Author's Note: Another chapter, and this one didn't take nearly so long. As always, I bow down to the mastery of my co-author Luna, who makes this chapters readable. Love you, hun!
Jasper belongs to our twisted minds. Ripley does not, although we had to give him a name because when he featured in the 'toon he never had one as far as we know. Also, reviews make us happy! Indulge us, maybe?
Chapter 8 - "A space for breathing."
Comic books were Bends' guilty pleasure. There was no sight more empowering than half a dozen newly shipped boxes full of crisp, colourful pages that the rest of the world wouldn't get to see for another hour. The reason he came in early on a Saturday had less to do with stocking the shelves and more to do with some gloriously uninterrupted reading time. He cracked open the first box and just inhaled the scent of ink-glossed paper. A face peered eagerly over his shoulder.
"Is that the new Phantasma comic?" Jasper asked with reverence.
Bends couldn't help but share a grin. "Yep. Fresh off the press."
"Can I…?"
"Ah," he admonished, swatting the other's hand away. "Not yet. Owner's privilege. Put the other boxes out and then you can read it before we open up, okay?"
Bends might as well have told him that Christmas had come early. Jasper looked thrilled in spite of the prospect of work. "Okay!"
Bends shook his head ruefully as he watched Jasper happily set out on the chore. In the long line of dark clothed, mascara smudged and oddly pierced candidates who had applied for the job while trying to convince Bends they would assume the role with the utmost seriousness, Jasper had stood out for exactly the opposite reasons. Red haired and bubbling with enthusiasm, Bends had somewhat selfishly decided that he'd rather work with someone who loved their stock than someone who pretended they didn't. Jasper seemed to be an uncomplicated kind of person, and that was exactly what Bends was looking for.
Every time he thought about telling Jab about his replacement he found himself staring guiltily at the floor. It still didn't feel quite right to take on someone without consulting his partner, who'd been the mastermind behind the whole business (though Bends had managed most of the research), but it wasn't as though Jab could sit in on the interviews and Bends was sort of avoiding him without thinking too hard on the reasons why.
He just…needed a short break from that insanity. He hadn't been back to the underground for a week, and that guilt ate at him too, but there were practical considerations. People were starting to notice his mysterious absences, Suspended Reality had been gathering dust, and his mother – who he spoke to maybe twice a year – had called him to make sure he was okay and pose some truly mortifying suggestions about counselling. Soon after they'd hung up, he'd actually wondered if maybe she'd had a point and that, more than anything, made Bends realise he needed to wade back into the waters of reality.
As far as he knew, he wasn't missing anything important. The brothers were probably still nursing their wounds. The battle had been a nasty one. Bends had lingered around long enough to see Slammu awake – worried by the story of what Paradigm had done to him at the construction site – but the youngest had been mostly bewildered and claimed not to remember much of anything. It had been silently and unanimously decided that this was probably for the best, and Bends had been sure that when he left that everyone would be fine.
Half a dozen times he'd picked up the phone to call and make sure, but each time he'd put it down and reminded himself that a loony bin wouldn't be a fun place to holiday. They could last without him for a few days, and as Jab had rather untactfully pointed out, there wasn't much Bends could do for a bunch of irritably healing sharks. What he could do was induct his new trainee so that he could leave the management of the shop to someone else if another emergency happened, and that's exactly what he intended to do.
One more week of quiet and sober silences and Streex thought he might go nuts. Like someone had died, he thought sardonically, and then banished the thought with a sick feeling because it might very well have worked out that way if Jab had been a little less lucky. It was all very well that they were still alive, but in spite of what they'd been telling each other, none of them were 'all right'.
Well Streex was, but in his opinion he was the only one, and it was a state of mind that was slowly being eroded by the lack of attention.
Although his precious mirror now held a place of honour in his room, his reflection was no substitute for actual company. When Lena arrived with her usual allotment of groceries, he practically bounded out to meet her.
"Let me help you with those," he offered virtuously, taking the heavy bags with strength to spare. Despite the strained avoidance the brothers had around each other, the maintenance base had still been miraculously evolving with the slow, profound changes of a glacier. One corner was starting to look something like an actual kitchen; arguably the most important amenity they needed, with tables in place of benches, a row of uneven cupboards, and a fridge that he was probably better off not knowing where Jab had scavenged it. His nose already told him things about it he wished he could unlearn.
"Thanks Bobby," she said. Her smile was the first he had seen all week, and he reflected that it was getting way too serious around here. She seemed to be thinking the same. Her expression turned worried. "How are things here?"
"Oh, you know." He was prepared to shrug cheerfully and then turn the conversation to lighter matters, but he knew in an instant she wasn't going to buy it. Instead he said, "Rip's working himself into a frenzy and Jab hasn't been around much, and Slam…"
He hesitated, not knowing what to say. She put a hand on his arm.
"We've all talked to him but I don't know how much it helped. I think he might remember more than he's letting on, but I don't want to push." The whole situation stank to high heavens, and it didn't help that Ripster and Jab should have been taking care of it but weren't.
"Where is he?"
"Downstairs." Streex hadn't actually known they had another floor below this one until he'd desperately tracked Slam down a few days ago, half worried his brother had been taken from them again. Upon finding him, Streex had tried to berate him with an impassioned speech on how much they all needed to stick together, but Slam had just dully informed him that he shouldn't have worried.
"I think he's worried about going back to the surface," he confided to Lena. "I've tried to get him to come up with me, but he always says no."
He didn't add that Slam had looked faintly panicked with each suggestion no matter how gently Streex had broached it. It was an expression that should never have to cross his face.
"It must have been hard on him," Lena suggested softly. "Not being in control of himself like that. Anyone would find it terrifying."
It hadn't been exactly peachy for the rest of them either, he wanted to say, but there was no point dwelling on it. It would never happen again, not while he still breathed, and he knew Rip was already making plans to that effect. Slam would be given the space he needed…but somehow Paradigm still needed to be taken care of, and thought Streex had been dying to ask what those plans were, he hadn't worked up the courage to ask. He wasn't all that keen on seeing Paradigm again. Jab was the opposite. In fact if Rip didn't announce his grand scheme soon, Streex thought that Jab might just go and do something about Paradigm himself.
"I know," he said. "But I don't know how to help him and he's been like that for a week…"
"A week's not that long," she reminded him with a wane smile.
"Seems like it down here," he said morosely. "Nothing to do but watch the mold grow. I think Rip's started giving names to the rats."
That made her smile a little more real. "Don't you have the TV?"
"Erm…" He looked over to the broken box that had once been a television. "Jab broke it," he said before she could start getting ideas about whose tooth marks it bore. "He saw that interview Channel 8 did with Paradigm."
She sighed deeply. "Ah."
"Puts on a good performance, doesn't he?" Streex remarked sourly. "I was hoping Bends might fix it for us but he hasn't been down in a couple of days. It he okay?"
The question felt a little awkward. What was okay anymore? But he'd gotten a brief sense of bad vibes when Bends had left and nothing had seemed to have been resolved since then. Yet another thing his idiot older brothers weren't taking care of.
"I'm sure he's just busy with the shop," Lena said. "I'll call him, okay?"
In a distant sort of way he realised that Lena couldn't really associate with Bends outside of work anymore. It was too risky; if Paradigm caught her snooping, she wouldn't want to lead him to anyone else, and if the brothers didn't have at least one person helping them on the surface, then life would get a lot harder.
"Thanks Lena," he said, meaning it on multiple levels and then, unable to take himself seriously for more than a minute, he added in a charming tone, "Don't know what we'd do without you."
"Starve," she observed pragmatically, nudging one of the grocery bags towards him. "I wouldn't want you boys to go hungry."
"No TV would be safe," he returned dramatically. "Hey, when you talk to Bends, could you ask him to bring us a couple of comic books? Coop loves those things."
"Of course," she said, looking over her shoulder. "Is John here? I need to talk to him before I go."
"He's probably still wrapped up in the computer," Streex said, looking through the groceries with a bit more interest now that Lena had reminded him of their existence. He pointed. "Down that way, second door on the left." He inhaled deeply. "Is there jerky in one of these?"
She smiled, faintly amused. "Don't eat it all. The others might want some too."
"No promises," he said, digging enthusiastically through the bags.
The overhead doorbell rattled again; it'd been doing that all day. Sunday was popular for customers, as Jasper has learned rather quickly. So when it went off yet again, Jasper didn't lift his head from the order catalog this time. If they really needed help, they'd come to the counter, and if they tried to pilfer merchandise, that's why they had a surveillance system. Or someone more honest would catch them. Sunday. Church day. Jasper trusted his nose on these things.
Knuckles knocked on the wooden half of the counter, the same half Jasper was manning. "Is Bends around?"
Jasper looked up, and took a moment to stare.
Customers were, generally, of the 21-and-under age range. Fathers wandered in on occasion with a child in tow, buying two or three different issues, twenty-somethings came in looking for the mecha builder kits, and old men liked to stare at the showcased collector's items from their younger years, recalling what it was like to have heroes in those days (that, however, only happened once so far; Jasper initially believed the guy to be lost). The man asking for Bends was none of the types he'd seen so far, so he probably wasn't a paying customer. The fact he was looking for the boss was equally telling. Most people he'd seen like this guy fit the poetry-reading, bongo playing weirdo description, all right down to the small round shades and long ponytail.
But Jasper didn't judge. Not that horribly anyway. Maybe it was a friend, or a financial supporter, or a mentor, or a dude-from-another-shop-area. Business tycoon? Mafia? Did Bends play bongos for this guy? "Lemme find him for yah."
With a quick glance around the store (giving a good surmising of people who probably didn't need his help), he left his station and scampered into the back half of the shop. Bends would be in the way-back back office, looking over the sales and shock versus the total. Totally nothing Jasper wanted to ever handle himself. Math and numbers were too stressful, unless it was comic issue numbers. He was pretty good at those, if he said so himself.
Jasper poked his head in the doorway with a quiet knock to the frame. "Some guy's looking for you."
Bends was, in Jasper's unprofessional opinion, looking somewhat lost when he raised his head in question. Even his shades were askew and Bends unbothered to correct them. "Who?"
"Dunno. Grey, portly, fell off the 60s truck?" Jasper didn't have the modesty to tell him that might have been insulting, as he reasoned it would never get back to the guy.
"That," Bends said, stretching backwards awkwardly. He must've been hunched like that for over an hour, "is Ripley Greyson. And he's probably the man I need to see."
The Ripley man was still waiting patiently in front of the register, as was a customer. Jasper jumped to ring him up while Bends took one look at Ripley's struggling expression, and hoped. "Tell me you have good news."
Ripley produced a white plastic tube into sight from below the counter line, and grinned. "They finally came in."
Bends' shoulders sagged with absolute relief, like half a burden was temporarily gone. Ripley was already unscrewing the top and pulling out three glossy poster pages from its depths. Jasper eyed them as the customer made small talk.
"I'm still not positive whose bright idea it was to call the damn thing 'Malleus Maleficorum'," Ripley said as he let Bends unfurl the posters. "You know we're going to be strung up by the wiccans and druids."
Bends grinned wryly, because that had been Clint's idea, and Ripley hadn't mentioned his name in Bends' presence since the news became city-known, save once. It was sketchy ground, after all; how did one act when a business associate became involved with scandals and mutants, possibly against their will? Though there were the rumors and speculation that the brothers had willingly given themselves to Bolton's experiments, and it was turning the under city inside-out and upside-down.
And now, the posters were in, of a project they'd joked about one day, spoke to Ripley about it out of fancy, and Ripley made most of it happen under their noses. That had been five months ago, and in a couple weeks, the independently owned businesses of The Stringpick Musium and Suspended Reality would be hosting some form of free-for-all music competition. Because everyone liked loud, obnoxious music.
Jasper was hanging over his shoulder; it was getting to be a quirk Bends recognized as 'obvious curiosity'. The boy was going to get in trouble for that, some day. "What are those?"
It was a three-piece advertisement, the main bill flanked by information and events. They'd been advertising since a month ago on flyer papers, and the complications getting the proper display images had been grueling and frustrating. Of course it was entirely experimental: who ever heard of a concert endorsing people to cosplay before?
"Dressing up is for movie and anime fanatics, kid," Ripley said, and not for the first time. "You don't need fancy costumes to go listen to good music."
"Says the man who still set it all up willingly," retorted Bends, and not for the first time either. "Thanks, man. These look absolutely amazing." And the he handed them off to Jasper, who was eyeing them with so much glee that he bewitched himself onto them. "Go put these in the display case at the front, would you?"
Jasper beamed, as if a great honor had been bestowed on him, and took the three posters and the set of keys Bends handed to him before zipping toward the front door. Ripley snickered as he watched. "Got yourself a firecracker. What is he, fourteen?"
"Old enough." Which meant more or less Bends' own age. "Gotten anyone new since last week?"
"A few more auditioners, yep." Ripley passed along a sheet of paper over the counter. "I'm going to see them this coming weekend. Dendrophilia come from north Cali, Justin Abaring wants in – I know I made you listen to him once – and some newbie Canadian soloist, Kresnick, called up for a chance. He's not bad either, from what I heard on his MyPlace account."
"Sounds cool." Bends' schedule conflicted with the auditions, which left him only time to usual spot for the later half of the run of try-outs on previous weekends (but then again, Clint had been there to supervise previous). Maybe he could lock up early, since the list was so short this time around. He did want to see who'd be playing, after all. "And the caterers?"
Ripley smiled. "Found us one. And they're willing to supply for a cheap cut, depending on the turnout. Signed them up practically on the spot when I saw the spreads."
And it seemed things were finally going right, if only for the moment. Easy to ignore the last week when pieces of anything were beginning to fall into their right places.
The hardest part was to know where to start looking. When almost everything could be accessed through the internet, how did you sift the gold from the sand? Ripster had been working ceaselessly for days, and while he had certainly learned more about Paradigm, his father, this city and the whimsical attitude of the public than he'd ever thought he'd need to know, Rip still couldn't tell how much of it was useful.
Information on Paradigm was as enlightening as it wasn't. With his new status as the Mayor's personal confidant on the Bolton case, newspapers had been eagerly digging up every scrap of information they could on the man, saving Rip the trouble of doing it himself, but certainly none of it so much as hinted at Paradigm's hidden megalomania. Just his profound genius.
Luther Paradigm, childhood prodigy. Born to a perfectly normal family but quickly coming to the attention of various government programs that accelerated his learning curve beyond what any ordinary school could provide. Graduated to a college equivalent at age nine, with a particular bent for chemistry and biology. Was a pivotal member of several sponsored Think Tanks before joining the military at age eighteen. Served in a number of volatile overseas missions as a scientist, physician, weapons researcher, tactician and finally commanding officer, and the leader of many successful and a few celebrated victories.
Paradigm was a war hero, Ripster discovered with disbelief. He'd never had guessed it, even when he'd just known the man as another studious University professor like his father.
It was during that time period that Paradigm had lost his eye, although no one actually knew the story surrounding it. Paradigm was reportedly unavailable for comment in all instances it was mentioned. After a full decade Paradigm resigned with full honours, apparently wanting to reacquaint himself with his more scholarly roots. He returned to his hometown of Fission City and began to establish his own empire, founding Paradigm Enterprises, a successful, but modest business. Quickly scanning through a biography of the company revealed that it traded in laboratory equipment, biochemical supplies, food production, and a number of other unrelated side ventures that seemed to exist mainly so Paradigm could fund his private research.
Then there was a period of time that the papers couldn't account for, in which Paradigm was vaguely described as being 'abroad for business purposes'. Ripster was sure it had to be significant, but there nothing outright suspicious about it except that during that time the remaining members of Paradigm's biological family were all killed in unpleasant but unremarkable circumstances. Work accident, heart attack, cancer…his sister was killed in a shooting during a failed bank heist, and those responsible had been caught and imprisoned, having pled guilty to the crime. Ripster had stared at those reports for hours, trying to will some kind of connection into existence, but there was nothing to be made of it. Paradigm was, to all appearances, regretful but largely unaffected. He had never spent much time with his family, being severed from their mundane lives by virtue of his vast intelligence and driving ambition. If he had secretly loved or hated them, there was no outward sign.
The next chronicle in Paradigm's life was one the reporters latched onto with zeal. Eight years ago Doctor Luther Paradigm had been introduced to Doctor Robert Bolton.
The two men couldn't have been more different. While Paradigm had been a child genius, Bolton had apparently been a late bloomer in the world of science, though his theories were just as ground-breaking as Paradigm's earlier ones had been. Where Paradigm had been a military man, Bolton was commended on several occasions for his strict pacifistic views. Two brilliant, if diametrically opposed mindsets, but their partnership had been a long and successful one. John had seen those awards on his father's wall but hadn't often stopped to wonder how they'd been earned.
Robert Bolton and Luther Paradigm had all but revolutionised the field of genetics…and then somehow, it had all gone wrong.
The papers of course laid the blame with Bolton, which Ripster stubbornly overlooked because the timeline was too important to ignore completely. Everyone suspected that Bolton's near obsessive study of genetics had been somehow prompted by the death of his wife. Even John had suspected it, though he'd never been brave enough to ask outright. For a brief time, Bolton had claimed to be working on a new project that had outlined in non-specific terms a study of advantageous evolution. Introducing traits from a thriving species into a waning one, such as giving the disease resistance of the shark to an illness fraught species of seahorse. Improving on Mother Nature, the papers whispered, was a very controversial topic, but one that had gained the immediate attention of many other geneticists for the near unlimited uses of such a technique even while the conservatives rumbles in discontent.
There had been a lot of pressure from the public, too many greedy benefactors trying to cut in on the action, and a number of unscrupulous fellow researchers who weren't above stealing the theories for themselves.
Bolton had eventually hushed up the project, working on it only in secret until most had forgotten about it. People had eventually decided it was a fantastical idea, too much like science fiction, and that technology wouldn't have made it feasible for another decade.
Bolton had been underestimated…or maybe it had been Paradigm who finally perfected it. Ripster couldn't know, but he was sure that Paradigm must have stolen the work from his dad and warped its purpose to create creatures like himself and his brothers.
In any case, the papers now described Bolton's increasingly secretive behaviour as the first sign of his spiral into madness. Paradigm mournfully reported that even he had been cut out of Bolton's work. Ripster didn't doubt that. Bolton must have eventually suspected, and then he'd disappeared…
John had been a good student. He memorised all the facts like a history report, organising the timeline of events in his memory, but as interesting as it all was it was only the past. He still needed to find information that would help with the present, which meant continuing his search. The mere idea made him sigh unhappily at the computer screen.
"Time to take a break?" Lena suggested softly putting a hand on his shoulder.
He made an agreeable groan. "I can't even tell if any of this stuff matters or not. Maybe Paradigm's just unhinged and everyone's been missing it."
He felt safe confiding in her the one thing that made his head hurt the most, and the one thing his brothers would never want to hear. "For all the bad things he's done to us, he's done a lot of good things in his life too. Great things, even. Why…?"
She sat down. "I don't know."
"Neither do I." Ripster stared blankly at the screen. "I wonder if Dad would."
"I hope we get to ask him." She handed over a thin folder. "Here's those clippings I mentioned. That theft at the Aquarium?"
Jab's mangled retelling of Slam's kidnapping hadn't been at the forefront of his mind for the last few days, but at Lena's prompting he remembered the one unresolved element. If Paradigm's creatures had stolen something, they must have had a reason for it. He glanced through the papers. "So it was a squid?"
"A rare species from the Barrier Reef," Lena agreed. "I suppose it's valuable to the right kind of people."
"I don't think he's going to sell it." He leaned back in his chair. "When we went into that first lab of he, he was keeping a bunch of sharks there. The same breeds that the four of us ended up. Great White, hammerhead…"
"So you think it's part of another experiment?"
"To create more mutants like us, yeah."
She thought about it. "Why is he using sea creatures? I mean, if he needed test subjects, why not use animals he can get more easily? Stealing rare squids is kind of high profile. That can't be good for him."
Ripster shrugged. "No clue. Maybe it's the way the geneslamming formula works. Maybe he just likes fish."
He managed to make her grin. "Or maybe he's just crazy?"
"That too," he agreed.
The worst kind of listless was when you were too tired to even try to rise above boredom. Slam couldn't find the energy to plug in his gameboy or pick up a book, or do anything at all. Even the mindless entertainment of the TV had been denied with Jab's tantrum earlier that week. Slam wasn't too upset, but then he didn't feel much of anything at the moment except sit and pretend to sleep.
Real sleep was plagued by dreams, the kind he didn't want to remember and barely did, but in inevitably got him into the frame of mind where he started to think about it all again and he didn't want to. Thinking was painful. For the first few days that had been literally accompanied by headaches and dizziness, but now it was just a general state of an alien feeling that he supposed might be depression.
He felt haunted. Sometimes he'd swear that the acrid, disinfectant smell of Paradigm's lab still clung to him even though he'd washed it off half a dozen times. His neck would twinge, and for a jolting moment he'd feel the pins of the collar sticking in like knives. Memories came to him in flashes, leaving him exhausted and restless and more afraid than he should be because it was never anything but blurs and distorted sounds. He didn't even remember enough to get upset over, and that was somehow worse. The blank parts of his memory mocked him, and his brothers telling him not to worry about it was only a careless dismissal of his worst fears.
They didn't mean it that way. Slam knew it, and would have accepted it…except doing so meant thinking, and thinking meant hurting, and it was far better to just not think at all. Floating in limbo was fine for the moment. He could shut everything down until he could barely feel and those nasty flashes almost never came to bother him, and at least when they did he was usually alone. He'd feel worse if his brothers had to see it. They were busy. They had to keep doing things while Slam was stopped.
"Bro?"
Of course they wouldn't leave him alone entirely, not when they still weren't convinced that he was recovering. Honestly, Slam wasn't sure either. If a breakdown was looming on the horizon, he was doing his best to ignore it.
Jab was his most common, and least comfortable, visitor. Every moment with Slam seemed practically painful to him, but he couldn't seem to stop himself from coming either. Slam kept meaning to tell him that it wasn't necessary, but something stayed him every time.
He glanced up and attempted not to look quite as awful as he felt. "Hey."
Jab sat down next to him and very impressively managed not to look at him considering the natural orientation of his eyes. "How's it going?"
"Fine." Jab smelled of car exhaust and brick dust. Something in Slam quavered a little at the smells of the surface. "I was gonna sleep for a bit more."
It was the easiest way to avoid talking. No one had questioned him about it. Sleep was supposed to be healing, and it was obvious that Slam wasn't managing much of it for all he claimed he was trying, but for the first time Jab looked unconvinced. Slam wasn't sure how many days he'd spent down here but maybe it was getting to be too many. There was a limit to how much rest was healthy and how much was not, and perhaps he was nearing that threshold but he wasn't ready to quit.
It was cruel, maybe, but all it took was to stare at Jab until the other's frown faded to uncertainty. It wasn't at all accusing, but Jab seemed to take it that way. "Okay."
He rose to leave, half-relieved and half-guilty. His hand lingered on Slam's arm. "You know, if you need someone to talk to-"
"I know where to find you," Slam said agreeably, though in half an hour this would likely not be true. With nothing better to do than listen to his own breathing and the distant sounds of his brothers, he knew Jab hadn't been around. Where he went, Slam didn't know, although the surface smells said enough, and deep down he knew this wasn't a good thing but he didn't have the inclination to worry about it, or wonder if Ripster knew. That also required thinking.
Jab was the only one not fooled into surmising that Ripster didn't know where he was going or why. With Rip's hearing and that weird motion sense of his, he wouldn't have been able to miss the absence of one brother, and at the end of the day those were really unnecessary. Rip knew him, and knew that when Clint was in a mood the best place for him to be was elsewhere. The four of them were attuned to each other. One sour temperament would spread like contagion, and the fights tended to grow exponentially after that. Better to leave before something was said that couldn't be unsaid, because a falling out was the last thing they could afford.
He knew it was the right thing to do or Rip wouldn't be letting him do it…but that didn't make him feel like any less of a coward. He should be fixing things with Slam, but he didn't have a clue how, and being anywhere in his brother's presence was a painful reminder. You went looking for a fight and bit off more than you could chew. This is what you get for being careless and stupid.
It wouldn't affect him so much if it had been the first time he'd done something like this, but Jab's temper was infamous and his list of stupid acts was longer than his arm, and no matter how many times he went through this the lesson never really seemed to stick and it was frustrating. He didn't have the sort of discipline to keep himself constantly in check, but at least before this he'd substituted it with friends who had a bit more common sense than he did. Well, he thought wryly, not so much in Jets' case, but Bends-
Another stupid act for his list, and he was sorry to say it had taken him an idiotically long time to wonder why Bends had also been elsewhere, and afterwards he could hit himself. Had, in fact, at least in the process of demolishing a series of support columns in the factory he was taking refuge in. They satisfied his need to hit something, although soon he'd need to either stop or find another building before this one came down on his head.
He called it training. Clint had been on the school wrestling team. He'd taken up boxing, and had picked and won his share of street fights, and since getting this new body which was stronger and faster than any human could hope to be, he'd started to take it all for granted. Overconfidence. That had been his mistake.
The jolting pain that reverberated down his arms was an absolution. Next time, he would be stronger. Next time, he would be faster.
On the lucky days, he would reach the limit of his endurance and be too tried to even think. On the unlucky days, he would stare at his phone and realise that anyone he wanted to call he either couldn't or shouldn't, and the thought of going back to the maintenance station made him shudder even if he didn't want to be alone.
He knew what he should be doing. It had occurred to him days ago, but every time he remembered either daylight was against him or he was too exhausted to feel up to it. Pitiful excuses and he knew it, but that first bite of humble pie was always the hardest. The first step towards any solution always was. He thought of Slam, who hadn't moved figuratively or literally in a week, and viciously forced himself to get up and start walking.
It was a Sunday night. If things hadn't changed, Suspended Reality should still be open late.
Lena had learned not to take her work home with her, whether it be shrugging off Paradigm's latest cold remark or not thinking about the way the eyes and noses of the rats bleed when they were gassed before dissection, but these days it was getting harder. Secrets that couldn't be told would swirl in her head, incessant and noise, and she wasn't about to admit that she was losing sleep over it. That was normal, she told herself. Stress was normal.
Everything else…not so much.
She always felt both better and worse after visiting the boys. There were fewer secrets with them, but different ones. They didn't need to know how her heart raced every time Paradigm walked into a room, or how she couldn't connect to a single person at the new lab knowing that her presence was essentially there to sabotage them all. The work was a farce, but it was real enough to the rest of them. She couldn't do more than smile politely and pretend to listen when they talked so hopefully about saving the city. Hearts and souls poured into nothing but lies. All she could do was pity them.
The alienation wasn't easy to manage, and although there's been a close, conspiratorial warmth when talking to Ripster, the moment she stepped back out into the street it was like a door had slammed shut. Up here, everyone was oblivious or the enemy. Lena walked quickly down the street, hands folded tightly in her coat, head kept down. She only slowed down when she noticed the alluring reflection of light on the pavement from a store window, and recognised the coffee shop. It wasn't so far from the university. She and Bends had had lunch there dozens of times. Bolton had taken her to talk class schedules over sandwiches. She even remembered having a coffee with John back when he was still a freshman and absolutely thrilled to help her and his father in the lab. Finally doing something important, he'd said.
Impulsively she went inside, deciding that a hot coffee was exactly what she needed to battle the rapidly cooling night. It was dark outside. She'd lost track of time in the underground and taken too long, but she felt a little better with the drink to fortify her. The quiet murmurs of the patrons were a soothing murmur in her ears that she heard not a word of until she was walking out the door.
"Hey, did you hear about that mutant sighting out at the dam?"
Lena turned instinctively as she stepped out into the street, hoping to catch a glimpse of the speaker or hear a little more of their story before the door shut behind her, but caught between two lines of action she entirely forgot to look ahead. She collided with someone, and her coffee fell and splattered on the street. She looked at it in dismay. "Oh…"
"So sorry ma'am," the man said, and then saw her properly. Detective Brock blinked, perhaps trying to recall her face. He probably interviewed dozens of people like her each week.
"I'm sorry detective," she apologised hastily. "I wasn't watching where I was going."
"I think we're both guilty of that then, Miss Mack." Apparently he remembered more than her face. He beamed at her a little sheepishly. "A bit of a professional lapse there. The commissioner would have my badge for sure…and it seems I owe you a coffee."
"Oh no, don't worry-"
"Please," he insisted. "My treat."
She let him hustle her back inside and waited as he ordered the drinks, studying him shrewdly while his attention was on the cashier. Brock was a bit older than her, probably in his thirties, with skin that was a lighter, more caramel shade than her own but with hair just as dark. He stood out rather clearly in her memory, not just because he'd done her interview, but because of his attitude. It was…infectious. She'd seen the way the other cops had caught his upbeat attitude when they'd been combing the labs for clues, hanging on his words and earnestly wanting to please him. Even now the cashier was returning his grin and absently adding a few complimentary cookies to his order. She'd felt that charisma herself, though it had made her decidedly uncomfortable when she'd needed to hold back or deflect his questions. She hadn't been able to bring herself to outright lie in front of him, and maybe that wasn't only because he was an officer of the law.
"You're out late, aren't you Miss Mack?" he asked as he present her with her coffee and one of the cookies. She took it gratefully, not realising how hungry she'd been up until now.
"I…was visiting some friends," she said, faltering slightly over the slight mistruth. Apparently he wasn't any easier to lie to now than he had been then.
"Your apartment isn't far from here, right?"
"How do you-?"
"It was on the report you submitted," he said, winking. "Let me walk you home. The inner-city cops do a pretty good job of keeping this part of the city clean, but you can never be too careful."
"Okay." Lena didn't like to admit that his offer made her feel relieved. She didn't really think Paradigm's creatures had any reason to target her, but she'd been extra careful about locking her windows and doors, and she wouldn't deny a little company in the dark. She looked at him sideways. "I'm surprised you remember that though. I gave you that report…it must be nearly a month ago now."
"One of the quirks of the job," he admitted. "It's the little details that might end up meaning the most. You're a scientist. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about."
Lena thought of Ripster's file on Paradigm. A hundred tiny details that made up an enigma of a man. She wondered what Brock might make of it if he knew. "I'm not really a scientist. I'm just a lab assistant."
"Which means you're doing all the work while somebody else takes all the credit," he pronounced judiciously. His teeth glinted very whitely in the dark as he offered her a lopsided smile. "I believe it's the unsung heroes who really deserve our gratitude. I'm sure you're doing more than you realise, Miss Mack."
To her surprise, he managed to startle a pleased blush out of her.
The stack of flattened cartons was not all that easy to manoeuvre towards the recycling bin out back, and for a moment Bends whimsically missed Clint, who was just as comfortable hauling unwieldy boxes as he was lazing behind the counter for hours.
"Hey."
Unaccustomed to summoning people by thought alone, Bends started violently at Jab's voice and managed to send everything in his hands flying.
"Could you not do that?" he asked, a little more sharply than he might have if things between them weren't already tense. "You're scaring years off my life here."
"Sorry." And Jab did look apologetic, not to mention uncharacteristically subdued. He wordlessly started gathering the dropped boxes while Bends looked around nervously. The alley behind Suspended Reality was deserted as it nearly always was, but inside he could still hear the voices of the kids Jasper was entertaining. It was still early. He tried to think if he'd ever gotten a chance to look at Jab in daylight. His appearance was only slightly less fearsome than it was at night.
"What are you doing here?" Bends asked. "You shouldn't be up here."
"I came to see you." Cardboard crumpled like cheap paper for Jab. He threw the giant ball towards the bin. "Since you weren't coming by."
"I've been busy," Bends retorted testily, but managed to stop short of saying any of the more unpleasant things he'd been dwelling on. While Clint could hang onto grudges with the tenacity of a pit bull terrier, Bends didn't feel the need to draw it out. For one, he was slowly coming to the realisation that he wasn't that angry anymore. What was there to say against the truth? He had to admit to his own limitations. The rules of normal physics weren't in play anymore, and humans were no longer at the top of the food chain. That didn't make him useless. It just meant he had to work to his advantages.
It was moderately gratifying to see Jab work up to an apology though. "I'm sorry. I was an idiot."
"You were worried." Gratifying or not, Bends felt obliged to let him off the hook. "You say dumb things when you worry."
"Yeah." Jab smiled wryly. "Will you come down tonight? I think I might have to throttle Streex if I have to put up with him by myself for much longer, and we're having problems with the TV."
"What kind of problems?"
"Well…" Jab looked shifty. "It gave its life for the greater good, but I'd really kinna like it fixed. We're going stir crazy."
Bends raised his eyebrow slowly. "The greater good…?"
Jab changed the subject quickly. "How are things here?"
Now it was Bends' turn to look abashed. "Uh, not bad. I kind of…found someone to take your shifts?"
"It needed to be done," Jab said, taking it better than expected. He seemed ready to ask more on that subject but was distracted, looking over Bends' shoulder. Following his gaze through the open back door, a glimpse of Bends' take-home reading could be seen. "Is that the new Phantasma comic?"
Said in an eerily similar parody of Jasper's enthusiasm from that morning. Bends laughed. "Yeah. Do you want me to bring it? I bet Slam'll want to read it."
Jab looked suddenly downcast. "I'm not so sure. Things aren't…he's not…"
Jab fumbled helplessly for the words. Bends felt a small stab of guilt. "He's not better?"
"A bit maybe. I can't tell." He threw his hands up in frustration before admitting, "I don't know what to do."
Clint had never really liked admitting when he couldn't solve his own problems. It cost him a lot to say it, and Bends had only heard a confession like that one once or twice, and knew it was important enough to drop everything for. "Just give me a few minutes to close up everything here and we'll talk, okay?"
Jab unwound minutely. "Sure."
Only afterwards did it occur to Streex that the first flaw in his plan to physically drag Slam up from the basement was that it was nearly impossibly to drag Slam anywhere he didn't want to go. Somehow, Streex had expected this to have changed from when they'd been human, but irritatingly his younger brother still outclassed him in weight and strength.
Embarrassingly, Bobby had always lost those tussles for the best spot on the living room couch, but at least Coop had never been one to gloat about it like Clint would. Right now, even that would have been better than the sullen resistance Slam was giving, but if Streex had to pull him one inch at a time then he would. Things had gone on long enough, he'd decided. Slam wasn't going to improve by hiding in the basement, and Streex had nothing better to do than be annoyingly persistent.
"Come oooooon," he whined, pitting all his weight against Slam's as he tugged on his brother's arm. The effort won him a few more steps towards the ladder. "You know Bends is finally back. Don't you want to say hi?"
Slam muttered something that didn't exactly sound like a joyful affirmative so Streex ignored it.
"Just a little further….ha!"
Streex managed to grab one of the lower rungs with the tips of his fingers and used the extra leverage to drag his brother closer. He felt ridiculously victorious for just managing that much, although it had taken them a quarter of an hour just to move twenty feet. He beamed at Slam and pointed. "Now up!"
Slam just stared at him without enthusiasm, and the second flaw in Streex's plan became apparent. Having gotten this far, it was not physically possible to force Slam to climb the ladder, and without winding through the tunnels for hours, there wasn't another way up…but after all this work he wasn't about to drop it now. He turned his best persuasive expression on Slam. "You know, I hear Bends brought that new comic you were so interested in. It's just up there, waiting for you to read it."
For a second, maybe only a half second, there was the tiniest flicker of interest before the dark cloud of Slam's mood covered it once more. "And Bends is fixing the TV too. Isn't there a game on tonight?"
Slam's head came up slightly. "Angels versus the Harriers."
The situation couldn't be completely grim if Slam was still keeping track of the football season, even if it was only in the back of his mind. Streex leaned on his shoulder. "Come upstairs and we'll watch it together. It'll be just like old times!"
His brother gave him a long look and then, as though the impulse had to fight its way out, his lips twitched in a small, almost smile. "You always hated football."
'Hate' was perhaps not a strong enough word. Bobby despised the sport. It was all about thick-headed, brick-bodied idiots smashing their skulls together to destroy every brain cell they had left. It didn't have the finesse or speed of hockey, and as far as he could tell the main appeal was the same reason Clint liked watching car sports…for the inevitable moment when someone slipped, crashed and burned. In the case of football it was all about seeing how the guy at the bottom of the dog-pile took the punishment.
"I love football," he corrected blithely. "We'll get a bowl of popcorn and a few sodas and make a night of it. What do you say?"
Slam was weakening. Streex did a mental calculation on the last time he'd seen Slam eat and came up disturbingly blank, but if anything it was an aid to his cause. "Lena bought beef jerky earlier."
Contrary to what he'd said to Lena, Streex hadn't eaten all of it. In fact he'd had exactly one piece and then stashed the rest of it in a drawer where hopefully Jab or Ripster wouldn't sniff it out. Whale sharks weren't a predatory species, but Slam had admitted that meat still had more appeal than most other kinds of foods. Rip had theorised that it was probably the protein content that made their bodies crave it. Either way, Streex had carefully hidden the treat for precisely this moment: the ultimate bribe for a hungry mutant.
It was touch and go for a moment. In spite of the bribes and the pleading, Slam hovered on indecision, and in that moment Streex caught a glimpse of the torment Slam had been hiding for days. He reflexively gripped Slam's arm a little tighter as though he might lose his brother to that dark, ugly emotion.
Slam looked back at him, and the lines that hadn't belonged on his face smoothed a little. "Maybe…just for a little while?"
Tempting as it was to relapse into a mushy pile of sentimental relief, or maybe whoop at the ceiling, Streex managed to restrain himself to a grin so wide it hurt. "At least until the game is over. You know, I heard the Angels might even win this year."
Slam groaned softly at the mention of Fission City's unfortunate home team. "Not a chance."
Dark rooms and glaring crystal displays were going to be the ruin of her eyesight, but without any other distractions her world shrunk down to the screen in front of her and her mission. A waiting game. A hunt, really, except that her quarry was not of the usual variety. On the vast sea of information that made up Fission City's network, her quarry was a very particular fish that might as well be a ghost for all anyone knew.
Knowledge was the problem. No one else had seen what she had. The truth in layers of misinformation and conspiracies. Those were her specialty, but she hadn't expected to find it in an innocuously and anonymously posted file on an internet message board. She wouldn't normally have taken time to look at it, but at the time she'd thought it was the work of some upstart hacker, and since she believed in justice she'd intended to unlock the secret of the virus and send it back on its creator. Fair was fair, after all.
Instead she'd found something else. The kind of truth that would send any of Fission City's journalists into a coma of joy, but she was not stupid. There were obviously secret backers at work here. Powerful people with lots of money and easy means to make a small problem like herself disappear. She made copies of everything and then deleted any trace of herself from the proximity of that file, although she marked the system it had come from. She wasn't entirely sure who the culprit was although she had her suspicious…and she was sure it wasn't her ghost fish. He wouldn't be so reckless.
Indeed, that made him quite difficult to catch. Every policeman, bounty hunter and likely more than a few members of the criminal element had failed to do so, but they didn't know what bait to use. Having read the contents of that file, she could guess what he was after.
So she waited. It took a long time. More than a week. She barely left her computer, sleeping fitfully at her desk and twitching each time the processor whirred too loudly, but her net was spread wide and eventually her ghost fish came sniffing around. She awoke with a start as the chime finally rang, announcing that someone was attempting to hack into Delta Avenue Electronics; a silently owned subsidiary of Paradigm Enterprises.
She smirked and licked her fingers in anticipation before letting them fly across the keys in a blur of motion. Ghost fish wasn't too bad at it, she noted. It was enough to get him past the flimsy defences of the company's system, but not enough to escape her net.
"Amateur," she murmured, performing a reverse hack and breaking into his own system. It was a remote terminal, as she'd expected. Marking it would do no good. Tracing it would be useless, and she had only a minute before he would notice what she was doing.
She didn't need a minute. All she had to do was dump the files she'd prepared before he could break the connection. It would tell him what she knew. It would tell him how to contact her. Hopefully after the panic of discovery wore off he would actually take her up on the offer.
Ghost fish noticed the download and began backtracking hastily. She couldn't blame him, considering what he was up against. Paranoia would keep him alive long enough for them to help each other.
The screen went blank. He'd pulled the plug, but not before she'd completed her goal. Finally she could get some real sleep. She yawned and stretched, her spine rusted from disuse and making her feel her age.
"Goodnight," she murmured to the fading screen, "Doctor Bolton."