Out of the Black (19 page)

Payback wasn't sweet, but it was coming.

A nearly imperceptible contortion shivered through the world as the bristly haired guy from Alex's lobby struck the air before him in a blur of implied motion. The sword that came from nowhere lit with lines of power as it passed through the seemingly empty air.

The world was still a bit fuzzy around the edges from his brush with Garvey's magic flyswatter. Ping was still considering the possibility that this was a postmortem hallucination when the last body fell amid the newcomer's blade tornado and he stood alone in the archive's entrance.

Ping made another connection as the sound that Rodriguez described as a flag in high wind died and the newcomer stopped in the midst of the destruction he'd wrought. His still-ringing sword was traced with fading lines of power and edged with blood. Eddies of dusty air still swept around him as his clothes again succumbed to the downward pull of gravity, settling over his now motionless form. An instant later, sparks flew as the blade retracted.

Ping must have blinked because the newcomer was now standing over him, staring down intently. "If it makes a difference, I'm not going to stand between you and your cooking." Ping wheezed.

The guy's face softened into a smile. It was an amazing transformation... his face and eyes were expressive- pure. In the span of a single tick of the clock, he was transformed from cold fury to warm compassion with no hint of pretense at either extreme.

"Why did you kill them?" Ping asked between waves of pai from knee and chest.

The newcomer's eyes flicked to the corpses by the door and back. "They didn't take my cooking seriously."

"No," Ping paused as the last bit of numbness left his broken knee and he almost passed out from the pain. "Why did you kill Roy and Lutine?"

The newcomer looked troubled, hurt, then angry again... uh oh, this was it! Ping reflexively brought up an arm to ward off what would come next.

But it didn't come.

"I didn't." The newcomer said, voice thick. "I was too late."

Ping lowered his arm and again regarded the newcomer. The shark's face was desolate, but just when Ping was convinced he would break down into tears, his face hardened again. "But I think we're about to find out who did, and why." His damp eyes shifted to a point behind Ping.

"Excuse me." He said politely, stepping over Ping, toward Good Cop.

"No problem." Ping got out before the world gave a final shiver and went black.

Getting farther from the light, Ping heard Rae shout from far away. "Roy! You're alive! I knew it!"

"Nope." Came the reply from almost as far away. "My brother's dead."

Garvey moaned, a weak and utterly hopeless sound. He'd also heard the accusation in the newcomer's voice.

***

The pain was intense. There was no sheltering fog of shock, no refuge of unconsciousness to separate Anne from the screaming of her flesh. Her head hurt from the fist she'd taken, but by far the worst pain was from her arms and hands. The Harm seemed to be grinding them to giblets. She'd been trying to scream for what seemed like an eternity of pugilistic hell, but her voice was just starting to catch on.

She saw a few stars, but not much else. Her eyes were still squeezed shut. A part of her wanted this guy to kill her and get it over with. But beneath the familiar fatalism was something unfamiliar, something new- her will. Through the pain, behind the closed eyes, under battered flesh, something kept her pushing forward, struggling into the storm. Wyler was somewhere on the floor just behind her and this Harm was not going to get another crack at him.

She remembered what death felt like before: the fallen man tearing into her, the near-death convulsions of that night, the sinking paralysis of the next day. She remembered those helpless times at what she'd thought was the end of her wasted life. She didn't remember much of the physical pain, or really any of the fear of death. What she remembered clearly was burning remorse for a life unopened; its gift still sitting beneath the evergreen and ornaments, its brightly colored wrapping paper still intact.

She remembered the pain of looking back over a life so utterly wasted, squandered on fear and self-pity, its wonders and failures unexplored. She'd spent her days clinging to the fence between life and death, afraid of both.

She still stood between life and death, but now she was different. With life cowering behind her and death's ruthless henchman before her, she had finally picked a side in the struggle. Sure, her old God Fear was lurking in the corners of her mind, yammering. But now the sound of his voice evoked only a hot fury. If somehow she lived through this, after the reconstructive surgery and months of physical therapy, she was going to track the Fear God down and beat him with her crutches until he begged for mercy.

Pain exploded up from her right elbow again and she heard and felt the crunch of breaking bone. Her eyes popped open from the shock, and she saw feet flying by... she didn't remember going down, but wasn't all that surprised. At least not until she realized she was still standing and the Harm's feet were upside down before her and flying from right to left. Pain and another sickening crunch came from her left knee and the flying feet changed trajectory, swinging loosely toward her as the Harm's upper body whirled away from the impact with her knee.

Clarity. The world almost stopped under the weight of Anne's epiphany. The Harm was clearly dead, its little evil plans unexplored. Its arms and legs swung without volition as it spun away from the beast that had killed it- the beast that was now looking in disbelief at her own bloody hands and wondering how she could live with this.

"We see you!
See! You!
" The dry leaves voice hissed from the air around her, but it was blowing away now, fading into whispers and crinkling, then gone.

Her eyes went to the other Harm. She was still strapped into the gurney where Anne had drawn her blood. The restraints had held, but she had not. Her rigid body was contorted in death, the horrible rictus frozen on her darkening face, blood flowed from her eyes and nose.

Murderer. The word bloomed in her mind, driving all other thoughts aside. She could feel the weight of the big, confusing universe pressing in on her, could feel a patented Anne Kelley anxiety attack looming. The room was silent. All eyes were on her, mouths gaped, pressure mounted.

But then she was saved. Wyler groaned. His face was still slack, but his eyes were riveted on her and filled with at least three kinds of shock.

She bent quickly and picked him up. He felt like a feather. She put him on a gurney and applied a sterile pad from a nearby triage kit to his bleeding ear. He didn't flinch. Time for bedside manner...

"This probably feels worse than it actually is." She said conversationally. "Why, I heard of a man in Seattle who had his whole head bit off and he's fine now."

"Wpfr." Wyler said.

"You're going to be okay. The stun you took should wear off in a few minutes."

"Wmph." He gave what might have been a twitch or a nod.

"See?" she said, giving him what she hoped was an encouraging smile, "you're already starting to bounce back."

Using some adhesive film, she anchored the sterile pad to Wyler's damaged ear and started to move on to the next victim, but she felt a weak hand on her wrist. She looked back and saw that Wyler had grabbed her. "Wow." he said finally, lips pulling into a warm smile, his eyes damp with thanks and relief, "Wow!"

She smiled and blushed. He released her wrist and she placed his arm back on the gurney. His smile broadened, her blush deepened until finally she turned away. As she moved on to the fallen EMT, she keyed the emergency code on her collapsed tablet. She assumed someone else had already done the same, but it never hurt to be sure.

"...no way! Supergirl's thinner... and blonde." a young girl's voice came from outside Anne's field of vision. She turned and saw a boy and girl of about six years old, clutched in their frightened mother's arms. The mother stared at Anne with a sort of bemused horror along with everyone else, but the boy replied. "Well, she's not Spiderman, that's a boy!"

"Maybe it's the Incrangible Hulk?" The girl offered reasonably, but the boy made a few clicks on his tablet and presented it to the girl. "Nope, green. See?" He said decisively. Mom made no moves, thought no thoughts.

"Maybe she's a new one?" The girl said, turning to look at Anne again.

"A new one." the boy said, awe in his voice. They both stared and nodded.

"Hmm," Anne said, nodding, "a new one."

Ping woke with a start and a massive headache. His dreams were getting wei
rder, that was for sure.

The room was unfamiliar. The lighting was indirect, coming from a recessed border where the walls and ceiling met. The ceiling was an odd cross between stucco and textured brown finger-painting. With a little effort, he pushed himself up on his elbows and looked around. The walls were a lustrous dark wood, unadorned by hangings. The lines of the furniture were efficient. The overall look was that of well-funded eccentricity.

His chest hurt, or more accurately, stung. He now remembered ribs breaking as he was ground into the library archive ceiling by a sadistic wizard who might have worked for the FBI. No wonder his dreams were weirder now.

He fingered his ribs, but the pain wasn't as intense as it should have been if the bones were broken, or even cracked. It felt more like needles had been inserted into the bone, but it didn't hurt more or less as he moved or pressed on them. Maybe they hadn't broken after all? Maybe he'd been sleeping for six weeks. He swung his feet off the edge of the bed. More aches, but none as serious as he expected. The worst was his right knee, which had the same localized sting as his ribs.

Someone had undressed him, which made him just a bit uncomfortable. At least they hadn't robbed him of his underwear. It was times like this he was glad he was in top shape... and didn't prefer furry leather Daffy Duck lingerie. It was one thing to be stripped naked by strangers while unconscious, but quite another to think of them poking his belly or laughing at his most private fashion sense. At least his vanity hadn't been irreparably harmed by Good Cop's little tantrum.

His shoes were by the nightstand at the side of the bed, along with the rest of his possessions. Warped pistols, warped badge, Uni, warped tablet- warped ring of old metal keys. He picked up the keys, "You again." he said with a small shake of his head. He dropped the keys back onto the nightstand.

The remnants of his clothes were neatly folded on the floor by his shoes. The scuffs and bloodstains on his shoes took a back seat to the wholesale destruction of his suit. The shirt, jacket, and pants had been slashed into several large pieces with a very sharp instrument. It was as if some capricious adolescent had hacked them in pieces and then, snickering at his prank, folded them neatly for Ping to discover later.

He stood, stretched, and made for the closet. There he found a wealth of clothes. Most were black or earth toned. He selected a pair of dark baggy pants made of a tough organic fiber, a black T-shirt, and a dark brown loose-fitting jacket. The clothes were slightly big, but he wasn't swimming in them. Apparently, the owner ly slightly less runty than Ping, further proof that it was indeed a small world after all.

He returned to the bed and dressed. He slung the now-empty holsters under the jacket and tried the tablet- useless. He filled his holsters with the pistol-paperweights and useless tablet. His badge and Uni went into pockets in his pants and jacket.

At the door, he paused. He put a hand on it and eased his ear against the rich wood. From the other side he heard the distinctive sound of absolutely nothing. He felt the same giddy optimism he'd felt as he had approached the library. Of course, he thought, that had worked out well. But his was not an optimism to be ruled by the memory of bad experiences or any other form of wisdom.

This was Wonderland. Though it was a dangerous and completely daft world he had blundered into, he found comfort in its distractions. He didn't fear the death that seemed to hover around every corner- harsh experience had taught him that death was unavoidable even back in the real world. Here, bereft of familiar surroundings and comfortable routines, his mind was occupied with mystery, with the riddle of survival. He felt that in stepping through the looking glass he had left some of the worst parts of himself behind. He felt free. Of course this, like most feelings, was utter nonsense.

He shrugged and opened the door.

Across the hallway, he saw his reflection in a waist-to-ceiling mirror. He looked ragged. The well-worn clothes didn't detract from his trauma-survivor look, but his eyes still had the same sparkle, his lips were in the half twist of implied mirth that he preferred to wear. Life was a cruel joke, but he was good at laughing.

He stepped into the hallway and looked around. To his left, the hallway ended in a door about four meters down. To his right were a few doors on either side of a longer hallway that ended in an open archway into a larger room.

Ping turned right and headed toward the archway. As he approached, he heard snatches of conversation. There were definitely more than two speakers, but none sounded familiar until he was almost to the archway.

"...saying Deckard was a Replicant? I didn't get that at all." Rae said.

A slightly familiar voice replied, "That was the point of the 'Too bad she won't live,
but then again, who does
?" line.

"Then there's the origami unicorn... like his dream." Alex said.

Ping rounded the corner. He knew what they were talking about. "I hope this isn't a private film festival."

The three looked up from their positions on a pair of couches before a large wall-screen frozen on the
Blade Runner
credits, not the dorky cloudscape of the original ending, but the dark background of the director's cut. In the corner of the screen was a bright green PAUSE.

The bristly-haired guy with the shark-gun look studied Ping for a moment. He glanced sideways to Alex, who sat on the other couch with Rae.