Every Day is Like Doomsday (16 page)

“Where do you think you’re going?” asked Innya.
“I’m going with you?” Elliot said. He hadn’t meant
for it to be a question but Innya had a way of making him
doubt every thought in his head.
“No, you’re not,” she said, “You’re not a Villain. I’m
not letting you go back there.”
“But…” Elliot protested even as he saw the wisdom
in her decision. Still, he didn’t like being left out.
“There are no ‘buts’. Stay here. Watch the hostages and make sure they don’t do anything stupid. Once
the vault is open we will only take a couple of minutes
because I’m going to make The Twins do everything.
We’ll be back out shortly. Don’t get yourself killed.”
And then she disappeared through the door. Elliot
tried to ignore the noises from behind him as he turned
to face the lobby of the bank. All of the hostages were
looking at him. The two customers still standing looked
petrified so there was no way they were going to try
anything. The lone female teller, a robust woman in her
forties, looked positively bored. He wondered how long
she had worked at the bank and how many times she had
gone through these exercises since the VA’s inception. He
started to ask her, but the noises from behind him suddenly became louder, more violent. He heard voices that
he didn’t recognize. There were more people back there.
Elliot’s heart began to pound anew. He pulled
something from his coat pocket and thought about how
angry Innya was going to be that he had lied to her. She
was right when she asked if he had Craig’s dead phone,
though not about it bringing him luck, he just kept forgetting to take it out of his pocket. But the ‘nothing’ he
had lied about was the hood for his body armor. Slipping
the hood over his head, he was immediately grateful that
he had thought to bring it along. He loved that it kept his
brain safe but he hated the way it smashed his nose and
made his lips feel weird. But if the shit was going to hit
the fan he wanted to be prepared.
A moment later the young male teller ran into the
lobby screaming, “They’ve got a bomb! Everyone down!”
It is possible at this point that the wall directly
behind Elliot collapsed but after an overwhelmingly loud
explosion that brought with it a crushing wave of debris
Elliot wasn’t conscious enough to know any better.

“What. The. Fuck?” Innya asked as soon as she
stepped into the vault. To her surprise Red, Ventriloquist, and Sonic were already there, stuffing bound stacks
of bills into large canvas bags. Red was in full red monster mode and his muscles strained obscenely against his
crimson skin.

Red grinned, his mouth full of fangs, “We finished
our bank early so we thought we’d come screw with yours.”
“
Ai fundul
,” Innya hissed. “How’d you even get in
here?”
“Over here!” said Ventriloquist, but the words didn’t
come out of her mouth. They came instead from around
a bank of safe deposit boxes. Innya took a quick peek and
saw that a door-sized hole had punched out of the wall.
Red’s handiwork, she figured.
“We’re not supposed to be damaging any property,”
Twin One said.
“Yeah,” echoed Twin Two.
“We didn’t,” said Sonic, “You guys did.”
Innya narrowed her eyes and sneered at the monstrous form and his two cronies in front of her. “Twins,
move!” she shouted.
The Twins jumped into action and within moments
they were standing once more beside Innya, holding the
bags that had recently been in Sonic and Ventriloquist’s
possession.
Red laughed but his monstrous body was apparently not made for laughter, and he sounded rather like a
choking gorilla.
“What is that thing?” asked the teller, his voice
trembling. He was standing a little behind Innya and
had apparently decided that she was much less scary than
Red. He probably thought that Innya could protect him
and at the moment she was too preoccupied to relieve
him of his delusions.
“That is an asshole. Take a long, hard look, because
that is definitely the face of a giant, red asshole,” she said.
“Oh really?” asked Sonic. He reached into his
pocket and pulled out a small black box with a red button
on top of it.
Without warning the teller booked it back toward
the lobby. She heard his echoing scream, “They’ve got a
bomb! Everyone down!” and chuckled at his panic.
“You wouldn’t,” said Innya.
“We wouldn’t,”said Sonic,“But you would. Where’s
your boyfriend?”
“He’s not my boyfriend. And he’s keeping watch.”
“Where is he?”
“What’s it to you?”
Sonic clucked his tongue and Ventriloquist giggled.
Innya felt the color drain from her face and her hands
go cold. And then Red said, “I hope you gave him a kiss
goodbye.”
Sonic pushed the button. Nothing happened inside
the vault but an explosion rocked the hallway outside the
vault door very close to where she had told Elliot to stand.
Without thinking she kicked as high as she could
and caught Red in the chin with her steel-toed boots. She
didn’t wait to see him go down. Blood rushed in her ears,
drowning out all other sounds as she ran toward the lobby.
She stopped when she encountered the rubble of the wall
that had fallen right where Elliot had been standing.
“Dopple! Twins!” she cried out as she started to
move the blocks and other debris in search of Elliot. He’s
not dead, she told herself, I won’t let him be dead. She
chastised herself for not letting him come into the vault
but she hadn’t wanted him to get in the way. She felt
awful. Oh my G.O.D., she thought, I actually
feel bad!
She couldn’t believe it and wasn’t sure she liked this whole
having emotions thing. It was way overrated. Even so, she
kept digging.
Dopple and the Twins arrived. Once they saw what
she was doing the Twins jumped into it, moving bricks
faster than she could ever have done. Dopple hung back
until Innya screamed at him,“Help me or I will kill you in
your sleep, you arrogant bastard.” His help was slow and
grudging at best, but it was help.
“Elliot!” Innya called out. An eerie silence had
settled over the scene. She didn’t know where the other
tellers or customers were, where Red and his buddies had
gone, and she didn’t really care. “Elliot!”
And then she reached into a gap between tumbled
sections of the wall and her hand hit something soft. It
had to be him. She quickly tipped one of the sections
away and uncovered a person wearing Elliot’s coat but
with a black mask covering his entire head.
“What the hell?” she muttered as she reached down
and pulled the mask off of the figure’s head. As soon as she
saw Elliot’s face she felt relief but it wasn’t until she put her
cheek up to his lips and felt his soft, hot breath against her
skin that she let the relief wash through her. She stuffed
the strange mask into her back pocket and called out to
the others, “He’s over here! Help me get him out!”
“It figures. A VA assignment goes wrong and you’re
involved. Why am I not surprised?” asked Mr. Magnificent in his haughtiest tone of voice.
Innya looked up to where the annoying superhero
was floating through the hole created in the ceiling from
the blast. She said, “Of all the banks being robbed today
how did you end up in mine?”
“I have ways—” he began but Innya cut him off.
“Don’t care. He’s hurt. Get him out of here.”
Mr. Magnificent touched down on the pile of rubble. “Who is this?”
“Elliot Vane,” said Twin One.
“Elliot?” asked Mr. Magnificent.
“Yes. You know, the Senator’s son? So unless you
want the Senator to blame you, specifically, for his son’s
death I suggest you pull him out of this mess and take
him back to the VA’s infirmary.”
Surprisingly, Mr. Magnificent didn’t hesitate or
argue. He simply reached into the pile, grasped Elliot
beneath his shoulders and hauled him out of the debris.
And then he flew away through the hole in the roof.
Well, this was a disaster, Innya thought. But she
refused to let it be a complete loss. She turned to her
cronies, her face stern, and said, “Go back to the vault and
gather whatever you can and head back to the bus. I’m
going to the VA.”
“Sure thing,” said Twin One.
“Boss,” finished Twin Two.
“I hate you, both,” said Dopple to the Twins.
“Feeling’s mutual,” said Innya as she went back into
the vault. There was something she had to do before she
returned to the VA. She hurriedly stuffed as much cash as
she could into her backpack, zipped it up, and left through
the hole Red had punched through the wall.
She ran as fast as she could back to the VA and during the 15 minutes it took to get there she imagined all
sorts of scenarios. What if Mr. Magnificent hadn’t taken
Elliot to the school at all, but rather had dumped him
in a ditch somewhere to die of massive internal injuries?
She didn’t think that scenario was too likely since she had
reminded him who Elliot’s father was and Mr. Magnificent was an enormous brown-noser.
She could return to find that Elliot was a dead and
bloated mass of some jelly-like substance because all of
his internal organs had liquefied in his body cavity from
the force of the blast. But he hadn’t looked especially
droopy when she had hauled him out of the debris.
It was highly unlikely but maybe he had actually found a power. Maybe he was indestructible, which
would be very cool. She could totally work with that. She
held onto that thought and pushed herself even harder to
get to the VA.
“Quack!” she shouted, panting heavily and shoving
her hair behind her ears.
“In here,”said a muffled voice from the patient room.
But as Innya ran toward it the goofy, bald doctor came out
of the door and they nearly collided.Quack grasped Innya’s
shoulders to keep her from falling backwards.
“You needn’t scream,” he said, “He can’t hear you
anyway.”
“What?” asked Innya as her heart sank, which she
found interesting in a completely objective way because she
had always wondered if she had a heart. Physiologicallyspeaking she knew she had one because she was alive but
she had never felt anything as viscerally as she was feeling
now for Elliot’s safety. It was an interesting reaction but
her brain was already moving on to other things.
He was the first person she could actually consider a friend. Even more surprising than that was the
realization that she cared for him on some strange level.
Maybe she saw him as a child? No, she hated children.
OK, so like a pet, then. Though she wasn’t normally too
keen on pets, either, because the only pets she had ever
had were the dancing bears and the horses in the circus
and they had always had an unfortunate tendency to die
after lengthy, depressing illnesses. The circus had always
replaced the bears with other bears and the horses with
other horses but she knew the difference. There was one
bear, Boris, that she had cared for, and her feelings for
Elliot reminded her of her feelings for Boris.
Elliot was her hairless, not-at-all bearlike Boris.
And now he was dead.
“He’s dead?” she asked. Her voice did not tremble
or waver in any way. That part wasn’t so surprising.
“Well, he’s not going to be up and around for a
while but he is not dead.”
Innya shook her head and narrowed her eyes. “A
wall exploded and collapsed on top of him. What do you
mean he’s not dead?”
“You sound disappointed.”
“So do you.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“I’m not disappointed, psycho,” Innya said through
clenched teeth. Sure, she was irritated that his supposed
death had made her feel strong emotions that she wasn’t
prepared to deal with but she was certainly not disappointed that he was still alive. “I’m surprised. As I said:
explosion. Wall. What gives?”
Quack motioned for her to follow him back into
the patient area. “Let me show you something.”
Behind an off-white curtain lay Elliot. His face
was battered but she couldn’t really tell how much was
from the night before and how much was caused by his
incident with the wall. The black clothes he had been
wearing were tattered and had been cut away but there
was another, tighter piece of clothing beneath that was
still intact. She touched his knee. The warmth of his skin
seeped through the thin, flexible material.
“Why is he wearing a wet suit? Is this some new
revolutionary treatment for internal injuries? Does it
hold everything together?”
“It’s not a wet suit. But it is revolutionary. Either
he is the most advanced robot I have ever encountered or
this is some sort of body armor.”
Innya shock over Quack’s asinine statement vied
for supremacy over her shock that Elliot had body armor
and never told her. She knew she’d never get anywhere
explaining anything to the doctor so she chose another
tactic. “He must have invented this.”
“You know, it’s rude to talk about someone right in
front of them,” mumbled Elliot and Innya jumped.
“You’re awake. You know if you wanted to test out
your armor I would have recommended something a
little less potentially lethal than bringing down a wall
on yourself.”
Elliot winced. “Where am I?”
Innya looked up and Quack, who was staring at
Elliot as if trying to mentally dissect him. “Get out,” she
said. The doctor’s face fell and without another word he
turned and left them in peace.
“What’s his problem?” Elliot asked.
“You’re lucky you woke up when you did.He thought
you were a robot. I think he wanted to open you up.”
“Great. How’d I get here?”
“Mr. Magnificent came to the bank to ‘stop the Villainous deeds’ or some such nonsense and I told him you
needed to go to the infirmary.”
Elliot scowled, then groaned in pain, then said, “He
brought me here? And you asked him to?” Then he made
an expression that was a cross between a grimace and a
smile and added, “You like me.”
Anger rushed to the surface, replacing any kind
thought Innya might have entertained. Suddenly she was
comfortable in her skin once more. Innya punched him
in the arm, hard enough to get his attention but not too
hard because hey, he had been through a lot lately.
“Ow,” he said.
“Need I remind you that I am being paid to like
you? And I cannot forgive you for not telling me about
this armor.”
“I was afraid you would want to try it out and I
didn’t want to get my ass kicked.”
Realization struck and Innya asked, “You were
wearing it last night, weren’t you?” Elliot’s silence condemned him and Innya punched him in the arm again.
“Who gave it to you?”
“The Dean.”
“That makes sense,” mused Innya. “He would have
known you didn’t belong here from day one. He’s a sensible man.”
“I am angry with you for lying to me…”
“I didn’t lie, I just didn’t tell the truth.”
“Semantics. But this can actually help me… I mean
us… I mean you.”
“How? I don’t recommend trying to test the limits
of this suit any time soon. I don’t think I can take any
more abuse.”
“Fine.” She glanced around the edge of the curtain
to see the doctor sitting in his office at the end of a short
hallway. His door was open and by the way his fingers
were flying over the keys it was very obvious that he was
only pretending to type something into his computer.
“We can talk about this in my room. Let’s go.”
She grabbed Elliot’s hand and pulled and Elliot
yelped in pain. He then turned a really disgusting greenish yellow color and then threw up in a bucket on the
other side of his bed.
Innya immediately dropped his hand. She didn’t do
sick. “Oh, yuck.”
“You’re definitely not a robot,” said Quack as he
entered the patient area once more. “That means you
have a concussion.” Elliot’s retching went from fullblown vomit to dry heaves and the doctor added, “He’s
not going anywhere for at least a couple of days.”
Innya didn’t like the idea of him being in here alone
with Quack because he was… well, a quack. And she
would be free to do as she pleased around campus but she
would be alone. And for the first time in her life she didn’t
really relish the idea of being the lone wolf. But she didn’t
know how to deal with the emotion so she turned to her
constant companion, mindless anger.
“What do you mean, a few days?”
“Concussion, remember? He needs to stay for
observation to make sure there is no internal bleeding…
or something.”
“Or something?” asked Innya, starting to doubt his
credentials.
“Thanks,doctor,”muttered Elliot,clearly not understanding that he was entrusting his health and well-being
to someone who had probably completed his residency
stealing kidneys from drugged patients lying in bathtubs
full of ice.
“Don’t talk. You might throw up again and I’ll have
to not speak with you ever again because every time I see
you I’ll be thinking of you throwing up. So just shut up.”
Elliot nodded. From the way he closed his eyes and
grimaced she could tell that he was fighting down some
deep, dark gastric urges.