Little Gods (23 page)

I blew air hard through my teeth. It all made sense, and it made me furious. Brady had known, he'd exposed me to brain damage, and he hadn't told me. For the greater good, right. That's the Facility's excuse for everything, and the worst thing is, it so often holds up.

“It could be worse. You could have developed aphasia, or lost your kinesthetic sense, or even gotten Karsakov's yourself. Do you see, Li, how your masters would have wasted you?” She took her hands off my shoulders, touched my face. “Join me. Let's wreck the governments, teach them all a hard lesson. They deserve it, and I wouldn't waste you."

I smiled a little. “Fuck the world, right, Kelli?"

She smiled back, indulgent, pleased. “Yes, Li. Fuck the world."

“I can't do it."

Her smile disappeared. “You remain loyal to the Facility, after all this? Then you're a fool."

I shook my head as much as the bindings would allow. “I don't care about the Facility, you're right, they're bastards. But you want to use Captain Fantasy, somehow, and I can't go along with that. Because he's a real hero, even if he is sick, even if he makes other people sick. He'd die to save the world, Kelli ... I won't help you use him to hurt it."

“Then we'll have to use you,” she said, sounding regretful. “Because you're right. He would die to save the world ... but he'd kill to save Spaceboy. I'd hoped you would cooperate, but we can do what's necessary anyway. Dear Li. My worthy opponent.” She kissed her fingers and touched my cheek, then walked away, swaying beautifully in her gown, sinuous as a cobra.

Brainchild drugged me, and after a while I woke in the central hub of the Unterseeburg, suspended twenty feet above the floor. The transparent dome overhead revealed the vast dark water, and creatures moving in it, Brainchild's creations. I looked upward groggily for a long time before noting my surroundings. I moved my arms and legs experimentally, found myself unbound. They'd put me inside a transparent glass box, coffin-sized but upright, hanging from the ceiling. I lowered my head, taking in the narrow platform under my feet and the people below.

I saw Captain Fantasy first. He looked up at me, veins standing out in his neck, huge fists clenched. The impostors stood a respectful distance away, Morlock and Blitz, with Kelli clinging to the Baron's arm like an airhead showpiece.

My head began to clear. I heard a click, and then the crackle of a hissing speaker. How nice of them to let me listen to the conversation. The Baron spoke, loud, haughty, with a terrible German accent. “Do you agree to our terms, Captain? Will you do as we say, strike where we tell you? If you do not...” I could imagine his sneer, the only bit of mimicry Thunderhead did well. “Your little sidekick dies.” He gestured imperiously, and Brainchild pulled a lever, giggling like Dr. Morlock.

I heard the sound and understood before I looked down.

Plates in the floor slid aside, revealing a dark pit full of spinning silver blades. I couldn't see the area directly below my feet, but I imagined more of the same, enough circular saws to make me into luncheon meat.
Such drama
, I thought, knees weak, suddenly very aware of the flimsy metal platform under my feet. I twisted enough to look down and see the hinges, built to let the platform swing open and drop me. Probably another lever to control that. One pull by Dr. Morlock and down I'd go.

Great job. Full-time hostage.

“Don't hurt him,” Captain Fantasy said. He raised his voice. “Spaceboy! I'll get you out of this! Don't worry!"

But he wouldn't get me out of this, and I knew it, and he knew it too—I saw the anguish in his broad face, so open, so easy to read. He couldn't fly up here to save me; he'd never believed he could fly. They had him cold, and he'd do anything they said to save me. To save Spaceboy, the one he loved, the one he hadn't been able to save before, even if he didn't remember that failure.

“Do you accept, Captain Fantasy?” Blitz insisted.

“Yes,” he said, his voice small. “Don't hurt him."

“No, Captain!” I shouted. “Don't do it! Tear them apart, forget about me!"

No one below reacted. They let me listen, but not transmit, for obvious reasons. And they could play this game again and again, I realized—just stick the Captain in a white room for a while until he forgot everything, then stage the scene again. He wouldn't get fed up, he wouldn't realize they'd never free Spaceboy. They probably wouldn't bother with me after a while, just dress someone else like Spaceboy. Wrap somebody in tin foil and the Captain would believe it was Spaceboy from this distance. This had been Kelli's plan all along, to get the Captain, the most powerful being in the world, to work for her.

I couldn't allow that. Spaceboy had died once, at Baron Von Blitz's hands, and when he died Captain Fantasy went berserk, destroyed the artillery, killed the Baron, broke the entire German tank line ... and changed the course of the war. That death, the death of his boy lover, drove the Captain to perform feats of heroism unparalleled.

I didn't think about it for too long. I knew I'd talk myself out of it. I refused to dwell on the small possibility of my own survival, either—I'd live, or I wouldn't. The result would be worthwhile either way.

All that talk at the Facility about the greater good must have gotten to me.

The glass box was strong, the platform below me well braced, but Kelli hadn't known about my smartsuit, about the built-in musculature. To help me do somersaults and shit, Brady had said, but it could do more. I braced my hands on the glass walls, lifted my legs, and kicked straight down. The Captain and the bad guys looked up at the thud, but I didn't stop. I kicked again, felt the metal shiver. One more would do it. I looked the Captain in the eye, and I blew him a kiss.

I kicked the platform as hard as I could, the smartsuit driving my legs like pistons. I screamed when my left femur snapped, and thought of poor stupid Carl Spandau, arms broken for love.

The hinges snapped, and the trapdoor fell open. I held myself up with the pressure of my arms against the walls for a moment and looked down at the whirring blades. They didn't fill the whole pit—there were gaps—but they filled enough of it.

I let go and fell, twisting mightily in the air, pushing my Touretter's speed and the smartsuit's agility to the limit.

The last thing I heard was the Captain, calling his dead lover's name.

When I woke, Brady Doolittle sat beside my hospital bed holding my hand. “Li,” he said, hoarse. He looked like he hadn't slept, red-eyed with mussed hair. “You bastard."

I looked at him, then at my hand. Pink, unscarred, soft. New tissue. “I lived,” I said, a little surprised.

“It's a miracle,” he said. “You lost your arms and legs, right up to the shoulders and the thighs. The blades nicked your head and torso, but you lived."

A miracle. I didn't argue. I'd done what I intended, twisted so the blades wouldn't damage anything vital, just my extremities. The shock rendered me unconscious, but bodies are smart, especially Metamorph bodies. My wounds sealed as soon as my limbs came off. “How long?"

“Four months,” Brady said. “We've been pumping you full of food, Li, right into your veins. It was damn creepy, watching your arms and legs grow again. Like watching parts of a baby grow up in time-lapse."

“Ever the apt metaphor,” I said, voice raspy from long disuse. “What happened...?” I didn't know what I meant, Kelli or the Storm Troupe or the Captain. Probably all of it.

“The Captain went batshit, Li, he destroyed
everything
.” He shook his head. “The Most Wanted List has been considerably revised. Lots of names got crossed off that day. Our boys were nearby, they rushed in when the base went boom and got you and the Captain out."

“Kelli?"

Brady shook his head. “We don't know. The Captain has never killed a woman. He didn't think she mattered, he said. Thought she was a girlfriend, and didn't chase when she ran off. We didn't find Mengele, either."

“Mengele's dead."

“You're sure?"

I nodded, tired of talking, then thought of something else I wanted to say. “The Captain's back in his white room, I guess."

Brady grinned. “No, hoss, he's not. He's still our guest, but he's recovered."

I didn't breathe for a moment. “What?"

“We don't know how, but he's all better, since shortly after we got him back here. He remembers everything, pretty much, and what he didn't know we told him. He wants to meet you.” He looked at his watch. “It's time for your pills right now, though."

“What kind of pills?"

He shrugged. “I'm not a doctor, Li."

I nodded, swallowed what he gave me. Some of them were drugs to regulate the Tourette's, I figured. I wondered how long it would take Brady to tell me about that. Whether he'd admit that Captain Fantasy gave me the syndrome, or just say it mysteriously developed. Time would tell. I tried not to expect too much from Brady.

The Captain being okay ... that was good news. Very good.

A few days later I got to see the Captain. The room where we met differed from the white room in particulars; it had a nice dark carpet, wallpaper, armchairs ... but essentially it served the same function. A place for a powerful, dangerous, wonderful man to wait.

He wore jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt now, his hair a red crewcut, and he looked at me for a long time. “You don't look a damn thing like Spaceboy,” he said at last.

I smiled. “I had a different face, then.” I sat gingerly in the chair. My new appendages were tender.

“I tore all the bugs out of this room,” the Captain said matter-of-factly. “They haven't had time to put in new surveillance equipment. We need to talk in the meantime."

I nodded slowly. “Okay."

“I apologize for kissing you. Understand, I mistook your identity. Looking at you now, I have to say, you aren't even my type.” He smiled, a ghost of his go-to-hell grin.

“Understood, sir.” My face wanted to blush, but I wouldn't let it.

“I loved Spaceboy in a special way. Most people don't know that. Nobody but you and me, now. I'd like to keep it that way."

“Your secret's safe, Captain."

“There's something else most people don't know.” He sighed, looked contemplatively at the wallpaper. Seeing him like this, so weary and passive, struck me as wrong. He should have been out busting heads for God and country, not sitting tired in a small room. “I have a lot of control over my own mind, my own
brain
. I don't get hurt, I don't get old, I can see farther than most, hear better ... mostly I don't think about how I do it, I just do. But I
can
think about it, and control things.” He looked me in the eye. “When you met me, I didn't know what year it was, and I didn't know Spaceboy had died. I liked it that way, Mr. Li. I had a hard time after the war, as you may know. One day, in the ‘70's, I decided I didn't like my life anymore. Suicide always seemed like a coward's way to me, and I didn't know if I could die anyway. The prospect of living forever, without
him
... It didn't appeal. So I thought about my brain for a while, read about some things, amnesia, Karsakov's syndrome...” He crossed his legs, clasped his hands over his knee. “See where I'm going with this?"

“You gave yourself Karsakov's syndrome,” I said, both surprised and not surprised. It made sense.

“The best days of my life ended when Spaceboy died, Li. I wanted them back.” He shrugged. “After seeing
you
get cut up, that trauma repeated, something shook loose in my head, and I remembered it all. I thought I'd try to make a go of my life again...” He shook his head. “It's no good. I just feel too heavy. But I wanted to talk to you. To tell you, to ask you to keep my secrets. I want to go back, Mr. Li. They'll say I had a relapse. Nobody but you will know different.” He held out his hand.

I took it. He shook my hand gently. “Sir,” I said. “Sir, I never told you, I grew up reading about you, and—"

His face brightened. “Are you a doctor?” he said. “Say, that must have been some knock on the head I took!"

I disengaged my hand from his, carefully, and stood. I turned my back to leave, then stopped. I faced him. He'd only remember for a few moments, but that would be enough.

“Sir,” I said. “You're my hero."

He smiled slowly, his whole face lighting, like the sun filling the sky. “Thank you, son. Thank you."

I shut the door behind me.

ENTROPY'S PAINTBRUSH

Lucifer walked slowly across the moon's dusty surface, looking at the sharp stars pinpricking the sky. He seldom approached anyone as petitioner, and felt nervous doing so now. Pausing before the thin dome, he considered turning back. But he'd come this far, hadn't he? He shouldn't let pride stop him from going on.

He passed through the dome's transparent walls without setting off the perimeter defenses. The single building looked gray and squat as a sleeping toad. Laying a hand on the steel door, Lucifer focused a fraction of his energies.

The metal pinged with heat as the security system burned up, and the door swung open. Lucifer adjusted his heavy black robes and stepped inside.

The building housed a single dim room. Large objects draped in gray cloth stood here and there in the shadows. A man sat at a long table, his workspace illuminated by a bright lamp. He seemed oblivious to Lucifer's entry.

“Are you the artist, Bogatryev?” Lucifer asked, knowing perfectly well he was.

Bogatryev swiveled his chair and looked at the angel, one bushy eyebrow raised. He grunted, then turned back to his table, where he patiently braided lengths of colored wire. “Yes. Who are you?"

“I've come to have my portrait done,” Lucifer said.

Bogatryev looked at him again. “Oh. Why did you come to me?"

“You are the greatest artist in history."

“Michelangelo Buonarotti is the greatest artist in history. He lived on Earth, a long time ago. Paroxys Mien, the Morelian, is a close second."

Lucifer waved an impatient hand. “Certainly you're the greatest living artist."

Bogatryev shrugged. “Doesn't matter. I don't take commissions anymore."

“Name your price.” He's so old and stringy, Lucifer thought. Temporal human decay always made him feel ill.