Chapter Six
Agony
At Brooklyn's Barclays Center, across the crowded street from the body-strewn and Police-crowded plaza, Betty Cooper's declaration about a bow, quiver and invisible arrows locks even Pete's flighty attention - which even in the presence of his true love had been fixed beyond the strained buttons of Cooper's fabric-challenged halter - into place.
"Invisible arrows?" he says, making sure they're talking about the same thing.
"Yeah. That's what I told the cops, and you said you'd believe me."
"Oh, trust me, I do." If he can deal with a katana that renders its wielder invisible, then invisible arrows are not such a stretch.
"Oh." She'd evidently been ready for everything from disbelief to mockery. "Yeah. Well, he walked away from me, I didn't care, but then he reached into his knapsack and pulls out this empty quiver, you know that thing that holds arrows and I'm like 'hey, wait a minute', then he puts it on his back and pulls out this bow, and I'm thinking 'maybe I should'na brushed him off so quick, because the thing's worth a million dollars, you know?"
"No," Myka admits a moment before Pete can. "Why do you say it's worth so much?"
"Well, it's gold. I mean it must be plated, otherwise he couldn'a lifted it, but it had lines of red, blue, green and clear stones set all along the four sides and they sure-as-hell looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds and sapphires."
Myka doesn't want to say anything, prays that Pete won't, for she really wants this story to run uninterrupted.
"Well, he holds the thing in his left hand, I watch as he reaches back over his shoulder with his right and pretends like he pulls something out but his hand's empty, but he pretends like he's putting it into the bow but there ain't no string."
"No string?" is out of her mouth before she can stop it, but Cooper is into the story and isn't going to be cut.
"No! An' he pulls his arm back but of course the bow won't move 'cause there's nothin' there, but he opens his hand and across the street this guy goes down like he's been hit and the guy reaches back again, acts like he's puttin' another arrow into the bow, pulls back at nothing, lets go of nothing and a woman is knocked off her feet and I can see blood flying everywhere and people are screaming and yelling and running and he's just standin' there and he's pickin' off one after another and there's more screamin' and hollarin' and people runnin' ev'where and he's just doin' it ov an ovr an then someone must a called the cops 'cause when the sirens start he puts the bow, and the quiver, back in the big bag and strolls away wi' peopl' runnin' an' screamin' an'…."
x
"Had you ever seen him before?"
"Na befr, n I neva wanna see him 'gain."
"Ms. Cooper," Pete asks, "would you be willing to tell the Police what you saw?"
"You mean again?" He doesn't push. "No. I've had it. Invisible arrows, stringless bow, empty quiver; you tell 'em."
She turns and walks away as fast as she can past the backs of a sidewalk full of cell phone clicking gawkers who have very likely not moved since minute one.
Myka does feel sorry for their uniformed counterparts, but she wants to tell them the truth even less than Cooper had.
"Video cameras?" Pete asks, scanning the various stores and other places that constitute the environs of one of the most famous sports facilities on the East Coast.
"If any are left, but we can't get them all."
"No kidding. The MIB's memory flasher, even if we had it," he'd asked, with high hopes, five years ago, "isn't gonna keep this under wraps."
xxx
Steve, laying on the double bed behind Claudia, has been listening to News on the radio, and the obscenity-laden phone communications are causing widespread distress. However, as he'd relayed to her, only landlines are affected, whether the contacts had been landline to landline or between landline and cell phone. They'd experimented with their cell phones directly, though not without a measure of reluctance, and had confirmed that such communications have not been tampered with.
For that reason, she has directed her research into landline systems.
However, the problem is so widespread and pernicious that people are calling for total shutdown of the system. She is hoping they will not do that; for if that happens, she may lose vital clues. Thus, she is working against time until
"I think," she announces, "I've found an anomaly."
"Well," Steve says, joining her, "if I can't have an artifact, I suppose I can settle for an anomaly."
"You'll like this one."
He stands beside her, a little behind to see the laptop's screen over her shoulder, but the complex collection of lines on the screen, leading to and out of a plethora of rectangles of various sizes and orientations, make him decide "That is either a circuit board for a 1970's color television or the map of the SF Water Supply."
She touches a spot in the air. "Nggggth, wrong. And wrong."
"Then I give up."
"You were closer with the circuit board. This is a map of Francisco's phone system."
He'd known that. "No wonder someone was able to hack it. I thought you said 'system'."
"Oh, ye of little faith."
"That usually means you're going to hit me with something good."
"Well, there's very little here that's soft, but we could have a pillow fight before we leave."
"No thanks. The last time I went up against you, you almost bit me."
x
She looks back over her shoulder and her expression speaks of feeling the hard slap he hadn't considered. "That was mean."
"I'm sorry, Claudia, I didn't think. I'm sorry."
She turns and locks her gaze on the screen. "Forget it."
"Claudia, I'm –."
"Just forget it, okay?" is a sharp bite anyway.
She may be with him in this too small room, but in her heart she's light-years distant.
"The anomaly," she says in tones that say she's only speaking because they're partners on a case and he needs the information, "is that this junction here," she touches one of the rectangles which, in its present size, is difficult to discern unless someone with very good vision is sitting inches from the screen, but it seems to have half the lines not touching it, "is a hub, but it's being interfered with."
"How can you tell?"
"Because I'm smart." She looks back again, and there is still no love in her glare. "You said it yourself; I'm Mensa, you're sandbox."
x
It harkens back to his effort to connect with her when she had been a Vampiress determined to drink his and Leena's blood, and it stings.
"All right, Claud," he says as he reaches for the computer's lid and lowers it, not so far as to lose the connection but so that neither of them can see it, "you're pissed, I know, but I apologized and–."
"No, don't you get it? I don't want to talk about it, I don't want to think about it, I don't want to be reminded about it." She turns and shoves the screen upright.
"You were whammied; it goes with the j–."
She whirls back. "If you tell me it goes with the job, I will slap you so hard it'll turn you straight!"
"Claud –."
"No, you don't get it!" She turns the chair sharply, striking his knees with hers. "I seduced Pete and rode him like a damn bronco. I bit him and drank his Blood! And I Liked it!
"A little while ago I brought Leena back to Life, then I bit her and wanted to hurt her and I did hurt her and got off on her shrieks.
"Then I made Pete strangle Myka and came this," she leaves a millimeter of space between thumb and forefinger, "close to killing her. Then I bit him again and drank more blood, not because I needed it but I Wanted it.
"And just a few weeks ago he'd declared his total and undying - undying, there's a joke, in the Warehouse everybody dies - but he declared his undying love for Myka and then he fucks me and she walks in on us, then a little later he strangled her! I made him strangle her. For any other woman either one would be relationship Kiss of Death.
"I went after Dr. Vanessa, and I wanted to tear her throat out, and the only thing that stopped me was Artie begging for her Life!
"I was powerful, so powerful I could have been a goddess. I had the powers of Life and Death. I lured you and Artie into the shelves and I was going to bring you over, make you a Vampire.
"I don't know which of the others I would have kept as walking blood banks, and which I would kill, but I didn't care.
"I wanted to do it. I Enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed being a monster. And then, in the end, when you guys won, I remembered every second, every feeling, every urge – and I know that deep down inside I'm a Monster."
x
She falls silent, breathless, and he needs every second that's afforded to him. Finally: "Do you want to be a monster?"
"Noooo. but I'm afraid. Mrs. Frederic, the powers she has - I'll have. But if I'm a Monster–."
"Claudia, no. You don't have it in you to be a monster."
"How do I know?"
"Do you want to be?"
"No!" They both know that to be the truth. "But I'm scared to death that I will be, whether I want it or not."
"I know you've spoken of this to Dr. Cho." She'd had daily sessions imposed by every authority in the system.
"Until I'm blue in the face and I suspect she's sick of the subject."
"Trust me, she won't be. But I do know that if you want to be sure you won't slip, then talk about it, don't hide from it. Talk to people. We all love you and want you to succeed."
She turns away, her voice turns further as she admits "Sometimes I'm so ashamed of myself that I can't even be in the same room with them. There are times I don't want to be in the same room with me."
"It'll pass." She looks up to him, opens her mouth to deny it, he grasps her hands. "It… will… pass."
x
His Farnsworth sounds, a series of tinny electronic buzzes.
"I'd be careful with that," Claudia advises, forcing a smile that doesn't push the pain away.
"The Farnsworths have their own frequencies, or so I'm told."
"They do," she admits, eyeing the device in his hands. "Just the same, this could get interesting."