.

“See you in twelve.” Woody waved and faded from the mattress. Good. Peace and quiet from that pinko for twelve hours now. Maybe Frizzilk could get a lick of sleep one year. Then again, one night maybe Considine would stop snoring.

A guard appeared at his cell’s ionizing screen. That freak Craften with one leg riddled in splotchy hair. This place—this whole crocking lockup—riddled with pinkos!

“What do you want, Terran?” Frizzilk spat at the ionizing screen. The spit sizzled away, and that was when Frizzilk detected the odor of stale corpses.

Craften didn’t flinch from the spit. That jangle of nerves usually jerked back, risked flipping over the guardrail behind him and performing an Olympic dive onto the concrete floor below. The only time Frizzilk would give him an ovation. But today, he looked entranced. Probably watched another episode of Everybody Loves Test Patterns. Pinkos loved their twenty-two minutes of laugh-tracked predictability.

“Pinko?” Frizzilk scooched out of bed and approached the ionizing screen.

Craften reacted only by droning, “Control, acknowledge. Unlock closest cell.”

What the piss? Frizzilk felt the prickle along his arms dissipate with the ionizing screen. He backed away. Craften looked spellbound, as blank as a formatted datasheet. Frizzilk grabbed his shiv hidden under his pillow and prepared to swing.

Craften soared back without even jumping. His head snapped against the ceiling. He dropped the four catwalks to the ground. A smack, the crunch of bone, jeers from cellmates. An ad bleep-bleeped and pronounced the newest line of ultimate-couponing jumpsuits on sale in the prison’s gift shop.

“What the crock?” Considine grabbed his own shiv—well, to Considine’s skin, a bar of soap was as deadly as a shiv—and slumped off his bunk. The bed thanked him with a springy squeak of relief. “What the piss was that? The dude Craften just...just...he just...like...flying and stuff...”

“Form one single thought without the word stuff, pinko.”

Considine grasped Frizzilk’s sleeve. “C-can he fly?”

“You think if he could fly, he’d own a civ-tran?”

“Shut up, the two o’ ya.” A voice—grainy, accented, arrogant—swung around from the catwalk. Its owner, a salmon-colored, six-foot-something Terran with skin melting off in thick blots, clomped into the cell, leaving behind a trail of crap as if a giant pimple was leaking. Was this Plaster from the Bad Guys? Another pinko. Another freaking pinko! Pinkos all over the place!

Plaster marched up to him. Before he laid a finger on Frizzilk—sorry, before Frizzilk snapped that finger off and shoved it up whatever Plaster hid under his outfit—a jet-black figure drifted in like a flowing shadow on footsteps as breezy as wind. Smelling faintly of dead bodies, he tipped that liquid black fedora. Good morning, sunshine.

Frizzilk and Considine looked up at the...man? His nose was nothing more than a slight bump on his indistinct face. He wore what looked like a trench coat, but there was no seam between skin and clothing, as if everything from the top of his head to his feet was the same swatch of matter. Whatever comprised this figure—his clothes, skin, fedora—all flowed like a single waving piece of material. Was he wearing pants?

Behind Plaster and the tall figure with the consistency and color of tar followed a blonde bombshell. Five feet and maybe six inches, swagger in each step, hair flowing in a braided rope down to the backs of her knees. Another pinko. Another! Why all the pinkos in this penitentiary? Frizzilk was close to a heart attack, which was cool if it got him away from these filthy pinkos.

“Y’all get this darlin’ right quick, ya got that?” The woman whisked her braid around, and that was when Frizzilk noticed the red streak painting it. She smelled sweetly like skin cream. “I got a schedule at the nose job clinic at eight.”

The black figure stopped before Frizzilk and Considine. “Good day, Mr. Frizzilk.” He smiled, or so indicated that indistinct line that acted like a mouth. “How destitute you look. How exhausted by incarceration you must feel.”

“Also the basketball court in this joint is a disappointment,” Considine said.

With a shift in the black figure’s jaw, the slight hollows passing for his eyes regarded Considine for a heartbeat. He raised an ebony hand whose fingers gelled into one elongated blade that—

In one snap motion, the figure’s arm cleaved into Considine’s skull. Blood squirted away. The blade hand protruded through Considine’s gaping maw and out the back of his neck, Considine’s brains sliding down its shaft. Frizzilk had assumed until now that Considine’s head was an air pocket.

“Mr. Frizzilk, my associates and I have quite the opportunity to offer.” The figure turned from Considine’s twitching, slackening corpse back to Frizzilk. Not Frizzilk’s most comfortable moment. “Would you like to leave this penal residence?” Behind him, someone giggled. “Yes, I said it again, Brother Plaster. Contain yourself.”

By now, the woman had dropped into a chair, flipping through a news datasheet. One leg bobbed off the knee of another. “Eight o’clock today, sugah. I’m gettin’ the double point. New model this year. Ain’t missin’ out on that.” She tapped the datasheet’s NEXT PAGE icon.

“Dear, dear Marionette.” The inky figure shifted his head slightly to regard the woman. “We are enacting the bidding of our righteous Lord and Master, Continuum. I realize how troublesome missing your fourth nose reconstruction this month might be, but the kiosk at the mall shall wait.”

Considine’s brains slurped off the sword hand and seeped onto Frizzilk’s foot. His shoe could do without the coloring. Blood red wasn’t a good stain for prison-issue footwear. “If you want to discuss breaking me out, yank your sword hand out of my cellmate’s head first. This situation needs de-escalating.”

Frizzilk now knew the black figure was the source of that corpse odor. The figure sneered at Considine’s limp body and wrenched his arm out. Considine’s body caved so hard Frizzilk thought the floor would collapse. “Mr. Frizzilk, you are a Fleeson, a species so rare in this galaxy that the express speed the members of your species possess is regarded here as a hyperability. Technically you possess no hyperability, yet authorities imprisoned you in the Stavehill Hyperperson Penitentiary.” With the blade remodeled back into a hand, the figure gestured at the cell to indicate the facility.

“I always wondered about that. If this superspeed ain’t a hyperability, how come the jail’s inhibitors turn it off?”

“The inhibitors do nothing of the sort.” The black figure curled his mouth-valley and looked at Frizzilk’s medication applicator. “The device the guards use to supply the medicine for your visions. With what do you suppose they mix into it?”

“Those crockers! I knew that thing was way too flavored. I don’t drink it, and I still taste grape.”

“What’d ya think this table tastes like?” Plaster stood at a tiny end table beside Marionette’s chair. He traced a slimy finger along the edge and put that to his tongue. As if suddenly aware, he jerked around at Frizzilk and the black figure. “What? I ate nothin’ but bucket chum for weeks.” He checked the others. “I hate seafood.”

“Hon, you’re as smart as a rattlesnake hidin’ on a diner’s grill,” Marionette said.

The black figure ignored Plaster. “Mr. Frizzilk, accept my apologies for my hungry and vain associates.” He extended a hand at the pinko who tracked gunk all over the corner of Frizzilk’s cell. “This is Brother Plaster, a Terran survivor of a skin experiment with the hypermutation of excessive durability, strength, and odor.” He extended the other hand at the blonde reading at his end table. Brains still decorated that hand. “And this is Sister Marionette, a Terran with the hyperability to manipulate and control the movement of any sentient organism.” He gestured at himself. “And I am Blackguard.”

“Probably tastes like regular wood, anyway.” Plaster knocked on the table.

Frizzilk checked Plaster. Estimating what a table tasted like took this pinko maybe thirty-five age cycles? “That’s where I read.”

“You read at the toilet?”

“Well, if you’d stop slathering flesh all over my table”—he sneered at Plaster, who careened onto his cot—“and now my sheets, I wouldn’t have to.”

Blackguard leaned down and took Frizzilk by the shoulders. Ripples undulated under his palms. “Mr. Frizzilk, your prior allegiances include many hate alliances with which you operated under the identity of the masked Ripsaw. You have killed in excess of forty Terrans in race-related offenses. We need a man of your ruthless disposition. And, since you await extradition to your home, Rejavillia, a galaxy that exercises capital punishment, my offer is in your best interest.”

“You can break me out of this place?”

“We entered and held this discussion without incident.” Blackguard crossed his arms. He put on his waiting smile. It was probably as inexplicit as his dinner smile.

Frizzilk drummed his fingers along his hip. Work alongside three pinkos—well, two if you wanted to be literal—or rot in this piss hole that insisted the pebbly crap in the cafeteria was apple crisp?

“Does this offer involve butt gear? I ain’t a butt-gear guy.” Frizzilk noticed the quizzical crease in Blackguard’s cheeks. Same as his waiting smile. “Never mind. I’m in.”

Blackguard smiled. Almost the same as his waiting smile. The hint of death trickled from his breath. “Excellent. You shall adopt the pseudonym Ripsaw once more.”

“Not like I had a choice. They wash the sheets once a month here.” Frizzilk eyed Plaster.

“For your inclusion, you will ascend to holy freedom due to the promises of our righteous and perfect Lord, for you now belong to Continuum,” Blackguard said. There it was. There was his dinner smile. “Come with us.”

Chapter Twenty: This Changes Everything between Us

Franchise threw open the stadium l-doors, waved at a gushing Herviss, and inhaled that fresh night air. Still chilly. He detected pine from the trees surrounding the lot and a drum fire from the tramp hooting at him. The scents of late autumn.

Still high on life. He’d picked a fight with a brute whose gums showed he couldn’t distinguish between mouthwash and medicinal alcohol, and the crowd had cheered him on. And he’d signed dozens of autographs on the way out. People loved him. He had fans. Today was a good day.

Tamiko had to visit the restroom, so she’d remained inside. From what Franchise knew about girls, she’d take another thirty or thirty-five minutes. No longer, though, since this was a normal pitstop. He knew by the number of heads she hadn’t cut off.

A breezy wisp clapped his coat against him. He inhaled, but...ugh...it didn’t smell like fresh air or pine or a tramp’s grill. And it grew too intense to be a breeze. Litter swirled around the lot. An empty cup rattled against a civ-tran. A cellophane wrapper scratched past Franchise’s hip. And the murmur of wind now grew into an engine’s snarl. Something blocked the moonlight. The hull of a starship. The laser lighting scrawled across the hull read, “The Good Guys, now with thirty percent more beef. Technically true.” Holy skullduggery, the Good Guys...here! And with new advertising!

Oh crock, oh crock, holy crock. Franchise felt a pit in his stomach. His friends were touching down, about to discover he had a date with Tamiko, with Amaranthia. Holy crockity crock. He dashed to the left—parked transport—dashed to the right—another parked transport—scampered forward—beef advertisement close to landing on him—dashed away—

Tamiko. He had to warn Tamiko to stay inside. Enjoy that restroom because it had a couch and glitter and perfumes and a platter of cheeses and deli meats. Sitcoms never lied about bathrooms.

His knees trembled. His hands trembled. His chest trembled. He tapped his gabber. C’mon, c’mon, come on. Never had a gabber responded so slowly. He rehearsed what he’d say: “Stay inside, wait for my call, grab me a cheese wedge.”

The earpiece and mouthpiece extended. Franchise blurted, “Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entit—”

F-Reaper settled onto the parking lot behind two civ-trans and the dying eddy of dust and litter. Ace Spandex hopped out and dashed across the lot. He spat his bubblegum into an ionizer. Perfect shot. “Jacob, we need to talk.”

Franchise’s hand arced in an exaggerated rainbow wave. “Hey, Ace. I...uh...should be somewhere you’re not right now.” He screwed his eyes shut. “What’s sad is that came out exactly as I thought it would.”

“Command not recognized,” his gabber said.

“Fans...inside.” Catastrophe, his tan skin and white hair a negative color scheme against the gray starship and buttery moon, scurried around Ace Spandex with a stack of datasheets under one arm and a grin like a floodlight. He smoothed out his hair. Didn’t help. “Must show public...new styling wax. Must distribute...autographs.” His cologne left a chemical odor trail.

Ace and Franchise watched Catastrophe scurry through the l-doors into a throng of concertgoers inside. Ace fixated on the l-doors that reappeared to block a collective “huh?” from those inside. “He spent four hours in a makeup chair for this moment. I’ve never known someone that dedicated to an art.”

“Ace, I’ll say ‘nice to see you’ and hope that works.” Ulp. Franchise was a lousy liar. “How’d you find me?”

“We tracked your gabber signal.” By now, Ace had closed half the distance to Franchise. “We need your help.”

Franchise put up two fingers. “One minute. I have to make a quick call, and then I’ll be with you.” He spun around, about to gabber Tamiko...

His stomach dropped out. The l-doors faded and Tamiko strutted through. “Jakey, I’m ready.”

Fate kicked with both feet.

Everything happened so quickly, but Franchise tracked each infinitesimal action. Ace Spandex yanked out a pistol. Tamiko darted left. Ace set his pistol on stun because of the crowd inside. Tamiko drew a dagger from her stocking. Ace fired twice. Hit the brick of the stadium wall. Tamiko threw her dagger. Ace dodged. Tamiko lunged. Slid over a civ-tran roof. Pulled another dagger. Ace fired again. A side-view mirror said, “Good-bye, cruel world.” Tamiko pounced off the roof at Ace. Ace evaded. Tamiko threw him to the ground. Stood over him. Ace aimed up. Sixth Sense darted out of F-Reaper, glasses askew. Tamiko smacked Ace’s pistol. It landed against his shoulder. Sixth Sense started acting like a high schooler. Squealed.

Talking side-view mirrors. Would wonders never cease.

“Franchise, help me!” Ace slapped aside Tamiko’s dagger thrusts. “Grab my gun. Shoot her. Wipe that blank stare off your face.”

Franchise froze. “I’ll—I’ll—you’ll—I’ll—we’ll—”

“Stop conjugating and do something!”

Franchise’s legs were ice sculptures. He almost grappled for Tamiko, almost held Ace down to stop him, almost wished he’d called earlier for that cheese wedge. He was starved.

“Franchise!” Ace smacked aside another attack, and Tamiko’s dagger spiraled into a seam in a civ-tran two rows away. Tamiko dug her fingers against the muscle of Ace’s shoulder. Ace howled but used the opportunity to grip her hand, yank her down—two heads cracked together—and scoop up his pistol.

Ace leaped up. Tamiko flipped backward over a civ-tran. Ace fired, fired, recalibrated his weapon, fired again.

Tamiko squealed and collapsed to the pavement behind the civ-tran. A rush choked Franchise, a pressure like breathing in quicksand. “Tamiko!” He looked at Ace, then realized his audience. “I mean, Amaranthia. Let’s get her. And stuff.”

“Tamiko?” Ace held his place. Sixth Sense came up behind him, tapped his shoulder, and giggled something about designer lipsticks, gitch.

Franchise quivered in place, one foot in first gear and one foot in neutral. He felt tension in his forehead over the war fuming behind it, like a balloon filling with sand under his skull.

He tried to think of something—anything—to explain himself. But he came up short, just like whenever Legion asked him why Jeffy’s side of the room had a monsoon season.

“I’m sorry.” Franchise scuttled around the civ-tran, watching Ace stand stark still. “I’m...I’m sorry. Ask Pincushion for an explanation. He’ll have an idea.” Pincushion had caught him talking to her a couple days ago.

Eyes as hollow as his mew, Ace froze in place. Couldn’t move. Too shocked. Could only point. “Hagen, stop him.”

Sixth Sense folded his arms, jerked his nose away, and clicked his tongue. “You didn’t, like, say the magic word?”

“Please?”

Franchise bent over and braced Tamiko in his arms. He heaved her up—oof, lifted with his back, but he’d visit a spine booth later—and kept muttering “I’m sorry” on his way around the stadium toward a discreet mass-tran stop a few blocks away. No way could he explain this to his career counselor.

* * *

Ace Spandex hadn’t blinked in ten minutes. What...the...absolute crock...was...that? Jacob...with Amaranthia, the universe’s leading school-principal mass murderer. To be fair, she was easygoing on the AV club.

“H-h-holy crock.” That was all Ace could say. Just...he...wow. A lot of wow. Couldn’t even react to the crowd of stupefied onlookers that had amassed.

Sixth Sense switched from Amaranthia to normal like an elastic band snapping inside his head. He had stood examining his nails in his reflection on a civ-tran, but a second later, he hunched over, clutched his forehead, and issued a subdued moan. His glasses toppled off his nose. “Ugh. Um. Yikes. Such a headache. I now know how to make a lanyard in shop class and strangle the teacher with it.”

Ace’s hand felt otherworldly when it grazed his ear in search of his gabber bud. It finally made contact and tapped the thing on. He couldn’t issue the breath to order it on verbally.

The mouthpiece and earpiece zipped out. “Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Legion.”

“Will do. While you wait, stop by one of Helpful Nan’s one hundred and thirteen slaughterhouses for a juicy Angus burger, made from real Anguses. Free with the purchase of a full boar. Butchery never tasted so delicious.”

“Gabber, I’m replacing you with two cans and a string.” The voice sounded like Ace’s, but someone else spoke the words.

“Seeking connection, seeking connection, seeking co—You sure?”

“Yes!”

“Connection attained.” The gabber clicked the connection through.

“Legion? We found Jacob.” Ace had to sit. The pavement, cold and speckled with litter, gave Ace Spandex’s wobbly legs a rest. They felt like apparitions. He rested his head against a civ-tran whose car alarm declared a “you’re in my safety zone.” He shifted to the next civ-tran, which issued a polite “make yourself at home.”

“I know. I saw everything on broadcast.” Legion’s voice sounded as reedy as Ace’s. “The girl he’s been with is Amaranthia? Is he...is he a Bad Guy now? A sympathizer?”

“I don’t know. He said to talk to Pincushion.” Come to think of it, Ace hadn’t eaten good boar in years. “What should we do? About Jeff...about Jacob.”

A few beats passed like a pause that wouldn’t unfreeze. “I’ll talk to Pincushion after he comes back. He’s the target at that charity game of ring toss right now. For now, get out of the public eye.”

Ace noticed the crowd again. People were taking pictures and gaggling at him and Sixth Sense. “Will do.”

“Like, no way, I got beer pong finals tomorrow.” Sixth Sense rammed his crew-cut head into a civ-tran’s bumper. He’d picked up a stray thought again. “Total owzies.”

Ace sniffled in the wind. “Have Pincushion grab Hagen some cold-and-flu remedy on the way home.”

* * *

Franchise had reached the mass-tran stop. No one around. The wind had nosedived from pleasantly cool to sharply freezing. A pitter of frigid rain had joined it, like needles jabbing him, so he took shelter in the stop’s small booth. A tear leaked down his eye, but if anyone happened by and asked, he’d say it was a raindrop.

With Tamiko and him sitting on the booth’s frosty bench, her head propped on his shoulder and his arm around her, he said, “Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Cammy-Is...” Crock, what BFF number was Cammy?

Tamiko stirred but didn’t rouse. Her arm was bruised from her collapse on the pavement. The charm bracelet Franchise had given her was cracked.

“Gabber, acknowledge. Identify all entities containing search string ‘cammy.’”

“One entity listed: Cammy-Is-Your-Super-BFF-Nine-Zero-Seven,” the gabber said. Franchise couldn’t fathom how he had 907 BFFs, but as long as Cammy was one of them right now, everything would work out.

“Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Cammy-Is-Your-Super-BFF-Nine-Zero-Seven. And I don’t want any Helpful Nan. That stuff’s nasty.”

“Contacting entity Cammy-Is-Your-Super-BFF-Nine-Zero-Seven. Seeking connection. Connection attained.”

“Cammy? Cammy, are you there?” Franchise saw the headlights of the mass-tran blinking in the rain a few blocks east.

“Hey, Jakey, how are you and Tams? You havin’ a super bitchin’—”

“Cammy, listen. Tamiko and I need to come by. There’s been...” Franchise checked Tamiko, who moaned and shifted her cheek around his shoulder. Though her eyes fluttered, she stayed asleep. “There’s been an accident. No, my pants are fine.”

Chapter Twenty-One: Target Acquired

Jeff ducked behind a billboard when a civ-tran droned by. If this was the only place he could hide, under the awning of a billboard of all freaking places, he’d take it. He was sick of mass-tran stations, sick of park benches, sick of ball pits at family-friendly restaurants. Of all the things to be sick of...ball pits! He wouldn’t be sick of them if he could bury himself under the surface without little Freddy stepping on his ribs. Holy piss, how could a twenty-pound half-pint stomp so aggressively? And who bought their kid shoes with cleats?

On this desolate stretch of road beside a wheat field, the billboard stood at attention. The scarecrow in the field didn’t seem to mind. Neither did the crows it wasn’t scaring. Though the storm hadn’t burst long ago, the air smelled like ozone and earthworms. And it tasted like raindrops. Jeff wondered why.

Sick of people finding him. Sick of running. He’d wait on this billboard until he dissolved into society’s background. No one would find him. Him and his only remaining possession, this Burnout action figure that would have melted if he hadn’t kept it in an insulated pocket of his impact pants. He couldn’t even hold it anymore. When he touched it, it sizzled. Now indelible fingerprints marred its stomach and back.

His skin glowed like a torch. A cocoon of heat wrapped him. Even wandering too close to this billboard charred the plastic of its viewscreen surface. The raindrops that fell around him evaporated before they touched. When he’d flown up to the billboard’s catwalk, he’d rocketed at a speed he could barely brake. And was his skin trickling smoke now? The gash along his arm vented it thickly.

He sat. The billboard’s catwalk was soaked with puddles that vaporized underneath his heated skin. Maybe, just maybe, he would catch a trace of sleep without some neurotic fan asking him what laundry detergent he used. Who cared? He let the laundrybots decide what he used and how to clean it when he poured too much in so he could swim through suds.

The viewscreen changed. It alternated from an advertisement for cat food to one for dog food, then back. Cat-dog-cat-dog. The snapping sounds of the conflicting viewscreen images barked and hissed at each other. In seconds, the dog chased the cat in a flicker of motion, one animal displayed at a time. A million billboards on this planet, and he’d found the one with multiple personality disorder.

He squirmed into a ball until his legs pressed against his chest and hid his face between his knees. Eight lousy hours of sleep. That was all he needed. He already felt dozy. Just eight—

“Found him.” A voice from the ground. Jeff whipped his head out of his arms, shot to his feet, and bounded to the catwalk’s guardrail. He peered down into the wheat field at...the Bad Guys again? He clenched his teeth, clenched the guardrail, which softened like taffy under his palms.

“Hey, you with the hair and the fingers, get down here!” Asinine yelled. Beside him stood Master Asinine Sucks, Braindead, IQ 23 wearing that question-marked helmet, and that two-headed guy who tried to tear off one of the question marks. The right head tried to gnaw it off. That Virillian with the hoverdisc was absent.

Jeff tightened his grip, which squeezed the melted steel of the guardrail out from under his fingers. “Not by the hairs o’ my chin-chin-chins!”

“Wait. Chinny-chin-chins? That’s from a nursery rhyme, isn’t it? Did we rhyme, me and him? Lieutenant, did we just rhyme-battle?”

Jeff weaved his hands into a double fist. He funneled his anger through his arms, and his fists lit up, a beacon in the obscuring rain. He paced the length of the catwalk like a caged lion, kicking aside a few leaves that had blown onto it. “You stays away from me.”

“Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chins!” Asinine shrugged. “Lieutenant, is that comeback applicable here?”

“Who knows, sir? You didn’t enroll me in the nursery-rhyme academy this year.”

“Waste of money. After four months, they still didn’t teach you farm was spelled e-i-e-i-o.”

Flat metal tings ascended the ladder, so Jeff backed away from the small trapdoor in the catwalk. He itched to fight whomever was coming up. Literally itched for a throw-down. He focused his energy, welled it into his forearms that now blazed hotly like that neon fluid he used to flavor his cereal. That stuff tasted good all the way to the emergency room.

A hand pitched the trapdoor open. It crashed against the catwalk so loudly it blended with the eruption of thunder. A short bush of brown hair emerged, then a veiny forehead, and finally a jaw as thick as a wall sconce. “Hello, butt cork.”

Jeff felt bile in his throat. “You, what’s-ya-face!” Tolliver. “Yeah, Tolliver!” Jeff’s mind was like a steel...like a steel...like a steel thing from that expression.

Caught off guard, Jeff’s light energy sputtered out. It fizzled into the rain, producing only a flash of light. Wait, he needed that light to kick Tolliver’s crock.

Tolliver hauled himself onto the catwalk. “Yeah. It’s me.” He lunged at Jeff and fist-printed him in the nose.

“Good. That punch means we captured him. This calls for a barbecue. Do that thing where you call someone a butt cork!” Asinine hollered.

“I already did!”

Money exchanged hands below.

“I’m gonna enjoy this.” Tolliver produced a red cylinder from his pocket and directed it at Jeff. A zap shot out of the cylinder into Jeff’s sternum. Jeff crashed against the billboard, felt nothing but a cold sensation that flickered away as quickly as Multipurpose’s dignity at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

His skin cooled. He stopped glowing, his extremities stopped tingling. His l-clothes stopped melting/recoalescing. And the rain stopped sizzling, now pinching him with each cold drop. What the piss?

“Lights out, butt cork,” Tolliver said. Jeff’s point of view framed Tolliver’s fist racing at him. Then darkness and loss of sensation.

Chapter Twenty-Two: If You Love Someone, Set Them Free

Franchise booted a foot against Cammy’s apartment door. He’d finally reached her building in the slums, and if he offended one more person around here by asking for directions to “the slums,” he’d remind that person the city’s name was Slumberg.

Took ten minutes and a lot of heaving to negotiate Tamiko across the building’s rust-colored lobby, around the dead plant and the other dead plant and the dead body and the other dead body, and into the airfoil that had not so much broken down as it had committed suicide.

Franchise’s arms burned from exhaustion. He couldn’t hold Tamiko up longer than a couple more minutes. With his shoulder, he wiped the sweat from his neck and cheeks. Every floor here wore wallpaper that bled water stains. Every scent was redolent of spiced thundermammal. He knew. One elderly Terran sitting in the hall had offered him some. Franchise would have accepted if the guy had first removed the hooves, bones, and life. Crock, he’d have had a taste if the old-timer had gotten two out of three.

After the second round of foot knocking, an urgent voice behind the door said, “Control, super acknowledge. Like, unlock closest door.” The l-door faded with a protesting screech.

Cammy appeared in the l-door. “Holy super badness, how is she?” She stepped aside to allow Franchise to scuttle past.

Franchise stumbled against the wall where the slashed hallway bent into the apartment’s main room. Steeling himself, he toiled toward a threadbare couch. He dropped Tamiko in and spilled on top of her. She didn’t stir.

Cammy stood by the grungy glass-top coffee table in front of the couch. Franchise dragged himself off Tamiko and sat on the floor, chest cold and burning at the same time. He tried to control his breathing, but he’d just lugged one hundred pounds of Tamiko and fifty pounds of weapons across three blocks from the bus stop and into this apartment building that stood as a blunt reminder that some things were merciless to the eyes.

“She’ll be okay.” Franchise managed to shove that sentence out with exertion. He accepted the glass of water Cammy offered and glugged it down in two insatiable slugs. “She was shot with a paralyzing burst. She’ll be out for a few hours, but she’ll wake up with a hangover.”

“She super hasn’t got one of those since history class Monday morning.” Cammy sat on the coffee table.

“Not true. She read the health information on a deli menu earlier.” Franchise allowed himself a moment to calm his body. His lungs guzzling air, he couldn’t close his mouth. He let his head slump against the couch and Tamiko’s leg. Tamiko’s soft breathing sounded like kitten purrs. Even fresh from the rain, she smelled like rose pedals. Franchise almost fell asleep to the comfort of that scent, but he fought to stay awake. Last time he’d fallen asleep too early, he’d woken up wearing a hat, and Jeffy had glued facial hair to him. Lucky he was at a Halloween party, but people were confused why Bruce Lee had a horseshoe mustache and a sombrero.

He broke his reverie and found Cammy still on the coffee table. “I have to leave before she wakes up.”

Cammy shifted from watching Tamiko. “Super why?”

Franchise gave himself a moment to process what to say. “She was hurt because of me.”

“Huh?”

“Tamiko got caught in a fight. She got between my friends and me. She...she...” He looked away, examined a splintered corner table and its sad lava lamp that had lost its lava. “This relationship can’t work. My friends are her enemies, and no matter what, they’ll always be around. When she’s with me, she’s in danger.” His lungs stopped burning.

“You’re dumping her?” Cammy swallowed back her astonishment. “Don’t you super want to be with her?”

“Yes. Super super!” Franchise pounded his knee with a fist.

“Then what’s the dealio?”

“I’m not dumping her. I’m...” What the crock could he say? His emotions engaged in a wrestling match: anger clotheslined friendship, which tagged love in, but concern thunder-stomped it against the mat. He thumped his head. No more sports nights for him.

“But you are dumpin’ her.”

“That’s not it!” Franchise soothed his voice when Cammy braced herself. “Sorry.” Huffing, he let love pin anger for a second. “Tamiko means more to me than that. She introduced me to things I’ve never done before. The fair...concerts...bowling. I haven’t gone to a bowling alley since I was born in one.”

He swallowed the cottony dryness from his throat. “Tamiko is too perfect. It’s as if Alaphus used a livelier color scheme to make her. When she’s around, everything else is in muted greys. Her eyes aren’t green. They’re Tamiko green. She doesn’t giggle. She Tamiko-giggles. She doesn’t wear blue. She wears Tamiko blue. Actually she never wears blue.

“Everyone calls her Tams or Tami, but I can’t. I call her Tamiko because it’s so beautiful a name I don’t ever want it to end. I’ve known other Tamikos, but their names are just ordinary. It’s poetry on her. That makes no sense because it’s the same word, but I don’t care. I want to take the name away from every other Tamiko because no one else is special enough to deserve it.”

He stood so emphatically that Cammy shifted her legs aside, but his blabber kept gushing out. “She’s my strength...and she’s my weakness. I see galaxies of stars shimmer in her eyes. Her laugh turns my nervous system to electricity. When I think of her, the sun rises inside my heart. I finally understand love songs. When she makes eye contact with me, I have to catch my breath. And when she smiles at me, I have to leave the room for fresh air. If she wore turpentine, I’d think it was perfume. I want to rent a boat and show her how to really watch a sunset. And I’m aquaphobic, thanks to Jeffy’s acid water balloons.” He looked at Cammy. “How can you think I want to dump her?”

Cammy gawked up at him. “Your tongue’s about to roll out of your mouth into, like, a tiny staircase.”

“But whenever we’re together, she’s at risk. I can’t be with her...and that thought is murdering me.” Franchise shuffled out from between the couch on which Tamiko rested and the coffee table on which Cammy sat. “I couldn’t live with myself if she got hurt. I need to leave before she wakes up because, if I see her eyes one more time, I’ll chicken out of it.” He shook his head. “I mean, see them open. They’re cl—”

“I know, dude.”

Franchise wandered to the short hallway that led to the door. But he paused, his hand lingering on the wall. “When she wakes up, tell her good-bye for me. Or super good-bye. Whatever ends up coming out. Please.”

Cammy sat by Tamiko and brushed her cherry red hair around an ear. “Super totally, Jakey.”

“Thanks.” With a gulp of finality, Franchise trudged out of the apartment. He headed toward the airfoil bank with the one operational airfoil that worked so slowly it seemed saddened about its job. His breathing still fumed, not from exhaustion now but from this blaze in his stomach as though he’d drunk battery acid.

He punched the wall. Thumped his forehead against it. Kicked it. Screamed. Screamed! Crock, screaming hurt.

Spiritless now, he slid down the wall. He sniffled, but the gooey mucus wouldn’t stop. Felt tears glimmer in his eyes and then spill out. He detected that faint prickle of thundermammal spices again.

He couldn’t return home. Intergalactic Protection would filet him. Couldn’t return to his hotel room. They’d find him there. They’d probably already ripped the place apart for clues to his location. He could hide in a pizza parlor for now. Maybe move on to theater floors. An arcade or two. Find himself a nice sewer dwelling, make friends with the Rat King, fight gators for cash, tour the busking circuit, try a few unkempt beard styles. He rubbed his fingers along his chin. Make that unkempt peach fuzz.

He tapped his gabber on, leaning back against the wall. He’d left it off since after he’d called Cammy, and now he needed the callsign of the nearest pizza place with a basement that didn’t reek of butter-soaked bread.

The gabber turned on. Its activation sound, a harpsichord playing a horrible scale, tickled the labyrinth of his ear drum. “You have one unheard message and thirty-four unheard advertisements.”

Fantastic as crock. Where was that airfoil? “Gabber, acknowledge. Delete all advertisements. Play message.”

“Not deleting any advertisements. You knew the deal when you signed up. Playing first message.”

The message’s caller had a voice Franchise recognized all too well: Legion. Holy shenanigan, he was the last person Franchise wanted to hear from right now.

“Jacob, this is Legion. I have to warn you. The new field marshal at IP, Breeng, knows about your...date. He’s called for your immediate arrest. The manhunt is on, and it’s sponsored by Hamwiches. I...I spun the situation in your favor as much as I could, but he’s not convinced. You need to get back to Station One and explain yourself. Immediately. Just...come home, okay? He’s giving me until the end of the advertising day to bring you in. After that...it’s shoot to kill. And something about a nipple twist. I don’t know. This new guy talks weird. Anyway, your gabber gave me thirty seconds for this message, so—” Legion clicked off. Great. Now Franchise had to return home, or IP would hunt him down.

The airfoil dinged upon its arrival. Franchise didn’t react. He stared across the airfoil bank not at but through a cat that feasted on thundermammals and coughed out a hoof. Franchise stood, not only because the airfoil was waiting but because that cat gave him a nasty purr and pulled out a switchblade.

The airfoil ride to the lobby was the longest he’d ever taken. He blamed the man peeing in the corner for that.

Chapter Twenty-Three: A Deal’s a Deal

Two slaps across the cheek. Nothing worked. A beating, a few smacks, and playing the audio track from an episode of Earsplitting Rooster vs. Hair Metal Concert didn’t do the trick. It was the special drug-awareness episode, for crock’s sake. But this butt cork still wasn’t awake. What a pissing retard.

In the driving rain that felt as cold as it felt wet, Tolliver had hogtied Power Plant to an antenna tower on the roof of a forty-story skyscraper. This was a commercial skyscraper, used for holiday business. So, apart from securitybots, cleaning staff, and maybe the lunch lady, the building was abandoned today, especially since the days after Valentine’s served as a rest period for the card companies that populated these floors. Pfft. Rest time. Coming up with horrible puns about rabbits being “earresistible” was exhausting. Maybe the card jockeys needed a break for Mother’s Day and the “thanks for giving birth to me, blah blah blah” crockanery that came with that fandango. Whoever thought up that “Thanks for letting me borrow your uterus” card was Tolliver’s next target.

Tolliver twisted back as if rearing for a home run. He cracked his palm hotly into this blond pissant’s prissy cheek. That woke him. With Power Plant’s arms and legs still tethered to the tower in wraps of laser rope, the butt cork recoiled and choked out a lungful of air, spittle dribbling down his lip. A jujube shot out of his ear. Nice clearance.

His cheek red, his lip cracked and swollen, the butt cork hung with limbs spread in an X. His soaked clothes clung to him like a layer of snake’s skin.

Tolliver cupped Power Plant’s chin in his hand and held that bruised face up so they could talk eye to eye. Or at least as eye to eye as that puffy cheek would allow. “Hey, butt cork. Remember me?” Tolliver spat a laugh that came from his gut. No, not Tolliver anymore. Today he became Burnout.

“Y-yeah.” Power Plant’s fat lip made his word thick, but it trickled out in a slur. “You the guy what sells me insurance insurance so’s to makes sure no ones sells me reg’lar insurance. I ain’t falls for that. I buyed insurance insurance insurance, sucka.”

“Holy piss, your logic makes as much sense as dividing by sudoku. No, I’m the punk who sucker-punched you on that billboard a few hours ago. I’m the guy who stole your maggot-food brother’s media name.” Burnout flicked Power Plant’s nose. He had to finish this soon. Had to take a leak. “It’s my media name now.”

Power Plant’s jaw bulged. He lunged against the laser rope that held him to the soaked tower. No dice. Though the runt’s wiry muscles—or what he called muscles—squeezed and flexed, that laser rope didn’t relent. “I’s kill you! I’s gonna punch ya in every places where punches happen!”

“Uh-uh. Don’t think so.” Though the rain pelted like hail against exposed skin, Burnout raised his hand and lit a subtle ball of fire over a finger. He curtsied the fire into the night sky and held it against Power Plant, tracing circles around his cheek. Blackened skin smoked with the smell of charcoal.

“Why comes I can’t use my hyperability?” Power Plant winced away from the fire.

“Heh. I shut it off. See this?” From a pocket, Burnout produced the red cylinder with which he’d injected Power Plant earlier. He wiggled it between two fingers. This rain felt pissing cold, so he quickly pocketed his hand. “It’s Hyperthesia. A hyperstasis med. Stops your hypergland from excreting. I zapped you with twenty CCs of it. You should thank me. You were overloading. You would have killed yourself from hyperability poisoning. Thanks to this stuff, your body can produce enough antioxidants to urinate away the toxins of your hyperability. You’re supposed to take a dose once a year or so if you pour it on. Guess Daddy Legion forgot to tell you that part. So you’ll get no juice out of your hyperability for maybe a week.” He leaned in. “You’re at my mercy.

“And it don’t end there, butt cork.” Burnout held out another small cylinder, green instead of red this time. “This is concentrated hypergland excretion. Heh. I’ll inject you with this. It’ll turn your hyperability back on, and you won’t be able to control it.” He leaned over and whispered in Power Plant’s ear, “You’ll explode like a crock.” All as soon as his idiot friends showed their ugly faces.

“You’s a’splode, too, though.”

“Nothing doing. This stuff is fast acting, but not that fast. I’ll have five...ten minutes. I’ll be long gone when you go ker-blam. But in case I decide to beat you senseless instead”—Burnout swapped the green cylinder with another red one—“another bit of Hyperthesia. The abort dose.”

Power Plant stopped struggling. Even his flyweight brain knew the effort was hopeless. “So I’s quits and the Good Guys sends ya to kill me. Knew I shouldn’t keeps putting hot pepper sauce in the eyes-wash station.”

“What are you talking about, butt cork?” First, multileveled insurance. Next, the Good Guys sent Burnout to kill this whack job?

Holy crock. Burnout had to muffle his cackle. Legion never told this societal reject Burnout was fired!

Burnout smiled. His teeth peeked out his thin lips, and he ran his tongue along them. “Oh. Yeah. You quit the Good Guys, and they consider you a target, butt cork. We plan to blow your brains out and chuck your body into a dumpster for stray cats.” Rain flattened his hair. Each drop felt like a golf ball.

“Tha’s it. Unties me and lemme punches all ya punchings places!”

Footsteps honk-honked toward them. Burnout didn’t need to look to know the footsteps belonged to that pitiful excuse for a pitiful excuse Master Asinine, especially since he wasn’t wearing shoes. He wore geese. Burnout didn’t want the details on where he’d fit his feet: geese had only two ends, and these things were clearly honking.

To Power Plant’s credit, the priss didn’t gasp upon seeing Asinine. He didn’t whimper. He didn’t shiver though this rain cut the temperature down to an unbearable freeze. No, he only firmed his resolute expression. But he now clearly remembered who’d accompanied Burnout at the billboard. “Holy crock. You’s with the Good Guys and the Bad Guys? Now even Master Asinine’s helps to kill me?”

“Whoa, whoa.” Master Asinine waved his hands around. “I’m not killing you. You’re my answer to unlimited hyperabilities. Also unlimited pillow vouchers. So...” He scratched the back of his neck. “...hand them over.”

Burnout ruffled around in his pockets. “You work for the weirdest currencies.”

“No scamming. The Bad Guys came for two-for-one hypoallergenic pillows, and two-for-one hypoallergenic pillows we shall have. Seriously. If I don’t pull through on the deal, Schizophrenic said he’d confiscate my lungs. Legend has it I need those.”

Chapter Twenty-Four: And No Dating till You’re Sixty-Five, Young Man

Franchise took an hour and a half to reach home on a mass-tran that stopped once daily at Station One. With heavy feet slushing on the carpet to Legion’s office, he carried his luggage over a shoulder that pinched as if someone were drilling a shelf into it. Thanks to a Mechaknight, he knew the feeling.

He reached Legion’s office door, the one with, of all things, a pizza icon decorating it. It had helped him identify this door the first few weeks Legion had moved his office into the lobby building: every other door in this building had pasta icons.

He knocked, though he knew the haunt control had already announced his arrival. The l-door faded, and the dourest face Legion had ever worn greeted Franchise. He stood behind his desk, his mouth a straight line. His skin-covered ears stood as high on his temples as they could stand, and his antennae shook from muscle tension.

“Sit.”

Franchise obeyed.

“I mean in a chair.”

Franchise sprang off the carpet. “Sorry. I’ve been talking to high-school students the last few days. Did you know they have twelve different meanings for the word skank? Only four of them are derogatory. One of them is business related.”

Franchise quivered into the chair across from Legion. Legion remained standing at a viewscreen of the parking area for a few seconds. “Pincushion tells me that, during the prisoner escort mission, he caught you talking with Amaranthia. Socially. Now it makes a lot of sense why you got that perfume-scented plush gnawl in the mail a few days ago. You don’t look like a plush kind of guy.”

Franchise studied the brown carpet. “Yeah. That’s why.”

Legion joined his hands behind his back. “And the cookies you got on Friday.”

“What cookies?”

“Okay, if you have to ask that question, Ace shouldn’t sign for our mail anymore.” Legion strolled to a cabinet that held old war memorabilia littered across its shelves. “Jacob, do you realize the stupidity of hobnobbing with the enemy? Do you know if she’s sincere? She could be playing you. She could be trying to squeeze information out of you. And she has cooties.”

Franchise raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? The cooties thing?”

“Eh. It works on Jeff.” Legion strolled back. “The point is”—he reached his desk and clunked a fist on it—“you’re putting everyone in jeopardy.” He loomed over, his shadow dominating Franchise’s world now.

Franchise’s pulse coincided with the pressure in his back muscles. He smelled Legion’s hot, fish breath. The cafeteria offered some exotic breed that mentally performed complex calculations. Franchise couldn’t bear to eat them. So cute that they calculated pi to the third decimal place.

“What are we going to do with you?” Legion sat on the corner of his desk. His desk’s inset computer bleeped, processing an order for something. Legion squinted down at it. “What’s that icon do?”

“I broke up with her,” Franchise said to the carpet. He swallowed down the lump in his throat, his hands on his lap. His body heat had warmed his palms so much they burned from resting in place. “Right before I came here.”

Legion forgot the icon. “Jacob, it’s not that you’re fraternizing with her. I understand this job allows little time to meet people. And I know Jeff isn’t the best wingman. That’s not a knock on his maturity level. It’s the stuff he keeps in his pockets. Before him, I’d never seen someone grab a handful of oatmeal out of a pair of cargos.

“Jacob, it’s because you didn’t mention anything. I mean...I could have justified it to IP if you’d come forward. I’d have sold it as an infiltration mission. We could have backed you up. It’s a buzzkill to plant security on your dates, but still.”

“Incoming connection from entity Tamiko.” Franchise’s gabber buzzed. Thankfully, the earpiece and mouthpiece didn’t spring out. He’d set them not to. “Incoming connection from entity Tamiko. And sign up for Tripedal Party Line. Three-legged women in your area are waiting to chat right now.” Franchise sniffled back that thick lump clotting his throat. He double-tapped his gabber bud: refuse the call. The lump grew. He felt as if he’d swallowed a knotted rope.

Legion hadn’t noticed the gabber buzz. “In the future, if anything like this happens, we need to monitor it. Heavily. For your safety and for ours. As it stands, you’re suspended for a week. You will not leave Station One. Understand?” He thumped the desk again. “Huh. I just ordered a half-chocolate, half-nitric latte. How do I cancel that?” He jabbed a few other icons. “That’s the last time Kamikaze sets up my computer before he gets locked in an asylum.”

“Like I said, I broke up with her today. So there won’t be any more contact.”

Legion shifted his position for a closer look—beep—then stood. “Oh, great. I doubled my order.”

“And I didn’t divulge any sensitive information.”

Legion pecked a few other random icons. “What cup even holds nitric acid? Great. We have sixty-four ventis coming now, whatever that is. Any way to organize a party on short notice?”

Franchise sniffled. He smelled her strawberry scent even in her absence.

“You know what? Bottoms up. We’ll face the gastrointestinal consequences later. There was a second reason I called you in: Jeff.”

Franchise felt a twist of nausea at the thought of Tamiko receiving the message that he’d refused her trans—“Wait. What about Jeffy?”

Legion didn’t speak. His eyes dithered as if he were searching for words. A niggling sensation inside Franchise caused his arms to clamp. He leaped out of his chair and almost throttled Legion. Instead he stamped his palms on the desktop, and now make that sixty-five cups of nitric acid. “What the piss happened to Jeffy? So help me, stop hesitating.”

“We tried telling you. He’s been missing for five days now. Took off immediately after the escort mission. We haven’t been able to track him down...that is until our keyword alerts recorded this news broadcast.” Legion blinked. “Viewscreen, acknowledge. Display latest recorded broadcast feed.”

In the lifespan of a sneeze, the viewscreen behind Legion expanded to its preprogrammed playback dimensions. The image of the parking area flickered away, and a news feed replaced it. A text bar along the bottom read, VIEWNET NEWS: CHANNEL 14. Below that, a tickertape bar read, PUBLIC EXECUTION. NOT THE GOOD KIND. MAKE SURE TO CATCH DISEMBOWELMENT WRESTLEFEST AFTER THIS.

Franchise approached the viewscreen that hung in front of the wall. “What...the...crock?” He barely registered his own voice uttering that. It sounded as ethereal as if he’d said it asleep.

The newscaster’s words, spoken off screen, didn’t matter to Franchise. She blah-blah-blahed something about this just in, they got an exclusive thanks to their floating cameras, one of the Good Guys strung from an antenna tower atop a business skyscraper, the man in charge announced an execution in mere hours, the skyscraper was cleared out, authorities circled the area in a low-noise law-tran, lunch meat on sale at Plantation Sown Foods, prices so low you’d think they were farming mishaps.

Then he spoke. Him. Franchise recognized that arrogant rasp anywhere. His eardrums burned. The kink in his shoulder pricked harder.

“Hello, butt corks at home.” Tolliver’s snicker followed, one that sounded as though sand clogged his throat. “Thank you for joining us way up here. I’d like you to say hello to the public’s newest superstar, Power Plant.” The camera glanced at Tolliver, then panned to the figure sagging from the antenna tower. Jeffy. Franchise gasped, gripped the ends of his sleeves. “And today, as per the Good Guys’ orders...” The camera returned to Tolliver, who raised a single finger. The air above it flickered in a blaze, not touching but sprouting above the fingernail like a candle flame. “...you’ll bear witness to his execution by immolation. In four hours and fifty minutes, viewers...you’ll watch him burn.” That last word thinned the air in the office.

Legion issued the command to pause the feed. Tolliver’s pirate smile froze on the viewscreen above an ad for broadcast’s newest program, Universe’s Belchiest Supernovae. “That was three hours ago. On top of that situation, Jeff’s hyperability was acting up. He had hyperability poisoning, and without treatment, he would have exploded. Looks as though it’s been inhibited, so he can’t even defend himself. We’re scrambling a rescue team now—”

“And I’ll be on that team.” Franchise lunged at Legion, didn’t grab him, but invaded his personal space enough to drive home his point. “You hear me?”

Legion nudged him back. “Not on your life. You’re suspended, remember? You will stay put and let us take care of this. That is an order.”

“Legion, a rescue team has to use a Fireball, and that’ll take longer than an hour just to flush out the engine flood. I should know. I’m one of your pilots. Jeffy will be dead by the time you arrive. I’ll take a Flagstar. Jeffy is about to become a pig roast. So you can shove your orders.”

“There’s no way I’m putting you out there right now, Jacob. You understand me? You’re—not—going.”

“Wanna bet?” Franchise whirled around and marched to the door.

“Jacob, you’re not in the clear. If you leave this station, Field Marshal Breeng will arrest you or worse. You stay put. Jacob? Jacob, don’t move.” Legion stomped his foot. “Field Agent Franchise, stand your position!”

“Crock my position. My best friend needs me.” Franchise broke into a sprint. Had to reach Hangar Bay F before Legion ordered the haunt control to alert security. Good thing Jeffy had changed the command to “release the hounds” without telling him.

Chapter Twenty-Five: Trial by Fire

Burnout curled a flame around Power Plant’s cheek, charring more skin and making the little puke wince. He had to hand it to the puke. Dude didn’t whimper, didn’t load his pants, nothing. If he wouldn’t make this fun, Burnout would rip up Cosmonaut Chimp datasheets in front of him. Weird what set off this baby.

His flame flickered out in the harsh rain. Burnout would have talked with this butt cork if the butt cork’s grammar didn’t make his head explode. He needed to save his energy in case Multipurpose offered him another bowl of whatever he called that goulash of sludge. “You know what’s different between me and your brother?” The goulash smelled like an engine on fire. “I mean, aside from the fact that he was stupid enough to crocking die.” And it screamed whenever that fat lard sucked down a forkful. “It’s our hyperabilities.” Okay, enough about the goulash.

Burnout strolled from Power Plant’s right over to the left. The puke’s eyes stalked him. Burnout gestured with his hands as he elaborated, speaking loudly over the whoosh of the law-tran that circled overhead. “Low noise” didn’t mean “no noise.” “I mean, it’s the way they work. We both make fire, but his fire came from adding oxygen molecules to the air and heating them up. Something like that. I dunno. I barely skimmed the article.” He stopped pacing, pointed at Power Plant, and produced a thin flame on the priss’s neck, drew it with the motion of his finger as if signing a waiver. The butt cork winced again. “Me? I can’t touch the stuff. But I create it outright, no playing with oxygen. That means my stuff is more potent. I couldn’t have burned that line on your neck more precisely if I’d used a scalpel.” Holy crock, when would the Good Guys show up? Tolerating this butt cork was barely worth drawing this out. “There. I wrote my name.”

Power Plant gritted his teeth through scorching pain. He grimaced at the law-tran’s searchlight. “So I’s gonna haves ‘stupid crock’ tattoo on me for the rests o’ my life?”

“Learn some respect.” Burnout snuffed his flame and belted a solid fist into Power Plant’s sternum. Power Plant jangled against the antenna tower, then hung at rest like dead weight. Good thing the law-tran hadn’t caught that, or the pilot would have acted.

From a wound, Power Plant’s neck seeped fresh blood, which trickled more thickly than the rain. “So why comes...” He choked out a tooth. Second one he’d lost today. “So why comes ya won’ts let me wallop ya lighty-an’-punchy style? Also, I swears I had a coupon for a hot-airs balloon. You take that?”

“Hot-air balloon is mine now.” Burnout inspected the roof, observed the gaggle of Bad Guys—Master Asinine, Schizophrenic, Multipurpose, and a couple of other butt corks—near the access door, out of the law-tran’s sight. “And wallop me? I’d destroy you so badly I’d tenderize you into ground beef.”

Power Plant’s eyes glazed. “Ahhh. Red meat.”

“Hey, pay attention.” Burnout snapped his fingers. He glanced over at Master Asinine and—what the piss? “Is Asinine playing basketball with a rock?”

“Oh!” Power Plant wrestled against the laser rope. “I loves basketrock. Lemme at ’im!”

“It’s a wonder you guys haven’t trounced him yet.” Burnout turned to wallop Power Plant, but Power Plant had glazed off elsewhere again. “Hey, where do you keep going?”

Power Plant smacked his lips. “Red meat.”

* * *

Authorities remained inactive, keeping the public away from the forty-story skyscraper while they waited for anyone else to solve the problem. Franchise had sweet-talked his way through their barricade, said he was point man and the rest of the Good Guys were following. Not entirely a lie.

And since the airfoils were shut down—holy piss—he’d scaled the steep two hundred and infinite steps to floor thirty-seven. Sweat blurred his vision. Exhaustion blurred his other senses. He’d withheld his vomit until the twenty-ninth floor, then just discharged. It now sopped down the railing into floors beneath. Jeffy had to hear about the blast radius, especially with their little wager on. Now Franchise owned that half bowl of chili that had aged for a week in their closet. Eating that would make topping today’s vomit record a piece of cake.

Floor thirty-eight. His eyeballs no longer just burned with sweat. His vision now undulated, missing a few pixels. He felt light-headed. His kinked shoulder pinched. All other sensations had vacated the premises, and he swore he saw Master Asinine Sucks jigging at the head of this landing, Bad Aim trying the same without legs, and maybe Franchise shouldn’t attempt a forty-story rescue because these hallucinations weren’t worth it. Other people dreamed up palm trees and oases. He dreamed up a forty-story workout routine.

“Howdy, fast rider.” The apparition of Master Asinine Sucks plucked a stem of wheat from his lips and flicked it aside. “Yer in for a hoedown o’ hurt, I reckon. An’ by that”—he spat a fit of drawled laughter—“I mean, I’ll kick yer keister all the way back down those thirty-eight floors.” His finger drilled a spiral downward to drive home his point. Bad Aim crossed his arms, smiled with bared teeth, leaned back on a hoverdisc that looked as if it had one more hour left in it, and reeked as always of modeling clay. Good timing for Franchise’s sense of smell to come home.

So this was no apparition. Master Asinine Sucks was real, and he stood a towering twelve steps above. Franchise sat on the lowest step to allow his throbbing legs to rest. “The only...thing...good about...climbing all those stairs...is I...can’t smell that cheap leather polish...you use as deodorant.”

Master Asinine Sucks descended all but one step. He squatted, leaned toward Franchise, and tipped his ten-gallon hat. “Pardner, you wanna do this the hard way...or you wanna turn around an’ head home? We can do the hard way if ya want. I gotta tell ya, though. There’s a cattle brand involved.”

“Fo’ sho’, holmes. Ejacate this playa.” Bad Aim flicked a finger across his nose and jerked his hands at Franchise. Skin oil made his scales shimmer in the light. “Son, he gon’ slap you down like you his crock. That definite get us numba one on the big man’s gift exchange list. Yo yo.”

“You’re unusually happy.” Franchise smirked. “You get half off on scale lotion?”

Bad Aim double-thumped a fist to his chest. “Reco’nize, brah.”

Crock. Franchise shut his eyes, and the moment felt like Heaven. “Whatever. Your impact suit looks like tinfoil.” He concentrated and—

Out leaped a duplicate. Another. And another. As lightning fast as lightning itself, they tackled Master Asinine Sucks. Slammed his bumpkin noggin against a stair. One duplicate bounded at Bad Aim two steps at a time. Collided headlong with the Virillian’s torso.

“Slow yo’ role. Peace. Peace!” Bad Aim spiraled into the floor. His head hammered the wall. The duplicate followed. Clouted him. Left. Right. Left. Right. Uppercut. Sneezed. Wiped his nose on Bad Aim’s hand. Wiped his foot on Bad Aim’s lips. Hiccupped. Continued wailing.

Ssssoooo...his duplicates felt no exhaustion when they popped out. And none of them suffered a half-healed knee. Good to know. Despite the humming headache that creating his duplicates inflicted, Franchise smiled. Maybe they’d carry him the rest of the way to the rooftop.

Master Asinine Sucks had lost consciousness three or four blows earlier, so Franchise grabbed one duplicate’s shoulder and absorbed him. He tapped another’s neck, and that duplicate disappeared as well. Wished his headache would disappear that easily.

Franchise climbed the flight. His legs felt like noodles and pyres all at once, but he strode over Master Asinine Sucks and that rank of leather polish that worsened his headache and made his nostrils want to close shop. He grabbed and absorbed his last duplicate before that duplicate unzipped and peed on Bad Aim.

He used the handrail to carry himself across the landing and prepared for the unthinkable: ascending yet another flight. Crock.

The sound of scraping metal sheared his ears. A sword swished a line across his vision. Staring cross-eyed at the blade, he watched a fly settle on it and scurry along the shaft. Not this. He didn’t want to deal with this now.

“Tamiko.” Anybody but his ex. Lifting his gaze three steps to where she stood caused his headache to pulse behind his temples. Honestly he’d rather tumble back down the thirty-eight flights because that seemed easier and he also saw a discarded jelly bean at the bottom. The black kind, but black probably tasted like green right now.

Today he learned climbing thirty-eight flights of stairs played with his focus.

“So this is how our breakup ends?” Franchise swallowed. The sword was close enough to his neck that the blade shaved a few hairs.

“You left me, Jakey.” Tamiko sniffled, her eyes raw. “You totes left me at Cammy’s place? Didn’t even say b’bye. You gitch.” Her cheek shuddered. “Why?”

Franchise wanted to sit again. He hung off the handrail, his legs sagging under him. “You were hurt because of me. In grade school, people got hurt when they threw a punch at me but tripped over a rock. Yes, that happened. Who won those fights? I’m not telling because I blacked out and can technically say I don’t know. But you...you got hurt just being with me.” Franchise found it hilarious that he stood without rolling down the stairs. Everything from his skin to his insides sweated right now. “I won’t let that happen twice.”

A tear crept down Tamiko’s cheek. Her scowl sharpened.

Franchise swallowed again. “Tamiko, if you scowl any harder, I’ll throw up. It’ll be in my mouth, but something’s gonna come up no matter what.” That sharpened Tamiko’s scowl. “Okay, not in my mouth.”

“You dumped me.”

“Just so I know, do a lot of your breakups end with you killing the guy?”

“You dumped me!”

“I did it for your safety. I did it because I...” He swallowed. “Look, forget it.”

“Why?” Tamiko waited, but Franchise remained silent. “Why?”

“You’re really gonna make me say it?”

“Say what?” Tamiko stomped her foot with each word. She tapped her sword against his chin. “Say. What.”

“Because!” Franchise blinked. “I love you.”

Tamiko’s scowl loosened into astonishment. “You...what?”

“I love you.” Franchise leaned forward at her to insist the statement. “Okay?”

Tamiko sniffled. “So...I don’t need to, like, hack your head off?”

“Please no trophies.”

“Jakey!” Tamiko dropped her sword and threw herself at Franchise so quickly Franchise stumbled into the handrail. She buried her head in Franchise’s chest. “You’re such a gitch.” She pulled away and slapped Franchise hard across the cheek. “You can stuff that nasty safety noise. I can protect myself. I get to totally pick what’s best for me. An’ I pick you, ya dork.”

“Can we discuss this when I finish dying up there?” Franchise slumped against the wall. “Or do you still want to fight?” Please no please no please no. “I’m up for it.” He wasn’t he wasn’t he wasn’t.

Her hand grazing Franchise’s, Tamiko smiled, wiped her cheeks dry, and stepped aside. She motioned up the stairs with her chin. “If you totally don’t say nothing to the head stooge, go. Save your friend. But after this is over, we’re sooo gonna talk about this breakup that totes ain’t happening?”

“Totes.” Franchise rallied up his last trickle of energy and mustered himself to the stairs. He stopped and brushed Tamiko’s cheeks with a light kiss. She smelled perfect. Exactly the right combination of perfume and guts. “If we ever arrest you, I’ll make sure you get the best holding cell.”

* * *

“I’m enjoying this too much.” Burnout hoped Power Plant heard him gloat over the whinny of the law-tran. He trailed his flame up Power Plant’s hair and around to his temple. Everything smelled like a combination of used charcoal, wet dog, and that stuff Asinine was grilling on the barbecue across the roof.

“Hey, New Burnout.” Asinine raised his barbecue tongs, pinching a chunk of meat with a tail bobbing from it. “You in for whatever this is? I call it a ‘this burger.’ Because it’s this.” He shrugged at it.

“Stay there, butt cork. We can’t defame the Good Guys if those searchlights spot you here with me. You freak.” Burnout turned to Asinine, now facing the driving rain. “But good on you for using tongs instead of your hands this time.”

Scarred, second-degree burns painting his cheeks, Power Plant mustered the will to attack Burnout with a glare. Burnout could only laugh. “You got that murder-kill-destroy look. Maybe I should pluck your eyes out. Nah, I wanna watch the light go out of them.”

“You’s do that...” Power Plant burped out a cloud of smoke. “...an’ I’s still shoves my hand up your butt an’...an’...Crock, half the time I says stuff, it a butt comment. Can I’s start again?”

“No.” Burnout unwrapped a candy and popped it into his maw. It tasted like dirt. Nasty. It was a rock Asinine had foil-wrapped and dropped in his pocket. He spat the rock at Power Plant but missed. He picked up another rock and spat that...Missed again. He picked—Crock it. He slammed a fist into Power Plant’s stomach. “Might wanna clean that blood up, scrotum.”

Lieutenant Pansy waitered over, carrying a plastic plate stacked with burgers and, for some reason, a hubcap. He at least had enough sense to avoid the sway of the law-tran’s searchlight. How could Asinine’s chimp become so submissive? At least he wasn’t eating the hubcap. “Our esteemed leader would like to know if you want some of his famous this burger.” He tapped the blue patty on top, then his finger orbited to the other side of the plate. “Or a mesquite hubcap, which is apparently edible.”

“If Asinine’s barbecuing, I ain’t eating. Go embarrass yourself elsewhere.” Burnout wasn’t watching Power Plant. He absentmindedly trailed his finger around Power Plant and listened to the grunts and tiny-throated screams.

Snap. Was that an original thought breaking IQ 23’s brain? But blood wasn’t leaking out of his ear. Huh. Burnout glanced at the antenna tower and—

Something clomped him across the face. “Sweet revengin’!”

Burnout landed in IQ 23’s plate, sending it and the food spinning against a chimney. He shoved IQ 23 against the chimney and oriented himself. Power Plant, free. And IQ 23, out cold after a single shove. Disappointing. Burnout had planned two or three shoves, and that last one would have been special.

Burnout must have accidentally severed Power Plant’s laser ropes, which the blond pantywaist brushed off. “Next time ya’s finger-paints me, watch where ya cuts.” He fixed Burnout with eyes of homicide. “I’s gotta scrams before the Good Guys shows up to kills me. So we’s dancing or what?”

“Nice line.” Burnout tilted his head, cracked his neck left, then right. The law-tran’s searchlight hit him. Perfect shot for this brawl. “Get your dancing shoes on.”

Power Plant pounced at him with both hands—

* * *

Franchise tossed forward to fling through the rooftop access. He toppled onto gravel, skinning his palms. Embarrassing. So used to sliding doors at Station One, he was unprepared for this l door. At least the law-tran’s searchlight hadn’t caught that.

Crock. His tongue felt like a sponge against the roof of his mouth. His knees buckled when he caught sight of Master Asinine, Schizophrenic, Multipurpose, Braindead...and Tolliver. Yikes. He’d need to fight through all of them to save Jeffy.

No. No fear. Jeffy needed him. He threw himself to his feet. “Where is he? Where is Jeffy? No, thank you, Asinine, I don’t want a this burger.”

“Are you kidding me?” Asinine’s jaw gaped open, and out rolled a moist lump of some meaty thing that used to live and might still. Who knew which, but Franchise had no other explanation for the voice praying for death. “I injected the sauce right in!” Asinine tossed away a needle.

Schizophrenic appeared behind Asinine. Lefty flicked a spent toothpick against a chimney. “Let me take care of this bantamweight, you inebriated think tank.” He cracked his knuckles. Hey, that was Franchise’s thing. Franchise wrapped one hand around the other and...No point. It had been stolen.

Another toothpick went in. “Time to pound you into a couch cushion.” Lefty looked as if he would enjoy this. Righty looked as if he would enjoy a finger sandwich.

“Try it.” Franchise cracked his knuckles at Schizophrenic, Lefty specifically. Yeah, he stole it back.

Schizophrenic bumped past Asinine. “Oh? You’re gonna take me on?” Lefty winked cockily and snorted.

“Yeah? You and what army?” Righty issued a childish snicker.

Lefty stared down at the gravel. “Do you even know who you’re talking to, you fun-sized brain? This is Mr. You and What Army himself.”

Franchise worked his kinked shoulder and felt a pop. Better. A duplicate burst out, lunged at Schizophrenic, drove him into the gravel. Another duplicate tumbled on top. A third. Schizophrenic dug himself out from under the football pileup, kneed one in the groin and bashed the other two’s heads together as though they were a slapstick-comedy troupe. They fell, so Franchise drew them back in with light touches.

“That all you got?” Lefty plucked the toothpick from his teeth, flicked it at Franchise, and stuck in a third.

“I got lots more.” Franchise grunted through his worsening headache. He didn’t have many duplicates left in him before his headache broke in a feverish sweat or an aneurism. Wasn’t sure which. He sauntered past Schizophrenic, tracing a hand in the air from which popped out five more duplicates. The duplicates surrounded Schizophrenic and kicked potshots at him in turn. Lefty dropped his toothpick. “This army.”

* * *

Jeff threw a punch at Tolliver. Missed. For crock’s sake, nothing landed! Even his neener-neeners amounted to a sweet hill of nothing. Worked on bullies at school, but for some reason, Tolliver kept coming at him with punch after punch after—

Like that one. Way to go for gold, man.

Jeff and his black eye had had enough. He shoved Tolliver back, screaming to high hell about the lack of appreciation for neeners around here. He threw another punch that swung wide in the rain but still clipped Tolliver in the nose.

Tolliver staggered back but balanced himself at the roof’s edge. “You shut my nostril, butt cork.” He massaged his nose, reddened with kindled anger. “And it’s bleeding. You gave me a nosebleed, guppy.”

“I nosebleeds a lotta dudes.”

“I’ll kill you!”

“Back off. If it’s ain’t enough the Good Guys sent ya ta vamooses my hyperability an’ dead me up, they sends Jakey too.” Jeff glanced over at his ex-friend, centered in the law-tran’s searchlight. Jakey—no, just Franchise to him now—traded kicks with Braindead and nursed what looked like a walloping headache.

Tolliver sized up Franchise. “That’s right. We all showed up to kill you.” His forearms bulged in an offensive posture Jeff saw coming thanks to military training.

Tolliver leaped at Jeff, locked his thumbs against Jeff’s throat, bashed his knee into Jeff’s sternum. Oooyyyy, didn’t see that coming. Jeff’s stomach churned with the caterpillars he’d eaten when that hobo had dared him. It was high time he stopped agreeing to hobo dares.

Jeff pried at Tolliver’s thumbs, but his loss of light energy had sapped his strength. Also the no-eating thing. He wobbled backward into the antenna tower, his belt clattering against its steel. His vision whirled. Across the roof, smoke from a double-flue chimney waved as if wishing him bon voyage. His head filled with static, and though he pried at the thumbs that dug ardently at his throat, he couldn’t free himself. Losing consciousness...searchlight fuzzy...wasn’t sure what was...more painful: the fingers clamped...around the back of his neck...the thumbs...cutting off his...airflow...or that he’d landed on his keys.

One last ditch effort. Despite whatever Wu-Tang Clan ever rapped at him, he had to forget his neck. He balled up every last ounce of energy. Gunned a knee into Tolliver’s tenders like a hammer-brandishing butcher drunk with the power he wielded over a side of cow.

Tolliver’s lungs emptied. He paled from raging red to a murky aquamarine. He reeled aside and puked out the same colors he had turned. “You butt cork.” Grabbed his green cylinder. Rushed at Power Plant. Stabbed him in the arm with it.

Jeff lost his footing. His hands scrambled for support, grabbed Tolliver’s collar but couldn’t grip. His shoes scraped gravel that denied him footing, especially in the machinegun rain hosing them. He almost landed on top of Tolliver but slipped past—over the eave—now he dangled off the roof from a lifeline of slippery fingers.

Jeff’s skin glowed again, hyperactive, as bright as a lighthouse three feet away. His skin vaporized the rain, and his l clothes furiously struggled to stay fused.

“Heh. Nice timing. Your friend just showed up.” Tolliver’s grumbly laughter seeped over the eave. He sauntered to the edge where Jeff gripped with frigid fingers. “How’s this for an execution, chode? I can wipe you out with one flick of fire and watch you detonate along with four or five city blocks.” Grinding a heel over Jeff’s fingers, Tolliver produced the red cylinder and prepared to whip it into the rain. “Say good-bye to your antidote.”

“Say good-bye to you.” Jeff risked his grip, grabbed Tolliver’s ankle, tore open the floodgates of his hyperability. The ankle disintegrated, not even a shower of blood to indicate its demise. Tolliver didn’t scream, only gawked down at his missing foot speechlessly as he tipped forward. The cylinder slipped from his hand, clanked against the eave, rolled toward the roof’s edge.

“Jeffy!” Franchise dealt Braindead a final crack in the chin and left him for the melee of duplicates to wail in a festivity of kicks as if this were some fraternity initiation gone wrong. Had Braindead joined the Phi Mario Koopas?

Hands out, Franchise slammed into Tolliver. Tolliver’s head snapped against the stone eave. In his futility of disorganized wailing, he careened over but grabbed something to stop his tumble. Jeff’s pant leg.

Franchise clutched at the cylinder. “Got it!”

Tolliver kept switching grips to wherever Jeff’s deteriorating pant leg coalesced back together. He choked in the rain and the blood leaking from his forehead, his right hand cutting in the air to spark a flame. “Even with no foot, I’m still gonna roast you.”

“Nothin’ doings...butt cork.” Through a ray of orange vision, Jeff poured on the pain, blasted downward, vaporized Tolliver’s hand.

With his other hand, Tolliver scrambled for anything to grip. He found nothing. He careened down, his back bashing against a fire escape’s railing. Bones snapped over the roaring thunder. The dilapidated fire escape crumpled until, in a twist of wrought-iron bars, it struck a thirty-fifth-floor reinforcement.

Tolliver plummeted, screaming “butt cork” on his plunge to the pavement outside the building’s lobby. He sustained the scream all forty stories down. Good lung capacity.

The scream broke off in a blink. He stared up at the driving rain and gloomy moon. Illuminated in the law-tran’s searchlight, his limbs resembled a swastika. Blood pooled and diluted in the rain. Jeff had heard you released your bowels at death, so if Tolliver suffered a monstrous case of diarrhea, ain’t no way anything could cork that butt. Jeff was going nowhere near that body. Crock, clearing the funk out of his mind’s nose would take days. From now on, he’d go twosies before stepping into public.

Jeff diverted his attention to his fingers, that cold, exposed grip that burned in the rain and howling wind. His hands charred the eave, felt hot, looked raw red despite evaporating the raindrops. He wanted to scramble up, but any shift would compromise his tenuous grip. If he flew, he’d likely careen into space. He was outta luck. And his steaming fingers were slipping. Crock. His hand fell. Now only the middle and index fingers of his other hand clung to the grout separating the eave’s tiles. The grout powdered and scorched.

Then those fingers slipped. His other hand sprang for a grip, but he’d acted too late. Freezing wind whipped through his sleeveless impact shirt and—

“You haven’t thrown your last hedgehog.” Wrapped in a jacket, someone’s fingers grappled for Jeff’s knuckles, sending a stem of pain up his arm. Jeff’s plummet halted, and he swayed lazily from a four-handed grip whose owner and duplicate barely kept from falling themselves. “Actually, I hope you have. Hedgehogs smell.”

Jeff looked up. Franchise loomed over him, shuddering at a headache. “So’s it ain’ts good enough I falls to death. My best friend gots to do the dirty deed himself?” Anybody but Franchise. “So’s do it, lint licker.”

“Did he use the word antidote? Is this your cure?” Franchise held the green cylinder between his ear and one shoulder. The jacket he used as insulation to grip Jeff’s hand curled, birthed tiny flames, blackened. It wouldn’t last long. “I can’t...” Franchise’s lower row of teeth slipped off his upper row. Saliva dribbled out, exertion cementing his features. “Headache feels like a bear stomping on my temple. Rain’s too heavy. I can’t lift you up. I’m gonna swing you into the window.”

“Swing me inta the what? That a brick wall, man.” Oof. Jeff’s next sentence—“You’s gettin’ a face-smack o’ hedgehog”—sounded muffled through a mouthful of brick. Oof. “Watch it!” Wall tasted like wall.

Franchise couldn’t hold on. His grip slipped, his jacket fluttering into wisps of flame.

Jeff plunged. He grabbed a pipe affixed to the side of the thirty-sixth floor, managed himself into a controlled drop, and landed on his heels. Then his skull. Smacked himself against the warped railing of the fire escape. Best landing ever.

He flicked off the melted metal of the pipe, rubbed the back of his head, and peered up at Franchise, who overlooked him, silhouetted in the floodlights of the circling law-tran. Franchise winced at his headache. Must have created at least a dozen duplicates today.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” Franchise called down.

No way. Jeff checked the wall. Now there was a window. He stamped the heel of his scorching palm into the windowpane, which dissolved with latent-technology dust. He dived through the opening. In heated dryness, his tattered clothes clung like a rubber wetsuit. The bruises and cuts adorning him pulsed with hotness. He bumbled to his feet and tore across a boardroom. The l door disappeared, and shoulder first, he vaulted into a hallway that stretched four doors long in both directions.

Jeff’s ears hummed. The carpet under his feet smoldered. He needed to constantly shift his position, or the floor would catch on fire. His clothes had already deteriorated down to threads and rags. The l tech couldn’t keep up.

Franchise tumbled through the door at the end of the hallway. Jeff balled his fists to gather light energy. Wait, some idiot had jacked that up to infinity. Jeff didn’t want to explode. Fine. This fight would consist of punches, kicks, and name-calling.

“Poop nugget.” Jeff started the name-calling on ground zero.

“Jeffy.” Franchise approached, each footstep a sponge squeezing wet prints on the patterned carpet. “You’re on the fritz. Take this.” He knelt and rolled the green cylinder to Jeff’s feet.

Jeff shivered back a step. “You backs off from me.”

Franchise stepped back. Good thing because Jeff didn’t see even a fire extinguisher to chuck at him. Franchise’s hands eased to his temples to cushion his headache. “Please speak quietly. I popped out a mosh pit of duplicates in a matter of twenty minutes.”

“The Good Guys, they’s sent you to kills me. Just like they sends that creep Tolliver.”

“Huh? Legion fired Tolliver. You have to trust me. You don’t have any fire extinguishers to throw.” How could Franchise get inside Jeff’s head?

“You’s lyin’.”

Franchise sloshed forward. Inside his shoes, his socks squirted with the step. “Jeffy, if—”

“Stay back!” Jeff wrapped his hand in the cobweb his shirt had become and grabbed a used pizza box. “I knows cardboard fu.”

“I’m not lying. See? I’m not spacing out when I think, and my cheek doesn’t have a tic.” Franchise must have read Jeff’s unconvinced expression—especially since Jeff hefted the box up for a swing as if it were his grandma’s purse—so he spat out another lie. “Jeffy, I came here to help you. The rest of the Good Guys will be here soon. Legion fired Tolliver five days ago. I don’t know how that windbag found you, but if he were a Good Guy, do you honestly think he’d attend Asinine’s this barbecue?” As an aside, he said, “If you don’t come along soon, I’m gonna sit. This headache just entered brain-damage territory.” He tilted against the wall. “Jeffy, if you don’t use that medication, you’ll explode and take a lot of innocent card companies with you.”

Jeff had to lower the box. Thinking required all his energy. So many words. He usually ignored word problems in math class, mostly because whatever Johnny was doing with ten apples was nobody’s business. “You for reals?”

Franchise inched a step closer on wet footsteps, so Jeff heaved that box up again. He’d never seen anyone so afraid of a box. But then again, every other box Jeff swung around had spiders crawling out. He loved ordering from Box of Spiders Inc.

Franchise now stood only five feet away. He could try a trust fall from this distance. His clothes rippled with Jeff’s heat. “Why would I kill you? We’re best friends. Jeffy—”

“Name’s Jeff!” The box now caught on fire, so Jeff dropped it. The wisp of flames disappeared in the air. He shifted his feet again. Everything was a blur of yellow. Everything he heard was a rising hum.

“No. It’s Jeffy. It’s been Jeffy since the day we met and you clobbered me over the head with the support column at a chain restaurant accidentally or on purpose, depending on who tells the story.” Franchise sniffled. “You’re Jeffy because Jeffy is my best friend. Because Jeffy is who your brother would want you to be. Because Jeffy was the one who saved those schoolchildren from that condemned building even though he dared them to check it out in the first place. It’s never been Jeff. It’s only ever been Jeffy.” He pointed at the carpet, at the cylinder. “Jeffy, take that antidote before it bursts into flame. Come home.”

Jeffy examined Franchise. Was he telling the truth? Each breath changed Jeff’s mind, and a few of those changes were to belt Franchise and take off. But then again, it wasn’t a hedgehog day, so belting him was out of the question.

He snatched up the cylinder and jabbed it against his neck. He pressed its end, and a soft hiss escaped. “Okay,” he finally said in his smallest of whispers. His glow disappeared...his light energy flashed away...his l clothes began repairing...the sweltering heat he felt from the core of his body dissipated. He threw himself at Jakey and wrapped his arms around his friend for a soaked hug. “I owes ya a hedgehog.”

* * *

Master Asinine screened himself from the wind and rain whipping him in the sight holes. This storm stung thanks to all those times he poked himself in the eye.

He’d ordered Schizophrenic to clean up all those Franchise carbon copies the original kept leaving around. They lay unconscious in a convoluted heap of cotton-draped arms and khaki-dressed legs, so the two-header had grabbed a push broom from a janitor’s closet downstairs, brought it back to the roof, snapped it in half over his knee, and yelled something about making a statement. Then he left to find the closest retro arcade with a Zaxxon machine.

With Braindead’s help, Asinine tugged IQ 23 to his feet when a warble he’d heard all too often came closer. He knew that warble like the back of his hand a few months after a new skin graft.

His head flashed around the skyline searching...when a Fireball broke through the panes of rain glistening in front of the stars and three-hundred-foot streetlamps. Yeah, three hundred feet. Some cities strived for strange galactic records, which ground on Asinine’s last nerve since the streetlamps on Station Zilcho reached only two hundred ninety-two feet.

This was the Good Guys. Asinine spotted Pincushion, who squatted at a gunner’s breach in the starship’s wall, watching through a sniper scope. What a stalker. Asinine tapped IQ 23’s shoulder blade. “Go, go, go.” Braindead and IQ 23 stole across the rooftop to the access, dodging the searchlight beam that swept around.

* * *

Legion hustled out of B-Stratotanker’s cockpit deck. Because Tolliver had dragged the Good Guy name through the mud, he accompanied this mission team. Way too sensitive a situation to stay home, so Legion had to control the damage on site.

Jeff was safe. Jacob had gabbered and said he’d secured Jeff a few floors down. Now only stopping the Bad Guys remained. And, over the hiss of rain, Pincushion said what Legion had waited years to hear: “I got a partial sight on Asinine.” Pincushion peered at the rooftop through the sniper scope. Would be easier if Mabel stopped falling asleep at the wheel. That way, Pincushion could stabilize his aim, and Catastrophe wouldn’t spill coffee all over the espresso machine or the cateringbot he kept bringing along. “But I can’t make the shot. Rain’s too thick. Let’s circle around again.”

The gunshot that had ended Sopher snapped and echoed around Legion’s thoughts. “Hand me that thing.” Legion took the rifle from Pincushion. They switched positions. Legion strapped himself into the sniper’s harness. He cranked up the inertia field to hold himself in place. Ready. Hungry for this shot.

He swept up the rifle and fixed Lowensland in the center of the sights. “I’ll take him down.” Back in training, he’d ranked as the top shooter. He was also the only person who didn’t binge-drink from freezer pipes, but correlation didn’t equal causation, right?

In the sniper scope, Lowensland stopped running. He dug a pinkie into his ear, examined what he mined, and smiled. He gave B-Stratotanker a thumbs-up, as if anyone other than the cateringbot would celebrate with him.

The sniper rifle beeped: target tagged. Legion’s finger inched along the trigger. He prepared his shot to end this war, to put Sopher and fashion bottom-ten lists to peace. The wind and rain howled torrentially, but light-bullets included software that compensated for weather. Lowensland was dead to rights, especially after he performed that ear victory dance Legion had witnessed too many times. The wax-mining goon’s forehead sat dead center in the scope’s sights. Legion squeezed the trigger harder...his finger shaking...pulse audible in his ears...Lowensland exploring the other ear...looking disappointed at the results. This slime had been the nightmare of all Legion’s nightmare for eight years.

Intergalactic Protection training with Lowensland, drunken binges and waking up in ditches, making fun of Garchel, saving each other in bar fights, saving each other in gun fights, saving each other in Minesweeper—

Legion squinted through the sights again. His finger curled even more. Lowensland would die today.

—insurgents at the Gharalgian embassy, one-in-the-morning surprise calisthenics in winter, joint costumes at Halloween parties, peanut-brittle ninja stars—

He threw aside the rifle and dropped against the harness’s inertia field. “I don’t have a clear line of sight.” He looked at Pincushion for only a second before looking away to see Lowensland dart into the rooftop access. He banged his hairless head against the harness’s cushion, Sopher’s fatal gunshot firing every time he banged it.

“No line, brother?” Pincushion scrutinized him sideways. “At all, eh?”

“I don’t have the shot.” He swallowed. “Visibility’s no good. Let’s grab Jeff and Jacob and head home. Nitric lattes on me.”

Chapter Twenty-Six: Almost Ready for Public Consumption

Hearse finished the last bite of his choco-butter cupcake and smacked his lips around each finger. Icing. Indubitably the most savory part of a cupcake, unlike the paper cup he had inhaled along with this breaded ecstasy.

He found a discreet side hall and slipped into it, the taste of wax paper still dominating his palate. Soon he would sample the Butterscotch ’n’ Scotch flavor. Soon, Cupcake Conundrum, soon. They would rue the day they decided “buy two and pay for them both” was a suitable coupon and...Wait. Someone had hoaxed Hearse.

“Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entity Headquarters.” Hearse waited for the signal to encrypt and connect. Encryption took microseconds longer than a normal call, but properly scrambling the signal necessitated the wait. Now eavesdroppers could not snoop. Hearse hated snoopers. They would meet certain punishment for their unwanted intrusion, especially if they again gossiped about Hearse’s bursitis.

The connection made, Hearse muffled his words into his shoulder. “Yes. The eagle has roosted on the golden egg that now sits snuggly under its bird plumage.” He waited for a response. “That means I have established myself at Station One. Neither the roost’s alpha bird nor his baby birds suspect the eagle.” Another response. “I am. I am the eagle. It is my...Yes, I will cease speaking in code. No, it is far from confusing.

“Neither agent Legion nor the rest of the Good Guys suspect my motive, and that will prove their undoing. That and the fact that they placed a farm of exotic animals next to the cupcake store. Those llamas bother not with manners.” He smelled the long-necked bandits from here. One of those insolent animals groped with its elongated teeth across the neck-high fence and snatched another treat. Drat. That was the one Hearse had marked for consumption. Mother loved that flavor. The llama would pay, and Hearse possessed the blade with which to extract that cupcake as payment. His archnemesis, Brock, must have sent that cupcake thief to toy with Hearse. The llama’s demise would come soon. It should fear its fate.

The Trioxidillian on the other side of the connection squawked something. Orders. Hearse said, “Understood. I will dispose of alpha bird in a most shrewd manner.” He sighed at the Trioxidillian’s confusion. “Agent Legion. I will dispose of agent Legion. He is the alpha bird.” He paused for the speaker but already had his response geared up. “Well, I feel I am the only one making efforts in these codes.

“His murder will be untraceable. I assure you, I always deliver the body. I trust, upon proof of my mission’s success, you will deposit my fee and vouchers in my account posthaste. I have an engagement for which I require them. The youth mention it includes something called a ‘flip-cup tourney.’ I must discover what is so compelling about these tourneys. For now, I must go lest I lose my chance at relishing a most delicious marshmallow-and-cookie treat. I understand why they call it ‘some mores.’ Gabber, acknowledge. Cut connection.”

The gabber clicked off. The earpiece and mouthpiece whizzed back into the bud. Hearse plucked it out of his ear, wandered briskly out of the side hall, and modestly dropped it into a floor grate as he passed. He missed not a single beat. Now no one would suspect his motives.

He skidded back seconds later, yanked off the grate, and plunged his hand in. Crock. He still had four payments and he could not afford the breach-of-contract fee.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Brother’s Keepers, Losers Weepers

Smoke. Shrapnel. Flames. Ace Spandex approached ground zero, which used to be Station One’s currency-exchange booth and now looked as though someone had grabbed some C-4 and said, “Let’s paint the town blazing red.”

“What did I tell you two about pyrotechnics and ignitable objects? I said, and I quote, ‘Keep the shenanigans underwater.’” He almost lost his bubblegum when he coughed through the billows of smoke and steam, waving hands to disperse the haze while his cybernetic air purifier fought desperately to extract oxygen before throwing up its arms and a status message that said, “It’s your funeral.”

“Where are you?” He ventured deeper into the rubble that continued to belch clouds. Minor fires danced pirouettes on the floor ahead, one to his left and another farther up to his right. He ignored these fires, because if he knew anything about what to expect, this first explosion was only the opening act.

Franchise’s dating status confounded Ace Spandex—the Romeo-and-Juliet relationship Ace now “big brothered” on top of Power Plant—but volatile antics such as this explosion threw him over the edge. Franchise would continue to date Amaranthia. Sixth Sense would scan his head before and after each date. Sixth Sense would also tag along secretly on every third date, sitting close to ensure Amaranthia was on the up and up. Ace hoped she wasn’t familiar with Sixth Sense because the only disguise the Good Guys owned was a fake mustache.

“Aha!” Ace thrust a single finger through the smoke. Two figures knelt on the floor next to some contraption that looked, smelled, and if the blond figure’s expression divulged anything, tasted like the source of the explosion. Draped in impact suits, they both wore tattered masks. “Couldn’t you guys find a less combustible hobby to destroy public property? Acid reflux could learn a thing from you. I should know. Legion offered me a latte.”

Ace spat his gum out. He sidestepped a few twisted gears, a tube, a...prosthetic hand? Seriously? Had they cannibalized explosives from medical equipment again? Last time, neither the defibrillator nor the surgical robot they’d hooked into it had worked the same way since.

“You’re cleaning this up.” Ace reached them. Neither looked too bad, though soot camouflaged them in cakes of ash. One burped out a curl of gray smoke.

“We’s founds it like dis. We’s swears,” Power Plant said. The fingers on his impact l gloves had peeled away but started to wriggle back together. Franchise nodded in agreement so quickly he looked as if he were hooked up to an electrode.

“Jeff, when I agreed to be your surrogate brother, I stipulated that you keep your blast radii to smaller than four meters.” Forget it. Ace groped his way out of the chalky smog. “I’m hiring a nanny.”

THE END

NEXT BOOK:

Power Plant realizes a rodeo and a petting zoo aren’t the same thing.

About That Guy Whose Book You Read Once

Liam Gibbs knew he was destined to write at age four, when he authored a breathtaking account of a cow who ate grass. The bovine saga failed to catch the public’s eye but earned the budding author parental acclaim. Since those early times, he’s gone on to write the novella Not So Superpowered and humorous articles for various magazines.

A twenty-year veteran of the brutal world of hand-to-hand comic book fandom, Gibbs cut his teenage teeth on titles such as Spider-Man, X-Men, New Warriors, and other Marvel comics.

Gibbs graduated college with a degree in professional writing, which included classes on fiction writing and story structure. He lives on the balmy shores of Ottawa, Canada, where he relaxes by watching staggeringly awful horror and science fiction movies. A health and fitness nut, he shoots lasers from his eyes, uses the word exclusive incorrectly, and once wrestled an exclusive brontosaurus. True story.

That one time I was deep in thought and—Hey, is that ketchup on the ceiling?

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Communicate via homing pigeon at chirp-twiddle-twoo or whatever pigeons say.

Table of Contents

- The Story So Far...

- Available on the Author’s Super-Awesome Site

- Other Stuff the Author Spewed Out

- Your Favorite Table of Contents

- Book 16: Life like Broken Glass

- Appendices

- Chapter One: Some Plans Suck
- Chapter Two: Try the Churros
- Chapter Three: Housekeeping!
- Chapter Four: Mob Mentality
- Chapter Five: Some Assembly Rerequired
- Chapter Six: Field Trip
- Chapter Seven: Commercial Real Estate

- Chapter Eight: That’s Right, Parents Bring Their Children Here

- Chapter Nine: A Day at the Park
- Chapter Ten: Disorientation Day
- Chapter Eleven: Target Sighted
- Chapter Twelve: Behind Door Number One

- Chapter Thirteen: Grammar Nazis, Do Your Worst

- Chapter Fourteen: Family Business

- Chapter Fifteen: Revenge Is a Dish Best Served with a Brazen Lack of Culinary Skills

- Chapter Sixteen: Ssssooooo What Do You Guys Do for Fun around Here?

- Chapter Seventeen Celebrity Status

- Chapter Eighteen: Who Invited the Third Wheels?

- Chapter Nineteen: Why, Hello There

- Chapter Twenty: This Changes Everything between Us

- Chapter Twenty-One: Target Acquired

- Chapter Twenty-Two: If You Love Someone, Set Them Free

- Chapter Twenty-Three: A Deal’s a Deal

- Chapter Twenty-Four: And No Dating till You’re Sixty-Five, Young Man

- Chapter Twenty-Five: Trial by Fire

- Chapter Twenty-Six: Almost Ready for Public Consumption

- Chapter Twenty-Seven: Brother’s Keepers, Losers Weepers

- About That Guy Whose Book You Read Once