Runaways:
Southern Comforts
Chapter 5
Just Older
by Ri-kun
I never would've thought Nicole capable of thinking something like this. She had really surprised all of us tonight with the way she just took charge. It actually made me feel a little set back for a minute or two; I'd originally assumed I would be the one to take the lead when the shite inevitably struck the proverbial fan. Nicole had us race through the woods directly across from the church. There was a parking lot not far from it, and someone had left a rusted old van there with the doors unlocked. Miguel and I got busy switching the plates around on several vehicles; Nicole insisted it would make us all the more harder to find. O-Ren, meanwhile, was busy hotwiring again.
"I really am sorry about your car," she told me again, once we were all inside. "Really! I never thought they'd blow it up..."
"It's over and done with!" I told her, quickly. Gabriel shut the door, and we peeled out of there like our asses were on fire. "Besides," I added. "My parents had it insured before it left the car dealership!"
"Better hope the policy covers acts of enraged dark sorcerer," Gabriel said, looking over my way.
His dog was with us, making the inside of van smell all the worse. I really hoped the only thing it needed was a bath, or else we were all going to have a serious problem. I'd already thrown up enough in the last twelve hours!
"So, where are we going?" Miguel piped up, looking from one to the other. "Does anyone have a real plan this time?"
"Proof!" Nicole said, turning around in the passenger seat. "We need to find some proof of our parents' wrongdoings, so we can go to the police and tell them what we know."
"Why?" O-Ren interjected. She took her eyes off the road and nearly sent us into a ditch.
"Watch the road!" Miguel cried out, hanging on for dear life.
"Don't backseat drive! It's distracting. And why go to the police? I think it's pretty clear by now that our parents own the cops, and probably every other legal division in the state!"
"We'll think of someone to talk to," Nicole assured, looking worried. "But first, we need solid evidence. It won't do any good to tell people anything if we don't have something that can back our word up."
"I never saw any spaceships at our garage," Miguel told us, hurriedly. "There were plenty of suspicious people coming in and out, but nothing that told me they were flying in from 'out of town'. Kinda makes the whole 'border patrol' joke seem mild now, huh?"
"You wouldn't have noticed if E.T. landed in your backyard asking for directions!" O-Ren quipped, keeping her face forward this time.
Privately, I agreed with her! "What about your house, then?" Nicole asked, looking at Gabriel expectantly. "Anything there that could help us?"
"Maybe," he shrugged. "But my parents probably have enchantments and stuff all over the place. I've lived there for years, and there wasn't anything that suggested they were involved in... Well, my mom had a fit when she caught me reading Harry Potter, so that should give you some idea!"
"What's he talking about?" O-Ren asked, glancing in the rear-view mirror.
"You missed it earlier," I told her. "Gabriel's parents are really dark sorcerers that worship a..."
I paused. "Dormamu," Miguel filled in for me. "I've read about him on the internet. Dormamu is this evil, interdimensional, world-devouring, demonic demigod. His main follower is a guy named Baron Mordo, who I'm guessing wrote that book of Gab's! That's why I got so freaked out back there over it. Doctor Strange has fought against the both of them several times. So has Spider-Man, I think!"
O-Ren snorted. "You see, this is precisely why I don't like going to church. And if Spider-Man could beat either of them, they can't be that tough!"
"Hey, don't diss Spider-Man! He's taken down the Juggernaut twice!"
"That's even worse!"
"Quiet!" Nicole snapped. "What else is there, then?"
I quickly filled Nicole in on what all there was at my parents' place. She immediately ordered O-Ren to take us there. I gave her directions from behind, while filling her in on what all had gone down in the church, including some revelations concerning the rest of us.
"So, you're from outer space?" she said, glaring back in Miguel's general direction. "Well, that makes a hell of a lot of sense!"
"I didn't know until about a half hour ago!" he said, defensively.
"And just what the heck is a Skrull, anyway? Some kind of intersteller Neo-Nazi?"
"Close," he admitted, gravely. "They're this interplanetary race of world-conquering shapeshifters. Now that I think about it, my mom had a fit herself when she caught me reading about them online. I guess she didn't want me to know anything ahead of time, either."
I had to fill O-Ren on that part, too. "They called themselves the Pride. I don't know what it means, but they were saying that we were supposed to find out about everything when we turned eighteen. Us learning about them now was a fluke accident. They also talked about having a backup plan in case this did occur; something about erasing our memories!"
"Well, forget that!" O-Ren swore, turning where I pointed, and making the wheels scream in protest. "Now that I know, there's no way those hypocrites are going to get the chance to shut me up! I'll tell every crackpot and nutjob in the city if I have to, until somebody listens to me!"
My house was just up ahead. We saw the flashing lights of police cars long before we got close enough for them to spot us. It was a good thing, too, because O-Ren had to veer sharply to the left in order to turn around. We wound up pulling a hard one-eighty degree turn, which sent all of us flying about in the back. Miguel landed on my head, and I could feel Gabriel's dog clawing at us desperately from below, stuff oozing out of him all the while. I swore that my skin would never feel clean again after that!
"Well, that's out!" O-Ren proclaimed, dejectedly.
"There's one place left," Nicole said. "Head to 8th Street, and step on it. I really should've seen that coming. Naturally, if they control the police, they would've placed them at all our houses in case we tried going to one of them!"
"So, what's on 8th Street, then?" Miguel wondered. "Nobody we know lives there, am I right?"
"True," Nicole admitted. "But, if I'm right, there might be another way. We can't risk going to any of our houses tonight, but I'll be none of them have thought to put guards around where they work!"
"The pharmacy?" O-Ren asked, startled.
"Exactly! The church is out, obviously, since we just left there. And if they're watching Dan's house, then most likely the cops will be at the rest of our homes, too, waiting to see if we show up. The pharmacy seems like the best place to go. Plus, there's probably some evidence laying around we can look through!"
"I doubt it!" she grumbled, gripping the wheel tightly. "But, if you insist, we'll head over there."
"Keep to the back roads," I offered, helpfully. "Less chance of them spotting us that way."
O-Ren said nothing to us for the rest of the trip, though it was a relatively short one. I had the feeling that us proving to be right was weighing pretty damn hard down on her at the moment. She seemed to be driving slower with each passing second. When Miguel got up the nerve to ask her why, though, she passed it off as not wanting to draw attention to outselves, then proceeded to suggest that he engage in sexual intercourse with his own person.
"If he could do that," Gabriel pointed out. "He'd never leave his house for anything!"
"That's for damn sure!" Miguel replied, backing me up.
Luckily, O-Ren knew how to get into her parents' business, even though she swore to have never been here before. There was a door in back behind the alley where we left the van. It kept us in the shadows and out of sight, for which I was very grateful. Of course, this also meant that O-Ren spent several minutes fumbling around in the darkness, looking for the spare key. Twice, she insisted that somebody go back to the van and turn the lights on for her, but each time Nicole told her no. It would, after all, have given our position away.
O-Ren still didn't like it, even after she found the key and let us in.
The back door led us down a dimly-lit hallway. Even before O-Ren found the lights, something in the back of my mind told me we'd come to the right place. At the very least, there was no secret panel to locate; no hidden button to push so we could find the evidence we'd come here for. Just about everything had been left out in plain sight!
There were weapons all over the place, and nothing like the ones my parents had kept in their hidden basement lair. Most of these were kept inside canisters that had numbered labels printed on the side. The contents of them glowed and shimmered with a strange light. They were most certainly of a liquid variety, and clearly dangerous. The first thing O-Ren did was command Miguel to not touch anything. She had good timing; he'd been just about to reach out and grab hold of an especially nasty green substance held in place by a black cylindral. I found myself breathing a sigh of relief when he yanked his arm back, frowning.
O-Ren and Nicole, meanwhile, had located a large stack of CD-ROMS on a table next to a Dell laptop. O-Ren seemed more bothered by the brand name than anything else; she kept ranting about corporate mogulism and mainstream marketing. Nicole tapped her on the shoulder after a second, though, and cut her off. Curious, I walked over with Gabriel and his smelly mutt to see what she was holding. The CD in her hand had her name written on it, once in English, and again in what I assumed was Chinese. There was also another kanji at the bottom, one I didn't recognize.
Of course, I didn't speak chinese anyway, so all of this was purely guesswork.
"It means 'knowledge'," she told me, when I asked. "What does this mean?"
"I think," Gabriel waged. "They meant for you to hear it someday. Try playing it on the computer."
O-Ren hesitated for a second or so. She seemed to be waging some great inner struggle with herself. Finding out about our lineage had been rough on everyone, but she looked especially pale. I almost offered to do it for her, but then she turned and furiously slammed the CD-ROM down into the drive without a word. I hoped there was something left on it when she was through taking her anger out on the computer! She appeared determined to blame it for everything we'd endured in the last day.
The screen came to life, and immediately began reading what was on the disk. There was a minute or two where the screen showed nothing but a bunch of authorization windows and computer jargon. Then, a password box came up. O-Ren saw down and looked at it for a moment, her hands hovering over the keyboard.
"It has nine letters," she mused, her fingers twitching. "Let's try 'knowledge' and see what come up."
"Good idea!"
O-Ren typed it in, and almost at once, the lights went out. There was a pause, where I was sure we were about to die horribly and painfull, then a light shot down from the ceiling. We all jumped a little, but it turned out to be only a hologram. As the image took shape, we all were surprised to see O-Ren's parents standing there in the middle of the room, passing halfway through a table that contained corked vials marked 'virus'.
"Good evening, O-Ren!" the image of her father said, stiffly. "If you have found this, then that means either your mother and I are dead, or something unforseen and terribly destructive has come about. If the latter is the case, then it was most likely a new civil war, or invasion by corporate terrorists."
"You always knew something like this would happen, and I hope that by now your mother and I have prepared you for this. In the third compartment up front, near the Tylenol and boxes of tampons, you will find a secret compartment that contains several inventions that we've been working on in our spare time. I hope they come in handy during the forthcoming battles. If you need further answers, simply seek out the Whittakers."
"Their copy of the Abstract scroll contains the entire history of the Pride, including the reason why your mother and I chose to ally ourselves with them, against better judgement. If the Whittakers prove reluctant to turn over the Abstract, you have our permission to use deadly force. We hope this finds you well, and please remember that your mother and I are proud of you for continuing on with the beliefs that we instilled in you! Good luck!"
"Well," I said, bitterly. "They really thought of everything, didn't they!"
Everyone looked at me, except for O-Ren. I had the balls to at least feel ashamed of myself, but for just one moment, I'd hated her and her whole messed up family life. It really made me ashamed of myself, knowing what my own parents had been up to for so many years. O-Ren just stared at the spot where the hologram had appeared for a moment, then headed up front. We all knew where she must be going, but followed after her anyway.
She'd already gotten the compartment open by the time I got there, and was holding up a rather large gun. I immediately felt regret for what I said, and took refuge behind the shelf of condoms next to me. She wasn't pointing the gun at me; rather, she looked offended that it was there in the first place.
"That's all there is in here!" she croaked, sounding miserable. "There's nothing but guns, and parts for what I'm guessing are more guns! My parents were supposed to be pacifists, for crying out loud! They hate war; they were going to vote for Hilary just as soon as she ran for office, because of her views on dismantling the military! Why did they even need any of this?! It's not like we were broke or anything! What was all of this stuff for?!"
I would have liked to answer her. Had I the answers to her questions, I would have left the security that the back of the shelf provided and gone over to her. Provided she put the gun down, of course!
Nicole did walk over to her, though, and put a hand gently on her shoulder. "Let's take it with us, anyway," she said, softly. "It's a start, at least."
O-Ren didn't answer, but looked back in the compartment with revulsion. "There's all sorts of what I guess are upgrade parts for this thing. And something that looks like a skateboard. I can't imagine why they'd put that thing in there!"
"Here!" she said, tossing it through the air at me. "What do you make of it?"
I guess she just wanted the attention off herself for a little while, so I didn't get mad, even when it hit me on the forehead. There wasn't very much to it; the thing really did look like a weird-looking skateboard, minus any wheels. I felt like I'd seen one of these before somewhere. Maybe in a movie...
The windows up front shattered instantly, and several smoking canisters came rolling along the ground towards us. I recognized them for what they were, but it was Nicole who shouted for us to run. The gas spread very quickly. We'd barely made it behind the counter before it filled the air where we'd just been standing.
"How did they find us?" I wondered.
"Must have a silent alarm somewhere," Miguel said, looking upward. "We tripped it when we came in without deactivating it."
"Those bastards!" O-Ren growled. "Here, lemme see that!"
She was pointing at one of the upgrade pieces that Nicole had in her hand, who obliged by offering it without argument. O-Ren found the slot where it belonged without a problem, and grinned wickedly when the piece licked into place. The gun suddenly shifted in her hands, like something out of a Transformers movie. It was now slimmer, and looked a lot lighter than before. The barrel stretched out almost three feet, like what a sniper would use.
"What do you guys think?" she said, cocking it. "Do we fight our way out?"
"They've brought the police, at the very least," Nicole said. "If not ninjas and cult members! Something tells me none of them will waste time pulling their punches."
"How about the back way?" Miguel pointed.
"Too risky. If they found us, they've covered every exit. Unless!"
Nicole pointed at me. "That thing in your hand! Could you get it to work?"
I had no idea, but wasn't going to tell her that. "Get it to work," she told me, when I nodded. "O-Ren, you come with me. We'll keep them distracted until you can turn it on. If it does what I think it does, we may stand a chance of getting out of here alive. Gabriel, you and Miguel head to the back until I call for you. Keep watch, and take out anybody that comes through those doors. I suspect we'll have company in just a few minutes."
"Some people should phone first before stopping by!" Miguel quipped. "Sure thing, boss! Come on, Gab."
Gabriel went with him without a word, leaving me behind to work out something I'd never seen before. I hoped there was an instruction manual lying around somewhere, but a quick rifle through all the files under the cabinet told me nothing, other than someone named Bart Thomson was taking antibiotics for a vasectomy, and that my next-door neighbor needed a new prescription for birth control. Which was more than I needed, actually!
I decided to go for the tried and true method which had served so many technical support advisors over the years. Bullets could be heard from up front, along with something that I hoped was a laser rifle returning fire. O-Ren, it seemed, was helping to keep the police busy! I lay the board down on the tile floor, and began stomping on it as hard as I could without exposing my head to the gun fire. It seemed the god of technical wizardry hadn't forsaken me yet, because I did something right without meaning to. The board lit up all at once, and I found myself being lifted off the ground slowly. What more, I couldn't pull my feet off the pads that they slipped into. Something was holding them firmly in place.
And then, I was shooting around the room like a pinball on crack!
I couldn't tell which direction I was going. There was definitely pandemonium everywhere, though. I think O-Ren might have taken a couple of shots at me, which only served to make me scream even louder. I was loosing manly points where Nicole stood by the second, but couldn't stay focused long enough to care. Suddenly, I was outside, and being shot at by cops who obviously had never seen a teenager buzz them overhead on a rocket powered sideways flying skateboard. Bullets were raining from all directions, people were screaming so loudly I couldn't tell whether it was Nicole or not, and then something snatched me out of the air.
I was literally frozen in mid-air, hanging upside-down with my staff gripped so tightly in my hands it would take a crowbar to pry it loose. The other police officers had stopped moving as well. O-Ren was kneeling down beside a very sick-looking Gabriel, who had the Word of Mordo out in front of him, opened to a page I couldn't see well from the angle I was in. Even still, there was enough blood left in my brain for me to figure out what had happened.
Miguel somehow was able to stretch his arms long enough to pull me down. Gabriel informed us then that the time stop spell wouldn't last for very long. It had nearly killed him casting it, so we made tracks out of there. Miguel insisted on switching the plates again, even though we didn't really have enough time. There was nothing to trade them for but police cars, which I was sure would be even more conspicious, but refrained from saying. We left just as it looked like the spell was begining to wear off.
Everyone was quiet as I drove. O-Ren hadn't looked well enough to risk giving the wheel, so I took the front seat with Nicole. It felt like we'd all aged a hundred years. Something was pressing down on my shoulders like a quarter-ton of solid brick. It hurt just to keep my head leveled to watch the road for traffic. At the least, it was late enough that there weren't many cars out now. That meant fewer people would spot us, but we couldn't count on that for long. I could see the first glimmer of sunrise coming up over the horizon.
"That was a fiasco," Nicole muttered. "I nearly got all of us killed, and we didn't even get a chance to take any real evidence from the pharmacy! Now, where are we going to go? We need a place where we can sleep, and plan our next move."
"I know I place," I told her, feeling oddly calm. "We can hold up there for the time being."
The place I was referring to was called Kamelot Arcade. Or, rather, it had been at some point. Kamelot Arcade was a place my mom and dad brought me a lot to when I was in elementary school. I remembered how mad I'd been when they closed it down. The building never opened again, and nothing had been built in place of it. I snuck over once in junior high, a couple of years after it went out of business on a whim, just to have a look at it.
As it turned out, the gate surrounding it had been torn open on the back side. I'd snuck in just to get a closer look, and learned the secret of slipping in undetected. For the next three years, that had been my magical hideaway. I hadn't come back in awhile, but no one else knew about it. We'd be safe there, and I knew for a fact that there were places to sleep.
I drove us there, stashing the van in this old sewage drain that was just big enough to back it into. Once that was taken care up, we slipped across the street and around back to where the opening was at the gate. From there, it was just a matter of wedging the employee entrance open. Miguel did that, even though it didn't really require super-strength to do it. I'd been managing just fine, after all, for the past three years. I think he just wanted an excuse to test his powers.
The place was old and duty, but well-kept. I showed everybody where someone had left bunk beds and blankets for us to sleep on. We were all tired, but way too wound up to sleep, so it was some time before any of us went to bed.
And, of course, there was the fact that we all needed to talk.
I think I'd been dreading this more than anything, but it was important to Nicole that we all got our facts straight up front. Which meant that we all had to sit around in a circle and reveal what we'd learned about our lives and our parents. None of us wanted to, but since I'd spent the most time in my parents evil lair trying to figure out what they were up to, my story turned into the longest. When I got to the scroll, O-Ren raised up at attention suddenly.
"The Abstract scroll!" she declared, pointing at my chest in an accusing way. "The hologram of my parents said that yours had it stashed away. They said it contained everything in it about our parents!"
"Right!" I exclaimed. Then, my face fell. "And it was in the front seat of my car, which burned to a firey crisp on account of Reverand Merryweather!"
"Sorry!" Gabriel said, quickly.
"No one's blaming you," Nicole told him, quickly. "But we really could've used that scroll. I just bet it had all the proof we needed!"
"Good thing I picked it up when you were helping me out of Dan's screaming metal deathtrap, huh?" O-Ren was holding up the scroll now, wearing a very self-satisfied look on her face. "Glad to see I haven't lost my touch!"
"It's in code," I warned Nicole, who took it out of O-Ren's hands with relish. "I tried reading it myself, but nothing made sense."
"There was a Seer's Ring in the bag of tricks I stole from Jeff's basement," she told me, reaching into it. "It said that this thing can decode encrypted messages! We just have to use it to decipher it's meaning."
"Until then," Miguel spoke up. "I think we should elect a team leader."
"What for?" I wondered, staring his way.
"We just need one," he insisted, getting to his feet. "If we're really serious about all of this; if we're really going to get evidence about what are parents really are, and what they've been doing all this time, then we need a team leader. I mean, that's what this is all about, right? Stopping them before they come after us, right?"
He had a point. "So," Miguel went on, tossing his chest back. "I nominate myself."
Of course! O-Ren actually laughed in his face. "No way am I following you to so much as a comic book sale! I nominate and vote for Nicole. She got us out of more than one sticky spot tonight. I trust her to lead us in this... whatever we call it."
"In our mission to stop our evil, supervillian parents?" I offered.
"Right," she nodded. "Nicole has my vote."
"Mine too, then," I said, looking at her. "I agree with everything O-Ren just said. You were amazing back there!"
Nicole blushed. Miguel, meanwhile, was glowering down at Gabriel as if to instill a mental command into his brain. I really hoped that wasn't one of his alien powers. Personally, I agreed with O-Ren on what she said about him, too!
Gabriel, however, needn't have worried me. "Nicole," he said, calmly, not blinking away from Miguel.
"Traitor!" Miguel hissed, then sat back down to sulk and pout.
"Fine," Nicole nodded. "I accept."
"We should have team names, though!" Miguel interrupted, looking alive again. "You know! To solidify our... unity, or whatever!"
"Team names?" I asked. "Like what?"
"Well," he stood up again. "I think I should be... Captain Crash!"
I wanted to laugh at him. Resistance was futile, especially with everyone else snickering loudly. "Captain Crash?" Gabriel jeered. "Does that mean one of them is the beauty queen from Mars?" He was pointing at O-Ren and Nicole, smiling the whole time. I couldn't figure out what he meant, and it must have shown on my face.
"Bon Jovi reference," Miguel explained, giving Gabriel a high-five. "Going to be lost on you, I'd wager, Mr. Japanese Techno! Speaking of which, what name are you going to pick for yourself?"
I had to think about it, but it finally came to me. "Midoriyama!" I declared, with the same overdramatics that Miguel had used.
"Midori-what?" he asked, incredulously. "What the hell is that?"
"The place in Japan where they shoot 'Sasuke: Ninja Warrior'. It's a television show, like American Gladiators, only much cooler. I watch it every Sunday on G4."
"Think of something else!" O-Ren pleaded. "You're not really japanese, so you shouldn't get to pick a name from the language."
"Actually, I'm one-quarter Japanese!" I countered, proudly. "My mom was born in Tokyo, but had a mother who was german. I grew up listening to her curse in the language every time my older brother did something wrong! It's how I know Japanese as well as I do."
"Fine!" O-Ren muttered, though she knew she'd been defeated. "In that case, I'd like to be Shooter. From the Mark Wahlberg movie!"
"Because he spends a whole scene with his shirt off about halfway through the movie!" Miguel laughed. "So, what about you, Nicole?"
"I like my name," she replied, nonchalantly. "Besides, it's too late, or early, for me to think about it right now. I'll come up with a good one later, I promise!"
"There's no rush," I assured, winning me a smile.
"Well, I guess that just leaves you," Miguel said, looking over at Gabriel. "What's it going to be? We should also come up with a name for your dog, too! What's a good name for an undead killer mutt?"
"His name is Scooby," Gabriel told us, giving the dog a pat on the head. "I picked it out on the way here. He seems to like it!"
"You should name him something like Bittersuite," Miguel offered instead. "Then, you can be Doctor Feelgood."
Gabriel was stuck on Scooby, however, so O-Ren finally insisted that Miguel let the subject drop. We were all exhausted, hungry, tired, injured, and worn out. It did indeed felt like we aged somehow. From the time we wandered down into Jeff's basement seemed to be where our lives really started. Everything before that felt like borrowed movie stills from someone else's life. Someone far more normal than I was! With a jolt, I realized that I had an older brother, who probably didn't know anything about what was happening. I'd have to find a phone and call him soon. We hadn't spoken since his last visit some months ago. I wondered how he'd take all of this, and whether any of it would sound believable to him.
Finally, I fell asleep, but it wasn't the restful kind. My brain just wouldn't shut off, no matter what I tried. There were sheep, thousands of itchy and smelly sheep, making lots of racket as I watched them jump back and forth across a fence above my makeshift bed. I kept thinking about the battle in the pharmacy, and what the Wongs had inferred, however unwillingly. The Wongs had been involved, and so had my parents. So had Nicole, which still seemed odd to me. I'd waited for two years to have something in common with her; as it turned out, something had been there all along. And now, she was not far away, in the other room...
Predictably, there was a reaction somewhere down south that no amount of self-adjusting fabric could help with. I had to think of something to take my mind off our abrupt living arrangements. So, I thought about what the future held for all of us. No matter how hard I looked at it, though, the future was nothing but a big empty black void. Something was welling up in my chest the whole time, though. It felt like a fire, only colder. I realized then that some of us might not live for too much longer. I couldn't count myself among the number just yet. My heart wouldn't let me bring myself to, but I knew even at that moment that things were never going to be the same.
And if what I'd seen of my parents was what the future had in store for me, then I was going to be as bad as I could get. I'd do everything in my power to keep everyone safe, and stop our parents from doing whatever they were planning to, even at the risk of my own life. But, I wasn't going to be good. Not for God, or myself, or anyone else!
After all, only the good die young.