In a Galaxy Far, Far AwRy

Book 20: The Paper Tiger's Yardstick

Liam Gibbs

IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWRY book 20: THE PAPER TIGER’S YARDSTICK

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: 978-1777638634

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 20: The Paper Tiger’s Yardstick

Chapter One: Prison Broke

Chapter Two: Boys Will Be Idiot Boys

Chapter Three: Meeting of the Mindless

Chapter Four: Like a Show Stallion

Chapter Five: Identity Theft

Chapter Six: One More Complaint, and You’re Walking Home

Chapter Seven: Progressive Overload

Chapter Eight: Mechanical Girl Problems

Chapter Nine: Debauchery of Botchery

Chapter Ten: Rogue’s Gallery of the Glitterati

Chapter Eleven: From the Mouths of Apes

Chapter Twelve: The Sound of Common Decency’s Final Dying Breath

Chapter Thirteen: Shadow Day

Chapter Fourteen: Something Hit the Fan, and It Smells like Garlic and Methane

Chapter Fifteen: The Ground Tour of Incompetence’s Sinkhole

Chapter Sixteen: This Won’t Hurt a Bit

Chapter Seventeen: Because You Demanded It for Some Reason!

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: Prison Broke

March 16, 9110. 6:04 p.m. (Galactic Standard Time).

Chafe sat down, slapped his—ah, crock, Taco’d left his clammy goop all over the benches again. “Taco! You know you sweat tar, right? Literally. Stop sittin’ on things if you ain’t gonna wear pants.”

Crocking sigh.

Chafe sat down somewheres else, slapped his tray on the table in front of him, and slithered his eyes around in the cafeteria of the Stavehill Hyperperson Penitentiary, the prison what stored inmates with special abilities. The cafeteria shot up twenty feet like a central column in the three-story building for hypermutants, those people with weird body mutations. Bright lights whitewashed vision here in the hypermutations blocks—yeah, that was right, the inmates was divvied into hyperability strains to avoid them poolin’ complementary special abilities—so Chafe squinted when he watched them other hypermutants crawl around table aisles and plonk down on plastic seats. Or splatter down in the case of Botch, who had the runs ’cause of the meatloaf in this bargain-store prison. Or maybe ’cause he kept eating spiders. Either way, he expelled more foul demons than a séance group.

Botch was Chafe’s minion, his go-to who ain’t showed no fear doing the jobs that ended with grime or blood under your fingernails. Or crayon in Botch’s case. Whatever Chafe wanted, Botch acted without question. Why? For one, Botch had the smarts of a haystack. But mostly Chafe had dirt on the guy. Botch was good labor: meaty without being fat or ungainly, nondescript and quiet. Best of all, he didn’t stink like the rest o’ the riffraff ’round here. He stank like other riffraff. He gave flavor to this place at least. Nauseatin’, nauseatin’ flavor. And he was short on conversation.

Over background noise of an oldies rock station tauntin’ them with “Prison Song,” people milled around, babblin’ nonsense Chafe didn’t care about. Ain’t nobody paid attention to Chafe ’cause they didn’t want to. Nobody gave a crock about him. Chafe was faceless. Good. Great. He liked flying under the radar, being ignored when he schemed together a plan or shanked someone on family visitation days.

Suckers. He sneered. No one the crock cared what he did here. No one. He’d been here a freakin’ month—a freakin’ month was all it took to erase himself of that frail waif he was—and no one barely even knew his name. In fact, he’d had to filch an entirely different personality, hide everything he used to be.

Still, even though no one cared, he clutched his Life Monitor closer to his side and slipped it up his prison-issue sleeve. The Life Monitor was two sets o’ limp wiring that met in this palm-sized gadget he’d patched together from crap he’d collected around here. Gotta keep it hidden.

Chafe earned his nick—“Botch, stop eatin’ spiders! It don’t help your jaundice!”

’Scuse the interruption. Anyhows, Chafe earned his nickname because his personality grated on your nerves, like a layer of filth you couldn’t stop feelin’. He chafed. Made people stay away. Heh.

The inmates here steered clear of him. They only came ’round for relationship advice. Why? No clue. Maybe ’cause of the fistfight he broke up over the glue shortage on arts-and-crafts night. Tears were shed and hugs were hugged. Other than that, inmates thought he was weird. They whispered things ’round him, like sounds in a wind tunnel. So the crock what? He was enlightened. They wasn’t. Whispers just provided the atmosphere here in the hypermutations branch o’ the penitentiary. Along with Botch’s noxious ambiance. Botch served up a double helpin’ today.

Chafe cracked a smirk and chugged his bowl of gruel. Inmates was also under his thumb, them hypermutations inmates. They didn’t know why. They just was. But Chafe knew why. Especially with the guy who passed behind him, Mr. Crossdresser or Mrs. Crossdresser, depending on the day and the underwear.

On the west wall—or mebbe the east wall, ’cause locked up in this windowless dungeon, telling any direction but up an’ down wasn’t easy—appeared an ad: “Buy local.” Seriously? Where else these inmates gonna buy, from the farmer’s market? The ad swooshed out, and something that made more sense replaced it: “Shenkham Shivs. For when that snitch needs a good stickin’. Great as birthday gifts.” Okay, made marginally more sense. The dropped g was part of the ad. Probably also someone’s grade in marketing.

Quinto, some correctional officer with a limp on the right flank ’cause of uneven legs, sauntered through the cafeteria’s latent-technology door. L-tech was a tech what stored objects in an’ recalled them from computer memory. So the l-door faded out when Quinto marched through and reappeared once he passed.

Quinto’s gun clicked with his stressed right step. Same with them clacking buttons and pins on his uniform. Were them buttons and pins against dress code? The parachute pants had to be, besides. He spied Chafe but didn’t make eye contact. Limped on past. Good. Quinto was never the most perceptive idiot. Squeakiest though. Them Gharalgian-species idiots. If it wasn’t that orange skin, it was them voices what sounded like someone wringin’ a balloon.

Chafe looked up again, squinted again. Maybe whitewashed wasn’t the right word for these lights. Blaring louder ’n the sun. Anyway, the lights was jacked to overwhelm the prisoners and also sell tickets to the disco socials.

Botch ignored his citrusy gruel and dug into his citrusy baked potato after he peeled back the foil wrap. Another quick check. Ain’t no one paid attention to lonely, weird Chafe, so he sneaked out the foil. Fiddled with it under the table. Felt around for the exposed wires sticking outta his Life Monitor. Connected the foil to that doodad—snap—felt a zap from the insolent thing. Crock. Stuck his finger in his mouth and pricked his tongue on his talon.

“What was that, inmate?” Double bloody crock. Quinto circled back around, heard that snap. He wouldn’t hear a gunshot from five feet away, but a quiet snap from across a crowded room? Sure, why not? Thanks.

Quinto hobbled closer, gun clutched in both hands, buttons janglin’. A light beamer. Old-tech firearm. Not too awesome in a jail—or anywhere—but blame budget cuts. “I asked you a question, inmate.”

Chafe scratched his ear, which twisted whenever Quinto opened his mouth. “I’ll answer, but gimme time to figure out the one-syllable words ya’d understand.”

Quinto leaned too close, sniffing around Chafe’s sleeve. That snap had caused some sorta burning-dust odor, blackened his cuff. And it crackled. Crock. Chafe was made.

Go time. He yanked out his Life Monitor—stabbed a sharp end into Quinto’s neck—blood erupted out—hands flew up—Chafe grabbed Quinto’s light beamer—thought quick ’cause he was a quick thinker—slid his Life Monitor up—grabbed a sheaf of them loose wires—them wires met in a single cable, dangling out of the doodad—hooked them wires into his prison-issue ID bracelet—wires on the other end dangled loosely—he jumped on the table—checked his shoe—stepped off his potato. Crock. He liked his potato extra citrusy.

“It is time,” he said. Let that Chafe persona drop like Botch’s IQ after he’d gained a taste for bullet ants. He was back to being Prisoner 4634492, his prison-issue serial number. He cleared his throat, rumbled out that sweet-and-sour phlegm they called gravy here. He had an announcement to make. Botch took his place by his side, folding his bodyguard arms and arching his back. He kept bouncing from one foot to the other and back and again. Cracked his knuckles, folded his arms again, scratched his nose, rubbed his hands, produced that farting noise from his palms, got a few laughs, flapped his prison shirt. Was he dancing?

All eyes on 4634492. “In my hand, I hold this device I call my Life Monitor. If I die or it is cut from me, it explodes, and we with it. Everybody but my mate Botch, clear this room. I want the warden present with an escort no greater than two correctional officers. They will bring item number two from my personal effects, and they will lock item number fourteen in the room next door, inside the main lockdown gate. When they arrive, I shall make clear my intentions. Botch, stop licking cobwebs. This is precisely why you see Elvis.

“Also bring a tuna sandwich. With an olive on a toothpick.” He stomped his foot on the tabletop. It had been too long since he’d eaten real food. “And baby pickles.” He liked baby pickles. “The babiest of them.” Botch grunted. “And a blinking box of spiders for Botch.” Wasn’t as if he could see more Elvis, right?

Chapter Two: Boys Will Be Idiot Boys

Good Guy leader Lieutenant Colonel Matross Legion scampered aside when Power Plant snapped open another cookie and celebrated with one of his ear-shredding “Hoo-yah” screams he was so practiced at, the zenith of all that language training Legion had sent him on. Money well squandered.

Franchise sat beside him, so naturally Power Plant gunned a fist into his best friend’s arm like a doctor jabbing a needle into a child before he could screech at infinity decibels. Okay, Legion had zero idea how loud Terran kids wailed when they felt absolutely nothing but thought they should. Either way, he cupped his antennae because Power Plant sounded like a howler monkey and Franchise sounded like a little girl. Interesting concert.

“Crock’s sake, Jeffy, if you punch me in the arm one more time, it’ll break off!” Franchise blurted out of his chair, away from Power Plant. He fidgeted by cracking his knuckles. “What does that fortune even say?”

“Awesomes stuff.” Power Plant mashed his fortune cookie into his mouth.

Franchise snatched away the two-inch-by-quarter-inch paper-thin datasheet Power Plant celebrated, checked it, and then flung it away. “‘Your surroundings offer a wealth of opportunities if only you would open your eyes.’" This meant you had to punch me in the arm again? Legio—”

“Nope.” Legion whipped a palm up. Shut this one down fast. “You knew what you were getting into when you started this. I didn’t when you started it in my office.”

Franchise pouted. Just a little. “But your office is the only place with plush carpeting.”

“That doesn’t mean you should walk around barefoot and squinch your toes into the fibers.”

“It’s like flannel pajamas for my feet.” Franchise cut a finger at Legion. “Don’t judge me.”

Yesterday, only yesterday, the two Imps of Obliteration—Legion’s pet name for Power Plant and Franchise in press conferences and sports endorsements—had “gone halvsies” on a shipment of fortune cookies. One thousand fortune cookies, to be exact. On Legion’s suggestion, too, since he thought it would keep them out of his Trioxidillian hairless hair. However, since yesterday, the Imp duo had cracked open at least two hundred and interpreted the unveiled meanings however they saw fit. Franchise interpreted his in relatively sane ways. Power Plant’s interpretations ended in some frat-house assault on Franchise in the form of that arm jab or yesterday’s “Life takes practice” when Power Plant misread it as “pirates.” And now Legion had to research how to fix cannonball holes.

Whenever Power Plant got caught up in a whirlwind scheme, nine times out of ten, Franchise headed for the hills. Literally. He’d camp out on the unexcavated side of the Good Guys’ space station headquarters, Station One, for a few hours, all week tops. But he allowed himself to get immersed in that tenth scheme and not think twice. This was that tenth. He always assumed the tenth would be harmless. It never was.

Legion’s other suggestion of switching shampoos had gone over less destructively.

Still, the cookies kept Power Plant and Franchise from choosing everyone’s spirit animals. That was a weeklong ordeal that ended with Power Plant getting the manticore and then exemplifying it.

Anyway, Power Plant used any fortune as an excuse to attack Franchise. But now Franchise reeled away, braced when Power Plant lunged for him, and unraveled a fortune of his own. “Aha. Get ready.”

Power Plant halted in midlunge. “I’s so ready.”

“‘You will be rewarded for your patience and understanding.’” Dropped the datasheet. “Ho, you’re in for it no—” His hand uncurled and loosened. So did his red, cackling expression. “Crap, that’s the opposite of what I need. Way to go, cookie.” He shoved the cookie fragments into his mouth and chomped wetly. “You taste so delicious, betrayer.” At least his hair had more volume.

But Legion had to ask, “You know, with all your little ideas and whatnot, aren’t you guys worried about wasting money?”

Franchise snapped open another cookie and looked displeased at the message. “Nah, we can waste it no problem.” Still a lot better than that time Power Plant had brought a dog whistle to Station One, because that fur was never getting out of the vents.

“Entity Legion.” Janice ahemed at Legion. Janice was Station One’s haunt control, that computer software that converted verbal commands to action, so called because their “action” made locations seem haunted Legion heard the haughty roll of Janice’s computer eyes. “A word you flagged as a media-watch phrase has shown up on several transmissions. (You militant crock-tard.)”

Oh, and Janice. She wasn’t usually this acerbic. She’d lately adopted a bug that convinced her she was dating the Good Guys’ computer administrator, Ace Spandex. On top of that, the trial period on her software had expired yesterday. The license agreement warned users they had five weeks and one day to pay for the full version. After that, the Janice haunt-control mod—turned out it was called Vicious Girlfriend Haunt Control Mod version 21.16—turned foulmouthed. They weren’t kidding: over the last eighteen hours, Janice had gotten downright nasty. And were there really twenty-one levels of jealous girlfriends? The corresponding Happy Sweetheart software was still on version 3.

Legion shivered. Cold office today.

Diversion from the Janice problem: Power Plant cracked open another cookie and let the crumbs spill out of his hands. He reeled back, Franchise’s oncoming nosebleed locked and loaded. Thankfully, Carpet Cleaner was on version 806.

He shoved the splinters of cookie in, spat out the datasheet, and activated it with one hand. It went from deactivation red and sagging to activation white and firm. And there Power Plant went, chips of cookie dropping out his gullet and pecking the carpet. “‘Wit’ a positive outlook, prov’dence will finds you anywhere.’” Fear dawned. “Jakey, prov’dence is gunnin’ for us!”

“What?” Franchise glimpsed up from his own fortune, probably trying to figure out how a fortune could justify why he’d soon dye Power Plant’s skin purple. His hands gripped his datasheet so tightly he almost cut his hands on its rigid edge. “Jeffy, did you crock off the wrong people again?”

“Not always my fault. I gettin’ better. Ain’t I classed up the place now? I mean, thanks t’ me, Algernon and Augustus hangs around wit’ us so much more now.”

Franchise threw his datasheet down. “For crock’s sake, Algernon and Augustus are raccoons.”

* * *

Algernon set his wineglass down on the appropriate coaster and smoothed his velvet smoking jacket. “My word, Augustus, this brew tastes simply divine. Heralded from the loftiest mountains of the rain forests, I do proclaim.” He uncrossed his legs and tapped the glass with a single claw. “I positively must introduce this most exquisite of flavors to Master Jeffrey.”

Augustus dimmed the contrast on his newspaper datasheet. Rightly so. The datasheet computer reflected light in a much-unbecoming manner. He delicately removed his pipe to remark, “Quite, quite,” over the layered crescendo of the Bach melody trickling with whispered emotion at a respectable and distinguished volume.

A garbagebot servicing this finest of food courts, Station One’s Gorging Court, jangled past, collecting more accrual. “Oh, Algernon. Dinner has arrived. Shall we rummage?”

With composure, Augustus deactivated and folded his datasheet on this most exceptional of tables. “Quite, quite.”

* * *

Franchise conceded, “They have convinced you to stop eating wet wipes.”

Legion palmed his face. “Guys, providence is—Forget it, I have my own problems, and this might stop you from slurping down all our cake mix before the cookbots combine it with water.” If only it convinced them to use their inside voices. “And who thought it made sense for Janice’s trial period to end after five weeks and one day? Now she’s a boring version of all my angriest ex-girlfriends.”

Onto the next landmine in his life, which was this new flagged phrase. A queasiness percolated in his stomach, but he said, “Janice, acknow—”

“What now?” Janice raged. The furniture rattled.

“—llleeedddgggeeeeee. List most recently flagged media-watch phrases.”

Janice groaned, her electronic lungs heaving a ham-acted sigh. “Fine, but you’re stomping on my last nerve, you self-aggrandizing totalitarian.”

“You deserve that one for taking away our trampoline.” Franchise cocked his head at Legion.

“I did that for your own good. And the ceiling’s.” Legion stepped aside as Janice threw up a viewscreen from out of nowhere, one much larger than needed. He suspected its size was because she felt like pricking him in the eyebrow with its corner. Joke was on her: he’d lost all feeling there due to all her other viewscreens.

“Most recently flagged media-watch phrases are as follows: media-watch phrases ‘Prisoner Four-Six-Three-Four-Four-Nine-Two,’ ‘Stavehill Hyperperson Penitentiary,’ and ‘spiders.’”

“Spiders?” Legion reared at Power Plant, the chain of his necklace with his deity Alaphus’s cross weaved in his fingers. “How did ‘spiders’ end up on my watch list?”

Power Plant dived at him, spilled across the shag, and grabbed his collar. “When thems spiders start flyin’s, we’s gotta know.” His eyes glazed hauntingly at nothing. “We’s gotta know.”

“Janice?” Legion asked. Janice issued another haughty sigh but swatted Power Plant off him with a whoosh of cold air. “Thank you.”

“Pssh. Whatever.” Apparently Janice’s lapsed trial period resulted in high-school arrogance. Legion wondered if Ace Spandex had installed a mod similar to Bad Guy high-school ninja Amaranthia’s personality. “Gitch,” she said. Eerily similar.

“You gonna take that from her?” Franchise hadn’t stopped working his knuckles since he’d arrived, though the cracking sounds had muted.

“What choice do I have? She knows my social security number.” Legion glanced at the viewscreen Janice had belched from the ether, one that listed the media-watch phrases. Squinted at the words. Hand flew to mouth to cover a gasp. “Oh, no.”

Legion had expected to deal with this in one way or another. “Imps.” He didn’t look at Power Plant, Franchise, and the wrestling match that caused the sound of a wall toppling. “Imps, there’s a situation at Stavehill. Alert the others.”

They stopped wrestling. “What’s is Stavehill?” Power Plant got one more shot in.

“Stavehill? Did you just ask me what’s Stavehill?” Legion spread his hands with such incredulity that he whacked a pile of datasheets off his desk. “It’s the hyperperson prison on Gaia. The only—You seriously don’t remember?”

“Huh?” Power Plant was still frozen, another punch poised.

“The hyperability prison. On Gaia, in the city of Times. We put away dozens of criminals in it. You keep trying to get me to approve your vacation leave there.”

“Oh, thats place. The Times place.”

“In Times?” Franchise climbed off Power Plant. “The name of their newspaper must be super confusing.”

Legion cracked open a cookie of his own. “Just...There’s a situation we need to take care of.” Forget the cookie. He couldn’t eat. He tossed the pieces into the ionizer. “And, Jeff, I don’t care around what corner fudge is made, please give playground rhymes a break in public.”

“Yeah, buts there always a situations at that place,” Power Plant said. “’Member whens we talks at dem kids at that scareds straights thing?”

“You caused that situation because they didn’t have your favorite bubble tea.” Legion’s hand swept away Janice’s viewscreen. Janice swept it back, knocking him into his seat. “The only thing the kids learned about prison that day was the yard fights.”

“What’s this situation?” Franchise ducked under the viewscreen, padded over, and stood up to glance behind himself at the display. “Who’s Prisoner Four-Six-Three-Four-Four-Nine-Two?”

In his head, Legion already heard the report of the light-bullet that had killed his friend Sopher years ago, echoing over and over, as he heard so often. Rushing to his office door, he threw an answer over his shoulder, “That’s Harrier.”

Power Plant flung aside the remains of his latest fortune cookie. “That bird dude crappin’ on statues again?”

* * *

Intergalactic Protection assassin Hearse trained his Fenton .22 at his quarters’ peach-and-apricot-patterned wallpaper, and a laser line traced the path a light-bullet would take if he fired. His targeting visor buzzed, estimated the bullet would hit his hanging mirror. It was an inch off. He maintained his aim but eased his other hand up to his visor’s arm, which plugged into the back of his head. Worked his finger into the groove. An apparatus under his fingertip whirrrrrrrred, twisting a screw. His visor re-estimated: its setting was now on point. Good. Hearse could not properly deliver the body if he could not first shoot the body. That way, he could not shove it in the face of his archnemesis, Brock. He also couldn’t if he could not get the proper levels of flavonoids and vitamins. He downed another unexpectedly crunchy gulp of what Station One’s Gorging Court simply called Lunch Morsel.

Hearse’s fingers tap-danced along his wrist console, which connected to this planetoid’s haunt control. Through this, he changed the fruit motif on his abode’s wallpaper. Never select décor on an empty stomach. Now it showed skulls and bats. Manlier. He animated the bats. Even manlier. All the cool kids were into skull-bats these days.

“Yes, I am aware of the situation,” he said into his gabber, that communication device nestled in his ear. “It is unfortunate but something I had foreseen.” Another Morsel. He puckered the powder from his fingertips, ending with the one he’d just removed from the back of his brain.

“Foreseen or not, your target quarry insisted on accompanying his soldier team,” said the inconspicuous but assertive voice on the other end. If voice had mystery, this one was swathed in it. “He’s putting himself in danger. That can’t happen until all pieces are in place.”

The speaker on the other end had enlisted Hearse for two reasons. The first was to ensure ex–Bad Guy Scapegoat was honest when joining the Good Guys. The second was to eliminate Legion, but only at a specific time. Until then, Hearse was to defend the Trioxidillian leader of the Good Guys. Since agent Scapegoat’s legitimacy as a Good Guy soldier had been cleared, his only task remained Legion. And this off-site escapade would prove tricky to manage. If he did, Mother would be pleased, and Brock would eat it. Eat what? The statement was vague. Whatever those aforementioned cool kids served.

“This is only a difficulty, one I will prevent from becoming a tragedy.” Hearse paced as he spoke, winding around his tattered couch, and downed another Morsel. He was working through these too quickly. But they set his taste buds aflame, and if Hearse liked anything, it was aflame taste buds. This placed on the same level as aflame skull-bats. “I shall accompany my quarry to ensure his survival. He will live until it is time. Worry not. I always deliver the body. Wait. In this case, I will not deliv—Look, voice on the other end whom I cannot name, you get my meaning, and if you do not, I will destroy everything you stand for.” His reaction was out of proportion, but he’d ingested too much caffeine today.

“You’d better pull this task mission off. We didn’t hire you to spoil this before the pieces were in place.”

Hearse traced his fingers along the twiggy fabric of the couch’s upholstery. “Worry not. I guarantee your piece placement.” He chowed another Mor—crunch. Not a good sound for Morsel consumption. He put a hand to his jaw. Felt a tooth fragment and fingered out the dust. His mouth pulsed with cold rawness. “Now, if you shall excuse me, I must deliver a body at the Morsel outlet. Hearse does not brook unwanted dental visitations, no matter how many monkeys a food court dresses as waiters.” He clacked back the slider of his Fenton pistol and examined its payload. “Let no one tell you otherwise that a twenty-two caliber is best to ensure a refund of goods or services.” He clacked the slider back in place. “With a side order of justice.”

Now to change out of his bunny PJs.

Chapter Three: Meeting of the Mindless

“—and that’s how I no longer suffer from scurvy. But that’s not why I called you here today. Here ye, here ye, fellow everyone.” Master Asinine, leader of the Bad Guys, the largest criminal organization in the galaxy of Stratus Cloud, swept his hands at the host of social deviants, whom he called the usual suspects because he was original. He’d summoned everyone here to his Being Dastardly Room, his planning room on Bad Guy headquarters Station Zilcho. He shuffled to keep warm. Somehow the haunt-control command to operate the heating was deleted. Now the place felt chilly since the thermostat was across the room and Schizophrenic was being mean. “Check the latest arrival to the big, bad scheme arsenal that Brick has concocted according to my fiendish blueprints and half-baked concepts.”

Bad Guy second-in-command, Lieutenant IQ 23, leaned in closer. His neck, freshly restored from a recent demon attack thanks to the healing putty slathered on it, still reeked of vinegar. Not even a scar remained. “Sir, Brick died more than a month ago. You watched it happen. Your new mad scientist is Brainiac.”

“Well, that was rude of him. Then whoever we have in our whack factory this week—”

“I just named her, sir.”

“—built this thing.” Master Asinine stepped aside to reveal the table on which menaced his latest plan to conquer Legion. Inspired. It didn’t glitter in the light as Asinine’s previous doohickeys did. Oh, no no no. Wait. Maybe oh, yes yes y—No. He verified: oh, no no no.

Shaped like an inflated pistol and colored a dreary gray, the weapon had no blinking lights, no buttons except the fiendish, thumb-sized red fella, and nothing descript at all. Asinine decided to go against the grain this time and use subtlety instead of blatancy and unicorn stickers.

Both stark and stark raving mad in his orange corduroy/armored pants, blue chainmail T-shirt, turquoise beret, and puppy-dog socks—arf—Asinine swaggered forward with his chest out and clapped his hands once. This latest weapon would definitely put the final nail in the coffin for his ex-platoonmate but still-friend, Legion. And his little Good Guys, too.

His audience today was his usual junior thugs, those ranking immediately under Master Asinine: Lieutenant IQ 23, Asinine’s mute bodyguard Braindead, two-header Schizophrenic, high-school ninja Amaranthia, and scaly Bad Aim. He’d given the other usual suspects the day off since he was sick of wasting all afternoon in the pantry explaining to gluttonous Multipurpose the concept of sharing. While IQ 23 and Braindead stood on the chilly side of the Being Dastardly Room, close enough to bump elbows with Asinine, the others remained on the warm side. Amaranthia gazed down the shaft of her katana to make sure it was precise. Schizophrenic relaxed on a recliner, the left head, Lefty, popping yet another toothpick in his mouth. Righty tried licking his tongue’s shadow, which made Asinine wonder why Lefty didn’t just up and chainsaw Righty off at the neck.

Asinine snatched his new weapon off the table. He caressed its handle with the care a baby gave a toy, which meant he bit into it. And now Braindead was fifty thousand volts more electrified. “Check my newfangled knickknack out. It has so many blinking lights—” Wait, he’d gone over this. “Correction: it has no many blinking lights but is still newfangled.”

Bad Aim rode his hoverdisc closer, sutured in place at his waist to replace his severed legs. Amaranthia strode closer, clomping over Braindead’s shocked-till-he-dropped tangle of scaly limbs. The temperature drop made her shiver when she crossed to this side. Schizophrenic would have come, too, but, as he’d said before, he never gave two crocks about what brain-blistering antic Asinine was liable to kill himself with this time. Hey, Asinine was liable to kill himself with only the best brain-blistering antics!

Although he remained on the recliner, Schizophrenic ruffled his weight to his other butt cheek. Lefty snorted. “This the same toy as the one you used to douse Legion’s mashed potatoes with the hottest sauce nature concocted?”

“No, this one is so much better.”

“Just saying, ’cause custard isn’t a hot sauce. What’s this latest suicide attempt?”

Master Asinine thrust his hands at the toy, which glinted in the light to offer a sly wink. “The Fist Launcher—”

“And just like that, I lost interest.”

“—so destructive, it can fist-bump you to death before you even knew what happened. Step one: we take a crafty position close to Station One”—finger up—“but not too close. Just close enough to hear the agonized howls of howling agony from those Good Guys when—spoiler alert—step four comes in to action. Step three—no wait, step two.”

“Good learning, sir.”

“Step two: we press the big red button on our remote box, which launches an electrical fist-shaped fist. Step three: we watch said planet-sized/fist-sized fist blaze Station One asunder, erasing it from existence the same way my taste in music erases my dignity, according to a certain person who shall remain nameless.”

“Name me,” grizzled Schizophrenic.

“Or, if the personal touch interests us, we have option two.” Asinine waved an open hand along the Fist Launcher’s grip like a game-show hostess flaunting a prize. “With a single squeeze of the crosshatched grip, our Fist Launcher emits an electrical punch—like with Braindead a couple seconds ago thanks to my new teething habit—in a sly attack that would either incapacitate Legion or reveal some unknown fatal heart condition. Hopefully the former. I have plans for tonight, and the latter would mess up my ballroom classes.”

“Your ballroom classes mess up your ballroom classes,” Schizophrenic said.

Asinine took another chomp of the tasty crosshatched grip. Mmm, fiber and calcium. “Option two starts with us beaming down to Station One in my newest outfit, something I call the Armor of Tragedy, which shows my enemies how ferocious I am. Check it out. It has apples on it. You know what this outfit communicates?”

“There’s no accounting for taste?” Schizophrenic said.

Master Asinine beamed proudly. “The apple pattern communicates menace. Fear. Hunger. Especially the coattails.” He waggled his bum. And now he felt hungry, come to think of it. “I will debilitate my archenemy/archbestie and cart him back to Station Zilcho as my personal hostage. I’d pat myself on the back for this plan, but I twisted my shoulder yesterday feeding a hand grenade to Appetite. Tossed that thing too hard, and suddenly my step machine is shrapnel. Sucks to be fitness equipment around here.

“Option three involves lead-based paint. Any questions?”

“Yo, this plan much better than hot sauce? Nuh-uh.” On his whirring hoverdisc, Bad Aim lounged back against nothing but air, and folded his arms against his tinny media outfit. Bad Aim was Virillian, a mute species, but his hyperability allowed him to talk. “Holmes, ain’t no plan better than hot sauce. Hot sauce be my jam, my jelly, an’ my bread, gangsta. Fo’ reals!” His bravado degraded into dog barks and wolf calls. Then, as if at the click of a switch, he smacked his lips. “Except, for reals, jam be my jam.” Thinking. “Now I gots to get my eat on.” He droned off, probably toward the kitchen.

“Leave my Crank It Spicy Buffalo alone!” Asinine wanted crepes later.

“Sir, perhaps we should leave at once.” Lieutenant IQ 23 indicated the balcony’s l-door. “And perhaps stop using Crank It as facewash.”

“For some reason, I’m compelled to leave at once.” Asinine shot a finger in the air. The frigid air. “But nobody tell Multipurpose where we’re going. I’m sick of him mistaking the starship’s charging tubes for sausages.”

Chapter Four: Like a Show Stallion

Warden Hammeker trotted into the bright cafeteria, over what inmates thought were spilled mashed potatoes. And trotted he did: he was a centaur. He wasn’t at birth, but he’d fallen victim to black-market surgery a few years back. Lesson learned: never trust a man in a shadowy alley offering free jellybeans, even if he claimed he’d removed all the black ones.

A Terran who had worked in the filthiest prisons since he learned how to bray, Hammeker stood at about eight feet, wore a three-button business jacket with a gray silk tie tucked down the vest, and sported a majestic brown coat. His suit was made from horsehair, which made him feel cannibalistic. And itchy.

Two correctional officers accompanied him, Wingh on his left and Plugg on his right. Plugg was the Terran with the burbling coughs that never eased up.

Already smelled like death here. A tinge of copper-scented gore. The east-facing wall flashed a billboard extolling Applestitch Hay: “Timothy hay for the maturing colt or mare. Grown without the use of hormones, pesticides, or accelerants.” Hammeker whinnied quietly. How these walls catered to each person or crossbreed based on their search histories was downright creepy. And if it dared throw up an announcement for Mythical Meetups, the dating site for fairytale romances, he’d rear back and hind-kick it until its circuits bled oil.

The music piping into the vacant cafeteria flipped songs, once AC/DC’s “Jailbreak,” now Thin Lizzy’s “Jailbreak.” Hammeker’s clomps echoed against the song, against the walls. He noticed how hollow his horseshoes sounded now with the room emptied.

He stopped. His clomps stopped echoing. Across the stretch of the room, past four lengths of Boxing Day lights that buzzed at different psychotic rhythms, seated with elbows on knees atop a table against the wall, the prisoner grinned at him. Prisoner 4634492. Chafe. Pendleton. Harrier of the Good Guys in a life in which he still had both wings. He had more nicknames than a mobster.

Prisoner 4634492 had been a Good Guy soldier. A field leader. With the hypermutation of birdlike features, Harrier had sometime in his service sustained an amputated wing, which soured him. When a Bad Guy named Mechanism revolted against his criminal leader and launched a crusade to cleanse the galaxy of the “unworthy,” Harrier had joined the effort. Mechanism’s crusade was quelled and Mechanism killed. Harrier was all that remained of his followers. Now he was simply filth named Prisoner 4634492.

Prisoner 4634492 held the light beamer he’d stolen from Quinto. Next to him was the epicure Botch, who sat on his hands, not swaying but pitching from side to side. He hadn’t had enough of an insect fix.

Vivid lights flickered, even the Boxing Day ones. Even the airstrip ones for Pilot Recognition Month. An air drift whispered, circulating dust. He whinnied at Wingh and Plugg. “Let’s go, boy and girl. Keep things tight.” Hammeker sauntered toward 4634492 in a slow gait, and his correctional officers followed. He maneuvered around the tables arranged like latticework, dusting some with his tail—

“Who-o-o-o-o-a.” The prisoner flicked a hand up like an angry traffic cop. Hammeker obeyed. The open palm flipped around and motioned him forward. “Hee-yaw. Slowly now, blimey. Only you, not the bleeding honor guard. You two stand in the corner. And remember: if I die, we are all bollocksed.” He whipped his wrist around to rattle the device strapped to it. What Hammeker assumed was his Life Monitor. “And I don’t fancy dying.”

Hammeker looked left at Wingh, right at Plugg, who stifled a juicy cough in a sleeve. He nodded them to the corner and then sauntered toward 4634492.

“At an even trot.” The prisoner snickered, his remaining wing shaking with the laugh. Horse puns, all over the place. The prisoner smirked at Hammeker, an ironic gesture. The prisoner averted his attention to the two correctional officers, who stood facing the far corner. He pointed. “Now, you there, the patsy not with the cough like a sludgy water tap. And only you. Come here, wanker.”

Wingh spun around, eyes exploring the empty tables as though suddenly electroshocked awake. She searched the room—

“Yes, you, you blooming genius. The one I’m indicating. Nice job narrowing things down from two. Get over here.”

Wearing a goofball expression, Wingh swanked over. “My day has finally come. I always get picked last.”

“That’s because you’re useless on a forty-yard rush,” Hammeker said.

Wingh arrived, shoe tangled in a string of lights that she kicked off. Prisoner 4634492 surmised her up and down, then up again. Prolonged staring contest that Wingh lost. Prisoner 4634492’s gaze drilled in with such acid that his nostrils flared and his mouth exuded malice that tasted like cough medicine. A single yellow tooth muted the light that glinted off it. Last time he’d smiled this broadly was after winning the shiv-juggling event in the West Wing Carnage Games. The silver winner was buried with his medal.

“Now, flunky, hand me your gun.” The prisoner reached out. Next to him, Botch’s sways grew more rigorous and smelled like a tiny brushfire. His friction threatened to light up the tabletop. He speared an earwig on the table, slurped it down, and immediately pacified. Not his usual cuisine, but you couldn’t fault him for expanding his horizons.

Wingh’s hand slapped her hip to defend her weapon. Her chin set, and she checked Hammeker for a reaction.

“Don’t ask your bleeding puppet master for permission, you wazzock. Just give it to me.” The prisoner thrust out his hand again to insist.

“Do it, Wingh.” Hammeker’s lips pulled back to bare his teeth. He clomped a hoof. “It won’t work with his biorhythm anyway.”

“I don’t like this.” Wingh unclasped the holster and shifted out the gun, slapped it into Prisoner 4634492’s hand with the sound of a malicious high-five.

“Good little lapdog.” With a smooth gesture, Prisoner 4634492 dropped his light beamer. Wingh’s weapon was an upgrade from the low-tech beamer. He slid his finger around the gun’s trigger—

Prisoner 4634492 yanked back the trigger and fed a barking light-bullet through Plugg’s forehead. Plugg’s body slapped against the corner and crumpled onto the polished tiles like a bag of ketchup splitting open. Brains and skull chips decorated a plastic cutout of a Black Friday gift with a half-off tag.

Wingh shook now with an audible rustle. She’d jittered back when her own gun had cracked a light-bullet into Plugg, fearful eyes red and parched.

“Good. I was spitting tacks about that bloke’s throat noises. I thought he was putting on a blooming concert.” The prisoner checked the gun’s flank. “I like this one. Not a light beamer.” His smile twitched brightly and he regarded Hammeker with an evil glint. “Wondering how I can bloody well use this popper? Consider that I am ridiculously smart and hacked your plebian tech the day I arrived. The haunt control now allows my biorhythm to access your weapons and private bathrooms with the toilet paper not marked ‘gently used.’” The prisoner barked his next order. “Now, puppet I have yet to snuff, take the other end of my blooming Life Monitor”—those odious eyes snarled—“and hook it up to the esteemed Warden Hammeker. Insert the wires into his ID bracelet.”

“Say what now?” Hammeker reared back, front legs wheeling. He shuddered an uneasy whinny and almost dropped a log the size of a literal log.

“Don’t you dare bray at me, Hammeker.” The prisoner slammed a fist on the table, which rattled through Hammeker’s bones.

Song swapped to “Starkville City Jail.” The advertisement wall tiled over to an image of a bandolier of bullets. The prisoner curled his lip and aimed his gun at the ad. “Now, tell me why a prison wall is showing the sales happening outside the compound. How can anyone in this joint take advantage of these ‘massacre savings’? And in what blooming nation is shankings an acceptable currency?”

“I’m to hook my ID bracelet to your DIY contraption?” Hammeker wanted to rear back and slam his hind legs into the prisoner’s skull. “I don’t think so.” He chuffed.

The prisoner slipped the gun to the left, and Wingh was gone in a brawl of blood and angry noise. Her body crumpled against a trail of elf boot decals pasted on the floor.

The prisoner shrugged, more with his smirk than his shoulders. “My, my. Looks as though we’re both down one wing.”

Hammeker grabbed his end of the Life Monitor, a scrimmage of wires that converged in a plump cable. He worked out how the other end was connected to the prisoner’s ID bracelet. In response, the east wall swirled to a new ad: Budgetary Funeral Processions, slashing prices to a new low-low-low. “Comforting the deceased to peaceful rest,” it claimed to the tune of “Dad I’m in Jail.”

“Oh, don’t look so bloody chagrined. I didn’t want to spend both correctional officers at once. I was saving one for when I demanded a midafternoon sandwich. Or a beehive for Botch.” The prisoner winked. “Now, did you bring my requested item?”

“Item number two?”

“Yes, item number two. Stop sodding around. Did—you—bring—it?”

Hammeker dug around his breast pocket and produced the prisoner’s request: this microchip, whatever it—

The prisoner snatched it up and stuffed it away with a ravenous stare and urgent hands. “Excellent. Heh. My dear Hammeker, you are now under my control. Quite the reversal of roles, would you not say? Control is such a wonderful thing to possess.” He whipped around at the new advertisement. “Wall, if you do not bloody well clear yourself this very second, I will tear out your faux adobe and strangle you in your own wires!” It bloody well did not.

Chapter Five: Identity Theft

Legion was stumped searching for Good Guy field leader Pincushion. Even Janice recalled nothing of him over the last couple days—no current location and no activities other than the detailed account of his latest bowel movement, one that painted such a vivid and noxious picture. But she was having a foul day/week/lifetime and seemed determined to make everyone’s the same. Mondays.

For this mission to Stavehill, Legion mingled the Good Guys’ alpha and beta teams. He’d decided to take everyone who’d served with Harrier and might possibly help assuage the ex–Good Guy. He’d also taken Power Plant.

Thanks to the contract Good Guy field leader Plastique had signed two days ago with Gord Sigwell of the Curb Stompers, the Good Guys were due for new military transports. The contract detailed a wager over who could clear the fastest time at a training exercise. The Good Guys had gotten lucky on that contract, which was as legally binding as it was arrogant and derogatory against “flunkies” and “dingdongs.” Sigwell was in deep water for it, but the Good Guys would soon be four Flagstar military transports richer. F-Chinook was one of the mil-trans. The bet stated that the Lower Antilles Democracy Guard, the Curb Stompers’ almost disowning parent organization, was to fold upon losing. That was stricken from the contract, but out of good faith, they’d agreed to some of the bet’s winning terms and promised the Good Guys a brand-new shipment of Flagstars. This one had arrived early, and Legion intended to jaunt it around before the Bad Guys slicked their oily hands and dignity-trashing weapons on it. Good thing, too: Legion was determined to enjoy this new-ship smell while he could. He inhaled—choked on brine aromas—closed his eyes, and brushed his cheek against his chair. Cat dander mixed with PVC. And the pleather seats didn’t leave itchy hives all over his skin this time.

So, in his burgundy impact suit, Ace Spandex piloted humming F-Chinook and its new-starship smell to Stavehill in place of their regular pilot, hard-of-hearing Mabel. Telepath and telekinetic Sixth Sense rode in the rear, elderly Mabel sat buried in purring balls of lazy cat fuzz, and Power Plant and Franchise traded rivalry blows over fortunes because, somehow, “Hope will come from an unexpected experience” meant “Ruthlessly clout someone in the arm.” This would culminate in combat and, with luck, two funerals.

Yes, Power Plant had brought a truckload of fortune cookies. He dipped two of them in a jar of pickle brine that challenged the new-car aroma. At least he’d learned to remove the fortunes before chowing down.

Legion didn’t know if it was smart to take Mabel. Besides the fact that her piloting kept cutting them through red-light cameras, she always brought her militia of cats. Legion had grown tired of watching Sixth Sense lick himself due to picking up the cats’ brainwaves. Some things were better left to private moments. Much to Sixth Sense’s mortification, news cameras disagreed.

Legion was also unsure of the wisdom of bringing Power Plant. Harrier was the only surviving lieutenant in Mechanism’s wild stab at cleansing the galaxy. The same Mechanism was responsible for the death of Power Plant’s older brother, Burnout, and had pulled the trigger in cold blood. Power Plant didn’t know Harrier’s connection to Mechanism. If he found out, he’d yank off all of Harrier’s feathers and then yank off his arms. So why bring him? Legion had two reasons. First, Power Plant’s carefree approach to anything from frolicking in the snow to frolicking in volcano ash had a way of defusing tense situations, Legion reminded himself over the sound of Franchise yelping. Second, there was candy, expensive stuff, and no available babysitter at home. With his surrogate brother Ace and his best friend Franchise on this mission, better to keep a close eye on him. Why must he be a literal sugar bomb?

Hearse discreetly accompanied them, growling in the rear of the passenger deck with arms folded over his chest, back propped against a wall and temper programmed to brood mode. No one understood why he’d come. No one dared ask. They’d all assumed he’d come because, hey, free trip to an enclosed area with plenty of heads to bash. His profile listed that as a hobby. Above knitting.

Ace Spandex’s fingers tap-danced along a cascade of buttons at the pilot’s station. He could speak the navigational commands, but he didn’t want to deal with Janice. Nobody did. Her programmers probably didn’t want to, which was why they’d unleashed her into the wilds of the victimized public. They figured, if they died, might as well take everyone with them. Some snack companies employed the same policy.

“Approaching Stavehill.” Ace finger-brushed a viewscreen out from F-Chinook’s windshield’s flank. The viewscreen showed their travel route, a tiny highlighter-green triangle clicking along a dotted path toward a white-on-black circle representing Gaia, the planet on which Stavehill squatted like a dark tomb in a haunted forest. “Our ETA is four minutes, seventeen seconds. We’ll have visual in two minutes, eight seconds. Janice should hail the locals now if she’s not badmouthing us to them and signing them up for some weird explosive-of-the-month delivery club.” Realization melted his posture from business to annoyed. “Oh, crock, they’re receiving grenades in April, aren’t they?”

“She’s your sweetheart,” Legion said.

Ace dismissed the comment with a don’t-remind-me wave. Last he’d told Legion, they were engaged, and since Ace had “forgotten” to pick out their invitations, he was likely headed for a cremator. “The weather is stormy.” Ace swept a hand at the roaring deluge against the windshield. “We’re parking underground, so it won’t matter. But if you go outside, bring a rain slicker. And a long-liner. And don’t go outside.”

Sixth Sense padded up from behind and blinked through dense glasses out the windshield at the guillotines of rain. Glasses, in this era. His shirtsleeves hung off his hands, two sizes too large. “Uh. Okay. Uhm. Then why didn’t we use the teleporter to travel here? We would have avoided all this weather.”

Ace clacked a few more buttons. “We don’t have a teleporter.”

“Anne. From Intergalactic Protection.”

Ace paused and peered blankly ahead at the fury of rain. “Fine. You win this round, Hagen.”

A gust of static erupted from the starship’s hailing receiver. “Good Guy vessel F-Chinook, please respond. Over.”

Ace clicked a button on his chair’s armrest, not missing a beat. He reminded Legion of a practiced drummer hitting the cymbal in the middle of a roll. “This is Ace Spandex, Good Guy pilot. Is this our hailing? I thought our haunt control took care of the hailing process.”

A stretched silence stilled the cockpit deck. Even Power Plant and Franchise stopped dodging each other and breaking the costly espresso machine that came with the Flagstar. The silence ended. So did Power Plant and Franchise’s ceasefire. The hailer said, “You didn’t say ‘over.’ Please say ‘over’ next time. Over.” At least Legion thought he heard that atop the sound of Power Plant clonking the espresso pitcher over Franchise’s head.

“Yes. Sorry.” Ace scratched the scar on his brow. Legion nudged him. “Uh...over. Over.” He coughed. “Over.”

The hailer on the other side sounded as if he rolled his eyes. “Okay, well, your haunt control didn’t hail us so much as threaten to—hold on, we’ve got the transcript here”—a datasheet ruffled—“‘exterminate the crock out of us.’ Then she added the word thrice if her Acey doesn’t smarten up and order that pissing tux. I don’t know what that means, but if it involves exterminating, this Acey better get with the penguin suit. I don’t like being exterminated, much less thricely. Over.”

“It’s...” Ace stammered, but his brain supplied him with nothing useful. “Never mind. Anyway, the Good Guys are here to take care of your Harrier problem.” He punctuated his sentence by looping an imaginary noose around his neck and then, in a sitting position, hopping off an imaginary plank.

The guy on the other end of this absurd conversation barked through the communicator. “Hey, say ‘over’ when you’re done. It’s common courtesy. Over.”

Ace recovered from his imaginary suicide. “Sorry. We’re just entering your airspace now. Our travel clock says we’ll be parked in two minutes, fifty-two seconds. We’ll have visual in forty-three seconds. Over.”

Footsteps bounding, Power Plant charged into the cockpit deck. “Fourteen-three second we gonna see this place?” He slapped a bank of controls, which Ace and Legion scrambled to protect. Legion didn’t know what those controls did, but something in the rear belched flames, and a klaxon threw a surprise party for a moment. “Ooh. A really life hyper prisonment. Whatevers this place look like, it gonna be fierce!” He threw his chin over his shoulder. “Hey, Jakey”—Franchise had nearly recovered from the espresso attack: he twitched in unconsciousness a little harder—“this a perfect place to try them new combo power moves we talkeds about.”

“No. Enough combo power moves.” Legion grappled Power Plant away from the control bank. “Last time you two combined hyperabilities, it was to clear the line at a dinner buffet. It was surprisingly effective.” He hustled Power Plant back into the passenger deck where twelve seats rested in two rows. “And, while we’re on the subject, stop trying to grow a mustache.”

“Proceed to gate two,” the overly sensitive hailer said. “Drones will direct you to your parking, where Assistant Warden Murdermaestro—yes, that’s his real name—will receive you. Over.”

“Murdermaestro?” From his new position, Power Plant slapped the back of a chair. “That so fierce! Why can’ts I get stucks with that name? I got Abends.” He threw up his hands. “Sound like I gots crockin’ diarrhea.”

* * *

In nearly ten minutes, the starship had settled in the underground parking, Power Plant had not settled, and everybody disembarked onto cold pavement. Hearse exited last and kept uncomfortably close to Legion, so close that Legion smelled breakfast on his breath. He couldn’t determine what it was, but he bet on dead mice or ones that hadn’t been dead when they went in. He pictured Hearse kneading rodents down his throat while they stopped wriggling and squealing.

Something smelled like mildew here. The heat from F-Chinook’s dissipating exhaust attacked the dankness. Music piped through speaker panels: Elvis told everyone to dance around a cellblock. If anything made less sense than Elvis’s taste in fried foods, it was his lyrics.

From the distant expanse of the garage, a Terran entered through a gritty l-door and marched toward them. He wore a blue-and-gray suit reminiscent of combat gear made to look like business attire. He moved with a purpose reserved only for those with urgency on their minds or who had just received an audit notice.

Power Plant sidled up to Legion, bounding Hearse aside. Thankfully he whispered instead of yelled, “Zat Murdermaestro?” He whacked Legion’s arm. A few times.

“How would I know?” Legion shielded his arm. “How did you put your impact shirt on backwards? And calm down.” He massaged out the bruise. “And put your impact shirt on forwards.”

“But seriously, zat him?” Power Plant said over a water droplet plinking.

“Quiet, Jeff.” Legion checked his arm, giving careful consideration to the deep-green patch that might just be the gloomy lighting.

“Really, I wants to know. An’ name’s Jeffy.”

“If you embarrass us, I’ll personally confiscate your juggling landmines, and then you’ll have to come up with a new bedtime routine.”

“Please do.” Franchise inserted himself between Legion and Power Plant. He wore fresh healing gel over a welt on his head and nervously cracked the same finger over and over with his thumb. “With all my heart, I beg of you.”

“Who’s I gotta marry to gets that last name?” Power Plant cracked open another fortune cookie. He activated the datasheet, which clouded from red—off—to white—on. “Ooh, says heres kindsness is its owns rewards. I can kindness my way in.” His expression soured. “Waits. Thats one sucks.” He mashed the cookie’s fragments in his mouth and said around them, “I wanfa cruel my fway inf.”

“Fine, but fix your shirt first,” Legion said.

The Terran finally reached them, footsteps knocking in tune with the water droplets. It was quite a trek across the garage from where he’d entered, but he’d crossed it in only a couple minutes. No wonder, too. He towered at seven feet, and his legs accounted for probably half that. If bodies were buildings, his was a skyscraper.

He smiled at everybody in turn. “Afternoon, Good Guys. I’m so glad you rushed here on such short notice.” He greeted Legion with a firm shake, cupping both of his calloused hands around one of Legion’s. Legion felt as if a hippo had swallowed his fingers. “I’m Assistant Warden Murdermaestro.”

“I knews it!” Power Plant tripped backward over a concrete median. This was like a celebrity sighting to him. “Cans I have your name? Like, takes it from you?”

Murdermaestro flashed say-what confusion on his face until Legion said, “Never mind him. He shot himself out of a cannon in a space the size of a laundry room. No, he’s not part of a circus. Yes, it was his idea. No, he didn’t wear a helmet. Yes, that was also his idea.”

Murdermaestro eased a kiss onto Mabel’s hand—Mabel thought he was JFK and apologized for that “Lee Harvey’s Hamburgers” fiasco—then helped Power Plant up and shook with him, Ace Spandex, and finally Sixth Sense, whom he called “young lady.”

“Wait. Uhm. Hold on—”

Murdermaestro proceeded to Franchise and then finally Hearse. Instead of a handshake, Hearse sharply yanked Murdermaestro at himself by the arm. Hearse was his only competition in the height department, so he flared nostrils at him. Legion barely heard the whisper that rustled between them like blankets rubbing together, but he figured out the words since Hearse insisted on sticking so closely. Hearse’s fingers dug deeper around Murdermaestro’s arm.

With a concentration that burned the ambiance, he said, “I am fiercely aggressive over two things. One”—intense eye—“the notion that cinnamon is man’s best friend.”

“You should hear his thoughts on that from in here.” Sixth Sense tapped his temple, fingers only peeking out of his hanging sleeve. “It isn’t natural.”

Hearse widened his eye more intensely. “Two: the green-skinned Trioxidillian is under my protection. Misunderstand me at your own demise. If anyone even scuffs his shoes, that one will deal with me. And a shoe-shining service. Am I clear?”

“Yes. Very clear.” Murdermaestro didn’t look threatened, only eager to end this nightmarish exchange. He adjusted his uniform, backed away—

Hearse yanked him back. “And three, which I almost forgot: if there are no, as I believe they are called, ‘puffs of cream’ in the penitentiary, that is also a matter with which we will deal. I consider them a personal delicacy. On my”—he spoke the next term as if smoothing out his mouth—“‘personal top-ten list of super yum-yums,’ as the youths tend to say. I trust I am clear on that, as well.” Even Legion received the message: don’t mess with Hearse’s puffs of cream. Today was Hearse’s cheat day. Never skip cheat day.

Hearse insisted this severe eye contact for another three count and then let go so abruptly Murdermaestro almost tumbled aside. Thankfully he didn’t, or they would be saying their final farewells to Franchise.

Power Plant tapped his arm. “Buts seriously, cans I takes your name?”

* * *

Another ten minutes later, Legion found himself and the others in the welcoming foyer of the penitentiary, greeted by more getaway music. The penitentiary shone in yellow light that revealed each person’s reflection in the flower-patterned tiles of the floor and that one with the crack under which the cockroaches hid. Off to the left stood a row of tall elevators dressed in tinsel and garland that Power Plant tried setting on fire. The right held the mistletoe-adorned reception desk that Power Plant had already set on fire, unmanned and behind an ionizing screen and a cloud of flame-retardant foam the haunt control had hiccupped out. Now the foyer smelled like chemical lather.

Beside that stood an arraignment booth, again behind an ionizing screen. For décor, the room wore candles, a few mirrors, and for some reason, a cord of ivy crawling up a wall. And a ten-foot-tall ceramic dragon. Called Ned. So said the sign hanging around its neck. Nothing said penitentiary like a ceramic dragon named Ned. Question mark.

The trip through the public area of the facility would have lasted two minutes except Sixth Sense had wandered too close to a correctional officer and adopted a gripping disgust for inmates and their skulls. A correctional officer now had some explaining to do about the latest uprising and why so many inmates had ended up with crushed skulls.

Murdermaestro led them to a locked door on which was printed, in large block letters, RIOT CLOSET. In the reflection on the obsessively polished door, Legion watched the others explore the foyer with their eyes. Power Plant explored it by knocking stuff off the front desk with expensive-sounding crashes.

“Welcome, sweet entity Assistant Warden Murdermaestro, sweetie,” the Stavehill haunt control said in a timbre that reminded Legion of a gushing romance. The lilting voice echoed off the furniture. A piercing juxtaposition to Janice, who had, until yesterday, giggled with glittery lilts at “Acey” or “Spandex Smoochy.”

Power Plant’s reflection elbowed Franchise’s. “Jakey, name’s even cooler when a computer say it.”

Murdermaestro checked the ceiling for the haunt control’s listener. It probably lay buried in all those holiday decorations the staff never bothered to take down. They should. Boxing Day lights, Easter bunnies, turkeys, and jack-o-lanterns didn’t mix. Oh, except when the jack-o-lantern bit down on a string of lights that strangled the turkey. That was too amazing to take down. “Peggy, acknowledge. Unlock door to riot closet.” But who had eviscerated the Easter Bunny?

“Door unlocked, sweetie. Entity Assistant Warden Murdermaestro, your uniform today looks exceptional. You’re also managing this situation remarkably well. Considering today’s events, tomorrow is an excellent time to ask for that raise. Love you, sweets.”

“Thank you, Peg—”

“And your choice of breakfasts today was fantast—”

“Thank—you—Peggy.” Murdermaestro’s stance went rigid. He then flashed Legion an embarrassed smirk. “Our haunt control has developed a crush on me.” He sighed. “It’s not awesome.”

“My fellow countryman, I feel your anguish.” In a grasp of solidarity, Ace Spandex clutched Murdermaestro’s hand in both of his. “We are as one.” He lifted Murdermaestro’s hand to his forehead and shut his eyes solemnly. Murdermaestro tried to pluck his hand away, but Ace held firmly. And started humming “Kumbaya, My Lord.”

The riot closet’s l-door hissed open slowly, as if revealing a mummy’s tomb. The room started out pitch black, but yellow lights clacked on. Legion gritted his teeth at the mistrustful technology. Society loved it, but Legion knew it was prone to malfunction.

This revealed a room that was anything but a closet. Smelling like a library, it spanned the size of a master bedroom and contained shelves of helmets and portable ionizing screens that acted as riot shields when activated, canisters of tear gas, rows of light-bullet bandoliers that acted as rubber bullets, Taser batons, water cannons, and sound-based disablers. Legion wondered which of these Power Plant would damage first.

“Whoaaa.” With wide eyes, Franchise traced a finger along a riot shield. “I could make use of this stuff whenever a certain someone gets his hands on either gunpowder or cocoa powder.” His face flinched to a rubber baton. “Crazy weapons, spit-polished floors, and enough leprechaun decorations to give a Scotsman a heart attack. This facility is amazing. Jeffy, when one of your idiot stunts lands me in jail, I hope it’s this place.”

Murdermaestro swept the room with a hand. “Most of our riot gear is in here.” He toed a box, which bopped a corner into the air and rattled the contents. “And our holiday decorations.” A jack-in-the-box elf sproinged out. “I apologize for that. What you see is an accumulation of every occasion we’ve observed and refused to clean up after. Including some baby showers.” He nodded at an “It’s a boy” banner. “Coincidentally, we’ve fired our custodial staff.”

Power Plant dived for the holiday box and dug in up to his wrists, clattering through a Boxing Day Bargain Bojango and corresponding advent calendar. Franchise recoiled. Power Plant was a genius at combining unlikely things with unlikely substances. Yup, there he went with...no, Legion didn’t feel like describing it, but nonflammable it wasn’t. This would show up on the news later, wouldn’t it?

Murdermaestro continued, “Anyway, we’ve had a rash of that new recreational drug, Squared, being traded around here, so a lot of gear is checked out and in heavy use.”

“Come again?” Legion tapped a riot helmet with two padded fingers. “Squared?”

“Squared is the street name for Hyper-Hyperability. Get it? Hyper squared?” Murdermaestro thumbed a speck out of his tear duct. “It enhances the taker’s hyperability, sometimes triples its potency. Comes in injectable form, but a new form lets people rub it into their skin. Their bodies absorb it like aloe cream. Makes the user feel euphoric and invincible.”

“That explains away so many of Space Cow’s customers,” Franchise said.

“Stupid Space Cow customers, thinkin’s theys can put anything in their mouths.” Power Plant licked the ends of a wire he’d unsheathed with his teeth. The resulting fffzzzz explained his smile.

Legion snatched the wire away. “Jeff, do something constructive. Learn the real meaning of the word octagon.”

Power Plant tsked. “Stop bein’ such an octagon.”

Murdermaestro said, “A couple weeks ago, Squared made its way into Stavehill, but we got a handle on it and confiscated it. We incinerated all doses, but we had to crank up the hyperstasis fields in some cells to handle the extra juice offenders put out. Some of them put out enough to be radioactive. Couldn’t subside their euphoria, though.” He shrugged. “They ate soap.”

“Entity Assistant Warden Murdermaestro, sweetgums, it seems you have visitors. Good Guy entities Legion, Ace Spandex, Power Plant, Fr—”

“I know, Peggy.”

“Holds up.” Power Plant whipped a baton through the air. “Control, acknowledges. Relists mes as entity Murdermaestro. Too cool to pass up. No, wait.” Whipped it again. “The wholes title. Relists me as entity Assistant Warden Murdermaestro.”

“Good Guy entity Power Plant is now relisted as entity Assistant Warden Murdermaestro.”

Legion clenched his fists. “Jeff, you can’t rename yourself someone else’s name.”

“Why’s not?” Power Plant fitted himself with a helmet that was way too large.

“Where should I start? First off, you’re ridiculous. Also, you’re not a maestro of murder like this haunt-control heartthrob. Also also, stealing names isn’t polite. Also also also, when the haunt control addresses either of you, how can we tell who she’s talking to? Also times four, and most important, I can’t be specific when I want her to smack you around.” He yanked away Power Plant’s baton. Then he yanked away Power Plant’s pepper spray. He didn’t care what berry it tasted like.

Murdermaestro locked his teeth together but donned a polite grimace. “We’ll sort it out later. Right now, I brought you in here to offer you these.” He took six bracelets from a shelf. They hung off his hand, each flashing a small light on the underside of a clasp. He shifted around a tub of plastic Easter eggs to hand them out. “When we travel deeper into the penitentiary—the cellblocks, the halls, the arraignment area, the therapy waterslide, any place marked as a mid- to high-security zone—we’ll be in hyperstasis fields. These fields have a level-nine yield, meaning they block hyperabilities rated nine or below. Even Alaphus couldn’t use His hyperability in there.” He shook the bracelets. “These are hyperstasis-field blockers, HFBs for short. Wearing one allows you to still use your hyperabilities in those zones. You take these off, and your hyperabilities shut off too. So don’t lose them, also because you can return them for a voucher for a free lynching on your birthday.”

“Don’t even,” Franchise warned Power Plant.

Murdermaestro passed one bracelet to each Good Guy. Legion nodded his off: didn’t need one since he had no hyperability. And why did Mabel take one? Maybe she thought it was an earrin—Yeah, she did. Whatever. She once wore a milk crate as a shower cap.

“Mine has a picture of a horn of plenty on it.” Ace Spandex adjusted his bracelet, and its magnet clasp clacked together. The bracelet lit and issued a peep when it activated.

“Holy tremendous. Legion, why can’t we get equipment like this?” Franchise took his, mouth agape with jealous awe.

“We don’t need hyperstasis fields.”

“You don’t share a room with a living time bomb.” Franchise clacked his on. He examined it over and then back. “Hey, it tracks my steps.”

Murdermaestro was positioned at the riot closet’s l-door. “Follow me this way. Our next stop is surveillance. We can monitor the cafeteria there, which is where Harrier and his cohort are positioned.”

The haunt control chimed in. “You’re doing an excellent job o—”

“Peggy, that’s enough!”

Chapter Six: One More Complaint, and You’re Walking Home

Plaster spilled outta that crocking teleportation murk like he’d stumbled off a cliff. He landed on soft grass. Well, half of him. The other half smacked onto coarse asphalt that didn’t ’xactly feel like bunny slippers unless bunny slippers felt like a curb an’ broken beer bottles. An’ it wasn’t as if the separation was upper an’ lower half. No, crock. It was left half—landed on a rain gutter—and right half—landed on a soakin’ lawn what felt like a sponge belched outta the sewer. He got a mouthful o’ green junk an’ white sheepdog poop up his taco hole. Served him right for takin’ the friggin’ Blackguard Express. Every time they teleported ’round in him, Plaster got spewed out like that shadow man was a catapult an’ he was the fraternity watermelon. Only way they could travel this way, though. Worst ride ever, and he’d ridden a mechanical bull that Asinine said had an off switch.

With his hand shatterin’ a gnome what looked like a creepy Halloween jack-o-pumpkin, Plaster lifted himself off the grass. First thing he noticed was the sky ripped open wit’ rain. The wet kind. It was a monsoon out here, water snarlin’ at him like a jetliner. Chilly too. He spat out the poop an’ a fishbone that had ended up in his mout’. He turned to the others, a clump o’ his constantly-meltin’-constantly-replenishin’ soggy skin ploppin’ on the grass.

Blackguard, Plaster’s leader, traveled through time an’ space—teleportin’ and chronoportin’—on a recruitment binge to enlist disciples for some dude named Continuum. He’d started wit’ ex–Bad Guy Plaster and worked his way down the list: Marionette, Ripsaw, an’ Gangrene. An’ now they was here to find some other new follower for Continuum’s army.

Drenched in this downpour what felt like ammo from a nail gun, they all stood up off the grass where Blackguard’s teleportin’ upchucked ’em. Marionette, always obsessin’ over some nose job or another, had her crazy twine o’ braided hair lashin’ down to her knees whenever she swung her head. Blonde but wit’ a red streak innit an’, crock’s sake, always combed tidy, even out here. She wore a yellow impact suit, neckline to toes, wit’ orange slashes huggin’ the abdomen like a ribcage. Beside her stood the masked Ripsaw, almost camouflaged out here in his maroon impact duds except for the glint o’ lightnin’ against the sawtooth blades that ran down his sleeves and an’ leg sleeves. Then was Gangrene wit’ no media outfit. Or nothin’ at all. Claws for toes, claws for fingers. Scamperin’ on all fours, he wore skin the matted color o’ mustard, he stank like mustard, an’ he made Plaster not wanna ever eat mustard. His gray eyes, no pupils, flicked around. He snarled and showed them two-inch fangs, droolin’ from that thick, foot-long tongue what kept probin’ for somethin’ to gobble up. Knobs o’ his spine stuck out his back. His skin was like Plaster’s, gungy on the surface. But not like Plaster’s, it bubbled as if his septic body farted swamp gas. An’ that stubby tail wasn’t exactly attractin’ no ladies. He sniffed the dried dog turd an’ then gobbled it up. Yup. For real.

But the highlight o’ this gang, if you could call him a light, was Blackguard, their call-the-shots man. Color avoided him like it was allergic, which made Plaster wanna dress him in a hilarious poncho even more. He was the only thing nightier than night. He had the stature of a tall mannequin, seven feet tall or somethin’. He was made up o’ what he called dark essence, that black gunk what felt like tar and looked like tar and stank like dead people in tar. When ya teleported inside him, all ya smelled was fungus, like a bouquet outta a funerary dumpster. Everything about him was dark essence: his body, his trench coat, his shoes, his fingernails he should think about clippin’, even that ridiculous “fedora” on his head. It all fused into one long shape, no seam, no line, no nothin’. His face was ambiguous: a bump for a nose, shallow dips for eye sockets, an’ a superficial curve for a mouth.

Whatever made up that dude, teleportin’ inside him was like sittin’ inside suffocatin’ gunk. An’ no one thought to install seats or cupholders. But it beat spendin’ hours flyin’ a starship. Teleportin’ was quick. Blackguard enfolded ’em all however he did, he magicked that mojo he magicked, an’ then he spat ’em out after the trip on lawns an’ dog turds. No, Plaster wasn’t gettin’ past that.

Plaster still plucked shards o’ gnome out his palm. He wanted to clean off himself that dark essence Blackguard was made outta, but that stuff ain’t never stuck anyway. When Blackguard retracted them darkness tentacles, there wasn’t a trace left. Weirdest dude in existence, an’ this comin’ from a walkin’ runny nose.

Rain cut down hard but sounded harder. Plaster shook off the rest o’ that gnome. Where the crock was th—Oh, man. Had to be this place? Stavehill? Crock. He’d’a kicked somethin’, but ain’t nothin’ in kickin’ distance. Except that rain gutter in the curb. He kicked it. Bad move. Dented his steel-toe boot. Crock. He liked them steel-toe boots. Hard to find ones big enough ta fit and what come in tan.

He reeled around, splashed in a puddle. He had to talk loud, louder than the hammerin’ weather. “So, hey, what’s wit’ bein’ here? An’ what’s wit’ the twenny-foot St. Patty’s Day leper-chaun cacklin’ on the east tower?” He spat out another poop. “Place gotta lay off the chicken-an’-rice kibble.”

Ripsaw stretched out his arms. “The leprechaun is laughing at how you walk around with that face of yours and still feel pride.”

“Your head’s too narrow.” Plaster stepped toward Blackguard. “Y’ know, I almost ended up here about thirty years back. Broke out durin’ my transfer. I hated this place from the get-go ’cause I heard they use that vinegar crap to disinfect—you know the stuff—an’ I hate vinegar crap. Like real vinegar, but ya can’t eat it.” He snickered to Marionette, who wore enough makeup she looked like a wax statue. “Burns my tush bad like.”

“Brother Plaster, you need not concern yourself with your generous and delicate posterior.” Blackguard’s voice sounded more demonic overtop them blades of rain an’ loudspeakin’ thunder.

“Hey, who you callin’ a generous delicatessen. Or what ya said. Crock, I can wordize too.” Far as Plaster knew, generous wasn’t what ya use since his “pos-tee-ree-or” ain’t never gave nothin’ to charity except free gas. “So who we here for?” He slapped a slimy palm over Blackguard’s chest t’ shove him, but instead the palm splattered inta Blackguard up to the wrist. He pulled it back. It slurped out and, like every other time, that black gunk retracted wit’out a smudge.

Ripsaw stomped forward, slashed out the sawtooth blades along the forearms of his impact suit. “This another recruiting gig?” He crossed his arms. “Are we recruiting another pinko?” Again wit’ the pinkos. All Terrans was pinkos to this racist. “Crock, we’re recruiting another pinko. You guys smell like weird spices.” He reared at Marionette and prepared to slash, his background a claw of lightnin’. “There are too many of you around as it is. I swear, if this is another pinko, I’m killing one to keep things from reeking like nutmeg.”

Somehow not freezin’ cold in the drivin’ rain, Marionette raised a hand, and Ripsaw levitated a foot an’ a half. She hooked her fingers like Darth Vader givin’ a Force choke, and Ripsaw’s fingers flew to his throat t’ pry at the grip. Her hyperability was controllin’ livin’ things, and she used it to choke Ripsaw. Good use.

“Tsk, tsk, sugah. You watch yourself aroun’ me. You got that?” Marionette’s other hand ticked a finger along the flopped-over ear of a ceramic Easter bunny she’d found lyin’ in the grass. She crushed its head and then returned to playin’ with Ripsaw’s throat. “Is it every holiday except Martin Luther King Day heah?”

Ripsaw struggled for words, swingin’ at the air like he wanted to slash Marionette’s face with his sleeve saws. He gurgled somethin’ in that chokehold.

“You must be turnin’ all special kinds o’ purple under that mask o’ yours. You ready to say sorry before I snap your little ol’ neck?”

Ripsaw stopped swipin’ at her, dropped his arms to his sides. He hung there sheepishly and nodded.

“Bless your racist heart, honey.” Marionette dropped her hand. Ripsaw hit the slurpin’ grass. “I knew you’d see it my way.”

Two ropes o’ Boxing Day lights twisted around the west tower, up, around, up again, like one o’ them double helixes. They blinked red, white, green, purple, orange, blac—Black? What the crock? What was wit’ these decorations? Plaster scoffed ’em. “Them celebratin’ Easter Boxing Kwanzaa Ash Wednesday Eve here?”

Ripsaw stood up, massagin’ his throat.

A shimmer o’ lightning serrated the sky behind Blackguard, superimposin’ the dude’s shady, vague form over a yellow sheet. When the lightnin’ crackled, the edges of his smooth form tentacled, like it was sensitive. “To reply to your query, Brother Ripsaw, this is certainly another recruitment gig.” Gig sounded so foreign comin’ outta Blackguard’s mouth that he looked as if he had to rehearse it first. “We are here to free an inmate from this facility, one you know, Brother Plaster.” He directed his eye dents at Plaster. “A former Good Guy. Let us say, one who suffers from clipped wings.”

“Them Good Guy punks? I left all that crock behind, an’ I ain’t goin’ back.” Plaster wanted to slap Blackguard, but he’d just end up elbow deep in that dude what stank like a morgue even in the rain. Instead he slapped Gangrene, who snarled and splashed around his hungry tongue. He clawed at Plaster. Plaster smacked him, and he yipped. Gangrene’s skin singed like acid. “Ya had it comin’ when ya chewed up my slippers.”

“We have necessary business with...‘them Good Guy punks.’ Our Lord and Savior, Continuum, deems one of them necessary for our ranks. And the Good Guy he desires rests inside this facility.” Blackguard didn’t move, hadn’t moved since they arrived. He never moved. Not a sway, not a tilt, not a mannerism, didn’t even shift his freakin’ weight. Dude didn’t know what body language was. Even the weather out here didn’t so much as blow his tarry “clothes” around. ’Cept when the lightnin’ got angry. Then small feelers slipped out like they was scared of it.

“Well, then, darlin’, let’s”—Marionette clap-clapped—“get teleportin’.”

“An’ let’s put on some travel music this time,” Plaster said. “An’ nose plugs.”

“Unfortunately, traveling around these premises is difficult.” Blackguard led the way to the foyer doors. “Stavehill employs the most updated hyperstasis fields to ensure no prisoner utilizes his or her ability. Though some of my abilities eclipse the fields since I am fiercely powerful, some do not. Teleportation is one such that does not. It is, after all, a hyperability, and thus at the mercy of Stavehill’s fields. Inside, we must travel by walking. But”—he spun at Plaster an’ the others—“we shall not harm those who are incarcerated. Father Continuum has ordained it so. The detainees are needed as distraction. Therefore, they remain off limits under all conditions save if they pose a threat to us or our enterprise. The staff, however, remains under no such protection.” Without waitin’ for an answer, Blackguard resumed walkin’ over mushy grass toward them front doors. “We will also travel up three stories along the center where the refectory is. I wish to monitor a situation there.”

“Refectory, monitor, situation, blah. No one cares. But no killing?” Ripsaw fell in step behind Blackguard. The others did, too. “That isn’t any fun.”

“It must remain our command because Lord Continuum deems it so.”

“Okay, suppose I decide to rid the universe of a few pinkos, rip a few throats here or there or everywhere. What would Father Continuum say about that? Call me a casual hobbyist.”

“Then Father Continuum would be content to relieve himself of your service.” Blackguard’s back faced Ripsaw. And, man, that voice carried even over the rain that sounded like radio static. “And he would be quite content to relieve you of your life.”

Plaster raised a hand. “I’m up for that. Now let’s get in there an’ celebrate every holiday known ta man, woman, an’ Ripsaw.”

Marionette wrung her hands down the rope of hair she called a ponytail. “Hey, sugar, I ain’t doing nothing until I visit the girls’ hokeypokey room. My hair looks like I won first place in a pig-wrestlin’ match.” It looked exactly like it did all the time.

“Oh, course, the thing wit’ the hair.” Plaster got a Force choke of his own.

Chapter Seven: Progressive Overload

The rocks lining the shelf across the roof burst apart in shards when I flourished my hand. Harrumph. Done this a million times these last few days. My chair grunted under my weight when I shifted myself off. Crock, it had been almost eight hours since Brainiac’s throbbing head had reared its ugly presence in this dungeon, the hangar that doubled as a science lab and, since Asinine’s latest shipment, room-temperature meat locker. Asinine now used sodium silicate as cooking oil, and the results weren’t fun.

I’d been cooped up in Brainiac’s mad-scientist lab, sectioned off just next door to Station Zilcho’s hangar, for days. I remembered bits and pieces of myself—name was Silas Reef—but I woke up on this station after having been found under wreckage. Random memories surfaced and dissipated as quickly as bubbles in boiling water. Other than that, my memories started only a few months ago.

I was told Master Asinine had hired me in the Bad Guys to disassemble some gigantic, rooster-themed transport, something called The Nemesis, and reassemble it in a completely different arrangement. I’d absorbed Brainiac’s telekinesis hyperability, and that was what I used to lift these transport parts. Her telekinesis wouldn’t work moving the parts around: her hyperability heated things, and some of the transport parts were too delicate. Thus it was my job.

I whistled a tune I’d never heard but hadn’t made up. Something rattling around my head, a decades-old hit from...the Earworms. Yeah. In socks because maybe Asinine thought shoes were too good for me—mismatched toe socks, at that—I padded across the expansive hangar lab to examine the rock wreckage. Husks. They shook in place from their furious deaths but soon settled. They were fierce opponents, but—Crock. They were rocks, not people. I had to escape. Or just get out for a drink.

Had I ever tasted alcohol?

Get out. Yeah. What a pipe dream. Brainiac hadn’t let me out of this hangar since I’d first experimented with my hyperability here almost two weeks ago. I needed a walk.

All I had was a bed—no, a springy cot—across the hangar, in the area Brainiac had misjudged her step and knocked her skull/hot-air balloon into some filled beakers this morning. Now my mattress smelled like burned fabric, and the cot’s springs had snapped. The mattress had collapsed into the wireframe of the cot. Thanks for that, Brainiac. And for knocking into my drawers and toppling everything over last night.

A sloppy pile of datasheets, all magazines countlessly read and reread and not interesting because they talked about home décor, sat on the shelf under the rocks. Just like this monotonous lab. Just like the sameness, the unchanging, rigidly scheduled sameness of every day. Repetitiveness was a feeling emptier than apathy, and that was emptier than Power Plant’s contributions in a brainstorming session.

I flopped onto the mattress of my broken cot—at least the sheets had been changed so that malodor of fabric remained only a vague linger—and stared at the open-concept ceiling above. Ventilation ducts spanned the ceiling like ribs inside a whale. They whooshed loudly.

Who was Power Plant?

The hangar bay’s l-door whooped open and in gangled Brainiac, her monobrow always the second-most noticeable feature on that unsightly face, the first being that unsightly face. A Trioxidillian/Terran hybrid, Brainiac was a patchwork of pink and blue skin, hair and hairless splotches, with a cranium the size of three craniums. That was how she’d fallen onto my cot. A head that size played with your balance. You couldn’t pay me to hold eye contact with her for longer than ten seconds, or eleven on days when my constitution held. I put a hand up to screen my vision.

Over the vents, I hollered, “You promised I’d go outside soon. That was a week ago. Any chance of some fresh air today?”

Brainiac breathed an understated tittle, sounding like a witch in a social gathering. “I apologize, comrade Reef.” Her voice grumbled like someone running a heavy finger along the teeth of a comb. “Trip outside will not be for today unfortunately. Perhaps we plan trip for tomorrow. Vedushchiy Asinine planning hayride soon. He thinks autumn so Schizophrenic can burn leaves on yard again.”

“Not today? Again?” I propped my head off my pillow—the pop can tabs in it, thanks to Asinine, scraped around—and risked a peek at her. Ugh, bad idea! Bad, bad id—She hadn’t shaved her lip. Why hadn’t she shaved her lip?

When my queasy stomach recovered and I almost had, I noticed she nudged two people ahead of her, a Trioxidillian and a Terran. Both looked drugged, eyelids twitching at half mast, mouths lolled open, steps a sluggish sleepwalk. Victims of a run-in conversation with her? I’d move like the dead if I were speaking to her. Which I was. Whatever.

Brainiac guided the Trioxidillian into my groaning chair. She kept her neck from breaking when she knocked into the doorframe on one side and the feathery wing of The Nemesis on the other. A feat. She finally lost her balance, clapped her chin against a table of chemical tubs, and tumbled onto the concrete of the hangar floor. I sniggered in my cot. You couldn’t rehearse better comedy than this.

She recovered and eased the Terran, who had remained standing without support, into another chair. “Da, more practice today, comrade Reef.”

“More practice? At using your telekinesis?” I climbed out of my collapsed cot and clomped across the hangar, trying to maintain my anger the entire trip. The clomping took at least forty-five seconds, though, so by the time I’d tromped halfway to Brainiac, my clomps sounded more like a lull in the conversation. “Excuse me, I’ll be there in a moment.” I reached The Nemesis’s beak cockpit. “Just...hold on.” Past a viewscreen flashing blueprints. “Don’t go anywhere.” And finally I reached her. My socked heels ached.

“Hold on. Light headed. Too much clomping.” Panting, I braced myself against a shelving unit. Phew. Okay. Ready. “More practice? All I’ve done here is practice. How much more practice can I possibly need? I’ve moved the wings—the wings—of a Kingfish starship!” I threw a finger at The Nemesis’s cockpit. “That’s the heaviest head I’ve ever seen, present company excluded.”

I stomped my foot. “That rooster head that still smells like eleven herbs and spices weighs about forty-seven tons, and I shifted it an entire foot. I’ve earned some sunshine. Also, I discovered I have a slight allergy to rooster thyme.”

As the vents fell silent, Brainiac unleashed a full witch’s cackle, as if the social scene from earlier had become a scheming session.

“What? What’s so funny? I haven’t seen the outside world in two weeks. Haven’t stepped outside this hangar in twelve days. Maybe longer. I don’t know. I don’t remember a thing from before you woke me up. And I’ve mimicked stronger and stronger hyperabilities each day. When I first arrived, I lifted a wrench. Yesterday, I lifted the Colonel’s secret recipe’s decapitated head. And I still don’t get to see sunshine? You and your pulsating brow have got to be kidding me. I swear that throb on your head communicates in Morse code. What’s worse is it’s improving.”

“Nyet. No outside sunshine today, comrade. Still much to assemble. Still much to practice. We have timeline.” Brainiac managed to still her head’s sway while padding the shoulders of the Trioxidillian she’d brought in. “Here. I have new amplifier, stronger hyperability. Best telekinetic we can kidnap. You mimic him, absorb energy. Then we discover if you are strong like bull to mount cockpit onto big cylinder in back of hangar room and fuzzy dice onto mirror that rearviews.” With her chin—easy now, Humpty, or she’d end up cracking on the floor again—she indicated the cylinder with telescopic segments as huge as sewage pipes. It rested in the formaldehyde-redolent corner deep in the shadowy recesses of the hangar, close to the bay doors and that thing I was slightly concerned was a wasp nest.

“What, we need to put the head on the neck? Is that the cylinder?” In the corner of my eye, I spotted Brainiac nodding with that smile and unshaven lip.

“Da, comrade, da. Cockpit head is second most heaviest piece of Nemesis. First is engine guts near tail. If you lift cockpit head onto neck, then you are ready for engine butt. And then you go out in sunshine.”

I regarded the Trioxidillian she’d brought with measured frustration. Couldn’t look at Brainiac, so I pretended her hairy lip was a caterpillar. Didn’t work. My teeth ground together once. Just once. “Fine.” I cracked my interlocked fingers with a single stretch. “Let’s get to work one last time. And what’s this guy for?” I checked the Terran up and down.

Brainiac checked the Terran, too. “His hyperability is find missing socks. Vedushchiy Asinine lost other decoration sock with pompom on end.”

Chapter Eight: Mechanical Girl Problems

“Sugar on Top of Sugar”—Franchise counted off a finger to itemize his list to Murdermaestro—“Even More Sugar on Top of Sugar, uh, Multiple Forms of Sugar on Top of a Literal Mountain of Sugar. I think that’s it for Jeffy’s favorite cereals-slash-catalysts. What I’m saying is you should steer clear if you have any loose nonperishables lying around.”

Now with one more avid fan in Power Plant, who kept using his hyperability to singe piquant misspellings of “Murdermaestro, maestro of murder” into random walls and elf teeth, Murdermaestro led Legion and the others into what could be described only as a surveillance room. Legion gripped Sixth Sense’s arm when the room’s l-door ghosted away and took its decorative menorah with it. He had to consciously keep from taking cover behind the telepath. Felt his heart trip its rhythm before reminding himself to maintain composure. He skittered into the room behind Murdermaestro and settled against the single, long desk of a computer bank in the back, well away from the explosive l-door and its quaint celebrative decoration.

The three correctional officers who occupied this room stood. They were supervising Stavehill’s big-brother equipment: viewscreens that flicker-clicked through key areas around the penitentiary grounds, sound sensors probably connected to a litter of mics in those key areas, and a poster displaying the very wall it hung on.

A basset hound slept on a ragged and stained cushion bed. Murdermaestro crouched down and put a finger under its nose. A breathing check. He looked satisfied with the result. “Guard Dog, down, boy.” He stroked the dog’s snout. The dog responded by not budging.

Immediately inside the door, Franchise paused. “You named that inanimate object Guard Dog?”

“He’s our guard dog.”

“I thought it was a stuffed animal.” Franchise scratched underneath its chin. Maybe the dog liked it. At least it wore some fashionable knitted elf booties and felt antlers. Franchise honked the red nose it was unaware it wore. “Guys, I’ve found the dog version of Mabel.”

The arrangement of surveillance viewscreens sat in a series above the computer bank as if posing in a police lineup. So crowded, they gobbled up all elbow room. Those viewscreens that were awake hummed through their sequences of shots and angles. Some slept, only specifying by yellow-on-black text what location they’d show if they were on. Some simply showed advertisements. Others, clowns. Channeling the children’s-birthday-party cellblock evidently.

Beneath the viewscreens sat the bank, l-seats hunched before it. Each seat was paired to its own computer terminal. This was where the three correctional officers had sat.

Along the wall to the computer bank’s left stretched a table with a turmoil of disarrayed cups, sugars—Legion slapped Power Plant’s reaching hand—creamers, stir sticks, marshmallows—Legion slapped Power Plant’s reaching tongue—and junk arranged and disarranged around a drink machine bearing notes: “Out of order” and, beneath that, “Reminder that this machine is not a urinal.” Clarity was key.

“Bailwick, Nominut, Plammert, as you were.” Murdermaestro waved the three correctional officers—one of which wore a white Bargain Bojango beard—back to what they were doing: in two cases, sitting and observing the viewscreens, and in the last, furiously working at a coloring book. Donald Duck’s skin had never looked so orange.

After the last Good Guy entered, Murdermaestro tapped a lock button next to the l-door. Whoomp. “Peggy, acknowl—”

Power Plant broke in. “Peggy acknowledge. Stop fixings walls when I burns ‘Murdermaestro’ into thems. For crockin’ sake, it’s my new name, and I use it prouds!”

Legion thwacked Power Plant’s arm. “Jeff, somewhere there’s a nearsighted byline from a fortune cookie that somehow means you should sucker-punch Jacob in the shoulder.”

“No, there isn’t a—” Franchise got sucker-punched in the shoulder.

Murdermaestro kept his composure around Power Plant like a hesitant babysitter pretending the culinary experiment in the kitchen didn’t exist. It did, and its name was Jeff. Murdermaestro deserved a medal of commendation or at least front-row seating at Power Plant’s inevitable electric-chair execution. He took one glance at him and then at Legion.

Legion got the hint. “Jeff, look, whatever fascinates you these days, there’s one now!”

“Where? Where?” Power Plant bounded off. He whacked against Bailwick, the colorist who applied a crayon labeled beta-carotene-poison orange to Donald Duck.

Murdermaestro winked approval. “Thanks, Legion.”

“You’re afraid of an inmate on Squared. We’re afraid of Power Plant on regular.”

Murdermaestro scratched an ear. “Peggy, acknowledge. Open viewscreen. Display entity Prisoner Number Four-Six-Three-Four-Four-Nine-Two.” While Peggy fluttered her electronic eyelashes and obeyed Murdermaestro with fawning devotion and a smooch, a viewscreen blossomed from nowhere. An image resolved into a scene in the cafeteria. Originally it showed a fisheye view, but Murdermaestro tapped it to change it to normal. It beeped. No, everyone was now a kitten. One more tap and beep. Now it was nor—No, wait, that made everyone a tree. Another tap...another...an—

“Excuse me.” Legion was rubbing Guard Dog’s belly, but he stood and worked his way to the viewscreen. Nominut blocked the viewscreen from his seat, so he stood aside. He was the one wearing the cottony Bargain Bojango beard.

The viewscreen locked on the scene in the cafeteria, not cycling anywhere else. It was muted, but Legion could fill in the menace himself, finally with dialogue smarter than the junk spewing out of Master Asinine’s idiocy hole.

In any other context, the display would seem boring. But when Legion saw Harrier, he felt an instant creepy-crawly sensation, like colonies of insects scuttling up his arms and legs, that made him want to shrink into shadow. As long as Power Plant didn’t find out what Harrier was jailed for, everything except processed desserts might survive.

Harrier sat on a table in the corner of the cafeteria, some weird-looking contraption clamped around his wrist with spiraling wires that led to another person, a...huh? “You guys keep centaurs here?”

“Centaurs keep us here. That’s Warden Hammeker.” Murdermaestro tapped the viewscreen on the centaur’s face, and it responded by scrolling out a category-arranged smattering of facts: name, species, history, biorhythms, and that he was one-fifth the stated odds for finishing first in the next race.

“Your warden is a centaur?” Franchise asked. “Does that make the rest of your staff stable hands?”

“By the way, he’s super sensitive about his tail,” Nominut said out the side of his mouth. “Don’t comment on its color. Over.” It was brown. Not that Legion studied these things, but what other color should it be?

“You’re the over guy?” Ace Spandex prodded forward. “You know you don’t have to say ‘over’ in normal conversation, right?”

Nominut scowled at Ace, so Ace threw his hands up, palms out. “Okay, hot-button issue.” He retreated to the drink machine. Over.

The rest of the scene that the viewscreen unfolded looked almost benign. Centaur Hammeker whinnied on one side of Harrier. On the other side, beside the table on which Harrier sat, another person stood like a sentry. Another inmate, Legion noticed from the orange jumpsuit he wore. This other inmate was a meaty Terran whose body looked as defined as a blowup doll’s. Two heads taller than Harrier, who was already six feet tall himself, he had bumps that should form the ridges of individual muscles but instead looked as if he had melted in the sun. Not that this unnamed inmate had no muscle. He had plenty of it. It just hid underneath a cushion of meat. And he ate handfuls of bugs from a box, which spoke volumes about the prison food. At least the scene looked festive with Easter bunnies and blood.

Power Plant had wandered toward the display of coffee supplies and unzipped. He’d read the sign and decided he knew exactly what to do.

Mabel shambled toward the viewscreen showing Harrier and fixed her clouded eyes on it. She grunted. “These what’s-its are impossible to”—she snapped her palsied fingers—“what-da-ya-call-it looking word—”

“You call it see,” Franchise said. “It’s a really memorable word.”

“—with all their hows-its and whatchamacallits and thingamabobs.” Mabel shambled closer to the viewscreen, closer still, even closer still, bumped her nose into its surface with a thud heard across the room, whipped out and unfolded a pair of bifocals, which Legion hadn’t seen anywhere except encyclopedias, and slid them on. She studied the viewscreen. “So I’m thingamajibbing what now?” She pointed. Her finger clipped a Cinco de Mayo piñata. “What’s this thingamabob-who’s-it?”

“That’s the ceiling.” Sixth Sense took the liberty of correcting Mabel’s bifocals so they sat right-side up on her face.

Mabel adjusted them. If only that would help. She was the one person who could hit a deer with a mil-tran. In space. “Okay, and this whatchamacallit here looks useful. How can we what’s-it this against the thingum?”

“That’s Bailwick,” Murdermaestro said. “Your finger is up his nostril.”

“Answer the question!”

Franchise examined the viewscreen and squinted at the thing strapped to Harrier’s wrist. “What is that homicidal wristwatch? It looks like it belongs on Death’s birthday wish list. Meanwhile, I want one.”

Power Plant finished his business and zipped up. Better than last time. And he flushed. Well, he pressed the espresso machine’s Percolate button, but same thing. The coffeemaker began crackling. And fuming.

At Sixth Sense’s ankle, Guard Dog’s snoring took a trundling uptake. Sixth Sense danced back to shoo the basset hound away, but it was too late: the telepath dropped on all fours, hands hiding in too-long shirtsleeves, and sniffed around, first at Plammert and then at a dehydrated plant shivering in the air in the corner. When he lifted a hind leg at the plant, Legion hurried to tap his HFB off. It peeped asleep. As if waking from hypnosis, Sixth Sense examined the room. He noticed his hind leg, checked the dog that slumbered at his face, and bolted to his feet in dazed embarrassment. He muttered a bashful thanks to Legion and tapped his HFB back on.

“Are you feeling all right, ma’am?” Murdermaestro asked him.

Back to Harrier. Legion watched him simply sit. Though the viewscreen remained muted, Harrier didn’t engage in conversation anyway. He just...sat. Pensively sat. “A couple questions. First, how bad is your prison food that one of your inmates is enjoying a mayfly right now?”

“We once mislabeled a shipment as Poo-Tarts. Typo caused a riot.”

“And, second, can we finally get a briefing on this situation please? Third, Hagen, stop licking yourself. Fourth, Jeff, stop licking yourself.”

“Name’s Murdermelon.”

“Murdermaestro.”

“Whatevs.” Power Plant threw up a hand, whacking a coffee urn to the floor.

“Entity Assistant Warden Murdermaestro, disclose no information you’re not comfortable with.” Peggy seemed to sneer at Legion.

“Peggy, acknowledge. Good Guy entity Legion’s a friend, and he’s not asking me anything out of the ordinary. Also stop growling.” Murdermaestro huffed. “If only I had the clearance to reprogram you.”

“Amen, brother,” Ace Spandex said. His eyes jolted. “Sorry. Was that out loud?”

“We know Harrier as Everett Pendleton.” Murdermaestro gave him a sidelong glance. “Thus far, we know nothing about his intentions. He only made his move and then asked for you to come. Specifically you, Legion. He killed one of our correctional officers, Quinto—that’s the body on the floor wearing the leprechaun beard and the watch we bought him for Black Friday—then hooked that device to himself. He calls it his Life Monitor. If he dies or if it’s unhooked from either end, he claims this facility explodes and that watch with it.”

“I knew it!” Franchise punched his open palm. “Straight out of Death’s catalog. I do want one for a certain someone’s birthday.” He snapped open a fortune cookie and began chomping. He tongued aside the pieces and read the fortune—“Oh. Awesome. Says here I’ll get one definitely”—which he deactivated and crumpled up. “Don’t verify that.” Power Plant gave him another whack on the shoulder. “Holy hurt, I immediately regret agreeing on fortune cookies instead of candy hearts.”

“I woulda founds a way.”

Sixth Sense sniffled at Nominut’s rear. Channeling Guard Dog again. “Uhm. So. Okay. Harrier blocked himself up in the cafeteria, but he didn’t say why?”

Power Plant felt his stomach. “At least in the cafeteria, ’cause I’m hungry. I gonna whips me up a soup sandwich.”

“Nobody correct him.” Franchise scanned the room. “I want to see where this leads.”

Murdermaestro nodded at the viewscreen. “The Terran next to him is Preston Fallico, media-named Botch. He has the hypermutation you see there: puffy skin, which cushions against physical attacks and hugs. Anyway, Pendleton said he’d make his intentions clear to nobody but you, Legion. Wanted us to send you in the moment you arrived. You and you alone.” He shrugged. “We have no idea what move he’s making. The betting pool favors a good beatdown.”

“There are first no puffs of cream to speak of, and now he demands Legion? This angers me.” Leaning against a corner, Hearse finally said something. During the trip to the penitentiary, he hadn’t so much as used the toilet, and though the fortitude of this monolithic sentinel’s bladder impressed Legion, he crept Legion out twice as much. Why speak now? And, frankly, nothing pleased Hearse. Even when puppies had broken free from Station One’s pet store, Hearse acted as if he’d entered a garbage compactor he had to unclog, which Legion guessed was precisely how he’d chosen his career path. “Legion is under my guard, and this Harrier deviant shall not good-beatdown him. Legion, refuse his request.”

Legion began to fidget, grabbed a doodad whose purpose he didn’t know until he pressed its button and received a jolt of electricity. At least it played “Jingle Bells.” “Listen here, Hearse.” He stepped away from the life of the party on two legs. “You’re not my father. If I want Harrier to good-beatdown me, that’s my deci...Okay, starting over. You’re not my guard. If you were, you would have prevented Jeff from getting into Station One’s ground beef shipment to give me the surprise of my life.”

“But everybodies love a surprise hamburger,” Power Plant said.

“It’s true.” Sixth Sense was lapping his underarm, but he took a break. “Everybody loves a surprise hamburger.” He resumed.

“Not when it’s raw. Of all people, I shouldn’t have to clarify that to you, Hagen.” Legion had had enough of the jingling bells and squeezed the doodad in his grip to crush it. It wouldn’t give. It did give another jolt. “Anyway, my point is, Hearse, enough with this protection kick of yours. I don’t need it. This is my job, it used to include that man in there, and how is this tiny box of pain this resilient?” He dropped his hands to his sides. “Jeff, if you’re going to burn walls, it’s spelled m-a-e-s-t-r-o, not y-r-q-s-another-s-l-t and then the dance emoji.”

Power Plant looked over his shoulder. The wall he was branding smelled like cherry wood. “Name’s Murdermaestro.”

Murdermaestro sighed with his whole body.

“Why’s he in there anyway?” Power Plant strolled to Guard Dog, stole the antlers, and slipped them on. “One days he’s a Goods Guy—not even hairy, so medias name is stupid—next he in prison and not gettin’ harrier.” Half-chewed flecks of moist cookie rained from his mouth. The carpet would never be clean again.

Sixth Sense opened his mouth, so Legion fired him a scowl: Hagen, do not answer that question. Sixth Sense received the message, if not from the scowl then from Legion’s intense thought: If you blab this, your new media name will be Surprise Hamburger. Sixth Sense’s mouth clamped shut so suddenly his jaw clicked. You also have some of Jeff’s fortune cookie on your cheek.

“So. Um. Hold up. Wait. He wants Legion to go in?” Sixth Sense’s eyes crept around the room. He clearly wasn’t comfortable with the idea of Legion entering alone. This, he wasn’t comfortable with, but public tongue-bathing seemed respectable. Legion wished a chicken were around so Sixth Sense could absorb its thoughts and just cluck.

“I’ll be fine. I’ve survived worse. Remember, I once lived through a fashion bomb.” Legion shuddered. “Got caught in the blast and wore a flower dress for a week.”

“You was pretty.” Power Plant cracked open a fortune cookie and scanned its pithy wealth of knowledge. “My mistakes. Say heres ya wasn’t. Also says I should smack Jakey in—”

“So help me, Jeffy, it doesn’t!” Franchise threw up a defying finger.

Murdermaestro scratched his brow, though Legion knew it wasn’t itchy. “Lt. Col. Legion, if you’ll follow me, I’ll escort you to our prisoner.” He stood and motioned for Legion to follow. They marched toward the l-door—Legion took cover behind Hearse—which blurred away in a host of static fizz—Legion recovered from his blinding phobia—the usual story—blah blah blah.

Legion pulled Murdermaestro closer, checked over his shoulder at Power Plant, and then whispered from the side of his mouth, “Whatever you do, don’t let on what Harrier is in for around Power Plant. It’s a long story, but it could end with city blocks exploding because you said the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong idiot.”

Murdermaestro nodded. “Gotcha.” He sipped a coffee he had picked up. “Why does this taste like asparagus?”

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get good-beatdowned.” Legion reached the door. “Until I return, Ace, you’re in charge under Murdermaestro.” He observed Mabel conversing with a clock. “You know what? Mabel, you’re in charge.” He shrugged. “Sense of adventure.”

“Aye-aye, Mr. President.” Mabel saluted a coatrack. At some point, she’d decided the lunch bowl was a helmet.

“Jeff, you’re in charge of finding out exactly where she thinks we are.”

“Aye-ayes, Mr. President.”

Chapter Nine: Debauchery of Botchery

Master Asinine sprang to his feet when Station One drew close in their travel viewscreen, the scanner’s conversation of beeps, hoots, and violent murder screams like music. A “yesssss” hissed out of him slowly, menacingly, deflatingly. He felt anticipation so physical it tied sensations in his teeth like flossing with twine. But not really, this time.

He stood in this bright Warbird that he and his junior thugs had ridden here to within orbit of Station One. The Warbird was unusually lit for his liking. He preferred to mess things up in darkness, or at least that was how Schizophrenic put it, but today light panels dazzled brilliance all over the place. The rear deck was unruly with raw meat to keep their mindless eating machine Appetite from eating the Warbird. Though the meat stank like ammonia, the Bad Guy gargoyle kept chowing down. At this rate, it’d finish by noon o’clock.

The passenger deck held the regulars: Schizo, Amaranthia, Braindead, Lieutenant IQ 23, and Bad Aim. Schizophrenic bounced tennis balls into Bad Aim’s hoverdisc to see how many it could suck in: turned out all of them. Now it depended on how many it gobbled up before it choked and Bad Aim clattered into a tailspin to within Appetite’s feeding radius. He hoped all of them minus one. Entertainment.

The Bad Guys’ misguided mission remained: use the Fist Launcher to high-five Legion to within an inch of his hairless life. Their secondary mission: stop by a Space Cow with a children’s play area. Asinine needed to crawl through plastic tubing like a hamster. Also ball pits.

Hungry, Master Asinine had sneaked a flank of steak from Appetite when the creature wasn’t looking. He now bit down. Man, these things were rubbery when raw. He yanked a mouthful off and chewed. Tastier than biting the apples off his clothes, but, still...not for him. Tossed the steak aside and switched to the popcorn in the bowl sitting on the dashboard.

“Lieutenant, our mission draws close.” He licked his lips and tossed the popcorn at his mouth. Exactly none of the kernels got in, though he scored half points when a few poked him in the eye. Salty. Ow. “According to the timer on our travel viewscreen, we’re three minutes outside fist-launching range, which is the perfect range for launching fists at Legion. Studies have shown.”

“What studies?” Lefty hollered.

“Imaginary ones.”

Lieutenant IQ 23 sidestepped around Bad Aim to approach the viewscreen. His lifelong guardian and obsessive, Braindead, snapped to attention and followed, so eager that he tripped over a tennis ball as if he and IQ 23 were losing a three-legged race. In fact, might as well be. Now Asinine’s thoughts were rambunctious with ideas on fusing the two of them at the ankle. “Yes, sir, you’re correct.”

“For once,” grunted Lefty from the rear. Another tennis ball up Bad Aim’s disc. Now it smoldered with a hint of burned felt competing with the natural body odor of modeling clay, Bad Aim’s skin oil.

“And when the timer reaches zero, your Fist Launcher will be in range to release its knuckle-bump payload. Also, sir, popcorn tastes better if you pop it. And it won’t crack your teeth.”

“Yesssss about the timer reaching zero even though the jury’s still out about popcorn.” Another hissing assent from Asinine. So excited was he that everything came out in a slithering elongation. He tossed more kernels into his mouth. Ugh. That felt like a molar coming loose. “And the Good Guys’ present will be delivered.” An ahem from the back drew his attention. Fine. “As well as Franchise’s present, which Amaranthia assures me is an actual present.”

“Crocking right, gitch.”

Asinine sat. Drummed his fingers on the keyboard console in front of him. Watched an unintentional spray of laserfire blurt through a meteor. Watched an unintentional spray of canned snakes recoil off a civilian transport carrying a family of four. The Bad Guys’ April Fool’s arsenal, dispatched.

Something felt off. Asinine cupped his chin. He didn’t feel those butterflies of anticipation in his gut this time. Instead he felt caterpillars of disappointment. What was wrong? Well, aside from his urinary tract. To help him think, he grabbed another handful of popcorn to toss at his face, because who was he kidding? None of it was going where it should.

Then it came to him, that realization that smacked him in the forehead as all realizations did. Realizations gave him headaches. So did auto repair, basic sentence structure, and interactions with accountants. He missed his old friend, Legion. He hadn’t seen that green rapscallion since—he checked his mental calendar—about a month ago from five o’clock.

Master Asinine punctuated his thought with an exuberant finger in the air. “Lieutenant, set a course for pop-in!” Ow, that realization throbbed.

Schizophrenic snorted from the back. “You mean set a course for idiot.”

“Same thing. Lieutenant, we’re landing on Station One to pay Legion a firsthand visit.”

Lieutenant IQ 23 soured into a mixture of “this isn’t a good idea” and “this definitely isn’t a good idea.” Yeah, there went those pressed lips. “Sir”—he used that cautionary voice, same as whenever Asinine snapped on his swim gear around the electric-eel tank—“I would suggest this idea is ill advised.”

“This idea isn’t sick at all.” Asinine snatched the arms of his chair and propelled himself to a stand. “Control, acknowledge. Activate public-address mode.”

“Public-address mode activated,” the starship’s haunt control said.

“Sir, that uses the loudspeaker.”

Asinine massaged his gullet to prepare a public-address/belching mode of his own. Whapped his windpipe with two fingers to loosen it up. “And?”

“We’re still in space.”

“And?”

Lefty chuckled and smacked Righty’s forehead too hard for Righty to maintain consciousness. “Holy stinking crock, living sitcom. Short answer is sound can’t travel in space. Short and fun answer is sound can’t travel in space, and a stampede should trample you.”

“Logic me out, why don’t you? Fine. Control, acknowledge. Screw public-address mode—”

“Public-address mode being screwed.”

“—and gabber control, acknowledge. Contact entity Station One’s customer-service line.” Asinine covered the mouthpiece that zipped out of his gabber’s earbud. “I have them on memory dial.” He winked at Schizophrenic.

“No clue why you’re winking at me or thinking I give a crock, you solar-paneled nightclub.”

“Just go with it.”

“Ma’am! Yes, ma’am!” Schizophrenic flopped off a salute.

Master Asinine began leisurely pacing the cockpit. Ended up hip-checking the navigation machine, but it had it coming for piloting them through all those toll routes.

Finally, the gabber clicked through. “Hello? Who’s this?” a woman said. Impressive. It routed him to a person and not some selection tree. He hated butting heads with numbers.

“Uh, hello, receptionist, this is Master Asinine chatting you down.”

“You serious? I got out of the shower for this?”

“You certainly did, receptionist. Anyway, it’s your lucky day. The Bad Guys have arrived.”

“My name isn’t Receptionist. It’s Plastique.”

“Plastic?” Asinine stroked the dappled vinyl of the cockpit seat as he paced by.

“Plastique. With a teek.”

“Like the French version of plastic.”

“No, it’s—” A hush. “Okay, you just happen to be right, but only by coincidence. It’s actually an explosive compound, like my current mood. Why the crock are you here? The only answers that won’t make me want to twist off my own head are ‘giving ourselves up’ and ‘blowing ourselves up.’”

“Well, get ready to do the twist because my Bad Guys and I are here to pay my friend Legion a special surprise visit. So...you know...surprise.” And then jazz hands.

“Please don’t. Nobody likes your surprises.”

“But I did jazz hands just now to lock this deal.”

“Still, we all hate you.”

“Ah, ha ha. Good one. You can’t possibly hate me. I’m the bee in your bonnets.” Asinine stopped pacing at the travel viewscreen. “Anyway, I haven’t seen Legion since too long ago, so I figured it was time to come on down. Besides, I’ve always wanted to try that yogurt stand in your food court.”

A crack over the gabber was probably French Plastic slapping her forehead in disbelief that her day would soon brighten thanks to a pop-in from Asinine. She probably felt giddy with delight. “Look, this is a military base, and you’re a wanted criminal. You can’t just barge in, even if you and I have the same opinion of yogurt.”

“No, not barge in. Pop in. And, yeah, we can. Since you installed the shopping complex and opened the station to the public, your alarms aren’t exactly on.”

The gabber issued a scraping sound: French Plastic grinding her teeth in expectant glee? “Okay, that’s on us, but still. Anyway, Legion isn’t even here right now.”

“Not even there?” Asinine froze mid–jazz hand. “How is that possible? He barely leaves and also never leaves.”

“True as that is, he’s on a mission.”

“Something doesn’t add up, French Plastic.”

“That’s not my—”

“I’m coming down to investigate.” Asinine glanced over his shoulder. “And also to use the toilet since Appetite ate all our toilet paper. And the toilet.” He glanced again. “And the bathroom. Anyway, we’ll be there in maybe two minutes. No, more like three. No, wait, we can make it in two if we hurry.” He wrung a hand on his chin. “Then again, we’re still breaking this thing in, and we shouldn’t take it too fast. But...” He huhhed, rolled a popcorn kernel around his teeth. “Lieutenant, what does it mean when someone says, ‘Crash and die,’ and then hangs up? Never mind. If you tell me, we won’t make our two-minute deadline, and you’ll probably tell me I’m going to regret this. Control, acknowledge. Let’s crash on die. I mean, crash on down.”

“Command not rec—”

Asinine whipped a hand at his junior thugs. “Okay, party animals, set your weapons on pop-in because we’re popping in!”

“Sir, again, this is ill advi—”

“Lieutenant, quick tip: life is better with less humdrum and more razzle-dazzle.” Asinine breathed a snigger and patted IQ 23’s back with a jovial thump. “Okay, everyone. Let’s get ready to rumble. And Appetite, I’m making bibs part of your mandatory dress code.”

Chapter Ten: Rogue’s Gallery of the Glitterati

Blackguard weaved through this sweat-marinated, ground-floor cellblock with its sales elf here and its kinara there and its fairy-hyena mystery thing that way. Perhaps something Virillian. After all, fairy hyenas were their chief export. He ignored the cackling and hooting from the chaff who populated this plebian asylum, hands clawing at them along staticky shield screens. Hands and tentacles. And, in one bizarre case, a tongue. Those tongues had faces that screeched at Blackguard, at Brother Plaster, at Brother Ripsaw, leered wonderingly at the feral Gangrene. They quickly cemented their attentions to Sister Marionette, who silenced their catcalling into held breath.

Fewer hands, more tongues now.

Blackguard wished to progress quickly to observe the situation in the refectory. With what unfolded there, most staff had been ordered to evacuate the hypermutation blocks to decrease unknown factors. Only a skeleton crew remained, and Continuum’s flawless instructions had allowed Blackguard and the others to avoid running into them.

Right now, they journeyed through the cellblock containing offenders who boasted hypermutations related to strength and durability. And the lion’s share of baby Cupids. However, farther on, their path would wind them around to the refectory when the situation there grew chaotic.

Blackguard knew the inmates’ jeers all meant the same: insecurity masked behind bravado. “You come close to my bars, I’m gonna shank you, you shadow foo’.” “Mess wit’ me, I mess wit’ yo noseless face, crock!” “Patty-cake, pat—” Come again? Blackguard halted. Hardened criminals did not “pat-ty-cake.” Oh, wait. This one was here for questionable rationality. Blackguard could tell because of the face he wore. He wore it over his own face.

Back to his original thought. Blackguard marched on, strolling soundlessly down the hall that led past this cellblock and into other parts of this colony of penal, such as the Boxing Day sales elf cellblock. He vowed to return, though. He yearned to discover the fate of this baker’s man.

Brother Plaster quickened pace to catch up to Blackguard. Gangrene paddled along beside him, skin pustules popping like festering boils. Brother Plaster coughed into a fist. “Hey, Blackguard, where’s this Good Guy we’re gettin’? The one wit’ the wings.”

Blackguard slowed not his stride. “Brother Plaster, that is not the concern this day. We shall simply progress in our cause to acquire the new member of our brethren, the one with clipped wings. Your body odor may become the concern this day, however.”

“You use rottin’ flesh as roll-on deodorant, so suck it. Anyway, glad the new member ain’t that guy wit’ the bomber jacket.” Brother Plaster rounded his shoulders. “Sick o’ hearin’ about how he’s gonna frazz for the jazz.” He shocked himself into a straighter posture. “Oh, crock, was he comin’ on to me this whole time?”

“Let us concentrate on our task so as to sooner depart this abode of inferiors and its deposits of urine.”

“Hey, those urine deposits are character.” Brother Ripsaw sliced his arm blades along a brick column between two shield screens. A Chinese New Year dragon fell in halves. “I was incarcerated here for more than a year, so where do you get off calling it an abode of inferiors?”

“I ‘get off’ because you mortals equate manliness with how hot you make your salsa.” Blackguard regarded Brother Ripsaw with a curl of his lip.

Blackguard cared not for his followers. They meant less than the urine footprints he now tracked along this floor. And stupider as well: Blackguard grew more suspicious that Brother Ripsaw was sincere when he asked to stop at the recharge station for drinking lubricant. And if Blackguard found one more pair of pantaloons among those Terrans, he would display new levels of righteous fury.

No, Blackguard guided them only because Lord Continuum said they were vital to the plan. Blackguard regarded them unworthy even to open a jar of pickled eggs for their master. Lord Continuum loved his pickled eggs. However, the one they sought today, the one imprisoned here, was more imperative than these fools.

“Anyway, new question.” Brother Plaster snapped his fingers. Impressive he had generated a record number of thoughts this hour: two. “If we’re teleportin’ all ’round the friggin’ place, why not just dunk in to this wing dude’s cell, grab him up, and zap out?” He leered at a cell. “An’ you, ya jumpsuit-wearin’ crocker, you pucker them lips at me again, an’ I’ll rip ’em off. I ain’t ever done that before, so I ain’t gonna do it clean.” Brother Plaster’s brow lowered in a second thought. “Oh, wait. Ripped ’em off a duck once.” He almost tripped over his feet to side-step past the cell. “Duck lips tastes good, by the way.”

Blackguard wished for no further distractions while they traveled about this cellblock. After all, judging from the scents here, perhaps this was where the skunk-related hypermutants were confined. The correctional officers could use compost to mask the dead-animal zest here. He wished to spend as little time as possible around the wet-dog man. “Brother Plaster, I had explained this outside already.” He stopped at a door and allowed it to fade before proceeding. “We do not simply ‘dunk in to this dude’s cell’ because Stavehill Hyperperson Penitentiary’s fields are especially attuned to teleportation. It is, after all, a hyperability prone to escapes. Therefore, we cannot supersede traveling through a three-dimensional plane. We must walk or, in Sister Marionette’s case, complain about her nose job. And if you force me to utter dude again, I shall fricassee you.” Lightning scrabbled outside a window, and Blackguard felt its hotness prickle him. He stepped away.

“Hello, little boy.” A singsong voice fluttered from a cell, distorted with a slight buzz as it filtered through the shield screen. Blackguard stopped. He pivoted his head to regard the sneering inmate, who twiddled his fingers like probing spider legs and winked. Though Blackguard stood at an imposing height—taller than seven feet—and scalded one with fear, this shirtless, rock-muscled creature stood even taller. Blackguard pursed his vague lips when he surmised the prisoner. The inmate’s fingers were as thick as baby back ribs. Skin as leathery as a belt. Muscles as pronounced as camel humps. Eyes as steely as ball bearings. Spine as knobby as an archipelago in the ocean of his thickset back. Eyebrow as one. “You’re a purdy baby. C’m here, lemme cradle you in my arms.” The inmate leaned against the shield screen, which crackled a kzzzk.

Data about the inmate jittered across the shield screen, cycling through random facts: name and media-name, rap sheet, physical characteristics, story about that time in high school, story about that other time in high school, what was stuck in his teeth. Why must the second story always involve farming equipment? Some clichés were true to life.

“Your data identifies you as Pigmeat.” Blackguard’s eyes flickered from the inmate’s craterous naval to his face. “Do you mock me, Pigmeat?”

“An’ what were them two times in high school all ’bout?” Brother Plaster, ever ready with the relevant inquiries. The next flicker of info flashed onto the screen. “Ooooohhhhhhhh. Well, serves ya right for tryin’ that wit’ a bicycle tire.”

“Oh, yeah, I mock you, tiny head.” Pigmeat licked his lips. “I’d love to have you in my cell. Twist your pretty arms off and juggle them.” The inmate’s smile curled with eagerness.

“Mm-hmm.” Blackguard nodded as if a dealer had informed him his desired transport was not available in red. “You can juggle only two items?”

Pigmeat’s smile wrinkled. “Huh?”

“Do you indeed taste like the meat of a swine? May I find out?”

Again...“Wwwha—”

Blackguard thrust up—through the shield screen—left hand whittled into a blade of shadow—slipped through the submandibular triangle under Pigmeat’s chin—entered the brain that composed inciting inquiries such as “Huh” and “Wha”—separated the two halves—slid out the top of the skull. Blackguard observed Pigmeat’s spasms, death throes as quiet as habitual tics. He wished to remain here until infinity and watch Pigmeat’s cheek twitch forever. His insides felt wonderfully sinewy.

Alas, he had a mission.

“Nnnnnice cut,” cooed Brother Ripsaw.

“I thought we wasn’t supposed to kill the inmates, sugah.” Sister Marionette tsked and shook her head at the attack, stroking her cable of hair among the lacquered nails she used to scratch her armpit.

“Pigmeat would not have altered the events to come later today or Lord Continuum’s plan. Therefore he is allowed to die.” Blackguard watched Pigmeat’s eyes roll up, his tongue loll. “Observe: unlike teleportation, molding my form is one such hyperability more powerful than this facility’s dampeners.” He wrenched out his arm, a suctionlike kiss puckering the air. Pigmeat’s body failed to gravity onto a Halloween rug shaped as a woolly ghost.

Blackguard continued stroll-floating down the catwalk. “Let us journey onward, brothers and sister. Hopefully more inconsequential inmates will challenge us. I desire new kills to add to my execution resume.”

“Holy crock, izzat a thing? Tell me that’s a thing. I’m makin’ execution resumes a thing.” Brother Plaster rumbled a musing to himself, “I need ta focus more on my portfolio.”

Chapter Eleven: From the Mouths of Apes

Legion entered the cafeteria, Murdermaestro behind.

A song trickled through the room, same as the rest of the facility. So before returning to surveillance, Murdermaestro issued a quick command: “Peggy, acknowledge. Stop audio broadcast.” Peggy obeyed: Has-Been and the Never Weres stopped rasping about the pitfalls of the Dewey Decimal System in penitentiary libraries.

It was bright in here—hotly bright—as if the light panels goggled at Legion like the murder eyes of all those Bargain Bojango faces on the walls. Before his sight adjusted, he shielded his vision with a hand. Wwwow. He stood under a light panel that tried its hardest to blind him or at least make him see spots for the rest of the day. Or both, if Janice and Peggy talked.

A gaping aisle separated the stretch of tables ahead of him in two halves. Harrier waited at the other end on a tabletop with carvings etched in it that the haunt control hadn’t healed. Some carvings were initials inside hearts. The love was strong in this jail.

Warden Hammeker stood beside the table, not on it, because, not to mince words, he couldn’t shop at regular pants stores. Was that mincing words?

Circling the bullet hole in the cross of his Alaphan necklace with an errant finger, Legion cleared his throat. In here, it sounded like a forewarning from a storm cloud. He edged forward, boots knocking on gleaming tiles. This would normally feel ominous, but Legion had just left an enclosed space with Power Plant, the guy whose loftiest New Year’s resolution was to be portrayed in fewer news dramatizations.

“Stop,” Harrier barked, so Legion did. “Unarmed?”

Legion took a second to process the word, wondering what level of sunblock he should have worn under these light panels. “Yeah. No weapon.”

“Good. Come forward.” Harrier tickled the air with his fingers. He had grown bossy in his incarceration. Legion had seen worse from drill sergeants and pharmacists. He shrugged it off and progressed down the center aisle until he reached Harrier. From this vantage, he was taller than the seated Harrier, who must have grown accustomed to the light because he didn’t squint. “Hello, Legion.”

What, no handshake? “Harrier. Love what you’ve done with your hair.”

“Nothing. I’ve done bloody well nothing.”

“Work with me. This is the first time we’ve talked since Intergalactic Protection’s barbers haven’t massacred it.” Legion gawked up at Harrier’s sidekick. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, aphid breath.”

The sidekick chewed wetly. Botch, was it? He shifted his weight. “Camel spider?” he asked with an outstretched offering.

Legion lifted a hand. “Thanks, no. They’re not for me. It’s the texture, not the taste.” Leg hairs.

Harrier gave a silent nod. He swallowed and scooched aside. “Take a seat.”

“I’d rather not. I’ve been sitting all day and—”

“Take the blooming seat.” Harrier wore a dogged glower, but the gun that cracked out a light-bullet near Legion’s face was what fine-tuned the threat.

“This is really souring our reunion.” Legion stepped onto the table bench and plopped himself down next to Harrier. “Like the chair.” He brushed his fingers over its cool surface. “Excellent lumbar support.”

“Camel spider?” came the offering again.

Legion turned greener at the snack. “No. Again. Thank you. They don’t serve milkshakes here, I’m guessing.”

Harrier tapped a couple of things on his fashionable bracelet and then found his sidekick. “Dear Botch, if you would kindly trot over to Hammeker, unhook the wanker’s ID bracelet, and clasp it around Legion’s neck, I would feel greatly honored. Hammeker, hold out your wrist please.”

Botch folded shut the flaps of his takeout box and carefully placed it on the table. He shuffled over to Hammeker. Harrier grimaced, elbows dangling off legs in a slouch, gun hanging off one hand, and issued a belabored breath. “Today would be positively sublime, Hammeker.”

Hammeker whinnied but obeyed. Botch unhooked the ends of Hammeker’s ID bracelet and slid it off his wrist. He then fastened the bracelet around Legion’s neck. Legion stretched out his chin and angled his head up. Glad to help.

Harrier was already tapping on his own bracelet. “Excellent. Thank you, Hammeker.” Snapped his gun up in a liquefied spin that would make cowboys envious. A gunshot barked through the cafeteria, so abrupt and sharp Legion covered the pinnas on his antennae.

Hammeker smacked against a wall and dropped, a hole carved through his temple. He’d at least knocked down one of the Murder Bojangos. Legion shuddered, sat ramrod straight, and blinked at the corpse deflated at the foot of the table. “You—you executed him!”

“And?”

Legion composed himself, let his back settle into a curve that a chiropractor would slap him for. He swallowed. “Was it Mechanism who taught you to be the coldblooded type?”

Harrier twitched in a mirthless laugh that resembled a serrated edge. The gunshot that had barked through the warden’s head still echoed. “Did I ruin the happy ending you expected here? Were you to ride him off into the sunset later? I’ll use him for glue, if that comforts you, you bloody warmonger.”

“You shoot the warden and use bloody to describe me.” Legion sniffled. “Why did you call me here?”

By this time, Botch had returned to his sentry point by Harrier’s side, opened his box, and continued picking through the insects. “Camel spider?” he offered.

Legion refused with the same polite gesture as before. “Look, Botch, you seem like a nice inflatable dummy, so I don’t want to be mean. But unless my palate changed in the last thirty seconds, I’ll give yet another fervent no. I’m morally opposed to eating any animal named after two other animals, catfish excluded. But let’s revisit this when you forget again. Say, in ten seconds?” He looked at Harrier. “The color of his poop must be interesting.”

“Legion, your attention please.” Harrier snapped his fingers. “First, let me offer you the same preface I offered Hammeker before I sacked him. What you wear around your neck is my Life Monitor. Consider yourself on a leash. Disconnect it, tamper with it, allow someone else to, and we will be blown to bloody bits. Gruesomely.” He shook the Life Monitor. “Understand?”

“I do hate being bloody bits. This sounds like Incentive Tech’s gym watch that released scarab beetles when your rest period elapsed.”

“I could not care less how far their execs progressed on their bucket lists. I have a question for you, Legion. I know the answer, but I want to hear this in your own blooming words. I expect our answers to differ greatly. It’s a question I’ve wanted to ask since I woke up after”—he flexed his shoulder blades as if to flap his missing wing—“I lost this. So, since the Good Guys began operation, since you have led that farcical band of tosspots and pranksters, what exactly have you achieved?” Harrier had been staring across the hall at the door, but now he fixed his attention on Legion so keenly that Legion expected a laser pointer to trace across him. “What have you accomplished?”

“We cleaned up the red mold in the lobby.”

“Enough jokes.” Harrier whacked a fist on the table. It rattled a salt shaker.

“It’s my coping method whenever someone is feasting on insects.” He lifted a squeeze bottle to Botch. “Ketchup?”

Harrier snatched away the squeeze bottle and hurled it against a Bargain Bojango, splattering a jagged mustache over Bojango’s beard. “Let me explain what you have accomplished then, if you insist on playing the blinking comedian. You’ve accomplished nothing. For all of your time, for all of your missions, for everyone you put into service, the sum of your efforts is nothing. In fact, you have produced misrule and anarchy instead of order.” He shifted his weight on the table. “During my nine years with the military before my service with the Good Guys, I realized that disorder and chaos are societal poisons. I learned this the hard way when my impetuousness led my squad to their deaths. I learned that order brings victory closer. It reduces variables from equations. If you seek success, you fit your circumstance in a grip of order.

“Disorder, however, holds the opposite. It introduces pandemonium and anarchy. It destroys. It harms. It devastates. It is a bollocks. It maims and disfigures. It amputates.” Harrier flexed his wingless stub again. “It is as dangerous as any warlord or dictator—”

“Like Mechanism?”

“Heh.” Harrier raised a talon. “Mechanism was an agent of order. He sought structure and sequence for the solar system of Renovodomus and, later, Stratus Cloud. He strived to eliminate the byproduct of disorder by eliminating the madheads who did not function on a level required to sustain the organization that would end the destruction chaos brings.”

“He was an exterminator.”

“He was a visionary.”

“He wanted to liquidate society.” Legion felt himself heating up. “His ‘order’ killed some of our friends. Remember Burnout? Smithereens? Reef?” Legion bared his teeth at Harrier. “Next time you want to browbeat me on your revolting principles, gabber me instead. Would save me the trip.” Legion diverted his posture from Botch slurping down a millipede. Blech. “You don’t reach into the hollow of a tree for the honey, do you?”

Harrier twitched out another laugh, but this one showed more smile. “You shall soon discover why I called you here.” He tapped something on his bracelet again. “Your mind will blow blooming wide.”

* * *

The signal. Huh. Okay.

Wait, the signal? The signal! His gabber pulsed warmly in his ear, and he kicked his heels off the desk he used as a footrest. He sputtered the fog from his sleepy brain and sadly bade good-bye to that dream in which he had literally any other job. Such as shoveling elephant poop. Crazy how life worked.

Since Harrier had arrived here last month, he’d been talking about Mechanism’s ambitions: to bring order back to society. And, weird as it sounded, he made sense. Bailwick saw more and more chaos in this joint with every knife fight or sock full of soap. So making a believer out of him wasn’t hard. Every day he listened to more of what Harrier had to say until Harrier mentioned he had plans to realize Mechanism’s goal. And then he told Bailwick he needed help. Wham. Bailwick was in.

Bailwick slipped outside—tripped over a box of reindeer props—where he had privacy, away from the others and the buzz and drone of the surveillance room. Ow, ow, ow, stubbed his toe, crock. “Contr—” He choked up drool crinkling in his throat, stuff he’d accumulated in his sleep. It had leaked down the wrong pipe, and now he expelled a bug-eyed coughing fit. Wiped his cheek with the back of his wrist. Some of that was phlegm, some was alcohol, and some was neon. “Control, acknowledge. Unlock all hypermutation cells and doors.”

Release the hypermutant inmates. Initiate the second part of the plan.

And have a doctor check that neon stuff.

* * *

“Attention, suckers.”

“I likes where this is going.” Power Plant slapped a tabletop. He hadn’t been called a sucker since he opened up an account at that curbside bank.

“All hypermutation cells and doors are unlocked. Now—”

“Wait, what?” blurted Ace Spandex.

“—is a good time to say your prayers—”

“Wait, what?”

“—and update your wills because—”

“Wait. What?”

“—your beneficiaries will love the crazy low prices at Dewey, Cheatem, Howe, and Hackneyed Jokes.”

“Extremely crocking wait! What?” Pause to breathe. Ace whirled around, tripped over Guard Dog, spilled Sixth Sense and Plammert aside, and careened onto one of the many viewscreens that began sprouting across the room. The viewscreens crammed the small quarters with displays that showed reasons one through forty-eight why going to the bathroom earlier was Power Plant’s smartest move ever.

Murdermaestro helped Ace to his feet. “Hey, that’s no way to treat a lady.”

Sixth Sense raised a hand hidden in his sleeve. “Uhm. Please. I’m not a—”

“This isn’t the time for your stammering, woman!” Ace gripped the viewscreen he’d bumbled into with white-knuckled hands and wrestled it from its position.

Each viewscreen showed the horror of shield screens fizzing away from jail cells. The Halloween adornments around them didn’t relax anyone either. The screens misted away in spume, like froth from the foot of a waterfall. Power Plant checked over Ace’s shoulder. The tickertape along the bottom of each viewscreen’s display scrolled like a parade newscast. “Boils and Cysts Cellblock: Inmates released in roaring and abscess celebration. Bring your kids. Free leprechaun beards from our St. Patty’s Day stash.”

“This is crocking nuts!” Ace grabbed another viewscreen, then another, then another and another—paused to delicately remove the wreath—and another and—Was he checking each? There were—Power Plant counted with a finger—eight. Or a hundred. Or—Crock, call it eight.

As portentous as church bells tolling, a clamor clobbered the garlanded halls, rolling closer, louder. The clamor reached the surveillance room, and a humongous lizard man materialized in the gap left by the vanishing l-door. He hissed, his abundant tail thrashing about the room’s light breeze and whacking the door frame. It left a crack. The lizard licked his hungry lips with a five-inch tongue, wringing his hands, standing at the head of a swelling crowd that included a woman wearing a shower curtain as a suit. That she saw this fashion statement as ordinary...that was frightening.

The lenient set of Murdermaestro’s eyes chiseled into a silent challenge, as if one eye said, “Bring,” the other said, “It,” and his nose whistled, “On.” “Looks as though we have a mess to clean. Get ready for battle. Sixth Sense, girl, count us down from three.”

“Uhm. Uh. Wait—”

“Good. And, Peggy”—those eyes narrowed—“prepare my fight music montage.”

“Playing track one of Melee Mix: Pat Benatar’s ‘We Belong.’”

“Gotta loves fight time.” Power Plant tried to high-five Ace Spandex, but Ace left him hanging for whatever reason. He tried Mabel, but she was as blind as a bat and kept adding hot sauce to her tea. The shower-curtained woman high-fived him though. “Guard Dog, attacks!” Guard Dog was chasing dream rabbits.

Snap. Franchise held the fragments of an open fortune cookie in his unsteady hands. Read the message. “We’re screwed.” He gulped. “Hold on. I’ll get a second opinion.” He dropped the broken cookie. Quieter snap. “Crap. Lemme check the magic eight ball.”

Ace Spandex swatted the eight ball out of his hand.

Louder crash.

* * *

Legion didn’t like the snarl in Harrier’s eyes. He also didn’t like that Botch had stomached half a box of insects.

Harrier said, “I released the inmates in the hypermutation wings, simply because we are among them. As luck would have it, the hyperstasis field won’t affect them. The field prevents their hypermutations from growing—may even reduce those that require a constant secretion from the hypergland—but mutations can’t be bloody put in stasis.”

“Why are you doing this?” Legion lunged at Harrier, the device around his neck clattering.

Harrier threw Legion off of him. “You need to witness what chaos inflicts.” He said this to Legion, but stared ahead, the snarl in his eyes rising to glee, the sated lion hungering, the vein atop his head throbbing. He resembled that tramp on Station One who’d made off with Legion’s socks.

Legion glanced to the end of the cafeteria. His stomach churned more kerosene. He unfolded his legs and stepped backward from the table bench onto the top. Pressed his back against the cold faux-brick behind him, which wasn’t nearly as cold as the dread that iced his heart or as ominous as his last medical assessment.

Inmates swarmed through the door. One pirouetted in, but Legion wasn’t judging.

Chapter Twelve: The Sound of Common Decency’s Final Dying Breath

Plastique heard Janice’s report that Asinine had entered the lobby building. Janice recommended summoning the reinforced shutters on all the exits to trap Asinine, but Plastique declined: she’d rather throttle him senseless herself, and she had just the hockey stick for the job. She appreciated the sisterhood though.

She decided to meet Asinine in Legion’s office since Legion usually cursed him out here. So she came, a shotgun at her side, and planted herself in the office chair, feet on the datasheet-swathed desk. One heel pressed into a datasheet that complained bitterly. As long as it didn’t hold her pay information, she wasn’t budging.

Just in case Asinine couldn’t remember his way here from the lobby, Plastique had instructed Janice to direct him using a guidance line that kept changing color in vibrant throbs to confuse him. Janice responded by calling her a crocking tool and then pointed out that she could do nothing to Janice. Then she snort-laughed. So much for sisterhood. Little witch.

Still, a knock at Legion’s office door indicated that Janice had obeyed and Plastique had a chance to use her new beating stick. “Hello? Everyone’s favorite and only Master Asinine is here, and he brought his favorite and only Junior Asinine.”

“That’s very kind of you, sir.”

“Only the best derivative name for my second-in-command.”

Plastique felt disappointment and contentment melt through her: disappointment that she’d have to deal with this idiot, and contentment that she’d have to deal with this idiot. And the idiot had brought his idiot-in-training. Double the fun. “Janice, acknowledge. Unlock closest door.”

“Closest door unlocked, scum.”

Plastique formed a fist but rested assured that she owned several rare-earth magnets and knew where Janice’s central memory was kept. The door whooshed aside, and its absence revealed Master Asinine and his question-marked toady. Asinine covered his face, while the toady just looked wrong.

“Wow, that guidance line is tattooed in my sight now.” Asinine uncovered his face and blinked widely. “I can still see it.” He swaggered in as confidently as if he didn’t wear a costume ugly enough to rekill the dead. It was an apple outfit so voluminous he wore the whole orchard. “Hello. Legion?” He smiled with the usual jangle of grinning teeth and ducked his head in, first examining the left and then the right. “Where are you?” Yogurt draped his chin.

“He’s not here.” Plastique cleaned the shotgun with a white rag until it gleamed. Never bright enough. She felt as if she were meeting a daughter’s boyfriend. Yes, this was what life had come to. “I told you he was out before you came down, but you still showed up to ruin my day.”

Master Asinine finally found Plastique at the desk. “Hi. And you are?”

Plastique’s feet slapped the carpet, and a rainfall of datasheets followed. “Seriously? I’m Plastique. We spoke not even ten minutes ago. We’ve fought at least a dozen times! You wore getups twice as ugly as what you’re wearing now, and I lived to tell the tale.”

“Nice visual grit, then.” Asinine gave her a sincere thumbs-up. “Wait. You were the one I fought in the diamond-studded swim gear.”

“Flippers and all. You kicked remarkably well in those.”

“So you’re French Plastic.” Asinine swayed forward for a handshake. Plastique ignored the hand.

“Yes. French Plastic. I see the question-marked talk of the town is here, but where’s the rest of your entourage?”

“They have strict orders to fan out and find me a sandwich. Schizophrenic also has strict orders to stop calling me a nobody’s nobody.”

Plastique kicked one of the two visitor’s chairs from under the table so that it floated out the opposite side. She resumed cleaning her shotgun, not dignifying Asinine with eye contact when she commanded, “Sit.”

Amid the chair’s squeaks and groans, Asinine and Lieutenant IQ 23 both tried to comply. They quickly discovered they couldn’t comply at the same time. Plastique only wished that were true: no, the truth was they both tried to wedge into the chair meant for only a single butt (of jokes). Why wasn’t she filming this?

Plastique didn’t know what to do: crack these goons in the face or crack these goons in the sternum. Holy crock, Asinine had once declared himself the sixty-third element on the Periodic Table, and he was outstupiding that right now. Plastique could bludgeon herself with this shotgun and enjoy that more than this meeting or whenever her attempts to redeem expired coupons ended in a fistfight. “Lieutenant No IQ, stand. Asinine, sit.”

“That makes more sense,” Asinine said. “That makes more sense.” Lieutenant IQ 23 stepped aside to allow him the chair. “That definitely makes more sense.” He glanced around at the ambiance, the brown carpet, the adorned walls. “Love what Legion did to the place. Is that cloud picture new?”

“That’s a window. I need to tell you something, and I doubt you’ll like it or understand most of it.”

Master Asinine paled. “Test patterns aren’t effective brainwashing techniques?” He swiveled around and sprang from his seat. “Lieutenant, turns out I owe you an apology and a replacement set of chinaware.”

Yeah, maybe this shotgun was the saner idea.

Chapter Thirteen: Shadow Day

Plaster trailed behind Blackguard and his bouquet o’ slaughter on this second-floor catwalk. That vicious whiff reminded Plaster o’ rotted gore and dead bodies if those bodies were stuffed into other dead bodies an’ then more other dead bodies. It tasted like hot ash an’ dried hamburger on his tongue. A carrion barbecue. Like his last dinner attempt. Crock, now he was ruined for turduckens and Russian nesting dolls. Also—ugh—those dead bodies all wore socks. An’ now he was ruined for laundry.

On the left was more cells wit’ more ugly criminals an’ more catcalls an’ more awkward eye contact thanks to open-concept toilets. If only all the inmates had cleared outta their cells when the block got freed, the cells’d be empty. Three catwalks ago, Plaster had stopped readin’ the data scratchin’ across the cells’ shield screens after he learned about the interestin’ thing one chick did wit’ funnel cake an’ a pigeon’s severed head. Ain’t no one should do that to funnel cake. Shield screen said she was here for serious time, an’ she deserved it. Animal mutilation locked ya up for twenty to thirty. Cake mutilation? Life.

Strung popcorn draped a flank o’ windows on their right. The windows blurred everythin’ through grunge, soot, an’—for the grand prize—someone’s tooth. But whenever Plaster glanced at them windows, he caught a glimpse of a workers’ lounge, the pen’s gym, an’ now—Plaster leaned closer an’ peered down to the groun’ floor—the cafeteria? Yeah, the cafeteria. He squinted. It was bright down there, like Mr. Clean’s pet project. An’ way too Boxin’ Dayish.

Up ahead, where the catwalk bent right, thunder crackled, lightnin’ scraped the ground outside them windows. Blackguard shirked away from the lightnin’ as though someone was grabbin’ for him, an’ black coils crawled outta his skin like they was scared. Big tarry dude was a rainaphobe? Plaster noticed tonight he ain’t never approached them exterior windows.

Plaster grabbed a popcorn string. Started snackin’. Tasted like bubble wrap. He checked down an interior window at the cafeteria. Finally, they was at the cafeteria, an’ now Blackguard had finally shut up about observin’ the situation in the refecto-whatever.

“Whoa, hey.” He stopped short, licked his lips o’ popcorn crumbs, an’ bumped his forehead against the window to see more closer. “I know that guy.” He jabbed a finger at the window, pointed to the ground floor. “That’s Legion down there. Got his back against a wall.” Legion was pressin’ his palms against that wall like he wanted to sink into it. He was crawlin’ against it to the corner o’ the cafeteria, inchin’ to the door on the side that led to prob’ly the cook’s counter. Looked scared o’ somethin’, but Plaster couldn’t crane his neck through the window to find out what. Heh. What Plaster wouldn’t give to pluck them little antennae off Legion’s ears. “I’ll braid his antennae together.” Let the world know.

Next to Legion sat that winged dude, Harrier. Harrier didn’t look as spooked as Legion. “So we here to grab a former Good Guy?”

“Yes, Brother Plaster,” Blackguard said. He an’ the others hadn’t stopped walkin’, so they was up ahead a lot near the corner. But now Blackguard stopped, him an’ his uncanny stench o’ laundry turducken. The others stopped too. Gangrene lathered himself up wit’ that long an’ ridged tongue. Blackguard still kept close to the opposite side o’ the hall, away from them exterior windows. “You are correct, a rare occurrence.”

“Cool. Maybe I get a gold star then. Anyway, clipped wings, eh? Harrier. He’s wearin’ orange prison duds, so he ain’t a Good Guy no more, I guess. Dunno who he macked off to land in here, but he’s your guy.” Plaster jabbed a finger against the window. It clinked. “He still got one wing, but who’s countin’?” Plaster was. Good for him.

“One clipped wing. You think too linearly, too literally.”

“Don’t matter what type o’ aly I think like. Lemme smash this window an’ we can hop down, scoop him up, an’ skedaddle so your murder stench don’t water my eyes no more.”

Blackguard sighed up at the ceiling. He did that a lot around Plaster. “Brother Plaster, we will remain according to Father Continuum’s plan. We have an agenda, and we will not deviate. Let us press onward.”

Plaster slurped off his suctioned forehead from the window. “But it’ll take thirty seconds. He’s right down there! Gangrene, stop cleanin’ your crotch. It just ain’t right in public.”

Blackguard glared wit’ his tarry face. He’d get lucky only if someone set him up on a blind date wit’ a driveway. “Brother Plaster, our agenda allows for none of your input. Our Lord Continuum has set us about a goal. Let us continue toward that goal.” He said this overtop Gangrene’s slatherin’. “Gangrene, dignify yourself.”

Ripsaw placed the blunt end of an applicator to his temple an’ pressed the button. The applicator removed his superspeed, but it also kept him from seein’ Woody, some hallucination of a Terran that kept croppin’ up to give him a hard time. From what Plaster knew, Woody seemed like an easygoin’ dude, but Ripsaw hated him. If he existed, Plaster woulda shook his hand. “Blackguard, if you want, I’ll slit Gangrene’s crocking artery.”

“Hey, you kiss your mom wit’ that mouth?” Plaster munched more popcorn off the string.

“My mom’s dead.” Ripsaw put the applicator away.

“’Cause you kissed her wit’ that mouth.”

Blackguard looked urgent to keep movin’. “Do not harm Gangrene. He forages the food we drop at mealtimes. Thus, we need not search for dropped crumbs or vacuum before bugs are attracted. Besides, we have a goal infinitely more important than killing our own: we have another to induct into our ranks. This goal is as important as our goals of avoiding dropped crumbs and bug attraction, and it will not be delayed by mopping arterial blood off walls.”

“Gangrene eats his own vomit.”

“He cleans up after himself. He is a good boy.”

“Stop scratchin’ his ear.”

Blackguard pulled up from his hunch. “We will progress according to our master’s plan. We will not deviate. We will not question Lord Continuum. Am I understood?”

“But Harrier’s right down there!” Plaster’s eyes crawled up Blackguard. A long trip considerin’ this guy was seven feet o’ sock stench. “If we’re quick enough, we can mess Legion up at the same time. You know how long I wanted to braid his antennae together?”

“The length of this conversation,” Blackguard responded. He still avoided the exterior window.

“’Zactly. So let’s get ta business.” Plaster reared back to smash the window.

Ripsaw resumed sliding his sleeve’s razors together. “You want me to slit Plaster’s artery?” His mom-kissin’ mouth looked as unclear as Blackguard’s under his spandexy facemask.

Plaster stomped toward Ripsaw and grabbed the scrawny racist by the neck, lifted him up, slammed him against a wall. “I been sick o’ you since you started namin’ your bathroom breaks after rides at the water park.”

“Put on a good show this time, boys.” Marionette, festively wearin’ an ugly Boxin’ Day sweater she’d found lyin’ around, propped a foot against a shield screen. It sizzled wit’ electricity. She crossed her arms over Bargain Bojango’s hat on her sweater and chuckle-smiled. “Don’t bore me with the weigh-in. Just skip straight to the greased-pig scramble.”

“Enough. Do I lead an army of infants?” Blackguard melted his arms into wedges, slid ’em between Plaster and Ripsaw, and forced ’em apart. Ripsaw fell against the floor and a scatter of dead cockroaches. The inmates who watched groaned in disappointment. One stopped scratchin’ his rump. “We work toward a singular and purposeful goal. We will not deviate.” Like Plaster had done to Ripsaw, Blackguard grabbed Ripsaw’s and Plaster’s throats and lifted ’em high like he was puttin’ away dishes on the top shelf. He held ’em so high he extended that tarry material of his arms until Plaster’s head bumped the ceilin’. Plaster rattled out a jagged breath but could barely suck another in.

Blackguard’s formless face creased wit’ fury, whipped between Plaster an’ Ripsaw. He cracked their scalps against the ceilin’ so hard that dust rained. “Am I understood”—cracked ’em again—“or shall I make a casualty of one of you?”

He dropped ’em. Plaster’s vision clapped a supernova when his tailbone did the same against the floor. When he regained his grasp of up an’ down, Blackguard was already marchin’ down the catwalk toward the bend up ahead. Gangrene snarled after him, sprayin’ saliva.

Marionette clucked her tongue. “Nice, sugahs. Ya both’re actin’ like my pappy when that wheat thresher clean took off his arm.” She shifted off the shield screen an’ headed off after Blackguard. Them blinkin’ lights on her ugly holiday sweater bobbed aroun’.

Plaster flicked a cockroach off his leg an’ examined Ripsaw. His teeth shifted together. Ripsaw dared him by spittin’ out, “Anytime you want to finish your tantrum, pinko, come at me.”

Forget this chump. Plaster followed Marionette. “Nobody in history has such a punchable throat.”

* * *

Hearse stormed toward the viewscreen in front of him that observed the catastrophe of events that had unfolded in the cafeteria, the least catastrophic event not being when a deviant had shamelessly stomped that ginger cookie to sand. It would be avenged.

Time to take charge, or Hearse’s quarry would perish before he completed his mission or graduated to gold in the assassin guild and, therefore, earned more roadside-assistance benefits.

He whipped out his pistol and set his targeting software on beast mode, the mode he used to clean his bathroom. He reconsidered this and flicked it up a notch to fiend mode, the mode he used to clean his bathroom grout. The inmates hesitated attack, wise considering they would otherwise become fatalities. After all, a stranger was only a victim you hadn’t shot yet.

“What do we do?” the sniveler called Franchise sniveled. “This is messed up, like when I found out moths ate all my dress shirts right before Tamiko’s graduation, and why am I thinking about dress shirts right now, what do we do?” He leaned intently at a viewscreen—“Somebody, what do we do?”—eyes in horror as he surmised Legion’s predicament and then swung around to measure it against their own. “Anybody? I’ll even take a suggestion from Jeffy.” Everyone remained silent, even the chatter-sniveler Power Plant.

Guard Dog had stirred enough to grunt and snore.

If nobody in this clown parade would take charge of Legion’s fate, Hearse would. “This is our plan. Sniveler, distract these inmates with your hyperability. Second sniveler, begin the offensive with your hyperability. Third sniveler—”

“Use them names, dude.” The sniveler called Power Plant clutched the air, stolen tinsel wrapped in his grip. “I ain’ts just a label. Treats me like a person an’ calls me Murdermango! Peggy, acknowledge. Tell thems what for.”

“Entity Assistant Warden Murdermaestro’s name is entity Assistant Warden Murdermaestro.”

“Thanks, Peggy.”

The room had grown stinky in the presence of these unwashed deviants. Hearse risked sheathing his weapon despite the number of bodies he would soon deliver. “Name-stealing runt”—he seized Power Plant by the shirtsleeves, problematic with the impact material, but his grip found purchase—and flung the runt at the swelling mob—“blunder into the lunchroom and protect your leader with your life.”

“I promoted ta runt?” The runt dropped his tinsel. He took to flight and bulleted headfirst into the crowd, bulldozing inmates aside as a bowling ball would crack against pins. Fists flung in a whirlwind until he disappeared around the corner. He reappeared and flew in the opposite direction. “Wrong way.”

“Save me an inmate with large lips!” Those were Hearse’s favorite to ruin. “And you.” He flung the runt’s cohort, the equally immature self-multiplier, into the tide of criminals. “Begin beating everyone down. Enact my revenge for something I will think of later.”

His fuming glare insinuated itself on the others. “Remain here. Keep this control room secure. I shall either return in five minutes or be in the cafeteria, urinating on carcasses, bladder control depending. Do not read into that.” By crock, he divulged too much information when distracted. He grabbed his Fenton again, flicked its charge to ogre mode. “We will convene later so I may expunge your memories.”

* * *

Power Plant zigzagged along the Easter-festooned hall. So juiced up on caffeine due to that coffee machine/toilet, he couldn’t help rebounding off the walls. You’d think at this point in life, he’d learn to handle his flight path and a fork.

The cafeteria was only a few concussions ahead. The halls were thick with inmates and bunnies—sometimes both in one—but Power Plant rode the air above them, a thin gap considering the heights and interesting ears on some of these bunny thugs. He circled around a bend, toward the huge double doors gaping open to the bright cafeteria. He thought he spotted the tips of Legion’s antennae through the mob but definitely spotted Harrier’s feathery wing. Power Plant didn’t know what kept the inmates at bay, but he imagined it might be that aged kiwi hidden from sight but not from smell.

“I’m here to mess yous up like I messes up all Jakey’s dress shirts.” He swooped into the cafeteria—and holy crock, was this room bright. The room was crazy with light, glitter dancing off polished tile. His body bathed in it! The light dazzled so brightly, it confused him more than how the River Grotto Tenant’s Association group on Facebook had 134 followers.

Too flooded. The light drove Power Plant to the floor in a crash-skid-thump-whack-g’morning-table-leg-smack. His hands screamed for relief, his brow throbbed for meds, his thoughts clutched for stability. Business as usual on that last one.

His eyes locked shut, still raw from the astounding light and all those Bargain Bojangos glowering at him as if he hadn’t spent enough on their holiday deals. He’d felt brilliance like this before, just not so focused. His head now throbbed with that dull sensation he felt after conversations with insurance brokers.

“Get that crocking little pissant.” An inmate grunted like a clogged engine.

Power Plant wobbled to his feet—a brutal grip wrenched his arm backward in white agony—another grabbed his neck—another dug into his nostril for some disgusting reason. “Hey, that’s my gold to mines!”

The lights grated at him like needles pricking his skin—couldn’t open his eyes, but light pierced through his eyelids like that time he stared at the sun to avoid piloting lessons—felt like throwing up but kept it together—he was blind for an hour after that sun thing—skin sizzled inside, electrical sensations—but, hey it worked—mob stretched him out like quartering horses—hoisted him up—

His body sneezed energy, a fffwoomp and then a relief of emptiness, like expelling a voluminous snort in high society. He slammed to the floor, the bumps on his spine glowing. His lungs had drained. All the muscles in his body untied at once, and he flopped down like an exhausted ragdoll. He panted, a cable of phlegm or maybe blood puking out. He felt weird carbonation on his tongue. He couldn’t talk, couldn’t even grunt, his lungs hyperventilating so hard he barely caught up with his own burning breath and his stomach feeling as if it were forcing its way out.

He finally managed to open his eyes and...huh? What the crock? What had he done?

Because it was so cool! Like when he’d tried to bake ziti except without the dead cats. Oh, wait, there was the hypermutated cat guy in the corne—No, wait, he meowed. Still kicking. So, yeah, without the dead cats.

All around, hands slapped over faces in a weird peek-a-boo game, hardened criminals grunted, moaned, screamed, writhed, struggled, covered the tiles like a loosely laced carpet or Power Plant’s attempt at a bacon weave. Those who remained standing crashed around like blundering zombies, arms or tentacles—don’t discriminate against mollusks or ugly people—outstretched, feeling their surroundings. Inmates smacked into each other, banged into table benches, tripped over the bacon weave. Even Harrier’s muscleman fell into the mix. This couldn’t be more hilarious with a Slippery When Wet sign.

Power Plant drooled now. Bacon.

They were blind. Power Plant had blinded everyone. That gushing fffwoomp he’d felt was his light energy surging out. Even now, seconds after having squeezed out all his stored energy and now with his l-clothes reknitting after he’d expelled the sneeze, a new swell tingled inside. What had he—he padded his sides as if that would offer a clue—what had he done? Light energy had deluged him so strongly from the panels above that he couldn’t hold it in, and it had expelled as a blinding flare and a tiny fart he was saving for Harrier’s how-do-you-do.

One gray-skinned hypermutated dude skittered by like a first-time ice-skater. Power Plant shifted aside to allow him to pass and then crack comically into a table. He spilled onto the floor, clutched his gashed shin, and mewed with lips stretched against teeth. Funny watching a weighty beefcake whimper about a booboo.

He still felt coldly exhausted, his throat and ribs screaming at his lungs to calm down. He had to—Wait, was that a shiny thing? Had he spotted a shiny thing? Squinted. Ehhhhhhhhhh...nah, it was a puddle of drool from one of the blinded inmates.

Anyway, back to business. He had to flee before his energy overflowed again. His legs begging for a vacation, he strode over the whimpering beefcake, looked ahead to the double doors, and spotted—oh, crock—one of these blind idiots was armed. He held a two-handed semiautomatic with one hand. He yanked the trigger back and expelled a salvo that arced up an advertising wall and killed six Bargain Bojangos. Power Plant checked over his shoulder at Legion and Harrier, who had fallen off their table, Legion with a green arm shielding his face and Harrier with both hands pressed against his. They were in the line of fire. The gunner roared and then, “You did this, Good Guys! I’m gonna cut you open and knit you all together!” Power Plant didn’t want to be in a quilt.

Power Plant fell backward—heard the chug of light-bullets peck another wall—dipped into flight—hurled toward Legion and Harrier—grabbed them—yanked them down—flipped a table aside as cover—wrenched another table over as a ceiling—crammed himself against his shelter—hid in shadow to give himself refuge from all them light panels peeling apart his nerves—peeped out another baby fart—almond scented. Fortune cookies, you know.

Power Plant bumped Harrier’s shoulder. “’Member me? Jeffy, from work.”

“Yes. And I remember well the cactus you tried to swallow. Whole. Jeffrey, you arrive no less than an hour ago, and you already bollocks up everyone’s sight.” Harrier grunted, heels of his palms rubbing his blinded eyes. He folded his wing protectively against his arm. “What bloody mess have you caused?”

Power Plant blurted a smile. “Dis bloody mess.” His hand fanned out to showcase the bloodiest of messes.

Harrier stole a glance, found his buddy with the puffy skin, and ducked back down. “This is more karked than your rat-arsed attempts at riding a unicycle.”

“Hey. I ain’t dones nothin’ except dis riot an’ caused some dude shootin’ at everythings.”

“Who armed him?” Legion blinked away some blindness. Maybe his vision was returning. A searching hand found Harrier. “Does he work for you? Is he another of your insect-eating friends? Harrier, stop him before he kills us.”

“No, he does not work for me. He’s a blinded psychopath”—Harrier blinked as well and faced Legion—“who has just gone barmy. Also, he suffers from lactose intolerance.”

“Oh, waits, it was a shiny something.” Power Plant was peeking sneakily around the table, hands clasping the edge. “Anybody needs a spare gold toof?” He glanced at Legion. At Harrier. Legion again. “No? No?” Back to the shiny thing. “It’s mine.”

* * *

Plaster still dogged that livin’ tar pit in a trench coat, Blackguard. Now they hiked across some faceless hallway, off the catwalks. And how the crock big was this jail? It was like a catacombs! Plaster sweared: after that cellblock called Millipede Snakes, if they crossed another hypermutant block wit’ some cockamamie subtitle, he’d freakin’ panic, ’cause ain’t nobody wanted to see snakes wit’ a million legs. Them Virillians was close enough, and they willied the crock outta Plaster.

Here they was, in yet another hall that overlooked the cafeteria downstairs, as if they was spiralin’ up an’ around it. All this to observe an’ grab Harrier. They’d gone aroun’ the place so much, they was on the third floor over the south wall. Crowd down there was lookin’ antsy, too. Outta tater tots maybe? That always made Plaster antsy. “Okay, I gotta ask, how long we on this mission for? All we done is walk through block after smelly blo—Hey, Blackguard, I’m talkin’ at you!”

Plaster shouldered past Marionette—“Mannahs, sugah, an’ a lint brush”—and mashed his hand into Blackguard’s gunky shoulder—ugh. He recoiled that hand, an’ the goo Blackguard was made outta snapped back inta place. Sometimes he wonnered was he gonna find dead birds in that tar pit.

Blackguard shuffled around smoother than jazz music. Turducken-ruinin’, ashy jazz music. “Would you like to address a discontent, Brother Plaster?”

Gangrene snarled. Gangrene’s ugly mug was already a snarl.

“What’s a discontent? Speak reg’lar English. Look, we spent all freakin’ day walkin’ aroun’—”

“We’ve been here forty-five minutes.” Ripsaw sliced his arm blades together with a shush.

“Someone take Ripsaw’s costume away before he hurts hisself.” Plaster aimed a fist at him. “We spent all freakin’ forty-five minutes walkin’ around here, I got a strong suspicion the place ran outta tater tots, an’ we ain’t even know why we’re here—”

Ripsaw kept sharpening. “We’re here to get—”

“I said shut the flapper, lad. An’ how much sharpenin’ them things need? Ya sound like a paper shredder. Yeah, we’re here for that Good Guy, but why? I mean, what th—An’ some o’ these dudes don’t flush their toilets, an’ my feet hurt.” He lifted a foot to check the underside. “Oh. I stepped on a Father’s Day shiv. But still. An’ does discontent mean th’ opposite o’ content?”

Ripsaw smooched the air at Plaster. “Sweet wittle pinko’s tootsies hurty-wurt?”

“Stop—your—flappery. I’m sick o’ your crock an’ your kissy voice. An’, while we’re on the subject, also hearin’ you complain about avocados. Like them’s a real thing.”

“You ain’t helpin’ nothin’, Ripsaw hon.” Marionette studied her lacquered fingernails, back and then front. “An’ your baby voice sounds like an ex-smoker.”

“Hey, my baby voice is authentic.” Ripsaw reared at Marionette. His rear reared at Plaster.

Marionette whipped a hand up and swept it left. Ripsaw was likewise shoved aside and slammed into the left wall. “Do me a favah and lead with that next time you’re at the singles’ bar. I wanna see how it ends up.” She blew on her nails. “These ain’t never gonna dry.”

“And don’t call my feet tootsies.” Plaster jolted at Ripsaw. “I toldja leave my leggin’s alone. They’re my pride an’ joy. I mean, look at them calves.” He tap-tapped one. “Flawless diamonds.”

“I should put you on my podcast.” Ripsaw cackled under his maroon mask.

“I should put you on my fist!” Plaster vaulted over Gangrene, who was lapping a boilin’ paw, and slammed an arm across Ripsaw’s throat, shoved him against the wall advertisin’ baby food, an’ ain’t no baby food should come in mashed-peas-an’-bourbon flavor. Peas ruined bourbon.

Tendrils from Blackguard’s shoulder wriggled like curious worms and slurped against Plaster an’ Ripsaw, snatched ’em apart. Them tendrils threw Plaster against the wall and gouged a dent in baby Cupid. A studly dent. Look at that perfect form.

Blackguard’s eyeless eyes gaped at them, his faceless face gawked between them. “You are spiritual siblings under the aegis of magnificent Lord Continuum. Act as such before I relieve one of you of your duty. And your life.” He released Plaster—

“Not a chance ’cause I’m inchin’ for a lynchin’.” Fingers clawed, Plaster threw himself at Ripsaw’s throat. Ripsaw braced hisself against an l-window that hung over that cafeteria. “No way I’m lettin’ the Gerber Baby Voice—”

Blackguard crammed Plaster against that dent again. Studlier dent now. Dust an’ foil hearts rained from the ceilin’. “And—your—life.” Blackguard’s indistinct eyes, like he wore a stockin’ over his face for a train robbery, pinned Plaster. “You are acting insolently, and in the presence of Cupid, no less. When you die, your rectum releases. Let me restate that in terminology twenty percent likely to not make you giggle: you poo. Everything.”

“What?” Plaster clenched his poop raceway shut. “Why’d you bring that up? You know expellin’ my meadow muffins in public’s my biggest fear!” He regarded Ripsaw like he was eatin’ a gravel sandwich. “Fine. You’re like th’ special-needs brother we’re all embarrassed about. Ya know that, right?”

An l-door to the right fluttered open. Them computer molecules scattered, a magical lilt playin’ ’em off. Out tripped a guard, complete in that funky gear wit’ the helmet and laser baton an’ some neon glow drippin’ from his wrist. He gasped like he ain’t expected to stumble across this crew. Sweat greased off him like he got caught in a downpour. Kinda was, ’cept the rain came off his brow.

“This pinko’s seen us.” Ripsaw stomped toward him and slashed his arms out, lights glintin’ all over the blades. “Do all Terrans galivant around in a riot like pissing idiots?” He pitched at the guard’s throat, prepared to slice it open. His blades shushed against each other again.

“Do no such thing.” Blackguard gripped Ripsaw, plucked him away from the guard, and dropped him. Gangrene interrupted his self-bath to blink up at Blackguard. “This is Correctional Officer Bailwick, and he is part of Lord Continuum’s plan, unbeknownst to him. Our rule of harming no one while here is in place specifically for him. He serves the distraction we require to continue our travels. We are required on this floor but must journey across this establishment. We redirected our path to this hall specifically to guide him.”

“We went forty-five minutes out of our way for him?” Plaster said. “An’ maybe this Belch Wick can guide us on back to where’s a secret stash o’ tater tots?”

“His name is Correctional Officer Bailwick, Brother Plaster.”

“Potato, tomato.”

Correctional Official Belch Wick looked correctional-petrified, seconds away from correctional-wettin’ his correctional pants. Not a good choice for a job at a penitentiary. Or a day care. He trembled out the words, “H-how-how-h-how do-o-do y-you”—okay, words mighta been the wrong thing to say, ’cause babies blabbed clearer than this goon—"you-u kn-o-o-know—”

“How do I know your name? By the sheer wisdom of our infallible Continuum. Worry not, friend. We shall do you no harm. You are free to pass. You are free to release the prisoner in hall fourteen O.”

“I-it w-was fourteen A.”

“No, friend. It is changed.” Blackguard smiled. What the crock? Smilin’? If he patted this Belch Wick on the head, Plaster would turn himself in on account o’ the free therapy. “Now, the direction you wish to travel is down this path.” Blackguard didn’t point, but a tendril waved outta his shoulder and gestured, down a Kwanzaa hallway that jammed into a Hanukkah one at an angle. Racial harmony the likes Ripsaw’d never heard of. On the wall behind Blackguard splashed an advertisement for murder lessons. Kombat 4 Kids had a spring-break sale on.

Marionette was oblivious to all this, still blowin’ on them fingernails. “No, I shoulda asked for the shine-forty instead o’ the -twenny.” She checked their luster in the light. “Sometimes ya gotta treat yaself.” Gangrene hoisted onto them hindlegs to sniff her thumb.

Bailwick ain’t looked convinced o’ Blackguard’s hospitaliness. He was pressed up on the Cupid wall, his hands crawlin’ him toward the Kwanzaa/Hanukkah split. Eyes was bright like them lights down that hallway except the light panel that kept clunkin’ into the wall like a bad bumper-car driver. As the officer crawled past Blackguard, he glued his attention on ol’ gunky. And then—snap—he scrambled off, tumbled onto the floor, an’ flashed off again. Disappeared out an l-door at the end.

“Pinkos.” Ripsaw snorted in disgust. “We let him live?”

“We needed to redirect him. He now heads toward a greater purpose.”

“Should have killed him. Let’s hurry up and get this Harrier already.”

Plaster waited until the l-door returned wit’ a playful Kombat 4 Kids jingle. “Level wit’ me. We ain’t killed him ’cause we didn’t wanna smell his muffins, right?”

* * *

Hearse barged through the thick and clammy parade of animals that swelled the short, strangely purple hallway from the riot booth to the cafeteria. Quick thoughts of note, because Hearse enjoyed itemizing things and using semicolons: one, animals was an apt description considering the reptile block had gathered here; two, the surveillance room was not as exciting as one would think; three, he was glad he opted to bring the extra bandolier of light-bullets; and four, these Easter cutouts filled him with delight, and he would inquire about taking one home later. They also smelled like vanilla chocolate.

These fools would not harm Legion. Legion was his to break. Payment would be his. Hearse always delivered the body. Sometimes he had to employ a hand truck, but he never missed a delivery or an episode of Downton Abbey.

His Fenton registered a low charge, quietly beeping. He would reload later. For now, he sheathed the weapon and chose to wallop his way through this cluster. He enjoyed a good walloping, and the throbbing goiter on one of these hypermutants resembled a boxing glove, so he took that as an invitation. Never a dull moment with Hearse.

The cafeteria lay only a distance of perhaps six meters away, so Hearse doubled his walloping zest, reached the doors in no time, and bullied aside the beefy woman with the beefy stench. She tumbled over onto another, who didn’t avoid h—Were these inmates from the blind cellblock?

Yes, it was bright in here but not enough to render sightlessness. Hearse’s visor compensated by shading the vision over his left eye. Now he looked fashionable in one sunglass. He bounded onto a table, fulfilling his high-school alumni’s predictions of him being Most Likely to Bound onto a Table. He brandished his Fenton to the collected rioters and the character in the rear plucking errant sock fabric from the gaps in his toes. “Inmates!” The crowd fell silent, a clear-cut drop of noise that pleased Harrier. In the corner, someone with a hypermutation of a large bladder wet his pants. And wet them. And wet them. And wet th—“I shall warn you only once: if you harm the green man cowering behind the table—”

“I’m hiding strategically,” rose Legion’s voice.

“—I shall personally ensure each of you leaves here inside out.” And wet them.

“You can’t stop us all!” insisted a voice over the throng. He’d clearly lost all vision, searching for Hearse with empty eyes.

Hearse cocked his Fenton at this foolish speaker. Clickity—“In. Side. Out.”—clack. Unnecessary, but it sent a clear message. “The insidiest of outs.” Oh, good add-on.

Hearse tensed his lip. “Let me assure you, I did not come for high-fives and dessert pastries.”

From the side, a stampede of feet against tile. The sniveler named Power Plant or Murdermaestro, depending on which sniveler you beat the answer out of, leaped and slapped high-fives with Hearse. Hearse did not move. “Fine, then. But let me assure you, I did not come for dessert”—same stampede, same sniveler, same hand in which appeared a rotten bear claw—“pastries.”

Something shifted in a third-floor window. Hearse barely registered it, but his visor detected the transfer of color. It directed him to a maroon-festooned ruffian in the window, and his visor’s criminal database identified someone up there as the recently liberated Frizzilk. Ripsaw. Not today’s victim. Hearse fixed his attention back on the crowd, but when his visor bleeped another warning, he spotted a figure dressed in black, curiously recogniza—

A copper scent burned his nostrils. His tongue tasted leather. Azure electricity shot an undercurrent through his bones. Random thoughts careened inside like a groundswell. A shrill, white whistle pierced his eardrums. Flash and pop erupted inside, not seen but felt. All his muscles tensed, bones locked. Drool dribbled all over his collar and dignity.

Nnnoooooo, here it came. The p-p-pain—

To make way for that accursed vision, everything erased, Bargain Bojango and his cackling lookalikes included. Gargantuan starship above—obscured starlight—cold grass—grumbling earthquake a country away—transport smoke, the sting in his nose and the sting in his eyes—needles drizzling from above—

The vision, abrupt and scorching: a behemoth loomed overhead: a starship repainted the sky with shadow, so wide it covered the stars. Fuzzy rumbles. Smoke choked from the starship’s tailpipe. A hailstorm of needles rained from its underbelly. Furry dice bobbed in its windshield. This same detestable hallucination that usurped Hearse at the worst moments, like cooking class, replayed with excruciating sensation overtop a bludgeoning migraine. Blades raked his insides.

...

And then something new. As if the footage that replayed flawlessly for years finally added a reel about as relaxing as Mr. Grammercy on a peach schnapps bender. Foolish driving instructor.

A figure approached on the cold field, but...it approached without sway. Almost floated. A dark figure...covered in liquid shadow and a pretentious fedora. He stood as if pomping his chest though he didn’t. An arm became a blade, long and slender, not elongating but tendrils of liquid shadow squiggling out, smoothing into a longsword. He raised it, raised it above his head—

Vision gone. Here. Now. Body afire with unknotting joints. Mutinous roars. Cafeteria. Clenched jaw exhausted. Insufferable pain fading. Warm urine seeping around his palms. Horrible pants-wetter by the corner. Hearse blinked out the tears, oriented himself, noticed Legion at his side holding his cylinder of Hyperthesia pills. Hearse’s target, Legion, had fed him a pill. He wore a necklace wired to the Life Monitor.

“I...” Hearse choked on the prickling saliva he drooled. “I had imagined”—coughed again—“a man draped in black, whose limbs he could manipulate.”

“Do you ever have a normal problem?” Legion helped Hearse wobble to his feet. One hand braced on a table, Hearse held his head, made sure his own urine remained inside. Mostly inside, anyway. Check on all points, but his fly was open. Quick zzzzip. Status regained.

Rioters thundered forward. A fist to the head greeted Hearse to the present. Hearse grabbed the rioter and forced a hand down her throat, reemerged with something purple and mushy, threw it aside. The rioter collapsed and gurgled death. Purple insides were essential. Take note.

Hearse allowed himself a moment to surmise the situation: the inmates seemed to blink to dampen their dry eyes. The blindness was lifting, and some had regained orientation, while others—Hearse sidestepped to avoid a primitive with flippers for feet—others would never regain it.

In a riptide, the violent masses surged forward, as clammy as those in the hall. Reminded Hearse of working security at the Heartthrob Kebabs concert in his laboring days. He threw one rioter at another. Harrumph. Just his luck, he’d thrown the one shaped like a pillow into the one wearing a pillow. They both coughed up 30 percent eider down, 70 percent polyester fibers, tumble-dry only.

A sturdy inmate like an upright armadillo raced for Legion, a one-beast stampede. Hearse grabbed him, bowled him against some bowling-pin-shaped inmates. Was that a strike? Heh. He had cracked a strike and a funny. He could grow to appreciate the hypermutations wings. Was there a dartboard-shaped inmate? The possibilities were endless. “Prisoners, deviants, societal filth, and octagons, listen to me. If you seek to harm the green one, I will be displeased. You shall not enjoy my displeasure. It involves a saddlebag and frequent water breaks.”

“You can’t take us all.” The armadillo lunged at him, clouted him in the face, grabbed one arm.

“You’re ours.” A raspy-voiced woman with four arms and hairy legs licked her lips.

“Frtjgs tebjlwr gjblts,” added the tentacled prisoner who needed English lessons.

The tide of inmates grabbed his limbs and lifted the napkins from his pocket—which he would inform them he would require back at an opportune and polite moment—and stretched him out—strained his limbs back—extended them until they threatened to pop—likewise, inmates grabbed the sniveler named Power Plant—stretched him taut—Legion hopped on a table—an inmate grabbed for him—“Stay away from the green one, animals! Figurative animals, too. If you touch him, I will destroy you. You mean less to me than masses of meat, and I am an herbivore.” Wait. Herbivore?

The one named Harrier finally emerged from his cowardly hiding place, his finger talons clicking on the table. He addressed his fellow scum. “Zoo animal hypermutations, jungle animal hypermutations, those in between, and those in a completely separate category”—he roared that last one to an inmate with so many piercings someone had hung a privacy curtain on him—“listen to me. My mates, I will lead you to light.” He stepped onto a table, the tallest one he could access without snapping the Life Monitor connection from Legion. He didn’t examine his audience, who calmed like well-trained service dogs at his voice. No, he studied the pistol in his hands, checked the charge reading, grunted at what it reported—

Wait. Harrier brandished Hearse’s Fenton. He had stolen the weapon.

And he used it to preach.

Also, those might be his shoes. Wwwait, no, he still wore his. Good.

* * *

Harrier surveyed his hushed spectators, a visage of stony determination etching his face. “My countrymen, my friends, my barmy, barmy”—he spotted the wanker with the tongue waggling out and slurping nothing—facepalm—“oh so barmy mates, listen to me. For far too long, we have been gripped in the mercy of the tossers operating this joint. But no more. I”—he pounded his stolen weapon against his chest—“will free you. Yes, I will bloody well free you.” Should have stolen the shoes, too.

“Free us?” screamed a drop in the ocean of onlookers. This drop snapped a Bargain Bojango face in two. And ate one half. ’Twas that season. “Free what?”

“Free blood-sport tickets?” another yelled with her whole body.

Harrier shook his head. “Weird that your mind would jump to that initially. But no.”

“Blood-sport fighting lessons?”

“Not that either. I already told you—”

The inmate pounded a table. “Blood-sport combat lessons?”

“That is the same bloody thing, you dafty. Please hold your questions until the end.” Harrier tapped his temple. “I will free you intellectually. Free you from how society would shove you away. I will show you a new system, one a visionary taught me. He liberated me from my old way of thinking to show me what works as opposed to what I thought works.

“I used to be a slave to fear. What did I fear, you may ask?”

“Cancer! No. Snapping turtles!”

“No, my laughably ugly friend. No, I feared loss of control. It bloody well immobilized me. Chaos, disorder, turmoil were my enemies. I needed total control to function. I thought I knew how to maintain that control. But my mentor opened my mind, showed me how to truly maintain that control.” Harrier’s eyes fluttered wider with blooming exhilaration. He stood more firmly on his table. “He explained how to permanently eliminate chaos, the chaos that includes what we are doing here. Your rioting is no more than undisguised anarchy. It will prove our undoing. We need a new system. But to attain that blinking system, we must act with control. We must take control. We must unite!” His fist confronted the air, dared his detractors, knocked against a light panel. One with sharp edges, he thought as he soothed his finger in his other hand. “We are prisoners here only because we allow it. We must end all factors that introduce chaos. End our disunity. Gather under one controlling force: me. I will free you. You seek to escape this prison? Why escape this prison...when we can rule it?

The rioters—no longer rioters—had released Legion. Now they roared in thunderous accord, devious smiles roaring with them. The dimmocks. Harrier yanked on the Life Monitor’s wire, wrenched Legion toward him. Legion tumbled, knocked his head against the table on which Harrier stood, and fumbled onto it.

“And we will rule it by first eliminating the wankers that introduce chaos. We will eliminate the Good Guys. Also, reminder that today is the final day to purchase Girl Guide cookies from Officer Packhurst.”

Legion bared his teeth at Harrier enough to make him think the green daft would snarl a chunk out of his throat. Not now, dear Legion. Not with his new acolytes watching. Legion leaned into Harrier’s personal space, close enough to smell the breakfast he’d gagged on. He watched Botch, who stepped onto the table to catch and then slurp up a butterfly.

“Your dear mentor killed a lot of my friends,” Legion said. “Our friends.”

Harrier only smirked. He shifted weight on the table, which creaked with both of them and Botch standing on it. “Did you see the chaos you bloody well inflicted? The moment your barmy Good Guys arrived, I had to create this riot to exemplify what the Good Guys do continually. You introduce bedlam. Unpredictability. Chaos. I need you to understand the consequences of what you do, of what Mechanism tried to prevent.  Does Power Plant still give you a Veteran’s Day card every new moon?”

“Tha’s the Murdermaestro guarantee!” said a voice from among the thunder of inmates.

“The what guarantee?”

Legion looked exhausted when he waved off the comment. “He’s chewing gum he didn’t have before he took cover under the tables. I stopped making sense of him after he claimed his parents named him after Eli Whitney.”

“Understood.” Harrier indicated the still-roaring crowd with his chin, but his attention never left Legion, never left the Life Monitor around his neck. “Now, forget chaos. In the seconds since I spoke of the teachings Mechanism bestowed upon me, the chaos became order. Mechanism’s order has united. And order is the only way we will survive.” He was so satisfied, he almost blooming jigged atop this table.

“This is what I wanted to show you. This is why I summoned you. The Good Guys and Bad Guys bring disorder, war, death. Mechanism brings harmony. Control.” He clutched Legion by the back of the head, purposely too hard, and twisted him toward the crowd who still cackled praise, unity, and Girl Guide cookies. The army of Bargain Bojangos looked as if they cackled alongside them. “Behold the power you can harness with control.”

He wrenched Legion’s head back around, and in his hand, he displayed the microchip Hammeker had brought. “But the real reason is what your presence provides: the chance for me to get this microchip to where it belongs. What will cause you more turmoil, what will shake your precious, narrow view of safety and welfare the most, is what this microchip holds.”

“What does it hold, monster?”

“Monster. Heh. You called Mechanism the same bloody thing.” Harrier smiled the widest he’d smiled since discovering the jailhouse’s private shower stalls. “You and your Good Guys caused disarray, stormed in here to stir the pot of a revolution. Mechanism undid your disarray, brought it under a controlling force. Who is the true monster?”

“What’s on the microchip?” Legion sneered at the microchip, at Harrier.

“This holds a copy of Mechanism’s essence.” He cornered Legion against the wall. “It holds Mechanism himself.”

Legion collared Harrier and shoved him back, almost toppling the table. “You’re a psycho!” They fell on the tabletop, rattling a saltshaker off. He held Harrier down.

“You have yet to hear of the other item in my plan.” Harrier smirked under Legion.

“There’s more to this? Don’t make me snap your beak off and pluck you, game hen.”

“The other item sits in a safe place down the hall, near the prison’s main lockdown gate, away from this barmy chaos.” He twisted his smirk at the party he’d amassed. “After all, it is precious: it is the final Mechanism suit. Once I plug this microchip into its memory slot, Mechanism will be resurrected.” He checked Legion. “And I wanted you to be present to witness that resurrection firsthand. I wanted you to see the downfall of your chaos coming.” He suddenly glanced to the side. “Botch, remove the Easter Bunny nose. We have but one legendary patron saint of the art of pastel eggs, and by buggery, he lives atop Sales Fandango in Ransack Falls on Gaia.”

* * *

The tsunami of inmates lynched the surveillance room, an unyielding force, like one of Jeffy’s burps that he lit on fire except with fewer angry fists. An elbow collapsed Franchise’s stomach and cranked open his eyes to the size of baby oranges. A palm mashed his nose with fiery pain. A hand tied his shoelaces together. Now that was just immature.

He grunted out a multiple of himself—two—three—four—skip a few—eleven. Nausea wavered in his mind. This would end in more nausea when he reabsorbed these guys and coalesced multiple points of view into one. And considering his multiples, someone was getting urinated on. Possibly not him.

Someone knocked a viewscreen aside. A light panel snapped in half. So did someone’s bone.

Murdermaestro threw himself into battle. “Sixth Sense, girl”—Sixth Sense was out cold—“throw up a teke wall.”

Franchise’s clones mobbed the closest inmate, some ugly guy who—whah—didn’t know which command turned on the shower. That inmate went down, so like a street mob, the clones kicked it a few times. Ruined his haircut.

The swell proved too much. More and more and—Franchise couldn’t spot the end of the horde—more! A fist mashed his face—another to his ear—he kicked—someone grabbed his foot—flipped him around—he spilled onto the scarred concrete—spat thick blood—split inner cheek—inmates grabbed his arms—legs—stretched him out—tickled his armpit—playful deviant—“Hands off the shirt! It’s my last nice one!”—nobody ever listened to Franchise—sigh.

He couldn’t see the hailstorm of attacks around him. By his count, Sixth Sense was out, Murdermaestro was pressed back against a punctured wall by the viewscreens, Ace was trampled underfoot, Nominut and Plammert were held aloft, Bailwick was who knew where, Mabel thought the mob was her grandchildren, and Guard Dog was chasing cars, judging from his sleepy kicks and half yips.

“Dear entity Assistant Warden Murdermaestro,” Peggy cooed, “I’ve reviewed all listed entities and found a naming duplication between you an—”

“Now, Peggy?” Murdermaestro threw a punch, an inmate grappling his cheek. “Right now?”

“You also left your transport lights on.”

Franchise couldn’t move—hands and feet trapped in meaty, calloused grips—one inmate eyeing him as though not exactly in here for tax evasion—strained breathing with limbs yanked so whitely taut—please may that inmate be here for tax evasion—“Murdermaestro? Ace? Nominut? Guard Dog? Mabel with a rolling pin, maybe?”

Something creaked from his left. He couldn’t see it except out of the corner of his eye, but...what...was it? No, who? A voice? Who creaked?

It was Mabel, the team artifact. How was she still standing? She didn’t need a mob to be put down. She’d already spent half this century with no teeth.

She massaged her moist gums together. Gross. For some reason, the Good Guys’ quietest, most gnarled relic commanded the attention of this army of goons. “Cats,” she said after clearing the cobwebs off her tongue. So old, she probably wondered what a cat was. Or what speech was.

“Attack.”

Screeches, meows, hisses like nails on chalkboards raided the surveillance room. Fuzzy forms pounced, claws unsheathed, treated inmates like scratching posts. Dozens—dozens—of blobs of fur invaded the fringes of Franchise’s vision. Tabby, black, gray, white, all colors. Scalpel claws. Tails at full attention. They sprang on inmates—slashed eyeballs—gouged cheeks—sprayed so much blood the air smelled of copper—caused doomsday screams—bit off noses—hacked off skin—chased laser pointers.

The prisoners dropped Franchise, and he fell to the floor with a lightning flash of pain. Around him, the inmates screamed, collided, randomized around, tried to scramble away though the cats sank their claws into panicking bodies, scalps, eyes, any exposed skin, sometimes two or three cats to a prisoner. “No, not in the face!” “Get this thing off my forehead!” “My allergies. My allergies!”

Franchise kicked his feet, scrambled backward along the floor until he reached the foot of Mabel’s walker, enfolded his arms around an aluminum leg, eyes watering with relief, panting sandpaper sensations in his lungs. “Mabel, I finally found your greatest asset: cats.”

He watched the theater of pandemonium, convicts in a concerto of agony that slowly died to murmurs, homicidal bodies dropping one by one to the concrete. Murdermaestro stood next to Franchise, arms crossed, while Ace limped over from the left, mouth gaping open and hand against his the scar on his brow.

“We have checkpoints to bar animals from the premises.” Plammert whispered this on awed breath and clutched a wound on his cheekbone. “Where did these cats come from?”

Ace wore the same dumbfounded face. “The same place Optimus Prime puts his trailer: a magical ether no one is allowed to name.” He said this as the final guttural roar died to a fizzle, as the final inmate fell victim to a calico digging claw after lethal claw to mine the meat deep in his neck, breaking only to lick its crotch.

That day, blood rained. The folklore would carry for generations. That day, blood rained and stopped not until the last cat was satisfied and lapping death from its paw in gratification.

Or apathy. Because it was a cat.

* * *

Bailwick slammed against the yuletide door. He’d intended for it, but he figured he’d have more grace. His heart still tried to wrench out of his chest after having almost collided with that shadow man who needed a serious bath, deodorant swathing, and then a more serious bath. That shadow man sent shivers through Bailwick’s nuts and bolts, as if the trauma factory had just released a new product line.

Bailwick was out of breath. He pinched the pudge around his hips, just under his belt. He needed to hit the treadmill a couple times before bumping into any other nightmare cosplayers. He jittered away from the door and almost spilled into a wooden bench behind him. A bad move with all the ceramic elf hats. His medical coverage didn’t cover holiday rectal.

This door. The only door in this infamous hall 14-O, leading to the infamous cell 14-O-1, meant for solitary confinement. Deep solitary confinement. Bailwick didn’t know if the shadow man told the truth when he corrected Bailwick, but when a one-way trip to PTSD told you what to do, you said yes. The door he stared at was striped in bright yellow and black, set against a plain beige. Diagonal warning lines banded its frame, and a passionate ribbon of maroon cast a firelight up its left side, across the top, and down its right. It was the only door in this hallway because the brute behind it needed an army of equipment to detain it. In fact, no other prisoner fit in this hallway on account of the meter-thick walls surrounding this cell like the inside of a militaristic lockbox. It had room for a Dunkin’ Donuts, though.

Inside lay this facility’s most infamous criminal, the primitive, primeval, instinctive, and simpleminded Canary Yellow.

Bailwick checked his pocket for—There. He whisked it out, let it glint in the light. A syringe of stimulant, and it was spiked with a dose of Squared the warden hadn’t known about during the confiscation process. The slogan jingled, “If you’re Squared, you’re prepared,” and that asked the question of why a street drug needed a slogan. At least a down-on-his-luck rock flop had written it. To give it street cred. (In Logistica, a five-piece band of baboons performed the jingle, for reasons unknown.)

He cleared his throat. Squeezed a hand on his chest. Cleared his throat again. “Control, acknowledge.” Blinked back a stinging wash of sweat. “Unlock closest door.”

Sometimes he wished Peggy would tell him to crock himself instead of “Closest door unlocked” with harp accompaniment. Just his luck. Not everybody could unlock this door. In fact, only three others had authorization to unlock it, and one of them was a dead centaur. The next was Canary Yellow’s handler, Dr. Fallows. The last was Dr. Fallows’s sock puppet therapy doll, so don’t think Fallows was special. Or well balanced.

Okay, okay, okay. Bailwick had sneaked away from the surveillance room for a purpose. To get a mocha. But also this. The gap the l-door left yawned open in front of him, and its narrow procession of a corridor rolled out like a pitch-black mine tunnel. Only a meter long. Bailwick gulped. It echoed like a shotgun blast down that dark alley, which was like a mouth to Hell. Bailwick hadn’t felt dread like this since fingers-and-toes soup day.

Though the passage stretched out only a meter, Bailwick couldn’t discern its end. He grabbed a frothy mochaccino with a sprinkle of cinnamon—and a mocha for Harrier, as requested—stumbled through, dragged his fingertips along the smooth, icy wall to guide his way, and ended up on the other side where a faint glow the color of oxblood revealed the room. Bailwick barely saw a thing, though. Way to go, underachieving light panel.

There dozed Canary Yellow, same as since its incarceration here four years ago. Bailwick approached. He heard either the fuming of the equipment’s ventilation or Canary Yellow’s chainsaw snoring. Not sure which. Only when standing in the cell could he distinguish the setup that was specially built to lock this monster in place. Steel-and-Gorilla-Glue columns trapped Canary Yellow’s legs in place. Crisscrossed girders and hydraulic struts fastened its arms at angles that biomechanics, kinesiology, and a sticky note claimed gave Canary Yellow the weakest leverage. These struts were further reinforced by continuing into the walls, those two-meter-thick fortifications that stopped Canary Yellow from ripping out Bailwick’s arms and sword-fighting with itself. Thank you kindly, walls.

Bailwick knew his orders by heart. Harrier had instructed, reinstructed, and re-reinstructed him to make sure he knew his purpose. He checked the syringe again, couldn’t see it but rolled it around his hand, slid a finger along the shaft to make sure the important end pointed out. In this foul light, Canary Yellow looked like Burgundy Blood, its brother, who was a successful investment banker in the Lower Antilles constellation. Nice guy. Gave to children’s charities.

Bailwick found Canary Yellow’s furry leg, a pillar of raging madness stilled by the paraphernalia immobilizing it and the drugs siphoning in and out of its system. First Bailwick slapped an HFB around Canary Yellow’s thick ankle, for whatever an HFB offered a hypermutant. Fur swallowed it. Then he located the hip—Canary Yellow was so huge the hip was the lowest point Bailwick could reach—and trotted his fingers down three paces. There.

Grandma always said, “If you ain’t got the steels to do something, you ain’t got bupkes,” and, though disease had engulfed half her brain and most of her tongue and some of her nose and a kidney by that time, Bailwick was never a fan of bupkes. Still, much like his wedding ceremony, here went absolute bupkes. Gulp.

He set down Harrier’s drink, took a quick sip of his own. Mmm, cinnamon and milk substitute. Jabbed the syringe into Canary Yellow’s leg, buried the needle up to the cylinder. Squashed the plunger and emptied the cocktail, including the juicy Squared-you’re-prepared. Backed away, trembling feet clanging against the walkway. Wanted to run, but his legs worked only in slow motion. Hit the wall.

Canary Yellow’s eyes clicked open. So sudden.

Oh crock oh geez oh crock, if Bailwick felt his heart before, that was a murmur. Against his ribs, what he felt now was a diesel run. Also hot tears. The kind that leaked around his crotch, though.

Why was he frozen in place? Why couldn’t he move? He was an idiot, that was why. But why couldn’t he—

Canary Yellow roared. A blistering tempest of noise shattered Bailwick’s eardrums. It swept Bailwick’s hair back, clamped his eyes shut. It lasted forty-five seconds, became everything, and halfway through Bailwick literally lost his hearing. He still tasted. Mmm, that was good “milk” froth.

Canary Yellow was still forcing out its yawn. Bailwick knew because its mouth gaped open. And when the behemoth had let silence return, Bailwick heard nothing but his own blood chill in his veins. Again, much like his wedding ceremony.

Canary Yellow snapped out an arm without trying. It only flexed, and the mountains in its bicep inflated and snapped every rivet in that steel-and-Gorilla-Glue column. The body spilled forward, shattering the columns that had held its pillar legs and shooting the jail’s Gorilla Glue fund way over budget. The arts department would not be pleased.

The monstrosity careened onto its knees. The syringe that had contained the careful mixture of the antisleep agent and Squared splintered underneath Canary Yellow’s knee. Bailwick heard none of this because his ears were useless now.

On hands and knees, Canary Yellow loomed down upon Bailwick. This was the first time it had noticed him, and this was the first time Bailwick had ever felt like an insect when not among family. Canary Yellow blinked and probably couldn’t remember anything so tiny. It chirruped, and everything vibrated. Blinked again at Bailwick, Bailwick who was frozen in place, realizing his greatest accomplishment today was using his gift card on that mocha.

“H-hello?” Bailwick mustered a feeble wave. He couldn’t hear himself stammer. Worst day ever.

Canary Yellow blinked again. How long did this thing take to wake up?

And then it fly-swatted Bailwick as it would swat a mosquito. Death came. This solved a lot of problems for Bailwick, because now he didn’t have to take down all these holiday decorations.

Oh, crock, he spilled his drink all over the platform.

Chapter Fourteen: Something Hit the Fan, and It Smells like Garlic and Methane

Legion choked when Harrier threw him aside. He rolled to the edge of the table, but that Life Monitor around his neck wouldn’t allow him to tumble far. He grappled the edge to keep from spilling away, but he slipped off the side. Harrier should look into wireless technology. Also antichafing technology. Also not being a vindictive scumbag.

Legion stood. Harrier sat up and leaned back, twisted the line on the Life Monitor around his hand as if preparing for a yank in a tug-of-war game. He jerked Legion closer. Legion barreled into the table and banged his shin on the bench. A blade of pain marked a gash on his leg.

A muffled crunch shook the floor with muted force that made saltshakers dance and a ketchup bottle pirouette onto its side. The riot raging downstairs was liable to get some noise complaints. But what would that do, land them in prison?

“Let us take a trip down the hall.” Harrier’s voice had become low and sinister. His slurping tongue skittered across his lips and hid a glint in his teeth. In that moment, he no longer resembled a bird but a snake. With bad brushing technique.

“Hearse would disagree. You don’t want to mess with him: I’m slightly suspicious he sleeps hanging from the ceiling.” Legion stomped onto the table bench, heard a whistle bullet closer—He ducked to avoid the underpadding of a starship trestle flung at him. It lodged in the wall behind him. Harrier had inspired some ardent followers. Where did a prisoner find trestle underpadding? The bite marks littered across it concerned him more. Someone was addicted to extra fiber. “Okay, let’s head out. Good thing, too. A lot of inmates in here need hairnets”—he glared at a bear inmate—“and I’m tired of spitting fur off my tongue.” And at a lizard inmate. “And you, sir, need a scalenet.”

Harrier swung his legs onto the bench beside Legion and stood. “We’ve touched on that in our sensitivity training.”

Another crunch. The shaking felt harder, caused tables to dance on their feet. Legion almost lost his balance again.

Harrier’s eyes fired with fervor. His wing flapped and lost a feather, which Botch plucked out of the air and stuffed into his mouth, exploring different food groups.

“Good, Botch, finally getting more nutrients.” Legion stuck his chin out at Harrier. “Ready to resurrect your president of genocide?”

Harrier’s teeth fit together like the gnashing daggers of a shredder. He pulled out the microchip he’d earlier shown Legion and wiggled it between two talons. “Yes. It’s now time to resurrect Mechanism.” He slipped the microchip back into his pocket.

Another crunch, closer now, and Legion bowled over against the table, a napkin holder lodged under an armpit. He fell to the floor again. What was with that party downstairs?

“I’m hungers for pizza right now.” Power Plant smacked his lips. Now that the crowd held him high, he started glowing again, more faintly than before but still supercharging.

Legion gawked in his direction but couldn’t see him. “Jeff, seri—Inmates, hold him higher. Please.” The inmates complied and rotated him around for eye contact. Legion stood and took his place on the bench again. “Jeff, seriously? A rioting mob is a pizza party to you? How about lasering someone’s face up instead?”

Power Plant wanted to shrug, but his limbs were so extended that he couldn’t. “Hey, Murdermammajamma’s gon’ laser up someone’s face after the chowin’s done. Maybe two faces if you good.” A hospitable inmate produced a pizza slice like something Botch would enjoy and lifted it up to Power Plant. Power Plant happily chewed into it. Judging from the last time this place was served a meal, Legion didn’t want to guess where that slice had been waiting, but he hoped to one day stomach the idea of dinner again. “Thank ya, uggin’ dude. Tha’s some good lint.” Only the moldiest at this fine bistro.

“Jeff, you’re grounded from the top thirty things on your scheme list.”

“Even the pyres?”

“Stop with the pyres! Why must everything you do end in a pyre? I’m not renewing your subscription to the Viking Funeral Network.”

The next crunch wasn’t a crunch but a rumbling boom. Were the partiers downstairs doing keg flips? What riot topped what Harrier had inspired up here?

Harrier tugged Legion closer—talons dug into his skin and made him wince—and prodded him off the bench. He followed. “Allow us to pass, mob of wankers.” Harrier shoved a batlike creature out of the way. “So close to my goal. I haven’t felt this bloody great since I discovered the one drinking fountain in here with clear water.”

With him in the lead and Legion in tow, they weaved toward the double doors. They shuffled around Power Plant and the throng holding him up, threaded so close to Hearse and his mob that Legion heard the snarl he aimed at Harrier.

“You would do best to watch your back, jailbird.” Hearse flared his nostrils.

“No need. My new audience will watch it for me. You have toothpaste on your shirt.” Harrier beat his wing in Hearse’s face. Hearse bit at it but missed.

Harrier leaned closer to Hearse, rapped him on the cheek. “I’d hate to leave you at the mercy of my new followers, you sodding buffoons”—eyes slithered from Hearse to Power Plant, who chewed pizza crust as crunchy as stone—“but we are now on a mission to resurrect my mentor, the esteemed Mechanism. Your new king.”

“The how when you said where?” Power Plant stopped chewing. Flecks of crust sprinkled out his mouth, so an inmate lifted a napkin to his cheek and dabbed off the accrual. Such an attentive deviant. “And sometimes why?”

“Mechanism, to answer one of your questions...I think.”

Power Plant’s face stewed, and he—

* * *

—huffed something like hellfire from his nostrils—which he felt like a burning breath underwater—and his skin flushed as fiery hot as when he lived in a furnace. “Didja say Mechanism?” He clamped so hard his body flooded with light energy again, and his skin tingled, hairs smoked, clothes became stove hot, as though he’d touched the burner or stepped off the wall side of his bed in the sleeping corner of his furnace.

“You’re an idiot, Harrier.” Legion looked numb with shock. “I mean ‘wanker.’ Did I use that right?”

“Did I say something wrong?” Harrier whimpered. He seemed confused about what Legion had said. Legion looked gripped in a terror felt only once in life. Hearse scraped gunk out of his fingernails with his teeth.

And hotter. Power Plant’s hands and feet began to sweat under all that angry energy. Something sizzled, flesh burned, and the inmates propping him up released him to avoid third-degree blisters. He smacked the ground hard, melted the tiles underneath—and sprang up at Harrier.

Legion bumbled aside. So did Botch, who careened backward into a hypermutant so frail she snapped, bones like peanut brittle under his meaty build. Power Plant grabbed Harrier’s neck, dug his thumbs in up to the first knuckle, squeezed, was impressed by the smoothness of Harrier’s skin. “Didja say Mechanism be king?” One hand dislodged to belt Harrier across the face, right where the eye met the cheekbone. Tears sizzled off his skin. “That crocker—that pissings crocker—killeds my brother!”

Hearse smugly chuckled. “This reminds me of when mandrills qualified for Olympic figure skating.” He continued cleaning his nails. “Is that dried mud, my dear thumb?”

Another boom rattled the floor, upended a table, but Power Plant didn’t care. Harrier was turning his new favorite shade of strangulation blue: the Harrier shade. It would look good as the key color theme on the New Year’s bulletin.

“I kills ya dead! I’m already macked my gold toof got stoled by a guy dressed as Tooth Fairy.” Another clout across Harrier’s face. A welt was forming. Power Plant slammed his head onto the floor, rattled the birdman’s brains, gouged thumbs into his larynx, squee—

Hey. Birdbrain. Heh.

—zed his thumbs deeper, heard Harrier choke harder, eyes rolling up his sockets—

Chapter Fifteen: The Grand Tour of Incompetence’s Sinkhole

“Asinine, keep focused.” Plastique stood from Lieutenant Colonel Legion’s desk. She paced to keep from smacking Asinine across the face. She really wanted to, but she feared getting stupidity all over her fist. She had so many other idiots to punch in her lifetime, and she didn’t want them catching the disease. She rounded her way to Lt. Col. Legion’s peace lily, sitting on a bookcase shelf, and watered it with the spray bottle by its side. It wilted instantly. “I said I have something to tell you, so sit down.”

Master Asinine sat.

“Not on the garbage ionizer. Why would you assume—” Plastique gripped fistfuls of her hair and tugged. She let go. “On the chair.”

Master Asinine removed himself and scooched onto his seat. “Right, right. Sorry. Got my wires crossed.”

“It’s your claim to fame, sir,” Kowtower IQ 23 said as he examined Legion’s bookcase shelf of knickknacks by the door. He took a glass-encased model of Gaia and shook it. Squinted into it. “This snow globe doesn’t work.”

Plastique clacked the loading chamber on the shotgun in and out. A fidget, like drumming your fingers. “Asinine, you’re not going to like what I say, but I have to say it. First off, whatever the crock this outfit is”—she specified the apple costume with a sweep of the shotgun barrel—“it went out of style one second before it was invented.”

“Not a chance. Apple patterns were the pride of the seventies, the eighties”—Asinine’s finger shot up—“not the nineties.” He grunted. “That decade can suck it.”

“It makes me contract Lyme disease just to look at it.” Plastique continued clacking. “Anyway, the important takeaway here is this: whatever you think you still have with Legion, whatever friendship you invented in your cotton-clogged brain...it doesn’t exist.”

“Of course, it exists.” Asinine unleashed a sharp chortle. He plunked his heels on the desk, pinning datasheets underneath them. One activated and became rigid in his pant cuff. “Every time I ask him to join me at a parade, he cheers.”

“That’s because he wants you underfoot the lead float. He might not if you’d stop trying to commandeer the parade off a cliffside.”

“Yeah, right.” Asinine’s chortle came back, now sharper against the sound of his lieutenant dropping a model of a Kingfish starship on the floor. A wing snapped off, so he scrambled for the pieces.

Asinine crossed one leg over another. Didn’t work with that datasheet stretching his cuff. So he leaned back against the chair, resting his head against his netted hands. “You got it all wrong. Legion loves me. This datasheet doesn’t.”

“Why do you say that? The ignored party invitations? The unanswered calls? The gifts you send him that he returns unope—Okay, a side note about sending packages: we assume they’re bombs.”

“Why would you do that?”

Plastique threw her shotgun aside. “Because you routinely try to murder us!”

“It’s all in good fun.”

“Did somebody play Whack-a-Mole with your genes?”

Asinine threw himself at the desk and pounded a fist on it. “Leave my pants out of this!”

“Excuse me a second.” Lieutenant IQ 23 leaned into the conversation, the broken Kingfish in both hands. “You wouldn’t have a welding torch, would you?” Plastique palmed his face away. “Okay, I’ll just leave this on the shelf.”

“Think about it. Not too hard, because you’ll burn down our lobby. But ask yourself this: when has he ever treated you with anything but hatred?”

Asinine sat back again. “All the time. Just last month, when I gabbered him about joining me for couples’ tennis, he told me he wasn’t free until Hell froze over, so I penciled him in. We’re like brotherrrr”—Asinine’s smile weakened—“rrrrs”—for a second before he replaced it with an identical one. “I’m sure of it.” The smile was artificial now.

“Think harder, you lunatic. When you asked him to go to the penguin expo with you, why did he tell you to meet him in a black hole?” Plastique saw Asinine’s smile crack in obvious notches. His lips slid down his teeth to hide them. The corners twitched. His chin crinkled when his lower lip became a slight pout.

His shoulders slouched a half inch. His fingers skimmed a twitch to the side and then back, like a shudder. Happiness dimmed. He froze solid for a split second. Plastique had never heard the sound of bliss dying, but today she did. It sounded like heartbreak.

He stayed deteriorated like that for enough time to allow his klutzy lieutenant to knock over two more of Lt. Col. Legion’s baubles. His eyes drooped to a patch of the brown rug that Power Plant had tried washing with sriracha mayo.

Finally, “Lieutenant?” Had Asinine peeped that? It sounded so faint Plastique couldn’t be sure it was spoken or imagined. Nobody reacted. Certainly not Asinine, who still hadn’t budged. He removed his helmet and rested it solemnly on a leg. “Lieutenant?”

“Yes, sir?”

Asinine’s lip quivered, and his breathing deepened for a lungful. Two. He still watched the rug. “Call the junior thugs back. Tell them to meet me on the starship in five minutes. Tell Schizo to not put cling wrap over the toilet. We’re going home.”

“On it, sir.”

Asinine’s legs unfolded as lifelessly as a crane’s arm easing a rafter slowly up, as if his upper body floated on air. He dragged his feet to the office door, dragged his eyes across the rug.

Gone.

Plastique almost felt sorry for him. Almost, except that this was the same goon who’d pioneered the pajama/jetpack combo.

His lieutenant was already hotfooting to the window, probably to check on their starship parked simultaneously in the handicap lot and over the one hoverchair-accessible bathroom on the station. “Gabber, acknowledge. Contact entities Braindead, Schizophrenic, Bad Aim, and Amaranthia.” He weaved his way around the desk, around Plastique, and to the door. “Hey, everyone. We’re being called back to the starship. Time to head home.” He listened to the other end. “Yes, precisely because Master Terrible Idea Volcano said so.”

Chapter Sixteen: This Won’t Hurt a Bit

Legion dived for Power Plant to wrest him off Harrier—Yow! So hot to the touch even under his impact clothes. Red fingermarks that stank like cauterized skin marked the spots where Power Plant’s thumbs dug in. “Jeff, get off him. Stop!” None of the inmates helped. They stood aside, some laughing, others twisting their expressions. Unsure how to regard this fight, they all loved a good jail brawl, even the woman goose-stepping around holding the datasheet that read, ROUND 1.

The next boom was an explosion of floor. A hummock of splintered tiles shattered the ground, detonated a table, bowled aside a ring of prisoners. Porcelain smashed apart, a furry fist blasted through the damage, chartreuse fingers uncurled, grabbed the rim of the hole, wrenched down. A section of the floor tore out, someone lost footing, plummeted in, screamed about living a full life with no regrets. Good for him.

Legion scrambled backward into Harrier. “What scheme did you enact now, Harrier?”

“Oh, no,” was all Harrier could gasp.

Their favorite new guest’s other fist, patchy with blood, a tooth, and the shard of a Boxing Day ornament embedded in its knuckle, grabbed someone’s ankle, twisted, fragmented the bone. The inmates spread apart, scuttled back and against the cafeteria walls. Some escaped. Those who held Hearse dropped him.

“Seconds ago, I would have said opening your foul beak was your biggest problem. Now this. You’re topping my stupidity that time I ate rancid sushi and thought I’d gone back in time. What did you unleash?” Legion tried joining the inmates against the wall—better yet, outside—even better yet, sunning on some vacation planet—but the Life Monitor kept his neck tethered to a transfixed Harrier.

Another rocketing blast. Tiles slid down the chasm that had engulfed a four-foot stretch of floor.

“That thing is Canary Yellow.”

“Canary Yel—That thing’s cute little name is Canary Yellow?” Legion tried to talk over the clamor.

“Yes, I am aware of the misnomer.” Harrier yanked at his Life Monitor’s wire. “It is more of a maize. I am also aware we have run out of Gorilla Glue, blimey. And on hobby night.” He punched a wall. “Ms. Havendish will pitch a fit.”

“Canary Yellow probably spent a full week exhaling, and you’re concerned about Ms. Havendish?”

“Havendish is a cold, detached boiler with a sinus infection.” Harrier’s attention wasn’t on the abysslike sinkhole rupturing the ground that Canary Yellow pulverized. He instead typed something on a panel on his Life Monitor. It beeped and chirruped. “My follower must have failed his task. He was to unleash the man in hall fourteen A, not the beast in hall fourteen O. One is on floor three, the other in the basement.” Harrier’s gaze leaped at a wall as if he’d seen a ghost, not just an ad for one. “Oh, crock, my cursive. I shall never draft notes in shiv again.”

“Your cursive was always dreadful, but it caused death only when you confused the conditions for a peace treaty with the list of repairs on your transport.” Legion gripped Harrier’s shirtsleeve as another detonation pulverized more of the floor. “What is Canary Yellow, and why is a six-foot hole still not big enough for it to fit through?”

“What the crock’s this things?” Power Plant stomped toward the edge of the gaping crevasse, the one that had swallowed seven feet, three tables, everyone’s focus, and most of those cackling Bargain Bojangos. He ventured within a few paces when something unleashed a shriek so primal it demolished the decibel scale itself. Canary Yellow may have had emphysema. “Dat thing needs a haircut.” Both fists hit the air. “Where my scissors?” He ducked under debris thrown from the hole.

“You left them on the mil-tran. They’re embedded in the chair you rode on.” Legion dodged a table leg. Then a Trioxidillian leg.

“I wished to show you the inmate in cell fourteen A one to persuade you of the lifelessness that your Good Guy regime leads to. But—and this is of utmost importance—if my follower made a mistake, that monster is fueled by Squared.”

“That hack drug?” Legion pointed. “Your jail’s most mild-mannered gentleman is high on Squared?”

Power Plant sidled up alongside Legion. “All I needs is a Pixy Stix to take that things on.”

“That’s not a good thing.”

“Tell that ta the sugars companies.” Power Plant was pouring icing sugar over his face as he said that. Where had he found a bag of icing sugar at a time like this? Sure, pad people down for belts when they arrived at the jail, but not the really harmful stuff.

“This serves no more use. I wish no longer to be encumbered, not with that bloody monster liberated.” Harrier had finished his work on the Life Monitor. The wire joining Legion to him fell, slapping the floor. Harrier ripped out his end. “Oh, bollocks, my follower must be dead. That means I don’t get my mocha latte.”

Both chartreuse, gnarled hands gripped the rim of the hole. A blur of fur and doom spewed out. It arced near the ceiling and slammed to the floor with such thunder, it almost split another hole coming down.

If the Horror Awards existed, this thing would win Ugliest Nightmare. The cafeteria was a good twenty-something feet tall, with the lowest of those overeager light panels at an eight-foot height. This mammoth nearly knocked those panels with its head when it panted. Its matted fur—like abused rug—was part yellow, part crimson stained, part that guy’s left ear. The claws at the ends of its fat-knuckled paws were eight-inch scalpels, one ending with that same guy’s right ear. Legs like support posts, arms like battering rams, its every third or fourth breath was a roar. Its face was one only a mother could love, and still, sausage grinders had more beauty: dotted eyes lost inside a beanbag face, a broken nose skewed to one side, and a carnivorous mouth with lips like tire treads, of course eating that same guy’s middle ear. Because the guy had three ears. Its mood was a supernova of hate. Its fur bristled, each strand as thick as a porcupine quill. It waited to pounce. It probably sweated all of ChugSport’s best-selling drinking acids.

Hearse’s Fenton had slipped off Harrier’s absentminded grip and hung from a talon, so Legion grabbed it. He checked the beeping charge reading—low, but not bad—and tossed it to Hearse. “Harrier, what is that thing’s favorite flower we can have delivered within the hour? And no one tell me I’m a poet and didn’t know it.”

“An’ how long it’s been cooped up?” Power Plant readied his energy, crackling light glowing in the binary stars of his palms. “He look like he really gotta use the baffroom and smell like he gotta do number two. Go befores him, though. He probably clog everything up.”

“We must hasten.” Harrier crept to the doors as quickly as he dared risk without drawing this behemoth’s attention. “This is the first I’ve seen Canary Yellow in the flesh. It was imprisoned in dark-lit, solitary confinement, under sedative for blooming years. Legends about it have abounded for that long. Legends about its legends have abounded for longer. That is how legendary it is.”

Legion gripped Harrier’s sleeve even harder. “Tell me ‘dark-lit’ means ‘mellow ambiance with soothing whale calls.’”

“Look at its expression and answer your own question.”

“Yeah.” Power Plant stared. “Wait, no. Wait...” Squinting. Thinking. A once-in-a-lifetime occurrence for him. Somewhere inside, a circuit board snapped. “Maybe?”

“Don’t overtax yourself. You might need to remember your name later.” Legion pulled Power Plant back. “Your real name.”

Canary Yellow still panted, each breath threatening to engulf a table. It scanned from left to right, probably determining whom to destroy first. Maybe everyone at once. You didn’t get that angry by being patient and filling out forms.

It roared at the nearest inmate—grabbed her by the head—swallowed her in quarters—plucked out the spine like a cartoon cat sucking down a fish and then removing the backbone—grabbed the next closest person—tore him in half—hurled both pieces aside—apparently was full after one helping—roared again with such primal rage—grabbed the tail of another inmate—tore it off and snatched the owner—engulfed the appendage—scarfed down the man—coughed up the jumpsuit as though it were a hairball—surprise second appetite—definitely not a vegan.

“Chew ya food an’ enjoys it! People put a lots o’ effort inta how they tastes!” Power Plant launched a blast at the thing. He escaped notice by missing and not being useful.

Harrier skittered back. “If only I had my shoelaces.”

“It’s ripping people apart like wet napkins. It’s trying on a face like a pair of shorts.”

“It is not—Oh, bloody crock. It’s fitting its legs through the eye holes.”

Legion grabbed Power Plant and threw himself and the young Good Guy who was not one single bit the bane of his existence—or so he’d tell the press—behind the cover of a table that, seconds later, wore entrails. Wait, no, one single one. An entrail. A long, winding entrail. “Harrier, what have you unleashed? One of its snacks probably ended with the extinction of the dinosaurs.”

“This thing gave that inmate a chances to grab my goldy tooth.” Power Plant’s fists still glowed with charge. He’d spent nothing, looking as if he waited for an opportunity. He hadn’t used that much self-control since the circus left their trapeze swings unattended. He hefted in greedy pants, nothing like Canary Yellow, that murder chainsaw who didn’t understand “everything in moderation.”

“Blast it already.” Legion pulled at Power Plant’s arm. “Jeff, blast that thing so hard, it contracts cancer.”

“My little bang didn’t do nothings. I gotta waits to gives this thing the full bang-shebang.” Those dukes grew hotter, brighter, feeding off the insane energy drenching from the army of light panels. “The full bang-shebang. It ain’t looks like a cuddler.”

“Maybe it is. Someone bring it a puppy. Harrier, bring it a puppy!” Legion guessed again. “Or a yeti! But, Jeff, blast it first pretty please.” Legion’s pulse hammered hard enough to swell his larynx. Power Plant still fumed, his hands still fumed, his everything still fumed. “Seriously, now is the time.” More glowing, which grew across his arms and outlined the bones under his skin. More charging. His fists hummed as if his bones resonated with light energy. More visceral carnage when Canary Yellow’s hands slipped through a half dozen mor—Why weren’t these inmates escaping? “Okay, now is the time.” Aaaannndddd...apparently not yet. “Jeff, I made plans that involve living and being able to sleep again, so if you could get a move on.”

“Or maybe I blasts Harrier instead.” Chiseled by ardent rage, Power Plant shifted his weight to face Harrier and raised his resonating fists in aggressive laser focus.

“Jeff, don’t you dare. He might be the only one who can save us right now.”

Power Plant’s nostrils smoldered. He literally breathed smoke. “I don’t care.” His skeleton revealed itself faintly behind his body’s glow.

“Jeffrey, you would be wise not to lose your rag with me.” Harrier sneered at Power Plant. Then he brushed off the purple tongue that splattered on him. “Stand down.”

“Like ya stoods down when Mechanism killed Mark?” Power Plant’s arms and shoulders, now fervently yellow with his blackened skeleton shining through, smoked along with his nostrils.

“Stay away from me, you puddled dafty.”

Legion reared back to punch Harrier. “You call him a puddled dafty? You were the one who unleashed a monster. He hasn’t done that since the twelfth.”

Canary Yellow swept around, scanned for another victim or someone to hug. Its gaze slowed, found, locked. On Botch. Botch seemed to sense the focus. He was slurping down spiders or ants or centipedes—not a candy apple, anyway—but lowered his hand, mouthed something inaudible but uneasy. Canary Yellow roared and clapped its hands over Botch’s head. The head popped like a water balloon.

Legion armed himself with a femur. Technically a blunt instrument. “Canary Yellow was a painter as a free citizen, right?”

“Canary Yellow bloody well murdered Botch!” Harrier gulped, but the horror in his face lasted only a second before it became grit. “We must get to the suit. Mechanism’s bodysuit. It will save us from this, and I am the only one who can activate it.” He pushed Power Plant back. “Legion, tell your lapdog to calm down. He has no right in this.”

“Your mentor killed his brother. And Smith. And Reef. And Momentum, Null, Topsy, Turvy—Your mentor killed my mentor!” Legion launched himself at Harrier, threw a punch across Harrier’s hook nose, tackled him and thrust his head against the tiles, right next to the crater that woodchipper with fur had detonated. “He killed a lot of people, and you plan to resurrect him. Jeff has every right!” With a background of roars, a cord of blood and viscera splashed over Legion’s face in a stripe. Maybe an intestine—no, two of them. Legion pulled them off. “Because of you, I’m dressed in people’s insides.” Botch’s rib slapped his back. “And red is not my color.”

“His color’s green,” Power Plant added from the side.

“My color is green”—a green intestine slapped Legion’s head—“but not forest green.” Legion’s lips barely moved as he seethed, “So get down that hall—right—now—hop into that robo-suit, test-drive over here, and clean up your mess.” He shoved a finger in Canary Yellow’s direction, which he guessed at from the screams, gore, and fashionably colored intestines. Before Harrier could scamper off, he gripped the birdman’s shoulder. “And, in case you get any ideas, I’ll take that microchip. And, Jeff, seriously, any—time—now.”

Power Plant’s eyes were tightly shut, leaking tears, face gripped in torture, nose a loose faucet of blood that drew traces down to his lip. Holding that much light tightened his gangly sinew like piano wire. He still targeted Harrier.

Finally he opened his hands, wide palms with fingertips sparking like fireworks. Energy gushed out, twin pistons of light that smashed into—into Harrier. Legion’s body flashed in adrenaline. No, into Canary Yellow. The energy sent the people gourmand careening into a convict and then another convict and then another convict and finally the wall beside the double doors. After another convict.

A ripple fragmented the wall into a jagged accordion, reaching the double doors and crunching them askew on their hinges. Pinned against the wall as Power Plant’s torrential blast spewed out, Canary Yellow still held a spine with the skull attached. A blue hand wriggled out from underneath/behind the monster. Gave a thumbs-up. A muffled “I’m okay, I’m okay.” Hand melted off in Power Plant’s current. “I might need to reassess that.”

Things were gruesome in here. And greasy. The center aisle was a Slip ’n’ Slide. Legion hauled himself off Harrier and threw the defector only to drive him against the cafeteria’s service counter. Harrier bowled backward on the counter’s sharp lip. “Harrier, you stupid, stupid man, he’s distracted”—watched Canary Yellow try to squirm out from Power Plant’s outpour of light—“with his gory redecorating job, but still. Get that bodysuit”—slapped the mesmerized Harrier—“and fix your problem.”

Harrier nodded, swallowed as loudly as the echo of a fat waterdrop hitting a ceramic sink, and wrestled Legion’s hands off. He huffed with resolve. “Out of my way.” His eyes cut a line to Canary Yellow, estimating his path around Power Plant’s torrent...which was quickly fading.

Hearse peppered the remainder of his ammo into Canary Yellow but to no effect. He flung his Fenton away and seemed to consider leaping in to attack. He reconsidered, a smart move since he wasn’t eight hundred pounds of steel, rock, and an indestructible substance scientists had yet to invent.

And then Power Plant’s torrent evaporated, sputtered out like static electricity losing its crinkle. Power Plant collapsed and heaved thick drool, hunched on the tiles. His body was awash in sweat and expelling smoke. His forehead bumped the floor, his neck a thin wire of tightness, his mouth a grid of teeth with some snapped off when he’d held his unyielding grit. He spat acid. “I coulda killed you.” He panted, swallowed, panted, gulped, found Harrier. “I shoulda.”

Weaponless, Hearse steeled himself. Even from here, Legion saw his muscles bulge like balloons. “I shall attempt...the puppy-dog eyes.”

Legion reached out as if to stop him. No. No! “Hearse, your puppy-dog eyes are terrible. Last time you used them, not only did Cinnabon deny your voucher, they made you pay twice!”

Hearse wasn’t listening. He flung a roar into the air, his tongue waggling when Legion didn’t have a camera ready—threw himself toward Canary Yellow—paused—blinked and faked a sad twitch in his pout—somewhere a melancholy piano played—

Canary Yellow belted him once—twice—threw him aside like a bag of dirty laundry.

Harrier slapped himself, swept off the sweat shimmering over his face—and clicked into a sprint toward the ruined doors. Canary Yellow was still distracted, still blinking off Hearse’s horrible puppy-dog face, so Harrier zipped closely past him and—

Canary Yellow reached out—grabbed Harrier by the back of his prison garbs—slammed him into the wall—slammed again—roared—slammed again—twisted its grip—

...cleared its throat...dabbed a speck of blood with a napkin...paused to scratch an itch in its ear...examined the speck that came out with its finger...looked pleased with itself...

—grabbed Harrier’s wing for leverage—unstuck itself from the fissure in the wall—gripped Harrier’s head—crunched his head through the wall—again, again, again—flung him aside. Harrier’s one wing was still in its hand—nope, in its mouth. Now spitting it out of its mouth. Canary Yellow did not appreciate feathers.

Harrier sprawled over a table—something snapped—blood coursed everywhere, painted everything, poor Bargain Bojango and his Bojango buddies.

Legion scrambled over to Harrier, skidded on sweaty palms and clammy calves. He swept aside a couple wires from Harrier’s Life Monitor, that microchip, a couple of Bargain Bojangos, and some insects Botch missed while licking his fingers clean of all those wings and compound eyes. Harrier was broken, twisted, and damaged, but he wavered between awareness and catatonia. “Harrier, you slimy turncoat, wake up!” Legion stamped the floor around Harrier’s ears, jangling loose tiles. Well, ear at this point: the other one hung by a strand of cartilage and some adhesive that had come off Bargain Bojango number eighty.

“Legion, Legion...” Harrier mumbled. His swollen, cracked lips worked to separate, but strands of saliva pasted them around broken teeth. “Did I get that flying foam trikey for Boxing Day?”

“Harrier, you’re on Bargain Bojango’s traitorous list, so no preposterous tricycle with wings for you. Now wake up. I need to know how to stop Canary Yellow.” Legion ducked when a service table sailed by him and into a wall. He glanced up at Canary Yellow, at Power Plant still hunched and vomiting up fortune cookies and the fortunes inside them, and at a recovered Hearse, who had launched himself at Canary Yellow—again—but was belted aside without a second thought. Some drones never learned. “Harrier!”

Harrier’s mouth still moved, gumming empty air, but his eyes fluttered and rolled up. Thick blood now pooled in the corners of his lips. Harrier’s insides were likely twisted and ruptured. His breathing sounded shallow, and crimson bubbles popped around his mouth. He could no longer help, and Canary Yellow was chomping through its victims as quickly as Appetite chomped through a food bank’s contributions, the food bank, the building that contained the food bank, that building’s foundations, and the rest of civilization.

Time to take matters into his own hands. “Jeff!”

Power Plant twitched, fists glowing and humming as he charged up for his next attack. “Name’s—”

“I don’t care whose name you’re abusing today. I need you to do your thing.”

Power Plant heaved a breath. “Hot dang...I loves lowering property values.” He perked up slightly. “Here come a explodin’ explosion.”

Legion hoped Canary Yellow wouldn’t notice when he skittered out the beaten doors. He had no doubt Power Plant could stay outside that monster’s reach—or at least avoid being ripped in half—but Legion sorely needed this distraction. Hopefully the thick trail of inmates outside had vanished in Canary Yellow’s pulverizing wake.

Mustering his remaining strength, Power Plant pointed a new crackling charge at the ceiling and began flashing off random bolts, all the vigor he had left. “I gonna give this thing a high-five punch.” He heaved up, first on one knee, then the next, and then a trembling stand.

“Exactly how you treat visiting diplomats.”

At first, Canary Yellow didn’t heed the sparkling light show. It bashed two tables together like an overenthusiastic cymbal smasher at the tail of a marching band if that cymbal smasher didn’t know the first thing about proper rhythm. Or table manners, judging from what spewed out its gullet. Monsters should chew with their mouths closed. But then a twinkle sparkled in its eye, and it stopped serenading everyone. It slammed the tables down and twisted toward Power Plant, who cackled in midair, jaw hanging open in exhausted celebration. Most inmates were dead, some ripped asunder. Those that weren’t still cowered at the edges of the cafeteria, by the splashed service counter. So Power Plant provided the only fascination for this simple-yet-brutal food-is-good-for-the-soul leviathan.

Canary Yellow pounded forward heavily, as if its feet were encased in cinderblocks. Now was Legion’s chance. He slid under tables that remained upright and bumped on all fours under Canary Yellow’s radar. He hit the unhinged doors and clambered out.

Yes. The hallway was empty save for the thick perfume of body acids. And actual perfume. Well, one of Legion’s wishes was granted. Too bad it wasn’t the one that allowed him four consecutive days without a midnight sampling of sitar concerts thanks to Janice. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. He’d learned that last time he was denied his favorite song at the latest sitar concert: dead silence.

Harrier had said Mechanism’s bodysuit was next door, in the...what? Near the lockdown gate. The nearest door lay ahead, where the hallway cornered, so Legion skidded around, bounced clumsily off the corridor wall, and hit the door. It faded, but Legion didn’t have time to duck for cover. He scrambled in, found himself in a triage room. Benches with sweat blobs lined everywhere, desks cramming the rest of the room. Barely any space to shuffle around, though someone had found a small square on the wall to hang a poster: “All food-service staff must wash their hands and tentacles before returning to work.”

Next to a potted weeping fig, the bodysuit stood like a steadfast statue but with the personality of a pickle jar. Same as Mechanism. With its chest pomped, it stood with clunky fists clenched at its sides, as if even in death, Mechanism couldn’t tolerate uncivilized art-show etiquette. Legion couldn’t blame him in the case of that loudmouth on the knife-set infomercials.

Sounds of Canary Yellow’s destruction rammed through the thin wall. Okay, okay, what to do? He bolted around to the back of the bodysuit. Harrier had claimed only he could activate it, but Good Guy field agent Incendiary had activated a Mechaknight suit by simply climbing in. Maybe it had a coin slot on its head.

This thing stood at least eight feet tall. How could he climb in? He found a milk crate near the back of the room, grabbed it, and threw it against the bodysuit’s ankles, stood on it—it gave him about a foot of clearance—and checked around the shoulders. The shoulder blades bore handholds, or at least what looked like handholds. So he searched for something to use as a hatch release or access button. Or trunk latch. Remote keyless entry? At this point, he’d take a doorknob.

“Stupidly huge robot suit, acknowledge.” Nothing. No lights activated. The same resounding silence he wished Power Plant would learn. “Bizarre tree ornament, acknowledge.” No reaction at all. Again, Power Plant had something to learn here. “Mechanism’s joyride, acknowledge.” Okay, voice activation was out.

A demolishing crash at the wall sent Legion’s attention flying right and his necklace whacking his cheek. An indentation punctured a blunt cone into it, like an elbow had crunched through. A viewscreen serving as a workplace billboard bounced away. Power Plant was letting the chaos fly in the cafeteria. But it didn’t solve Legion’s problem of how to climb into this genocide vehicle. He slapped the shoulders, neck, arms, everywhere. His palms stung. He hit a button here, there, searched for anything that mi—Oh, it had high beams.

A hiss. He’d released an airlock. His heart leaped into his throat. What th—The front of the suit separated, and the chest plate swiveled down, whirred out of the way, parted in halves. Legion dropped off the milk crate, flashed around to the front of the bodysuit—Phew. The chest plate had opened a breach large enough to fit through, with two handgrips to hoist up on. Mechanism probably had had some smug way of getting into this suit—such as an airlift or a red-carpeted staircase—but Legion would take this.

He grabbed both handgrips, propped his feet on the bodysuit’s kneecaps, and used a combat technique he’d learned in his military service to leap off the bodysuit’s pelvis and onto the edge of the opening. Did it again, but right this time. Okay, right this time.

He rotated and slipped in. Immediately, the bodysuit’s insides took shape: it analyzed his body type, bone structure, dimensions, everything, and constricted firmly enough to hold him in place but not break him like thin glass. Oh, neck brace. Nice. And fuzzy hemorrhoid pillow that he’d never tell anyone about.

The chest plate folded now that he was inside, and the soles of the feet boosted him so he could see through the eye slit. Br-breep. This suit was working! He had to hand it to Mechanism: that egomaniac designed many things, and a user-friendly interface with popup prompts was one of them. And a soundtrack by...oh, no. By himself.

Legion stepped through the boot-up menu. It responded to thought, so he flipped along, no code needed: targeting system selection...movement responsiveness...calibration of sight and spectrum light level...mouse sensitivity...yes, it was okay that he used an unsecure connection...accept the terms and conditions of use...and go.

Legion’s first footfalls clunked along a stumbling path as if he used an ill-fitting ski-fitness machine, legs gangling to maximum stride like when that buggy cookbot had spilled butter on the lobby floor accidentally on purpose accidentally. After a few jagged staggers forward and a recalibration of the movement responsiveness, he was ready. He kept the weapons menu open—he’d need the works for Canary Yellow—and clambered down the hall where the carnage sounded like construction vehicles trading blows. The screams had dissipated, though some gurgling still haunted the cafeteria. Legion wasn’t sure if that was a result of Canary Yellow’s murder storm or Power Plant’s tacos-for-breakfast burps.

Legion’s pulse rammed in his chest, up his throat, almost out his mouth. He felt it in his tongue as he stormed into the cafeteria. Canary Yellow had, as pretty as you please, repainted everything from the tiles to the olden-style ceiling fan. Yes, the ceiling fan, as a couple of eyeballs gaped down at the floor, glued to the whupping blades by optic nerves. And tinsel, to keep it family friendly.

Power Plant was charging up again, but he looked spent. He barely kept a flicker now, hunched over and panting. His bottomless well of energy and mischief had a bottom after all. Legion focused on Canary Yellow, who seemed occupied with a new hobby: knitting. Knitting arms to other arms, which was nonetheless a creative outlet.

Legion zipped down the weapon options, found the selection that sounded the most powerful—Annihilation Charge of the Hopelessly Foolish Prattle—and readied himself. Aimed the arms—at least he hoped this would come out of the arms, because, if this was a fart blast, he and the ceiling were doomed.

“Canary Yellow!” Legion felt such reverent fear, he thought he should call it mister. Either way, the beast stopped spanking that creature’s face and twisted its fangs around to regard him. A tongue like an arm slathered blood off its fur. It snarled.

Legion was ready. “You need more vegetables in your diet.” That line was a six out of ten. “And sedatives.” A seven.

Click. Arm panels flipped up, large enough to span from elbow to wrist. Out popped cylindrical tubes with claws arched inward. Those claws snapped, sparkled with blue electricity directed at the middle. They even Bojango-ho-hoed. What holiday cheer.

Beams spewed out, the forearms like vomiting fusion cannons. They buried the fiend’s head, sent Canary Yellow sprawling into the wall beside the double doors, mashed that murder creature through it, into the purple hall, entombed it in brick and dry rot and silt and tinsel, bulldozed it into the next room, what looked like a walk-in pantry or, nowadays, a walk-in Easter egg hunt.

Legion advanced to keep up with Canary Yellow sprawling through wall after wall. Finally the monster hit the floor and scored a trench across a visitation room, into a shield screen partition. Legion lowered his arms to mash this annihilation charge into Canary Yellow. Not sure how much of a well of power this suit had stored, but when he gave the mental click to shut it off, he had to wait a minute for the smoke, sizzle, and self-congratulatory applause to dissipate.

He waved hands through choking fog. The visual spectrum switched to heat without Legion issuing the command. There he identified Canary Yellow’s temperature-stained form buried in tile.

The smoke cleared, and the heat spectrum clicked to normal mode...with a popup asking him to join a weekly thought-mail blast for killer savings. And a cheery masked fellow swinging a carving knife in the display’s bottom right. Canary Yellow lay, not even a twitch. Its chest splayed out like a book separated down the middle, ribs gnarled and organs splashed about the cavity, reeking of sulfur and seared flesh. Everything was cauterized. Everything was reorganized as haphazardly as Legion’s closet. This put the final nail in the coffin of Legion ever again dreaming restfully.

Canary Yellow was dealt with, but just in case, Legion loaded another annihilation blast. He waited for the charge to load, an electric whir that spat out and then cut off. Done. He discharged the quick pulse to turn Canary Yellow’s head into compost.

He followed the path of debris back to the cafeteria and found Power Plant sprawled on the floor. The inmates were mashed to nothingness, some as thin as paper dolls. Only two remained alive, and they didn’t look happy about it. He found Harrier. Harrier wasn’t breathing, soulless and impassive eyes gaping nowhere. All Legion offered the corpse was a growling sneer. Good riddance, turncoat. How effective was Mechanism’s teaching now?

Next thing. Legion found the microchip containing Mechanism. He curled his lip at the chip. Hmph. He loaded up one last annihilation charge. And he sent that charge through the chip until not even dust remained. Everything except shutting off this blasted Mechanism choir in ancient song was taken care of.

He commanded the suit to power down and let him out. Though it had served its purpose, he felt vile just occupying it. He fumbled out with as much grace as clambering out of an inner tube and scrambled to Power Plant. “Jeff.” He eased a hand on Power Plant’s shoulder. “Jeff?”

Startled, Power Plant heaved, blood caked on his lips and chin, drool spilling out both corners of his mouth. Legion would assume the long trails oozing out his nostrils was also drool. “Jeff, one last thing you need to do.”

“N-n-name M-m-mur...Forgets it.” Power Plant choked on spit. “Whatevers you say, does it’s mean am I grounded?”

“I’m saving that for later. Right now, I need you to nuke that armor.” Legion patted Power Plant’s shoulder. “It’s playing a bizarre rendition of ‘Der Vorgesetzte,’ and I can’t find the pause button.”

Power Plant stared as though through cataracts. But he spotted the suit. He focused light through his glowing face and funneled it through his hate stare. The suit exploded, spat shrapnel away.

And Power Plant was unconscious again. Legion’s favorite version of him. He’d expended so much that he’d bitten into his lower lip. Legion sat. Let Power Plant sleep. Legion needed to catch his breath anyway. Also find a sandwich around here that wasn’t garnished in elbow.

Chapter Seventeen: Because You Demanded It for Some Reason!

Couple minutes ago, Plaster had looked down at the crockin’ hypermutant cafeteria. Surprisin’ he could see a freakin’ thing what wit’ all that blood sploogin’ up the windows. One minute, this place was classed up since they finally got napkins. Next minute, their cafeteria looked like a shark’s dinner plate.

This trip that meandered all over the prison had rambled them back aroun’ the cafeteria—on the east side instead o’ the north one—an’ now he checked the carnage below. So thick, he smelled it through the window. Wait. Nope. That was Blackguard again.

The giant furry idiot what caused that disaster below was dead. Served him right for stompin’ all over Plaster’s opportunity to grab a plate o’ taters.

Now they was in a totally new buildin’, connected by some bridge. Sign said they was in the hyperability branch o’ the compound.

“We are close to our destination now that we have exited the hypermutations blocks,” Blackguard said. He stank more like dead crap when he talked, but that ain’t make no sense since he didn’t breathe. The big tarry dude still proceeded down this corridor, easy steps like he floated. Finally. An’ he said they was close to done here. Good. Plaster was lookin’ forward to returnin’ home so he could flick playin’ cards at Ripsaw’s head again.

Huh? Wait a blunderin’ second. “Close to?” Plaster quickened up aroun’ Marionette, steerin’ clear o’ her ’cause if there was a recommended dose for attitude, she’d-a overindulged about eight hundred squirts ago. “Mission’s cancelled. Winged dude’s dead.”

“The mission proceeds, Brother Plaster.” That floater kept floatin’. Heh. Floater.

“How?” Plaster couldn’t see Blackguard’s look, but if he could, he expected a pranky smile on it, like the jig was finally up. Only a few minutes ago, he’d checked the red-sprayed window down at the butcher’s art project, an’, sure enough, Harrier was dead. “The inmate you was after? He’s deader than Ripsaw’s one dead tooth.”

Ripsaw sliced his arms together like he was sharpenin’ them blades more. “Leave Old Gray out of this. I use him to open beer bottles.”

“Go fall in a paint mixer.”

Blackguard drifted through another l-door, but Plaster called after him, hotfooted up, left spongy footprints all over the carpet. People was gonna think his feet’s been sneezin’. He didn’t care what they believed, ’cause they also thought Ben Affleck deserved an Oscar. “Hey, I said your clipped-wings guy, Harrier? All his blood’s on the outside now.” They entered a hallway, what ended in a lonely door wit’ one tiny window, an’ a sign what said SOLITARY AND MISERABLE CONFINEMENT. Long hallway for just one cell up here. He checked the plaque next to the door ahead: cell 14-A-1.

Blackguard stopped at the SOLITARY AN’ MISERABLE cell door, didn’t turn around. Nah, lookin’ at Plaster wasn’t on Blackguard’s to-do list. He just gave a slight humph o’ satisfaction, like he proved a point in a trivia contest or wasn’t smug as all crock.

“Huh? This was where that Belch Wick was headed before you told him to go somewhere else.” Plaster jogged down the hall an’ poked his nose at the window. Checked in. Some SOLITARY AN’ MISERABLE guy hunched in there, like he’d lost all purpose. He wore white, not the orange prison duds what was the fashion in the hypermutation branch. Plaster tapped on the window to see if he was alive or if that breathin’ was a trick o’ the light. Nothin’.

“Hey, I know this guy, too.” Plaster poked a finger at the window again, squeaked a big fingerprint on it. “If they made a movie of his life, Wile E. Coyote’d screw his role up.” By then, Marionette, Ripsaw, and Gangrene was behind ’em, crowdin’ up to peep through the window. Gangrene sniffed at the pane. Plaster elbowed Ripsaw back, crockin’ douche knuckle.

The inmate only sat. On the padded, spotless floor. Arms crossed over his belly. Ain’t movin’ or nothin’, only sat in the barren room, all life lost. Nothin’ like his old crazy self.

Kamikaze.

“But this guy never had no wings to clip.”

“Brother Plaster...” Blackguard’s vague smile grew bigger, smilier, stenchier. “...does he not look as if his wings are clipped?

THE END

NEXT BOOK:

Appetite learns math.

Ah ha ha. Just kidding. That’ll never happen.

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 20: The Paper Tiger’s Yardstick

Appendices

Chapter One: Prison Broke

Chapter Two: Boys Will Be Idiot Boys

Chapter Three: Meeting of the Mindless

Chapter Four: Like a Show Stallion

Chapter Five: Identity Theft

Chapter Six: One More Complaint, and You’re Walking Home

Chapter Seven: Progressive Overload

Chapter Eight: Mechanical Girl Problems

Chapter Nine: Debauchery of Botchery

Chapter Ten: Rogue’s Gallery of the Glitterati

Chapter Eleven: From the Mouths of Apes

Chapter Twelve: The Sound of Common Decency’s Final Dying Breath

Chapter Thirteen: Shadow Day

Chapter Fourteen: Something Hit the Fan, and It Smells like Garlic and Methane

Chapter Fifteen: The Grand Tour of Incompetence’s Sinkhole

Chapter Sixteen: This Won’t Hurt a Bit

Chapter Seventeen: Because You Demanded It for Some Reason!

About That Guy Whose Book You Read Once