The Nine Read online

I waited a moment, grinning. “And?”

  “And, what.”

  “And you’re ssss ... come on you can do it.”

  Alex pursed her lips which made me laugh.

  “Fine. I’m sorry. Are you satisfied now? You know you aren’t making the rest of this any easier. I wanted to take you somewhere cool to make up for everything but ...”

  “You mean we get to go Topside and do something fun? Oh please, please, please, please, please, please, please.” I clasped my hands together and turned to jump in front of her, jogging my feet like a toddler. “You can torture me all you want. Let’s just go do something real up there.”

  This time Alex grinned. I think it was the first time I saw a genuine smile on her face. It was bright and kind and made her eyes wrinkle a little at the corners. She revealed a hint of what or who she was under all that ink and hair dye; a good person, stuck in a bad place. Maybe we had more in common than I thought.

  She made me grovel another thirty seconds, then said, “Fine. But no more talk about stupid fruit baskets.”

  I spun back around and fell in step next to her. “I don’t even like fruit.” I twisted my face in an expression of mock disgust. “Fruit is revolting, all that sweet, delicious juice rolling over your tongue and down your hand ... yech.” I pretended to shiver and actually got a giggle out of her as she opened the door at tower three.

  “Shut up and go put on your going-into-town clothes.”

  I got into my patchwork rusty orange and brown skinny superhero outfit. Alex guided us to a less than horrid landing in a lesser used outhouse storage area. Thankfully, the outhouses were either clean or so old and crusted that they no longer smelled. I didn’t care enough to open the lid and check when I stepped out of my green plastic Tardis.

  When we got to Alex’s surprise, overwhelmed didn’t quite cover it. She had found an expo that outlined the most influential advancements over the last forty years. I couldn’t have come up with a more amazing outing if I tried. We walked up to a ticket counter, and Alex pulled out her Android television-phone and showed the lit screen to the person standing at the door. I was amazed by that technology alone, but the man blocking our way seemed less then enthralled. Before we could react, he drew a big square laser gun from under the counter and shot the defenseless Android in Alex’s hand. I leaped back and waited for Alex to pull her automatic and return fire, but she didn’t. Instead they both stared back at me as if I were the lunatic.

  Alex rolled her eyes and gave me a wave. “Come on little kitty. Everything’s safe.” I shot the man a weak smile as I walked past him and followed Alex into the building. I felt like a kid from the old west dropped into the middle of a modern-day shopping mall. Alex was right. I never had a clue.

  We spent the next few hours learning about Stealth Bombers, Drone Aircrafts, and Seedless Watermelon, which I had missed by a year.

  Sucks to be me.

  There were cameras that took pictures and displayed them on obscenely large televisions with a clarity that appeared almost three dimensional. I still had a hard time believing anyone would have something like that in their house. My last television had been a thirty-six-inch Zenith, and that behemoth had weighed more than my couch. The T.V.s now would take up more of my bedroom wall than I had wall.

  Lightbulbs had changed into some sort of soft serve ice cream looking things—old Tommy Edison would be proud—and there was something called Amazon and the internet that I did not understand. Alex tried to explain the internet as a huge library where you could find anything you wanted, minus any actual books. Unless you went to a store like Amazon that sold pretty much anything, including books, but you couldn’t drive to the Amazon store. They drove to your house to give you the stuff you bought without going to their store. I asked what happened when you finished the internet. Alex almost fell over laughing at that one. I still didn’t get it. There was also something called a Facebook and a Twitter, but Alex refused to try and explain those.

  I had missed compact music disks, DVDs, iPods and MP3s, but I would catch up on that a little. I saw something that looked like Alex’s robot phone that played all kinds of music. Oh, and the music. What happened in the nineties? Did everyone take Quaaludes and start suicide clubs? Geez. Disco wasn’t even that bad.

  At the end of our visit, we stood in front of a proud auto display. Mankind’s creativity and resources had come together to build and create incredible things, and at the end, one of the world’s most powerful industries used that technology and knowledge to create what now stood before me.

  My shoulders sank. “A Nissan Leaf? Does it fly?” The tiny speed bump of a car ran on electricity instead of gas and looked like the unholy union between a Ford Pinto and an AMC Pacer.

  Alex shook her head, looking as let down as I was. “Nope.”

  “It took them forty years to figure out how to make a car run on batteries? I had toys that did that.”

  Alex nodded.

  I stared at the ugly, bulbous hunk of ... I wasn’t even sure the thing was made out of metal. “Back to the Future, my ass. Doc Brown must have rolled over in his DeLorean when this puppy vomited off the assembly line.”

  Alex seemed to want to say something, but she just smiled and walked away. “We should go.”

  I took one more look at the car, crinkled my nose as if it had farted, and followed Alex toward the exit.

  “Thanks for this,” I said. “This was great, and it helped. Even if I didn’t understand everything.”

  “You’re welcome. No reason why we shouldn’t use our perks every once in a while, right?”

  I held the door for Alex, and we headed back toward the short cut through a mechanical space to our Splice point. “They are gearing up to host the Olympics here in a few weeks too. Maybe we can come back and check things out. Might be another good opportunity to learn and blend into modern society.”

  I nodded. “That would be cool. I’ve never been to the Olympics. Do they still have Women’s beach volleyball?”

  Alex sighed.

  “What?” I straightened and tried to look appalled. “Those women are incredibly athletic. It takes years of dedication to play at that level.”

  “As long as we go see the men too,” Alex said.

  “Deal.”

  We rounded the rear corner of the building and strolled through a forest of silver piping and ventilation ducts that made up the expo’s HVAC system. Greasy water flowed in a slow trickle to a rusted drain, and steam rose out of every corner, producing trees of short-lived fog. I sniffed at the air, catching something on the wind, and glanced down at Alex. She peered back up at me. “What?”

  “Well, well, who do we have here?”

  I turned and was forced back several steps by the wall of odor that overtook us from behind. Max and Jake held some sort of strange, spiky looking fruit in their hands. Again with the fruit. I was sorry I ever mentioned it.

  “Fancy seeing you two up here.” Jake took a sloppy bite, and I retched in disgust.

  I seemed to be the only one smelling this stuff. My olfactory senses had been ramped up to a million but only to smell this putrid mutant fruit. It was like having the worst super power ever.

  The thought stopped me in my tracks. The denarius. Judas said the coin would give me a special power. One I would need at the right time.

  I peered down at the pale slice in Jake’s hand. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Jake followed my eyes down. “You don’t look so good. Maybe you need a little something to eat. Why don’t you try some of my durian fruit?”

  I tried to breathe through my mouth, but I could cover my whole face and the greasy odor would probably crawl in through my ears. “You smell like you’ve been French kissing the wrong end of a dead hippo.”

  “No.” Max shook his head. “We haven’t seen your mother today, but if we do we’ll be sure and tell her hi.” He made an obscene thrust of his hips, and his huge belly flopped out and back down.

&n
bsp; “Right. You haven’t seen that thing in centuries.” Alex wagged a pinky at Max and raised an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t know what to do with the little thing if you could find it.”

  He turned to her and bared his teeth in an evil leer. “I don’t have to see the piston to know the engine’s still running. I’d be glad to give you a peek under the hood though.” He took a step in Alex’s direction. I moved to step between them, but before I could, Jake had his rotted durian fruit shoved in my face.

  “Why don’t we leave the two lovebirds alone? You and I can sit down and have a bite to eat while we enjoy the show.”

  The smell overwhelmed all my senses and clogged my reasoning. Jake wore an olive-green overcoat that hung on his skeletal frame. I grabbed the collar, balled up my fist, and hit him in the jaw with everything I had.

  Something went crunch. Jake fell back a few steps, dropping his fruit to the concrete, but he didn’t fall. I still smelled the horrid stuff, but it no longer clouded my whole world. Jake’s jaw hung at a grotesque angle. As I worked to wipe more of the durian out of my eyes, I realized what I had incited.

  Jake’s face began to mend and crack back into place almost instantly, revealing a knowing grin. We were in an out of the way area, so there weren’t many bystanders, and none were paying attention to us.

  “Nice shot, rookie, but wrong place, wrong time. Now it’s my turn.”

  I steeled myself, waiting for Jake to launch himself at me, but he just stood there, grinning, with his yellow teeth and foot breath pumping in and out of his lungs like an overworked race horse.

  I heard the threat before I saw it. Max made a casual circle around Alex, or she circled him, I couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter. I had my own problems.

  Above my head, a growing cloud of hornets took an unnatural interest in the area where I stood. I didn’t know how he did it, but skinny Jake seemed to be the bug whisperer. And he had just declared war on Gabe.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  I backed away from Jake and into the chrome railing of a stairwell leading into some sort of basement access. The depth into which I had sunk in over my head staggered me. Like a kitten trotting through a dog fight, only the dogs hadn’t eaten in a month, and the kitten wore its favorite bacon sweater.

  Jake shoved his hands into his pockets and sauntered toward me, grinning as if he had a secret to share.

  “That’s all the fight you’ve got, newbie?” He worked his chin in wide circles, illustrating the fact that his bones were healed and all but daring me to take another shot. “You should teach your brat a little better, Alex. He needs to learn who he can mess with and who’s going to make him pay.”

  Jake looked up, and I followed his gaze toward the sky. The odd gathering of insects grew into a dark humming cloud. As soon as I laid eyes on them, the mass descended and swirled around me. I latched onto the rail at my back, too horrified to move. Stinging insects of every kind cycloned past, whizzing inches from my face. Fat bumblebees, long skinny wasps, and innocent looking honey bees joined their hornet brethren, prowling the air near my body.

  I told myself I would not scream.

  Next time, I’d remember to cut him in half and run before he had time to regenerate. And there would be a next time. After this party, I would take a personal interest in squashing this little bug-boy.

  I forced a smile. It must have been convincing, because Jake twisted his head in confusion. “Something funny?”

  I yawned and tried to seem bored, praying one of the little critters would fly into my mouth and choke me to death before his friends started stinging. I didn’t think Jake would buy the whole act, with me peeing in my pants and all, but I wouldn’t give the little cockroach the satisfaction of knowing I was terrified enough to crack a walnut in my butt cheeks.

  “Could you skip the cheesy super-villain banter and get on with it? I’m sure you two worked out some sort of dastardly duo routine—the grease-burger and his side kick the swizzle-stick—but I’d like to get this over with.”

  “I am not a sidekick.”

  I laughed. “You are a ninety-pound dork playing Army dress up in his grandpa’s P.J.s. You barely qualify as a sidekick. What’s your trademark move? Hopping around your buddy like a little chihuahua asking if you can be his friend?”

  The cloud of insects parted, leaving a clear space between Jake and me. His face twisted into something dangerous.

  I hadn’t helped my situation, but I wanted to give him something to think about while I was gone.

  “I am going to enjoy watching you suffer.”

  “Blah, blah, blah, more bad guy banter.” My eyes flicked to where Alex stood, and I fought to keep a laugh from escaping my throat. “You might want to check on your big boss over there.” I leaned in close and whispered. “By big, I mean fat.” Jake gave me a shove backward, but I didn’t go anywhere. The rail was still behind me, and despite my tough guy act, I hadn’t convinced myself to let go. “You are falling down on your sidekick duties, is all.” I blurted out the words before he had a chance to back away and launch his super-bug attack. “He appears to be in a bit of trouble.”

  Jake snapped his head around as if he had forgotten all about his partner. Alex held Max’s face down on the ground, wrapped up like a doughy pretzel. Well, most of him touched the ground. His legs were splayed back on a wall as if he had been thrown through the air, splatted against the bricks, and then sort of melted down the concrete until his face stopped his momentum. He had no way to leverage his bulk against Alex. She had his arms in some sort of wicked ninja hold, preventing him from moving one way or another.

  “Back off of him, Jake, or the news will have two stories to report in the morning.”

  Jake faced Alex. The stinging squadron of attack drones closed in and slowed their taunting swirl. I squeezed my shoulders, crossed my ankles, and tightened my grip on the rail in a fruitless attempt to cave into my own body and disappear. I couldn’t even bear to keep my eyes open. I was being vacuum packed in a bug Ziploc, ready to be poked full of holes.

  “Let him go,” Jake said. “Or your boyfriend here is headed for the Pools.”

  I risked a peek. Alex’s eyelids drooped at the absurd threat. “So, you’re saying you’ll do exactly what you planned to do a moment ago anyway? You two need to work on your bad guy game.”

  I cracked a smile then snapped my lips shut to discourage an overeager bumblebee. I didn’t want my choking and screaming to ruin the ambiance Alex had worked so hard to establish.

  “Scatter your little entomology experiment, or Max is going to learn something about spontaneous human combustion.” Alex smiled and manifested a bright red fireball behind Max’s head.

  “Let him go, Jake.” Max sounded like he was wheezing through a stack of old pillows, but his cracked voice came across loud and clear. “They’re not worth it. We have a job to do, remember?”

  “Yeah, Jake.” I risked some tight-lipped speech but didn’t dare to open my mouth and eyes more than a few millimeters. “You have a job to do. You can’t do your job, and we can’t do ours if you keep douching things up every time we see you. Let bygones be bygones. Release your creep hoard, and Alex will let your boss go. You two can kiss and make up and everyone will be happy.”

  Jake turned and glared at me through the writhing wall of insects. It occurred to me that if I had to kiss either of those two rejects, I would rather be stung to death.

  “You wanna speed things up?” Max mumbled. “It’s a little hard to breathe like this.”

  Jake’s shoulders fell. “Fine.” He waved a hand, and the growling swirl of flying harpoons took off like they remembered they were late for a lunch date. Both of my knees betrayed me. They buckled, but I managed to keep my grip on the rail. The effort wasn’t enough to keep the smirk off of Jake’s face though.

  “Let him go.” Jake faced Alex again.

  She hesitated.

  “You know what I can do and how fast I can do it.” Jake’s face became gri
m. “If you want to cause a scene, I am in the mood.” He gestured back the way we came, toward the crowds of adults and children who had no clue about the supernatural throw down going on around the corner.

  Alex smiled, patted Max on the back, and then let him go. She took a few quick steps to be sure he didn’t decide to make a quick grab for her feet, then the rest went down like a weird foreign prisoner exchange. Jake moved to help Max, and Alex made her way over to me. Neither took their eyes of the other as they crossed paths, turning so they could keep the other in sight.

  “There will be a time to finish this.” Jake stared right at me. “I always pay off my debts.” He made a show of rubbing his chin, and Max clapped him on the shoulder.

  “Let’s go. We have work to do.”

  The two of them walked away, licking their collective wounds, and I peeled my fingers off the rail behind me. I was pretty sure the feeling in my hands would come back at some point, but the joints had locked in for the long haul. We watched the evil duo until they disappeared around the corner. Then my shoulders fell, and I tried to rub my fingers back into submission.

  Alex glanced down at the rail and let out a laugh.

  “What?” I turned around and saw two perfect hand-shaped rust spots etched into the railing. The chrome had flaked away in speckled chips and revealed heavily rusted iron underneath. The rail wasn’t rusted through, but there was a noticeable indentation where my fingers and palms had been.

  “Well, looks like we found your Topside power.” Alex ran a finger over the railing, brushing away more of the shiny flakes.

  “What do you mean? Making things a little rusty is not a power. That’s more like an annoying side effect, like getting cavities from eating sugar.”

  Alex laughed. “Your power might develop if you work with it. Maybe this is just the start.” I appreciated the words Alex tried to use, after all, encouragement wasn’t her forte, but she couldn’t hide the smirk on her face.

  I stared at her, and her smirk became a little laugh. “Look, we don’t choose what manifests up here. Nobody knows why we get anything at all. You’ll figure out something.”